The Tender Bar: A Memoir

by J. R. Moehringer

  That’s one way to solve the budget crisis, says the reporter from the Albany Times Union.

  The reporters share what they know about Sutton, pass around facts and stories like cold provisions that will have to get them through the night. What they haven’t read, or seen on TV, they’ve heard from their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. Sutton is the first multigeneration bank robber in history, the first ever to build a lengthy career—it spans four decades. In his heyday Sutton was the face of American crime, one of a handful of men to make the leap from public enemy to folk hero. Smarter than Machine Gun Kelly, saner than Pretty Boy Floyd, more likable than Legs Diamond, more peaceable than Dutch Schultz, more romantic than Bonnie and Clyde, Sutton saw bank robbery as high art and went about it with an artist’s single-minded zeal. He believed in study, planning, hard work. And yet he was also creative, an innovator, and like the greatest artists he proved to be a tenacious survivor. He escaped three maximum-security prisons, eluded cops and FBI agents for years. He was Henry Ford by way of John Dillinger—with dashes of Houdini and Picasso and Rasputin. The reporters know all about Sutton’s stylish clothes, his impish smile, his love of good books, the glint of devilment in his bright blue eyes, so blue that the FBI once described them in bulletins as azure. It’s the rare bank robber who moves the FBI to such lyricism.

  What the reporters don’t know, what they and most Americans have always wanted to know, is whether or not Sutton, who was celebrated for being nonviolent, had anything to do with the brutal gangland murder of Arnold Schuster. A fresh-faced twenty-four-year-old from Brooklyn, a baseball-loving veteran of the Coast Guard, Schuster caught the wrong subway one afternoon and found himself face-to-face with Sutton, the most wanted man in America at the time. Three weeks later Schuster was dead, and his unsolved murder might be the most tantalizing cold case in New York City history. It’s definitely the most tantalizing part of the Sutton legend.

  THE GUARDS MARCH SUTTON BACK TO ADMIN. A CLERK CUTS HIM TWO checks. One for $146, salary for seventeen years at various prison jobs, minus taxes. Another for $40, the cost of a bus ticket to Manhattan. Every released prisoner gets bus fare to Manhattan. Sutton takes the checks—this is really happening. His heart begins to throb. His leg too. They’re throbbing at each other, like the male and female leads in an Italian opera.

  The guards march him back to his cell. You got fifteen minutes, they tell him, handing him a shopping bag.

  He stands in the middle of the cell, his eight-by-six home for the last seventeen years. Is it possible that he won’t sleep here tonight? That he’ll sleep in a soft bed with clean sheets and a real pillow and no demented souls above and below him howling and cursing and pleading with impotence and fury? The sound of men in cages—nothing can compare. He sets the shopping bag on the desk and carefully packs the manuscript of his novel. Then the spiral notebooks from his creative writing classes. Then his copies of Dante, Shakespeare, Plato. Then Kerouac. Prison is where you promise yourself the right to live. A line that saved Sutton on many long nights. Then the dictionary of quotations, which contains the most famous line ever spoken by America’s most famous bank robber, Willie Sutton, a.k.a. Slick Willie, a.k.a. Willie the Actor.

  Carefully, tenderly, he packs the Ezra Pound. Now you will come out of a confusion of people. And the Tennyson. Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone. He says the lines under his breath. His eyes mist. They always do. Finally he packs the yellow legal pad, the one on which he was writing when the guards came for him. Not his novel, which he recently finished, but a suicide note, the one he began composing an hour after the parole board’s rejection. So often, he thinks, that’s how it happens. Death stands at your door, hitches up its pants, points its baton at you—then hands you a pardon.

  Once Sutton’s cell is packed, the dep lets him make a few phone calls. First he dials his lawyer, Katherine. She’s incoherent with joy.

  We did it, Willie. We did it!

  How did we do it, Katherine?

  They got tired of fighting us. It’s Christmas, Willie, and they were just tired. It was easier to give up.

  I know how they felt, Katherine.

  And the newspapers certainly helped, Willie. The newspapers were on your side.

  Which is why Katherine’s cut a deal with one of the biggest newspapers. She mentions which one, but Sutton’s mind is racing, the name doesn’t register. The newspaper is going to whisk Sutton aboard its private plane to Manhattan, put him up at a hotel, and in exchange he’ll give them his exclusive story.

