Al Capone Shines My Shoes Read online

  I can’t imagine a better spot than underneath Mrs. Caconi’s apartment either. The moms on the island spend a lot of time at Mrs. Caconi’s the way the kids gravitate toward the parade grounds. I think it’s because Mrs. Caconi doesn’t have kids, so they get a break from us at her place—kind of like the teachers’ lounge at school.

  Our best day last week we heard Mrs. Caconi and Officer Trixle’s wife, Bea, discussing hair that grows out of your ear hole. Apparently Darby Trixle has big bushes of ear hair Bea has to clip every week. We could hardly keep from laughing out loud when we heard this.

  That’s the one thing we have to be wary of down here: noise. We’re pretty sure they can hear us in the apartments above, if we aren’t really quiet.

  “Hey Jimmy, you working today?” I ask once we determine no one is in Mrs. Caconi’s apartment.

  Jimmy’s been helping Bea Trixle, who runs the canteen, our island store. He doesn’t get paid for it, but whenever he works, Bea gives his mom a discount on whatever she buys. Sometimes Theresa helps too, but only if Janet Trixle isn’t around. Theresa is the same age as Janet, but she and Janet can’t stand each other. According to Theresa, Janet’s only real interests are rules and collecting stuff for her fairy jail.

  “I’m off at two,” Jimmy says. “You gonna bring Scout to see the flies?”

  Jimmy really likes flies. He knows a lot of unusual facts about them too. Flies puke when they land. Flies taste with their feet. Apparently they puke, then they lick the vomit up with their toes.

  “Sure,” I say. “But Scout’s gonna want to play ball.”

  In the last few weeks, Jimmy has become my best friend on Alcatraz, despite the fact that he stinks at baseball. If a baseball flew into Jimmy’s glove he wouldn’t know what to do with it. He’d probably use it to brush his teeth. Maybe he’d plant it in the ground to grow a big old baseball tree. The kid has no idea.

  Jimmy’s nose lifts in the air—ah, ah, ah choo. He sprays me with snot and knocks his glasses off.

  I wipe off my arm. “Thanks a lot, Jimmy,” I say.

  Ah, ah, ah choo. He sneezes again, but this time he turns his head away and gives the ants a bath instead of me. “You want me to play?” he asks.

  “Of course,” I say. “I always want you to play.”

  Jim cocks his head as if he doesn’t quite believe this. “But Scout plays all the time. He’s good, right?”

  “He’s not great or anything.”

  Jimmy grins. “Oh, okay. Me neither.”

  I don’t know what to say to this. Even in our secret place it seems better not to tell Jimmy that Scout’s “not great” is so much better than his “not great” that it isn’t fair to compare.

  “C’mon, let’s go. I want to find Annie and get my arm warmed up before Scout gets here,” I say.

  Crawling back, Jimmy picks his way slowly and carefully, stopping every time he has a question. “Think Scout’ll like my fly project?”

  Jimmy’s latest project is to teach flies tricks. He wants to hold a circus and charge admission.

  “Course,” I say.

  Jimmy starts moving forward, then he stops again. “Think Scout will like me?”

  “Sure. I told him all about you.”

  Jimmy considers this. “Good, because I’ve got a new idea. I’m thinking the problem is quantity. I don’t have enough flies.”

  I sit back on my haunches and wait while Jimmy launches into a technical explanation of his breeding plans. There is no stopping Jimmy Mattaman when he gets talking about his flies.

  When he finally gets to the door, I scamper after him, covering the same ground in one-third the time. “You’re fast,” he observes.

  “You’re slow,” I tell him as we press our ears against the frame to listen for unusual sounds, but it’s all quiet. We crack open the door a few inches; still nothing. We push it the rest of the way and Jimmy—because he’s smaller—pokes his head out.

  “All clear,” he whispers, and we jump down.

  Just as Jimmy finishes replacing the screws in the hinge, we hear footsteps on the old cement stairwell. “Uh-oh,” I whisper as I spot shiny black guard shoes coming down.

  “Thought you was working this morning, Jimmy?” Darby bellows through his ever present bullhorn.

