Red Highway (6 page)

Virgil was on the edge of his seat as he wound the car around a treacherous bend in the road. His face was flushed and his heart was pounding against his chest. He liked robbing banks.

The roar of Ralph Moss' shotgun still echoed up and down the street when the denizens of Dawes came out into the sunlight. Fred Benson was the first to reach the body. He tried to turn it over, felt something warm and wet, and stood up. Then he was violently sick.

FARRELL GANG IN NEW HOLDUP!

Constable Killed in Raid on Dawes Bank.

Beneath the black headline were pictures of Roy Farrell and Ralph and Floyd Moss, front and profile. A large black question mark occupied a fourth square. Nobody had gotten a clear look at the man behind the wheel. Floyd, seated at the dining room table with the newspaper spread out before him, turned the pages slowly. “Can you believe it?” he said. “I never thought we was worth a whole goddamn special edition! If that don't beat all!”

“Who's that?” Virgil, looking over Floyd's shoulder, pointed at a blowup covering half of page six. It was a full-length shot of a mustachioed young man holding a rifle propped up on its butt. He was dressed in deerskins and a ten-gallon hat and sported two pistols in his low-slung holsters. A silver star gleamed on his chest.

Floyd read the caption below the picture. “‘Ed Fellows in 1890.' Hey, that's the guy we killed!”

“You mean the guy Ralph killed.” Farrell, sitting opposite Floyd, was counting bills onto the table. He looked grim.

“We're in on it just as much as Ralph,” said Floyd, looking up.

Farrell ignored him, shaking his head regretfully. “All those headlines. I don't like it. I didn't figure on attracting all this attention when I planned this job.”

“Ralph planned it.”

“That's right. Which makes him responsible for this whole mess.” He stood up and turned to the window, looking out on Miami. “Can't you see we're crippled as long as those pictures are being circulated? We're trapped here, damn it! Trapped!”

Floyd shrugged. “So we lay low. We got enough dough.”

“How much have we got?” asked Virgil, looking at the back of Farrell's head.

“I don't know. I haven't finished counting. Over eleven thousand.”

“Eleven!” Virgil's voice was shrill. “You said twenty!”

“That was before I started counting.” Farrell went back to the table and picked up a bundle of notes which he had laid to one side. “This stuff is mostly securities. Bonds and stuff. To us, worthless.” He tossed the bundle across the table. It landed with a thump in front of Virgil. “What are we gonna do with those, hock 'em?”

Virgil fingered the notes idly. He was thinking.

Ralph came downstairs and into the dining room. He was wearing a heavy hunting shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. The back was crisscrossed with dark bands left by his suspenders while the sun had faded the rest of the shirt. His face looked ashen. He grunted when he saw the newspaper and slumped heavily into the high-backed chair in front of the telephone desk. “Crazy son-of-a-bitch constable,” he muttered. “I never had to kill nobody before. Why the hell did he do it?” The others ignored him.

“What's all this about laying low?” said Virgil, leaning forward on the table. “Why don't we hit somewhere else, right now, when nobody's expecting it?”

Farrell looked pained. “Now? With our mugs all over every paper in the state? Come off it, kid!”

“No! Can't you see what all this means? It means that the next time the Farrell gang walks into a bank, people are going to stop and listen. Have you ever had trouble getting somebody to hand over the money?”

“Sometimes.” The gang leader shrugged. “Now and then some teller gets the idea he's Doug Fairbanks and refuses to go along. It slows us up, but they hand over the money soon enough.”

Virgil snatched the newspaper from Floyd's hands and held it up. “Well, after they read this, there won't be a soul this side of hell who'll hesitate to do what you tell him. Once they know you're ready to kill, they'll bust their asses to fill up your little burlap sack. This story is the making of us!”

“Nobody woulda got hurt if he'd just sat back,” Ralph muttered from the corner. He studied the plank floor between his feet morosely.

Farrell looked from Ralph's worried face to his brother's blank one, then came back to the disturbing light in Virgil's eyes, and wondered what the hell had happened to his perfect gang.

