Ace Atkins - Infamous

“The Fair?”

“Figured we got to go,” George said. “Everybody in the whole gosh-dang world will be there.”

“We were there last month,” Mrs. Quigley said, all-knowing and smug. “I felt as if I’d entered another country, different worlds, all in Chicago. They even have an exhibit from Sinclair Oil with dinosaurs that look as real as you and me. They eat and putter about, make noises that scared little Janey a bit. She thought they were real beasts.”

“Ain’t that quick, huh?” Kathryn asked.

“Excuse me?”

“The kid. A little slow on the uptake.”

“We must be gettin’ along,” George said, hand on Kathryn’s back, Kathryn grinning at the woman. “We sure do appreciate the meal. That was a mighty fine pot roast. I hadn’t had a meal like that since my youth. Hats off. And those biscuits? Just as fine as my mother’s.”

“If you change your mind on that coupe,” Mr. Quigley said with a wink, “you let me know. Number’s on the card.”

“I think that little baby out there is just the ticket,” George said. “I think we’re gonna drive her flat out tonight and not stop till we hit Chicago.”

“An exciting life for a farmer,” Mrs. Quigley said, raising her eyebrows.

“You can bet on it, sister,” Kathryn said, turning for the door. “See you in the funny papers.”

Don’t feel bad about it, Harv,” said Kreepy Karpis, the yegg with the face of Frankenstein. “I mean, Jesus H. Coulda happened to anyone. The son of a bitch ambushed you. That ain’t fair.”

Alvin Karpis. Alvin Fucking Kreepy Karpis sat beside Harvey in an identical leather chair, smoking an identical two-dollar cigar, at Nina’s cathouse at one in the morning, trying to give Harvey Bailey advice on how to handle his business. The much younger yegg and that goddamn moron, Dock Barker, had pulled some pretty impressive jobs, but Harvey Bailey had been knocking over banks since Karpis was swiping gumdrops at the five-and-dime and tugging at his pecker in the school yard.

Both men wore Japanese robes provided to them by the management, a steady punch of Kid Cann’s who took over when Nina died. The place was class all the way-red velvet furniture, polished wood, brass fixtures, and burning gas lamps just like in the old days. Jesus, he hoped they laundered the robes.

“So George Kelly kicks in Kid Cann’s door,” Harvey said, pointing out the action with the cigar tip, “holding that Thompson, and tells the Kid to toss him the coin or he’d spray the whole place, colored orchestra and all. Verne had gone back into the joint to talk up that fan-dancin’ snatch, or things mighta been different. But it’s just me and the Kid sharing some fine whiskey and talking about the G coming down hard on all the rackets. I’m tellin’ you, there was a time when I woulda seen Kelly coming like the light on a fucking freight train.”

“What’d the Kid do?” Karpis asked, his hangdog face showing disappointment even when curious. You could stick a knife in the guy’s hand and he’d look the same. No pulse, no emotion. “George must have a big set of ’em to bust in like that.”

“Or he’s fucking stupid,” Harvey said. “The Kid tossed over the two grips. Hell, what’d he have to lose? He’d already made the cut and left one bag for me and one for George. I think the little Jew found some amusement in it.”

Harvey blew out some smoke, pondering the situation, watching it float up to the second-floor railing that looked down upon the salon and waiting customers, hungry and jazzed for it.

“And he walked out with the two bags?”

“You know the hell of it, Kreeps? You don’t mind if I call you that?”

“Not you, Harv. Always looked up to you. I know my face ain’t pleasing to some.”

“Well, the hell of it is, I don’t think George wanted the money,” Harvey said, ashing the cigar into a jade tray in the shape of a woman with spread legs. “He wanted to give me the big fuck-you because I laid his ears back in front of his woman. That’s just plain pussy-crazy.”

“What’d you say to him?”

“I told him he’d about pissed his pants before a job-and that’s God’s own, I’m telling you. I didn’t think he’d pull his shit together. I’ll be damned if it wasn’t the same nervousness each and every time. I don’t know how he pulled this one off. This thing in Oklahoma blows the fucking mind.”

“The Urschel job?”

“Can you believe it?” Harvey asked. “I read in Time magazine that it was the biggest ransom ever paid. Since we broke out, I been running my tail off around three states on nickel-and-dime bullshit, and here goes big, dumb George Kelly, knocking on the door of the top oilman in the Midwest- Step this way, please -goddamnit.”

“How much?”

“Two hunnard grand.”

“I wish someone would’ve fingered him to me,” Karpis said, crossing his bare feet at the ankle, taking a sip of booze, a hit of the cigar. “Must’ve been cake.”

“You better believe it,” Harvey said. “But kidnapping? C’mon. That’s not an honest man’s work.”

“Really,” Karpis said, smiling big while biting down on the cigar. “Ain’t money respectable?”

“You know the G likes the goddamn Touhy brothers for kidnapping that brewer-what’s his name? They might get the goddamn chair for that mess.”

“Let me borrow a hankie. I might cry.”

“Are you drunk?”

“I’m just plain happy, Harvey. High on life.”

“Who’s your whore?”

Karpis readjusted in the big, fat chair and pointed up to the railing cut into the ceiling. A redheaded girl, with pink lips and wearing a pink slip, waved down to the men. The girl Harvey had been with joined her, and she stared down, wrung-out, at Harvey, smoking a cigarette and motioning him back up with the crook of her finger.

“I got her all night,” Harvey said. “I swear to you, Kreeps, that little girl’s pussy is electrified. Does an old man good to get some fresh young tail. Gives me some real pep.”

“You goin’ after George?”

“He’s got my dough.”

“There’s more banks,” Karipis said. “More jobs. I could cut you in on a li’l somethin’ we’re workin’.”

“That’s mighty white of you, Kreeps, but Miller kinda got his heart set on acing George Kelly off the board.”

“Suit yourself.”

“He’s right, you know,” Harvey said, his cigar failing him, and he reached out to a whore that strolled by and told her to bring him more matches. He swatted her large, meaty ass and sent her on. “You don’t steal from another yegg. You cross that line and you’re like every egg-sucking bean counter. We lose that and we ain’t nothing. Not a goddamn thing.”

The whore tossed Harvey some kitchen matches, and he got the cigar going again and leaned his head back, his mouth breaking into a grin, seeing that young whore up there smiling back, a blond angel in the ceiling. If he wasn’t so goddamn wise, he’d think the punch loved him. That’s why you go to Nina’s: whores who could sell it all night long.

“The G won’t let him keep it,” Harvey said, wresting his hand loose off the chair, cigar burning warm in his fingers. “They’ll hunt that poor son of a bitch for the rest of his days.”

Over a cold brick fireplace hung an oval portrait of Miss Nina herself, a black-eyed beauty who smelled like sunshine and sweets and could do things to a man that he’d never forget. Harvey recalled her well. What was that, fifteen years ago? There were boundaries then, and rules, and the law knew ’em and the crooks knew ’em, and there wasn’t this jackrabbitin’ that was going on today. Today, a criminal was treated like some kind of social outcast. A bum with a tainted mind. A greedy leper.