4
Gus T. Jones barely had time to pack his leather grip with some fresh clothes and his thumb buster before he was on a flight Hoover had chartered out of San Antonio straight to Oklahoma City. He and Doc White stepped off the six-seater by themselves just before sundown and were met by a long black Ford, a couple agents, and the Special Agent in Charge, a fella by the name of Colvin. Bruce Colvin. He was a nice enough guy, and he even took Jones’s grip, which Jones took to be on account of respect and not ’cause he was an old man. Colvin was one of the new streamlined agents, not even thirty years old, with grease-parted hair and a tailored suit, and he kept on calling Jones “Sir” and saying “This way,” and even held the door open for him. Some kind of lawyer or accountant type.
Jones turned back to the Orion aircraft and watched a mechanic slide some wood blocks under the tires and the propeller sputter to a stop. He could hear the boy a little bit better and leaned in for him to repeat that last part as he held on to the doorframe. Old Doc White threw his bag into the trunk and lumbered back around, asking, “Where do we domicile?”
White still talking like he and Jones were both Rangers, riding the river together with rifles and rucksacks, nothing but hard, wide-open land and restless Mexicans trying to smuggle guns over the border. Back then they hadn’t even seen a damn airplane.
“We have rooms for you at the Skirvin,” Colvin said, still holding Jones’s grip. “We can take you there immediately, let you settle in and get something to eat before we meet with the Urschels.”
“Not necessary,” Jones said. “Doc?”
“Yep.”
And they were in the Ford, riding off the tarmac and hitting a state road into town, two agents in the front and Colvin sitting in back with Jones and White. The sun had just started to dip down, and the glare cut hard into Jones’s eyes, making him remove his wire glasses and tuck them into his jacket as he kept on talking.
“What do we know?”
“They let Jarrett go outside the city limits.”
Doc had taken off his Stetson-regulation, same as Jones-and balanced it across his knee. His suit wasn’t federal regulation like Colvin’s; Doc had chosen a Western style, with cowboy stitching at the seams, and a silver belt buckle the size of a dinner plate.
“We know where?”
“Eight miles east on Northeast Sixty-third, right at the river. You know Oklahoma City, sir?”
“I’ll take a map to it. Go on.”
“Sometime after midnight, Mr. Jarrett knocked on the door of a farmer named”-Colvin looked down at his notes, and, in the light, Jones wondered if the boy had started shaving yet-“Fred Wilson, but Wilson wouldn’t open the door. He thought Mr. Jarrett might be an escaped convict. A little while later, he-that being Wilson -saw a car start at the crossroads and head toward Luther.”
“What’s in Luther?”
“Access to U.S. 66,” Colvin said. “Straight to Tulsa.”
“Jarrett get a good look at our boys?”
“Said they look foreign.”
“Hell, that narrows it.”
Doc White rolled a cigarette and lit it, watching the hard country roll by and turning his head back to stare at a small shantytown that had been constructed next to a dry ditch. Burlap sacks flew on sticks like flags. A naked child watched the vehicle pass while banging two tin cans together.
“The wife?”
“Berenice Urschel,” Colvin said. “She doesn’t remember much.”
“And Jarrett’s wife?”
“Even less.”
“This may be an indelicate question, but just how much are these folks worth?”
“The last estimate of the Slick estate is valued at a little more than twenty million.”
Jones gave a low whistle. Doc looked up from his smoke.
“That’ll keep the lights on,” Doc said.
“I knew Tom Slick,” Jones said. “Don’t know his wife. Or I should say, Urschel’s wife now. Also remember a front man who worked for Slick in San Antonio, fella named Kirkpatrick. You heard his name?”
“No, sir,” Colvin said. “Urschel’s boys were fishing in Mexico and are headed back. Right now, it’s just Mrs. Urschel, her teenage daughter, and some neighbors and friends. We’re trying to keep the newsboys away.”
“Havin’ much luck?” Jones asked.
“You ever been to a circus, sir?”
THE GET AWAY CAR FINALLY STOPPED EARLY THAT MORNING, AND Charlie thought they’d arrived at wherever they were headed to chain him up or stick him in a cage or whatever these people do to decent taxpayers. He didn’t move from the floor of the backseat, the big feet of the man on his back. The driver got out, and Charlie felt some of the weight lifted from the shocks and then heard some outside banter with someone.
“Gettin’ much rain out here?” the gunman asked.
“Not a speck,” a woman said in a graveled hick voice.
“Corn gettin’ high?”
“Burned up.”
“All of it?”
“We still got broom corn. Mister, I get thirsty just walkin’ outside.”
“You sell Coca-Colas?”
“Sure thing. Cost you a nickel, though.”
“That’s fine. What flavor you got?”
“We got that grape Nehi, some Dr Pepper, and straight Coca-Colas in that cooler over yonder. Fill her up?”
Charlie thought now was the time to yell, and he filled his lungs, but it was as if the man sitting above him could read his thoughts, grinding the heel of his shoe between Charlie’s shoulders, the way you’d put out a cigarette butt. The man whispered, “Stay still. My finger gets jumpy.”
“Y’all are preachers, ain’t you?” asked the attendant. “I figured y’all for the ministry.”
“How’d you guess?”
Charlie squirmed, and the heel inched up to his neck.
“FOREIGNERS,” BERENICE URSCHEL SAID. “PROFESSIONA LS, I’M sure of it.”
“What kind of foreigners?” Jones asked.
“People not born in this country.”
“Mex. Eye-talian?”
“They were very dark. Very swarthy. One of them had a neck as thick as a bull.”
“What were they wearin’?”
“Light shirts. Dress pants. Both of them wore hats.”
Jones made a note. They sat across from each other in the family salon among the velvet furniture, gilded mirrors, and large oil paintings of well-fed people Jones took to be family. A negro woman came in and set down two glasses and a crystal decanter filled with water.
“We heard a car drive up on the driveway but didn’t think anything about it, because the children use the drive all the time,” Mrs. Urschel said. “Both of them carried machine guns. I didn’t know what those long black things were, but Mr. Jarrett later told me. We just sat there and didn’t say a word while the larger of the two men walked toward the card table. The slender one stood by the door and covered us with the gun.”
“You get a decent look at the car?”
“We just heard the motor spurt as it drove away,” she said, starting to choke up a bit. “I didn’t get a very good look at the car.”
“How ’bout your daughter?” Jones asked. “You said she’d gone upstairs?”
