Al Capone Does My Homework

by Gennifer Choldenko

  We hold our breath, looking from the cockroach to Trixle and back again. Then our cockroach scuttles forward.

  Lizard has the soapy water bucket against his big chest. The Count motions toward the bug. The cockroach zigs and zags toward the Count.

  Darby pats his pocket for his cigarettes, then digs his fingers inside. He takes the cigarette out and strikes the match, inhaling deeply.

  The cockroach darts out to the first cookie crumb.

  Most of the cons are watching the cockroach. Do they see the tiny scroll on its back?

  The cockroach seems content with one cookie crumb. It scoots toward the shade of 64 building.

  I run back up to Annie. Jimmy is already there. His lip is twisted, his face full of disappointment. This isn’t going to work and he knows it.

  Trixle and Annie’s dad reach a lag in their discussion. Trixle turns to check on the cons. “Get to work,” he barks, then he’s back talking to Bomini again.

  Lizard dunks his scrub brush in his bucket, then crawls on his hands and knees toward the cockroach.

  Annie darts a hopeful look at me.

  Lizard is rapidly overtaking the cockroach. His hand hovers and then shoots out, snatching the brown bug.

  “Yes!” I whisper as Lizard dangles the cockroach in front of his face, then pops it in his mouth, note and all, his Adam’s apple slipping up and down his throat.

  “Oh my God! He ate the cockroach,” Annie says.

  Lizard smiles up at us, then he rubs his belly as if he’s just eaten a satisfying meal.

  Indiana’s laugh cuts through the air.

  Trixle whips around, dropping his cigarette before he’s half done and grinding it out with his shoe. “What’s your problem, 141?” he asks.

  The entire work crew is looking at us.

  “All right . . .” Darby barks. “What’s going on here, folks?”

  Nobody answers.

  “Moose.” He motions me to come down.

  Why is it always me? I glance back at Jimmy and Annie as I trudge down to Darby.

  “What have you guys been doing up there for so long?” Darby demands.

  “Catching cockroaches, sir,” I tell him when I’m down on the dock, careful to stay on my side of the white line.

  “Catching cockroaches, my foot.” Darby has his bullhorn now, his voice amplified. “You kids are up to no good. You think the rules don’t apply to you, well, I got news for you.”

  Seems to me the opposite is true. The rules apply even more to me. He’s singled me out because my dad is the associate warden, but I manage to keep this to myself.

  “You can’t encourage these jokers.” Trixle nods toward the cons. “You gotta let them know who’s boss. Don’t suppose you’ve learned that from your daddy. They eat you alive if you’re too nice, but no. Cam Flanagan gets promoted. Warden Williams ought to have his head examined.”

  “Don’t talk about my dad or the warden that way.” My voice vibrates like an eggbeater. I should not be talking back to an adult and I know it.

  “That’s right, your daddy is the boss now, isn’t he? Shall I march you up to the warden’s place so you can explain why you’re hanging around down here, sticking your nose where it don’t belong?” Trixle’s eyes drill into me.

  “No, sir.”

  “All righty then. I’d keep my mouth shut if I were you. Far as you know, I’m respectful of your father and the warden . . . you hear?”

  “Yes, sir,” I say.

  “Glad we understand each other . . . Now get outta here. I don’t want to see your face up on the balcony, the stairwell, nowhere around here, unless you are on your way somewhere else, understood?”

  I glance at the cons. They’re all standing in line now, waiting to go back up the switchback. Darby didn’t tell them to do this, they just did.

  Darby’s bullhorn is at the ready two inches from his lips, but there’s nothing he can say to chew them out. He moves from one foot to the other like he’s got blisters on his toes.

  The cons got the best of him, just as they got the best of Jimmy and Annie and me.

  They’re obedient and defiant. How can that be?

  16. One Thing You Shouldn’t Do

  Wednesday, January 29, 1936

  So much for the cockroach plan. I wonder if it’s dead yet or if it’s crawling around inside Lizard. Can a cockroach survive the digestive process?

