Infamous

36

Karpis drove the Hudson, the armored tank with the bulletproof glass, the steel-plated doors, and the revved-up eight-cylinder engine. Harvey and the boys piled into George’s dusty Ford since ole George wanted to lose the car anyway, Karpis telling Joe Bergl and some grease monkeys to switch out the smoke machine into its cab. When they snatched the dough, they’d leave the Ford on Jackson Street, pile into the Hudson, and be on their way. But, brother, Kathryn Kelly wasn’t having any of it, didn’t want her man involved in some two-bit snatch and grab, even after learning Fred Barker had a mean case of the shits. Harvey decided not to lecture her on the nature of the country’s fine Federal Reserve system, instead only telling her that there were banks and then there was The Bank. She shook her head, came back with some little kid rubbing fists in her eyes, telling Bergl to pull around their new machine or she’d go straight to Frank Nitti himself and tell him his word wasn’t worth chickenshit. She got her a Chevrolet sedan, clean papers and all that, but George wouldn’t go, telling her he needed to square this thing with Harvey and Verne and that they both could use the extra dough.

“You did the right thing,” Harvey had told them at a little past eleven, the lug down in the mouth after Kathryn slapped him across the jaw and told him he was a fool.

“Say, is that my gun?”

Miller looked down at the Thompson and nodded. “Collateral,” he said.

“Keep it,” Kelly said, following Harvey and Verne and Dock Barker into the Ford. “That gun’s nothing but trouble. I don’t want to be ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly anymore.”

“Who are you, then?” Harvey asked.

“Just George.”

They crossed the river at eleven-thirty and had found their spot on Jackson where it met Clark Street, where the mail carriers and the reserve guards would be rounding the corner at midnight with those gorgeous fat sacks of money fresh off the train in from the U.S. Mint.

Harvey checked his watch. No one in the Ford spoke. George sat at the wheel, chewing some gum and watching the sidewalk.

All the men carried machine guns except for George. George refused to take anything more than a shotgun, a.38 for his hip pocket, and some extra shells. Beads of sweat had popped out on his forehead while he loaded the pistol and looked over the git with Karpis and made a deal with Harvey that ten grand would be shaved off his take, whatever the take may be.

“Then we’re square,” Kelly had said.

“And then we’re square,” Harvey said, offering his hand.

They would all split the city after the job, Harvey getting word to his wife through a friend of Harry Sawyer’s that he’d be coming for her and his boy tomorrow and to bring only one suitcase. They’d drive west till he saw a good place to cross the border into Canada, like he’d done a thousand times in the old days. They’d become new people. Start over. Start living, and leave this crummy country on its own. Karpis was right. He’d go fishing. He’d drink some beer. He’d farm a little.

George kept the Ford’s engine running with no lights. A few minutes later, he flicked his lights into Karpis’s rearview mirror.

Harvey turned to see four men rounding the corner, two pushing the mail cart and the two guards walking along, jawing and loosely holding a couple shotguns. The four men in the Ford fixed bandannas across their faces and waited till the guards reached that halfway spot between Clark and LaSalle. George pulled out on Jackson-a loose, lazy flow of traffic at midnight-and smoothly edged up to the curb, all the gunmen piling out with guns drawn.

From the backseat, Harvey punched the button, and dense black smoke began to pour from the cab of the Ford, inking out Jackson Street. The guards already had their hands up, and shotguns clattered to the sidewalk, scooped up by George and Barker, Miller telling them all something hot and clear, making them turn and face the walls of the Continental Illinois National Bank. The men hoisted fat canvas bags, throwing the loot into the Hudson, slamming the trunk, with Karpis back behind the wheel.

The whole thing not lasting thirty seconds, the doors not even slamming closed before Karpis was driving through the thick smoke, breaking clear on the other side and running west on Jackson, the men laughing and talking, pulling the bandannas off their faces.

Harvey sat up front and lit a cigarette.

“What’d I tellya,” Karpis said. “What’d I tellya?”

He drove fast up to Adam and then west across the Chicago River, back toward Cicero, to divide up the loot and find each of their new cars, serviced and fueled up.

