The Confessions of Al Capone

by Loren D. Estleman

  They were standing when the biggest Negro Vasco had ever seen came in, ducking to clear the doorway in his white chef's toque. He wore a knee-length apron over a twill shirt rolled up past massive forearms and old dress trousers two inches too short—hand-me-downs, perhaps, from the master of the house. His feet were the size of swim fins in scuffed brown oxfords. Strips of scar-tissue pulled his eyes into Oriental slits.

  "Brownie came with the house," Mae said. "He'd wrestle an alligator to protect Al, and he'd win."

  Vasco got the message. "My father would do the same. I'm not sure he'd win, but the gator would know it'd been in a fight." He smiled at her. "I hope you'll invite me back."

  "Please say hello to Father Kyril." She gave him a cool hand.

  She had not once called him Father.

  The hand Brownie used on the front doorknob was missing its third and fourth fingers, the stumps healed over hard and shiny. He caught Vasco looking at them. "Prison cafeteria." They were as many words as he ever spoke to him at one time.

  The headlights were barely adequate in the smoky mist, the heater less so. It made his feet sweat without clearing the windshield of condensation, and the vacuum wipers struggled against the moisture accumulating outside. After the guard closed the gate behind him he drove all the way back to Our Lady of Redemption with his head stuck out the window to see where he was going.

  Snorky.

  Transcripts of statements in Capone's file had contained several references to him by that nickname. It meant elegant, or nattily dressed, and from 1924 on, the mug from the eastern slums had improved the fortunes of tailors and jewelers throughout Cook County and, later, Florida, with his extravagant tastes in clothing and accessories. A Panama hat cost a hundred dollars, a dozen shirts made to his order twenty-five dollars apiece. His diamond ring alone would have bought six houses for the working class. But the evolving language had given the name a humorous note, suggesting a buffoon. People too young to remember the lawless days might snicker when they heard it. It had been a badge of privilege to be allowed to address him so, like belonging to an exclusive club. The membership had fallen off through jail, death, and indifference. Mae Capone was probably the only one left who called Al Snorky, and however patronizingly she behaved toward him in his dependency, no such taint attached to the name. Vasco wondered if this woman so sheltered by her husband, whom the press had dismissed as a drab appendage to the most colorful figure of the young century, in fact held the key to his chest of secrets.

  A block from the church, Vasco pulled into a diagonal space a few doors down from a Rexall Drugs, switched off the ignition, and watched his side mirror for a few minutes, reaching out twice to clear moisture from the glass with the heel of his hand. He'd been warned to look out for followers, but he decided the visibility was too poor to risk running into their quarry from behind; no cars came along in either direction while he was waiting.

  The air in the drugstore was a pungent mix of quinine, carbolic, eucalyptus, ginger, and malt, with a faint sting of turpentine. A radio on a back shelf played Les Brown. The soda fountain was deserted and Vasco had the place to himself and the skeletal bespectacled pharmacist grinding a prescription by hand on his elevated platform; the man glanced up when the copper bell jangled above the door, then lost interest when the customer entered the telephone booth and shut himself inside.

  He placed a collect call to a number he'd memorized. Since it had to be rerouted, he listened to various vaguely marine noises for two minutes, as if the line ran underwater, then came alert when he recognized Helen Gandy's voice. She never left the office ahead of her employer, and Hoover rarely went home to the house he shared with his mother until well past dark. She listened to Vasco's identification number and put him through. No names were exchanged.

  Hoover's greeting was brusque. "Your instructions were to report by mail except in an emergency."

  "I think this is one. It can't wait. Mrs. Brown knows Kyril." Capone himself had provided the code name they'd agreed to use.

  "You've made contact?" The Director may or may not have been surprised. His words ran together no matter what the subject.

  "Briefly. At this point she may be more dangerous than Brown. Kyril, too. I'm concerned what will happen when they compare notes."

  "Our intelligence is she attends Mass at Blessed Sacrament."

  "I'm reporting what she said."

  "I'll have Cicero call him, say there was a miscommunication. Do you have reservations about sitting in the booth?"

  He was being asked to hear confessions. The suggestion violated every tenet of the Church. "Not as long as I'm allowed to respect the seal."

