Road to Perdition

Twelve

Over the next two weeks, my father and I knocked over four banks, and that was just the beginning. At the time I wondered why we put so many days between robberies; looking back, I realize my father was craftily creating a nonpattern, a patchwork of plunder that defied analysis. It made for a lot of driving, but a bank in Illinois would be followed by one in Nebraska; Iowa might be followed by Oklahoma, with him filling his satchel in Wisconsin next.

We could certainly afford the gas.

The compartment in the backseat, where I had hidden myself away on that rainy night, was stacked with bricks of money, decorated with various bank wrappers. And we were probably on the fourth robbery before my father finally explained the absence of gunfire and police.

His pattern was always the same — politely announcing himself as a representative of Chicago, revealing his gun in the bank president’s office, the gathering of Capone money, a sharing of the proceeds with the banker, and a threatening but almost courteous exit. After the first several robberies, the word had spread and most of the bankers seemed to be waiting for my father — in a good way... eager for their bonus.

It was a good thing, too, that these hold-ups were so nonviolent, because I didn’t get the hang of my wheelman role all at once. The lack of a parking place, on our second job, sent me around the block, and I got turned around somehow, and left my father cooling his heels at the curb with a bag of money in one hand and gun in the other (in his topcoat pocket). He probably stood there less than a minute, but it must have seemed a lifetime before I showed up — coming in the wrong direction, hitting the curb, making Papa jump back.

But every time I got better, and I was probably as smooth and professional a getaway driver as anybody in the outlaw game — Bonnie and Clyde, and Ma Barker and her boys, had nothing on the O’Sullivans.

It didn’t take long for the Capone forces to get wise to our tactics — not the aiding and abetting of the bankers, but that Michael O’Sullivan was plundering their hidden coffers. After all, Papa advertised it — encouraged the bankers who were in collusion with him to tell Chicago the looting would stop, when Connor was turned over to him.

So after the fourth robbery, we found a farmhouse where the people were away, and borrowed their barn to turn our green Ford into a maroon one. Good thing, too, because on the fifth robbery, we rolled up to find a contingent of Capone thugs milling around outside the bank Papa had chosen.

My father nodded at me, and I drove away. No problem. And the Capone money was spread around in too many banks all over the Midwest for goon squads to be sent to all of them.

My father didn’t smile much — not ever, but especially not after my mother and brother were murdered. Sometimes at night, though, in our shabby little motel rooms, he would sit and grin. I would ask him what was so funny, and he would tell me.

“I’m just thinking about Frank Nitti,” Papa would say, “and how he must be taking all this.”

In the executive suite on the top floor of the Hotel Lexington in Chicago, Frank Nitti — impeccable in a gray pinstriped suit, immaculately groomed right to every hair on his mustache, ex-barber that he was — listened on the phone as the president of the Loose Creek, Missouri, Farmers’ Savings and Loan explained what had happened.

Nitti listened quietly. His secretary, a handsome, professionally attired woman of about thirty who’d been taking shorthand when the call came in, sat with her legs crossed, waiting to get back to it. Her boss seemed placid.

Then he exploded into the phone: “How much did he take?”

The voice on the end of the wire said, “As I said, seventy-five thousand, Mr. Nitti — all of it, everything you had with us. He said he’d kill me, otherwise!”

Relaxed again, seemingly, Nitti replied: “I’m sure he would have.”

“I’m glad you understand, sir. He said to say his name was O’Sullivan and that he was prepared to give up his ‘fun,’ as he called it, if you’d turn over a Conrad Looney to him.”

“That’s Connor Looney,” Nitti said patiently.

“It may well have been. I do apologize. I wish there were some way—”

“May I just ask, Mr. Ingstad, one small question.”

“Certainly, sir.”

“Do you have security guards on staff?”

“Oh, yes. Two at all times. Former police officers. Very efficient.”

“Are they armed?”

“Certainly. We take all reasonable precautions.”

“Well, perhaps not all. One last question?”

“Yes?”

“What the fuck are we paying you for?”

And Nitti slammed the receiver in the hook, glancing at his secretary, shaking his head in disgust. “Where were we... ?”

