Al Capone Shines My Shoes Read Online Free PDF

trash?”
    “Nope, never met the guy.” I know Scout would be impressed if I told him about the notes from Al, but then he’d tell everyone at school. This I don’t need. “There’s a thief and a con man who work in Piper’s house. Let’s go say hello,” I say as if I do this every day.
    Scout whistles long and low. “A con man, a thief, and a looker . . . what are we waiting for?”
    “Piper’s not a looker,” I snap.
    Scout grins out of one side of his mouth. “Don’t get all worked up now, Moose. I just said she was a looker. I didn’t say I was looking, now did I?”
    “If you weren’t looking, how’d you know she was a looker?”
    “Ahh, Moose.” Scout sighs. “You’re pretty far gone,” he declares as we walk up the switchback into the shadow of the cell house, a cement building big as a football field with three floors of prisoners inside. Scout, normally the fastest walker in the world, begins to slow his pace. “That’s where they keep ’em?” he whispers, pointing to the looming fortress.
    “Yep, that’s the cell house.”
    Scout looks around like he’s expecting snipers on the rooftops. “And you just walk out here like this?”
    “Unless we run.”
    Scout doesn’t smile. He’s all business now. “When I meet the con man and the thief, what do I say? I mean, do I shake hands?”
    “Don’t shake his stump. I don’t think it’s polite to shake a stump.”
    Scout’s eyes dart all around as he leans in to whisper, “Do I need a weapon?”
    “Uh-huh, they issue machine guns right at the door,” I tell him.
    “Right, Moose,” he says, but even his sarcasm is watered down as we perch on the doorstep of the warden’s twenty-two-room mansion, which stands directly opposite the cell house. Even after living here for six months, the cell house still gives me the creeps. It’s the bars and the sounds I sometimes hear. Hollers, curse words, and metal cups clanking against the bars. The cons aren’t supposed to talk, much less yell, but sometimes all heck breaks loose. That’s when it gets scary. Still, when we face Piper’s house, it feels like we’re on some fancy street in San Francisco.
    On Alcatraz, heaven is across from hell.
    Scout girds himself up. He stuffs his right hand in his pocket, as if he really does have a weapon in there. He’s ready to draw as I press the doorbell, but it’s only Piper’s pregnant mom who answers.
    Mrs. Williams has a round face, eyes the color of worn denim with dark shadows underneath, and the same full lips as Piper. Her pregnant stomach sticks up hard and round like a basketball under her sweater. I try not to look at her belly. It’s difficult not to think about how it got that way.
    “Mrs. Williams, this is my friend Scout McIlvey. He goes to school with us.”
    “Why, Scout.” Mrs. Williams shakes Scout’s hand. “What a nice surprise.”
    A little smile lights up Scout’s eyes.
    “Piper, honey, come on down, sweetheart,” Mrs. Williams calls up the grand staircase. Above her head hangs a spectacular chandelier, with a dozen glistening prisms. A ragtime record spins on the gramophone.
    Piper’s living room is bigger than our whole apartment. It’s twice as long, twice as wide, and twice as tall too.
    By the piano a man dressed in khaki pants, a white button-down shirt, and a narrow black tie holds a feather duster. His hair is short, yellow and tightly curled, and he’s wearing the kind of tortoiseshell spectacles that college professors and good spellers wear.
    “Buddy Boy, this is Scout McIlvey.” Mrs. Williams is just as warm with Buddy as she is with Scout. I’m not sure where Piper got her raspy edge, but it doesn’t seem to be from Mrs. Williams.
    Buddy Boy glides across the carpet and offers his hand to Scout, whose eyes dart in my direction. Scout sucks in a big breath and shakes Buddy Boy’s hand with his own trembling one. It’s easier to be sure of myself with Scout here getting nervous for me. I stick