“Easy there, young fella,” he said. “Just go easy.” He kept his hand on my shoulder. My heart was beating like anything and my legs were weak and trembly. I gave him a quick look. He certainly did look like a swell—dark blue suit, dark blue tie with a pearl stickpin. His face was calm as you please. He gave his mustache a little pat. “Now, if we run into any problems here, you just call me Uncle Ned.”
I was too frozen to speak.
“Understand, son?”
“Yes, sir,” I whispered.
“Uncle Ned.”
“Uncle Ned,” I whispered.
He took his hand off my shoulder and we walked across the park side by side. I began to calm down a little. For one thing, I figured he had a gun somewhere under that overcoat and could take care of anybody who jumped out at us. For anybody seeing him would take him for a swell and figure he was worth something. Was he really a swell? Or was he dressed up like that just so as to fit in with a swell neighborhood? I thought about my own clothes. I sure wouldn’t fit into any swell neighborhood.
We were coming to the other side of the park. Ahead I could see the lights of a couple of big houses. Now the man put his hand on my shoulder again and steered me off the path into the shadows of the trees. For a moment he stood there, looking carefully around—this side, that side. It was so quiet I could hear his breathing. Then he said in a low voice, “Son, that’s Park Row up there. Go on out there, cross the street, and make a left. Go up three houses until you come to one where there’s a marble deer out front. I guess you know what a deer looks like.”
“Yes.” I did, too, for there were deer in some of the picture books at Grandma’s house.
“There’s a marble deer right on the lawn and an iron rail fence all around the place with spikes on the tops of the rails. You go along past the house. A little alley turns in there and runs along the fence going towards the back of the place. Go on down the alley. There’s a place where one of the spikes is knocked off. You can hoist yourself over the fence there. You’ll land in some bushes. Creep across the lawn to the house. There’s a stone foundation, and you keep going towards the back. You’ll come to a small window which lets into the cellar. It’ll be unlocked. Slip through the window and drop down into the cellar. It’ll be a tight squeeze, I expect. Now work your way to the back. You’ll come to a couple of steps up, and a door. It’s bolted. Just slide the bolts, slip on out of there and back over the fence. Then you come back here. Make sure nobody’s following you. If you do it right you’ll be in and out of there in five minutes. Circus said you was a smart one and wouldn’t have any trouble with it.”
I wouldn’t have thought there was any way for me to be more scared than I was before, but I was. My legs and arms were weak and trembly, and cold sweat was blooming on my face. “How’ll I see down in that cellar? How’ll I find the door?”
“You won’t have no trouble. Just feel along the cellar towards the back.”
“What if I trip on something?”
“You won’t,” he said.
“What if they have a dog?”
“They do, but he’ll be dead to the world. Now repeat it all back to me.”
So I did, my voice rusty in my throat. When I got done he gave my shoulder a squeeze. “You get this job done right and there’ll be more. You’ll be riding high before long.”
“Thanks,” I whispered. But I wasn’t ever going to get talked into something like this again.
“All right, off you go.” He gave me a pat on the shoulder. I turned and began to walk along the gravel path under the streetlights, my heart racing like an electric pump. In a moment I came out onto Park Row. I’d never been there before. Grandpa and me had always come to the park from the other side. It was all big houses here, one after the next, going in both directions up and down. There was no trouble seeing them, for most of them had lights on in some windows, lights beside the front doors, the carriage doors, and such. Oh, it was mighty rich to look at—big brick or stone houses three and four stories high, with lots of gables and chimneys, all surrounded by big yards with trees, bushes, gardens. It was something all right.
I crossed the street, turned left, and walked along the sidewalk for a ways, until I came to the house with the marble deer and the iron rail fence. I didn’t like the look of that fence, for the spikes were pretty sharp. The house was stone, and a lot like the others. The light from the upstairs windows was flowing down onto the lawn pretty good. It wasn’t going to be easy getting across that lawn without being spotted if anyone happened to be looking out the right window. I just hoped they were all asleep.
