“I could’ve been killed,” Harvey said. “I shoulda been.”

 

“Good day for an escape. You like some coffee?”

 

“I’d like to get going, if it’s all the same.”

 

“Have some coffee,” Manion said. “Got your change of clothes right there. Vehicle’s gassed up.”

 

Harvey glanced down at a worn-out pair of denims and a blue work shirt. Brogans with broken soles. He took off his Panama hat.

 

“What about the rifle?”

 

“What about my money?”

 

“I’m good for it.”

 

Manion nodded and walked to an old farm sink, pouring out the dregs from his cup. He leaned into the window, seeming to watch the old trees bend and break, limbs littered his yard. When he turned, he held a shiny new .38 in his hands.

 

Harvey had pulled the old, rusted .44.

 

“Arms up, Harvey.”

 

“I told you I’d get it.”

 

“I’m bringing you in.”

 

“You got to be pulling my pecker.”

 

“You gonna shoot? Then shoot.”

 

“Naw,” Harvey said, letting the cylinder fall from the gun. “Figured I might throw it at you.”

 

“I did me some thinking the other night, and I figured the man who brings in Harvey Bailey could write his own ticket. Don’t you agree? When I’m sheriff, I can do as I please. Ten thousand ain’t worth that.”

 

Harvey shook his head. The coffee was still over the flame and smelled acrid and burnt. He lifted his hands, Manion marching him to the back door, reaching onto the table for a napkin to wipe the pie crumbs from his mustache.

 

“You don’t think I’ll tell ’em about the file and the razor blade?”

 

“Who’s gonna believe you, Bailey? Didn’t you flush ’em down the commode like I said? Where’s your evidence?”

 

Lighting cracked close to the house. There was thunder, the rain falling even harder, while Manion pushed open the back door with his pistol. “You first.”

 

The wind shot around the house, blowing a small lace curtain from a door window.

 

Harvey smiled and picked up his new Panama hat. “If it’s all the same, I’d rather square it right here, Tom.”

 

“Whatever you say, Mr. Bailey. I just hate to have to mop my gosh-dang kitchen floor.”

 

Harvey looked down at the linoleum and then up at fat Tom Manion and his shit-eating smile. He almost felt sorry for the sorry bastard as the gun cracked three times, blood spreading on Manion’s boiled shirt like spilt gravy, the son of a bitch toppling down to his knees. “You lying cocksucker,” Manion said, blood on his chin, flailing a bit before he died.

 

“How long you been here?” Harvey asked.

 

A dark figure in a black hat and black rain slicker stepped inside and pocketed the hot .44. His eyes cold and blue, jaw clenching.

 

“I left the hotel when you called,” Verne Miller said. “Let’s burn this house down and then go find George Kelly.”

 

“Good to see you, Verne,” Harvey said. “You’re a swell pal.”

 

 

 

 

 

KATHRYN DIDN’T GET WORRIED ABOUT LUTHER ARNOLD COMING back until about eleven o’clock that night, but a half hour later the grizzled man showed up, wet as a drowned rat, wringing out his hat on the cottage stoop like it was a washrag. Kathryn shooed him on inside, where she handed him a towel, with him saying he sure didn’t want to mess her things, as he dried his old head himself, and she told Flossie Mae to fetch up her husband some clean drawers. The rain fell hard and strong, raining all damn day, pinging so hard on the shingled roof that it was hard to talk.

 

The little girl, Geraline, was asleep, but all the movement and whispering woke her up, and she sat up in her bed and looked over at her father, shaking her head, saying, “Luther, why don’t you at least take your shoes off?”

 

“Hush up, child.”

 

The child reached for a pack of cigarettes, lighting one up and blowing smoke from the corner of her mouth.

 

“What did he say?” Kathryn asked, reaching for his clean clothes from Flossie Mae. Kathryn wore a black silk robe with gold orchids. Her red wig left to dry on the nightstand.

 

“Can we speak in private, ma’am?” Luther asked.

 

“We can’t go outside.”

 

They walked into the small bathroom, and Kathryn ran the water, not that it made much difference with the commotion outside. Luther sat down on the commode, with a fist propping up his head. “Well, the counselor said he’d need some more money.”

 

“You ask him about the trade?”

 

“He said he couldn’t put that matter on the table ’less you both come to him in person.”

 

“How are we supposed to both come to him when the whole world is looking for us?”

 

“You don’t look much like your picture,” Luther said, taking off his water-logged shoes and rolling off his socks. “I seen it in the bus station. That woman in the photographs looks like a hardened character. You ain’t no hardened character, Miz Kelly.”

 

Kathryn ignored him, listening to the rain against the windows. Luther rolled up his pant legs and leaned forward, with both elbows on his skinny knees. He sniffed a bit and rubbed his nose with a forearm.

 

“Your husband, Mr. Machine Gun, know about this here deal?”

 

She kept thinking.

 

“’Cause that’s a mighty white thing for a man to do for his mother-in-law. I know some men wouldn’t give a squirt of piss if their mother-in-law’s on fire.”

 

Kathryn shot him a look.

 

“Sorry, ma’am. Didn’t mean to curse.”

 

“Just shut up about the deal,” Kathryn said. “That’s between us and our counsel. What else did Sayres say?”

 

“Not much,” Luther said, rubbing his unshaven jaw. He had the nose of a drinker, bulbous and veined. “Wouldn’t let me in his office, though. Told me to go ’round to this alley like I’s some kind of beggar, where he didn’t come back for a half hour.”

 

“You know any good lawyers?” Kathryn asked. “In Oklahoma? Sam Sayres wouldn’t know how to shit outside Texas.”

 

“I know’d a real good counselor over in Enid. You want me to call him up?”

 

Kathryn reached into her cosmetic kit for a jar of cold cream and began to rub down her face. Luther sat the opposite way, shaking his head and grunting with her complaints. “I don’t know where that SOB is, but when I find him he’s gonna surrender to the G and get my momma sprung.”

 

“Mighty white.”

 

“So you trust this fella?” she asked, slathering the cream up on her cheeks. “Really trust him?”

 

“Who?”

 

“The lawyer in Enid.”

 

“With my own life,” Luther said. “He’s gotten me out of a scrape or two. Misunderstandings with the law. You understand.”

 

“But of course.”

 

“Mrs. Machine Gun?”

 

“Call me Kit.”

 

“Kit, you want me to call ’im? I’d appreciate a ride back to town to use the telephone. The weather’s mighty nasty to walk the road again. I kept slipping outta my brogans.”

 

Kathryn shook her head and reached for a rag to wipe the cream from her face, staring into her own eyes, thinking about her next move to get out of this goddamn mess. The rain kicked up a little outside, pinging the windows, and Luther turned from the commode and said, “Whoo-whee.”

 

“Scoot over,” Kathryn said.

 

“Ma’am?”

 

“I need to do some thinking.”

 

He exchanged places with her on the commode and stood, looking awkward and loose, arms folded across his chest and trying to look smart, as she talked out a plan, more to herself than to Luther.

 

“I want you to take the bus back to Fort Worth tomorrow,” she said, holding up a hand, the silk material on her robe draping down her forearm like a butterfly wing. “Hold on . . . Hold on . . . I’ll pay. But I want you to go back and see that sorry fat bastard Sam Sayres and tell him that he no longer works for the Shannon family. Tell him we’re trading up, and that Kit Kelly wants her Chevrolet back.”

 

“He has your machine?”

 

“Used it as collateral, for him sitting on his ass while my dear ole momma is sent to the gallows.”

 

“You want me to drive the car back here?”

 

“I want you to go to Enid and hire that lawyer you told me about. I’ll take Gerry and Flossie Mae with me.”

 

“Where to?”

 

“San Antonio,” Kathryn said. “You can contact me there care of General Delivery. I’ll make sure they’re clothed and fed till you get back. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

 

Luther nodded.

 

“He better be good,” she said.

 

“He’s the cheese on apple pie.”

 

Kathryn nodded, long legs spread in a solid stance on the commode, listening to herself and making the plan definite in her mind. “Tomorrow morning I’ll give you five hundred dollars to advance him.”

 

“Five hunnard,” Luther Arnold said, Kathryn noticing the shriveled flesh on his toes and long, curled nails turned yellow. “That’ll keep him busy for a while.”

 

“And tell him I want him to put the deal for George on the table,” she said. “If the G wants George R. Kelly, they can have ’im. All I want is my momma.”

 

Someone knocked on the door. “Daddy?”

 

“Yes, muffin.”

 

“I got to pee-pee. What’re y’all doin’ in there?”

 

“What if you can’t find Mr. Kelly?” Luther asked in a whisper.