“The smoke was a nice touch,” Harvey said, relaxing a bit, leaning back into his seat. Karpis drove at a nice clip, not fast, but not so slow as to be noticed. “What kinda bank has two guards for all that dough?”

Karpis hit a little bump in the road, the tail of the Hudson scraping the pavement, just as they were set to cross Halstead, a green light speeding them on to Joe’s Square Deal Garage. That’s when that damn little Essex coupe came out of damn-near nowhere, honking its horn and T-boning their Hudson right toward a streetlamp. Karpis tried to right the car, but it kept going straight for the light, scattering two beat cops right before the car crashed.

Everything was still for a few seconds. Cracked glass and busted machine parts in the road. Harvey felt like his heart had stopped but now could feel it jackhammering in his chest.

And then Harvey heard the women scream from the Essex, and that was everything.

“I WANT TO SEE MR. NITTI,” KATHRYN SAID.

“Mr. Nitti ain’t here.”

“You tell that wop son of a bitch that I know where he can find Verne Miller and Harvey Bailey.”

The fella shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

“Who’s that?” Geraline asked.

“Some stooge.”

“Thought we’re leaving.”

“Let me tell you something, sister,” Kathryn said. “Don’t ever let a man tell you the rules. Set ’em yourself.”

Geraline nodded. She was smoking and drinking a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer at the Pabst Blue Ribbon Casino, which stayed open after most of the lights along the Fair Midway had dimmed. Kathryn fished for another cigarette and tapped the end of her silver cigarette case on the edge of the table. Those bastards had no right to force George on a job at midnight, right while the heat was all over them, Gus T. Jones and the G-men crawling all over the city. They shoulda done him a solid and let ’im skate.

“I like your hat,” Geraline said.

It was a fine little beret she’d bought along the Streets of Paris, sold to her by some gal who walked those streets with a mirror on her back. Kathryn reached up on her head and tossed the beret to the little girl. “Take it.”

“You’re all right, Kit,” the girl said, trying on the hat, a Lucky hanging from the corner of her mouth.

“You gotta go back.”

“I don’t wanna go back.”

“Your parents are sick with worry.”

The girl shrugged. “They don’t care a rat’s ass about me. My daddy always said I was nothing but another mouth to feed, and he’d be good and goddamn glad when I could look out for myself. And so here I am.”

“You can’t go with us.”

“I can carry your bags,” the girl said, taking a sip of beer. “Your guns. I can run errands. Get your clothes pressed, shine your shoes.”

“Don’t do that,” Kathryn said. “Don’t ever play the stooge.”

The fella walked back into the casino bar and leaned down to Kathryn and whispered in her ear. She tossed a dollar on the table and followed, walking down the empty streets of the Fair, the neon and bright lights all gone, leaving nothing but the barren, weird shapes of the exhibits.

“What’ll they do with all this stuff after the Fair?” Geraline asked.

“Tear it down.”

“They built this just to tear it all apart?” she asked, mouth hanging open. “What a waste.”

“The American way, sister.”

The fella led them up the steps, twenty-seven of them, Kathryn knowing because Geraline was counting under her breath, up to the House of Tomorrow, an octagon-shaped building with a garage occupied by a little airplane, making it seem clear that every family would be zipping around the skies in the future. The house walls were made of plate glass.

He left them on the top of the house, rails wrapping the sides, where she soon saw a big black Cadillac pull down the drive and kill the lights.

“Who’s Frank Nitti?”

“The kind of guy that doesn’t have any boss.”

“George doesn’t have a boss.”

Kathryn smiled and squashed a cigarette under her toe.

Nitti bounded up the steps, a crisp wind cutting off Lake Michigan, Geraline nearly losing the beret. Nitti was short and swarthy, with a fat mustache, slick hair, and a hundred-dollar pin-striped suit.

One of the two gimps on each side of him asked, “You know how to find Verne Miller?”

She nodded.

“What you want?” the other stooge asked.

“I want you get Verne Miller outta my hair.”

Nitti nodded. Kathryn told them about Joe Bergl’s garage.

