Sutton: A Novel Part 17

Please, Father says, if you care about us at all, Willie Boy, you'll leave us alone.

He walks to Meadowport, sits deep inside the tunnel, replaying the last three years. At dusk he walks out, through the meadow, through the park, and soon finds himself on Eddie's doorstep at the St. George. Eddie throws open the door. Pleated slacks, a sleeveless white unders.h.i.+rt, white suspenders hanging down. He's been doing push-ups. His arms are the size of Willie's legs. Where you been, Sutty?

Everywhere. Nowhere. Wingy says hi.

They go up to the roof. Eddie has a pint of bootleg in his back pocket. He takes a swig, offers it to Willie. Willie shakes his head. But he smokes Eddie's cigarettes greedily. He's been denying himself tobacco, trying to economize.

The sun is nearly set. They watch the lights come on in Manhattan, cars going back and forth across the bridge. An ocean liner, lit up like a miniature Manhattan, heads off to sea. Willie imagines the pa.s.sengers: gentlemen standing along the upper decks, taking the air, ladies below sipping illegal cordials. On the Brooklyn side of the bridge steam bubbles from the Squibb factory, where they make stuff for bad stomachs. The air is heavy with milk of magnesia.

Willie looks at Eddie: I can't stop remembering Happy's face when they dragged him off in bracelets.

Yeah. Me either.

Sing Sing. Christ.

It's a war, Sutty. Us, them. How many times do I have to tell you.

They watch the bloodred sun slide into the river. Every day, Eddie says, that f.u.c.kin sun goes out the same way. A blaze of glory.

Mm.

Hey, Sutty.

Yeah.

Look at me.

Huh.

I got somethin I need to tell you.

Shoot.

You're a f.u.c.kin skeleton.

Willie laughs. I am kind of hungry.

I think if you ate a grape you'd have a paunch. We need to get some groceries in you, boy. Fast.

No can do. I'm broker than broke.

My treat.

At the speak on the corner Eddie orders for Willie. Meat loaf, oysters, creamed potatoes, garden salad, a wedge of apple pie a la mode. Eddie was right, the food helps. Willie feels alive. Then comes the check. Dead again. He's twenty years old, no job, no hope of a job, sponging off his friend.

He stabs the pie. Ed, what am I going to do?

Move in with me. Stay as long as you want. You know you're like a brother.

Thanks, Ed. But long-term. What's any of us going to do?

Eddie leans back. I might have a solution. For both of us.

Eddie tells Willie that he's leaving the bootleggers. Happy's arrest has given him pause. Prohibition is no joke, the government isn't playing. If you're going to take the risk, you better make sure the reward is worth it.

Meaning?

One of the other drivers introduced me to a guy. Horace Steadley. Goes by Doc. A box man out of Chicago, and a great one at that-a true genius. Though he made his bones running the glim-drop back in Pittsburgh.

The what?

The glim. A nifty little two-man con. First man goes into a department store, dressed real sharp, wearin an eye patch, says he lost his glim-his gla.s.s eyeball. Tells the clerk he'll pay a thousand bucks if anyone turns the eyeball in to Lost and Found. Leaves his callin card, fancy, gold-embossed with his phone number. Next day, the second man goes up to the clerk carryin a gla.s.s eyeball. Anyone lookin for this? He gets the clerk to give him three hundred. Why not? The clerk knows the glim's worth three times that much. But when the clerk dials the number on the first man's callin card, disconnected. Doc had it down to a science. But then he started crackin safes, takin down jewelry stores, and he liked that a whole lot better. Now he runs a topflight box crew and he needs a couple more men. He's a right guy, Sutty. A real right guy. And he knows his potatoes, so he can teach us. Then we can start our own crew. Move up to the bigs.

Bigs?

Banks, Sutty. Banks.

Oh Ed. I don't know.

The waiter comes, clears the table. Eddie orders two coffees. When the waiter goes away he hisses: What don't you know?

Isn't it-wrong, Ed? I mean, h.e.l.l. What about right and wrong?

