True Crime (28 page)

By eight o’clock that evening, the farmhouse was humming with leisure activity: Dolores and Helen were sitting on the sofa listening to Burns and Allen on the radio (Gracie was still looking for that missing brother of hers) and Ma had found a little table to work one of her jigsaw puzzles on, sitting on the window seat as she did, feet not touching the floor; Mildred Gillis was doing needlepoint in the sitting room with the piano, her boys spread-eagled in the middle of the floor, playing a board game, getting loud occasionally and getting shushed accordingly; a penny-ante poker game was going on in the kitchen, the players crowded down at one end of the banquetlike table—Fred and Doc Barker, Verle Gillis and Baby Face Nelson were playing. Despite the stakes, everybody seemed to be taking the game quite seriously, especially Nelson, whose displeasure and glee seemed disproportionate to the nickels and dimes he was alternately losing and raking in. I played a few hands myself, stopped when I was thirty cents ahead—and Nelson glared at me like I was leaving with everybody’s money.

You would never have guessed two men died tonight. Certainly not one of them on this card-and-change-strewn table. And cheerful Fred Barker, with his ready-to-smile mouthful of gold teeth, did not seem like somebody who’d killed a man with a shovel recently.

I, on the other hand, felt exactly like a man who’d help dig—and fill—a grave.

I went out into the almost cool night, walking around the farmyard, getting a feeling of where the buildings were. This was made easy by several electric lights on tall posts. Some of the cars were parked out back, but others (I surmised) must’ve been in the barn. The hayloft door stood open. Crickets were chirping and there was manure in the air. I found Karpis sitting on the porch, in the swing, gently rocking. The porch light wasn’t on, but I could see him fine. He looked small, slight. Which he was.

He smiled at me and nodded; the smile was meant to be friendly but it was just unsettling.

I leaned against one of the porch pillars.

“It was bound to happen,” Karpis said matter-of-factly.

“What’s that?”

“Doc Moran.” He lifted his shoulders, set them back down. “Just a matter of time.”

“I guess.”

“You look like killing don’t agree with you.”

“It’s not my favorite thing.”

“Me either. Oh, I don’t mind putting a little muscle into a stickup, waving a gun around. Don’t even mind winging a guy. But I don’t look to killing for my fun.”

From the living room, laughter came from the radio; Gracie had said something funny again.

“Now, you take Freddie,” Karpis said, amused, smiling his ghastly smile, “he’s a born killer. Sometimes it shocks me a little to see how free and easy he is with a gun. He don’t mind gunning down somebody that gets in his way—cop or hood or ordinary joe, it’s all the same to him.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

Karpis went on: “Maybe it’s being raised in the Ozarks; maybe all those hillbillies are like that. I don’t know. Could be it runs in the family—their older brother Herman died shooting it out with the cops, and Doc, hell, he’s got quite the itchy trigger finger himself.”

“Ma seems harmless enough.”

The swing made a creaking sound as he rocked; it seemed louder than the crickets and other night sounds, and the muffled radio from within the house.

“Yeah, Ma’s harmless all right. She’s quite a character, though.”

“She doesn’t seem to mind what her boys do for a living.”

Karpis smiled some more and moved his head side to side. “Anything her boys do is okeydoke with Ma. They can do no wrong.”

“They seem to feel the same about her.”

“Well, look how she sticks by them. Sometimes she travels with us, and Freddie and Doc and me are just three brothers taking care of our widowed momma, should anybody ask. Foolproof cover. What could look more innocent?”

The swing creaked; laughter from the radio.

I said, “I didn’t know Nelson ran with your gang.”

“Usually don’t, but I’ve known him for years and he’s sharp and loyal and there’s nobody braver. We’re hooking up for something big.” He gave me a long sideways appraising look. “You strictly a rackets guy, or do you ever work for a living?”

I sat in the swing next to him; Karpis stopped rocking, but it rocked on a little anyway, on its own steam.

I said, “I don’t get you. You said something like that at supper, and I didn’t get you then, either.”

He sighed, and started gently rocking again; I joined in.

“Now look,” he said, as if explaining the obvious to a small child, “we’re strictly heist guys. We done some branching out into kidnapping, but that’s just another kind of stealing. Plus, our gang’s on the fluid side….”

