The Confessions of Al Capone

by Loren D. Estleman

  "It wasn't my decision." He was as eager as his father to talk about something else. He couldn't tell if Nitti's man had followed him from the station. There was nothing suspicious about a man visiting all that was left of his family, but he didn't want Paul and Sharon to learn what kind of attention he was attracting and to start asking why. "So this whole neighborhood is Jewish?"

  "As Abe's hat. Funny, ain't it?"

  "What is?"

  "How things change. Back in Cicero, place like this, I dropped my fares off six blocks short and told 'em to walk. After that prick tried to take over that beer hall in Munich, Brown Shirts sprung up all over like toadstools. I didn't want to come home with my windows all smashed."

  Sharon opened the screen door and set a huge bowl on the little ice cream table that served as part of a picnic set with three wooden folding chairs. They ate potato salad and day-old bread from a local bakery—it was too hot to fire up the oven and make it fresh—and when the steaks were done they washed them down with beer.

  "Tell me all about your stay," Sharon said. "I've never seen a moose even in a zoo."

  "Neither did I. I saw loons, and a car I was riding in almost hit a deer."

  She asked him about the wildlife and the lake and the cabin. He answered in detail—the subjects were harmless—but he was preoccupied with something his father had said. He didn't know why; he had a sense of two things that didn't quite match, and just what they were eluded him and kept him from devoting all of himself to the conversation.

  "It must be nice to know people who go away on vacation. They must be pretty important to get the gas."

  He looked at Paul, who was sawing at his steak with what appeared to be total concentration. It was obvious he'd told her nothing of Peter and the Capones.

  "They take the train, and stock up on groceries in town a week at a time."

  "They were generous to invite you. I guess some people feel they need more spiritual counseling than others."

  "Sharon, will you for chrissake leave the boy be? He saw a deer and caught a fish."

  "I'm just taking an interest."

  "Let's just eat, okay?"

  She caught Peter's gaze and crossed her eyes. He choked on his beer.

  The sofa was more comfortable than it looked, but he slept fitfully in the heat, with only a table fan to circulate air, an oscillating type that Sharon said tended to wander across the top of the plant stand in front of the screened window without a huge conch shell anchoring the base. Moonlight turned the living room into a black-and-white movie set. He threw on the robe he'd taken from his valise and went out the back door, where his father sat in one of the folding chairs smoking. It was the first time he'd seen him with a cigarette since he'd been in Florida. He wore striped BVDs only with his legs crossed and showing varicose veins.

  "Bitch, ain't it?" Paul said when Peter sat opposite him with his forearms resting on the glass-topped table. "Can't catch a breeze on account of all these fucking fences. These kikes sure do like to rope themselves off from each other." He knew what had been bothering him then. It came to him in a blinding flash, which he managed to dissemble. He was reluctant to break the relative peace. A dog barking in the same monotonous cadence over and over was the only sound on a night without foghorns and the hum of automobile traffic stilled by rationing. It was probably several yards over but seemed like something a long way off, like the crying of loons.

  "You're smoking again." He didn't intend for it to sound as accusing as it did in his ears.

  "It's this heat. The humidity I mean. It's the only dry you can find when it's like this. You remember when the wind came off the lake in winter? It was cold, sure, but even when there was snow in it they were like ash, the flakes. You never felt like there was mold growing in your crotch. The Chamber of Commerce here don't mention that in the brochures."

  "Al likes his cigars."

  It was the kind of thing you felt like saying. It didn't have to mean anything. He was putting off the other thing, the thing about the neighborhoods Paul Vasco didn't want to take fares into because of the risk.

  "Al." The single syllable sounded strange in that motionless air. "Ten years I worked for him, almost, I never called him anything but Mr. Capone. Three months, he's Al to you. But then I only laid eyes on him twice. I guess to him you're Pete."

  "Padre." Son, the once. That's how it's done, son, easy as taking a piss. Scarface Al, with one arm across Vasco's chest and the other guiding his hand on the rod and reel. He knew he'd never mention it to Paul.

  "That's how it's supposed to be. Things've got too chummy since the war."

