The Confessions of Al Capone

by Loren D. Estleman

  "I wouldn't want to waste your uncle's time with what we talked about tonight," Vasco said.

  "I don't think there's anything to tell."

  A conspiracy of innocents. Vasco allowed himself a smile. It was impossible not to indulge oneself in the presence of Sonny's. At least Vasco had been allowed to grow up.

  "So how was the movie?"

  "Good. A little fantastic. Your father thought it was a lot of hooey."

  "It's a good thing Ralph wasn't there. Gangster pictures really set him off. He thinks they're all about Dad."

  "Most of them are," Mae said.

  Vasco had failed to feel her presence. She was standing in the doorway clutching a blue satin dressing gown closed at the throat. She wasn't wearing makeup and her blond hair was twisted into a plait on one shoulder. The satin clung. She had a good figure for a woman her age; for a woman of any age. The slight spreading of the waist did not look at all matronly on her. Sonny put out his cigarette and stood. Vasco rose also.

  "Wallace Beery played him once," she said. "Wallace Beery, who played Long John Silver. Danny could tell you about all the others. Jake Guzik wanted your father to sue them all, but he said he never wanted to see the inside of another courtroom as long as he lived. The settlement would have supported us for years with no help from Chicago. What are you boys doing still up?"

  Vasco flushed, as if he'd been caught thinking unfilial thoughts about his own mother. (Mother?! Sonny is not your brother.) He looked at his strap watch. It was past midnight. He wondered how much of the conversation she had overheard. "I'm terribly sorry. I didn't realize it was so late." Was there a local curfew? With his luck, he'd be stopped by Officer Horowitz, who had already ticketed him once for leaving his motor running.

  Sonny said, "It was my fault. I asked Peter about the movie."

  "We need a new projector. You ought to be able to let it run on its own and enjoy the show with everyone else. It's the father I'm concerned about." She looked at him. "I hope you don't have early devotions."

  Her eyes were clear of sleep. There was just no telling what she was thinking at any time. People who went to confession on a regular basis seldom opened themselves up outside the booth.

  He turned aside the implied question. Better she didn't know how light his duties were. "I'm often up late studying the breviary. I seem to get along best on four or five hours' sleep."

  "I'm an insomniac, too. All those nights not knowing if Al was coming home."

  "That sounded melodramatic." Sonny seemed ill at ease. He, too, was wondering what she'd heard.

  "Albert, he had an armor plate installed in the back of his desk chair. But that wasn't what I meant. I never knew when he was coming back to the house on Prairie or staying at the hotel. You'd think I'd be used to sleeping alone by now." That was it. Cree-crump. The sound of Maureen Vasco pacing back and forth in her leg brace, listening for Paul at the door. Two Irish girls married to the Italian underworld. Peter wished all his disturbing associations were so easily explained.

  Sonny yawned, stretching until something cracked. "I'm an eight-hour man myself, and I've got a tail assembly to rebuild tomorrow. Is it all right if I make up the davenport for Dad? When he's this far under it's like hauling a two-hundred-pound sack of cement up the stairs."

  "You weren't raised to be disrespectful. I want you to come with me to Blessed Sacrament tomorrow. You'll tell Monsignor Donahue you broke the Fifth Commandment."

  "Yes, Mother."

  She moved silently across the carpet on blue mules and bent to stroke Capone's fringe of hair. He was breathing fitfully now. What did Al Capone dream about? Mae drew the silk handkerchief from his outside breast pocket and wiped away the tiny pool of spittle that had formed in the corner of his mouth.

  "I'll take care of him. You go to bed."

  "Are you sure?"

  "I've been putting your father to bed for twenty-five years. Let's not have any planes falling out of the sky because you didn't get your beauty sleep."

  "I'll see Peter out. Brownie went home hours ago."

  She smiled and held out her hand. "Thank you again for Rose, Father."

  "It was my pleasure. She's a charming girl."

  "Charming, yes. And quiet."

  An odd thing to say. Or perhaps not so.

