Infamous (39 page)

Coleman
. She hadn’t been in this town for years and didn’t expect anyone to remember the gangly little teenager who moved there with Ora, the one with the baby on the tit at those church suppers and revival picnics. Ora’s little girl. Ma Coleman’s granddaughter, who’d gotten in so much trouble in Mississippi she had to move to Texas for a little reformation. If she recalled, which she didn’t care to do, there had been an old hotel not two blocks right from where she sat, where she’d first caught the eye of traveling salesmen, who would open up their wallets and buy her flowers, Kathryn having to explain to them that roses smelled real nice but only jewelry got the drawers on the lampshade.

But even her sweet voice hadn’t moved old Sam Sayres, attorney at law, on the telephone. She’d used her breathless voice, trying to play sexy with him a bit, the bastard acting coy, like he didn’t know who she was when she called herself “his best girlfriend.” “And which one is that?” Sam Sayres asked. “The one with the Pekingese dog,” she’d said.

He’d asked for her number and said he’d call her back.

A half hour later the pay phone in the drugstore had rung, and there was Sam chewing her ass out for being so almighty stupid as to call him at his practice, and Kathryn saying, “Where am I supposed to call, your barber?” And then regretting it because besides being a fat tub of shit, Sam Sayres was as bald as a cue ball.

“You got to get up to O.K. City, Sam,” she’d said. “Today.”

“A trial like this costs money, darling,” he said, not flirting but talking down to her like she was still that teenager combing the hotels for sugar daddies.

“I don’t care about Boss or Potatoes,” she said. “They can get cornholed in the showers, for all I care. But you said you’d take care of my momma.”

“You haven’t delivered what you promised,” Sam had said, finishing it off with “darling.” His voice scratchy and strained over the wire all the way from Fort Worth.

“I said you’ll get it.”

“I don’t travel without a full tank of gas.”

“I said you got it,” Kathryn said, trying not to scream over the phone, knowing the way she felt she could probably make him hear her without the benefit of Ma Bell.

“Sweet cakes, you’re as hot as a two-dollar pistol.”

“And you’re as stand-up as a nickel whore.”

“There’s plenty of lawyers in this state. I don’t know why you always got to call on me.”

“Sam? Sam? Don’t hang up.”

“Don’t call my office again.”

“How about a brand-new Chevrolet?”

“I won’t hold my breath,” he’d said, and there was a click, and the operator came on again and asked if she’d like to make another call. And that’s when she had started hammering the earpiece on the phone.
Shit, shit, shit.

She turned around on the stool and drank her float.

When Kathryn looked back at the mirror, she noticed the red wig had gone a little crazy and cocked on her head. She dipped her head down to the straw, eyeing around the counter at the soda jerk refilling the bins of candy and bubble gum, and twisted it a little more to the left.

On the counter, she saw a single dime she’d dropped and decided to call her uncle in town, Uncle Cass, who was a decent old guy and could be trusted to take some of the loot to Fort Worth. He picked up right quick, but before she could get into the pitch of what she needed old Cass whispered into the phone, “I can’t talk right now, Preacher. I got some government man over here asking me some questions.”

She hung up and raced outside, the bell jingling behind her, out to the old Model A truck, cranking and cranking till it sputtered to a start, winding through downtown Coleman to the dirt highway that would take her back to her grandmamma and George, thinking that maybe she should head the opposite way, out of Texas and away from George, and then remembering those pickle jars and thermoses under the willow and thinking,
Goddamn, this is what you call an ethical dilemma
.

“Where’s George?” she yelled to the old woman rocking on the front porch. “Where is he?”

“Sister, let’s pray.”

“Keep your prayers. Where is he?”

“He has befouled you, my love. Let me touch your face.”

Kathryn ran up the steps, looking behind her at the twisting road leading back to the empty highway and then over to that lonely willow by the muddy creek, waiting for a flock of cars to come speeding on down the road any minute, the G-men filing out with their guns at the ready. Son of a bitch. The goddamn G was making her bugs.

