“She’s gonna kick and scream, but that little girl is going home.”
“That’s not your daughter?”
“My daughter is with family,” Kathryn said. “Do I look like the kind of mother who would let her child be mixed up in something like this?”
Lang smiled.
“Lang?” Kathryn asked. “You think you could run a little errand for us?”
“Anything,” Lang said. “Where?”
“Coleman, Texas,” Kathryn said, clicking on her lighter and firing up a Lucky.
HARVEY BAILEY ARRIVED IN MEMPHIS AT SIX-TWENTY THE NEXT morning. The light on the train platform was weak and gray, and as he headed down the marble steps and into the terminal he realized he hadn’t eaten or bathed in two days. He’d left Joe Bergl’s soon after Nitti had snatched Verne, and he’d found a flophouse where he’d dyed his hair black and changed into a sorry suit and raggedy hat, a corn farmer gone to town. Some round, gold-framed glasses gave him a quiet, studied look, the kind of fella who could quote passages from the Bible and the Farmer’s Almanac equally and had a stout little wife back home elbow-deep in canning. Harvey crossed Main, over to a corner diner called the Arcade, where he found a back booth and studied the menu, snatching up a copy of the Press-Scimitar someone had left beside a half-eaten plate of bacon and eggs. He and every lawman in the country looking for George Kelly, George being blamed for just about every crime from snatching the Lindbergh baby to killing Lincoln.
Harvey looked around and ate the toast and bacon.
A Greek in an apron came over and took away the plate. When he returned, Harvey ordered black coffee and counted out the coin from his pocket.
Harvey had known George Kelly since 1930, when they robbed that bank in Ottumwa, Iowa. There had been a lot of others-Nebraska, Texas-and when you spend that kind of time mapping gits, lying around hotels planning a heist, and driving thousands of miles, you get to know a fella pretty good. George loved talking about Memphis. Memphis, Memphis, Memphis. He talked about his ex-wife and his boys, and his brother-in-law-Something Ramsey-like the middle initial George had taken for his own. Harvey knew he was studying to be an attorney, and if that’s where George had headed, he’d be easy to find.
Harvey finished his coffee and rode the streetcar toward the downtown, past all the warehouses, machine shops, and garages, wishing to God he’d never met the Kellys. The streetcar rambled on into the shopping district, Harvey now knowing he didn’t care if he had to kill poor ole George to get his money back. Hell, it would probably put the sorry bastard out of his misery from being married to Kathryn. He stepped off the streetcar right in front of the Orpheum Theatre. GABLE. HARLOW. HOLD YOUR MAN.
Hold your man. Harvey wondered how long till those suckers in Hollywood made a picture about those two. He could imagine the movie poster, George in a fine tuxedo with the machine gun, Kathryn dressed in a glittering gown, her husband’s nuts squeezed tight in her hand.
Harvey followed Main down to Union and strutted right into the lobby of the Peabody Hotel, past a sign advertising a colored orchestra at the Sky Lounge, and found a bank of phone booths. With his last few nickels, he arranged for a car and a little stake of cash. He snatched out a page in the telephone book for a Langford Ramsey on Mignon Avenue and decided to walk while he waited for the car. He walked up and over the Memphis bluffs and down to the Mississippi River, where he sat on a park bench for a long time and watched the long, sluggish brown water.
38
The trick with dodging a hangover was just to stay drunk for as long as you could, parceling out the sips slow and easy without getting sloppy. Kathryn drank straight gin over cracked ice for most of the night until she heard Lang knock on the back door, rousting Geraline from the couch, the girl none too happy about the plan. “I’m not going,” she said.
“The hell you aren’t,” Kathryn said.
“My parents don’t care.”
“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.