Willie the Actor

by David Barry

  A heavy giant of a man, the ogre of his childhood nightmare visits, hacked at his head with an axe. The ogre kept hacking away at his head, while Bill tried to fight him off; but as he raised his hands to protect himself, the axe slashed at his arms, severing them at the elbows. He was helpless to protect himself, and the axe sliced and hacked into his head. He screamed, but couldn’t hear himself. His mouth was open, silently screaming as. . .

  He knew he was back in his cell; he was lying on his back on the bed, staring at the light on the ceiling. He closed his eyes again and lay without moving for what seemed like hours. He was incapable of movement; but knew he had to do something in order to survive. But what? He had no way of knowing how long he’d been here or when they’d be back. And he knew they were going to continue beating him until they got their confession.

  With tremendous effort, he managed to raise himself into a sitting position. The pain no longer mattered; he was feverish with the urge to survive. He grabbed his clothes and struggled into them, crying out each time the material rubbed against the bruises of his body. As he shoved his shirt into his trousers, his index fingernail caught on a corner of his pants’ fly. The jagged edge of the nail was the least of his worries, but it gave him an idea. If only he had the guts to do it.

  He finished dressing and sat on the edge of the bed, contemplating what it was he had to do in order to survive. It involved more excruciating pain; it was a drastic plan but he had no choice.

  He opened his mouth, took a deep breath, then began clawing away at the roof of his mouth with his jagged fingernail. The pain seemed to shoot up through his head, like broken glass cutting into his brain. He tried to shut his mind to the pain and continued working away at his mouth with the broken nail. It seemed to take forever, the pain going on and on like a discordant note. Then suddenly blood spurted into his mouth, warm and metallic tasting. He had burst a blood vessel.

  He leapt to his feet, staggered across the cell and rapped loudly on the door.

  ‘Help me!’ he yelled. ‘Help me!’

  He kept up a barrage of banging on the door. Eventually he saw an eye peering through the Judas hole, so he let a trickle of blood flow from his mouth. Keys rattled in the lock. The door swung open and a uniformed cop - hand holding a nightstick ready to subdue him if necessary - stood there staring at him impassively.

  Bill clutched his stomach and spat and coughed blood. ‘Help me!’ he cried. ‘I’ve a stomach hemorrhage. I need a doctor. ‘

  ‘Stay put,’ the cop told him, and slammed and relocked the door.

  Bill waited, sitting on the edge of the bed, hoping the burst blood vessel in his mouth wouldn’t heal rapidly. At least there was plenty of blood on his shirt front now to convince a medic that he had a stomach hemorrhage.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the keys rattled in the lock, and the guard re-entered with a tall, thin man in a light brown cotton suit. He was carrying a Gladstone bag and had the air of a man who had seen and done everything and nothing could rattle his composure.

  ‘Lie back,’ he told Bill, ‘ and undo your shirt. ‘

  With a great effort, Bill sunk back onto the hard bed and fumbled at his shirt buttons. The doctor’s inscrutable face looked down at the multi-colored bruising and his expression gave nothing away. He pressed his hands against Bill’s abdomen and pushed down hard. Bill winced and gasped.

  ‘Okay,’ the medic said, reaching for his bag, ‘here’s what I want you to do. Think you can give me a sample?’

  He unclasped his bag and thrust a small bottle towards Bill. Dazed, Bill struggled to sit up and took the bottle. His eyes must have registered incomprehension, because the medic spoke to him as if he was a small child.

  ‘Think you can pee into that bottle?’

  ‘I’ll try,’ Bill muttered

  While Bill unscrewed the bottle, the medic went outside with the guard. He could hear them talking in an undertone outside, and caught snatches of what the medic was telling the guard. . . ‘he’s had enough. . . unless they want to face charges of police brutality. . . suggest he’s left to recover. . . do some serious damage. ‘

  The effort of trying to urinate caused a great pain to shoot through the inside of Bill’s stomach, but eventually he managed to squeeze out a miniscule amount into the jar. He was horrified to see its bloody color.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ he exclaimed loudly.

