CHAPTER 29
CONVICT CHOIR BOY
Wednesday, May 1, 1935
The next week I do my best to stay away from Piper. But the more I steer clear, the more she seems to want to be around me. “She’s planning something. Watch yourself,” Annie tells me on Monday.
On Wednesday I find out Piper has given Scout 105’s baseball, and then she’s stopped talking to Scout. I guess she doesn’t need him anymore. And Scout doesn’t seem to care, which surprises me even more. “You can have her, Moose,” he tells me while we’re warming up for our lunch game. “She’s more trouble than she’s worth.”
“Oh, great,’ I say. “Gee, thanks.”
“I think she’s googly-eyed for you, anyway,” he says.
“No, she isn’t,” I tell him.
Scout nods his head. “You like her too, and you know it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell him. It isn’t possible to like someone I dislike as much as Piper. It didn’t used to be possible, anyway.
“So, Moose, we’re friends, right?” Piper corners me as I come out of the bathroom right after the last bell at school.
“Whatever you say, Piper.” I pick up my books and head out the door into the bright sunshine.
“And friends help each other, right?”
I don’t like the sound of this.
“I need your help.” She touches my hand.
I close my eyes, blow air out of my mouth and walk faster.
She keeps pace with me. “I want your help with 105. You have an in now. Natalie does, anyway.”
“You are unbelievable.” I spit the words out at her.
“Moose, wait! Come on!”
“I don’t want to talk to you, Piper. I just don’t.” I keep walking fast, my head down.
“This is going to help you too. Because otherwise you’ll always wonder. You’ll never know what happened between Natalie and 105.”
“I know what happened. I was there,” I lie.
“No, you weren’t,” she says.
“Go cram your head in the crapper, Piper,” I yell in her face, and cross the street to get away from her. How does she know everything?
“Look,” she wheedles, keeping pace with me. “You’ve been driving yourself nuts with this, haven’t you, Moose? But we can fix that. We’ll let Natalie go to meet 105 and then we’ll spy on them. Then you’ll know. And if 105 tries anything, you can pound him, right, Moose? Won’t that feel good?”
“As far as I’m concerned, 105 does not exist.”
“We came so close to getting into the cell house with Mrs. Capone,” Piper says.
“No, we didn’t, I say.
“What if they’d used Jimmy or Theresa to translate instead of Mrs. Mattaman? And then they’d need to take them up to the cell house, because cons can’t talk to visitors in a foreign language.”
“What if, what if, what if. None of that even came close to happening.”
“Didn’t you learn anything? Just be there. Just be close and it will happen. You can’t catch a ball unless you’re in the ballpark! Take 105 for example,” she tries again.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I shout, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Natalie certainly does. That’s all she talks about is 105.”
I glare at her. “How would you know?”
“I heard her one day when she was with your mom. Your mom had no idea what she was talking about, but I knew,” Piper says.
My neck gets stiff. I can hardly move it. “She loves numbers is all. That’s always what she talks about.” I start walking again.
“Oh, yeah, right. Look, what’s the harm of just talking to the guy, 105?”
“No harm. Go ahead. You don’t need me and you don’t need Natalie.”
“Ahhh.” She makes a disgusted noise and cuts in front of me.
“Well, you don’t.” I sidestep her.
She cuts me off again. There’s an odd expression on her face, both eyes looking left, not at anything in particular.
“What?” I ask.
She scratches her back. “Well…” She sighs.
“Well what?”
“I tried to talk to 105, but he wouldn’t talk to me.”
“No kidding. You know, you really charmed Mrs. Capone too. I mean, dropping your purse on her toe. What a nice touch!”
“Shut up.”
“What did the guy do, anyway? Homicide? Kidnapping?” I can’t stop myself from asking this.
“I dunno, but he’s only got one more year. Not even that, half a year, I think. That’s why he has so much freedom. They figure he wouldn’t run with six months to go. It wouldn’t be worth it to jeopardize that. You think they’d let just an old convict wander around the place gardening? Plus, the guy──they call him Onion because the way his hair is greased down makes his head look like an onion──he’s put together a whole slew of good time. He’s like some kind of Boy Scout choir boy.”
“Choir boy?” I ask.
“Kind of like you…convict choir boy from the root vegetable family.” She smiles.
“How’d you find out?”
“I looked in my dad’s files. Couldn’t find what he was in for, but I found out he was on gardening detail. I went to the gardens. There he was. Surely, if Nat could find him, I could too.”
“Nat’s not stupid!” I shout.
“Did I say she was?’
“Say it! Say she’s not stupid.”
“She’s not stupid.” Piper shrugs and we start walking again.
I know I shouldn’t talk to her anymore, but I can’t help it. I have to know. “That true about him being a good guy…?”
“Yep,” Piper says. She looks me square when she says this.
I think about what a liar Piper is. Even so, what she says makes sense. Why would they let an escape risk have the run of the place? “If he won’t talk to you, what makes you think he’ll talk to Natalie?” I ask.
“Because he did already, idiot!”
“Jeez, Piper, why do you go sticking your nose in this?”
“What are you all bent out of shape about?” Piper asks, shifting her books to the other arm. “She’s not pregnant, right?”
“Piper! For crying out loud!”
“You do know about the birds and the bees, don’t you?”
“Shut up, Piper! Just shut up!”
“Did you ask her at least?”
“Look, this is off limits.” I make a flattening gesture with my hands. “I just have to keep her safe until the Esther P. Marinoff interview.”
“And then what?”
“And then she’ll get in and get better and we’ll all live happily ever after.”
“What if she doesn’t get in, thought? I mean, she didn’t before, right? What makes you think she will this time?”
This is the question my whole family has been avoiding. Just hearing Piper ask it out loud makes me feel disloyal.
“She will,” I say. My voice comes out in a funny jerk.
Piper raises her eyebrows and studies me. “There’s a chapel in the basement of the cell house. If she doesn’t get in, then maybe she and 105 can get married. He’s getting out soon.”
“Piper, SHUT UP,” I shout.
“Get mad all you want, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me. They could have babies.”
“SHUT UP!” I feel a blinding urge to grab hold of Piper’s throat.
“If she gets in, how long till she starts there? Can you at least tell me that?” Piper asks.
“I dunno for sure.”
“So we better get going!” she says.
“PIPER, FORGET IT!”
“Wouldn’t you like to know what happened?” Her eyes are burrowing inside me now.
“It’s not safe, Piper.”
“Why not? You’re going to be right there. We’re going to be right there.”
“What is it to you, for chrissakes?” I glare at her.
“I want to meet Al Capone.”
“This is just some guy. Some criminal choir boy Onion guy. It isn’t Al Capone.”
“Yeah, but it’s a start. Who knows where it will lead.”
I stare at Piper. Those squinty eyes. That cute little movie star mouth. That long straight hair. Then I get it. It isn’t just about Al Capone. “You like to play with fire. You love being around all of this criminal stuff, don’t you?”
“And you don’t?”
I stare out at the water, busy with ferries and fishing boats. “Not half as much as you do,” I say.