Al Capone Shines My Shoes

On Friday, Moose, Jimmy, and Theresa wait on the dock for Natalie and Mr. and Mrs. Flanagan to arrive on the 4:00 ferry. Jimmy seems pleased to hear that Scout will not be coming that weekend, and that Moose will not be visiting him. He tells Moose that his flies have been breeding incessantly, and that he now has about 50,000 in his collection.

Theresa claims that “everybody” thinks it was Piper who falsely accused their fathers, and Jimmy suggests that Moose have a serious talk with her. They argue, and Moose discovers that Theresa has told her brother about his and Piper’s kiss.

After the ferry docks, Natalie makes the metal detector alarm go off, and Darby Trixle, who is in the guard tower, orders Mr. Mattaman to search her things. Grudgingly, Natalie hands over her suitcase, impressing Moose and his mother with her compliance, which reflects the progress she has made at her school. Her father and Mr. Mattaman determine that it was a few metal buttons in her suitcase that made the alarm go off, and Cam waves the all-clear to the guard tower.

At home, Natalie avoids her parents and settles in by running her hands over familiar objects. Mr. and Mrs. Flanagan, invited to see Mrs. Caconi’s new icebox, ask Moose to look after Natalie. He and Theresa help her unpack her things, while Jimmy complains about Piper and asks when Moose is going to talk to her. Natalie’s yellow dress now has seven “good day” buttons sewn onto it. Picking up one of her socks, Moose finds something heavy inside it: an enormous metal screw. When Natalie sees it, she mumbles, “Bottom drawer.” Jimmy recognizes it as a “bar spreader,” a tool used to push prison bars apart. They realize that it was this that set the metal detector off and that their fathers could be fired if the authorities find out they overlooked it. Questioning Natalie, they find out that a former convict—Alcatraz 105, aka “Onion”—gave it to her, and instructed her to put it in her bottom drawer, presumably so another con could retrieve it and use it in a jailbreak. Natalie, who considers 105 her friend, refuses to say how he contacted her.

Moose tries to think of a way to smuggle the bar spreader outside so he can throw it in the bay, but Natalie refuses to relinquish it, mumbling, “Bottom drawer,” over and over. Moose cuts five gold buttons off his best suit jacket to give to her as a bribe, but she still won’t let go. Calmly and gently, Theresa coaxes her into giving up the bar spreader. By now, however, Moose’s parents are back. Unable to leave the apartment, he puts the bar spreader in a bag and asks Jimmy to throw it into the bay. After Jimmy leaves, Moose realizes, with horror, that someone will soon be looking for it in Natalie’s bottom drawer.

The next day, Moose feels more carefree than he has in a while, due to the summery weather. His mood quickly changes, however, when his parents tell him that Seven Fingers will be coming that day to work on the plumbing. It seems to Moose that the toilet has been working fine, and he suspects that the axe murderer’s true purpose is to collect the bar spreader.

Seven Fingers arrives with Darby Trixle. Darby, who is supposed to monitor Seven Fingers while he works, instead stretches out on the living room sofa. While Cam talks politics with Darby, Moose decides to check up on Seven Fingers. Finding the bathroom empty, he peers into Natalie’s bedroom, and, with terror, sees that her dresser’s bottom drawer is open. Seven Fingers’s shadowy form slips from Natalie’s room back into the bathroom. Shakily, Moose warns him to leave his sister alone, but the axe murderer whispers, “We know where she sleeps” (154).

Unsure whether Seven Fingers’s threat referred to Natalie’s bedroom in Building 64 or the Marinoff School—or both—Moose asks to speak with his father alone. The two of them walk down to the water, and Moose suggests to him that Natalie may be unsafe at her school. Specifically, he says he’s worried about convict 105, a former gardener who was released from Terminal Island a few weeks prior. When his father asks him why he thinks 105 (or “Onion”) might be visiting Natalie at school, Moose can’t bring himself to tell his father the truth, so he fibs, saying he had a nightmare about it. With a sigh of relief, Cam tells him that he has nothing to worry about: No one would kidnap Natalie, he says, because the family has no money. He tells Moose that the island is safe as well, since the cellhouse is “sealed up tight as a drum” (156).

