“You just didn’t like what Natalie had to say. The place is good for her, Moose. Trust me,” Annie says.
Trust her, right. Everybody thinks they know what’s best for Natalie: religion, leafy green vegetables, stricter discipline, ice compresses, voodoo. I’ve heard it all. But wait a minute, if Annie thinks the Esther P. Marinoff School is the right place for Natalie, maybe she’ll have changed her mind about telling.
“So you don’t want to wreck it for Natalie?” My voice squeaks hopefully.
“It was a mistake is all. That’s what I think,” Annie declares. “I heard my dad talking to my uncle Tony when we drove down to San Mateo yesterday. I was in the rumble seat. They thought I was asleep. My dad said he played chess with Buddy Boy when Buddy was in the hospital. Buddy’s a great chess player and so is my dad.”
Guards aren’t supposed to play chess with inmates. That I know for sure.
“They had to be quiet, so they passed notes to let each other know stuff. Done. Your turn. Doesn’t that sound like the kind of notes you pass in a game? They must have gotten in your laundry by mistake.”
“Maybe,” I reply, scratching a hive on my elbow. I would have totally believed it was possible if I hadn’t received the note about Mae and the roses. There’s no way that was about a chess game, but I’m not about to tell Annie this. “Who won?” I ask.
“Buddy.” Annie’s eyes are hopeful. “I think it was all an accident,” she confides.
I look up from where I’ve been clawing my elbow. “So you’ll play baseball with me on Alcatraz?”
Annie squints at me. “You haven’t gotten any other notes, have you?”
I can’t lie about this. Not to Annie. I look down the quiet backstreet. A ragman calls in the distance. A milkman knocks on a door. A cluster of girls plays jacks on the street. “This is where we play,” I announce.
“Here?” Annie is incredulous.
“I told you he wouldn’t be here today,” I say, hoping Annie won’t notice I didn’t answer her question about the notes.
Theresa bounces back to us. “If he’s not here, we should go find him. Can we, Moose? Can we?”
“There’s no time,” I tell Theresa. “I gotta get back. I promised my mom. And I have to buy flowers.”
Theresa’s mouth pulls to one side. “But we woulda had time to play though. That would have taken time,” she reasons.
“Yeah, but Scout lives pretty far from here. We don’t have time to go get him and then play.” I’m pleased with how this comes out. It sounds like I know what I’m talking about.
“You’re going to buy flowers? For Piper?” Annie asks.
I’d planned to say my mom, but suddenly Piper sounds like a better idea, mostly because I have never in my life bought my mom flowers. Not that I’d buy them for Piper, but it does seem more likely.
This lying business is a lot more complicated than it looks.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Ohhhhh!” Theresa’s eyes seek Annie’s.
“It’s a good idea,” Annie tells me. “She’s mad at you, you know.”
“Tell me about it,” I say.
“Don’t worry. She’s mad at the world right now. My mom says it’s because she’s been the apple of her dad’s eye and now all he ever talks about is how much he wants a son. Piper won’t do well as second fiddle.” The corners of Annie’s mouth sneak up a little.
“So where are we getting the flowers?” Theresa wants to know.
“Let’s walk down Union. Probably a flower stand there.”
We walk about six blocks and don’t find anything. So Annie goes into a butcher shop and asks. The butcher directs us to a small stand, no bigger than an outhouse. They have roses: red, yellow, and pink. My gut pinches when I see how expensive they are. How can something you can just pick cost so much? I don’t have enough for a dozen, but I can buy a half dozen. Will that be enough?
“What color?” Annie asks.
“Yellow,” I tell the man behind the counter.
“I’d go with red. Yellow is friendship. Red is, you know . . .” Annie moves her almost-white eyebrows up and down.
“That’s why I want yellow,” I insist.
Carefully I take my bat, ball, and glove out of the bag and set the yellow roses inside. I don’t want Darby Trixle or any of the other officers to see I’m carrying them. I wonder if Annie will comment about this, but she doesn’t say a word.
The closer we get to the water, the worse my hives itch. This Annie notices. “What are you scratching so much for? You allergic to flowers?”
