"What do you expect?" a man's voice said. "All the good ones are overseas."
He thought that was hilarious. Not knowing why struck him as funny too. He chuckled, and then he heard loud snoring, which made him laugh harder. If that fellow could only hear himself.
When he awoke with a snort, the couple had changed seats. Outside the window, the war was everywhere. Clapboard houses rolled past with bronze and silver stars in the windows, dumps from which every scrap of metal had been salvaged, empty lots turned into victory gardens with seed packets staked like sentries at the ends of the rows. He had to pee and his tongue felt as if there were gullies carved in it.
The car was swaying more than seemed right when crawling through a town. He was still a little drunk and his face and his head ached. He'd always heard the hangover came later. He couldn't even get sloshed properly. In the little water closet he addressed the first problem, flushed, and ran water into his cupped hands from the tap and gulped it down. He looked at his face in the stingy mirror and marveled that he hadn't been thrown off the train. He plucked at the gauze in his left nostril and drew out what seemed like a yard and a half of stiff bloodstained material—it seemed to have come from deep inside his brain—unwound an equal length from his right, and dropped both pieces into the trash receptacle. He blew his nose carefully into a wad of toilet paper and examined the pale pink stain. Then he threw that away too and took in air through his nose for the first time in days. It was exquisite, like a bad head cold cured instantly. He'd already removed the bandage from the bridge, but the nose was still swollen and there were yellow streaks in the bruises under his eyes. He winced when he touched the slightly lighter strip of flesh where the bandage had been.
Knuckles brushed the outside of the door. A conductor's noncommittal drawl announced Fort Lauderdale as the next stop. That made up his mind. If he'd slept through it, he'd have stayed on the train even when it stopped. That much he'd left to God. The rest was up to him.
The heat on the platform was terrific, an enormous dog that jumped up on him and lapped at him with its sweaty tongue. The sun looked stale; it had hung too long in one spot. The air smelled fishy and the fish wasn't fresh. There was a streetcar stop, but the car wasn't there and he was afraid if he waited he'd lose his nerve and get back aboard the train. A cab driver parked in the shadow of the station overhang looked up from under a green eyeshade as Vasco approached, stuck a comic book on top of the visor, and got out to take his valise and put it in the trunk. "You okay, buddy?" he asked when his passenger dropped into the backseat. "You look like the bottle hit you back."
He gave the man the name of the marina where Paul Vasco kept his boat and his business.
A SEAGULL PERCHED ON A PILING PAID HIM NO ATTENTION AT ALL AS HE passed within a foot of it; it plucked something edible from between its feathers and tossed back its head to swallow. He figured the bird was new to the neighborhood, and unaware it was risking its life anywhere within pistol range of Sunrise Charters.
The breeze from the ocean never stopped, but today it was barely there. The boat sat motionless beside the pier. His father had made no attempt to paint out the name after taking the boat out before the paint had dried the first time; Peter could read maureen through the streaks. The sight saddened him even more than when it had been blanked out entirely.
He knocked at the door under the name burned into the lintel. When no one answered he tried the knob. It was locked.
"Try prayer. You never know, it might be Catholic. Most doors are Presbyterian, though. Stiff and thick."
He turned to face Paul, coming his way carrying his ice chest by the handles. "I didn't see you aboard the boat."
"That's because I wasn't. You believe they knocked up beer another point? Hirohito's practically sucking MacArthur's dick. What happened to your face, boy? Holy Ghost sucker punch you in the snoot?"
"As a matter of fact it was a very large Negro. You carried that heavy thing all the way from the store?"
"I carried larger loads in my gut, though from the smell of you I'm an amateur. Been into the sacramental wine, my nose tells me. Well, don't just stand there. Key's in my right pocket." He turned his right hip Peter's way.
Peter changed hands on the valise and drew a skeleton key on a fat ring from the pocket of his father's khaki shorts. He pushed open the door and stood aside.
Paul dropped the chest on the floor with a clanking of cans and rattling of ice, opened it, and took out two cans of Pfeiffer's.
