Infamous

16

George drove Kathryn past all the old Saint Paul places, the Saint Paul haunts and whatnot, chattering on about The times they had, the nights they danced, and how all of it was coming around again, sister. The Boulevards of Paris nightclub. The Hollyhocks. Green Lantern Saloon, Plantation-George smiling like a bastard when they rode past the Plantation because he once screwed her there in a toilet stall-and then on to the big brick Hotel Saint Paul on St. Peter Street, where George said Leo Gleckman ran the show on the whole third floor, pointing out the floor like she couldn’t count from the bottom. Gleckman was Saint Paul, and the Kid ran Minneapolis, but sometimes those two Jews did business on each other’s turf, and in their ancient traditions this all made sense to them. But Kathryn said she could never understand trust between a couple of hoods. She’d met Gleckman once at the Boulevards of Paris, and about the only thing that struck her about the fella was the beautiful camel hair coat he wore and the ruby stickpin-big as a nut-pinned to his tie.

“Whatta you think?” George asked, pulling into the Hotel Saint Paul portico. “We get a suite?”

“We got enough?”

“Couple hunnard,” George said, looking in the rearview, with the back window obscured by pretty packages, hatboxes, and bags. “You sure can drop some coin.”

“I wanna go to the Hollyhocks tonight,” Kathryn said, slumped in the big Cadillac’s passenger seat, arms crossed over her breasts. “I want that Hollyhocks steak, cut an inch thick. Blood rare.”

“Fine by me,” George said. “Hell, I like steak.”

“I wanna wear the new dress.”

“It’s a hell of a dress.”

“I like red.”

“Red was made for you, sweetheart.”

“And the rings. The necklace I showed you at Cohen and Samolson?”

“We’ll get ’em tomorrow.”

“George?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you love me?”

“You’re the Little Wife, aren’t you?”

“I guess.”

A nigger in a military-looking suit opened the passenger door and about scared Kathryn to death with his big toothy grin, her thinking about the rings and bracelets that she’d buy and plain forgetting they were parked outside the Hotel Saint Paul. He held the door open and called her ma’am in a voice that sounded just like a white person’s.

“Checkin’ in,” George said, with that movie-star grin he practiced sometimes in the mirror. “Kit, we got it. Why not enjoy it?”

“And tonight?” she asked, one foot out the door.

“It’ll all go according to Hoyle. Do I look worried?”

They took a room on the tenth floor-a suite, just like George promised-and when she threw open the drapes and unlatched the window she felt a loosening of the nerves, not unlike the way a good martini can loosen your legs a bit. George fetched his cigarettes while she looked down on Saint Paul, at all the rooftops and all those poor bastards punching the clock for some ungrateful fat man. Secretaries. Housewives. Maids. All of ’em suckers.

George was behind her. She could feel his heavy cigar breath on her neck and smell the cigarette burning in his fingers. The city still seemed foreign as hell, with the summer and all. Whenever she thought about Saint Paul, it froze her to the bone.

“You wanna try on those stockings?”

“Why don’t you wait, you goat.”

“I was just thinking-”

“Thinking what? That you’d get a poke because it’s Saturday? I’ve got to get my hair done. Put some paint on these nails. What do you say I call up the front desk?”

“That’s what you do in a joint like this,” George said, wrapping his big hairy arm around her small waist and pulling her into him, smelling her neck like a lion on a lamb. “You pick up the phone at the Hotel Saint Paul and it’s like rubbing up a genie. Whatever you want, it’ll be here.”

“Anything?”

“Go try it out.”

“George?”

The curtains ruffled in the hot wind and covered her face and eyes, and then there were rooftops much uglier than you’d think, splattered with tar and sprouting vents and hot steam and smoke. Never looked like this from the street. George kept on smelling her and burying his sharp whiskers into her ears. “Mmm?” he asked.

“Screw the Hollyhocks,” she said. “Let’s order dinner here. And a bottle of gin.”

“The day’s a waste without it.”

