Al Capone Does My Homework

by Gennifer Choldenko

  “Yeah, why cheat a bunch of kids out of a dollar and change,” I ask.

  “He needed money,” Annie says. “He owes a bunch of money to a loan shark. My dad says he was in way over his head. And when you owe money to a loan shark, they’ll beat you up if you don’t pay it back.”

  “He needed big money. That was little money,” Jimmy says.

  “Not to me,” I say.

  “Could be he just wanted to practice on us,” Jimmy says.

  “Know what else I heard?” Annie says. “The Count picked Piper as the target for the counterfeiting because she’s the warden’s daughter.”

  “Well, she also left the dollar in her pocket. Maybe that gave him the idea.”

  “Good point,” Jimmy says.

  “But wait, why would Donny set fire to our place? That’s the part I don’t get.”

  “Me neither,” Jimmy agrees.

  “Did he think there was money at our house?”

  “Must have.”

  “Maybe he stole it and then he burned the house so nobody would know.”

  • • •

  In the afternoon, I wait for Annie on the balcony. My mom and Natalie are at the swing set. Dad is down at the dock. He’s talking to Officer Trixle, who is directing the cons as they unload bags of laundry from the Angel Island ferry and put them in the back of the truck to shuttle up the hill to the laundry building. Annie is taking a long time to come out. Her mom says she’ll just be a minute, but it is the world’s longest minute. I toss the ball low. If it hits the balcony ceiling, Darby will hear and then he’ll chew me out.

  Down below, the dock cons have filled the back of the truck, and Darby is barking directions. Mr. Mattaman is behind the wheel. Two of the cons hop in the truck. The truck door slams shut and Mr. Mattaman guns forward.

  Indiana and Lizard are standing around down at the dock, like always. The Count isn’t around. They probably tossed him in the Hole. I don’t think there’s even toilet paper in the Hole. Bet he’ll wish he had his counterfeit money then.

  The bell rings and all the cons form a line. “One, two, three . . .” They count off for Darby. Darby writes the count on his clipboard and saunters over to the guard tower. He stuffs a cigarette in his mouth, then yanks the guy-wire pulley—the signal for the dock tower guard to send down the clip. I toss my ball a little too hard and it bonks the ceiling. Luckily, Darby doesn’t hear it.

  “Annie?” I call, but I don’t want to knock on her door and get Mrs. Bomini, again. Talking to Mrs. Bomini is like eating too many sugar donuts. Every other word is dearie or sweetie or honey love.

  My eyes flicker back down to the dock. Lizard moves his head toward Indiana like he’s telling him something. I’m still tossing the ball, still catching it, but I’m thinking about the cons’ points game.

  Indiana—the guy with no eyebrows—and Lizard, who should probably be named Cockroach now, are hanging back. With Darby looking the other way they come together like schoolgirl friends. But they’re moving differently. Not relaxed and easy, but short and jerky. My baseball is moving through the air in slow motion. I catch it solidly as words float through my head.

  Indiana. That’s his name, but it’s a state. State problem. That was the note on my homework. I thought it was about the thesis. Why would Capone care about my thesis?

  Then I see it. A flicker of silver glistens. My throat closes. I can’t breathe.

  “Dad.” I gasp for air, but my lungs are jammed flat. I feel the roundness of the ball in my glove. “Dad,” I manage to whisper, the fear crushing my chest.

  The glint of the knife flashes in Indiana’s hand. The ball is in my palm. I aim for the knife, aim with everything I’ve got. My fingers release, the ball slices through the air. It hits Indiana’s head as his knife hand thrusts toward my dad.

  The ball slams his ear. His knife hand jerks back.

  My voice busts out of my chest. “Dad!” I shout. But it’s too late.

  My father is down.

  Time has stopped. I’m half running, half flying. I can’t feel my feet, but I hear the pounding sound of my footsteps. Down the stairs, skipping steps, sailing past the landing. Please, please let him be all right. I breathe in small panicky bursts. The dock tower guard trains his Browning automatic on Indiana, who dives into the bay. The gunfire cracks, the water splatters.

