Al Capone Does My Shirts Read Online Free PDF Page A

I say, although I know this is a cheap shot.
    My father catches the ball and waits a beat before returning a stinger. I’m surprised how hard and fast it is. It stings my hand through my glove. “If you want to talk about yourself, that’s fine. But I’m not going to discuss your sister.”
    “Does the warden know?”
    “Does the warden know what?”
    “About Natalie.”
    “Of course.”
    “What’s he want to talk to me about, then?”
    “Just wants to meet you is my guess. It’s decent of him to take the time to talk to you, Moose.”
    “Have you met his daughter?”
    “Piper, yes. Seems like quite a nice young lady.”
    I blow air out of my mouth and roll my eyes.
    He laughs. “The pretty ones are always trouble, Moose, but I think you can handle her.” He winks at me.
    “She told me she was going to tell the warden about Natalie.”
    “Like I said, he already knows.”
    “She wasn’t nice,” I say.
    “Sounds to me like she was just trying to help out her dad. No crime there.”
    “Tell me again why we can’t go home?”
    “We saw where that was going, Moose. Natalie sitting on Gram’s back step counting her buttons day after day. We wanted to see—just see—if there was another way. This school has skilled teachers working with these kids around the clock. It’s an impressive place.”
    The gulls are starting to edge closer now. I stamp my foot and they scatter.
    “You saw how she was when we left.”
    “Change is hard. It’s hard for you, it’s hard for me, it’s murder on your sister.” His voice breaks.
    “You heard her screaming, Dad—”
    My dad’s hands go up to block my words. “Look, son,” he interrupts, “I can’t talk about this anymore.”
    “I want to know for certain this is going to work out.”
    My dad sighs. He looks out at the water to where they’re building the Bay Bridge—two toothpicks held together by a thread of steel. He’s quiet for a long time. “Nobody knows how things will turn out, that’s why they go ahead and play the game, Moose. You give it your all and sometimes amazing things happen, but it’s hardly ever what you expect.
    “Now”—he checks his watch—“you can’t go see the warden looking like that. Go put on a clean shirt.”
    “I don’t have one.”
    “Clean er then. We don’t put the laundry out until Wednesday. Comes back Monday.”
    “Mom doesn’t have to do it?”
    He shakes his head. “The convicts do the washing here.”
    “The convicts wash my shirts, as in murderer convicts and kidnapper convicts, and then I’m supposed to wear them?”
    He laughs.
    “They darn socks too?”
    “Yes, as a matter of fact. Do a better job than your mom too. Though don’t you dare tell her I said that.”
    “Murderers outsew my mother?”
    “Apparently so.” My dad laughs.

6. Sucker
    Same day—Sunday, January 6, 1935
     
     
    I’m walking by the cell house now. Row after row of dark barred windows, all spooky quiet. What goes on in there?
    I know the convicts aren’t allowed to talk, but how could some 300 men not make more sound? Just breathing makes noise, you know. And all those windows? The cons don’t sit around watching us . . . do they?
    Across the road from the cell house is a fancy mansion with flowerpots on the steps and curtains in the windows. The only thing missing from the house is a lawn and a tree. That’s the only tip this is Alcatraz. There’s nothing but cement clear up to the door. Even so, it’s strange how one side of the road is so different from the other—high society on the left, grim and grisly on the right. But somehow this seems like the perfect place for Piper.
    I trip going up the steps and have to brush myself off and tuck my shirt in again. I comb my hair with my hand, take a deep breath and ring the bell. The door opens a split second later and there is the warden rising to fill the doorway. “Young Mr. Flanagan,” he says.
    “Yes, sir,” I say.
    “Just making myself a cup of tea.