Infamous

38

The trick with dodging a hangover was just to stay drunk for as long as you could, parceling out the sips slow and easy without getting sloppy. Kathryn drank straight gin over cracked ice for most of the night until she heard Lang knock on the back door, rousting Geraline from the couch, the girl none too happy about the plan. “I’m not going,” she said.

“The hell you aren’t,” Kathryn said.

“My parents don’t care.”

“How’s Lang supposed to find my grandmother’s place in Coleman?”

“And you swear he’ll bring me back?”

“Just as soon as he picks up a few things.”

“Your furs and your Pekingese dog.”

“That’s right.”

“I’m not a sap.”

“Didn’t say you were, sister,” Kathryn said. “The boy can’t find the farm himself.”

Geraline packed her little suitcase, arranging items they’d bought her at the Fair along with three packs of cigarettes, a small cigar box, her new little dresses, frilly socks and panties, and what have you. Kathryn walked outside and saw Lang hand Tich a twenty-dollar bill before Tich hobbled down the steps to head to work at first light down at the Peabody Hotel garage.

“He won’t talk?” Kathryn asked.

“He’s loyal,” Lang said. “Worked for my family for years.”

“Goddamn, my head hurts.”

“Where’s George?”

“Still passed out in the back bedroom,” she said. “Hasn’t stirred a bit.”

“Tich will get rid of the Chevrolet,” he said. “He promises to bring back something better with Tennessee plates.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“George is my family, Kathryn.”

She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, whispering into his ear, “After you get our dough, ditch the little smart-ass at the first train station you see.”

Lang nodded.

“You’ll need cash to get there.”

He shook his head. But she tucked a fat roll of twenties in his hand.

“If something goes screwy, send a telegram to Tich.”

He nodded. They heard George stumble from the back bedroom and pad out into the hallway with bare feet, wearing only an undershirt and boxer shorts. He rubbed his stubbled jaw, and smiled when he saw Lang. “You headed to church or somethin’?”

Lang smiled, holding a brand-new straw hat in his hand.

“He’s going to be calling on Ma Coleman for us,” Kathryn said.

George walked close to Lang and put his hands on his shoulders, smiling at him, and Lang looking a little uncomfortable, probably from George’s gin breath. But George didn’t notice, only wrapped his big arms around Lang and gave him a big old bear hug. He patted his back.

“Don’t get yourself killed,” George said, and padded into the bathroom, where they both heard him start to take a leak.

Geraline stood at the door, dressed in her brand-new flowered dress, new shoes, and that beret Kathryn had bought on the Streets of Paris. On her collar, she wore a button that read CENTURY OF PROGRESS.

“C’mon, Lang,” Geraline said, chewing a big wad of gum. “Quit your yap-pin’. We got a long day ahead.”

HARVEY WATCHED THE YOUNG LAWYER AND THE LITTLE GIRL he’d seen with Kathryn in Chicago leave the little bungalow on Rayner Street. He’d followed Lang all the way from North Memphis, the man not once making him out in his rearview mirror, not even when Harvey pulled in down the street and killed his lights a little before dawn. On the seat next to him, he had a pack of Camel cigarettes, a.45 automatic, and a copy of the morning newspaper with more trial coverage on the Shannons in Oklahoma City and news that Verne Miller and George had been spotted at a diner in Minnesota. He also had several maps of Iowa he’d bought at a Standard service station-he planned to cut through there on his way up to Wisconsin to pick up his family.

The only sleep he’d gotten was when he’d closed his eyes for maybe two seconds on the river. A short time later, a nervous negro met him at a downtown filling station, handing him the keys to a Plymouth, afraid to look the famous bank robber in the eye.

When the lawyer and the girl pulled away from the house on Rayner, he tossed his cigarette out the window and laid the.45 in his lap. Only a fool would bust into the back door in a fella’s hometown, no telling who George had in there or if George was in there at all.

A prowl car passed outside the car’s windows, and the way it drove lazy and relaxed was enough for Harv. He started the car, knocked it into first, and drove back toward the downtown.

“HAPPY ANNIVERSARY,” KATHRYN SAID, JOINING GEORGE IN Tich’s rumpled bed.

He reached to a nightstand and grabbed a pack of cigarettes and his lighter.

“I’m gonna buy you the biggest ring in Havana,” he said.

“I don’t need it.”

“We’re going to go to all those fancy clubs and drink rum. I’ll smoke cigars and fish.”

“What can I do?”

“Any damn thing you want.”

“Then what?”

“You want more?” George asked.

“I don’t like to be bored, George. I hate being bored.”

