Sutton (12 page)

Will it go fast? she asks.

It might. It’s their best ride. Are you afraid?

Oh no. I love going fast.

The ride starts, the sidecar lurches forward. Willie and Bess press together as it slowly gains speed. The whole thrill of the ride is how slowly it starts, Bess says. They hold tight to the sides, laughing, giggling. She screams as they whip through the first turn. Willie screams too. Eddie and First Girlfriend, one car ahead, look back, frantic, as if Willie and Bess are giving chase. Eddie points a finger and shoots. Willie and Bess shoot back. Eddie is hit. He dies, because it gives him an excuse to collapse his body across First Girlfriend.

Suddenly the sidecar bucks, crawls, comes to a stop. Bess groans. Let’s go again, she says.

Willie and the boys don’t have money for another turn. Luckily, Willie notices that a line has formed. Look, he says.

Oh drat, she says.

The three couples again stroll the Boardwalk.

Darkness is falling. The lights of Coney Island flutter on. Willie tells Bess that there are a quarter million bulbs in all. No wonder Coney Island is the first thing seen by ships at sea. Imagine—this right here is the first glimpse the immigrants have of America.

It’s also the last thing you see when you sail away, Bess says.

How do you know that?

I’ve seen it. Several times.

Oh.

She points at the moon. Look. Isn’t the moon lovely tonight?

Like part of the park, Willie says.
Lunar
Park.

Bess speaks in the stagy voice of an actress. Why, Mr. Sutton—handsome
and
clever?

He plays along. I say, Miss Endner, would you mind repeating that?

Can you not hear me, Mr. Sutton?

On the contrary, Miss Endner, I cannot believe my good fortune at being paid a compliment by so fine a young woman, therefore I was hoping I might memorize it.

She stops. She looks up at Willie with a smile that says, Maybe there’s more here than first met the eye. After a slow start he’s turning her. Like the Whip.

The three couples gather at the rail and listen to the pounding waves, a sound like the echo of the war drifting across the sea. The wind picks up. It billows the girls’ long dresses, causes the boys’ neckties to snap like flags. Bess keeps one hand on her hat. Happy gives his hat to Eddie and plucks his ukulele.

I don’t wanna play in your yard

I don’t like you anymore

You’ll be sorry when you see me

Sliding down our cellar door

They all know the words. Bess has a fine voice, but it’s quavering, because she’s cold. Willie takes off his coat and wraps it around her shoulders.

You can’t holler down our rain barrel

You can’t climb our apple tree

People drift toward them, adding their voices. No one can resist this song.

I don’t wanna play in your yard

If you won’t be good to me

With the final notes Happy makes his battered ukulele sound like a ukulele orchestra. Everyone claps and Bess squeezes Willie’s bicep. He flexes it bigger. She squeezes it harder.

Heavens, First Girlfriend says, looking at her bracelet watch, it’s late.

Bess protests. First Girlfriend and Second Girlfriend overrule her. The three couples follow the crowd toward the trolleys and subways. Willie and Bess begin to say their goodbyes. Then find themselves alone. Willie looks around. In the shadows of a bathhouse Eddie and First Girlfriend are entwined. Behind a fortune-teller’s booth Happy is stealing kisses from Second Girlfriend. Willie looks at Bess. Her eyes—pools of blue and gold. He feels the earth tip toward the moon. He leans, touches his lips softly to hers. His skin tingles, his blood catches fire. In this instant, he knows, in this unforeseen gift of a moment, his future is being reshaped. This wasn’t supposed to happen. But it is happening. It
is
.

At last, on the street, the girls stand facing the boys. Thank you for a lovely evening. Nice meeting you. And you as well. Merry Christmas. Good night. Ta ta. Happy New Year.

And yet Bess will be seeing Willie in just a few days. They have a date. The girls walk off, First Girlfriend and Second Girlfriend on either side of Bess. Willie watches them melt into the crowd. At the last second Bess turns.

You can’t holler down my rainbarrel, she calls.

You can’t climb my apple tree, Willie calls back.

She sings: I don’t wanna play in your yaaard.

He thinks: If you won’t be good to me.