  Unfortunately, Katherine adds, that means you’ll have to spend Christmas Day with a reporter instead of family. Is that okay?

  Sutton thinks of his family. He hasn’t spoken to them in years. He thinks of reporters—he hasn’t spoken to them ever. He doesn’t like reporters. Still, this is no time to make waves.

  That’ll be fine, Katherine.

  Now, do you know anyone who can pick you up outside the prison and drive you to the airport?

  I’ll find someone.

  He hangs up, dials Donald, who answers on the tenth ring.

  Donald? It’s Willie.

  Who’s this?

  Willie. What are you doing?

  Oh. Hey. Drinking a beer, getting ready to watch The Flying Nun.

  Listen. It seems they’re letting me out tonight.

  They’re letting you out, or you’re letting yourself out?

  It’s legit, Donald. They’re opening the door.

  Hell freezing over?

  I don’t know. But the devil’s definitely wearing a sweater. Can you pick me up at the front gate?

  Near the Sleeping Beauty thing?

  Yeah.

  Of course.

  Sutton asks Donald if he can bring him a few items.

  Anything, Donald says. Name it.

  A TV VAN FROM BUFFALO ROARS UP TO THE GATE. A TV REPORTER JUMPS out, fusses with his microphone. He’s wearing a two-hundred-dollar suit, a camel-hair topcoat, gray leather gloves, silver cuff links. The print reporters elbow each other. Cuff links—have you ever?

  The TV reporter strolls up to the print reporters and wishes everyone a Merry Christmas. Same to you, they mumble. Then silence.

  Silent Night, the TV reporter says.

  No one laughs.

  The reporter from Newsweek asks the TV reporter if he read Pete Hamill in this morning’s Post. Hamill’s eloquent apologia for Sutton, his plea for Sutton’s release, addressed as a letter to the governor, might be the reason they’re all here. Hamill urged Rockefeller to be fair. If Willie Sutton had been a GE board member or a former water commissioner, instead of the son of an Irish blacksmith, he would be on the street now.

  The TV reporter stiffens. He knows the print guys think he doesn’t read—can’t read. Yeah, he says, I thought Hamill nailed it. Especially his line about banks. There are some of us today, looking at the mortgage interest rates, who feel that it is the banks that are sticking us up. And I got a lump in my throat at that bit about Sutton reuniting with a lost love. Willie Sutton should be able to sit and watch the ducks in Prospect Park one more time, or go to Nathan’s for a hot dog, or call up some old girl for a drink.

  This sets off a debate. Does Sutton actually deserve to be free? He’s a thug, says the Newsday reporter—why all the adulation?

  Because he’s a god in parts of Brooklyn, says the Post reporter. Just look at this crowd.

  There are now more than two dozen reporters and another two dozen civilians—crime buffs, police radio monitors, curiosity seekers. Freaks. Ghouls.

  But again, says the Newsday reporter, I ask you—why?

  Because Sutton robbed banks, the TV reporter says, and who the hell has a kind word to say for banks? They should not only let him out, they should give him the key to the city.

  What I don’t get, says the Look reporter, is why Rockefeller, a former banker, would let out a bank robber.

  Rockefeller needs the Irish vote, says t
he Times Union reporter. You can’t get reelected in New York without the Irish vote and Sutton’s like Jimmy Walker and Michael Collins and a couple Kennedys in one big Mulligan stew.

  He’s a fuckin thug, says the Newsday reporter, who may be drunk.

  The TV reporter scoffs. Under his arm he’s carrying last week’s Life magazine, with Charles Manson on the cover. He holds up the magazine: Manson glares at them.

  Compared to this guy, the TV reporter says, and the Hells Angels, and the soldiers who slaughtered all those innocent people at My Lai—Willie Sutton is a pussycat.

  Yeah, says the Newsday reporter, he’s a real pacifist. He’s the Gandhi of Gangsters.

  All those banks, the TV reporter says, all those prisons, and the guy never fired a single shot. He never hurt a fly.

  The Newsday reporter gets in the TV reporter’s face. What about Arnold Schuster? he says.

  Aw, the TV reporter says, Sutton had nothing to do with Schuster.

  Says who?

  Says me.

  And who the fuck are you?

  I’ll tell you who I’m not. I’m not some burned-out hack.

