Sutton: A Novel Part 33

Willie, still staring straight ahead, thinks. Then nods. Egan gets back in the car.

Willie speeds away.

Guess you're stuck with me, Egan says.

You must have other family, Egan. How about your parents?

Ma died giving birth to me.

Uh-huh. Dad?

Whoever he was, he ran off years ago.

Any more siblings?

Five brothers.

Any of them local?

Let's see. There's Charlie. He's a b.u.m, but he'll take me in. Bang a right at the corner.

Charlie the b.u.m meets them at the curb. Clearly he's had a phone call from the previous brother. He holds out his hand like a traffic cop. He's not accepting delivery either. He turns the hand over, palm to the sky. He's a little short of cash and he's hoping Willie Sutton, the famous bank robber, can float him a loan. Or else he'll be forced to call the cops. Now. Willie gives him five hundred bucks, speeds away.

Egan cradles his head. Willie considers slowing the car, kicking Egan out. But he can't help feeling for a guy shunned by his brothers. Name another brother, Willie says.

Egan thinks. Sean, he says. Yeah. Sean. He's probably forgiven me for that thing that time.

Sean lives on the other side of town. Willie cuts through Central Park, past a large Hooverville. More than a tent city, it's a tent metropolis, with streets, neighborhoods, dogs, cats. And it's not just hoboes living in this Hooverville. There are whole families. Good families. Willie brakes. He and Egan both stare. f.u.c.kin Hoover, Willie says.

Yeah, Egan says.

Pig-face. p.a.w.n of Rockefeller. Lackey to all those Wall Street boys. Did you know old Herbert was a millionaire before he was thirty?

Really? Is that a fact? Herbert Who?

They come at last to Sean's house, a handsome brownstone. Sparkling clean front stoop, trim red window boxes with orange geraniums surviving the winter. Sean, apparently, is the most successful of the Egans. This time Willie and Egan are met at the curb by Sean's wife. She says she'd sooner take in a wild dog, oozing with rabies, before she'd take in this sorry excuse for a brother-in-law.

She screams at Willie: He was fine where he was. We had a s.h.i.+ndig the night he got convicted. Why did you help him break out?

He helped me.

And why is he bald?

It's a long story.

Well you're stuck with him. May G.o.d have mercy on you.

Sutton stands outside the former location of Chateau Madrid, now an Indian restaurant. What's that smell? he says.

Curry, Photographer says, rummaging in his cloth purse. And vomit.

Amazing, Sutton says, how certain parts of New York smell just like prison.

And what's the significance of this little corner of heaven, Willie?

Let's go in that bar and I'll tell you.

Reporter and Photographer look. A bar they hadn't noticed.

Jimmy's? Oh, Mr. Sutton, that place looks-awful.

It's seen better days. But I told you, Willie needs a hair of the dog and this joint meets my number one requirement for a bar.

What's that?

It's open.

Willie pulls into the alley behind Chateau Madrid. He and Egan slip through a side door, through the kitchen, into a dark barroom. A hanging lamp glows above the bar, where a bartender in a white s.h.i.+rt, with green sleeve garters, leans over a newspaper.

Willie clears his throat. The bartender looks up.

I'd like to see Dutch Schultz, Willie says.

He's out.

Bo Weinberg then?

Bo know you?

No.

Then he's out too.

I'm Willie Sutton.

Yeah right.

Willie steps into the light, pulling Egan by the elbow. The bartender looks at them, then at the front page. Then again at them. His eyes grow wide-a blond Willie Sutton and a bald Johnny Egan. Well if that don't beat all, he says.

Bartender slips through a hidden door in the bar back and returns moments later with Bo. Willie has never met Bo, but he's seen his mug shot in the papers many times and he knows the man's reputation. The most feared killer in New York. Bo took out Legs Diamond just last year.

What mug shots and reputation don't convey, can't convey, is Bo's size. Every bit of Bo is big. His head, his hands, his lips-even his chin is an overgrown bulb of flesh. Willie can't imagine how he shaves that thing. Bo motions for Willie to come back to the office. Willie feels his feet moving involuntarily. He tells Egan to stay.

The office is the size of a corner booth at the Silver Slipper. A large English desk barely leaves room for a hat rack and filing cabinet. Bo now sits behind the desk. You take a big chance, he says. Coming here. Heart of midtown. Some b.a.l.l.s.