Kathryn turned her head on his chest to look at him. He ashed the cigarette into his palm and scatted it onto the floor, passing the cigarette to her. “Lang’s lemonade sure sneaks up on you,” she said.

“The trick is to keep on drinking.”

“So I heard.”

“Kit, pull the shades.”

“You got to be kidding.”

“We got the house all to ourselves.”

“This place is depressing.”

“Bed still works,” he said, rocking it back and forth with his butt, making the springs squeak.

“Come on.”

“It’s our anniversary,” he said.

“You read the papers?” she asked.

“Always bad news,” he said. “Take off that nightie.”

“I’ll leave it on,” she said. “Just be quiet.”

She kicked out of her panties and straddled him, George flat on his back and looking up at her with puppy-dog eyes. She reached for him, and he told her that he loved her.

She reached for him again, knowing this was going to take some work.

Kathryn slapped George across his face and told him to try a little harder. The strap of her slip had fallen off one shoulder by the time they finally got the show started, and she alternated with a firm hand on his chest and dropping them both loose at her sides, feeling him inside her, George with his eyes closed, Kathryn thinking that, in the weakened light, he really did favor Ricardo Cortez, and for a while there was a pleasant moment when he was Ricardo Cortez and this wasn’t a crummy nest of a bed but the biggest, fattest bed in Havana, with silk sheets, and guitar music floating in from the brick streets. And the air smelled like sweet flowers and tobacco, and she arched her back more, her mouth parted, and then reached her nails into George’s shoulder and said, “Did you hear that?”

“Damn it, Kit,” George said, opening his eyes and crawling out from under her.

She pulled down her silk slip

George walked to the window and peeked outside. “Nothing. Not a damn thing.”

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s finish.”

“I need a drink.”

He started slamming cabinets in the kitchen, looking for some more gin but instead finding Tich’s stash of Log Cabin bourbon, bottom-shelf kind of stuff, that George poured over ice. He turned on the radio, saying he was listening for any news on them but only finding some kids’ show again. He drank and brooded there on the sofa until the shadows fell across the floor. Tich was back sometime later, dragging that old foot and bringing them an angel food cake from his church service and a.45 automatic he sold to George for $17.50.

George grabbed the gun but didn’t eat a bit of the cake, and he and Kathryn both went to bed sometime late that night, not really knowing when, all that time kind of getting mixed together. They slept apart, Kathryn not waking until she heard Tich had returned, and the ugly little man handed her a telegram from Gainesville, Texas. HAD SEVERAL TOUGH BREAKS… DEAL FELL THROUGH. TRIED TO GET LATER APPOINTMENT. BEST PROSPECT WAS AFRAID. IMPOSSIBLE. CHANGED HER MIND. DON’T WANT TO BRING HOME A SAD TALE. CAN GO ON IF ADVISABLE. WIRE INSTRUCTIONS HERE.

“Where’s the bottle?” she asked.

HARVEY WALKED UP THE DRIVEWAY OF THE LITTLE HOUSE on Rayner early that Tuesday morning after sleeping a night in the car at a tourist camp over the river in West Memphis, Arkansas. With the.45 loose at his side, he checked the back door and found it unlocked. He pressed on, not knowing who all was in the house. The kitchen was bare, a black skillet left cold on the burner, with the grease turning white and hard. He shifted the gun in his hand and moved into the main room, where a bunch of pillows and blankets was left on the couch, full ashtrays and half-finished glasses scattered across the room. He looked for suitcases, satchels, anything where they’d keep his dough if they had it with them at all. But he’d take whatever they had, fight over it if it came to that, and then he’d be on the great, beautiful, open road.

He heard sounds coming from a back bedroom.

He crept forward, and through a narrow crack saw the nude back of Kathryn, who was on top of George and riding him. He only saw George’s hairy legs and big feet and was glad he couldn’t see more, finally spotting a fat leather grip at the edge of the bed.

“Hope I didn’t stop you from the morning routine,” he said, tipping his hat at Kit. She crawled off George and covered herself with the entire sheet, George stumbling to his feet.

He walked up to Harvey as naked as you please and shook his head.

“Take it, Harv.”

“How much is left?” Harvey asked. “I only want what’s mine.”

“Three grand, give or take a few hundred,” George said. “Rest is hidden.”

“I’ll be wanting the rest.”

“How were we to know you pooled your goddamn money with ours at Cann’s place?” he said. “Your own fault.”

“Good luck, George.”

“Where’s Miller?”

“Dead,” Harvey said. “Nitti snatched him.”

“How’d Nitti know?”

“Pussy sure can make a man blind,” Harvey said. “You better get your eyes checked, George.”

“Skip the commentary, you rotten SOB,” Kathryn said. “Get what’s yours and get gone.”

