Sutton: A Novel Part 9

The bank job will require new clothes. Willie and Happy find a haberdasher on Court Street willing to extend them credit. They each buy two suits-two sack coats, two pairs of trousers, two matching vests, two silk cravats, cuff b.u.t.tons, spats. Walking to work his first day Willie stops before a store window. He doesn't recognize himself. He's delighted not to recognize himself. He hopes he never recognizes himself again.

Better yet, his coworkers don't recognize him. They seem not to know that he's Irish. They treat him with courtesy and kindness.

Weeks fly by. Months. Willie loses himself in his work. He finds the whole enterprise of the bank exhilarating. After the Crash of 1893, the Panic of 1907, the smaller panic of 1911, the Depression of 1914, New York is rebuilding. Office towers are being erected, bridges are being laced across the rivers, tunnels are being laid underneath, and cash for all this epic growth comes from banks, which means Willie is engaged in a grand endeavor. He's part of society, included in its mission, vested in its purposes-at last. He sleeps deeper, wakes more refreshed. Putting on his spats each morning he feels a giddy sense of relief that Eddie was wrong. The whole thing isn't rigged.

They pull up to the former home of t.i.tle Guaranty, a Romanesque Revival building on Remsen Street. Sutton looks at the arched third-floor windows where he used to sit with Happy and the other gophers. In one window someone has taped a sign. NIXON/AGNEW. This is where I had my first job, Sutton says. A bank robber whose first job was in a bank-imagine?

Photographer shoots the building. He turns the camera, dials the lens, this way, that. Sutton s.h.i.+fts his gaze from the building to Photographer.

You like your work, Sutton says. Don't you kid?

Photographer stops, gives a half turn. Yeah, he says over his shoulder. I do, Willie. I dig it. How can you tell?

I can always tell when a man likes his work. What year were you born kid?

Nineteen forty-three.

Hm. Eventful year for me. s.h.i.+t, they were all eventful. Where were you born?

Roslyn, Long Island.

You go to college?

Yeah.

Which one?

I went to Princeton, Photographer says sheepishly.

No kidding? Good school. I took a walk around the campus one morning. What did you study?

History. I was going to be a professor, an academic, but soph.o.m.ore year my parents made the fatal mistake of buying me a camera for Christmas. That was all she wrote. The only thing I cared about from then on was taking pictures. I wanted to capture history instead of reading about it.

I'll bet your folks were thrilled.

Oh yeah. My father didn't speak to me for about three months.

What do you like so much about taking pictures?

You say life's all about Money and Love? I say it's all about experiences.

Is that so?

And this camera helps me have all different kinds of experiences. This Leica gets me through locked doors, past police tape, over walls, barbed wire, barricades. It shows me the world, brother. Helps me bear witness.

Witness. Is that so.

Also, Willie, I dig telling the truth. Words can be twisted but a photo never lies.

Sutton laughs.

What's funny? Photographer says.

Nothing. Except-that's pure horses.h.i.+t kid. I can't think of anything that lies more than a photo. In fact every photo is a dirty stinking lie because it's a frozen moment-and time can't be frozen. Some of the biggest lies I've ever run across have been photos. Some of them were of me.

Photographer faces straight ahead, a slightly miffed look on his face. Willie, he says, all I know is, this camera took me to the bloodbath in Hue City. Tet Offensive-those aren't just words in a book to me. It took me to Mexico City to see Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their fists. It took me to Memphis to see the chaos and the coverup after they shot King. No other way I would've gotten to see all those things. This camera lets me see, brother.

Sutton looks at Reporter. How about you kid?

How about me?

Did you always want to be a reporter?

Yes.

How come?

I'm a yes.h.i.+va student from the Bronx-in what other job would I get to spend the day with America's greatest bank robber?

FBI agent.

I don't like guns.

Me neither.

I admit, Mr. Sutton, some days I don't love this job. No one reads anymore.

I do nothing but read.

You're the exception. TV is going to make us all extinct. Also, a newsroom isn't exactly the happiest place on earth. It's sort of a snake pit. Politics, backstabbing, jealousy.

That's one nice thing about crooks, Sutton says. No professional jealousy. A crook reads about another crook making off with millions, he's happy for the guy. Crooks root for each other.

Except when they kill each other.

True.

Tell him about editors, Photographer says to Reporter.

What about them? Sutton says.

They can be a real pain in the a.s.s, Reporter says into his lap.

Sutton lights a Chesterfield. What about your editor? In what way is he a pain in the a.s.s?

