Sutton: A Novel Part 32

Three seconds. Five. Eternity.

G'night, Sutton.

Night sir.

Five minutes. Ten.

Willie creeps to the cell door, kicks out the bar. Sucking in his gut and hunching his shoulders he somehow squeezes through the hole. He can't believe-he's standing outside his cell. Unsupervised. One portal down, seven to go.

He runs down to Egan's cell just as Egan is sliding through his own hole. They stand as they used to stand on the handball court, waiting for serve. Crouched, tensed, they can hear the keepers on the tier below.

Now what the h.e.l.l do you think Roosevelt's goin to do that Hoover couldn't?

I'll tell you what he won't do. He won't gun down Army vets in the street.

Well now that's a point, that's a point.

Willie and Egan tiptoe to the end of the tier, down three flights of stairs to the ground floor. The second portal, a wooden door, has a standard six-pin Corbin lock. Every other house in America has a Corbin. Willie has picked dozens of Corbins and this one takes all of three minutes. Egan laughs like a loon. Willie claps a hand over Egan's mouth.

The third portal is a padlocked gate. Willie takes out his s.h.i.+m, pops it.

He and Egan creep down a hall to the fourth portal, another wooden door, another Corbin. His fingers warmed up, Willie picks this one in a minute flat.

The fifth portal, another padlocked gate, is also no match for the s.h.i.+m.

They're in the dining room. Willie's breathing is so loud, he can't believe it's not waking the cellblock. He and Egan slip among the empty tables, down another stairway, to the sixth portal, the last wooden door, a Yale lock, even easier than a Corbin.

The seventh portal is a padlocked gate. Willie s.h.i.+ms the lock, but the s.h.i.+m breaks. s.h.i.+t, he whispers. Then he remembers-there are no more padlocks.

They enter the cellar. There. The ladders. They tape them together and carry the makes.h.i.+ft ladder to the steel door. Willie holds his breath as he slides the duplicate key into the lock. It doesn't fit.

So that's how it ends. With a faulty fake key. Son of a- Egan tries the handle. Unlocked. Slowly the eighth portal falls open. The yard is eerie, quiet. A frosty night. The stars look like a child's silver jacks. They sprint to the wall, staying between the beams of the searchlights, and set the ladder. Egan goes first. Then Willie. At the top is a catwalk. Willie braces for the twenty-five-foot drop. He can already feel his ankle breaking. But the gra.s.s is surprisingly soft. Other than a twisted knee he comes through the jump fine. Egan too. They dash up a dirt incline to the road, where their getaway car is waiting. A familiar face behind the wheel.

Photographer leans against his window. Are we almost there?

Almost, Sutton says.

Where are we going again?

The Sundowner Hotel, Sutton says. My first stop after I crashed out of Sing Sing. Forty-Seventh and Eighth.

Back to Times Square. Uh-huh. Great. We're officially driving in circles.

Life goes in circles kid. Why shouldn't we?

The radio squawks. Reporter turns it down. Mr. Sutton, exactly how did you crash out of Sing Sing? There's very little in the files.

Sutton puts a Chesterfield between his lips. Everything you ever saw in a prison movie, it started with me. Before me, you never heard about guys using hacksaws. After me, it was all the rage.

What I wouldn't give, Photographer says, for a hacksaw right now.

I made a friend, Sutton says. Johnny Egan. He got me some saws, picks. Then it was just a matter of arranging for someone to be waiting outside the prison.

Who did you get?

Bess.

Reporter hits the brakes. Photographer sits up. You're s.h.i.+tting us, Willie.

She read about my trial, of course. She came to see me my first month in the joint. Back then the visiting room at Sing Sing was pretty lax. No part.i.tions, no guards monitoring conversations. So I told her straight, I was going crazy, I was cras.h.i.+ng out, and I needed her help. I said I'd write her the exact date in a letter. Our mail was censored, so I promised to put it in code. Few weeks later, middle of a long rambling letter, I wrote: Do you remember that time we went walking at Coney Island, the stroke of midnight, December 12? She told her husband she had a bridge game with some girlfriends, snuck up to Sing Sing, picked us up outside the wall. She drove me and Egan down to Times Square, dropped us at the Sundowner-even brought us a change of clothes and some cash. And she was back home in four hours.

