Sweet Mercy

by Ann Tatlock

  I tried to nod but I could do little more than stare at this oversized angel hunched clumsily beside me. I stared not just because he was there, but because his face was so badly scarred, as though a three-fingered monster had clawed him, leaving gouges from his left ear almost all the way to his mouth.

  “You all right, kid?” he asked again, and though I saw his purplish lips move, I still couldn’t answer. His raised his brows and gazed at me quizzically.

  He must have decided my tears were the only answer he was going to get, because he shrugged and lifted a hand toward one of the dark-suited men. Though he didn’t say a word, the man knew what he wanted. A handkerchief was put into the pudgy fist of my rescuer, who used it to dab at my bloody knees. It hurt, but I didn’t want to say so. The tears were still flowing and my nose was leaking, and since I had nothing to wipe my face with, I tried vainly to sniff everything back inside. The sound was so pitiful, the man in white held up his hand again, and the second shadow handed over his handkerchief, which the angel gave to me with the word, “Blow.”

  I blew my nose and wiped away my tears. By now, Ariel had caught up with us; she stood slack-jawed on the sidewalk, staring at the scene unraveling before her.

  “Listen,” the man said, “why don’t you give the skates a rest and walk home? That the key?” He pointed to the key on the shoestring around my neck.

  I nodded. He lifted the key over my head and unlocked the skates. Then he slipped them off my feet and laid them aside. “Anyway,” he went on, “I think the bleeding’s stopped. Why don’t you go on home and have your mother put some iodine on these cuts?”

  “All right,” I said shakily, finally able to respond. I glanced at Ariel. I knew she was staring at the man’s scars and wondering about his peculiar accent. He sounded like he’d come from somewhere out east, like New Jersey.

  The man stood and adjusted his fedora. One of the shadows grabbed my wrists and pulled me up. Neither he nor the other shadow ever said a word; they simply stood there looking impatient and annoyed.

  When I was back up on my feet, the angel said, “You gotta be more careful, little lady.”

  I nodded again, meekly. “I will,” I promised.

  A long sleek car pulled up to the curb, and one of the shadows opened the back door. The man in white took a step forward, then stopped and turned to me. “Say, you like elephants?” he asked.

  I was so shaken by the penetrating eyes, the scars, the whole imposing white figure that I couldn’t speak till Ariel nudged me in the ribs. “Sure,” I said. “I like elephants.”

  He reached into the pocket of his slacks like he was searching for spare change, but what he pulled out was a miniature ivory elephant, hardly bigger than a radish. “Here you go, kid,” he said. “It’ll bring you good luck.”

  I held up a trembling hand, and he laid the elephant in my palm. I stared at it, afraid to lift my eyes. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  I was hardly aware of the men climbing into the car, but when the doors slammed shut, I realized I was still clutching the handkerchiefs. “Hey, mister!” I yelled. I knocked on the back window until it rolled down. The man’s face appeared without the fedora. His thinning brown hair was brushed straight back and his forehead glistened with sweat. His right side was toward me so the scars were largely hidden.

  “Don’t you want your handkerchiefs back?” I held them up. They were soiled with blood, mucus, and tears.

  The man looked at the other fellows in the car and laughed heartily. Then he turned back to me. “Naw, you keep them,” he said. “Another little gift from your friends in Chicago.”

  The window rolled up and the car moved down the street. Ariel and I looked after the car until it disappeared.

  Her voice lilting with awe, Ariel asked, “Who was that?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. But he was nice.”

  “Yeah. Let’s go home. Mom will put some iodine and bandages on your knees.”

  Six years would pass before I could identify the man outside the Commodore Hotel. In all that time I didn’t have a clue and had almost forgotten about him until his smiling face appeared on the March 24, 1930, cover of Time magazine. With one eyebrow raised and a rose in his lapel, he looked cocky and self-assured, as though he’d just been named Man of the Year. I’d seen smaller photos of him in the papers, but with his life-sized mug on the magazine cover, his now infamous scars were glaringly apparent. He was well-known for his dealings in bootlegging, gambling, racketeering, and prostitution. He was also a ruthless murderer, as well as the prime suspect behind the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929 when seven of Bugs Moran’s men were gunned down in a warehouse in cold blood. He’d been named Public Enemy Number One by the Chicago Crime Commission and nicknamed Scarface by the newspapers. By 1930 both his name and his nickname were household words, but I didn’t connect him to my corpulent angel until I saw the cover of Time.

  Ariel and I stared at that cover a good long while, unable to believe that the man who’d helped me when I fell was Al Capone.

  Chapter 14

  And so we come back around to mercy, the place where we must live, if we are to live at all.” Reverend Kilkenny paused and smiled pleasantly as he looked out over the congregation. In the weeks ahead I would realize that cashing in on the name of the town was a favorite tactic of the Reverend’s, for with every sermon he reminded us that we lived in Mercy. “Because, as we are told in Romans, we are all sinners who fall short of the glory of God, we have no hope other than to throw ourselves on His mercy and find our salvation and redemption in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray.”