Sutton looks at his reflection in the water. He realizes it’s not his reflection, but a cloud. Did you know Socrates said we love whatever we lack? Or think we lack?

Socrates?

If you feel stupid, you’ll fall for someone brainy. If you feel ugly, you’ll flip your lid for someone who’s easy on the eyes
.

You’ve read Socrates?

I’ve read everything kid. I couldn’t have survived the joint without reading. When the FBI was looking for me, they had agents staking out bookstores. Somewhere in your files it must say that
.

But—Socrates? Really?

He was a right guy. And boy did he hate cops
.

Cops. In ancient Greece
.

You tell me. He offed himself rather than confess, right?

They meet a few nights later for ice cream. A drugstore near the park. Bess wears a green dress with a kind of hobble skirt, a tall hat with one long white feather. Willie wears his other suit from Title Guaranty. The gray one.

He’s relieved to find her chatty, since he’s incapable of forming words. He couldn’t be more nervous if he were on a date with Theda Bara. Also, he wants to know her. Desperately.

She tells him all about her family. I must’ve been left on their doorstep, she says, because I’m not like any of them. Daddy’s a tyrant. And a bore. Mummy’s a fussy old hen. And my older sister’s a simp.

Willie almost says he knows about not getting along with older siblings, but he doesn’t want to think of his brothers. Not tonight. He eats his hot fudge sundae in careful, measured spoonfuls, prods Bess with questions.

What’s your favorite food?

Oh that’s easy. Ice cream.

Me too. What’s your favorite book?

That’s easier.
Wuthering Heights
. I agree with Mr. Emerson—all humankind roots for a pair of lovers. Nothing quickens our attention and excites our sympathy like a Cathy and a Heathcliff.

Right.
Wuthering Heights
. That’s my favorite too.

You’re lying.

Yeah.

I’ll loan you my copy.

Do you have any pets?

A terrier named Tennyson. That’s my favorite poet.

What’s your favorite place in the world?

Three-way tie. Paris. Rome. Hamburg. What’s yours?

I don’t have one.

Well what’s your least favorite place in the world?

Home.

Oh dear.

What’s your finest quality?

My memory. I can read a poem once and have it by heart. Do you have a good memory?

I’ll never forget this day, he thinks. I’m bad with names, he says.

Most aren’t worth remembering.

What’s your greatest fault?

I can’t sit still. You?

I’m from Irish Town.

He tells her about Father’s failing business, Mother’s endless grief, his own inability to find work. He surprises her, and himself, revealing so much in such a plainsong voice. In this lifetime it’s the closest he’ll ever come to a full confession.

He walks her home through the park. In a dark, secluded spot she leans against a tree and grabs his necktie, pulls him to her. He puts one hand against the tree, the other against her cheek. The scratchy roughness of the bark, the creamy smoothness of her skin—this too he’ll never forget. They kiss.

She tells him that she hasn’t lost her innocence yet, in case he was wondering.

I’d never wonder about a thing like that, he whispers.

Gosh, you didn’t even wonder? I must not be as attractive as people tell me.

She pokes him in the ribs, to let him know she’s kidding. But she’s not kidding.

On their second date, at the same secluded spot, she takes Willie’s hand, puts it inside her dress. She guides the hand over her breast, under. He can feel her young heart, ticking like a new watch. It will run forever.

He removes his hand, restrains himself, and her. No, Bess. No.

Why?

Isn’t right.

Who decides what’s right?

He has no answer for that. But still he holds firm.

All their dates arrive at this same stalemate, until their courtship becomes a kind of burlesque. After an hour or two at Coney Island, or the drugstore, they walk and walk and soon find themselves in some hidden enclave within the park. Bess undoes a button, or two, and guides Willie’s hand, or else drops her hand, touches between his legs. Willie stops her, saying it wouldn’t be right. She acts flustered, but Willie believes she secretly admires his restraint. Then they say good night, each of them flushed, confused, longing.

Eddie and Happy are appalled. Eddie thinks Willie has lost his mind, or his manhood. Happy calls him an ingrate. Happy gave Bess to Willie—that’s the myth they share. Happy kids Willie that, if Bess is going to waste, he might just take her back.

