Handsome Harry (22 page)

The apartment we moved into with John and Billie was spacious and nicely furnished, with a large kitchen and lots of windows. The other guys were just as pleased with their digs. Opal and Patty had even made a list of other good downtown rentals, in case we had to make a fast change in residence.

The gang of us celebrated our first night together in Chicago at an Italian restaurant with a back-room speak, and the next morning John and I got busy planning the job.

It was the Central National Bank and Trust in Greencastle, about thirty-five miles west of Indianapolis. We drove there in the Vickie and cased the place inside and out, checking all the roads in the area, making layout drawings and getaway maps. Even with a set-up, you had to be ready for anything, and we approached it in the same way we would any other heist.

The only thing I wasn’t sure about was using Copeland on the job. I was fed up with his boozing and didn’t care that he was singing the blues because Patty had given him the heave-ho. What happened was, she’d finally met the right guy when she met Red Hamilton. As soon as they were introduced on the night we all gathered at the Italian place, they started making eyes at each other and didn’t care who saw it. Patty later confided to Mary that she and Red played footsie all through dinner. A couple of hours into the evening Red excused himself from the table to go to the gents, and then Patty left for the ladies room, and that was the last we saw
of either of them that night. The next day Charley was fixing himself breakfast when Patty came into the kitchen wearing Red’s robe and said good morning and poured two cups of coffee and took them back to Red’s room. Knuckles had been on a self-pity jag ever since and drinking even more than usual. I told John how I felt about it, but he had a soft spot for Copeland because they’d been partners, and he wanted to give him one more chance to pull himself together. So we had a private talk with him and he swore he’d ease off on the hooch.

Shouse was another irritation, a different sort, but John’s displeasure with him was no less than mine. Ever since the business with Mary at Saffell’s house, Shouse had been a perfect gentleman toward her, but I still didn’t like him and I guess it showed, and he stepped carefully around me. He wasn’t as cautious around John, maybe because John did such a good job of concealing what I knew was a lingering irritation over Shouse’s crack about Billie. But you didn’t kick a partner out of the gang for making a pass at your girl, and certainly not for saying he’d like to. You warned him away like John had done Shouse, or you slugged him, or you shrugged it off and let the girl decide for herself—but you settled it one way or another and that was that. It’s how those things worked and everybody knew it, even Knuckles, who I’m sure wanted to take a poke at Red but didn’t do it because he was too scared. Red would’ve handed him his ass, of course, but there are times when you have to go in swinging anyway, even when you know you’re going to get busted up. If you don’t, then you’ve got the worst kind of problem you can have, which is called cowardice. It must be a terrible thing to realize you’re yellow. Maybe that’s why Knuckles was a drunk.

A
few days before we hit Greencastle, Russell got hurt. The cause of his injury wasn’t one you could call common. It happened on the day after John and I got back from casing
the bank, when the bunch of us drove way out into the boondocks to test-fire the tommy gun and the Enfield rifle I’d got in Auburn.

The Thompson was a potent piece of firepower and we all got a kick out of shooting it. The thing has a lever for setting it on either semiautomatic fire, so that you have to squeeze the trigger for each shot, or full automatic, so that the bullets come blasting out for as long as you hold down the trigger. As soon as we got used to the feel of it, none of us had any trouble hitting the tree trunk we were aiming at, even on automatic and even without the shoulder stock, which we took off to make the piece easier to hide under an overcoat.

Anyway, after we tested the tommy we decided to check out the bulletproof vests. None of us had ever worn one or known anybody who had, but we’d all heard how well they worked, and we were curious to see it if was true. It didn’t seem possible that something so flexible could stop a bullet. So we wrapped one around a tree trunk and I fired three .45 rounds at it from about ten yards away and the bullets all flattened on the vest without passing through.

It was impressive, but Russell said a man wasn’t nearly as hard as a tree and he couldn’t help wondering if the vest would work as well on a real live person. We all believed it would, but there was only one way to find out. We drew straws and Russell pulled the shortie, which got a big laugh from everybody but him. He said Me and my big mouth, then put on the vest and stood like a guy facing a firing squad.

