Part 43 (1/2)

She stops before him, looks at his face. Joseph, she says.

Mam.

That's not your name, is it? Joseph.

Mam?

You're Willie Sutton.

She hands him the newspaper. He looks at the photo. Looks at her. Yeah, he says with a sigh. Yeah. You got me.

I-what?

I'm Willie Sutton, he says. What a relief to finally say it out loud.

The color slowly drains from Head Nurse's face.

I knew this day was coming, he says. I guess I'm lucky, I've had a few good years.

But-what?

Joseph waits. And waits. That's a hot one, he says. Me-Willie Sutton. With all his money? A high-flyer like Willie the Actor wouldn't be caught dead mopping floors at the Farm Colony. No offense mam.

Head Nurse looks at Joseph, looks at the front page. She inhales sharply. Right, she says, suddenly laughing. I don't know what I was. Well. But he does look like you.

I guess. Around the eyes a little.

He turns back to his mopping.

Sutton leads Reporter and Photographer behind the women's ward, down a hill slick with mud and wet leaves. Reporter grabs Sutton just before he falls. Thanks kid. They push through a group of intertwined trees, into a clearing. A spear of sunlight pierces the trunk of an enormous apple tree. Sutton approaches cautiously. He puts on his gla.s.ses, examines the bark. He smiles. Carved into the bark is a ragged heart. Inside are three letters.

What is that, Mr. Sutton?

Photographer moves closer. S-E-E?

Boys, you are now standing in Willie's sacred grove.

Hold the phone. S-E-E? Sarah Elizabeth-Bess? She was here?

After the Brinks job the Feds put me on their Most Wanted list. Their first list ever. Kind of an honor. They listed all my aliases, all my women-starting with Sarah Elizabeth Endner. I knew she'd be in a state. I looked her up in the phone book-I remembered her married name. And why did I remember? It was Richmond. And I was living in Richmond. You think that's not a sign? Sure enough she was in Brooklyn. And just as I thought, she was beside herself. She was panicked. She didn't know what to do. Reporters were calling her, cops were calling her. A few hours later I met her at the dock. We got in her car, drove to these woods. We only had a few hours before she had to get back. But that's all you get in life. A few hours here, a few there. If you're lucky. Mrs. Adams taught me that. She's buried on the other side of this hill.

Photographer shoots Sutton, the tree. Was Bess still married, brother?

Yeah kid. She was.

Reporter looks at the sky. The sun is getting low, Mr. Sutton. I hate to take you away from your sacred grove, but we're officially pressed for time. I have to file my story in a little more than two hours. So. We need to get to Brooklyn.

We're taking the Verrazano back, Photographer says. It's faster.

Okay, Sutton says.

Just one more stop on your map, Mr. Sutton. Dean Street. Then-Schuster?

Mm.

Mr. Sutton.

Yeah kid. Yeah. Whatever you say.

TWENTY-ONE.

Willie doesn't catch the landlady's name. Something like Mrs. Influenza. She speaks no English and he speaks prison Spanish, so they have a hard time communicating. He tells her that he's a veteran, that he needs quiet, that his name is Julius Loring. She smiles, bewildered. He peels off two hundred dollars, six months' rent in advance. The language barrier crumbles.

The address is 340 Dean Street. It's a narrow three-story clapboard in the barrio. Landlady gives Willie her best room, third floor, overlooking the street. It's tiny, but furnished. Dresser, Hide-A-Bed, club chair. He doesn't need more. The club chair sits by a window that catches the afternoon light. He spends the first few days sitting there, watching the sunsets, thinking. The first order of business, he decides, is his face.

He prowls the docks, wharves, waterfront saloons, looking for guys he knew in the joint. He finds d.i.n.ky Smith, who sends him to Lefty MacGregor, who gives him an address for Rabbit Lonergan, who sends him to an old coffee warehouse, in the back room of which he finds Mad Dog Kling reading a newspaper by a gooseneck lamp. Well f.u.c.k a duck in Macy's front window, Mad Dog says, squinting up through the corona of light. If it aint America's most wanted.

The years since Sing Sing have not been kind to Mad Dog. The years have kicked Mad Dog's a.s.s. Pursed mouth, goggle eyes, he has a bleary, defeated Book-of-Job air about him. He reminds Willie of those black-and-white photos: Dust Bowl Farmer. He wears a baggy brown suit with a frayed blue necktie, but looks as if he should be wearing denim coveralls and watching a cloud of locusts eat his crops.

Willie tells Mad Dog he needs help. Shrink once mentioned a network of disgraced doctors, guys who lost their licenses but still do back-alley stuff. Abortions, bullet removals, so forth. Willie asks Mad Dog if he has any connections in that network. Mad Dog relights a cigar stub.

I might, Willie. But those quacks don't come cheap.

I've got some-savings.

Mad Dog grins, mirthless. I bet you do, he says. I read the papers.

Not as much as you think, Willie says. Which brings me to my next question. What are you doing for dough these days, Mad Dog?

Odd jobs. Bits and s.n.a.t.c.hes. For the waterfront boys.

Bits and s.n.a.t.c.hes?

You know. Guy owes, guy can't pay, I drop by. Goodbye elbow.

What do you get for a thing like that?

Fifty bucks.

Willie looks away. He hates Mad Dog, and he's pretty sure the feeling is mutual. What kind of life is this, to seek out such people, to need such people? To ask such people for help?

Fifty bucks, Willie says. Not much.

Oh, elbows are easy, Mad Dog says, misunderstanding. It's just a hinge. You bend it the wrong way, snap.

Willie steps into the light of the gooseneck. What I'm saying, Mad Dog. How would you like to help me take down a few banks?