 

“That rotten son of a bitch disappears when you need him most, but he’ll show up like a bad penny. I know my George.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

31

 

When Kathryn heard the story, she couldn’t tell which parts were true, which parts George invented, and how much of the small stuff he just threw in there to keep it sounding gospel, the details of it coming out of George’s mouth like a sinner come to witness about his road of trials. George started with when he’d jumped into a jalopy Chevrolet and headed off Ma Coleman’s land, heading right for Biloxi, knowing that Kathryn would understand his note and follow him to his favorite hotel, where they could lay low a bit, put their feet in the sand and drink some cold beer, out of the forsaken state of Texas, down to the Gulf, to vacation from being outlaws for a while. He’d made it as far as New Orleans, George knowing some people in that part of the country from when he’d run booze up to Memphis, and he’d taken a room in the Lafayette Hotel and only left once to get a pint of gin and an Italian sandwich. He said he sat in the room all night, not being able to sleep, reading five different newspapers, all of ’em carrying the same story about her momma’s family being taken by airplane to await a fair and speedy trial. And he said it made him so damn sad that he didn’t want more company than a bottle of gin, remembering that he’d left the hotel one more time, walking down Canal Street to find a liquor store and a Catholic church, where he wandered in and lit a candle for the Shannon family. That part of the story diverging a bit from the truth of that piney gin, but Kathryn took the lie as a solid gesture, and let him continue on about driving out of the city the next morning, figuring the one-eyed bellhop sure noticed he could be none other than “Machine Gun” Kelly, and him driving along Highway 90 into Mississippi, following that road through Waveland and into Bay Saint Louis, where he went to the Star movie house and watched a Barbara Stanwyck picture in the colored balcony. Again getting sad, because Barbara sure had a lot of Kit Kelly in her, wandering out of the black night like a crazy dream and staring out at the Bay under oaks older than time, moss in the cool breeze, getting good and buzzed till his heart stopped hurting. He drove on through Gulfport to Biloxi, a town that he knew just as well as he knew Memphis. He headed to the first pharmacy he saw to buy a bottle of peroxide and a shower cap, a toothbrush and some talcum powder, and five True Detective magazines, before checking into the Avon, that fine old hotel right off the Gulf.

 

For three days, he rubbed his body with baby oil and poured the peroxide into his hair, wearing purple-tinted sunglasses and drinking gin mixed with pitchers of lemonade that the negros sold to the tourists. No one talked to him, and everything seemed fine as moonshine, as he’d sit in a deck chair, dozing to the sound of the surf, letting his cramped car legs unknot, and waking only as the shadows ran long across the combed beach and the sun got ready to disappear to wherever it went at night. In the evenings, he’d order up steaks and hamburgers to his room, some more gin, and would drink all his sorrows away while reading “How the Sensational Boettcher Kidnapping Was Solved, the Baffling Mystery of the Dead Dancer, the Minister—the Love Lyrics—and the Murdered Woman,” and then coming across an advertisement in the back pages that promised to help you “Read Law at Home and Earn up to $15,000 Annually,” and George said that sure let the snakes loose in his head, thinking, hell, he was earning fifty thousand a year just for knocking over a few banks, and they had to get good and greedy and start in the kidnapping racket, letting the hounds loose on their trail. (This was usually when George would go into that long speech about how he had a different path in Memphis with his first wife—sweet Geneva—and what a good man his father-in-law had been, much better than his own father, that worthless, mean son of a bitch, and that if Mr. Ramsey hadn’t been snuffed out like that, a high beam falling from his own construction site and splitting open his head like a watermelon, old George Barnes—that being George’s real name—would be an upstanding member of Memphis society to this day.)

 

“And that’s how you came to Memphis, George?”

 

George shook his head, and said, “Gosh dang it. My own fault, we couldn’t find each other at the Avon.”

 

He had to pack and move over to the Hotel Avelez, on account of the bellhop studying his profile when he’d stumble down to the front desk to get some fresh towels. He said he’d burned through his Urschel stash in New Orleans and had to dip into those American Express checks he’d boosted in Tupelo.

 

“You didn’t, George.”

 

“Sure did.”

 

“And you didn’t think anyone would notice?”

 

“Didn’t have a choice.”

 

“Did you find that woman, that blond lifeguard?”

 

“Kit, hush up and pay attention to the tale at hand.”

 

“Coppers found you?”

 

The Hotel Avelez swimming pool shimmered like a glass gridiron the morning he’d decided to eat some break fast under the oaks and charge it to Mr. J. L. Baker, that being the name he decided sounded best with his tanned skin and yellowing hair. He said he’d grown a little thickheaded, and cocky with his new looks, and decided to drive into the downtown and pick up some shirts and pants he’d left to be laundered. George said he’d also been contemplating wearing a straw boater but sure wished Kit could’ve been with him because he wasn’t sure a dandy little hat like that looked good on a big fella. He said he’d just stepped foot out of his car, looking at some straw hats displayed in a department-store window, when he heard the voice of a corner newsboy yelling with all his might, “ ‘MACHINE GUN’ KELLY IN TOWN!”

 

George said he nearly shit his drawers.

 

“What did you do?”

 

“Left it all.”

 

“Your luggage?”

 

“Even my .45 and my True Detective magazines. Wore the same pair of underwear for three days.”

 

“And that was Memphis?”

 

“That was Memphis.”

 

George walked to the bus station and bought a ticket. He said his heart didn’t stop racing until he crossed the Tennessee state line, and then he worried about coppers waiting for him when he stepped foot off that bus. But he said the sight of the old river sure did his heart some good, as did getting out on Union and walking into the Peabody Hotel, where he used to deliver hip flasks and bottles of bootleg bourbon in a raincoat with a dozen pockets. He felt like no time at all had passed and then realized that it had been nearly ten years since he lighted out for Oklahoma, finding more opportunity in Tulsa, and knowing Geneva and his two sons could get on with their lives without the shame of a daddy who sold whiskey.

 

“You never told me you had sons, George.”

 

“You never asked for a résumé. Geneva’s remarried. They have a new daddy.”

 

George broke his last dollar into dimes and called on the one fella who he knew he could trust in Memphis, ole Lang. His brother-in-law, Langford Ramsey. He hadn’t seen Lang since Lang was just a skinny teenager starting out at Central. But George still telephoned him every anniversary of his daddy’s death, George usually drunk and telling Lang for the hundredth time how much he respected his father, even taking Ramsey as his middle name out of respect.

 

“George R. Kelly.”

 

“That’s right.”

 

Lang had two listings in the phone book, one his residence on Mignon and the other his law office. George found out that Lang had been the youngest man ever to pass the Tennessee bar, and had just married and had a son, with another child on the way. George had hugged him out of pride at the Memphis train station, and they shook hands over and over, Lang walking with him back over to the Peabody to have a big enough break fast for an army. George had two plates, since he hadn’t eaten since Biloxi, and washed it down with a pot of coffee.

 

“Did he know?”

 

“Never even suspected it. I’m just ole George Barnes in Memphis.”

 

“Big man on Central High School campus.”

 

“Why do you always have to say it like that, Kit? You don’t know a damn thing about Memphis.”

 

At the end of break fast, there was an awkward moment where Lang said he had to be getting back to his practice but it sure was great seeing George again. And that’s when George had to tell him he was in a spot of trouble and sure could use a loan. Lang said don’t mention it, taking care of the check and passing him a twenty-dollar bill. “I’m good for it,” George said. “I know,” Lang said.

 

I could use a place to sleep.

 

I know a fella who owes me a favor.

 

George slept for ten days on the ragged red velvet couch of a garage attendant Lang had represented in a property dispute over a family goat farm. Tich was a cripple with a clubfoot that dragged behind him when he walked, thudding through the guts of the house, while George would be trying to sleep, as the morning light shone into the house down off Speedway. For some reason, George couldn’t close his eyes at night and would just stay up drinking and listening to the radio, Tich having a decent RCA, where he found NBC and the adventures of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. George said it was all he could do to wait till that broadcast would come on, and he could shut his eyes, maybe a little drunk, and go to far-out lands, planets, and stars, all way away from this crummy earth.

 

“Did you miss me?”

 

“Hell, yes. Why do you think I came back?”

 

“For the money.”

 

“The money, hell. I could’ve dug up all of it, and your grandmother wouldn’t have known.”

 

“She’d woulda known.”

 

“I came back ’cause I love you, baby.”

 

“You’re a damn liar.”

 

“You’re a double-damn liar.”

 

“You were a fool to run off to Mississippi for some blonde.”

 

“Didn’t I just explain it all?”