He says I have a face that begs to be lied to.

Ouch. And what did he say when he sent you off to spend the day with Willie?

Photographer laughs, looks out his window. Reporter looks out his.

Go on kid. You can tell me.

My editor said I had three jobs today, Mr. Sutton. Get you on the record about Arnold Schuster. Don't let another reporter or photographer near you. And don't lose you.

Sutton blows a cloud of smoke over Reporter's head. Then you're f.u.c.ked kid.

Why?

You've already lost me. I'm back in 1917.

Willie standing in the vault. It's larger than his bedroom on Thirteenth Street, and it's filled, floor to ceiling, with money. He gazes at the tightly wrapped bills, the strongboxes of gold coins, the racks of gleaming silver. He inhales-better than a candy store. He never realized how much he loved money. He couldn't afford to realize.

He loads a wheeled cart with cash and coins, slowly rolls the cart along the cages, filling the tellers' drawers. He feels all-powerful, a Brooklyn King Solomon dispensing gifts from his mine. Before returning the cart he cradles a brick of fifties. With this one brick he could buy a s.h.i.+ny new motorcar, a house for his parents. He could book a cabin on the next liner sailing to France. He slides one fifty out of the pack, holds it to the light. That das.h.i.+ng portrait of Ulysses Grant, those green curlicues in the corners, those silver-blue letters: Will Pay to the Bearer On Demand. Who knew the fifty was such a work of art? They should hang one in a museum. He slides the bill carefully back into the pack, sets the pack back in its place on the shelf.

Evenings, after work, Willie sits on a bench in the park and reads Horatio Alger novels, devours them one after another. They're all the same-the hero rises from nothing to become rich, loved, respected-and that's exactly what Willie loves about them. The predictability of the plot, the inevitability of the hero's ascent, provides a kind of comfort. It reaffirms Willie's faith.

Sometimes Alger's hero starts as a gopher at a bank.

Pedophile, Sutton says.

Photographer is trying to get the City Desk on the radio. Yeah, he says, yeah yeah, that's right, we're leaving Remsen Street, headed to Sands Street, near the Navy Yard.

G.o.dd.a.m.n perv, Sutton says.

Photographer lowers the radio, turns. You say something, Willie?

Sutton slides forward, leans across the seat. Horatio Alger.

What about him?

He'd cruise these streets looking for homeless kids. They were everywhere back then, sleeping under stairs, bridges. Street Arabs they were called. Alger would bring them home, interview them for his books, then molest them. Now he's synonymous with the American Dream. Imagine?

Malcolm X says there is no American Dream, Willie. Just an American nightmare.

Nah, that's not true. There's an American Dream. The trick is not waking up.

After six months at t.i.tle Guaranty, Willie is summoned to the manager's office.

Sutton, your work is exemplary. You are diligent, you are conscientious, never tardy or sick. Everyone at this bank says you are a fine young man, and I can only agree. Keep this up, my boy, keep on this path, and you are sure to go places.

A month later Willie is laid off. Happy too. The manager, red-faced, blames the war in Europe. Trading has collapsed, the world's economy is teetering-everyone is cutting back. Especially banks. Into a hatbox Willie folds his sack coats and matching trousers and vests, his cravats and cuff b.u.t.tons and spats, then sets the box on the shelf of Mother's closet.

He buys five newspapers and a grease pencil and sits in the park. On the same bench where he used to read Alger novels he now combs the wants. He then walks the length of Brooklyn, filling out forms, handing in applications. He applies for bank jobs, clerk jobs, salesman jobs. He holds his nose when applying for salesman jobs. The idea of tricking someone into buying something they don't need, and can't afford, makes him sick.

At the start of each day Willie meets Happy and Eddie at Pete's Awful Coffee. Eddie's been laid off too. The builders of the office tower ran out of cash. Whole f.u.c.kin thin is rigged, Eddie mutters into his coffee cup. No one at the counter disagrees. No one dares.

Then, just around the start of the 1917 baseball season, on his way to meet Eddie and Happy, Willie spots a newsboy from half a block away, waving the extra. That one word, big and black and s.h.i.+ny as the badge on the newsboy's s.h.i.+rt-WAR. Willie hands the newsboy a penny, runs to the coffee shop. Breathless, he spreads the newspaper across the counter and tells Eddie and Happy this is it, their big chance, they should all enlist. They're only sixteen, but h.e.l.l, maybe they can get fake birth certificates. Maybe they can go to Canada, sign up there. It's war, it's nasty, but Jesus-it's something.

