Part 31 (1/2)

Photographer looks hurt. He hands his camera to Reporter, holds out his wrists. Sutton twirls a finger. Nah kid, turn around. Hands behind your back.

Photographer turns and Sutton cuffs his wrists. Three police officers slow their walk, watching the old man in the fur-collared trench coat slapping fur-lined handcuffs on the hippie in the buckskin jacket. And doesn't that old man look a lot like-Willie Sutton?

Cuffed, Photographer turns again. Sutton throws a crisp right at his midsection, stopping his fist an inch from Photographer's belt buckle. Photographer flinches, jumps back. Sutton smiles.

Now kid imagine that punch landed. Imagine another one landing, and another, and fifty more. You can't breathe. You're coughing blood. After a hundred punches to the breadbasket you're ready to rat out your mom and dad and all the angels in heaven.

He throws a flurry of shadow punches, jab, feint, jab, each one stopping just short of Photographer's belt buckle or face. Photographer flinches at each one. Then Sutton steps off the curb, into the street, bent into a fighter's crouch. He throws bigger shadow punches at police headquarters. Right cross. Left. Uppercut. Uppercut. Right hook.

I DIDN'T CRACK, DID I, YOU MOTHERf.u.c.kERS?

Oh no, Reporter says.

I TOOK YOUR BEST SHOT, DIDN'T I, COPPERS?

Reporter puts his arms around Sutton, but Sutton wriggles loose, keeps shouting. AND NOW HERE I AM! I'M BACK. I'M STILL STANDING. AND WHERE THE f.u.c.k ARE ALL OF YOU? HUH? WHERE?

For the love of G.o.d, Mr. Sutton, please.

Willie opens one eye. He's lying on the floor of a holding cell. He sees, just inside the cell door, a tin cup of water. It smells like p.i.s.s but he doesn't care. He takes a sip, or tries to. His throat is closed, his Adam's apple is bruised, enlarged. There's also a loud ringing in his ears. His eardrum is shattered. Now, above the ringing he hears-sobbing? He peers around the cell, through the bars, into a hall lit by one bare bulb. Across the hall, leaning against the door of another cell, is Marcus. Poor Marcus. Willie crawls to his cell door, presses his face against the bars. Marcus, he whispers. Hey kid what'd they do to you? You okay? Hey Marcus-the worst is over, I think.

Willie sees Marcus's waterbug eyes. They look different. They've stopped-moving? And they're locked on Willie. Now Willie notices that Marcus isn't b.l.o.o.d.y. Marcus isn't bruised. Marcus doesn't have a mark on him. Through the pain, though the ringing in Willie's ears, comes the revelation: Marcus did all that talking without suffering a single blow.

And he's still talking.

Willie I didn't know I didn't know if I'd known what they were going to do I wouldn't have said a word but they said they wouldn't hurt you they said it was the only way out Willie I'm so sorry I just couldn't face it they told me what they were going to do to me and I just couldn't- Willie tests the hinges of his jaw. He spits up a b.l.o.o.d.y clump of something, which looks like an internal organ, and drags himself away from the door to the far corner of the cell. Curling into a ball he speaks three words, the last he'll ever speak to John Marcus Ba.s.sett.

You f.u.c.kin rat.

Now there are five cops outside police headquarters, watching a Boy Scout in a Brooks Brothers suit drag the old man who looks like Willie Sutton up the street as the handcuffed and buckskinned hippie follows.

You boys don't know, Sutton says, breathing hard. You just don't know. Until you're in that room, at the mercy of a half dozen sluggers with badges, you can't know. I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of. But the way I held up under that-I'm still proud. It might have been my finest hour.

He turns, gets in one more shout at the building. SEE YOU ROUND, RAT b.a.s.t.a.r.dS.

Mr. Sutton, I'm begging you.

They reach the Polara. Reporter guides Sutton into the backseat, as if placing him under arrest. He slams the door. Let's get out of here, he says to Photographer.

Get these cuffs off me, Photographer says.

I don't have the key.

Get it from Willie.

Let's get out of here first.

How am I supposed to drive? Photographer says.

I'll drive, Reporter says. Give me the keys.

They're in my pocket.

Reporter fishes the keys out of the buckskin jacket. He helps Photographer into the pa.s.senger seat, then runs around and gets in on the driver's side.

As they speed away Photographer wriggles his body to face Sutton in the backseat. Willie, man, unlock these handcuffs-they're cutting off my circulation.

Sutton, still breathing hard, stares out the window, not answering.

Willie, brother, come on. I'm starting to feel-panicky.

Is that a fact kid?

Willie.

How you enjoying the Willie Sutton Experience so far?

Photographer turns to Reporter. Tell him to uncuff me.

Right, because he does everything I say.

My trial was a joke, Sutton is saying. How do you not let in pictures of my caved-in face, my broken bones? My lawyer was all set to appeal, but after I was sentenced he got pinched himself.

What? Your lawyer was arrested, Mr. Sutton?

Albert Vitale. He was a former judge-it came out that he took a bribe while he was on the bench. From Arnold Rothstein.

The guy who fixed the 1919 World Series?

The same. They were tight. Guess who Rothstein's brother was married to? Mr. Untermyer's brother's granddaughter.

Willie, the cuffs. Please, brother.

What happened to Marcus, Mr. Sutton? Did they beat him too?

Nah. He was too busy talking for them to beat him. He thought if he ratted me out they'd go easy on him, but they still sent him away for twenty-five years. They turned him loose in '51 and he died a few months later. The Times said he had two dollars and eighty-one cents to his name. He was found in a flop. Slumped over a typewriter. f.u.c.kin rat.

Willie on the bus to Sing Sing. February 1932. He can still hear the words of the judge, echoing off the marble pillars and the moon-pale walls of the courtroom.

Sutton, you are a type of criminal whose misdeeds have shocked the American people. You are regarded by the police of New York as one of the most dangerous men ever to prowl our streets. In point of daring, defiance of law, absolute disregard of property and life, your crimes are among the most brazen ever committed in this city. When we read about holdups of this kind in the Old West, we marvel. We say such crimes could no longer exist. But you are the equal of those bygone desperadoes. It is extremely hard for a New York judge to see before him a New York boy, raised in an environment that should have made you good rather than bad. But my duty is clear. Though you are only thirty, I must sentence you to a period of time greater than you are years of age.

Fifty years.

The bus pulls through the front gate of Sing Sing. Sutton looks over the grounds. The first thing he notices is the rose gardens. They're gone. And that's just one of fifty changes. Lawes has rebuilt the prison from bottom to top. He's turned it into a small city, with new industrial workshops, a new five-story cellblock, a new twenty-five-foot wall.

Of course some things are the same. As guards lead Willie into his office, Lawes beams. Welcome back, a.s.shole.

Willie asks about the gardens.

We installed new plumbing. The flowers had to go.