The office floor is covered with a full bearskin, its mouth about to devour the floorboards, its round snout shiny and black as an eight ball. Above a brick fireplace hangs a gray wolf’s head, fangs bared.
Willie stands before a mahogany desk covered with neatly stacked account books, model ships, letter openers that could slice open a man. He holds his hat by the brim, takes a step back, almost trips over the bear’s paw. He wonders if he should sit. He wishes he could smoke. From a door on the far side of the office Mr. Endner enters. Willie, he says.
Mr. Endner sir. Thank you for seeing me.
Mr. Endner seats himself behind the desk. He’s wearing a blue serge suit with a gray bow tie and his eyes are dull, as if he’s just wakened from a nap. He gestures to a straight-backed chair across from him. Willie sits. They eye each other like boxers at the opening bell.
The floor is yours, Willie.
Well sir. I came to ask you to please reconsider your decision. I think if you’d give me half a chance, you’d see that I’m a good and decent person, that I care for your daughter very much. And I think she cares for me.
Mr. Endner spins a fountain pen on the desk blotter. He moves a few envelopes, sets a letter opener atop them, picks up a silver dollar and raps it on the mahogany desktop. What’s the most valuable thing you own, Willie?
Willie thinks. This must be a trap, since every answer that comes to mind sounds wrong. He looks at the silver dollar. Sir, I don’t own anything valuable.
Mr. Endner rocks in the desk chair, causing it to squeak. Well that’s part of the problem right there isn’t it? But let’s say you did. Let’s say you owned a diamond as big as this silver dollar.
Yes sir.
What would you do with it?
Do sir?
How would you treat it? Would you swap it for a root beer?
No sir.
A ten-cent cone?
No sir.
Of course you wouldn’t. Would you give it away for nothing?
No sir.
Well then you understand my position. God Himself placed Bess in our hands and she’s worth more than any diamond. It’s our job to take the utmost care in choosing who gets her. No easy task. It keeps Mrs. Endner and me awake nights. And Bess, much as we love her, doesn’t make it easier. She’s a willful little girl, with a fondness for trouble. As you well know. That’s why she’s fond of you, I suppose.
She says she loves me sir.
I would take that cum grano salis, son.
But sir.
Look, I have nothing against you per se, Willie, but let’s be frank. You can’t possibly think in your heart of hearts that you’re a suitable match for Bess.
Willie suddenly finds it difficult to breathe. He tugs at his collar.
Mr. Endner, sir, I’ve had a few tough breaks, it’s true. Losing two jobs. I’ve stumbled out of the starting gate in life, I guess. But still. My luck’s bound to change.
How do you know, son? How can you be sure? None of us knows what bad luck is. Or where it comes from. Maybe it’s temporary, like an illness. Or permanent, like a birthmark. Maybe it’s wild and random like the wind. Maybe it’s a sign of God’s displeasure. Either way. Let’s say through sheer bad luck you’re out of work, on your uppers—is that supposed to ease my mind? This is a country for lucky people. Do I want my little girl to be with someone prone to bad luck?
To address your earlier point sir. I know Bess is a diamond sir. No one needs to tell me. But it seems like you’re saying she should be with a fella who can afford diamonds, and wouldn’t a fella like that be liable to take a diamond for granted? Wouldn’t a fella who’s never so much as seen a diamond until a few months ago be more liable to cherish one? And sir I wish I’d thought to say this when you first asked, but I’m very nervous, and it hits me just now that if I had a diamond I wouldn’t have any trouble figuring what to do with it. I’d give it straightaway to Bess.
Okay, Willie, I see how it is.
Thank you sir.
What’s it going to take?
Sir?
To make you disappear?
I don’t. What?
I’ll have my attorney draw up a paper this afternoon. Legally binding. Sign it, agree to stay away from my daughter, and I’ll write you a check with more zeros than the scoreboard when Walter Johnson pitches. You’ll be able to live quite well until you secure another position. You’ll be able to live well if you don’t find work for years.
Willie stands, turns his hat in his hands, one full circle.
