Sutton: A Novel Part 31

Photographer looks hurt. He hands his camera to Reporter, holds out his wrists. Sutton twirls a finger. Nah kid, turn around. Hands behind your back.

Photographer turns and Sutton cuffs his wrists. Three police officers slow their walk, watching the old man in the fur-collared trench coat slapping fur-lined handcuffs on the hippie in the buckskin jacket. And doesn't that old man look a lot like-Willie Sutton?

Cuffed, Photographer turns again. Sutton throws a crisp right at his midsection, stopping his fist an inch from Photographer's belt buckle. Photographer flinches, jumps back. Sutton smiles.

Now kid imagine that punch landed. Imagine another one landing, and another, and fifty more. You can't breathe. You're coughing blood. After a hundred punches to the breadbasket you're ready to rat out your mom and dad and all the angels in heaven.

He throws a flurry of shadow punches, jab, feint, jab, each one stopping just short of Photographer's belt buckle or face. Photographer flinches at each one. Then Sutton steps off the curb, into the street, bent into a fighter's crouch. He throws bigger shadow punches at police headquarters. Right cross. Left. Uppercut. Uppercut. Right hook.

I DIDN'T CRACK, DID I, YOU MOTHERf.u.c.kERS?

Oh no, Reporter says.

I TOOK YOUR BEST SHOT, DIDN'T I, COPPERS?

Reporter puts his arms around Sutton, but Sutton wriggles loose, keeps shouting. AND NOW HERE I AM! I'M BACK. I'M STILL STANDING. AND WHERE THE f.u.c.k ARE ALL OF YOU? HUH? WHERE?

For the love of G.o.d, Mr. Sutton, please.

Willie opens one eye. He's lying on the floor of a holding cell. He sees, just inside the cell door, a tin cup of water. It smells like p.i.s.s but he doesn't care. He takes a sip, or tries to. His throat is closed, his Adam's apple is bruised, enlarged. There's also a loud ringing in his ears. His eardrum is shattered. Now, above the ringing he hears-sobbing? He peers around the cell, through the bars, into a hall lit by one bare bulb. Across the hall, leaning against the door of another cell, is Marcus. Poor Marcus. Willie crawls to his cell door, presses his face against the bars. Marcus, he whispers. Hey kid what'd they do to you? You okay? Hey Marcus-the worst is over, I think.

Willie sees Marcus's waterbug eyes. They look different. They've stopped-moving? And they're locked on Willie. Now Willie notices that Marcus isn't b.l.o.o.d.y. Marcus isn't bruised. Marcus doesn't have a mark on him. Through the pain, though the ringing in Willie's ears, comes the revelation: Marcus did all that talking without suffering a single blow.

And he's still talking.

Willie I didn't know I didn't know if I'd known what they were going to do I wouldn't have said a word but they said they wouldn't hurt you they said it was the only way out Willie I'm so sorry I just couldn't face it they told me what they were going to do to me and I just couldn't- Willie tests the hinges of his jaw. He spits up a b.l.o.o.d.y clump of something, which looks like an internal organ, and drags himself away from the door to the far corner of the cell. Curling into a ball he speaks three words, the last he'll ever speak to John Marcus Ba.s.sett.

You f.u.c.kin rat.

Now there are five cops outside police headquarters, watching a Boy Scout in a Brooks Brothers suit drag the old man who looks like Willie Sutton up the street as the handcuffed and buckskinned hippie follows.

You boys don't know, Sutton says, breathing hard. You just don't know. Until you're in that room, at the mercy of a half dozen sluggers with badges, you can't know. I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of. But the way I held up under that-I'm still proud. It might have been my finest hour.

He turns, gets in one more shout at the building. SEE YOU ROUND, RAT b.a.s.t.a.r.dS.

Mr. Sutton, I'm begging you.

They reach the Polara. Reporter guides Sutton into the backseat, as if placing him under arrest. He slams the door. Let's get out of here, he says to Photographer.

Get these cuffs off me, Photographer says.

I don't have the key.

Get it from Willie.

Let's get out of here first.

How am I supposed to drive? Photographer says.

I'll drive, Reporter says. Give me the keys.

They're in my pocket.

Reporter fishes the keys out of the buckskin jacket. He helps Photographer into the pa.s.senger seat, then runs around and gets in on the driver's side.

As they speed away Photographer wriggles his body to face Sutton in the backseat. Willie, man, unlock these handcuffs-they're cutting off my circulation.