The big official car came to a halt by the side of the highway. An Oklahoma state trooper unfolded himself from behind the wheel and climbed down the steep bank to where the long limousine sat, partially hidden by thick underbrush. Its purple finish gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight. He recognized the car as the one described in the flyer he had received two days previously, and wondered which of the nearby Tulsa banks would be robbed before he could get back to headquarters.

Meanwhile, four men were leaving a bank in Clarksville, thirty miles away, with forty thousand dollars in a burlap sack.

Chapter Six

“For me?” Hazel stared at the broad, flat box in the printer's ink-stained hands. It was wrapped in red-and-white-striped paper, and sported a green ribbon tied in a bow at the top.

The old printer nodded. “Yes, ma'am.” He had to shout to make himself heard over the clattering of the big press in the center of the shop. “Fellow brought it this morning.” He handed her the box.

“What did he look like?”

The printer made a sign that he couldn't hear.

“Never mind,” she shouted, and, with a little wave of parting, headed for the sturdy wooden stairway that led to the second story. Once there, she juggled the gaily wrapped box underneath one arm and took her apartment key from the plaster strip above the door. She unlocked it and went in.

The setting sun showed brightly through the tall window in the opposite wall as she lugged the package over to the Victrola and set it on top. She removed her hat and gloves, threw them along with her purse onto the low easy chair beside the phonograph, and attacked the package.

The tissue paper inside the box parted to reveal the satiny folds of a bright green evening gown. She gasped in awe and reached out to touch it. The material ran through her fingers like water.

“It goes with your eyes.” The voice, coming from behind her, was deliciously familiar. She turned. Virgil, resplendent in black and white pin-striped suit and patterned tie, was leaning in the bedroom doorway, grinning. He wore a gray felt hat tilted rakishly back on his head.

Hazel launched herself into his arms and kissed him hard. “It's been months,” she chided, when they came up for air.

“I know,” said Virgil, tossing his hat so that it landed on top of the dress. “Thought I'd bring you the frock as a peace offering. Like it?”

“It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.” She pecked him on the cheek.

“Not too bright?”

“You said it goes with my eyes.”

“The size should be right, at least. I got it from your mother.”

“My mother!” She drew away to look at him. “My mother hates you, and you know it. She'd never talk to you.”

Virgil grinned even broader. “She didn't, really. She thought she was talking to your dressmaker, who called her by mistake.”

“You're really deceitful, aren't you?” She snuggled up to him. After a moment, she said, “I wish I had someplace to wear the gown.”

This time it was he who drew away. He looked down at her. “Now, what kind of cad would send you a dress without giving you a chance to wear it?”

Hazel's face lit up. “Do you mean what I think you mean?”

He slapped her on the rump. “Put it on!”

She had the package under her arm and had fled into the bedroom almost before he could get out of the way. “And hurry it up!” he said as she closed the door. “The theaters in Oklahoma City don't hold their curtains for nobody!”

Louis Armstrong was halfway through “New Orleans Stomp” on the Victrola when Hazel came out of the bedroom. Virgil turned to face her and smiled slowly. “Oh, baby,” he said in a hushed voice, “you're Garbo all over.”

She blushed, but that was exactly what she wanted him to think. Her shining black hair was pinned up high, so that her green earrings were visible. She wore very little make-up, but what she did use lengthened her lashes to supernatural proportions and, she thought, put just the right touch of ruddiness to her cheeks. The dress was sleeveless and extremely low cut. Her full breasts pushed against the material and pulled it taut across the front, leaving a deep cleavage much more sensuous than that allowed on the screen. She held a white clutch purse in one white-gloved hand to complete the effect.

Virgil moved in and kissed her, lips parted. She pushed him away, gently. “Just a second,” she said. “I surely don't intend to go out hitchhiking in this outfit. Oklahoma City's too long a way to go in the back of a produce truck.”

“First I'm a cad, now I'm a pauper.” Virgil went over to the window and drew the curtain aside with a flourish. “Look down, my love, on the chariot of your dreams.”

Hazel approached the window and looked down into the street. There, its glossy black finish icy in the glare of a streetlamp, sat a brand-new Marmon roadster. It had wire wheels and a set of white-sidewalled tires, the fifth of which was mounted on the right-hand running board. The top was down, revealing its white leather upholstery. Hazel let out a long sigh.

