Sutton: A Novel Part 14

Can we afford a motorcar? Bess asks.

Willie and Happy laugh. We can afford eight, Happy says.

They find a dealers.h.i.+p at the edge of town. Francis Motors. They pick out a brand-new Nash, open-topped, pine green, with s.h.i.+ning nickel headlamps and a spare tire covered in white leather. The salesman chortles when Willie says he'll take it. The salesman stops chortling when Willie counts out two thousand on the hood.

Son, I don't know-and I don't want to know.

They drive to the next town, shop for clothes. Four new suits for Willie and Happy, eight new dresses for Bess. They pa.s.s a store with a three-quarter-length squirrel coat in the window. Bess presses her face to the gla.s.s. Nine hundred, she says, marked down from fifteen hundred-that's a steal.

It's a steal all right, Willie says.

The coat is a drab gray, the color of rain clouds, of dishwater-of Mr. Endner's mustaches. But Bess is already inside the store, burying her face in the fluffy collar.

Standing before the astonished salesman Willie counts nine hundred on the counter. Don't bother wrapping it, Willie says, taking the receipt, which the prosecution will call Exhibit B, she'll wear it out.

They head northeast, to Ma.s.sachusetts, where the age of consent is younger. So they've heard. The motor-roads are bad. They're not motor-roads, but Indian trails. The Nash gets a flat. Happy wrestles with the jack and the spare. Bess wrestles with Willie. He catches her hands, tells her to be good. My being-good days are over, she says.

At dusk they stop at a four-room inn. There's still an hour of daylight. Bess wants to go right away to the nearest justice. Happy says he's worn out from changing the flat.

We'll go without you, Bess says.

Happy's offended. How you going to get married without the best man?

Willie hugs her. First thing in the morning, Bess. That way we'll be able to buy you a proper wedding dress.

Oh Willie. Yes.

Then, he thinks, Niagara Falls, and on to Canada, far beyond her father's reach. Willie's not sure what they'll do with Happy at that point.

They all turn in early. Big day tomorrow, they say at the top of the stairs. Willie falls asleep instantly. Hours later he wakes, Bess nudging him. Willie Boy, I can't sleep.

Yeah. Me either.

She laughs. He gropes for his suit on the floor, finds his cigarettes. Lights one, lies on his back, takes a long drag. Bess confiscates the cigarette, puffs it, hands it back. The room is ice cold. She spreads the squirrel coat across them as an extra blanket, lies on her side facing him. We're outlaws, she says.

I guess so.

Never thought I'd be an outlaw.

It wasn't in my plans either.

She jabs a finger into Willie's ribs. Stick em up.

Bess.

You heard me.

He puts the cigarette in his mouth, raises his hands.

Put the money in the bag, she says.

Say, you've got the act down pretty good.

Your money or your life?

Those are my options?

Yup.

My life.

She props herself on one elbow. Have you ever committed a crime, Willie?

He sighs. Not for a while.

What'd you do?

Eddie used to shoplift, break into stores. Happy and I would stand lookout sometimes.

She twirls his chest hair. Have you ever been with anyone else, Willie Boy?

He blows a smoke ring. It encircles her face like a cameo. I don't know.

Who? Who was she, Willie?

Ah, no one, Bess. She was just-no one.

Who, Willie?

If you must know. A wh.o.r.e lady. On Sands Street.

Sands Street?

Happy. He took me and Eddie.

Figures.

It wasn't anything.

What was she like?

Skip it.

Tell me.

She was nothing like you.

How did she do it?

Ah come on.

Tell me.

What's it matter?

How?

Bess.

Willie.

G.o.d you're stubborn. Your old man said you were willful.

You don't know the half. How?

On top mostly. There. You satisfied?

Bess takes the cigarette from his hand, puts it in the ashtray on the nightstand. She climbs on top, the squirrel coat around her shoulders. She takes him, guides him. He doesn't last. She falls on top of him, buries her face in his neck. He holds her tight. She's trembling, her hair is damp with sweat. This is what the whole world is after, he says, breathless. Yes, she says. This is why everyone's trying to beat everyone else, Bess, this is why people are ready to lie, cheat, kill. For this, Bess. This is what makes the world go round. This, Bess. This.

Sutton adjusts his gla.s.ses, brushes away the dirt on the cedar wall. Ah-I knew it'd still be here.

Reporter moves closer. What?

Bess's initials. I carved them. There.

Photographer moves closer. I don't see anything, brother.

Right there. S-E-E. Sarah Elizabeth Endner.

Photographer hands his Zippo to Reporter, takes a folding knife from his back pocket. He sc.r.a.pes at some dirt on the wall. There's nothing there, he says.

You're blind, Sutton says.

Photographer closes his knife. He fires the flash on his camera, illuminating the wall. Nothing, he says.

Get your eyes checked kid.

