Infamous

18

You remember ole Pedro Posado?” Doc White asked. He and Jones were about a thousand feet above North Texas, heading back to Oklahoma City, in a brand-new aircraft belonging to a buddy of Urschel’s, an executive with Sinclair Oil. White had to yell out the question on account of the single engine humming and shuddering the cabin. But, thank the Lord, it was blue skies today, making it easy work for Jones to check the rough terrain through a pair of binoculars.

“How could a man forget Pedro Posado?” Jones asked.

“What do you think drove him?”

“Meanness.”

“I don’t think so,” White said. “He was restless. All those Mexicans were restless back then, the government in collapse, everyone wantin’ a piece, thinking about putting beans on the table.”

“Nothing killed that woman but plain-out meanness,” Jones said, studying his hand-inked map and looking back out the oval window, following the natural borders-rivers and roads and fence lines-across the flat, dusty earth below them. It was a cloudless day, and everything from this altitude looked in good order.

“What was her name?” White asked.

“Conchita Ramirez.”

“That’s right. Conchita Ramirez. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can still hear the screams.”

“I try and not study on the past.”

“Pedro ran into that drugstore when he saw us. Where was that?”

“Shafter.”

“He pulled a gun on you and-”

“Doc, can we pay attention to the matter at hand?”

“You recall the newspapers?”

“Called us ‘killers,’ ” Jones said.

“Hell, ole Pedro is the one who’d blowed her legs and hands off.”

“I was there. You don’t need to color a story when a person knows how it goes.”

“We find the boys who nabbed Mr. Urschel and we won’t have time to blink.”

“You don’t think I know that, Doc? What am I gonna do, offer ’em flowers first?”

“Verne Miller ain’t no Pedro Posado.”

“How do you know? Maybe Verne Miller is Pedro Posado’s long-lost cousin.”

“You see anything?”

“Nope.”

“How are you supposed to tell one shack from another?” White asked. “You know how many shacks with pigs and goats there are in Texas?”

“I know the layout.”

“And you know absolute this is the route of that airline? The one that didn’t fly in that storm?”

“It’s down there somewhere. The science’ll prove it.”

“Science? They’ll be long gone.”

“Leaving a trail. Like they always do. How’s this any different?”

They landed back in Oklahoma City three hours later, ears ringing as they shook hands with the pilot and trudged back to the borrowed car. Jones noted a man at the edge of the tarmac talking with Colvin. The man was youngish but didn’t dress like an agent. He had more the look of a local cop, with a dandy’s boots and a dime-store suit. Jones greeted them both, and Colvin introduced the fella as a detective from Fort Worth.

“You fly over Wise County?” the detective asked. The man was tall and bony, with giant slabs of teeth and the smile of a tent-show preacher or a roadside huckster selling snake oil.

“We did.”

“You find what you’re looking for?”

Jones shook his head. “Was getting dark. More to see tomorrow.”

“I sent you some messages.”

“Give that name again?”

“Weatherford.”

“I’ve been busy, Mr. Weatherford.”

“You’ll find what you’re looking for in Paradise,” he said.

“You sound like a preacher.”

“Just outside the town is a known hole-up for some Fort Worth gangsters.”

“You think they took Urschel? Because from what we know so far, this is too big of a job for some local boys.”

“They ain’t ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd, like the papers say.”

“I never believe what I read in the papers,” Jones said, opening the door and placing his satchel in the rear of the car.

“Can I buy you ole boys a cup of coffee?” Weatherford asked. “It’ll be worth your time.”

Doc White joined the men at the car, but no introductions were made. Doc just stood there and hitched up his pants while Jones adjusted his hat brim, the setting sun in his eyes, Weatherford an inky cutout before him. “Doc, this fella’s from Fort Worth and says he’s done cracked the case.”

Weatherford crawled in back of the Plymouth and smiled. Jones didn’t like the way the bastard smiled, him watching Jones’s eyes in the rearview until they found a small diner just off Eighteenth Street.

On the table between them, Weatherford threw down a mug shot of a fella named George Barnes from Memphis, Tennessee. A bootlegger sent to Leavenworth in ’28 for running hooch to some Indians.

