Infamous

“Think of me when you’re being cornholed, Jellybean.”

Nash looked like he’d sucked a lemon.

The light turned gold and hot, shining over endless rows of green cornstalks about to ripen in the high summer. Nash began to complain about the manacles hurting his wrists and asked if he could please put his hairpiece back on because he knew the Star and Associated Press would be waiting when he got off the train.

“Come again?” Jones asked.

“You know, that reporter fella who chatted you all up in the station and knew who I was and where we’re going? Yes, sir, I bet my story is all across the wire.”

Jones looked over at Sheriff Reed, and Reed said he didn’t know what he was talking about. Lackey came out of the head, drying off his face with a little towel and then sliding back into a wrinkled shirt, knotting his tie high at the throat.

“Did I miss something?” Lackey asked.

KANSAS CITY UNION STATION WAS A BIG, FAT STONE CATHEDRAL with a sloping roof and Greek columns, a weigh station, a purgatorial crossroads where tracks from all over creation mishmashed and met and then bent and whipped out to the next turn, the following bend. Big, wide schedule boards, shoeshine stands, soda fountains, and fancy clocks, and even a Harvey House restaurant that Harvey had always liked because of the name.

They could turn right back around, head out of the city, and rob a dozen banks, fattening their rolls and leaving Jelly Nash to his own mire of shit. Sure he’d been a good egg and come through with those.38s, but sending along some guns while you sit back and read the newspapers on the crapper ain’t the same as putting yourself out there, waiting outside a train station, sweating from worry, with barrels aimed at detectives and federal agents. Harvey wasn’t so sure that Nash would go that far, truth be told.

“Where’d you get the Chevy?” Harvey asked.

“Does it matter?”

“Gonna be tough with just two,” Harvey said, spotting the entrance where they’d watch and wait, windows down in all this heat.

“Says who?” Miller asked. “That Thompson’s a beaut.”

“Belongs to George Kelly,” Harvey said. “Kit bought it as an anniversary gift.”

“And he let you borrow it?”

“Hell, I said I’d give it back.”

“George Kelly,” Miller said, smiling as much as Verne Miller ever smiled. “ ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly.”

“I know, I know,” Harvey said. “You remember that little bank in Ottumwa? He got so scared he puked all over himself.”

“He’s getting a name.”

“I don’t want a name. Gettin’ a name gets you killed. If I hadn’t been so damn stupid carrying those bonds with me, I’d never been pinched.”

“Next time don’t play golf with Keating and Holden.”

Harvey slid into a parking space by the entrance and killed the engine. Two black sedans pulled by the doors, four men gathered and talked. Two of them held shotguns. One showed a badge to a porter when the porter gave some back talk.

“We take ’em after they got Nash,” Miller said.

“Frank Nash ain’t worth this, brother.”

“ Lansing must’ve been a special place.”

Harvey leaned into the driver’s seat and lit another cigarette. He’d burn through three more before he’d see those boys leading Frank Nash out in handcuffs. “Verne, you are the most honorable bastard I ever met.”

THE TRAIN BACKED INTO PLATFORM 12 A LITTLE AFTER SEVEN.

Jones and Joe Lackey were on their feet. Sheriff Reed unlocked Nash’s handcuffs, let him affix the curly brown toupee back on his head, and then locked the cuffs back in front of him.

“How do I look?” Nash asked.

“Like some squirrel crawled onto your head and died,” Lackey said.

Nash ignored him and lifted his hands to use a little finger to smooth down a thin mustache while Lackey walked out first. From the window, Jones could make out a handshake with a clean-shaven young man in a blue suit and neat tie, the kind of style that mirrored all those endless memos from J. Edgar himself. Jones eased up a bit, still feeling good with the gun under his arm.

He reached for the broken-in Stetson on the rack, slid it onto his head. From down on the platform, Lackey gave a wave.

“C’mon, Jelly,” Jones said. “Let’s go.”

“Only my friends call me Jelly, and you’re no friend of mine.”

“Get goin’, shithead,” Jones said. “How’s that?”

Reed snatched Nash’s elbow. Jones led the way.

He walked down onto the steps. The black locomotive still hissing and spitting, worn out in the hot morning. He scanned the station, not finding much but that kind of simple action; the quiet rhythm you find at all train stations, coming and going, women in hats, men looking at the big board. The place was endless, as large a station as Jones had ever seen, fashioned of brick and marble, with tall windows that were downright religious. He’d always imagined purgatory would be a place like this, a big, sprawling train station with people filtering through, but so large that you could never find your way out.

Lackey introduced him to the young agent.

The kid pumped his hand and smiled and told Jones he’d read all about him in True Detective, about the trouble at that Indian reservation, all those dead women, and what an honor it was to work with him. He looked to be about twelve years old, hair parted neat across one side, eyes eager, and hands nervous as he accepted the key from Sheriff Reed and took custody of Frank Nash.

“Merry Christmas,” Jones said. “I sure will miss your company, Jelly.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Nash said.

“Is it just you?” Jones asked the young agent.

“No, sir.”

The young man nodded to the front entrance of Union Station and three men in suits walking toward them. He pushed Nash ahead, placing a.38 in the small of his back and nervously telling the old train robber that he’d blow out his spine if he tried any funny business. Frank Nash just laughed at that and said, “Oh, all right, kid. Nothin’ from me.”

More introductions.

Two beefy Kansas City detectives and the Special Agent in Charge.

“We got a car waiting outside,” the KC SAC said. “The detectives here will follow us to the prison just in case.”

“Just in case what?”

“An ambush,” he said. “Their car is armor plated.”

They were a group now, and Jones could feel the nervousness around him, scanning the big openness of the station, looking for any quick movement, a face covered by a newspaper, the point of a barrel around a corner. The light bleeding through the high-walled windows yawned white-hot on the marble floors.

When they passed a little booth for the Travelers Aid Society, a woman gave a big smile, looking at old Frank Nash, the curly toupee on his head and chained wrists, and said, “Well, I’ll be. It’s ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd!”

Jones looked over at Lackey, and they had a laugh, before emerging from the big cavern and out on the street and to the waiting car.

The two detectives walked ahead, watching the street, guns at the ready.

They handed Joe Lackey a shotgun they’d brought in from the trunk of the armored car. Jones placed his big revolver in his coat pocket while the young agent and the two beefy detectives walked Frank Nash out of Union Station and crossed the big open platform to the parking lot. A long row of windows showed folks eating up