Harvey tipped his hat, the leather grip feeling heavy and fat in his left hand. He hoisted it onto the table and opened the top, a breeze through a cracked window fluttering the loose bundles of cash. He caught sight of two garbagemen conversing with a fella who’d just parked across the street. The man opened his hood and stood against the fat fender.

The garbagemen had good haircuts. The man with the busted car shifted his weight, placing a hand on his belt, the son of a bitch carrying a rod. All three men glanced up at the bungalow, trying not to stare, first light still an hour away.

Harvey didn’t say a word, only snatched up the grip and walked out of the kitchen, hopping a fence to another house and then another, before finding his machine parked out on Speedway, knocking it into first and thinking what a beautiful day it was going to be.

KATHRYN WOULD LATER HEAR HOW MA COLEMAN HAD REBUKED Lang and Geraline three times before shooing them away and telling them federal agents were everywhere. Lang tried his best to get back to that willow tree he’d been told about, Geraline pleading with the blind old woman to let her inside, saying that Kathryn missed her little Pekingese dog and needed her furs for the winter. But the old woman wildly aimed a little.22 and said they wouldn’t last a mile if they picked up Kathryn’s things. “If they knew what was good for ’em, they’d get back in their car and keep driving till they were out of Texas.” The whole thing didn’t seem to bother Geraline but rattled poor Lang so bad that the little girl had to hold his cigarette while he lit it. She even told Lang he didn’t have the nerves for gangster work.

He ignored the kid.

And then fifty miles down the road, she started in on how much she missed her folks and started to primp up to cry.

“You told Kathryn you wanted to go back to Memphis.”

“Please,” Geraline said. “I want my momma.”

And he’d found a station, walking inside with her and purchasing a one-way ticket to Oklahoma City. He handed her a five-dollar bill and wished her good luck.

He wasn’t gone five minutes before she used the money to wire a message to the Shangri-La Apartments, Oklahoma City. MEET ME AT ROCK ISLAND STATION. 10:15 TONIGHT. GERRY.

Gerry had a fine time on the late train, finding the Sunday funnies section on a vacant seat. She probably laughed and giggled the whole way, with no more concern about what she’d done than Chingy showed when he killed a songbird.

The train arrived on time and clattered to a stop at the station. Geraline grabbed her fattened suitcase and politely declined help from a kindly negro porter. She stopped on the platform, the engine still hissing and steaming several cars ahead, and soon spotted old Luther and Flossie Mae, her momma and daddy, waving to her by a large clock atop a metal post.

Geraline lugged her suitcase, not in any particular hurry, and became annoyed when some old man came in step beside her and asked if she was tired.

“What’s it to you?” she asked.

“I’m a friend of your parents’.”

She noticed he wore a fine pearl gray cowboy hat and polished boots. He was short and sort of fat and wore a pair of gold-rimmed cheaters.

“Must have been some trip.”

“Sure thing, pops.”

Flossie Mae ran to her and tried to hug her. But Geraline just stood there limp while the woman put on some kind of show, kissing and cooing, for the cowboy. “Can we get something to eat?” Gerry asked.

“Little girl, how’d you like an ice-cream cone?” the cowboy asked. “We have a lot to discuss.”

Gerry looked to her parents and back to the man. She saw that her daddy had a hell of a shiner.

“WILL YOU RECONSIDER LETTING ME COME WITH YOU?” CHARLES Urschel asked.

“We appreciate you arranging a plane.”

“Kelly won’t go easily.”

“Don’t expect it.”

“Will you kill him?”

“If the situation calls for it.”

“I’d hate to have another trial,” Urschel said, speaking to Jones in the rear of the government vehicle on the way to the airstrip. “My family has been through enough.”

Jones said nothing. It was past three in the morning.

“How many men?”

“Me and Doc,” Jones said. “We’re meeting four men from the Oklahoma City office, including Special Agent Colvin. Six more in Memphis.”

“What do you think of Agent Colvin?”

“You don’t need my opinion, sir,” Jones said. “Think you already got that figured out.”

“You know Betty broke that young man’s heart when she took up with the club’s new tennis pro?” Urschel asked.

THEY LANDED IN MEMPHIS AT HALF PAST FIVE THAT MORNING. The police met them at the landing strip, and a briefing was held inside an airplane hangar. The locals had arranged for a garbage truck and some uniforms for Agent Bryce and Joe Lackey. Agent Colvin would drive a car and park across from the house on Rayner, where he’d feign having engine trouble.