  That Sunday morning, I, for one, was happier than ever to be living in this town called Mercy. Still gliding on giddy wings from spending the previous afternoon with Marcus, I found my mind drifting—to his shy smile, the feel of his hand in mine, the carousel ring now in my treasure box. I could scarcely concentrate on the service, and I must have been fidgeting because Mother kept glancing at me, as though searching for signs of another Cassandra. She needn’t have worried. I would never make the choices my sister had made. I was stronger than that and would not be tempted.

  The days of summer went by in a sweet routine. Foremost was the busyness of the lodge. I loved the simple joy of entertaining our guests. I loved their coming and going, their chatter and laughter, their obvious pleasure in spending time on the island. Morris and I made runs back and forth to the train station to pick them up and to take them back again, and whenever we took them back they were sorry to go and we were sorry to see them go, but we knew that many of them would return as soon as the upcoming weekend. I found great satisfaction in doing my chores around the lodge, watching the guests swim and boat and play croquet, and standing on the edge of the river myself, lifting my face to the sun and drinking in the warm fragrant air.

  Marcus was with me every moment in thought if not in fact, though we tried somehow to see each other every day. Sometimes he simply waved at me from the station across the street. Other times he’d run over and grab a bite of lunch with me at the Eatery. We went to the movies at the theater in town with Jimmy and Marlene; we went to the ice cream parlor on Main Street and ate banana splits and shared vanilla Cokes. If life had gone on in that idyllic way forever, I would have been completely satisfied. I wouldn’t have needed to ask for anything more.

  Occasionally I saw punts on the river carrying what must have been moonshine, but other than that I thought little about the local bootleggers or Prohibition or outlaws. My old life drifted farther and farther away until one Tuesday morning, June 23, the memories came rushing back. The news came over the radio that Al Capone had been arrested. He’d been indicted ten days earlier but was now in custody, along with sixty-eight other members of an alleged beer syndicate. They were charged with five thousand offenses against the Prohibition law. Five thousand! Capone himself was accused of conspiracy dating all the way back to 1922.

  As I stood by the front desk listening to t
he radio with Uncle Cy, I was surprised at the feelings welling up inside me. Al Capone was a terrible, evil man and he deserved prison for all that he had done, yet . . .

  “Hey, kid, you all right?”

  His face was vivid in my mind, that fleshy moon with the gray eyes and bushy brows. I bit my lower lip, remembering the sting as he touched my tattered knees with a handkerchief.

  “You gotta be more careful, little lady.”

  He didn’t have to stop and help me. I was just one more clumsy kid who’d hit a buckled sidewalk and skinned her knees, a rite of childhood. Other grown-ups might have clicked their tongues and walked on by, but he didn’t. He squatted down and looked at me the way a father looks at his own child and asked me if I was all right. And then he’d wiped away the blood and given me a handkerchief for my tears.

  “Say, you like elephants?”

  And he’d given me a piece of carved ivory that I’d kept in my treasure box for eight years.

  “Looks like old Scarface is really in hot water this time,” Uncle Cy said as he turned off the radio. “I guess it’s bound to catch up with you sooner or later.”

  Uncle Cy sighed.

  So did I.

  That night I found Jones sitting on the front steps, straining to read a letter by the dim light of the porch lamps. When I saw him there I remembered what Marlene had said about Jones the first time I met her—that he came out only at night. For the most part, that was true. He rarely went outside during daylight hours, and when he did, he almost always wore the safari hat that covered his hair and dark glasses that covered his eyes. It was only at night that he looked like everyone else.

  I sat down on the step beside him. “Hi, Jones.”

  “Hello, Eve.”

  “Mind if I sit here?”

  “Naw. Go ahead.”

  He folded up the letter and stuffed it into his shirt pocket, followed by his glasses.

  “From your mother?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “How is she?”

  He seemed to have to think about that for a while. He looked out toward the river, and I followed his gaze to the shards of moonlight glistening on its surface. When I looked back to Jones, the muscles in his face had tightened and his eyes, like the river, seemed to have picked up the flickering glow of the moon. “She’s not doing well,” he said at last.

  I pressed my lips together. I would pretend I hadn’t noticed the unshed tears. “I’m sorry, Jones,” I said gently. “I’ll keep praying for her, twice as hard.”

  He didn’t respond. For what seemed a long time, we sat in silence. I had come to ask him something and I thought maybe I should leave him alone, choose another time. But no. I wanted to ask him now. Quietly, tentatively, I said, “Say, Jones?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can I show you something?”

  “I guess so.”

  I reached into the pocket of my skirt. My fingers trembled. I’d never shown anyone before, other than Ariel. I held the ivory elephant up toward the light so that Jones could see it.

  With a small grimace, he plucked his glasses out of his pocket and put them on again. He gazed at the elephant for only a second before saying, “Yeah? What about it?”

  “I know you won’t believe me when I tell you who gave it to me.”

  He laughed a little. “So tell me anyway.”

  “Al Capone.”

  He turned to me sharply, his brows hanging low over his eyes. He took the elephant and looked at it more closely, turning it over and over, as though looking for a signature of previous ownership. Then he returned it to my palm. “I believe you,” he said.

  “You do?”

