Sutton: A Novel Part 48

What?

Eddie. Margaret. Arnie.

Sutton stares at the rearview. Please, he says. No more.

Dr. Fialka went through Arnie's billfold, Reporter says. Arnie still had fifty-seven bucks on him. So clearly this was no robbery. Then Dr. Fialka found Arnie's ID and someone screamed, Oh G.o.d it's Arnold Schuster.

No more, Sutton says. Let's get out of here, boys.

Moments later Arnie's family heard the news on TV. A bulletin. Good Samaritan Arnie Schuster has been gunned down outside his Brooklyn home. All the Schusters ran outside and found Arnie a hundred feet away-on his back, blood running into the gutter. Arnie's mother, inconsolable. Arnie's kid brother, wailing. Arnie's father, running up and down the sidewalk, that sidewalk right there, screaming: They took my son, I don't want to live. Here's a picture. Look at the anguish in those faces. And if the whole scene wasn't strange enough, according to this clip-the joyful music of Purim wafted over all.

Willie. Arnold Schuster is dead.

Willie blinks. Schuster?

He stares at Warden, who stares back in disbelief.

Schuster? Schuster, Schuster. Then Willie remembers. The kid from the subway. The Boy Scout. Dead? How?

Shot.

Willie's mind goes reeling. Why would anyone shoot Schuster? Mother of G.o.d, because Willie is a hero and someone in that chanting crowd outside the jail, or someone in sympathy with that crowd, thought they were striking a blow on Willie's behalf. In fact it's a blow against Willie, a heavy blow, because it will surely turn public opinion. All these thoughts quickly dawn on him, and lead him to one terrifying and inescapable conclusion, which he blurts out like a cry for help, causing Warden to recoil with horror, with disapproval, with shame for his race.

That sinks me.

Photographer and Reporter step out of the car. Sutton doesn't follow.

Please, Sutton says. No.

Mr. Sutton, we've gone everywhere you wanted to go. We've held up our end of the bargain. It's your turn.

Sutton nods. He steps out. He walks between them across the street. They stop at the alley. Photographer tries to shoot Sutton but can't get a good angle. Also, Sutton refuses to look at the alley. He looks at the sky, trying to find the moon.

Reporter opens his briefcase, pulls out a stack of crime scene photos. He hands them to Sutton, who puts on his gla.s.ses, shuffles through them quickly. Arnie on the sidewalk. Cops standing over Arnie. Arnie's blood-soaked suit. Arnie's blue suede shoes.

I remember these, Sutton says. From the papers.

Reporter hands him a sheaf of front pages. The headlines are enormous. One catches Sutton's eye. He adjusts his gla.s.ses. DEATH OF A SALESMAN.

I remember this one, he says. The headline writer earned his money that day.

How so?

Because Death of a Salesman was still in the theaters. Margaret and I had just seen it. And because Willie Sutton sounds like w.i.l.l.y Loman. And because Schuster was a salesman.

He was, Reporter says. But did you know, Mr. Sutton, that when he wasn't selling clothes, Arnie was in the back of his dad's shop, running the presser. Above it he'd tacked the FBI Most Wanted list. That's how he recognized you. The FBI made sure to hand out that list to every clothing store in Brooklyn, Mr. Sutton, because you were known to be a sharp dresser. Like Arnie. Another thing you two had in common. Did you know that Arnie was engaged?

He was?

He met his fiancee, Leatrice, on the Boardwalk in Coney Island?

Mermaid Avenue.

Pardon?

Nothing.

Of course, many people suspected you were involved in Arnie's murder.

Reporter and Photographer freeze, waiting. Sutton says nothing.

The search for Arnie's killer, Reporter continues, is the largest investigation in the history of the New York Police Department.

The largest?

No manhunt has been larger.

I'm not feeling well, boys.

The commissioner called this case the department's top priority: We have nineteen thousand cops in this city, and all nineteen thousand know what their Number One job is today-to trap the rats involved in this outrage. But they never did solve it.

How crazy is that, Photographer says, catching a shot of Sutton glancing quickly at the alley. That the commissioner would use that word-rats? And how crazy is it that they never solved it? Okay, Willie, let's walk up the street, get a shot outside the Schuster house, and we're done.

Sutton walks, Reporter and Photographer on either side.

Mr. Sutton, Reporter says, public opinion really turned on you after Arnie's death.

Yeah.