The door burst open and Connor Looney stalked in, the bodyguard Nitti had assigned to him, Little Louis Campagna, on the man’s heels. Looney was not drunk at least, but he looked terrible, his suit rumpled, his complexion gray and waxy — like he hadn’t slept in days. Weeks.

“I’m working,” Nitti said tightly from behind his desk, not rising. “What the hell’s the idea, barging in on me? You make an appointment like anybody else.”

“The hell with that,” Connor said, standing right across from Nitti. “Where is my father?”

Nitti flinched a nonsmile. “What do you mean, where is he?”

“I’ve been calling the house — his office — trying everywhere. He’s either not there, they say, or there’s no answer.”

“How should I know?”

The slender gangster began to pace. Campagna took a step back, but kept an eye on his charge. Connor was saying, “Has my own father turned his back on me? Now, you want me to make a fucking appointment? Why the hell is no one talking to me? I don’t know whether I’m a leper or a goddamn prisoner!”

Nitti, arms folded, composed in the detached way he preferred, said, “You’re not a prisoner, Connor. You’re my guest — under my protection. That’s what your father wants.”

Connor came back over to the desk, leaned on it, his expression indignant, eyes flaring. “I can protect myself. I’m not afraid of Mike O’Sullivan.”

“You should be.”

“What, you believe these stories about him? Angel of Death? He’s just a man.”

“The night of the Market Square Riot, how many men did he kill? Protecting your father? And where were you?”

Connor ducked the question. “Listen, I can handle myself. Let me out of here — I’ll find the son of a bitch and—”

“Just what O’Sullivan would love.” Nitti stood behind the desk. “And you can’t handle yourself. That’s the point, here. You’re a big baby, all confused, sucking his dick like it’s his thumb.”

Connor’s eyes flared again, nostrils too, like a rearing horse. “Go fuck yourself, Nitti!”

Nitti was cool, calm, as he replied: “Sonny... listen carefully. The only thing keeping you alive is you’re John Looney’s kid. Your father covered Al’s back a thousand times, and Mr. Capone does not forget such favors.”

“My old man covered Capone’s back, and your back, with Mike O’Sullivan! Explain that, Nitti!”

The diminutive ganglord held up his hands, in “stop” fashion; Campagna continued to monitor the conversation closely.

Nitti said, “I don’t have to explain anything to you, you worthless little prick.”

Connor paced again, in front of the desk, now. “Worthless, huh? Aren’t you being a little shortsighted, Frank? Aren’t you forgetting who your real friend is? The Tri-Cities area, it’s a goldmine — a goldmine my old man owns. And he is an old man — and what you’re really protecting is your future... ’cause I am your goddamn future, you dago bastard. And talk to me like that again and I’ll be your angel of fucking death. Capeesh?”

Connor stormed out, followed by Campagna, who threw Nitti a shrug on the way out.

Nitti sighed and looked at his secretary in a what-are-you-gonna-do manner. “Sorry for the unpleasantness. The language.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Nitti.”

He sat back down. “But if that clown’s the fucking future, we should all go straight.”

And before Nitti got back to his dictation, he rang up Harlen Maguire, and told him to find O’Sullivan and the kid.

“I’m taking steps,” Maguire said.

“Steps don’t make it,” Nitti said. “Try leaps.”

“He’s hopping around a seven-state area.”

“Look, I didn’t call to shoot the breeze,” Nitti said. “Just do what you have to do,” and doubled the photographer’s retainer.

“That’s generous of you, Mr. Nitti.”

“Wait till you see how generous I am,” Nitti said, “the day you find them.”

Maguire, back in his Chicago flat, hung up the phone, after telling Nitti “this might take some time.”

He returned to what he’d been doing — not work in his darkroom, for a change, rather a wall map he’d tacked up in his living room, removing a few of his framed death photos to make space. He had already indicated which midwestern banks held Capone money with a bold red dollar sign.

Now he used red thumbtacks to show which banks had already been robbed. Once that was done, he traced between the red dots with a spread forefinger and thumb; try as he might, the photographer could find no pattern. Which of course was a pattern in itself, just not a very useful one.

