Infamous (45 page)

“How long?”

“Nearly fifty-five years.”

“How old is this son of a bitch?”

Luther looked up at the open sky from the courtyard and thought for a moment. “Figure he’s got to be close to eighty.”

“Could you at least have hired someone who won’t die on us?”

“He shore is a tough ole dog,” Luther said. “He couldn’t believe when he read that your family was flown in a real airplane. He said, ‘Hot damn, that’s somethin’.’ I mean, he was real taken with it an’ all.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“What?” George asked. Three Mexican waiters brought out platters and platters of tacos, enchiladas, refried beans, and guacamole. Cold beer for Kathryn, who ran the iced Shiner Bock across her forehead.

“Luther hired Methuselah to represent Ma.”

“Good at cha,” George said.

“Can you head back in the morning?” Kathryn asked.

“I ’spec so,” Luther said.

They all ate for a while, Flossie Mae for once showing a goddamn smile while she filled her gullet. George picked at his plate of tacos and finished off the entire bottle of tequila, Kathryn having to pin his arm to the chair so he didn’t get up and dance with the band. “That’s so beautiful,” George said, listening to them play under that old oak lit with Christmas lights. “It’s breaking my heart.”

“It might if you knew Spanish,” Kathryn said. “George, we gotta get outta Texas.”

“What have I been sayin’?”

“The heat’s too much.”

“Like I said.”

“Where to?” she asked.

“The World’s Fair,” Geraline said, speaking up loud and strong from the head of the table, a fork pointed right at George and Kathryn. “The G’ll never find you.”

“Hell of an idea, kid,” George said. “Hell of an idea.”

Kathryn nodded.

“Goody,” Geraline said, going back to eating her enchiladas.

“Oh, no,” Kathryn said. “We split ways here.”

Geraline shrugged and dug into her beans. The child thought for a moment, as she chewed, and said, “Newspaper says they’re looking for a man and a woman traveling together. A ‘rough-and-tumble couple,’ is what it read. Woman with brown hair and a ‘wicked jaw.’ Man is an expert machine gunner.”

George grinned and nodded. “Damn right.”

“What’s it to you?” Kathryn asked.

“Nobody said anything about a family,” Geraline said, playing with a loose ribbon. “I bet I could pass as your daughter.”

Kathryn looked to George, red-eyed and shiftless. George shrugged.

“We could stay a couple nights with your dear grandma and then take 66 over to Chicago,” he said.

Luther looked to Flossie Mae and Flossie Mae back to Luther, before staring down at her plate of beans and not saying a word. Luther scraped all the food on his plate into one mess of tortilla, chicken, and beans, and stuffed in a big mouthful, saying, “I shore hate to break up the family.”

Kathryn blew cigarette smoke up high into the air. “You’ll be paid.”

“Well,” Luther said, chewing and then taking a tremendous swallow, “I s’pose if it’ll help out you good people, we could part company for a bit.”

Geraline winked at George. He smiled and shot her with his thumb and forefinger before asking the waiter for a cold beer. “You sure that wasn’t Gus Jones?” George whispered into Kathryn’s ear. “I’m seeing that short bastard everywhere. Or have I gone screwy?”

32

Wednesday, September 13, 1933

S
o we’re on?” Harvey said.

“We’re on,” Alvin Karpis said.

“Been a hell of a trip to Chi with the roadblocks, train stations covered and all,” Harvey said. “We’ve been driving for the last two days without sleep, switching off at the wheel, keeping to the cat roads. I can’t stand my own smell.”

“How you doin’ back there, Verne?” Karpis asked, looking in the rearview mirror of his Chrysler Imperial convertible, spit-shined, with white leather interior. Miller grunted and blew some smoke up toward the front of the car.

“It’s worth your time, Harv,” Karpis said.

“Sawyer said it’s the biggest job he’d ever heard of.”

“It’s worth your time,” Karpis said, driving the streets of downtown Chicago, racing the El train above them, in and out of shadows, looking sharp in a white suit and straw boater, flushed with sun, health, and money. He shifted down onto Wabash and then took a hard turn onto Roosevelt, heading west over a rusted bridge and the river.

