Sutton: A Novel Part 4

Sutton takes a hard step toward Reporter. He concentrates on a.s.suming an at-ease posture while also conveying an air of total control. He used to do this with bank managers. Especially the ones who claimed not to remember the combination to the safe.

You seem smart for a cub, kid, so let's not bulls.h.i.+t each other. Let's put our cards on the table. We both know you only want a story. Sure, it's an important story for you, your career, your newspaper, whatever, but it's still just a story. Next week you'll be on to the next story and next month you won't even remember Willie. What I'm after is my story, the only story that counts with me. Think about it. I'm free. Free-for the first time in seventeen years. Naturally I want to go back, retrace my steps, see where it all went sideways, and I need to do it my way, which is the only way I know how to do things. And I need to do it right now, kid, because I don't know how much time I've got left. My leg, which is thoroughly rat-f.u.c.ked, tells me not much. You can be my wheelman or not. It's your call. But you need to decide. Now.

I won't be your wheelman.

Fine. No hard feelings.

We're meeting a shooter. He'll be driving.

A what?

A photog. Sorry-photographer. In fact he's probably downstairs by now.

So you're in?

You give me no choice, Mr. Sutton.

Say it.

Say what?

Say you're in.

Why?

In the old days, before I'd go on a job with a guy, I always needed to hear him say he was in. So there'd be no misunderstandings later.

Reporter takes a gulp of coffee. Mr. Sutton, is this really- Say it.

I'm in, I'm in.

Sutton steps on the elevator, cursing under his breath. Why did he stay up all night? Why did he drink all that whiskey with Donald? And all that champagne this morning? And what the h.e.l.l is wrong with this elevator? He was already feeling unsteady on his feet, but this sudden free fall to the lobby, like a s.p.a.ce capsule plunging to earth, is giving him vertigo. In the old days elevators were manageably, comfortably slow. Like people.

With a ping and a thud the elevator lands. The doors clatter open. Reporter, not noticing Sutton's pained expression, looks left and right, making sure no other reporters are lurking behind the lobby's palm trees. He takes Sutton by the elbow and guides him past the front desk and past the concierge and through the revolving door. There, directly in front of the Plaza, stands a 1968 burnt sienna Dodge Polara, smoke gus.h.i.+ng like tap water from its tailpipe.

This your car kid?

No. It's one of the newspaper's radio cars.

Looks like a cop car.

It's a converted cop car, actually.

Reporter opens the pa.s.senger door. He and Sutton look in. A large man sits behind the wheel. He's roughly Reporter's age, twenty something, but he wears a fringed buckskin jacket that makes him look like a five-year-old playing cowboys and Indians. No, with his shoulder-length hair and Fu Manchu mustache he looks like a grown man pretending to be a five-year-old playing cowboys and Indians. Under the buckskin jacket he's wearing a ski sweater, and around his neck a knitted scarf the colors of a barber pole, all of which spoil whatever Western look he was going for. He smiles. Bad teeth. Nice smile, but bad teeth. The exact opposite of Reporter's teeth. And they're as big as they are bad. His eyes are big too, and flaming red, like cherry Life Savers. Sutton would kill for a Life Saver right now.

Mr. Sutton, Reporter says. I'd like you to meet the best shooter at the paper. The best.

Reporter says the photographer's name but Sutton doesn't catch it. Merry Christmas, Sutton says, reaching into the car and shaking Photographer's hand.

Back at you, brother.

Sutton climbs into the backseat, which is covered with stuff. A cloth purse. A leather camera bag. A pink bakery box. A stack of newspapers and magazines, including last week's Life. Manson glares at Sutton. Sutton flips Manson over.

Maybe you'd be more comfortable up front, Reporter says.

Nah, Sutton says. I always ride in the rumble.

Reporter smiles. Okay, Mr. Sutton. I'm happy to ride shotgun.

Sutton shakes his head. Riding shotgun-civilians use the term so blithely. He's actually driven countless times with men riding shotgun, holding shotguns. There was nothing blithe about it.

Photographer squints at Sutton in the rearview. Hey, Willie, man, I've just got to say, it's a trip to meet you, brother. I mean, Willie the Actor-holy s.h.i.+t, this is like meeting Dillinger.

Ah well, Sutton says, Dillinger killed people, so.

Or Jesse James.

Again-killed.

Or Al Capone.

A pattern seems to be developing, Sutton mumbles.

I asked for this a.s.signment, Photographer says.

Did you kid?

Even though it was Christmas. I told my old lady, I said, baby, it's Willie the Actor. This guy's been fighting the Man for decades.

Well, I don't know about the Man.

You fought the law, brother.

Okay.

You were an antihero before they invented the word.

Antihero?

h.e.l.l yes, man. This is the Age of the Antihero. I don't have to tell you, Willie, times are hard, people are fed up. Prices are soaring, taxes are sky high, millions are hungry, angry. Injustice. Inequality. The War on Poverty is a joke, the war in Vietnam is illegal, the Great Society is a sham.