Count me out, Eddie says, shoving his cup away. This is Rockefeller's war. And his b.u.t.t boy, J. P. Morgan. I aint takin a bullet for them robber barons. Don't you realize we're already in a war, Sutty? Us against them?

I'm surprised, Willie says. I really am, Ed. I thought you'd jump at the chance to kill a few Dagos. Unless maybe you're afraid those Dagos might get the best of you.

Happy laughs. Eddie grabs Willie's s.h.i.+rtfront and loads up a punch, then shakes his head and eases himself back onto his stool.

Sutty the Patriot, Happy says. Don't you worry, Sutty. You're feeling patriotic? There'll be plenty of ways to do your part. My old man says every war brings a boom. Sit tight. We'll soon be in clover.

Within weeks it's true. New York is humming, a hive of activity, and the boys land jobs in a factory making machine guns. The pay is thirty-five a week, nearly four times what Willie and Happy were making at t.i.tle Guaranty. Willie is able to give his parents room and board and a little more. He watches them count and recount the money, sees the strain of the last few years falling away.

And still he has something left over for a bit of fun. Every other night he goes with Eddie and Happy to Coney Island. How did he live so long without this enchanted place? The music, the lights-the laughter. It's at Coney Island that Willie first realizes: no one in the Sutton household ever laughs.

Best of all he loves the food. He's been raised on wilted cabbage and thin stews, now he has access to a sultan's feast. Stepping off the trolley he can smell the roasted pigs, the grilled clams coated with b.u.t.ter, the spring chickens, the filet chateaubriands, the pickled walnuts, the Roman punches, and he realizes-he's been hungry for sixteen years.

No delicacy at Coney Island is so exotic, so addictive, as the recently invented Nathan's Famous. It's also called a hot dog. Slicked with mustard, slotted into a billfold of soft white bread, it makes Willie moan with pleasure. Happy can eat five, Eddie can eat seven. There's no limit to how many Willie can put away.

After gorging themselves, and was.h.i.+ng it all down with a few steins of beer, the boys stroll the Boardwalk, trying to catch the eyes of pretty girls. But pretty girls are the one delicacy they can't have. In 1917 and 1918 pretty girls want soldiers. Even Happy can't compete with those smart uniforms, those white sailor hats.

Before catching a rattler home Eddie insists that they swing by the Amazing Incubator, the new warming oven for babies that come out half cooked. Eddie likes to press his face to the gla.s.s door, wave at the seven or eight newborns on the other side. Look, Sutty, they're so d.a.m.n tiny. They're like little hot dogs.

Don't eat one by accident, Happy says Eddie yells through the gla.s.s door. Welcome to earth, suckers. The whole thin's rigged.

SIX.

There are hundreds sprinkled throughout the city, but Happy says only two are worth a d.a.m.n. One under the Brooklyn Bridge, the other on Sands Street, just outside the Navy Yard. Happy prefers the one on Sands. The girls aren't necessarily prettier, he says. Just more obliging. They work ten-hour s.h.i.+fts, taking on three customers an hour, and more when the fleet is in. He relates this with the admiration and wonder of a staunch capitalist describing Henry Ford's new a.s.sembly line.

Around the time of the Battle of Pa.s.schendaele, and the draft riots in Oklahoma, and the mining strikes throughout the West, the boys pay their first visit together to the house on Sands Street. The kitchen is the waiting room. Six men sit around the table, and along the wall, reading newspapers, like men at a barbershop. The boys grab newspapers, take seats near the stove. They blow on their hands. The night is cold.

Willie watches the other men closely. Each time one is summoned it's the same routine. The man tromps upstairs. Minutes later, through the ceiling, heavy footsteps. Then a female voice. Then m.u.f.fled laughter. Then bedsprings squeaking. Then a loud grunt, a high trill, a few moments of exhausted silence. Finally a slammed door, footsteps descending, and the man pa.s.ses through the kitchen, cheeks blazing, a flower in his b.u.t.tonhole. The flower is complimentary.

When it's their turn Willie feels panic verging on apoplexy. At the upstairs landing he hesitates. Maybe another time, Happy, I don't feel so good. My stomach.

Tell her where it hurts, Willie, she'll kiss it and make it better.

Happy pushes Willie toward a pale blue door at the far end of the hall. Willie knocks lightly.

Come.

He pushes the door in slowly.

Shut the door, honey-there's a draft in that hall.