Ace Atkins - Infamous

“Sounds like you admire him.”

“I wouldn’t call it admiration, Doc. It’s understanding the animal.”

“Shit, Buster. I never knew you were so goddamn wise.”

“You sure are funny today, Doc. You could be Will Rogers.”

A government sedan rolled up to the curb below. The wind shooting down the long avenues and through the cracks of concrete and the glass buildings was as hot and dry as the desert. He recalled visiting Dallas twenty years back, and there wasn’t a building more than a few stories tall. Now the whole center of town reached to the damn clouds, keeping all the familiar hotels and shops in shadow.

“I just think Harv is pulling our leg,” White said. “Said he was only at the Shannons’ place to grab some shut-eye. Who’s gonna believe that?”

“He confessed he’d just robbed two banks. The man was tired. He has a bum leg.”

“You believe him?”

“Now, why in the world would a man confess to robbing two banks if he hadn’t?”

“To loosen the noose from the Urschel job.”

“Maybe.”

“When I got up, you ask him about Kansas City?”

“Shit, I forgot.”

“Aw, hell, Buster. You’re just trying to be contrary. In the old days, we’d just tie Bailey to a mesquite tree and set his feet on fire till he told us what we wanted to know.”

“If Bailey was a weak-minded fool, I’d contemplate that. You think I forgot about those that got killed? But he’s not gonna give himself up, or Miller. You could toss a rope around his neck and he’d stick to the same story.”

The two men crawled into the black sedan and it pulled away, Joe Lackey turning from the front passenger seat and resting his head on his forearm. “Nothing?”

“Nope,” White said. “Buster’s gone soft on us.”

“He confessed to working two jobs with Clark and Underhill.”

“He say where in the hell’s Verne Miller?” Lackey asked. He wiped a drop of sweat off his big nose with a forefinger, his face swarthy and wet under his gray felt hat.

“Said he hadn’t seen Verne since he escaped from Lansing. Said they played a round of golf.”

“Bullshit,” Lackey said. “Two men saw Miller dart out of that cornfield. You ask him about Union Station?”

“Said he read about it in the papers.”

“Bullshit.”

“Well, of course it’s all bullshit,” Jones said. “You know, I’m getting tired of being second-guessed. I get enough of that from Mary Ann. What’d you get from the Shannons?”

“Good ole Ma sez Kathryn Kelly is a fine Christian woman who has a mental deficiency for bad men.”

“And Pa?” Jones asked.

“Nothing new,” Lackey said. “Same as before. Said Kelly threatened to kill him and his family if they didn’t help.”

“Kelly wasn’t there when he picked up the gun,” Jones said.

“Yeah,” Lackey said, nodding. “He didn’t have much of an answer for that. And says he never saw Verne Miller. Every time I mentioned Miller, I thought the old guy would piss himself.”

The drive took them out of the downtown, past an old warehouse reading PERKINS DRY GOODS COMPANY, and onto the highway headed northwest to Love Field, where they’d arranged for an airplane back to Oklahoma City. They passed roadside courts, filling stations, and new Wild West highway attractions, Passion plays, and Alamo reenactments, the whole town of Dallas spilling out onto what used to be a dirt trail and now had been paved, leading to damn-near everywhere. One of the motor courts had been built in the style of an old Spanish mission, complete with tile and stucco, and it advertised authentic rooms for two dollars a night. Down Highway 77, a roadside diner advertised A MEAL LIKE MOM’S for only two bits.

“You can find everything you want out here,” Jones said. “Everything a man needs.”

Western-wear shops. Steak houses. A billboard facing the road into town read JOBLESS MEN KEEP GOING. WE CAN’T TAKE CARE OF OUR OWN. Another billboard promised that tuberculosis was PREVENTABLE AND TREATABLE

The driver pulled off the main highway and past a gate opening onto the tarmac. They followed a side road to a large, open hangar where a single-engine silver airplane was being fussed over by several mechanics. Special Agent Bruce Colvin waited inside along with the young sharpshooter from his office, Bryce. Bryce held two rifles, one in each hand. Colvin’s hair was neatly greased, and he held a perfectly steamed hat in his long fingers.

Jones stood from the machine and tipped his hat to Bryce. Bryce nodded back.

“You boys ready to head home?” Jones asked.

Colvin approached and shook his head, and all five agents, including the driver, walked out onto the tarmac as the airplane sputtered to life and moved out onto the runway, the sound of the engine stopping conversation and deafening their ears.

Colvin simply handed him a postcard from the Hotel Fort Des Moines. Some heat could be headed your way. Much cooler up north. Will wire gas money soon. Love, Sis.

“Too late now,” Jones said.

“They left in a hurry,” Colvin said. “Left a bunch of clothes and receipts. And… dog turds.”

“She brought her damn dog?”

“A Pekingnese,” Colvin said, and reached into his breast pocket. “According to personal papers found at her home in Fort Worth, the dog’s name is Ching-A-Wee.”

“Ching-A-What?”

“We got Kelly ID’d. But now he’s traveling with two women. One we’re pretty sure is the wife, but we’re not sure.”

“Never been to Des Moines,” Jones said, climbing aboard the airplane.

“YOU THINK HE’LL BE SORE?”

“Who?” Kathryn asked, driving white-knuckled down Highway 69 somewhere in Oklahoma way past midnight, running that little Chevrolet-the one they switched out for the Cadillac coupe in Chicago-just as fast as that standard six would go.

“George,” Louise said. “Your husband. Remember him?”

“How can I forget George?” Kathryn asked, taking the wheel in one hand and reaching for her silver cigarette case with the other. Louise flicked open the lighter and got her smoking, as she breezed through another dead town, slowing down for two quick moments to pass over some railroad tracks. “George has the loot.”

Louise had begged her to stop off in Kansas City and get some sleep, but Kathryn said she wasn’t gonna stop till she got to Coleman. She needed to get back to Texas, talk to Grandma, and figure out some kind of plan to spring Ora from jail, maybe Potatoes and Boss, too.

“They’re gonna write songs about you two.”

“Thanks for being a sister and not telling George you knew about Urschel.”

“How could I forget Charles Urschel? You’ve been talking about the man for months. Called him your ‘sugar daddy.’ ”

“And you’d be best served to wash that from your mind unless you want the G crawling all over your ass, too.”

The highway was open and clear at this time of night, only a train heading north, the Chevrolet running side by side in the opposite direction, light from the passenger cars strobing and flicking across the women’s faces. Kathryn smoked and held her right hand aloft, shaking her head at the goddamn insult of it all, seeing her mother in the papers, turning her head from the camera and being called a dirty, rotten kidnapper. The damn nerve, them using a photograph of Kathryn from when she’d been pinched on that shop-lifting beef in Fort Worth. It was a hell of a bad photo, with her in a frumpy dress and not looking her best. And now the copper who’d gotten her out of that mess was dead. Poor old dearly dead Ed Weatherford. She just might break down and cry at his passing.

“You don’t worry George will leave you?”