Al Capone Does My Homework (13 page)

Piper shoves past us and takes off down the back stairs we hardly ever use.

Annie watches her, her eyes wide. I know she’s surprised they questioned Capone about
the gifts. I am too.

“That gift thing . . . Piper’s trying to model herself after Capone, that’s all,”
I say.

Annie takes a wobbly breath.

“C’mon. Let’s go talk to her,” I say as I take off after Piper.

Sunday, February 2, 1936

I have no idea where Piper is going. I’m guessing maybe the secret passageway, but
the passageway door is closed up tight, the screws securely in the hinges.

“The Mattamans’?” Annie suggests. Piper likes Mrs. Mattaman a lot. If she’s upset,
she may go there.

But the Mattamans aren’t back from church yet.

“Wait, is she going to my apartment?” Annie points up to the door that leads to her
place.

Annie and I look at each other. “She was just trying to get away from us,” I say.

“She doesn’t know what to do,” Annie says.

When we get to Annie’s, Piper is sitting on the doormat. Annie opens her door and
Piper charges for the kitchen and pulls out a seat at the Bominis’ kitchen table,
a card table with an embroidered tablecloth.

Piper looks around suspiciously, the table rocking as she sits down. “No one’s here,
right?”

“Mom’s lying down. She’s not feeling well. That’s why we missed church. You want something
to eat?” Annie asks, opening the bread box and peering inside.

Piper squirms in her chair, like she’s ready to jump out of it. “No,” she says, but
I’m already nodding my head.

Annie stacks store-bought graham crackers on a dish.

Piper unwraps three sticks of gum and stuffs them in her mouth. She dips her hand
in her pocket and pulls out a handful of gum and tosses it on the table. Her jaws
move like a bone-crushing machine.

“Annie,” she says. “Are you going to church tomorrow?”

“Uh-uh. Tuesday nights we go,” Annie says.

“Can I come?” Piper asks.

Annie’s eyes dart to mine. “Of course,” she says.

Piper tracks the look that flies between Annie and me. Her legs are swinging back
and forth under the table. “Don’t look at me like that. I used to go when I was little.”

“I’m glad to have the company,” Annie soothes.

Piper chomps her gum. “Annie?” she asks. “Could I spend the night like I used to?”

“Of course.”

“Can we go to the Mattamans’ for supper and then play Old Maid?” She unwraps another
piece of gum and stuffs it in her already packed mouth.

“Whatever you want, Piper,” Annie says.

Piper’s eyes flick to the Bominis’ newspaper, which sits on the side table. She snatches
it and heads for the bathroom. The lock turns.

Annie chews at her lip.

“The gift thing could be nothing,” I say weakly.

“Then why is she acting like this?”

“I dunno,” I mumble. “We have to find out, though. We can’t help her if we don’t know
what’s going on.”

Annie’s lips bunch to one side. She taps her fist against them, thinking.

She heads for the bathroom door, then knocks gently. “Piper, are you okay?”

No answer.

Annie motions to me. “You try.”

I knock on the door. “Piper? Let’s talk, okay? Whatever the problem is, I can . . .
we can help,” I say, but boy does that sound lame. Still nothing.

Annie and I stare at each other.

“We may need an adult,” Annie suggests.

“Piper, we’re going to go get someone,” I call.

This gets a muffled response.

“What?” I ask.

Annie puts her ear to the door. “She says she wants to talk to you.”

“Me?” I ask.

I knock on the door, half hoping she’ll tell me to go away.

“Come in,” she says.

She’s sitting on the bathtub rim, her face blotchy like she’s been crying, a mess
of newspaper by her shoe.

“You don’t like me anymore,” she says.

Have I caused all this? “Is that what this is about?”

She shakes her head. Her shoulders are hunched over the trash can like she’s going
to puke.

“You sick?”

“I did something I shouldn’t have,” she whispers.

“What?”

Piper doesn’t answer. Something is really wrong. She never acts like this.

She closes her eyes as tight as they will go, then whispers in a strangled voice,
“You have to promise you’ll help me.”

“Of course I will. Annie and I both will,” I say.

“Promise?” She’s speaking in a low voice, but the air is full of pressure like before
a lightning storm.

“Yes, if I can,” I say.

“The money didn’t come from my grandma.”

My stomach tightens into a ball.

“Where did it come from?” I ask.

