“She’s fine,” George said. “A good girl.”

 

“She thinks every day with the Kellys is the goddamn Fair.”

 

“Hasn’t it been?”

 

“She didn’t have to drive from Biloxi to Fort Worth in a jalopy truck looking for you.”

 

“I told you I’d be back.”

 

“You told Ma Coleman you’d be in Mississippi.”

 

“I wrote the word Mississippi.”

 

“Which meant for me to drive to Mississippi, knowing you’d be in Biloxi hunting up that lifeguard gal.”

 

“If I was trying to scare up some tail, why’d I tell you where I’d be?” George widened his eyes and pointed at Kathryn with his free finger. “We hit the road tomorrow. Lay low in Memphis and then head back to Ma’s farm for the dough. Maybe Cuba. Cuba’s looking good.”

 

“A real cakewalk. I’m sure the G will open the cattle gate for us.”

 

“You want some more of my beer?”

 

“I have champagne.”

 

Kathryn lay back in her seat and crossed her legs. She’d bought a new burgundy dress for the fall, with a square neckline and bloused sleeves at her elbows. She tilted a smart ladies’ fedora into her eyes.

 

“Remember that bootlegger in Tulsa who used to cut apple juice with grain alcohol and call it an ‘Oklahoma cocktail’?” he asked.

 

“It hurt to pee.”

 

“Good times.”

 

“Sure.”

 

“You remember stealing Little Stevie Anderson’s bulldog after you packed up to leave him?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“What happened to that bulldog?”

 

“I think you sold it to that bartender in Muskogee.”

 

“We’ll be fine in Memphis,” George said. “Don’t you worry about a thing. Ole Lang will take care of us. When his sister and I busted up, he couldn’t have been more than twelve. I had to be the one to tell him, him looking to me as a father, I think, on account of what happened to Mr. Ramsey and all. He didn’t speak to Geneva for a year after that, blaming the bust on her and not the moonshine I was running. He’s a good egg, Lang. You’ll like him. He doesn’t know I’m George Kelly. You’ll have to call me Barnes.”

 

“You want to see your boys, don’t you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Figured, the way you were looking at those babies.”

 

“I was looking at the babies ’cause I like babies. What kind of fool doesn’t like babies? That’s like a man who doesn’t enjoy a cold beer. Sister, I missed real beer.”

 

“I miss my girl, too,” Kathryn said. “I’d like to see her before—”

 

“Before what?”

 

“So you’re not gonna turn yourself in?”

 

George finished off his beer and wiped his mouth with a napkin before lighting up and leaning back. He squinted into the smoke, pretending like he was contemplating the question.

 

“I knew you’d chicken out,” she said.

 

“It’s a fool’s deal, Kit,” George said. “If I got a guarantee in blood, I still wouldn’t believe the G would turn your mother loose. I turn myself in, and they’d just lock us up right next to them. All this for nothing. How’d you feel then?”

 

“But if we were assured?”

 

“How do you make sure of that?”

 

A crowd had gathered around a small tub of water, where a skinny, muscular man started to monkey up a high ladder to a diving board. George smiled, watching him make his way higher and higher. Over the top of George’s purple-tinted sunglasses, he raised his eyebrows at Kathryn.

 

She finished the glass of champagne and put down two dollars.

 

George reached his hand under the table to her leg and inched his way over her stockings. She snatched it away, shaking her head and turning back to the fella on the high dive, just cresting the top. There must’ve been five hundred people below, right outside the entrance to the Streets of Paris, craning their necks, staring right into the sun like crazies, and waiting for him to jump. Even the folks over by the incubators had finally left those poor babies alone, and quiet came over everyone as the man lifted his hands high, a cool breeze cutting across the lake, stirring him a bit, before the nutso bastard turned and flipped and crested like a bird with holes in its wings to a big, goddamn splash.

 

The crowd just got loony.

 

“I wish I could live here.”

 

“We do live here, George.”

 

 

 

 

 

“IT’D BE PRETTY FUNNY IF WE SAW SOME FELLA WALKIN’ AROUND the Fair wearing a sandwich board that read ‘MEET “MACHINE GUN” KELLY, LIVE AND IN PERSON.’ ”

 

“They could charge a handsome admission,” Jones said.

 

“Do they really have a feller here with both sets of plumbing?”

 

“So I was told.”

 

The sun had started to set, and Doc leaned over the railing at the Sinclair Oil exhibit, the most realistic-looking dinosaurs you’d ever seen growling and chomping on some grass that hung from their mouths, red eyes all lit up. One of the beasts was as large as a Greyhound bus, with a diagram hung on the fence about how their old carcasses had turned to lubricant.

 

Doc broke a peanut in half and threw the shell down into the pit. “How many men we got working on this?” White asked.

 

“Here in the city?”

 

White nodded.

 

“Figured about twenty,” Jones said. “The SAC here, Purvis, says he’s got men watching brothels, known watering holes for hoodlums.”

 

“Watering hole sounds pretty good right now,” White said, flipping more shells down to the dinosaur as if the beast would suddenly change course and start foraging for real food. “What do you think about that Purvis fella?”

 

“Hell, all those college boys look the same to me, Doc. At twenty feet, I thought he was Colvin.”

 

“When I walked into the building, he asked me for my thumb buster,” White said. “Tole me I couldn’t walk around a real city armed. What the hell does he mean ‘a real city’?”

 

“He’s just jumpy, is all,” Jones said. “Following regulations.”

 

“Kelly ain’t here.”

 

“You said that already.”

 

“They’ll tip us off in a telegram,” White said. “Always do.”

 

“I think if George Kelly is in town, he’ll announce it bigger than a telegram.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE FINAL PLANS WERE LAID OUT OVER A FOLDING CARD TABLE set up in the back room of Joe’s Square Deal Garage, with maps of the city marked in pen and opened cartons of chop suey. Karpis wouldn’t let any of them drink, saying if they wanted a nip to settle their nerves they’d pass a bottle about go time. But he said it was going to be a hell of a long night, for them to lie out on the cots, think about the details of the job, every step, from the reserve to the git. At half past twelve it was “Go, go, go, that’s the rhythm of the day,” just like Fred Astaire says. Harvey squashed out his cigarette and stretched his legs, Miller flat on his back on the floor, not using the cot, eyes wide open, a Thompson like he carried in the War by his feet. The Barker boys were giving a final check over the Hudson, the greased hillbillies more excited about the ride out of town than the dough. And Karpis checked over the map once more before folding it up all nice and neat and tucking it into the side pocket of his suit jacket.

 

Harvey walked to the bathroom to find a fresh suit of clothes resting on a hanger, new shoes and socks. He shaved and dressed, tying his tie just as someone started beating the hell out of the door and telling him to shake it off and come on.

 

At first, he thought it was the cops. Or, worse, the Syndicate, looking for a cut.

 

But, goddamn, it was that hillbilly Fred Barker, telling him he was about to shit his drawers. Bailey left the bathroom and walked across the wide concrete floor to Miller, kicking at his shoe. Miller’s bright eyes sprung open, not dozing for a second, waking up like some kind of animal.

 

“We split the dough, and I want you gone,” Harvey said. “You hear me? I’ll find my way.”

 

Miller nodded. “Vi’s in Brooklyn.”

 

“Go to Brooklyn, anywhere but Chicago. Karpis told me Frank Nitti blames you for the world’s problems. You sabe?”

 

Miller nodded.

 

“Verne?”

 

Miller pulled up his body to his crooked knees, wrapping his arms around them, and lit a cigarette. Karpis walked back into the room, and Harvey turned to watch him, the light from the single bulb cutting a swath up to Karpis’s feet.

 

“Fred’s sick,” Karpis said. “Real sick. He’s got problems coming from both ends. Said it was the chop suey. Did you guys eat the pork?”

 

“Give ’im a soda,” Harvey said.

 

“We did,” Karpis said. “Shits running through him like a freight train.”

 

“We’ll make do,” Harvey said.

 

Karpis put his hands in his pockets, trying to rearrange the whole plan in his mind. But he shook his head, “Nope. Won’t work.”

 

Harvey looked down to Miller, and Miller cut his eyes up to Harvey, Harvey knowing this was Miller’s last chance, the last few hours he could make a score in Chicago. If there had been another way . . . any way.

