“How’s Lang supposed to find my grandmother’s place in Coleman?”
“And you swear he’ll bring me back?”
“Just as soon as he picks up a few things.”
“Your furs and your Pekingese dog.”
“That’s right.”
“I’m not a sap.”
“Didn’t say you were, sister,” Kathryn said. “The boy can’t find the farm himself.”
Geraline packed her little suitcase, arranging items they’d bought her at the Fair along with three packs of cigarettes, a small cigar box, her new little dresses, frilly socks and panties, and what have you. Kathryn walked outside and saw Lang hand Tich a twenty-dollar bill before Tich hobbled down the steps to head to work at first light down at the Peabody Hotel garage.
“He won’t talk?” Kathryn asked.
“He’s loyal,” Lang said. “Worked for my family for years.”
“Goddamn, my head hurts.”
“Where’s George?”
“Still passed out in the back bedroom,” she said. “Hasn’t stirred a bit.”
“Tich will get rid of the Chevrolet,” he said. “He promises to bring back something better with Tennessee plates.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“George is my family, Kathryn.”
She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, whispering into his ear, “After you get our dough, ditch the little smart-ass at the first train station you see.”
Lang nodded.
“You’ll need cash to get there.”
He shook his head. But she tucked a fat roll of twenties in his hand.
“If something goes screwy, send a telegram to Tich.”
He nodded. They heard George stumble from the back bedroom and pad out into the hallway with bare feet, wearing only an undershirt and boxer shorts. He rubbed his stubbled jaw, and smiled when he saw Lang. “You headed to church or somethin’?”
Lang smiled, holding a brand-new straw hat in his hand.
“He’s going to be calling on Ma Coleman for us,” Kathryn said.
George walked close to Lang and put his hands on his shoulders, smiling at him, and Lang looking a little uncomfortable, probably from George’s gin breath. But George didn’t notice, only wrapped his big arms around Lang and gave him a big old bear hug. He patted his back.
“Don’t get yourself killed,” George said, and padded into the bathroom, where they both heard him start to take a leak.
Geraline stood at the door, dressed in her brand-new flowered dress, new shoes, and that beret Kathryn had bought on the Streets of Paris. On her collar, she wore a button that read CENTURY OF PROGRESS.
“C’mon, Lang,” Geraline said, chewing a big wad of gum. “Quit your yap-pin’. We got a long day ahead.”
HARVEY WATCHED THE YOUNG LAWYER AND THE LITTLE GIRL he’d seen with Kathryn in Chicago leave the little bungalow on Rayner Street. He’d followed Lang all the way from North Memphis, the man not once making him out in his rearview mirror, not even when Harvey pulled in down the street and killed his lights a little before dawn. On the seat next to him, he had a pack of Camel cigarettes, a.45 automatic, and a copy of the morning newspaper with more trial coverage on the Shannons in Oklahoma City and news that Verne Miller and George had been spotted at a diner in Minnesota. He also had several maps of Iowa he’d bought at a Standard service station-he planned to cut through there on his way up to Wisconsin to pick up his family.
The only sleep he’d gotten was when he’d closed his eyes for maybe two seconds on the river. A short time later, a nervous negro met him at a downtown filling station, handing him the keys to a Plymouth, afraid to look the famous bank robber in the eye.
When the lawyer and the girl pulled away from the house on Rayner, he tossed his cigarette out the window and laid the.45 in his lap. Only a fool would bust into the back door in a fella’s hometown, no telling who George had in there or if George was in there at all.
A prowl car passed outside the car’s windows, and the way it drove lazy and relaxed was enough for Harv. He started the car, knocked it into first, and drove back toward the downtown.
“HAPPY ANNIVERSARY,” KATHRYN SAID, JOINING GEORGE IN Tich’s rumpled bed.
He reached to a nightstand and grabbed a pack of cigarettes and his lighter.
“I’m gonna buy you the biggest ring in Havana,” he said.
“I don’t need it.”
“We’re going to go to all those fancy clubs and drink rum. I’ll smoke cigars and fish.”
“What can I do?”
“Any damn thing you want.”
“Then what?”
“You want more?” George asked.
“I don’t like to be bored, George. I hate being bored.”
Kathryn turned her head on his chest to look at him. He ashed the cigarette into his palm and scatted it onto the floor, passing the cigarette to her. “Lang’s lemonade sure sneaks up on you,” she said.
“The trick is to keep on drinking.”
“So I heard.”
“Kit, pull the shades.”
“You got to be kidding.”
“We got the house all to ourselves.”
“This place is depressing.”
“Bed still works,” he said, rocking it back and forth with his butt, making the springs squeak.
“Come on.”
“It’s our anniversary,” he said.
“You read the papers?” she asked.
“Always bad news,” he said. “Take off that nightie.”
“I’ll leave it on,” she said. “Just be quiet.”
She kicked out of her panties and straddled him, George flat on his back and looking up at her with puppy-dog eyes. She reached for him, and he told her that he loved her.
She reached for him again, knowing this was going to take some work.
Kathryn slapped George across his face and told him to try a little harder. The strap of her slip had fallen off one shoulder by the time they finally got the show started, and she alternated with a firm hand on his chest and dropping them both loose at her sides, feeling him inside her, George with his eyes closed, Kathryn thinking that, in the weakened light, he really did favor Ricardo Cortez, and for a while there was a pleasant moment when he was Ricardo Cortez and this wasn’t a crummy nest of a bed but the biggest, fattest bed in Havana, with silk sheets, and guitar music floating in from the brick streets. And the air smelled like sweet flowers and tobacco, and she arched her back more, her mouth parted, and then reached her nails into George’s shoulder and said, “Did you hear that?”
“Damn it, Kit,” George said, opening his eyes and crawling out from under her.
She pulled down her silk slip
George walked to the window and peeked outside. “Nothing. Not a damn thing.”
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s finish.”
“I need a drink.”
He started slamming cabinets in the kitchen, looking for some more gin but instead finding Tich’s stash of Log Cabin bourbon, bottom-shelf kind of stuff, that George poured over ice. He turned on the radio, saying he was listening for any news on them but only finding some kids’ show again. He drank and brooded there on the sofa until
