Cold Fury

“Is that a restaurant?”

“It’s a city in Italy. I’m leaving on the company jet in an hour for business and I want you to come along.”

“Italy,” I murmured, that golden place where I’d dreamed of going, so far away from all of this, except that all of this was my life. “I’d love to,” I said, “but I can’t. Tonight just. . doesn’t work. But. .”

“But what?” he said hopefully.

“But. . have a good trip.”

“I always do.”

“Tyler?” I said. “Rome. . is it beautiful? I mean, this might sound weird, but. . is it golden?”

He chuckled and said, “The food’s good,” and hung up.

I felt my heart twist into a knot, looked at the dark phone, and threw it out the window. Until I’d heard his voice, I’d been speeding on a path to no place in particular, with no plan, and no options.

Then I remembered the key he’d given me to the Bird Cage Club.

I’d almost lost my life deep below the earth.

Tonight I would sleep in the clouds, high above Chicago.

23

WATCHING THE MORNING SUN illuminate the Loop is to see miles of shadows change from gray to red to bright shining boxes, rectangles, and obelisks. Pulled puffs of cottony clouds meander past, change shape, and dissipate, and far beyond it all, Lake Michigan stretches to the horizon, first pale green, then blue black.

I stood at the window of the Bird Cage Club thirty-three stories in the air, watching the world come alive again, feeling dead inside.

I’d confronted Uncle Buddy, Detective Smelt, and even Poor Kevin, and all I had to show for it was a beaten, kicked-in friend and a small dog sleeping beside him.

I’d parked the Ferrari in the underground garage and decided to inspect it closely before hefting Doug up to the Bird Cage Club. To my surprise, someone (my dad?) had packed it with getaway provisions, as if the need to speed from middle earth at the drop of a hat was a definite possibility. There was bottled water, a first-aid kit, canned Italian delicacies, even a couple of thick Ferrari traveling blankets. I’d patched up Doug as well as I could the night before, and tried to make him comfortable. Harry walked in a small circle and then lay at his side, the first real sign of affection he’d shown anyone besides Lou. Doug rubbed the dog’s back and said, “You saved my life.”

“Barely.”

“I’m sorry, Sara Jane. I was trying to help.”

“You can’t do things like that, Doug,” I told him. “You could’ve gotten killed.”

“As beatings go, it was worse than I imagined,” he said. “But not half as bad as what I probably deserved.”

“What movie is that from?” I said.

“The movie of my life. By the way, the sidekick approves,” he said, gesturing around the room.

“Of what?”

“Our hideout,” he said, yawning hugely. “It’s perfect.”

Afterward he rolled over painfully, Harry snuggled closer, and the two of them were still asleep when I woke at dawn. I walked the perimeter of the Bird Cage Club, looking out every window, and discovered that a sturdy stone terrace surrounded the dome. One of the windows was a door. I wrapped myself in a blanket and stepped outside, and then I was inhaling the chill morning air. Thirty-three stories is a long way down, and I was stricken by a sense of despair that made existence seem pointless and hollow. All of the running, all of the fighting and surviving, and I still didn’t know where my family was-it occurred to me again that I might never know. Slowly, I peered over the edge of the terrace, feeling the terrifying-exciting pull to jump, to abandon earth and its disappointments, when I heard Doug mumbling, “I think Harry is sick.”

I turned to his hefty, ass-kicked form in the doorway.

He was bruised and puffy, looking very much like an enormous crushed grape.

“He’s trying to throw up but seems stuck.”

We walked inside and Doug was right, Harry was hacking and retching, his jaws working and his ribs drawn tightly to his chest. “Harry,” I said, stroking his back, and he coughed once, twice, and puked out a tiny, clear plastic tube.

“What the hell is that?” Doug said, embracing poor, panting Harry.

I picked up the slimy thing-it was the length and size of a cigarette butt-and looked at it closely. “There’s something inside,” I said, twisting it until a tiny top popped off and a tightly rolled length of paper fell into my hand. I opened it carefully and read a quickly scrawled paragraph.

In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love. They had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

Beneath it, in the same handwriting, read-

Once around at noon, only on Sundays.

A wave of dizziness washed over me, my hands went numb, and the paper fluttered to the floor. I walked outside to inhale fresh air, my mind spinning but also clicking at warp speed. Doug appeared beside me, read the note, and said, “I don’t get it.”

“I think I do,” I answered, staring across the vista at Navy Pier jutting into the lake, its convention buildings, tourist boats, and Ferris wheel like a collection of children’s toys. “Is today Sunday?” I said. Doug nodded, and I thought of what Uncle Buddy said, how Harry had been hanging around my house. When I didn’t show up, the cagey little animal must’ve made his way back to the bakery, and Club Molasses, to wait for me-but how, and for how long? “I hope it’s the right Sunday,” I said.

“For what?” Doug asked anxiously.

I looked at the concern etched on his face and knew that he would do anything I asked. But just by proximity I’d drawn him nearly to the point of death, and I would not allow it to happen again. “I have to do something, and I have to do it alone. You can’t follow me or try to help me,” I said.

“Please,” he said, “I owe you.”

“I told you about the notebook. .”

“Yeah, but I want to be part of this, whatever it is.”

“Doug,” I said, summoning the ghiaccio furioso, locking eyes until his chin began to quiver. “You will not be a part of this. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, yes,” he said in a voice that was small and alone, and I saw his fear-a snippet of a movie in which Poor Kevin finished what he started with Doug in a bloody and violent way.

“The notebook,” I said, “is here, in the steel briefcase. If I don’t come back, I want you to burn it. Burn it, Doug. . every damn page, handwritten note, old photo, and unlisted phone number. It’s mine, it’s my life, and you will do as I ask.”

“Yes,” he whispered, and I looked away. Doug sighed with relief, and when he found his voice he said, “Of course I’ll do whatever you say. You’re the hero.”

“I’m no hero,” I said. “How can a victim like me be a hero?”

“According to some of the greatest movies ever made, by not becoming like the assholes who victimized you,” Doug said. “Hitting that masked creep with my computer was the right thing to do, the only thing to do, because he was trying to kill you. On the other hand, I still don’t know if what happened to Billy was justified. All I know for sure is that being smarter than an enemy is better than resorting to violence. The great hero is always more patient and much more observant. And then he. . she. . wins.” He wiped at his nose and handed me the note, saying, “Did you notice the upper-right-hand corner?” I hadn’t, and I now looked at part of a business letterhead, which read MISTER KREAMY KO- with the rest torn away. “It has to be Mister Kreamy Kone. You know, the chocolate-dipped frozen concoctions sold from the black ice cream trucks.”

“I guess I never noticed them. . I don’t eat that stuff,” I murmured, remembering what Elzy said about black ice cream trucks surrounding my house before my family disappeared.