Flicker & Burn: A Cold Fury Novel (6 page)

The last one gave me pause, since it felt like real life.

Afterward, I looked in Doug’s book,
The Great Movies,
and read Roger Ebert’s quote about the film
L’Avventura,
in which a woman vanishes during a trip to an island, never to be seen again: “What we saw was a search without a conclusion, a disappearance without a solution.”

Thinking about it caused a pang of anxiety, but it didn’t affect me nearly as much as the Sausage King of Chicago.

The second week’s theme was closer to home—“Chicago-centric.” The first two were
Angels with Dirty Faces
and
The Untouchables,
but it wasn’t until Friday that I saw and heard something that rattled me. For years, when my family couldn’t agree on a movie to watch, we would default to
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
since there are things in the film that appeal to each of us.

Lou’s favorite part of the movie takes place in a fancy restaurant.

Ferris is trying to BS a maître d’ into giving him a table by claiming to be someone he’s not. The maître d’, with his weasel mustache and puffy pompadour, looks at the reservation book, then at fresh-faced, teenaged Ferris, and the scene goes like this:

MAÎTRE D’: You’re Abe Froman?

FERRIS: That’s right, I’m Abe Froman.

MAÎTRE D’: The Sausage King of Chicago?

FERRIS: Uh, yeah, that’s me.

I would ask Lou, but isn’t it just lying—isn’t he just a con man? My brother would shrug and say that a con man is a glorified thief, and Ferris doesn’t steal anything; he borrows the alternate identity of Abe Froman, gets a great table, and pays for a delightful meal. It’s all about having the self-confidence to take a risk and seize an opportunity. Afterward, whenever Lou encountered an act of bravado—a Cubs player committing a daring base steal or one of those stories where someone leaps onto the subway tracks to save a life—he’d murmur, “Abe Froman,” and I’d know exactly what he meant. Sometimes, whether a chance pays off or not, it has to be taken, since the “taking” part is the whole transformative point.

My parents’ favorite scene in the film couldn’t be more different than Lou’s.

It’s a sappy song that makes them exchange a look as my dad caresses my mom’s lovely long fingers.

The first time they met, my mom was working as a hand model at Marshall Field’s, an improbable gig if there ever was one, but her natural beauty really did extend to her fingertips. It’s an often-told story in my family—my mom displaying a diamond ring, my dad removing it from her hand, inspecting it, putting back on her finger and asking her to marry him. There are so many little details—what they wore, what they discussed, but the one that stuck with me was the song playing over the tinny department-store sound system. It was a pop tune from 1963 sung in a falsetto that I’d later be surprised to learn was sung by a man, and famously lip-synched by Ferris Bueller on a parade float.

The song is “Danke Schoen.”

It means “thank you” in German.

When the scene appeared, my parents gazed at each other and sang along, while I tried to pretend that their nostalgia fest wasn’t happening on the same couch. I didn’t think much of it when Doug announced that we would be watching the film in Classic Movie Club. But first came Abe Froman and then “Danke Schoen,” and I was overcome by that plummeting feeling, pulled over the edge by helpless sentiment and desperate love. And then anger took root and mushroomed in the muck, an organic wrath spreading through my brain and body. I thought about what Lou had told me at the Ferris wheel about my dad’s brain being invaded by merciless captors, pictured my family being violated like lab rats, and the blue flame flickered. I was filled with the same preternatural calmness that stills the sky before lightning strikes, and when I blinked, blips of blue light from my eyes reflected in the dark. I gritted my teeth, trying to hold it back, and turned away so Max wouldn’t see me, but it was impossible to stop thinking about my family. I was peppered with tiny sharp volts, and it was even more impossible not to picture my dad caressing my mom’s hand as Max tenderly took mine in the dark.

I thought,
All of the love my family had for me is dead, while he has both of his parents plus a whole new family?
Showers of sparks turned the room orange and gold as I squeezed his hand as hard as I could and didn’t let go, even after he stopped screaming. And then I was on the ground being smothered by Doug, shaking my shoulders so hard that my head danced on my neck. I wasn’t sure where I was or what had happened until he shrieked, “Are you done now? Is it you again?”

“Doug . . . what . . . ? Where’s Max?” I said, trying to sit up, feeling little electrical
clicks
and
zips
draining from my fingertips.

“There, on the floor!”

He was crumpled on his side, unconscious, with his hand raw and purple where I’d touched it. It was burned, not seriously but sure to be painful. I felt his pulse—it was steady—then lifted his head, touched his face, and whispered, “Max. Oh, Max . . .”

“What did he do to piss you off?” Doug hissed.