  Everybody’s been so busy this week; it’s now Wednesday and still we haven’t made our next move. I’m starting to get antsy. Jimmy and Annie had to go into the city with their moms this afternoon. I have to watch Natalie so my mother can teach a piano lesson to one of the little boys who lives on the island.

  “Bye, Mom,” I tell her as she sails out the door to the Officers’ Club, her music bag biting into her shoulder. Nat is busy manning the light switch, on-off, on-off.

  With my mom gone, I can’t help thinking of Mrs. Kelly and how I told her I was working on the eye contact problem.

  I take a page and write 47 times 234 on it and tape it to my forehead.

  “How much is it?” I ask.

  Nat’s eyes brush past my face. “Ten thousand, nine hundred and ninety-eight,” she says. She somehow has managed to take in the numbers that quick.

  I tape a new page up to my forehead. “Look in my eyes,” I tell her.

  Again, the numbers seem to enter her brain without her ever looking at them. I try a harder equation to slow her down: 56,478 x 43 = ?

  “Hey Nat, what’s this?”

  “Two million, four hundred and twenty-eight thousand, five hundred and fifty-four,” she answers. I don’t need to check if she’s right. She’s always right.

  Nat is headed for the closet now. She finds her shoes and puts her toes in them, but not her heels.

  “We aren’t going out, Nat,” I say.

  “I—am—going—outside,” she says, each word pronounced more carefully than the last.

  I jump in front of her, blocking the door. “Look here.” I point to my forehead, where I am holding a new equation—it’s faster than taping it.

  “Five million, three hundred and twenty-one thousand, seven,” she says. “Moose stay. I go.”

  “No, you can’t go by yourself.”

  “I go,” she repeats.

  “You can’t, Natalie.”

  She shakes her head hard.

  “I go,” she repeats.

  “I’m babysitting. You can’t go.”

  “I’m older,” she blurts out.

  “Yeah, I know, but . . .”

  “I am older!” she shouts.

  “Okay, all right, you’re older.” I stuff my feet into my shoes, wiggle them on without undoing the laces. “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “The birds,” Nat says. “Moose get the bread.”

  Nat loves to feed the birds. My dad likes to take her down to the dock with a few crusts of bread.

  There isn’t any stale bread, so I bring three fresh slices and some crackers. Nat waits patiently for me, but when I open the door, she pushes in front. I hurry to pass her. She stops in her tracks.

  “I am older,” she insists. Natalie always wins.

  I feel like a chump following her, but there’s nothing left to do. I can’t have her pitching a fit.

  When we get down to the dock, the birds all seem to know Natalie. They’re like noisy kids waiting for her. Their squawking rises to a fevered pitch, then dies down in a rolling rhythm like the surf.

  Nat takes the bread and begins her ritual. Each slice must be broken into a certain number of pieces and then the pieces thrown so that they get divided evenly among the birds.

  Natalie is in charge. She doesn’t need me. I watch for a while, but I get tired of how re
lentlessly methodical Natalie is and I begin pacing, drifting farther and farther away, until I’m outside the Caconis’ apartment on the ground floor of 64. The Caconis’ apartment is dark and quiet. The only sign of life is the laundry bag sitting on the doormat. That’s when I start thinking about what happened with Donny Caconi and the bottle cap and how Jimmy didn’t believe Donny could throw better than I could and he wasn’t even there. How did he win?

  Maybe I’m just a sore loser, but I can’t help wondering if you could doctor bottle caps so that one flew better than the other. Would Donny’s pockets have a clue?

  I look out at Nat. The birds are winding down. They know when she’s run out of bread. I wave to Nat to come back. It doesn’t look like she sees me, but she must, because she starts walking my way.

  I pick up the laundry bag. “Let’s go,” I say.

  “No Moose. Caconi. Not Flanagan,” she murmurs like she thinks I’m playing the Stupid Moose game.

  “Yeah I know, Nat. I’m just checking something.”

