Some law you got! he’s yelling at the locals.
The new DA and Blackie’s girl are sitting at a table in a nightclub. A woman is on the stage, singing. After the song, everyone pounds on the tables with little wooden hammers. Then we see Blackie asleep in a room. He wakes up, and magazines fall to the floor. The phone rings, and he answers it. A woman, in bed, is on the other end of the line. She asks him to guess who she saw that night at the nightclub. Blackie hangs up and looks at the magazines.
Tellers always telling you to use the next window. Not believing you unless you have a mask. Walking in the door and wasting a whole clip above their heads. Less chance of shooting maybe, but you never know when somebody will get a wise idea, think they’re in a movie.
That boy in South Bend, looking at his hand where the bullet went through.
The sheriff in Lima saying, I’m going to have to leave you, Mother.
The bullet that killed him on the floor next to him.
Margaret so surprised when the gun went off on the beach in Florida.
All the things we didn’t do too. And did.
They’d draw my face all wrong. I don’t smoke. Finding out later, after Pete and Mac got shipped to Ohio, that Leach told the papers to give me all the play.
Didn’t matter to Pete.
Blackie closes the door, leaving the body inside. He catches up with his bodyguard, who is waiting by the elevator. It is New Year’s Eve. The bodyguard is wearing a derby.
Cops are at the door, Terry says. And I’m a Lawrence something, something Lawrence. Get dressed, I tell her, fitting in a drum.
I am always waking up to these things. I can’t remember my name. I’d been leaving every morning, heading downtown to make it look like I had a job.
Terry’s put her blouse on backwards. She’s remembering what happened at Dr. Eye’s.
Shots from the hall.
That’ll be Homer coming over for breakfast.
Hurry up, I tell her, and spray the door.
Think about the cake the neighbor lady from across the hall brought over the first day, her husband with the pipe, saying he has a crystal set.
Down the back stairs, back out the back door.
Terry dents a fender backing out the car. I’m waiting, watching the door. The birds are noisy in the vines on the side of the building.
The DA is in his office trying on an overcoat. He tugs on the lapels. He bends forward, clutching the coat together to see where it falls on his legs. He checks to see if there is a label. He turns around in it and asks his assistant for his comments. He looks over his shoulder and down the back of a sleeve. It could be yours, says the assistant. Yes, says the DA, standing there, thinking. He’s in the middle of the room, bundled up. They bring him another coat, and the DA tries it on. The DA reaches into the pocket and finds a small wooden hammer.
I heard they let her finish her drink. Then they took her out of the bar.
She’ll be out before you know it, Homer was saying.
We were on the Lincoln Highway, heading to his folks. All the little towns had banks to rob. They’re taking away parts of me, I’m saying to Homer, who’s humming. We’d been stumbling through jobs. Losing guns and money. Not even planning anything anymore. Just going in shooting. Trusting the vests.
I’m lost, I say.
Men are pushing carts of big steamer trunks through the crowd. A band is playing somewhere. There’s a ship whistle blowing. The DA looks at his watch and out over the people. Everyone is waving and shouting. There is a siren and the crowd gives way. An ambulance pulls up to the dock. Blackie gets out.
The shooting started when three guys left the bar to head home. The cops must have thought they were us. Lester opened up right away.
He sleeps with that gun.
I took off up the stairs with Homer and Red. We fired some out the windows, then covered each other to get out the back, down the bank to the lake. Walking on the far side, we could hear the shots over the water. Flashes every now and then.
They kept shooting at the house.
We tied up Red’s head and caught our breath. No-body even knew we were gone. They’d upped the reward that week.
The lake was very smooth, and we could see because of the moon and stars. They had all different sizes of guns shooting at the lodge.
The DA is running for governor. Blackie is at the racetrack. He looks through binoculars. He sees her in another part of the grandstand. He goes over and sits down. She says she’s worried about Jim’s chances to become governor. Someone is trying to ruin him, and he won’t do anything about it. Blackie tells her not to worry, that he’ll take care of it. He looks at her, tilts his head, says she mustn’t tell Jim they talked.
Crossing the Mississippi on the spiral bridge below St. Paul. Pretty tricky since we’re coming from the north. We pick up a tail. They start shooting. I knock out some glass and shoot back. Homer guns it. Red gets it. Never lucky, Red. His head already tied up from the night before at the lodge.
We shake them on a farm road and leave the car. I hold on to Red in the ditch while Homer goes to flag down a Ford. A family out for a drive, it looks like. Homer goes in the back with them. Red says he needs something to drink. The car could use gas. I stop at a place. The bottles are cold. My hands leave marks on the glass.
A lady opens the bottles for me. I go back to the car and give one to Red and try to give one to the kid in the back.
He’s had his lunch already. I don’t want him to have it, says the mother.
Down on one lip of the gravel pit, a locomotive is pushing some empty cars around. Piles of snow left over from the winter. It’s been easy to dig in the loose gravel and sand. They’re pumping water down below. Homer slides the body down through the bushes, and we put him in the hole. We’re taking off all the clothes.
You weren’t there, I say to Homer, pointing out the scar under Red’s arm.
It’s how he missed Tucson.
I tie up his clothes. Homer has the lye, but I want to do it. Feel kind of bad pouring it on his face. Turn his hands over and pour it on his fingers.
It smells real bad.
A hockey game is going on. Lots of people hollering. But there’s a man in a men’s room, two men. You can see them both in the mirrors. One of them says, You wanted to see me? The other man pulls some paper towels from the rack. He turns to answer the question. It’s Blackie. He has a gun wrapped up in the paper towels. When he shoots, you see the flashes coming from the towels.
They told me later I swallowed my tongue. Last thing I can remember is the towel on my face. Hotel Drake in gold. And the smell of the ether.
I should’ve had a local. But I couldn’t stand the thought of that, of looking at them when they did it. I wanted to wake up different.
I was always waking up the same.
The dimple was gone. But I could see where it had been. And the mole left a mark.
I was puffy and sore.
I saw a picture in a newspaper of a boy that turned out to be a picture of all the boys in a high-school class, one face on top of another. It didn’t look like anything, and it had all the parts. I remembered that picture, looking at my face. Rob another bank and I’d have to get rid of this one too.