  The Times reporter jumps between them. You two cannot get in a fistfight about whether or not someone is nonviolent—on Christmas Eve.

  Why not?

  Because if you do I’ll have to write about it.

  The talk swings back to the warden. Doesn’t he realize that the temperature is now close to zero? Oh you bet he realizes. He’s loving this. He’s on some kind of power trip. Everybody these days is on a power trip. Mailer, Nixon, Manson, the Zodiac Killer, the cops—it’s 1969, man, Year of the Power Trip. The warden’s probably watching them right now on his closed-circuit TV, sipping a brandy and laughing his fat ass off. It’s not enough that they have to be part of this massive clusterfuck, but they also have to be the dupes and patsies of some crypto fascist macho dick?

  You’re all welcome to sit in my truck, the TV reporter says. It’s warm. We’ve got TV. The Flying Nun is on.

  Groans.

  SUTTON LIES ON HIS BUNK, WAITING. AT SEVEN O’CLOCK RIGHT GUARD appears at the door.

  Sorry, Sutton. It’s not happening.

  Sir?

  Left Guard appears behind Right Guard. New orders just came down from the dep, he says—no go.

  No go—why?

  Why what?

  Why sir?

  Right Guard shrugs. Some kind of beef between Rockefeller and the parole department. They can’t agree who’s going to take responsibility, or how the press release should be worded.

  So I’m not—?

  No.

  Sutton looks at the walls, the bars. His wrists. The purple veins, bubbled and wormy. He should’ve done it when he had the chance.

  Right Guard starts laughing. Left Guard too. Just kidding, Sutton. On your feet.

  They unlock the door, lead him down to the tailor. He strips out of his prison grays, puts on a crisp new white shirt, a new blue tie, a new black suit with a two-button front. He pulls on the new black socks, slips on the new black wingtips. He turns to the mirror. Now he can see the old swagger.

  He faces Tailor. How do I look?

  Tailor jiggles his coins and buttons, gives a thumbs-up.

  Sutton turns to the guards. Nothing.

  Right Guard alone leads Sutton through Times Square, then past Admin and toward the front entrance. God it’s cold. Sutton cradles his shopping bag of belongings and ignores the cramping and burning and sizzling pain in his leg. A plastic tube is holding open the artery and he can feel it getting ready to collapse like a paper straw.

  You need an operation, the doctor said after the insertion of the tube two years ago.

  If I wait on the operation, will I lose the leg, Doc?

  No, Willie, you won’t lose the leg—you’ll die.

  But Sutton waited. He didn’t want some prison doctor opening him up. He wouldn’t trust a prison doctor to open a checking account. Now it seems he made the right call. He might be able to have the operation at a real hospital, and pay for it with the proceeds of his novel. Provided someone will publish it. Provided there’s still time. Provided he lives through this night, this moment. Tomorrow.

  Right Guard leads Sutton around a metal detector, around a sign-in table, and to a black metal door. Right Guard unlocks it. Sutton steps forward. He looks back at Right Guard, who’s belittled and beaten him for the last seventeen years. Right Guard has censored Sutton’s letters, confiscated his books, denied his requests for soap and pens and toilet paper, slapped him when he forgot to put a sir at the end of a sentence. Right Guard braces himself—this is the moment prisoners like to get things off their chests. But Sutton smiles as if something inside him is opening like a flower. Merry Christmas kid.

  Right Guard’s head snaps back. He waits a beat. Two. Yeah, Merry Christmas, Willie. Good luck to you.

  It’s shortly before eight o’clock.

  Right Guard pushes open the door and out walks Willie Sutton.

  A PHOTOGRAPHER FROM LIFE SHOUTS, HERE HE IS! THREE DOZEN REPORTERS converge. The freaks and ghouls push in. TV cameras veer toward Sutton’s face. Lights, brighter than prison searchlights, hit his azure eyes.

  How’s it feel to be free, Willie?

  Do you think you’ll ever rob another bank, Willie?

  What do you have to say to Arnold Schuster’s family?

  Sutton points to the full moon. Look, he says.

  Three dozen reporters and two dozen civilians and one archcriminal look up at the night sky. The first time Sutton has seen the moon, face-to-face, in seventeen years—it takes his breath.

  Look, he says again. Look at this beautiful clear night God has made for Willie.