He spent the rest of the evening deep in thought, even as he cleaned the lenses of his cameras with methodical precision, and then identified — and studied — the photos he’d taken inside the O’Sullivan house, when he and other mourners had dropped by to give their condolences.

Then Maguire went back to his wall map, looking at each bank that had not yet been robbed, as he rolled a cigarette, licking the paper, finally firing up with a golden lighter. Still seeing nothing, he walked away, doing make-work, like replacing the bulbs in his carrying case... and adding bullets to a secret compartment in the camera he’d carried into the diner a few weeks ago.

He poured himself a glass of whiskey, smiling bitterly at the thought of O’Sullivan playing drunk, fooling him, making a patsy of him. Sipping the liquid, he idly, almost unconsciously, shot off flashbulbs with his other hand, as he sat on his couch and looked at the map on the wall... studying the nonpattern of O’Sullivan’s trail amid the lightning-like bulb bursts.

They had robbed their fifth bank — in Loose Creek, Missouri — this morning; it was evening and the father and son were in a small family restaurant in Farmington, Iowa. The place had a homey feel — a few booths, more tables, picnic-style tablecloths, curtains on the windows, the light soft and warm and yellow.

O’Sullivan and his son sat at a small table near an improvised dance floor, where a couple of couples danced to the radio — right now that new jazz singer, Bing Crosby, was singing “Where the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day.” The singer’s warm voice, his casual style, pleased O’Sullivan. Both he and his boy were having the meat loaf with mashed potatoes and creamed corn; both ate heartily.

Their waitress — whose name BETTY was stitched on her neck-high apron — freshened O’Sullivan’s coffee. She was probably forty, a slender brunette with dark red lipstick, though not heavily made up. A nice girl. Nice woman.

She noticed him looking her over, and their eyes met, and hers told his she didn’t mind the friendly onceover.

“What brings you boys to the middle of nowhere?” she asked.

Michael, turning a piece of white bread brown by mopping up gravy, said brightly, “We’re bank robbers!”

His father gave him a look, but Betty just laughed. “If so, there are nicer places for men with money to eat!”

“In Farmington?” O’Sullivan asked.

She laughed again. “Well, you got me there.”

“We’re just traveling through.”

“On your way somewhere?”

“That’s right.”

She accepted this nonanswer with another smile, and he watched as she headed behind the counter, taking off her apron. The restaurant was about to close.

His plate clean, Michael pushed it forward and, as if inquiring about dessert, asked, “So — when do I get my share of the money?”

O’Sullivan thought about that. “How much do you want?”

The boy clearly hadn’t expected such an open-ended response, and O’Sullivan watched with amusement as his son’s face registered the effort to come up with a suitably high, but not outrageous, figure.

“Two hundred dollars,” the boy said, firmly.

“That’s a lot of moolah.”

“I coulda asked for half. But I figure you got the hardest job. You’re the brains of the outfit.”

O’Sullivan shrugged. “Doesn’t say much for the outfit. Okay — two hundred it is.”

Michael frowned. “I coulda had more, couldn’t I?”

O’Sullivan sipped his coffee. “I guess you’ll never know.”

One of the dancers went over to the console radio and turned it up, not long before Crosby came to his big finish, the music swelling.

Working his voice up over this pleasant racket, Michael said, “I gotta go to the bathroom.”

“What?” his father asked, innocently.

“I gotta go to the... ” And the music stopped, but Michael blurted on: “... bathroom!”

His voice seemed to echo through the room, and the boy covered his mouth, embarrassed but grinning, as the patrons and dancers laughed and smiled.

“You’re only human,” O’Sullivan said. “Go on. Go.”

Michael left the table, and Betty walked over — not a waitress now, just an attractive woman, who’d been watching O’Sullivan from across the room (he’d noticed).

“Hi again,” she said.

“Hello. Closing up?”

“’Bout that time. You fellas ate kinda late.”

“You know how it is when you’re on the road. Trying to make time.”

