Infamous

5

Monday, July 24, 1933

Okay, so the song went like this: Harvey Bailey and Verne Miller had robbed three banks since Kansas City, none of them worth squat, but the little stash growing into something neat and tidy, a figure to work with, something respectable, and a number that would be well worth telling the dealer, “I’m okay with this. I’m out.” They slept in cars and ate by cook fires. They turned their heads from friendly folks in restaurants who wanted to chat about the weather; they wore common clothes and drove common cars. Their lives, their futures, were road maps purchased for pennies at Texaco, Sinclair Oil, and Standard Red Crown service stations. They pissed in drainage ditches and fell asleep with whiskey bottles in their hands, often reaching for guns when a deer would scamper across places where they laid their heads. All in all, Harvey had been having a hell of a time since breaking out of jail. Everything was just that much sweeter.

“So if it’s good, why do we bring in Underhill and Clark?”

“Because we need more men,” Harvey said.

“Those hicks are the types that find a sexual interest in the barnyard.”

“Didn’t say I wanted to take them to dinner with us.”

“If they fuck up, we leave ’em or kill ’em.”

“You run a hard code, Verne.”

“You got more patience?”

Harvey shrugged. They stood over the hood of his Buick, parked at the edge of a rolling hill at the foot of the Cooksons, and studied the git out from Muskogee, the People’s National Bank. “Big beautiful cage on the left wall,” Harvey said. “Safe will be open for business behind them.”

“How many?”

“Eight and the president.”

“When?”

“Right before closing.”

“And then what?”

“I head back to my family,” Harvey said. “ Wisconsin and all that. And you can go back to Vi.”

“Vi’s in New York.”

“Then you go to New York.”

“I think she’s fooling around on me.”

“You’d have to be pretty stupid to step out with Verne Miller’s gal.”

“We had some trouble before she left.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“She complained that I got a temper.”

Dust kicked up on the horizon, and a black speck soon took the shape of a sedan not unlike the black Ford they’d stolen in Clinton. “Mad Dog” Underhill and Jim Clark crawled out, and Harvey and Miller spoke to them. Harvey hadn’t seen the boys since the Lansing breakout. Underhill was a bony fella with big mean eyes and dirty little hands. Clark had no neck, thinning hair, and dimples. He was a fat man who shifted from side to side when he walked.

Cigarettes were smoked. The git shown to everyone there just in case Harvey was hit and couldn’t drive. Underhill laid down a sharp fart as he studied the map and didn’t even say he was sorry.

“I got some aigs and a skillet,” Underhill said, scratching his crotch.

“Stole some bread at the Piggly Wiggly,” Clark said, and spat.

“Fire’s over there, boys,” Harvey Bailey said, pointing to the little grouping of stones he’d laid out last night. “Help yourself.”

Verne Miller had walked off to the edge of a little hill where the earth had been blasted away to make room for train tracks. He carried with him a little bucket of water, a straight razor, and a mirror. Sitting on an old tree stump, he began to shave as the new boys guffawed it up by the fire.

“Don’t think about it so much,” Harvey said.

“Mad Dog? You got to be pulling my leg.”

“Vi.”

“You know, I met her at a carnival,” Verne said. “She was working in a kissing booth, and some rube tried to reach under her skirt and touch her pussy.”

“And you didn’t like that.”

“I nearly choked the man to death.”

Miller had shaven half his face with nothing but muddy water. The mud slid down off his cheek and into the bucket as he turned to stare at Harvey. He shook his head and slid the razor down his other cheek, the blade sounding like the soft ripping of a paper bag.

“Those morons know about Kansas City?” Miller asked.

“Nope.”

“The G’s gonna hang us for that,” Miller said. “You were right. Jelly Nash wasn’t worth it.”

“We weren’t there,” Harvey said. “Don’t ever tell yourself anything different.”

“People blame me for killing Nash.”

“Wasn’t your fault.”

“Underhill said he heard I killed Nash because he looked at me wrong.”

“Underhill doesn’t have much sense,” Harvey said.

“Why do they call him ‘Mad Dog’?”

“You really want to know?”

“MOR E COFFEE?” MRS. URSCHEL ASKED.

“I’d appreciate it, ma’am,” Gus Jones said.

She sent a negro boy back to the kitchen to refill the silver pot.

“I want you to go,” Mrs. Urschel said. “I want all these lawmen gone.”

“May I ask why?”

“No one will call with every policeman in the state in this house.”

“I’d like our people to stay.”

“From your office.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jones said. “We don’t want to interfere.”

“Is Charlie dead?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Will they kill him?”

“I can’t rightly say.”

“But they might.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Like the Lindbergh child.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Mr. Urschel is a tough, resourceful man. He’s cunning and shrewd and quite strong. He can take care of himself.”

“I don’t doubt it, Mrs. Urschel.”

“Do I call you ‘Agent Jones’?”

“ ‘Buster’ is just fine.”

“Why do they call you Buster?”

“Just what I’ve always been called. My mother called me that.”

“Did she approve of your line of work?”

“She understood it,” Jones said. “My father was the same.”

“Worked for the government.”

“He was a lawman.”

She nodded. The negro waited until there was a pause in the conversation to pour the coffee into the china cups. The furniture was stiff and hard, the kind you’d seen in a museum but never used. A large portrait of Charles Urschel hung on a far wall over a small wooden bookshelf filled with leather-bound editions. Jones would be damned if it didn’t seem like old Charlie was staring dead at him.

“Agent Colvin said you knew my first husband.”

“I helped him out in a small matter sometime back.”

“Charles is much more reserved than Mr. Slick.”