“There’s another fella with him,” she said. “My husband. I want him left alone. You sabe, Frank?”

Nitti caught her eye and nodded before turning and heading back down the steps.

“That’s it?” Geraline asked.

“You better believe it,” Kathryn said.

“I heard in the future, we’ll only take pills and not eat or drink.”

“The future is a bunch of hooey,” she said. “Stuff for weak-minded saps. Come on.”

THE HUDSON’S RADIATOR BOILED OVER AND STEAMED UP INTO the flickering lamplight as the men dashed out onto Halstead, carrying their guns and canvas bags, the two coppers running toward them telling them to stop. One held out his hand and reached for his gun while women screamed from inside the Essex, a man slumped at the wheel. A young woman wandered from the car with blood across her face while Miller stood in the middle of the street and mowed down the copper, machine gun chattering, toppling off the cop’s hat and sending him to his knees and face, and then he scattered bullets at the other cop, who jumped behind a newspaper stand. Sparks of electricity rained down onto the top of the Hudson from the broken streetlamp, and a fine rain misted the street.

The copper was dead, a new path set, and Harvey grabbed two bags himself, while Karpis stopped a Plymouth and yanked a man from behind the wheel.

The other copper took shots from inside the stand, hitting Barker’s fingers. But the pain just made Barker madder, and he squeezed off six rounds from his pistol with his good hand at the fleeing cop.

The men tossed the bags into the Plymouth’s trunk, and Karpis yelled for Miller, who kept on spraying the clapboard newsstand to shit, kicking off the magazines hung from clothespins and busting up the lot of white lights hung from the roof. “Come on, goddamn you,” Karpis yelled, clutch in, racing the motor and then tearing off down Halstead, taking some wild turns before doubling back and heading back toward Cicero.

“Clockwork,” Harvey said, catching his breath.

“I didn’t see ’em,” Karpis said. “That bastard came outta nowhere.”

“You coulda swerved,” Verne Miller said.

“You didn’t have to kill that cop,” Karpis said.

“Fresh out of flowers, Kreeps,” Miller said.

“Son of a bitch,” Karpis said.

“What?”

“We’re outta gas.”

They drove for another mile and then bailed out and stole another car, pointing a Thompson between the driver’s eyes. Harvey sat beside Karpis with Miller, George Kelly, and that moron Dock Barker in back, Barker whining about a bullet knocking a ruby from his pinkie ring. The men didn’t say another word till they pulled through the bay doors of Joe’s Square Deal Garage and closed them shut.

Karpis popped the trunk and grabbed a bag, Barker and George Kelly grabbed the others, all of ’em tearing into them with folding knives and emptying out the fat sacks onto the card table.

Harvey said he needed a drink. Joe Bergl passed him a bottle of rye. He took a pull and handed it to George Kelly, who took a longer pull.

The table filled with fat, tightly bundled stacks of envelopes.

Karpis tore into another to find the same.

And another, until letters littered the oil-stained floor.

Harvey sat down in a rickety chair and rested his head in his hands. Miller stood across from him, white-faced and still holding the Thompson. Dock Barker started to open every goddamn letter as if it were a letter from Momma.

“We just stole the goddamn mail,” Karpis said, and started to laugh. “What a hoot.”

“I don’t get it,” Dock Barker said, ripping open a couple more envelopes. “What do ya mean?”

“We got the mail, you idiot,” Harvey said. He lit a cigarette and leaned back into the hard chair, shaking his head. Karpis started to laugh like a maniac, looking more and more like a fella you called “Kreeps.”

George Kelly rubbed his lantern jaw, shrugged, and reached for the rye on the table.

But Miller clenched his teeth, dropped his machine gun on the floor, and kicked it to the wall, sending it spinning across the smooth concrete floor and shooting off a short burst of bullets.

“Take it easy, Verne,” Karpis said. “This stuff happens. Have a drink. Get laid every once in a while. I hear Vi’s screwing half of New York.”

Miller turned and came for him, reaching for Karpis’s throat and choking the ever-living shit out of the ugly bastard before Harvey and Dock could pull him off. Harvey had to reach a forearm across his friend’s throat and pull him back like a dog.