“It was magic,” she whispers, her voice so low, I can barely hear her.

“Come on, Piper.”

“It was.” Tears flow down her cheeks. “I put in a dollar and two came back.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The laundry. My grandma gave me pin money. I forgot it was in my pocket and I put
it in the laundry bag and it went out.

“First thing I did when the laundry came back was check it. I was hoping it would
still be there—that it just got washed, but when I dug in the pocket, there were two
there.”

“Two what?”

“Dollars. I put another dollar in the next week. Two came back just like the last
time. And it kept going like that.”

“
That’s
how you got the money?”

She nods.

“Was there a note? You know, from a con? Or anything else in the pocket?”

“Nope. Just money. Double every time. I didn’t want to think about it.”

“But you must have thought about it . . .” I say. Piper is a lot of things, but stupid
isn’t one of them.

She nods, her face buried in her hands.

“Is it okay if Annie comes in?” I ask.

She hesitates for a moment, then nods again. A movement as small as the blink of an
eye.

“Annie.” I open the door and Annie slips inside.

“Lock it,” Piper barks.

Only Mrs. Bomini is out there, but we lock it anyway. “Don’t tell her,” Piper whispers.

Annie and I look at each other. A piece of the newspaper has been torn out and crumpled
up. Annie un-crumples it.

“COUNTERFEIT MONEY FLOWS INTO SAN FRANCISCO,”
Annie reads.

“Oh no.” I shut my eyes.

“What?” Annie whispers.

“You have to go tell your dad right now,” I say.

“You said you were going to help me with this,” Piper whines. Her face is buried back
in her hands. “That’s what you said. You help Natalie. You’d help Annie or Jimmy if
it were them. Why won’t you help me?”

“Annie and Jimmy would never do this and neither would Natalie.”

“It was an accident!” she shouts.

“Look. You tell or I will,” I say.

“We’ll go with you if you want.” Annie’s voice is gentle. I wonder if she’s figured
out what the counterfeit money has to do with Piper.

I know what I have to do. I leave the bathroom. My legs move like I’m outside watching
them walk. How could this be happening?

“Moose, c’mon, don’t tell,” Piper pleads as I open the Bominis’ front door, but I
keep walking.

I head down to Mrs. Caconi’s and pick up the phone. “I need to talk to Warden Flanagan,
please.”

“Not here. He’s doing an airport run picking up some mucky-mucks from Washington.
Moose, is that you?”

“Yes, sir,” I say. “If my dad isn’t here, I need to talk to Warden Williams.”

“Ahh, Moose, you know better than that. You can’t call a meeting with the warden.”

“I have to, sir.”

“Is this some kind of a dare you kids are playing?”

“No, sir. It’s important.”

“You’re going to need to tell me more than that.”

“It’s about his daughter.”

“Is Piper injured? Is this an emergency?”

“She’s not injured. But it is an emergency. Look, I know this is unusual, but you
have to trust me.”

I can hear him suck in his breath. He lets it out with a groan. “It better be. That’s
all I can say. All right, I’ll relay the message. We’ll see what he says.”

I hear the squeak of his swivel chair, the sound of his footsteps, and then the line
goes silent. A minute later he’s back. “You can speak with Officer Trixle.”

“No,” I say.

“Excuse me?”

“It can’t be Trixle. Look, this is the warden’s daughter. We have to talk to
him
.”

He grunts. “Moose, you’re out of line here.”

“I know. You have to trust me. Do it for my dad.”

He clears his throat. I think he’s going to tell me forget about it, but then he says:
“Hold on.”

It takes a long time before he comes back. I’ve begun to scratch everywhere, even
my scalp. I’ve never gotten hives on my scalp before.

When he gets back on the line he says: “Go on up to the warden’s house, but this better
be important.”

The walk up the switchback takes four hundred years. None of us want to face this.
But when we finally get to the warden’s house, Piper’s mom opens the door. She has
a glazed look in her eyes. She knows something’s up. Her eyes focus on Annie as if
Annie’s the only one she trusts. Annie looks away.

“Is the warden in his office?” I ask.

Mrs. Williams points to the stairs. “He’s waiting for you.”

The warden is seated behind his desk. The chain of his pocket watch is twisted, his
eyeglasses are crooked. He knows something is very wrong.