Charley said he was reminded of William Tell, except the vest wasn’t on top of Russell’s head.

Russell insisted I stand a lot closer to him than I’d been to the tree so I’d be absolutely sure not to miss the vest and hit some unprotected part of him, like his head.

I don’t blame you, Russ, Red said, if I was in your shoes I’d want a bulletproof face.

I walked up to within six feet of him and asked how that was. I
was just being funny but he said that was about right, so I shrugged and said okay, but I felt silly standing so close. I said I could hit him with my eyes shut from there. He said don’t even joke about shutting my eyes.

I raised the .45 and shook my hand like I had palsy and he said Cut it out, Pete, goddamnit.

Okay, okay, I said, here goes.

I fired dead-center into his chest and he flew backward like he’d been yanked by a rope. He landed flat on his back and lay spread-eagled without moving, his eyes closed.

John ran over and knelt beside him and shook his arm and said Russ, you okay?

Russell didn’t stir. He’s not breathing, John said.

Oh Christ, Red said.

I really thought I’d killed him. Then his chest suddenly heaved and he started pulling deep breaths and his legs twitched. Red squatted on the other side of him and patted his face and said Come on, buddy, snap to, man.

Russell’s eyes fluttered open. Atta boy, Red said, you really got the wind knocked out of you, son.

Jesus,
Russell said. I thought you…were gonna
shoot
me…not run over me…with a fucken train.

We helped him to his feet and he groaned like a decrepit old man. I saw a bright light, he said, I swear.

Fat Charley said
he
saw a sweet chariot swinging low out of heaven, coming for to carry Russ home.

Red used his pocketknife to dig the mashed bullet out of Russell’s vest. We were so wowed with the vest’s efficiency we decided we had to get enough of them for all of us. John said he knew just the place.

The next day the bruise on Russell’s chest was the size of a dinner plate and purple as a plum. He said it didn’t hurt at all except when he breathed. It would be about a week before he could bend
over to tie his shoes without gritting his teeth, and the bruise wouldn’t fade away for a lot longer than that.

But sore as he was, he was ready to do the job.

T
he heist was set for Monday. On Friday we left Chicago in three cars. John and Russell were with me in the Vickie, Knuckles went with Shouse in his Chevy, and Charley rode in Red’s Auburn sedan. When we crossed the Iroquois I turned east but Red and Shouse kept driving south to Terre Haute, where an old M City pal of ours named Cueball Lucas was running a boardinghouse, and where we’d meet up the following day.

I was headed for a town called Peru, about twenty miles north of Kokomo. It was the place John had been talking about when he’d said he knew where we could get more vests. He’d told me he had it on good authority that the cop house in that burg had a load of them. I asked what good authority he was referring to, and he hesitated before saying Homer Van Meter. He said he’d met up with the scarecrow after getting his parole, and they’d worked a few small jobs together. Van Meter had clued him to places where a guy could buy guns or get medical treatment on the QT. And he’d told John about the vests in the Peru Police Department, which the cops had gotten through some promotional deal with the manufacturer. The scarecrow had wanted the two of them to put a gang together, but John turned him down. When he told Van Meter he was arranging to bust some pals out of the joint, the scarecrow said I get it, you’re throwing in with Pierpont. He told John the escape plan sounded like a pipe dream and to look him up when it failed.

John said he wished he could’ve seen his face when Van Meter got the news about M City. He said Homer was a good man to have on your team and asked if by any chance I’d changed my opinion of him.

I gave him a look.

Didn’t think so, he said.

Anyhow, that’s how we came to hit the Peru cop house. For all John knew, Van Meter had already heisted the vests himself, but we figured it was worth a look. In Logansport, a few miles outside Peru, Russ stole a Hudson and we left the Vickie parked behind a closed filling station.

We timed our arrival at around ten o’clock to be sure the sidewalks were rolled up and the citizens all in bed. The cops were sitting at a folding table playing cards when we strolled in. There were three of them. They looked up and saw us, and one said Holy shit,
you
guys.