Mr. Endner, sir, I don’t want your money. You can draw up a paper saying I can’t ever have one red cent of it. That paper I’ll sign.
So you’re ethical then?
Yes sir.
You have character.
I do sir. If you’d just get to know me—
Then surely you wouldn’t do anything to damage the relationship of a young girl and her parents. Surely your ethics, your character, will prevent you from interfering in a private family matter.
Willie blinks.
I’ve forbidden Bess to see you, Willie. Whether or not you agree with my decision, should you violate my wishes, should you transgress the rules of this household, you’ll confirm my darkest fears about you. You want to show me who you really are? Stay away.
Willie can hear the wolf and the bear snickering.
Goodbye, Willie. And good luck.
Sutton: Did you boys know that when the astronauts got back, and they were under quarantine, someone broke into the building where they were housed and stole the safe full of their moon rocks?
Reporter: I did see that in the paper, yes.
Sutton: Stealing the moon. That’s what I call a heist.
Reporter: Did anything particular bring that to mind, Mr. Sutton?
Sutton: No.
Reporter: Mr. Sutton, your handwriting is just, wow. This map. Um. As best I can tell, our next stop is the middle of—Meadowlark’s Ass?
Sutton: Meadowport Arch.
Reporter: Oh. Yes. That would make more sense.
Bess tells her parents that she’s going to meet her girlfriends and instead she meets Willie at Meadowport Arch. Set at the edge of Long Meadow, the arch leads to a hundred-foot-long tunnel with a vaulted ceiling and walls made of pungent cedar. Our tunnel of love, Willie calls it. Our moors, Bess says. They spend hours and hours there, holding hands on a bench, making plans, listening to their plans reverberate.
If another couple, or raccoon, is already under the arch, they retreat to a different arch, the one in Grand Army Plaza. They huddle among the statues of Ulysses Grant, Abraham Lincoln—and Alexander Skene?
Who in the world? Bess says.
Willie reads the inscription. Says here, Alexander Skene was a renowned—gynecologist?
How that makes them laugh.
They talk obsessively about what life would be like if they had complete privacy, if they could be alone whenever and wherever they wanted.
I’d let you put it in me, Bess says.
Bess.
I would, Willie. If we could be alone, I’d let you do whatever you want.
Whatever you want. The phrase runs through Willie’s mind night and day.
If it’s raining or snowing they meet Eddie and Happy at Finn McCool’s, a bucket of blood with a picture of Ben Bulben over the bar. The barkeep knows they’re underage and doesn’t care. He’s an old cuss in a gray felt hat and canary yellow suspenders who believes that if you can pay, you can drink. He also believes that opening an umbrella indoors causes years of bad luck. Every time a customer opens an umbrella the barkeep turns three times in a circle, then spits on the ground, to head off the jinx. Bess opens her umbrella several times a night just to see him do it. It makes Eddie and Happy howl. One hundred years from now, Willie thinks, we’ll all be able to recall the sight of Bess at the bar, twirling her umbrella, taunting the barkeep. And fate.
At the end of January 1919, Eddie and Happy sit at the bar while Willie and
Bess stand before them, lamenting their situation. Happy smirks. The Romeo and Juliet of Brooklyn, he says.
We’re not Romeo and Juliet, Bess says. Willie’s family isn’t against me.
They’re just against him, Happy says.
Knock off the Romeo-Juliet talk, Willie says. They die at the end.
At least their families build statues to them, Bess says. Like Alexander Skene.
She laughs. Willie doesn’t.
Eddie insists there are solutions. You two kids should just elope, he says.
Bess gasps. She looks at Willie, joyful, expectant. He sees twice the number of golden flecks in her blue eyes. He shakes his head. Bess, honey, where would we go? How would we live?
She has no answer. Sullen, she lets the subject drop.
But she brings it up again the next night at Meadowport. She has an idea, she says. Her father’s shipyard. They can break open the safe. Then they can run off, anywhere they want, and they’ll have enough to live on for years.
Willie wonders if she’s testing him. Maybe at her father’s suggestion. See how he reacts. See if the boy has a pure heart—or an Irish heart. Willie tells Bess he’s not about to commit grand larceny. She says it’s not larceny. That money is her dowry.