"Not for me, thanks."
"Didn't think so, but a man ought to be sociable in his home. You're smart not to mix your drinks. I was joking about wine. I know rye when I smell it. Never liked the stuff myself. Too sweet." He dropped one of the cans back inside the chest, flipped shut the lid, and opened one with the opener attached to a handle. When they were both seated he flung his fishermen's cap at its nail; it landed on an angle, hung there for a split second, and fell. "I raised you better than to pick fights with darkies. The only thing harder'n their fists is their head."
"How many darkies do you know?"
"Well, none, you got me there. I must-a been thinking of Cubans."
"Is it possible for us to have a conversation without saying something ugly?"
"Probably not. I gave up on miracles when I stopped going to Mass." Paul drank. "Where's the choker? Don't say it's too hot. You're supposed to go all the way to hell to save a sinner."
"I never saved a sinner, Dad. I've committed too many of my own to earn the necessary credentials."
"Jesus. If you're gonna be humble you got to take the stick out of your ass first." Peter said nothing for a moment, listening to the beer gurgling down his father's throat.
"I think I'll take one after all."
"Well, get it. It's the butler's day off."
He got up, opened one, and took a large swallow. His stomach turned over slowly, like a barrel of tar rolling in deep water, and flattened out. His head began to clear. He'd thought that hair-of-the-dog theory was a myth, to justify getting drunk all over again. Lately everything he'd believed had taken a torpedo broadside. Torpedo; the war had entered even the language of his thoughts.
"So what's the squeal?" Paul said. "Catch Father Cyril with his pants down during choir practice?"
"Kyril."
"Commie priest. Fucked-up world since Roosevelt took over. I asked you a question, son."
"Not here." He went over and leaned close to his father's ear. "The place might be bugged."
"You're kidding."
Peter raised his voice a decibel, chuckling. "You'd be surprised the kind of jokes you hear in church. Is the boat taken?"
His father's face smoothed out. "I wouldn't be sitting here this time-a day getting shit-faced if it was. Bring the cooler."
The preparations were a repeat of the last time. Peter put on the cap, Paul the stained and torn fedora. The Chrysler engine cleared its throat and they left the musty mainland behind and throttled forward into the wind. There were some sailboats in the harbor and a pontoon shaped like a barge with people aboard drinking, but out beyond the mouth the ocean seemed deserted. There, Paul switched off the ignition, the sudden silence hurting his son's ears, and directed him to drop anchor. It was a real anchor with barbs and attached to a chain, unlike the paint bucket of cement on a rope in Wisconsin; it entered the water as smoothly as a trained diver and dragged the chain clanking through a brass grommet until it came to the end with a reverberating thump. Water slapped loosely at the hull, the wind carried the cries of gulls and from somewhere behind cloaking clouds the yawing of a single-engine plane.
Peter thought it unlikely a boat could be bugged effectively at sea, but he motioned to Paul to turn on the two-way radio. There was static and unexcited chatter that had nothing to do with them, snatches of music where the nautical air band and the entertainment frequencies collided. ("When you're smiling...") Paul climbed out of the pilot house and sat in the fisherman's chair in the stern with a fresh
can. Peter, after that inaugural gulp, carried his first unsipped and leaned back against the rail facing him.
"I left the seminary, Dad. You said I'd fail, and you were right. I was never ordained. I'm an impostor."
His father drank, said nothing.
"You weren't the only one I fooled. Father Kyril thinks I'm a priest. I've even taken part in ceremonies."
"Son—"
"Please let me finish. If I don't keep going I won't be able to."
Paul turned his head and stared out at the ocean. Peter was grateful to be spared eye contact. He measured his phrases, not wanting to leave out anything important. He spoke about his job with the FBI, of the assignment Hoover had given him, of its success so far. (Paul's brows rose at that point, but his gaze remained fixed at sea. He lifted the can mechanically to his lips and swallowed.) Frank Nitti's death, Peter's attempt to resign, Hoover's threats, including to try his father for murder, Peter's acquiescence and return to Florida. Once again he made no mention of Rose.
