Infamous

“ ‘ Pin money’?” she asked.

“Of course,” Kathryn said. “The other night I sent ole Boss out with eighteen hundred dollars, and the little man here lost the whole thing. Isn’t that right?”

George shrugged and pulled out a money clip bulging with cash. “You two ever seen a thousand-dollar bill?”

Mrs. Quigley’s eyes went askew and then refocused on Kathryn’s face, to see if the couple was pulling her leg. She opened her mouth, but before she uttered a word in skipped the little daughter, stopping the conversation cold, the precocious little moron who had already regaled them with five songs at dinner and two tap-dancing recitals with about as much delicacy as a bloated hippo.

“Well, well, well,” Mrs. Quigley said, “Janey wanted to say good night and show you her certificate. Did I tell you she has won an art contest for Rinso soap? She is so very talented. Her little cartoon will be in a national magazine this fall. Can you believe it? It’s called It’s Wonderful! and features the most delightful little story about a woman who just can’t get her laundry to smell or look right. You know, Mrs. Shannon, it really is a fine product. If you soak your clothes in it, it’ll save you from scrubbing.”

“I don’t scrub nothing,” Kathryn said, blowing smoke from the corner of her red mouth. “I got a nigger woman who does all that.”

Little Janey, with her pinned bobbed hair and little sailor suit, looked at her mom and her mom at her. Her mother patted her little butt and scooted her off to bed, the little girl dishing out groans and protests that would’ve brought a belt from the real Ora Shannon, with her alcoholic breath and ten-cent perfume shining around her like a stained-glass halo.

“Where are the two of you headed next?” Mr. Quigley asked.

George looked to Kathryn and winked. “Chicago.”

“The Fair?”

“Figured we got to go,” George said. “Everybody in the whole gosh-dang world will be there.”

“We were there last month,” Mrs. Quigley said, all-knowing and smug. “I felt as if I’d entered another country, different worlds, all in Chicago. They even have an exhibit from Sinclair Oil with dinosaurs that look as real as you and me. They eat and putter about, make noises that scared little Janey a bit. She thought they were real beasts.”

“Ain’t that quick, huh?” Kathryn asked.

“Excuse me?”

“The kid. A little slow on the uptake.”

“We must be gettin’ along,” George said, hand on Kathryn’s back, Kathryn grinning at the woman. “We sure do appreciate the meal. That was a mighty fine pot roast. I hadn’t had a meal like that since my youth. Hats off. And those biscuits? Just as fine as my mother’s.”

“If you change your mind on that coupe,” Mr. Quigley said with a wink, “you let me know. Number’s on the card.”

“I think that little baby out there is just the ticket,” George said. “I think we’re gonna drive her flat out tonight and not stop till we hit Chicago.”

“An exciting life for a farmer,” Mrs. Quigley said, raising her eyebrows.

“You can bet on it, sister,” Kathryn said, turning for the door. “See you in the funny papers.”

19

Don’t feel bad about it, Harv,” said Kreepy Karpis, the yegg with the face of Frankenstein. “I mean, Jesus H. Coulda happened to anyone. The son of a bitch ambushed you. That ain’t fair.”

Alvin Karpis. Alvin Fucking Kreepy Karpis sat beside Harvey in an identical leather chair, smoking an identical two-dollar cigar, at Nina’s cathouse at one in the morning, trying to give Harvey Bailey advice on how to handle his business. The much younger yegg and that goddamn moron, Dock Barker, had pulled some pretty impressive jobs, but Harvey Bailey had been knocking over banks since Karpis was swiping gumdrops at the five-and-dime and tugging at his pecker in the school yard.

Both men wore Japanese robes provided to them by the management, a steady punch of Kid Cann’s who took over when Nina died. The place was class all the way-red velvet furniture, polished wood, brass fixtures, and burning gas lamps just like in the old days. Jesus, he hoped they laundered the robes.

“So George Kelly kicks in Kid Cann’s door,” Harvey said, pointing out the action with the cigar tip, “holding that Thompson, and tells the Kid to toss him the coin or he’d spray the whole place, colored orchestra and all. Verne had gone back into the joint to talk up that fan-dancin’ snatch, or things mighta been different. But it’s just me and the Kid sharing some fine whiskey and talking about the G coming down hard on all the rackets. I’m tellin’ you, there was a time when I woulda seen Kelly coming like the light on a fucking freight train.”

“What’d the Kid do?” Karpis asked, his hangdog face showing disappointment even when curious. You could stick a knife in the guy’s hand and he’d look the same. No pulse, no emotion. “George must have a big set of ’em to bust in like that.”

“Or he’s fucking stupid,” Harvey said. “The Kid tossed over the two grips. Hell, what’d he have to lose? He’d already made the cut and left one bag for me and one for George. I think the little Jew found some amusement in it.”

Harvey blew out some smoke, pondering the situation, watching it float up to the second-floor railing that looked down upon the salon and waiting customers, hungry and jazzed for it.

“And he walked out with the two bags?”

“You know the hell of it, Kreeps? You don’t mind if I call you that?”

“Not you, Harv. Always looked up to you. I know my face ain’t pleasing to some.”

“Well, the hell of it is, I don’t think George wanted the money,” Harvey said, ashing the cigar into a jade tray in the shape of a woman with spread legs. “He wanted to give me the big fuck-you because I laid his ears back in front of his woman. That’s just plain pussy-crazy.”

“What’d you say to him?”

“I told him he’d about pissed his pants before a job-and that’s God’s own, I’m telling you. I didn’t think he’d pull his shit together. I’ll be damned if it wasn’t the same nervousness each and every time. I don’t know how he pulled this one off. This thing in Oklahoma blows the fucking mind.”

“The Urschel job?”

“Can you believe it?” Harvey asked. “I read in Time magazine that it was the biggest ransom ever paid. Since we broke out, I been running my tail off around three states on nickel-and-dime bullshit, and here goes big, dumb George Kelly, knocking on the door of the top oilman in the Midwest-Step this way, please-goddamnit.”

“How much?”

“Two hunnard grand.”

“I wish someone would’ve fingered him to me,” Karpis said, crossing his bare feet at the ankle, taking a sip of booze, a hit of the cigar. “Must’ve been cake.”

“You better believe it,” Harvey said. “But kidnapping? C’mon. That’s not an honest man’s work.”

“Really,” Karpis said, smiling big while biting down on the cigar. “Ain’t money respectable?”

“You know the G likes the goddamn Touhy brothers for kidnapping that brewer-what’s his name? They might get the goddamn chair for that mess.”

“Let me borrow a hankie. I might cry.”

“Are you drunk?”

“I’m just plain happy, Harvey. High on life.”