Sweet Mercy (9 page)

“A nickel for three shots,” the carny replied. He was a weathered man with leathery skin and a mouth full of broken teeth. His arms were tattooed from shoulder to wrist, and three of his fingers were missing on his left hand. One glance at him sent a shiver down my spine.

Marcus pulled a nickel from his pocket and dropped it into the carny's outstretched hand, the one with the fingers
intact. The carny handed him a rifle and stepped aside. Marcus lifted the rifle so that the butt nestled against his right shoulder. He held the barrel in his left hand while the index finger of his right hand curled around the trigger. He peered over the barrel, taking aim at the toy ducks lined up at the back of the booth. I held my breath and waited. He fired the first blank; the ducks remained unruffled. He fired the second. Nothing. Three times Marcus fired and three times not a single duck budged.

“Aw, too bad,” Marlene said.

“I told you it was rigged,” Jimmy added.

“Never mind,” I said. “It doesn't matter.”

Before Marcus could hand the rifle over, a man came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Let me show you how it's done.”

When the man turned toward me I recognized him. “Link!” I cried. “What are you doing here?”

He motioned us back with a wave of his arms. “Step aside. Don't want anybody getting hurt.”

“You know this guy?” Marcus asked.

“I met him once,” I said. Then, more quietly, “He's just a bum who hangs around the lodge looking for food.”

Link reached into the pocket of his overalls and pulled out a nickel.
How is it,
I thought,
that a bum has a nickel? And why is he wasting money on a silly carnival game when he could be using it for food?

I reached for Marcus's arm. “Come on,” I said. “I want to ride the carousel.”

“All right.”

Link took a shot. One duck flew off the shelf. I tugged at Marcus's elbow. “Come on,” I said again.

Another shot, another flying duck.

Link turned and looked at Marcus. For a moment they held each other's gaze. I clenched my fists until my nails dug into the soft flesh of my palms.

Link fired off his last shot. One more duck flew upward. Jimmy laughed and Marlene cheered. I glared at Link.

“The game's rigged,” Marcus said.

“Maybe,” Link said, “but I'm still a good shot.”

“Come on, Marcus.” I pulled at his arm.

Finally Marcus turned away. I offered Link a parting frown as we walked off toward the carousel, trailed by Jimmy and Marlene. I had half a mind not to give Link any food next time he came around with his empty stomach and hangdog look. Anyone with spare change in his pocket didn't need to beg.

Once we reached the carousel, I forgot all about the bum from the shantytown. I'd always loved the carousel, the calliope music, the up-and-down and round-and-round of the colorful horses. Who could ride a carousel and not be happy? And now, I was all the more so because Marcus was on the horse beside me.

Every time we made the loop, Marcus reached toward the ring dispenser. On our third time around, he captured one of the rings and held it up in triumph.

“It's the brass!” he hollered, slipping it into his shirt pocket. “I'll let you use it for a free ride.”

But he forgot. We both forgot, until we got back to the lodge in the early evening and he found it still in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at it with chagrin. “I meant to let you use it,” he said. “How did I get so sidetracked?”

“As soon as the ride was over,” I said, “Marlene insisted
she wanted a snow cone, and she wanted it right that minute, remember?”

“Oh yeah.” He laughed lightly.

“And then we forgot to go back,” I added.

“Well, here.” He gave me the ring. “You can have it as a souvenir.”

I smiled. “It was a wonderful day, Marcus. Thanks.”

He offered a shy grin and glanced around. The porch was crowded with guests relaxing, rocking, reading the newspaper, puffing on cigarettes. One little boy pushed a wooden truck around our feet. Marcus shrugged and smiled sheepishly. “Well, good night, Eve,” he said. “I'll be seeing you.”

“Good night, Marcus.”

With a quick nod, he hurried off the porch and around the lodge to the parking lot where Jimmy waited to take him home. In another moment I heard the horn of Jimmy's Tin Lizzie cutting through the summer air to bid me one last good-night.
Aarruga!

I clasped the carousel ring in both hands and held it to my heart. Then I stepped into the front hall and moved toward the stairs. Uncle Cy was behind the desk.

“Ah, Eve, how was the carnival?” he asked. “Did you have a good day?”

“It was the best day imaginable,” I said.

“Shall we start planning a wedding?”

“Not yet.”

Uncle Cy laughed. “Well, be sure to let me know so we can reserve the dining room for the reception.”

“I will.”

I walked up the stairs like one in a dream, my sails swelled
by what I could only imagine was the breath of passion as I moved down the hall to my room.