  "I'm not interested in knowing how many times little Tommy Tucker skipped school to see Gene Autry. Do you trust Kyril to keep his suspicions to himself?"

  "If he believes I'm serving the parish. Right now he's more interested in a naval commission than what's going on at Redemption."

  "You were right to call." It sounded grudging. "How did things go with your father?"

  "Better than expected. He got me into the house."

  "Indeed." Just then the line crackled; he couldn't tell if it was an expression of curiosity or a confirmation of fact. Vasco wondered if he'd inadvertently spilled information about his father's status the Director hadn't known. At the same time he couldn't help thinking Hoover knew more about it than he pretended. For a spy, Vasco seemed to know less about what was going on than anyone, including the people he was spying on.

  "Is there anything else?"

  He shook himself out of his thoughts. "Nothing that can't wait for the postman."

  "Very well. Carry on."

  When he left the booth, the Shadow was taunting a nest of Japanese collaborators. The pharmacist yawned and switched off the radio.

  Vasco discovered that the car didn't want to start when it was warm. The lights in the drugstore went out just as he was considering going back inside to escape the clammy air. He waited a few more minutes, blowing into his hands, then tried again. He couldn't believe he'd thought fireplaces were useless in Miami. After one encouraging chuck-a-luck, the crank failed to produce any more compression from the cylinders. He turned up his coat collar, stuck his hands in his pockets, and walked the rest of the way to the church. He hoped it wasn't a tow-away zone.

  EIGHT

  "YOU WANTED TO SEE ME, FATHER?"

  "Brother Thomas—woof!—tells me the Ford—woof!—isn't in its shed. Do you know—woof!—where it is?"

  They were in the bell tower, which seemed to serve the same storage purposes as the pastor's study in the rectory. More boxes and piles of broken chairs and candlesticks surrounded the bay where the great bronze bell hung motionless, as well as bundles of newspapers evidently intended for a scrap drive. A soiled pallet occupied the remaining space, forcing Vasco to stand on the top step of the staircase he'd just climbed. Father Kyril lay on his back on the pallet, pushing a pair of barbells toward the top of the steeple, lowering it to his chest, then pushing again. The noise he made when he pushed sounded like a bored German shepherd. Vasco had seen the identical black spherical weights in a Mickey Mouse cartoon, but that was where the resemblance ended. The priest was heavily muscled in a gray sweatshirt, boxing trunks, and high lace-up shoes.

  Vasco reported what had happened. "I couldn't find either of you to tell you last night. I assumed you'd both gone to bed."

  "At present—woof!—Thomas has made other sleeping arrangements. You're— woof!—in his quarters. Space is at a premium—woof!—as you may have noticed." He lowered the dumbbells onto a pair of props welded together from galvanized pipe. "It would be different if Redemption had a basement. You won't find one in southern Florida." Snatching a towel he'd had draped over the oaken railing around the bay, he mopped sweat from his face, neck, arms, and legs. "I'm training myself to rise and retire early. There is no Midnight Mass in the South Pacific."

  "I don't want my presence here to inconvenience anyone."


  "Thomas is a novice. In old Russia he wouldn't have a bed." He got to his feet and slung the towel around his neck. He was a solid square slab younger than his years. "The Ford is temperamental. Fortunately, the local police know the car and look the other way. Don't procrastinate, however. Scrap iron doesn't last long these days."

  "Yes, sir."

  Kyril's gaze probed at him. "It was a strange hour to visit a drugstore for a man sworn to chastity."

  He was ready. "I stopped in to call my father. I didn't want to impose on you for the use of the telephone."

  "When I spoke to him, I got the impression you weren't that close."

  "We haven't been. But we're trying."

  "Try not to be too disappointed when it doesn't work as well as it does in the movies. The Fifth Commandment says nothing about his honoring you back."

  "Thank you, Father."

  He waited a beat, then turned to go downstairs.

  "It seems a mistake was made."

  He turned back. His heart pulsed in his throat.

  "St. Francis called this morning. The church in Cicero, not the man; I'd have mentioned that before I brought up the subject of the automobile. It seems you are to perform a service for Our Lady of Redemption. Does that distress you?"

  "No, sir. Quite the opposite." Which was as true as truth could be. His heart slipped back into his chest.