I went along until I came to the alley and turned into it. It was darker here, which made me feel more comfortable. I laid my hand on the iron fence and began to slip down the alley, letting my hand tick along the spikes. It was all bushes along the other side of the fence, which screened me off from the house pretty good. I kept going along until I found the place where he’d told me the spike was missing. The spikes were only about six inches apart, which meant that even with one spike missing there wasn’t more than a foot of space for me to slide through. It wasn’t much, but I figured it was enough.
I took a quick look around. Then I sucked in a deep breath, grabbed hold of the two spikes on either side of the gap, gave myself a heave, and pulled myself up until I was draped halfway over the fence. Then I slid down head first into the bushes, holding one hand over my face so as not to get my eyes scratched. A couple of branches broke and the noise of snapping sounded like rifle cracks to me. I lay still on the ground beneath the bushes, listening.
But there was no sound and no lights popped on. I lay there looking out. The house was about fifty feet away. Up on the top floor a couple of windows were lit up, throwing a patch of light on the lawn between me and the house. That would be the servants up there on the top floor. I figured that whoever had left that cellar window unlocked was lying there all of a sweat, just waiting. I wished whoever it was had the blame sense to shut off their lights so I’d have some darkness to cross the lawn in. As it was, I’d have to go about twice the distance to skirt around the patch of light. I took another deep breath, crawled out from under the bushes, rose up off my knees, and scuttled across the lawn around the patch of light. It seemed like it took me forever to scoot across the lawn, but it probably wasn’t more than ten seconds. I flopped down by the foundation and lay there listening again. Nothing. I began to creep along the foundation, feeling for the cellar window, and in a moment I came to it. I lay flat beside it and gave it an easy push. It creaked. Why didn’t whoever unlocked it have enough sense to oil the hinges? I gave it another little push and it squeaked again. I figured I best get it over with quick, so I gave it a hard shove. It shrieked. I knelt up, ready to tear out of there and heave myself back over that fence. Silence.
Now I lay flat, swiveled around, stuck my feet through the window, and began to worm my way backwards. It was awful tight. I stuck my arms out so as to narrow myself and went on worming backwards, my sides scraping on the window frame. Then my feet touched something solid. I slid the rest of the way in and stood there trembling and shaking and breathing hard. I wanted to push the little cellar window closed again, in case somebody came along, but I didn’t dare because of the noise.
It was black as it could be in that cellar. Right by the window there was a dim glow, but for the rest, nothing. I’d never been in such blackness before. It was like being wrapped in black cloth.
I laid my hand against the cellar wall. It was rough stone, damp and grainy with dirt. I began to slip along it, taking mighty slow steps in case somebody had left a box or something in the way.
Then I heard footsteps overhead. They were coming across the floor above towards me from the other side of the house. I froze where I was, trying to breathe without making any noise. The footsteps came on until they were overhead and then they moved off until I couldn’t hear them anymore. Did they have a night watchman walking around the house? Maybe it was
just somebody who woke up in the night and came down to the kitchen for a glass of milk. I waited; and when I didn’t hear anything more, I started creeping towards the back of the house through that black cloth, raising each foot up slow and pushing it forward real careful; and by and by my left foot hit something. I stooped down and felt around with my hands. It was the pair of steps. I felt forward above them, until I found the door, and then roamed my hands over the door in the dark until I found a bolt. I eased it open, making a little scraping sound. I felt around some more until I found the second bolt and slid that open too. Then I lifted the latch, slipped the door open a few inches, and looked out.
There were more patches of light out there on the lawn. After being inside that black cloth that light was kind of a shock. Dimly beyond I could see the shape of the carriage house.
I waited a few seconds, listening. I slipped the door open a few more inches, squeezed through, and began to scuttle along the foundation of the house to the corner. Then I was running through the dark to the bushes along the iron fence. Ten seconds later I was back over the fence and racing down the alley towards Park Row. At the end of the alley I stopped and looked out. Nobody was in sight. I strolled out of there, crossed Park Row, and went into the park.