But if anyone gave Bess to him, Willie thinks, it was God. Through divine grace—he can think of no other explanation—Bess Endner is his sweetheart, and he doesn’t want God to think him ungrateful. So he behaves the way God would want. The way a hero in an Alger novel would behave.

Though it goes against his grain, though it stuns his best friends, his strategy of unwavering chivalry pays off. After weeks of courtship Bess stops Willie at their favorite tree and puts her face on his chest. Well I hope you’re happy, Willie Sutton. I’ve fallen in love with you.

You have?

Oh yes.

Truly?

Truly, madly. You’re my heart’s darling.

Why, Bess?

Willie—what a question.

No. Really. I mean, I’m tough, but I’m no Eddie. I’m not bad looking, but I’m no Happy. Why me?

All right, she says. I’ll tell you, Willie. I love you because you look at me the way every girl
thinks
she wants to be looked at, though I suspect very few girls could really bear such intensity. Such scrutiny. You look at me as if you want to devour me, as if you want to carry me off, keep me prisoner on a desert island, carve statues of me.

Willie laughs guiltily.

You look at me as if you want to make me happy, as if you can’t possibly be happy unless I am. It’s thrilling. It’s frightening. It’s what I want for the rest of my life. The only thing I want.

That’s it?

Life is complicated, Willie, love isn’t. My girlfriends do cartwheels for boys who dress nice or dance well or come from good families. They’ll find out. There’s only one thing that counts. How does a boy look at you? Can you see in his eyes that he’ll
always
be there? That’s how you looked at me on the Whip. You had
always
in your eyes. That’s how you’re looking at me now. I hear my mother and sister talk—they only dream about what I’ve got right here under this tree. Oh Willie. I just love you, that’s all. Oh.

All Bess’s avowals, all her sweet nothings, begin and end with this word. It’s the prelude and conclusion to every endearment. Oh—she says it before kissing him. Oh—she says it after. Oh—she says it as she turns her back to him, as if the sight of Willie is just too marvelous to bear.

Oh Willie. Oh
.

Sutton lets go of the railing. Okay, boys, let’s go. Next stop
.

You looked like you were a million miles away, Mr. Sutton
.

Two hundred fifty thousand at least
.

What were you thinking about?

I was thinking I could use a drink. Willie needs a Jameson
.

Oh Mr. Sutton. That does not sound like a good idea
.

Kid haven’t you figured out by now? None of this is a good idea
.

EIGHT

Willie has seen the Endner house many times from the outside—stained-glass windows, fancy balustrades, an iron gate with spikes along the top—and he’s always cowered before it. At the start of 1919, wearing his black Title Guaranty suit, he steps inside for the first time.

A butler takes his coat. Willie blinks, trying to adjust his vision. If Coney Island is the brightest place on earth, Chateau Endner is the darkest.

We keep the house dim for Mummy, Bess whispers. She suffers migraines.

Bess leads Willie by the hand down a long hall and into a library, the walls of which are lined with enormous glass-doored bookcases. Willie glances at the titles: mostly rare Bibles, assorted religious texts. The floor is covered by a massive wool rug. It came from China, Bess whispers.

Mr. and Mrs. Endner stand at the far end of the rug, warming themselves before a fireplace big enough to roast a deer. The crack and pop of wood are the only sounds in the room, the flames the only light.

Mummy, Daddy, this is Willie.

Willie goes forth. Crossing the rug takes longer than swimming the East River. He shakes their hands. Nothing is said for several moments. A maid appears at Willie’s side, offers him a glass of sherry. Thank you, he says, his voice cracking like the firewood.

A second maid announces that dinner is served.

Willie and Bess follow Mr. and Mrs. Endner down another long hall into a high-ceilinged dining room. The darkest room yet—only two candelabra. Willie surveys the table. It would take up half his house. Mr. Endner sits at the head, Mrs. Endner at the far end. Willie and Bess sit in the middle, on opposite sides. A third maid sets before Willie a plate of grilled lamb chops with mint jelly, scalloped potatoes.