My treasure box sat in solitary abandon on the dresser. I had ignored it lately, but now I had something to tuck inside. I picked it up and gazed momentarily at the floral pattern carved into the hinged lid. Mother and Daddy had given me this teakwood treasure box on September 21, 1923, my ninth birthday, though it would be nearly a year before I laid my first treasure inside. Now, I opened the lid, kissed the brass ring, and tenderly placed it on the velvet lining next to the only other item there.

My fingers touched the lid, but I hesitated. That other item . . . maybe it no longer belonged. Maybe I should put it somewhere else. Or give it away. Or drop it in the trash.

I picked it up and held it in the palm of my hand. Why had I kept this little ivory elephant all these years? Should I keep it now, as though it were something delightful, like the brass ring from Marcus? It had been given to me by a very bad man, an evil man. And yet, that was what had always puzzled me. I hadn't known then who he was. I'd known only that he was a stranger who stopped to show kindness to a little girl one summer day in 1924. . . .

I
'd begged Daddy for weeks for a pair of roller skates and, though we never seemed to have much money for extras, he somehow scraped together enough to present me with a pair of skates on the first day of summer in 1924. He said they were a reward for earning all As in the fourth grade, in spite of our move from Detroit in the middle of the school year.

The skates were a brand-new pair of Winchesters, shiny silver with bright red wheels and red leather straps to go around my ankles. I sat right down and slid the toes of my Keds between the metal clasps, then buckled the straps. Daddy tightened the skates with the key, which Mother then put on a shoestring so I could wear it around my neck. I spent all afternoon skating up and down the sidewalk in front of our apartment building and never once fell down. I fancied myself a natural athlete, so much so that over the next few weeks I dreamed of being a famous ballroom roller dancer or maybe even a movie star who skated her
way through musicals, singing and dancing flawlessly on wheels.

My skates and I became inseparable. I took them everywhere, even to my best friend Ariel's party when she turned ten. She knew she'd be getting her own pair of Winchesters for her birthday, and she asked me to stay after the party so we could go skating together.

Ariel's family lived in the upstairs portion of a duplex on Arundel Street, not far from the Commodore Hotel. Since its opening four years earlier, the hotel had attracted the rich and the famous, and was particularly well-known for the wild parties thrown there by F. Scott Fitzgerald and his eccentric flapper wife Zelda. That meant little to me, as I knew nothing about being either rich or famous and was certainly not acquainted with the people who were. I was just a kid with a pair of red-wheeled skates that summer day in 1924.

Once her new skates were attached to her shoes, Ariel became timid and uncertain and so moved along the sidewalk at a cautionary pace. I, on the other hand, was a cannonball to her tumbleweed, which made me feel rather superior, since I was still nine years old to her ten.

We skated south on Arundel to Holly Avenue and turned left toward Western Avenue. That whole corner was occupied by the Commodore, a huge multistory redbrick fortress with a gated courtyard in front. By the time I'd turned onto Western, I was half a block ahead of Ariel and gleefully racing forward in a reckless blaze of glory. I was passing the wrought-iron gates that led into the courtyard when it happened. The wheels of my right skate met a buckled crack in the sidewalk, and before I even knew I was in trouble, I was
airborne like a ballplayer stealing home plate. After a split-second freefall, I skidded onto the pavement, ripping the hem of my party dress and scraping the skin off both knees. I was stunned senseless. I heard Ariel calling my name—“Eve! Are you all right?”—but I couldn't answer. It took me a few long moments to gather my wits and turn over. I sat with my legs sprawled in front of me, saw the torn flesh of my kneecaps and the blood oozing out of the wounds, and that's when the pain set in, along with the humiliation. I started to cry, and through my tears I saw Ariel pawing her way clumsily toward me, pounding the sidewalk like someone smashing grapes instead of gliding on the wheels beneath her. I wanted to laugh at her but couldn't. I'd been so smug about my skating, yet here I was, on the ground with tattered knees and—I finally noticed—palms furrowed with scratches and dusty white with concrete, which made me cry all the more.

I didn't want anyone to see me like that, but, of all the rotten luck, the heavy wrought-iron gate of the Commodore squeaked open on its hinges, and three men stepped out of the courtyard and onto the sidewalk. One walked out in front while the other two shadowed him like wings. The one in front was a heavyset man smoking a newly lit cigar. He wore a white double-breasted suit, a white fedora, and black-and-white wingtip shoes. The only color on him was the black parts of his shoes and the rose-colored silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. When he saw me, he stopped and squatted down, his great weight balanced on the balls of his feet. He pulled the cigar from his mouth and tossed it aside. “Hey, kid, you all right?” he asked, his shaggy brows knit, his gray eyes tender with a kind of fatherly concern.

