Макс Коллинз - True Crime

I was getting a Sheik out of my billfold when she said, “No. You don’t need that.”

“You want me to...?”

“Pull out when it’s time? No. Don’t worry. I can’t have kids.”

A more sensitive man might’ve had his ardor dampened by that remark; but I was still caught up in the sweet smell of corn and the fringe between her legs and pink nipples and I had her on the grass, under the trees, her bottom small and firm and yet soft in my hands, as I slid in and out of her, went round and round in her, as she moved beneath me with a yearning that went beyond the moment, and she moaned and groaned and cried out when she came, and so did I. Then she was sitting up and in my arms, a bundle of flesh and undone clothes and sobbing.

Pretty soon I put my pants on.

That’s when I noticed, not far from where we’d just got to know each other, biblically speaking, a patch of ground without any grass.

The grave where Candy Walker and Doc Moran lay entwined, much as Louise and I had been.

A wave of nausea hit me, as strong as the smell of ammonia. But there was nothing in my stomach, so nothing came up.

But Louise, standing now, hands behind her, buttoning, said, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“We better get back for breakfast.”

“Okay.”

“Hmmm,” she said. Noting the patch of grassless ground. “Wonder what’s planted there.”

Nothing that’ll grow, I thought.

“Let’s get back,” I said.

Breakfast was under way, when we did, and Paula — having the alcoholic’s standard plate of hardly any food (but no glass of whiskey yet) — smiled wickedly at Louise, recognizing what I can best if rudely describe as the freshly fucked look on Louise’s face, and Louise blushed, and I frowned at Paula, but nobody else noticed anything. We sat and ate. Ma wasn’t cooking, this time, but Mrs. Gillis did a pretty fair job of it herself. Scrambled eggs and bacon and fried potatoes with gravy and glasses of milk all around.

Ma seemed a little blue about it, actually — especially since her boys Fred and Doc were bent over their plates, inhaling the stuff.

Karpis was sitting next to me, his girl Dolores next to him. “You can freshen up in our room,” he said. “Right across from yours.”

“Thanks.”

“Towels and a mirror and a basin. You’ll have to come downstairs and get some fresh water, though. If you want to shave, anyway.”

“Yeah, I guess I do look a little scruffy.”

He pushed his glasses up on his nose. “We don’t stand on ceremony, here.”

Nelson was eating a plate of food that would’ve fed a man twice his size; sitting right across from me, next to his cute little brunette wife, he said, “I hear you’re coming in with us. Taking Candy’s place.”

At the phrase “taking Candy’s place,” Paula laughed, and a few heads turned toward her with expressions that said they didn’t get it. But the moment quickly passed, thank God.

“Yeah,” I said. “And I’m pleased to be in such high-flying company.”

Nelson smiled; his mustache looked both wispy and fake, like he was a kid who pasted on each strand with glue, one at a time. “Good to have you aboard. Sorry about the ridin’ I give you yesterday. Chicago says you’re aces, so there’ll be no more complaints from me.”

“Thanks, Nelson.”

“You can call me B.G.”

For Big George.

“Sure, B.G.,” I said.

I was shaving in Karpis and Dolores’ room when Karpis came in, his creepy smile on display.

“You forgot these,” he said.

He was holding out my glasses. I had set them on a dresser last night before I went to bed, and had, frankly, forgot to put the damn things on this morning.

“Thanks,” I said, gliding the razor across my throat.

“I notice they’re window glass,” he said.

I wondered if I had the nerve to use a razor to kill a man.

“So are mine,” he said, tapping the side of his wire-frames.

“No kidding,” I said. Shaving.

“Got to change our looks as best we can, in this business. I try to wear ’em all the time. You get used to ’em after a while.”

I smiled at him in the mirror. “I still forget sometimes. The plastic surgery’s a help, but glasses add to the basic change of appearance. Don’t you agree?”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Karpis said. He put the glasses down next to me. “Now, we’ll be leaving today, throughout the morning and early afternoon. In several cars, at staggered times.”

I nodded. “Not a good idea to travel in a caravan.”

“Nothing that attracts attention is a good idea.”

This might work out. If I could just get Louise in the Auburn — the two-seater Auburn — I could drive away with her, and break off from this fun group before they were any the wiser.

I said, “I, uh... I’m getting attached to Louise.”

Karpis flashed his sick grin again. “You’re a fast worker.”

“She’s a nice kid.”

“And lonely. You must peddle a pretty slick line to the ladies, Lawrence.”

“I get by. You mind if she rides with me?”

“Not at all. I’ll give you directions to the tourist court, before you leave.”

“I’ll take the Auburn, if that’s okay.”

“Sure. Why not.”

Karpis nodded and went out.

I dried my face off, left the big bowl of soapy dirty water on the bureau and went across the hall to the farm boys’ bedroom. Louise wasn’t in there.

I found her in the room next door. A yellow-papered room with a big double bed with a bright yellow spread. She was packing.

She looked over her shoulder at me. “This was our room. Candy’s and mine.” She gave her attention back to packing.

“You okay, Louise?”

“I’m fine.” But she didn’t sound fine.

I went over to her, touched her shoulder. “What is it?”

“I’m an evil girl. Just like my daddy always said.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We did it. You and me. Fornicated. And Candy not even dead a day. How could I be so bad?”

“It was my fault. I made you do it.”

That wasn’t true, and we both knew it, but it made her feel better to hear it. She turned to me and put her arms around me and pressed the side of her head to my chest.

“Don’t think badly of me for it,” she said.

“I wouldn’t ever.”

“I just needed to be loved. And you were so nice. I wanted you. I had to have you.”

“You’re a beautiful girl, Louise, and I’ll never forget making love to you under the trees.”

She liked the sound of that; it was sappy and romantic, like the romance magazines she was packing with her clothes. Her and Ma Barker.

She smiled up at me and went back to her packing.

I said, “I’m going to drive you today.”

I’d decided not to spring my notion on her to flee our fellow outlaws and return her home to daddy. Not just yet.

She said, “We’re going to that tourist camp near Aurora, aren’t we?”

“Yes.”

“It’s kind of a nice place. Can we share a cabin there? I mean, do you want to?”

“I’d love to.”

“Hand me my scrapbook, please. Over on the dresser.”

I got it for her; it was a big fat book, bulging with clippings.

“What’s in this?” I asked her.

She laid it in the suitcase, on top of her clothes, but opened it up to show me. I saw a headline: BANK GUARD SHOT.

“It’s all Candy’s press notices,” she said, like she was talking about an actor. “I’m even in some of them.”

I leafed through it. Bank robberies, a gas station stickup, jewelry store, the Bremer kidnapping. I even found the duplicate of the clipping her father had shown me, in which she (an “unidentified moll”) was pictured, that is, sketched.