Sutton, still breathing hard, stares out the window, not answering.

Willie, brother, come on. I'm starting to feel-panicky.

Is that a fact kid?

Willie.

How you enjoying the Willie Sutton Experience so far?

Photographer turns to Reporter. Tell him to uncuff me.

Right, because he does everything I say.

My trial was a joke, Sutton is saying. How do you not let in pictures of my caved-in face, my broken bones? My lawyer was all set to appeal, but after I was sentenced he got pinched himself.

What? Your lawyer was arrested, Mr. Sutton?

Albert Vitale. He was a former judge-it came out that he took a bribe while he was on the bench. From Arnold Rothstein.

The guy who fixed the 1919 World Series?

The same. They were tight. Guess who Rothstein's brother was married to? Mr. Untermyer's brother's granddaughter.

Willie, the cuffs. Please, brother.

What happened to Marcus, Mr. Sutton? Did they beat him too?

Nah. He was too busy talking for them to beat him. He thought if he ratted me out they'd go easy on him, but they still sent him away for twenty-five years. They turned him loose in '51 and he died a few months later. The Times said he had two dollars and eighty-one cents to his name. He was found in a flop. Slumped over a typewriter. f.u.c.kin rat.

Willie on the bus to Sing Sing. February 1932. He can still hear the words of the judge, echoing off the marble pillars and the moon-pale walls of the courtroom.

Sutton, you are a type of criminal whose misdeeds have shocked the American people. You are regarded by the police of New York as one of the most dangerous men ever to prowl our streets. In point of daring, defiance of law, absolute disregard of property and life, your crimes are among the most brazen ever committed in this city. When we read about holdups of this kind in the Old West, we marvel. We say such crimes could no longer exist. But you are the equal of those bygone desperadoes. It is extremely hard for a New York judge to see before him a New York boy, raised in an environment that should have made you good rather than bad. But my duty is clear. Though you are only thirty, I must sentence you to a period of time greater than you are years of age.

Fifty years.

The bus pulls through the front gate of Sing Sing. Sutton looks over the grounds. The first thing he notices is the rose gardens. They're gone. And that's just one of fifty changes. Lawes has rebuilt the prison from bottom to top. He's turned it into a small city, with new industrial workshops, a new five-story cellblock, a new twenty-five-foot wall.

Of course some things are the same. As guards lead Willie into his office, Lawes beams. Welcome back, a.s.shole.

Willie asks about the gardens.

We installed new plumbing. The flowers had to go.

Must have killed Chapin to see his roses bulldozed.

It did. We planted him last year.

Several more things are just as Willie remembers. The food, for instance. Cornmeal for breakfast, beans for lunch, a gristly disc of pork for dinner. It's not just the same menu, Willie suspects it might be the same actual food from seven years ago.

Lawes a.s.signs Willie to the shoe shop, mending soles. Fifty years, he thinks. Marching up and down the hill from the shoe shop to the dining room, marching back to his cell at the end of another long dismal day, Willie says over and over and over: Fifty years. With no Chapin, no gardens, no Eddie, no end point, it's more than he can fathom. More than he can do.

He studies the new layout of the prison, making a mental map. Eight portals stand between him and the outside. His cell door is one. Then a flight of stairs and a locked wooden door. Then a long hall and a padlocked metal gate. Then another hall and another locked wooden door. Then another padlocked gate. Then the dining room and another locked wooden door. Then a final padlocked gate. Then the cellar, on the far side of which is a giant locked steel door leading to the yard.

Even if Willie could somehow get through all eight portals, he'd then be at the outer wall. How do you climb a twenty-five-foot wall with guards standing along the top holding Thompsons?

Two months pa.s.s as Willie wrestles with this question.

One day a trusty lets slip to Willie that a single guard tower is unmanned overnight. This makes no sense to Willie. Until it makes perfect sense. The papers are filled with stories about Lawes's lavish remodeling. Now, the Great Depression worsening by the day, Lawes must need to cut costs. Why pay guards to sit in each tower, all night, when you've spent millions to build an escape-proof cellblock?

So Willie now thinks he knows the weakest point in the wall. But he's still faced with the problem of how to scale it. And he still hasn't solved the problem of how to get there from his cell. The eight portals. Another four months pa.s.s as he struggles with these problems.