  “Dad!” I cry. Mr. Mattaman and another guard are bending over him now. Holding him up. His skin is the color of onions, transparent and white.

  He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine. And then I see the blood.

  They rip off his jacket. His shirt has a dark red splotch. The stain is spreading.

  Word has gone up for Doc Ollie. He is on the way.

  “Moose, are you okay?” somebody asks. I’m shaking hard, my teeth are chattering.

  “Where is Doc Ollie?” someone else wants to know.

  What is taking Ollie so long? My face is sweating. My skin is hot, then cold as stone. I can’t tell if one minute has passed or twenty.

  My mother has her arms around my father. Mrs. Mattaman pulls me away. But I twist out of her arms. “Dad! Dad!”

  “It’s going to be okay, Moose,” Mrs. Mattaman keeps saying over and over again, but each word is an envelope with nothing inside.

  25. In Charge of Everything

  Saturday, February 8, 1936

  I can’t get the picture of my dad out of my head. His closed eyes, his purple eyelids, the red stain the size of a handprint on his shirt. My mom, Doc Ollie, Bo Bomini, and Mr. Mattaman took him to the city on the Coast Guard cutter. The ferry was at Fort Mason. The Coast Guard cutter was faster.

  I wanted to go with him, but Doc Ollie said no. “They won’t let you in the hospital. You have to be sixteen,” he said.

  I’m old enough to see my father get stabbed, but too young to go to the hospital with him. This makes no sense.

  Mrs. Bomini is out sweeping the balcony. She shakes her head when she sees me. “We’re praying for you, honey. Your daddy is the cat’s pajamas and we all know it.”

  I head up the hill to Piper’s. When she opens the door, I stare at her, speechless.

  She nods, as if she’s expecting me. “Come on,” she says. I follow her to the kitchen.

  “What do they know?” I ask.

  “His name is Lonnie McCrae and he’s from Kokomo, Indiana. They started calling him Indiana because at his last prison, there were two Lonnies. The name stuck.”

  I grind my toe into the rug. “What else do you know?”

  “He’s in for armed robbery. Sent to reform school when he was thirteen.”

  “Thirteen. That’s how old we are.”

  She nods, her face a little paler. She could have been sent to reform school too. If she’d been anyone else’s daughter, she probably would have been.

  “Been in prison off and on since then. He’s twenty-nine today.”

  “He tried to kill my dad on his birthday?”

  “Yes,” she says.

  My head gets woozy. I start sweating all over. My feet pound into Piper’s bathroom. I hold the cold toilet bowl while my breakfast comes up in a big pink raspberry jam mess. I wash my face, scrub so hard, the skin is raw, but no amount of soap can make me feel okay again.

  Back in her kitchen, Piper watches me, her brown eyes serious.

  But I can’t sit still. I have to leave. Piper calls to me, but I’m already out the door, half running down the switchback around the bend by the morgue when I come face-to-face with Warden Williams.

  “Mr. Williams, sir, why’d they want to hurt my dad? Was it really for a game?”

  He nods, his voice unusually gentle. “Indiana wanted a feather in his cap. That’s how he thought he’d get it.”

  “That’s sick.”


  He motions to the cell house. “Some of the men in there are broken in ways that can’t be fixed.”

  “All for a game?”

  “A couple of gangs each put a man up. That’s always the way it is. But your dad’s gonna be all right. He’s tougher than he looks. Can’t think of anyone I’d rather have my back. Can you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Hold a good thought, Moose. We’ll get through this, you and I.”

  • • •

  I head down to the water. It’s raining now . . . water hits the top of my head and drips off my nose. I sit with my legs hanging over the dock watching the gray water. The birds are hunkered down, the distant rush of the rain comes through the gutters in 64. The bay laps against the rocks, hollow sounding under the wooden planks.

  I don’t see Jimmy and Mrs. Mattaman coming, but suddenly they are there. Mrs. Mattaman shivers under a blue umbrella. Jimmy’s curly hair is so wet, it hangs straight. “Moose, come on up with us.”