For a full minute after he stopped talking, his father said nothing. Then he crushed the can and threw it over the stern. The wind caught it and sent it slapping across the waves. Peter heard it without turning to look at it.
"What if I told you all I knew was I was picking up Scalise and Anselmi?" Paul said then. "That no one said a thing about Hymie Weiss?"
"Dad, I wasn't asking."
"No, I guess you'd know it was a crock-a shit. What do I care if them bums keep on rubbing each other out till there ain't but one left? And John and Albert never hit no innocents like Weiss's boys did all the time. Frankie Rio came to the apartment, plopped down a roll of cabbage on the kitchen table, and laid it all out. Ten C-notes, it was, and all up front because Mr. Capone trusted me. That was a year of physical therapy for your mother."
"If you'd put it to me that way, I might have understood."
Paul was silent.
Peter shook his head. "No. That's a crock of shit too. I wouldn't have, back when I asked. I understand now. But it's not what I came here to talk about."
"This got anything to do with that busted nose?"
"Not directly. The story's the same, with or without it."
"You're learning. I'll make a first-class liar out of you yet." He scratched his naked stomach. His skin had burned an even deeper shade of cherry, the sparse growth of hair on his chest had bleached white. "Mr. Capone say anything else about me?"
"Is there anything else to tell?"
"I heard he was cuckoo. His memory seems okay. I don't know what I could add."
It was an unsatisfying response, but his father's past had ceased to interest him greatly. "What do I do?"
"If you're asking me how to get you out of Dutch with the pope, that ain't in my league."
"No one can help me with that. How do I get out from under Hoover without landing both of us in jail or the death house?"
"Who says you got to? Do what he says and when it's over forget you ever met him. He sure won't bring it up."
"I can't."
"Afraid?"
"Not of the Outfit."
"Hoover neither, long as you play ball. God, maybe."
"It's me I'm afraid of. I convinced myself in the beginning I was helping the war effort, destroying the men who ran the black market. I stopped believing that a long time ago, but I didn't quit. Others would just take their place. I never even heard of the men Hoover said would fill the hole left by Nitti. All he cares about is headlines. Appropriations from Congress. More power. How long can you work for someone like that before you begin to think that's okay?"
"You let that collar go to your head."
"I didn't think you'd understand."
"I mean busting out in a sermon just like that. You ain't thinking nothing I didn't think when Mr. Capone went away. I didn't have the words is all. Bottles, Nitti, McGurn, they was just little Als; dressed like him and acted like him, but they'd throw you to the wolves to save their own hides. Why do you think I got out?"
"Who says you did? You bought a bar with mob money."
"Hoover tell you that? Well, he was right. It was mob money, all right; it belonged to a shylock. He charged me three hundred percent interest and took out his first payment before he handed me the dough. I'd still be paying him if Mr. Capone's cousin Rocco Fischetti didn't come along and buy me out after two years. Selling him the liquor license gave me the folding to come down here and set up shop where the sharks don't eat you more than once. That beer of yours must be warm as piss by now."
Peter had forgotten all about it. He poured what was left overboard and traded the empty for two full ones from the chest; it seemed to him there was more than enough scrap metal cluttering the Atlantic. He opened them, took a long pull from one, and handed the other to Paul. "They say you can't leave the rackets, but you did. How do I get out of the Bureau?"
Paul lifted his can and didn't lower it until it was empty. This time he didn't throw it overboard. He looked down at it. Muscles worked in the corners of his jaw. He looked up at Peter. "It's in your blood, boy. Think. What would Al do?" He saw clouds reflected in the clear brown eyes. They were moving at terrific speed. "What do you mean, in my blood?"
"You been pulling the wool over a lot of eyes all year long. And not just any eyes. Priests. Guys in the rackets. That takes practice or talent, and you ain't had practice. You sure didn't inherit it from me. You caught me in every lie I ever told you but one. From your mother neither. She never lied in her life."
