All Honest Men

by Claude Stanush

  All a sudden, the devil shows up in my cell, and he’s crooking his finger at me and he’s laughing too, and for a few minutes it’s like I’m the one—not Dock—that’s got them five bullet holes … the pain’s like to kill me … like it’s my tongue that’s near shot in half, and when I wipe my mouth, I’m ready to see it’s blood that’s making it wet, not spit. I’m ready for seeing red blood, I’m all tensed up for it. But what’s there is just plain old yeller spit.

  I recollect it’s Glasscock’s the one that caused it all. Glasscock, with them sucked-in cheeks that’s yeller too.

  My mind snaps back. The devil ain’t in my cell no more. It ain’t nobody in this death cell. There’s nobody else, nobody, nobody, not a single person to talk to, and not even one piece of light to hold onto.

  I hold onto myself. I push one of my fingers down between my two other fingers, into that smooth place where the fingers come together, and I run my first finger around there and feel it, the curves. Louise comes to me, and how soft she is, and she’s let her hair down, how ever’ bit of her is soft, and I got my hands around her waist …

  Could I blast outa this cell?

  Maybe I can steal some soap outa the bath they give me one time a week, rim the walls of the cell, take the grease outa that pork-fat hash and make a fuse out of a strip of my hair and scratch a fingernail, and light her up, and there she blows!!!

  No, no … that’s all a dream—and I ain’t smelling perfume, it’s stink!

  Nothing will work.

  For the first time in my life I don’t have no plan.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Weeks pass by into months.

  All the alias names I ever used in my life run through my mind, round and round—R.E. Baker and James H. Watson and Will Reed and W.L. Malley and Luther Chriss and Henry Hermann and all the rest of ’em—so many times I almost don’t know what my real name is.

  It’s five months before somebody opens the door to my cell and calls me by my rightful name, “J. Willis Newton.”

  Lucky for me, it ain’t that old son-of-a-bitch Schoemaker. It’s one of the top U.S. postal inspectors from Washington D.C., a fella named K.P. Aldrich. He’s one of them men where what you notice first and last about ’em is their eyes. Aldrich has what I call “straight eyes.” Nothing shifty about ’em.

  He brings two chairs into the cell and says he wants to talk.

  “I hear you’re from Texas, Mister Newton,” is the first thing he says to me. “I’m a Texas boy myself.”

  “Where’bouts?”

  “Austin.”

  “Nice town, Austin.”

  “Yes it is.” Then he cuts the politeness.

  First off, he tells me that the laws’d took Schoemaker off the case. Aldrich is the head man, now. Then he gives me information. Like who tipped off the Chicago laws to that apartment on North Washtenaw Avenue where they took Dock to that crook doctor. Damned if it wasn’t that doughy-faced Irish gangster with the gimpy leg, that Deany O’Banion! Seems the doctor that treated Dock had ties to O’Banion, and the doctor told O’Banion that Dock was one of the Texas cowboys that’d robbed the Rondout train.

  And O’Banion tipped off the laws.

  I dunno exactly how I feel when I hear all that. Part of me’s hot as a hornet, another part’s kinda pumped up. It’s kinda like if you was a politician in the capital of the United States of America and somehow you got President Calvin Coolidge jealous of you. O’Banion was one of the biggest gangsters ever in the history of this country, and there he was, jealous of a bunch of farm boys!

  ’Course, what I really want to know from Aldrich is about Dock. I’m scared to ask it, but I ask it anyhow. “You ain’t said nothing about my brother, Dock, Mister Aldrich.”

  Aldrich reaches over and puts his hand on my shoulder. He looks me in the eye. “Willis, you country folk have thick hides. Your brother Dock had a tough time of it, but he’s mending.”

  Lemme tell you what: When Aldrich says that, when he says my brother is still alive, it’s like something runs right through my body, from my toes to my neck, and unties ever’ one of my muscles. Yeah, that’s when I find out what I been waiting all these five months to know: Dock’s alive.

  I feel like I could float up to the moon.

