Free Loon Lake by E. L. Doctorow

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    Annotate reference the best gangster there as follows: Thomas Crapo alias Tommy the Emperor. Born Hoboken New Jersey 1905. Hoboken Consolidated Grade School 1917. New Jersey National Guard 1914–1917. Rainbow Division American Expeditionary Force 1917–1918. Saw action Chateau-Thierry. Victory Medal. Founder Brandywine Importing Company 1919. Board of Directors Inverness Distribution Company. Founding partner Boardwalk Amusement Company 1920. President Dance-a-dime Incorporated. Founder Crapo Industrial Services Incorporated, New York, Chicago, Detroit. Patron Boys Town, March of Dimes, Police Athletic League New York, Policeman’s Benevolent Society Chicago. Present whereabouts unknown.
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    Annotate reference his girl as follows: Clara Lukaćs born 1918 Hell’s Kitchen New York. School of the Sisters of Poor Clare, expelled 1932. S.S. Kresge counter girl (notions) 1932–1934. Receptionist Lukaćs’ West 29th St Funeral Parlor 1934. Present whereabouts unknown.
    The gangster’s girl was eighteen
and had had an abortion he knew nothing about.
She found something to criticize, one thing,
the single beds, and as she undressed
raising her knees, slipping off her shoes
unhooking her stockings from her garters
she spoke of the bloodlessness of the rich not believing it
while the gangster lay between the sheets in the initialed pajamas
arranging himself under the covers so that they were neat and tight
as if trying to take as little possession of the bed as possible
not wanting to appear to himself to threaten anything.
He locked his hands behind his head and ignored the girl
and lay in the dark not even smoking.
    But at three that morning there was a terrible howl
from the pack of wild dogs that ran in the mountains—
not wolves but dogs that had reverted
when their owners couldn’t feed them any longer.
The old man had warned them this might happen
but the girl crept into the bed of the gangster
and he put his arm around her and held her
so that she would not slip off the edge
and they listened to the howling
and then the sound nearer to the house
of running dogs, of terrifying exertion
and then something gushing
in the gardens below the windows.
And they heard the soft separation
together with grunts and snorts and yelps
of flesh as it is fanged and lifted from a body.
Jesus, the girl said
and the gangster felt her breath on his collarbone
and smelled the gel in her hair, the sweetness of it,
and felt the gathered dice of her shoulders
and her shivering and her cold hand on his stomach
underneath the waistband.
    In the morning they joined the old man
on the sun terrace outside the dining room.
Halfway down the hill a handyman pushing a wheelbarrow
was just disappearing around a bend in the path.
I hope you weren’t frightened, the old man said, they took a deer
and he turned surprisingly young blue eyes on the best gangster’s girl.
Later that morning she saw on the hills in the sun
all around Lake Loon
patches of color where the trees were turning
and she went for a walk alone and in the woods she saw
in the orange and yellowing leaves of deciduous trees
the coming winter
imagining in these high mountains
snow falling like some astronomical disaster
and Loon Lake as the white hole of a monstrous meteor
and every branch of the evergreens all around
described with snow, each twig each needle
balancing a tiny snowfall precisely imitative of itself.
And at dinner she wore her white satin gown
with nothing underneath to ruin the lines.
And the old man’s wife came to dinner this night
clearly younger than her husband, trim and neat
with small beautifully groomed hands and still young shoulders and neck
but brackets at the corners of her mouth.
She talked to them politely with no condescension
and showed them in glass cases in the game room
trophies of air races she had won
small silver women pilots
silver cups and silver planes on pedestals.
Then still early in the evening she said good night
and that she had