Infamous (24 page)

“George honey?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

“What’re you sorry for?”

“They’re just some rotten crooks. You don’t have to look up to ’em no more. You outclass ’em all.”

George sat on the hood of the car, in the shadow and darkness, and smoked for a few minutes, looking a bit drunk, watching those flashing red lights with all his attention.

“But George? Meet their eyes next time. Let ’em know you’re the heavy in this picture.”

“I was looking for something.”

Kathryn saddled up and skedaddled up onto the hood, pinching his smoke, and watching the gears and whirlycues of the drawbridge lay it all flat and even. Her stomach felt oddly flat and empty.

“The Kid’s got a secret door,” he said. “Right behind the desk. Looks real good and hid in that fancy woodwork, but it sure as shit is there.”

“How do you know it’s not a secret safe or some nonsense?”

“ ’ Cause it ain’t.”

“George?”

They noticed two black Cadillacs, new ones but only eight-cylinder, pull in front of the Mystic Caverns. Some tough Jew boys holding fat grips in their hands crawled out, and the doormen moved the hell out of their way. The business had begun.

“Here we go.”

“George?”

“Open the trunk, sweetheart,” George said. “And give me your coat.”

“What for?”

“To hide the big gun.”

“Oh, God,” she said, smiling. Knees weak and face flushed. “Oh, George.”

“Keep the motor running, and don’t turn into a woman if I come out blazing.”

18

Thursday, August 10, 1933

You remember ole Pedro Posado?” Doc White asked. He and Jones were about a thousand feet above North Texas, heading back to Oklahoma City, in a brand-new aircraft belonging to a buddy of Urschel’s, an executive with Sinclair Oil. White had to yell out the question on account of the single engine humming and shuddering the cabin. But, thank the Lord, it was blue skies today, making it easy work for Jones to check the rough terrain through a pair of binoculars.

“How could a man forget Pedro Posado?” Jones asked.

“What do you think drove him?”

“Meanness.”

“I don’t think so,” White said. “He was restless. All those Mexicans were restless back then, the government in collapse, everyone wantin’ a piece, thinking about putting beans on the table.”

“Nothing killed that woman but plain-out meanness,” Jones said, studying his hand-inked map and looking back out the oval window, following the natural borders—rivers and roads and fence lines—across the flat, dusty earth below them. It was a cloudless day, and everything from this altitude looked in good order.

“What was her name?” White asked.

“Conchita Ramirez.”

“That’s right. Conchita Ramirez. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can still hear the screams.”

“I try and not study on the past.”

“Pedro ran into that drugstore when he saw us. Where was that?”

“Shafter.”

“He pulled a gun on you and—”

“Doc, can we pay attention to the matter at hand?”

“You recall the newspapers?”

“Called us ‘killers,’ ” Jones said.

“Hell, ole Pedro is the one who’d blowed her legs and hands off.”

“I was there. You don’t need to color a story when a person knows how it goes.”

“We find the boys who nabbed Mr. Urschel and we won’t have time to blink.”

“You don’t think I know that, Doc? What am I gonna do, offer ’em flowers first?”

“Verne Miller ain’t no Pedro Posado.”

“How do you know? Maybe Verne Miller is Pedro Posado’s long-lost cousin.”

“You see anything?”

“Nope.”

“How are you supposed to tell one shack from another?” White asked. “You know how many shacks with pigs and goats there are in Texas?”

“I know the layout.”

“And you know absolute this is the route of that airline? The one that didn’t fly in that storm?”

“It’s down there somewhere. The science’ll prove it.”

“Science? They’ll be long gone.”

“Leaving a trail. Like they always do. How’s this any different?”

They landed back in Oklahoma City three hours later, ears ringing as they shook hands with the pilot and trudged back to the borrowed car. Jones noted a man at the edge of the tarmac talking with Colvin. The man was youngish but didn’t dress like an agent. He had more the look of a local cop, with a dandy’s boots and a dime-store suit. Jones greeted them both, and Colvin introduced the fella as a detective from Fort Worth.

“You fly over Wise County?” the detective asked. The man was tall and bony, with giant slabs of teeth and the smile of a tent-show preacher or a roadside huckster selling snake oil.

“We did.”

“You find what you’re looking for?”

Jones shook his head. “Was getting dark. More to see tomorrow.”

“I sent you some messages.”

“Give that name again?”

“Weatherford.”

“I’ve been busy, Mr. Weatherford.”

“You’ll find what you’re looking for in Paradise,” he said.

“You sound like a preacher.”

“Just outside the town is a known hole-up for some Fort Worth gangsters.”

“You think they took Urschel? Because from what we know so far, this is too big of a job for some local boys.”

“They ain’t ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd, like the papers say.”

“I never believe what I read in the papers,” Jones said, opening the door and placing his satchel in the rear of the car.

“Can I buy you ole boys a cup of coffee?” Weatherford asked. “It’ll be worth your time.”

Doc White joined the men at the car, but no introductions were made. Doc just stood there and hitched up his pants while Jones adjusted his hat brim, the setting sun in his eyes, Weatherford an inky cutout before him. “Doc, this fella’s from Fort Worth and says he’s done cracked the case.”

Weatherford crawled in back of the Plymouth and smiled. Jones didn’t like the way the bastard smiled, him watching Jones’s eyes in the rearview until they found a small diner just off Eighteenth Street.

On the table between them, Weatherford threw down a mug shot of a fella named George Barnes from Memphis, Tennessee. A bootlegger sent to Leavenworth in ’28 for running hooch to some Indians.

“You got to be pulling my leg,” Jones said.

