At the gate in the massive wall, its stones haphazardly cut and set, no doubt reflecting the attitude of the labor that had done the job, a guard looked at me. through the bars, and asked me my business here, for the third time. And one side of the gate groaned open.
Inside the massive granite main building, I was led by a guard to a little desk in the big main corridor; at the end of the corridor was a steel gate, and guards with clubs were watching as blue-denim-garbed inmates shuffled hurriedly along. I was given a small blank sheet of paper on which I was to put the name of the prisoner I wished to see, which I did- ALPHONSE CAPONE- and was told to give my own name and address, and reason for calling upon said inmate. I listed my real name, but gave the address of the Piquett law firm, and stated my business as legal representative. This wasn't a lie, as I was representing that firm, but it did tend to give the impression that I was an attorney.
The guard passed my slip of paper to a second guard, who relayed it to a convict runner stationed in the corridor beyond the second gate, who was sent to fetch the prisoner. The guard and I talked about the differences between Chicago and Atlanta weather, the guard coming to the conclusion that he was glad he lived in Atlanta, and me coming to the silently held conclusion that I was glad I wasn't a prison guard. When five minutes had passed, the guard led me to a nearby reception room about the size of my office, and had me sit on the near side of a long, bare wooden table. I could see a partition that ran underneath the table to the floor- to prevent the passing of items, I presumed- but there was no wire mesh separating the two sides of the table. The walls were gray stone with the windows high and barred. Other than the table, the room was completely bare.
Five minutes later a guard with a club escorted a prisoner into the room: the prisoner was about five ten, weighed perhaps two hundred pounds, and had a nice tan. His thinning dark brown hair was prison-short, his eyebrows bushy and his gray eyes piercing, surrounded by dark circles that showed even against the tan; they were the kind of dark circles that come from genes, not lack of sleep. The head was shaped like a squeezed pumpkin, and along the left cheek were two scars, a long and a short, the latter deep and pronounced; under the jaw. riding a nearly nonexistent neck, was a third scar. Without the guard, he came around the table and sat across from me; with a thick-lipped smile that showed no teeth, he nodded at me, fishing in the pocket of his faded denim jacket for something. It was a cigar; a thick, six-inch one. He fished some more for some matches and lit it. Without saying anything to me, by gesturing with the cigar, he asked if I cared for one, and I shook my head no. He looked over at the guard with a benevolent smile and nodded, and the guard left the room. And Al Capone and I were alone.
He extended his hand to me, and the smile increased, showing some teeth. I shook the hand; Capone had slimmed down, but his hand was still pudgy, soft. His grip wasn't.
"So you're Heller," he said.
"I'm Heller."
"We never met, but you did me a favor once."
I wasn't sure I knew what he meant. I said so.
"No matter, no matter. Sure you don't want one of these?" He waved the cigar; it smelled pretty good. "Two bucks. Havana."
"No thanks."
He leaned on one hand, cigar in his lips, cocked upward. "It ain't so bad in here, you know. This is the first rest I had since Philly."
He was referring to the year stretch he'd done after he was picked up a few years ago in Philadelphia on a gun-carrying charge. Speculation was he'd sought the rap for a cooling-off period, his old mentor Torrio, who was putting the national crime combine together, having advised him to lay low in the wake of the bad publicity of the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, among other excesses.
"Still, they screwed me," he said philosophically. "Eleven years the fuckers gave me, when they promised me a couple years tops, if I gave 'em their guilty plea. Those bastards, their word means nothin' to em."
"It looks like Atlanta's agreeing with you."
He shrugged, smiled some more. "It's the tennis. Exercise and sun. It's okay. Be nice if there was some women in here, but what the hell, you can't have it all. You know Rusty Rudensky?"
"No."
"Good little safecracker. Did some work for me years 'n' years ago. Turned out to be one of my cellmates. I'm in with seven other guys, in case you think this is the fuckin' Ritz. But Rusty's okay. He knew the ropes, fixed it up so a trusty pal of his who drives a supply truck can smuggle cash into me. That buys privileges with guards you don't think we're alone just 'cause you're supposed to be my mouthpiece, do you?- and it helps keep me protected. You know, there's a lot of little shots want to take a shot at a big shot. So I got cons playin' bodyguard for me in here, just like Frankie Rio in the old days."
A wave of something went over his face; the smile went. Referring to life on the outside as "the old days" was what did it.
"I'm doin' all right. Heller." he said, as if trying to convince himself. "They got me workin' in a shoe factory, cobblin' shoes, can you buy it? Eight hours a day for seven bucks a month. Hell of a deal, me with a million bucks in half a dozen banks. Sitlin' in a hole like this."
I didn't say anything; I still didn't know what I was doing here, but it was his nickel. His grand, actually.
"I could be in Florida right now," he mused, looking up, like Florida was heaven. "I got a wife and a boy at Palm Island, ya know. I idolize that boy; he's gonna be goddamn president. If I could be with him and his momma in Florida, I'd be the happiest man in the world. God, I'd love to lay under those palm trees. God, I'd love to be at Hialeah followin' the ponies."
I'll be damned if I didn't feel a little sorry for him, but then he pointed a finger and the cigar in his mouth right at me, like two gun barrels, and his beady gray eyes in their dark sockets bored into me, like I'd done something to him.
"And your pal Ness and those other dumb bastard feds go and nail me on a bookkeeping rap! A damn tax rap, and now I'm in here, and the rest of'em are out there splitting up what I built!"
The beady eyes glowed with something that was scary; the fat head seemed like a skull somehow- a skull with eyes.
"They're going to flick it up. Heller. They're gonna piss away what I made, what I… created. If I don't stop 'em." This was said with religious certainty.
I ventured a question. "Who. Mr. Capone?"
"Let's make it 'Al,' okay? What's your first name? Nate? Nate. Nate, Frank's a good boy, he really is. He's family. But he just don't got what it takes to fill my chair."
Nitti. He meant Nitti.
"Now, I know all about what you've been through. I know you got sucked into hitting Frank with Cermak's goons. I can tell you without a doubt that Frank don't hold nothin' against you. You were honorable, quittin' that scumbag police force. Bunch of fuckin' crooks. I hate 'em damn near as much as the politicians, two-faced fuckin crooks. I thought Cermak was different, but he's like the rest. Just another politician spending half his time covering up so the public don't see he's a thief."
"Mr. Capone"
"Al."
"Al. What am I doing here?"
"You're here 'cause I need somebody I can trust. You showed yourself to be honorable, and I ain't forgetting the time you helped me out in the past, though maybe you didn't know it was me you was helping. I can't call on any of my boys, 'cause I gotta handle this… from the outside. And I don't want to mix my brothers in. if I can help it. 'Cause I don't want to go up against Frank, toe to toe. 'cause, what the hell, he's out there, and I'm in here, and how the hell we gonna go toe to toe with bars in between."