 

The horn honked in a Chevrolet sedan, the same one he’d traded out for that little Cadillac coupe in Chicago. The car parked in the dusty driveway of old Ma Coleman’s farmhouse.

 

“Who’s that kid?”

 

“That’s a story,” Kathryn said. “I’ll tell you on the road.”

 

“Where we headed?”

 

“San Antonio.”

 

“Why San Antonio?”

 

“ ’ Cause it’s a mite better than Dallas or Fort Worth.”

 

The horn honked again.

 

“The kid’s driving?”

 

“She’s a pistol,” Kathryn said, not sure what to make of the blond George Kelly with the bloat that came with too much steak and gin. “Her daddy runs errands for me.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“George, we need to talk.”

 

George stood there in front of Ma Coleman’s place, where she knew she’d find him after he’d sent that telegram to the San Antonio General Delivery. It read MA’S BETTER. She knew the G could butt through the cattle gate any minute, but she was out of cash, and, damn, if she didn’t ache to see the lousy bastard.

 

“You want me to turn myself in?” he asked.

 

“We’re talking about my kin, George,” Kathryn said, grabbing his big hands and pulling him close. “Something has happened . . . I think God has shown me the light.”

 

 

 

 

 

JONES SPENT THE DAY WITH A GROUP OF YOUNG AGENTS AT THE police department shooting range outside Oklahoma City, a two-acre parcel of scrub brush, where they’d set up paper targets and kept score. A head shot was a real winner, but a belly shot earned you enough to stay in the game. In the end, it wasn’t much of a contest, with that kid Bryce edging out Doc and Jones, scoring a head shot damn-near every time with both his .38 and Jones’s Colt .45. They’d practiced a great deal with both the Thompsons and BARs shipped from Washington, and Jones decided to post the big guns near the courthouse steps and on the roof of the Federal Building, where he stood, smoking his pipe in the night and figuring out where and how Kelly and his gang of desperadoes would be making their attack.

 

“You think Kathryn’s sincere?” Jones asked Joe Lackey.

 

Lackey placed his hands on the edge of the rooftop and leaned over, looking down to the squat old houses, churches, and office building around the city. A truck backed up to the building and started to unload spotlights, as if they expected some kind of Hollywood extravaganza.

 

“The woman wrote ‘the entire Urschel family and friends and all of you will be exterminated soon by “Machine Gun” Kelly,’ ” Lackey said. “That isn’t exactly something you put on a Christmas card, Buster. Yeah, I’d say she’s pretty serious. She said she’s scared of the son of a bitch, too.”

 

“How many you figure for their gang?”

 

“You can bet Bailey is back with him,” Lackey said, nodding and still looking out at the city and clear out to the Canadian River. “Probably Verne Miller, too. Maybe Pretty Boy. Real glad you took out that bastard Mad Dog.”

 

Jones nodded and puffed on his pipe. “Hated shootin’ him down off that rope and all. But he made the play.”

 

The men watched a couple of agents adding sandbags around a machine-gun stand by the front steps, and Jones noticed a blind spot behind the bunker, knowing they’d have to add another gunner. After a few minutes of running electric cables, the spotlights were lit, the beams crisscrossing the high windows and up into the dark clouds.

 

“She says she might just turn herself in just so she won’t be associated with the coming slaughter,” Lackey said.

 

“She sure likes those words.”

 

“Which ones?”

 

“Slaughter. Extermination.”

 

“Got our attention.”

 

“Nobody’s coming in or getting out of this house,” Jones said. The wind tipped his hat, but Jones caught the brim, setting it back on his head, before he knocked out his pipe. “We’re well entrenched. Ready for those bastards.”

 

“Glad Hoover got us the guns.”

 

“You saw for yourself the kind of animal we’re dealing with. Hell, I hope Kelly runs up the steps with guns blazing, that’d save the taxpayers the cost of a trial.”

 

“That’s some rough talk.”

 

“You take exception?”

 

“People don’t lynch much anymore.”

 

“Maybe they should.”

 

“You don’t mean that,” Lackey said. “Rangers keep order.”

 

“Sometimes the Rangers looked the other way.”

 

Lackey reached into his coat pocket for a pack of gum. He chewed, resting his elbows on the ledge, searchlights crossing the sky and the front of the Federal Building. “The Shannons’ new counsel says he’s never been in touch with Kathryn Kelly,” Lackey said. “Said he was hired by a middleman, at his office in Enid.”

 

“Can we track the middleman?”

 

“Colvin’s on it,” Lackey said. “We got several men following the counselor.”

 

“Phone lines?”

 

“Sure. Of course.”

 

“Never ends, does it?”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“Thievery. Murder. You’d think we’d have advanced past the Old Testament.”

 

“I’m not in the mood to get all philosophical, Buster,” Lackey said, chomping on his Doublemint. “Let’s go back to the Skirvin and get a whiskey and a porterhouse.”

 

“Now you’re talking.”

 

The Venetian Room was on the top floor of the Skirvin Hotel, a swank place that boasted polished, inlaid pecan floors, white linen and silver service, and Bernie Cummins and the New Yorkers on the bandstand. They broadcast a hit parade every night after supper on Oklahoma City’s own WKY. But Jones would just as soon hear them on the radio than be interrupted during supper by a man in a tuxedo extolling the qualities of fig syrup to get your pipes running smooth.

 

Doc White joined Jones and Lackey, and the three men all ordered steaks and bourbon. Doc White rolled a cigarette after getting the T-bone clean and tapped the finger of his free hand in time with the song “Stormy Weather,” a big hit earlier that year for some popular colored singer.

 

They all wore summer-weight coats to hide their holstered pistols.

 

About halfway into their desserts, peach pie with ice cream, Jones looked up to see a short fella in a big suit really hamming it up on the dance floor with two fat woman in evening gowns. He was one of those men who looked as out of place wearing a suit as would a circus monkey. But he’d slicked back his hair and shaved, proving it with bits of toilet paper stuck on the cuts, and the back of his hair was barbered up two inches higher than his sunburned ears and neck. The man couldn’t have been much older than thirty but had a large bulbous nose and the reddened cheeks of an experienced drunk.

 

Doc White ashed his cigarette on a china saucer. “Doesn’t that son of a bitch know there’s a Depression?”

 

“Must be family money,” Joe Lackey said, a small grin.

 

There was a split second when the little man couldn’t figure out which woman to dance with during the slow part, so he just opened his drunk arms wide and clutched them both close, hands squeezing each of their large rumps. Jones laughed and shook his head, spotting Bruce Colvin walking in from the elevators and flicking his eyes around the Venetian Room. He leaned into Jones’s ear and told him that the Shannons’ go-between was here.

 

Jones set down his fork and pushed himself away from the table.

 

“Right here,” Colvin said, pointing to the weathered fella dancing with the two fat girls.

 

Jones craned his head around to Colvin and would’ve thought it was a joke had it not been Bruce Colvin. The young man seemed unable to find humor in most situations.

 

“What do we do?” Colvin whispered.

 

“Keep an eye out,” Jones said. “He resides in this hotel?”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“Follow his every step. Tap his phone.”

 

“Why don’t we just pull him in?” Colvin asked.

 

“So he can clam up like Bailey?” Jones asked. “You got to be patient, son.”

 

Jones finished his dessert. With coffee.

 

The next morning, hearing nothing from the tapped telephone lines but a slow and dull buzz, Jones rode the elevator to the eighth floor and pounded on the door to have a little talk with the fella. Two minutes later, the hotel manager opened the suite to find a mess of empty booze bottles and a huge pair of pink panties tossed across the headboard. Des Moines all over again.

 

Jones walked to the bed and reached for the big panties, pulling them wide enough to be hung from a flagpole. “Maybe your scientific detection can get us a lead off these?”

 

Colvin looked down at his neatly shined shoes without a word.

 

“Do we at least have a name?” Jones asked.

 

“Registered under Luther Arnold family.”

 

“Be too much to ask where he’s headed?” Jones said. “The director might like to be informed.”

 

 

 

 

 

GEORGE SNATCHED A WIDE SOMBRERO FROM THE STUCCOED wall of the Mexican restaurant and told the waiter to bring him an entire bottle of tequila with cut limes and salt. They’d been in San Antonio now for two days, renting a little apartment, where Kathryn had shared a room with George, Flossie Mae and Geraline in the second bedroom. She’d about had it with Flossie Mae, the woman doing nothing but complaining, complaining more in a “That’s fine” or “If you think that’s best” kind of way, never really speaking up but never appreciating the hospitality either, somehow thinking she deserved the Kelly family dime on account of what Luther was doing.