He waves her off. Out of the question, he says.
Bess raises the idea the next night, and the next. She says they have no choice. Her father suspects that they’re still seeing each other—he’s threatening to send her to Germany to live with his family until their romance dies. The thought horrifies Willie, but he still can’t agree to commit such a bold crime.
But why not, she says.
No. I just couldn’t. No.
Finally, February 1, 1919. Bess loses all patience. Well! she says. If I don’t mean enough for you to stand up to my father—
You don’t want me to stand up to your father. You want me to rob him.
She blanches. He pulls away. Then quickly apologizes. She leans against the wall of Meadowport. Look what this is doing to us, she says. Oh Willie.
He takes her in his arms. Ah Bess. She puts her hand on his cheek, his lips. Willie, I don’t know what I’ll do if he sends me away. Please don’t let him send me away from you.
Later that night Willie calls a summit. In a booth at McCool’s he puts the case before Eddie and Happy.
Looks plain and simple to me, Happy says.
Me too, Eddie says. Either you clean out the safe or you lose her, boy.
You ready to lose her? Happy says.
I’ll die, Happy. I swear I’ll die.
The old man has brought this on himself, Eddie says. He could’ve welcomed you into the family. He could’ve given you a job. What can you expect from a friend of Rockefeller? Fuck him, I say.
Will you help me, fellas? I can’t do it alone. I’ll cut you in, make it worth your while. You’ll only be out of town a few days. A week tops.
Eddie would love to help but he’s landed a part-time job. As a driller, alongside his old man. Twenty a week—he can’t walk away from that kind of dough. Willie understands. He turns to Happy, who takes a long drink of beer and snaps a salute: You can count on me, Willie.
We have to move fast, Willie says.
How fast?
Tomorrow. It’s the day before payroll. Bess says the safe will be stuffed with cash.
Sutton steps into Meadowport, followed by Reporter and Photographer. The cedar walls are covered with graffiti. Photographer lights a Zippo, holds it aloft.
Sutton reads. Fuck the Pigs. Nixon Equals Stalin.
Power to the people, Photographer whispers.
Reporter reads. Sergio Sucks Balls. Spicks Must Die.
So much anger in the world, Sutton says.
Righteous anger, Photographer says. The anger of the oppressed.
Reporter reads. Aryell plus Jose.
Sutton smiles. They sound like a nice couple—you think they made it?
February 4, 1919. Midnight. Bess sneaks out of her house and meets Willie and Happy at Meadowport. Willie carries a plaid grip with bolt cutters from his father’s shop. Happy carries a jimmy. They hail a horse cab, tell the driver not to spare the whip.
At the shipyard Willie clips the padlock on the fence. Happy jimmies the door to Mr. Endner’s office. The safe is made of wood. The three of them stand before it, looking at it, then at each other, for one long moment.
The safe splinters with two chops from a fire ax. As the door swings out Happy whistles. Would you look at this, Willie. It’s like the vault at Title Guaranty.
Sixteen rolls of cash. Each wrapped in brown paper. Each labeled $1,000. Four times more than Bess told them it would be. They shovel it into the plaid grip, run up Beard, hail another horse cab.
Once upon a time, Sutton says, Happy and I met Bess here. Then we went down to her old man’s shipyard and cleaned out his safe.
How much did you take?
Sixteen large. That’s a nice sum today, but back then the average Joe made fifteen bucks a week. So. You know. We were rich.
Then what did you do?
Went hell for leather to Grand Central.
And then?
Poughkeepsie. My first trip outside the city.
Why Poughkeepsie?
That’s where the next train was headed.
The train pulls in at dawn. They ask a cabdriver to take them to the best hotel in town. He takes them to the Nelson House, a redbrick fortress.
Willie, trying to steady his hand as he holds the hotel’s heavy black fountain pen, scratches the register: Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Lamb. Happy signs as Mr. Leo Holland. The name of his neighbor back in Irish Town. The prosecution will call this hotel register Exhibit A.
