wet brick streets with a cool, even whiteness.
George snuck a bottle of bourbon into his coat and kept refilling his mug under the table. “Who’s that?”
“Who?”
“You see him? That man under the El tracks?”
“How the hell should I know?”
Kathryn saw the shadow of a man in a suit and hat, smoking a cigarette. Nothing but shadow, the same as the beams of the El, the streetlamp posts, and the traffic light. George leaned into her and said, “It’s the G.”
“You need to put down the bottle.”
“Ha.”
She turned back to the glass, and the man-the shadow-was gone. A tired waitress, with tired marcelled hair, laid down the waffles without a smile, a check to follow. Gerry and George ordered the same-a goddamn waffle with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate syrup.
“What’d ya think?” George asked the kid.
The girl took a big forkful, making a real corny show of getting an even mixture of all the ingredients, and closed her eyes with the tasting.
“Wow,” she said.
“What’d I tell you?” George said.
“Would you two just shut up,” Kathryn said. “I’m trying to think here.”
She squashed out a cigarette and lit another. She thought for a while and waited for that shadow man to appear.
The El tracks and girders and beams formed a long, dark, endless tunnel right through the heart of the city. The whole town seeming less like a city but more like a goddamn cage, and the thought of it made Kathryn itch a great deal. The night was slick with a mist that fell over the city, denting puddles and giving halos to streetlamps.
“Gerry?” Kathryn asked.
The girl finished another bit of her forkful, listening, half the goddamn waffle gone.
“What kind of man is your father?”
“He’s nice.”
“That’s not an answer. I mean, can I trust the SOB?”
Gerry finished off another couple bites of the waffle and then looked down at Kathryn’s cigarette case. Kathryn rolled her eyes and slid over the case. George worked on his waffle, eyes down, but fished into his jacket pocket for the lighter engraved with her stepfather’s initials. He clicked it open and lit the kid’s Lucky.
Gerry leaned back into her seat. She shrugged.
“You mean before or after he was in prison?” the kid asked.
Kathryn slammed down the flat of her hand on the table. “A farmer. He said he was a goddamn farmer.”
“He was,” Gerry said. “But we make most our dough hanging paper.”
“How you know words like that?” Kathryn asked. “Paperhanger and the like?”
“Isn’t that what you call ‘writing phony checks’?”
George mopped up the last bit of waffle, forked it, and stuck it into his mouth. He pushed the plate away and chewed. He gave a lopsided grin to Kathryn, her knowing the son of a bitch was aching to say it. “Salt of the earth? Good country people? Whatsa matter with you, Kit?”
“IT’S A BEAUT,” HARVEY SAID. “THAT’S FOR SURE.”
He stood next to Karpis across the street from the Federal Reserve Building on Jackson, fronted by six big Greek columns and two American flags as big as Cadillacs. Two tall iron streetlamps lit up the facade and an armored truck parked along the sidewalk. It was midnight, and the two men wore summer-weight suits and straw hats. They watched and walked, stopping to take it all in as they lit up cigarettes and watched the streets.
The vault was three floors beneath the street, Karpis said. The transfers from the post office were made at different times on different nights. Sunday nights were at midnight, same as Thursday night, when they planned to take the dough.
“Six guards?”
“Sometimes more,” Karpis said.
“How many more?”
“No more than two.”
They watched as four guards wheeled fat canvas bags on a dolly down Jackson Street and into the side door of the Reserve.
“How much is the haul?”
“Guess it would be two mil.”
“I don’t like to guess.”
“I like the odds,” Karpis said, smoking and continuing to walk down Jackson before they turned up Franklin to Adam.
“What’s the git?”
“We park the Hudson a block over,” Karpis said. “When the guards ’round the corner at Clark, I’ll hit the smoke screen to stop any traffic. You and the Barkers will take the dough. I’ll keep Miller with me to cover the street. We’ll follow the same route we’re walking… Now, turn here.”
They kept walking, turning west on Adam toward the river. Harvey spent his cigarette and fished into his coat for another, feeling better now that he was clean and dressed decent.
“We’ll have two fresh cars waiting at the garage. New clothes, bandages, morphine.”
“You expect trouble?”
“Nothing ventured.”
“You trust the Barkers?” Harvey asked. “They ain’t the brightest.”
“Nobody’s better.”
“Except me,” Harvey said.
The men found the Plymouth parked by the river, and they drove across the bridge, catching Jackson again to the south, down by the train station. Lou Mitchell’s diner was half empty at midnight, and they found a small booth where they hung their hats on hooks and ordered coffee and pie.
“You got to lose Miller,” Karpis said. “He ain’t long for this world.”
“He’s got a plan.”
“How ’bout you?”
Harvey shrugged, stirring his coffee with a thick tablespoon of sugar, shuffling a fresh cigarette out of the pack and clicking open his lighter.
“This thing puts out and I’m headed to Australia,” Karpis said.
“No shit?”
“I’m done, Harvey,” Karpis said, his sad face drooping and serious. “We got a few more months, tops, before the whole damn government is on us. It ain’t like it used to be. And next year will be even worse. How much more time do you think we have hitting banks and making dashes across the state lines? The G’s taking over the banks.”
“Australia.”
“Yep.”
“What gave you that idea?”
“I read this story in
Harvey nodded and then drank some coffee.
“You got to split with Miller,” Karpis said. “The Syndicate has money out.”
Harvey put down his coffee mug. He ashed his cigarette.
“When?”
“Few weeks now,” Karpis said. “He tell you why he killed those cops and Nash?”
A waitress walked over and left the check. The men turned their heads slightly until she had walked away.
Karpis smiled. “You know, I was a kid when I read about that job you pulled in ’22.”
“That wasn’t me.”