 

Luther’d driven back in her Chevy an hour earlier, and that’s when George decided on a big family meal at La Fonda, a short walk from the apartment. And it didn’t take but two shots of tequila before he called for that sombrero, throwing back another shot and tipping the mariachi band twenty dollars.

 

“Why don’t you put an ad in the paper?” Kathryn asked.

 

“Just having some fun, baby face,” he said. “Honey pie.”

 

Luther sat across from Kathryn, where he could lean over the table and discuss details of his big trip to Oklahoma City yesterday. Flossie Mae sat across from George, and Geraline was at the head of the table. The table was under a big oak in the center of an old courtyard, with banana plants growing wild under leaking pipes and white Christmas lights crisscrossed overhead like in an old Mexico plaza.

 

“The hat,” George said, touching the sombrero’s brim and throwing down another tequila. “Good disguise.”

 

Kathryn noticed Luther had bought a new suit, pin-striped and rumpled and about two sizes too big. He’d also bought a tie and maybe even shaved a couple days back. She guessed for when he’d met with the new attorney.

 

“Lawyer said the government mulled over your offer,” he said.

 

“Huh?” George asked, turning to Kathryn and winking again. He poured out a shot of tequila for Luther, but Luther shook him off, saying he just didn’t have the stomach for no alcohol. Luther looked wrung-out, sick, and exhausted from his journey back to San Antonio. At the head of the table, his daughter, wearing a crisp white dress, her hair in pink ribbons, clutched a huge menu in her tiny fists.

 

George finished off his drink and lit a cigarette, singing along with the mariachi.

 

“I hear it’s no dice,” Luther said.

 

“Son of a bitch.”

 

“Ole Mr. Mathers—that being the attorney I hired—says he’ll try again when they get before the judge.”

 

“But the G won’t make the trade?”

 

“He says they got you cornered.”

 

“Horseshit.”

 

“Huh?” George said, stopping singing for a moment.

 

“I said horseshit,” Kathryn said, leaning into George’s ear. “The government won’t trade you out for Ma.”

 

“Who says the G ain’t smart?” George laughed and laughed, slapping his knee. “You know, ’cause your ma isn’t worth the trade. Har.”

 

He smiled over at Geraline, and the little girl grinned back, George popping a half-dollar off his thumb into her waiting hand. She passed it on to the guitar player, the band starting into another sappy song about touching a woman’s heart with love.

 

“Did anyone see you?” Kathryn asked.

 

“Who?”

 

“The G, Luther. The G!”

 

“No, ma’am. I traveled with great stealth.”

 

“How much money you got left?”

 

“Ma’am?”

 

“The five hundred I staked you.”

 

“Well, there was some traveling expenses, and I paid Mr. Mathers a bit.”

 

“How much?”

 

“A hunnard.”

 

“You spent four hundred dollars?”

 

“There was traveling expenses.”

 

“Oh, hell,” she said. “How much will you need to go back?”

 

“Least three hunnard, ma’am.”

 

“Shit,” George said, turning the sombrero down across his eyes. He gripped his big gorilla fingers around Kathryn’s upper arm so tight her hand started to tingle. “That’s him.”

 

“What?”

 

“The god-dang Federal Ace. Jones.”

 

Kathryn looked over to the opening in the wrought-iron fence and saw a short, squat man in a pearl-colored cowboy hat. She watched the man’s face as he spoke to an old woman at the crook of his arm, and Kathryn shook her head. “No, it’s not.”

 

“The hell you say.”

 

“That man doesn’t look a thing like Jones. He’s got a mustache.”

 

“He’s got a pearl gray Stetson, too. Boots. He’s a tough little fireplug, just like I read in True Detective.”

 

“Goddamn, George,” she said. “Did you forget you’re in Texas?” George frowned, removing the big sombrero and tossing it to the center of the table. “I’m hungry.”

 

They ordered pretty much all the menu, the money petering out again, Kathryn knowing they’d have to head back to Coleman this week, not having dug up enough money when she and George were reunited. She also really missed Chingy, and thought maybe George wouldn’t get so sore this time if Chingy would be good and not drop any more doodles in his wingtips.

 

“I sure like being y’all’s agent up in Oklahoma City,” Luther said, licking his lips, studying the menu, the first time Kathryn noticed This son of a bitch is faking, pretty sure he couldn’t read a word. “I can report to you any matters of the court.”

 

“The G didn’t see you?”

 

Luther placed the menu on the table and tucked a napkin into his soiled collar. “No, ma’am. I’m positive of it.”

 

“Mr. Mathers think he can free my family?”

 

“Mr. Mathers has been practicing law a long time.”

 

“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

 

So 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.

 

George snickered.

 

“Sure you don’t want some moonshine?” he asked.

 

“Shush,” she said. “Who are those people anyway?”

 

“Just some cheap fillin’-station thieves,” George said. “Fella’s brother got filled with lead a few weeks back. It made all the papers. Don’t know his woman.”

 

Kathryn stayed awake for a long time, the couple up in the loft not waiting but a few minutes before getting back to it, or continuing with it, and then finally they were asleep, too, and she was left with only the sound of the nickering horses and the hot wind through the barn cracks. The little girl sounded soft and light, gently snoring in the front seat.

 

Kathryn put the flat of her hand to George’s chest and felt his heart beat until it lulled her asleep.

 

 

 

LUTHER ARNOLD CRACKED OPEN THE DOOR TO HIS SUITE IN the Skirvin Hotel and peered over the safety chain into the face of Gus T. Jones. “Evenin’, Mr. Arnold. You mind if we might have a word?” Jones heard laughter and giggles inside, and figured it to be from the two hefty women spotted with Arnold at the hotel bar. Arnold told Jones he didn’t care for whatever it was he was sellin’ and tried to close the door, instead finding Jones’s boot.

 

“Won’t take long, sir,” Jones said, keeping an eye on Arnold from over the chain.

 

“I said I ain’t buyin’.”

 

Jones stepped back beside White and Colvin and then kicked in the door and sent the short, stubby little Luther Arnold down on his ass.

 

The fat women, one in a silk robe and the other with a towel strained about her girth, both ran for a corner. Empty bottles of Pabst Blue Ribbon fell from a nightstand, a half dozen lying unopened in buckets of ice.

 

Arnold looked up at Jones and wiped his lip. His skinny, hairy legs splayed, the front of his Skirvin robe halfway open.

 

“Hell,” Jones said. “Cover your peter, son.”

 

Arnold stood, tying the robe with his sash, trying his best to stand tall and take charge of the situation. “I’m a guest of this here ho-tel. And I paid my bill in cash.”

 

The men heard water running, and White pulled his thumb buster from his belt, cracking open the bathroom door. A big bathtub, fashioned of marble and gold, overflowed with bubbles onto the tile floor, some of those suds caught in Arnold’s ears and in the big girls’ hair. White turned off the faucet and dried his hands on his pants.

 

“Sir, are you acquainted with George Kelly?” Jones asked. “We’re agents with the Department of Justice.”

 

Arnold’s mouth hung open, and he slowly shook his head.

 

Jones slapped the man’s face. “Speak up, son.”

 

One of the women screamed, and the other began to scoop up their dresses, shoes, undergarments, and purses, neither of them a stranger to a raid. The women smelled the way whores do, with perfume so sweet and strong that it made your eyes water.

 

“Agent Colvin, would you escort these ladies downstairs?”

 

Colvin motioned his chin to Arnold.

 

“We’ll be down,” Jones said. “First, me and Doc gonna have a heart-to-heart with Mr. Arnold.”

 

The young man just stood there, looking from Jones to Doc White. Only when Jones shot him a hard look did Colvin grab each woman by the elbow, leading them from the gilded suite.

 

“High time in O.K. City, ain’t it?” Jones asked.

 

“You slapped me,” Luther Arnold said, wiping his pug nose.

 

“Start talkin’.”

 

“I don’t know no George Kelly.”

 

“You know Kathryn Kelly?”

 

“I don’t know no one named Kelly.”

 

“Son, you’re tryin’ my patience here,” Jones said. “Aren’t you the go-between with the Kelly gang and that old attorney?”

 

Arnold ran a hand over his wet hair and rested a hand on the wall. “That’s none of your concern.”

 

“Doc, I think Mr. Arnold here might be in need of the cure.”

 

Arnold looked to the older man, and White walked around him and snatched his arms behind his back, forcing him into the bathroom and tossing him back into the claw-footed tub with a hard splash. Jones followed and slowly took off his suit jacket, rolling his shirtsleeves to the elbow, Arnold flouncing and kicking in the bubbles. Doc White snatched his ankles and jerked him backward.