 

 

 

 

 

KATHRYN WAITED FOR GEORGE AND GERALINE AT THE FENCE TO the racetrack on the Enchanted Isle, the little girl and the big lug in the same toy car, zipping around turns, Gerry at the wheel while George laughed and held on to his hat with one hand. They came skipping out from around the exit, George having turned the front brim of his fedora up so that he looked like a stooge. Still wearing the sunglasses after the sun had gone down.

 

The three of them walked side by side down the Avenue of Flags, where a couple women had chained themselves to a pole, one wearing a stitched cloth that read PROTEST FASCIST TERROR. GERMAN CONSUL HERE. Men stood by and watched the broads like they were sideshow freaks, a couple of coppers standing by, waiting for a key or someone to cut the chain. About halfway down the wide avenue, Kathryn spotted two men, elbow to elbow with thousands of sweaty folks with sore feet, walking back into the fairgrounds, the crowd splitting around them, the two fellas talking and walking in a casual, relaxed way. One was a tall and skeletal thing, wearing a Western suit and boots, the other, in a white linen suit, was shorter, and thick around the middle, wearing Western boots and a pair of glasses.

 

She clutched George’s arm and pulled him into her, a loving couple after a fine old day at the Fair, resting her head on the mug’s shoulder, reaching down and gripping Geraline’s sweaty little hand. The girl looking up at Kathryn and narrowing her eyes with that goddamn “What gives?” that she’d gotten down pat.

 

One of the men tipped his cowboy hat to the fine family and kept on walking. George started to whistle “Stormy Weather” as they passed.

 

“George?”

 

“I sure am hungry.”

 

“Did you—”

 

“What?”

 

She pulled him in closer, following the fat, heavy crowd, bustling with souvenir hats and balloons and pinwheels for the kiddies, out onto South Michigan, walking damn-near a goddamn mile south to find the big open lot where they’d parked that road-tired Ford. Geraline crawled in the backseat and lay down without a word, tuckered out from the long day.

 

“I shoulda got a hot dog,” George said, knocking the car into gear and heading west over the river and back over to Cicero to dump the Ford. They’d get some sleep at the Astra, George said, pack and leave for Memphis in the morning. Goddamn Memphis. George excited about heading home, talking about places he wanted to show her.

 

“You really think we can make it to Cuba?” she asked.

 

“You can practically see the place from Key West,” George said. “We have a nice drive down the coast and then hop a boat.”

 

“I remember Havana Widows. Lots of nightclubs.”

 

“You bet. And rum.”

 

“Shoulda known you’d care for rum.”

 

“Joan Blondell sure was a knockout in that picture.”

 

“Why don’t you ring her up, then?” Kathryn said. “See if she’ll iron your shirts.”

 

The traffic thinned out over the river but nearly stopped when they got outside Cicero, streets closed off for this big, crazy NRA parade, with tons of folks carrying banners and American flags, pictures of Roosevelt on sticks. Lots of blue eagles and all that hooey.

 

“Think about all the people we’ve put to work,” George said, smiling, mashing the clutch, shifting to neutral, the engine chugging behind an endless line of cars. Window down, arm hanging out the window. “You bet ole Uncle Sam is in overdrive, paying those G-men to look for the Kellys.”

 

“Maybe you can get a blue eagle tattoo on your ass.”

 

“Maybe I will.”

 

George pulled into the alley beside Joe’s Square Deal Garage and killed the lights. Kathryn reached back and tried to shake Geraline awake, but the girl was exhausted, and they left her in the backseat, taking a side door and walking into the big open space where several boys were giving a big Hudson a once-over.

 

One of the men leaned back out from under the hood and smiled. Harvey Bailey wore a big shit-eating grin.

 

Verne Miller walked in from a back room, holding a Thompson loose in his right hand. Alvin Karpis. One of the Barker boys. Shit. Shit. Shit.

 

“Hey, George,” Harvey said. “Think you got something that belongs to us.”

 

George looked to Kathryn, back to Harvey, and squared his shoulders.

 

“Guess you don’t have it on you right now,” Harvey said, grinning.

 

George shook his head. Kathryn was about to tell that bastard to go straight to hell when Harvey asked them if they’d be interested in a little business proposition.

 

Kathryn stepped in front of George and said, “Start talking, and make it fast.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

36

 

 

Friday, September 22, 1933

 

Karpis drove the Hudson, the armored tank with the bulletproof glass, the steel-plated doors, and the revved-up eight-cylinder engine. Harvey and the boys piled into George’s dusty Ford since ole George wanted to lose the car anyway, Karpis telling Joe Bergl and some grease monkeys to switch out the smoke machine into its cab. When they snatched the dough, they’d leave the Ford on Jackson Street, pile into the Hudson, and be on their way. But, brother, Kathryn Kelly wasn’t having any of it, didn’t want her man involved in some two-bit snatch and grab, even after learning Fred Barker had a mean case of the shits. Harvey decided not to lecture her on the nature of the country’s fine Federal Reserve system, instead only telling her that there were banks and then there was The Bank. She shook her head, came back with some little kid rubbing fists in her eyes, telling Bergl to pull around their new machine or she’d go straight to Frank Nitti himself and tell him his word wasn’t worth chickenshit. She got her a Chevrolet sedan, clean papers and all that, but George wouldn’t go, telling her he needed to square this thing with Harvey and Verne and that they both could use the extra dough.

 

“You did the right thing,” Harvey had told them at a little past eleven, the lug down in the mouth after Kathryn slapped him across the jaw and told him he was a fool.

 

“Say, is that my gun?”

 

Miller looked down at the Thompson and nodded. “Collateral,” he said.

 

“Keep it,” Kelly said, following Harvey and Verne and Dock Barker into the Ford. “That gun’s nothing but trouble. I don’t want to be ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly anymore.”

 

“Who are you, then?” Harvey asked.

 

“Just George.”

 

They crossed the river at eleven-thirty and had found their spot on Jackson where it met Clark Street, where the mail carriers and the reserve guards would be rounding the corner at midnight with those gorgeous fat sacks of money fresh off the train in from the U.S. Mint.

 

Harvey checked his watch. No one in the Ford spoke. George sat at the wheel, chewing some gum and watching the sidewalk.

 

All the men carried machine guns except for George. George refused to take anything more than a shotgun, a .38 for his hip pocket, and some extra shells. Beads of sweat had popped out on his forehead while he loaded the pistol and looked over the git with Karpis and made a deal with Harvey that ten grand would be shaved off his take, whatever the take may be.

 

“Then we’re square,” Kelly had said.

 

“And then we’re square,” Harvey said, offering his hand.

 

They would all split the city after the job, Harvey getting word to his wife through a friend of Harry Sawyer’s that he’d be coming for her and his boy tomorrow and to bring only one suitcase. They’d drive west till he saw a good place to cross the border into Canada, like he’d done a thousand times in the old days. They’d become new people. Start over. Start living, and leave this crummy country on its own. Karpis was right. He’d go fishing. He’d drink some beer. He’d farm a little.

 

George kept the Ford’s engine running with no lights. A few minutes later, he flicked his lights into Karpis’s rearview mirror.

 

Harvey turned to see four men rounding the corner, two pushing the mail cart and the two guards walking along, jawing and loosely holding a couple shotguns. The four men in the Ford fixed bandannas across their faces and waited till the guards reached that halfway spot between Clark and LaSalle. George pulled out on Jackson—a loose, lazy flow of traffic at midnight—and smoothly edged up to the curb, all the gunmen piling out with guns drawn.

 

From the backseat, Harvey punched the button, and dense black smoke began to pour from the cab of the Ford, inking out Jackson Street. The guards already had their hands up, and shotguns clattered to the sidewalk, scooped up by George and Barker, Miller telling them all something hot and clear, making them turn and face the walls of the Continental Illinois National Bank. The men hoisted fat canvas bags, throwing the loot into the Hudson, slamming the trunk, with Karpis back behind the wheel.

 

The whole thing not lasting thirty seconds, the doors not even slamming closed before Karpis was driving through the thick smoke, breaking clear on the other side and running west on Jackson, the men laughing and talking, pulling the bandannas off their faces.

 

Harvey sat up front and lit a cigarette.

 

“What’d I tellya,” Karpis said. “What’d I tellya?”

 

He drove fast up to Adam and then west across the Chicago River, back toward Cicero, to divide up the loot and find each of their new cars, serviced and fueled up.

