Trixle squints. “What’s she saying?”
“She found the baby,” I tell Trixle.
“Ain’t possible.”
“She sure did, Darby,” my father murmurs, glowing at Nat.
“I’ll be gar darned. She’s the one told me they didn’t have guns too.” Trixle looks at Nat, a flash of surprise in his eyes before he turns his attention to Capone. “Bars cut?” Trixle asks.
“Yep,” my father says.
“Baby’s okay?”
“Seems fine,” my father answers.
“Rock him a little, will ya?” Al says. “Don’t like to hear him squallin’ that way.”
“What happened, 85?” Trixle asks.
“Didn’t see much, Officer. Busy as I was baby-sittin’ and all.”
Trixle eyes the opening. “I’ll get the key. Can’t stay in that cell.”
“Don’t see why not. If I was gonna leave, don’t you think I’d have hightailed it out of here already?” Capone asks.
My father ignores him.
“Isn’t that right, Moose?” Capone nods to me.
“Don’t talk to him!” my father barks.
“Ahh, boss. He’s a good boy, your Moose. I wouldn’t go getting in the way of that, now would I?” Capone’s eyes are hard, challenging my dad.
Trixle comes back with the key. The door clanks clean open again. “Had enough of your shenanigans tonight, 85. Put you in the Hole. That ought to help your eyesight. Gonna be twenty-twenty when I’m done with you.”
“The Hole?” Capone raises his hands. “That ain’t fair. I been baby-sittin’ the warden’s baby. Should be gettin’ good time for this,” he shouts as we walk out.
My father shakes his head. “Not sure what you do with a guy like that. He does good things. But then he goes and does bad things right over the top of them,” my father says as he tucks the blanket around Piper’s little brother. “Now come on, let’s get you home where you belong.”
35. THE PIXIE JAILER PLAYGROUND
Thursday, September 19, 1935
Right after the escape attempt, there is a euphoria that envelops the island. Everyone from Warden Williams to Darby Trixle is amazed by what seven kids were able to do all on our own. No one can get enough of the story, demanding we tell our version of events again and again.
My parents are practically bursting with pride because of what I did and because of Natalie. Not only did Natalie understand exactly what was going on, but she figured out something I hadn’t. This very fact has given us hope we didn’t have before. Natalie is getting better. Maybe not in the dramatic way my mom thinks she is… but better for Natalie.
How did it happen that three convicts came so close to escaping from the world’s most secure prison? Slowly some of the pieces begin to fall in place. Mae delivered the boat keys to the island wrapped in her handkerchief. A convict swept them up with his push broom and slipped them in his pocket. The keys probably came from an officer on Angel Island. Our boat, the Coxe, is owned by the army, and someone on Angel Island has a key.
Capone helped out his hospital cellmate Seven Fingers, but he did not try to escape. He was smart enough to know the escape was ill conceived. He wanted no trouble with the guards who have the power to extend his sentence or with the cons who would kill him if he didn’t contribute to the escape. He got Mae to bring in the keys to the boat. He played his banjo every night to mask the sound of Seven Fingers sawing the bars with his floss. And he conveniently got behind in his guard shoe-shine service, so he had two pairs of guard shoes in his celclass="underline" one for Buddy and one for Seven Fingers. One Arm stole a pair of the warden’s shoes, which were three sizes too large.
Each morning we wake up and find out something else. We still don’t know how Seven Fingers got out of the cell house. No one knows how he got that key. My dad says we may never know.
It all seems so exciting and then one day… it isn’t.
That’s the day we find out the warden thinks the cons had help from the inside. The escape, he says, could not have happened without the aid of one of us.
Then my father, Associate Warden Chudley, Trixle, Mattaman, Bomini, and every other officer not on duty is called to the warden’s office for a meeting that lasts all day and on until the wee hours of the night. One by one and in groups every man on the island is personally grilled by the warden. More meetings go on for days, and when my dad comes home each night, his toothpick box is empty and the deep furrows down the sides of his mouth are back.
He and my mother close the door of their room and whisper well into the morning. I go into Nat’s room, stand outside their door, even sneak into the secret passageway, but all I hear is muffled mumbles.
No one knows what’s happening now. Natalie, who was supposed to return to the Esther P. Marinoff School the night after the escape, is still with us. And when I ask my mom why Nat hasn’t returned to school, she evades my question with a tight-lipped smile, giving no inkling of what’s going on.
Finally, when I can stand it no longer, my father agrees to talk. There’s some debate about whether Natalie should be included in the discussion, but in the end my dad decides that Natalie has earned this right. She’s allowed to sit in her favorite spot on the floor, flipping the pages of her books. It’s as if Natalie has earned a place in our family she didn’t have before.
My father paces. He picks up his box of toothpicks from the coffee table and moves it to the kitchen table, then moves it back.
I look from my mom to my dad, wondering why they are so upset. “We’re not going to be kicked off the island, are we?” I ask.
“No,” my father answers, his eyes watchful.
“What did the warden say?”
“What can he say? The passmen worked at his house. It was his idea to throw that party and invite all of his best men. There’s plenty of blame to go around.”
“What about Natalie? Is he mad at her?”
“How can he be mad at her? She found his baby son. Even Trixle gave Natalie credit for letting him know Seven Fingers was unarmed. Course, Darby being Darby, he waxed eloquent on the need for a full report to J. Edgar Hoover, until Mattaman pointed out that right now in his own living room was a bar spreader being used as a carnival pole.”
“It’s the centerpiece of Janet’s pixie merry-go-round.”
“So I’ve heard. Janet says she found it on the westside beach. Says it just washed up on the island. I don’t think that one’s flying. The bar spreader is made of steel. It would sink like a stone for one thing.”
“Do they think Trixle had something to do with the escape?”
My father shrugs. “It hasn’t been ruled out.”
I think about how much I hate Trixle. How he tries to trip me up whenever he can. How awful he is to Natalie. How sick I felt when he talked about how he treated his brother. If I open my mouth, I’m putting Natalie in jeopardy. But I wasn’t brought up to let someone else take the blame for something he didn’t do, even if it is a nitwit like Darby Trixle.
“The bar spreader was in Natalie’s suitcase,” I tell my father. “Jimmy threw it in the bay, but he can’t throw to save his life, so it didn’t go very far. Janet Trixle found it and decided to use it for her pixie ponies. She had no idea what it was.”
“Natalie? Natalie’s involved in this?” My mom’s voice is wrung tight.
My father gulps as if he swallowed one of his toothpicks.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Bottom drawer,” Natalie murmurs, pulling at her dress like it’s bothering her.
My father ignores this. His attention is riveted on me. “How did it get in her suitcase?”
I shake my head. “I dunno.”
My father frowns, trying to see inside me. “You don’t know?”
The question hangs between us. He clearly thinks I know more, but I’ve told him the truth. I have no idea how the bar spreader got there.