“Where did he go?”

All across the old porch were empty bottles of rye and bourbon and gin. The old woman completely unaware of the sin at her feet.

“There is a revival at the river on Sunday,” she said. “I want you to go. There is a boy, not even six, who has been blessed with the healing touch.”

“Goddamn you and your empty foolishness,” Kathryn screamed at the sightless, cataracted blue eyes. “Where is my husband?”

Ma Coleman stopped rocking. The wind crossed her porch and made whistling sounds in the empty bottles.

She spoke light and low, reaching into her cheap, nasty, moth-eaten housecoat—silly sunflowers across her sagging tits and rump—and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. “This,” she said, her lip quivering. “This.”

George had written, in that stupid, childish scrawl, a single word: MISSISSIPPI.

“Damn fool,” Kathryn said.

She was packed within five minutes, George being smart enough to leave the new Chevrolet to pay off Sayres, instead borrowing some old car, maybe even worse than the Model A she’d have to drive. She kissed the old woman on the cheek and bounded down the crooked old stairs, yelling back, “Don’t take any plug nickels, Granny.”

THEY PLAYED POKER, FIGURING IT WAS MUCH BETTER SUITED to four men sitting around on a Saturday night, knowing that bridge was a couples’ sport. Charlie had invited Bruce Colvin, E. E. Kirkpatrick, and Walter Jarrett to the table. The servants had been given the night off, Betty making sure the men had ice in their whiskey and kitchen matches nearby for their cigars. Jarrett asked if they might sit inside because of the heat, but Charlie insisted on the sunporch, the sunporch being the place where he’d played out the game in his head a thousand times.

And yet Jarrett hadn’t cheated on a single hand. The gold teeth in the back of his mouth fascinated Charlie every time Jarrett smiled with his winnings, raking in the chips and laughing it up with that hick accent. Colvin not a damn bit of help, frequently excusing himself to go to the bathroom or fetch more ice or any damn thing to speak to Betty some more.

Only Kirk, who sat to his right, seemed to take a serious interest in Jarrett. And now that Jarrett was knee-walking drunk, they didn’t have to be so damn furtive about it. Kirkpatrick excused himself from the table as had been arranged, only the two men left in the haze of squashed cigars, eyes glazed with bourbon.

“I wish that SOB Kelly would try to come back on this porch now,” Charlie said, reaching behind him and placing a revolver on the table.

“Nice-looking gun.”

“I’d shoot him right between the eyes.”

Jarrett just sat there, short-sleeved white shirt all wrinkled on his shapeless form. He played with the cards, running them through his hands, laughing at tricks he’d seen cardsharps work but was unable to perform himself. He cut the deck of cards and tried a fancy shuffle that broke and scattered across his lap and onto the floor.

“You’re putting me on,” Charlie said. “All that time in the fields, and you can’t shuffle better than that?”

“I can’t help my winnings, Charlie. Don’t be a sore loser.”

Charlie smiled, just a little. He reached for his cigar that had burned down a three-inch ash. He tipped off the ash and smoked for a few moments while he watched Jarrett pour a fat helping of liquor and settle into the chair, watching bugs that had collected in a ceiling light.

“You think much about it?”

“ ’ Bout what?”

“Mickey Mouse,” Charlie said. “Hell, Kelly. What do you think? What else is there to think about?”

Jarrett turned away from the ceiling and tried to focus on Charlie’s face. He lost interest, and leaned into the table to count his money into a sloppy little pile. “I guess I better be goin’.”

“Funny how Kelly knew we were here,” Charlie said, feeling control for the first time since those bastards had stepped across his threshold. “Funny how they didn’t try to snatch me anywhere else.”

“I wouldn’t call it funny,” Jarrett said, pushing back his chair and standing.

“Sit back down.”

“Excuse me?”

“Finish your drink.”