A little after five a.m., Jones got word there was no movement in the house, and they figured Kelly-if inside-was still asleep. Jones pulled a machine gun from the back of a Memphis police car they’d parked six houses down on Speedway. Doc White carried a sawed-off Browning 12-gauge. The six detectives brought pistols, knowing this would all be close work inside that little house. Bryce could watch the front door and windows with a scoped rifle he’d stowed in the front seat of the truck.

Jones checked his timepiece and nodded to Doc White.

“IF KELLY IS KILLED,” CHARLIE URSCHEL SAID, “YOU’D BE a hero.”

“I made my way for twenty years trying to stay out of the papers.”

“The country needs something like this,” Urschel said. “Strong leaders. People are restless as sheep.”

“Folks follow money,” Jones said. “Always have. Greed is the root of it all.” Charlie Urschel turned away.

JONES CROSSED THE SMALL, SLOPED LAWN AND MET DOC WHITE, circling the house from around back. He was slow up the walkway and front steps, recalling the Paradise raid, trying the front door and finding it unlocked, a clear view of a big open room through to the glass cabinets of the kitchen. A small fella lay on the sofa, a half-empty bottle of whiskey in hand, and Jones was careful to open the front door slow and easy, while Doc touched the shotgun to the man’s nose and the man opened his eyes wide, frozen.

Bottles of bourbon and gin lay all around the house. Ashtrays overflowed. Jones spotted a copy of Master Detective wide open to a story called “My Bloodcurdling Ride With Death.”

Jones’s boots beat heavy steps on the wooden floor, and he waited any minute to hear gunshots. He walked along the hallway to find a bedroom door wide open and a nude woman, who lay tangled in a pile of white sheets. The first light of the day crossed the room and over the back and shoulder of Kathryn Kelly. A piece of her hair had caught in her mouth during sleep, her mouth slightly parted, eyes closed.

When he turned, a shadow crossed the wall, and Jones turned and raised his Thompson.

“THOSE MEN HUMILIATED ME,” URSCHEL SAID.

“Yes, sir.”

“It hasn’t been settled in my mind.”

“And won’t for some time.”

“Did Agent Colvin discuss with you my suspicions?”

“He did.”

“I made a mistake.”

“As us all.”

“Those people took Mr. Jarrett at gunpoint,” Urschel said. “I don’t want his personal conversations placed on phonographic records.”

“Mr. Hoover cabled that Mr. Jarrett should be left alone. Is that to your liking, Mr. Urschel?”

IT WAS KELLY, LOOKING HEAVY AND TIRED, HIS THICK HAIR bleached bright yellow. He stood not five paces away in the bungalow’s hallway, aiming a.45 at Jones’s chest. He wore only a pair of boxer shorts with red hearts.

“Drop that gun,” Jones said.

“I’ve been waiting for y’all all night,” Kelly said with a smile, as if he found the whole situation to be funny.

“Well,” Jones said, “here we are.”

Kelly stepped forward but did not lower the gun.

“DO YOU HAVE CHILDREN?” URSCHEL ASKED.

“No, sir. We wasn’t blessed with them.”

“When I received that letter from Kelly, I purchased pistols for all my children. I even gave Betty one to carry in her purse.”

“I never found that letter sincere.”

“I don’t let my children out of my sight.”

“I suppose that faith is the toughest part. Being a family man.”

“I don’t even trust my own safety. A shadow startles me.”

JONES INCHED HIS FINGER ON THE TRIGGER; JUST A LITTLE pressure would scatter the entire drum of bullets. He wondered if Kelly thought the gun was his own and that Jones had stolen it from him. He thought back on Paradise and then on Kansas City, Sheriff Otto Reed and those two dead city detectives lying like twin boys in the blood along the brick road.

Kelly just smiled down at Jones. Jones knowing goddamn well that Kelly thought it was kind of humorous being drawn by the much shorter, much older man.

“Are you the Federal Ace?” George Kelly asked.

“I’m Gus T. Jones of the Department of Justice. Now, drop your weapon.”

Kelly smiled some more, Jones hearing a stir in the bedroom and Kathryn calling for her husband to come back to bed. George chuckled. He lowered the.45 and placed it with a light touch on a sewing machine that had been pushed against a wall, covered with discarded rags and a fine dust.

It would take fifteen minutes before Kathryn agreed to put on some clothes. She emerged from the bathroom wearing a black dress that hugged her fanny and fanned out at her feet like a mermaid. As she was pushed into the Black Mariah with handcuffs on her wrists, Jones heard her say, “Officer, an agent of mine is returning from Texas shortly with all my furs and jewels and my Pekingese dog. Please make sure these are returned to me.”

George was sullen and silent. Jones only saw him grin once more after the arrest. The desk sergeant asked his name, age, and where he lived. “My name is George Kelly. I’m thirty-seven years of age, and I live everywhere.”