The world is wrong, Sutty. I don't know why, I don't know when it went wrong, or if it's always been, but I know it's wrong, sure as I know you're you and I'm me. Maybe two wrongs don't make a right. But answerin a wrong with a right? That just makes you poor and hungry. And nothin is as wrong as that.

Neither says anything for several minutes. Eddie lights a cigarette, puts on his hat. Just come meet him, he says.

Minutes later Willie is letting Eddie push him into a cab.

Doc's apartment is all the way over in Manhattan, near the theater district. As they approach Times Square, Willie looks out the window. Men in tuxes, women in evening gowns, hurrying from luminous motorcars into cafes, clubs, theaters. The looks on their faces say: Depression? What Depression? Willie wishes he were going to see a show. He's never seen a show. One of the million things he's never done. He should level with Eddie, tell him this is a waste of time. Heisting jewels isn't his line. He doesn't know what his line is, but it isn't this.

Too late. They're outside Doc's building, under the awning. The doorman is buzzing upstairs to announce them.

Sutton peers at the tops of the new skysc.r.a.pers in midtown. OK, boys, pop quiz: What drove Jack Dillinger to rob his first bank?

No clue.

A girl broke up with him.

Left at the next light, Reporter says to Photographer. Then straight until Fifty-Third.

It's on the corner, Sutton says.

What's the significance of this next stop? Photographer asks.

It's where Doc lived, Sutton says.

Doc?

My first teacher.

Happy, Doc-when do we get to hear about Sneezy and Dopey?

You two are Sneezy and Dopey.

Har har.

Willie and Eddie stand at attention, Willie straightening his tie, Eddie brus.h.i.+ng dandruff off his shoulders. The door opens. A liveried butler takes Eddie's topcoat and fedora. Willie says he'll keep his. They follow the butler down a long hall into a sunken living room. Willie does a triple take at the furniture. End tables, side tables, coffee tables-it's all safes. Big, little, metal, wood-safes.

A man enters from a hall on the other side of the living room. He has an oversize head covered with thick marshmallow hair, and a mouth full of crooked teeth, which he tries to conceal with an equally thick white mustache. Come in, he says in a booming voice, come in, boys.

Doc, Eddie whispers to Willie.

Doc waves a crystal rocks gla.s.s full of whiskey. What'll you have?

Nothing, Willie says.

A double of whatever you're havin, Eddie says.

Doc pours Eddie's drink at a bar underneath oil paintings of black-hatted hors.e.m.e.n chasing lithe foxes. He motions for Willie and Eddie to join him in the center of the living room. The windows look onto the theaters. Fluttering marquees make the room brighter, darker, brighter, darker. Willie sits in a chair with curved legs and a silk seat cus.h.i.+on. It feels like sitting on a beautiful woman's lap. Doc and Eddie take the sofa. Bending at the waist and lowering himself, Doc grunts and groans as if sliding into a warm bath.

Pleasure to finally meet you, he says to Willie. Eddie here tells me you're the brightest lad to come out of Irish Town.

Eddie tells me you're the best thief to come out of Chicago.

Silence.

That's a dirty lie, Doc says. I'm the best anywhere.

Eddie smiles. Doc smiles. Crooked smile to go with the crooked teeth. Willie lights a Chesterfield, looks for an ashtray. There's one on the safe at his elbow. Nice place you got here. Who's your decorator, Wells Fargo?

They're all functional too, Doc says. I practice on them, take them apart, put them together, time myself. I'm like a boxer who lives in his gym. The best ones do, by the way.

What's with all the paintings?

Ah. They're from my first boost ever. An estate in Oak Park. They lend a touch of cla.s.s, I think. They give me hours of pleasure. Sometimes I sit here all night, having a libation, rooting for that fox.

Willie gives Doc a fast once-over. He does seem like a right enough guy. But what's with that getup? He's dressed like a manager at t.i.tle Guaranty. Cutaway coat, gold watch chain, plaid bow tie. Plus-white opera gloves? Willie c.o.c.ks an eyebrow, asks about the gloves. Doc holds out his hands and spreads his fingers, as if Willie has asked a question to which the answer is an emphatic Ten.

