A Bandit's Tale Read online

  Maybe she’s spent all her money already. Maybe there’s nothing left in her wallet. But her bag wasn’t full. Most likely, she was on her way to the baker or butcher. No, this young woman still had money to spend. I could almost smell it.

  I was just about to make my move when, from the corner of my eye, I spotted a girl standing at the edge of the street. Something about her made me think of Meddlin’ Mary. I looked more closely.

  It was her! Only this time Mary Hallanan wasn’t busy recording the location of a rut in the road or hollering at the driver of a cart.

  She was crying.

  The Irish girl was standing over a horse in the gutter. If not already dead, the wasted, emaciated animal was surely about to expire. At that moment, Mary looked up, tears staining her cheeks, fists clenched by her sides. For an instant, I thought she recognized me. Then I realized she wasn’t seeing me, or anyone.

  The look on her face brought me back to the day that had changed everything—to the landlord’s yard in Calvello. To that moment when, all because of Old Biter, I’d caught sight of another girl with a face so desperately sad. That girl had been Anna’s friend Rosa.

  The memory was so strong I must have closed my eyes against it. For the next thing I knew, I tripped, plunging forward. I was so close to the young woman with the wallet—the moll I was about to buzz—that my foot kicked the back of her heel by accident.

  She whirled, instantly alarmed, ready to beat off a pickpocket. She was a head taller than me. As she raised her arm, the glimmering gold locket around her neck suddenly swung loose, dangling before my eyes.

  It was large and bright, a perfect heart shape on a slender gold chain. I didn’t even think. It was more like my baby brother, Vito, reaching out for a sunbeam. In a flash, I grabbed at it. It felt warm and smooth in my hand.

  It was instinct—the action of a split second. I didn’t mean to steal it. Or did I? I can’t say for sure.

  Just as I caught the glittering heart, the young woman jerked her head backward.

  Snap!

  The chain broke. The locket was in my hand.

  “Stop! Thief!”

  Now that I had it, I didn’t want to let go. It was gold. It might be worth enough to get me home.

  I started to run.

  —

  It isn’t easy to run on a crowded sidewalk, I can tell you that. I swept around a man with a cane, a woman toting a baby, a peddler selling candies on a tray. I ducked down, then darted a few steps into the road, Mary and the horse behind me now.

  The corner. If I could just reach the corner, I could bolt across the street and melt into an alley. I panted. I was a whirlwind of motion, like a runaway cart careening through traffic. People leapt out of my way. They cursed and shouted at me.

  I was almost at the corner when I felt someone grab my arm.

  Whack! He pushed.

  Crash! I hit the sidewalk, both hands splayed in front of me. My triangle slipped out of my pocket and made a jangling sound on the pavement. But the gold chain was still entwined in my fingers.

  The man was big and burly, his face red as a pepper. Still holding tightly to my arm, he pulled me roughly to my feet. He pried the locket out of my hand.

  “Gotcha,” the man exclaimed, breathing hard. He started marching me off. I turned, meaning to pick up my little musical instrument. It was too late. A small boy darted in and grabbed it. Anything here could be sold for a few pennies.

  “You won’t squirm out of this one.” The man shook me hard. “I caught you red-handed.”

  He was a copper. I was done for.

  CHAPTER 15

  A long chapter detailing the dire consequences of the preceding misadventure and introducing several new personages

  My trial was over in minutes. The copper presented his evidence. The judge asked me a few questions, making himself understood (barely) by sprinkling a few Italian words into his English.

  He wanted to know if I had family here in America. I shook my head. He made some marks on a paper. To him, I was just one of hundreds of orphans and homeless children on the streets of the Lower East Side.

  The judge didn’t inquire about my padrone or seem to notice the scar on my lip. It struck me that people outside of Little Italy probably didn’t even know what that brand meant. After all, street kids were always getting into scrapes and had the scars to show for it.

  Besides, boys like me were as invisible as you could get. Most people didn’t see the poor, any more than they noticed the broken-down horses pulling streetcars.