  “Yes, sir,” Jimmy says.

  Darby peers over the railing, but he can’t see me because I’m getting the baseball gear I stashed in one of the storage rooms. “What you doing down there?” he asks Jimmy.

  “Nothing, sir,” Jimmy answers.

  “Nothing, huh? Do I look like I was born yesterday, Jimmy?” Darby asks.

  “No sir,” Jimmy replies, skedaddling up the stairs. Jimmy doesn’t say anything about me. He knows it’s better if Darby doesn’t see me. Darby hates me on account of I’m Natalie’s brother. Natalie really bugs him.

  I stand quietly, waiting for them to leave. When they’re gone, I climb up to apartment 3H, Annie Bomini’s place. Annie’s the only kid on the whole island who’s any good at baseball. What a shame she’s a girl.

  I peer through the screen door, focusing on the wooden table in the Bominis’ living room. It was made by the cons in the furniture shop that Annie’s father runs. The Bominis have a lot of wood stuff plus needlepoint everywhere. Needlepoint pillows, tablecloths, tissue holders, seat covers. Mrs. Bomini has a needlepoint toilet cover for every day of the week. I don’t know why you need a Monday toilet seat cover on Mondays. Is it that important to know what day it is when you do your business?

  “Annie, c’mon,” I call, hoping Mrs. Bomini isn’t around. Mrs. Bomini is a one-woman talking machine. Once she gets you cornered you pretty much have to have a heart attack and be carried away on a stretcher before she’ll stop.

  Annie’s skin is pale, and her hair is so blond it’s almost white. She looks twelve but kind of old too, like forty-two. She’s squarish from head to foot, like God used a T-square to assemble her.

  Annie props open the screen door with her foot. “Moose.” She gulps, her big flat face looking pinched today. “You won’t believe what happened.”

  Uh-oh, what if she doesn’t want to play? That’s the trouble with girls. They have to actually feel like playing.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “We got the wrong laundry. We got yours,” she whispers.

  Laundry . . . that is the one word I don’t feel like hearing right now. Ever since I got that note from Al Capone, I’ve been very careful to be the first person to get my laundry in case he decides to send another note. My mom has even noticed. “Why, you’re taking care of your own laundry now, Moose, isn’t that nice,” my mom said.

  “So? Just give it back.” I try to keep my voice from sounding as panicky as I feel.

  “I didn’t realize it was your laundry. I started putting it away and . . . Moose, there was a note in the pocket of your shirt.”

  “A-a note?” My voice breaks high like a girl’s.

  My hands shake as she gives me a scrap of paper folded twice. My mind floods with things I don’t want to think about. Al Capone, the warden’s office, Natalie being thrown out of school.

  The note is written on the same paper in the same handwriting as the other one. Your turn, it says.

  My face feels hot and sweaty, then cold and clammy. I check the back and then the front again for any other words and stuff the note in my pocket.

  Annie’s blue eyes bulge. “Your turn? What’s it your turn for, Moose?”

  “I dunno,” I mutter, my mind scrambling to make sense of this.

  Her eyes won’t let go of me. She seems to sense there’s more to the note than I’m saying. “Who is it from?” she asks, her face pained like she just swallowed a jawbreaker.

  I hunker down away from her. “It must be a mistake,” I say, but my voice feels distant, like the words are coming out of a cave in my chest.

  “A mistake?” she asks. “That’s what Darby Trixle said when the laundry cons sewed his fly shut.”

/>   “That wasn’t a mistake, but this is,” I say louder than I mean to. “Just like you getting our laundry was a mistake.” I’m proud of myself for making this connection. It sounds so reasonable.

  Annie bites her lip. She’s watching me.

  “Did you tell anyone?” I ask her.

  “Haven’t had time to tell anyone. It just happened.”

  I breathe out a big burst of relief. “Are you going to tell anyone?”

  “Depends.” She squints at me. “Are you gonna level with me?”

  “Look, I don’t know that much about this,” I say, but my words sound flimsy, like they need a paperweight to keep from floating away.

  Annie is looking at me intently. “I thought we were best friends.”