“Nothing!” I said, staring at Max’s eyes, willing him to wake up. “It wasn’t like with Teardrop when the thing was
trying
to kill me, or you when you were
trying
to make me mad! Something about the movie ignited cold fury, and then the electricity kicked in, and Max was just sort of there.”

“You mean like a convenient target? You attacked him because he was nearby?” Doug said, gaping at me with awe and dread, shaking his head. “This is getting too dangerous. You could’ve hurt him a lot worse than a simple burn. You could’ve . . .”

“Don’t say it,” I muttered, as Max emitted a faraway groan.

“It’s time you told him.”

“Told him what?” I said, as Max’s eyelids fluttered and he groaned again.

“Everything,” Doug said. “Not just this electrical crap, but all of it, every detail. You can’t be with him and not tell him. It’s not fair. I mean, Christ, you just blew the guy out of a chair!”

“If he knew, he’d want to get involved,” I said. “Or else he might . . .”

“Not want to be with you anymore?” He held my gaze, saying softly, “Sara Jane, did it ever occur to you that that might be the best thing for him?”

Once Doug said it aloud, I realized that the idea of Max being safer without me had been in my mind all along. The threats posed by my Outfit connections, ice cream creatures, and now this internal lightning storm easily made me the most dangerous girlfriend at Fep Prep. I’d missed him every second he was gone, but now it was undeniable that he’d been safer in California. Something whispered of sacrifice and responsibility—that the best thing would be to drive him away so none of the collateral damage that followed me like a shadow could ever harm him.

“Tell him!” Doug whispered.

“Shut up!” I hissed as Max muttered a few words, blinked his eyes, and stared around with huge, disoriented pupils.

“What . . . the hell . . . ?” he said, trying to stand up, stumbling backward and flexing his hand. “Ow! That stings.”

We helped him into a chair as I said, “You probably don’t remember what—”

“Yeah, I do. You shocked me. Sorry, you shocked the living shit out of me.”

“It must have been some kind of electrical surge,” Doug said, fake-fumbling with his laptop until the movie reappeared on the screen. “Yep, that’s what it was. Crazy, huh? Max, are you okay? You need anything for your hand?”

“It looks worse than it feels,” he said. “Maybe some water . . .”

“Water, right, I’m on it,” Doug said, going for the door, looking back and mouthing the words “Tell him!” as he left.

He inspected my face, searching my eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, I got shocked a little bit but I’m fine.”

Max was quiet a moment and then said, “I guess I don’t mean from the surge or whatever it was. I mean, is everything okay between us? You sort of explained what you did all summer, but it feels like there’s a lot more that you didn’t. Did something happen while I was gone that you’re not telling me?”

Ferris Bueller
set off a tidal wave of loneliness and anger, which ignited cold fury, which somehow turned me into an electrical killing machine, which is not the sort of thing you tell someone you love and are terrified of scaring away. On the other hand, looking into Max’s concerned eyes, knowing how smart and cool he was, I thought maybe Doug was right; maybe it was time to tell him the truth. I sighed, bit my lip, and said, “I’m not sure how to start, but it’s basically a family issue.”

“I knew it.” He sighed.

“You did?”

“Look, I shouldn’t have put them before you. I mean, going to California for the entire summer to be with my dad’s family wasn’t fair . . .”

“Oh. Well,” I said, his misinterpretation a perfect excuse not to tell the truth. “I mean, yeah. I really missed you.”

“So, look, you can tell me if . . .,” he said, and paused. “Did you meet someone?”

“What? Max . . . ,” I said, but I held back as it occurred to me that loneliness while he was in L.A. combined with a phantom “other guy” could serve as the perfect reason-excuse why I’d withheld information. In fact, it could explain much of my behavior—instead of a freakish organized-crime girl, I was just neglected, conflicted, and confused! Besides, people met other people every day and were attracted to other people all the time—surely Max and I could work through it, even though
it
was a fabrication. Something possessed me then, which seemed inspired at the moment but in retrospect was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. Before I could stop myself, I blurted, “His name is Tyler. He’s older than we are. About to start college.”

“Tyler,” he said, trying out the name, and I could see that it hurt him to say it.

“It was just a flirtation, Max. He and I are . . .”

“Let me guess. Friends?”

“Something like that,” I said, and the disappointment in his face scraped against my heart. I couldn’t go back and tell the truth—with just a few idiotic sentences I’d taken it too far—and I fumbled, saying, “Our dads work together, so I see him now and then because of, you know, business. But it’s nothing.”