  "Well, Ralph was there. Last names can be confusing in a case like that."

  "Nobody ever called Bottles 'Mr. Capone.' I think he liked 'Bottles' because it was the only thing he had he figured he earned himself. That was horseshit, that Crystal Springs thing. He pumped it out of Lake Michigan in tanks. A little fish got into a bottle once and the guy on the valve got all his fingers busted for not checking the screen for holes."

  The screen door strained against its spring and Sharon joined them. She wore a flannel housedress over a pale slip with lace peeking out under the hem. "Iced tea for you boys? There's no sleeping tonight."

  "Too wet," Paul said.

  Peter rose. "Please join us."

  "I think I'll go inside and listen to the radio. You can get a repeat broadcast of Wayne King from California if there's no news from overseas." She frowned in the direction of the barking. "That darn dog. Don't people that own dogs have ears? What do you think he's saying?"

  "Bark-bark-bark-bark-bark." Paul managed to sound just like the terrier or whatever it was.

  "I'd call the police, but the last time I did that they put my address in the paper under the complaints column. I keep expecting some mad Cuban to show up on the doorstep."

  "This dog ain't Cuban. He's Jewish."

  "Now, how can you tell that?"

  "Every fifth bark ends in a question."

  "Oh, you!" She went back inside and let the door bang shut. A few moments later the tubes warmed up and The Blue Danube glided out from inside.

  Paul met Peter's stare. "What?" The cigarette bobbed up and down in the corner of his mouth.

  "Just wondering why she puts up with you."

  " 'Cause I'm the only man on God's green earth'd put up with her. You seen what she done to the toilet?"

  "Cleaned it?"

  "That, yeah; what's the point? It's a toilet, for chrissake. I mean that fuzzy pink thing she put on the lid."

  "Women do that."

  "Women, that's what I'm talking about. It upsets the balance. You need one hand to hold open your fly and the other to take aim. That means you have to stand along the side and brace the lid with your knee so it don't come down in the middle of the stream. Show me a single man and I'll show you a man don't have to pee sideways the rest of his life." He took the cigarette out of his mouth. "What the hell you laughing about?"

  Peter stopped. "I'm thinking there must be compensations."

  "What do you know? All the women you have to live with are too busy beating the shit out of boys for jacking off in the cloakroom to put fuzzy pink covers on toilet seats."

  "I wasn't born a priest." It was one of those things you had to keep reminding people.

  "Well, your mother knew better."

  "She couldn't afford fuzzy pink covers."

  He bit down on the butt and snapped it into the yard. It made a thin orange arc and splashed brief fireworks where it landed. "I did the best I could with what I had to work with. I'd-a bought her a Packard Eight if it didn't cost so much to keep her breathing."

  "I didn't mean that, Dad. What's wrong with peeing sideways if it keeps a woman happy?"

  "If I didn't know better, I'd swear you was getting laid."

  He felt himself flushing and was glad for the cover of darkness. How did the man know what he seemed to know?

  Suddenly, changing the subject didn't seem so
bad. "Mr. Capone told me a little about that night in Cicero."

  "A little."

  "A little is a lot when it involves Capone."

  "There was plenty of nights in Cicero, son. We lived there." But Paul's voice was tight. The shadow of the porch roof made a diagonal across his narrow face, leaving only the constricted lips in pale light. They were corrugated, like the packing around bottles of liquor in a smuggled crate.

  "The night he emptied a pistol into Ragtime Joe Howard's face at the Four Deuces. The night you happened to come along driving your taxi and he hailed you and threw the murder weapon into the backseat so it wouldn't be found on him."

  "I told you all about that. Seems to me I told it the same way a dozen times. I didn't know it was a murder weapon then. There's plenty of more innocent reasons for a man not to want to be arrested with a gun on him."

  "The same way, yes. It's important to have all your lines down cold." Nothing. There would be no help from Peter Anthony Vasco that night or any other.

  "Mr. Capone—Al—said he was lucky you came along, as it wasn't the kind of neighborhood where cabs cruised because of its reputation. Earlier tonight, you said you avoided bad neighborhoods."

