Part 17 (1/2)

Please, Father says, if you care about us at all, Willie Boy, you'll leave us alone.

He walks to Meadowport, sits deep inside the tunnel, replaying the last three years. At dusk he walks out, through the meadow, through the park, and soon finds himself on Eddie's doorstep at the St. George. Eddie throws open the door. Pleated slacks, a sleeveless white unders.h.i.+rt, white suspenders hanging down. He's been doing push-ups. His arms are the size of Willie's legs. Where you been, Sutty?

Everywhere. Nowhere. Wingy says hi.

They go up to the roof. Eddie has a pint of bootleg in his back pocket. He takes a swig, offers it to Willie. Willie shakes his head. But he smokes Eddie's cigarettes greedily. He's been denying himself tobacco, trying to economize.

The sun is nearly set. They watch the lights come on in Manhattan, cars going back and forth across the bridge. An ocean liner, lit up like a miniature Manhattan, heads off to sea. Willie imagines the pa.s.sengers: gentlemen standing along the upper decks, taking the air, ladies below sipping illegal cordials. On the Brooklyn side of the bridge steam bubbles from the Squibb factory, where they make stuff for bad stomachs. The air is heavy with milk of magnesia.

Willie looks at Eddie: I can't stop remembering Happy's face when they dragged him off in bracelets.

Yeah. Me either.

Sing Sing. Christ.

It's a war, Sutty. Us, them. How many times do I have to tell you.

They watch the bloodred sun slide into the river. Every day, Eddie says, that f.u.c.kin sun goes out the same way. A blaze of glory.

Mm.

Hey, Sutty.

Yeah.

Look at me.

Huh.

I got somethin I need to tell you.

Shoot.

You're a f.u.c.kin skeleton.

Willie laughs. I am kind of hungry.

I think if you ate a grape you'd have a paunch. We need to get some groceries in you, boy. Fast.

No can do. I'm broker than broke.

My treat.

At the speak on the corner Eddie orders for Willie. Meat loaf, oysters, creamed potatoes, garden salad, a wedge of apple pie a la mode. Eddie was right, the food helps. Willie feels alive. Then comes the check. Dead again. He's twenty years old, no job, no hope of a job, sponging off his friend.

He stabs the pie. Ed, what am I going to do?

Move in with me. Stay as long as you want. You know you're like a brother.

Thanks, Ed. But long-term. What's any of us going to do?

Eddie leans back. I might have a solution. For both of us.

Eddie tells Willie that he's leaving the bootleggers. Happy's arrest has given him pause. Prohibition is no joke, the government isn't playing. If you're going to take the risk, you better make sure the reward is worth it.

Meaning?

One of the other drivers introduced me to a guy. Horace Steadley. Goes by Doc. A box man out of Chicago, and a great one at that-a true genius. Though he made his bones running the glim-drop back in Pittsburgh.

The what?

The glim. A nifty little two-man con. First man goes into a department store, dressed real sharp, wearin an eye patch, says he lost his glim-his gla.s.s eyeball. Tells the clerk he'll pay a thousand bucks if anyone turns the eyeball in to Lost and Found. Leaves his callin card, fancy, gold-embossed with his phone number. Next day, the second man goes up to the clerk carryin a gla.s.s eyeball. Anyone lookin for this? He gets the clerk to give him three hundred. Why not? The clerk knows the glim's worth three times that much. But when the clerk dials the number on the first man's callin card, disconnected. Doc had it down to a science. But then he started crackin safes, takin down jewelry stores, and he liked that a whole lot better. Now he runs a topflight box crew and he needs a couple more men. He's a right guy, Sutty. A real right guy. And he knows his potatoes, so he can teach us. Then we can start our own crew. Move up to the bigs.

Bigs?

Banks, Sutty. Banks.

Oh Ed. I don't know.

The waiter comes, clears the table. Eddie orders two coffees. When the waiter goes away he hisses: What don't you know?

Isn't it-wrong, Ed? I mean, h.e.l.l. What about right and wrong?

The world is wrong, Sutty. I don't know why, I don't know when it went wrong, or if it's always been, but I know it's wrong, sure as I know you're you and I'm me. Maybe two wrongs don't make a right. But answerin a wrong with a right? That just makes you poor and hungry. And nothin is as wrong as that.

Neither says anything for several minutes. Eddie lights a cigarette, puts on his hat. Just come meet him, he says.

Minutes later Willie is letting Eddie push him into a cab.

Doc's apartment is all the way over in Manhattan, near the theater district. As they approach Times Square, Willie looks out the window. Men in tuxes, women in evening gowns, hurrying from luminous motorcars into cafes, clubs, theaters. The looks on their faces say: Depression? What Depression? Willie wishes he were going to see a show. He's never seen a show. One of the million things he's never done. He should level with Eddie, tell him this is a waste of time. Heisting jewels isn't his line. He doesn't know what his line is, but it isn't this.

Too late. They're outside Doc's building, under the awning. The doorman is buzzing upstairs to announce them.

Sutton peers at the tops of the new skysc.r.a.pers in midtown. OK, boys, pop quiz: What drove Jack Dillinger to rob his first bank?

No clue.

A girl broke up with him.

Left at the next light, Reporter says to Photographer. Then straight until Fifty-Third.

It's on the corner, Sutton says.

What's the significance of this next stop? Photographer asks.

It's where Doc lived, Sutton says.

Doc?

My first teacher.