 

“The smoke was a nice touch,” Harvey said, relaxing a bit, leaning back into his seat. Karpis drove at a nice clip, not fast, but not so slow as to be noticed. “What kinda bank has two guards for all that dough?”

 

Karpis hit a little bump in the road, the tail of the Hudson scraping the pavement, just as they were set to cross Halstead, a green light speeding them on to Joe’s Square Deal Garage. That’s when that damn little Essex coupe came out of damn-near nowhere, honking its horn and T-boning their Hudson right toward a streetlamp. Karpis tried to right the car, but it kept going straight for the light, scattering two beat cops right before the car crashed.

 

Everything was still for a few seconds. Cracked glass and busted machine parts in the road. Harvey felt like his heart had stopped but now could feel it jackhammering in his chest.

 

And then Harvey heard the women scream from the Essex, and that was everything.

 

 

 

 

 

“I WANT TO SEE MR. NITTI,” KATHRYN SAID.

 

“Mr. Nitti ain’t here.”

 

“You tell that wop son of a bitch that I know where he can find Verne Miller and Harvey Bailey.”

 

The fella shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

 

“Who’s that?” Geraline asked.

 

“Some stooge.”

 

“Thought we’re leaving.”

 

“Let me tell you something, sister,” Kathryn said. “Don’t ever let a man tell you the rules. Set ’em yourself.”

 

Geraline nodded. She was smoking and drinking a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer at the Pabst Blue Ribbon Casino, which stayed open after most of the lights along the Fair Midway had dimmed. Kathryn fished for another cigarette and tapped the end of her silver cigarette case on the edge of the table. Those bastards had no right to force George on a job at midnight, right while the heat was all over them, Gus T. Jones and the G-men crawling all over the city. They shoulda done him a solid and let ’im skate.

 

“I like your hat,” Geraline said.

 

It was a fine little beret she’d bought along the Streets of Paris, sold to her by some gal who walked those streets with a mirror on her back. Kathryn reached up on her head and tossed the beret to the little girl. “Take it.”

 

“You’re all right, Kit,” the girl said, trying on the hat, a Lucky hanging from the corner of her mouth.

 

“You gotta go back.”

 

“I don’t wanna go back.”

 

“Your parents are sick with worry.”

 

The girl shrugged. “They don’t care a rat’s ass about me. My daddy always said I was nothing but another mouth to feed, and he’d be good and goddamn glad when I could look out for myself. And so here I am.”

 

“You can’t go with us.”

 

“I can carry your bags,” the girl said, taking a sip of beer. “Your guns. I can run errands. Get your clothes pressed, shine your shoes.”

 

“Don’t do that,” Kathryn said. “Don’t ever play the stooge.”

 

The fella walked back into the casino bar and leaned down to Kathryn and whispered in her ear. She tossed a dollar on the table and followed, walking down the empty streets of the Fair, the neon and bright lights all gone, leaving nothing but the barren, weird shapes of the exhibits.

 

“What’ll they do with all this stuff after the Fair?” Geraline asked.

 

“Tear it down.”

 

“They built this just to tear it all apart?” she asked, mouth hanging open. “What a waste.”

 

“The American way, sister.”

 

The fella led them up the steps, twenty-seven of them, Kathryn knowing because Geraline was counting under her breath, up to the House of Tomorrow, an octagon-shaped building with a garage occupied by a little airplane, making it seem clear that every family would be zipping around the skies in the future. The house walls were made of plate glass.

 

He left them on the top of the house, rails wrapping the sides, where she soon saw a big black Cadillac pull down the drive and kill the lights.

 

“Who’s Frank Nitti?”

 

“The kind of guy that doesn’t have any boss.”

 

“George doesn’t have a boss.”

 

Kathryn smiled and squashed a cigarette under her toe.

 

Nitti bounded up the steps, a crisp wind cutting off Lake Michigan, Geraline nearly losing the beret. Nitti was short and swarthy, with a fat mustache, slick hair, and a hundred-dollar pin-striped suit.

 

One of the two gimps on each side of him asked, “You know how to find Verne Miller?”

 

She nodded.

 

“What you want?” the other stooge asked.

 

“I want you get Verne Miller outta my hair.”

 

Nitti nodded. Kathryn told them about Joe Bergl’s garage.

 

“There’s another fella with him,” she said. “My husband. I want him left alone. You sabe, Frank?”

 

Nitti caught her eye and nodded before turning and heading back down the steps.

 

“That’s it?” Geraline asked.

 

“You better believe it,” Kathryn said.

 

“I heard in the future, we’ll only take pills and not eat or drink.”

 

“The future is a bunch of hooey,” she said. “Stuff for weak-minded saps. Come on.”

 

 

 

 

 

THE HUDSON’S RADIATOR BOILED OVER AND STEAMED UP INTO the flickering lamplight as the men dashed out onto Halstead, carrying their guns and canvas bags, the two coppers running toward them telling them to stop. One held out his hand and reached for his gun while women screamed from inside the Essex, a man slumped at the wheel. A young woman wandered from the car with blood across her face while Miller stood in the middle of the street and mowed down the copper, machine gun chattering, toppling off the cop’s hat and sending him to his knees and face, and then he scattered bullets at the other cop, who jumped behind a newspaper stand. Sparks of electricity rained down onto the top of the Hudson from the broken streetlamp, and a fine rain misted the street.

 

The copper was dead, a new path set, and Harvey grabbed two bags himself, while Karpis stopped a Plymouth and yanked a man from behind the wheel.

 

The other copper took shots from inside the stand, hitting Barker’s fingers. But the pain just made Barker madder, and he squeezed off six rounds from his pistol with his good hand at the fleeing cop.

 

The men tossed the bags into the Plymouth’s trunk, and Karpis yelled for Miller, who kept on spraying the clapboard newsstand to shit, kicking off the magazines hung from clothespins and busting up the lot of white lights hung from the roof. “Come on, goddamn you,” Karpis yelled, clutch in, racing the motor and then tearing off down Halstead, taking some wild turns before doubling back and heading back toward Cicero.

 

“Clockwork,” Harvey said, catching his breath.

 

“I didn’t see ’em,” Karpis said. “That bastard came outta nowhere.”

 

“You coulda swerved,” Verne Miller said.

 

“You didn’t have to kill that cop,” Karpis said.

 

“Fresh out of flowers, Kreeps,” Miller said.

 

“Son of a bitch,” Karpis said.

 

“What?”

 

“We’re outta gas.”

 

They drove for another mile and then bailed out and stole another car, pointing a Thompson between the driver’s eyes. Harvey sat beside Karpis with Miller, George Kelly, and that moron Dock Barker in back, Barker whining about a bullet knocking a ruby from his pinkie ring. The men didn’t say another word till they pulled through the bay doors of Joe’s Square Deal Garage and closed them shut.

 

Karpis popped the trunk and grabbed a bag, Barker and George Kelly grabbed the others, all of ’em tearing into them with folding knives and emptying out the fat sacks onto the card table.

 

Harvey said he needed a drink. Joe Bergl passed him a bottle of rye. He took a pull and handed it to George Kelly, who took a longer pull.

 

The table filled with fat, tightly bundled stacks of envelopes.

 

Karpis tore into another to find the same.

 

And another, until letters littered the oil-stained floor.

 

Harvey sat down in a rickety chair and rested his head in his hands. Miller stood across from him, white-faced and still holding the Thompson. Dock Barker started to open every goddamn letter as if it were a letter from Momma.

 

“We just stole the goddamn mail,” Karpis said, and started to laugh. “What a hoot.”

 

“I don’t get it,” Dock Barker said, ripping open a couple more envelopes. “What do ya mean?”

 

“We got the mail, you idiot,” Harvey said. He lit a cigarette and leaned back into the hard chair, shaking his head. Karpis started to laugh like a maniac, looking more and more like a fella you called “Kreeps.”

 

George Kelly rubbed his lantern jaw, shrugged, and reached for the rye on the table.

 

But Miller clenched his teeth, dropped his machine gun on the floor, and kicked it to the wall, sending it spinning across the smooth concrete floor and shooting off a short burst of bullets.

 

“Take it easy, Verne,” Karpis said. “This stuff happens. Have a drink. Get laid every once in a while. I hear Vi’s screwing half of New York.”

