Sutton: A Novel Part 16

Mm hm.

Mr. Sutton. We made a deal.

Deal. Yeah.

Readers want to know what you have to say about Schuster.

He was a nice kid who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Which can also be said of the rest of us. What else is there to say?

Any idea who might have killed him?

Sutton stands, glowers at Reporter. Chronological order kid.

But Mr. Sutton- Did you ever notice, kid, that the words obit and orbit are separated by one little letter?

Down to his last two dollars, Willie walks into the recruiting center in Times Square. A burly sergeant tells him to have a seat, hands him some forms, asks how many chin-ups he can do.

Plenty, Willie says.

Push-ups?

Stand back, Willie says, spitting on his palms, falling to his knees.

The sergeant asks casually if Willie has a criminal record. Willie, still on his knees, looks off through the gla.s.s door at all the people bustling back and forth through Times Square.

Sorry, the sergeant says, taking back the forms. Uncle Sam likes em squeaky clean.

Eddie and Happy tell him to wise up. He can have pockets full of jack by this time tomorrow.

Quit bein such a G.o.dd.a.m.n Boy Scout, Eddie says.

Do you have any idea how much we're making? Happy says.

Before I peddle poison, Willie says, I'll starve.

From the looks of you, Happy says, that should be about two days.

Then, May 1921. An uncomfortably warm day. Willie is in his room, lying on his bed, reading the sports pages. He's two months behind on the rent. The door bursts open and he reaches for a bat to fend off the landlord, who's barged in before. But it's Eddie, out of breath. Sutty, grab your hat-Happy just got pinched.

s.h.i.t. The beer truck?

The truck, yeah. And a.s.sault.

Who'd he a.s.sault?

n.o.body. The cops say he mugged some guy in an alley, hit him over the head and took his billfold, but it's a dirty lie.

In the cab to the station house, Eddie explains. The cops saw an opportunity. They figured they could use Happy to clear an old case off the books, and they knew he was good for some headlines, because of the Endner case.

So what can we do, Willie says.

Sometimes, Eddie says, if you just show up at the cop house, the cops know the prisoner has friends. He's not a n.o.body. It keeps them from beating him too bad.

Not this time. The cops nearly beat Happy to death. They keep beating him until he confesses to the a.s.sault, and another one to boot. Weeks later, in the same courthouse where Willie and Happy were tried for kidnapping Bess, a judge sends Happy to prison for five years. Willie and Eddie are in the front row. Happy gives them half a wave as he's led from the courtroom in chains.

Eddie taps Willie on the shoulder. Let's go, Sutty.

Yeah, Willie says, but he doesn't move. He stares at the witness chair. He feels terrible for Happy, and partly responsible, but mainly he can't stop thinking of the gray dress with the blue collar and blue cuffs. And the matching blue purse. She held it like a steering wheel.

They drive half a mile, turn onto the Brooklyn Bridge. Sutton still doesn't like the view from this bridge. He sits in the exact middle of the seat, where he can't see the river below, and where much of the skyline is obscured by the heads of Reporter and Photographer. He does what he often does when he's somewhere he doesn't want to be. He recites a poem.

He lunged up Bowery way while the dawn was putting the Statue of Liberty out-that torch of hers you know.

What's that, Mr. Sutton?

Hart Crane. The Bridge.

What's it mean?

Search me.

Photographer aligns Willie in the rearview. You know any Beats?

What am I, a jukebox?

The Beats are where it's at, brother. I shot Ginsberg once. Meditating.

Prison is where you promise yourself the right to live. That's Kerouac-he Beat enough for you?

Photographer nods. Kerouac is cool, he says.

Sutton leans sideways, sneaks a quick look at the city, leans back. Grunts. New York, he says. No matter how many times you see it, you never quite get over how much it doesn't f.u.c.kin need you. Doesn't care if you live or die, stay or go. But that-that indifference, I guess you'd call it-that's half of what makes the town so G.o.dd.a.m.n beautiful.

Reporter turns to look back at Sutton. He opens his mouth, closes it.

Sutton chuckles. You got something on your mind kid? Out with it.

I just have to say, Mr. Sutton, you are nothing like what I expected.

Photographer snorts. Amen to that, brother.

What did you expect?

You just don't seem-like a bank robber. No offense.

None taken, Sutton says.