“Hey look.” Theresa points to the dock at Fort Mason where we catch the boat back to Alcatraz. Maybe fifty or a hundred people are milling around like ants in a sugar bowl. A man standing on a barrel waves his arms and calls out, “Mae Capone, the wife of public enemy number one. She’s right here, folks. Don’t miss this. Gonna visit her hubby on the Rock. She’s quite the beauty too. C’mon, folks, Mae Capone right here.”
Theresa grabs my arm. “Did you hear that? Mae Capone! C’mon!”
But I’m not thinking about Mae. I’m thinking about Al. The man is stark raving mad. How am I supposed to give his wife flowers with all these people around? The place is swarming with reporters. They’d probably snap my picture as I give them to her. Then I’ll be in the morning papers. That’s just what I need. The warden would fire my father in a heartbeat.
I can’t get Theresa to hand Mae the roses either. If her picture gets in the paper, she’ll get in trouble, same as I would. Didn’t Scarface know Mae would be mobbed like this?
A reporter in a gray suit leans toward us. He hands out business cards like he’s dealing from a deck. “You kids live on Alcatraz? What’s the word on Capone? We heard he’s got his own furniture up there, Oriental rugs and the whole nine yards.”
“Capone gonna bust right outta there. You heard it from me,” the man on the barrel shouts.
A man with a puffy nose waves his big hand in my face. “You live on the Rock?” He shoves a slip of paper at me as a guy stinking of cigarettes hurries past.
“A hot tip’s worth cash money to me.” A guy with hairy wrists folds my hand around his card.
“We can’t, sir. The warden won’t let us talk to reporters—” Annie tells him as the crowd presses in.
“She’s coming!” Theresa shouts. My pulse is growing louder like my own heart is getting closer to me.
A man scrambles over the back of another. A large woman picks a reporter up and moves him out of her way. A guy with a hat two sizes too small is shooting photos in a mad rush. Another man in a dark suit elbows in front of me.
“This is crazy. Let’s get on the boat.” Annie pulls Theresa and me past the buck sergeant, who checks us off on his clipboard. We scoot up the ramp and out of the fray. Back onto the boat, settling against the railing, we see the tops of everyone’s heads as they rush Mae Capone.
Mae hides behind her mink wrap, and her leather gloves cover what little of her face isn’t buried in mink. A hat with a brown veil sits smartly on her short platinum blond movie star hair. I can’t hardly see her, but one thing is clear.
Mae Capone is a looker.
She’s making her way up the gangplank, but it’s slow going.
“How’s he doin’? His life in danger? What can you tell us, Mrs. Capone?”
And then from the back of the crowd Warden Williams appears, flanked by three Angel Island army officers.
Oh great, this is just who I need . . . the warden!
“Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Give the lady some room, please,” the warden’s booming voice barks. The people nearest the warden sense the power shift and they take a reluctant step back.
What am I supposed to do now, give Mae roses in front of the warden? It kind of explains why Piper isn’t here though. She must have known he’d be on the boat.
“They like the big guy on Alcatraz? They treating him right?” One man in the back keeps at it.
Another officer pos
itions his barrel chest between Mae and the reporters. A skeleton-thin man throws a fistful of cards her way. “Floyd’s the name, at the Examiner. I’ll make it worth your while.”
But the warden is on him now. He picks up the cards and hands them back. “These won’t be necessary, Mr. Floyd,” he says.
The warden and the officers have the crowd in hand now. A path clears for Mae Capone and she heads up the gangplank straight for us. Her cheeks are flushed. Her lips are like bright boysenberries. Her perfume smells of lilacs and talcum powder mixed with the dead fish at the dock. She’s so close I could reach out and touch her soft brown leather glove.
I glance down at the warden still on the dock. His back is to us as he confers with one of the Angel Island officers. Mae’s mink brushes past my arm. “Excuse me,” Mae says.
My mouth drops open. All I can think about is giving her the roses, but I can’t do that here. Not with the warden right there. What am I, nuts? Theresa jabs her elbow in my side. “Me. Oh . . . How do you do, Mrs. Capone,” I stutter.