  The medic returned and took the jar from him. The cop peered over the medic’s shoulder as he raised the jar to the light to examine its contents.

  ‘Hmm,’ observed the medic calmly, as if treating a patient for nothing worse than a head cold,’seems as if the kidney’s damaged. ‘ He turned and addressed the cop. ‘This man needs to take things easy from now on. You hear what I’m saying?’

  ‘Yes, doc,’ the cop replied, hesitantly. ‘I’ll - I’ll let them know what you said. ‘

  ‘You do that,’ said the medic. He screwed the top back on the jar, and left it lying on a table by the bed. Then, as if his visit had been extremely inconvenient and he now had more important things to attend to, he sighed deeply before exiting hurriedly, shaking his head as he went.

  The cop flashed Bill a contemptuous look before following the medic out. Bill heard the rattle of keys as he collapsed back onto the bed. He lay still for a long while. The beating had exhausted him and pretty soon he was fast asleep. It was a dreamless sleep and when he awoke he discovered a sandwich on a metal plate and a jug of water and metal cup had been placed on the table by the bed . His blood soaked mouth had a metallic taste to it, and there was a large and irritating piece of skin hanging from the roof of his mouth. He poured himself some water and drank. He could feel the water mixing with the blood and sliding down his throat like oil, making him feel nauseous. He looked at the sandwich, decided he couldn’t face it, and lay back again on the bed.

  He spent what must have been hours slowly recovering from his wounds. His thoughts were mainly concentrated on his house in Queens, and he wondered how Louise was coping with the knowledge that her husband had deceived her. He had brought her nothing but hurt, from which she might never recover. The remorse plagued him. And he was filled with shame whenever images of his beautiful baby daughter came into his head. He imagined her grown older and going to school; being questioned by other children. “What does your daddy do?” As his punishing thoughts became more and more indulgent, his feelings of guilt became a distraction from the pain of his beating. And as the time stretched interminably, boredom eventually got to him. It was as if he’d been forgotten. And he had no way of knowing whether it was day or night; the unrelenting artificial light burned endlessly, shutting out time. Every so often different cops brought him food and replenished his water. He tried asking them how long he’d been here, but only got non-committal replies. Then, after what he estimated to be at least two or three days, two cops entered his cell.

  ‘Okay, Sutton,’ said one of them. ‘On your feet. Time for a line-up. ‘

  There were five others in the line-up and Bill was third in line. A detective in his mid-forties, handsome with steel grey hair slicked back, conducted the proceedings. First he brought in the guard from the Jamaica Avenue bank.

  ‘Have a good look at number one,’ the detective told him.

  The man stared at the first planted suspect, then shook his head and moved on to number two.

  ‘What about number two?’ the detective prompted.

  ‘Nope,’ said the guard, and moved so that he stood before Bill.

  ‘How about number three?’

  Bill avoided looking directly into the guard’s eyes. The guard stared at him for a long time.

  ‘Well?’ demanded the detective.

  The guard chuckled. ‘You kidding? This here’s a skinny young guy. Guy who robbed our bank was a lot older and fatter. ‘


  Bill could have hugged him, but tried not to let his feelings show. The guard moved on and looked at the other three phony suspects.

  ‘Nope,’ he said to each in turn.

  Unable to disguise the disappointment in his voice, the detective said, ‘Okay. Bring in the next one. ‘

  They brought in all the staff from the Jamaica Avenue bank, the Bronx Savings Bank and the Rosenthal jewelry store. None of them could identify Bill as the robber who had held them up, and it began to look as if he was off the hook. He could sense the detective’s deep frustration, the suppressed anger in his voice as each witness said that Bill was either too young or too thin to have been the robber; and Bill congratulated himself on his technique of wearing stage make-up for each job. Finally, they brought in the black porter from the jewelry store. Bill saw the man staring at him before going through the routine of looking at the first two phony suspects. When he came and stood in front of Bill, he stared long and hard, and his eyes seemed to bore into Bill’s soul.