  Most people. But not all. Meddlin’ Mary might not see kids like me, yet she did notice everything about those horses. If I hadn’t spotted Mary’s stricken face that day, I could’ve easily plucked that moll’s wallet. Instead of being arrested, I’d have had more dollars to add to my secret stash in the alley and been further along in my grand scheme to get home.

  Mary Hallanan always seemed to bring me trouble.

  Eventually someone translated the verdict for me. I was sentenced to a year in the House of Refuge, an institution of reform on Randall’s Island. It was, I was told, a place where I’d learn to mend my ways, give up my life of crime, and become a productive member of society.

  I had no idea what that meant. Yet I knew one thing: If I was locked up for a year, Papa and Mama wouldn’t see a dime from my padrone. And they’d probably think I was dead.

  —

  This new chapter in my history began on a blustery day in early October. A policeman rode with me in a cart to a dock near East 118th Street in Harlem, in Upper Manhattan. There he turned me over to an older man with twinkling brown eyes, who led me to a rowboat.

  “Let me lean on your shoulder as we get in, there’s a good lad,” the man said, untying the boat from its mooring. “This knee ain’t what it used to be. I’m Officer Reilly from the House of Refuge. Let’s get out of this wind and over to Randall’s Island, shall we?”

  Officer Reilly chattered as we crossed the narrow stretch of water, pointing out all the sights as he rowed. I sat facing him in the boat.

  “This here is the Harlem River,” he called. “It’s not much of a river to speak of, though it is deep enough for small boats to navigate. Randall’s Island, where we’re headed, is just there to the east. Well, you can see that for yourself, I expect.”

  I nodded. I even found the corners of my mouth turning up into a smile. I hadn’t smiled for a long time, but there was something about Officer Reilly that made me feel better. Maybe it was that he wasn’t treating me like a criminal, but like an ordinary boy enjoying a row on the river.

  “Bronx Kill!” Officer Reilly jerked one oar to call my attention to the north. “The Bronx is on the other side. Me and my wife live in a nice neighborhood there. Raised two lovely girls, we did.”

  I smiled again, though I wasn’t exactly sure what he was talking about, especially as I remembered that Carlo had once told me “kill” meant to murder. Later, though, I found out that “kill” is an old term for a narrow body of water.

  “Now we’re coming up to it—this gigantic fortress of a place is the House of Refuge,” he went on, pointing at the large brick building close to the shore of the island. It towered over the few trees nearby.

  “Big, ain’t it?” Seeing my look of horror, he chuckled.

  “Aw, lad, it’s not that scary. You’ll be fine there,” he assured me. “Lots of nice boys. Just’ve had a hard start in life, they have. I imagine it’s no different for you, wherever you’ve come from.”

  —

  Now that Officer Reilly has started us off, I may as well continue the tour of my new home: the House of Refuge. The whole complex must’ve been nearly a thousand feet long. The main building, for boys, was indeed enormous, with three big domes and dozens of large arched windows. I later learned it could hold more than four hundred boys. Next to it was a smaller building for girls, though I never went inside it.

  The boys’ building had dormitories, a chapel, a dining hal
l, classrooms, a kitchen, a bakery, workshops, and even a hospital. Twice a day, rain or shine, we were sent to an exercise yard behind a great stone wall. In the back were gardens, where in the summer the boys worked at growing vegetables. Near the dock where Officer Reilly and I landed was a storage shed.

  Now to the most important part: the food. The meals they gave us weren’t nearly as good as Mama’s, or even what I’d eaten in restaurants with Tony and Carlo. But at least they fed us regularly. We ate three times a day, which means a lot when you know what it’s like to be hungry. We sat at huge long tables; no talking allowed. The daily schedule is still fixed in my brain:

  Breakfast (7 a.m.): Bread, molasses, and water

  Dinner (noon): Soup, boiled meat, bread, and vegetables

  Supper (6 p.m.): Bread, molasses, and water or stew

  Notice something missing? No sausages. In fact, for as long as I stayed there, I never even smelled a sausage. Not a one. If you ask me, that alone was reason enough to escape.

