Infamous

17

They brought ’ em into Kid Cann ’s office, a cavern carved behind the club’s stage. The walls were smooth blond wood slapped over the sandstone, the joints expertly sealed so that the orchestra sounded like they were playing a hundred miles away or under the river. Harvey nodded at Kathryn Kelly and George, too, but wanted them to know this was all business. The Kid had a small bar padded in black leather by his desk, and Harv helped himself to a little refresher of bourbon with club soda, a little ice and bitters. He stood near the desk and waited for the Kid and his boy, Barney Bernbaum, to get on with the show, take their money, trade it out, and let the whole deal be settled.

“You unnerstand the twenty percent?” the Kid asked.

“Yeah, yeah,” George Kelly said, finding a soft, curved leather chair to park in and cross his legs and smoke, resting his hat over his big foot.

“And I don’t want no trouble,” the Kid said. “What you got goin’ with Harv and Verne don’t have a thing to do with me.”

“It’s decided.”

Harvey smiled over at George, letting George know the two of them were settled but that he also knew that George was trying to muscle him out.

“Can I see it?” the Kid asked.

George thought for a moment and ran a hand over his big jaw and nodded. Kathryn stood behind him by the door, and Harvey had to look real good to see if she’d gotten fat or if George hadn’t knocked her up.

“Yeah,” George said, snapping his fingers. “Give it to ’im, Kit.”

Kathryn waddled up to the desk, her long, painted fingers on her swaying stomach, and she dropped her big belly on the desk, turning her back to all the men in the room and hoisting her dress. Harvey thinking Oh, shit, here we go, what’s this broad about to pull, but then the dress reached high over her legs, showing her ass, and stretched over her stomach, and with a big thud on the desk out flopped the ninety g’s.

The door opened and in walked the other Jew, Barney Bernbaum, and he was all smiles, holding the door for Verne Miller, who followed, with a tight, twitchy mouth, and coldly looked to each one of ’em before resting his back against the far wall, scouting, and placing his hat back on his head, slow and delicate. All of ’ em knowing Miller packed two Army-boy.45s on each flank and could take each one of ’em out without dropping his cigarette.

Barney joined the Kid at the desk and thumbed through the big stacks of dough. Harvey knocked back the drink, poured some more. George was looking up at the ceiling like he was trying to count the tiles. The orchestra played louder now, and you could hear the muffled notes a bit more, the ceiling shaking, and from the minuscule cracks in it came a fine white powder, looking like dandruff or cocaine, splatting Harvey’s drink until he looked up to what George saw and knew it was just that natural sand shaking loose.

Barney nodded to the Kid. The Kid’s wide-set snake eyes took in the room, and he screwed up his Jew mouth, nodding back. The Kid picked up a big, ornate phone and spoke a handful of words into the receiver before hanging up. “Drink up. Money’ll be here in a jiff. Go play the wheel.”

“You think we’re soft?” George asked. “I prefer to leave this joint with all my money.”

The Kid shrugged. “Suit yourself, Georgie.” Miller uncrossed his arms, and left his lookout by the door. He joined Harvey at the bar, and Harvey filled a glass with ice and some tonic. Miller lit a cigarette to go with his ice water.

“So you boys gonna tell me the score?” the Kid asked. “You know I’m dying to know.”

“You don’t know?” Harvey Bailey asked, kind of laughing to himself and taking a last puff from a cigarette and squashing it in a glass ashtray. “You got the most wanted man in America right here in your establishment. Our little boy Georgie has grown up. Look at him-the mastermind, the criminal genius, the man with nerves of steel…”

“You don’t mean …?” the Kid asked. “Come on.”

“You betcha,” Harvey said. “Can you believe it? Remember how this mug used to stutter, ‘S-s-sir, c-c-can I tag along on a j-j-job?’ You know he puked in his hat before we robbed that bank in Sherman?”

George played with his hat and would not look at him.

Verne Miller laughed.

George played with his hat and wiped some imaginary dust from his shoe.

“Remember that one job where he double-parked that ole Packard and attracted every traffic cop in that podunk town?” Harvey asked.

Miller nodded and gave a sliver of a smile, knowing what Harv was doing, and took a sip of ice water, rattling the glass. You take a man like George, play with his head a bit, get him off his game, and he’ll start thinking sloppy and not worrying about things like counting or watching where fat satchels of cash were laid.

A cloudy head just plain neutered a fella.

HARVEY BAILEY WAS A TWO-BIT ASSHOLE. KATHRYN COULD RUN down her boy on occasion, but George R. Kelly was still her man, and this was school-yard bullshit that she didn’t care for a bit. She prayed to the Lord in heaven that George would just reach into that beautiful tailored jacket, pull out that.38, and plug that big-nosed bastard in the forehead.

“Whatta they call you now, George?” Verne Miller asked, his jaw muscle flexing like walnuts.