“Better than hitchhiking?” prompted Virgil.

She nodded. “Better than hitchhiking.”

Virgil put his arm around her and escorted her toward the door. “I seem to remember saying something about coming back in style,” he said, turning off the light behind him. “Well, a Ballard never breaks a promise.” He closed the door, leaving the apartment in darkness.

“Meet Ron McCoy. He's our new wheel man.” Farrell stood aside so that the two could get a good look at each other.

Virgil studied the kid through narrowed eyes. He was wearing a blue jacket over a brown turtleneck sweater, both new. His auburn hair had been combed carefully back and parted in the middle, Valentino-style, and his face was peppered with acne. He chewed eagerly at a wad of gum. “Pleased to meetcha, Mr. Ballard,” said the boy, holding out his hand.

Virgil ignored the gesture. “What is this?” he said. “Some kind of joke?”

“Not at all.” Farrell draped his arm over the boy's shoulders. “Ron, here, used to drive an ambulance in Tulsa. He can thread his way through traffic like a hopped-up seamstress. Am I right, Ron?”

The boy grinned. “Hell, I can handle anything that rolls. Just point me to the wheels, that's all I ask.”

Virgil looked at Farrell, then at each of the Moss brothers, who were standing behind the gang leader, grinning from ear to ear. The kid sounded so much like Virgil on his first day with the gang that he couldn't be sure whether they were putting him on or not. “You unsatisfied with my work?”

The other three burst into laughter. The McCoy kid looked at them and smiled, as if not sure what was going on. Virgil's face grew hot. “What's so damn funny?” he demanded.

Farrell rubbed his face to clear it of mirth. “Jesus, but you're a sensitive son of a bitch,” he said. “Don't you even know when you're being promoted?”

“Promoted.” Virgil glanced at Ralph. “That true?”

Ralph was choking with suppressed laughter. “That's right,” he finally managed to croak. “From now on, Virgie-boy, you're goin' into the bank with us!”

“In the bank? You mean it?”

“You can handle a gun,” said Farrell, smiling. “I saw that in Okmulgee, when you fired a shot over that bank guard's head. Just grazed the top of his cap. That was no accident. Anyway, I figure anybody who can throw lead like that doesn't belong behind the wheel.”

Virgil grinned. “Ron, is it?” He thrust a hand toward the boy. “Welcome to the Farrell gang.”

McCoy accepted the handshake. “Thanks a lot, Mr. Ballard. You won't regret it.”

“That's settled, then.” Farrell went over to the dining room table, where a crisp new road map had been spread out across the top. “Boys,” he said, “this is gonna be our new base of operations.” He traced a large circle with his finger on the southwestern corner of Oklahoma.

“We're moving?” asked Floyd. “Why?”

“Things are getting too hot around Miami. A few more bank jobs in this area and we'll lose our protection. Besides, we need mobility. No more of this setting up in one place. Too risky.”

“We're on the run.” Virgil eyed him savagely.

Farrell raised his eyes to Virgil's. “Not at all. We're just shifting to another part of the state.” He focussed his concentration back on the map. “From here on in, we're living out of a suitcase.”

Apache, Oklahoma.

The head cashier had his back turned when the big Studebaker pulled up in front of the bank's window, so he didn't see the four men get out and head for the door. He was turning back to his customer when somebody gasped. He looked up.

One of the men, a big, towheaded farmboy-type, remained outside while the other three entered the bank. The first through the door was an Indian, wearing a sharp double-breasted suit and a well-trimmed black moustache. He had a pistol in his hand. Just behind him, a short bulldog of a man came in carrying a shotgun. His eyes swept the room and came to rest on the teller. The third was a young fellow, well-dressed and innocent-looking in spite of the big Luger he kept trained on the cashier's midsection. They swiftly crossed the waxed tile floor and stopped before the head cashier's cage. The customer who had been standing there drifted away, hands in the air.

“All right,” said the Indian calmly, “this is just what you think it is, folks. We're gonna attend to our business and leave, and nobody's gonna get hurt … as long as nothing unexpected happens.”