  But there was one thing we definitely did have an abundance of at the House of Refuge, and that was counting. We stood in line to be counted after we left our morning jobs in the various workshops, where we went to learn a trade. That took place every day between breakfast and the noon meal. Next we were counted after yard time in the afternoon, before we filed into the dining room again. And after supper we were counted as we were marched straight to the dormitories, with their long, straight rows of beds. As I soon discovered, a bed out of line was like a boy out of line—it needed to be straightened.

  Lights were out by eight; we were up before seven each morning. Some boys complained they could never get to sleep, what with all the snoring, coughing, and crying that went on. I didn’t mind, though. In fact, sleeping was my favorite time of day. Compared with the scratchy, bug-infested straw of 45 Crosby Street, those clean white sheets and iron cot felt wonderful. It was the nicest bed I’d ever slept in.

  On my first day, I got my hair clipped and was given a bath. The water turned black as coal and had to be changed three times. My old clothes were taken away and I was issued a pair of pants, a shirt, and a clean gray jacket, a bit worn in the elbows. Plus a new pair of shoes. The ones I’d come with were too small, and I loved being able to wiggle my toes again. The House of Refuge had its own shoemaking operation—I can highly recommend the workmanship.

  By then it was late afternoon, and I was turned into the rear yard for fresh air before supper. It was full of other inmates, all wearing gray jackets like mine. I stood uncertainly in the corner alone for a few minutes. Before long, though, I found myself surrounded by three curious boys, who looked to be about fourteen or fifteen.

  “Hallo, new kid. What are you in for? Petty grafting?” inquired a stocky lad with fat cheeks, a small nose, and startling blue eyes.

  “Moll-buzzing,” I admitted, a little embarrassed. “She blew before I could get cleanly off.”

  The less said about the ill-fated, disastrous episode, the better. Besides, I had no intention of going into details—how seeing Meddlin’ Mary’s face and that glimmering heart locket had gotten me off balance (in more ways than one). Or how I’d hung my head as the copper marched me off, hoping the horse-loving Irish girl wouldn’t catch sight of me.

  “You didn’t have enough fall money to fix it?” another boy asked. “Or did you get double-crossed by your pals?”

  “No, I didn’t have any fall money. And…and I was working alone.”

  “Alone?” The first boy raised his eyebrows in surprise. “That’s a bold move for a young street bandit.”

  “Oh, I’ve done it lots of times,” I said smoothly, the lie rolling off my tongue before I could stop myself. I suppose I just wanted to impress them. “Moll-buzzing is my specialty.”

  “You weren’t part of a mob?”

  “I was, once. We…um…we parted ways. I didn’t…I couldn’t trust them.”

  Should I have trusted Tony? Had he been looking out for me the whole time? Maybe if I had listened to him, I wouldn’t be locked up now.

  When I’d first been put in a cell at the police station on Mulberry Street, I half expected Tony to appear. I thought he might be able to bribe a cop or make it good with the locket girl so she wouldn’t press charges.

  Yet, as each hour passed, I lost hope. It began to dawn on me that of course Tony and Carlo wouldn’t dare come near. Tony had ties with one or two coppers in the neighborhood, and they kept him informed about everything that went on near Bandits’ Roost. These same coppers (for a price) might sometimes help convince a victim not to press charges. Not all coppers played this game, though. So Tony wouldn’t trust me now. He’d be worried I might finger him and Carlo.

  “Trust is important,” the fat-cheeked boy was saying. He looked around at the other boys, who gave him a slight nod, as though I’d passed some kind of secret test. He stuck out his hand. “I’m Tommy Brady. Everyone calls me Pug, on account of my nose.”

  He squished up his face to show me. “See? My auntie gave me the nickname when she heard Queen Victoria loves those silly-looking pug dogs.”

  I grinned. You couldn’t help grinning at Pug.

  “Anyhow, if you want to learn the tricks of the grafting trade so you won’t get caught, you’ve come to the right place,” he went on. “The House of Refuge is the best school for crime around.”

