I wondered then if my dad had even been aware of the lease; it was completely possible that Grandpa Enzo kept it from him, just like my dad had kept secrets from me. Or even that Nunzio had kept it from Enzo for some reason. I cleared my throat and said, “Not until he got sick and I stepped in as counselor-at-large. Then he told me everything about. . everything.”
Tyler grinned again, sadly instead of sly. “My dad never had a chance to tell me anything but the basics about the Outfit and our place in it. I didn’t even know we owned this building until after my parents died.”
“You own the entire building?”
Tyler nodded. “It was the original front for Money. My great-grandfather had the brilliant idea of letting the working people of Chicago launder the Outfit’s profits, so he opened currency exchanges all over the city. Filthy dollars were traded for sparkling new greenbacks, one utility bill, money order, and city sticker at a time.”
“There’s a currency exchange on every block,” I said.
“The money laundry was consolidated under StroBisCo in the seventies,” he said. “Currency exchanges are a still a rip-off, though.”
“Remember me, kids?” Knuckles said through a haze of smoke. “We gonna deal or not?”
“So where do you go to school?” Tyler asked.
“Fepinsky Prep. How about you?”
“Newton Minow Academy. I graduate next month.”
“Cool, you must be excited. Where are you going to college?”
“Hello? Anyone?” Knuckles said.
“Local. . University of Chicago. Majoring in economics,” Tyler said. “Gotta mind the family business.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “I haven’t even started thinking about college yet.”
“Do you want to go away?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Won’t your boyfriend be upset?” he asked, smiling again.
“What the hell’s going on here?” Knuckles demanded.
“Boyfriend?” I said, thinking of the dance where Max and I didn’t dance, of the movie we didn’t see together, and worst of all, how he called me his (ugh) friend on the phone at the Commodore Hotel. “I guess. . I’m not really seeing anyone. Officially,” I said.
“Me neither,” he said with a grin. “Not officially.”
“Enough!” Knuckles thundered, bringing down a catcher’s mitt on the edge of the Scamp hard enough to split metal. “Are we gonna resolve this thing or not?”
“What?” Tyler said, still looking at me. “Oh, you mean the payroll thing? Uh, what do you think, Sara Jane?”
I shrugged and said, “I think Knuckles is right. You should pay his guys.”
“Okay,” Tyler said. “I will.”
“Huh?” Knuckles said. “You will?”
Tyler turned to Knuckles and said, “The counselor-at-large says yes, so yes.”
And then we talked for a little while longer, Tyler explaining how the big round empty thing in the floor used to hold an enormous lightbulb that could be seen for miles from the top of the building, how the Bird Cage Club had been one of Chicago’s most popular speakeasies during Prohibition-and then he asked if he could call me sometime.
I was unable to explain that not much was happening between Max and me, but that I hoped it would. My heart definitely belonged to Max-still, I’d be lying to say that Tyler’s attention hadn’t gotten to me a little. It felt strangely good to be known as Sara Jane Rispoli, Outfit Somebody, rather than Fep Prep Nobody, and to be attractive to a guy who looked like Tyler Strozzini. I guess that’s why I hesitated; instead of telling him that calling me probably wasn’t a good idea, I explained that I was between phones, which was true. Tyler winked and said no problem, that getting in touch with untouchables was his specialty.
Something occurred to me, hearing that word-untouchables.
I couldn’t remain in the warehouse safe house forever; metal cages on the windows aside, if someone really wanted to get his hands on me, it wouldn’t be impossible. I thought then of how tough it had been to reach the Bird Cage Club-without knowledge of Capone Doors, it would’ve been impossible-and that twenty-seven floors in the air with only one way in and out made it the perfect hideout. I tried on my own smile and said, “By the way, my dad. . he wondered if you had an extra set of keys by any chance? He misplaced his.”
“For you,” Tyler said, rummaging his pocket, coming up with a key chain, and removing one key, “anything.” As I took it from him, he held my hand and gave it the same kind of squeeze Max had. “By the way,” he said, nodding toward Knuckles but holding my gaze, “ignore what the senior citizen said about your nose. It’s perfect.” And then he turned and climbed on the elevator, waved as the doors closed, and my heart ached a little.
“Beware,” Knuckles said, relighting the cigar. “He’s a sneaky little bastard. He’ll use anyone and anything to get a leg up.”
“In what way?”
“In every way. That’s why he’s so good at his job.” He exhaled smoke through his nostrils, smiled like a corpse, and said, “You’re about to become a very busy girl. When this gets around the Outfit, how you convinced Money to come across with my payroll? Thugs will be lining up for you to settle their disputes with that gift of yours.”
That was the thing. I hadn’t used the ghiaccio furioso. I used another power I didn’t even know I had, and it made me blush thinking about it. I said, “No way. It’s not my responsibility.”
“Whose is it? Your dad’s, who’s inconveniently under the weather? Or on a cruise? Or perhaps,” he said, squinting suspiciously, “somewhere else?”
“I told you, he’s ill.”
“I know, I know. . so ill you had to close the bakery,” he said in the same mocking tone he’d used to call Tyler’s parents’ death a “real tragedy.” Knuckles leaned over the handlebars of the Scamp and said, “I just want to remind you that we all have a boss. . me, Strozzini, and your dad. And not just any boss. . the boss of bosses. If your dad’s duties go unfulfilled, you can bet Lucky will start asking questions.”
I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me-of course there had to be someone in charge of the Outfit, its CEO, just like Frank Nitti had been so long ago. I swallowed thickly and said, “Remind me again why he’s called Lucky?”
“You’ll know if you meet him. Thing is, you don’t want to meet him. The rare instances when Lucky himself whistles someone in is when the old man has serious questions,” Knuckles said, leaning forward in his Scamp. “And woe be it to the poor S.O.B. who doesn’t have the right answers.”
Maybe Knuckles knew something and maybe he didn’t, but I understood his meaning clearly-if business did not proceed as usual, the Outfit would make it its business to find out why. And if it turned out that my dad really had gone to the Feds, I wouldn’t be able to run fast enough or far enough to save my own life. I stared at the old man who had been around forever, who went back so far in the Outfit that he had known Nunzio. I was sure he was full of answers to the questions I was dying to ask-like, for example, why had Nunzio taken out a hundred-year lease on the Bird Cage Club? But I couldn’t-I had to pretend I knew everything.
“Yeah, okay, I can handle it,” I said, remembering my dad’s words from long ago. “I can handle anything.”
“I have no doubt,” Knuckles said. “That’s why I need another favor. A couple animals that work for me, both first-rate knee-crackers, are about to kill each other over a broad. I can’t afford to lose either, so you gotta talk to them, set them straight.”
“Okay,” I said, thinking of Detective Smelt. “Then I need a favor from you.”
“Una mano lava l’altra. One hand washes the other,” Knuckles said with a grin and extended a catcher’s mitt. “You know, kid, we work well together.”
“I guess we do,” I said.
We shook on it and, to misquote one of Doug’s favorite movies, Casablanca, it looked like the beginning of an ugly friendship.