Chapter 35
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
The sub-basement was hidden behind a bookcase. Jack watched in horrified fascination as Carla dragged her lacquered nails across the back of the shelf, pausing at a nearly imperceptible dent in the wood above a collection of legal volumes.
Privately, Jack speculated the Ronnie either had a legal background or wanted people to think that he did, because the entire house seemed like it belonged to a lawyer and not a mob boss.
Massive desks with decanters of bourbon, shelf after shelf of books about history and law, marble floors…
Jack supposed he wouldn’t know what a mob boss’s house was supposed to look like, but this wasn’t what he’d expected.
A click. The bookshelf groaned as Carla grasped its side and yanked it open. A gaping doorway greeted them. Beyond, stairs plunged into blackness. “In here. This is where they go when they really wanna be left alone.”
“Will we be able to get out?” asked Jack, feet rooted to the floor. No way was he going down there.
“There’s an escape route,” Carla said. “Come on. I wouldn’t bring you down here if there was no way out.”
But Jack just shook his head. “Anyone could barricade that entrance—”
“Yeah, but they won’t. The servants love me. Come on.”
“Enzo doesn’t.”
“OK, so worst case scenario, Enzo locks us down here, and we try something else tomorrow. It’s not that bad. I promise.”
Forcing himself to breathe, Jack took a step toward the bookcase. “Is there a light?”
“Of course there is, scaredy cat,” Carla said, catching his hand in hers. “We’re gonna be fine.”
Though he was absolutely not convinced of this, he could admit that she was right: even if they languished in the sub-basement all night, by morning they’d be back in their beds like nothing happened.
Unless the time loop finally ended, but that was so unlikely it wasn’t worth worrying about.
Probably.
The stairwell descended into darkness. The naked bulb overhead illuminated the steps just enough that Jack didn’t lose his footing. Carla trailed ahead of him, one hand on the railing, the other skimming along the cement wall.
If they got stuck down here, no one would hear them scream.
Somewhere in the distance, water dripped.
“What is this place?” Jack whispered when they at last reached a landing lit by another bare bulb.
“What do you think it is?” Carla snapped. “It’s a prison. It’s also a meeting room.”
“Fuck,” Jack groaned. “I really don’t want to see this.”
“Nobody’s gonna lock us down here,” she said, reaching for his hand, giving it a squeeze. “It’s empty right now. I promise.”
There was no way of knowing that, but he didn’t want to argue. “This is where Enzo hangs out?”
“If there’s something they wanna keep secret, it’ll be down here,” hissed Carla. “Or at his office, but we’re starting here, OK?”
“OK,” Jack said, with a wistful glance back at the doorway. Not within easy sprinting distance, he thought mournfully.
“Don’t freak out,” said Carla, stroking her thumb over the back of his hand. “I’m packing.”
“That’s… not reassuring,” said Jack. “Where was this yesterday?”
“I didn’t wanna confront Ronnie with a gun,” she hissed.
“Right, but Enzo’s fine.”
“Enzo’s not gonna be here,” she snapped. “Let’s go. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can leave.”
They rounded the corner. Jack’s heart threatened to leap into his mouth.
At first glance, it was just a basement. Cement walls, a rug thrown across the floor, a poster on the wall. A steel door painted rusty red stood sentry across from the stairwell. A folded card table rested against the wall.
Under other circumstances, the tool bench wouldn’t have given him pause. But the longer he looked, the worse it got. Crowbars. Power tools. Saws. Chains. Guns. Handcuffs.
The hair on the back of his neck stood up. This is meant to intimidate people, he told himself. Ronnie wouldn’t incriminate himself like this. Empty warehouses were made for torture—
An image of the bleeding door burst into the forefront of his mind.
Shit. Had he witnessed an execution? Was that where all the blood had come from?
He was abruptly nauseous.
“Nobody is down here,” said Carla softly, as if sensing his distress. “Everything’s fine, alright?”
They worked methodically through the basement. Carla dragged him into the cells. Jack tried to ignore the way his stomach clenched at the sight of cement benches, barely long enough to lie down on, and the strange, rust-colored stains on the door.
Behind the red door was an office—a mess of file cabinets, a water cooler, and a desk, dusty and untouched.
“Damn,” said Carla when they glanced inside. “See, I told you nobody ever comes here.”
Jack nodded, still disbelieving.
“What now?” he asked when they were upstairs and the bookshelf had clicked shut behind them.
“Guess we check the club.”
“The club.”
“Ronnie’s little social club. It’s right over Bernie’s Kitchen.”
“Right,” said Jack slowly. “So those aren’t apartments then?”
“No,” said Carla. A smirk danced at the corners of her mouth. “It’s a billiards club. But you’d never know. It’s a real secret. Ronnie doesn’t want everybody knowing where he runs his meetings.”
Jack loosed a shaky exhale. “Anywhere else?”