  He nodded. “He collects ivory elephants. He has them all lined up on his desk.”

  I gasped. “How do you know that?”

  Jones looked away, but not before I saw a small inexplicable smile spread across his lips. “Let’s just say I know people who know things.”

  “You said you never met Al Capone.”

  “I never met him myself.” He looked back at me. The smile was gone. He nodded toward my hand. “So how’d you get it?”

  I told him the story. When I finished, he didn’t say anything and he didn’t even move, just kept staring straight ahead.

  “I’m trying to understand it all, Jones,” I said quietly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why was he nice to me?”

  “Because you were a kid and you were hurt.”

  It wasn’t enough. There had to be something else. “I’ve been thinking about that man you told me about. The friend of your family’s who owned the flower shop. What was his name?”

  “You mean Michael O’Brannigan?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “You told me about how he loved his son and never cheated on his wife. And how he didn’t even drink and how he went to Mass.”

  “So?”

  “But he was a criminal. Like Al Capone.”

  Jones narrowed his eyes at me. They looked a deep brown in the dim light. “That’s right. He was a criminal, not the devil himself. No one’s completely bad, Eve. Don’t you know that?”

  I wasn’t sure. Good and evil. Black and white. I wanted them to be separate. I didn’t like gray. “I’m trying to understand,” I said again.

  “Look,” Jones said, sitting up a little straighter and stretching his legs out in front of him. “Even gangsters have a code of honor. One thing they swear not to do is hurt women and children. Not on purpose anyway. And a lot of them do nice things for people. They make a whole lot of money in crime, and then they end up giving a lot of it away to charity. Not all of them, of course, but some of them. One guy I heard about would pack his car with food and clothes and drive into the slums and hand them out. I’ve heard of some who go around giving money to old folks and orphans, just because they want to help in some way; you know, do something good. And why not?” Jones looked at me and shrugged. “It’s not like they’re incapable of being human.”

  I thought about that. “I heard Capone used to play Santa Claus at his younger sister’s school every year.”

  Jones nodded. “That’s true, he did. He’s also financed soup kitchens up in the Chicago area since the market crashed. He’s put food in a lot of hungry bellies.”

  “Maybe he just wants to look good.”

  “Maybe.” Jones shrugged. “Did he stop and help you, though, just because he wanted to look good?”

  I had no answer for that. I slipped the elephant back into my pocket.

  Jones pointed toward it with a thumb. “Better hold on to that,” he said. “It’s going to be worth something someday.”

  Chapter 15

  Marlene came over to the island on Friday afternoon, and we decided to take one of the rowboats out on the river. I volunteered to row first, so Marlene settled herself in the bow of the boat. Just as I was putting the oars into the oarlocks, someone on the dock said, “You two young ladies aren’t going to take that thing out by yourselves, are you?”

  Looking up, I found myself squinting against the noonday sun in spite of my broad-brimmed hat. Link stood there on the dock, towering over us and smiling. Nearly two weeks had passed since he’d shown off at the carnival shooting range, and I hadn’t seen him since.

  “Of course we are,” I snapped. “Why not? We’re capable of rowing.”

  “I’m not questioning your ability,” he said. “Just thought you might like someone else to do the work while you sit back and enjoy the ride.”

  I was about to turn him down when Marlene waved an arm and said, “Jump in, cowboy. Eve, move to the back and let this sharpshooter do the rowing.”

  “So you remember me?” Link asked Marlene.

  “I never forget a face. Not a handsome one anyway.”

  Link touched his cap and bowed slightly. I looked at Marlene and frowned to let her know I wasn’t happy with this change. But I relinquished the oars and moved to the back of the boat. Link stepped in, untied the rope, and
pushed us away from the dock.

  Marlene tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m Marlene, by the way,” she said.

  He nodded his acknowledgment and said, “Everybody just calls me Link.”

  “If that’s so, I suppose I will have to call you Cowboy.”

  “Call me whatever you want, little lady,” he said, pulling on the oars in a steady rhythm, “just don’t call me late for lunch.”

  Marlene let go a loud, clear shout of glee that echoed up and down the river. “Oh, I think I like you, Cowboy!” With that, she leaned back against the bow, made a pillow of her arms, turned her face to the sun and closed her eyes. “Now, this is the life,” she said with a contented sigh.

  I wasn’t so sure I shared her sentiments, as I didn’t like the idea of rowing the river with a bum. To make me even more uncomfortable, Link sat facing me and I couldn’t avoid his gaze. I turned my head so that my face was concealed by the brim of my hat, but still I felt his eyes on me.

  After he had rowed for several minutes, I ventured a glance at him. “Why are we going upriver?” I asked.

  “That way it’s easier coming back.”

  “Oh. I suppose that makes sense.”

  He chuckled. I turned away again. No one spoke until the silence itself became awkward. Finally, just to fill the void, I said, “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “Been busy.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Looking for work.”

  “Find anything?”

  “Nothing permanent. Just day labor here and there.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Silence.

  Then I said, “What were you before, Link?”

  “Before the crash?”

  “Yes.”

  He stroked once, twice, three times before answering. “I was an undergraduate at Ohio State,” he said at last.