I tried to nod but I could do little more than stare at this oversized angel hunched clumsily beside me. I stared not just because he was there, but because his face was so badly scarred, as though a three-fingered monster had clawed him, leaving gouges from his left ear almost all the way to his mouth.

“You all right, kid?” he asked again, and though I saw his purplish lips move, I still couldn't answer. His raised his brows and gazed at me quizzically.

He must have decided my tears were the only answer he was going to get, because he shrugged and lifted a hand toward one of the dark-suited men. Though he didn't say a word, the man knew what he wanted. A handkerchief was put into the pudgy fist of my rescuer, who used it to dab at my bloody knees. It hurt, but I didn't want to say so. The tears were still flowing and my nose was leaking, and since I had nothing to wipe my face with, I tried vainly to sniff everything back inside. The sound was so pitiful, the man in white held up his hand again, and the second shadow handed over
his
handkerchief, which the angel gave to me with the word, “Blow.”

I blew my nose and wiped away my tears. By now, Ariel had caught up with us; she stood slack-jawed on the sidewalk, staring at the scene unraveling before her.

“Listen,” the man said, “why don't you give the skates a rest and walk home? That the key?” He pointed to the key on the shoestring around my neck.

I nodded. He lifted the key over my head and unlocked the skates. Then he slipped them off my feet and laid them aside. “Anyway,” he went on, “I think the bleeding's stopped.
Why don't you go on home and have your mother put some iodine on these cuts?”

“All right,” I said shakily, finally able to respond. I glanced at Ariel. I knew she was staring at the man's scars and wondering about his peculiar accent. He sounded like he'd come from somewhere out east, like New Jersey.

The man stood and adjusted his fedora. One of the shadows grabbed my wrists and pulled me up. Neither he nor the other shadow ever said a word; they simply stood there looking impatient and annoyed.

When I was back up on my feet, the angel said, “You gotta be more careful, little lady.”

I nodded again, meekly. “I will,” I promised.

A long sleek car pulled up to the curb, and one of the shadows opened the back door. The man in white took a step forward, then stopped and turned to me. “Say, you like elephants?” he asked.

I was so shaken by the penetrating eyes, the scars, the whole imposing white figure that I couldn't speak till Ariel nudged me in the ribs. “Sure,” I said. “I like elephants.”

He reached into the pocket of his slacks like he was searching for spare change, but what he pulled out was a miniature ivory elephant, hardly bigger than a radish. “Here you go, kid,” he said. “It'll bring you good luck.”

I held up a trembling hand, and he laid the elephant in my palm. I stared at it, afraid to lift my eyes. “Thank you,” I whispered.

I was hardly aware of the men climbing into the car, but when the doors slammed shut, I realized I was still clutching the handkerchiefs. “Hey, mister!” I yelled. I knocked on the back window until it rolled down. The man's face appeared
without the fedora. His thinning brown hair was brushed straight back and his forehead glistened with sweat. His right side was toward me so the scars were largely hidden.

“Don't you want your handkerchiefs back?” I held them up. They were soiled with blood, mucus, and tears.

The man looked at the other fellows in the car and laughed heartily. Then he turned back to me. “Naw, you keep them,” he said. “Another little gift from your friends in Chicago.”

The window rolled up and the car moved down the street. Ariel and I looked after the car until it disappeared.

Her voice lilting with awe, Ariel asked, “Who was that?”

I shrugged. “I don't know. But he was nice.”

“Yeah. Let's go home. Mom will put some iodine and bandages on your knees.”

Six years would pass before I could identify the man outside the Commodore Hotel. In all that time I didn't have a clue and had almost forgotten about him until his smiling face appeared on the March 24, 1930, cover of
Time
magazine. With one eyebrow raised and a rose in his lapel, he looked cocky and self-assured, as though he'd just been named Man of the Year. I'd seen smaller photos of him in the papers, but with his life-sized mug on the magazine cover, his now infamous scars were glaringly apparent. He was well-known for his dealings in bootlegging, gambling, racketeering, and prostitution. He was also a ruthless murderer, as well as the prime suspect behind the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929 when seven of Bugs Moran's men were gunned down in a warehouse in cold blood. He'd been named Public Enemy Number One by the Chicago Crime Commission and nicknamed Scarface by the newspapers. By 1930 both his name and his nickname were household
words, but I didn't connect him to my corpulent angel until I saw the cover of
Time
.

Ariel and I stared at that cover a good long while, unable to believe that the man who'd helped me when I fell was Al Capone.