The birds tweet outside his window. A buoy dings in the distance. The sky is blue
outside, but dark in here. My skin is itching, my legs are shaking. I’m scared out
of my mind and it wasn’t even me who did it.

“What’s going on, Piper?” the warden asks as Piper dissolves into a side chair.

“Moose and Annie and I hid in the shed on Ollie’s back porch when Capone was interrogated,”
Piper mumbles.

“You know better than that,” the warden tells her. “You too, Annie.”

“When we were there we found out—I found out,” Piper whispers, tears sliding down
her face.

“You found out what?” he asks.

Piper takes the newspaper out and hands it to the warden. Her hand is shaking hard;
the paper flutters.

“COUNTERFEIT MONEY FLOWS INTO SAN FRANCISCO.”
The warden looks up. “I’m not following this.”

No one answers him. He reads the whole article; the room is silent except for the
happy-sounding bird tweets outside.

When he’s done, he pushes his glasses up on his forehead. “Why is this our concern?”
he asks in a terrifyingly quiet voice.

Piper’s eyes are glued to her shoes. She takes a wobbly breath and tries to talk,
but tears stream down her cheeks. “I found a dollar in my dungarees.”

“What?” the warden says.

“The laundry,” she whispers. “I left a dollar in the pocket of my dirty dungarees
by mistake. When they came back, there were two dollars in the pocket.”

The warden’s eye is twitching.

“I put in another dollar.” Piper’s voice is so soft now, you can hardly hear it.

“And two came back?” the warden asks.

She nods. “Then I put in five dollars and ten came back.”

“And then what?”

She can’t look at him.

“And then what did you do?” the warden’s voice booms.

“I spent it.”

We listen to the warden’s labored breathing.

“How many times did this happen?”

“I dunno.”

“Piper!” he thunders.

She looks like she’s seen her own death. Her eyes are glazed and her mouth is slack.
“Fourteen, maybe more,” she whispers.

“Fourteen!”

She nods. “Some weeks I put dollars in more than one pocket.”

“It’s like gambling,” I whisper, not realizing I’ve said it aloud until the warden
responds.

“No gambling involved,” he murmurs. “It was a sure thing. Double your money. It never
occurred to you to wonder why this was happening?”

“I thought one of the laundry cons, you know, liked me,” Piper mumbles, her eyes focused
on her shoes. This is the only safe place to look.

“Liked you?”

“Why else would he give me money?” she asks.

Nobody looks at the warden.

“How was I supposed to know it was counterfeit?” Piper’s voice again.

“You knew it was wrong,” the warden whispers.

“I was going to stop,” Piper tells him.

“But you didn’t and you guessed it was counterfeit.”

“Not at first,” she admits. “Then I saw that the Count worked in the laundry. In his
file it said he was a counterfeiter.”

“Among other things.”

“Yes. But I didn’t know for sure, until I saw the newspaper. I shopped at the places
where they said they found the counterfeit bills.”

“Why would the Count give her counterfeit money?” I ask.

“Shhh,” Annie says under her breath.

“To get it into circulation,” the warden explains. “They got one real dollar and gave
back two pieces of worthless paper.

“When did you get your hunch?” the warden asks, spitting the words out like food that’s
gone bad.

“A couple of weeks ago.”

“So you heard them question Capone about the gifts and it made you nervous,” the warden
asks.

“How could a con make counterfeit money inside of Alcatraz?” I ask.

“Keep control of your mouth, Mr. Flanagan,” the warden warns, but then he answers,
his voice softening, “Couldn’t. He got it from the outside.”

“Oh.” The word skips across my lips before I can stop it.

The warden’s eyes drill into me. “You know something about that?”

“I—I . . . maybe. We were watching the cons on the dock. And it looked as if the Count
put something in the rain gutter. So when he left, I checked it.”

“And you found . . . ?”

“A note with some numbers on it. I just now figured out what they were. It was a locker
number and a combination.”

The warden nods. “That’s an old trick. He probably has counterfeit bills in a number
of lockers in train stations all over. That way he can maintain control. Do you know
who picked up the slip of paper?”

“We watched, but we never saw anyone. There was something else too. Donny Caconi beat
me at a pitching game. I didn’t think he won fair and square, so I looked in his laundry
bag to see if there was something—some evidence he cheated.” My words come out in
a hot rush.

“And?”

“I found forty dollars in Mrs. Caconi’s apron. I thought it was real, but maybe it
wasn’t.”