Part 19 (1/2)

Along with all that's worth knowing about safes, Doc teaches Willie about alarm systems, door locks, padlocks, cops. He teaches Willie which lawyers are best for which charges, and which ones to avoid. He leads him around town, introduces him to the fraternity. Hard-eyed killers, flashy bootleggers, wizened yeggs. Cracksmen, petermen, heistmen, bookies, flickers, conners, buzzers, overlords. He presents Willie, like a minister without portfolio, to the bosses. Legs Diamond. Owney Madden. Dutch Schultz.

Lastly Doc carefully and patiently educates Willie about the logistics of offloading stolen goods.

Your most important tool, Doc says, isn't your tension wrench, your stethoscope, your jimmy. It's your off man. Whosoever converts your boost to cash knows as much about you as anyone in the world, including your mother, so choose that person as you choose your partners. With double care.

Doc's off man is a woman. A well-known socialite, she's in the society columns every week for giving truckloads of money to the church, the ballet, the library. Newspapers call her a doyenne, a dowager, a pillar of the community. Doc says she's also a sicko. She gets a thrill from diamonds with a sordid provenance. She has a particular fetish for other women's heirlooms.

Willie goes with Doc one day to meet Socialite at her home, a gorgeous town house in the East Sixties. For the better part of an hour they sit in her Art Deco living room, on white leather Barcelona chairs, drinking tea, eating lemon cookies. Half the walls are paneled with mirrors, so Willie finds fifty w.i.l.l.i.e.s eyeing him from all directions. He feels outnumbered. Outmanned.

He sees a book lying facedown on the coffee table. He picks it up. Socialite says it's a collection of stories and poems you can only find in Paris. The young writer's name is Heming-something. Willie studies the author photo, sets the book down. Looks like a tough mug, he says.

Ravis.h.i.+ng, Socialite says. Every sentence is ravis.h.i.+ng.

Willie isn't entirely sure what this word means, but Socialite uses it a lot. Paris is ravis.h.i.+ng this time of year. Clara Bow is ravis.h.i.+ng on the silver screen. These new puzzles everyone is doing, crossword puzzles, are a simply ravis.h.i.+ng way to pa.s.s the time.

A puzzle book is lying facedown near the short stories. She picks it up. Do either of you know a four-letter word for Europe river, starting with a?

Arno, Doc says.

Socialite's eyes grow large. While she fills in the word, Doc shoots Willie a look. Willie removes a silk purse from his breast pocket and puts it on the coffee table. Socialite drops the puzzle book, scoops the bag. She carries it across the room and empties it onto a writing table that looks as if it was boosted from Versailles. Diamonds, sapphires, emeralds go skittering across the table's wood surface. She sorts them, examines each one through a lorgnette. Then she and Doc haggle.

I can't do it, Doc says. I'd be in the poorhouse if I settled for that price.

You're robbing me blind, Doc.

It's the best I can do, I'm afraid.

All right, all right.

She opens a safe behind one of the mirrored panels. She removes a brick of cash, wraps the brick in butcher paper. Willie takes one last look at the jewels on the table. An impulse overcomes him. He shoots out his hand, seizes a three-carat Old Europeancut diamond ring.

Please mam. Not this one.

Doc wheels. His eyes dart from Willie to the ring and back to Willie. They both turn and look at Socialite. Doc gives a pained smile. Well now. Uh. Apparently my a.s.sociate has grown-attached-to that item.

Socialite purses her lips. She doesn't like to lose out on even one piece of ice. She glares at Doc. Then Willie. Willie fears he's queered the deal. He's kiboshed Doc's vital relations.h.i.+p with his off man.

Socialite sits at the writing table. A girl? she says.

Yes mam. She's ravis.h.i.+ng.

Sutton walks to the corner. There used to be an out-of-town newsstand right here, he says. We'd step off the overnight train, wearing our long topcoats, snap-brims wide as sombreros, and walk straight to this newsstand.

Who?

Doc's crew.

Why?

We wanted to read our reviews. We liked being famous. Most people suffer from a fear that they're not really here, that they're invisible. Being famous solves that. You must be here, it says so in the newspaper.

Sutton looks once more at the spot where the newsstand used to be, as if it might materialize. s.h.i.+t, he says, people dove out of our way as we came up this sidewalk.

Why?

We looked bad. And we knew we looked bad. We were trying to look bad. Every criminal is playing some criminal he saw in a movie. I can't tell you how many guys I met in the joint who saw Bogart or Cagney at an impressionable age. No one loves Bogart more than me, but the man's caused more bloodshed than Mussolini.

I'm confused, Photographer says. What reviews?

We'd buy the papers from whichever city we'd just hit and read the stories about our heist. Police say they have no leads-we always busted a gut about that one. Police say it looks like an inside job-we'd smack our knees over that one. But the bad reviews, we took those hard. If the cops said the robbery looked like the work of amateurs, we'd go into a funk for a week. Everyone's a f.u.c.kin critic.

Reporter checks Sutton's map. Mr. Sutton, speaking of newspapers, it looks like our next stop is Times Square? Now that's the home of The New York Times. That's the belly of the beast. Times Square is to reporters what a statue is to pigeons, so please, Mr. Sutton, I beg you-not Times Square.

Sorry kid. Willie has to see Times Square. Willie isn't even officially out of prison until he hits Times Square.

Doc waits until they're out on the street and almost to Times Square before he explodes. For the love of G.o.d, Willie Boy, what in blazes were you thinking?

I'm sorry, Doc-the ring just spoke to me.

Willie pulls the ring from his breast pocket and holds it to the spring sun.

Stow that thing, Doc hisses. d.a.m.n it, I thought your bird was out of the country.

Please don't call her a bird. Yes, she's out of the country. But I mean to find her. And when I do, I mean to be ready. To have a ring on me.

Doc squares his shoulders, pushes back his hat, looks as if he wants to hammer some sense into Willie. But then he sighs, rakes his fingers through his marshmallow hair. Okay, okay. I'll deduct the ring from your next nick.

He shadow punches Willie a right to the jaw.

But in the future, he adds, if a piece of ice should speak to you, don't answer, Willie Boy. Get me? Come on, let's. .h.i.t the Silver Slipper. You need to buy me a f.u.c.kin drink.

I should have never left Doc, Sutton says. I owed him. I was never good at anything until I met him. A man has to feel good at something or he's not a man, and with Doc I discovered that I was good at stealing diamonds. Nah-I wasn't good at it. I was great.

So why did you leave?

We were making nice jack, but I needed a big score. A bunch of big scores, actually, if I was going to find Bess and show her that I could take care of her. That was always in the back of my mind. That was my dream. Also, if I'm being honest, Doc was slipping.

It happens in Boston. The safe is a battered old Mosler, child's play, but Doc just can't find the numbers. He rolls the wheel, back and forth, nothing doing. Don't know what's wrong with me tonight, he says. His voice is different.

They bring out the drill. Eddie starts, puts three quick holes in the plate, but Willie is pointing to his gold watch. Time. They leave everything, walk out.

On the overnight train back to New York they sit together, saying nothing. Willie watches a Model A in the distance, trundling along a dark country road, one headlamp out. He turns and watches Doc, removing his white gloves, taking several pulls from a silver flask. The flask is shaking.

Willie gives himself a week off. He sits in his leather chair, looking out at the city, thinking. At last he puts on his best suit and walks down to Doc's. They sit among the safes, drinking coffee, talking shop. Doc mentions the next job. Willie shakes his head.

Won't be a next job for me, Doc. I'm out.

Ah Willie, no.

Doc. You knew I wanted to go out on my own eventually.