THE FAMILY GATHERING TURNED INTO A DINNER PARTY, AND the dinner party to chaos. Charles F. Urschel’s nerves were on edge even after taking two strong drinks, before brushing his teeth and returning back downstairs. The staff had cooked up a wonderful meal of roasted quail with red potatoes and summer corn. Big Louise made a particular show of bringing out the platters and talking about how careful you had to be with those little birds’ wings or they’d just dry right on up. Water was refilled. Tea and coffee were poured. Kirkpatrick said grace at the end of the table and then raised his glass to Charlie, thanking those present for a job well done. And those present included the nervous young man on his immediate right, taking a seat by his stepdaughter, Betty, Charlie just hearing moments ago that she planned to take the federal agent to cotillion with her that very weekend.

“Thank you, Kirk,” Urschel said. “Miss Louise can outcook a gangster anytime.”

“What on earth did they feed you?” some society woman Charlie didn’t know asked from down the table.

“Humble pie,” Charlie said.

And there was laughter and toasts and the clinking of glasses. Miss Louise patted Charlie’s back with her fat hand and returned to the kitchen until called again, the door swinging to and fro behind her. But just as Charlie smiled over at Berenice and cut into his quail, the lights faltered and sputtered out. The air-cooling machine went silent, replaced by the sound of nervous laughter and talk. Miss Louise and some of the servant boys brought in candlesticks under their black faces and set them down the long, long table that Tom Slick had purchased on one of his trips to Europe.

“Here’s to Oklahoma Gas and Electric,” Urschel said.

More nervous laughter, and someone said, “It’s just a fuse. Don’t worry.”

The conversation soon steadied, and Urschel’s eyes adjusted in the dark, but his breathing had become a bit squirrelly, and he didn’t feel like touching any of the food. “Are you okay, Charles?” Berenice asked from his left.

And he nodded.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, excusing himself and taking a candle from the kitchen. He mounted the great staircase in bounds of two and three steps, cupping the flame in his hand, until he found his bedroom door and then the walk-in closet, seeking out his shotgun from under some old hats and winter scarves. The shells were found in his hunting coat, and he loaded the barrels and crept to the window, finding the entire street had gone dark. The houses down Eighteenth were blackened in both directions, the streetlights extinguished.

He breathed, and moved over the soft carpet, slipping the weapon behind some tall, thick drapery. The room smelled of Berenice’s Parisian perfume and his old cigars, and he had to wipe the oil from his fingers, not knowing if it was from the gun or the quail.

Charlie walked down the steps, the candle’s flame sputtering out, as he heard the laughter and dinner chatter, the glow of the dining room giving him light enough to see. When he reached the landing, he found he was nearly out of breath and a bit dizzy, and he held on to a post fashioned in the shape of a pineapple. Tom Slick had said pineapples brought wealth or meant wealth.

Charlie Urschel was quite dizzy.

He breathed, and righted himself, just before the young federal agent walked onto the landing with his annoying clacking shoes. “Sir?”

Charlie looked up at him and studied a face filled with concern.

“They treated me like a dog,” Charles Urschel said, mouth completely parched. “Kept me on a three-foot lead.”

“Yes, sir,” the young man said. His name escaped Charlie. “I know.”

“You must find them,” Charlie said. “A man can’t live like this.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And when you do, I want to be notified immediately,” Charles Urschel said. “I want a chance to speak with them privately.”

The young man just studied him, and Urschel turned back toward the kitchen, all of a sudden wanting all these people out of his home, most of them he didn’t even know. Society women, garden club members, and members of the club who thought they’d earned a ticket to see the show. He was tired of all the concern and well-wishes and Berenice’s pity as she lay next to him in the one o’clock hour, Charlie hearing the chimes but unable to move from the sweaty sheets, arms in spasm, as he lay on his back in complete failure.

Five policemen turned to him in wonder when he walked onto his own sunporch.

Two men guarded the walkway from his house, holding guns and asking if they might walk with him.

Three more policemen sat in the kitchen, listening to the radio with the colored help, the power back on, all of ’em laughing at
Amos ’n’ Andy
, while Big Louise finished up setting the ambrosia on a silver platter.

“Mr. Charlie?” she asked with a smile that dropped when she saw his face.

He could only compose himself in the guest bath, and, even after a few minutes, there was knocking to see if it was occupied. He set the lock, turned on the faucet, and ran cool water in the darkness, splashing it on his face. When the lights flashed on, he was still sitting on a closed toilet, gripping a brass handrail, his feet pressing against the wall before him.

With the illumination, his legs dropped, one and two, to the tile. He splashed more water on his eyes and returned to the head of the table, saying he’d been a bit ill but please continue with dessert. Berenice wore a curious expression, and he reassured her with a smile, his shaky hand dropping his linen napkin to the floor.

When he reached under the table, he noted Miss Betty Slick’s hand groping that young federal agent right between his legs as if she were kneading bread. Charlie righted himself in his large chair, and added some sugar to his coffee, slowly stirring. “Well now, son. Tell us, how did you come into the employ of Mr. Hoover?”

THEY WERE FINE, FAT, ROSY-CHEEKED PEOPLE FILLED WITH pep and life. The wife was the kind of woman who kept the Lane Bryant catalog by her freshly scrubbed toilet, checking out the latest fashions for portly women, while her old man read Abercrombie & Fitch over a morning bowl of Shredded Wheat, fancying himself the outdoors type, priding himself on crapping regular. They lived in a contented newish bungalow, not far off the streetcar line in Cleveland Heights. And the old man, Mr. K. R. Quigley, probably gave Mrs. Quigley and their precocious—if not annoying—daughter a peck on the cheek before doffing the old hat and rambling down to the automobile dealership, where he’d now sold Mr. R. G. Shannon, prosperous farmer out of Paradise, Texas, two brand-new Cadillacs.