Infamous (31 page)

They’d only just checked into the hotel, getting in from Chicago the night before, and already the whole suite was a goddamn mess. Open champagne bottles and empty bottles of gin and bourbon. Two half-eaten plates of T-bones, fat and gristle congealing into purple and gray, making the poor doggie about go nuts, and untouched desserts they’d ordered at four in the morning, mainly just because you could order such a thing at four in the morning at the Hotel Fort Des Moines if you were staying in the presidential suite. There were newspapers from five different cities, movie-star magazines, and horse-racing tip sheets.

George didn’t move from the bed. He only belched and exchanged the funnies for a new copy of
True Detective
that Kathryn had picked up for him at the cigarette stand in the lobby. She knew he was hoping to see some pictures of the Urschel job inside, but instead the issue featured “How the Sensational Boettcher Kidnapping Was Solved.” She thought George was studying up on how the G nailed the bastards, but, after several minutes of her and Louise sorting through who had bought what, George looked up from the magazine, with its illustration of a startled man on the cover with a gun in his face, and said, “Do you really think you can learn to play the piano in an hour if I order this course?”

“Son of a bitch,” Kathryn said, and tossed her new, spiffy hat onto the carpet.

“Says right here it’s a money-back guarantee.”

“Just like the course you bought on how to hypnotize folks.”

“Worked on Potatoes.”

“That’s a true test.”

George started to laugh and thumped the page with his fingers. “This company also sells rings that say ‘Kiss Me, I’m Still Conscious.’ Maybe I should order a couple for you gals.”

“Yeah, George,” Kathryn said, studying some new lines across her face in the mirror. “That’d be a hoot.”

She saw Louise standing behind her, holding up the pair of black silk robes they’d bought in both fists, the ones they both adored with the white fur trim. Louise had the devil’s grin on her big lips, and Kathryn smiled back, knowing just what the girl planned. And they both scurried off like a couple schoolgirls needing a smoke into that huge tiled bathroom, big enough to park a Cadillac, and they kicked off their clothes down to their silk slips, cocking their legs and tugging on thigh-high stockings and high-heeled shoes with cute little bows. Louise was less curvy than Kathryn, with a flat chest and no hips of note, but she had an athletic look, reminding Kathryn a lot of Babe Didrikson only with a much better face.

Kathryn stood shoulder to shoulder with Louise, each of them in a black satin robe, sash untied, showing off their slips—Kathryn’s black and Louise’s white—and then the long, tight stretch of black stockings. Kathryn jutted out her hip bone and sank a hand right onto that handle.

Louise grinned at her in the reflection.

“What are you two gonna do?” she asked.

Kathryn dabbed on a little more lipstick and then leaned into the mirror and fingered down the makeup across her left eye. “Whatta you mean?”

“Just hop from hotel to hotel?” Louise asked. “Dance till the money runs out?”

“George doesn’t dance.”

“Come off it, sister.”

“I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Looks like Georgie boy needs some action.”

“Just like a kid,” she said. “C’mon, let’s get on with it.”

Kathryn went into the room first, George still studying
True Detective
—the back pages, mind you—as she whisked shut the long draperies to block out the hard afternoon light and crawled up onto his right flank, grasping the magazine and throwing it with a flutter to the floor. Lousie wasn’t far behind, hopping onto the bed with a giggle and crawling up close on George’s other side.

George’s mouth opened, and the wet cigar fell to his chest. “Dang it.”

Louise lay on her back, the robe opening up wide, and crooked her right leg so she could dangle the other off her knee, kicking the high heel back and forth. “Nice digs,” she said, looking up at the gilded fixture over the bed. “Real nice.”

“Whatta you think?” Kathryn asked, nuzzling close.

“It’s a little dark,” George said.

“You said you’re getting bored.”

“I am bored,” George said.

Kathryn leaned into him and kissed him full on the mouth. He didn’t resist, not like George Kelly
ever
resisted.