  That’s how Pug, along with his two friends, George Kercher and Jimmy O’Connor, became my new mob. Jimmy had dark red hair, while George sported a sprinkle of freckles, as though someone had shaken cinnamon across his nose. In a way, they both reminded me of Carlo. Just as Carlo shadowed Tony, George and Jimmy trailed after Pug.

  Now that I think about it, I guess Luigi and Marco had been the same. They’d tried to follow me, to look to me for help. But I’d never let them.

  “You don’t have much to worry about here,” George was telling me. “It’s better than Sing Sing, which is where you get sent once you turn eighteen. Believe me, you don’t want to end up in that prison.”

  “What happens there?”

  “I had a pal in Sing Sing who was put to work ironing shirts and scorched one by mistake,” Jimmy confided. “The guards were sure that he’d done it on purpose, so they beat him with a wooden paddle.”

  I winced. It sounded just as bad as my padrone’s den. “So, that doesn’t happen here?”

  “Naw,” said Pug. “Take my advice: The best thing you can do here is earn the trust of the warden and the guards. They like cooperation and enthusiasm. Do your best to be a model boy. That’s the way to get extra privileges.”

  “What kind of privileges?”

  “There’s a story that one boy got a job working in the office. They trusted him so much he just opened a drawer, took out a key, and let himself out without anyone batting an eye,” Jimmy said, his voiced filled with awe.

  “You don’t want to get caught trying to escape, though. They’ll put you in solitary,” George advised. “You’ll be locked in a room alone and fed bread and water for a few days. After that, you’ll be watched like a hawk and never get another chance to make a break.”

  “So…um…do you ever think about escaping?” I asked them.

  The House of Refuge might be better than Sing Sing, but I couldn’t imagine being locked up for a whole year. I wouldn’t even be out for my thirteenth birthday.

  “Oh, we want to escape, all right.” Pug’s smile made his cheeks rise all the way up to his eyes, which peeked out of his face like bright blue buttons. “We just want to do it the right way—so we don’t get caught.”

  —

  I’ve written this out the way I remember it, but the truth is, my English wasn’t so good when I first arrived. So, especially during my first few weeks, it took quite a bit of back-and-forth and gesturing to understand what these boys (who’d all grown up in America and spoke English) were saying and make myself understood in turn.

  Tony, Carlo, and I had spoken Italian, except for the English
words Carlo had taught me. Carlo’s English was actually pretty good, I guess because his sister mixed with lots of Irish girls at her factory. He downplayed this, though, since he never liked to show off in front of Tony.

  I was glad to have some American friends to help me learn English. Pug and his mob had a lot to teach me. For it soon became clear that Pug was a bona fide expert in the art of grafting.

  “Will you go back to being a pickpocket when you get out, Pug?” I asked one day when we were in the yard for our time in the fresh air.

  Fresh air, it seemed, was an essential part of turning us into upstanding young men. I didn’t see the point of shivering in the yard when we could be in a warm building. I’d had my fill of being out in rain, sleet, and snow with that little triangle.

  “Of course! What else is there in the world to beat grafting?” Pug grinned. “I ain’t about to go slave in a factory for pennies a day. That’s almost as bad as being walled in here.”

  “Are you worried about getting caught again?”

  “Naw. I just got unlucky,” Pug declared. “Your case is different, Rocco. You went out on your own.”

  Pug’s tone became serious. “You’ve got to have friends you can trust, no matter what. And I’m not just talking about grafting.”

  I nodded silently. Luigi and Marco had trusted me, even if I hadn’t deserved it. They’d be wondering why I disappeared. They probably thought I was dead or had deserted them without a word of farewell. Maybe Giuseppe will look out for them, I thought hopefully, though I was pretty sure that wouldn’t happen.

  I was quiet for so long that Pug leaned close to stare at me, an unaccustomed frown on his face. “You all right there, Rocco?”

  “Just thinking.”

  “Well, don’t think too much. You’ll hear a lot in here about being good, turning over a new leaf, taking up an honest line of work. Don’t let that sort of talk trouble you.”

  “I won’t,” I assured him. “I know what I want. I want to bring money home to my parents in Italy. And I don’t know how else to do that except by being a pickpocket.”