Same old same old, Sutton says.

Yes and no, Photographer says. Same s.h.i.+t, but people aren't taking it anymore. People are in the streets, brother. Chicago, Newark, Detroit. We haven't seen this kind of civil unrest in a long long time. So people are crazy about anyone who fights the power-and wins. That's you, Willie. Have you seen today's front pages, brother?

It's a nonstarter, Reporter whispers to Photographer. I already went down this road.

Photographer is undaunted. Just the other night, he says, I was telling my old lady all about you- You know all about Willie?

Sure. And you know what she said? She said, This cat sounds like a real-life Robin Hood.

Well, Robin Hood was real life, but anyway. She sounds lovely.

Oh, I'm a lucky guy, Willie. My old lady, she's a teacher up in the Bronx. Studying to be a ma.s.seuse. She's changed my life. Really raised my consciousness. You know how the right woman can do that.

Your consciousness?

Yeah. She knows all about the trigger points in the body. She's really opened me up. Artistically. Emotionally. s.e.xually.

Photographer starts to giggle. Sutton stares at the Life Saver eyes framed in the rearview-Photographer is stoned. Reporter is staring too, clearly thinking the same thing.

Trigger points, Sutton says.

Yeah. She's studying the same techniques they used on Kennedy. For his back. I got a bad back-this line of work, it comes with the territory-so every night she works out my knots. Her hands are magic. I'm kind of obsessed with her, in case you couldn't tell. Her hands. Her hair. Her face. Her a.s.s. G.o.d, her a.s.s. I shouldn't say that though. She's a feminist. She's teaching me not to objectify women.

You had to be taught not to object to women?

Objectify.

Oh.

Reporter clears his throat. Loudly. Okay then, he says, shutting his door, spreading Sutton's map across the Polara's dashboard. Mr. Sutton has kindly drawn us a map, places he wants to show us today. He insists that we visit them all. In chronological order.

Photographer sees all the red numbers. Thirteen, fourt-Really?

Really.

Photographer drops his voice. When do we get to, you know? Schuster?

Last.

Photographer drops his voice lower. What gives?

It's his way, Reporter whispers, or no way.

Sutton bows his head, tries not to smile.

Photographer throws up his hands as if Reporter is robbing him. Hey man, that's cool. It's Willie da Actor-he's da boss, right? Willie da Actor don't take orders from n.o.body.

Reporter pulls the radio from the dash. City Desk? Come in, City Desk.

The radio squawks: Are you guys garble leaving the static garble Plaza?

Ten four.

Photographer puts the car into drive and they lurch forward, toward Fifth Avenue, cruising slowly past the former sites of two banks Sutton hit in 1931.

Traffic is light. It's seven o'clock Christmas morning, the temperature is twelve degrees, so only a few people are on the street. They turn onto Fifty-Seventh. Sutton sees three young men walking, debating something intensely. Two of them wear denim jackets, the third wears a leather duster. They all have long s.h.a.ggy manes.

When exactly, Sutton says, did everybody get together and decide to stop getting haircuts?

Reporter and Photographer look at each other, laugh.

Sutton sees an old man rooting in a trash can. He sees another old man pus.h.i.+ng a shopping cart full of brooms. He sees a woman-youngish, pretty-having a heated argument. With a mannequin in a store window.

Reporter peers into the backseat. Was the homeless problem bad before you went to prison, Mr. Sutton?

Nah. Because we didn't call them homeless. We called them beggars. Then b.u.ms. I should know. When I was your age, I was one.

Hey Willie, Photographer says, if you're hungry, man, I bought donuts. In that box on the seat.

Sutton opens the pink box. An a.s.sortment. Glazed, sugar, jelly, crullers. Thanks kid.

Help yourself. I bought enough for everybody.

Maybe later.

Donuts are my weakness.

You'd have loved Capone.

Why's that?

Al used to hand out donuts to the poor during the Depression. He was the first gangster who gave any thought to public relations.

Is that so?

That was the rap against him anyway, that it was all for show. I met him once at a nightclub, asked him about it. He said he didn't give a s.h.i.+t about PR. He just didn't like seeing people go hungry.

Sutton feels a burst of pain in his leg. It flies up his side, lands just behind his eyeb.a.l.l.s. He lets his head fall back. Eventually he's going to have to ask these boys to stop at a drugstore. Or a hospital.

So, Photographer says. Willie, my brother-how does it feel to be free?

Sutton lifts his head. Like a dream, he says.

I'll bet.

Photographer waits for Sutton to elaborate. Sutton doesn't.

And how did you spend your first night of freedom?

Sutton exhales. You know. Thinking.

Photographer guffaws. He looks at Reporter. No reaction. Then back at Sutton's reflection. Thinking?

Yeah.

Thinking?