25.
THE BAD GUYS ARE LOCKED UP
Saturday, September 7, and Sunday, September 8, 1935
Natalie shuffles along faster than usual. Just watching her come down the switchback, doing her best to keep up, fills me with a rush of gratitude. She is trying in her own weird way. She really is.
I wonder what she’ll make of the kiss. Of course, the one moment I wish she’d been lost in her own world, she wasn’t. But it wasn’t like she stood there and stared or anything. Piper didn’t even mention her and she would have if Natalie had been staring.
All of this is rushing through my mind as we head for the Trixles’. It’s not until we have arrived pell-mell at the door of the largest apartment in 64 building that it occurs to me we need some reason to be here.
“You’re visiting Janet,” I tell Theresa as I knock on the door.
“Me? Why me?” Theresa scowls.
“C’mon, Theresa,” Jimmy wheedles. “You can be nice to her for five minutes. We have to get the bar spreader back.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” Theresa’s hands are on her hips. “She’s not going to just hand it over to me, you know.”
I knock again. Still no answer.
Theresa looks at me, her lips pressed so hard together her chin wrinkles. “You can’t take Natalie inside,” she whispers.
“Why not?”
“Because,” Theresa mutters. She looks to Jimmy for help.
“They’re not home anyway,” Jimmy declares.
“Shall we go in?” Theresa asks, frowning.
Jimmy and I look at each other.
“We can’t just take it. Wouldn’t that be stealing?” Theresa wants to know.
I wiggle the knob. “It’s locked anyway.”
Doors are never locked on Alcatraz. Our parents say it’s safer here than in San Francisco because all our bad guys are locked up. We are used to running in and out of each other’s houses.
Of course, we don’t run in and out of Darby Trixle’s house, so we never noticed his door is locked. Maybe it’s just locked because they’re gone for the day.
“What do we do now?” Jimmy asks.
“Wait for them to get home,” I reply.
“She found it on the beach, though,” Jimmy reasons. “Why is that our fault? No one has to know how it got there.”
“Yeah, but it’s dangerous. If Seven Fingers were to get his hands on it . . .” I explain.
“Go ahead and say it,” Jimmy growls. “It’s because I throw like crap. This would never have happened if Scout had thrown it.”
“Scout would have wanted to keep it as a souvenir or else he’d trade it,” I tell him as we walk back down the stairs to our apartments.
“That’s not what you really think,” Jimmy grumbles.
“Am I mad about this, Jimmy? Do I look mad?” I ask, though I can feel as I say this that I’m beginning to get angry.
“You are, though.”
“What do you want me to say here? Just tell me so I’ll know,” I ask him.
“Why don’t you just tell the truth for a change?”
“What are you talking about? I always tell you the truth.”
“No, you don’t. You tell me what you think I want to hear, same as you tell everyone else.”
I open my hands as if to show him I’m not holding anything inside. “I’m not mad, okay, Jim?”
“You are, though. You’re mad because I messed up and you’re embarrassed that I can’t play ball.”
“Look, I’m not embarrassed. But yeah, I do wish you liked baseball. What’s the matter with that?”
Jimmy whistles long and low. “I thought you were different. You’re just like everyone else.” He turns on his heel and walks back to his apartment.
Theresa is silent. Her mouth hangs open. Her dark eyes are big as goggles. “Jimmy doesn’t get mad at anyone but me, not ever,” she says.
All through the evening, I check on the Trixles, but they don’t come home. By nightfall, I know I’ll have to wait until tomorrow. I can’t think of a reason to pretend I need to see them this late at night. Not one that wouldn’t make Trixle suspicious anyway. First thing tomorrow I’ll deal with it. I’ll go in and talk to Janet. Tell her Jimmy is going to make her a much better carousel. He wants to take hers and use it as a model. Then when we get it to the Mattamans’ we’ll switch out the bar spreader and get rid of it for good.
In the morning when I get up, the trim on 64 building is being painted, the extra dock equipment is being hauled out of sight, the steps to 64 are swept, the windows washed, the roof of the dock tower is being scrubbed, the bird turd removed. The Coxe has a new coat of paint, the brass fixtures shined bright as Natalie’s favorite buttons, and there are convicts washing the road.
I find Bea at the canteen stacking cans of tomato sauce in a perfect pyramid. “Where’s Janet?” I ask.
“We took her down to Monterey to visit her cousins. They have a horse,” Bea tells me, as if this explains everything. But that’s all I get out of her. Bea is in no mood to chat. She was gone yesterday and the deliveries have backed up. She needs to get the new groceries out, she tells me, plus there’s the party preparation and hairstyling to do. It seems suddenly as if the visit of Hoover and Ness has commandeered all the adults’ attention.
In the afternoon, on the way back from getting their hair done at Bea Trixle’s, Piper and Annie knock on my door. “We need to talk,” Annie says. Her hair looks odd, as if it has been curled and pinned into a position entirely against its wishes. Even in her baseball pants, Annie does not look comfortable. Piper’s hair is styled the same way, but on her, it looks glamorous.
We go back in my room and close the door. It feels awkward and small in here and stinky with the goop Bea Trixle put on their hair.
Annie sits on a crate, Piper sits on my bed, and I stand up, not sure what to do with myself.
“I’m going to the party,” Piper informs me.
“Of course you’re going. You’re performing,” I say.
“Yeah, then I’m supposed to leave, but I’m not going to. I want to see Scarface.” Piper seems more like her usual self today. That’s good, I guess, but it’s also bad.
“And you’re going to stay with me.” Piper points at me like she’s shooting me with her finger.
“No, I’m not.”
“You owe me and you know why.” Her finger takes deadly aim.
“Why?” Annie wants to know.
“I can’t stay with you. I have to watch Natalie,” I tell her.
Piper smiles. “Already taken care of. Mrs. Caconi is going to do it.”
“My parents won’t agree to that,” I tell her.
“They already have.” Piper gloats. “My dad asked them. They can’t turn my dad down.”
“Wait a minute. You told your dad you want to meet Scarface and he agreed?”
“No, stupid. I told him I wanted you to see our performance.”
“What’s that have to do with Scarface?”
“Nothing so far as he knows. We’ll hide, then we can watch. Capone is supposed to be the waiter. And he’ll definitely put on a show. That’s what Buddy said.”
“I’m not getting in trouble. My dad’s on probation.” I glare at her. “We’d be kicked off the island if I were caught.”
“Then our deal is off.”
“You’re heartless, you know that?” I tell Piper.
“What deal?” Annie insists.
“None of your business,” Piper snaps, scratching at her hair. “Look.” She turns to me. “If I’d been a boy my dad would have let me sit at the table. You can bet that.”
“What’s that have to do with anything?” I ask.
“Don’t act like you’re stupid as a stump.” She snorts. “Look, you might as well give up. I got your dad on probation, I can get him fired too.”
Annie’s mouth drops open.
“Guess Annie knows now,” I tell Piper.
“Yeah, so . . . what do you say?” Piper turns to her.
“You got to do what she wants. You don’t have a choice,” Annie answers in a gentle voice that seems as unlike her as her hairdo.
Piper smiles triumphantly. “Did you hear that, Moose? Even Annie agrees with me.”