He nodded, looking at the ground. “No, you’re wrong. It’s something. I just have to figure out what,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Wait . . . is this payback for the Chloe thing?”

“What? Chloe . . . no. Can we just talk about it?”

“No, not now.”

I touched his shoulder gently and said, “I know you want to talk to me.”

“No . . . I . . .
don’t
!” he barked, shaking me off, startling me with his tone. He shook his head and said, “Jesus . . . first you keep this thing from me, then I have to coax it out of you, and now you won’t even let me think? Don’t you see how effed up that is?”

I was quiet because he was right, it was, and I was. My mind was so twisted by habitually keeping secrets that I’d made one up that didn’t even exist. There was no way to take it back without revealing I’d lied—that I was a liar—and so I awkwardly tried to hug him, but he pulled back and I banged into his hand. It was impossible to tell if his pained expression was from the burn or me. “Max,” I said, “are you okay?”

He nodded slightly, dipped his head, and turned to leave.

I wanted to ask if he and I would be okay too, but I was scared of the answer.

He disappeared down the hallway then, opening and closing his hand slowly like a boxer headed toward the ring.

THE IDIOTIC COMMENTS I’D MADE ABOUT TYLER
were like bitter ashes in my mouth.

Even more disgusting was the frozen “treat” I consumed (gagged on) hours later.

It was at the end of one of the longest and worst Fridays in recent memory, when I’d electrocuted my boyfriend and possibly sabotaged our entire relationship. Max avoided me the rest of the afternoon; within the crowded hallways full of chattering kids and their friends, being disconnected from him made me feel like the walking dead. When the bell rang at three fifteen, I hurried out of Fep Prep to get to the El stop at Diversey Avenue and back to the Bird Cage Club, failing to pay as close attention to my surroundings as usual. If there was nothing I could do about Max at the moment, at least I could dive back into the notebook. Over the past several nights, I’d plowed through the second half of it, searching
“Volta”
for clues, but all it yielded was late-night despair. Each time a dark thought crept into my head, it was accompanied by an image of Doug plummeting after me, which was enough to make me sigh and turn back to the stubborn notebook.

“Sara
Jane
! For the
third
time!”

I’d been hustling toward the sidewalk in a fog; when I turned, Gina Pettagola was looking at me in her particular Gina way—arms (toned and tanned) crossed, eyebrows (precisely plucked) arched, head (showing off hair that shines in a way mine never will) tilted, with a bemused look on her face. Gina is always perfectly put together, a curvaceous little beauty barely five feet tall who, as Fep Prep’s unequivocal queen of gossip, wields the power of an Amazon over the student body. We were best friends when we were little, and then semi-friends, and now just friendly. It’s weird how you can have a history with someone and even like the person, but never think of her unless you need something. She needed something now and it could only be information. Her method of data extraction was never directly asking what she hoped to learn; instead, she started a benign conversation with the sort of opener that forced the other person to talk.

I didn’t even have a chance to say hi before she said, “What’s with your nose?”

I touched it, scared something was leaking. “What do you mean?”

“Forget it. I haven’t seen you all summer. It’s just . . .” She made a motion with her hands that seemed to indicate a balloon filling with air.

“Bigger?” I said weakly.

“More ethnic,” she said with a wink. “Personally, I think an Italian nose is a beautiful thing.”

“Yeah?” I said. “Then why did you have yours done?”

She moved closer quickly and whispered, “That was
only
to correct my sinuses! Besides, my sister had hers done at the same time. We got a deal. And that’s
not
for public discussion.”

“What do you want, Gina?”

“Nothing. Just a little girl talk.”

“You know I suck at girl talk. What do you
really
want?”

“I was just curious . . . about Max.”

“What about him?” I asked suspiciously, wondering if she’d somehow found out about our little electrical incident.

“Just . . . does he realize he’s with someone so naturally gorgeous that she could get a crew cut and wear overalls and still turn heads?”

“I’m not gorgeous,” I said, feeling a blush on my neck.

“Okay, you’re not,” Gina said, rolling her eyes. “Except that you are and somehow, magically, it manages to shine through a truly horrific wardrobe.”

“You mean this?” I said, suddenly acutely aware of my ratty Cubs T-shirt, faded jeans from last year, and shredded Chuck Taylors. “It’s comfortable, so . . .”

“Anyway, I was wondering about Max’s opinion of what constitutes attractiveness and hotness, since you’re so different from the women in his family.”

“What are you talking about?” I said, confused, until it clicked. “Or should I ask,
who
are you talking about? You mean his cousin, Mandi Fishbaum, right?”

“What about her?” Gina said innocently, sliding on a pair of sunglasses.

