Infamous (12 page)

“Mr. Urschel, we sure are sorry,” said the old man. “Potatoes, get dinner started.”

“Sorry, Mr. Urschel,” the boy, Potatoes, said. “I got another cigar for you, a gen-u-ine Tampa Nugget. And we got somethin’ special for dinner tonight, too.”

“That’s right, Mr. Urschel. A real home-cooked meal. Don’t mind those men none. We just want you real comfortable. Remember, we’s the ones who treat you nice.”

“Then why don’t you let me go?” Charlie asked. “I’ll pay you both ten thousand dollars apiece.”

Potatoes and the old man didn’t say a thing for a long while. The hound trotted over and licked Charlie’s hands while the cotton and tape was laid back over his eyes from behind. The dog slopped on his fingers, and Charlie could feel the long, drooping ears.

“That ole boy sure does like you,” the old man said. “He don’t come ’round to people so quick. He senses you’re a gentleman. A just man.”

“You should see him take after a coon,” Potatoes said. “You want to hear more about the Fair?”

“No, thank you, if you please.”

“Yes, sir,” Potatoes said.

“Mr. Urschel,” the old man said. “If them boys don’t make it through what they’re plannin’ on, you have my word I’ll let you loose. I know you don’t know me. But my word is fourteen carat.”

“I bet,” Charlie said. “I could tell you’re a pair of real gentlemen.”

“I’ll go fetch your dinner,” Potatoes said. “I think I seen a
Photoplay
, too. Jean Harlow’s on the cover and gives an interview, real personal, saying things she ain’t said to nobody else before. I get the goose pimples just thinkin’ on it.”

“DID YOU HAVE TO MAKE HIM SWALLOW THE DAMN WATCH?” DOC White asked.

“They put that woman through hell,” Jones said. “Then he tried to slice me with a busted bottle.”

“Why didn’t you have them arrested?”

“They learned their lesson,” Jones said. “I hope they choked on their steak.”

“Pretty stupid calling Mrs. Urschel to complain.”

“Greedy as hell,” Jones said. “Those men were bums before the Depression. It just makes ’em easier to hide.”

“No shame atall these days.”

“Why don’t you tell that to Mr. Colvin?”

“Come again?”

“That little girl is twistin’ him in knots,” Jones said.

On a stone patio behind the mansion, Betty Slick wore a satin number, something worth a month’s pay to Jones, low-cut and tied at the shoulders. Jones had seen such numbers in magazines but never on Mary Ann. Mary Ann was no prude but would’ve thought paying that kind of money for a dress was a sin on the order of buying a bonnet you only wear on Easter Sunday. Bruce Colvin sat on the ledge of a marble fountain, felt hat in hand, conversing with the girl, who’d hop up onto the ledge in her bare feet and then hop back down. The whole dance of it was making Jones dizzy, and he wished the girl had somewhere to go to keep Colvin’s mind on the matter at hand.

Jones took the pipe from the corner of his mouth and knocked the tobacco out with the heel of his boot. “He don’t stand a chance.”

“What’s his story?”

“Worked as a prosecutor in some small town in Mississippi,” Jones said. “Joined up a couple years ago. Can’t shoot. Can’t track worth a durn.”

“Dresses regulation.”

“Our days are numbered.”

“They still need us.”

“If you say,” Jones said.

Betty Slick laughed and twirled her dark hair and laughed some more, and brought her show closer to Special Agent in Charge Bruce Colvin. Jones noted she was a pretty girl, with a woman’s figure and pleasant face. She was the kind of girl that still had the dew on her, and Colvin might as well have had a ring in his nose.

“I think I’m gettin’ the piles,” Doc said. “Let’s take a walk.”

“Where to?”

“Out of this mausoleum.”

The Urschel place had been cleared of most newspapermen, who had only the day before been working from tents and makeshift offices on the front lawn, on account of not scaring off the kidnappers. They were cleared from the house but not from the story; those bloodsuckers still called every other minute. Four extra phone lines had been added to the house, with agents and police listening to every call, analyzing every telegram, and studying every letter delivered. Simple messages were broken down and straight-ahead words were decoded.

“You go to Sheriff Reed’s funeral?”

