Стивен Хантер - G-Man

“Charles,” yelled Purvis from the left, still invisible behind the crib, “bring him down!”

Without willing it, he drew the Thompson gun to shoulder and rotated it upward, and his two strong hands clamped its two swept-back grips hard against him, mooring the heavy thing solidly. Through his right eye, through the aperture in the rather too complex Lyman ladder-style rear sight, and at the point of the blade of the front, he tracked the running man, computing for deflection, velocity, and trajectory, rolling smoothly in pace with the runner’s speed, and when all equations suggested to him they had been solved, his finger feathered against the trigger. With a hydraulic spasm, as if operating in an environment of thick jelly, the gun fired four times in less than a third of a second, with only the last shot seeming to miss the target, as the Cutts compensator on the muzzle compensated, as usual, nothing. Four spent shells tumbled to the right.

Over the top of the gun, and through the sudden screen of gun smoke, he saw a thin gray smear of blur, which seemed to appear from nowhere, as Floyd took his shipment of lead hard, and went down hard, as if his knees had been poleaxed, and he rolled in the high grass, squirmed, wriggled, tried to rise again.

“Give him another squirt!” screamed Mel.

Charles set about to comply, but at that instant two East Liverpool officers were on the fallen man, subduing and disarming him.

“Good shooting, Sheriff,” said Mel.

“Nice work,” said Ed. “Man, you’re a terror.”

Charles thumbed the safety, set the gun at a forty-five-degree angle upward toward the Ohio sky, tucking the butt into the well of his hip with the trigger untouched by his finger.

“Let’s see what we have bagged,” said Mel.

They set out to examine the downed man.

“Hope it ain’t the postman,” said Ed.

“Maybe it’s the Widow Conkle’s boyfriend,” said McKee.

“He tried to outrun the Thompson,” said Charles. “Only Pretty Boy Floyd could be so stupid.”

It was indeed Pretty Boy. He lay in the grass, his coat twisted, his hair a mess, his face knitted in pain. He was punk tough even now, with a prizefighter’s aura of physical strength though clearly broken in bone and pierced in flesh by the bullets. But he didn’t seem to be worried about his wounds or his fate. He was okay with it. The world wouldn’t see Charlie Floyd go soft at the end. The two officers stood over him.

“He tried to get cute with these,” one of them said, holding out a .45 automatic he’d stripped off the wounded man. The other officer had one too.

“What’s your name, fella?” asked Purvis, kneeling.

“Murphy,” said the man, as if he was hungry to get in a bar fight. Maybe they could kill him, but, goddammit, they couldn’t pacify him.

“Sure looks like Charlie Floyd to me,” said Ed Hollis. “Same square-headed hillbilly mug, same pig eyes, same Negro lips.”

“Fuck you, G-Man,” said the man.

“You’re Floyd,” said Purvis.

“Yeah, I’m Floyd,” said the man, sneering. “I just made you famous!”

“How bad you hit?”

“Stretch there hit me three times in the brisket. I’m done for.”

“I’m afraid you are,” said Purvis. Then he turned, rose, and said, “Okay, I’m going to take the car and find a phone to call Washington. You ride with this guy to the hospital or the morgue, whichever, I’ll catch up.”

“Yes sir,” said Charles.

“Nice work, fellas. The Director will be proud.”

He turned, and as he jogged back to the car, they could see other police vehicles pulling up to the Conkle farm, perhaps drawn by the sound of the shots or the smell of the blood.

McKee leaned over Floyd, who was knitting in pain as he adjusted to his fate. Now the accumulation of blood seeping out from beneath him was beginning to show.

“Got anything to say, Oklahoma? Was that you at Kansas City?”

“I ain’t telling you nothing, you sonovabitch,” Floyd said.

“Okay, pal, if that’s your choice, that’s your choice.”

“Fuck you,” Floyd said. “I’m going.”

EVANSTON, ILLINOIS

Early November 1934

“Tony!” yelled Les.

Tony Accardo turned, saw his old pal, and ran to him. They had a nice embrace, as both had grown up in the Patch, that tougher-than-tough square mile of West Chicago where so few made it out, but both of them had. Both were successes. Tony was a high-level manager in the organization, yet to be named but referred to colloquially as “The Italians,” under a Mr. Nitto, known incorrectly to the press as a Mr. Nitti. Les was a true star, now Public Enemy No. 1.

“Good to see you, pal!”

“Good to see you!” said Les. They were outside the new Marshall Fields Department Store, on the main street of the little city just north of Chicago, with its own miles of beautiful lakefront. Evanston was, as well, a city of elms, and the smell of burning leaves choked the air, as every fall the good folks of the town burned the fallen leaves in the street. A clock overhead showed that it was exactly 1 p.m., as Les had planned.

“ Brrr! Come on, it’s cold, let’s get inside somewhere.”

Tony—“Joe Batters,” to the trade — crossed the street, and Tony led Les down a brisk block, across Orrington Avenue, right at the library, turned past the Carlson Building, walked a few dozen feet farther, and then dipped into a restaurant called Cooley’s Cupboard.

“Whoa! Hate the chills,” said Tony. “The older I get, the thinner my skin gets!”

“Ain’t it the truth!” agreed Les. “I’m just up from the South. Texas. I forgot how cold Chicago gets.”

They found a booth in the place, which was done in hardwood after the fashion of something Medieval. It was a popular joint, now abuzz with lunchers, many from the big Carlson Building next door, Evanston’s only skyscraper and leading professional building.

“You’ll like this place. They do curly fries up real good. I can’t get enough of ’em.”

“Sounds great,” said Les.

“And no booze. Evanston’s still dry, but I know you’re a teetotaler and don’t like boozy slobs all over you.”

“God bless the WCTU!”

They both laughed, as indeed Evanston was the national headquarters of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, their building not a block away.

“So how’s Helen?”

“Great. Love her so. Best gal in the world. How’s Ginny?”

“Ah, she’s fine. You know, they get touchy, kid two out, kid three on the way. I got something on the side downtown, so I still get my fun in, though not as much. You’d never do the deed with nobody but Helen, though?”

“That’s right. I’m a one-woman guy, God help me. He made me a bank robber, but he also made me a guy who only fucked one gal in his whole life and considered himself lucky each and every time.”

“Les… God, you haven’t changed. Still stubborn, brave, one-track. Crazy, maybe, but honest crazy, no-bones-about-it crazy, crazy with guts, still going strong, even as they’re bringing you guys down, one at a time.”

“That’s me.”

It was an entrance into the subject Les had in mind, but he decided not to force it. Instead, he and Tony chatted about old times, remembered scrapes, near misses, bad cops, good cops, mentors, enemies, grudges, allegiances, who had gotten whacked and who still kicked around — this, that, and the other thing — and if you’d noted them in the back of Cooley’s, eating chicken in gravy with curly fries and drinking Cokes, you’d have taken them for insurance men, each well turned out, in sleek suits, starched shirts, bright ties, shined shoes, nice hats, looking so bourgeois it would break your balls to find out what the deal really was.