 

Miller turned and came for him, reaching for Karpis’s throat and choking the ever-living shit out of the ugly bastard before Harvey and Dock could pull him off. Harvey had to reach a forearm across his friend’s throat and pull him back like a dog.

 

When Harvey felt Miller relax, he followed him into the back room they’d shared for the past week. He watched him pack his suitcase: a pressed shirt, two pairs of trousers, a regulation .45, and some fresh drawers. A rusty faucet dripped, hanging crazy and crooked from a back wall.

 

“Where you headed?” Harvey asked.

 

Miller shrugged.

 

“You know Karpis was talking out his ass?”

 

“He was telling the truth.”

 

“You don’t know that.”

 

“She can do what she wants,” Miller said. “See you ’round, Harv.”

 

He offered his hand, and Harvey shook it.

 

Harvey, wrung-out, walked back to the card table and sat down. Miller walked out of the back room and reached for the latch on the bay door, rolling it open.

 

A large car sat idling outside, headlights shining bright into the big garage.

 

Four men crawled out of the car, and they stood in loose shadows with shotguns hanging from their hands. Harvey started to stand, and Karpis put his strong hand on his shoulder. Barker stopped tearing into the envelopes, mouth wide open.

 

In the bright light—so bright you had to squint—Miller looked back at Harvey. He offered him a weak smile, walking outside and moving to the car’s backseat. A shadowed hand went on his arm, but Miller tossed it aside, getting into the car himself. Harvey could now see the car was a Cadillac as it backed into the alley and sped away. Verne Miller’s battered suitcase stood alone by the door.

 

“You goddamn son of a bitch,” Harvey said. “You called Nitti.”

 

“You know better,” Karpis said.

 

“You’re a goddamn liar.”

 

“If I were a double-crosser, you’d be with ’im,” Karpis said.

 

“I’m going after those bastards.”

 

“You want to be dead?” Karpis said. “Go ahead.”

 

Harvey stood and walked to a brand-new Ford parked sideways near the bay doors. He looked around the big garage and then back to Karpis. “Where the hell’s George?”

 

 

 

 

 

JONES STOOD AT THE CORNER OF ADAM AND HALSTEAD A FEW hours later. They’d pulled a white sheet over the dead policeman—a long-faced cop by the name of Cunningham—and before the man was hauled away, Jones saw he’d been mauled up pretty good. He’d figured it for a machine gun even before the women in the Essex had confirmed it, along with the other beat cop who’d been hit in the shoulder. Doc White stood over at the newsstand and spoke to a little runt of a fella who sold newspapers and movie magazines. The man was pointing to the bullet holes and shredded magazines, saying God had protected him with big stacks of the evening editions.

 

The newspaper boys had taken their pictures, asked their questions, and gone.

 

A few onlookers stood and watched at first light. But the streets had been cleared, the cars towed and the glass and metal swept up.

 

An hour earlier, he and Doc had been on Jackson Street, interviewing the bank messengers and the guards. They’d searched that Ford and found the smoke machine. In the Hudson, they’d found a first-aid kit and two boxes of .45 ammo.

 

The men had worn bandannas at the robbery, and no one at the wreck recalled much. The fella that owned the newsstand said he was pretty sure they weren’t colored.

 

“Kelly?” Doc White asked them as they walked back to their vehicle.

 

Jones nodded. “Fits. He’s here.”

 

“One of the women gave a description sounds a hell of a lot like Verne Miller.”

 

“What about Bailey?”

 

“Didn’t hear of anyone sounded like Bailey.”

 

Jones watched a city worker take a wrench to a fire hydrant and start hosing away the beat cop’s blood. “Lot of misery for a few sacks of mail.”

 

“Any other night could’ve been more ’an a million.”

 

“You want to stay here?”

 

“Only sure bet is the Arnolds.”

 

“What Colvin do with ’em?”

 

“Did like Kathryn Kelly asked,” Doc White said, striking a match and cupping his hand around a cigarette. The morning wind sure felt like fall. “Holed ’em up in the Shangri-La Apartments in O.K. City till she gets word.”

 

“Could they be tipped off?”

 

“Colvin was careful.”

 

As they walked to their car, a big truck with slatted wooden sides ambled up to the shredded newsstand, dropping off morning copies of the Tribune, local police blaming Kelly for the robbery and the cop killing. 10,000 LAWMEN HUNT “MACHINE GUN” KELLY.

 

 

 

 

 

 

37

 

 

Saturday, September 23, 1933

 

Kathryn took a drink with George’s brother-in-law, Langford Ramsey—just calling him “Lang”—on the front porch of his bungalow in a fine Memphis neighborhood, right around the corner from Southwestern College. He had a fine car and a fine little wife and a fine job as a local attorney, George telling her twenty times that Lang was the youngest man in the state in practice. She liked Lang from the start after they’d rolled into Memphis that morning, dog-tired and muscle-cramped, and here this young boy and his wife had set their dining-room table with fried chicken and potato salad, iced tea, and lemonade spiked with gin. The lemonade just hitting the spot after they’d taken to the porch while George washed up and changed, expecting his sons at any minute.

 

“I’m so glad y’all are here,” Lang said.

 

He was a nice-looking boy, skinny and rich, a doughy face, but with nicely cut hair and beautiful manners. He called her ma’am, which annoyed her a bit. But he’d also blushed when she’d crossed her bare legs and lit a cigarette, and after their third lemonade he’d confided a bit about his wife, who was a restless girl from a good Memphis family who Lang said was under a doctor’s care for frigidity.

 

“Hell, just get her drunk, Lang,” Kathryn said. “Always works.”

 

“I like you,” he said.

 

“Back at you.”

 

“Your little girl is beautiful.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“She was so helpful in the kitchen.”

 

Kathryn wanted to warn him to watch his valuables. But instead she just smoked and took in the smooth green lawns, blooming crepe myrtles still spotted from a morning shower, and the young oaks that had grown just tall enough to shade the street. Fallen leaves skittered down the streets in bright little whirls. You noticed those type things when you were a bit high.

 

“You have to realize we were all taken aback to hear from George.”

 

“How long has it been?” Kathryn asked.

 

“Until he came through Memphis a few weeks ago, I hadn’t laid eyes on him for seven years,” Lang said. “I didn’t know till then that he’d been remarried.”

 

“We’ll be married three years tomorrow.”

 

“He did well for himself,” Lang said. “Anyone ever tell you that you look like Joan Crawford?”

 

She smiled at him. “George says nice things about your sister.”

 

Lang nodded. “We miss him. His boys miss him.”

 

“He got so nervous when you said they were visiting.”

 

“I think it’s only right,” Lang said. “They should know their father. Don’t get me wrong, F.X. is a fine man and a good husband.”

 

“What’s he do?”

 

“He’s a big-time advertising executive. Have you seen those ads for Rinso soap?”

 

“That woman with the awful BO? You bet. The way her friends don’t want to take her to the movies and her husband stays late at the office. It’s a riot.”

 

“He came up with that.”

 

“On the level?”

 

“On the level,” Lang said. “Listen, I wish you all could stay here, but with Geneva and her new husband, I thought it best—”

 

“It’s sweet that you found a place for us.”

 

“George stayed with Tich last time,” Lang said. “His wife and kids are in Paducah visiting her mother. He said it’s no trouble at all. He’s a funny little guy, kinda ornery, but don’t let him fool you. He’d give the shirt off his back for my family. Did I tell you he was a cripple?”

 

“You want me to speak to your wife?” Kathryn asked.

 

Lang reached for the pitcher of lemonade and gin. “About what?”

 

“Being frigid,” Kathryn said. “A fine catch like you . . .”

 

Lang’s boyish face grew red.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“Are you a good lawyer?” she asked.

 

“I try.”

 

“You work with many criminals?”

 

“Mainly property.”

 

“Oh.”

 

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

 

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

 

“That’s F.X.?” Kathryn asked.

 

Lang nodded.

 

“He wasn’t smiling.”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

They said “Wow!”

 

“Do you boys listen to Buck Rogers?”

 

They both nodded hard.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“You don’t know?” Lang asked.

 

She shook her head.

 

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

 

“But he loved his mother?”

 

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

 

“And he loved your father?” she asked.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“I didn’t cause that.”

 

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

 

“Wadn’t fair.”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“Didn’t work out that way? Did it?”

 

“ ’ Spose not.”

 

“You need anything?”

 

“Could use some fresh drawers and a toothbrush.”

