The Confessions of Al Capone

by Loren D. Estleman

  Vows he hadn't taken; and in that moment he feared Mae Capone's reaction to the truth most of all.

  He scribbled on several sheets of notepaper, making up excuse after excuse: needed at Mass (but she would know Mass had ended well before the appointed hour), illness (Capone's health was far more tentative, but she made plans anyway), the truth.

  The truth.

  The thought was so revolutionary it made him sit back against the iron bedstead with the notepad resting in his lap. He'd been lying for so long, the alternative struck him as dangerous in the extreme; the prospect of being caught in a truth stood all his nerves on end. Once begun, where would it lead? But Mae was a creature of logic. He was being watched, and she would understand that he couldn't afford to appear too eager to renew the acquaintanceship.

  He had actually begun writing those words, just to see how they looked on paper, when he remembered he'd told Sonny that he was being followed by one of Nitti's men. Sonny would surely have told his mother, and if for some reason he hadn't, she was aware of the situation and would assume that precautions were in place. That knowledge hadn't stopped her from writing him. The woman who had once fired a pistol at her husband for infidelity wouldn't let anything as insignificant as the Enforcer come between her and a friend.

  Refusal was no option. He gathered all the crumpled sheets, tore them to bits along with the note and the response he'd started, and mixed them with the trash in the wastebasket, which Brother Thomas would be emptying later. There was nothing new about being under surveillance. Between Hoover and Thomas and Brownie, someone was observing his every move. If they were all to fall into step behind him they'd make a conga line of respectable length, with Nitti's man bringing up the rear.

  At Friday Mass, Vasco had performed the Rite of Consecration for the first time, transubstantiating communal wafers and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ—or so thought the faithful; he alone knew that they remained morsels of bread and fermented grapes. It was a sacrilege that would have horrified him at the start of the assignment; but one could only be damned once for all eternity. The men, women, and children who knelt at the rail waiting for him to place what they believed was the Host on their tongues may have noticed that his hands shook a little, but a display of nerves was to be forgiven a young and inexperienced priest on so public an occasion, and in fact expected. He'd withdrawn directly afterward to kneel beside his bed and ask a being he did not trust to overlook a sin he was destined to repeat.

  The Model T had been used little if at all while he was away. It refused to start and when he unscrewed the gas cap and sniffed at the contents of the tank, the stale odor told him the gasoline had turned to varnish. He walked ten minutes to the nearest filling station, returning with a can of gas for which he'd paid a two-dollar deposit and a pressurized can containing a fuel additive. The Ford balked, coughed, wheezed, fired a mighty report from its tailpipe, and fell into its jaunty animated-cartoon rhythm. He stopped at the station to return the gas can and retrieve his money. All of this took time, and he was twenty minutes late approaching the causeway.

  Henry, the toll guard, smiled and shook his head when Vasco stuck out his quarter. "This one's on me, both ways," he said. "Welcome home present. That ham you gave me near converted my sister."

  "Thank you." Vasco returned the coin to his pocket.

  "Sure was quiet with everybody gone. We had us a flurry of G-men at the start when they found out Al gave 'em the slip. I waited in the Miami office two hours just to answer the same questions they asked me right here in the booth. After that, things just got dead. The only attraction here in summer is Al. If it wasn't for the spick gardeners and caretakers looking after things, you could sling a bowling ball up and down this thing all day long and wouldn't dent a bumper." He swung up the barricade.

  The long straight drive with the bay on either side created an ideal opportunity to learn if anyone was following. There was no sign in his mirror of the gray Plymouth or any other vehicle. Vasco entertained the tenuous hope that Nitti had abandoned him as a lesser evil in order to put all his men to work on keeping him at liberty.

  Approaching the Palm Island house, he lifted his foot off the accelerator suddenly and let the Ford coast to a stop. A gray Plymouth was parked across the street from the gate.