  I stare back at her relentless blue eyes. “We are best friends.”

  Annie is tough. She won’t let up.

  I bite my lip. “You better swear swear, double swear, hope to die if you lie.”

  “C’mon, Moose. You know I keep my word. I always do.” She’s right. She always does. But this is something else again. It’s not like keeping quiet about when we saw Associate Warden Chudley relieve himself in Bea Trixle’s pickle barrel. This could get me kicked off the island. But if I don’t explain what’s happening, she’ll tell for sure. I don’t have much choice here.

  “I asked Capone for help to get Natalie into the Esther P. Marinoff School and then she got in and he sent me a note that said Done.” I can’t get the words out fast enough.

  “You what?” she snaps, her chin jutting out with the shock of what I’ve just said.

  I explain again, slower this time.

  “And then what happened? After the note?” Annie demands.

  “Nothing happened after the note.”

  “So Natalie went to school today because Capone got her in and you never told anyone and then you get this Your turn note. That’s the truth? You swear it?”

  “It’s the truth, except somebody else knows a little. Piper. She knows I sent Capone a letter. When Nat got in, she asked me about it but I told her it was because the Esther P. Marinoff opened a school for older kids. That’s what they told my parents. That’s the reason they think she got in too.”

  That’s not the only thing Piper knows that I wish she didn’t. She also knows that my sister made friends with convict #105. Having your sister, who isn’t right in the head, befriend a grown man convicted of a terrible crime isn’t my idea of fun. In fact, I’d rather run buck-naked down California Street than have that happen again. But that’s a whole other story I hope never to tell. Alcatraz 105, aka Onion, got sent to Terminal Island and then released, so he’s not on Alcatraz anymore. I don’t have to worry about him ever again.

  “But no one knows about Capone’s notes?”

  “Nope.”

  “You know what he wants, don’t you?” Annie whispers. “Payback.”

  “But how would he even know Natalie left today?” I ask weakly.

  She frowns. “Cons know everything that happens on this island, you know that.”

  “Yeah, but why didn’t he say what he wanted? If it had been me, I would have asked for double chocolate brownies with no nuts, the sports page, the funny papers, vanilla sucking candy, French fries, a cheeseburger, a book on the Babe. He didn’t ask for anything, Annie.”

  “He wants to make you sweat,” Annie says. “He’s the cat and you’re the mouse. Back home in Omaha we had a barn cat who would get a mouse, play with it for a few hours, then take it off to a dark corner and eat the head off.”

  “So nice of you to put it that way,” I growl.

  Annie nods, ignoring my sarcasm. “It’s true and you know it. You sure this is only the second note?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” I snap at her.

  Her blue eyes have gone watchful now. “This is serious, Moose.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  “So what are you going to do? I mean if anyone found out you did a favor for Capone, your dad would be fired”—she snaps her fingers—“like that.”

  “Any more good news for me?”

  “And you know what else? If Capone got Natalie into the Esther P. Marinoff, he could get her kicked out too.” She crosses her arms. “You’re cooked either way, Moose.”

  “Thanks, Annie, that makes me feel just great,” I whisper.

  Annie shrugs. “Well it’s true.”

  “Look, Annie. This is good news.” I try to make my voice sound as if I believe what I’m saying. “Because really he didn’t ask for anything.”

  She shakes her head. “Don’t be a fool, Moose. You should have told before. We have to tell now. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.”

  “You just said yourself if he got her in, he could get her kicked out.” I’m practically shouting. “It’s Nat’s life we’re talking about. This school is her chance.”

  “You’re crazy if you help Al Capone!”

  “I’m not helping him.”

  She sighs, bites her bottom lip. “I shouldn’t have promised not to say anything.”

  “Yeah, but you did promise.”

  She bugs her eyes out at me. “I know, okay?”

  “Look, this isn’t about you. Can’t you just pretend you didn’t find the note?” I’m pleading with her now.

  “I’m not good at pretending.”

  “You swore, Annie!”

  “I know!” Annie growls.

  I feel the stitches on the baseball in my hand, and I think back to last year when we lived in Santa Monica and my gram helped us with Natalie. Things were better back then. It’s too hard here with just my mom, my dad . . . and me.