“I do love you,” she said, nodding to herself.

“ ’ Course you do. My little honey.”

“You call about the meet,” she said. “I hope it’s somewhere that I can wear that dress.”

“I’ll make sure of it.”

Kathryn moved from the curtains and across the open space of the suite, with the big brass bed all made up with big goose-down pillows and soft, cool silk sheets. She found a dressing mirror near the bath and studied her reflection for a bit. The way the long black dress hugged her hips and tits and made her shoulders seem strong and athletic. She unpinned the beret and shook her hair loose, and then found George’s hands on her again, unbuttoning the dress from around her waist. She kept her eyes on herself in the mirror as the dress dropped to a heap on the floor and she stepped from it in nothing but her silks and stockings, the new pair of shoes keeping her tall and high up on her toes. Her eyes met George’s in reflection, and her first thought was Goddamn, that monkey needs a shave, but she passed over the thought and imagined him as Gable or William Powell and not a Memphis bootlegger. She stretched her arms up over her head and, reaching backward, held him close.

George placed his burning cigarette in her mouth. And it was all like that, slow and steady, with the hot wind and bleeping cars from the open window, until they were sweaty and tired and lazy-boned in the silk sheets.

The phone rang, and George said “Yep” a couple times before hanging up.

“You ever heard of the Mystic Caverns?” George asked.

“What is it?”

“A club.”

“In some caves?”

“Cann’s place,” George said. “You can wear the red dress. He said look for the entrance that’s an ape’s mouth. Now, does that make a lick of sense?”

Kit flipped over on her stomach, nude as Eve, and rocked her legs up to her butt and down again in thought. George had the ashtray on his hairy chest, and she thieved his cigarette and thought for a long while.

“You think we could do this again?”

“What’s that?”

“What’s that? The kidnapping, you dumb mug.”

“I don’t see why not.”

“You pull five of these, George, and we nab a million… You know, the Kellys just might be somebody.”

“He wants us to bring the money.”

“All of it?”

“Yep.”

“What if we’re robbed?”

“Whatta you think I am?”

Kathryn flipped over again and stared at the ceiling. “I got an idea.”

THEY SHOOK HANDS IN THE MOUTH OF THE APE-FANGS AS HIGH as a picket fence; huge eyes, crazy and wide; with flared nostrils and a red carpet for a tongue. Kid Cann reached for Harvey Bailey’s elbow and steered him inside the Mystic, all smiles and pride, the tunnels, he said, having been dug out along the Mississippi River cliffs for their sand, now were the hottest nightspot in town. “It’s a cool fifty-eight degrees year-round. How ’bout that?”

“What about the winter?” Harvey asked, following the Kid down a long tunnel and turning into a wide cavern. “You’d freeze your dick off.”

“We’re a hunnard and fifty feet below ground. It gets cold, we turn up the heat.”

A floor show had started at the end of the cavern, more tunnels branching off into bars and bathrooms, and probably some places to gamble and whore. A colored orchestra played Arabian music while a white woman prowled around onstage, not a stitch of clothing on, nothing but a couple huge fans made out of ostrich feathers. Men whistled and clapped. The woman was goddamn gorgeous, with wonderful tits and fat nipples.

“You know who that is?” asked the Kid. His hair looked wet from all the oil, slapped down tight on his skull, with an inch part down the middle. He was wide-eyed and weak-chinned, wearing a tuxedo, smoking a cigar, and backslapping and shaking hands as good as any two-bit politician. “Miss Sally Rand, on loan from her World’s Fair performance in Chicago.”

“Perfect tits,” Harvey said. “Wonderful tits.”

The Kid nodded and leaned in a bit toward Bailey. A foot shorter, he looked up, and played a bit with his black bow tie. “How much we talkin’?”

Harvey told him, and the Kid’s eyes grew big.

“Where you boys gettin’ all this money?”

“You talkin’ about Kelly?”

