Infamous

35

Kathryn lost George not long after he’d wandered into the Golden Pavilion of Jehol to find a toilet. She’d said to him, “Go ahead, George, take care of yourself just as we were about to see the Dutch dancers after missing them two days in a row.” Ever since they’d been at the Fair-their first day being Tuesday-George had been downright crazy for the Dancers of Tunis featuring the Amazing Iris, drinking gin from his hip flask, feeling like he was invisible with his blond hair and white suit, Panama hat, and purple-tinted glasses. All she wanted to see was one lousy traditional Dutch dance and to spend a little time on the Streets of Paris. But keeping track of George was the trick. And God knows where Gerry went-Kathryn wasn’t her mother-the girl showing up at the same time both nights on the Avenue of Flags, where they’d all wait in line for the Sky Ride, stretched high across the Fair, dodging spotlights, the pavilions lit up like ancient pyramids in blue, green, and yellow lights, neon wrapping the streamlined buildings. George would be full-on plastered and proclaim himself the real Buck Rogers and make folks in the Sky Ride laugh. He’d grown that goddamn cocky.

Not two seconds after stumbling out of the temple, he wandered up to her and asked her again about the Dancers of Tunis. “Don’t you know those girls aren’t from Africa,” she said. “They’re from Brooklyn. Two of ’em are nothing but common bubble dancers.”

“The hell you say.”

“One thing, George. I asked to see one thing.”

“So they dance in wooden shoes,” he said. “Where’s the kid?”

Kathryn shrugged. She lit a cigarette. They walked down the wide avenues hugging the lakefront. Signs pointing to every corner of the earth. LONDON. PEKING. DARKEST AFRICA.

“I bet she’s at the Enchanted Isle.”

“She doesn’t go for that kids’ stuff,” she said. “Told me she wanted to see where they made the beer.”

“Bavaria,” George said. “Heigh-ho, the gang’s all here. Let’s have pretzels, let’s have beer.”

The streets were fat with people, most of the men in crisp white shirts without ties and women in flowered dresses and straw hats, pouring past George and Kathryn, who walked in the opposite way, crowd pushing around them like water around a river stone.

“Did you call?”

“Hell, yes, I called,” he said. “What do you think took so long?”

“I figured the temple has a nice toilet.”

“Some fella keeps telling me that Joe will call me back. Said they’re working on getting us a car. Forged papers, all that stuff.”

“And then what, George?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“We leave the country?”

“This country doesn’t want us anymore,” he said. “Maybe Mexico. Maybe Cuba. Maybe Memphis.”

“Memphis?” Kathryn asked. “Are you kidding?”

“I’m tired,” he said. “Let’s get a drink.”

“WHAT ARE THE CHANCES?” DOC WHITE ASKED. “I’VE WALKED from one end of this damn Fair to the other twice and my feet done swoled up.”

“Let’s take a seat.”

Jones and White followed a crowd into a bigmouthed amphitheater, where some kind of spectacle was about to begin. This Fair wasn’t short on spectacles, Jones and White not being able to walk ten feet without some carny barker trying to lure them into some forbidden land, exotic culture, or a temple built to some damn company. He’d never seen a church as large as the worship halls they’d built to General Motors, Plymouth, and Hudson. Firestone and Goodyear. He took a seat by Doc White and pulled out some money for a boy selling Coca-Colas from a crate hung ’round his neck.

“The cable was sent from the Fair,” Jones said.

“That was two days ago, and Kelly ain’t that goddamn stupid,” White said, taking off his Stetson for a moment and running a forearm across his brow. “There’s no tellin’, and we’re wasting time.”

“Did you buy your wife somethin’?”

“Got ’er a souvenir spoon. You?”

“Bracelet,” Jones said, reaching into the pocket of his linen suit and finding a sterling silver band stamped with different exhibits from the Fair.

“Kelly ain’t here.”

“Today I seen things I never even considered,” Jones said. “Sixteen midgets emerged from a Chevrolet. A colored boy made a puppet whistle and dance. Belly dancers, sword swallowers. I walked the canals of Holland, the streets of Paris, and journeyed deep into China. A man even asked me if I wanted to meet someone named Freida Fred, an individual he noted was born with equipment of both sexes.”

“Did you see it?”

“Hell, no, I didn’t see it.”

“Well, lookee there,” White said, pointing up to the sky, a silver dirigible floating out across Lake Michigan, the city of Chicago spouting from the ground in steel and concrete to the north.

“Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Conforms.”

“What’s that?” White asked.

“Words written over the gates of the Fair.”

“I just noticed the belly dancers and that fella dressed as Mickey Mouse.”

