Sutton

by J. R. Moehringer

  I don’t know what the hell your life means. All I know is you’re stalling.

  Willie hears Porter calling from the showroom:

  You must have scared the numbers clean out of him. Let me phone Mr. Rosenthal, I’ll get you the combination.

  Willie walks out to the showroom. He eyes Porter. Let him use the phone, he says to Marcus.

  Porter dials while Marcus presses his ear against the receiver. Willie watches from ten feet away.

  Yes, hello, Mr. Rosenthal? Charlie here. Mr. Fox has forgotten the combination to the safe, would you give it to me please? No sir. Mr. Fox has forgotten it. Yes sir. The store’s not open yet. No sir. Nine-fifteen. I know sir.

  Porter writes down the combination. Willie unties the wire attached to his leg and walks him to the back room. Porter spins the dial. It takes him three tries. Finally the safe door swings open to reveal an inner door—also locked.

  I’ll need my keys for this door, Porter says.

  He walks back to the showroom. Slowly. He takes a set of keys from under the front showcase, walks to the back room. Even more slowly. He doesn’t hand the keys to Willie. He dangles them before Willie’s face.

  You sure you’ve never been in a holdup before?

  Nope.

  You ever done a holdup?

  I don’t break the law.

  You knew the combination this whole time, didn’t you? You were trying to stall. And you were trying to tip the owner—weren’t you? Weren’t you, Porter?

  Porter doesn’t answer.

  Willie grabs the keys from him. He turns to Third Salesman. Which drawers have the good stuff?

  Three, five, and seven.

  Willie opens them. Costume jewelry. Willie glares at Third Salesman. If he were a different man he’d shoot Third Salesman and Porter where they stand. How do they know he’s not a different man?

  From the showroom Marcus calls out to Willie: Hey. Nine twenty-eight. Better move.

  Willie pulls out the other drawers. Jackpot. Diamond bracelets, diamond watches, diamond rings, ruby bracelets, platinum watches with diamonds around the faces—and one enormous diamond brooch that looks as if it came from an old pirate chest. Willie throws it all in a silk bag. Some of it spills on the floor.

  He marches Third Salesman and Porter back into the showroom, ties them to a showcase. Marcus hands him a green topcoat to cover his costume. Willie addresses the employees.

  Okay, you four. This concludes our business. Don’t make a move until we’re gone a full five minutes.

  If you’re gone, Porter says, how will you know if we’ve moved?

  Willie stares hard at Porter. Porter doesn’t look away. Willie squeezes the checkered grip on his gun, takes a half step toward Porter. Marcus touches Willie on the elbow. Don’t.

  They walk out, saunter casually down Broadway, duck into the first subway station and catch the first uptown train. Willie feels as if his heart is holding a gun against his ribs. But he’s also smiling. He’s going to have a steak for dinner tonight. His first meat in months. And it looks as if he won’t need to worry for a while about sleeping on the street. He turns to Marcus. I can’t remember the combination, he says, imitating Third Salesman’s puling tone.

  That’s a stall, Marcus says, aping Willie’s tough-guy voice. Come on, open it—or I’ll give you the works.

  Everyone in the subway car turns and looks. It’s rare to hear men laughing at the start of the Great Depression.

  Photographer cruises along Fiftieth, stops at Broadway. Sutton climbs out, followed by Reporter, then Photographer, who leaves the keys in the Polara, the motor running.

  Aren’t you worried about someone stealing your car? Sutton says.

  In midtown? On Christmas Day?

  Sutton shrugs. What do I know?

  They walk down Broadway. Sutton stops before a black glass office tower. Beside the tower is a construction site girdled by a plywood fence, with holes for people to watch. Sutton looks up and down Broadway. The Big Stem, he says. That’s what they called Broadway in the thirties. That’s why they call New York the Big Apple.

  Where was the store?

  Willie points to the office tower. Right next to the old Capitol Theatre.

  How much did you get?

  Two hundred grand. Diamonds mostly.

  Photographer whistles. In 1930?

  Yeah, Sutton says. We fenced it for sixty. So my nick was thirty thou for about two hours’ work. We were rolling in it.

  Did you fence it through Dutch Schultz again? Reporter asks.

