“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.
“He’s not going to steal anything.” Piper snorts. “Being a passman is the best convict job on the whole island. Why would he risk losing a job like that?”
I shake my head. “Why would you break the law and get yourself locked up for life? You think these guys are logical?”
Piper puffs up her chest. “Cons won’t mess with the warden. They wouldn’t dare.”
“So what then… your mom’s going to hand her baby over to a one-armed felon? Hands up.” I pretend to aim a pistol. “I have a loaded diaper right here.”
Piper laughs. I like the sound of her laugh. I can’t help it, I do.
“Rock-a-bye baby, in the cell house up top,” I sing. “When the wind blows the cradle will rock. When the cons make a break, the cradle will fall, and down will come baby, handcuffs and all.”
I pretend to carry a tray with one hand, the other arm tucked behind my back. “Where’s Willy One Arm’s other arm? Think about that after he serves you your supper.”
Now Piper is doubled over laughing.
I strum an imaginary guitar and sing, “Where, oh where, do the stray arms go? Where oh where-”
“Moose, stop it, okay? We have to talk,” Annie barks.
“Uh-oh. She’s serious.” Piper mimics Annie, waggling her head.
Annie glares at Piper, then her eyes find me.
“Oh by all means talk, then,” Piper says, her voice heavy with sarcasm.
“We don’t need to talk,” I tell Annie.
Annie glowers at me. “Yes, we do.”
Piper’s laugh turns raspy again. “You guys sound like Bea and Darby Trixle when Darby forgot their anniversary. Remember how she locked him out of the apartment and he had to stay in the bachelors’ quarters?”
Annie and I stare at each other, ignoring Piper.
Piper shrugs her shoulders. “Okay, fine, don’t tell me what’s going on, I don’t even care.” She pauses as if she’s waiting for us to fill her in.
Annie and I continue to stare at each other, like we’re in a competition and we lose points if we blink.
Piper flicks at the cement with her skate. “You want to have secrets, go right ahead,” she says as a bullhorn booms across the parade grounds.
“Moose Flanagan! ”
Uh-oh… not Trixle again. He’s got Janet with him too. She’s carrying her own bullhorn-a small one, but it works. There’s no separating either of them from their bullhorns. They probably use them at the dinner table. “PLEASE PASS THE POTATOES! ”
I grasp the ball in my glove and run across the parade grounds. “Yes, sir,” I say. Janet has her hair braided so tightly it gives me a headache to look at her. She stands behind her father, holding the bullhorn at the ready. Theresa says whenever they play together and Janet doesn’t like something, she bellows into her bullhorn and her parents come running.
“You have a friend visiting today?” Darby asks.
“Yes, sir.”
“His name?”
“Scout McIlvey.”
Trixle takes out his handkerchief and blows his nose. His jacket is too small. It pulls across his back, making his muscles bulge and his shoulders pinch together. He puts his handkerchief back in his pocket and looks down at his clipboard. “Supposed to be on the one o’clock boat. You understand that you must get a signed permission for the exact boat a visitor is on?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you must meet the boat your visitor is taking?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And keep your visitor with you at all times?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m not sure who let him on-”
“What do you mean, sir, who let him on? He’s here now?” I ask.
“Not now. No. Without the correct paperwork, I had to send him on his way.”
“You sent him away?”
Janet can’t cover her smile now. It’s popping off her face. She lives for stuff like this.
“He’s not supposed to be on the ten o’clock. What did I just explain to you?”
“Mr. Trixle, please… Scout was here and now he’s gone?”
He nods his pin head. “Without the correct John Hancock I had no choice but to-”
I’m practically flying down the switchback, my feet barely making contact with the road. But I don’t need to get too far before I see the Coxe, our ferry, on its way back to San Francisco.
The boat was in the dock for twenty whole minutes before it headed out again. Trixle had waited until they weighed anchor to come find me. Of course he did.
4. MURDERERS AND MADMEN
Same day-Monday, August 5, 1935
I head for San Francisco on the next boat, but Scout isn’t waiting for me at Fort Mason. I’ll bet Trixle didn’t bother to tell him there’d been a mix-up on the time. I’ll bet he just said Scout didn’t have permission to visit.
Scout doesn’t have a phone, so I have to walk all the way to his house in the Marina. When I find him, he takes out the letter I wrote him with the ferry time on it. In between the one and the colon is a blotch of ink that kind of looks like a zero. He thought it was 10:00 instead of 1:00.
Luckily, Scout can still come. In fact, he’s so excited about getting to see Alcatraz we practically run the whole way to the ferry, but that’s not unusual for Scout. Everything he does is fast. Just being around him I move faster too.
When we get to the island, I grab my gear and we head straight for Annie’s apartment and rap our bats on her door. I’ve told Annie all about Scout and I know she’s dying to play with him. Scout is humming “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” when the door squeaks open. “Annie, Scout’s here. C’mon, let’s go.” I rotate my hand in quick circles.
But Annie’s broad face is set hard. “Can’t,” she says.
“Why not?”
“You know why not,” she whispers, motioning for me to come in.
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.” She glowers at me.
I groan. “Scout, just a minute, okay?”
Scout nods his fast nod, and I slip inside Annie’s apartment and gently shut the door. “What?”
She wraps one arm around the other like she’s holding herself in. I wish Annie wouldn’t do this. It’s what Nat does when she’s upset, and I don’t want to think about Natalie right now.
“I can’t play with you until you tell,” Annie announces.
“About the note?”
Annie rolls her eyes. “What do you think, Moose? Of course about the note.”
“For the one hundredth time, Annie, I can’t do that.”
Annie’s arms tighten around herself. “Then I won’t play.”
“What do you mean you won’t play?”
She frowns and shrugs her shoulders, just a little, as if the movement pains her.
“But Annie,” I whisper. “Don’t you see? I can’t wreck everything for Natalie. She’s my sister.”