The Kid didn’t say anything, only twirled the fat cigar in his big lips, hoping the Arabian music would fill up the silence. He shrugged and puffed and puffed, spilling the smoke from the side of his mouth. Miss Sally Rand flitted around on that big white stage, the darkies not seeming to notice as they boomed their drums and played their horns, the white woman covering up her cooch with one fan of feathers and her ta-tas with the other, then switching the two so goddamn fast you weren’t sure if you saw the ta-tas or the cooch or even a little ass, and it stayed with you like a drunken memory.

Harvey smiled. “Kelly’s with us.”

“He didn’t mention it.”

“Well, he should have. Is he here?”

“I don’t want no trouble,” Kid Cann said. “I hear you’re with Verne Miller.”

“He’s not trouble.”

“Last time I saw him, he broke my tooth with a.45.”

“But he didn’t kill you,” Harvey said. “That’s gotta count for something.”

The men stood there facing the first tunnel and watched the crowd. Every con man, jewel thief, hustler, pimp, murderer, high-class whore, and top-shelf yegg in the state was in the gorilla’s belly, swilling the legal hooch and tossing away their cash on the wheel or cards.

“What’s a fella got to do for a drink?” Bailey asked.

Kid Cann motioned with his head toward another tunnel, a dimly lit little elbow where coffins had been carved into the soft sand walls and men in black bodysuits stitched with skeleton-bone designs would jump out at you or pinch a girl’s ass all in fun. And Harvey didn’t see it coming when some poor bastard grabbed his elbow to scare him and Harvey turned and punched the skeleton right in the nose, sending him flat against the cave wall and sliding down to his ass.

The Kid laughed and muttered, “Christ,” and walked to the bar, snapping his fingers at the barman, and the barman reached under the till for a crystal decanter of what would be the good stuff. He poured out two thick measures in crystal glasses, and Harvey pulled out a cigar from his linen suit that he’d taken from Sawyer at the Green Lantern. There was a big painting above the bar all done up in oils and canvas, and Harvey had to do a double take before realizing that was Nina herself, thinking back on times when he’d poked her.

“Switchin’ money ain’t a problem,” the Kid said, before taking a sip, swishing the glass around in his hand. “But I want to shake hands with you and Kelly on twenty percent.”

“You’re killing me.”

“That’s a lot of dough.”

“I had ten percent in mind.”

“A man has to think about the heat that will come with that kind of cash.”

Harvey nodded and glanced away from Kid Cann and down the polished mahogany bar that seemed to go on forever, spotting Dock Barker and that ugly mug Alvin Karpis, who was a dead ringer for Boris Karloff, goddamn Frankenstein and the Mummy all in one. Miller had followed Harvey into the caves and stood like a pale ghost at the end of the bar, talking to some bottle blonde, with her big tits crammed into a sequined gown. The lamps’ glow was soft and pleasant, and the caverns had a soft coolness, while the negro music from the bandstand rebounded and echoed throughout the walls.

Harvey offered his hand, but the Kid shook his head.

“Let me know when Kelly gets here,” Harvey said, and knocked back the whiskey. “Verne’s already left my stash with your boy, Barney what’s his name.”

“Why you need Kelly’s dough?”

“Because we got a deal. You really want me to answer all these questions? That would make you an accessory. Now, how ’bout another drink? I want to get back and watch Sally Rand tickle her cooch with a feather.”

Little Kid Cann smiled at him, ashing his cigar on the lip of the bar but never for a second taking his eyes off Harvey Bailey. Mean little bastard.

KATHRYN WORE THE RED DRESS, LOOKING LIKE SHE BELONGED on the cover of Photoplay, the wide, regal collar high on her neck, the padded shoulders, the silk material that hugged her ass and legs and draped down past her knees. Most people didn’t even seem to mind the big bump on her belly and even moved out of her way and bent over backward to be polite. And she’d smile and touch her protruding stomach and newly done hair. The hotel had sent up a couple women to wash and style while another gave her a manicure. George sitting by the radio the whole time in a hotel bathrobe, listening to Buck Rogers with real interest, occasionally nodding to some twist and turn in the plot. But he’d allowed one of the women to cut and oil his hair proper, even giving him a close shave and slapping him down with some sweet-smelling bay rum. He had a new suit, new dress shirt, and a pair of class A two-tone shoes.