 

“I’ll see to it.”

 

“Maybe a pint, too?”

 

“Anything else?”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“How you figure?”

 

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

 

“But I’m in jail.”

 

“Says who?”

 

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

 

Jones sat silent.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“Wouldn’t say it gives me pleasure.”

 

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

 

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

 

“What makes you so mean?”

 

“Just doin’ my job, Luther.”

 

“Don’t mean I have to like it.”

 

“It’s a free country.”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“What in the hell are you talking about?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“I’m not tired.”

 

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

 

“I’m no child.”

 

“You want to go back to trampin’?”

 

“No, ma’am.”

 

“Good.”

 

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

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

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

 

“How long have you known?”

 

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

 

“But you didn’t tell him.”

 

“I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“That’s not your daughter?”

 

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

 

Lang smiled.

 

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

 

“Anything,” Lang said. “Where?”

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

Harvey looked around and ate the toast and bacon.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Harvey followed Main down to Union and strutted right into the lobby of the Peabody Hotel, past a sign advertising a colored orchestra at the Sky Lounge, and found a bank of phone booths. With his last few nickels, he arranged for a car and a little stake of cash. He snatched out a page in the telephone book for a Langford Ramsey on Mignon Avenue and decided to walk while he waited for the car. He walked up and over the Memphis bluffs and down to the Mississippi River, where he sat on a park bench for a long time and watched the long, sluggish brown water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

38

 

The trick with dodging a hangover was just to stay drunk for as long as you could, parceling out the sips slow and easy without getting sloppy. Kathryn drank straight gin over cracked ice for most of the night until she heard Lang knock on the back door, rousting Geraline from the couch, the girl none too happy about the plan. “I’m not going,” she said.

 

“The hell you aren’t,” Kathryn said.

 

“My parents don’t care.”

 

“How’s Lang supposed to find my grandmother’s place in Coleman?”

 

“And you swear he’ll bring me back?”

 

“Just as soon as he picks up a few things.”

 

“Your furs and your Pekingese dog.”

 

“That’s right.”

 

“I’m not a sap.”

 

“Didn’t say you were, sister,” Kathryn said. “The boy can’t find the farm himself.”

 

Geraline packed her little suitcase, arranging items they’d bought her at the Fair along with three packs of cigarettes, a small cigar box, her new little dresses, frilly socks and panties, and what have you. Kathryn walked outside and saw Lang hand Tich a twenty-dollar bill before Tich hobbled down the steps to head to work at first light down at the Peabody Hotel garage.

 

“He won’t talk?” Kathryn asked.

 

“He’s loyal,” Lang said. “Worked for my family for years.”

 

“Goddamn, my head hurts.”

 

“Where’s George?”

 

“Still passed out in the back bedroom,” she said. “Hasn’t stirred a bit.”

 

“Tich will get rid of the Chevrolet,” he said. “He promises to bring back something better with Tennessee plates.”

 

“I don’t know what to say.”

 

“George is my family, Kathryn.”

 

She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, whispering into his ear, “After you get our dough, ditch the little smart-ass at the first train station you see.”

 

Lang nodded.

 

“You’ll need cash to get there.”

 

He shook his head. But she tucked a fat roll of twenties in his hand.

 

“If something goes screwy, send a telegram to Tich.”

 

He nodded. They heard George stumble from the back bedroom and pad out into the hallway with bare feet, wearing only an undershirt and boxer shorts. He rubbed his stubbled jaw, and smiled when he saw Lang. “You headed to church or somethin’?”

 

Lang smiled, holding a brand-new straw hat in his hand.

 

“He’s going to be calling on Ma Coleman for us,” Kathryn said.

 

George walked close to Lang and put his hands on his shoulders, smiling at him, and Lang looking a little uncomfortable, probably from George’s gin breath. But George didn’t notice, only wrapped his big arms around Lang and gave him a big old bear hug. He patted his back.

 

“Don’t get yourself killed,” George said, and padded into the bathroom, where they both heard him start to take a leak.

 

Geraline stood at the door, dressed in her brand-new flowered dress, new shoes, and that beret Kathryn had bought on the Streets of Paris. On her collar, she wore a button that read CENTURY OF PROGRESS.

 

“C’mon, Lang,” Geraline said, chewing a big wad of gum. “Quit your yap-pin’. We got a long day ahead.”

 

 

 

HARVEY WATCHED THE YOUNG LAWYER AND THE LITTLE GIRL he’d seen with Kathryn in Chicago leave the little bungalow on Rayner Street. He’d followed Lang all the way from North Memphis, the man not once making him out in his rearview mirror, not even when Harvey pulled in down the street and killed his lights a little before dawn. On the seat next to him, he had a pack of Camel cigarettes, a .45 automatic, and a copy of the morning newspaper with more trial coverage on the Shannons in Oklahoma City and news that Verne Miller and George had been spotted at a diner in Minnesota. He also had several maps of Iowa he’d bought at a Standard service station—he planned to cut through there on his way up to Wisconsin to pick up his family.

 

The only sleep he’d gotten was when he’d closed his eyes for maybe two seconds on the river. A short time later, a nervous negro met him at a downtown filling station, handing him the keys to a Plymouth, afraid to look the famous bank robber in the eye.

 

When the lawyer and the girl pulled away from the house on Rayner, he tossed his cigarette out the window and laid the .45 in his lap. Only a fool would bust into the back door in a fella’s hometown, no telling who George had in there or if George was in there at all.

 

A prowl car passed outside the car’s windows, and the way it drove lazy and relaxed was enough for Harv. He started the car, knocked it into first, and drove back toward the downtown.

 

 

 

 

 

“HAPPY ANNIVERSARY,” KATHRYN SAID, JOINING GEORGE IN Tich’s rumpled bed.

 

He reached to a nightstand and grabbed a pack of cigarettes and his lighter.

 

“I’m gonna buy you the biggest ring in Havana,” he said.

 

“I don’t need it.”

 

“We’re going to go to all those fancy clubs and drink rum. I’ll smoke cigars and fish.”

 

“What can I do?”

 

“Any damn thing you want.”

 

“Then what?”

 

“You want more?” George asked.

 

“I don’t like to be bored, George. I hate being bored.”

 

Kathryn turned her head on his chest to look at him. He ashed the cigarette into his palm and scatted it onto the floor, passing the cigarette to her. “Lang’s lemonade sure sneaks up on you,” she said.

 

“The trick is to keep on drinking.”

 

“So I heard.”

 

“Kit, pull the shades.”

 

“You got to be kidding.”

 

“We got the house all to ourselves.”

 

“This place is depressing.”

 

“Bed still works,” he said, rocking it back and forth with his butt, making the springs squeak.

 

“Come on.”

 

“It’s our anniversary,” he said.

 

“You read the papers?” she asked.

 

“Always bad news,” he said. “Take off that nightie.”

 

“I’ll leave it on,” she said. “Just be quiet.”

 

She kicked out of her panties and straddled him, George flat on his back and looking up at her with puppy-dog eyes. She reached for him, and he told her that he loved her.

 

She reached for him again, knowing this was going to take some work.

 

Kathryn slapped George across his face and told him to try a little harder. The strap of her slip had fallen off one shoulder by the time they finally got the show started, and she alternated with a firm hand on his chest and dropping them both loose at her sides, feeling him inside her, George with his eyes closed, Kathryn thinking that, in the weakened light, he really did favor Ricardo Cortez, and for a while there was a pleasant moment when he was Ricardo Cortez and this wasn’t a crummy nest of a bed but the biggest, fattest bed in Havana, with silk sheets, and guitar music floating in from the brick streets. And the air smelled like sweet flowers and tobacco, and she arched her back more, her mouth parted, and then reached her nails into George’s shoulder and said, “Did you hear that?”

 

“Damn it, Kit,” George said, opening his eyes and crawling out from under her.

 

She pulled down her silk slip

 

George walked to the window and peeked outside. “Nothing. Not a damn thing.”

 

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s finish.”

 

“I need a drink.”

 

He started slamming cabinets in the kitchen, looking for some more gin but instead finding Tich’s stash of Log Cabin bourbon, bottom-shelf kind of stuff, that George poured over ice. He turned on the radio, saying he was listening for any news on them but only finding some kids’ show again. He drank and brooded there on the sofa until the shadows fell across the floor. Tich was back sometime later, dragging that old foot and bringing them an angel food cake from his church service and a .45 automatic he sold to George for $17.50.