 

Jones got to his knees and held a washcloth.

 

“Son, me and you gonna have a come to Jesus,” Jones said. “Kelly and his gang killed a friend of mine, and they’re threatenin’ to murder a fine family. That’s somethin’ that we won’t abide.”

 

Arnold, eyes wide, held his torso upright with elbows perched on the tub lip, while his ankles were still held high by Doc.

 

“Are you associated with the Kelly gang?” Jones asked again.

 

“There ain’t no Kelly gang,”

 

“Doc.”

 

White yanked Luther Arnold up by his ankles while Jones smothered his mouth with a washcloth and dunked him deep in the tub, holding him to the count of twenty and then snatching him up by the hair on his head. The little man heaved and vomited sudsy water while Jones held him aloft and asked him again about the Kelly gang.

 

Arnold shook his head.

 

Jones kept him down in the tub for a count of thirty, the heaving and vomiting even worse when he brought him back up. And Jones let him get it all out before he asked just how did a cockroach like him come into the employ of a professional like George R. Kelly, expert machine gunner.

 

“All I did was pay the lawyer,” he said. “That ain’t no crime.”

 

“Where are you meeting with the Kellys?” Jones asked.

 

“Sweet Jesus. I cain’t say.”

 

“Doc, hold ’im straight.”

 

This time, Arnold took himself a big breath of air before Jones smothered his mouth and forced him back into the sudsy water like a traveling preacher. When the thrashing and tossing suddenly came to a stop, White said, “Think he’s had enough, Buster. Buster?”

 

But Jones’s mind had drifted from the Skirvin to a train station with long shafts of morning sunlight, to a box canyon ringed by horse thieves and vultures, to the old, weathered hands of Sheriff Rome Shields, passing on his father’s old .45.

 

“Buster?”

 

Jones turned to White, and White looked downright concerned. Jones pulled up Arnold, but the man had gone limp. They hauled him out of the tub and set him on the cold tile floor. Jones slapped Arnold’s back and Arnold came to, heaving water and twisting onto all fours and gagging out a few gallons.

 

White sat on the lip of the tub and lit a cigarette. He wouldn’t look at Jones.

 

“I met her at a fillin’ station in Itasca,” Arnold said. “I didn’t know who she was till she give me fifty dollar to locate this attorney in Fort Worth named Sayres. My family needed the money. We hadn’t et in days.”

 

“When was that?” Jones asked.

 

“Last week.”

 

“What day?”

 

“Sunday,” Arnold said. “I recall ’cause we was in church.”

 

“Quit your lyin’.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“And you kept the money?”

 

“No, sir,” Arnold said, rolling to his butt, covering himself up with a bath mat, trying to catch his breath. “I give the lawyer his money and gone back to Cleburne to see Mrs. Kelly.”

 

“You said Itasca.”

 

“We met in Itasca, but she rode my family out to this tourist camp in Cleburne.”

 

“How’d you get to Fort Worth?”

 

“Trailways bus, sir.”

 

“And you came back to the tourist court.”

 

“The lawyer didn’t have no good news about her kin, and she got a little hot about that and wanted me to go back and fetch her machine. Next day, Mrs. Kelly drove me and my wife and daughter to Fort Worth on their way to San Antone. She let me out at the bus station and tole me to get her Chevrolet back and then go on and hire this attorney I know’d in Enid.”

 

“But you didn’t go to Enid.”

 

“Not right away,” Arnold said. “I couldn’t find Mr. Sayres, and my resolve had withered,” Arnold said, shaking his head with great sadness. “Did I tell you I’d been traveling with my family? We hadn’t et in days.”

 

Jones nodded.

 

“We’d been tossed off our family farm, sir, and didn’t have nowheres to go. I hadn’t had a square meal in some time, making sure any money we found while trampin’ went to my sweet daughter. I guess I’d grown weak in my body and my spirit. Mrs. Kelly give me five hunnard dollar, and when I couldn’t find Mr. Sayres that night, well, I found myself goin’ to a beer hall. I’m a weak man, sir.”

 

Jones looked up at White. White tried not to grin and just shook his head with the damn shame of it.

 

“Well, sir,” Arnold said, “one beer led to two beers, and three beers led to a dozen. And when I get to drinkin’, I get to feelin’ lonesome.”

 

“So you got yourself a whore,” Jones said.

 

“Miss Rose ain’t no whore,” Arnold said. “I made sure when I asked the barkeep for some company he didn’t call up some damn ole whore. Just wanted some company, is all. A fine lady. What’s the matter with some company in this coldhearted world?”

 

“Quit your blubberin’,” White said. “When’d you see George Kelly last?”

 

Arnold shook his head and looked down at his pruned toes. “No, sir.”

 

“You ready, Doc?”

 

Doc turned on the faucet.

 

“I seen ’im Saturday in San Antone,” Arnold said. “First time I’d ever met the feller. He’d been aways, and Mrs. Kelly wasn’t too pleased with him, me, being a married man, understandin’ the whole situation.”

 

“Why’d you come back?”

 

“Mrs. Kelly wanted me to pay out her new attorney.”

 

“So you picked up two more whores and rented out the presidential suite?”

 

“Now, hold on there,” Arnold said, gripping the edge of the toilet to stand, bath mat held in his fingers over his genitalia. “I’ll have you know these were the same dang whores—I mean, ladies—I picked up last week. They was company, that’s all. Who of us don’t have sin in our heart?”

 

“You drove back through Fort Worth to pick ’em up?” White asked. “Must’ve been worth it.”

 

“Hell, it was on the way,” Arnold said. “Sir.”

 

“Your wife and child still with the Kellys?” White asked.

 

“My wife’s still in San Antone,” Arnold said. “The Kellys took my baby girl with ’em. Figured it would make ’em look like a family ’case of roadblocks and the like. Promised they’d wire us once they got to where they was goin’ and send Gerry back on the train. Lord in heaven, I’m sick with worry.”

 

Jones reached onto the towel rack and dried his hands, rolling his sleeves back down to the wrist and slipping back into his jacket, noticing the wet splatter on his pants that would dry quickly in the summer heat. “Come on.”

 

“Where we goin’?” Arnold asked.

 

“San Antonio,” Jones said. “To wait on that cable from the Kellys.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

33

 

 

Sunday, September 17, 1933

 

They drove into Chicago at early evening, finding a furnished apartment in the Chicago Tribune classifieds right on State Street down from the Chicago Theatre. They paid the woman a week’s rent, and Kathryn lay across a narrow bed while Gerry explored the kitchenette. George just peeked out a window, watching the El train rattle past, glass shaking in the frame, and said, “It ain’t the Stevens.”

 

“You said we couldn’t stay in a hotel.”

 

“I said we couldn’t stay at the Stevens, ’cause we always stay at the Stevens and they know us.”

 

“They know the Shannons. Or were we the Colemans?”

 

“They know our faces.”

 

Kathryn rolled over on her back and unbuckled her shoes, kicking them onto the floor. “God, I’m hungry.”

 

She looked down at her foot, feeling something strange, and noticed three dime-size holes in her stockings. George stayed at the window, the curtain crooked in his finger, and said, “There’s a joint on State that sells waffles.”

 

“I don’t want a goddamn waffle,” Kathryn said.

 

“Looks good. Virginia’s Golden Brown Waffles. I sure would like a waffle. That’d hit the spot. What’d you say, Gerry? How about a waffle?”

 

“Can you get a waffle with ice cream?” the kid asked.

 

“You better believe it,” George said. “You can get whatever you want.”

 

“What time does the Fair close?” Gerry asked.

 

“Too late today, kid,” Kathryn said.

 

“You promised.”

 

“I said we’d go,” Kathryn said. “I didn’t say when.”

 

Gerry wandered out from the little kitchen, saying the icebox and cupboards were completely empty save for a box of baking soda and two dead roaches. George had bought her a pack of chewing gum back in Missouri, and the girl hadn’t stopped chomping and blowing bubbles for the last two hundred miles. Kathryn wished she’d blow a bubble big enough to drown out her talking and then explode it all across her little face and mousy hair in those pink ribbons.

 

“Waffles,” George said, again. “I can almost make out something showing at the picture show. Something about a detective with William Powell.”

 

“Private Detective 62,” Kathryn said, more to herself than anyone in the room.

 

“How’d you know that?”

 

“Saw it in the paper.”

 

“What’s that picture he did with the dogs?” George asked. “Wasn’t he a detective in it, too?”

 

“Kennel Murder Case.”

 

“Doesn’t sound like this one has dogs.”

 

“George, I know for a fact it doesn’t have dogs. That was another picture.”