  "Thank you for a wonderful evening."

  "I'm sorry about my brother. It's the curse of Erin."

  "I like Danny."

  "Everybody likes Danny except Danny. Don't let that smile fool you." She was still holding his hand. She laid her other atop it. "There you are, Father, part of the family. Once in, never out. Don't say you weren't warned."

  An even odder thing to say.

  Sonny shook his hand at the front door. "Ruth and I are entertaining the family at my place St. Patrick's Day; I'm half Irish, you know, and it's the only day of the year Mother gets to cook. You'll think you died and went to Mick heaven. Next Friday. Please say you'll come."

  "Should you ask your mother?"

  He stopped smiling. "It's my house."

  "I'll have to run it past Father Kyril."

  "He won't refuse to let you go. It's a holy day. Even the pope says it's okay to eat corned beef when it falls on Friday."

  "I'll need directions."

  "Just drop by here about five o'clock. You can ride with Mother and Dad in the Lincoln. She'll be bringing covered dishes, so if you can't stand the smell of cabbage you can always follow. Everyone else does."

  When Vasco drove out the gate, a delivery van with Hebrew letters on the side panel was parked across the street. He shook his head. Hoover's people ought to have known that Jews who ate kosher didn't answer their doors after sundown Friday.

  FOURTEEN

  "How was your outing, Father?"

  The pastor's voice almost made him trip over his feet. Vasco had entered Our Lady of Redemption moving fast, dipped and crossed, and hurried up the aisle heading toward the rectory to report. He wasn't late, it was hours before he was expected in the booth, but asking out of his only responsibility the day before made him anxious. He needed to make a show of dedication, especially since he had to make the same request next Friday.

  Mass was over, and officiates usually retired soon after to collect themselves and prepare for the larger Mass the next day. Vasco had passed Father Kyril without seeing him, seated on his spine in a pew near the aisle with his feet braced against the high curving back of the pew in front and a book spread open on his thighs. He was in short sleeves and wore the same scuffed black high-top shoes he wore when he lifted weights.

  "I'm sorry, Father. I didn't see you."

  "I often dry-dock here following the service. There's something restful about a church when it's empty, like a theater after a performance. A working building in repose between shifts. A man can purge his mind. Sometimes I envy Brother Thomas, without a thought in his head except to empty the sweeper from time to time."

  Thomas was working a wooden Bissell along the runner in front of the altar rail. The rollers squeaked on the backstroke and rumbled when he pushed. The room's acoustics were excellent; a young hooligan carving his initials in the back pew could have been heard at the pulpit, the gnawing of the knife as loud as a beaver felling a pine. But Thomas went on working regardless of what he'd heard.

  The book Kyril was reading belonged in a weight class with the Gutenberg Bible. Its leaves were thin—there must have been three thousand of them in that gray cloth binding with Miami public library stamped across the page ends— and contained intricately drafted cross sections of fighting vessels, supports Xed throughout the hulls, the split guns like celery stalks. How much did an oceangoing chaplain need to know about hatches, double bottoms, the mechanical mysteries of torpedo tubes?

  "I asked about your visit." His eyes behind gold-rimmed spectacles remained on the text. The glasses reminded Vasco of Capone's when he played cards. There was a kind of muted power in studying things through strong lenses, like an admiral obser
ving the enemy through field glasses from the bridge. Kyril would appreciate the nautical imagery.

  "It was very pleasant. People in Florida seem much more relaxed than in other places." Banal and obvious. The man must think him a fool, who thought him one as well.

  "A little too much sometimes. They splash in the same ocean that's stained with blood just three thousand miles away without seeming to give it any thought. That isn't a metaphor. During the invasion of Sicily the surf was a pink froth."

  No "I'm told" or "I read"; a statement of fact, as if he'd witnessed it personally. The evidence of things unseen.