  When he eventually spoke, it was with the deep conviction of a man who knows when he’s right. ‘This is the man,’ he said, ‘who robbed our store. ‘

  Chapter Seven

  July, 1931

  Jim Vitale was shown into Bill’s cell. He shook hands with his client then sat on a rickety chair opposite Bill’s bed, and placed a rather large Gladstone bag on the floor next to him. Bill wondered why his lawyer needed a bag of this size, seeing as on previous visits he had opened it to reveal nothing more than a few papers. As soon as the guard had gone, Bill asked him about Jack’s trial.

  ‘Not good,’ the lawyer said. ‘Guilty. ‘

  Bill sighed impatiently. ‘I know that. He pleaded guilty. It was a foregone conclusion. What was his sentence?’

  Vitale shrugged, as if apologizing for something out of his control. ‘Sentence has been deferred until after your trial. But I wouldn’t worry about it. That’s usual when there are two defendants accused of the same crime. And Jack Bassett stood no chance. Not with Woody Silverman defending him. Stick with me, and your plea of not guilty, and you’ll be okay, kid. ‘

  Bill was slightly reassured by his lawyer’s words. He knew Vitale to be a shrewd operator, who had defended some pretty crooked clients in his time, and had managed to get many gangsters not guilty verdicts on some technicality or loophole in the law. Vitale had once been a magistrate but had been struck off after he was compromised by a newspaper photograph showing him at a dinner held in his honor and attended by almost every powerful mobster in the city. Although he was barred from the bench, he was still permitted to practice law. He was an affable, outgoing man in his early forties, who liked to dress smartly, and sported a neat, thin moustache, black as his hair, with faint traces of grey. His hair was neatly parted at one side and gleamed with an expensive lotion that smelled faintly of liquor.

  Vitale grinned mischievously at Bill. ‘I expect you’re wondering why I carry this huge Gladstone with me, since it only contains a few notes. ‘

  ‘That had crossed my mind,’ Bill replied.

  Vitale looked round behind him, to make certain they were not observed. ‘Take your shirt off,’ he told Bill. ‘Quickly!’

  The lawyer bent over, unclipped the catch on his bag, and took out the sort of flash camera used by news photographers. Bill stood up, dropped his shirt onto the bed, while Vitale quickly took a photograph of his bruised body, then stuffed the camera back into his bag.

  ‘This’ll give the jury something to think about,’ grinned the lawyer. ‘And coupled with the medical evidence of your damaged kidneys. . . ‘

  ‘You mean,’ said Bill, ‘that if Jack’s confession was obtained by police brutality. . . ‘

  Vitale interrupted him. ‘Exactly. There’s only one piece of evidence the D. A. can use against you. ‘

  Bill frowned deeply. ‘Being picked out on that ID line-up. ‘

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about it. Out of all the employees at the banks and jewelry store, only one of them identified you. And he was a colored man. By the time I’m through with him on the stand, he won’t seem a very creditable witness. ‘

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ said Bill.

  Later that day, the guard unlocked the cell door. ‘On your feet, Sutton,’ he said. ‘You’ve got visitors. ‘

  Bill rose rather too quickly and he felt sharp needles of pain from deep inside his body. As he followed the guard along the corridor, the twinges reminded him that the cops had been merciless in working him over the way they had; and a dull pain like a heavy stone in his lower back worried him, especially as he was still passing blood in his urine.

  ‘Know who my visitors are?’ Bill enquired, as he hobbled after the guard.

  The guard ignored the question, didn’t even acknowledge it, or maybe he was pretending he hadn’t heard. Bill wondered if it might be Louise, and his heart pumped faster. He desperately wanted to see her again, but at the same time he was scared of the depths of his guilt, knowing how difficult it was going to be to face his injured wife.

  He was shown into a room that looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned in years and had no character whatsoever. It was anonymous and impersonal, a room that might have been overlooked; and it was hard to guess what’s it’s function was, because there was only one small wooden table in the centre, but no chairs. Blocking out most of the light, a man stood looking out through a small grimy window overlooking a drab courtyard of pipes and fire escapes. As if it had been rehearsed, he turned round as Bill entered.