Out there in the temperate air Peter felt his face grow cold.
"I didn't meet Mr. Capone strictly by accident," Paul said. "That night he killed Ragtime Joe Howard, he came looking for me in that speak, knowing I'd be there. Any hack would've done for what he had in mind, but he wanted to throw the job my way."
"How did he know you'd be there?"
"How you think? Your mother told him."
His hand suddenly lost its grip. The can slipped from it and struck the deck. The contents splashed his cuffs and soaked through his shoes. He felt as if he'd lost his hold while climbing and had fallen himself; was still falling.
"Maggie." He whispered it.
"What her friends called her. I told you she never did like Maureen. I guess Mr. Capone told you some of it."
"He remembered her after all these years, and there were so many others, some of them famous. He said she left him the first time he got himself into trouble in Chicago."
"Mr. Capone was a generous man, whatever else you hear about him. You could've grown up in a nice house, had swell clothes, went to the best schools. Your mother loved you more than anything, but she wouldn't have that. She didn't know about that night till Mr. Capone showed up at the apartment to buy back his gun. We had a big fight. You probably heard it."
"There were so many."
"She was a real Irish blowtop. She almost took you and left. The only reason she stayed was she didn't expect to live long. We had a lot of fights before she let me take that job. I told her doctors don't live on air, and a boy needs his mother. Things would-a been a lot different if she was a well woman.
"Everything went to hell after she died," Paul continued. "You was almost grown, and you had her idea of right and wrong. I didn't handle it so good when you told me you wanted to study to be a priest. I guess maybe you know I loved her more than you. You was so different, even as a kid; you had that picture of J. Edgar Hoover up there over your bed. But she loved you more than me, so I thought that was jake. I tried to raise you like you was mine. I didn't marry her to keep her out of a jam, and as bad as things got I never, never threw it up to her that she was in the family way when we tied the knot. Life I lived, I didn't— how'd you say it—have the necessary credentials." His smile was sickly.
Peter took another large swallow. It caught in his throat like something solid, then drained into his stomach, where it soured on contact. "Does he know?"
"I don't know, honest. He sure never brought it up. But he must
-a had a hunch or we never would've known each other."
"How much did she know about what you did for him?"
"We never talked about it." '
"I don't believe you."
"Pietro, I didn't think she wanted to ask questions she didn't want to know the answers to."
"But you told her about that night Capone beat up Scalise and Anselmi with a baseball bat. I heard you. You were drunk."
"Not so drunk I didn't know what I was saying. She was always after me to quit. After a while even the doctor bills wouldn't change her mind. I told her it was too late for that, that the time to quit was before I took the job. I wasn't at the roadhouse that night. I was loading a truck downtown. I just told her a story I'd heard like I was there. I had to scare her, and I couldn't tell her how deep I was really in. Personally I think it never happened, or if it did it wasn't him on the other end of that bat. It was just one of those stories that kept getting told. That was Jack McGurn's deal, for that fuck-up St. Valentine's Day. Word around town was it was friends of Scalise and Anselmi gunned him down in that bowling alley later. February fourteenth, it was. Seven years to the day."
Peter gritted his teeth in what must have looked like a cynical grin. If Capone hadn't lied about that night, it was possible he'd told the truth about everything else. The only principal in the affair who had.
"He's a better man than you know."
"What?"
"Something Sharon said, about you. I thought she was just sticking up for her boyfriend."
"We got no secrets from each other." Paul shook himself. "Shit. I guess now we'll have to get married by a rabbi. Got to wear that stupid beanie."
Peter said nothing.
"You all right, son?"
"How can you call me that without choking?"
Paul bunched his chin. "I got at least as much right as that man in Miami. He just happened to be in the room at the time."
"Can you turn this boat around? I'm getting sick."
Paul set his can down on the deck and got out of the chair. Peter took his place, leaving him to weigh anchor and start the engine. Sitting in the chair he drank three beers during the trip back and had to be helped onto the pier.
The Confessions of Al Capone Page 51