  Yeah. Dutch was so impressed with this haul, he asked me to work for him. I told him I liked being my own boss. He begged me. The one time in my life someone begs me to take a job, it’s a psychotic killer.

  Willie and Marcus buy better guns, better costumes, a fast new Ford. No more riding the subway to their jobs. Then they go on a spree. That’s what the papers call it, a spree, and Willie and Marcus like this word. They say it to crack each other up. In just the first month of 1931 they take down three First Nationals, one National City, two Corn Exchanges, one Curb Exchange, and a Bowery Savings and Loan. Days of careful planning, discussion, precision timing go into each job, and yet there are so many banks, the names and lobbies and tellers all begin to run together in Willie’s mind.

  Their average haul is twenty thousand. Willie stuffs his nick into airtight jars, which he buries in parks throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. He goes late at night with a spade he stole from Funck and Sons—a different kind of landescaping.

  Cops are baffled by Willie’s uniforms. They think a band of laid-off mailmen is on a rampage. Then they think it’s a crew of disaffected Western Union boys. Then, after Willie pulls a job as a carpenter, another as a window washer, cops suspect a wave of rogue craftsmen.

  Willie enjoys wearing a cop’s uniform best of all. Never mind the irony, he just likes the way it feels. He’s always had a swinging gait, a natural strut, but putting on that blue greatcoat, with that golden badge, Willie finds himself striding with a new sense of authority and prowess. Officer Sutton—checking door handles, parking meters.

  By the opening day of baseball season, 1931, Willie’s expanding his repertoire, experimenting with hair and makeup. He uses a pencil to give himself thicker eyebrows, applies Pan-Cake makeup to the sides of his nose to make it look thinner. On his chin he sometimes glues a fake wart, which mesmerizes bank employees. He sees them making a mental note to tell cops about it. As a result, he feels sure, they’ll forget everything else.

  He wears fake beards, eyebrows, sideburns. On one job he wears muttonchops and a mustache like Mr. Untermyer’s. On another he wears a handlebar like a nineteenth-century prizefighter. He haunts the theater district, befriends clerks at musty old costume shops. He buys a tackle box and fills it with every tool of the costumer’s trade. For the second Corn Exchange job he wears an enormous set of false teeth. Driving to the bank that morning, Marcus looks over just as Willie inserts them. Marcus nearly drives into a hydrant.

  Willie wishes he’d thought of the facial disguises sooner. He pleads with Marcus to wear one. And a costume. But Marcus says he’ll stick with his bandanna and a fedora pulled low over his eyes. I’d feel silly in a getup, Marcus says. You’ll feel sillier, Willie says, if the cops get a solid description of you.

  Willie has one hard-and-fast prerequisite for every bank they hit. It has to be clearly visible from a good coffee shop. In the days before each job Willie buys a spiral notebook and sits in the coffee shop for hours, watching, taking notes. He records when the bank employees arrive, which ones look smart, which ones look as if they might get chesty. He uses draftsman’s rulers and colored pencils to make detailed pictures, sketches, maps. Now and then he waits for the bank to close, follows the employees to whichever coffee shop or speak they use as their hangout. He eavesdrops, learns their names, the names of their spouses. During a job he’ll refer to them by name, or casually drop the name of a wife. Do as I say, Mr. Myers, or you
’ll never see Harriet again.

  It’s so shocking, so unexpected, it immobilizes them.

  Mr. Sutton, how many bank jobs did you pull in 1931?

  Ah kid, I don’t know.

  Ballpark.

  Ballpark? Thirty-seven.

  Reporter looks up from his notebook. Thirty? Seven? Banks?

  I don’t like to brag. But yeah.

  Photographer stomps out a half-smoked Newport. Hard for me to believe, Willie, that you can rob thirty-seven banks and not have a vendetta against banks. Against society.

  Honestly, kid, I hate to disillusion you, but for me it was more about Bess.

  Can a man really rob thirty-seven banks to win one woman?

  Better question kid: Is thirty-seven banks enough for some women?

  Willie and Marcus use the Automat in Times Square as their office. They meet every few mornings and the agenda is always the same. First they review the last job. Then they go over Willie’s notes for the next job. Then they discuss what they’ll do if they get caught. As repeat offenders they can expect twenty-five years.

