Sutton - J. Moehringer R.

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After the Crash of 1893, the Panic of 1907, the smaller panic of 1911, the Depression of 1914, New York is rebuilding. Office towers are being erected, bridges are being laced across the rivers, tunnels are being laid underneath, and cash for all this epic growth comes from banks, which means Willie is engaged in a grand endeavor. He’s part of society, included in its mission, vested in its purposes—at last. He sleeps deeper, wakes more refreshed. Putting on his spats each morning he feels a giddy sense of relief that Eddie was wrong. The whole thing isn’t rigged.

      They pull up to the former home of Title Guaranty, a Romanesque Revival building on Remsen Street. Sutton looks at the arched third-floor windows where he used to sit with Happy and the other gophers. In one window someone has taped a sign. NIXON/AGNEW. This is where I had my first job, Sutton says. A bank robber whose first job was in a bank—imagine?

       Photographer shoots the building. He turns the camera, dials the lens, this way, that. Sutton shifts his gaze from the building to Photographer.

       You like your work, Sutton says. Don’t you kid?

       Photographer stops, gives a half turn. Yeah, he says over his shoulder. I do, Willie. I dig it. How can you tell?

       I can always tell when a man likes his work. What year were you born kid?

       Nineteen forty-three.

       Hm. Eventful year for me. Shit, they were all eventful. Where were you born?

       Roslyn, Long Island.

       You go to college?

       Yeah.

       Which one?

       I went to Princeton, Photographer says sheepishly.

       No kidding? Good school. I took a walk around the campus one morning. What did you study?

      History. I was going to be a professor, an academic, but sophomore year my parents made the fatal mistake of buying me a camera for Christmas. That was all she wrote. The only thing I cared about from then on was taking pictures. I wanted to capture history instead of reading about it.

       I’ll bet your folks were thrilled.

       Oh yeah. My father didn’t speak to me for about three months.

       What do you like so much about taking pictures?

       You say life’s all about Money and Love? I say it’s all about experiences.

       Is that so?

       And this camera helps me have all different kinds of experiences. This Leica gets me through locked doors, past police tape, over walls, barbed wire, barricades. It shows me the world, brother. Helps me bear witness.

       Witness. Is that so.

       Also, Willie, I dig telling the truth. Words can be twisted but a photo never lies.

       Sutton laughs.

       What’s funny? Photographer says.

       Nothing. Except—that’s pure horseshit kid. I can’t think of anything that lies more than a photo. In fact every photo is a dirty stinking lie because it’s a frozen moment—and time can’t be frozen. Some of the biggest lies I’ve ever run across have been photos. Some of them were of me.

      Photographer faces straight ahead, a slightly miffed look on his face. Willie, he says, all I know is, this camera took me to the bloodbath in Hue City. Tet Offensive—those aren’t just words in a book to me. It took me to Mexico City to see Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their fists. It took me to Memphis to see the chaos and the coverup after they shot King. No other way I would’ve gotten to see all those things. This camera lets me see, brother.

       Sutton looks at Reporter. How about you kid?

       How about me?

       Did you always want to be a reporter?

       Yes.

       How come?

       I’m a yeshiva student from the Bronx—in what other job would I get to spend the day with America’s greatest bank robber?

       FBI agent.

       I don’t like guns.

       Me neither.

       I admit, Mr. Sutton, some days I don’t love this job. No one reads anymore.

       I do nothing but read.

       You’re the exception. TV is going to make us all extinct. Also, a newsroom isn’t exactly the happiest place on earth. It’s sort of a snake pit. Politics, backstabbing, jealousy.

       That’s one nice thing about crooks, Sutton says. No professional jealousy. A crook reads about another crook making off with millions, he’s happy for the guy. Crooks root for each other.

       Except when they kill each other.

       True.

       Tell him about editors, Photographer says to Reporter.

       What about them? Sutton says.

       They can be a real pain in the ass, Reporter says into his lap.

       Sutton lights a Chesterfield. What about your editor? In what way is he a pain in the ass?

       He says I have a face that begs to be lied to.

       Ouch. And what did he say when he sent you off to spend the day with Willie?

       Photographer laughs, looks out his window. Reporter looks out his.

       Go on kid. You can tell me.

       My editor said I had three jobs today, Mr. Sutton. Get you on the record about Arnold Schuster. Don’t let another reporter or photographer near you. And don’t lose you.

       Sutton blows a cloud of smoke over Reporter’s head. Then you’re fucked kid.

       Why?

       You’ve already lost me. I’m back in 1917.

      Willie standing in the vault. It’s larger than his bedroom on Thirteenth Street, and it’s filled, floor to ceiling, with money. He gazes at the tightly wrapped bills, the strongboxes of gold coins, the racks of gleaming silver. He inhales—better than a candy store. He never realized how much he loved money. He couldn’t afford to realize.

      He loads a wheeled cart with cash and coins, slowly rolls the cart along the cages, filling the tellers’ drawers. He feels all-powerful, a Brooklyn King Solomon dispensing gifts from his mine. Before returning the cart he cradles a brick of fifties. With this one brick he could buy a shiny new motorcar, a house for his parents. He could book a cabin on the next liner sailing to France. He slides one fifty out of the pack, holds it to the light. That dashing portrait of Ulysses Grant, those green curlicues in the corners, those silver-blue letters: Will Pay to the Bearer On Demand. Who knew the fifty was such a work of art? They should hang one in a museum. He slides the bill carefully back into the pack, sets the pack back in its place on the shelf.

      Evenings, after work, Willie sits on a bench in the park and reads Horatio Alger novels, devours them one after another. They’re all the same—the hero rises from nothing to become rich, loved, respected—and that’s exactly what Willie loves about them. The predictability of the plot, the inevitability of the hero’s

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