Ace Atkins - Infamous

Geraline winked at George. He smiled and shot her with his thumb and forefinger before asking the waiter for a cold beer. “You sure that wasn’t Gus Jones?” George whispered into Kathryn’s ear. “I’m seeing that short bastard everywhere. Or have I gone screwy?”

So we’re on?” Harvey said.

“We’re on,” Alvin Karpis said.

“Been a hell of a trip to Chi with the roadblocks, train stations covered and all,” Harvey said. “We’ve been driving for the last two days without sleep, switching off at the wheel, keeping to the cat roads. I can’t stand my own smell.”

“How you doin’ back there, Verne?” Karpis asked, looking in the rearview mirror of his Chrysler Imperial convertible, spit-shined, with white leather interior. Miller grunted and blew some smoke up toward the front of the car.

“It’s worth your time, Harv,” Karpis said.

“Sawyer said it’s the biggest job he’d ever heard of.”

“It’s worth your time,” Karpis said, driving the streets of downtown Chicago, racing the El train above them, in and out of shadows, looking sharp in a white suit and straw boater, flushed with sun, health, and money. He shifted down onto Wabash and then took a hard turn onto Roosevelt, heading west over a rusted bridge and the river.

“Are we playing a game, Kreeps?” Harvey asked. “We’re pretty beat.”

“Read about Dallas,” Karpis said, smiling over at Harvey in the passenger seat. “Ten floors. How’d you pull that off?”

“I greased the wheels of justice.”

“Listen, a couple fellas from the Syndicate came to see me this week,” Karpis said. “First thing I thought was, Oh, shit, they know about the job and want a piece.”

“Who?”

“ ‘Three-Fingered’ Willie and Klondike O’Donnell. Some other fella named Deandre. They wanted to know if we’d thrown in with the Touhy brothers. You ain’t in with the Touhys, are you, Verne?”

Miller didn’t say anything.

“That’s what I told ’em,” Karpis said, heading in a straight shot through the West Side, passing the brownstones and corner markets, kids playing under the shade of oaks. “So this guy Deandre says to me to enjoy Chicago, but don’t get caught in this personal shit storm between the Touhys and the Syndicate. They’re no fans of you, Miller. Said Kansas City was a top-shelf clusterfuck. I hate to say it, but they got it in for you pretty bad, Verne. They’d love to ace you off God’s green earth. Killin’ those cops in Kansas City was bad business. I’d lay pretty low, if I was you.”

“So, what’s the job, Kreeps?” Harvey said.

“Federal Reserve,” Karpis said.

“Right downtown.”

“Right downtown,” Karpis said.

“You’re nuts,” Harvey said. “No offense and all.”

“I got an ace up my sleeve,” Karpis said. “You know how much money we’re talking?”

Karpis told them. Harvey smiled.

Karpis drove them over to this place in Cicero, Joe’s Square Deal Garage, where he parked in a side alley, dripping with rainwater, with ferns and weeds growing from the red brick walls. Inside, they found a little fella welding in blue coveralls with the name JOE stitched on the pocket. When he saw the men, he killed the torch and flipped back his shield and smiled. He’d been adding thick steel plates onto a brand-new Hudson. Karpis circled the car, knocked on the glass with a fist, and popped the trunk, studying what looked like a little oil canister connected to an assortment of tubes and wires.

Miller looked over to Harvey. Harvey shrugged.

“Armor-plated. Bulletproof glass. With a flip of a switch, we get a smoke screen that’ll cover a city block.”

“Trick car,” Miller said. “Great, if we make it out alive.”

“Why do you think I called you boys?”

Miller looked to Harvey. Harvey looked back and shrugged again.

“You two can stay here,” Karpis said. “Joe’s got a couple cots for you and a shower to clean up. I’ll see what I can do about clothes. Harvey, you look like you belong in a breadline.”

Harvey still wore Manion’s clothes, and the smell of the dead fat man was still on him. He thanked Karpis and went to the bathroom with a bar of soap and a straight razor, cleaning himself up the best he could and sliding into mechanic’s coveralls and some boots without laces.

“You bring ’em?” Karpis asked when he joined the boys back at the trick Hudson.

“Yeah, yeah.” Harvey found his golf bag in the trunk of the Plymouth and returned with two Thompsons and extra drums. Harvey admired the cleaning he’d done on the stock and barrel of one of them the other night and passed it over to Karpis.

“Nice,” Karpis said.

“Borrowed one of ’ em from Kelly.”

Joe the mechanic walked over, cleaning grease off his hands with a red rag soaked in gasoline. “George Kelly?” he asked. “ ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly?”

Harvey looked at the little guy, not liking that he was an eavesdropper or that he was talking about George Kelly like he was big shit. Karpis smiled, having been with Harvey that night in Minneapolis when George and Kathryn robbed him of ten g’s. “What’d he say, Joe?” Karpis asked with a smile.

“He had me put this little Cadillac in storage last month and bought a nice little Chevrolet off me,” Joe said. “Now he sez he’s gotten himself a Ford and wants to trade out again. Never thought I’d see him so soon-not in Chicago, with the heat all on him. Figured he’d be in South America by now, but he called and sez he’ll be here tomorrow. He thrown in with you fellas?”

A CORN FARMER GEORGE HAD KNOWN FROM HIS BOOTLEGGING days let them sleep a night in his barn not far out of Joplin off 66, the golden road they’d taken since Oklahoma, and would continue to weave off and on till they got to Chicago. Kathryn had run the Ford up into the big barn and killed the headlights, the farmer coming out to hand them some horse blankets and pillows, wandering to a big pile of hay and using his pitchfork to scare off a hog hidden inside. The hog squealed and trotted away, Kathryn saying she’d just as soon sleep in the backseat. The barn smelled of leather tack and pig shit.

“Y’all need some grub?” the farmer asked.

George told the man they’d eaten a hundred miles ago. Geraline still slept in the front seat, snoring, not stirring since the state line.

“Got another couple stayin’ the night, too,” the farmer said. “Don’t let ’em spook you. They’s set up in the loft.”

Kathryn grabbed the horse blanket, smelled cat urine, and tossed it back to George. George wandered around the big, open barn, holding the lantern and talking to a horse in its stall. “Hello, there.”

“Get some sleep,” Kathryn said.

“My, my,” George said, finding an empty stall, shining his light on a large stack of wooden crates halfway covered with a torn-up quilt.

“Quit talking to that horse and get some sleep.”

“God bless ’im.”

“What?”

“Likker,” George said. “Cases of the stuff.”

“That’s not yours,” Kathryn said, wandering out of the backseat of the car and trying to lead George back to the hay. But George had already opened a wooden crate and unscrewed the top of a jelly jar. He took a big sip. “Smooth as gasoline.”

He held the jar under Kathryn’s nose, and the fumes about knocked her out.

“That’ll make you go blind.”

“Mother’s milk.”

“It’s your turn to drive,” Kathryn said. “Don’t you think you’ll sleep it off in the backseat.”

“How ’bout a throw, baby?”

“How ’bout you throw yourself.”