 

George grabbed the gun but didn’t eat a bit of the cake, and he and Kathryn both went to bed sometime late that night, not really knowing when, all that time kind of getting mixed together. They slept apart, Kathryn not waking until she heard Tich had returned, and the ugly little man handed her a telegram from Gainesville, Texas. HAD SEVERAL TOUGH BREAKS . . . DEAL FELL THROUGH. TRIED TO GET LATER APPOINTMENT. BEST PROSPECT WAS AFRAID. IMPOSSIBLE. CHANGED HER MIND. DON’T WANT TO BRING HOME A SAD TALE. CAN GO ON IF ADVISABLE. WIRE INSTRUCTIONS HERE.

 

“Where’s the bottle?” she asked.

 

 

 

HARVEY WALKED UP THE DRIVEWAY OF THE LITTLE HOUSE on Rayner early that Tuesday morning after sleeping a night in the car at a tourist camp over the river in West Memphis, Arkansas. With the .45 loose at his side, he checked the back door and found it unlocked. He pressed on, not knowing who all was in the house. The kitchen was bare, a black skillet left cold on the burner, with the grease turning white and hard. He shifted the gun in his hand and moved into the main room, where a bunch of pillows and blankets was left on the couch, full ashtrays and half-finished glasses scattered across the room. He looked for suitcases, satchels, anything where they’d keep his dough if they had it with them at all. But he’d take whatever they had, fight over it if it came to that, and then he’d be on the great, beautiful, open road.

 

He heard sounds coming from a back bedroom.

 

He crept forward, and through a narrow crack saw the nude back of Kathryn, who was on top of George and riding him. He only saw George’s hairy legs and big feet and was glad he couldn’t see more, finally spotting a fat leather grip at the edge of the bed.

 

“Hope I didn’t stop you from the morning routine,” he said, tipping his hat at Kit. She crawled off George and covered herself with the entire sheet, George stumbling to his feet.

 

He walked up to Harvey as naked as you please and shook his head.

 

“Take it, Harv.”

 

“How much is left?” Harvey asked. “I only want what’s mine.”

 

“Three grand, give or take a few hundred,” George said. “Rest is hidden.”

 

“I’ll be wanting the rest.”

 

“How were we to know you pooled your goddamn money with ours at Cann’s place?” he said. “Your own fault.”

 

“Good luck, George.”

 

“Where’s Miller?”

 

“Dead,” Harvey said. “Nitti snatched him.”

 

“How’d Nitti know?”

 

“Pussy sure can make a man blind,” Harvey said. “You better get your eyes checked, George.”

 

“Skip the commentary, you rotten SOB,” Kathryn said. “Get what’s yours and get gone.”

 

Harvey tipped his hat, the leather grip feeling heavy and fat in his left hand. He hoisted it onto the table and opened the top, a breeze through a cracked window fluttering the loose bundles of cash. He caught sight of two garbagemen conversing with a fella who’d just parked across the street. The man opened his hood and stood against the fat fender.

 

The garbagemen had good haircuts. The man with the busted car shifted his weight, placing a hand on his belt, the son of a bitch carrying a rod. All three men glanced up at the bungalow, trying not to stare, first light still an hour away.

 

Harvey didn’t say a word, only snatched up the grip and walked out of the kitchen, hopping a fence to another house and then another, before finding his machine parked out on Speedway, knocking it into first and thinking what a beautiful day it was going to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

KATHRYN WOULD LATER HEAR HOW MA COLEMAN HAD REBUKED Lang and Geraline three times before shooing them away and telling them federal agents were everywhere. Lang tried his best to get back to that willow tree he’d been told about, Geraline pleading with the blind old woman to let her inside, saying that Kathryn missed her little Pekingese dog and needed her furs for the winter. But the old woman wildly aimed a little .22 and said they wouldn’t last a mile if they picked up Kathryn’s things. “If they knew what was good for ’em, they’d get back in their car and keep driving till they were out of Texas.” The whole thing didn’t seem to bother Geraline but rattled poor Lang so bad that the little girl had to hold his cigarette while he lit it. She even told Lang he didn’t have the nerves for gangster work.

 

He ignored the kid.

 

And then fifty miles down the road, she started in on how much she missed her folks and started to primp up to cry.

 

“You told Kathryn you wanted to go back to Memphis.”

 

“Please,” Geraline said. “I want my momma.”

 

And he’d found a station, walking inside with her and purchasing a one-way ticket to Oklahoma City. He handed her a five-dollar bill and wished her good luck.

 

He wasn’t gone five minutes before she used the money to wire a message to the Shangri-La Apartments, Oklahoma City. MEET ME AT ROCK ISLAND STATION. 10:15 TONIGHT. GERRY.

 

Gerry had a fine time on the late train, finding the Sunday funnies section on a vacant seat. She probably laughed and giggled the whole way, with no more concern about what she’d done than Chingy showed when he killed a songbird.

 

The train arrived on time and clattered to a stop at the station. Geraline grabbed her fattened suitcase and politely declined help from a kindly negro porter. She stopped on the platform, the engine still hissing and steaming several cars ahead, and soon spotted old Luther and Flossie Mae, her momma and daddy, waving to her by a large clock atop a metal post.

 

Geraline lugged her suitcase, not in any particular hurry, and became annoyed when some old man came in step beside her and asked if she was tired.

 

“What’s it to you?” she asked.

 

“I’m a friend of your parents’.”

 

She noticed he wore a fine pearl gray cowboy hat and polished boots. He was short and sort of fat and wore a pair of gold-rimmed cheaters.

 

“Must have been some trip.”

 

“Sure thing, pops.”

 

Flossie Mae ran to her and tried to hug her. But Geraline just stood there limp while the woman put on some kind of show, kissing and cooing, for the cowboy. “Can we get something to eat?” Gerry asked.

 

“Little girl, how’d you like an ice-cream cone?” the cowboy asked. “We have a lot to discuss.”

 

Gerry looked to her parents and back to the man. She saw that her daddy had a hell of a shiner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“WILL YOU RECONSIDER LETTING ME COME WITH YOU?” CHARLES Urschel asked.

 

“We appreciate you arranging a plane.”

 

“Kelly won’t go easily.”

 

“Don’t expect it.”

 

“Will you kill him?”

 

“If the situation calls for it.”

 

“I’d hate to have another trial,” Urschel said, speaking to Jones in the rear of the government vehicle on the way to the airstrip. “My family has been through enough.”

 

Jones said nothing. It was past three in the morning.

 

“How many men?”

 

“Me and Doc,” Jones said. “We’re meeting four men from the Oklahoma City office, including Special Agent Colvin. Six more in Memphis.”

 

“What do you think of Agent Colvin?”

 

“You don’t need my opinion, sir,” Jones said. “Think you already got that figured out.”

 

“You know Betty broke that young man’s heart when she took up with the club’s new tennis pro?” Urschel asked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THEY LANDED IN MEMPHIS AT HALF PAST FIVE THAT MORNING. The police met them at the landing strip, and a briefing was held inside an airplane hangar. The locals had arranged for a garbage truck and some uniforms for Agent Bryce and Joe Lackey. Agent Colvin would drive a car and park across from the house on Rayner, where he’d feign having engine trouble.

 

A little after five a.m., Jones got word there was no movement in the house, and they figured Kelly—if inside—was still asleep. Jones pulled a machine gun from the back of a Memphis police car they’d parked six houses down on Speedway. Doc White carried a sawed-off Browning 12-gauge. The six detectives brought pistols, knowing this would all be close work inside that little house. Bryce could watch the front door and windows with a scoped rifle he’d stowed in the front seat of the truck.

 

Jones checked his timepiece and nodded to Doc White.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“IF KELLY IS KILLED,” CHARLIE URSCHEL SAID, “YOU’D BE a hero.”

 

“I made my way for twenty years trying to stay out of the papers.”

 

“The country needs something like this,” Urschel said. “Strong leaders. People are restless as sheep.”

 

“Folks follow money,” Jones said. “Always have. Greed is the root of it all.” Charlie Urschel turned away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JONES CROSSED THE SMALL, SLOPED LAWN AND MET DOC WHITE, circling the house from around back. He was slow up the walkway and front steps, recalling the Paradise raid, trying the front door and finding it unlocked, a clear view of a big open room through to the glass cabinets of the kitchen. A small fella lay on the sofa, a half-empty bottle of whiskey in hand, and Jones was careful to open the front door slow and easy, while Doc touched the shotgun to the man’s nose and the man opened his eyes wide, frozen.