 

“Let’s go get a waffle,” George said. “Kit, where’s my bottle?”

 

“In your luggage, dear.”

 

“Don’t need to take that kind of tone,” George said. “Just wanted a nip before the picture.”

 

“Are we on vacation?” Gerry asked.

 

“You bet, kiddo,” George said.

 

“Good Lord in heaven,” Kathryn said.

 

They ate waffles across State Street at Virginia’s Golden Brown, and from the booth by the plateglass window, Kathryn watched the traffic light changing colors under the El station, a bolted collection of steel beams and scrolled staircases. Above them, another train clanked and rattled past. The Chicago Theatre marquee lit up the wet brick streets with a cool, even whiteness.

 

George snuck a bottle of bourbon into his coat and kept refilling his mug under the table. “Who’s that?”

 

“Who?”

 

“You see him? That man under the El tracks?”

 

“How the hell should I know?”

 

Kathryn saw the shadow of a man in a suit and hat, smoking a cigarette. Nothing but shadow, the same as the beams of the El, the streetlamp posts, and the traffic light. George leaned into her and said, “It’s the G.”

 

“You need to put down the bottle.”

 

“Ha.”

 

She turned back to the glass, and the man—the shadow—was gone. A tired waitress, with tired marcelled hair, laid down the waffles without a smile, a check to follow. Gerry and George ordered the same—a goddamn waffle with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate syrup. Who’d ever heard of such a thing?

 

“What’d ya think?” George asked the kid.

 

The girl took a big forkful, making a real corny show of getting an even mixture of all the ingredients, and closed her eyes with the tasting.

 

“Wow,” she said.

 

“What’d I tell you?” George said.

 

“Would you two just shut up,” Kathryn said. “I’m trying to think here.”

 

She squashed out a cigarette and lit another. She thought for a while and waited for that shadow man to appear. The G. George had gone bugs.

 

The El tracks and girders and beams formed a long, dark, endless tunnel right through the heart of the city. The whole town seeming less like a city but more like a goddamn cage, and the thought of it made Kathryn itch a great deal. The night was slick with a mist that fell over the city, denting puddles and giving halos to streetlamps.

 

“Gerry?” Kathryn asked.

 

The girl finished another bit of her forkful, listening, half the goddamn waffle gone.

 

“What kind of man is your father?”

 

“He’s nice.”

 

“That’s not an answer. I mean, can I trust the SOB?”

 

Gerry finished off another couple bites of the waffle and then looked down at Kathryn’s cigarette case. Kathryn rolled her eyes and slid over the case. George worked on his waffle, eyes down, but fished into his jacket pocket for the lighter engraved with her stepfather’s initials. He clicked it open and lit the kid’s Lucky.

 

Gerry leaned back into her seat. She shrugged.

 

“You mean before or after he was in prison?” the kid asked.

 

Kathryn slammed down the flat of her hand on the table. “A farmer. He said he was a goddamn farmer.”

 

“He was,” Gerry said. “But we make most our dough hanging paper.”

 

“How you know words like that?” Kathryn asked. “Paperhanger and the like?”

 

“Isn’t that what you call ‘writing phony checks’?”

 

George mopped up the last bit of waffle, forked it, and stuck it into his mouth. He pushed the plate away and chewed. He gave a lopsided grin to Kathryn, her knowing the son of a bitch was aching to say it. “Salt of the earth? Good country people? Whatsa matter with you, Kit?”

 

 

 

 

 

“IT’S A BEAUT,” HARVEY SAID. “THAT’S FOR SURE.”

 

He stood next to Karpis across the street from the Federal Reserve Building on Jackson, fronted by six big Greek columns and two American flags as big as Cadillacs. Two tall iron streetlamps lit up the façade and an armored truck parked along the sidewalk. It was midnight, and the two men wore summer-weight suits and straw hats. They watched and walked, stopping to take it all in as they lit up cigarettes and watched the streets.

 

The vault was three floors beneath the street, Karpis said. The transfers from the post office were made at different times on different nights. Sunday nights were at midnight, same as Thursday night, when they planned to take the dough.

 

“Six guards?”

 

“Sometimes more,” Karpis said.

 

“How many more?”

 

“No more than two.”

 

They watched as four guards wheeled fat canvas bags on a dolly down Jackson Street and into the side door of the Reserve.

 

“How much is the haul?”

 

“Guess it would be two mil.”

 

“I don’t like to guess.”

 

“I like the odds,” Karpis said, smoking and continuing to walk down Jackson before they turned up Franklin to Adam.

 

“What’s the git?”

 

“We park the Hudson a block over,” Karpis said. “When the guards ’round the corner at Clark, I’ll hit the smoke screen to stop any traffic. You and the Barkers will take the dough. I’ll keep Miller with me to cover the street. We’ll follow the same route we’re walking . . . Now, turn here.”

 

They kept walking, turning west on Adam toward the river. Harvey spent his cigarette and fished into his coat for another, feeling better now that he was clean and dressed decent.

 

“We’ll have two fresh cars waiting at the garage. New clothes, bandages, morphine.”

 

“You expect trouble?”

 

“Nothing ventured.”

 

“You trust the Barkers?” Harvey asked. “They ain’t the brightest.”

 

“Nobody’s better.”

 

“Except me,” Harvey said.

 

The men found the Plymouth parked by the river, and they drove across the bridge, catching Jackson again to the south, down by the train station. Lou Mitchell’s diner was half empty at midnight, and they found a small booth where they hung their hats on hooks and ordered coffee and pie.

 

“You got to lose Miller,” Karpis said. “He ain’t long for this world.”

 

“He’s got a plan.”

 

“How ’bout you?”

 

Harvey shrugged, stirring his coffee with a thick tablespoon of sugar, shuffling a fresh cigarette out of the pack and clicking open his lighter.

 

“This thing puts out and I’m headed to Australia,” Karpis said.

 

“No shit?”

 

“I’m done, Harvey,” Karpis said, his sad face drooping and serious. “We got a few more months, tops, before the whole damn government is on us. It ain’t like it used to be. And next year will be even worse. How much more time do you think we have hitting banks and making dashes across the state lines? The G’s taking over the banks.”

 

“Australia.”

 

“Yep.”

 

“What gave you that idea?”

 

“I read this story in Collier’s. Sounded like a nice place. Started by outlaws.”

 

Harvey nodded and then drank some coffee.

 

“You got to split with Miller,” Karpis said. “The Syndicate has money out.”

 

Harvey put down his coffee mug. He ashed his cigarette.

 

“When?”

 

“Few weeks now,” Karpis said. “He tell you why he killed those cops and Nash?”

 

A waitress walked over and left the check. The men turned their heads slightly until she had walked away.

 

Karpis smiled. “You know, I was a kid when I read about that job you pulled in ’22.”

 

“That wasn’t me.”

 

“Everybody knows.”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“What happened to all that money? You must’ve gotten half a mil.”

 

“It’s never enough, Kreeps. You can lie to yourself all you want. You can sail to the other side of the world, but you’ll just find that gun in your hand and an itch in your heart. It’s a goddamn disease.”

 

“Come on,” Karpis said. “Happy days are here again . . .”

 

“Why aren’t you smiling?”

 

 

 

 

 

JONES SAT LUTHER AND FLOSSIE MAE ARNOLD IN THE BACKSEAT the next morning with Doc White between them. Jones checked his pocket watch, waiting for the post office in San Antonio to open its doors before following Flossie Mae inside. The first trip was worthless, but after lunch she’d received a telegram. Jones pulled it from her fingers when they climbed back into the stifling car, Luther asking them when they’d be fed.

 

The telegram was sent from Chicago. Jones sliced it open with a pocketknife and read, “GREETINGS FROM A CENTURY OF PROGRESS. NO TIME TO WRITE. AT FAIR DAY AND NIGHT. SHE’S NEVER OUT OF MY SIGHT, AND BE CAREFUL TO TAKE CARE OF MY CLOTHES FOR THEY ARE ALL I HAVE SO DON’T LOSE THEM. LEAVE FOR SHANGRI-LA APARTMENTS, O.K. CITY. MORE SOON.”

 

“What’s it say?” Luther asked from the backseat. “That wasn’t meant for you.”

 

“It says you two are going to Oklahoma City.”

 

“That’s where you just brung me from,” Luther said. “We driving back now?”

 

“You’ll be locked up in the city jail. We’ll arrange for you to be shipped back.”