  Paul waited. Only the dog, insensitive creature that it was, continued making noise in the gulf of silence.

  Peter licked his lips. He couldn't seem to keep them moist even in the sodden air of Fort Lauderdale in late June. "Did you just happen to come along, or did Capone expect you to be in that place at that moment, ready to take away the one piece of evidence that could hang him?"

  "What if I said I couldn't remember after all this time?"

  "It wouldn't satisfy the prosecutor who wanted to convict you for being an accessory before and after the fact."

  "The fact of what?"

  "Murder. They execute you for that in the State of Illinois."

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  "OKAY," PAUL SAID.

  "What do you mean, okay'?"

  "It's what regular people say when they mean yeah."

  "Yeah, Capone hailed you as you were passing by, or yeah, he arranged for you to be there when he came running out with that gun?"

  "Originally he was going to be the passenger, but he didn't figure on the cops having a car in the neighborhood when he started shooting. I'd just let off a fare at the Hawthorne and I was having a beer in the bar when this big guy with a scar climbs onto the next stool and asks is that my hack outside. When I said yeah he gives me fifty bucks to park behind the Four Deuces in an hour and wait. He said he'd give me another fifty after we pulled away."

  "Did you know what he had in mind?"

  "I figured it was a heist."

  "You didn't ask?"

  "When you drive a cab in Cicero or anywhere else, you don't ask questions you're better off not knowing the answers to. Anyway it was a joint, who gives a shit if it gets stuck up? A hundred bucks spends the same no matter where you got it."

  "Did you know who he was?"

  "He said his name was Brown. If he'd said Capone it wouldn't-a meant nothing then." Paul pinched a cigarette out of a pack of Parliaments on the table and lit it from a book of matches with a sailboat on the cover. "I heard the shots, and when that police gong started ringing I about pissed my pants, but I stuck. Brown barreled out with just time to throw that pistol and the second fifty in the backseat before the first cop showed with his gun out. I was rolling then. I bet you can still see my tire marks."

  "Why didn't you leave when you heard shooting?"

  He blinked at Peter through the smoke. "I made a deal."

  "But you didn't know what kind of deal it was when you made it."

  "What's that got to do with the price of potatoes? A deal's a deal. I took cash."

  "You should've given it back."

  "I didn't exactly have time to make the transaction."

  "I meant later, when he came for his gun."

  "Doctors don't work for free any more than hacks. Anyway, I earned it."

  "Blood money."

  "Your mother didn't see it that way."

  "You told her?"

  "I knew Brown would come to collect his property. What was I going to say, I'd gone into the gun business?"

  "Did you tell her it was prearranged?"

  "No."

  Inside the house, a male chorus was singing the praises of Barbasol. Paul took a drag and threw the cigarette after the first. "Women get ideas can mix a fellow up. It worked out okay, because I got a job that kept her in treatments."

  "Did it involve more murders?"

  "Boy, I don't have to answer to you. If I didn't get drunk once and talked about how I came to work for Mr. Capone, you'd never know what you do. Some things are just between a man and his wife."

  "Apparently not everything."

  "Goodness, are you boys fighting?" Sharon was standing on the other side of the screen door.

  "Sorry," Paul said. "We didn't mean to disturb your shaving cream commercial."

  Peter stood. "I think I'll catch that train after all."

  "Please don't go. I've got the sofa all made up."

  "Let the boy do what he wants."

  "I'm sorry, Sharon. I'm very grateful you invited me."

  "Well, if you won't change your mind I'll see you out."

  "He knows the way. Go back to bed. You got the morning shift."

  "I'll see you out," she repeated.

  He picked up his valise on the way. At the door he apologized again.

  "He's so hard to get along with sometimes," she said. "But I guess I don't have to tell you."

  "Sometimes I wonder how two people who are so closely related can be so different."

  "Nobody knows anybody else, really. Not even fathers and sons. He's proud of you, but he'd never tell you. You're the first one in the family to enter a profession."

  "You're kind to say it, but I don't believe you. He did everything he could to discourage me."