New York did a one-eighty. People reconsidered everything they ever thought about heroes, rats, crime. You.

I remember kid, I remember.

An enormous crowd gathered at Arnold's funeral. Look at this picture.

I wrote his parents. Maybe that was a mistake.

This is it, Photographer says. Nine four one. Arnie's house.

They stop. A narrow brick row house, it's exactly like the ones on either side and up and down the street. A small front stoop, a white door. There's no sign that it was once the most talked about address in the city, in the nation.

The lights are off. Either no one lives here, Photographer says, or no one's home.

As the hea.r.s.e carrying Arnie pulled away from the cemetery, Reporter says, the cantor asked, Why? And the mourners took up a baleful chant: Why? Why? Why?

Sutton murmurs: That's what I want to know.

Through several anonymous tips, and a few clues from the scene, the cops decide that Arnie Schuster's killer was most likely the Angel of Death, Freddie Tenuto, which makes Freddie the most wanted man in America. His mug shot appears in every newspaper and magazine, gets posted in every airport and train station and bus depot. Soon there are Freddie sightings all over New York. Someone sees him with a gorgeous redhead at a prizefight in Madison Square Garden. Cops stop the fight, search the crowd. Someone sees him on the Long Island Rail Road. Cops stop the train, check every pa.s.senger. Someone sees him at a steakhouse in Williamsburg. Cops burst into the joint, line everyone against the wall. The city feels under siege. People clamor for the Angel of Death to be caught.

No matter who shot Arnie, however, the public has already concluded that Willie is the real culprit. Willie's misspent life led to Arnie's death. Willie might not have pulled the trigger, or sent the triggerman, or even known the triggerman, but in the public's mind he's responsible. The fickle city: for weeks New York celebrated Willie, shunned Arnie; now it shuns Willie, makes Arnie a martyr.

Against this backcloth Willie is speedily tried for the Manufacturers Trust job. Dee cuts a deal, takes the stand, tells all, and the jury is quick at their work. Willie, wearing a chalk-striped suit, his hair slicked back, stares at the enormous American flag over the judge's head, barely listening as the judge sentences him to spend the rest of his days in Attica: I only regret that the law prevents me from sentencing you to death.

The cops grab Willie roughly from his chair and cuff him and drag him away. Gone is the grudging respect.

Over the next few years at Attica, Willie hears all kinds of stories about Arnie. Every guy gives the story a different twist, but the essential facts are always the same. It was Freddie who killed the kid, and it was Albert Anastasia, the lunatic Brooklyn crime boss, who ordered the hit. Anastasia, often called the Mad Hatter, paid Freddie to kill Arnie, then paid someone else to kill Freddie, to grind up his body and feed it to some livestock on an upstate farm. Covering the trail, tying up loose ends-standard mob procedure.

But why? Why would Anastasia get mixed up in something that didn't concern him? Because he was Brooklyn born, Brooklyn raised, and there was nothing he despised more than a rat. When he saw Arnie on TV, getting the hero treatment, he exploded. This Boy Scout stands to collect a reward? For ratting out a right guy like Willie Sutton? Willie was a hero to many different New Yorks-Irish New York, Immigrant New York, Poor New York-but he was a G.o.d to Underworld New York. So Anastasia sent the Angel of Death to wrestle with Arnie. That's the story Willie hears in Attica.

The guy who tells Willie the most compelling version of this story is Crazy Joey Gallo, who's serving a seven-year bit for extortion. And Crazy Joe adds a h.e.l.lacious coda. Five years after the murder of Arnie, Crazy Joe killed Anastasia in a midtown barbershop. As Anastasia lay in a chair under a piping hot towel, Crazy Joe and his brothers walked in and hosed the place with bullets. Crazy Joe claims the hit was ordered by one of the other crime bosses, who had no use for Anastasia, hated the way Anastasia did business, including his targeting of Arnie, an innocent civilian. So much carnage, so much confusion, all because Willie and Arnie caught the same subway one February afternoon.

Willie and Crazy Joe spend much of the sixties sitting together in the yard, trading stories and cigarettes and books. They become good friends, because they come from the same place, because they've traveled similar roads. They both grew up in Brooklyn, both had two brothers, both started as smalltime hoods and ended up folk heros. But Crazy Joe is aptly named-he wears a straw van Gogh hat, sets up an easel in the yard and does portraits of the hacks-so when he tells Willie the story of Arnie and Anastasia, Willie doesn't know which parts are true, which parts are Crazy Joe being crazy. Ultimately Willie decides it doesn't matter. It all has the ring of truth, and it closes a loop in Willie's mind. Willie decides that's all any story needs to do.