  One morning Willie lights a Chesterfield, does a double-take at the waitress. She looks like Mother.

  I can’t do that kind of bit, Marcus.

  Me neither, Willie.

  So it’s simple then. We get pinched, we don’t talk. If we tell the cops nothing, they can’t make a case.

  Marcus holds up his hand. On my kid.

  You don’t have a kid.

  Dahlia’s pregnant.

  Oh.

  Marcus beams. Yeah. I’m robbing for three now.

  Days later, in their regular booth at the Automat, Marcus slides a glass vial across the table. Inside the vial are three small purple-pink pills. Willie scoops it off the table, into his lap.

  Early birthday present, Marcus says.

  What is it?

  Instant death.

  Willie squints. Huh?

  We were talking about what to do if we get pinched. That’s strychnine.

  Willie closes his fist around the vial. He thinks of several moments in his life when he could have used these cuties.

  Make sure you got no other options, Marcus says. It’s not a good death.

  Not good how?

  Ever see an animal dosed with strychnine?

  No.

  They get stiff. Their necks arch. Foam gushes out their mouths.

  How do you know all this, Marcus?

  I tried it on some cats in my neighborhood.

  From what I read, Mr. Sutton, it was with Marcus that you started using costumes? And makeup?

  Yeah.

  And apparently you had some kind of patter? To entertain the bank employees? Jokes? Poems? One employee told the FBI that being robbed by you was like being at a movie. Except the usher is holding a gun on you the whole time.

  If we kept the employees happy, they were easier to control. Unhappy people are much harder to control. Ask any politician.

  But you always used a gun?

  Sure.

  Loaded?

  What good’s an unloaded gun?

  Willie rents a five-room apartment on Riverside Drive. He has no furniture. He doesn’t want any. After prison, after the flop, he just wants space. And peace. He likes the apartment well enough, but it doesn’t feel like home until he learns that John D. Rockefeller Jr. lives in the same building.

  As spring turns to summer Willie begins to form a grand plan. He’s going to amass enough money to find Bess and persuade her to run off with him. Ireland, he thinks. Maybe Scotland. He passes several pleasant evenings in the library, reading about remote coastal islands, where hermits used to hide from invading Romans and Vikings. No one will ever find him and Bess there. They’ll live in a thatch-roofed cottage on a grassy hillside with a dozen chickens and a few sheep and a sweeping view of the sea. Bess’s kid will be better off with Willie than that bruiser she’s married to. And if the bruiser and Bess’s father do appear, and try to make trouble, Willie will have more than enough jack to outbid them for crooked cops, judges, customs officials.

  Willie sits on the floor of his new apartment, mentally totting up the money he’s got in buried jars. At least half a million. The grand plan doesn’t seem all that far-fetched.

  Marcus also takes a new apartment. Park Avenue. He buys a sleek new desk, a new Underwood, a box of new typewriter ribbons. The words are flowing again, he tells Willie. Everything’s coming up roses.

  A phrase I try to avoid, Willie mutters.

  Marcus invites Willie to his new digs for a celebratory dinner. Willie brings a bassinet for the baby, a box of candy for Dahlia. Thanks, she says, downcast.

  You okay, Dahlia?

  She mumbles something about morning sickness.

  Willie wonders how much Dahlia knows about his work with Marcus. He’s always assumed that Marcus had enough sense not to tell her anything. But now he realizes that he doesn’t know Marcus. And he sure as hell doesn’t know Dahlia—who’s giving him a bad feeling.

  Marcus claps his hands, says he’s been saving a bottle of top-notch bootleg gin for a special occasion. He’s going to whip up a batch of martinis. He just needs some olives. He runs down to the market.

  Dahlia tells Willie to sit, make himself comfortable. Pulling out a chair at the kitchen table, Willie lights a Chesterfield, gazes at Dahlia. She stands at the kitchen window, watching the traffic down below, distractedly rubbing her stomach. Willie thinks of Bess.

  All at once Dahlia starts to cry.

  Dahlia, honey. What’s wrong?

  I know, Willie.

  Know what?

  I know.

  She turns from the window. About Marcus, she says.