She held on to his strong arm as they moved from the sluggish heat off the river and into the big ape’s mouth, Kathryn thinking instantly about that monkey Kong and feeling like she was being swallowed whole in the beast. Fay Wray slapping away those big fat fingers that groped her day and night. But Wray knowing that the big beast was just lovestruck over her and that he’d protect her from those crazy darkies with spears, and damn well even climb up the Empire State Building for her. She patted George’s hairy knuckles with her free hand, and they were out of the gorilla’s soft throat and into the belly, and the whole joint was hopping. A nigger orchestra had the room on its feet, and women danced on white-linened tables, kicking plates and champagne bottles, and men knocked back whiskey and smoked, while a ball of excitement grew in Kathryn’s stomach. You felt that way when you were in the place that you were meant to be. This was the heat, this was the action. The bee’s knees in the belly of the beast.

“Oh, George.”

“What’d I tell you?”

“You crazy mug.”

“Whatta ya’ think, a girl or a boy?” he said, pointing to her stomach.

This the tenth time he’s told the same joke.

“It’s a monkey, for sure.”

George snatched a waiter by the arm and thumbed through a fat wad of cash in a silver clip. He tucked a few bills in the man’s open pocket and told him to bring a bottle and a setup. And the waiter was back in two seconds with two more waiters, hauling in a table from the back and a couple chairs because there wasn’t a free place to sit. George turned and waved to someone, and then Kathryn noted a little man standing near the tunnel to the bar, a short, little Jewy fella with grease-parted hair, puffing on a big fat cigar. He reminded her of a fighter, short and mean and tough as hell because his height had made him that way.

“Who’s the gimp with the donkey dick?”

“That’s the Kid,” George said.

“No foolin’?”

“No foolin’.”

The waiter made a big show about the whiskey being bonded and not like that sorry hair tonic colored with wood chips they used to sell at the Boulevards of Paris. They brought ice in a silver bucket and crystal glasses and bottles of ginger ale, and George passed out more wads of bills, all of that money floating away making Kathryn feel just like who she should be, wanted to be, and was. She felt a little hand on her shoulder and saw Kid Cann, grinning, his other hand on George’s shoulder, whispering for a moment in George R. Kelly’s ear, and then trailing away, with a firm pat on her back, like she was A-OK.

“What was that?”

“Keep smilin’, doll.”

“What?”

“Bailey’s here. Verne Miller, too.”

“Goddamn. Son of a bitch.”

“You said it.”

“Whatta we do?”

“We can amscray or you can birth that baby. We’re in a pinch.”

Kathryn felt the fat mound on her belly and readjusted the heft. She took a long sip of the whiskey and ginger ale, and contemplated. “Okay. Okay. Only five g’s, and don’t you dare ask ’em to join us. Those two bastards are going to stink up this whole town for me, ruin my fun, and I’d just as soon be back in the Cadillac halfway to Cleveland.”

“Still stuck on Cleveland.”

But Kathryn wasn’t listening, only taking a breath, knowing the Kellys were cornered, and it was best to brass the son of a bitch out and wait till the next job. Goddamn George. She moved her hand from underneath his, thinking how nice it would be if some airplanes would knock him out of his big tree.

“ ’ Twas beauty,” she said.

“What?”

“I want a convertible.”

“A what?”

“In Cleveland, I want you to trade out your car for a convertible. Cadillac makes the most darling coupe. I saw the ad in Redbook.”

George reached for the whiskey, pouring it like it was a glass of milk at the end of a long day. The nigger band stopped and then started again with some booming jungle beats, a naked white woman wandering onto the stage holding only a big fat balloon, her pale ass hanging out for all those musicians to see.

“What’s this?” Kathryn asked. “The sacrifice?”