Infamous (52 page)

Lang’s boyish face grew red.

“Buy her something nice,” Kathryn said. “Girls like that. A silk nightie.

Make it red, with lace trim. Some French perfume. That stuff just sets me off.”

Lang smiled. He had the jacket to his wool crepe suit hung over the back of his rocking chair. When he stood to light a cigarette, she could tell he’d grown a little drunk. The afternoon was breezy, a little warmer than up in Chicago, a restless wind with the changing seasons, the dead, skittering leaves and all that.

“Are you a good lawyer?” she asked.

“I try.”

“You work with many criminals?”

“Mainly property.”

“Oh.”

A shiny new blue Buick rolled down Malvern and turned into Lang’s driveway. A car door opened, and a short blond woman in a summer dress walked around and opened the back door. Two boys in Eton suits came bounding out; George Jr. was seven and Bruce was six. They were good-looking boys, with their dad’s jaw and blue eyes. The woman was a looker, too, fair, but maybe a bit mousy. She smiled up at Lang. Lang waved back at his sister and she got back into the Buick, her husband backing out and pulling away.

“She said they’d go over to Overton Park for an hour and then pick ’em up for dinner.”

“That’s F.X.?” Kathryn asked.

Lang nodded.

“He wasn’t smiling.”

George must’ve been watching from a window, because he opened the front door fast, not looking at Lang or Kathryn but walking slow down the front steps and hanging there in his best suit, charcoal gray, with a tailored shirt and tie. She noticed he wore the sterling silver tie clip she’d bought for him at the Fair.

The boys kept their heads down. But George dropped to a knee and opened his arms wide, and the whole thing made Kathryn seize a bit in her chest, turning her back to them, pouring out some more lemonade for her and Lang and asking if there was more.

The boys chattered up something fierce, there was baseball and trips to the zoo, and George walked back to the Chevrolet and gave them both souvenirs from the World’s Fair. Two toy zeppelins, two CENTURY OF PROGRESS coins, and two official World’s Fair badges.

They said “Wow!”

“Do you boys listen to
Buck Rogers
?”

They both nodded hard.

“I knew it,” George said, snapping his fingers. “I dang well knew we’re on the same airwaves.”

George told them he was a federal agent on a special mission. He explained that’s why he’d been away so long. He told them both he loved them. And Kathryn felt that uncomfortable, goddamn pain in her chest again and drank half the glass.

“Is George’s father still living?” she asked.

“You don’t know?” Lang asked.

She shook her head.

“George despises his father. I never knew him to say one good word about him. After his mother died, his father remarried. He’s still in Memphis.”

“But he loved his mother?”

“Very much,” Lang said. “She died when he was at Central High.”

“And he loved
your
father?” she asked.

“I don’t think George ever got over the accident,” Lang said. “He was talking about it again this morning. Said he hadn’t been in church since, blaming God for what happened.”

She felt like an eavesdropper up on the bungalow’s porch, but Lang had made no move to go inside the house. She could hear some kind of radio show from the open windows, where she hoped Gerry was listening and not sorting through the Ramseys’ jewelry boxes.

She stood and put a hand to a column, watching George sit on the stoop, showing the boys how to wind the zeppelins’ propellers, and then stretching his legs to reach into his pocket to peel away two twenty-dollar bills from a fat roll.

He gave one to each and told them to go buy the best bicycles they could find.

“Goddamn him,” Kathryn said, and marched into Lang’s house to hunt up some more of that Royal Knight gin that sure hit the spot. “Goddamn him to hell.”

“YOU HAD NO ACCOUNT TO DO ME LIKE THAT,” LUTHER ARNOLD said. “I ain’t no criminal.”

“We had an emergency situation,” Jones said. “Did you read about what happened in Chicago?”

“I haven’t read nothin’ but the scrawlings on these jail walls.”