What was it like, Mr. Sutton? Seeing her again?

They stop at a red light. Sutton looks across the street. A coffee shop with a neon sign flas.h.i.+ng in the window. c.o.c.kTAILS. c.o.c.kTAILS. c.o.c.kTAILS. Outside the coffee shop sits a double-parked Dodge, no one in the driver's seat, a woman in the pa.s.senger seat. Sutton can tell. He can see it in her eyes. The woman is waiting for a man. A man that she loves.

Mr. Sutton?

Willie?

It felt like a dream, boys.

SIXTEEN.

Willie signs the register Mr. Joseph Lamb. He tells Egan to sign as Edward Garfield. Then he walks Egan up to his room.

That was a real nice lady who picked us up, Egan says.

Yeah.

Awful pretty. How do you know her again?

Look, Egan, just go in your room and stay there. Don't come out for anything. I'll come get you in the morning.

What if I want to go for a walk?

Absolutely not.

What if I need some air?

Open a window.

I get claustrophobic, Willie.

You were just in prison, Egan.

Willie looks hard at Egan, realizing how little he knows about this kid. Most of their time together has been spent playing handball. They've barely spoken fifty words. Willie doesn't even know what crime landed Egan in Sing Sing. A sick feeling comes over Willie. He remembers the first time he saw Egan, how he was reminded of Marcus.

Closing Egan's door Willie staggers down to his room, falls onto the bed, blacks out. Sunlight streaming through the dirty muslin curtains wakes him three hours later. He bolts upright, trying to remember. It all seems unreal. Egan, the portals, the ladders. Bess. He runs out to a coffee stand and buys two cups of coffee, four rolls heavy with b.u.t.ter, a carton of Chesterfields, and all the newspapers. Now it seems real. He and Egan are on every front page. Lawes tells the papers that the three keepers on duty during the crash-out-Wilfred Brennan, Samuel Rubin, and Philip Dengler-are fired.

Willie lights a Chesterfield. Good luck finding new jobs, fellas. There's a Depression on, you know.

Willie pads down to Egan's room, knocks.

No answer.

He knocks again. Egan, he whispers. Time to go.

Nothing.

He knocks harder.

Silence.

The front desk clerk, who's just come on duty, says Mr. Garfield's room key isn't in its cubbyhole. He must be out.

Out?

Willie sits in the lobby, watching the front door. One hour. He goes back upstairs to his room, watches the street from his window. Two hours. He can actually feel his nerve endings fraying. What if Egan doesn't come back? What if the cops have already caught him? How long can Egan hold out before he tells them where to find Willie? How long should Willie wait before bolting the Sundowner? He doesn't want to abandon his partner, and he doesn't want to leave behind a loose end, especially a loose end that knows so much. But Egan might be talking to the cops right now. The cops might already be on their way.

Just before noon Willie looks out his window and sees Egan staggering up to the hotel. He runs downstairs and bull-rushes the kid.

I told you not to leave the room.

Hadda leave, Willie, I was gawin stir-crazy.

You stink of gin.

Tha.s.s a durry lie. I wiss dringin scotch.

Egan, do you realize the chance you took?

Din take nuttin. Needed a dring, Willie, my nerfs was shot. Thurz a cute lil joint rouna corner, come on ahl showya.

Willie leads Egan upstairs, pours him onto his bed. Pulls up a chair and watches Egan snore. The ninth portal.

Sutton, Reporter and Photographer stand before the Sundowner, a narrow four-story building wedged between two buildings that lean like palm trees. I can't believe it's still here, Sutton says.