  Now, beyond the crush of reporters Sutton sees a man with pumpkin-colored hair and stubborn orange freckles leaning against a red 1967 Pontiac GTO. Sutton waves, Donald hurries over. They shake hands. Donald shoves aside several reporters, leads Sutton to the GTO. When Sutton is settled into the passenger seat, Donald slams the door and shoves another reporter, just for fun. He runs around the car, jumps behind the wheel, mashes the gas pedal. Away they go, sending up a wave of wet mud and snow and salt. It sprays the reporter from Newsday. His face, his chest, his shirt, his overcoat. He looks down at his clothes, then up at his colleagues:

  Like I said—a thug.

  SUTTON DOESN’T SPEAK. DONALD LETS HIM NOT SPEAK. DONALD KNOWS. Donald walked out of Attica nine months ago. They both stare at the icy road and the frozen woods and Sutton tries to sort his thoughts. After a few miles he asks if Donald was able to get that thing they discussed on the phone.

  Yes, Willie.

  Is she alive?

  Don’t know. But I found her last known address.

  Donald hands over a white envelope. Sutton holds it like a chalice. His mind starts to go. Back to Brooklyn. Back to Coney Island. Back to 1919. Not yet, he tells himself, not yet. He shuts off his mind, something he’s gotten good at over the years. Too good, one prison shrink told him.

  He slides the envelope into the breast pocket of his new suit. Twenty years since he’s had a breast pocket. It was always his favorite pocket, the one where he kept the good stuff. Engagement rings, enameled cigarette cases, leather billfolds from Abercrombie. Guns.

  Donald asks who she is and why Sutton needs her address.

  I shouldn’t tell you, Donald.

  We got no secrets between us, Willie.

  We’ve got nothing but secrets between us, Donald.

  Yeah. That’s true, Willie.

  Sutton looks at Donald and remembers why Donald was in the joint. A month after Donald lost his job on a fishing boat, two weeks after Donald’s wife left him, a man in a bar said Donald looked beat. Donald, thinking the man was insulting him, threw a punch, and the man made the mistake of returning fire. Donald, a former college wrestler, put the man in a chokehold, broke his neck.

  Sutton turns on the radio. He looks for news, can’t find any. He leaves it on a music sta
tion. The music is moody, sprightly—different.

  What is this, Donald?

  The Beatles.

  So this is the Beatles.

  They say nothing for miles. They listen to Lennon. The lyrics remind Sutton of Ezra Pound. He pats the shopping bag on his lap.

  Donald downshifts the GTO, turns to Willie. Does the name in the envelope have anything at all to do with—you know who?

  Sutton looks at Donald. Who?

  You know. Schuster?

  No. Of course not. Jesus, Donald, what makes you ask that?

  I don’t know. Just a feeling.

  No, Donald. No.

  Sutton puts a hand in his breast pocket. Thinks. Well, he says, I guess maybe it does—in a roundabout way. All roads eventually lead to Schuster, right, Donald?

  Donald nods. Drives. You look good, Willie Boy.

  They say I’m dying.

  Bullshit. You’ll never fuckin die.

  Yeah. Right.

  You couldn’t die if you wanted to.

  Hm. You have no idea how true that is.

  Donald lights two cigarettes, hands one to Sutton. How about a drink? Do you have time before your flight?

  What an interesting idea. A ball of Jameson, as my Daddo used to say.

  Donald pulls off the highway and parks outside a low-down roadhouse. Sprigs of holly and Christmas lights strung over the bar. Sutton hasn’t seen Christmas lights since his beloved Dodgers were in Brooklyn. He hasn’t seen any lights other than the prison’s eye-scalding fluorescents and the bare sixty-watt bulb in his cell.

  Look, Donald. Lights. You know you’ve been in hell when a string of colored bulbs over a crummy bar looks more beautiful than Luna Park.

  Donald jerks his head toward the bartender, a young blond girl wearing a tight paisley blouse and a miniskirt. Speaking of beautiful, Donald says.

  Sutton stares. They didn’t have miniskirts when I went away, he says quietly, respectfully.

  You’ve come back to a different world, Willie.

  Donald orders a Schlitz. Sutton asks for Jameson. The first sip is bliss. The second is a right cross. Sutton swallows the rest in one searing gulp and slaps the bar and asks for another.