“Me either. Oh, I don’t mind putting a little muscle into a stickup, waving a gun around. Don’t even mind winging a guy. But I don’t look to killing for my fun.”
From the living room, laughter came from the radio; Gracie had said something funny again.
“Now, you take Freddie,” Karpis said, amused, smiling his ghastly smile, “he’s a born killer. Sometimes it shocks me a little to see how free and easy he is with a gun. He don’t mind gunning down somebody that gets in his way—cop or hood or ordinary joe, it’s all the same to him.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
Karpis went on: “Maybe it’s being raised in the Ozarks; maybe all those hillbillies are like that. I don’t know. Could be it runs in the family—their older brother Herman died shooting it out with the cops, and Doc, hell, he’s got quite the itchy trigger finger himself.”
“Ma seems harmless enough.”
The swing made a creaking sound as he rocked; it seemed louder than the crickets and other night sounds, and the muffled radio from within the house.
“Yeah, Ma’s harmless all right. She’s quite a character, though.”
“She doesn’t seem to mind what her boys do for a living.”
Karpis smiled some more and moved his head side to side. “Anything her boys do is okeydoke with Ma. They can do no wrong.”
“They seem to feel the same about her.”
“Well, look how she sticks by them. Sometimes she travels with us, and Freddie and Doc and me are just three brothers taking care of our widowed momma, should anybody ask. Foolproof cover. What could look more innocent?”
The swing creaked; laughter from the radio.
I said, “I didn’t know Nelson ran with your gang.”
“Usually don’t, but I’ve known him for years and he’s sharp and loyal and there’s nobody braver. We’re hooking up for something big.” He gave me a long sideways appraising look. “You strictly a rackets guy, or do you ever work for a living?”
I sat in the swing next to him; Karpis stopped rocking, but it rocked on a little anyway, on its own steam.
I said, “I don’t get you. You said something like that at supper, and I didn’t get you then, either.”
He sighed, and started gently rocking again; I joined in.
“Now look,” he said, as if explaining the obvious to a small child, “we’re strictly heist guys. We done some branching out into kidnapping, but that’s just another kind of stealing. Plus, our gang’s on the fluid side….”
“Fluid?”
“Yeah—people come and go. Me and the Barker boys have been together a long time, but we worked with dozens of guys, from time to time. Not tight and organized like you rackets guys.”
“What’ve you got against rackets guys?”
He made a face. “They’re too picky about what they’ll let you steal. They don’t like the kind of stealing that gets the heat turned on ’em; they’re in more public-service-type business.”
“Public service?”
“Yeah—pussy, drugs, bookmaking. That ain’t crime. That’s business. True crime’s you when get out and work for a living, like robbing a bank, or breaking into a place, or kidnapping somebody. Really give some effort to it. The rackets guys aren’t up for that. Yet at the same time, when those guys get
“Yeah. Ask Doc Moran.”
Karpis raised a lecturing finger; he looked even more like a math teacher, now. “Okay, so maybe Chicago did okay Moran’s exit—maybe even requested it—but they didn’t pay for it. Killing people for money don’t appeal to me, or anybody connected with me. I’ll leave that to the rackets guys.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re no Chicago hoodlum.”
The Auburn keys were in my pocket.
“I’m not?”
I edged my hand near the gun under my arm.
“No,” Karpis smiled, “you’re from out East. You’re a fish out of water, in Chicago. You looking for some honest work?”
I sighed relief. To myself, that is.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Something real big’s coming up, soon.”
“How soon?”
“Friday.”
“This Friday?”
“This Friday.”