“What do you mean, what about her?”

“I don’t know, Sara Jane. You brought her up,” she said, looking over my shoulder. As she did, a tinkling reached my ears along with Frank Sinatra’s voice, and I turned slowly as Gina said, “Oh, yum! Mister Kreamy Kone!”

“No. No, Gina . . . ,” I said, seeing the black truck creak to a stop at the curb.

As always there were kids everywhere after school, chattering in clusters, texting and hanging out, but I was the only one rigid with terror. That’s because Mister Kreamy Kone trucks—or at least ice cream trucks in general—had been around forever. No one noticed them the way I did, but then, they were simply selling other kids ice cream; it was only
me
they were intent on capturing. Kids gathered around, feeding dollar bills into its side, making selections. It was like a sucker punch seeing it parked there, knowing something inside was staring at me with red eyes through darkened windows. “I . . . I have to go,” I muttered, turning away.

“Oh, come on,” she said, yanking me back. “I’m buying. We’ll have a little ice cream and you can confirm or deny whether Mandi really had an abortion this summer, and if Walter J. Thurber was the donor.”

“What? I don’t know anything about that,” I said as she dragged me down the steps. The truck revved its engine while kids ate and joked and howled with sticky crap smeared on their faces, and “Chicago” plunked loudly through the speakers. I planted my feet, Gina skidded to a stop, and I said, “Listen, really, I
have
to go.”

“Okay, fine. But in my book, that’s a confirm.”

“No, look, I barely spoke to Max this summer,” I said, instantly regretting my choice of words, knowing how scandalous it sounded to Gina’s gossip-honed ears. Before she could reply, I said, “He was in California with his dad and now he’s back. We’re together and we’re fine.”

“Oh?” she said with a catlike grin. “You were in one state, he was in another, and you both remained completely loyal? Seems unbelievable and even a little unnatural, but maybe you can convince me with ice cream and some Mandi talk. Then again, if you
really
have to go, I can always ask around about you and Max.” I knew what that meant. Even though Gina felt a certain loyalty toward me (I stepped in front of a bully and saved her from an epic ass-kicking when we were ten), she would still send out probing test balloons about me and Max—not lies or rumors, but loaded questions—to see what came floating back. Nothing would, but people talk (people
always
talk), some of it would reach Max, and hadn’t I just stupidly planted the idea of Tyler? Of course, he would assume that Gina’s speculation was partly legitimate. The truth was that he and I weren’t fine, we were fragile, and I couldn’t afford to further endanger our relationship.

“Okay,” I said, reluctantly following her to the truck, knowing that there were too many witnesses around for whatever was behind the wheel to make a move. “But I have only a few minutes, and I really don’t know anything.”

“Everyone always thinks they don’t know anything,” Gina said, “until I get them talking. And then, magically, it turns out that they know
something.
”

I can’t tell you exactly what we discussed.

I know it had to do with Mandi and Walter and that I mainly listened and nodded.

My mind was on the truck, knowing it was there for me, my every move being tracked, and that it was biding its time.

Somehow half an hour passed as an ice cream treat Gina insisted on buying for me (optimistically called an Artesian Velvet Delight) melted in my hand. The truck didn’t sell the pink-and-white soft serve; my guess was that the terrifying concoction was reserved exclusively for creatures. Still, the thing that slid out of the Mister Kreamy Kone truck looked like poison on a stick. I licked once, did the gagging-baby-bird thing as my puke reflex kicked in, and then held it politely while Gina prattled on. Her stream of insinuations and innuendo was limitless and hypnotic. When I looked around, the other kids had dispersed and it was only the two of us. Finally she dabbed at her lips, threw away the remnants of something gooey, and said, “You weren’t kidding. You really don’t know anything, do you?” Before I could answer, a car horn sounded, and she turned and waved at her mother. “Don’t sweat it, by the way, about you and Max,” she said. “I’m only interested in juicy stuff and you two are, well . . . you’re juice-less.”

“You mean we’re normal.”

“I mean you’re boring,” she said with a smile. “Do you need a ride home?”

I thought about it, how easy it would be to get in the car with Gina and her mom and make my escape. But then I remembered how deserted our house looked, and I couldn’t ask for a ride into the Loop to the Currency Exchange Building—each of those things was fodder for major gossip. The prospect of remaining behind with the little black truck was terrifying, but when I turned, it was gone. I told Gina thanks but no thanks, she waved once and drove off, and then I was alone in front of Fep Prep. I wadded up the melted gunk in paper napkins and sprinted to the train. There was a garbage can outside the station door, and as I flung the mess into it, the ice cream’s little wooden stick came loose and fell on the ground.