The loudspeakers crackled to life and announced that the show was a journey through the history of transportation, showing some poor man dressed in goatskins walking an oxcart, followed by racing Roman chariots and some conquistadores on horseback. The announcer seemed to get real excited about traveling the west in a stagecoach. An old Wells Fargo wagon rambled on out of the gate, chased by some banditos on horseback, bandannas over their faces, shooting up guns to the sky the way bandits did in movies but never did in real life ’cause they wouldn’t waste a bullet. Doc sipped a Coca-Cola and leaned on his bony knees, signaling another boy for a sack of peanuts.

He shelled the peanuts and absently watched. He’d seen that show before.

The stage stopped and the bandits circled, a woman in a frilly dress and ankle boots, pushed out on the dirt, screaming when her pocketbook was snatched. The gates opened again, tinny, silly music came from the loudspeaker, and there was some stupid son of a bitch riding a white horse.

“You come at ’em straight like that, riding high, and you’ll be shot clean off your saddle,” White said, nodding to himself. “Who doesn’t know that?”

TO GET TO THE STREETS OF PARIS, YOU HAD TO ENTER THROUGH a phony steamship that adjoined the display of baby incubators featuring REAL LIVE BABIES. Kathryn had a hell of a hard time prying George away, him pressing his drunk self against the glass and waving at the little babies behind their own glass, just trying to get some sleep after being born into this nuts world and now having to deal with crowds of monkeys pointing and staring at them. She finally got George by promising him a cold beer in the steamship’s lounge, and soon they sat up on the top deck of this boat built for land, George sipping on his Budweiser, looking out across Lake Michigan with a self-satisfied smile.

“That little girl’s gonna be a hellcat when we send her packing.”

“She’s fine,” George said. “A good girl.”

“She thinks every day with the Kellys is the goddamn Fair.”

“Hasn’t it been?”

“She didn’t have to drive from Biloxi to Fort Worth in a jalopy truck looking for you.”

“I told you I’d be back.”

“You told Ma Coleman you’d be in Mississippi.”

“I wrote the word Mississippi.”

“Which meant for me to drive to Mississippi, knowing you’d be in Biloxi hunting up that lifeguard gal.”

“If I was trying to scare up some tail, why’d I tell you where I’d be?” George widened his eyes and pointed at Kathryn with his free finger. “We hit the road tomorrow. Lay low in Memphis and then head back to Ma’s farm for the dough. Maybe Cuba. Cuba’s looking good.”

“A real cakewalk. I’m sure the G will open the cattle gate for us.”

“You want some more of my beer?”

“I have champagne.”

Kathryn lay back in her seat and crossed her legs. She’d bought a new burgundy dress for the fall, with a square neckline and bloused sleeves at her elbows. She tilted a smart ladies’ fedora into her eyes.

“Remember that bootlegger in Tulsa who used to cut apple juice with grain alcohol and call it an ‘Oklahoma cocktail’?” he asked.

“It hurt to pee.”

“Good times.”

“Sure.”

“You remember stealing Little Stevie Anderson’s bulldog after you packed up to leave him?”

“Of course.”

“What happened to that bulldog?”

“I think you sold it to that bartender in Muskogee.”

“We’ll be fine in Memphis,” George said. “Don’t you worry about a thing. Ole Lang will take care of us. When his sister and I busted up, he couldn’t have been more than twelve. I had to be the one to tell him, him looking to me as a father, I think, on account of what happened to Mr. Ramsey and all. He didn’t speak to Geneva for a year after that, blaming the bust on her and not the moonshine I was running. He’s a good egg, Lang. You’ll like him. He doesn’t know I’m George Kelly. You’ll have to call me Barnes.”

“You want to see your boys, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Figured, the way you were looking at those babies.”

“I was looking at the babies ’cause I like babies. What kind of fool doesn’t like babies? That’s like a man who doesn’t enjoy a cold beer. Sister, I missed real beer.”

“I miss my girl, too,” Kathryn said. “I’d like to see her before-”

“Before what?”

“So you’re not gonna turn yourself in?”

George finished off his beer and wiped his mouth with a napkin before lighting up and leaning back. He squinted into the smoke, pretending like he was contemplating the question.

“I knew you’d chicken out,” she said.

“It’s a fool’s deal, Kit,” George said. “If I got a guarantee in blood, I still wouldn’t believe the G would turn your mother loose. I turn myself in, and they’d just lock us up right next to them. All this for nothing. How’d you feel then?”

“But if we were assured?”

“How do you make sure of that?”