“You got to be pulling my leg,” Jones said.

THE FAMILY GATHERING TURNED INTO A DINNER PARTY, AND the dinner party to chaos. Charles F. Urschel’s nerves were on edge even after taking two strong drinks, before brushing his teeth and returning back downstairs. The staff had cooked up a wonderful meal of roasted quail with red potatoes and summer corn. Big Louise made a particular show of bringing out the platters and talking about how careful you had to be with those little birds’ wings or they’d just dry right on up. Water was refilled. Tea and coffee were poured. Kirkpatrick said grace at the end of the table and then raised his glass to Charlie, thanking those present for a job well done. And those present included the nervous young man on his immediate right, taking a seat by his stepdaughter, Betty, Charlie just hearing moments ago that she planned to take the federal agent to cotillion with her that very weekend.

“Thank you, Kirk,” Urschel said. “Miss Louise can outcook a gangster anytime.”

“What on earth did they feed you?” some society woman Charlie didn’t know asked from down the table.

“Humble pie,” Charlie said.

And there was laughter and toasts and the clinking of glasses. Miss Louise patted Charlie’s back with her fat hand and returned to the kitchen until called again, the door swinging to and fro behind her. But just as Charlie smiled over at Berenice and cut into his quail, the lights faltered and sputtered out. The air-cooling machine went silent, replaced by the sound of nervous laughter and talk. Miss Louise and some of the servant boys brought in candlesticks under their black faces and set them down the long, long table that Tom Slick had purchased on one of his trips to Europe.

“Here’s to Oklahoma Gas and Electric,” Urschel said.

More nervous laughter, and someone said, “It’s just a fuse. Don’t worry.”

The conversation soon steadied, and Urschel’s eyes adjusted in the dark, but his breathing had become a bit squirrelly, and he didn’t feel like touching any of the food. “Are you okay, Charles?” Berenice asked from his left.

And he nodded.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, excusing himself and taking a candle from the kitchen. He mounted the great staircase in bounds of two and three steps, cupping the flame in his hand, until he found his bedroom door and then the walk-in closet, seeking out his shotgun from under some old hats and winter scarves. The shells were found in his hunting coat, and he loaded the barrels and crept to the window, finding the entire street had gone dark. The houses down Eighteenth were blackened in both directions, the streetlights extinguished.

He breathed, and moved over the soft carpet, slipping the weapon behind some tall, thick drapery. The room smelled of Berenice’s Parisian perfume and his old cigars, and he had to wipe the oil from his fingers, not knowing if it was from the gun or the quail.

Charlie walked down the steps, the candle’s flame sputtering out, as he heard the laughter and dinner chatter, the glow of the dining room giving him light enough to see. When he reached the landing, he found he was nearly out of breath and a bit dizzy, and he held on to a post fashioned in the shape of a pineapple. Tom Slick had said pineapples brought wealth or meant wealth.

Charlie Urschel was quite dizzy.

He breathed, and righted himself, just before the young federal agent walked onto the landing with his annoying clacking shoes. “Sir?”

Charlie looked up at him and studied a face filled with concern.

“They treated me like a dog,” Charles Urschel said, mouth completely parched. “Kept me on a three-foot lead.”

“Yes, sir,” the young man said. His name escaped Charlie. “I know.”

“You must find them,” Charlie said. “A man can’t live like this.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And when you do, I want to be notified immediately,” Charles Urschel said. “I want a chance to speak with them privately.”

The young man just studied him, and Urschel turned back toward the kitchen, all of a sudden wanting all these people out of his home, most of them he didn’t even know. Society women, garden club members, and members of the club who thought they’d earned a ticket to see the show. He was tired of all the concern and well-wishes and Berenice’s pity as she lay next to him in the one o’clock hour, Charlie hearing the chimes but unable to move from the sweaty sheets, arms in spasm, as he lay on his back in complete failure.

Five policemen turned to him in wonder when he walked onto his own sunporch.

Two men guarded the walkway from his house, holding guns and asking if they might walk with him.

