Al Capone Shines My Shoes Part 26

Theresa makes a face. "I don't like going down there by myself."

"Buddy Boy! Could you let Jimmy in!" Piper calls down.

Jimmy knocks another time.

"Buddy Boy!" Piper calls again.

Theresa jumps up and heads for the open hall window and pokes her head out. "That's not Jimmy. It's Mrs. Caconi."

"Sounded like Jimmy," Piper mutters.

Mrs. Caconi is inside now, climbing the stairs. "This is your own little house, Walter Williams. Not so little, either. Twenty-two rooms it is. Best one on the Rock." Mrs. Caconi is huffing and puffing harder than usual. She chuffs and hisses when she breathes, like a freight train.

Annie pokes me. "C'mon! We got to help her. She has trouble with stairs."

Mrs. Caconi is on the landing, leaning her heavy body against the banister and dabbing at her forehead. Her foot rocks the blue-ribboned basket with the tiny blanketed bundle, all wrinkly and red, no bigger than a banana bread. Hard to believe a person could ever be that small.

"Need some help, Mrs. Caconi?" I ask.

"Well, I wouldn't say no to a strapping young man like you carrying this baby up these stairs . . ."

"Yes, ma'am." I lift the basket, which is surprisingly light. Baby Rocky must weigh five times more than this little turnip. Annie stays with Mrs. Caconi as she slowly makes her way up the stairs.

"I'm not used to taking care of a newborn," Mrs. Caconi explains. "It's been umpteen years since my Donny was that small," she tells us as I plunk the basket on Piper's bed.

We all stare at the tiny baby, his eyes closed tight like a brand-new puppy's, a blue knitted beanie on his head.

"Been rocking him the last hour. I'm not as young as I once was, you know." Mrs. Caconi sighs. "He's sleeping now, though. They're sweet as pie when they're sleeping, aren't they?"

"Baby," Nat mutters, her eyes whipping past the baby and past again as if they can't settle down for a full look. "Walter," Natalie whispers.

"It," Piper grunts. "His name is It."

"Oh now dear child, don't you start with that rubbish. I won't hear of it. No, I won't. He'll grow on you, yes he will." Mrs. Caconi straightens the baby's beanie. "Your mama'll be home soon. And she won't tolerate that kind of talk."

Piper's eyes glaze over. "Thing," she whispers.

Mrs. Caconi ignores her. "Oh yes, indeedy. He had a big bottle and a nice clean diaper with me. Now you watch him while I catch forty winks, you hear me, little miss?" Mrs. Caconi points her handkerchief at Piper. "Fog's comin' in and it's dark as night. I'm gonna take a catnap before night shift. Little d.i.c.kens woke up six times last night." She squints at Piper. "And don't you tell me no. Watching him while he's sleeping is not too tall an order for you. I should think not. You got a whole roomful of folks to help you here." She wags her finger at Piper and stumbles bleary-eyed into the next room.

No one says a word as she groans and grunts her way up on the big bed. In seconds she's snoring so loud it sounds like the foghorn next door.

Piper stares at the teeny-tiny baby in his blue beanie cap. "Get It It out of here," she whispers. out of here," she whispers.

"Now you listen up." Theresa mimics Mrs. Caconi and wags her finger at Piper. "Taking care of babies is something I know all about." She taps her chest. "I'm going to teach you."

"Theresa!" Annie warns in a husky whisper.

Piper looks like she may hawk up a big one and spit it right at Theresa.

Theresa puts her hands on her hips. "Her mom's okay now. Do I still have to be nice to her?"

Piper gulps, then crumples into an exhausted heap.

"Uh-oh," Annie whispers. Her lips pucker up and her forehead wrinkles. She strokes Piper's hair. "We'll help, okay?" Annie nods to us and we all pipe in.

"Sure, we'll help," I say.

"Help. We'll help. Baby," Nat adds.

Annie smiles. "That's right, even Natalie will help."

Tears spill out of Piper's closed eyes. She pushes them away from her face in quick jerky motions. "I don't want a brother."

Natalie gets a tissue and wraps Piper's fingers around it, which only makes her cry harder.

We all stare at Piper. No one knows what to say. "Brothers aren't that bad," Theresa declares. "They squirt pee at you when you change their diapies, though, you gotta watch that." Theresa puts her finger down by her personal parts like it's a water hose. "They have their own private squirt gun."

"We have nothing of the kind," I insist.

"How would you know?"

"Because I know my own equipment. I'm pretty much an authority on it, okay?"

"Not when you were a baby."

"Moose! Piper!" Jimmy's voice again. This really is Jimmy.

"Buddy!" Piper calls again. "The door!"

Theresa pops up and checks the window. The fog is heavy and dark like a coat pulled tight around us. What time is it? "Don't the pa.s.smen have to go back to the cell house now?" Theresa asks.

"They go back at four thirty," Piper tells us. She has that fuzzy look, like someone who needs to sleep for two days straight.

Annie glances at her watch.

"I'll get him," I offer. Natalie stands up. She has been amusing herself by tucking the baby's covers all around, then all around again. She is gentle with the baby. So gentle.

"Stay here, Nat. I'll be right back," I tell her softly.

Natalie chews at her lip. And Piper snaps to. "Wait, Moose. Moose! I'm coming down too."

Theresa shakes her finger at Piper. "You can't. You have to watch the baby."

"Theresa," Annie warns.

"You have to take them everywhere with you, Piper. You can't just leave them." Theresa's chin juts out with the force of her words.

"You're going to be here. You watch him," Piper says in a small voice.