“Why don’t you tell your gal pal to take a walk?”

Kathryn gripped his throat with her strong, long fingers and pressed him down to his back, straddling his chest. Louise saddled up to her, walking on her knees, and looked down at George, shaking her head with disappointment.

“What are we gonna do with him?” Louise asked.

“Make him talk,” Kathryn said. “See if he’s a rat.”

“You two broads are crazy,” George said. “Damn, it’s dark.”

“Shut up, George,” Kathryn said, slapping him across the mug. “Do we need to draw you a diagram?”

FEDERAL AGENTS REPLACED THE WINDOWS AND FILLED THE bullet holes in the old Shannon place the best they could. And for three days they sat on the farmhouse, waiting for George and Kathryn Kelly to drive on back to the homestead and greet the old folks with their newfound loot. But going into late afternoon that Wednesday, Jones knew it wasn’t going to happen. Kelly was too smart for that—now thinking of him as just Kelly, trying to figure out the man’s mind-set and cunning. A sharp criminal who’d worked with Verne Miller and Bailey.

Jones walked back around the house and followed a rutted path to that big garage Kelly had constructed, his own personal rabbit hole. Inside they’d found all manner of weaponry and bullets, car parts, motor oil, and tins of gasoline. Buried deep in back, agents had also found boxes and boxes of Mrs. Kelly’s private things. Fox, mink, rabbit, and monkey coats. Perhaps fifty gowns, and an entire box bulging with the lady’s unmentionables—garters, slips, brassieres, and the like—smelling of the sweet lavender of the sachet packed within.

Jones knew that it was a solid plan to study on those you were hunting. From the garage constructed earlier that spring—learning details of the construction from old Boss—he knew that Kelly was an organized man, a man of detail and planning. He’d taken special care of this little rabbit hole, a place to patch up and reload if the heat had come down. But now the son of a bitch was out and on the open road to God knows where.

If the Shannons knew, they sure weren’t telling. For two days Jones had sat with them in the county jail, asking questions till they’d fall out of their chairs from lack of sleep, praying to the Lord God for a sip of water. He hadn’t talked to that kid Armon, aka Potatoes, for five minutes before the kid pissed his overalls.

Doc White walked through the mouth of the old garage, which was growing hot and stale with the heat and buckets of dirty oil.

“I didn’t know any woman could own so many pairs of drawers,” White said. “She could pick out a fresh pair for the rest of her life without ever taking to scrubbing.”

He held in his hands a telegram he passed on to Jones. He read it.

“Hotel Cleveland?”

“They checked in under the name of the Shannons,” White said.

“This was five days back.”

“Still a trail, Buster.”

Jones closed up the box he’d been searching through and walked out into the fading daylight with White. “Let’s head back to Dallas. I’d like a little time with Bailey for Hoover’s goddamn paperwork, but we won’t get a word. Bailey’s a hard ole nut.”

“That son of a bitch got caught at Kelly’s hideout while taking shots at us,” White said. “I figure a little cooperation is in order.”

“Hell, I know Bailey. I’ve known the bastard for about as long as I’ve known you. He’ll say he stopped at the farm to buy some ears of corn.”

“I say we go to Cleveland.”

“They’re not in Cleveland,” Jones said.

“We can’t keep the news of the raid blacked out forever. The story’s gonna break.”

“Once the Kellys get word, they’ll go underground,” Jones said. “It could take months to flush ’em.”

Doc looked back at the barn and shook his head, “And all we got is a fistful of panties.”

“You reckon she’ll come back for ’em?”

“The drawers?”

“The Shannons.”

“Everybody loves their momma,” White said.

Jones mopped his face and eyes in the fading sunlight and nodded. “Keep the boys stationed here, let’s see what turns up. C’mon, let’s go talk to Harv.”