Three more policemen sat in the kitchen, listening to the radio with the colored help, the power back on, all of ’em laughing at Amos ’n’ Andy, while Big Louise finished up setting the ambrosia on a silver platter.

“Mr. Charlie?” she asked with a smile that dropped when she saw his face.

He could only compose himself in the guest bath, and, even after a few minutes, there was knocking to see if it was occupied. He set the lock, turned on the faucet, and ran cool water in the darkness, splashing it on his face. When the lights flashed on, he was still sitting on a closed toilet, gripping a brass handrail, his feet pressing against the wall before him.

With the illumination, his legs dropped, one and two, to the tile. He splashed more water on his eyes and returned to the head of the table, saying he’d been a bit ill but please continue with dessert. Berenice wore a curious expression, and he reassured her with a smile, his shaky hand dropping his linen napkin to the floor.

When he reached under the table, he noted Miss Betty Slick’s hand groping that young federal agent right between his legs as if she were kneading bread. Charlie righted himself in his large chair, and added some sugar to his coffee, slowly stirring. “Well now, son. Tell us, how did you come into the employ of Mr. Hoover?”

THEY WERE FINE, FAT, ROSY-CHEEKED PEOPLE FILLED WITH pep and life. The wife was the kind of woman who kept the Lane Bryant catalog by her freshly scrubbed toilet, checking out the latest fashions for portly women, while her old man read Abercrombie & Fitch over a morning bowl of Shredded Wheat, fancying himself the outdoors type, priding himself on crapping regular. They lived in a contented newish bungalow, not far off the streetcar line in Cleveland Heights. And the old man, Mr. K. R. Quigley, probably gave Mrs. Quigley and their precocious-if not annoying-daughter a peck on the cheek before doffing the old hat and rambling down to the automobile dealership, where he’d now sold Mr. R. G. Shannon, prosperous farmer out of Paradise, Texas, two brand-new Cadillacs.

“I have to say I was a bit surprised to see you two, again,” Mr. Quigley said. “I figured that custom sixteen-cylinder job would last you some time.”

Mrs. R. G. Shannon-Ora, if you please-knew why the son of a bitch was really surprised to see the Shannons again and it had nothing to do with the performance of the machine. Mrs. Quigley had called them out at a sit-down restaurant in June as a couple of four-flushers, raising her eyebrows at a couple hicks financing the top-of-the-line Cadillac and doubting that a nice farmer’s wife from Texas could even recognize a Hattie Carnegie gown-bought in New York City-black and long, with silver buttons from the top center down to the bottom of the skirt, and done in a very fine wool crepe.

But, my God, what was Mrs. Shannon wearing tonight, along with some quite attractive new baubles? What is that, you fatty old bag? Oh, yes, that’s nothing, just a little trinket made of fifty-five diamonds and a square-cut emerald solitaire ring. Nothing, really. Had you not noticed them before, you wretched housewife with mannish hands and bad posture? I don’t care if your closets are filled with husky-catalog fashions and your kitchen shelves with Bisquick, Swans Down Cake Flour, and rows and rows of Campbell’s soup.

“May I get you more coconut cake?” Mrs. Quigley asked. “The secret really is Baker’s. The triple-sealed package keeps it tender and nut sweet. Not to mention sanitary.”

“I am quite all right.” Kathryn dabbed the corners of her mouth. “A bit rich for me.”

“But I followed the recipe,” she said. “I’m so very sorry.”

“It was quite tasty,” Kathryn said. “Quite sweet. But a woman must watch her figure.”

The couples sat in a family room with a large window facing a perfect lawn shadowed in maple and elm. The radio had warmed up and broadcast the national news out of New York, and although Kathryn wasn’t paying much mind she heard damn well nothing of Charlie Urschel. Apparently there was some trouble with those banana eaters down in Cuba, and they’d gone and overthrown their dictator or some type of mess. There were more NRA parades and Blue Eagle mumbo jumbo, news from the World’s Fair, where the station would be live tomorrow, broadcasting Buddy Barnes, from the Pabst Blue Ribbon Casino.