  The polished wooden hoop of the steering wheel grew slippery in his hands. His shadow had anticipated him. The man's presence could not have been the result of a random guess; even had he expected Vasco to visit the island, he couldn't have known he'd be there that day of all days. Or could he? Mae's invitation had arrived by messenger. A stranger bearing an envelope would certainly have attracted attention: there would have been an interception, probably a bribe, and a quick examination of its contents. Opening and resealing a gummed flap in such a way that the intended recipient wouldn't notice signs of tampering was evidently part of the job description of the modern mob henchman.

  Nerve, too; balls, Capone would have called it. The sedan stood between two of the ever-present commercial vans registered to the FBI. Nitti's man must have known that. Hoover had said Capone's own security force was legally licensed to carry firearms, which meant no felony records were involved. The same must have been true of this fellow, or he wouldn't have risked being pulled out of his car on suspicion and searched.

  Vasco reached these conclusions in the space of time required to roll to a stop and then resume moving. The brief hesitation would alert the man that he was aware of him; he doubted it mattered. From Wisconsin to Miami he'd made no attempt to conceal himself. Intimidation was as much a part of his mission as gathering information.

  The freckled guard at the gate smiled when he recognized the visitor and waved him up the driveway. For an instant, Vasco thought of telling him of the man in the Plymouth. But he saw no point in sparking an action that would sour the relationship between Capone and his former lieutenant. It would only bring more suspicion upon Vasco, and Nitti would just substitute one bloodhound for another. Vasco raised a hand in appreciation and puttered on up to the house.

  When he set the brake and killed the motor, he heard gunshots.

  ONCE OUTSIDE THE CAR, HE BECAME AWARE OF A MEASURED CADENCE in the reports: blam blam blam, with brief pauses in between. He'd visited the FBI firing range only once, to deliver a message, but he'd remembered it and recognized the rhythms of target practice. Capone's bodyguards would be expected to brush up on their skills. The noises seemed to be coming from behind the house, and as the wind freshened from the ocean he saw curls of steel-gray smoke drifting from that direction.

  Danny Coughlin opened the door, barefoot in a white sport shirt with epaulets and khaki shorts with square flapped saddle pockets. (Military fashion still dominated department stores.) Despite the lightweight attire he was sweating and his face was red; beads of condensation pebbled the bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon he held in one hand. Vasco remembered Mae saying that the air conditioner could rarely be used because of Capone's unstable constitution.

  To his surprise, her brother threw both arms around him in a terrific bear hug. The bottle made a clammy patch on his back. He'd left his coat behind and wore short sleeves. When at last it was over, Danny gripped him by the shoulders. His breath was hot and beery. "Welcome to Corregidor, Father. Hell's bells, I missed you. It was all surly bartenders and shop stewards till Al and Mae came back, and then Al took to his bed and she turned into Florence Nightingale. He's right as rain now, though." Danny's brogue became pronounced when he drank.

  "I'm glad to see you." He extricated himself as delicately as the thing could be done. He liked Danny, but in his cups he was overbearing company. "I'm sorry I'm late."

  "Nothing here ever starts on time. Mae's busy with Brownie and Rose in the kitchen."

  "What's all the shooting?"

  "Come out back and see for yourself. Let's just say it would be a grave mistake for the Japs to pick this spot to land."

  Vasco followed him through the house, contempl
ating the blue pallor of his bare Celtic legs under the fine red hair, like fluorescent tubes. With all the windows open and the sea air crossing through the screens, the interior wasn't as close and stuffy as expected, but there was in it the eye-stinging fumes of chlorine from the pool and the taint of dead fish at low tide. He remembered what Father Kyril had said about God not wanting Man to live in Paradise.

  The firing had stopped, but as they stepped out into the pool area it started up again. A small group stood in the grassy area on the other side of a hedge separating the two-story cabana from the bay. The reports were louder now, but flattened by the open air and warped by wind, not at all the powerful explosions one heard in westerns and gangster movies; they might have belonged to a cap pistol. Danny led the way past a table beautifully laid by the pool, with a white linen cloth tied securely at the corners and silver glittering and eggshell china gleaming and crystal sparkling, toward a gap in the hedge.