“Are we playing a game, Kreeps?” Harvey asked. “We’re pretty beat.”

“Read about Dallas,” Karpis said, smiling over at Harvey in the passenger seat. “Ten floors. How’d you pull that off?”

“I greased the wheels of justice.”

“Listen, a couple fellas from the Syndicate came to see me this week,” Karpis said. “First thing I thought was, Oh, shit, they know about the job and want a piece.”

“Who?”

“ ‘Three-Fingered’ Willie and Klondike O’Donnell. Some other fella named Deandre. They wanted to know if we’d thrown in with the Touhy brothers. You ain’t in with the Touhys, are you, Verne?”

Miller didn’t say anything.

“That’s what I told ’em,” Karpis said, heading in a straight shot through the West Side, passing the brownstones and corner markets, kids playing under the shade of oaks. “So this guy Deandre says to me to enjoy Chicago, but don’t get caught in this personal shit storm between the Touhys and the Syndicate. They’re no fans of you, Miller. Said Kansas City was a top-shelf clusterfuck. I hate to say it, but they got it in for you pretty bad, Verne. They’d love to ace you off God’s green earth. Killin’ those cops in Kansas City was bad business. I’d lay pretty low, if I was you.”

“So, what’s the job, Kreeps?” Harvey said.

“Federal Reserve,” Karpis said.

“Right downtown.”

“Right downtown,” Karpis said.

“You’re nuts,” Harvey said. “No offense and all.”

“I got an ace up my sleeve,” Karpis said. “You know how much money we’re talking?”

Karpis told them. Harvey smiled.

Karpis drove them over to this place in Cicero, Joe’s Square Deal Garage, where he parked in a side alley, dripping with rainwater, with ferns and weeds growing from the red brick walls. Inside, they found a little fella welding in blue coveralls with the name JOE stitched on the pocket. When he saw the men, he killed the torch and flipped back his shield and smiled. He’d been adding thick steel plates onto a brand-new Hudson. Karpis circled the car, knocked on the glass with a fist, and popped the trunk, studying what looked like a little oil canister connected to an assortment of tubes and wires.

Miller looked over to Harvey. Harvey shrugged.

“Armor-plated. Bulletproof glass. With a flip of a switch, we get a smoke screen that’ll cover a city block.”

“Trick car,” Miller said. “Great, if we make it out alive.”

“Why do you think I called you boys?”

Miller looked to Harvey. Harvey looked back and shrugged again.

“You two can stay here,” Karpis said. “Joe’s got a couple cots for you and a shower to clean up. I’ll see what I can do about clothes. Harvey, you look like you belong in a breadline.”

Harvey still wore Manion’s clothes, and the smell of the dead fat man was still on him. He thanked Karpis and went to the bathroom with a bar of soap and a straight razor, cleaning himself up the best he could and sliding into mechanic’s coveralls and some boots without laces.

“You bring ’em?” Karpis asked when he joined the boys back at the trick Hudson.

“Yeah, yeah.” Harvey found his golf bag in the trunk of the Plymouth and returned with two Thompsons and extra drums. Harvey admired the cleaning he’d done on the stock and barrel of one of them the other night and passed it over to Karpis.

“Nice,” Karpis said.

“Borrowed one of ’em from Kelly.”

Joe the mechanic walked over, cleaning grease off his hands with a red rag soaked in gasoline. “George Kelly?” he asked. “ ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly?”

Harvey looked at the little guy, not liking that he was an eavesdropper or that he was talking about George Kelly like he was big shit. Karpis smiled, having been with Harvey that night in Minneapolis when George and Kathryn robbed him of ten g’s. “What’d he say, Joe?” Karpis asked with a smile.

“He had me put this little Cadillac in storage last month and bought a nice little Chevrolet off me,” Joe said. “Now he sez he’s gotten himself a Ford and wants to trade out again. Never thought I’d see him so soon—not in Chicago, with the heat all on him. Figured he’d be in South America by now, but he called and sez he’ll be here tomorrow. He thrown in with you fellas?”