  “So are we going to play ball?” I whisper.

  Annie rolls her eyes. “Jeepers, Moose. Something like this happens and all you can think about is baseball?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “It is.”

  3.

  WILLY ONE ARM

  Same day—Monday, August 5, 1935

  Alcatraz Island is shaped like a wedding cake with three tiers and lots of paths and stairs and switchbacks that lead from one level to the next. The parade grounds where we play baseball is a big, flat parking lot-size cement area in the middle tier of the island. It makes a pretty good field except for the wind. I can’t tell you how irritating it is to hit a good ball and have the wind make it a foul.

  Annie and I are playing catch right now, which gets my mind off of Capone, but it doesn’t seem to distract Annie one bit. Every other throw she’s walking up to whisper another suggestion. I should wash my own laundry, so Capone won’t have a way to communicate with me. I should talk to the people at the Esther P. Marinoff School. I should come with her to church. The priest will know what to do.

  “I’m not even Catholic,” I tell Annie as Piper flies down the steep switchback on her roller skates, her long hair streaming behind her, her dress flowing back so you can see the outline of her—okay, never mind what you can see. She goes so fast sparks fly from her skates. She shoots up in the air over a crack in the road and lands with a graceful clickety-clack-clack.

  We’re not supposed to race down the switchback, but most of the grown-ups look the other way when it’s the warden’s daughter who’s breaking the rules. No one ever races Piper, because she always wins . . . either fair and square or the other way. My mom says Piper is twelve going on eighteen and not a good eighteen either.

  When Piper stops, she gives us her full movie star smile. “Hi.” She runs her hands through her hair and whispers to Annie.

  We throw the ball a few times. Me whipping it hard and Annie gutlessly tossing it. She’s too upset to concentrate on what she’s doing.

  The count bell rings like it does every hour on the hour to count the cons and make sure none have escaped. No one pays any attention. It’s like the gulls carping and complaining and the deep rumble of the foghorn. These are the sounds of Alcatraz—the ticking of our own island clock, I guess you could say.

  “Hey . . . what’s go
ing on with you two?” Piper asks, looking at me, then Annie, then me. “You aren’t insulting each other.”

  “Nothing,” Annie and I answer in unison.

  Piper looks back and forth between us again. “No, really.”

  “Nothing is going on,” Annie says, louder this time.

  Piper laughs. “Annie, you’re such a bad liar,” she says.

  Piper is right. Annie is a terrible liar. It’s only been five minutes and Piper already knows something’s up. Of course, I’m not much better.

  “Well stop it.” Piper shakes her finger at us. “Just, you know, kiss and make up.”

  Annie snorts. “I’m not kissing him.” She throws the ball hard for once, her cheeks flushed. “That’s your job, Piper.”

  “Are you kidding, I wouldn’t kiss Moose if you paid me a hundred dollars, a thousand dollars, a million . . . ” Piper says as she skates by me.

  “Sure you wouldn’t,” Annie mutters, throwing the ball so hard it practically blisters my hand.

  “I wouldn’t,” Piper insists. “Can you imagine kissing Moose? It would be like kissing a . . . a . . . bagpipe.”

  “A bagpipe?” I say. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Hey Moose, did you know Piper’s got cons working in her house?” Annie asks.

  “Right, Annie.” I roll my eyes.

  “Actually, I do.” Piper smiles brightly like her daddy just bought her a new puppy. “Buddy Boy is a confidence man—you know, a con artist—he’s our houseboy, and Willy One Arm is a thief. He’s our cook.”

  I stretch up to catch Annie’s fly ball, stop it with my glove, then turn and face Piper full on. “What are you, crazy?”

  “Her mom needs extra help. She’s in a family way,” Annie explains.

  “Did you have to bring that up?” Piper snaps.

  “It’s not a secret. One look at her and you can see. Besides, your father has been telling everybody in the universe.”

  “You don’t know the half of it so just shut up okay, Annie?” Piper growls.

  “Wait . . . Piper’s mom needs extra help from a thief?” I ask.