“What are you going to do when you get us all locked up on that island?”
“Plenty,” Jones said.
“Won’t be long till you nab every yeggman in the country.”
“Worse headed this way.”
“The Depression?”
“Worse than the Depression,” Jones said. “The country has worse problems than a bunch of hoods with guns.”
“Like what?”
“The Germans, for one. Filthy Nazis. Did you know that son of a bitch Hitler won’t let churches use ‘Amen’ because it’s a Hebrew word. That ain’t right.”
“And you can’t wait to fight ’em.”
“Won’t be long till they’ll be coming for us.”
“That’s screwy.”
“Our borders are wide open,” he said. “They’ll look to Mexico.”
“And you’ll take up the gun.”
“If it comes to that,” Jones said. “I can speak Spanish.”
I feel splendid and am in perfect physical trim. My one obsession is the climate of this island. I am constantly bothered with colds. My cell, made of steel and concrete, is always a trifle chilly; but I’ve come to believe that man is so made that the presence of a small superficial irritation, provided the sensation is acute without being symptomatic of any serious trouble, is a definite aid to his mental equilibrium and serves to keep occupied the restless margin of his consciousness. He regards it, too, as a sort of ring of Polycrates, for I suspect that there is in all of us, always, an obscure sense of fate, inherited from numberless ancestral misfortunes, which whisper: “We are not sent into this world to live too happily. Where there’s nothing to worry us, it’s not natural, it’s a bad sign.”
“You know she wrote me in Leavenworth,” Kelly said, the morning clear and bright. They ate their eggs with plastic utensils. “The lawyer we hired sued for all the jewels and furs. That big, gorgeous Cadillac, too. She had a sixteen-cylinder engine. You could steer clear across this country like that car was a yacht.”
Jones nodded, watching him eat, holding the Thompson over him.
“She told me she still loved me,” Kelly said.
“Yeah, I read that letter. You know your mail’s censored? I think she was hoping you’d help bust her out.”
“That might be a little tough,” Kelly said, raising his manacled wrists.
“They put her in prison with her momma,” Jones said. “That has to give you some comfort.”
“You think she used me?”
“You want to know the truth, son?” Jones asked.
But I must be fair. Being in prison has brought me one possible advantage. It could hardly do less. Its name is comradeship-a rough kindness of man to man: unselfishness; an absence, or a diminution, of the tendency to look ahead, at least very far ahead; a carelessness, though it is bred of despair; a clinging to life and the possible happiness it may offer at some future date.
A person in prison can’t keep from being haunted by a vision of life as it used to be when it was real and lovely. At such times I pay, with a sense of delicious, overwhelming melancholy, my tribute to life as it once was. I don’t believe it can ever be like that again-but you can bet your last oil-well George won’t lose any sleep over that.
How’s your bridge game? Are you still vulnerable? I don’t mean that as a dirty dig, but you must admit you lost your bid on the night of July 22, 1933.
I hope you will not consider my writing an impertinence, if you do, just tear this letter up and forget it. With best wishes, I am
Very truly yours,
George R. Kelly
Reg. No. 117
The seats in the train jostled up and down, metal wheels scraping against rails, anonymous towns of light and smoke flying by the windows, just slightly cracked. Jones sat across from George Kelly on that final stretch, having so many questions about him and Kathryn but deciding what went on with his woman was of a personal nature. He got his pipe going and stretched out his shined boots, the front of his shirt clinging to him, with sweat drying in the coolness of the night.
Kelly faced the rear of the train, Jones in the seat opposite him, toward the engine.
The men both took turns staring out the barred windows at the lonely landscape. One view forward, one behind.
“You want to trade places?” Jones asked, checking his gold timepiece.
“Not on your life.”
Acknowledgments
Background information provided by: Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34, Bryan Burrough; Machine Gun Kelly’s Last Stand, Stanley Hamilton; A Man Named Jones, George Ellis; Crimes’ Paradise, E. E. Kirkpatrick; Robbing Banks Was My Business: The Story of J. Harvey Bailey, J. Evetts Haley; American Agent, Melvin Purvis; Inside the F.B.I., John J. Floherty; The Texas Rangers and the Mexican Revolution: The Bloodiest Decade, 1910-1920, Charles H. Harris III and Louis R. Sadler; “King of the Wildcatters”: The Life and Times of Tom Slick, 1883-1930, Ray Miles; John Dillinger Slept Here: A Crooks’ Tour of Crime and Corruption in St. Paul, 1920-1936, Paul Maccabee; Cars of the 30s, Editors of Consumer Guide; and The 1933 Chicago World’s Fair: A Century of Progress, Cheryl R. Ganz. I’m very grateful to the assistance of the FBI Archives for providing nearly ten thousand pages of files. As always, thanks to the University of Mississippi library for their interlibrary loan program and to the great reporters of 1933 for their top-shelf coverage of the Kansas City Massacre and the Charles Urschel kidnapping in the Kansas City Star, Daily Oklahoman, and the Memphis Commercial Appeal.
An extra special thanks to Jack Ruleman at the Shelby County Archives in Memphis, who put me onto this story and tracked down invaluable records on the Kellys’ arrest. The Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco provided terrific background on the Ranger days of Jones and White. As always, Esther and Neil make this work possible and give it purpose. My ultimate thanks for our fourth book together.
Also a great deal of appreciation to Sara Minnich at G. P. Putnam’s Sons for her consistent and sharp eye. I’d also like to thank the continued support year after year of the following folks: Maggie Griffin at Partners & Crime, Cody Morrison and Slade Lewis at Square Books, David and McKenna Thompson at Murder By The Book, Patrick Milliken and Barbara Peters at the Poisoned Pen, Mary Gay Shipley at That Bookstore in Blytheville, Thomas and Cheryl Upchurch at Capitol Book & News, Jake Reiss at the Alabama Booksmith, and Ted O’Brien at the Garden District Book Shop.
The usual suspects played a huge role of support while I was working on this project: Larry and Dean Wells for their friendship and knowledge of bridge, former political boss Richard Howorth for insightful comments, Tim Green for years of support, and, of course, my entire family.
This book is better thanks to the wife, Angela, who always gives it to me on the level, a woman who might’ve taught Kathryn Kelly a thing or two. And most of all, to my son, who constantly reminds me that the world is a funny place.
Ace Atkins
Oxford, Mississippi, 2009
Ace Atkins