“Was the engine too much, Mr. Shannon?” Mr. Quigley asked, setting down the plate scraped clean of icing. “She can devour some oil.”

“Call me Boss,” George said, getting all corny and full of himself. He wore a new navy suit and new oxblood shoes, a new pair of rimless glasses fashioned in an octagonal shape. He’d been told they’d give the angles of his face a new dimension. “No. It wasn’t the engine. The little wife here just had her heart set on that sweet little number when she saw it in McCall’s.”

“Redbook,” Kathryn said, giving the old stink eye to Mrs. Quigley’s fat ass, waddling under the apron’s bow, as she picked up their plates and headed into her kitchen domain.

“Redbook,” George said, working on his third piece of coconut cake, a cigarette burning on the edge of the plate. “When she saw that little coupe, she said, ‘Hot damn. Now, that’s a peach.’ ”

“Didn’t expect you to pay the entire balance in cash,” Mr. Quigley said. “I don’t think I ever had that happen.”

“If George doesn’t drop his pin money somewhere, he’ll burn a hole in his pants,” Kathryn said, crossing her legs and taking up a smoke, finding great delight when fat little Mrs. Quigley rushed back into the room to flick open a lighter. Must’ve been some commission.

“ ‘ Pin money’?” she asked.

“Of course,” Kathryn said. “The other night I sent ole Boss out with eighteen hundred dollars, and the little man here lost the whole thing. Isn’t that right?”

George shrugged and pulled out a money clip bulging with cash. “You two ever seen a thousand-dollar bill?”

Mrs. Quigley’s eyes went askew and then refocused on Kathryn’s face, to see if the couple was pulling her leg. She opened her mouth, but before she uttered a word in skipped the little daughter, stopping the conversation cold, the precocious little moron who had already regaled them with five songs at dinner and two tap-dancing recitals with about as much delicacy as a bloated hippo.

“Well, well, well,” Mrs. Quigley said, “Janey wanted to say good night and show you her certificate. Did I tell you she has won an art contest for Rinso soap? She is so very talented. Her little cartoon will be in a national magazine this fall. Can you believe it? It’s called It’s Wonderful! and features the most delightful little story about a woman who just can’t get her laundry to smell or look right. You know, Mrs. Shannon, it really is a fine product. If you soak your clothes in it, it’ll save you from scrubbing.”

“I don’t scrub nothing,” Kathryn said, blowing smoke from the corner of her red mouth. “I got a nigger woman who does all that.”

Little Janey, with her pinned bobbed hair and little sailor suit, looked at her mom and her mom at her. Her mother patted her little butt and scooted her off to bed, the little girl dishing out groans and protests that would’ve brought a belt from the real Ora Shannon, with her alcoholic breath and ten-cent perfume shining around her like a stained-glass halo.

“Where are the two of you headed next?” Mr. Quigley asked.

George looked to Kathryn and winked. “Chicago.”

“The Fair?”

“Figured we got to go,” George said. “Everybody in the whole gosh-dang world will be there.”

“We were there last month,” Mrs. Quigley said, all-knowing and smug. “I felt as if I’d entered another country, different worlds, all in Chicago. They even have an exhibit from Sinclair Oil with dinosaurs that look as real as you and me. They eat and putter about, make noises that scared little Janey a bit. She thought they were real beasts.”

“Ain’t that quick, huh?” Kathryn asked.

“Excuse me?”

“The kid. A little slow on the uptake.”

“We must be gettin’ along,” George said, hand on Kathryn’s back, Kathryn grinning at the woman. “We sure do appreciate the meal. That was a mighty fine pot roast. I hadn’t had a meal like that since my youth. Hats off. And those biscuits? Just as fine as my mother’s.”

“If you change your mind on that coupe,” Mr. Quigley said with a wink, “you let me know. Number’s on the card.”

“I think that little baby out there is just the ticket,” George said. “I think we’re gonna drive her flat out tonight and not stop till we hit Chicago.”

“An exciting life for a farmer,” Mrs. Quigley said, raising her eyebrows.

“You can bet on it, sister,” Kathryn said, turning for the door. “See you in the funny papers.”