  "I'm sure they're as concerned about the war as everyone else." But it struck him that the two Capone men were the only ones at the party who had mentioned the thing that saturated most conversations, and then only in relation to their own lives. Al had referred to Lucky Luciano's men patrolling New York harbor and Sonny had lamented his failure to enlist. Most of the guests had come to warm themselves in the glow of 1929. This was an epiphany. He knew now the secret of Capone's strange appeal. The lion had been caged and released, his claws pulled and his fangs blunted, and even the most timid of men and women could stroke his coarse coat and feel the pounding of his heart. Savage creatures prowled and preyed in the jungles of the night, but this one was tame, the stories of old attacks quaint and thrilling. Vasco finally understood what Mae had meant about petting the giraffe. It had been her choice of animals that had stumped him.

  "I'm sure you're right," Kyril said, "and that the people here aren't as apathetic as they seem. It's just that I have difficulty concentrating on anything but the war." He closed the book with a boom that reverberated in the nave. Brother Thomas looked up, then returned to his sweeping. The rollers rumbled and squeaked. "I suppose you think I'm neglecting this parish." The pastor was looking at Vasco, the glasses folded in one hand.

  "Certainly not, Father. You have other things to think about, but I've never seen a church better maintained."

  "The credit for that belongs to Thomas and his Murphy's Oil Soap. I know what people say about me. I'm not as remote as they think. I am of the opinion that most of their souls will keep until I get back. Meanwhile young men are dying by the thousands outside a state of grace."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Contrary to anything you might have heard, there are entirely too many atheists in foxholes."

  "Yes, sir."

  "If I were a tailor, I'd feel more useful making uniforms than First Communion suits. If I had any mechanical aptitude, I'd rather change the oil in a jeep than tinker with a Stutz Bearcat."

  "Yes, sir." He wondered if Kyril was that far out of touch or testing him. He chose silence. A young man only pretending to be raised to the cloth might succumb to the temptation to correct him.

  "And don't call me sir."

  "Yes, Father."

  "You haven't been to confession, Father."

  He'd been dreading that subject. "No, Father."

  "Perhaps you've been to Blessed Sacrament. Many priests feel it awkward to confess to their own pastors."

  "No, Father, I haven't been to confession at Blessed Sacrament either."

  The carpet sweeper squeaked and rumbled.

  "Well, it's not required. But not confessing sets a bad example. Promise me you'll consider it."

  "I'll pray over it."

  "Any nitwit can pray. I once met a woman at a Catholic fund-raiser who said she'd taught her cocker spaniel to sit up with its paws together and whimper the first line of the Lord's Prayer. Pray over it if it brings you comfort, but think about it."

  "Yes, sir. Father."

  "Now get some sleep. You wouldn't be the first priest to nod off in the booth, but it would be the last time for you at Redemption."

  Kyril must have seen his light on. He'd been up for hours after he got back from Palm Island, writing down everything Capone had told him about his early life. When he realized he'd slept through Mass, he rose, read and corrected his notes, and went out to post them to Hoover by way of the paper-and-pen supply company, insuring the package for a hundred dollars. He doubted it was worth it except to a crime enthusiast. There was no place to hide the material in his room where Brother Thomas wouldn't find it with his relentless cleaning. The library was a short walk from the post office, but it was closed on Saturday. The lowdown on Frank Nitti would have to wait.

  "I was familiarizing myself with the breviary. I'm sorry I failed to attend this morning."

  "Save it for confession. The breviary story too."

  "Yes, Father."

  Kyril nodded jerkily and opened his book. He paused with his spectacles half unfolded. "How is the reconciliation coming along?"

  "Reconciliation? Oh, you mean with my father. I'm afraid I haven't pursued it."

  "Mondays are slow here after the Sunday hangovers and Saturday infidelities. I'll handle the booth. If you have no plans, why don't you go up and visit him then? That isn't an order. A priest without portfolio would hardly obey it."

  "Thank you, Father. I'll think about it."

  "You're learning." He put on his glasses and returned to the diagrams. Vasco started to take his leave.

  "Is it true Mr. and Mrs. Brown's swimming pool is larger than the YMCA's?"