Dutch once said I should look him up if I'm ever in trouble. I'm in trouble.

So I hear. What do you need? Money?

No.

What then?

I need you to take something off my hands. Something that's slowing me down.

Willie jerks his head toward the barroom. Bo's eyebrows rise. You're joking.

I wish I was. He's a drunkard and possibly a mental case. His family wants no part of him and I'm starting to understand why.

This is your sales pitch?

I can't take him with me, but I can't leave him on the street. I need to deposit him with someone I can trust, someone who'll keep an eye on him, give him a job, a meal, maybe a smack when he needs it.

Why not ask for the moon?

I don't need the moon. I need this.

Bo turns in his chair, stares at a wall calendar. The last page of 1932. It's curled up at the corner.

Dutch has friends on the police force, you know.

I've heard.

Some of these friends-they work at 240 Centre.

Oh?

One night Dutch and I were making our monthly payoffs, and these friends mentioned that they happened to be at Centre Street when none other than Willie Sutton was brought in. What a pounding this Sutton took, these friends tell us-anyone else would have ratted out Dutch. Now these friends are no fans of Willie Sutton. These friends are on the job and do not like people impersonating cops. Still, after witnessing this beating, and briefly partic.i.p.ating in it, these friends spoke of Sutton with what can only be called respect.

Willie's eyes water with pride. He worries that his makeup will run.

Bo takes a deep breath, lets it out fast as if blowing out a candle. Leave the kid, he says. Be on your way. Debts are debts and Dutch always pays his.

Willie nods, turns to go.

But Sutton.

Willie stops.

Let this be h.e.l.lo and goodbye.

Sutton looks down the barroom. Ten stools with red leatherette tops, two of them occupied by bearded men, their arms folded on the bar, their heads on their arms. They look as if they're playing hide-and-seek. The bartender, apparently, is It. He hides at the far end of the bar, reading the newspaper. He looks up, sees Sutton and Reporter and Photographer, frowns. He slides down the bar, past the sleeping regulars, sets out three napkins. What'll you have?

Jameson, Sutton says. Neat.

Nothing for me, Reporter says.

I'd love a Jameson, says Photographer, still rubbing his wrists. He sets his cloth purse on the bar.

Sutton looks down the bar at the sleeping men. I remember, he says, in the Depression of '14, thousands of men with no jobs, no homes, moved into saloons. The saloon owners begged the cops to roust them, but the cops wouldn't. Better the saloons, cops figured, than the streets.

Reporter opens his notebook, uncaps his pen. Um, Mr. Sutton, back to the escape. You and Egan went to the Sundowner, then came here-or near here. Why?

I had to get clear of Egan. He was dead weight, slowing me down. So I dropped him with Bo Weinberg, right-hand man of Dutch.

Bartender stops pouring the Jameson, looks up. Say now. Are you Willie Sutton?

I am.

Holy s.h.i.+t. Willie the Actor?

Yeah.

Put her there pal.

Sutton shakes Bartender's hand. This your place?

Sure. O'Keefe's the name. James O'Keefe. At your service. What brings you in, friend?

I'm giving these boys the nickel tour. Meet Good Cop and Bad Cop.

Reporter and Photographer wave limply.

Merry Christmas, Bartender says. Now how does my gin mill feature in the life and times of Willie the Actor?

I used to frequent a place next door.

Chateau Madrid. The Dutchman's place. Of course. Willie the G.o.dd.a.m.n Actor. What an honor. This round's on the house.

In that case, friend, start pouring the second round. And won't you join us?

Twist my arm.

Reporter rubs his eyes wearily, flips through his files. Mr. Sutton? You were saying? Egan?

Sutton clinks gla.s.ses with Photographer and Bartender. To freedom, Sutton says. Failte abhaile, Bartender says. They throw down the whiskey. Photographer smacks his palm on the bar. Holy s.h.i.+t, he says. Who drinks this stuff?

Half of Brooklyn, Sutton says. All of Ireland-including newborns.

Mr. Sutton? Reporter says.

Yeah, kid, yeah.

Egan? Bo Weinberg?

Right. So I dropped Egan with Bo, hereabouts, and then I skipped town.

And what happened to Egan?