“No, sir,” Jones said. “Couldn’t make it.”

“He was an all right fella.”

“Reminded me of ole Rome Shields.”

“From San Angelo?”

“Yep,” Jones said. “Rome Shields taught me everything I know.”

“Hell, Buster. Just what do you know?”

“The older I get, the more it escapes me.”

The trees made a good bit of shade as they walked down Eighteenth along the skinny sidewalk past many smaller homes—bungalows and such—all of them with brand-new cars and children playing on fresh-cut lawns with manicured bushes and trimmed roses. Jones removed his jacket and tucked it in the crook of his arm and over the .45 on his hip. The whole place felt like a hothouse, and he mopped his face a bit. A young agent from the local office slowed his vehicle beside them and asked if they needed a ride somewhere. The older men shook their heads and kept moving.

“This country’s going to hell.”

“Don’t be gettin’ soft and senile on me,” Jones said. “People have always been evil. Didn’t you read the Bible? There weren’t too many picnics between wars. Or you want to sing me a song about those gay ole days?”

“I don’t recall times ever bein’ this bad.”

“Don’t take as much to be an outlaw, if that’s what you’re gettin’ at.”

“How you figure?”

“Remember when we ran the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang?”

“I remember running that posse on Black Jack.”

“Well, when they pulled a job it took some effort,” Jones said. “You had to blast your way out of the bank and hope your horse kept on till the posse gave up. That’s a test of wills and endurance. You planned ahead and saw it through. What you got these days depends on the machine, not the man.”

“The best car.”

“These hoods are driving vehicles with fourteen and sixteen cylinders. What kind of country sheriff keeps that kind of machine in his garage? They get out of the bank and they’re as good as gone. Who’s gonna catch ’em?”

“What would Black Jack have done with a Buick and a Thompson?”

“Raise a lot more hell than these folks.”

“You know what ole Black Jack said before they hung ’im?”

“Tell it again.”

“ ‘I’ll be in hell before y’all eat breakfast, boys,’ ” White said, stopping for a moment to light a cigarette. “ ‘Let her rip.’ ”

“Took his head clean off, I heard,” Jones said. “Doc, you ever think you’d see a weapon that could fire thirty rounds in the blink of an eye?”

“That was made for the military, not for gangsters.”

“How you gonna keep it out of their hands?”

“Don’t take much skill with a full drum,” White said. “Sure can chew apart the scenery.”

“One man becomes an army.”

“It’s cowardice,” White said. “Not progress.”

When they returned, Kirkpatrick met them on the sunporch and opened the door. Maps and telegrams had been laid on the card table along with books and books of mug shots and prison records.

“Anything?” Jones asked.

“Cranks,” Kirkpatrick said. “Can you believe that woman had the nerve—”

“Yes.”

Jones and White removed their hats, laid them crown down, and took a seat at the card table. A negro woman offered some coffee, and they took it, White discussing running back to the hotel for sandwiches to keep the billing easy for expenses. Jones said that sounded fine, and he filled his pipe again and leaned back into the chair. He could hear the birds in the trees and the cicadas buzzing in the heat. The view was obscured and fuzzy on account of the metal screen.

“This is the screwiest one,” Kirkpatrick said. “Received it this morning while I was shaving.”

He slid the letter across to Jones. Jones glanced down and read it, getting the fire going in the bowl, and looked up at Kirkpatrick.

“What?” Kirkpatrick asked. “Surely you don’t think there is anything to something so outrageous?”