  He didn't miss a step, an accomplishment he assigned to exhaustion and slow reflexes. He'd been expecting something of the sort ever since Mae had said that she sometimes confessed at Redemption, but Kyril was a master of shrewd timing. Vasco turned back to find him reading his book.

  "It's a monster," he said. "Father, I never intended to deceive you, but I should have been more forthcoming. I was afraid you'd disapprove of the relationship."

  "Mary Capone is an exceptional woman, and I've heard very good things about Albert. Alphonse has paid his debt to society. His debt to his Savior is another matter, but I understand he attends Mass at Blessed Sacrament from time to time, so there is a ray of hope. Monsignor Donahue has yet to hear him confess."

  "I have no expectations, Father. It all began when I went there to pay my respects on behalf of my father, who worked for him a long time ago."

  "I thought I detected a Chicago tough on the telephone that first day."

  "Not exactly. He spent all his time behind the wheel of a truck."

  "Certainly not all. It wasn't a union shop. Advice, Father?" He looked at Vasco over the tops of his glasses.

  "Always, Father."

  "Doubtful. It's a dubious gift. Your father's love or Al Capone's immortal soul. Choose between them. Either one will take you the rest of your life and break your heart in the end."

  "Thank you, Father."

  "I'd like you to assist me at tomorrow's Mass."

  "Anything." The thought terrified.

  "Nothing taxing. I want you to hand me the chalice."

  "That's all?"

  "That, and stand up front throughout the ceremony in the glory of your vestments and impress the heathen."

  "There are heathens in the congregation?"

  Kyril's lips twisted at the corners, a purely hydraulic operation. "Many of them are heathens six days a week."

  "I'd be honored."

  "Make sure your chasuble is cleaned and pressed. I want it to dazzle."

  He heard himself snoring lightly, waking him up. If not for that he'd have said he hadn't slept at all. It gave him no rest. Kyril vexed him. He did not know the man well enough to speculate on ulterior motives. In his heart of hearts he was sure he could spend years in his company and know him no better. (Not likely, if the pastor was called up by the navy. But who would succeed him?) Perhaps his request was to provide busywork for a priest with too much mysterious time on his hands. Or it might be a trap. How well had Father McGonigle's lessons taken? Tonight Vasco would retire early and actually study the breviary before exhaustion took him.

  He found no seafaring material left behind in the booth. Kyril was hearing confessions in the booth on the opposite side of the pulpit. A new feature had been added to th
is one: "Fr. Vasco," hand-printed in vaguely Cyrillic letters on a strip of white cardboard slid into the two grooves intended for a nameplate on the frame between the two sets of curtains. Some parishioners preferred to shop their confessors based on past exposure, choosing leniency or severity, depending upon their attitude toward absolution. Branding was as important in faith as it was in the supermarket.

  He fought sleep, a capricious thing that refused to acknowledge appropriateness of place and circumstance. He yawned as quietly as he could into his palm during a man's confession to impure acts; which meant, of course, either adultery or unnatural sex. The semantics of the Church were sheltering. He'd heard rumors at St. Francis of priests who insisted on details. What use they made of them he spent as little time speculating on as possible. Sheltering himself.

  Strange how it seemed women were more straightforward about their baser sins than men. But then he'd been in harness only long enough to hear a small sampling. A Rosary for this impure act, whichever it was.

  "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been two days since my last confession."

  Sleep left him in a twinkling, a synaptic click. A woman's voice, framed by a light brogue. Low-register and warm. A warm voice, a cool hand. Mae Capone commanded every situation with those two formidable weapons.

  Ecclesiastical etiquette was silent regarding the screen. Did one look directly at the face behind it, or avert one's eyes entirely in the service of anonymity? He compromised, using a sidelong glance under the shield of the hand at his temple. He felt like a little boy trying to steal a glimpse through a bedroom window. She wore a veil attached to the brim of a dark felt hat that reminded him of rotogravures of sophisticated young women in riding habit. A double obstruction, the veil and the mesh. He recognized the rounded face, the paleness of blue eyes.