  ‘Thank you, Tom,’ he said to the guard, with a studied familiarity, while at the same time faintly dismissive. The guard shut the door as he left.

  Bill studied the man carefully. He was heavily-built, blonde-haired, with an honest and open face, maybe mid-thirties or older, it was hard to tell. He had a scrubbed and healthy country appearance, and seemed to Bill as if he could have been a small-town sales representative or realtor, though he doubted it.

  ‘My name’s Jackson. Mr. Charles Jackson,’ the man said, donning a salesman’s smile, and came towards Bill, holding out his hand.

  Bill shook it, surprised to experience such a limp handshake from this powerfully built, outgoing guy.

  ‘I expect you’re wondering who I am. ‘

  Bill nodded dumbly, and blinked. The recent events had left him feeling dazed, like he was a scrap of litter drifting uselessly down a rain-flooded gutter, unable to make decisions. It was a numb sensation and most of the time his thoughts flitted about, never forming complete ideas. But on this occasion Bill was alert enough to realize that if it was a question, it was rhetorical and didn’t necessarily require an answer. He merely grunted, permitting the man to continue with his explanation.

  ‘I’m a Pinkerton’s agent. ‘ said Mr. Charles Jackson expansively, as if he expected the whole world to swoon at his feet.

  ‘A private cop,’ Bill acknowledged. ‘So what do you want with me?’

  ‘Our clients are the insurers of Rosenthal & Co. You know how it works, Mr. Sutton. The jewelry store stands to lose nothing. But the insurance company. . . ‘

  The Pinkerton’s detective gave a whistle to signify that his clients were about to lose a substantial sum.

  ‘So what has this to do with me?’ Bill said.

  ‘I’ve spoken with the D. A. , and this is the deal. The insurance company would like to recover their money. Frankly, they’re more interested in that than seeing you go to jail. Now, I want to get that jewelry back for my clients, and we can do that if we can nab the fence you used. We can trace that jewelry if you tell us who the fence was. And I, Charles Jackson, and the D. A. , will give you a written guarantee that you’ll be allowed to plead third degree robbery with a sentence of no more than five years. ‘

  His offer was completed by a small coda of a crooked smile, and two upward palm gesture
s.

  The offer rattled through Bill’s head like the Coney Island subway.

  Crossing a man like Dutch Schultz was more dangerous than playing in a nest of rattlesnakes. Besides, even if the fence was not someone as powerful or dangerous as the Dutchman, Bill was not an informer. It was against his code of decency. Since he had put himself on the wrong side of the law, he had to abide by the rules. And the unwritten rules clearly stated: Thou shalt not inform on a fellow criminal.

  ‘You’re wasting your time,’ he told the detective.

  The Pinkerton’s man flushed with anger, his apple cheeks aflame. ‘I’ve got plenty of time to waste,’ he snapped. ‘You haven’t. You’ll go down for thirty years unless you go along with us. ‘

  ‘But,’ began Bill, in a quiet, reasonable tone, ‘I’m pleading not guilty to this charge. You see there’s not much evidence against me, and. . . ‘

  The private detective stepped closer to Bill and poked a finger in his chest. Bill winced.

  ‘I don’t care about that, Sutton. You’re as guilty as hell and you’re going down for it. So how about it? Play ball with us and you’ll have an easy five years. How old are you. Thirty? Thirty one? You’ll be an old man by the time you get out. Jesus! What a thought. An old guy having missed out on some of the best years of his life. ‘

  An image of himself as an elderly man burst into Bill’s head and he wanted to scream, tell this asshole to stop. It was useless. There was no way he was going to turn informer, even if it meant going to prison for the rest of his natural life. So why was he tormenting him in this way? Bill could see there was genuine anger in the detective’s eyes, and he knew that it was because now the Pinkerton’s man would have to go back to his bosses or clients and tell them his mission had been unsuccessful. Bill almost felt sorry for him.