The sound of fist on jawbone cracked across Club Molasses.
Poor Kevin stumbled and reeled to the floor like a train off its tracks.
He slid face-first and hit the bandstand, and I ran for Doug.
“Come on!” I grunted, sitting him up like an enormous toddler, and he was almost to his feet when we both went down. Doug rolled but I was trapped under Poor Kevin, his knee on my back and his big leathery hands finding my neck again, for what I knew would be the last time. His thumbs went to my windpipe and the edges of the world were trimmed in black. Doug lifted up on a shoulder and fell, then tried again, but he was like a newborn turtle with his bruised, closed eyelids.
Dying was not okay, I told myself. There was no resolution or freedom in it. I struggled against it with every muscle and tendon in my body, and when I felt my brain emptying itself of oxygen, I thought of Lou.
No, wait-not Lou-I meant Lou’s dog, Harry.
He blasted out of the darkness like a tiny Italian ball of cold fury and chomped his needle-sharp jaws onto Poor Kevin’s butt cheek, with the freak shrieking and flailing his arms. I had no idea how the crafty little canine got inside Club Molasses-I thought the only way in and out was through the oven elevator or the Capone Door in the office-but realized then that there had to be other doors, yet to be discovered. I rolled onto my back, sucking air, and watched Poor Kevin rip Harry free and throw him softball-style into the backseat of the convertible Ferrari.
Ferrari, I thought, hacking spittle and grabbing Doug by the ankles.
I knew the keys were in the ignition.
I prayed to God there was gasoline in the tank.
I dragged Doug across the parquet floor, my feet stuttering a mile a minute as Poor Kevin sprinted toward us, and then it was all over, done, we were dead, except that a gray hairy sausage dropped from the ceiling. The rat landed on Poor Kevin’s shoulder, snarling and ripping, and he grabbed it and squeezed its guts out. As I shoved Doug into the passenger seat, the masked psycho spun the bloody rat pelt by its worm tail and screeched, “That’s it? That’s all you got? One little mouse!” right before a dozen pissed-off rodents fell on his head. Nunzio’s rats, bred to protect all things Rispoli, were fulfilling their DNA with gusto. Poor Kevin made a noise that was half six-year-old girl, half fingernails on a blackboard. I cranked the engine, and the incredible machine roared to life. Since there was nowhere to go, no way to escape the subterranean space, my simple intention had been to back over the homicidal creep until he stopped moving. But then the headlights popped on and I looked at the wall in front of the Ferrari.
A pattern of bricks formed a large but subtle C.
I suddenly realized how someone got the car down here in the first place.
There were Capone Doors, I thought. Why not Capone Garage Doors?
I leaped from the Ferrari and touched the wall-nothing-and then leaned against it-nothing-then threw a desperate shoulder and heard a creak and a rumble, and the wall lifted slowly, revealing a wide, dark tunnel. I was back in the car with inert Doug and shivering Harry, and I paused only for a glance back. Poor Kevin squeezed rats, bit rats, swatted and stomped rats, and then a dozen more of Antonio and Cleopatra’s offspring dove from the ceiling, hissing and clawing at his masked head, his raw fingers, and then another dark mass, and another, until the freak looked like a rat Christmas tree, all of it squirming and ripping, and I couldn’t tell his squealing from theirs.
I had tried to blow him up and then used his head like a speed bag, he had been attacked by a dog, and he was now being nibbled and sliced by a hundred rats, and still he fought on ferociously. I remembered Elzy’s description of her brother-nothing short of a Mack truck would stop him-and leaned heavily on the gas, fishtailing into the tunnel. It twisted and climbed with the cold smell of earth all around me until I heard wheels on concrete, and then the blast of a truck horn as I screeched onto Lower Wacker Drive. My dad’s Lincoln is a fast car but the Ferrari is a fast something else, somewhere between automobile and airplane, and I flew above the pavement. I spun onto Congress and then onto the Eisenhower, and I was gone, going nowhere in particular, just as far away from Poor Kevin as possible. I wept violently on that dark, empty stretch of expressway, expelling leftover fear and fury. I stopped and began again, and then it passed away.
That’s when my disposable phone with the unlisted number rang.
I answered, and a voice said, “Hey, it’s Tyler. Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“Where. . how did you get this number?” I said.
“I’m me, remember. . the guy who gets in touch with untouchables? Listen, what are you doing for dinner later? Have you ever been to Rome?”
“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.”