George wouldn’t look at them. Look at them, George, meet their gaze, and don’t back down an inch. George wouldn’t look at ’em.

Harvey smoked, all delicate and womanlike, and said, “ ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly. Rat-a-tat-tat.”

“You even know how to fire a chopper, George?” Miller asked. “I can teach you sometime.”

George would not look at them.

The big guy just picked a space on the wall behind those two hoodlums and watched it like a cultured man might sit in a museum, or some such fancy place, and contemplate the lines and dots in a painting and make some kind of gibberish remark about the lines and dots forming a whole image. Kathryn had read of such four-flushers in Collier’s.

“Most wanted man in America,” Harvey said. “Got to take off my hat. We didn’t think you had the nuts.”

“Why don’t you shut up, old man,” Kathryn said, walking the room and standing behind George and placing her long fingers on the back of his chair and then touching his shoulder. “You think ’cause you stole a bunch of loot in your day? Let me tell you something. Back in the old days, my granny could’ve busted a jug wide open. Look at you. You can’t even walk without a cane. Like an old woman.”

Bailey raised his eyebrows and straightened his tie, running the silk through his fingers and sliding the silver clip tight. That nut job Miller just stood beside Bailey, staring at Kathryn, like the staring was gonna do one bit of good and like she hadn’t seen that intimidation show a thousand Saturday nights with him and Vi when he’d slap her silly and send her to the powder room with paint running off her eyes.

“Whatta you lookin’ at?” she said. “You crazy hophead.”

George wouldn’t look at ’em.

Not one damn bit.

Wouldn’t meet the men’s eyes. He reminded her of a schoolkid taken to task.

“Miller, you wanna know why you can’t find Vi?” Kathryn asked, the veins running hot and feeling her heart beating double time. “It’s ’cause she don’t wanna be found. She’s prowling New York with some Hollywood producer with a fat wallet while you and Harvey play grab ass for the dregs of what we earned. You know what? She told me you never could please her. Said holding your prick in her mouth was like playing with a kid’s pencil.”

Miller lurched forward. Harvey Bailey caught his right arm.

Harvey laughed and checked his watch.

“C’mon, George,” said the Kid. “Harvey’s just having some fun. Drinks on me.”

George took a big breath, and put his hands to his knees and stood tall, holding his hat.

“We’ll wait outside,” George said, mumbling.

He followed her from Kid Cann’s fancy-ass office and down a long, long sandstone hall and back into the smoky air and nigger music and ladies who didn’t give a shit that midnight was long since over.

“Look at all them knucklehead Cinderellas.”

“You got a strange way of talkin’, Kit.”

She grabbed his arm, feeling his labored breathing against her ribs, as they headed back toward the big ape’s mouth, seeing the big ape teeth, and Kid Cann’s goons making a show of parting as they came on through, and stepped out of the cool and into the heat. Over the Mississippi, you could see Saint Paul and a couple of rusted-out drawbridges real clear, one of ’em holding a passing freight, with a lot of racket and strain, red lights flashing and flashing.

George sat on the hood of his midnight blue sixteen-cylinder and started a Camel. He motioned to her, seeing if she wanted one. She shook her head and walked near him, kicking away the river gravel with her fine slippers and holding the hem of her dress, catching in the summer wind. The action still playing out the ape’s mouth, and if you looked over at the Mystic Caverns you’d think the beast was alive, with those glowing eyes, and the heat and smoke coming from between those picket teeth.

“George honey?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

“What’re you sorry for?”

“They’re just some rotten crooks. You don’t have to look up to ’em no more. You outclass ’em all.”

George sat on the hood of the car, in the shadow and darkness, and smoked for a few minutes, looking a bit drunk, watching those flashing red lights with all his attention.

“But George? Meet their eyes next time. Let ’em know you’re the heavy in this picture.”

“I was looking for something.”

Kathryn saddled up and skedaddled up onto the hood, pinching his smoke, and watching the gears and whirlycues of the drawbridge lay it all flat and even. Her stomach felt oddly flat and empty.

“The Kid’s got a secret door,” he said. “Right behind the desk. Looks real good and hid in that fancy woodwork, but it sure as shit is there.”

“How do you know it’s not a secret safe or some nonsense?”

“ ’ Cause it ain’t.”

“George?”

They noticed two black Cadillacs, new ones but only eight-cylinder, pull in front of the Mystic Caverns. Some tough Jew boys holding fat grips in their hands crawled out, and the doormen moved the hell out of their way. The business had begun.

“Here we go.”

“George?”

“Open the trunk, sweetheart,” George said. “And give me your coat.”

“What for?”

“To hide the big gun.”

“Oh, God,” she said, smiling. Knees weak and face flushed. “Oh, George.”

“Keep the motor running, and don’t turn into a woman if I come out blazing.”