  Only life’s funny like this: When a man’s got a big worry, and that worry winks itself out, whatever other worries he’s got tucked up under that big worry puff theirselves up to fill the empty space that’s left. Them other worries may not be big as that biggest one, but they sure can feel that way. I want to know about Joe, and if they’ve got Jess, and how about the other ones?

  Aldrich leans back in his chair and smiles slow like he’s got a story to tell.

  And he does.

  “I’m sure you know this, Willis, that your brother Jess is a good bronc-buster but a bad drunk. The key to my business is the same as the key to yours—know your opponent’s strengths, know their weaknesses. We tracked Jess down in Villa Acuna, right across the border. Couldn’t arrest him, of course, because there aren’t any extradition laws. But a couple of our boys start hanging out at one of your brother’s favorite tequila bars. Tell him they’re rich ranchers, want to buy him a bottle. And then they tell him about a bronc called Cyclone that’s supposed to be in a rodeo over on the Texas side. Tell him Cyclone’s already throwed forty riders. Nobody can ride him. They bet Jess fifty dollars he can’t ride Cyclone either.” Aldrich can’t help but smile. And it’s a straight smile, to go with them straight eyes. You can tell a real smile ’cause the skin around the eyes crinkles. “You think you know the end to this story, Willis?”

  I don’t know whether to cry, or laugh.

  I laugh.

  Why not?

  Then Alridge tells me more. That they’ve got all the rest of us, too. Glasscock was in a sanitarium in Michigan, getting treated for his stomach troubles, and some little boy that lived nearby recognized him from his “Wanted” poster that was tacked up in the post office. The boy tipped off the laws. It was a gangster moll that turned in Fahy. He’d been messing around with her, and talking too much, and drinking too much. This time, all that “too much” did him in.

  Then Aldrich leans forward in his chair.

  Way, way forward.

  “Willis, the insurance companies are real anxious to get their money back, and if we can get it back for them, I think the government will be inclined to make some kind of a deal with all of you. You and your brothers.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “You don’t work with us, it’s twenty-five years flat. Maybe a lot more. There’s more than one count against you. If they stack ’em up, rest of your life is pretty well eaten up. But I think I can promise you no more than twelve. Maybe less.”

  “What are the odds it’ll be less?”

  “Not good. But you go in for twelve, you can be out in four to six. Get a good book to read, you won’t notice it.”

  “Joint boys don’t like rats,” I say.

  “You’ll be protected.”

  I don’t say nothing else right off. Aldrich looks and talks like he’s a honest man, but I know the laws good enough to never let my guard down all the way. And there’s one other problem. I only know where part of the money is. Glasscock’s took most of it. If I talk, I gotta get him to talk, too.

  “You give me your word you’re playing it straight with me, Aldrich?”

  “I never say I’m an honest man, Willis, ’cause the ones who have to say it are usually the ones who don’t play it. But yes, I am. Fact is, I’m the kind who believes a man ought to tell the truth because a man ought to tell the truth—even if it doesn’t get him something.”

  “But if I talk, it’ll get us something.”

  “It will.”

  “Gimme some time to think it over.”

  Aldrich then does something for me I ain’t expecting. He says he’s arranged it so Louise can visit me. I haven’t seen her, or heard from her since the night she brung that $20
,000 dollars, and Schoemaker took the money and me to jail. Aldrich says he’s fixed it so I can talk to her away from my cell, in a little room where we can sit across the counter from each other. There’ll be two guards there.

  I don’t know what to expect—whether she’s even said she’ll see me—but when Aldrich tells me she’s coming, I’m more excited than I been in a long, long time. Nervous as hell, too. If it looks like they’re gonna send me to prison for a long time, maybe she’s gonna tell me ever’thing is now over between me and her.

  She come in a simple white dress. No jewelry.

  “Louise … How you been doin’, honey?”

  She doesn’t say nothing. I see a tear creep down her face.

  “How’s Lewis?” I ask.

  “He’s okay.”