 

Bottles of bourbon and gin lay all around the house. Ashtrays overflowed. Jones spotted a copy of Master Detective wide open to a story called “My Bloodcurdling Ride With Death.”

 

Jones’s boots beat heavy steps on the wooden floor, and he waited any minute to hear gunshots. He walked along the hallway to find a bedroom door wide open and a nude woman, who lay tangled in a pile of white sheets. The first light of the day crossed the room and over the back and shoulder of Kathryn Kelly. A piece of her hair had caught in her mouth during sleep, her mouth slightly parted, eyes closed.

 

When he turned, a shadow crossed the wall, and Jones turned and raised his Thompson.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“THOSE MEN HUMILIATED ME,” URSCHEL SAID.

 

 

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“It hasn’t been settled in my mind.”

 

“And won’t for some time.”

 

“Did Agent Colvin discuss with you my suspicions?”

 

“He did.”

 

“I made a mistake.”

 

“As us all.”

 

“Those people took Mr. Jarrett at gunpoint,” Urschel said. “I don’t want his personal conversations placed on phonographic records.”

 

“Mr. Hoover cabled that Mr. Jarrett should be left alone. Is that to your liking, Mr. Urschel?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IT WAS KELLY, LOOKING HEAVY AND TIRED, HIS THICK HAIR bleached bright yellow. He stood not five paces away in the bungalow’s hallway, aiming a .45 at Jones’s chest. He wore only a pair of boxer shorts with red hearts.

 

“Drop that gun,” Jones said.

 

“I’ve been waiting for y’all all night,” Kelly said with a smile, as if he found the whole situation to be funny.

 

“Well,” Jones said, “here we are.”

 

Kelly stepped forward but did not lower the gun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“DO YOU HAVE CHILDREN?” URSCHEL ASKED.

 

 

 

“No, sir. We wasn’t blessed with them.”

 

“When I received that letter from Kelly, I purchased pistols for all my children. I even gave Betty one to carry in her purse.”

 

“I never found that letter sincere.”

 

“I don’t let my children out of my sight.”

 

“I suppose that faith is the toughest part. Being a family man.”

 

“I don’t even trust my own safety. A shadow startles me.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JONES INCHED HIS FINGER ON THE TRIGGER; JUST A LITTLE pressure would scatter the entire drum of bullets. He wondered if Kelly thought the gun was his own and that Jones had stolen it from him. He thought back on Paradise and then on Kansas City, Sheriff Otto Reed and those two dead city detectives lying like twin boys in the blood along the brick road.

 

Kelly just smiled down at Jones. Jones knowing goddamn well that Kelly thought it was kind of humorous being drawn by the much shorter, much older man.

 

“Are you the Federal Ace?” George Kelly asked.

 

“I’m Gus T. Jones of the Department of Justice. Now, drop your weapon.”

 

Kelly smiled some more, Jones hearing a stir in the bedroom and Kathryn calling for her husband to come back to bed. George chuckled. He lowered the .45 and placed it with a light touch on a sewing machine that had been pushed against a wall, covered with discarded rags and a fine dust.

 

It would take fifteen minutes before Kathryn agreed to put on some clothes. She emerged from the bathroom wearing a black dress that hugged her fanny and fanned out at her feet like a mermaid. As she was pushed into the Black Mariah with handcuffs on her wrists, Jones heard her say, “Officer, an agent of mine is returning from Texas shortly with all my furs and jewels and my Pekingese dog. Please make sure these are returned to me.”

 

George was sullen and silent. Jones only saw him grin once more after the arrest. The desk sergeant asked his name, age, and where he lived. “My name is George Kelly. I’m thirty-seven years of age, and I live everywhere.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

39

 

Harvey Bailey cut through Memphis without trouble, the bluffs falling away behind him, and he drove over the Mississippi River at dawn with a wide smile on his face, that gorgeous light hitting the muddy water and shining like gold across the Arkansas Delta like something out of the Old Testament. He had the window down, the air bright and cool, a full tank of gas, and a full satchel of cash beside him.

 

He nearly missed the roadblock.

 

Slowing, trying to remain confident. He rolled down the window and smiled.

 

Four coppers pulled guns on him. Harvey shook his head, held up his hands, and told them they were welcome to help themselves to what’s in the bag if they’d just let him pass through.

 

One of the coppers grabbed the bag and plunked it on top of the Plymouth, tossing out the thick stack of bills, reaching deeper to pull out magazines and a phone book and what looked to be kids’ undershorts and socks.

 

“You trying to bribe us with fifty-two dollars and some dirty drawers?” the copper asked. “You got some set of balls, Mr. Bailey. Now, put your goddamn hands up where I can see ’em.”

 

 

 

KATHRYN KNEW THE SCORE FROM THE MOMENT THAT SNOT-NOSED kid pranced into the courtroom in a hundred-dollar dress and patent leather shoes. She wore a full-grown woman’s slouch hat, and told Flossie Mae—who held her hand down the aisle—to go and sit down and be quiet. Flossie Mae lowered her head and did what she was told. Geraline took the stand with a little jeweled pocketbook that Kathryn knew was just bulging with that money she’d switched. She nudged George in the ribs at the defense table, but he didn’t take any interest, sitting there in a nice suit with a dull smile.

 

They tried them together after convicting Bailey and Bates, Ora and Boss. Potatoes and the hot-money Jews from Saint Paul. Kathryn had tried to explain that George would’ve killed her if she’d tried to leave him. But all the saps were turning a deaf ear, the judge and the prosecutor just over the moon with the dumb kid who’d taken the stand, a real flavor of the month, with headlines across the country reading GIRL, 12, NABS “MACHINE GUN” KELLY.

 

Kathryn didn’t see how telling the G that they were in Memphis amounted to anything. But the Arnolds sure had put in for the ten grand in reward money, and already there was talk of a Hollywood movie, with the girl from Dora’s Dunkin’ Donuts in the role of Geraline.

 

The little girl sure as shit gave Kathryn the high hat when she finished telling her little tale of meeting while her parents were hitching, all the way through to the Fair and then down to Memphis. It was a real sob-sister act, and, as much as Kathryn hated it, she grinned to herself a bit when the rat walked past.

 

George never seemed to mind Kathryn telling a story of George being the brains behind it all and how he said he’d kill her and her family if she didn’t go along. He seemed to know this was all part of the game and even patted her goddamn hand when she returned from breaking down on the stand, remembering, of all the horror from their time on the road, what the big gorilla had forced her to do.

 

But nothing could save them. Even Chingy would’ve been convicted in that lousy court. She knew it was all a sham when they rode the elevator up for sentencing. She turned to kiss George on the cheek, but that cowboy federal agent Doc White pushed her away. And like he deserved, she slapped that old bastard across his face.

 

He grabbed her hand and snatched her up at the elbow.

 

In manacles, George turned to try and break his grip. But all that old man did was pistol-whip George till the elevator doors opened, leaving him with a good-size egg and a handkerchief on his split lip as their verdict was read.

 

They were sentenced to life.

 

When Kathryn was released twenty-five years later, she remarked to a reporter, “I guess the thing that impressed me most on my first trip out was the fast traffic. I was honestly afraid to cross the street.”

 

George never did get out.

 

 

September 1934

 

The train was a midnight special, taking the highball route from the federal prison in Atlanta, tracks cleared all the way to Leavenworth, and then steaming right for the California coast, where a hundred and three of the very worst in the system would be locked up tight on Alcatraz. Hoover had put Jones in charge of the move, and he hadn’t even been able to tell Mary Ann his assignment, only saying that he’d meet her in San Francisco at the Mark Hopkins Hotel. They’d have cocktails, and she’d try to talk him into retiring like Doc White.

 

The train’s windows had been covered with bars and a metal screen, and the doors could only be unlocked from outside, the openings covered in welded lattice, easy to slip the muzzle of a machine gun through and start shooting if there was trouble. By morning, they all felt the heat wave without even a small crack for a crossbreeze. Some of the men went on a hunger strike, most of them unshaven and stinking. Many he knew on sight—Bailey, Bates, Kelly—as he patrolled the aisle with a Thompson in hand. George Kelly nodded to Jones every time he passed, like an old friend, asking him once, when they stopped in a train yard to let the prisoners stretch, smoke, and drink water from tin cups, if it would be okay to write Charles Urschel a letter.