When Harvey felt Miller relax, he followed him into the back room they’d shared for the past week. He watched him pack his suitcase: a pressed shirt, two pairs of trousers, a regulation.45, and some fresh drawers. A rusty faucet dripped, hanging crazy and crooked from a back wall.

“Where you headed?” Harvey asked.

Miller shrugged.

“You know Karpis was talking out his ass?”

“He was telling the truth.”

“You don’t know that.”

“She can do what she wants,” Miller said. “See you ’round, Harv.”

He offered his hand, and Harvey shook it.

Harvey, wrung-out, walked back to the card table and sat down. Miller walked out of the back room and reached for the latch on the bay door, rolling it open.

A large car sat idling outside, headlights shining bright into the big garage.

Four men crawled out of the car, and they stood in loose shadows with shotguns hanging from their hands. Harvey started to stand, and Karpis put his strong hand on his shoulder. Barker stopped tearing into the envelopes, mouth wide open.

In the bright light-so bright you had to squint-Miller looked back at Harvey. He offered him a weak smile, walking outside and moving to the car’s backseat. A shadowed hand went on his arm, but Miller tossed it aside, getting into the car himself. Harvey could now see the car was a Cadillac as it backed into the alley and sped away. Verne Miller’s battered suitcase stood alone by the door.

“You goddamn son of a bitch,” Harvey said. “You called Nitti.”

“You know better,” Karpis said.

“You’re a goddamn liar.”

“If I were a double-crosser, you’d be with ’im,” Karpis said.

“I’m going after those bastards.”

“You want to be dead?” Karpis said. “Go ahead.”

Harvey stood and walked to a brand-new Ford parked sideways near the bay doors. He looked around the big garage and then back to Karpis. “Where the hell’s George?”

JONES STOOD AT THE CORNER OF ADAM AND HALSTEAD A FEW hours later. They’d pulled a white sheet over the dead policeman-a long-faced cop by the name of Cunningham-and before the man was hauled away, Jones saw he’d been mauled up pretty good. He’d figured it for a machine gun even before the women in the Essex had confirmed it, along with the other beat cop who’d been hit in the shoulder. Doc White stood over at the newsstand and spoke to a little runt of a fella who sold newspapers and movie magazines. The man was pointing to the bullet holes and shredded magazines, saying God had protected him with big stacks of the evening editions.

The newspaper boys had taken their pictures, asked their questions, and gone.

A few onlookers stood and watched at first light. But the streets had been cleared, the cars towed and the glass and metal swept up.

An hour earlier, he and Doc had been on Jackson Street, interviewing the bank messengers and the guards. They’d searched that Ford and found the smoke machine. In the Hudson, they’d found a first-aid kit and two boxes of.45 ammo.

The men had worn bandannas at the robbery, and no one at the wreck recalled much. The fella that owned the newsstand said he was pretty sure they weren’t colored.

“Kelly?” Doc White asked them as they walked back to their vehicle.

Jones nodded. “Fits. He’s here.”

“One of the women gave a description sounds a hell of a lot like Verne Miller.”

“What about Bailey?”

“Didn’t hear of anyone sounded like Bailey.”

Jones watched a city worker take a wrench to a fire hydrant and start hosing away the beat cop’s blood. “Lot of misery for a few sacks of mail.”

“Any other night could’ve been more ’an a million.”

“You want to stay here?”

“Only sure bet is the Arnolds.”

“What Colvin do with ’em?”

“Did like Kathryn Kelly asked,” Doc White said, striking a match and cupping his hand around a cigarette. The morning wind sure felt like fall. “Holed ’em up in the Shangri-La Apartments in O.K. City till she gets word.”

“Could they be tipped off?”

“Colvin was careful.”

As they walked to their car, a big truck with slatted wooden sides ambled up to the shredded newsstand, dropping off morning copies of the Tribune, local police blaming Kelly for the robbery and the cop killing. 10,000 LAWMEN HUNT “MACHINE GUN” KELLY.