 

“And just where in the hell are y’all goin’?” Luther asked. “And just when are you gonna get us our little girl back? Are you two cowboys listening to me?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

34

 

Every shadow had become the G to George, and now the bastard had her jumping out of her skin, too. Before they left the waffle joint, a couple joes had walked in and kept on giving sideways glances, and at first Kathryn was sure they were admiring her profile, but then George noticed them, paid the check, and wandered out under the El, Gerry splashing her new patent leather shoes in puddles until Kathryn told her to please act civil. But George just flat-out refused to go back to the apartment and drove them around the city, and for a while it was nice, being in a big, fat town like Chicago and driving past the Marshall Field’s windows and across the bridge to the Magnificent Mile, riding past the Tribune Tower and parking by Tiffany’s, window-shopping at night, keeping their backs turned to the street and checking out the new fall dresses, shoes, furs, and wraps, letting her mind already drift to the trial—if there was a trial—and how she’d look with that velvet hat cocked just so.

 

George stood flat-footed at the window of Hart Schaffner Marx, staring at a vacant bust of a dummy. The entire window display bare except for a pair of polished wingtips.

 

“Hey there,” Kathryn said, squeezing his hand. “It’s going to be fine. We’ll be fine.”

 

“I’m a dead man,” he said. “Hope you know that.”

 

“Quit being so dramatic.”

 

“No one gets out of this world alive.”

 

“Dime-novel stuff.”

 

“Another one,” he said. “They’re across the street. Don’t look back. Don’t look back.”

 

Kathryn looked over her shoulder and saw a man in a dark suit watching them from over Michigan Avenue. She walked ahead and grabbed Gerry, who was studying what looked to be a small town in a department-store window. Children played on seesaws, chased dogs, and curtsied in their fall prints. Some carried schoolbooks. Her nose was pressed against the glass.

 

“C’mon, kid.”

 

“Can I drive?”

 

“You can’t drive.”

 

“You bet I can.”

 

“Why didn’t you tell us before?”

 

“On 66, I just wanted to sleep.”

 

Kathryn walked back, told the girl to jump in the backseat, and knocked the starter, driving slow on the Mile for George, who crawled in beside her and took his hat from his head, leaning back into the Ford’s seat. “We gotta ditch the car. I tried that rat bastard Joe Bergl ten times.”

 

“Call ’em ten more.”

 

“I don’t want to go back there.”

 

“Where?”

 

“The apartment,” he said. “They got us, Kit. They’re just making us into fools now. I hadn’t even been to the gosh-dang Fair.”

 

“How much of that shine did you drink?”

 

“Not enough.”

 

Kathryn raced the Ford under the State Street El and turned down toward the apartment, telling Gerry to hop out and get the bags they hadn’t unpacked. The kid leaned in and listened, nodding, and scooted on out the door, not needing to be told twice.

 

“That’s a good kid,” George said.

 

“I think you’ve lost your mind.”

 

“You wanna take a chance?”

 

“Goddamn you, George.”

 

Kathryn circled around the Loop until she spotted a late showing at the Piccadilly Theatre and let George out with a couple bucks. She said she’d send Gerry in to get him when it was safe. “Aw, hell,” he said, stumbling out and craning his neck up to the blinding marquee. “Gabriel Over the White House? I’ve seen this horseshit once and didn’t like it the first time.”

 

“Grab some popcorn,” Kit said. “Kick your feet up and have a snooze.” She knocked the Ford into first and circled on back down around the street through tall concrete and metal, the guts of the city machine, and headed toward the apartment, the rain starting again, wipers going, leaning into the windshield to see Geraline sitting on their luggage under the El tracks.

 

Kathryn honked her horn, and the girl threw the bags in and crawled in after them. “Whew.”

 

“Anyone see you?”

 

“I think the mug is screwy,” Geraline said.

 

Kathryn caught Gerry’s eye in the rearview and narrowed her look at the girl.

 

“I took the service elevator and didn’t see a thing.”

 

“Good, kid.”

 

“You gonna let me drive?”

 

“When we get a new machine.”

 

“What kind are we gonna get?”

 

“Whatever George can find.”

 

“Hope it’s a Cadillac,” she said. “I sure like those Cadillacs.”

 

“Me, too, sister.”

 

They drove around the city for a while, Kathryn knowing Chicago better than anyone who ever headed this way from Mississippi and pointing out this and that, the Wrigley Building, City Hall—blah, blah, blah—but all of it somehow meaning something to the kid of a dirt farmer. Kathryn checked the time, realizing they’d have to find some new digs, and sent Gerry back into the Piccadilly for George, heading north this time, skirting the lakefront.

 

“It was worse this time,” George said. “Walter Huston as the president gave me the creeps. The whole picture did nothing but blame gangsters for this country’s problems. What about the oilmen, the bank presidents, the greedy bastards on Wall Street? It’s easy. We’re an easy target. Hey, you want some popcorn?”

 

An hour later they found an apartment far north on Winthrop Street, a place called the Astra, the manager not even minding it being late and showing the good family to the little efficiency with a smile—this place being a hell of a lot cleaner—and talking about all the good folks he’d met from all over the world on account of the Fair.

 

“We’re going tomorrow,” Gerry said.

 

Kathryn ruffled her hair. “Ain’t she cute?”

 

George found the icebox and stared inside until Kathryn came over and let him know it was empty. She gave Geraline a five-spot and told her to fetch up some eggs and beer from a corner grocery she’d spotted.

 

“Candy?”

 

“Knock yourself out.”

 

Just as the door closed, she pulled George in close and bit his ear. He just stood there, limp in the shoulder and the arm, and she took a big handful of his sweaty shirt and asked him to do some pretty rough things to her. When he didn’t answer, she slapped him across the mug. “What’s the matter? We made it.”

 

“I’m going to sleep.”

 

She reached for his thick hand and placed it across her breast. His hand fell away, and he shook his head. “Wake me if I sleep too late,” he said, and stumbled off into a bedroom he’d never seen.

 

Kathryn sat there in the half dark on top of a big suitcase, wondering where the kid had gone, until she spotted something in a far corner, covered in dust and left alone. A fine, solid L. C. Smith & Corona, with working keys and everything, and a fat flat of snow-white paper.

 

She sat down and played with the keys a bit, the windows cracked open, hearing the night clatter of cars passing and kids up past their bedtime. A dog barking.

 

She played with the keys. She inserted a piece of paper.

 

By the time Geraline returned with an apple box of groceries, Kathryn barely heard her come in, Kathryn’s temples throbbing and sweat ringing the front of her dress and under her arms. She roused George from his sleep, only a crack of light coming from the bathroom.

 

“Hold this,” she said.

 

He took it and tried to focus, and then threw it to the ground and turned back over.

 

She picked it up with her gloves, folded it, and slipped it into an envelope addressed to Charles F. Urschel, Federal Building, Oklahoma City.

 

 

 

 

 

CHARLES F. URSCHEL KEPT THE LETTER IN THE RIGHT-HAND pocket of the suit Berenice had picked out—a strong navy linen, a crisp white shirt, and red tie clipped with a silver pin. He didn’t even think about reading it until he had been seated beside his wife, two sons, and Betty in the federal courthouse, a sweltering hotbox where women waved fans in front of their faces and men used the morning edition of the newspaper to create just a stir of air. Charlie at first thought the letter might not make a bad fan, and only on a whim did he slice it open with his thumb, being used to fan letters, love notes, and crackpots claiming to be Kelly himself. He unfolded it on his knee just as Boss and Ora, along with Potatoes, were led into the courtroom and seated side by side at the defense table. The table was flat and polished neat, a sweating pitcher of water and glasses the only obstruction.

 

While everyone continued to talk, waiting for the judge, Charles glanced down at the loose sheets of paper from the letter airmailed from Chicago:

 

 

Ignorant Charles:

 

Just a few lines to let you know that I am getting my plans made to destroy your so-called mansion, and you and your family immediately after this trial. And you fellow, I guess you’ve begun to realize your serious mistake. Are you ignorant enough to think the Government can guard you forever? I gave you credit for more sense than that, and figured you thought too much of your family to jeopardize them as you have, but if you don’t look out for them, why should we. I dislike hurting the innocent, but I told you exactly what would happen you can bet $200,000 more everything I said will be true. You are living on borrowed time now. You know that the Shannon family are victims of circumstances the same as you was. You don’t seem to mind prosecuting the innocent, neither will I have any conscious qualms over brutally murdering your family. The Shannons have put the heat on, but I don’t desire to see them prosecuted as they are innocent and I have a much better method of settling with them. As far as the guilty being punished you would probably have lived the rest of your life in peace had you tried only the guilty, but if the Shannons are convicted, look out, and God help you for he is the only one that will be able to do you any good. In the event of my arrest, I’ve already formed an outfit to take care of and destroy you and yours the same as if I was there. I am spending your money to have you and your family killed—nice eh? You are bucking people that have cash, planes, bombs, and unlimited connections both here and abroad. I have friends in Oklahoma City that know every move and every plan you make, and you are still too dumb to figure out the finger man there.