He peers up the steep staircase that leads to a razor-scratched, finger-smudged gla.s.s door. The same gla.s.s door he steered Egan through thirty-seven years ago.

Back in 1932, Sutton says, a bed in this rattrap cost a dollar. Imagine? Clean sheets were an extra twenty cents. But that first night, as far as I was concerned, this was the f.u.c.kin Plaza. I never slept so sound. Then Egan gave me a scare. Went on a bender. After he came back, after I put him to bed, I heard sirens. I thought for sure he'd been made. But it was some poor girl down the hall-she slashed her wrists. So there we were, two escaped cons in a flophouse crawling with cops. It was touch and go for a few hours.

Willie?

Sutton turns to face Photographer. Yeah kid?

Can you please, please take off these handcuffs?

Oh, say, I completely forgot.

Sutton reaches into his pocket, comes out with the key. He uncuffs Photographer.

Hallelujah, Photographer says, rubbing his wrists.

Yeah. Hallelujah. That's what Willie used to say when they took off the bracelets.

Reporter pulls the map from his breast pocket. Our next stop isn't far from here, he says. West Fifty-Fourth.

Former home of Chateau Madrid, Sutton says. Headquarters of Dutch Schultz-who helped me solve my Egan problem.

After the cops carry the girl with the slashed wrists out of the Sundowner, Willie slips into her room. Just as he'd hoped, there's makeup all over the dresser. And a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. And some b.l.o.o.d.y razors. He holds out the tail of his s.h.i.+rt, scoops everything into it, hurries back to his room. He sits before a mirror, using the dead girl's peroxide to make himself blond. Next he uses her eyebrow pencil, her Pan-Cake makeup. Finally he goes down to Egan's room and, while Egan's pa.s.sed out, shaves his head.

Later that night Willie and Egan slip into Central Park. Egan keeps lookout while Willie digs up one of his jars. Ten grand. Willie is amazed by how much better, safer, he feels with money in his pocket. They ride the subway to the Lower East Side. At an all-night speak on Avenue A they eat their first proper meal in two days. Willie lets Egan have two shots of whiskey, to steady his nerves, but no more.

Why are we in this part of town? Egan says.

I read once that cops don't like to come down here. Too many gypsies. So it's the ideal place for what we need to do.

After dinner they roam the dark streets and back alleys, looking in the windows of parked cars. At last they find a Chrysler with keys in the ignition. A fat woman in a quilted housecoat, sitting on a fire escape, smokes a clay pipe and eyes them. When she goes inside they jump into the Chevy and speed away.

s.h.i.+fting into third gear, flying up East River Drive, Willie tells Egan it's time for them to go their separate ways. Where's that brother of yours?

Egan gives Willie an address in h.e.l.l's Kitchen. Willie zooms over to Tenth, weaving in and out of traffic, swings a right, spots the number on a mailbox. A two-family house, a Christmas wreath on the left door. He parks, almost knocking over a trash can.

Stay out of sight, he tells Egan. Stay off the sauce. I'll be in touch.

Willie keeps the motor running while Egan walks to the front door, the door without a wreath, and knocks. A ginger-haired man opens. He and Egan exchange a few calm words. The ginger-haired man then pushes Egan aside and comes running down the walk, yelling at Willie: Would you mind telling me what you think you're doing?

Keep your voice down, mister. I'm dropping off your brother.

The h.e.l.l you are. I'd sooner you took a s.h.i.+t on my doorstep.

Egan comes down the walk, hands on his head. My own brother, he wails.

Shut up, the brother and Willie both tell Egan.

The brother bends at the waist, squints through the car window at Willie. Mr. Sutton I a.s.sume? Nice to meet you. I've followed your exploits with some admiration. f.e.c.king banks. But you may not leave this sot on my hands. Off you go.

Willie stares straight ahead. Sorry, friend. I've gone as far as I can with him.

I'm afraid you've got a little farther to go, friend. Or else I'll give the cops your license plate and whereabouts, and I'll do it with a clear conscience, I can promise you that.