A CORN FARMER GEORGE HAD KNOWN FROM HIS BOOTLEGGING days let them sleep a night in his barn not far out of Joplin off 66, the golden road they’d taken since Oklahoma, and would continue to weave off and on till they got to Chicago. Kathryn had run the Ford up into the big barn and killed the headlights, the farmer coming out to hand them some horse blankets and pillows, wandering to a big pile of hay and using his pitchfork to scare off a hog hidden inside. The hog squealed and trotted away, Kathryn saying she’d just as soon sleep in the backseat. The barn smelled of leather tack and pig shit.

“Y’all need some grub?” the farmer asked.

George told the man they’d eaten a hundred miles ago. Geraline still slept in the front seat, snoring, not stirring since the state line.

“Got another couple stayin’ the night, too,” the farmer said. “Don’t let ’em spook you. They’s set up in the loft.”

Kathryn grabbed the horse blanket, smelled cat urine, and tossed it back to George. George wandered around the big, open barn, holding the lantern and talking to a horse in its stall. “Hello, there.”

“Get some sleep,” Kathryn said.

“My, my,” George said, finding an empty stall, shining his light on a large stack of wooden crates halfway covered with a torn-up quilt.

“Quit talking to that horse and get some sleep.”

“God bless ’im.”

“What?”

“Likker,” George said. “Cases of the stuff.”

“That’s not yours,” Kathryn said, wandering out of the backseat of the car and trying to lead George back to the hay. But George had already opened a wooden crate and unscrewed the top of a jelly jar. He took a big sip. “Smooth as gasoline.”

He held the jar under Kathryn’s nose, and the fumes about knocked her out.

“That’ll make you go blind.”

“Mother’s milk.”

“It’s your turn to drive,” Kathryn said. “Don’t you think you’ll sleep it off in the backseat.”

“How ’bout a throw, baby?”

“How ’bout you throw yourself.”

“Come on, you can be the farmer’s daughter.”

“You’ll wake the kid.”

“The kid’s asleep,” George said. “Let’s roll in the hay.”

“Good night, George.”

Kathryn turned to the Ford but instead faced a thin, worn couple, standing in the door of the barn. The woman held a lantern, and the man shifted in a nervous fashion beside her. George held up the jelly jar and asked if they’d like a drink. Both of them had the hard, bony features of dirt farmers, wearing worn-out clothes and scrapes across their faces. The man had ears as big as Clark Gable’s and hair that looked like it had been combed with chicken grease. The woman had mousy brown hair and pale skin, and perhaps would’ve been pretty if life hadn’t been so damn rough. She tramped on through the pig shit and hay in an old-timey black dress and a modern beret. Her shoes were black laced boots like Kathryn had seen on Ora in old photographs.

The man stepped up to George and offered his hand. “You’re George Kelly.”

George opened his mouth, stumbling for a bit before saying, “Name’s Johnson. Travelin’ with my family.”

The rangy man laughed and took a hit of George’s liquor. “I’m Clyde Barrow. But you can call me Smith.”

George nodded.

“This is Mrs. Smith.”

The woman nodded at George. She had the plug of an old cigar in the side of her mouth and an old revolver hanging from a rope around her waist. She snuggled up into the arm of the lanky man as the man passed the jelly jar back to George. “Where y’all headed?”

George studied the man’s face. “You Buck Barrow’s brother?”

“I am.”

“We’re headed north,” George said.

“We’re headed south.”

“Sorry to hear about your brother,” George said.

The couple climbed up the barn ladder into the loft, and soon the lantern went out. George finished off half the jar of hooch and made some noise, turning over and over in the hay, until he said, “Gosh dang it,” and got in the backseat with her, smelling of barn animals and hay. Kathryn let him get close, figuring they could get clean in the morning, too tired to fight him, and she adjusted, nuzzling up into his chest. From high in the loft, Kathryn heard a rapid knock-knock-knocking, and the sharp, harsh cry of a woman deep in the throes.