And then suddenly it occurs to me. If I give roses to every woman on the boat, I won’t get in trouble.
I grab a rose and hand it to Mae as she sweeps past. “Here. And here.” I give another to Annie and one to Theresa.
Mae smiles at me, a beautiful smile. “Why, thank you . . . Moose, isn’t it?” she says, and then she’s gone, yellow rose in hand, flanked by the officers and Darby Trixle.
Theresa’s eyes are big as Bundt cakes. “Why’d you do that?” she asks.
But I ignore Theresa as I hurry over to Doc Ollie’s sister, who looks exactly like him. She even wears the high-heeled equivalent of his sturdy shoes. I give her a rose and one to Mrs. Caconi and one to Bea Trixle.
“Why, Moose!” Bea Trixle’s face glows all the way down to the mouse brown roots of her newly blond hair. “Isn’t that the sweetest thing! What a nice young man you are! Darby! Oh, Darby!” Bea waves her husband down. “See what that nice Flanagan boy gave me.” She jiggles the rose in his face.
Darby sucks on his bottom lip.
“A rose. Long-stemmed too,” Bea tells Darby. “You know my birthday is coming up.”
“Yes, honey bunch.” Trixle glares at me. “I know.”
“They couldn’t be that expensive if a twelve-year-old boy got one,” Bea tells him as the warden appears, walking across the deck in his deliberate manner, the boat gently swaying. He surveys the scene.
“Where did the roses come from?” the warden asks Trixle.
Trixle waggles his head in my direction. “Flanagan boy, sir.”
The warden looks at me so hard it feels like he can see through my skull. “What’s this business about, Matthew?” he asks, using my real name, which always means trouble.
My knees are quaking under me. “Nothing, sir,” I tell him, trying to force my voice through my tight throat.
“Nothing, is it?” The warden raises his eyebrows. “Quite the ladies’ man, aren’t you?”
“No, sir,” I mutter.
“That’s not what my Piper says. I have my eye on you, Flanagan.” The warden shakes his head. “Got my fingers crossed the next one is a boy so I won’t have to worry about the likes of Moose Flanagan,” he tells Trixle.
“Ain’t nothing like a boy, sir,” Trixle agrees. “Me and the missus got our hopes on one too.”
“For twenty years been hankering for a son.” The warden smiles, his chest full, his blue eyes bright with possibility. Then he seems to realize I am still here.
“Go on, get out of here, Mr. Flanagan,” the warden tells me, and I begin to walk away but then I hear Trixle.
“It ain’t Moose I worry about. It’s his sister.”
“She’s not even on the island now, right?” the warden asks.
“Yeah, but she’s comin’ back, ain’t that right, Moose?” Trixle raises his voice so I can hear. He knows I’m listening to this.
I turn around. “Yes, sir, but we keep a close eye on her. She’s never been in any trouble, sir,” I tell him.
Trixle snorts. “She’s a loose cannon. It’s a cryin’ shame it is. Lettin’ normal kids mix it up with buggy ones,” Darby tells the warden. “Don’t know what some people is thinking.”
“Natalie’s not buggy, she just thinks a different way.” The words shoot out of me before I can stop them. I know my dad would not like me talking to the warden and Trixle like this.
“Is that so?” Trixle asks.
“Yes, sir.” I nod to the warden. “It is.”
When I get back to Annie and Theresa they’re staring at me, their eyes squinting, their mouths half open. They have clearly been discussing me in my absence.
“We can’t take these,” Annie says, the wind whipping her hair, the rose held tightly against her chest.
“They’re for Piper,” Theresa scolds, leaning close so I can hear her over the wind and the rumbling motor.
“Course you can. I always meant to give them to you. I just wanted to surprise you,” I tell them.
“Surprise us?” Annie cocks her head.
Theresa squints at me. She clearly doesn’t believe this.
“No, really,” I say, steadying myself on the boat railing.
Annie looks at the rose, holds it delicately with her hand. A smile forms on her big square lips as she smells it. “Are you sure?” she asks without looking at me.
“Sure I’m sure,” I say.
“But what about Piper?” Theresa insists.
“I don’t want to give Piper flowers.”