 

If my brain was no larger than yours, the Government would have had me long ago, as it is I am drinking good beer and will yet see you and your family like I should have left you at first—stone dead.

 

I don’t worry about Bates. He will be out for the ceremonies—your slaughter.

 

Now I say it is up to you; if the Shannons are convicted, you can get another rich wife in hell, because that will be the only place you can use one. Adios, smart one.

 

Your worst enemy,

 

Geo. R. Kelly

 

 

 

I will put my fingerprints below so you can’t say some crank wrote this. See you in hell.

 

 

Charlie took a breath, neatly folded the letter, and placed it into his pocket, scanning the courtroom for Bruce Colvin. Right as the judge entered and everyone stood, Charlie damn well heard an airplane overhead. He mopped his brow with a bleached handkerchief and excused himself, making his way from the courtroom, feeling like he was going to vomit.

 

In the public restroom, he steadied himself at a sink, splashing cold water in his eyes. As he dried his face and looked into the mirror, he spotted Bruce Colvin, standing over his shoulder.

 

“Betty was concerned.”

 

“I’m fine.”

 

“We’ve tapped two lines,” Colvin said. “Jarrett’s office and his personal line at home. We can put every conversation on phonographic records. It’s very clever stuff.”

 

Charlie steadied himself with hands on the porcelain sink.

 

“That won’t be necessary.”

 

“We have suspicions, too.”

 

“I said that won’t be necessary,” Charlie said, turning from the mirror and facing Colvin, the boy’s face withering in the volume of his voice. “My concerns were unfounded. I haven’t been well.”

 

“I don’t believe you.”

 

“Do I need to call Mr. Hoover myself or will you please drop this matter? Walter Jarrett is not a crook.”

 

“May I see what’s in the letter?”

 

Charlie snapped it into his hands like a piece of trash on the way out. “Why don’t you just find the Kellys, so my family can sleep. Or are you having too much fun playing house?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

35

 

Kathryn lost George not long after he’d wandered into the Golden Pavilion of Jehol to find a toilet. She’d said to him, “Go ahead, George, take care of yourself just as we were about to see the Dutch dancers after missing them two days in a row.” Ever since they’d been at the Fair—their first day being Tuesday—George had been downright crazy for the Dancers of Tunis featuring the Amazing Iris, drinking gin from his hip flask, feeling like he was invisible with his blond hair and white suit, Panama hat, and purple-tinted glasses. All she wanted to see was one lousy traditional Dutch dance and to spend a little time on the Streets of Paris. But keeping track of George was the trick. And God knows where Gerry went—Kathryn wasn’t her mother—the girl showing up at the same time both nights on the Avenue of Flags, where they’d all wait in line for the Sky Ride, stretched high across the Fair, dodging spotlights, the pavilions lit up like ancient pyramids in blue, green, and yellow lights, neon wrapping the streamlined buildings. George would be full-on plastered and proclaim himself the real Buck Rogers and make folks in the Sky Ride laugh. He’d grown that goddamn cocky.

 

Not two seconds after stumbling out of the temple, he wandered up to her and asked her again about the Dancers of Tunis. “Don’t you know those girls aren’t from Africa,” she said. “They’re from Brooklyn. Two of ’em are nothing but common bubble dancers.”

 

“The hell you say.”

 

“One thing, George. I asked to see one thing.”

 

“So they dance in wooden shoes,” he said. “Where’s the kid?”

 

Kathryn shrugged. She lit a cigarette. They walked down the wide avenues hugging the lakefront. Signs pointing to every corner of the earth. LONDON. PEKING. DARKEST AFRICA.

 

“I bet she’s at the Enchanted Isle.”

 

“She doesn’t go for that kids’ stuff,” she said. “Told me she wanted to see where they made the beer.”

 

“Bavaria,” George said. “Heigh-ho, the gang’s all here. Let’s have pretzels, let’s have beer.”

 

The streets were fat with people, most of the men in crisp white shirts without ties and women in flowered dresses and straw hats, pouring past George and Kathryn, who walked in the opposite way, crowd pushing around them like water around a river stone.

 

“Did you call?”

 

“Hell, yes, I called,” he said. “What do you think took so long?”

 

“I figured the temple has a nice toilet.”

 

“Some fella keeps telling me that Joe will call me back. Said they’re working on getting us a car. Forged papers, all that stuff.”

 

“And then what, George?”

 

“I’ll figure it out.”

 

“We leave the country?”

 

“This country doesn’t want us anymore,” he said. “Maybe Mexico. Maybe Cuba. Maybe Memphis.”

 

“Memphis?” Kathryn asked. “Are you kidding?”

 

“I’m tired,” he said. “Let’s get a drink.”

 

 

 

 

 

“WHAT ARE THE CHANCES?” DOC WHITE ASKED. “I’VE WALKED from one end of this damn Fair to the other twice and my feet done swoled up.”

 

“Let’s take a seat.”

 

Jones and White followed a crowd into a bigmouthed amphitheater, where some kind of spectacle was about to begin. This Fair wasn’t short on spectacles, Jones and White not being able to walk ten feet without some carny barker trying to lure them into some forbidden land, exotic culture, or a temple built to some damn company. He’d never seen a church as large as the worship halls they’d built to General Motors, Plymouth, and Hudson. Firestone and Goodyear. He took a seat by Doc White and pulled out some money for a boy selling Coca-Colas from a crate hung ’round his neck.

 

“The cable was sent from the Fair,” Jones said.

 

“That was two days ago, and Kelly ain’t that goddamn stupid,” White said, taking off his Stetson for a moment and running a forearm across his brow. “There’s no tellin’, and we’re wasting time.”

 

“Did you buy your wife somethin’?”

 

“Got ’er a souvenir spoon. You?”

 

“Bracelet,” Jones said, reaching into the pocket of his linen suit and finding a sterling silver band stamped with different exhibits from the Fair.

 

“Kelly ain’t here.”

 

“Today I seen things I never even considered,” Jones said. “Sixteen midgets emerged from a Chevrolet. A colored boy made a puppet whistle and dance. Belly dancers, sword swallowers. I walked the canals of Holland, the streets of Paris, and journeyed deep into China. A man even asked me if I wanted to meet someone named Freida Fred, an individual he noted was born with equipment of both sexes.”

 

“Did you see it?”

 

“Hell, no, I didn’t see it.”

 

“Well, lookee there,” White said, pointing up to the sky, a silver dirigible floating out across Lake Michigan, the city of Chicago spouting from the ground in steel and concrete to the north.

 

“Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Conforms.”

 

“What’s that?” White asked.

 

“Words written over the gates of the Fair.”

 

“I just noticed the belly dancers and that fella dressed as Mickey Mouse.”

 

The loudspeakers crackled to life and announced that the show was a journey through the history of transportation, showing some poor man dressed in goatskins walking an oxcart, followed by racing Roman chariots and some conquistadores on horseback. The announcer seemed to get real excited about traveling the west in a stagecoach. An old Wells Fargo wagon rambled on out of the gate, chased by some banditos on horseback, bandannas over their faces, shooting up guns to the sky the way bandits did in movies but never did in real life ’cause they wouldn’t waste a bullet. Doc sipped a Coca-Cola and leaned on his bony knees, signaling another boy for a sack of peanuts.

 

He shelled the peanuts and absently watched. He’d seen that show before.

 

The stage stopped and the bandits circled, a woman in a frilly dress and ankle boots, pushed out on the dirt, screaming when her pocketbook was snatched. The gates opened again, tinny, silly music came from the loudspeaker, and there was some stupid son of a bitch riding a white horse.

 

“You come at ’em straight like that, riding high, and you’ll be shot clean off your saddle,” White said, nodding to himself. “Who doesn’t know that?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TO GET TO THE STREETS OF PARIS, YOU HAD TO ENTER THROUGH a phony steamship that adjoined the display of baby incubators featuring REAL LIVE BABIES. Kathryn had a hell of a hard time prying George away, him pressing his drunk self against the glass and waving at the little babies behind their own glass, just trying to get some sleep after being born into this nuts world and now having to deal with crowds of monkeys pointing and staring at them. She finally got George by promising him a cold beer in the steamship’s lounge, and soon they sat up on the top deck of this boat built for land, George sipping on his Budweiser, looking out across Lake Michigan with a self-satisfied smile.

 

“That little girl’s gonna be a hellcat when we send her packing.”