  "It didn't work that way, though. All it did was make you more determined." He looked at her, hugging herself in her housedress and slip. "Dad's never heard of reverse psychology and he'd make fun of it if it were explained to him."

  "You can do a thing without knowing what it's called, or believing in it. He's never paid me a compliment straight out. When I take extra time dressing up and putting on makeup, he asks me who I'm trying to impress. It's his way of telling me he noticed."

  "I think he'd be happier with me if I drove a beer truck."

  "What's wrong with driving a beer truck?"

  "To begin with, when he did it, it was against the law."

  "He told you why he did it. Peter, I hope you don't mind my saying something, but I'm going to say it even if you do. You expect as much of everybody around you as you expect from yourself."

  "Having standards doesn't mean anything if you don't try to live up to them."

  "It hasn't made you a very happy person."

  "This isn't just about driving a beer truck."

  "I know the story about the hundred dollars and the gun. Your father still talks too much when he's drinking. A man in the position he was in, he doesn't spend much time talking himself out of things. He didn't do it to get rich. He was being the head of his household."

  "He's a better man than I know. You said that before. Is that what you meant? Because most heads of households find better ways to live up to their responsibilities."

  She lifted her chin. Her eyes were hot. "Christians are supposed to be strong in the forgiving department. Didn't they teach you that in the seminary?"

  "I can't give absolution to someone who doesn't regret his sin."

  "I'm not talking about your job as a priest. I'm talking about your duty as a believer. I think you've held on to this bitterness so long you're afraid to let it go."

  "It's hard to do when you keep finding out things."

  "What things?"

  "I won't burden you with them." The valise was heavy in his hand. He switched it to the other. "I
didn't mean to get into another argument. I'm sorry you got pulled into this mess."

  "Dear, I pulled myself into it when I told Paul I'd marry him."

  He almost dropped the valise. "He proposed?"

  " 'I guess if we're going to we might as well get it over with.' His exact words."

  "When?"

  "Last week. We were walking home from the movies. It was The Fighting Sea-bees, so I don't think he was carried away by the hearts and flowers."

  "I meant when is the wedding?"

  "Oh, I told him after the war is soon enough. I want a pretty wedding, without drab restrictions, the bride in a quiet tailored suit and Spam at the reception. I think he was relieved, and is rooting for the Nazis now. And, Peter—Father— we'd be honored if you presided at the ceremony."

  "SORRY, FATHER."

  Vasco looked up from the fresh brown puddle at his feet to see Brother Thomas perched atop an aluminum extension ladder, washing Our Lady of Redemption's rose window with a coarse sea sponge. He wore painter's overalls and had a bucket slung across one shoulder from a rope. The sponge dripped again as he was looking down: the water struck the sidewalk with a smack and spotted Vasco's shoes further. He waved a hand in absolution and carried his valise inside.

  It was morning. He'd arrived late the night before and rather than arouse the rectory had checked into a seaside hotel, a motor-court type with mock coral walls and two stories of outside entrances under a red tile roof. He'd slept poorly, but the neon sign that buzzed and clicked when it cycled and splashed his room in pink and green had been only part of the reason. His masquerade had cut into his family fabric, what there was of it. Somehow it seemed more blasphemous to have agreed to unite his father and woman friend in matrimony than to guile strangers into believing they'd been forgiven their sins in confession.

  He'd lied, concealed information even from the man who had commissioned him to tell the lies, he'd lain with a woman, and a Negro at that. Having grown up among Italians, Jews, Poles, and Irish, each of whom represented a nigger to some brute or other, that last was of less concern to him than it might have been otherwise, but when all was revealed he knew that would prove the worst charge against him in the court of opinion. Florida was filled with establishments requiring separate entrances for coloreds, whites-only restrooms, separate drinking fountains for Negroes and Caucasians; "Only whites need apply" dotted the Help Wanted columns in the Miami Herald. A priest sworn to chastity who'd had carnal knowledge of a black woman could be torn limb from limb by an enraged mob; the fact that he wasn't a priest at all would not make it hesitate longer than to draw fresh breath.