HARVEY BAILEY KNEW FROM THE START THAT HE WAS GONNA get along just fine with the head jailer, Deputy Tom Manion. A tall, gangly sort, with a contented fat belly and a pleasant weathered laugh. A gentleman, a genuine Spanish War hero, and, the way Harvey saw it, a fella with a price tag hanging from his nose. On Harvey’s third night in the Dallas County Jail, Manion had grown comfortable enough with him to share a cup of coffee and a couple of cheap cigars, talking on the rotten state of things in the world, and how Manion figured he could do a lot better than the current sheriff, who didn’t know one end of a gun from another, an elected politico with no heart.

Harvey Bailey leaned into the bunk and studied the end of his cigar. “That’s the way of the world. The men who do the real work are never in charge.”

“You said it, Mr. Bailey.”

“Mr. Manion?”

“You can call me Tom.”

“Tom, what have you heard about my affairs?”

“Well, I think that federal man from San Antonio is planning on shipping you to Oklahoma City. He said there’s gonna be a big trial for you and the Shannons. He sure is an arrogant little cuss.”

Harvey nodded, climbing off the bunk and walking to the narrow little barred window that looked out onto a back alley.

“I want you to know I didn’t have a thing to do with that kidnapping,” Harvey said, still dressed in a suit but without his tie or shoes. “They just made me the goat.”

“I believe you, Mr. Bailey,” Manion said. “I know of your reputation.”

“I make an honest living.”

Manion laughed. “Sure thing, Mr. Bailey. What’s it like robbing banks?”

Harvey shrugged. “Not much different from any other job, I guess. You put a lot of work into the planning and detail. A good yegg knows the risks and the payoff.”

“You get nervous?”

“Never have,” Harvey said, walking toward the bunk. “Just don’t have it in my nature.”

“You married?”

“Yes.”

“You want to talk to your wife?”

“I don’t bring her into my business.”

“She’s kinda in it now.”

“She’ll be fine.”

“I bet she’s worried sick.”

“She knows I’ll be home soon.”

“Doesn’t look that way,” Manion said. “Mr. Gus Jones has a solid case.”

“I know that,” Harvey said. “That’s why I intend to escape.”

Manion laughed. “You sure are a pistol, Mr. Bailey. I’d get worried if this wasn’t the safest jail in the whole state of Texas. In case you forgot, we have you on the sixth floor. You’d have to bust through me, the jailer working the desk, make your way downstairs, and then out the front door past a whole mess of deputies. And still find yourself an escapee in downtown Dallas.”

Harvey shrugged. “We’ll see.”

“A real pistol.”

“I’d just stopped off in Paradise to rest my leg. How was I to know I’d stepped into a federal raid? George Kelly and all that mess. It’s gotten to the point you don’t know who to trust.”

“I do appreciate the company,” Manion said, leaning into the ladder-back chair and studying the one barred window. “Usually all we get is cutthroats and niggers. Only good thing about them niggers is, they sure can make music. We just got this ole boy in the other day, came into town from Mississippi and got charged for shortchanging a whore. He plays some mighty fine guitar.”

“Well, bring ’im in here.”

“I don’t know.”

“Who’ll know?”

“I guess you’re right,” Manion said, a big smile on his face. He swatted his tired old hat against his leg as soon as he’d made up his mind and jangled the keys on his hip. “Maybe round up a nip for us, too?”

“I wouldn’t complain.”

“Be right back, Mr. Bailey,” Manion said. “Don’t go nowheres.”

Bailey pointed the end of his cigar at Manion and the cell door and winked. “Don’t worry. I’m six floors up, remember?”

A few minutes later, Manion returned with a rail-thin negro, wearing a thrift-store suit and carrying a battered guitar. The negro was just a kid, maybe a teenager, down in the mouth, and looked to be just rousted from his sleep.

“Play a song for us, boy,” Manion said.

“What do you want to hear?”

“What songs do you know?”

“I know ’em all.”

“You know ‘The Wreck of Old 97’?”

“Sure, everybody knowed that.”

“Play it.”