  Ah fuck, he thinks. What about Marcus? he says.

  Tears roll down her cheeks, undulating over her moles. Please, Willie. When a girl looks like me, she can’t afford to be stupid.

  Willie says nothing. For the moment silence is the smartest play he can think of.

  You’re going to pretend you don’t know, Dahlia says, sobbing. That Marcus, that Marcus, that Marcus is seeing someone.

  Willie sighs with relief. Ah Dahlia, that’s ridiculous.

  Then why is Marcus, a dyed-in-the-wool mope, all of a sudden so confident?

  Willie thinks back. He’s lectured Marcus many times at the Automat about confidence. Whatever you do, do it from your nuts. Apparently Willie has created a monster.

  Dahlia, he says, I’m sure Marcus is acting confident because he’s writing again. He told me so himself. The words are flowing. He’s not having an affair. Marcus loves you. He’s thrilled about being a new father. He’s just feeling—good. About his life. His work. You.

  Dahlia wipes her eyes, looks at her belly. Really?

  Yeah. Sure.

  I want to believe you.

  You can, you can. I never lie about love. I never even kid about it. It’s much too important.

  She laughs through her tears. All right, Willie. All right. Thanks. Hearing that makes me feel better.

  He goes to her, puts his hands on her shoulders. He gives her his new phone number, tells her to call him if she has any troubles or doubts. Day or night.

  Marcus returns. He mixes the martinis and Willie drinks two. Then Dahlia serves the dinner. Roast pork. Dry, burnt. Willie’s glad when it’s time to go. He wants a glass of bicarbonate and his bed. He tells Marcus to walk him out, he needs a word.

  At the corner he asks Marcus how much Dahlia knows about their work. Marcus looks hangdog.

  Christ, Marcus. Everything?

  She’s my wife, Willie.

  Willie nods. Then tells Marcus about his conversation with Dahlia.

  She thinks you’re cheating, Marcus. So you need to be better to her. Pay more attention to her. Especially since she knows everything about our—thing. You mustn’t give her any reason to seek revenge.

  I am.

  You are what?

  Cheating on her.

  Willie covers his eyes.
Holy Mother of God.

  I’ve met the love of my life, Willie. She’s from St. Louis. A true midwestern gal. Wholesome. But kind of naughty too. She likes me to spank her. Can you imagine, Willie? Spank her. She had a falling-out with her family, I guess, and she moved to the East Coast, and she was selling dances to stay afloat. Until she met me.

  Willie takes off his fedora, wipes his brow.

  The things she says in bed, Willie, you can’t imagine. She’s from the Soulard neighborhood. That’s one of the oldest parts of St. Louis.

  Has Marcus lost his mind? Lighting a cigarette, taking the deepest possible drag, Willie stares at the tip. It looks brighter than normal, like a drop of blood.

  We met at Roseland, Marcus is saying. I’ll never forget our first dance. I’m Good For Nothing But Love.

  Again, stunningly irrelevant information. Willie and Marcus keep walking, and Marcus keeps talking. They stop under a streetlight on Seventy-Ninth. Willie feels as if he can’t take one more step. He reaches into his breast pocket, fondles the strychnine. This is all very bad news, Marcus.

  Relax, Willie, I’ve got it under control.

  Sure you do. Sure. Control. Look, Marcus, I don’t care who you love, or who you bed, but Dahlia must be kept happy, do you understand? Dahlia’s happiness comes first. Dahlia’s happiness is essential to our happiness. My happiness.

  Marcus nods.

  Keep your taxi dancer well out of sight, Willie says.

  Millicent.

  What?

  Her name’s Millicent. I can’t wait for you to meet her.

  Willie glares, flicks his cigarette into the gutter, walks off.

  Days later Willie gets a call. Dahlia. She’s hyperventilating. She found a batch of letters written on Marcus’s new Underwood.

  Letters? To who?

  Marcus’s whore.

  If they’re to her, how did you find them?

  They’re carbons.

  Willie puts his palm over his mouth. Carbons.

  Willie, you said you never lie about love. But you did. You lied. You and Marcus both need to be in jail.

  Jail? Dahlia, honey, what’re you saying? You’re jumping to conclusions. Let’s talk this over. I can explain.

  So explain.