Стивен Хантер - G-Man

Bob thought perhaps Charles had been dispatched to the small town to investigate, see if there was any connection to the big-boy robbers. Maybe he tracked the robbers down, disposed of them, and plucked the dough from their cold, dead hands and reported it as an unsolved case. He spent the other money, just had the one crisp thousand left and dumped it in the ground. But still, that wasn’t squaring with the Charles he was uncovering, not really. And he didn’t want to believe it.

“Any suspects?”

“Oh, of course. They were widely identified. It was in the papers.”

“Baby Face Nelson?” he said with a burst of hope.

“This is where it goes screwball. No, not Baby Face Nelson. Bonnie and Clyde.”

MAVIS, ARKANSAS

July 24–25, 1934

“I’ve seen bigger,” said Les.

“It sure ain’t no Sioux City or South Bend,” said J.P.

They sat in the Hudson parked across from the First National Bank of Mavis, on the shady, single street that Mavis offered, and amid its few retail outlets, a mom-and-pop grocery, and, farther back, a nest of dwellings, hazy in the shadows of the trees.

The bank sat on the northwest corner of Main and Southern streets, a single-story chunk of masonry, with a double-doored entrance set at an oblique to the right angle of the corner, the Southern Street façade displaying a double window, the longer façade on Main three single widows. It was all-white brick, as plain as a Dutchman’s dream, distinguished only by the towering tree that stood above it, shielding it somewhat from the hot Texarkana sun.

“The money inside is probably as green as anybody’s,” said Helen.

“You do have a point, sweetie,” said Les. With that, he put the car into gear, eased back into the sparse traffic, and headed out of town. He didn’t want to risk suspicions of a stranger staring at the bank from a stranger’s car for too long. In towns where nobody noticed a thing, everybody noticed strangers. In a few miles, he came to a bend in Highway 45, where it crooked south and plunged across a stout wooden bridge over the Red River into Texas. Other than which side of the river they occupied, there appeared to be no difference between the two states, each offering the same rolling prairie, broken here and there by stands of timber, with lots of fallow fields, lots of rotting but a few healthy farmhouses, old barns painted with chew advertising, fences fencing nothing in and nothing out, just Dust Bowl Americana at its dustiest.

“So this is where we got to git,” said Les. “Get across this bridge and no Arkansas lawman will follow. He’s not going to get shot in Texas. The Texans probably don’t give a damn about crimes committed in Arkansas because they consider themselves so superior to the slobs in Arkansas.”

“I don’t see it as a problem,” said J.P. “There can’t be much in the way of guards or local law enforcement. It doesn’t seem a bird has landed in that town in thirty years. They probably haven’t heard of radio, much less electricity. Any town with nothing but outhouses isn’t in modern times yet.”

“But I bet their guns go bang just like yours,” said Helen.

“That’s why I go in hard with machino,” said Les. “They see that big gangster gun and they start thinking Saint Valentine’s Day, and seven men on the floor, and it tends to discourage heroism. I hate heroism. The last thing I want to run into is a hero. I’ve had my fill of heroes.”

“Helen, honey,” said J.P., “I love you like you were mine, but Les has the right idea.”

“Sure, I don’t like it,” said Les. “There’s guns in there, and there’s heroes everywhere down here — ask the Indians — but I don’t see we have no choice as we could use a refill in the purse tank, sweetie. Don’t you see?”

“I see,” said Helen. “Of course I see.”

Then she said, “That gas station over there, in Texas? Let’s cross and get a nice cold cola.”

“I thought you were an orange gal,” said J.P.

“I wonder if Orange Crush has reached Texas yet?” said Helen.

Les took the Hudson over the bridge and pulled in next to the station. J.P. went in for the drinks and Helen and Les walked to a picnic table set in a glade of trees. In a bit, J.P. came out with two Coca-Colas and an Orange Crush.

“See how sophisticated they are in Texas, Helen?” he said, holding up the Orange Crush, and they all laughed. Helen sat on the table’s bench while J.P. and Les sat on the tabletop. They enjoyed the cold jolt of the beverages, and the shade of the willow trees so close to the great brown rush of the river.

“Now, I don’t know a thing about your business,” she said, “but it seems to me that if you go in with that big gangster machine gun and shoot holes in the ceiling and blow out windows all up and down Main Street, the first thing that’s going to happen is that everybody is going to say, ‘Why, what’s Baby Face Nelson doing in a little Arkansas town?’ The second thing is, every Texas Ranger between here and Tijuana is going to head up to this very spot. And the third thing is, every Division boy in Chicago takes the Ford Tri-Motor to Dallas and joins the Rangers at the roadblocks. And you remember what happened to Bonnie and Clyde at the roadblock?”

“Wasn’t a roadblock, as I heard the story,” said Les. “And it was only one Ranger and a bunch of cowboys and sheriffs.”

“The point remains the same: anything that draws attention to the great Mr. Baby Face out of his Midwest stomping ground is big news. It’s what they call man bites dog; it’s so different, it makes itself noticed. It makes things hard. So if you and J.P. go blasting into that bank, you alert them all. ‘Come get Baby Face,’ you say, ‘and get famous fast.’”

“Helen has a point,” said J.P.

“Sure she does,” said Les, “but can you take the bank all by your lonesome? That’s the real point. You alone? Good a criminal as you are, it’s no easy thing, you’re looking one way and the farmer pulls the .47 caliber Dragoon revolver out of his pants and blasts you. Banks are, minimum, two-man jobs. This gas station, that would work for one man. But, what, maybe seven dollars and change?”

“I am not saying he does it alone,” said Helen.

“What are you saying?” said Les.

“I am saying, you wait here in the trees, three miles away, drinking a Coca-Cola,” said Helen, “and J.P. and I will rob the bank.”

After they were done laughing, it occurred to both Les and J.P. that Helen hadn’t told a joke, she had laid out a possibility.

“Honey, it’s very dangerous work. I can’t risk you for a few dollars.”

“I’m risking me, sweetie, you aren’t. And if it’s the difference between another tourist cabin, with J.P. snoring on the couch, and separate rooms in a first-class hotel, plus fine meals among the gentry in the dining room and a bath every single day, for two minutes of danger I can do it.”

“Les, she’s not far off, if at all,” said J.P. “Two people aren’t twice as good as one for a bank, they’re twenty times as good.”

“Here’s another thing,” said Helen.

“You have thought hard on this,” said Les.

“I have indeed.”

“So this one will be rich, I bet,” he said.

“Very rich indeed, Mr. Gillis. I will get a cheroot and clench it in my teeth. I will wear a bucket hat. I will put on some black hose. I will call J.P. Clyde and he will call me Bonnie.”

“Bonnie and that dumb buckra Clyde are dead, sweetie. As you mentioned, they ran into a Ranger with a Browning rifle and that was that.”

“Dead in body but not in spirit. To these folks, they were heroes. They still talk and dream about them. So if they think it’s Bonnie and Clyde, that’s all they’ll talk about, and no matter how the Division detectives hammer on them, it’ll always be Bonnie and Clyde. It’s like spreading a fog over it all, so much Bonnie and Clyde stuff, there won’t be a soul who connects it with the great and famous Chicago gangster Baby Face Nelson.”