  I shake my head.

  “It breaks my heart to see you sitting out here,” Mrs. Mattaman says.

  I watch the birds ride the choppy waves, a new shower of rain battering them down.

  Mrs. Mattaman puts her short arm around me awkwardly. She is warm and dry, which makes me realize how sopping wet I am. “No rhyme or reason to it,” she says. “There’s no point in looking for one.”

  “I saw it. And I opened my mouth and I tried to yell. But I couldn’t.”

  “Moose, now you listen to me. You threw that ball and you hit Indiana. He would have killed your daddy for sure if not for you. But he didn’t. And now your father has a fighting chance.”

  “It’s because we spent so long watching the cons. You knew how to read them,” Jimmy says.

  “No,” I whisper. “I didn’t figure it out.”

  “Figure what out?” Jimmy asks.

  “Capone warned me.”

  “You’re talking nonsense,” Mrs. Mattaman says.

  “Capone wrote on my homework state problem. Indiana is a state.” I am out of breath. I shouldn’t be, but I’m so upset, I can’t even breathe the right way.

  “Nobody in his right mind could have figured that out. Especially given all the craziness gone on here in the last month. How were you supposed to know what that meant? Jimmy, did you know anything about this?”

  Jim shakes his head.

  “But don’t you see? I’m supposed to keep track,” I say.

  “Of what?” Mrs. Mattaman asks.

  “Of everything,” I tell her. “Natalie needs my help, and my dad, he never thinks anything bad will happen. Maybe if I’d been a better friend to Piper, she wouldn’t have gotten in trouble. I messed up.”

  “Oh for goodness’ sake, you listen to me. You don’t have that much power, Moose.” She looks at me with her kind brown eyes.

  “What happens is in God’s hands. Not yours. We’re all praying. Every one of us. Everybody loves your father. And he’s gonna pull through because your daddy’s a fighter. And you? You should feel proud of yourself for thinking quick with that noggin of yours and throwing that ball with your beautiful throwing arm, do you hear me?”

  “But I could have yelled,” I shout.

  “You did yell,” Jimmy points out.

  “How do you know?”

  “I heard you.”

  “Not soon enough. Not loud enough,” I say.

  The wind whistles up under Mrs. Mattaman’s umbrella, lifting it almost out of her hands.

  “Oh fiddlesticks, Moose—”

  “Wait, Mom, let’s test it out,” Jimmy says. “Where were you when you threw the ball?” he asks.

  “On the balcony outside the door to Annie’s,” I say.

  “You go to the spot where your father was standing. I’ll run up and I’ll shout like you did. And then you’ll know if your father could have heard or not,” Jimmy says.

  He doesn’t stop to ask if I think this is a good idea. He’s already running up the steps to the door to Annie’s third-floor apartment, #3H. Mrs. Mattaman stays down with me.

  Jimmy waves when he’s on the balcony. Mrs. Mattaman tilts her umbrella to the side and jiggles it over her head and Jimmy shouts.

  I can see his mouth moving, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. The rain and the water rushing through the downspouts fill my ears. Mrs. Mattaman turns to me. “You hear that?” she asks.

  “No, but it wasn’t raining.”

  “Grant you that, but even so . . . you’re listening for it. You’re trying to hear it. Your father was not.”

  I nod. One tiny corner of the weight on my chest lifts.

  “If I’d been smarter and figured it all out sooner . . .”

  “What you told me didn’t add up to diddly-squat.”

  “But it did.”

  “Oh flibbertigibbets, Moose.” She rolls her eyes. “We’ll report that you think Capone scribbled a note on your homework. Of course we will, but honey, any one of those cons up there is a murderer. Every five minutes a new plan is hatched. For escape, for stabbing a warden, and God knows what else. These men are dangerous . . . surely this isn’t news to you.”

  She takes my chin in her hand and looks deeply into my eyes. “You did your best with that whole big heart of yours and that’s all any of us can do.”

  Jimmy is back down now. “You didn’t hear, did you?” He slicks his wet hair back.