“Fluid?”

“Yeah—people come and go. Me and the Barker boys have been together a long time, but we worked with dozens of guys, from time to time. Not tight and organized like you rackets guys.”

“What’ve you got against rackets guys?”

He made a face. “They’re too picky about what they’ll let you steal. They don’t like the kind of stealing that gets the heat turned on ’em; they’re in more public-service-type business.”

“Public service?”

“Yeah—pussy, drugs, bookmaking. That ain’t crime. That’s business. True crime’s you when get out and work for a living, like robbing a bank, or breaking into a place, or kidnapping somebody. Really give some effort to it. The rackets guys aren’t up for that. Yet at the same time, when those guys get
mad
at you, well, Jesus…anything can happen.”

“Yeah. Ask Doc Moran.”

Karpis raised a lecturing finger; he looked even more like a math teacher, now. “Okay, so maybe Chicago did okay Moran’s exit—maybe even requested it—but they didn’t pay for it. Killing people for money don’t appeal to me, or anybody connected with me. I’ll leave that to the rackets guys.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you’re no Chicago hoodlum.”

The Auburn keys were in my pocket.

“I’m not?”

I edged my hand near the gun under my arm.

“No,” Karpis smiled, “you’re from out East. You’re a fish out of water, in Chicago. You looking for some honest work?”

I sighed relief. To myself, that is.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Something real big’s coming up, soon.”

“How soon?”

“Friday.”

“This Friday?”

“This Friday.”

“Day after tomorrow, you mean?”

“Right.”

“What is it?”

“A snatch.”

Fine. Now I was mixed up in a kidnapping; I could see myself, being strapped into the chair, telling the reporters in the gallery how I was a private detective gone undercover to retrieve a farm girl.

“Interested?” Karpis asked.

“I might be,” I said.

“Decide by tomorrow. We’ll be driving back to Illinois, to a tourist court near Aurora. We’re meeting some people there, to go over the plans.”

“I appreciate the offer.”

“We can use you. We were counting on having Candy Walker, you know. And we don’t really have time to go pull somebody else in.”

“How could Walker have helped you, if he was recovering from plastic surgery?”

Karpis shifted his smile to one side of his face; it didn’t look any better there. “We just need someone to stick by the women. While we pull the snatch, and for a time, after. Easy work. Candy could’ve cut it, even with bandages on his puss.”

“I see. Well…”

“You’d only get half a cut—half of which goes to Candy. Or to Lulu, that is. We look after our own.”

“That’s only right.”

“Still, it should run five grand. What do you say?”

Five grand!

“I’ll, uh, sleep on it.”

“Good. Maybe you can get to know Lulu while you’re at it.”

“You got to be kidding…she just lost her man…”

“She’s going to need comforting. She needs somebody to look after her.”

“Well, uh…”

He put a fatherly hand on my shoulder; he was younger than me, and I owned suits that weighed more than he did—but his words carried weight just the same.

He said, “Guys like us got to pick our girls from the circles we move in. My first real girl was Herman Barker’s widow. Took up with her before Herman’s body was cool. It’s nothing to be ashamed of—just the facts of life in this game.”

“I do feel sorry for the kid,” I said, referring to Louise. This was perfect, actually: Karpis was trying to fix me up with the girl I’d come here after.

He slipped his arm around my shoulder. “Don’t feel like you’re getting sloppy seconds, Jimmy. Mind if I call you Jimmy? For example. I took up with a lot of whores in my time, but I never had any complaints about their personalities or their morals or brains or what-have-you. You can always trust a whore.”

That might make a nice needlepoint for Mildred Gillis to hang on her farmhouse wall.

“Now, Dolores, she was the sister-in-law of a guy I used to do jobs with; she’s been with me since she was sixteen. Don’t get the idea she’s fat, either—she’s just knocked up. Second time. We decided to have this one—what the hell.”

“Uh, congratulations, Karpis.”

“Thanks, Jimmy.”

I noticed a small figure walking across the farmyard toward the barn; he had a bottle of liquor in one hand, tommy gun slung over one arm.

Nelson.

“What’s he up to?” I asked.

“Oh—just taking his friend Chase some refreshment.”

“His friend who?”

“Chase. John Paul Chase. Guy worships Nelson; adores him.” He let out a nasty snicker that went well with his smile. “If Helen weren’t around, I think they’d be an item.”