  Capone's striped terry bathrobe stood out among the white shirts and dark poplin slacks worn by the men who patrolled the grounds looking for potential assassins. In the heat, and absent civilian guests who might be disturbed by a show of weaponry, the guards wore no coats. The crossed leather straps holding their underarm holsters in place were bordered by dark patches where they'd sweated through their shirts.

  Some ten yards from where the group stood, a trestle bench had been set up with nothing behind it but open ocean, and a row of a dozen or more beer bottles placed upon it: empties, many of them probably supplied by Danny Coughlin. Three exploded in rapid succession as the newcomers drew near, the necks flying straight up and the barrels bursting in shards of brown glass and shreds of paper-and-foil labels. A fourth bullet missed the next target, but a fifth caught it low, detaching the rest of the bottle from the base. The thick circle of glass remained on the bench.

  There followed two shocks for Vasco: the first, when the shooter paused briefly to shift the weapon from his right hand to his left and popped the next two bottles in close order (a feat one associated exclusively with Saturday matinee horse operas), and the second, when he realized the man doing the shooting was Capone.

  The great bulky figure in the striped robe, hatless and balding, with a stump of cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth, fired one last time, missing the next target and emptying the square black pistol extended at the end of his arm, its slide kicked all the way back exposing most of the barrel. The stench of sulfur stung Vasco's nostrils.

  "Shit. Too much soft living. In the old days I'd've hit every goddamn one, and in half the time. Let's see what you can do, Frankie."

  "Otis."

  "The fuck kind of name's Otis? Load 'er up, Otis. Chrissake." He passed the weapon to the man standing nearest him, whose holster was empty. Evidently the gun was his.

  In a series of swift movements, Otis ejected the slim magazine from the hollow handle, switched it with another from his pocket, slammed the new magazine into place with the heel of his hand, and released the slide, chambering in a new round. All these operations were conducted with efficiency and an economy of energy, steel on oiled steel, accompanied by metallic eruptions of noise every bit as loud as the shots and nearly as violent. It was like watching a heavy and destructive machine, a pile driver or a wrecking crane, going about its ruinous business heedless of anything but its mission.

  Danny and Vasco had stopped twenty feet short of the group. Mae's brother pulled from his bottle and said, "This promises to be educational: diplomacy versus pride of accomplishment."

  Vasco had no idea what he was talking about. Otis took aim, standing sideways to the targets with his arm stretched out at shoulder level, all square angles with the muscles of his upper back bunched transparently under his soaked shirt. As Vasco watched, the muscles relaxed, rolling away from one another like a pyramid of cantaloupes after one had been plucked from the bottom. Simultaneously his own shoulders tightened, bracing for the noise.

  "Sail!" another bodyguard called out.

  The man in firing position lowered his arm as a white shark fin attached to a small skiff glided behind the bench, close enough to shore to appear as if it were crawling along the top of the bench itself. Capone, watching, took his cigar from his mouth, spat out a scrap of slimy brown wrapper, and replaced the stub, tapping a broad square bare-heeled foot in a velvet slipper on the earth.

  At length the sailboat cruised out of harm's way, tacking east. ("Bon voyage, you four-f shirking bastard," said the master of Palm Island.) Otis resumed his stance, gathered then loosened his muscles again, and pressed the trigger. The pistol barked six times, the reports so close together they sounded like a string of firecrackers going off, a nib of blue flame coming from the muzzle. Bottles jumped and spun and disintegrated, brass casings twinkled in the sun and vanished in the grass; but as the echo rolled off across the water, one bottle remained standing. A seventh shot cracked and it flew apart.

  Capone released a feral snort. "I hope you boys are just shooting lousy to make me look good. I can't use a bodyguard that can't outshoot me."

  Otis, crew cut and tanned, with the look of a marine in a recruiting poster— Vasco wondered what his story was regarding enlistment—thrust his jaw forward and popped out the empty magazine. "Set up another dozen."

  "On your own time. I ain't running an arcade."

  Danny parked his bottle under one arm and applauded.

  "You don't need these boys, Al. You're a regular Flying Fortress."