Russell stripped them of their revolvers and John got the gun case key out of the desk. The case held six bulletproof vests—plus two Browning Automatic Rifles, a pair of pump shotguns, another two .38 six-shooters, and several boxes of cartridges and shotgun shells. We told the cops to spread their coats on the floor and place the guns on them and tie them in tight bundles with the coat sleeves. They were finishing up when somebody behind us said Say, what’s going on.

I whirled around and aimed the cocked .45 in the face of a guy wearing an apron and holding two small paper sacks.

No, no, no, the guy said and dropped the sacks so he could throw his hands up.

He was from the restaurant next door, bringing the cops an order of sandwiches. I asked what kind and he said three roast beef and two ham.

Well hell, Russell said, give them here. The guy picked up the sacks and handed them to him.

John and one of the cops carried the guns out to the Hudson and then we ordered the bunch of them into the basement and said not to come out for half an hour.

We ate the sandwiches on the way back to Logansport, where we retrieved the Vickie and left the Hudson in the same spot we’d taken it from. I wonder if the guy who owned it ever found out it was used in a robbery by none other than the notorious Pierpont Gang.

We drove down to Kokomo and had a fine reunion with Pearl in the Side Pocket. I gave her one of the Peru shotguns in repayment for the one she’d given me earlier. I apologized that it wasn’t cut down like the one she gave me, but she said she knew somebody who could take care of that. We caught up on things over a bottle of beer, then went to her place and we flipped coins to see who’d sleep on the sofa and John was the odd man and got it. Russ and I got the beds in the guest room.

In the morning Pearl made us a big breakfast while we read all about ourselves in the paper. Our second cop-house robbery in a week had of course made quite a stir.

Police departments all over the state were beefing up the security of their stations, putting bars on the windows, posting guards with machine guns at the doors around the clock. The warden at Michigan City said he was sure we were arming ourselves in order to raid the prison and break out more of our pals. The American Legion claimed to be rounding up a posse of twenty thousand men.

The
National Guard,
for Christ’s sake, said it was ready to help law enforcement agencies with every weapon it had, including tanks, airplanes, and—get this—poison gas.

Poison gas.

And the newspapers called
us
dangerous.

That afternoon we joined the other guys at Cueball Lucas’s place in Terre Haute, and there was a lot of whooping and backslapping when they saw the vests and guns we’d grabbed up in Peru. That night we kept to the boardinghouse and took it easy, playing pinochle and listening to the radio.

On Sunday we spent the day going over the plan again and again until it was coming out our ears. After supper me and John, Russ and Charley, took in a picture show.
King Kong.
What a great flick. We were all pulling for the ape, of course, though there was no question they’d do him in at the finish. Afterward, we went to a speakeasy for one beer apiece and kept talking about the movie. We loved the line
at the end, that it was beauty killed the beast, and we had a lot of laughs joking about Kong having sex with the blonde. John said Kong could’ve asked me about all the best ways for a big galoot to make it with a little chick. I said Watch your mouth there, buddy, but I yukked it up along with the rest of them.

C
ohen had said to hit the bank between two and three o’clock on Monday afternoon. After we’d cased the place and studied its routine, we decided on two forty-five. We got into Greencastle a little early, so we drove around some to keep our timing right. John and Red and I were in a Studebaker. Right behind us were Charley and Russell and Shouse in a Hudson. We’d stolen both cars in Clinton that morning, where we’d left Shouse’s Chevy. Copeland was the switch driver, waiting for us in Red’s Auburn in Mansfield, just the other side of the Raccoon River.

It was sunny but windy and nippy. The people on the streets walked with their heads down and holding on to their hats. We’d put the vests on before leaving Terre Haute almost an hour earlier and we were feeling their weight, especially in our neck muscles, but they were so expertly tailored you couldn’t tell we were wearing them unless you looked really close. And since having seen how well they worked, not a man of us was about to go without one.