A letter from Charles F. Urschel to you and the enclosed identification cards will convince you that you are dealing with the Abductors. Immediately upon receipt of this letter you will proceed to obtain the sum of TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS
($200,000.00)
in GENUINE USED FEDERAL RESERVE CURRENCY in the denomination of TWENTY DOLLAR
($20.00)
Bills. It will be useless for you to attempt taking notes of SERIAL NUMBERS, MAKING UP DUMMY PACKAGE, OR ANYTHING ELSE IN THE LINE OF ATTEMPTED DOUBLE CROSS. BEAR THIS IN MIND, CHARLES E URSCHEL WILL REMAIN IN OUR CUSTODY UNTIL MONEY HAS BEEN INSPECTED AND EX CHANGED AND FURTHERMORE WILL BE AT THE SCENE OF, CONTACT FOR PAY-OFF AND IF THERE SHOULD BE ANY ATTEMPT AT ANY DOUBLE XX IT WILL BE HE THAT SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCE. As soon as you have read and RE-READ this carefully and wish to commence negotiations you will proceed to the
DAILY OKLAHOMAN
and insert the following BLIND AD under the REAL ESTATE, FARMS FOR SALE, and we will know that you are ready, for BUSINESS, and you will receive further instructions AT THE BOX ASSIGNED TO YOU BY THE NEWSPAPER, AND NO WHERE ELSE. We have neither time or patience to carry on any further lengthy correspondence. RUN THIS AD FOR ONE WEEK IN
DAILY OKLAHOMAN
. FOR SALE—160 Acres Land, good five room house, deep well. Also Cows, Tools, Tractor, Corn and Hay.
$3750.00
for quick sale. TERMS. Box #—hear from us as soon as convenient after insertion of AD.

An hour later, the postman delivered a letter with Urschel’s identification and personal signature. From across the table, Doc White asked, “Our boys?”

“Yep,” Jones said. “See if Agent Colvin might have the time and inclination to join us. That is, if his dance card ain’t punched.”

ORA HAD FIXED A BIG SOUTHERN MEAL JUST THE WAY GEORGE liked it, and they all sat together like a proper family at Boss’s place, a mile down the road from where they kept Mr. Urschel. Kathryn let Boss say grace, and George answered it with a big, corny “Amen” and reached for the fried chicken, that long, hairy arm coming clean across the table for a drumstick. Albert Bates complimented her mother on the meal and poured himself a glass of iced tea.

“You send over a plate, darlin’?” George asked.

“Taters brung it,” Ora said, her voice grating, filled with a lot of North Mississippi; Saltillo to her bones. “Gave him some sliced tomatoes and field peas, too. Reckon he’ll like that?”

“Mr. Urschel should be grateful,” Bates said. “A big oilman lives on nothing but sirloin steak and bourbon. Craps out silver dollars like a one-armed bandit.”

“He’s due for some slop,” George said.

“George,” Ora said.

“Oh, no, ma’am, I don’t mean your cookin’ is slop, I’m talking the beans.”

“I don’t think he’s cut out for ranch living,” Bates said. “He tried to fight signing that letter, but not real hard. He wants this mess gone.”

“And what will you do then, Mr. Bates?” Boss asked. The old man sat at the head of the table in a boiled white shirt buttoned to the throat. He chewed his chicken as he spoke, with a lot of strength in those jaws, looking like a little bulldog gnawing on a bone, thin white hair combed back from his forehead and sticking up like a grizzled rooster’s.

“Get back to my sweetie and have some fun,” Bates said. “This is it for me.”

“What’s the next step for you, young man?” Boss asked.

“If I knew, this wouldn’t be an ounce of fun,” George said with a wink. “You go where you find the action. But I’m figuring they’ll answer that ad and play it smart. We’ll all be out of your hair by Sunday, and me and Kit will be on the road and Albert will be back with his sweetie.”

He smiled over at Kathryn, stopping her from laughing about Boss’s hair, and grabbed her knee with his free hand. She looked down at the red-and-white tablecloth and studied the uniform pattern. She hadn’t gotten any food, her stomach twisted up in knots. But George didn’t have a care in the world, reaching back across the table and grabbing a thigh this time and asking her mother for another helping of field peas. Old Ora lit up with smiles like that big mug had hung the goddamn moon.

“George, when you finish stuffing your gullet, how ’bout you and me go check out the machine?” Kathryn asked.

“Already checked on her,” George said. “Fueled up and ready to go. Got a tin of gas and cans of oil. Don’t you worry about nothin’.”

“I’d like to see her anyway,” Kathryn said, moving his hand off her knee, pushing the skirt back down. She reached for the iced tea and poured a glass, wishing these Baptists would wake up to the world and keep some gin in the house.

“Sheriff Faith come by today,” Boss said, just as plain as talking about crops and weather.

George stopped chewing. He and Albert exchanged glances.