  Capone looked up, startled. He spotted Vasco and the sun broke on his face. "Good to see you back, Padre. Scorcher, ain't it? Wasn't for those cocksucking whiskers we'd still be floating out on the lake." He met Vasco at the halfway point and wrung his hand. He smelled of tobacco and brimstone. "Danny, fetch us a couple of cold ones."

  Danny strode back toward the house and Capone and Vasco went back through the hedge and sat under the umbrella where they'd played cards and Capone had threatened the life of the president of the realtors' association. It seemed very long ago, but life appeared to have changed little on the island.

  Capone's cigar was cold. He patted his pockets, forgetting he hadn't any in the black one-piece bathing suit under the robe. "Got a match, Padre?"

  "I don't smoke. I'm sorry."

  "You should. A man needs something to give up when he's lost his health. How's your old man?"

  "Quite well. He's getting married."

  "Peachy. There's no alibi like a wife. Italian girl?"

  "Jewish, actually."

  Capone frowned, then scratched the graying hairs curling over the top of his swimsuit and shrugged. "Jews are okay, when you find one you can trust. Jake Guzik's dog-loyal. You get to meet him in Mercer?"

  "No. I heard he was running Ralph's place in town, but I never made it."

  "Swell." He didn't seem to be listening. "I'm not just sure about this brunch business. Mae got the idea from Good Housekeeping. I never heard of it. We supposed to starve between now and supper, or we eating four, five meals a day now?"

  "I think the idea is to cut down to two some days. Rationing," Vasco added. "Well, I could eat the asshole out of a skunk. I had a half a grapefruit three hours ago. I'd sooner lap up a bowl of battery acid." He patted himself again. "Got a match?"

  Vasco hesitated, then shook his head.

  "Too bad. A man needs something to give up when he's lost his health."

  It was one of his bad days. Next he'd be asking about Vasco's father.

  But his guest was spared the ordeal of conducting conversation on a continuous loop by the appearance of the guard from the gate. As the man out front, he had on his coat, pale blue gabardine with the inevitable room built in for a weapon, and he wore a sheen of sweat over his freckles. He glanced at Vasco, then leaned down and whispered in Capone's ear. His master's reaction was delayed, but unmistakable in its significance. His face darkened until the white scars on his cheek looked like tapeworms. He straightened abruptly and rapped over his shoulder at another guar
d strolling alongside the hedge.

  "Frankie!"

  It was the hapless Otis, who corrected him.

  "Where the hell's Frankie?"

  "We don't have a Frankie, Mr. Capone."

  "Well, whatever your name is, take it on the ankles down to the gate with this guy. He'll fill you in on the way."

  The guard from the gate looked blank. "What do you want us to do?"

  "Bring him back here, what do you think?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Jesus."

  "Yes, sir," Otis echoed.

  "Either of you boys got a light?"

  "No, sir." They spoke in unison.

  "Well, then get the hell down there. Prove you're good for something."

  They left on the trot. Capone said, "Shit," and threw his cigar toward the pool. It fell on the tiles and rolled to the edge. He found a pack of Dentyne in the pocket of his robe and offered a piece to Vasco, who declined with thanks. The foil came off and the great mastiff jaws ground back and forth on the gum. "College boys. Nancies. In the old days I had to knock the bark off 'em before I could bring 'em out in public. This batch I got to throw over my shoulder and burp."

  Vasco was aflame with curiosity, but he was struck suddenly by the realization that the only appropriate questions he could ask Capone pertained to events that had taken place many years in the past.

  He filled the time with small talk.

  "I had no idea you could shoot so well."

  The smile returned, and with it some of his normal coloring.

  "You should've seen me in the Adonis Social Club basement when I was fourteen. Buffalo Bill was in town, playing the Garden with all his horses and injuns; I think Geronimo was there, but he might've been dead by then. Some big chief anyway. Charley Luciano snuck in to see the show, and he came back and bet me two bits I couldn't bust a bottle aiming back over my shoulder with a mirror in my hand like Annie Oakley. I said, 'I can do anything any dame can do, including pee sitting down.' "