  “Caconi. Not Flanagan,” Nat says louder this time.

  “I’ll bring it right back,” I assure her.

  My father once told me there are lots of things to keep private, but if you’re doing something in secret ask yourself why.

  His voice keeps rattling around in my head, but my hands still have the Caconi laundry bag and my legs are following Nat up the stairs. Inside #2E, I head straight for my room. On the way, I flick the hall light switch a few times. It doesn’t even work right now, but Nat’s happy turning it on and off anyway. I slip in my room and close the door.

  My pulse beats in my head like the tommy guns on the officers’ firing range. I reach in the bag and pull out one of Mrs. Caconi’s aprons.

  That’s strange. She doesn’t send her laundry through. She doesn’t like having the convicts touch her clothes.

  I rifle through Donny’s pants, his shirts, his socks. I wiggle my hand inside each pocket. Empty. Empty. Empty. Every pocket is empty.

  Did I really think Donny Caconi was a cheat? Now I’m ashamed of myself.

  I’m just putting Mrs. Caconi’s gigantic apron back in the bag when I feel something hard graze my hand.

  Inside her apron pocket is a handkerchief with something inside.

  A round roll of money. Five-dollar bills. Eight of them. Forty dollars!

  Mrs. Caconi is not rich. Why would she leave forty dollars in her pocket?

  17. Fingering Suckers

  Wednesday, January 29, 1936

  I can’t do anything about the money. I mean really, what am I going to do? I’d have to tell my dad I was rifling through Donny’s pockets because I didn’t believe he could outthrow me.

  What does that make me look like?

  A chump.

  I think about telling Jimmy. But I can’t do that, either. I mean, I didn’t even find anything, except money. It isn’t a crime to leave money in your pocket—even if it is a lot of money. But if the laundry cons find it, she’ll lose it for sure. How do I explain to Mrs. Caconi how I happened to be digging through her pocket?

  It seems like the best thing to do is leave well enough alone. I put the money back where I found it and shove the Caconis’ laundry bag inside ours.

  “C’mon, Nat,” I say.

  “Where c’mon?” she asks.

  “You were right. Caconi, not Flanagan. This isn’t our laundry bag. We’re going to return it.”

  “Just checking something,” she mumbles.

  “Yeah, I know. I checked and now it’s time to put it back.”

  Natalie nods and follows along behind me without any argument. She likes putting things back where they belong.

  To my surprise, the dock cons are out. They usually don’t come down in the afternoon, but I guess the ferry dropped off a lot of building supplies for #2E. Darby must have decided it was easier to bring the cons down than have the officers move all that lumber up two flights of stairs.

  I dig the Caconis’ laundry bag out of ours, and drop it where I found it. As soon as I’ve let it go, I begin to breathe more normally again.

  Nat and I stand behind the white line watching the cons. Lizard can’t seem to do anything without talking to Indiana about it. The Count takes orders from Indiana too, but he clearly doesn’t like this. The way he clears his throat and purses his lips makes me wonder if Indiana gets on his nerves.

  The cons are in a line formation, carrying lumber off the ferry, when I see Indiana flick his head like he wants something. Lizard moves forward to talk to Darby, while the Count slips to the rain gutter, kneels down, takes off his shoe, and shakes it as if he’s got a pebble inside.

  This would look perfectly normal if I hadn’t seen that nod between Indiana and Count Lustig. It reminds me of the code between the catcher and the pitcher about what kind of pitch to throw. Plus it seems like Lizard’s trying to distract Darby.

  Now the Count’s got his hand in the downspout. Did he put something in? Or take something out?

  The whole thing takes maybe thirty seconds and then the Count slides back in line and Lizard finishes talking to Darby. Now Lizard and the Count are carrying the two-by-fours up the stairwell, as if nothing happened.

  What the heck was that about?

  I could just walk right over there and find out.