She smiled, and he realized what he’d said; he hadn’t intended the double entendre, and felt almost as embarrassed as his son had.

“I can get you another cup,” she said, nodding to his coffee.

“Thanks. But aren’t you off work now?”

“Yeah, but... I don’t like going straight home. House is empty since... Maybe I oughta get a cat.”

O’Sullivan smiled, wondering if it was a divorce or if death had taken someone from her, too.

She brought over the coffee pitcher, topped off his cup, then took the chair next to O’Sullivan, leaned an elbow on the table, her chin on her hand. Her eyes were hazel — as lovely as they were sad. “You men traveling alone?”

O’Sullivan nodded, sipped his coffee. “His mother passed away, not long ago. My wife, I should say.”

Her eyes tightened. “Oh... gee, I’m so sorry.”

“We’re just driving through, you know?”

A new song started up on the radio — Kate Smith, singing “Dream a Little Dream of Me.”

“Oh, I just love this song,” Betty said.

“Nice song. Nice voice.”

“Oh yeah... Funny, doesn’t matter how long I been on my feet, I can always make these dogs get up and dance. I just love to dance... Would you like to? Dance?”

She looked just enough like Annie to tempt him; but too much like Annie for him to say yes.

Gently, he turned her down: “I don’t think so.”

“Okay. Too soon?”

He swallowed. Nodded. “Too soon.”

“I understand. Really I do.”

“But, Betty... ”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

Michael was walking back toward the table. The boy watched his father and the waitress sitting, listening to the music, smiling at each other. It made him think of his mother, and that made him sad... but it was nice to see his father smiling just the same.

They drove a few hours, and took a motel in another Iowa town, Muscatine, on the Mississippi River, at a motor court that was awfully shabby for a couple of bank robbers in the money.

In the room, before bed, Papa counted the “take” (as he called it), removing the packets of cash one at a time from the black satchel. Michael took his two hundred dollars and sat like an Indian on the bed and counted it over and over.

“Are we rich, Papa?”

As he counted the bundles of cash, Papa said, “No, son. We’re very poor.”

“But, Papa — so much money!”

“Without your mother and brother, there can never be true prosperity.”

The boy thought about that, but it still looked like a lot of loot to him.

Papa was saying, “All this money is much more than we need right now. Most of it will be yours one day.”

“Not just the two hundred dollars?”

“Not just the two hundred dollars.” He came over and sat next to Michael on the boy’s bed. “As we travel, I’ll deposit what we don’t need for expenses at more honest banks than the one we stopped at today.”

“That’s a good idea. We don’t have enough room in the compartment anymore.”

Papa touched Michael’s shoulder. “This money, when it’s yours, son... you must promise me you’ll put it to a good use.”

“What sort of use, Papa?”

“That’ll be your decision. You could go to school... college. You could buy a business. Perhaps a farm.”

“I wouldn’t want to be a farmer, Papa.”

“Be whatever you want, son... as long as it’s not like me.”

But as the boy lay in the darkness, waiting for sleep to come, he knew he did want to be like his father. Papa was a courageous soldier, and a resourceful one, too — hadn’t he found a way to take money from his enemies without firing a shot?

Maybe it was a sin to steal this money; the boy wasn’t sure — Papa had said it was like Robin Hood. And, anyway, he could go into a confessional, like Papa had, and be forgiven for his sins. After all, everybody was a sinner — the sisters at the Villa said so. But everybody could be forgiven, too — like soldiers who God forgave for the sins that war made them commit.

Seeing Papa talking to that pretty waitress had reminded the boy of his mother, but Michael would have thought about her, anyway, in his bed. He missed her so much, and every night he would think about her and the pain would be real, the emptiness awful; and he missed Peter, too — he’d give anything to be hit by just one more snowball by that little assassin...

Nonetheless — and despite what his father had said — Michael O’Sullivan, Jr., trying to sleep in the Muscatine motel, did not feel poor. Prosperity may not have been around the corner, but it sure was in the satchel between their beds, and in the backseat compartment of their Ford.

And never in his life had he felt closer to his father.

They were still a family, Papa and Michael.

Still a family.