Free Embers & Ash by T.M. Goeglein Page B

behind me with the words L OOP— 1 / 2 MILE
.
Doug stood, foul-smelling and trembling. “Uh . . . is that your boots, or you?” I asked.
    â€œAt this point, what’s the difference?” He shuddered, drawing out a cigarette and the steel lighter. “Sorry to be a cliché, but I really need a smoke.”
    â€œDoug,” I said, “remember? Explosive gases?”
    He glanced at the lighter, sighed, put it away, and followed me into the tunnel. We covered the half-mile in silence until he said, “Hey. Look.” I turned my flashlight on a pointing hand with the words M ONADNOCK B UILDING—6 FLIGHTS UP next to a passageway.
    â€œWe’re beneath Jackson Street, downtown,” I said. “In the Loop.”
    â€œThere’s another one,” he said, shining on the words S HERMAN H OUSE H OTEL—VIA COAL ELEVATOR
.
“Never heard of the place.”
    â€œMust be gone. Knocked down and built over,” I said.
    Our trek took us past more passageways leading to other phantom locations—Henrici’s Ristorante, The Venetian Building, St. Hubert’s Grill—until, slowly, the ever-present darkness was cut by weak illumination. It came from an entrance just ahead and we picked up our pace, hurrying toward it. Doug entered the large room first and I followed, gaping up at a cathedral-like ceiling, tall and airy, with light streaming through distant grates. There were no seeping pipes or flowing sewage, but instead, in the middle of the room, a circular bar. Empty bottles and overturned tumblers sat on it next to a rotary telephone and a ticker-tape machine, all of it caked in decades of dust.
    â€œIt’s an octagon,” Doug said, staring around the stop sign–shaped room, “like an intersection or crossroad.” Each of the eight walls bore a sign above a tunnel entrance leading to a specific location. “Krauss Music Store, Bruno’s Diner, House of Eng,” he read, nodding at three of the openings. “Never heard of those places, either.”
    â€œWrigley Field is still there, of course,” I said, picking up where he left off. “That tunnel leads to the Issel Building, that one goes to St. Alphonsus Church.” I turned and looked at the tunnel from which we’d emerged, its sign reading L OOP , which was now behind us. It was the seventh entrance, leaving one more. I walked across the room and stared at the words above the eighth tunnel. “Riviera Theatre,” I said, turning to Doug with a grin. “You know where the Riviera Theatre is, don’t you?”
    â€œNext to the Green Mill Lounge, across from Uptown National Bank,” he said. “Follow that tunnel and we’ll end up beneath the Troika of Outfit Influence.”
    â€œWhere ultimate power is waiting,” I said quietly.
    It was one of those pause-before-you-leap moments, and Doug exhaled, staring around the room. “There hasn’t been anyone down here in a long time. The old telephone, that ticker-tape thingy . . . I wonder how it’s survived.”
    â€œThe tunnel got cut off. It was forgotten,” I said, lifting the phone, hearing nothing. Knowing the Outfit as I did, I realized that the tunnels weren’t used only to flee the law, or one another; they were also ideal places to conduct dirty business in private. As counselor-at-large, I could only think how perfect this room was—beyond perfect—for a sit-down. I looked at the bar’s scarred surface and blew away a layer of grit, seeing hundreds of names, curses, and dates carved into the soft wood:
    Beware! Dominick DiBello is a gun-packing fellow, 1939
    Lefty Rosenthal marks cards and loads dice, the schmuck
    1952, Good for me, bad for you!—Jimmy “the Bomber” Cattura
    And finally, nearly obscured but still visible:
    NR, C-a-L, era qui
    â€œNunzio Rispoli, Counselor-at-Large, was here,” I murmured, tracing