  "I doubt that, but I'll hear your confession later. First I need you to take your place on the other side of the screen. The sinners of this parish will find you alert and ready every afternoon between two and four p.m., beginning today. Two priests, no waiting."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Stop calling me sir. I don't have my bars yet."

  "Yes, Father."

  A gust of sea air brushed the bell, making it hum in the conversational lull. "The car, Father Vasco. By this time next week it could be flying over Berlin."

  "What if it still won't start?"

  "Since you were able to get up those stairs without throwing out your back or suffering a coronary, I think the answer's obvious."

  NO PUSHING WAS NECESSARY, AS IT TURNED OUT.

  A little boy who belonged in an Our Gang comedy, complete with knickerbockers and a corduroy cap with its bill twisted sideways, sat on the bottom step of a flight of stairs leading to a doctor's office next to the drugstore, eating a sandwich and watching him insert the crank. When it didn't engage on the first try he said, "Pray, Reverend."

  But it started on the second, abruptly enough to break his wrist if he hadn't remembered to put his thumb on the same side of the handle with the rest of his fingers. A puff of black smoke the size of a softball exploded from the tailpipe and the motor settled into a staccato idle like an undercranked machine gun. The boy raised his fists over his head like a football referee, a pickle disk sliding out from between slices of bread and hitting the sidewalk with a smack.

  "How about a ride, Reverend?"

  He smiled, absurdly proud of himself. "How about a bite of your sandwich?"

  "Ma says I shouldn't share food with strangers." The boy brought it down and clutched it to his chest.

  "Are you Catholic?"

  "Lutheran, Ma says."

  "The pope says I shouldn't give rides to Protestants."

  But the smell of mustard and liverwurst reminded him he hadn't eaten since lunch yesterday with his father, and he left the motor running while he went into the drugstore and bought two hamburger sandwiches and a Coke at the soda fountain. The boy was gone when he came out carrying the bottle and greasy sack, but Vasco wasn't alone. A policeman stood with one foot propped up on the Model T's front bumper, writing on a pad braced on his knee. He wore whipcord breeches, stovepipe boots, and a leather windbreaker, goggles perched on the peak of his cap. His partner sat in the sidecar of a city motorcycle burbling alongside the automobile, holding his chalked parking-enforcement stick at parade rest.

  "I'm sorry, Officer," Vasco said. "It wouldn't start last night."

  "I'm ticketing you for leaving it running unattended. A pint of gas wasted is a pilot down behind enemy lines." The man with the pad put his foot back on the pavement, tore off the top sheet, and held it out. "Also there's car thieves here like everywhere else. We got enough to handle with half the force overseas without you giving 'em a leg up."

  He took the ticket. "I wasn't thinking."

  "You're new, ain't you?"

  "I just got in yesterday."

  "If you pay that before five, you can save the collection plate another fifty cents." He gave him directions to police headquarters.

  "Thank you, Officer ..." He couldn't read the signature.

  "Horowitz."

  Likely not a parishioner. "Did you ever happen to meet Al Capone?"

  Officer Horowitz had started to pull his goggles down over his eyes. He stopped halfway. "I been asked that question before, but not by a priest. I'd've thought you gave up on him years ago."

  "The Church never gives up."

  "Tourists neither. They ask about him a couple times a week during the season. You'd think some of 'em would want to see the aquarium." He settled the goggles astride his nose. "I saw him once in that big car he rides around in, after he got out. He didn't look like so much. Sergeant Fowler's the one you want to talk to. He's with Bunco, down at headquarters."

  "Did he spend much time with Capone?"

  "He put the cuffs on him three times. There ain't another cop in the country can say that."

  Horowitz straddled the motorcycle, put it in gear, and the pair putted away down the street. At the end of the block they stopped and the officer in the sidecar leaned out with his stick and marked an X on the rear tire of a car parked on the corner.