 

“I don’t think it’ll change his mind.”

 

“It’s not supposed to,” George said. “I just want someone to hear me out.”

 

“Maybe try a more cordial tone this time.”

 

“You know I didn’t have a thing to do with that mess in Kansas City.”

 

Jones nodded. “We got Miller’s prints off the gun.”

 

“Guess he won’t be facing the chair.”

 

“Facedown and nekkid in a drainage ditch,” Jones said. “Why do you figure they had to make him be nekkid before they killed him?”

 

“Nitti wanted to shame him,” Kelly said. “He’d like you G-men to lay off the Syndicate. Never were fond of the freelancer.”

 

“I know Bailey was there, too,” Jones said. “Someone knows. We got him. And we got time.”

 

“Hell, he didn’t kidnap Charlie Urschel,” Kelly said. “He was framed for that.”

 

“Ain’t it a shame.”

 

Dear Mr. Urschel—

 

I hope I am not pulling a prize blunder (or should I say committing a “ faux pas”?) in writing to you. Don’t think I am merely writing this letter to try to get into your good graces. You can rest assured I will never ask you to do anything towards getting me out.

 

I feel at times you wonder how I am standing up under my penal servitude, and what is my attitude of mind. Maybe you have asked yourself, “How can a man of even ordinary intelligence put up with this kind of life, day in, day out, week after week, month after month, year after year.” To put it more mildly still, what is this life of mind like—and from whence do I draw sufficient courage to endure it.

 

To begin with, these five words seem written in fire on the walls of my cell: “Nothing can be worth this.” This—the kind of life I am leading. That is the final word of wisdom so far as crime is concerned. Everything else is mere fine writing.

 

“What are you going to do when you get us all locked up on that island?”

 

“Plenty,” Jones said.

 

“Won’t be long till you nab every yeggman in the country.”

 

“Worse headed this way.”

 

“The Depression?”

 

“Worse than the Depression,” Jones said. “The country has worse problems than a bunch of hoods with guns.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“The Germans, for one. Filthy Nazis. Did you know that son of a bitch Hitler won’t let churches use ‘Amen’ because it’s a Hebrew word. That ain’t right.”

 

“And you can’t wait to fight ’em.”

 

“Won’t be long till they’ll be coming for us.”

 

“That’s screwy.”

 

“Our borders are wide open,” he said. “They’ll look to Mexico.”

 

“And you’ll take up the gun.”

 

“If it comes to that,” Jones said. “I can speak Spanish.”

 

I feel splendid and am in perfect physical trim. My one obsession is the climate of this island. I am constantly bothered with colds. My cell, made of steel and concrete, is always a trifle chilly; but I’ve come to believe that man is so made that the presence of a small superficial irritation, provided the sensation is acute without being symptomatic of any serious trouble, is a definite aid to his mental equilibrium and serves to keep occupied the restless margin of his consciousness. He regards it, too, as a sort of ring of Polycrates, for I suspect that there is in all of us, always, an obscure sense of fate, inherited from numberless ancestral misfortunes, which whisper: “We are not sent into this world to live too happily. Where there’s nothing to worry us, it’s not natural, it’s a bad sign.”

 

“You know she wrote me in Leavenworth,” Kelly said, the morning clear and bright. They ate their eggs with plastic utensils. “The lawyer we hired sued for all the jewels and furs. That big, gorgeous Cadillac, too. She had a sixteen-cylinder engine. You could steer clear across this country like that car was a yacht.”

 

Jones nodded, watching him eat, holding the Thompson over him.

 

“She told me she still loved me,” Kelly said.

 

“Yeah, I read that letter. You know your mail’s censored? I think she was hoping you’d help bust her out.”

 

“That might be a little tough,” Kelly said, raising his manacled wrists.

 

“They put her in prison with her momma,” Jones said. “That has to give you some comfort.”

 

“You think she used me?”

 

“You want to know the truth, son?” Jones asked.

 

But I must be fair. Being in prison has brought me one possible advantage. It could hardly do less. Its name is comradeship—a rough kindness of man to man: unselfishness; an absence, or a diminution, of the tendency to look ahead, at least very far ahead; a carelessness, though it is bred of despair; a clinging to life and the possible happiness it may offer at some future date.

 

A person in prison can’t keep from being haunted by a vision of life as it used to be when it was real and lovely. At such times I pay, with a sense of delicious, overwhelming melancholy, my tribute to life as it once was. I don’t believe it can ever be like that again—but you can bet your last oil-well George won’t lose any sleep over that.

 

How’s your bridge game? Are you still vulnerable? I don’t mean that as a dirty dig, but you must admit you lost your bid on the night of July 22, 1933.

 

I hope you will not consider my writing an impertinence, if you do, just tear this letter up and forget it. With best wishes, I am

 

 

 

Very truly yours,
George R. Kelly
Reg. No. 117

 

The seats in the train jostled up and down, metal wheels scraping against rails, anonymous towns of light and smoke flying by the windows, just slightly cracked. Jones sat across from George Kelly on that final stretch, having so many questions about him and Kathryn but deciding what went on with his woman was of a personal nature. He got his pipe going and stretched out his shined boots, the front of his shirt clinging to him, with sweat drying in the coolness of the night.

 

Kelly faced the rear of the train, Jones in the seat opposite him, toward the engine.

 

The men both took turns staring out the barred windows at the lonely landscape. One view forward, one behind.

 

“You want to trade places?” Jones asked, checking his gold timepiece.

 

“Not on your life.”

 

 

 

 

 

Background information provided by: Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34, Bryan Burrough; Machine Gun Kelly’s Last Stand, Stanley Hamilton; A Man Named Jones, George Ellis; Crimes’ Paradise , E. E. Kirkpatrick; Robbing Banks Was My Business: The Story of J. Harvey Bailey, J. Evetts Haley; American Agent, Melvin Purvis; Inside the F.B.I., John J. Floherty; The Texas Rangers and the Mexican Revolution: The Bloodiest Decade, 1910-1920, Charles H. Harris III and Louis R. Sadler; “King of the Wildcatters”: The Life and Times of Tom Slick, 1883-1930, Ray Miles; John Dillinger Slept Here: A Crooks’ Tour of Crime and Corruption in St. Paul, 1920-1936, Paul Maccabee; Cars of the 30s, Editors of Consumer Guide; and The 1933 Chicago World’s Fair: A Century of Progress, Cheryl R. Ganz. I’m very grateful to the assistance of the FBI Archives for providing nearly ten thousand pages of files. As always, thanks to the University of Mississippi library for their interlibrary loan program and to the great reporters of 1933 for their top-shelf coverage of the Kansas City Massacre and the Charles Urschel kidnapping in the Kansas City Star, Daily Oklahoman, and the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

 

An extra special thanks to Jack Ruleman at the Shelby County Archives in Memphis, who put me onto this story and tracked down invaluable records on the Kellys’ arrest. The Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco provided terrific background on the Ranger days of Jones and White. As always, Esther and Neil make this work possible and give it purpose. My ultimate thanks for our fourth book together.

 

Also a great deal of appreciation to Sara Minnich at G. P. Putnam’s Sons for her consistent and sharp eye. I’d also like to thank the continued support year after year of the following folks: Maggie Griffin at Partners & Crime, Cody Morrison and Slade Lewis at Square Books, David and McKenna Thompson at Murder By The Book, Patrick Milliken and Barbara Peters at the Poisoned Pen, Mary Gay Shipley at That Bookstore in Blytheville, Thomas and Cheryl Upchurch at Capitol Book & News, Jake Reiss at the Alabama Booksmith, and Ted O’Brien at the Garden District Book Shop.

 

The usual suspects played a huge role of support while I was working on this project: Larry and Dean Wells for their friendship and knowledge of bridge, former political boss Richard Howorth for insightful comments, Tim Green for years of support, and, of course, my entire family.

 

This book is better thanks to the wife, Angela, who always gives it to me on the level, a woman who might’ve taught Kathryn Kelly a thing or two. And most of all, to my son, who constantly reminds me that the world is a funny place.

 

Ace Atkins

 

Oxford, Mississippi, 2009