“I imagine so.”

They drank more coffee. The house had an air-conditioning machine that groaned and hummed and let in refrigerated air while the press and police sat outside in a ninety-degree morning. They ran telephone lines to poles and hustled copy straight from desks fashioned from blocks and beams to downtown newsrooms. Earlier that day, Jones had chased off a grifter selling photographs of the Urschel family.

“Mr. Kirkpatrick said I can trust you.”

“You can.”

“And you are acquainted with him, too.”

“Through your first husband,” he said. “Kirk is a right fella.”

“He’s placed a great many calls on the family’s behalf. Some top newspaper editors will be withdrawing their people.”

“That’s good.”

“You don’t like them either.”

“Never cared for parasites of any kind.”

Berenice Urschel smiled at him, and the smile dropped as she craned her head to look at the gilded portrait of her kidnapped husband. She took a sip of coffee and shrugged. “He’ll be just fine.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

THE BANK TELLER LAY FLAT ON HER BACK, SUMMER DRESS HIKED above the knee, showing a good bit of stocking and garter. She was a looker, too. Lean and lanky, with red lips and marcelled hair, smelling just like sunshine to Harvey Bailey.

“Sweetie?” Harvey asked.

“Yes, sir?”

“Please, turn over,” he said.

The woman-whom Harvey had noted yesterday as Miss Georgia Loving-flipped, face reddened, but no less excited about the show.

“This is a robbery,” he said. “Not an audition.”

Women were often like that during a job. You offered a little politeness, some little gentlemanly presentation, and they’d work with you. It made the whole thing very safe and enjoyable for everyone.

He checked his Bulova. Four on the nose.

Harvey moved across the wide marble lobby-polished shoes clicking under him-and looked out the front-door window to see Verne Miller behind the wheel of a stolen flat-black Buick. Miller met his eyes and tipped his hat.

The street was clean. Two minutes to go.

“Done?” Harvey yelled, heading back behind the cages and scooping up great wads of cash and coin, filling a bag.

“Almost,” Clark called from inside the vault.

Underhill stood at the vault door, sweeping his 12-gauge across a dozen or so bank employees and anonymous suckers, face to floor with hands on their necks. He wore a great smile on his unshaven mug, a matchstick in the corner of his mouth, and Harvey knew the bastard was just itching to pull the trigger and let the buckshot fly.

“Head down,” Underhill said, jabbing the end of his gun into the bank president’s fat ass. “Or I blow you a new hole.”

“Easy, boy.”

“He moves again and I’ll kill him.”

“I know.”

“You don’t believe me? I’ll do it. I swear to Christ.”

“No need to do that.”

“Look at his fat apple cheeks. Just like a hog. If I had an apple-”

“Easy.”

The bank president hadn’t time to slip back into his coat, and his wide, fatty back was soaked in sweat. You could see the rolls rippling under linen, and his thinning hair had grown hot and matted against his head. Harvey could hear him breathing clear across the room.

He studied Underhill, knowing the goddamn buffoon had gone screwy again, just like when they broke out of Lansing and he wanted to slaughter Warden Prather just because authority made him itch. A loud clock ticked off the minutes, big black fans creaking overhead trying to sweep away the hundred-degree heat.

There was silence.

And then there was everything. Car engines and men yelling and boots clattering up the great steps to the bank door, rattling the lock.

“Who hit the alarm?” Underhill asked. “Goddamn you, Fat Man.” Harvey held up a hand to calm him and walked around to the cages, running a hand under the ledge and finding the small switch. He shrugged and took a breath.

“Ladies?”

Miss Loving and the other teller crooked their heads from the floor.

“Lucky girls,” he said. “Lucky, lucky little girls.”

The woman craned her neck at him. Harvey winked.

“You can be our hostesses.”

Harvey tossed the bag of cash at Underhill and offered a hand to each teller, hoisting them to their feet. The other gal’s name was Thelma, a blonde with a fine set of cantaloupe bosoms straining the material of her flowered dress. She hadn’t stopped smiling at Harvey since he pointed the gun in her face.

He placed the.38 in the waistband of his blue linen suit and put a palm to each of the women’s backs, ushering them to the door. Both of ’em took a deep breath, and the expanse and ripple of it felt like an electric current.

Underhill went first.

With a touch of a trigger, the blam sent the boys in blue behind their cars. Verne Miller-God bless that son of a bitch-held the Thompson over the Buick doorframe and trained it on the three police cars parked haphazardly on the street.

Underhill nodded. Harvey walked down the steps flanked by the two women, just kind of strolling with a Hollywood air.

Clark loaded the cash in the trunk. Underhill covered Miller, who cranked the engine, and Harvey gently escorted the ladies to the running boards, where he told them they better hold on real tight. As he ducked into the car, he heard a gunshot sounding, felt a white-hot stabbing pain in his heel, and he tumbled on inside and told Verne to get going fast.

Underhill squeezed the second trigger, and the women shrieked as the Buick sped away from the downtown. Harvey Bailey, leg hurting so bad it felt damn good, loved it, laughing and turning back only for a moment to see the cops trying to make chase of that big, beautiful Buick growling and downshifting into a comfortable, violent speed.

His heel bled thick and dark into his shoes, and he tied off the wound at the ankle with his necktie.

When they hit the county line, Verne Miller tossed a box of roofing nails from his window and fired up a Lucky, watching the blowouts in his rearview. For just a moment, through all that goddamn smoke, Harvey noted something on Miller’s lips that might’ve been a smile.

Harvey reached out the window with a bloody hand to give Miss Loving’s narrow little ass a nice pat. He knew damn well that the world was a fine place.