I didn't expect you to be quite so-romantic, Mr. Sutton. I mean, poetry? Socrates? And so nostalgic-the tears? Honestly, it's just hard to imagine you with a gun, robbing banks, terrorizing an entire city.

At the center of the bridge they hit a wall of traffic. Photographer turns to Reporter: Maybe you picked up the wrong guy in Buffalo last night. Did you ask this joker in the backseat for his ID?

They both laugh.

Sutton watches a cloud sail across the bridge. He puts on his gla.s.ses, takes them off, plays with the Scotch tape that holds them together. He looks down. He opens Photographer's cloth purse. Malcolm X, Armies, baggie, billfold. He opens the camera bag. He takes out two telephoto lenses. Long sleek black metal-he holds one in each hand, tests their weight, then presses one to the back of Reporter's skull, the other to Photographer's.

OKAY, YOU MOTHERf.u.c.kERS, DO WHAT I SAY AND NO ONE GETS HURT. PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE MOTHERf.u.c.kIN AIR!.

Reporter raises his hands. Photographer lets go of the wheel as if it's scalding. The Polara swerves. Car horns blare from the next lane.

Holy s.h.i.t, Reporter says.

Put the MONEY in the f.u.c.kIN bag!

WHAT money? Photographer says. WHAT bag?

Holy s.h.i.t, Reporter says again.

Sutton laughs. Reporter and Photographer turn and see the lenses. Reporter puts a hand over his mouth. Photographer grabs the wheel.

Funny, Photographer says. Hilarious.

Mr. Sutton, was that really necessary?

You said you couldn't imagine, Sutton says, dropping the lenses. Now you can imagine.

Hours after Happy's trial, Willie tells Eddie he needs to be alone. He walks the length of Brooklyn, walks through Prospect Park, walks all night until he can't walk another step, then walks some more. As the sun oozes above the river he finds himself walking down Sands Street. Jeepers, Wingy says, opening her bedroom door. Last I heard, you were a wanted man.

You heard wrong. No one wants Willie.

I'll show you want. Buy an hour?

I'll pay for the whole morning.

Big shot.

Och, it's Eddie's money.

All the same, I don't think I can go all morning, sugar lump.

Nah, nothing like that. I just need someone to talk to. I need a friend, Wingy.

She puts her one hand on her hip, gives her head a sympathetic tilt. Come on in, Willie.

They lie on her bed, Wingy propped against the headboard, Willie against the footboard.

Wingy, did you ever wish you could just start your life over?

You and your questions. Let's see. About thirty times a day.

That's my dream.

That's everybody's dream, Willie.

How do you know?

People tell me their dreams.

How come no one ever does it?

It's quite a trick. You figure out how to manage it, you let me know.

Eddie says the whole thing's rigged.

Eddie's a wise man.

I should've listened.

To who.

To him. To anybody. Except myself.

You've always been c.o.c.keyed.

I have?

Sure. Remember when you worked at the bank? You used to tell me how wonderful it all was, how you were going to be the bank president one day. The president for Pete's sake. You were a dreamer, Willie. You were like some potato-eater fresh off the boat.

She stands, wraps herself in a sheet, holds forth her arm. The laaand of lib-er-tee, she says in an operatic voice. Send me your huddled messes and misses and a.s.ses.

Willie laughs, rolls onto his side. I always wanted to go up inside her, he says.

Wingy laughs, lies down beside him. The Fels smell-still. He takes her arm, wraps it around himself. They both fall asleep laughing.

In the morning he rides the trolley to Thirteenth Street. It's just his parents now. His brothers have left the city, gone out west. Older Sister is married, Daddo has pa.s.sed. Willie sees the cane in the corner, gives the empty rocking chair a push. House feels strange without the old chatterbox, he says. Mother doesn't answer. She sits at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, refusing to make eye contact. Father stands behind her, saying nothing loudly. They've both read about Happy in the papers. They a.s.sume Willie is mixed up in it somehow.

That Happy business had nothing to do with me, Willie says.

They don't answer.

You know me, Willie says. You know I'd never hit a guy on the head and take his billfold.

Know you, Mother says. Know you? We don't have the slightest idea who you are.

Father nods, grinds his jaw.

How many times can I apologize for the Endner thing, Willie says.

Not enough, Mother says. And isn't that the problem.