Infamous (54 page)

The garbagemen had good haircuts. The man with the busted car shifted his weight, placing a hand on his belt, the son of a bitch carrying a rod. All three men glanced up at the bungalow, trying not to stare, first light still an hour away.

Harvey didn’t say a word, only snatched up the grip and walked out of the kitchen, hopping a fence to another house and then another, before finding his machine parked out on Speedway, knocking it into first and thinking what a beautiful day it was going to be.

KATHRYN WOULD LATER HEAR HOW MA COLEMAN HAD REBUKED Lang and Geraline three times before shooing them away and telling them federal agents were everywhere. Lang tried his best to get back to that willow tree he’d been told about, Geraline pleading with the blind old woman to let her inside, saying that Kathryn missed her little Pekingese dog and needed her furs for the winter. But the old woman wildly aimed a little .22 and said they wouldn’t last a mile if they picked up Kathryn’s things. “If they knew what was good for ’em, they’d get back in their car and keep driving till they were out of Texas.” The whole thing didn’t seem to bother Geraline but rattled poor Lang so bad that the little girl had to hold his cigarette while he lit it. She even told Lang he didn’t have the nerves for gangster work.

He ignored the kid.

And then fifty miles down the road, she started in on how much she missed her folks and started to primp up to cry.

“You told Kathryn you wanted to go back to Memphis.”

“Please,” Geraline said. “I want my momma.”

And he’d found a station, walking inside with her and purchasing a one-way ticket to Oklahoma City. He handed her a five-dollar bill and wished her good luck.

He wasn’t gone five minutes before she used the money to wire a message to the Shangri-La Apartments, Oklahoma City. MEET ME AT ROCK ISLAND STATION. 10:15 TONIGHT. GERRY.

Gerry had a fine time on the late train, finding the Sunday funnies section on a vacant seat. She probably laughed and giggled the whole way, with no more concern about what she’d done than Chingy showed when he killed a songbird.

The train arrived on time and clattered to a stop at the station. Geraline grabbed her fattened suitcase and politely declined help from a kindly negro porter. She stopped on the platform, the engine still hissing and steaming several cars ahead, and soon spotted old Luther and Flossie Mae, her momma and daddy, waving to her by a large clock atop a metal post.

Geraline lugged her suitcase, not in any particular hurry, and became annoyed when some old man came in step beside her and asked if she was tired.

“What’s it to you?” she asked.

“I’m a friend of your parents’.”

She noticed he wore a fine pearl gray cowboy hat and polished boots. He was short and sort of fat and wore a pair of gold-rimmed cheaters.

“Must have been some trip.”

“Sure thing, pops.”

Flossie Mae ran to her and tried to hug her. But Geraline just stood there limp while the woman put on some kind of show, kissing and cooing, for the cowboy. “Can we get something to eat?” Gerry asked.

“Little girl, how’d you like an ice-cream cone?” the cowboy asked. “We have a lot to discuss.”

Gerry looked to her parents and back to the man. She saw that her daddy had a hell of a shiner.

“WILL YOU RECONSIDER LETTING ME COME WITH YOU?” CHARLES Urschel asked.

“We appreciate you arranging a plane.”

“Kelly won’t go easily.”

“Don’t expect it.”

“Will you kill him?”

“If the situation calls for it.”

“I’d hate to have another trial,” Urschel said, speaking to Jones in the rear of the government vehicle on the way to the airstrip. “My family has been through enough.”

Jones said nothing. It was past three in the morning.

“How many men?”

“Me and Doc,” Jones said. “We’re meeting four men from the Oklahoma City office, including Special Agent Colvin. Six more in Memphis.”

“What do you think of Agent Colvin?”

“You don’t need my opinion, sir,” Jones said. “Think you already got that figured out.”

“You know Betty broke that young man’s heart when she took up with the club’s new tennis pro?” Urschel asked.

THEY LANDED IN MEMPHIS AT HALF PAST FIVE THAT MORNING. The police met them at the landing strip, and a briefing was held inside an airplane hangar. The locals had arranged for a garbage truck and some uniforms for Agent Bryce and Joe Lackey. Agent Colvin would drive a car and park across from the house on Rayner, where he’d feign having engine trouble.

A little after five a.m., Jones got word there was no movement in the house, and they figured Kelly—if inside—was still asleep. Jones pulled a machine gun from the back of a Memphis police car they’d parked six houses down on Speedway. Doc White carried a sawed-off Browning 12-gauge. The six detectives brought pistols, knowing this would all be close work inside that little house. Bryce could watch the front door and windows with a scoped rifle he’d stowed in the front seat of the truck.

Jones checked his timepiece and nodded to Doc White.

“IF KELLY IS KILLED,” CHARLIE URSCHEL SAID, “YOU’D BE a hero.”

“I made my way for twenty years trying to stay out of the papers.”

“The country needs something like this,” Urschel said. “Strong leaders. People are restless as sheep.”

“Folks follow money,” Jones said. “Always have. Greed is the root of it all.” Charlie Urschel turned away.

JONES CROSSED THE SMALL, SLOPED LAWN AND MET DOC WHITE, circling the house from around back. He was slow up the walkway and front steps, recalling the Paradise raid, trying the front door and finding it unlocked, a clear view of a big open room through to the glass cabinets of the kitchen. A small fella lay on the sofa, a half-empty bottle of whiskey in hand, and Jones was careful to open the front door slow and easy, while Doc touched the shotgun to the man’s nose and the man opened his eyes wide, frozen.