  Vasco drove to police headquarters, a stone building with police lettered in black on lighted glass globes the size of bowling balls flanking the steps to the entrance, and parked in the first civilian space he found next to a black-and-white sedan with police markings and chrome spotlights mounted on both sides. He cut the motor so it could begin cooling and ate his sandwiches behind the wheel, sipping Coke through a straw between bites. The sea air increased his appetite and the late-morning sun felt pleasantly warm slanting through the window on the passenger's side. A seagull pecked at a wad of gum stuck to the sidewalk, found it petrified, and circled around it searching for another angle of attack. It made him think of Capone and his Dentyne. Scarface Al, the Gum-Chewing King of Crime.

  He got out, committed his trash to a green-painted receptacle shaped like a public mailbox, and climbed the stairs to the entrance, where a freestanding sign on a pedestal directed him where to pay his fine. In an oak-and-marble lobby smelling of cigarettes he waited in line, then handed his ticket between the bars of a cage to a girl in bangs and a shoulder-length bob, who clucked humorously over the offense scribbled in the blank. "Shame on you, Father."

  "I told the officer I wasn't thinking."

  "That wouldn't cut any mustard with Dave Horowitz. He has two brothers in the service. Fifty cents, please."

  He slid a half-dollar between the bars. She tore loose the original sheet, used a heavy-duty stamp on the carbon, and poked the copy out at him. He asked her where he could find Bunco.

  She raised her eyebrows. "Second floor."

  He took the elevator, which was handy. The tobacco fug was even stronger in the car, which shuddered all during the ascent. He promised himself to use the stairs whenever possible until wartime restrictions on replacement parts were lifted.

  Doors with pebbled glass panels lined a corridor painted green above the wainscoting. Some were identified by the names of departments, others only by numbers lettered on the glass. He came to one marked bunco squad and entered.

  It was a large room with a high ceiling, lit entirely by the sun coming through the east windows. A memo taped to the wall above the light switches reminded employees to avoid illuminating the overhead globes during the hours of daylight.

  His first impression was that th
e room had been shut down for the duration. Rows of scratched yellow-oak desks stood with their chairs unoccupied, the typewriters on perpendicular stands covered with rubber shrouds. Then he heard keys striking paper and, shielding his eyes against the strong sunlight, observed a man seated in shirtsleeves and suspenders with his back to the windows, typing with two fingers. A thread of smoke coming from a cigarette parked on the edge of his desk hung motionless in a question mark above his head, but he himself betrayed no curiosity toward the visitor or even that he was aware of him.

  A hinge squeaked. Vasco turned his head and saw a man holding the knob of an open door to an enclosure whose glass walls fell two feet short of the ceiling. The man had rimless glasses balanced on the end of his nose and a sheet of paper in his other hand, but he was dressed for the street, in a pinstripe suit with his bow tie neatly knotted, a felt hat on the back of his head. He was looking at Vasco. "Lost?"

  "I'm looking for a Sergeant Fowler."

  "We only have one of those. If you're here for his soul, you're fifteen years late. He lost it in the Crash."

  "An Officer Horowitz gave me his name."

  "We only have one of those too, for which I'm profoundly grateful. I'm Fowler." He stepped aside from the door, holding it open. Vasco went in past him.

  The cubicle was as crowded as Sergei Kyril's study, but far less orderly in appearance. Dog-eared green file folders made mounds on desk and floor, increasing in bulk as they climbed the glass walls in open rebellion against the laws of physics. A speaker on a metal utility rack also heaped with folders crackled indecipherable dialogue between radio-car patrolmen and a bored dispatcher, and an old-fashioned gallows telephone leaned at a Krazy Kat angle atop one of the stacks on the desk.

  Sergeant Fowler hung his hat on the telephone and sat, his chair creaking like a flock of excited gulls. He put aside the paper. "Maid's day off. The consensus among the brass is there's no place in time of war for paper-hangers, dollar-bill splitters, pyramid schemers, pigeon-droppers, and well-heeled, cash-strapped Texas oilmen in need of short-term loans on surefire investments, which is why most of this squad is out looking for Tokyo Rose; what's left of them in this hemisphere, anyway. Did you know all you need is a surplus navy uniform and a freckled face to sell hundreds of dollars' worth of subscriptions to magazines that folded under Herbert Hoover? But who am I, a lowly sergeant, to upset the grand plan? This isn't even my office. The lieutenant who belongs to it is busy infiltrating the Dade County chapter of the Nazi-American Bund. His name's O'Malley. What do you think his chances are?"