Oh my, did I feel good all of a sudden. I’d done it. I’d got in there and got out without being caught. I’d done it the way I was told to and it was all over. I felt like running and jumping, but of course I couldn’t do that. So I walked back along the gravel path, and in two shakes I saw the man in the homburg standing in the shadows of the trees. I walked over to him. “I did it,” I said. “I did it just the way you said.”
He patted my shoulder. “Good lad. No trouble at all?”
“No, sir. That’s all.”
“Good lad,” he said, patting some more. “All right, you skip on home as quick as you can. You forget about me. You forget you ever seen me. If you come across me on the street you just walk on by like I was a stranger. Understand?”
“Yes, sir. But sir—”
“Circus’ll see you when the job’s done. He’ll give you yours.”
Could I trust Circus? Would he hold out on me? “Sir, can you lend me carfare home? It’s a mighty long walk and Ma might worry where I was.”
“Oh, sure.” He reached into his pocket, pulled up a handful of change, and dumped it into my hands without counting. I figured it must be at least one dollar. I didn’t stop to count it but turned and walked back across the park as quick as I could go. A half hour later I was home.
I overslept in the morning and went off to school in a rush with Lulu, so I didn’t happen to notice the story on the front page of the Chronicle until I passed a newsstand after school. There’d been a robbery on Park Row. Somebody’d heard the sounds and come down with a pistol to investigate. The robbers had shot him dead, and got off with a heap of silver, but they’d missed the jewels in the safe.
7
IT SCARED THE DAYLIGHTS OUT of me to know I’d been in on killing somebody. It was bad enough helping Circus’s bunch break into that house and steal the silver. But helping them to kill somebody was terrible. I felt guilty as sin. It didn’t matter who actually did the shooting—I knew that everybody who was in on it was guilty of murder.
What did it feel like to get the electric chair? I figured it happened so fast you wouldn’t feel very much—just a big kick all over and then nothing. They said your brains melted and ran out your nose, but you’d be dead by that time and wouldn’t know anything about it. The worst part would be just before—when they shaved your head so your hair wouldn’t catch on fire and strapped you down to the chair.
But it wasn’t just worrying about getting the chair that scared me. It was the idea that I’d done such a bad thing as murder. I’d done bad before—pinched Lulu on the fanny when I was sore at Ma and Pa even though Lulu didn’t have anything to do with it; and once I broke into a vacant house with some other kids and peed on the walls. I’d felt guilty about those things later and wished I hadn’t done them. But murder was a whole lot bigger and it got me so scared and guilty I couldn’t sleep at night. I’d go to bed and doze off and about two minutes later I’d snap awake, my heart thumping and my stomach churned up. It would be so bad I couldn’t lie still. I’d jump out of bed and stand by the window looking out at the dark buildings and the light in the sky above them. I’d find windows with lights on in them and watch them in hopes of seeing somebody moving around, so I’d have something to watch. But mostly there wasn’t anybody, and I’d go back to bed and try to fall asleep again.
For a while after it first happened I’d look around for a newspaper somebody’d left on a bench or tossed in a trash basket to see if they’d written anything more about the murder—did the cops have a lead on who did it, did they find any of the silver, and such. But there wasn’t anything. It wasn’t an interesting enough murder for the papers. But it was mighty interesting to me. Sometimes I almost wished they’d catch me, so it would be over with.
It would be mighty hard on Lulu if I got the chair. She’d wail and cry and probably blame me for it, too. What would Lulu do without me? In a few years, when she was older, she’d be able to take care of herself—get her own supper when there wasn’t anything to eat and get herself off to school in the morning. But right now it would be hard for her to get along without me.
Ma’d be upset if I was electrocuted, too. She worried about me, when she thought of it. If I got a bad report card she’d fuss and say, “What am I going to do with you? With your intelligence you ought to have more pride than to let your grades go like this,” and so forth.
Pa was a different story. He never let you get the idea that he cared about anything. He always made it seem like he didn’t give a damn about whatever it was—us, his pals at the Golden Eagle, the sunshine, the United States of America, his supper, or even himself. It could rain and blow all it wanted and it didn’t make any difference to him. He wouldn’t let a little thing like his son being dead bother him. Not him.