  We only got ten minutes to talk. I know I gotta get quick to the point. But she gets there before I do. She sucks in a big breath. She leans towards me on the counter, far as she can get.

  “They say there’re five counts against you, and they could add up to a hundred and sixty years if you don’t make a deal.”

  I nod, but I think: did Aldrich arrange for Louise to talk to me to get what he wants? And if he gets what he wants, is he gonna do a double-cross?

  “He told me that.”

  “Willis, you might never get out.”

  “You know, Lou. I got some rules. I don’t rat.”

  Louise looks down. She’s scraping the skin around her thumbs. It’s red and raw. She looks up again.

  “Are you saying it’s a matter of honor with you?”

  I sneak a peek over at the guards. I don’t answer right off.

  “Willis, don’t fool yourself. There’s no honor in any of this.”

  I remember her saying that. I remember the way she says it, and the way she looks me hard in the eye when she says it. Louise is a good woman. But she hasn’t lived my life. I have.

  Then I wink at her. And damn if she don’t wink back.

  One of the guards is looking at his watch. There’s one more question I gotta ask Louise and I know I gotta do it quick. Even with that wink from her, my heart starts thumping. Hard, hard agin my chest. I feel kinda like how I did at Toronto, the time after that mess with them bank messengers, when I was about to tell Louise that me and the boys had shot a few of ’em.

  “Will you wait for me, Lou?”

  “Do you think I should?”

  “I want you to. There wouldn’t be no life left in me if you wasn’t there.”

  “How long do you think I should wait?”

  “I can’t answer that one, honey.”

  “I’ll wait for you, Willis. But not for a hundred and sixty years.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  The federals give me a front row seat for the trial.

  They’d dressed me in a brand-new citizen’s suit, a gray worsted, and a good haircut, slick on top. I think I looked sharp.

  ’Course, they had a armed guard on the left of me, and a armed guard on the right of me.

  They looked sharp, too. The handles on their .45s was polished to a shine.

  I’ll tell you what, that federal courtroom was stuffed with people wanting to watch ever’thing—just stacks of ’em, stacks and stacks of ’em! And there was newspaper men from as far off as New York City, flashing them big camera bulbs that like to blind you, and scribbling on little pads of papers.

  Well, hell, the Newton Boys’d pulled off the biggest train robbery in the history of the United States of these Americas, and ever’body was all worked up over it, and they shoulda been!

  Ever’ day when I walked in, and even after I set down, the reporters was throwing me questions.

  “What were Texans doing in gangster territory?”

  “Who was the brains?”

  “What about the man who shot your brother?”

  “You worried about the death threats?”

  If it’d a been up to me, I’da answered ever’ one of them questions. But the feds told me not even to look at ’em.

  What brought about the trial was this: I talked.

  Only I talked with honor.

  I didn’t hurt nobody that didn’t deserve it.

  I’d told Aldrich if he’d give me his word on that deal, me and my brothers’d spill the beans, tell him what we knowed. Of course, it was Glasscock that knowed where most of the money was. But they offered him a deal, too, and they put me in a room with him, and he’d blabbed his guts out.

  He’d led the feds to where he’d buried more’n a million dollars.

  There was only one problem left. And it was a helluva problem. Glassock had already give $500,000 to that fat old louse Murray and that old jug-headed Fahy, and they was still playing like they was innocent. And the federals didn’t have much of a sense of humor about all that. They wanted that money back.

  So they wanted ever’body else on my team to get up and finger them old boys.

  It was gonna be our word agin theirs. And the judge said he wasn’t gonna give me and my brothers our sentences ’til the trial was over.

  Was it all one, big double-cross?

  It’s a fact we’d made that deal with Aldrich, but I knowed from past years that life is always throwing surprises at you, and there’s just as likely to be bad ones as good ones. And Fahy’s lawyer was telling the newspapers that he was gonna “spring a big surprise.”

  Jimmy Murray was setting at one table with his lawyers, but trying to fit somebody that big into a little old gov’ment chair with wood side-arms was like trying to squeeze a black bear into a egg crate. He didn’t seem to be sweating no weight off with worry. He looked calm as could be, like all he wanted to do was take a nap.

