Sutton: A Novel Part 44

He lights a Chesterfield, looks at the tabletop. He straightens the cutlery. He takes a sip of black coffee. Nods.

Do you hurt anybody?

He doesn't answer.

She makes two fists, holds them before his face. Do you make harm on anybody?

I go out of my way not to.

You promise?

Yeah.

Fine, she says. Is all that matter to me.

Willie doesn't have a phone, and neither does Margaret, so they arrange their dates well in advance. They only go out late, very late, when there's less chance of Willie being spotted, which suits Margaret. She already lives in a nighttime world. She comes to Willie's room, or else he picks her up from her room at the other end of Brooklyn, and they hit an all-night diner, a jazz club, a movie theater.

They both love movies. Willie feels safest when slouched low in a dark theater, his face in a bag of popcorn, and Margaret feels safest when she can lose herself in a soaring love story. There are many to choose from in 1951. Together they see A Streetcar Named Desire, An American in Paris, The African Queen. Margaret adores The African Queen. As the music rises and the credits roll, as the men and women in the theater crush their cigarettes under their heels and hurry toward the exit, Margaret touches Willie's arm.

Please, she says.

He looks at her, smiles, eases back into his seat. Sure, he says. I guess I can take another trip down that river with Bogie and Kate.

After the second show they go for coffee. Margaret can't stop talking about the movie. We are like them, she says.

Who?

Humphrey Bogie and Kathy Hepburns.

Willie looks around the diner, to make sure no one is listening. She chides him. No one care my thoughts about Humphrey Bogie, she says.

Sorry, Willie says. Force of habit. You were saying.

They on their leaky boat, we on ours.

I see. Yeah.

Is them against the world. Is us too, Julius.

Which one of us is Bogie?

She laughs, reaches across the table, takes his hand. You look like Bogie.

Willie twitches his lips, rolls his cigarette. Here's looking at you kid.

Her eyes widen. Julius, you just like him. You should be an actor.

Nah.

What this means, she asks-here is looking at you?

Oh, he says. It's an expression.

But what it means?

It means-here's to you.

She squints.

It means cheers, Willie says. Sort of a toast. Like L'chaim!

And what it means when Bogie says, Let us go while the going is good.

Another expression. Figure of speech.

But what it means?

It means the bad guys are coming, the bad guys are about to kick in the door, let's get out of here.

But this expression-I don't understand.

It just means-now.

Then why he does not say now? It take less time to say now. If he want to go when the good is going- Going is good.

-then why he waste time with all these words? While he is so busy saying let us go now, the bad guys can be coming.

Willie starts to laugh. A piece of pie goes down the wrong pipe. He coughs, laughs harder. His eyes fill with tears. Now Margaret laughs, and soon they're both pointing at each other, wiping their eyes with paper napkins.

Ah Margaret, I haven't laughed in I don't know how long.

The waitress behind the counter stares.

The waitress is looking, Willie whispers.

Here's looking at her, Margaret says.

They're going to ask us to leave.

While the going is good.

After their dates Margaret usually spends the night at Dean Street. She wakes before dawn, dresses quickly in the half-light, kisses Willie goodbye. One morning he tells her not to go. She has no choice, she says, she has to work. He tells her no, wait, he has something for her. While she perches on his club chair he gets out of bed and fumbles in his suit, which hangs neatly from the top drawer of the dresser. He pulls out a roll of cash wrapped in a rubber band. The nick from his last bank job with Mad Dog. He hands it to Margaret.

What this is?

Gift.

Why gift?

Why what?

Gift for who? For you or me?

What's that supposed to mean?

Are you giving me? Or buying me?

For Pete's sake, I just want you to take it easy, find another job.

Is no other jobs for me. You know this, Julius. Is no way out.

There's always a way out, Margaret.

Why you doing this?

I want you to be around more. Spend more time with me. Is that so bad?

Why?

Say, what kind of crazy third degree is this?

People do not just help other people for no reason.

Okay. You want a reason? I like you.

She holds up the roll of money. What this make us?

I don't think there's a word for us, Margaret.

She thinks. She wraps both hands around the money.

I just want you to be happy, Margaret.

Is very kind. Thank you, Julius.

At Willie's request, Mad Dog pays a visit to Margaret's boss and delivers her resignation, effective immediately. Now, while Willie is off planning the next bank job with Mad Dog, Margaret is arranging fresh flowers in his room, shopping for his books, combing the newspapers for jazz concerts and movies they might like.

Some nights, if Willie is too tired, if he has a job coming up, he and Margaret heat some soup, listen to the radio. She likes him to read to her. He teaches her Tennyson. Come into the garden, Maud. He replaces Maud with Margaret. He teaches her Pound. Now you will come out of a confusion of people. She loves this line, says it over and over, though she's not sure what it means.

Poetry doesn't have to mean anything, he says.

So poetry is like Humphrey Bogie.

Well-no. It's just that sometimes a line of poetry is beautiful, that's all. And the beauty is the meaning. Or it's all the meaning you need.

I like things that have meaning.

I think people care too much about meaning. Meaning is a pipe dream. A grift. I like things that are beautiful. That's why I like you.

She smiles, presses her cheek to his.

Best of all Margaret enjoys stretching out on Willie's bed and wrapping an arm across her eyes while he sits in his chair and reads the newspapers aloud. They have a similar slant on the world, a kindred sense of good guys and bad. She hisses when he reads about Joseph McCarthy, smiles when he reads about Gandhi.

Before they both get under the covers and turn out the lights she reads their horoscopes. Her mother was fascinated by astrology. What is your birth date, Julius?

June 30.

Uh-oh. Cancer.

That bad?

Same as me. We the only sign ruled by the moon.

What's that mean?

We moody, sensitive, emotional.

That's the bunk.

Is true. You do not know yourself.

What makes you say that?

No one do.

No one knows me, or no one knows themselves?

No one knows nothing about no one.

For Willie's fiftieth birthday Margaret buys him a new fedora. For Margaret's twenty-seventh birthday Willie buys her a charm bracelet, a silk scarf, a black-and-white bonnet. Though it cost the least-thirteen dollars at Saks-she likes the bonnet best.

You'd think I bought you a mink coat, he says.

I like this better. Nothing is hurt for this.

He thinks of the money he used to buy that hat, the bank he robbed to get it. One of the tellers sobbed with fear the whole time he and Mad Dog were cleaning out the safe. He puts the thought from his mind as Margaret sets the hat on her head like a diamond tiara. She glides around Willie's room wearing nothing else. He tells her that her body is remarkable.

I know.

He laughs. He calls her his Irish Cleopatra. Get it? he says. Clee O'Patra?

She doesn't get it, and he can't explain.

Late on the Fourth of July, very late, it's too hot to sit in the room on Dean Street. It's too hot to sit anywhere. Willie takes Margaret for a ride on the ferry. They stand on the deck, enjoying the breeze, smelling the water, listening to the last fireworks crackling onsh.o.r.e. Margaret is happy. Willie is content. Until the Statue of Liberty comes into view. The seven rays of the statue's crown, representing the seven continents, look exactly like the seven cellblocks of Eastern State and the Burg-he never noticed until now. How is it that every time he looks at this statue he sees something he didn't see before?

Margaret puts an arm around his shoulders. You are having unhappy thoughts, Julius.

I am.