Agents had brought Arnold into an empty jury room at the Oklahoma City Federal Building and sat him across from Jones at a long conference table. Arnold, looking forlorn and pissed off, jostled the handcuffs on his wrists. Jones smoked a pipe.

“ ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly and his gang robbed the Federal Reserve and started a Wild West shootout in the middle of downtown. Killed an officer, and nearly killed another.”

“I didn’t cause that.”

“Didn’t say you did,” Jones said. “I’m just explaining why vigorous methods were needed for you to come to Jesus.”

“Wadn’t fair.”

“Life ain’t fair, Luther,” Jones said. “Only wet brains and half-wits think that’s true.”

“The Kellys done stole my daughter. You don’t think I’m sore about that? That child is probably scared outta her mind. She ain’t but eleven.”

“From the way your wife tells it, you took two hundred dollars to rent her out for a while.”

“Mrs. Kelly said they wadn’t goin’ but two hundred miles and they’d bring her back in a few days.”

“Didn’t work out that way? Did it?”

“ ’ Spose not.”

“You need anything?”

“Could use some fresh drawers and a toothbrush.”

“I’ll see to it.”

“Maybe a pint, too?”

“Anything else?”

“I’d love to see my sweetie. Where you keepin’ Flossie Mae?”

“She’s safe,” Jones said. “You have my word.”

“You shook my dang hand before you tried to kill me in the ho-tel tub.”

“I didn’t try to kill you,” Jones said. “You’re my ace in the hole, Luther.”

“How you figure?”

“You’re the Kellys’ only contact back here,” Jones said. “Before they make another move, you’ll be the first to know.”

“But I’m in jail.”

“Says who?”

“Flossie Mae’s still at the Shangri-La,” Luther said, nodding with a slow understanding. “You all is waitin’ for the Kellys to knock on the door, bigger than shit, when they bring Gerry back.”

Jones sat silent.

Luther started to laugh. “Old man, nobody’s that foolish.”

Jones nodded, blowing pipe smoke into his face. Luther tried to stand up to it but broke into a coughing fit. “Pardon me.”

“You sure take pleasure sticking that boot up my ass.”

“Wouldn’t say it gives me pleasure.”

“Mrs. Kelly told me George was going to bust her family out. She said y’all won’t even know what hit you.”

Jones shook his head. “A man couldn’t fart near the Federal Building without us knowin’.”

“What makes you so mean?”

“Just doin’ my job, Luther.”

“Don’t mean I have to like it.”

“It’s a free country.”

“I got interviewed by six different federal agents, all of ’em young enough to be your offspring,” Luther said. “Why don’t you and that other feller just hang it up and go fishing, or try some porch sitting for a spell. Just what do you have to prove?”

Jones reached for his Stetson that hung from a hook by the door.

“Those boys told me they got a whole school in Washington where they’re doin’ nothing but educatin’ young fellas in all matters of science,” Luther said. “You didn’t even know electricity when you was their age.”

Jones pulled on the hat. He smiled. “I’ve been to that school. Still learning.”

“You just keep on pluggin’ away? Is that it, old man?”

“Dinosaurs stood still, and now they’re greasin’ our cars.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?”

KATHRYN AND LANG HAD GOTTEN PROPERLY PLASTERED BEFORE Lang led the way to Tich’s place south of the city on Speedway, a working-class neighborhood with simple houses and old cars. He parked in the drive and woke up Tich, a small cripple with a bum leg who hobbled down the steps but was strong enough to help Lang carry in George from the backseat. Just as soon as his boys drove off to dinner with their momma, George must’ve drank three pitchers of the lemonade, talking with Lang about what a good man Mr. Ramsey had been to him and how if he’d lived things in George’s life would’ve been real different.

Kathryn had had enough of that talk and waited outside with Geraline until he passed out.

She and the little girl followed Lang and Tich, who carried George inside like a fat sultan and plopped him on an old sofa.

“Can’t we find a hotel?” Geraline asked.