Willie, Photographer says, please, I just need this one shot, you with the Schuster house in the background, and then we can all go have dinner. Please, for the love of G.o.d, stand still.

Sutton pats his pockets, looks back at the Polara. I've got to have a smoke first. This whole thing-this whole day-I'm shaking like a leaf.

No, Photographer says. Shoot first. Then smoke.

If I don't have a smoke I'll pa.s.s out. If I pa.s.s out you won't get your shot.

Photographer sighs, lowers his camera. Okay.

I left my cigarettes in the car.

Have one of mine.

I can only smoke Chesterfield.

Sutton hobbles back up the street. On his right is the alley. He tells himself not to look, but he looks. The blue suede shoes, the eyes streaming blood. He isn't remembering the photographs, or the front pages, he's seeing Arnie. The kid is right there. At Sutton's feet. Sutton sees.

He crosses the street, slumps against the Polara. He sees his Chesterfields on the backseat. He sees the keys in the ignition. He sees that Photographer has left the motor running again.

He doesn't hesitate. He gets behind the wheel, peels away.

TWENTY-THREE.

His nerves. Christ, his nerves. He needs distraction. He clicks on the AM radio. News. He turns the dial. Jagger. Rape! Murder! He turns the dial. Sinatra. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Eddie used to say Sinatra couldn't be all Dago. He's too smooth, Sutty, he must have some Irish in him. Poor Eddie. Sutton's eyes fill with tears. He can't see the streetlights.

He wipes his eyes, pulls the white envelope from his breast pocket, opens it with his teeth. Removes the piece of loose-leaf. Tries to read Donald's drunken, childlike handwriting.

Left on Thirty-Ninth? No. That must say Thirty-Seventh.

Right on-Furth? No. That must say Fifth.

To think Reporter complained about Sutton's handwriting. He pounds the steering wheel. Donald, you crazy sot. You can fence anything, you can pick any lock, you can find anyone living or dead within one hour-how is it possible that you can't read or write?

Up ahead he sees Prospect Avenue. He turns left. Now, he reads aloud: Look for Hamilton.

There. Hamilton.

He squints again at Donald's writing. One mole mill? No. That must be one more mile. Then Hicks Street. Then: Look for-Middagh.

Sounds like a word from the Old Country. A good sign maybe.

The winds.h.i.+eld is fogged. Willie wipes it with the sleeve of Reporter's trench coat, leans forward, tries to read the numbers on the houses. He sees an old house the color of newsprint, then a bright yellow house that looks as if it might be the first ever built in Brooklyn. Funck once said that Brooklyn, in Dutch, means Broken Land. True enough. Funck-long gone. Food for flowers. He's well and truly landescaped.

Now. There. Sutton sees Middagh. He turns, sees a quaint old Colonial-style house, and on the door is the number on Donald's sheet.

The windows s.h.i.+ne with b.u.t.tery yellow light.

He parks a block away, under a sign: NO STANDING. He leaves the engine running, walks slowly back to the house. Stands before it on the icy sidewalk. Limps up the steps. Makes a fist to knock. Can't. Limps down the steps, back toward the Polara. Stops. Marches back up the block. Creeps to the windows, as he used to do with banks. Twenty people, well dressed, gathered around a baby grand. Someone sure knows how to play.

He limps away, slowly, back again to the Polara.

From behind him he hears a door open, a knocker rattling. Can I help you?

He pivots. A young woman. Eighteen, maybe nineteen. She stands on the top step clutching a man's overcoat around her shoulders. In the dim light from a sconce Sutton can't make out her features, but he can see that she has ash blond hair-and blue eyes?

Oh, he says. I was looking for an old friend. There's no chance that this might be the Endner residence, is there?

Endner?

Or maybe-Richmond?

Richmond, she says. Did you say Richmond?

Ah no. My mistake then. Sorry to have bothered you.

Are you looking for Sarah Richmond?

Sarah? Well. Yes. Sarah. I guess I am.

I'm sorry. She pa.s.sed. Three years ago.

Pa.s.sed. I see.

She was my grandmother.

Your grand-of course.