It was when I bent to pick it up that I saw the feet.

Unconsciously I slid the stick in my pocket, staring at glossy black boots.

Dark-blue pants rose above them and then a light-blue shirt beneath a thick bulletproof vest, and then a head framed by a perfectly fitted beard and police hat.

The face was smudged with flesh-colored makeup, covering its bleached skin and the cheekbone I’d crushed with a volt of inhuman power, while its bunchy clothing revealed only a thin edge of black uniform. Nothing could completely hide Teardrop’s red eyes, but the cop sunglasses obscured them just enough from passersby. Stalking me outside Fep Prep, my sanctuary, had been alarming enough, but this was so much worse. It had disguised itself to confront me in broad daylight, aware of the attention it would draw, and equally aware that I wouldn’t make a scene. The worst kind of fear coursed through my veins—daytime, out-in-the-open, nowhere-to-hide fear. The world honked, walked, and sped past, while I rose slowly, cursing myself for thinking the creatures’ disappearance was anything but temporary.

It was obvious now that they’d pulled back in order to change their strategy.

Instead of chasing me through the city, they’d gone from macro pursuit to micro and added the element of disguise. To top it off, the pistol on Teardrop’s hip looked as real to me as the murderous hatred radiating behind its sunglasses. It was the first time I’d been cornered without being encased in two tons of Lincoln Continental, with the steel briefcase and .45 on the seat beside me. I knew cold fury alone couldn’t penetrate its eyes. Whether or not I was in control of the electricity, at least it was a weapon that could save my life, except that I had no idea how to summon it. As I rose, Teardrop laid a hand on the gun and said, “You will walk slowly. You will get into the truck.”

I glanced past it at the vehicle parked down the block, looking to the world like an innocent ice cream truck, but to me, a one-way ticket to brain invasion. Stomp me, shoot me, twist my neck, whatever, but there was no damn way I was getting in there, and I said it. “There’s no damn way.”

“I thought so. That’s why I brought you an incentive,” Teardrop said, opening its hand to reveal something familiar, slender, and ghostly white against its black glove.

I touched at my neck, feeling the chain that hung there, searching for my mom’s gold signet ring bearing the Rispoli
R
in diamonds that was attached to it. Words caught in my throat and I swallowed thickly. “It’s not . . . you didn’t cut off her . . .”

“Oh, how she screamed,” it said. “And what lovely hands she has, or had, I should say. It doesn’t count as a complete hand if it’s missing a ring finger, does it?”

I tasted horror, inhaled violence, bit down hard on vengeance and revenge, but still the blue flame did not flicker, and I knew that for the moment, cold fury had been extinguished by hard truth. The idea that terrible harm loomed over my family had been a wildly motivational idea, spurring me on to constant, frenzied action, but also an abstract one—things
could
happen or
might
happen, but surely I’d prevail in time to stop them. Seeing a living part of my mother dead in the creature’s hand was confirmation that terrible things
had
happened and were happening still. It was appalling and hideous, but far, far worse, it was real. In a blink of tortured silence, the creature took another step, and stood so close I could smell its vomit-sweet breath. “If you want to see the rest of her, all you have to do is get into the truck. She’s waiting for you. Your whole family is waiting.” Teardrop leered, showing rotten stumps and a slick, black tongue. “
En pedazos, pero a la espera 
. . . in pieces, but waiting.” I was frozen by the prospect, and Teardrop, seeing my defenselessness, extended a hand toward my arm.

I was not percolating with cold fury.

I was not humming with electricity.

All I possessed were the secrets of the notebook, and I remembered two of them now, one strapped to my ankle, the other around the corner.

I’d come across the first in the chapter titled
“Metodi”
(“Methods”), in a section that described in great detail the many varied ways to collect money from people who don’t want to pay, or how to force them to give up secrets they won’t confess. There are several terms for it—blackjack, slapjack—but my favorite was “sap,” since a person had to be one to get to the point where someone else was about to hit him with a cylinder of heavy lead encased in leather. Mine was small, dangerous, and fit into the palm of my hand, and I’d taken to wearing it strapped to my ankle in case, well—just in case. In fact, I wore it so often I’d nearly forgotten it was there. “Wait!” I said loud enough for Teardrop to pause, “I want to tie my shoe,” and dropped to one knee. It lunged for me, and I came up swinging the sap by its leather strap, cracking Teardrop across the hand. When the thing gasped in shock, I swung it again just as the notebook had instructed, directly on the elbow joint, hearing it slap and crunch in one fluid motion.