Chicago, a restless wind with the changing seasons, the dead, skittering leaves and all that.
“Are you a good lawyer?” she asked.
“I try.”
“You work with many criminals?”
“Mainly property.”
“Oh.”
A shiny new blue Buick rolled down Malvern and turned into Lang’s driveway. A car door opened, and a short blond woman in a summer dress walked around and opened the back door. Two boys in Eton suits came bounding out; George Jr. was seven and Bruce was six. They were good-looking boys, with their dad’s jaw and blue eyes. The woman was a looker, too, fair, but maybe a bit mousy. She smiled up at Lang. Lang waved back at his sister and she got back into the Buick, her husband backing out and pulling away.
“She said they’d go over to Overton Park for an hour and then pick ’em up for dinner.”
“That’s F.X.?” Kathryn asked.
Lang nodded.
“He wasn’t smiling.”
George must’ve been watching from a window, because he opened the front door fast, not looking at Lang or Kathryn but walking slow down the front steps and hanging there in his best suit, charcoal gray, with a tailored shirt and tie. She noticed he wore the sterling silver tie clip she’d bought for him at the Fair.
The boys kept their heads down. But George dropped to a knee and opened his arms wide, and the whole thing made Kathryn seize a bit in her chest, turning her back to them, pouring out some more lemonade for her and Lang and asking if there was more.
The boys chattered up something fierce, there was baseball and trips to the zoo, and George walked back to the Chevrolet and gave them both souvenirs from the World’s Fair. Two toy zeppelins, two CENTURY OF PROGRESS coins, and two official World’s Fair badges.
They said “Wow!”
“Do you boys listen to
They both nodded hard.
“I knew it,” George said, snapping his fingers. “I dang well knew we’re on the same airwaves.”
George told them he was a federal agent on a special mission. He explained that’s why he’d been away so long. He told them both he loved them. And Kathryn felt that uncomfortable, goddamn pain in her chest again and drank half the glass.
“Is George’s father still living?” she asked.
“You don’t know?” Lang asked.
She shook her head.
“George despises his father. I never knew him to say one good word about him. After his mother died, his father remarried. He’s still in Memphis.”
“But he loved his mother?”
“Very much,” Lang said. “She died when he was at Central High.”
“And he loved
“I don’t think George ever got over the accident,” Lang said. “He was talking about it again this morning. Said he hadn’t been in church since, blaming God for what happened.”
She felt like an eavesdropper up on the bungalow’s porch, but Lang had made no move to go inside the house. She could hear some kind of radio show from the open windows, where she hoped Gerry was listening and not sorting through the Ramseys’ jewelry boxes.
She stood and put a hand to a column, watching George sit on the stoop, showing the boys how to wind the zeppelins’ propellers, and then stretching his legs to reach into his pocket to peel away two twenty-dollar bills from a fat roll.
He gave one to each and told them to go buy the best bicycles they could find.
“Goddamn him,” Kathryn said, and marched into Lang’s house to hunt up some more of that Royal Knight gin that sure hit the spot. “Goddamn him to hell.”
“YOU HAD NO ACCOUNT TO DO ME LIKE THAT,” LUTHER ARNOLD said. “I ain’t no criminal.”
“We had an emergency situation,” Jones said. “Did you read about what happened in Chicago?”
“I haven’t read nothin’ but the scrawlings on these jail walls.”
Agents had brought Arnold into an empty jury room at the Oklahoma City Federal Building and sat him across from Jones at a long conference table. Arnold, looking forlorn and pissed off, jostled the handcuffs on his wrists. Jones smoked a pipe.
“ ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly and his gang robbed the Federal Reserve and started a Wild West shootout in the middle of downtown. Killed an officer, and nearly killed another.”
“I didn’t cause that.”
“Didn’t say you did,” Jones said. “I’m just explaining why vigorous methods were needed for you to come to Jesus.”
“Wadn’t fair.”
“Life ain’t fair, Luther,” Jones said. “Only wet brains and half-wits think that’s true.”
“The Kellys done stole my daughter. You don’t think I’m sore about that? That child is probably scared outta her mind. She ain’t but eleven.”
“From the way your wife tells it, you took two hundred dollars to rent her out for a while.”
“Mrs. Kelly said they wadn’t goin’ but two hundred miles and they’d bring her back in a few days.”
“Didn’t work out that way? Did it?”
“ ’ Spose not.”
“You need anything?”
“Could use some fresh drawers and a toothbrush.”
“I’ll see to it.”
“Maybe a pint, too?”
“Anything else?”
“I’d love to see my sweetie. Where you keepin’ Flossie Mae?”
“She’s safe,” Jones said. “You have my word.”
“You shook my dang hand before you tried to kill me in the ho-tel tub.”
“I didn’t try to kill you,” Jones said. “You’re my ace in the hole, Luther.”
“How you figure?”
“You’re the Kellys’ only contact back here,” Jones said. “Before they make another move, you’ll be the first to know.”
“But I’m in jail.”
“Says who?”
“Flossie Mae’s still at the Shangri-La,” Luther said, nodding with a slow understanding. “You all is waitin’ for the Kellys to knock on the door, bigger than shit, when they bring Gerry back.”
Jones sat silent.
Luther started to laugh. “Old man, nobody’s that foolish.”
Jones nodded, blowing pipe smoke into his face. Luther tried to stand up to it but broke into a coughing fit. “Pardon me.”
“You sure take pleasure sticking that boot up my ass.”
“Wouldn’t say it gives me pleasure.”
“Mrs. Kelly told me George was going to bust her family out. She said y’all won’t even know what hit you.”
Jones shook his head. “A man couldn’t fart near the Federal Building without us knowin’.”
“What makes you so mean?”
“Just doin’ my job, Luther.”
“Don’t mean I have to like it.”
“It’s a free country.”
“I got interviewed by six different federal agents, all of ’em young enough to be your offspring,” Luther said.