When Moose reminds him that the creepy Seven Fingers is often in their house, Cam shrugs that their plumbing needs frequent work and they can’t afford an outside plumber. Still, he praises Moose for his wisdom. Years ago, he says, a doctor told him that Natalie’s condition might be contagious and that he should send her away. He refused to accept that misdiagnosis and sought out other doctors, whose differing view turned out to be the correct one. He adds that he has few worries or regrets about Natalie: “Just because she doesn’t see the world like you or me doesn’t mean she isn’t getting just as much out of life as we do” (158).

Resolved to confront Piper about her possible involvement in the fathers’ probation, Moose is dismayed when his mother asks him to stay home and watch Natalie while she goes off to teach a piano lesson. However, he manages to talk his parents into letting him bring Natalie along to Piper’s, though his mother doesn’t trust Piper and worries about his attachment to her.

At the Williams’s, Moose is perplexed by the “disarray” of the house, and by Piper’s unkempt appearance. Natalie fixes her eyes on Molly, the pet mouse of Willy One Arm, while Moose unsuccessfully tries to attract the attention of Piper, who is playing checkers with Buddy Boy. Piper asks Buddy if her mother is “okay,” and he smoothly assures her that she’s “fine.” Worried about Natalie’s single-minded focus on the mouse, which might lead to a fit, Moose steers her to the door, which finally gets Piper’s attention. She follows them outside, and Moose asks her if she had anything to do with the false accusations against his father and Mr. Mattaman. With a blank look, Piper says, “Maybe.”

Moose realizes that he was naïve to tell others that she was probably innocent: Lying, he realizes, is second nature to her, and she always gets away with it, because she’s the warden’s daughter. Piper tells Moose that he “deserved” to be punished, because he didn’t stand up for her against Theresa in the passageway. Sneeringly, she mocks Moose’s desire to be liked by everyone: “Nobody can ever be mad at poor little Moosey” (166). When Moose demands that she tell the truth, she refuses. Just as Moose begins to lose his temper, Piper offers him a deal: She’ll tell her father that she made a “mistake” about the drinking, if he agrees to do a (as yet unspecified) favor for her. Repelled by her duplicity, Moose still thinks she is beautiful, and kisses her.

At that moment, Theresa appears with her brother, interrupting them yet again. Piper goes inside and angrily slams the door. Breathlessly, Theresa and Jimmy tell him the latest crisis: Jimmy tried to throw the bar spreader into the bay but could not cast it far enough, and Janet Trixle found it on the sand. Not knowing what it is, Janet has decorated it like a “barber’s pole” and is using it as the center pole of her pixies’ toy carousel.

The three children rush to the Trixles’, trying to come up with a plan to get the bar spreader back from Janet. Even if it’s not traced to Natalie, Moose says, it’s a dangerous thing to leave lying around, where people like Seven Fingers could get their hands on it. However, no one answers the Trixles’ door, which is locked—unusual for Alcatraz, where all the “bad guys” are safely pent up and so no one worries much about crime.

Jimmy, embarrassed over his failure to dispose of the bar spreader, accuses Moose of pretending not to be angry at him for it: “You tell me what you think I want to hear, same as you tell everyone else” (171). Finally, Moose admits that he wishes Jimmy liked baseball more. Jimmy, shouting that he thought Moose was “different,” storms off, shocking Theresa, who says that Jimmy only ever gets angry at her.

The Trixles do not return that evening, and the next morning, the island is in a frenzy of preparation for that night’s big fete for Eliot Ness and J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI. Moose visits the canteen and learns from Bea that Janet has gone to Monterey to see her cousins. In the afternoon, Piper and Annie drop in on Moose. Piper has thought up a way for Moose to “pay” her back: At the big party for Ness and Hoover that night, she wants him to help her spy on Capone, who will be serving as a server. She has already arranged, through her father, for Natalie to be watched by Mrs. Caconi, so Moose will be free.

