“You told Ma Coleman you’d be in Mississippi.”
“I wrote the word
“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.