A crowd had gathered around a small tub of water, where a skinny, muscular man started to monkey up a high ladder to a diving board. George smiled, watching him make his way higher and higher. Over the top of George’s purple-tinted sunglasses, he raised his eyebrows at Kathryn.

She finished the glass of champagne and put down two dollars.

George reached his hand under the table to her leg and inched his way over her stockings. She snatched it away, shaking her head and turning back to the fella on the high dive, just cresting the top. There must’ve been five hundred people below, right outside the entrance to the Streets of Paris, craning their necks, staring right into the sun like crazies, and waiting for him to jump. Even the folks over by the incubators had finally left those poor babies alone, and quiet came over everyone as the man lifted his hands high, a cool breeze cutting across the lake, stirring him a bit, before the nutso bastard turned and flipped and crested like a bird with holes in its wings to a big, goddamn splash.

The crowd just got loony.

“I wish I could live here.”

“We do live here, George.”

“IT’D BE PRETTY FUNNY IF WE SAW SOME FELLA WALKIN’ AROUND the Fair wearing a sandwich board that read ‘MEET “MACHINE GUN” KELLY, LIVE AND IN PERSON.’ ”

“They could charge a handsome admission,” Jones said.

“Do they really have a feller here with both sets of plumbing?”

“So I was told.”

The sun had started to set, and Doc leaned over the railing at the Sinclair Oil exhibit, the most realistic-looking dinosaurs you’d ever seen growling and chomping on some grass that hung from their mouths, red eyes all lit up. One of the beasts was as large as a Greyhound bus, with a diagram hung on the fence about how their old carcasses had turned to lubricant.

Doc broke a peanut in half and threw the shell down into the pit. “How many men we got working on this?” White asked.

“Here in the city?”

White nodded.

“Figured about twenty,” Jones said. “The SAC here, Purvis, says he’s got men watching brothels, known watering holes for hoodlums.”

“Watering hole sounds pretty good right now,” White said, flipping more shells down to the dinosaur as if the beast would suddenly change course and start foraging for real food. “What do you think about that Purvis fella?”

“Hell, all those college boys look the same to me, Doc. At twenty feet, I thought he was Colvin.”

“When I walked into the building, he asked me for my thumb buster,” White said. “Tole me I couldn’t walk around a real city armed. What the hell does he mean ‘a real city’?”

“He’s just jumpy, is all,” Jones said. “Following regulations.”

“Kelly ain’t here.”

“You said that already.”

“They’ll tip us off in a telegram,” White said. “Always do.”

“I think if George Kelly is in town, he’ll announce it bigger than a telegram.”

THE FINAL PLANS WERE LAID OUT OVER A FOLDING CARD TABLE set up in the back room of Joe’s Square Deal Garage, with maps of the city marked in pen and opened cartons of chop suey. Karpis wouldn’t let any of them drink, saying if they wanted a nip to settle their nerves they’d pass a bottle about go time. But he said it was going to be a hell of a long night, for them to lie out on the cots, think about the details of the job, every step, from the reserve to the git. At half past twelve it was “Go, go, go, that’s the rhythm of the day,” just like Fred Astaire says. Harvey squashed out his cigarette and stretched his legs, Miller flat on his back on the floor, not using the cot, eyes wide open, a Thompson like he carried in the War by his feet. The Barker boys were giving a final check over the Hudson, the greased hillbillies more excited about the ride out of town than the dough. And Karpis checked over the map once more before folding it up all nice and neat and tucking it into the side pocket of his suit jacket.

Harvey walked to the bathroom to find a fresh suit of clothes resting on a hanger, new shoes and socks. He shaved and dressed, tying his tie just as someone started beating the hell out of the door and telling him to shake it off and come on.

At first, he thought it was the cops. Or, worse, the Syndicate, looking for a cut.

But, goddamn, it was that hillbilly Fred Barker, telling him he was about to shit his drawers. Bailey left the bathroom and walked across the wide concrete floor to Miller, kicking at his shoe. Miller’s bright eyes sprung open, not dozing for a second, waking up like some kind of animal.

“We split the dough, and I want you gone,” Harvey said. “You hear me? I’ll find my way.”

Miller nodded. “Vi’s in Brooklyn.”

“Go to Brooklyn, anywhere but Chicago. Karpis told me Frank Nitti blames you for the world’s problems. You sabe?”

Miller nodded.

“Verne?”

Miller pulled up his body to his crooked knees, wrapping his arms around them, and lit a cigarette. Karpis walked back into the room, and Harvey turned to watch him, the light from the single bulb cutting a swath up to Karpis’s feet.

“Fred’s sick,” Karpis said. “Real sick. He’s got problems coming from both ends. Said it was the chop suey. Did you guys eat the pork?”