  I didn’t like that.

  Maybe with them political connections of his, he’d made some kind of a secret deal.

  Fahy was setting at another table. He was skinny as Murray was fat, so he fit perfect in his chair. But he was setting bolt upright. He looked as much on edge as Murray was about to go to sleep. And his jug ears was working so hard to hear ever’thing that was going on around him that it looked like they was flapping. He was taking all kinds of notes on a little yellow pad.

  I didn’t like how he was looking, either. A sneaky desperate man’ll say anything to save his skin.

  If you was to look at it one way, that trial was like one of them circuses they call “The Greatest Show on Earth.” Murray was like a big, old lazy bear about to clomp around the ring, and Fahy was like the jittery little clown about to get shot outa a canon. And us Newtons?

  Well, we was Texans.

  Fact is, I think the crowd was more curious about us Newton boys than they was about Murray and Fahy. Who the hell was we?

  Cowboys? Rubes? Rebel boys?

  Ever’body looked like they was more’n ready for the show. If the judge had let ’em bring in peanuts and sodeys, I believe they woulda done it. ’Course, there was one sign this wasn’t no circus. Ever’ person was getting frisked for hid guns.

  Two days before the trial begun, see, that gangster Deany O’Banion—the one that snitched us out—had got hisself murdered. He was in his flower shop, trimming the tips offa some yellow mums, when three men come up to him and acted like they was friends and wanted to shake his hand. His body fell into a case of them pretty, long-stem American Beauty roses.

  It wasn’t none of my team that’d ordered the hit. We was in the pen. But some of O’Banion’s gang thought he’d got rubbed out by somebody connected with us, and they was vowing revenge. The judge was worried that the show might turn bloody. Me and my brothers’d been getting death threats.

  By rights, I’m the one that shoulda been the biggest witness. I was the one, after all, that’d done most of the plotting with Murray and Fahy, and I was the only one that’d met Fahy face to face.

  But the federals said they didn’t wanta call me up because I’d strung ’em that line when I first got nabbed, that “Sam Grant” and “Blackie Wilcox” was my partners. And being that the
newspapers had printed all that hoo-ey, they said I’d been branded a public liar.

  Well, did that burn me up! I had plenty I wanted to say! But all I could do through the rest of the trial was sit there like a muzzled dog.

  And hold my breath.

  It started out slow and then picked up speed, just like the No. 57 Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway train done when it first pulled outa Chicago.

  First off, the feds called up railroad people—the train engineers, fireman, mail clerks, and such. And it was good to see so many people, all of ’em working people, that was honest. I believe that nearly all of ’em told it the way things really was, just like they seen it.

  At the courthouse, Dock is on the stretcher. L. to R. Willis, Jess and Joe.

  The railroad fireman—a Mister Ernest J. Dibble—told how Jess’d entertained him with windies and offered him a smoke and complained, “My God, ain’t this a helluva way to make a living?”

  “I think this was his first experience,” that Mister Dibble said. “He just didn’t seem like a criminal.”

  ’Course, none of ’em knowed anything about how Murray or Fahy was hooked up with the job. That was up to my boys.

  Joe was the first of our team to go up. His legs was so long it only took him about four steps to get from his seat to the stand. He was only twenty-two then (the papers called him the “kid” and the “baby”), but he’d filled out a lot—like I said before—and I thought he looked handsome. The federals had give him a nice brown suit and a blue tie.

  I hoped to hell Joe would come through.

  When the gov’ment lawyer started asking Joe questions, my little brother was polite as he could be, saying “yes sir” and “no sir.” And his voice was only a little trembly, and only at the start of it. And he was straight with his testimony at first—that he’d met Murray and that Murray helped plot the job. He said he’d never met Fahy, but he’d heard about him, and that Murray had talked about getting all the inside information from a “postal inspector.”

  “Is Mister Murray in this courtroom?” the lawyer asked Joe.