Bottles of bourbon and gin lay all around the house. Ashtrays overflowed. Jones spotted a copy of
Master Detective
wide open to a story called “My Bloodcurdling Ride With Death.”

Jones’s boots beat heavy steps on the wooden floor, and he waited any minute to hear gunshots. He walked along the hallway to find a bedroom door wide open and a nude woman, who lay tangled in a pile of white sheets. The first light of the day crossed the room and over the back and shoulder of Kathryn Kelly. A piece of her hair had caught in her mouth during sleep, her mouth slightly parted, eyes closed.

When he turned, a shadow crossed the wall, and Jones turned and raised his Thompson.

“THOSE MEN HUMILIATED ME,” URSCHEL SAID.

“Yes, sir.”

“It hasn’t been settled in my mind.”

“And won’t for some time.”

“Did Agent Colvin discuss with you my suspicions?”

“He did.”

“I made a mistake.”

“As us all.”

“Those people took Mr. Jarrett at gunpoint,” Urschel said. “I don’t want his personal conversations placed on phonographic records.”

“Mr. Hoover cabled that Mr. Jarrett should be left alone. Is that to your liking, Mr. Urschel?”

IT WAS KELLY, LOOKING HEAVY AND TIRED, HIS THICK HAIR bleached bright yellow. He stood not five paces away in the bungalow’s hallway, aiming a .45 at Jones’s chest. He wore only a pair of boxer shorts with red hearts.

“Drop that gun,” Jones said.

“I’ve been waiting for y’all all night,” Kelly said with a smile, as if he found the whole situation to be funny.

“Well,” Jones said, “here we are.”

Kelly stepped forward but did not lower the gun.

“DO YOU HAVE CHILDREN?” URSCHEL ASKED.

“No, sir. We wasn’t blessed with them.”

“When I received that letter from Kelly, I purchased pistols for all my children. I even gave Betty one to carry in her purse.”

“I never found that letter sincere.”

“I don’t let my children out of my sight.”

“I suppose that faith is the toughest part. Being a family man.”

“I don’t even trust my own safety. A shadow startles me.”

JONES INCHED HIS FINGER ON THE TRIGGER; JUST A LITTLE pressure would scatter the entire drum of bullets. He wondered if Kelly thought the gun was his own and that Jones had stolen it from him. He thought back on Paradise and then on Kansas City, Sheriff Otto Reed and those two dead city detectives lying like twin boys in the blood along the brick road.

Kelly just smiled down at Jones. Jones knowing goddamn well that Kelly thought it was kind of humorous being drawn by the much shorter, much older man.

“Are you the Federal Ace?” George Kelly asked.

“I’m Gus T. Jones of the Department of Justice. Now, drop your weapon.”

Kelly smiled some more, Jones hearing a stir in the bedroom and Kathryn calling for her husband to come back to bed. George chuckled. He lowered the .45 and placed it with a light touch on a sewing machine that had been pushed against a wall, covered with discarded rags and a fine dust.

It would take fifteen minutes before Kathryn agreed to put on some clothes. She emerged from the bathroom wearing a black dress that hugged her fanny and fanned out at her feet like a mermaid. As she was pushed into the Black Mariah with handcuffs on her wrists, Jones heard her say, “Officer, an agent of mine is returning from Texas shortly with all my furs and jewels and my Pekingese dog. Please make sure these are returned to me.”

George was sullen and silent. Jones only saw him grin once more after the arrest. The desk sergeant asked his name, age, and where he lived. “My name is George Kelly. I’m thirty-seven years of age, and I live everywhere.”

39

H
arvey Bailey cut through Memphis without trouble, the bluffs falling away behind him, and he drove over the Mississippi River at dawn with a wide smile on his face, that gorgeous light hitting the muddy water and shining like gold across the Arkansas Delta like something out of the Old Testament. He had the window down, the air bright and cool, a full tank of gas, and a full satchel of cash beside him.

He nearly missed the roadblock.

Slowing, trying to remain confident. He rolled down the window and smiled.

Four coppers pulled guns on him. Harvey shook his head, held up his hands, and told them they were welcome to help themselves to what’s in the bag if they’d just let him pass through.

One of the coppers grabbed the bag and plunked it on top of the Plymouth, tossing out the thick stack of bills, reaching deeper to pull out magazines and a phone book and what looked to be kids’ undershorts and socks.

“You trying to bribe us with fifty-two dollars and some dirty drawers?” the copper asked. “You got some set of balls, Mr. Bailey. Now, put your goddamn hands up where I can see ’em.”

KATHRYN KNEW THE SCORE FROM THE MOMENT THAT SNOT-NOSED
kid pranced into the courtroom in a hundred-dollar dress and patent leather shoes. She wore a full-grown woman’s slouch hat, and told Flossie Mae—who held her hand down the aisle—to go and sit down and be quiet. Flossie Mae lowered her head and did what she was told. Geraline took the stand with a little jeweled pocketbook that Kathryn knew was just bulging with that money she’d switched. She nudged George in the ribs at the defense table, but he didn’t take any interest, sitting there in a nice suit with a dull smile.