Moose argues that if they’re caught sneaking around, they’ll be kicked off the island, but Piper is undeterred, griping that her gender is the only reason she’s not being allowed to sit at her father’s table in the first place. If Moose refuses, she says, she’ll get his father fired, just as she got him put on probation. Stunned to hear this, Annie agrees that Moose has no choice.

The fancy dinner party has been prepared for Hoover, the director of the FBI, and Eliot Ness, the lawman who put Al Capone behind bars. Moose’s father reminds him to come straight home after Piper and Annie finish their singing performance, so he can take Natalie off Mrs. Caconi’s hands. Moose nods hopelessly, wishing he could tell his father why he’ll be late. Fortunately, Jimmy and Theresa have agreed to help Caconi watch Natalie while Moose is stuck with Piper.

At the Officers’ Club, where the dinner is being held, the upper floor has been transformed into a performance area. Annie plays piano for the guests, while Piper sings off-key. After the girls take their bows, the piano hall is swiftly converted into a restaurant. Piper secretly leads Moose downstairs and into a cupboard that conceals a secret stairway, a remnant from when the Officers’ Club was a postage exchange. At the top of the stairs, through the slats of a boarded-up entrance, Moose and Piper spy into the kitchen, where convicts dressed as cooks and servers prepare the food. Piper is thrilled to recognize Al Capone, unmistakable even in his server’s outfit. Capone glides by with two plates of mashed potatoes meant for the two guests of honor, J. Edgar Hoover and Eliot Ness. When the guards aren’t looking, Capone spits into the contents of both plates, stirring the spit in with his finger. Moose moves to leave, since the agreed-upon 20 minutes have passed; but, by threatening to scream, Piper cajoles him into sneaking with her into a closet by the banquet hall, so she can watch Ness and Hoover eat Capone’s spit.

At one of the tables, Moose sees his parents, the Trixles, the warden, and Hoover and Ness. Oddly, Piper’s mother is not among them. Al Capone serves Hoover and Ness their plates of food. After Willy One Arm pours wine for the guests of honor, the warden rises to his feet. Mischievously, he hands J. Edgar Hoover back his wallet, which was pickpocketed during the dinner, presumably by Willy One Arm. The warden tells Hoover that, with these clever convicts, it would be a “bad idea” to cut back on Alcatraz’s guards.

Sneaking back down to the basement, Moose and Piper are at a loss for how to cross the grounds and get back home without being seen by Mr. Mattaman, who is in the guard tower. Finally, Piper shouts a bold lie to Mr. Mattaman that her singing performance kept them out late, and the two of them are able to reach the Mattamans’ without getting into trouble.

Inside, a panicked Mrs. Caconi tells them that Natalie has disappeared. Jimmy and Theresa make excuses for losing track of Natalie: Theresa says she went into the bathroom for just a minute, and Jimmy says he was practicing his baseball throwing—presumably to make Moose like him more. Theresa remembers Natalie talking about Molly, Willy One Arm’s mouse, so the four of them decide to look for her at Piper’s house. Piper tries to bar them from entering, but Moose goes round to the back door, which is unlocked. Inside, he sees Mrs. Williams lying on a bed in the kitchen, evidently very sick.

Piper, who has found Natalie in another room, catches Moose trying to sneak back out the door, and bursts into angry tears, saying repeatedly that her mother is “fine.” Moose tries to agree with her, but this further enrages Piper, who lashes out at him, saying that everyone hates him. She accuses him of treating Jimmy like an “imbecile” just because he doesn’t like baseball; as for Annie, he only likes her because she has a great throwing arm. Claiming that stupidity runs in Moose’s family, Piper shouts an insult into Natalie’s face. Moose’s anger at her is mitigated by his memory of Mrs. Williams’s pale, ravaged face. When he and Natalie get back to 64 Building, Mrs. Mattaman scolds him for breaking curfew. Moose asks her if Mrs. Williams is going to be all right. With evident distress, she says she doesn’t know.