“Enzo’s warehouse, probably.”
That wasn’t any more appealing. “And how easy is it to get into Ronnie’s club?”
“It’s easy if you know Ronnie’s schedule. He comes home at three o’clock every fucking morning and leaves again at ten.”
Jack thought of all the late nights he’d spent at the mansion and winced. How close had he come to meeting Ronnie while wrapped in Carla’s arms?
“Then we leave at what? Two-thirty? After he’s left for the night?”
“Or I pretend you’re my cousin coming to visit me unexpectedly,” said Carla with a teasing grin. “We could go by the restaurant, have dinner out for once. What do you think?”
“I don’t think I want Enzo to know what I look like,” said Jack, remembering the maroon sedan that whipped past him as he climbed the hill.
“Yeah, OK, fine,” Carla agreed. “We don’t let Enzo know who you are.” She led them back to the office, shut the door behind them like she expected someone to try and follow. “Which means I have to find out what’s going on.”
Jack didn’t like the sound of that.
At midnight, they stood outside the warehouse, staring blankly at the locked door.
“Remember,” said Carla. “Anything happens, and you’re my new security, OK? You got the gun?”
Jack nodded. The steel was cold in his pocket. He barely knew how to hold a gun, let alone use it.
“You’re not gonna need it. It’s for show, alright?”
“Right.”
“This is the easiest way to get inside,” she explained. “Enzo’s here every day, managing orders. If he knows something, we’ll find out.”
Keys jingled in her hand. The lock clicked.
Jack followed her inside.
Carla led him past stacks of pallets and boxes, down a long hallway whose lightbulb flickered ominously. “It’s through here,” she said.
The next room was empty. A line of offices overlooked the great, cavernous space. Carla plucked a flashlight from her pocket.
“We have to leave the way we came,” she explained. “I can’t turn on the main lights on, either. Don’t want anyone to see us.”
The bile rising in Jack’s throat told him they were already too obvious, but he choked it down and followed her. “You’re sure no one’s here?”
“Yeah,” she said, but Jack caught the waver in her voice.
“What if you just asked Enzo?”
“If he knows I know, then he’s,” her voice lowered into an imitation of a man’s, “‘gonna have to do something with me.’ I can’t risk it.”
“Have you tried talking to him?”
“No way.” Carla shook her head. “Trust me. He’s not on our side.”
“You think he doesn’t want out of the time loop?”
“I think he’s trying to exploit it.”
“Great.”
They neared the grimy windows. Pale moonlight streamed through. In the distance, Jack spotted the sugar cube and shuddered. “What is that?” he asked, pointing between buildings.
Carla followed his gaze and frowned. “It’s a building, Jack.”
“Yeah, I know that, but it like—it bleeds every day.”
“It bleeds?”
“Yeah,” said Jack, feeling more insane by the second. Maybe he’d been mistaken this whole time. Maybe Carla would think he was an idiot. “Well, the door does, anyway. Every day at two o’clock.”
“You found a bleeding building and didn’t tell me about it?”
“I just—it sounds kind of crazy.” He wrung his hands, fiddled with the cuff of his sleeve.
“Listen, Jack. If the building bleeds every day, you probably don’t want to know why, OK?”
His jaw tensed. “What if someone’s dying?”
“It’s a door. It can’t bleed.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Listen,” said Carla through gritted teeth. “Don’t go near it. You don’t wanna know. That’s Fat Frank’s storage shed, OK? If he catches you out there, you’ll learn more than you want to know. Now come on. We’ve got more important things to do.”
Sick to his stomach, Jack followed.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t check it out?”
“Let’s see what we find here, first.”
The line of empty offices flickered to life when Carla flipped a switch.
Jack startled. “I thought you said—”
“It’s fine. We just can’t use the main overhead light.”
Deeply uncertain, he trailed after her. They examined the offices one by one, glancing around for anything suspicious or out of place.
There wasn’t much of note. Just a lot of messy desks, locked file cabinets, empty coffee cups, and discarded newspapers.
Jack was nearly ready to give up when he found the candle stub in the trashcan. He frowned, looked to Carla. “Do you guys light candles in here?”
“Hell no,” she scoffed, coming to peer over his shoulder. “Especially not fancy candles like that.”
The votive was a burnt-out stump, black and stained with something dull and flaky. Blood, Jack realized, drawing back.
“Shit,” said Carla, staring. “That’s blood.”
“That’s creepy,” said Jack. He’d seen enough horror movies to know that this probably wasn’t a coincidence.
“Why the fuck would there be blood?”
“I don’t know,” said Jack. “We should ask Boris.”
“Why the fuck would Boris know?”
“I just… feel like he would.”
Carla stood back to scrutinize him, her perfect nose wrinkling. “Fine,” she said. “Let’s ask Boris. It’s not like we have any other leads.”