In the morning they go for a walk around town, wearing some of their new clothes. Bess has never looked more dazzling-black cloche hat, black silk skirt, white blouse with a chou of chiffon. She wears the squirrel coat like a tunic. They buy the papers, read them on a bench in the square. The headlines are grim. Half the country looking for work, the other half striking. Nearby, Boston cops are incensed about their wages. They're threatening a walkout.

Willie folds back the newspaper, smoothes the page. Says here the average cop earns a thousand bucks a year.

Happy pats the plaid grip. We could buy ourselves thirteen cops.

Bess points at a photo of Calvin Coolidge, the governor of Ma.s.sachusetts. What a sourpuss, she says.

Willie can't find one line in any of the papers about a robbery in Brooklyn. Which seems ominous. How could it not be in the papers?

I have no doubt, Bess says, that my father is doing all he can to keep it quiet.

He has that kind of influence?

She frowns. They look around the square, as if Bess's father might jump out from behind a tree or the Civil War cannon.

They spend the rest of the morning shopping for a wedding dress. Bess doesn't see anything she likes. She stomps her foot. The stores were so much better back in Poughkeepsie, she says.

Then we'll go back, Willie says. Whatever my Bess wants.

Willie drives. Bess sits in the pa.s.senger seat, Happy in the rumble. They pa.s.s through virgin forest filled with overnight snow. The ancient trees look as if they've been splashed with white paint. And yet the air is warm. February thaw, says the young attendant at the Esso station when they stop for gasoline.

Bess lights one of Willie's cigarettes. The attendant stares as if she's removed her blouse. Women don't smoke in public in 1919. Especially not in backwoods Ma.s.sachusetts. As they chug away from the Esso station, Bess gives the attendant something else to remember. She stands and arches her back and whips her hair in a circle. She looks like the hood ornament, Happy says.

That wind in my hair is heav-en, she shouts.

Willie yells over the engine: Your hair in that wind is heaven.

She leans over, kisses Willie. You two are making me sick, Happy says. She leans into the backseat, kisses Happy.

Bess, Willie says, why don't you take a turn.

Finally, she says.

They pull onto the shoulder and she and Willie trade places. He tries to explain the clutch but she says she's got it, she's got it. In no time she's smoothly s.h.i.+fting gears, though she's still gripping the wheel too tight. Relax, Happy says, relax. As she does, as she gains confidence, she goes faster and faster. Then nearly drives them into an oncoming logging truck.

They stop for lunch at a roadside diner. Deviled eggs, tomato soup, grilled cheese sandwiches. Pecan pie for dessert. The bill is three dollars. Willie leaves a five-dollar tip. The prosecution will call this Exhibit C.

In Poughkeepsie they buy Bess's wedding dress. Lace-embroidered, a bodice of silk and taffeta. Then they drop into the courthouse, inquire about the local marriage laws. The clerk says the age of consent in New York is the same as in Ma.s.sachusetts, fourteen for males, twelve for females. So there's no need to drive back to Ma.s.sachusetts. Except that Justice Symonds has left for the day. Family illness. He'll return in the morning. They check back in to the Nelson House, eat dinner in the formal dining room. Over two bottles of red wine they talk about Prohibition. By this time next year alcohol will be against the law. What a gyp, Bess says, just when I was developing a taste for it. Don't worry, Willie says, we'll be in Canada by then, you can get good and stiff every night.

They take their coffee into the hotel parlor. Happy wants to plink at his ukulele, but there are older people sitting around the fire, reading, playing checkers. He entertains Willie and Bess with jokes, stories, which make them laugh so hard that Bess gets the hiccups. When the old people leave at last, Happy tunes his ukulele. My dog has fleas, my dog has fleas. Bess asks him to play her favorite. She stands with her back to the fire and while Happy plays she serenades Willie.

You can't holler down our rainbarrel You can't climb our apple tree I don't wanna play in your yard If you won't be good to me She's wearing another of her new dresses, a gray-green tweed, and the long skirt swishes as she sways to the music. Willie wants to watch her, listen to her, forever, but she makes him get up, dance. Happy plays fast numbers and she teaches Willie the latest steps, including something called the Bunny Hug, a kind of tango that started in Paris. Willie twirls her around the parlor, his head whirling, Happy strumming, the bellman laughing. They ask the bellman to throw more logs on the fire. They order hot toddies. Then more hot toddies. Bess can't dance anymore. She can't stand. Uh-oh, she says-someone had too many tooodies. Happy stops playing. He helps Willie carry Bess up the carpeted stairs to the suite. She smells of b.u.t.tered rum and tweed and youth. Happy and Willie drop her on the bed. Happy laughs. Willie puts a finger to his lips, steers him into the hall.

Happy, leaning against the doorframe. So how's about letting me have a turn?

Willie stares. What?

You know. Let old Happy have some fun.

Happy, what the?

She won't even know the difference.

I'm getting married to her in the morning.

That's tomorrow. This is today.

No, Happy. This isn't just some-I love her.

Of course you love her. Everybody loves her. The bellman loves her. Christ, look at her.