  “Wait here a second,” I tell Natalie as I walk by the downspout and kneel down. I’m pretending to retie my shoe—with one hand, while the other reaches inside the rain gutter. I pull out a leaf and a small piece of paper folded up tight like a football. I slip the paper in my pocket and tie my shoe just as I hear the cons coming down the stairwell again

  “C’mon, Nat,” I say. We take the other stairwell up and across to the back of 64. My hand shakes as I unfold the paper. It has numbers on it.

  213 35-2-75

  A code? An address? Part of a phone number? Alcatraz convict numbers?

  Nat is walking on toward the swings. I run to catch up with her, then show her the slip of paper. “What do you make of this?”

  She drags her toe against the ground, her complete attention on that foot.

  “You don’t know?” I ask.

  “Don’t know,” she mutters.

  “Yeah, me neither,” I tell her.

  I try to think this through. If the Count put this information in the rain gutter, he’s trying to communicate these numbers—whatever they are—to someone.

  But isn’t this a bad spot to put a message for another prisoner? Wouldn’t it be easier to send messages in the cell house?

  What if this isn’t a message for another convict.

  What if it’s a message for one of us.

  That’s when I begin to itch all over.

  • • •

  Now I know I need to talk to Annie and Jimmy. I tell Natalie she’ll get extra swing time after we talk to Annie, and to my surprise, Natalie follows along without any objection.

  When Annie opens the door, she blushes so deeply, it looks like she’s rolled her cheeks in pomegranate juice.

  Her hair is wet and she has her bathrobe on.

  I’m so keyed up, I can hardly get the story out.

  “Show me,” Annie says when I’m done, and I dig the note out of my pocket.

  “Chapters or page numbers? Geometry? Coordinates? Longitude and latitude? It could be anything,” she says.

  “Only one way to find out.”

  “Which is?” Annie asks.

  “Put it back and see who picks it up.”

  “Watch the downspout all the time? How are we going to do that? And besides, won’t that be dangerous?”

  “Not if they don’t see us. Listen Annie, what do you know about the Count?”

  “You heard about his Eiffel Tower con, right?”
/>
  “The one where he sold it?”

  “Uh-huh, as scrap metal to a scrap metal company. Played that scam twice. He likes to forge things too. Hey wait a minute. Theresa and I made a convict card for him. I’ll go get it.”

  She and Theresa make these convict cards for the best-known cons. Annie does the research and Theresa helps her write up the cards. They’re recipe cards folded in quarters.

  Count Lustig, AKA: Victor Lustig, Robert V. Miller, Victor Gross, Albert Phillips, Charles Gruber, George Shobo, Robert Lamar, JR Richards, Victor Shaffer, Frank Hessler, Frank Kessler

  Born in: Bohemia

  Family: Wife and daughter

  Business: Con artist

  Favorite pastime: Reading.

  “Reading? That’s his hobby?”

  Annie shrugs.

  Favorite crime: The Count stole $22,000 from a group of bankers. When they caught up with him, he convinced them if they pressed charges, their bank would go belly up. The bankers let him go free and paid him $1,000 for the inconvenience they caused.

  “So wait . . . he blackmailed them about his own crime?”

  “Yep.”

  “That’s one for the record books.”

  Favorite description of crimes: “Fingering suckers”

  Most famous escape attempt: The Count escaped from prison in New York City by weaving bed linens into a rope. He cut the wire screen in the bathroom with stolen wire cutters and lowered himself down three stories on the woven bedsheet rope.

  Sent to jail for: Running a confidence or “Bunco” game

  Current home: Alcatraz Island

  “I know, I’m gonna get my baseball gear. I left it at the Mattamans’. We’ll play catch at the dock and just happen to drop the ball around the gutter. And then I’ll put the note back.”

  Annie gives me a funny look. “Moose?”

  “What?” I ask, my hand on the door.

  “I’m in my bathrobe.”

  My ears heat up.

  Natalie laughs. I turn and watch her. She actually got the humor.

  “She likes to make fun of you, Moose, that’s for sure. Look, I have to get ready. We’ll put it back tomorrow, okay?” Annie smiles.