“Give ’im a soda,” Harvey said.

“We did,” Karpis said. “Shits running through him like a freight train.”

“We’ll make do,” Harvey said.

Karpis put his hands in his pockets, trying to rearrange the whole plan in his mind. But he shook his head, “Nope. Won’t work.”

Harvey looked down to Miller, and Miller cut his eyes up to Harvey, Harvey knowing this was Miller’s last chance, the last few hours he could make a score in Chicago. If there had been another way… any way.

KATHRYN WAITED FOR GEORGE AND GERALINE AT THE FENCE TO the racetrack on the Enchanted Isle, the little girl and the big lug in the same toy car, zipping around turns, Gerry at the wheel while George laughed and held on to his hat with one hand. They came skipping out from around the exit, George having turned the front brim of his fedora up so that he looked like a stooge. Still wearing the sunglasses after the sun had gone down.

The three of them walked side by side down the Avenue of Flags, where a couple women had chained themselves to a pole, one wearing a stitched cloth that read PROTEST FASCIST TERROR. GERMAN CONSUL HERE. Men stood by and watched the broads like they were sideshow freaks, a couple of coppers standing by, waiting for a key or someone to cut the chain. About halfway down the wide avenue, Kathryn spotted two men, elbow to elbow with thousands of sweaty folks with sore feet, walking back into the fairgrounds, the crowd splitting around them, the two fellas talking and walking in a casual, relaxed way. One was a tall and skeletal thing, wearing a Western suit and boots, the other, in a white linen suit, was shorter, and thick around the middle, wearing Western boots and a pair of glasses.

She clutched George’s arm and pulled him into her, a loving couple after a fine old day at the Fair, resting her head on the mug’s shoulder, reaching down and gripping Geraline’s sweaty little hand. The girl looking up at Kathryn and narrowing her eyes with that goddamn “What gives?” that she’d gotten down pat.

One of the men tipped his cowboy hat to the fine family and kept on walking. George started to whistle “Stormy Weather” as they passed.

“George?”

“I sure am hungry.”

“Did you-”

“What?”

She pulled him in closer, following the fat, heavy crowd, bustling with souvenir hats and balloons and pinwheels for the kiddies, out onto South Michigan, walking damn-near a goddamn mile south to find the big open lot where they’d parked that road-tired Ford. Geraline crawled in the backseat and lay down without a word, tuckered out from the long day.

“I shoulda got a hot dog,” George said, knocking the car into gear and heading west over the river and back over to Cicero to dump the Ford. They’d get some sleep at the Astra, George said, pack and leave for Memphis in the morning. Goddamn Memphis. George excited about heading home, talking about places he wanted to show her.

“You really think we can make it to Cuba?” she asked.

“You can practically see the place from Key West,” George said. “We have a nice drive down the coast and then hop a boat.”

“I remember Havana Widows. Lots of nightclubs.”

“You bet. And rum.”

“Shoulda known you’d care for rum.”

“Joan Blondell sure was a knockout in that picture.”

“Why don’t you ring her up, then?” Kathryn said. “See if she’ll iron your shirts.”

The traffic thinned out over the river but nearly stopped when they got outside Cicero, streets closed off for this big, crazy NRA parade, with tons of folks carrying banners and American flags, pictures of Roosevelt on sticks. Lots of blue eagles and all that hooey.

“Think about all the people we’ve put to work,” George said, smiling, mashing the clutch, shifting to neutral, the engine chugging behind an endless line of cars. Window down, arm hanging out the window. “You bet ole Uncle Sam is in overdrive, paying those G-men to look for the Kellys.”

“Maybe you can get a blue eagle tattoo on your ass.”

“Maybe I will.”

George pulled into the alley beside Joe’s Square Deal Garage and killed the lights. Kathryn reached back and tried to shake Geraline awake, but the girl was exhausted, and they left her in the backseat, taking a side door and walking into the big open space where several boys were giving a big Hudson a once-over.

One of the men leaned back out from under the hood and smiled. Harvey Bailey wore a big shit-eating grin.

Verne Miller walked in from a back room, holding a Thompson loose in his right hand. Alvin Karpis. One of the Barker boys. Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Hey, George,” Harvey said. “Think you got something that belongs to us.”

George looked to Kathryn, back to Harvey, and squared his shoulders.

“Guess you don’t have it on you right now,” Harvey said, grinning.

George shook his head. Kathryn was about to tell that bastard to go straight to hell when Harvey asked them if they’d be interested in a little business proposition.

Kathryn stepped in front of George and said, “Start talking, and make it fast.”