Annie watches me from behind the rose. “That’s not what you said,” she says.
“Like I said, I wanted to surprise you.”
Annie’s pale cheeks are flushed. She lets her finger bump on the smooth part of the stem. She holds it safe from the wind.
“But, Moose.” Theresa jabs her elbow in my side. “Mae said your name.”
“She couldn’t have,” I tell them.
“She did though. I heard it with my own ears.” Theresa touches one of her ears as if to prove her point.
“I don’t know, Theresa,” I murmur with one eye on Annie. I can’t tell if Annie’s listening or not.
“You don’t know?” Theresa’s eyes are white all around. “I have to put it in my book, Moose. This is a very strange occurrence,” she informs me.
I wish she wouldn’t. But then most of what she writes is made up anyway. No one will think it’s actually true.
In the visitors’ section I see Mae Capone holding her yellow rose across her lap. Doc Ollie’s old sister with her practical shoes has placed the rose behind her ear, like she’s become a flamenco dancer. And there’s Bea Trixle talking to Mrs. Caconi, holding the rose as if it is made of glass.
It’s amazing the power of a few stupid flowers. Simply amazing.
16.
PINEAPPLE UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE
Same day—Sunday, August 18, 1935
Why, thank you Moose. The lilting sound of Mae’s voice is spinning around like a gramophone inside my head. And now Darby Trixle is heading back to us. Won’t he ever leave me alone?
“What you kids doin’ on this run anyway?” Darby asks.
“We went to visit my sister,” I tell him.
Trixle’s chiseled face sets. His eyes narrow. “That it, is it? Wasn’t nothin’ to do with Mae Capone bein’ here? The warden thinks this ain’t no coincidence.”
My forehead begins to sweat when I hear this. Big beads drip down.
“We didn’t know she was going to be here, sir,” Annie offers.
“We just got lucky,” Theresa adds.
Darby glares at her. Theresa darts behind Annie.
“And what about you, Mr. Ladies’ Man?” He squints at me, catching himself as the boat dips in the wake of another ferry. “Just went to visit your sister, did you?”
“Yes, sir,” I say.
Tsk, tsk, Darby clucks. “How’s she doin’ at that place?”
“Fine, sir.”
&nbs
p; “But it ain’t permanent, then, this . . . what you call it now?”
“It’s a school, sir.”
His mouth sours up. “Is that it, is it . . .” He looks over at Theresa’s rose. “And them flowers the missus is all worked up about? How much they put you back, son?”
I shrug. Best not to say anything. He’s just looking for trouble, and I don’t want to give it to him.
“Bet it was a lotta dough. And you just giving them away free like that? How you get that money?”
“My grandma sent it to me.”
“Your grandma sent it to you and you bought my missus flowers with it, did you?”
“Not exactly . . . I bought them for Annie and Theresa and I had a few left over.”
“So my missus didn’t rate. She was leftovers?” He snorts.
“Well, no, I mean, um.”
“Darby! Darby!” Bea is doing her best to run across the rocking boat in her high-heeled shoes while holding her scarf around her head. She shakes her finger at Darby. “Don’t you be getting after that nice young man. I won’t have it. Just because you aren’t kind and thoughtful the way he is.”
Darby’s face gets dark red like a kidney bean. He whispers something in Bea’s ear.
Bea purses her lips. Her eyes get small and hard like the short end of a bullet. “Not if you expect to have another pineapple upside-down cake in your lifetime, buster.” Her shoulders swing as she says this.
He whispers again.
Her hands fly to her hips. She glares at him as the wind whips at her scarf.
“Now just you be still and let me do my job here, missus . . .” Darby turns back to us. “Here’s how we’re going to play this. Boat gets to Alcatraz, you stay put. All of you.” He carves a circle with his finger. “Won’t have no shenanigans on my watch. Not with the warden on board, you hear? And that goes double for you, missy.” He waggles his finger at Theresa.
“Yes, sir.” Theresa bounces nervously on her feet as we get closer to where Alcatraz rises out of the water with its layers of green moss and brown residue.
Trixle straightens his hat and ducks back into the cabin as he catches sight of Mae Capone.