“ ‘I’ll be in hell before y’all eat breakfast, boys,’ ” White said, stopping for a moment to light a cigarette. “ ‘Let her rip.’ ”
“Took his head clean off, I heard,” Jones said. “Doc, you ever think you’d see a weapon that could fire thirty rounds in the blink of an eye?”
“That was made for the military, not for gangsters.”
“How you gonna keep it out of their hands?”
“Don’t take much skill with a full drum,” White said. “Sure can chew apart the scenery.”
“One man becomes an army.”
“It’s cowardice,” White said. “Not progress.”
When they returned, Kirkpatrick met them on the sunporch and opened the door. Maps and telegrams had been laid on the card table along with books and books of mug shots and prison records.
“Anything?” Jones asked.
“Cranks,” Kirkpatrick said. “Can you believe that woman had the nerve-”
“Yes.”
Jones and White removed their hats, laid them crown down, and took a seat at the card table. A negro woman offered some coffee, and they took it, White discussing running back to the hotel for sandwiches to keep the billing easy for expenses. Jones said that sounded fine, and he filled his pipe again and leaned back into the chair. He could hear the birds in the trees and the cicadas buzzing in the heat. The view was obscured and fuzzy on account of the metal screen.
“This is the screwiest one,” Kirkpatrick said. “Received it this morning while I was shaving.”
He slid the letter across to Jones. Jones glanced down and read it, getting the fire going in the bowl, and looked up at Kirkpatrick.
“What?” Kirkpatrick asked. “Surely you don’t think there is anything to something so outrageous?”
A letter from Charles F. Urschel to you and the enclosed identification cards will convince you that you are dealing with the Abductors. Immediately upon receipt of this letter you will proceed to obtain the sum of TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS ($200,000.00) in GENUINE USED FEDERAL RESERVE CURRENCY in the denomination of TWENTY DOLLAR ($20.00) Bills. It will be useless for you to attempt taking notes of SERIAL NUMBERS, MAKING UP DUMMY PACKAGE, OR ANYTHING ELSE IN THE LINE OF ATTEMPTED DOUBLE CROSS. BEAR THIS IN MIND, CHARLES E URSCHEL WILL REMAIN IN OUR CUSTODY UNTIL MONEY HAS BEEN INSPECTED AND EX CHANGED AND FURTHERMORE WILL BE AT THE SCENE OF, CONTACT FOR PAY-OFF AND IF THERE SHOULD BE ANY ATTEMPT AT ANY DOUBLE XX IT WILL BE HE THAT SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCE. As soon as you have read and RE-READ this carefully and wish to commence negotiations you will proceed to the
An hour later, the postman delivered a letter with Urschel’s identification and personal signature. From across the table, Doc White asked, “Our boys?”
“Yep,” Jones said. “See if Agent Colvin might have the time and inclination to join us. That is, if his dance card ain’t punched.”
ORA HAD FIXED A BIG SOUTHERN MEAL JUST THE WAY GEORGE liked it, and they all sat together like a proper family at Boss’s place, a mile down the road from where they kept Mr. Urschel. Kathryn let Boss say grace, and George answered it with a big, corny “Amen” and reached for the fried chicken, that long, hairy arm coming clean across the table for a drumstick. Albert Bates complimented her mother on the meal and poured himself a glass of iced tea.
“You send over a plate, darlin’?” George asked.
“Taters brung it,” Ora said, her voice grating, filled with a lot of North Mississippi; Saltillo to her bones. “Gave him some sliced tomatoes and field peas, too. Reckon he’ll like that?”
“Mr. Urschel should be grateful,” Bates said. “A big oilman lives on nothing but sirloin steak and bourbon. Craps out silver dollars like a one-armed bandit.”
“He’s due for some slop,” George said.
“George,” Ora said.
“Oh, no, ma’am, I don’t mean your cookin’ is slop, I’m talking the beans.”
“I don’t think he’s cut out for ranch living,” Bates said. “He tried to fight signing that letter, but not real hard. He wants this mess gone.”
“And what will you do then, Mr. Bates?” Boss asked. The old man sat at the head of the table in a boiled white shirt buttoned to the throat. He chewed his chicken as he spoke, with a lot of strength in those jaws, looking like a little bulldog gnawing on a bone, thin white hair combed back from his forehead and sticking up like a grizzled rooster’s.
“Get back to my sweetie and have some fun,” Bates said. “This is it for me.”
“What’s the next step for you, young man?” Boss asked.
“If I knew, this wouldn’t be an ounce of fun,” George said with a wink. “You go where you find the action. But I’m figuring they’ll answer that ad and play it smart. We’ll all be out of your hair by Sunday, and me and Kit will be on the road and Albert will be back with his sweetie.”
He smiled over at Kathryn, stopping her from laughing about Boss’s hair, and grabbed her knee with his free hand. She looked down at the red-and-white tablecloth and studied the uniform pattern. She hadn’t gotten any food, her stomach twisted up in knots. But George didn’t have a care in the world, reaching back across the table and grabbing a thigh this time and asking her mother for another helping of field peas. Old Ora lit up with smiles like that big mug had hung the goddamn moon.
“George, when you finish stuffing your gullet, how ’bout you and me go check out the machine?” Kathryn asked.
“Already checked on her,” George said. “Fueled up and ready to go. Got a tin of gas and cans of oil. Don’t you worry about nothin’.”
“I’d like to see her anyway,” Kathryn said, moving his hand off her knee, pushing the skirt back down. She reached for the iced tea and poured a glass, wishing these Baptists would wake up to the world and keep some gin in the house.
“Sheriff Faith come by today,” Boss said, just as plain as talking about crops and weather.
George stopped chewing. He and Albert exchanged glances.
“Oh, you boys don’t get nervous,” he said. “I been stashing folks here for years. The sheriff would tell me if the law was onto us.”
“May I have some more biscuits?” George asked.
“Haven’t you had enough?” Kathryn said.
“Why don’t you mind your own business.”
Ora hopped up like there was a fire poker in her ass and landed two buttermilk biscuits on his plate. Kathryn just shook her head and walked out the screen door and onto the porch, resting an arm on the column and looking across the pasture at all those goddamn cows mooing at one another, blind and directionless until someone cracked the whip. Suckers.
George sure took his time to join her, door clattering shut. He lit a cigarette and patted his stomach, following her down a path and to the garage he’d constructed with Potatoes and Boss that spring. He found the key in his pocket and loosened the lock and chain, opening up the big, wide barn doors to show off that gorgeous midnight blue Cadillac. A full sixteen cylinders, with big, fat pontoon fenders, torpedo headlights, and a slant-back grille topped with that gorgeous silver woman with wings. The places she’d see.
Kathryn ran her hand over the paint, which always felt liquid and alive to her, shining wet. She turned and leaned back against the door, crooking her finger at George. He didn’t need to be asked twice, but first shut the garage door and lit up a kerosene lantern.