“What’s Chase doing in the barn?”

“Staying there.”

“What do you mean?”

Karpis shrugged. “Staying there. He sits up in the loft with a rifle and keeps watch out that little window or door or whatever it is. See?”

I looked over toward the barn, and saw the open loft door, but nothing else.

I said, “Doesn’t anybody take turns with him?”

“No,” Karpis said. “Nelson told him to take that post, and he didn’t even blink. Just does whatever Nelson says. Sits up there and reads Western pulp magazines and keeps watch. Three days, now. Sleeps there, too—but I never knew a man to sleep lighter. Nice to have him around.”

“Hell, he didn’t even have supper with us.”

“Nelson took some out to him. He treats Chase fine—like a faithful dog.”

“Is there anybody else here I haven’t met yet?”

Karpis flashed that awful smile. “Not that I can think of, offhand.”

He went inside and I followed him; he joined the poker game, taking Nelson’s empty chair. I watched for a few moments, then went into the living room, where Burns and Allen were just getting over. When George had said “say good night, Gracie,” I asked Karpis’ girl Dolores about sleeping arrangements.

“You could take Doc Moran’s bed,” she suggested. “It’s free.”

“No kidding.”

“There’s a lot of bedrooms in this house, but they’re all taken. The Nelsons sleep upstairs, and Alvin and me have an upstairs bedroom, and so do Paula and Fred, and Candy and Lulu too, or anyway they did.”

“Where did Moran sleep?”

She pointed behind her. “There’s a sewing room back by the kitchen, and the two Docs each had beds back there. Cots, actually.”

“Where do the farmer and his wife sleep?”

“There’s a Murphy bed in the sitting room.”

This was turning into home away from home.

“The boys sleep in there, too,” she continued, “in pallets.”

“Sounds like a full house.”

“Sure is. Could be a topsy-turvy one tonight, though. Last I knew Paula was upstairs in her and Fred’s bedroom nursin’ Lulu.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, and Lulu don’t want to sleep in her and Candy’s bed tonight. She wants to sleep with Paula.”

“Think Fred’ll go along with that?”

She grinned; she had a much better smile than her boyfriend Karpis. “He would if he was included. But he’ll have to go sleep alone in that other bedroom, I guess.”

I decided to go up and see how Louise was doing. I found brunette Paula standing out in the hall, smoking, ever-present glass of whiskey in one hand.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” she said. Smiling. Sultry.

“How’s the kid?”

“Lulu? Busted up about it.”

“It’s a tough one.”

“She’s asleep, now. Poor thing.”

“Best thing for her.”

Paula brightened. “You want to do me a favor?”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

“Go in and look after her for me. Keep her company.”

“She doesn’t even know me…”

Paula swatted the air with her cigarette in hand. “She won’t wake up till September. But if she does, somebody should be with her.”

“I guess I could sit in there awhile.”

“That’s not what I mean. You need a place to sleep, right? Bunk in with her.”

“Don’t be foolish.”

She crooked her finger, like she was summoning a child. I complied. She leaned in with me in the doorway, where I could see Lulu, curled up in a fetal ball, pink dress way up over pretty white legs. She was sleeping deeply on one of two twin beds that were pushed close together. The bedroom was regularly the boys’ room, obviously. There was a balsa wood model plane hanging from the slanted ceiling, which was papered in dark blue with silver stars, a child’s idea of the nighttime sky.

Standing away from the open doorway, now, Paula said, “Freddie’ll be tickled to death to get the bed Lulu and Candy been sleeping in—we ain’t had a double bed in a week. You’d be doing us a favor, and she isn’t going to mind, you in your separate bed and all. She shouldn’t be left alone, you know.”

I thought about that.

Paula put a hand on my shoulder; her breath was whiskey-scented, but she was sexy just the same. She said, “Let me tell you something. My husband Charlie was knocked off on a bank score, a year ago spring. Freddie picked me up on the rebound, within the week. It’s not that I’m such a floozie, understand. It’s just I needed a strong shoulder. And Freddie didn’t come out so bad on the deal, d’you think?” She smiled wryly and gestured to her navy dress with the white polka dots and the curves.

I smiled back at her. “I think he did just fine.”