Charlie reached over and poured out two fingers into his own crystal glass and topped off Jarrett’s. “You didn’t think it was strange that the back door was unlocked?”

“I never gave it any thought, Charlie,” Jarrett said. “Say, what are you gettin’ at?”

“If you needed money so bad, why didn’t you come to me for a loan?”

“Good night, Charlie.”

“You set the game,” Charlie said. “You made sure Berenice and I sat here like ducks for that gangster.”

“You’re drunk.”

“You unlatched the back door when my back was turned.”

Jarrett reached for the deck of cards, shuffled them out smoothly, reaching for them and sifting through with expert, practiced fingers. He looked up only with his eyes and gave a drunken smile. “Prove it.”

Charlie opened his mouth but couldn’t find the words.

“You think I sold you out to a couple gangsters?” Jarrett asked. “Then go call Mr. Colvin away from sweet-talking Betty. Go on and lay out what you know—
A back door unlocked? That we invited ourselves over?
You and your fancy wife may find that bad etiquette, but that isn’t a criminal case.”

“I know it was you.”

“I bet.”

“I just can’t figure out why.”

“You got a lot of windows in this house,” Jarrett said. “Lots of glass.”

“Are you passing out a morality lesson?”

Jarrett reached for the loose bills and silver dollars. The table still littered with sandwich plates and ashtrays, empty beer bottles and fine whiskey glasses.

“How long have you known me?” Jarrett asked.

“You don’t recall?” Charlie asked, rubbing his temples with his hands.

“When?”

“Back to Seminole.”

“Biggest oil field ever discovered,” Jarrett said. “Made Tom Slick one of the richest men in this country.”

Charlie nodded, holding the plug of the cigar and waiting, knowing where this was headed, feeling the heat swell in his face.

“You tried to buy my land.”

“I made you a fair offer,” Charlie said. “Don’t turn this back on me.”

“I made a fair counter,” Jarrett said. “You remember.”

Charlie didn’t say anything.

“I can’t recollect, but I seem to remember I wanted two hundred thousand, an honest price for property that’d later produce nine hundred barrels a day.”

Charlie pulled on the cigar. He reached for the edge of the table.

“Thought you wanted me to stay awhile.”

“Good night, Walter.”

“But you didn’t pay me,” Jarrett said, getting to his feet. He walked to a sideboard, where his hat had become wet from melting ice. “You just bought up the property next to mine.”

“Perfectly legal.”

“And you siphoned every drop while I was hustling to buy equipment.”

“Do you know how many leases Tom Slick and I worked? How can I recall one deal?”

Jarrett headed for the back door of the sunporch and grinned, stopping to savor the moment, as he fingered the lock open. “Yep, I guess that would be awfully hard to prove in court. I guess that’s what you learned men would call ‘a conundrum.’ ”

Charlie Urschel sat back down and listened for Jarrett’s car pulling away on the same route Kelly took, sitting there in the midnight silence until the cigar started to singe his fingers.

29

Sunday, September 3, 1933

K
athryn drove straight to Biloxi and then right back around to Texas in that old Model A truck, her ass flying up and off the seat, shifting those crazy, rusted gears all the way across on Highway 80, west through New Orleans and Lafayette, Lake Charles, and over the state line into Beaumont, before cutting up Highway 6 to Navasota, College Station, and Marlin, where she nearly dozed off at the wheel, hitting the clutch, sputtering, and killing the engine, and then starting off again, limping that hunk of junk up to Waco, way past midnight, with a leaking radiator and a shot of gas. She had to drive a mile and then cool down, drive and cool down, that hose spitting and spewing, before finding the Waco Hilton, an oasis in the Texas night. She parked that flatbed truck, shuddering and creaking and steaming, at the front door, and snatched her leather grip, knowing she looked like a damn sight to the bellhop, in her damp red wig and sweat-ringed gingham. The boy stared at her openmouthed as she asked the manager to be right quick in getting her to the finest room they had.