Between tossing and turning all night and jumping all day long every time I saw a cop coming, I started to look bad. After a while Ma noticed. “Roger, you’ve got the most awful rings around your eyes. What on earth is the matter?”
“I don’t know. I feel okay.”
“Well, you don’t look okay.” She put her palm on my forehead. “You don’t seem to have any fever.”
“I feel fine.”
“Maybe you need a tonic. I think I’ll ask the druggist what he recommends.” But she didn’t get around to it, and by and by the bad feeling began to wear off and I started sleeping again. But I could remember what that feeling was like. I never wanted to go through that again.
For about a week after the robbery I didn’t see anything of Circus. I figured he and the rest of them were lying low. Maybe they’d skipped out of town. I was just as glad, for I didn’t want to have any more to do with any of them—not Circus, not the man in the homburg, not any of them. I was finished with all of that.
Just as that awful feeling was dying away, Circus Penrose caught up with me. One day, when I was on my way home from school, he slipped by me, gave me a look over his shoulder, and jerked his chin a little, so I’d follow him.
I was sorry to see him. I didn’t want to talk to him, and for a minute I thought about not paying any attention to him but just walking on home. I knew there wasn’t any use in that, for he’d only catch up with me again and stop me on the street. The less people saw me with him, the better. So I followed along behind him, keeping a little ways back so it looked like I didn’t have anything to do with him. After a bit he ducked into an alley that ran alongside a saloon. I went down it after him. The alley swung around behind the saloon. I went on back, and there was Circus, sitting on a garbage can in his yellow pants, purple shirt, and derby hat, enjoying the spring sun. “I bet you was thinking we double-crossed you, Rog.”
“No. I just wished they wouldn’t have shot that guy.”<
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He put his finger to his lips. “Shush, shush, shush. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Nobody I know of shot anybody.” He looked around nervously.
“I wished they wouldn’t have.”
“I don’t have no idea what you’re talking about.” He reached into his back pocket, took out some bills, and rolled them up tight. “Here,” he said. “That’s your cut. Don’t ever say Circus never done nothing for you.” He held out the roll.
“I don’t want it,” I said. All the same I was curious to know how much it was.
It was like he didn’t hear me. “Here. Take it. There’s more where that come from, too.”
I took the bills, unrolled them, and fanned them out a little. It was five tens. I couldn’t believe it. Fifty dollars. I’d never seen fifty dollars in my life, much less held it in my hands. I couldn’t believe it. I stood there staring at the money. “Fifty dollars?”
“That’s small spuds. There’s a lot more than that out there waiting to be took.”
Now that I’d actually got the fifty dollars in my hands I wasn’t so dead set against taking it. But I knew I couldn’t keep it, for if I took it, it made me one of them. If I turned the money down, it would make up a little for helping to murder that man. It would be saying in the plainest way that I wasn’t going to do anything crooked again.
“I don’t want it, Circus. You can keep it for yourself.”
He looked surprised. “Oh, come on, Roger. What’s got into you? You earned it fair and square.”
“You keep it. I just want to forget about the whole thing.” Still, fifty dollars was an awful lot of money. I could buy myself a lot of fancy duds with fifty dollars, and have enough left over to buy Lulu a dress.
He looked at me for a while. Then he looked up at the sky and began to whistle “Shine On, Harvest Moon.” Finally he stopped whistling and said, “Well now, if I was you, Rog, I’d take that there money. Yes, I would. For you know, if it got back to—well, no point in naming names, just call it a fella I know—that you was feeling sorry for the departed and wouldn’t take no money, I don’t think he’d like that. No, I don’t think he would. For it might strike him that a fella who was feeling sorry about something he’d done might take it into his head to ease his mind by a-blabbing about it. Tell his ma or his pa or one of his little girlies. This fella we’re talking about, I figure he’d be a whole lot happier to learn you’d got paid fair and square and was glad to have the money. So I think you’d best keep that there roll.” And before I had a chance to do anything he stood up off the garbage can, walked down the alley, and was gone.
My Crooked Family Page 7
