Infamous (8 page)

“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.

6

K
athryn didn’t see George again until twilight. He woke up from a whiskey slumber, scratching himself and coughing, and found his way out to the front porch of her stepdaddy Boss Shannon’s place. After taking a leak, he lit a cigarette and joined her on the stoop, watching that fire sun slipping down like a nickel into the slotted, flat land. She pulled the cigarette from his lips and offered him some of her gin. He took it because it was alcohol, but she knew he didn’t like it. George was the same as every boy she’d known back in Saltillo, Mississippi, who’d been weaned on whiskey.

“You want a quick poke?” he asked.

“Why don’t I poke you in the eye,” Kathryn said.

“Where’s Albert?”

“Boss wanted to show him his mule,” Kathryn said. “He claims it can count.”

“That mule can’t count,” George said. “Boss stands over your shoulder and nods his head to make the dang animal tap its hoof. That doesn’t take much sense.”

“I heard y’all had trouble.”

George shrugged.

“Albert said you ran out of gas.”

“Albert shoulda brought more gas.”

“Weren’t you watching the gauge?”

“You see many gas stations on those cat roads?”

“You shoulda thought ahead.”

“It worked out.”

“Can I see him?”

“No.”

She looked away and watched the sun a bit.

“Oh, hell,” George said. “Come on. Don’t go poutin’ on me. I’m too damn tired.”

They took the new Cadillac—the same one GMAC threatened to repossess if they didn’t make another payment—down a twisting dirt road, scattering up trails of thick Texas dust that coated the midnight blue paint with a fine powder, into the southeast corner of Boss’s place, where his son lived with his barefoot and pregnant teen bride. Armon came from the house when he heard the Buick and ran out to meet them, clopping along in unlaced brogans, big overalls covering his naked chest. He wore a big smile on his crooked face and opened the door for her, being more pleasant to her than when they first met, when his hick daddy and her stupid momma decided to make a go of it after meeting in the want ads. Back then, Armon used to try to peep at her through a crack in the bathroom wall. He was that kind of kid.

“Y’all did it,” Armon said. “You really pulled it off.”

George killed the engine and stood from the car, stretching and groaning, still feeling the long drive from the night before. He lit a cigarette and watched Armon from over the big hood of the Buick.

“What do you say, Potatoes.”

“Hey, George,” Armon said. “Whew. We got ’im all settled in and even brought him a can of beans. He won’t speak or nothin’. I guess he’s still kind of upset about y’all taking him. You think he might want a smoke or something? I read in the papers that fellas of his type like cigars. I could go to town and get him some smokes. He might like it. Or you think he’d like some of Boss’s ’shine? That might make him feel a little more rested and all.”

George looked to Kathryn.

“I think he’s fine with the beans,” Kathryn said. “Don’t make a fool of yourself in town. Just make sure he stays chained up, and you shut your goddamn mouth.”

She pushed Armon to the side, walking down the dirt path in her white kid T-straps, the stones making her walk a bit wobbly till she was on the porch and into the hot box. George was with her—she could feel his breathing on her neck—and she pushed through past a ratty sofa that had been her mother’s, a couple broken chairs, and an old organ stuffed in a corner. They didn’t have running water or electricity, but Armon had gone ahead and brought an organ home, sheet music and all, so he could buck-dance to hymns or whatever that boy liked.

George cocked his head to a door in the shack and creaked it open, and there he was—bigger than shit—eyes covered in cotton and tape, ears plugged and arms chained through a baby’s high chair. Kathryn looked at her big fat baby and smiled, not believing the lug had actually pulled it off. High-dollar oilman Charles Urschel bound and tied like a gift.

George put a finger to his lips and closed the creaky door, walking from the heat of the house and back onto the uneven, slatted porch. He lit a smoke and offered her one from his pack. He clicked open his silver lighter with a little snap of his fingers, and the ruby ring caught the last light of the day. He winked at her, smooth and cool as George R. Kelly could sometimes be.

“How come you’re dressed like that?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You look like you came from a party.”

“I wasn’t at a party,” she said. “It’s just some frock.”

“One of the easiest jobs I ever pulled,” George said. “We get four more of these, Kit, and we’re on our way to South America.”

“Let’s get the money first.”

“Two hundred grand is nothing to people like this,” George said. “They’ll pay.”

“We’ll see.”

“They’ll pay.”

Armon stood by the Cadillac and ran his hands over the silver hood ornament, took out a rag from his overalls’ back pocket, and began to shine the winged lady. The wind blew grit into his greasy hair, and he didn’t even seem to take notice, just smiling up at the two of them like he sure couldn’t have been any prouder.