Willie, he says, my fingers are my life. I'm a box man, I make no pretense of being anything else. On the contrary I'm proud of my art, which goes all the way back to the ancient Egyptians. Did you know the pharaohs were the first to use a lock with pins? I guess they were the first people with valuables. Ach, kids today don't care about the history. They just want to peel a box, shoot a box-put some nitro in the cracks and boom. It's loud, it's vulgar, and frankly you're more likely to get caught. I still think the old ways are best. Stethoscope, fingers, let the tumblers talk. A safe is like a woman. She'll tell you how to open her, provided you know how to listen. So if anything happens to these fingers, well, I'm sleeping under bridges. Naturally I take care of them. Polish the nails. Sandpaper the tips. Keep them warm and well-wrapped. Hence-opera gloves. They're from D'Andrea Brothers, by the by. Do you know their stuff? I think they're the tops.

Willie has never heard anybody talk like Doc. He's either a genius, as Eddie said, or else just full of hot air. Willie fears it's the latter. He wants to stand, tell Doc thanks but no thanks, and he's on the verge of doing just that when Doc says: Eddie tells me you're mooning over some bird.

Willie frowns at Eddie. Eddie shrugs.

It's been a tough couple of years, Willie says. Let's leave it at that.

Eddie says it's a lost cause. The bird's some rich man's daughter.

Please don't call her a bird.

Eddie says she's out of the country, no hope of finding her.

Willie remembers a line from his Latin cla.s.s at St. Ann's. Where there's life, he says, there's hope.

Uh-huh.

Doc stares at one of his safes, deep in thought. He looks as though he's placed his mind inside the safe and locked the door. His eyes turn gla.s.sy, his bottom lip goes slack. Thirty seconds. Forty.

And now he's back. Here's the thing, Willie. I need men on my crew who think straight.

Willie rises out of his chair, points a finger at Doc's chest. When I'm on someone else's time I think plenty straight. When I'm on my own time what I think about is my own business.

The idea of being rejected again, for yet another job, has triggered a deep reflex. The thought of adding this popinjay safecracker to the growing list of people who don't want him, who have no use for him, is more than he can take.

Eddie glares at Willie. Easy, boy.

But Doc isn't a bit ruffled. Willie, he says calmly, sit. I didn't mean to offend.

Willie lowers himself back onto his chair. Doc takes a slug of whiskey, looks at the fluttering marquees outside the window. Light, dark, light, dark. Then: What's your angle kid?

Angle?

Why do you want to work for me? Are you like Eddie, looking to learn? Are you looking for thrills? Or-do you just want money?

Doesn't everybody want money? Sure, I'd like to eat three squares a day. Have my own place, one that's bigger than a washtub. Not have to hide from my landlord. Not wear these stinking clothes. I'd like to salt away enough to maybe see something of this world.

Eddie leans forward. News to him. A trip?

Where to? Doc says.

I'd like to go down to the harbor one day and get on one of those great big liners. Just-sail away.

Who wouldn't, Doc says.

I always see the ads in the papers, Willie says. The Aquitania sails every second Wednesday at midnight. That always gives me a tingle. Whenever the second Wednesday rolls around, I find myself looking at a clock.

Anyplace special?

Europe, maybe. Ireland. I don't know.

Eddie smirks. Hamburg, he mutters.

Doc sets his drink on a safe, tugs at his white gloves. He waggles his fingers, cracks his knuckles. Okay, he says. I get the picture. I can see who you are, Willie, I can see you're a right guy. I could see it when you came through the door. I was just testing your motor. Runs plenty hot. That's usually a good thing. Welcome aboard.

You mean-I'm in?

You're in. Both you and Eddie. We pull strictly out-of-town jobs. Boston, Philly, Was.h.i.+ngton. Sometimes upstate. Staying out of town keeps the bluecoats off balance. A bluecoat is a poor tourist. We use the same routine every time. Break into a jewel store in the wee hours, crack the safe, sweep out the good stuff, make for the train. We're home in bed before the first salesman shows up to fill the showcase in the morning. Our next job's in Philly. A store I've been casing for months. Ever been to Philly?