“No,” Kathryn said. “Go get yourself washed up and go to bed.”

“I’m not tired.”

“It’s dark,” she said. “When it’s dark, children sleep.”

“I’m no child.”

“You want to go back to trampin’?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Good.”

Kathryn walked with Lang out to his car. He was glassy-eyed but coming out of the drunk and gave her a big hug before saying, “You two can stay here until it’s safe to leave. I’ll help George with anything in this world. I love him like a brother.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Ten thousand lawmen hunt for ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly.”

“How long have you known?”

“Since he pulled the Urschel job, and I saw his picture in the paper.”

“But you didn’t tell him.”

“I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”

Kathryn wobbled and sat down on the curb. She looked up at Lang and shook her head. She felt grimy, sweaty, tired, and parched from all that gin. “You mean it? You want to help George?”

“I don’t know much criminal law, but—”

“We have a lawyer,” Kathryn said. She turned back to the house on Rayner Street and saw Gerry’s pug nose pressed against the glass in the lighted room. When she spotted Kathryn, the kid let the curtain fall.

“She’s gonna kick and scream, but that little girl is going home.”

“That’s not your daughter?”

“My daughter is with family,” Kathryn said. “Do I look like the kind of mother who would let her child be mixed up in something like this?”

Lang smiled.

“Lang?” Kathryn asked. “You think you could run a little errand for us?”

“Anything,” Lang said. “Where?”

“Coleman, Texas,” Kathryn said, clicking on her lighter and firing up a Lucky.

HARVEY BAILEY ARRIVED IN MEMPHIS AT SIX-TWENTY THE NEXT morning. The light on the train platform was weak and gray, and as he headed down the marble steps and into the terminal he realized he hadn’t eaten or bathed in two days. He’d left Joe Bergl’s soon after Nitti had snatched Verne, and he’d found a flophouse where he’d dyed his hair black and changed into a sorry suit and raggedy hat, a corn farmer gone to town. Some round, gold-framed glasses gave him a quiet, studied look, the kind of fella who could quote passages from the Bible and the
Farmer’s Almanac
equally and had a stout little wife back home elbow-deep in canning. Harvey crossed Main, over to a corner diner called the Arcade, where he found a back booth and studied the menu, snatching up a copy of the
Press-Scimitar
someone had left beside a half-eaten plate of bacon and eggs. He and every lawman in the country looking for George Kelly, George being blamed for just about every crime from snatching the Lindbergh baby to killing Lincoln.

Harvey looked around and ate the toast and bacon.

A Greek in an apron came over and took away the plate. When he returned, Harvey ordered black coffee and counted out the coin from his pocket.

Harvey had known George Kelly since 1930, when they robbed that bank in Ottumwa, Iowa. There had been a lot of others—Nebraska, Texas—and when you spend that kind of time mapping gits, lying around hotels planning a heist, and driving thousands of miles, you get to know a fella pretty good. George loved talking about Memphis.
Memphis, Memphis, Memphis
. He talked about his ex-wife and his boys, and his brother-in-law—Something Ramsey—like the middle initial George had taken for his own. Harvey knew he was studying to be an attorney, and if that’s where George had headed, he’d be easy to find.

Harvey finished his coffee and rode the streetcar toward the downtown, past all the warehouses, machine shops, and garages, wishing to God he’d never met the Kellys. The streetcar rambled on into the shopping district, Harvey now knowing he didn’t care if he had to kill poor ole George to get his money back. Hell, it would probably put the sorry bastard out of his misery from being married to Kathryn. He stepped off the streetcar right in front of the Orpheum Theatre. GABLE. HARLOW.
HOLD YOUR MAN
.

Hold your man
. Harvey wondered how long till those suckers in Hollywood made a picture about those two. He could imagine the movie poster, George in a fine tuxedo with the machine gun, Kathryn dressed in a glittering gown, her husband’s nuts squeezed tight in her hand.