In the late summer of 1932, sitting in the yard and mourning the absent roses, Willie looks up and sees Johnny Egan coming from the machine shop. Dark, handsome, Egan looks a bit like Happy, though he acts a bit like Marcus. Willie doesn't let himself dwell on this, however, because Egan's a trusty, meaning he's free to roam the prison grounds, free to flit in and out of the machine shops, which Willie now realizes are stocked with tools.

During yardout Egan likes to play handball. So Willie sets about learning the game. He becomes good enough to team up with Egan in prison tourneys. He gains Egan's respect, loyalty, plays doubles with him in the 1932 Sing Sing Champions.h.i.+ps. After one come-from-behind victory Willie wraps a sweaty arm around Egan's neck and says he might need a few things one day. He whispers a possible shopping list.

You cras.h.i.+ng out? Egan whispers.

Willie doesn't answer.

Count me in, Egan says.

I work alone kid.

I'm in-or no help.

There's no sense arguing. Even if Egan could get the items on Willie's shopping list, the tools needed to get through the eight portals, Willie still can't imagine how to scale that wall.

It's Egan who finds a way. In November 1932, making his rounds, Egan pa.s.ses through the cellar below the dining room and sees two wooden ladders behind some pallets. Each ladder is twelve feet long, he tells Willie. Not long enough to reach the top of the wall.

Unless taped together, Willie says.

So there it is. The plan is clear, and the time is now. Who knows how long those ladders will be there? Willie gives Egan his shopping list. For the doors and gates he'll need a torque wrench, hook pick, s.h.i.+m. For the bars of his cell door he'll need a small hacksaw.

I'm in, Egan says. Right?

Willie shakes his head.

I'm in, Egan says, or no dice.

Willie sighs. Fine.

The next day, as Willie and Egan practice their forehands, Egan slips Willie the picklocks and hacksaw and s.h.i.+m. Willie tucks them under his s.h.i.+rt, inside his waistband. Playing handball with tools inside his waistband-not easy. The hacksaw in particular cuts up Willie's back.

Later, after lights-out, he runs the hacksaw along a lower bar of his cell door. It cuts the bar as easily as it cut his back. He saws clean through, knocks the bar out, and props the bar back in place with chewing gum. The next morning at breakfast he tells Egan to get himself a hacksaw, do the same thing to one bar of his cell, then wait.

Willie knows he can pick the locks on all eight portals. He's that good. Except the last one. That big steel door in the cellar, leading to the yard, is beyond his talents, beyond anything Doc taught him. For that one he'll need a key. He gets a lifer to slip the master key off the head keeper's chain, while the keeper is in the showers, and make a wax impression. In exchange Willie promises that, when he's out, he'll drop a wad of cash on the lifer's family. Willie still has jars of money buried all over the city.

Using the wax impression Egan is able to sneak into a machine shop and cut a crude copy.

At the start of December Willie and Egan stand on the handball court, pretending to play, but in fact discussing what day would be best for a crash-out. Willie wants to go Tuesday, December 13, but Egan shakes his head. Thirteen is his unlucky number. All the bad things in Egan's life, including most of his arrests, have happened on the thirteenth of the month.

Fine, Willie says. The twelfth.

Egan smiles, serves a bullet into the wall. Willie dives to return the serve, falls, reopens the cuts on his back.

When the chosen day comes, Willie and Egan sit side by side at lunch, going over the plan one last time. Willie whispers that they'll have to split up soon after the crash-out. Egan says that won't be a problem. He has a brother on the West Side of Manhattan who can hide him.

They exchange a look. Egan nods. Willie nods. See you tonight kid.

The day pa.s.ses like a decade. Willie can't focus on his work. He almost sews a sole to his finger. At last, after dinner, back in his cell, he lies down on his cot and tries to slow his heart. It's punching him in the throat. His heart knows-if he and Egan make one mistake, catch one bad break, the guards will mow them down, with pleasure. He pictures the newspaper headlines, writes the stories in his mind. From under his pillow he pulls out a letter from Eddie, who's finally been released from Dannemora. Looking for jobs, Sutty. None to be had. People are still talking about you and Marcus. Good for you kid.

The keeper on Willie's tier pa.s.ses the cell door. He stops. You feelin okay, Sutton?

Yes sir.

You're sweatin.

Touch of the grippe. I guess. Sir.

Hm.

They study each other.

What's that on your s.h.i.+rt?

My s.h.i.+rt sir?

Those red marks.

Where sir?

There. On your side. And back. Looks like blood.

Oh. Cut myself playing handball sir.

Handball?

Yeah. Sir.

Hm.