  “No,” I admit.

  “I didn’t think so,” he says.

  “There, so now we know. Now, we got other fish to fry.” Mrs. Mattaman wiggles her umbrella at me. “I need you to go talk to Natalie. Natalie loves her daddy as much as you do. And she’s awful confused right now. I tried to tell her what was happening, but she curled up and hasn’t moved since.

  “Theresa, bless her heart, has been trying to see to her, but she needs you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say.

  “All right then. You march right on up there and go talk to your sister. Jimmy, you go on up and get on dry clothes.”

  Mrs. Mattaman is right about most things. But wrong about Al Capone. He was trying to warn me.

  Still, if Capone really wanted to help, he could have told my dad that day in Doc Ollie’s kitchen. He could have prevented this, but he wasn’t willing to stick his neck out. Al Capone isn’t as brave as people think he is. My dad has more courage than he does.

  26. Nat’s Turn

  Saturday, February 8, 1936

  When I get up to Mrs. Mattaman’s, Natalie is lying on Theresa’s bed with her face down, her legs and her arms tucked under her. She’s so quiet, it doesn’t look like she’s breathing.

  “Natalie,” I whisper, “do you understand what’s going on?”

  She doesn’t answer but she knows something, or she wouldn’t be frozen like this on Theresa’s bed.

  Usually it ticks me off when she does this, but not today. Today I wish I could shut the world out just like she does.

  “Natalie . . .” My voice trails off.

  I listen to the sounds of the Mattamans’ apartment. Theresa and Jimmy’s bottle cap curtain tinkles in the breeze. Baby Rocky babbles to himself. The teakettle whistles, the icebox opens and closes.

  I put my hand on Nat’s arm, but her skin twitches away. “Daddy got hurt, Natalie.”

  Natalie rolls side to side as if to burrow herself more deeply into Theresa’s mattress.

  “Mommy and Doc Ollie took him to the hospital.”

  “Hospital,” she echoes.

  “You know what that is.”

  “Where hurt people get better,” she whispers, her face toward the wall.

  My eyes focus on the snarl of her hair. What do I say now?

  Nat mumbles something I don’t catc
h.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Have to see Daddy,” she says, louder this time.

  “You can’t,” I tell her. “Like I said, he’s in the hospital.”

  “Visit him, visit.” She digs her chin into her collarbone.

  “You have to be sixteen or they won’t let you in the hospital,” I tell her.

  Nat sits up. She presses her hand against her chest. “Natalie is. I am sixteen.”

  “Yeah, but I can’t go, and you can’t go by yourself.”

  “I AM SIXTEEN,” Nat says, like maybe I’ve lost my hearing. “I can go in by myself. I am the warden’s daughter.”

  Don’t be ridiculous, I’m about to say. But slowly Natalie’s words seep into my brain. I am sixteen. I can go in by myself.

  I’m not old enough, but she is.

  Still, I can’t let her do that. My mother would kill me.

  Then I remember what Mrs. Kelly said about my parents being older. About how I will be taking care of Natalie someday. Natalie’s got to keep trying things, or we’ll never know what she’s capable of. It’s like in my homework report—after FDR got polio, his mom wanted him to retire and sit around for the rest of his life.

  He wouldn’t be our president if he’d done what his mother said. He’d be a crippled man sitting all by himself somewhere.

  It’s early afternoon, but it’s so stormy and dark outside, the light is on in the hall. I stare stupidly at the pattern it creates on the wall. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

  Nat trembles, but she doesn’t get up.

  “Nat?” I whisper.

  Her trembling gets worse; she’s shaking now like she’s freezing. And then without a word, she gets up and goes in the bathroom.

  When she comes out, she has Theresa’s hairbrush. She heads for the kitchen, where she hands it to Mrs. Mattaman and stands quietly, with her back to Mrs. Mattaman, waiting.

  Mrs. Mattaman takes the cue and gently begins to brush her way through Nat’s tangled hair. “What’s up?” she asks me.

  “We’re going to the hospital,” I say.

  “You aren’t old enough.”