Since Willie and Bess plan to marry in the morning, Bess says there’s no longer any sense in waiting. She closes the door of their suite, undoes the top two buttons of her dress. Then the bottom two. Willie glimpses her corset. It looks harder to open than her father’s safe. She begins the process, untying one silk ribbon after another.
He lies back. He can’t resist her anymore. He reminds himself, reassures himself, that he doesn’t need to. She slips into the bathroom. He counts backwards, trying to calm himself.
Ready or not, she calls.
Not, he thinks.
She walks out naked, palms on her thighs, pantomiming shyness, though there’s no shyness in Bess. She’s got power, the vast power of beauty and youth, and she wants to use it. It’s like money burning a hole in her pocket. Willie stares at her angles and curves, her pinks and ivories, the flush of rose along her collarbone. He stares at the points of her nipples, the creamy roundness of her hips, the smooth plane of her stomach. Loving Bess has already caused him agonies of pain and anxiety, but now he sees that what comes next will be a far greater test. Bess, her power, is a giant wave. Willie’s boat is small.
You’re staring, Willie Boy.
I am?
They’re not much, I know.
What?
My breasts. I’m flat as a pancake.
No. You’re perfect.
She walks to the bed, puts one knee on the mattress. She pretends to hesitate. He undoes his belt, she slides off his pants.
Are you going to have me, Willie?
If you’ll let me.
I don’t want to let you. I want you to take me.
Okay. I’ll take you.
Is it going to hurt?
It might, Bess.
I hope it hurts.
No.
They say the hurt is how you know you’re a woman.
Then I’ll hurt you.
In the years ahead, in cells, in lonely rooms, whenever Willie replays this night, he’ll struggle to remember his thoughts. He’ll have to remind himself that there were no thoughts, only impulses and flashing images and tidal surges in his heart. That may be why it all passes so fast. Time is an invention of the mind, and with Bess his mind is off. Which is part of the joy. And the danger.
In one motion they finis
h and tumble into sleep as if falling down a well. He wakes three hours later to find Bess stroking his hair. I thought it was all a dream, he says. She smiles. He wakes two hours later to find Bess sliding her head onto his chest. He sighs. She kisses his fingers. He wakes an hour later to find Happy sitting on the edge of the bed. Happy—what time is it?
Happy smiles at the bloodstained sheets. Time to skedaddle.
Bess looks at the sheets, puts a hand over her mouth. We can’t leave these. They’ll think there’s been a murder.
They strip the bed, stuff the sheets into the plaid grip. Blood money, Happy jokes.
Over breakfast in the hotel dining room they take stock. Surely the safe has been discovered by now. Surely Bess’s father has called the police. So the chase is on. They’ll need to stay off the trains, and that means buying a motorcar.
Can we afford a motorcar? Bess asks.
Willie and Happy laugh. We can afford eight, Happy says.
They find a dealership at the edge of town. Francis Motors. They pick out a brand-new Nash, open-topped, pine green, with shining nickel headlamps and a spare tire covered in white leather. The salesman chortles when Willie says he’ll take it. The salesman stops chortling when Willie counts out two thousand on the hood.
Son, I don’t know—and I don’t want to know.
They drive to the next town, shop for clothes. Four new suits for Willie and Happy, eight new dresses for Bess. They pass a store with a three-quarter-length squirrel coat in the window. Bess presses her face to the glass. Nine hundred, she says, marked down from fifteen hundred—that’s a steal.
It’s a steal all right, Willie says.
The coat is a drab gray, the color of rain clouds, of dishwater—of Mr. Endner’s mustaches. But Bess is already inside the store, burying her face in the fluffy collar.
Standing before the astonished salesman Willie counts nine hundred on the counter. Don’t bother wrapping it, Willie says, taking the receipt, which the prosecution will call Exhibit B, she’ll wear it out.
They head northeast, to Massachusetts, where the age of consent is younger. So they’ve heard. The motor-roads are bad. They’re not motor-roads, but Indian trails. The Nash gets a flat. Happy wrestles with the jack and the spare. Bess wrestles with Willie. He catches her hands, tells her to be good. My being-good days are over, she says.
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