"Well, what if I wasn't?" Theresa's hands are planted firmly on her hips. Her voice is full of authority. "This is training. I I am training you. Remember what happened with me and Rocky? Do you want that to happen to am training you. Remember what happened with me and Rocky? Do you want that to happen to It It?"

"Theresa," Annie scolds. "Let Piper alone, okay?"

Piper stares hard at Theresa and then suddenly her face caves in. "Fine," she whispers, peering in at the baby. The baby's eyes are still closed. Piper glances anxiously at Annie. "The blanket too?" she whispers.

"Yep, you carry him in it," Annie explains.

Piper takes a deep breath, then wiggles her hands underneath the blanket, scooping the baby out of the basket. "I did it," she whispers, smiling a little. She carries him out the door, holding him away from her chest like a football.

"See, see what I did." Theresa pats herself proudly as I head for the door.

"Nat, really, you can stay."

"Nat home. I want to go home," Natalie says, stubbing her toe against the floor.

"Natalie, c'mon. Just stay here," I tell her.

"Nat home," she repeats.

"Okay," I concede. Natalie has been pretty cooperative today. I don't want to push it. "I'll send Jimmy up, then I'll take Nat home," I call back to Annie and Theresa.

"Why doesn't he just come in himself? Jimmy, c'mon,"" Theresa belts from Piper's room.

"Hey Jimmy!" I open the door into the now near blackness of the darkest September afternoon I've ever seen. Piper is right behind me, carrying her teeny-tiny brother, followed by Natalie.

"Light on, light on," Nat mutters. She snaps the switch at the front door back and forth, back and forth, but no light illuminates the gloomy outside.

"It's broken, Nat," I tell her.

The fog is blowing through like smoke. I can't even see the cell house, which is ten feet across the narrow Alcatraz road. The wind blows a tin can down the steep switchback. "Jimmy!" I shout. "They need my dad up here to fix these lights. Jim meeeeee!"

Natalie walks behind me. She isn't touching me but her presence is close, too close. That's Natalie for you. She's always too close or too far away.

"He's not here. You go back. I'm going to take Nat home," I tell Piper, changing course under Piper's window, when suddenly something clammy and cold closes around my neck, crushing my throat.

"Shut it," a voice whispers in my ear, "or you die."

THE GOOD PRISONER.

Same day-Friday, September 13, 1935

"Don't say a word, not one word," Buddy Boy drawls.

It's only Buddy.

Buddy won't let anything bad happen. Buddy likes us.

"Ease up." w.i.l.l.y One Arm's whiny voice.

The cold hand lessens its grip around my windpipe. I take a big breath and twist hard. The fingers burn into me like a taut rope. I can feel the tall hovering frame behind me, the whispery voice, the stale smell, and the three-fingered hand. It's Seven Fingers in a guard uniform complete down to his shiny black shoes.

Buddy Boy has one of Piper's hands twisted behind her back. Her other arm clutches the baby. Buddy Boy has a gun forced up into her back. Buddy? Our Our buddy. buddy.

He's dressed as a guard too. In front w.i.l.l.y One Arm, in a guard shirt and pants but no jacket, clutches Natalie in the crook of his one wiry arm. His gun is in his hand, covered by an undershirt. Nat's faced the other way as if she can't bear to look at w.i.l.l.y. Her head jerks in small agitated twitches, which startle Molly, who sits on w.i.l.l.y's shoulder.

"Quit it!" w.i.l.l.y whines. "Buddy! Make her stop."

"The warden's kid brought the baby." Seven Fingers's voice makes my skin crawl.

Natalie is shaking all over, trying to spin herself free of the arm around her throat, the gun jammed in her back. "Natalie doesn't like that. I don't I don't like that," Nat says.

Buddy smiles and smiles like he can't turn off his lips, but his eyes are like points on barbed wire. "What you bring the baby out for?" he growls at Piper.

"Just snap his neck." Seven Fingers's whispery Bull Durham breath in my ear.

"Buddy! Buddy! Tell him not to say that," I plead.

w.i.l.l.y One Arm tries to cross himself without loosening his grip on the still-twitching Natalie. "Can't do nothin' to that baby," he mutters.

I see a flash of the baby's eyes. He starts to cry.

Piper squirms like crazy, but Buddy has her tight. "Buddy, listen to me, Buddy." Piper's voice sounds sure and strong. "Don't do this. You're going to be in vaudeville, remember? You're good, Buddy. You are."

Buddy Boy slaps her head. "Shut it," Buddy says, his voice low and angry.

"I can cover for you." Piper's voice breaks. "If you let us go now."

Buddy whacks her again. "I said shut it!"

I lunge toward him, but Seven Fingers squeezes my neck with his arm and grinds the gun in my back.

The baby's cries are piercing now, as if he senses Piper's fear. "C'mon, Buddy," Piper wheedles. "We're friends, right?"

"Let me have that baby. I'll shut him up," Seven Fingers hisses.

"Can't kill a baby, Buddy!" w.i.l.l.y One Arm whines. "Not on the thirteenth."

Then I see something out of the corner of my eye. It's Jimmy, the real Jimmy, coming up the back way. I need to get his attention. But how? I think about throwing a rock, but I can't get near one with Seven Fingers's arm around my neck. Besides, then Seven Fingers will see him. I have to do something quickly before he-but it's too late. Jimmy's already inside.

Will Annie and Theresa suspect something when we don't come back? No, I just said I was taking Natalie home. They'll figure Piper went down to 64 building with me.

"Take the baby, do something with him," Buddy Boy tells w.i.l.l.y One Arm. Buddy's arm snakes around Natalie, and w.i.l.l.y lets go. Natalie squirms like a wild thing. Buddy Boy cranks his arm tighter around her neck.