Kathryn had been knocked up by a goofy, redheaded son of a preacher the summer she’d turned fourteen. A boy she hadn’t given two thoughts about, but she had agreed to go with him to a nearby creek only after he’d asked her about a hundred times following those two-hour sermons. He hadn’t been too bad looking ’cept for that goofy old red hair, and in Saltillo he sure had been somebody, already applying to Bible college and wearing mail-order suits on Sunday while he strolled the rows, passing the collection plate. Studying back on it, Kathryn had to admit it was the collection plate that maybe did it. The church had two of them, and they’d been gold-plated, with red velvet bottoms, and when that dumb boy would stand at the row, waiting for the change and crumpled bills-crumpled so no one knew who was being cheap or too boastful, because, if you boasted on it, the preacher told you there wasn’t no reward in heaven-the boy would grin at her like her Sunday dress was made of gauze and he could see right down to her cotton panties. So here comes this lazy Sunday, sometime in the heat of the summer, just like it was now. Maybe that’s why Kathryn thought of it now, sipping lemonade and smoking a cigarette on her blind grandma Coleman’s porch, remembering them sneaking around the corner of the white clapboard church, cotton fields as endless as the ocean ’round them, him handing her a Fatima cigarette, while his daddy stood on the front steps and clasped men’s hands with two of his and complimented women on their silly, ridiculous, cheap hats, and would tear up at word of someone coming down with diphtheria or the piles.
The boy, who was only a couple years older, held the match under the Fatima and mentioned that it was a “fine ole day for a swim” and asked why didn’t she quit being such an old scaredy-cat. Oh, hell, how that had done it. Nothing could get Cleo Brooks-thinking of herself as another person back then-all steamed up like someone telling her that she was chicken. And so she’d shrugged, and said she just hoped he didn’t drown because she wasn’t gonna take the time to save him.
“I cleared out the snakes yesterday,” the boy said, his mouth opening wide, showing teeth that now in memory seemed a great deal like old Ed Weatherford’s, and maybe that’s why the detective had some familiarity to her.
She’d eaten lunch with her parents after the service, and while they’d gone to nap in the front bedroom she’d snuck out a back door and down a long dirt road for a mile or so, following a trail of barbed wire to where it had been cut to a path leading to a shaded forest filled with ancient oaks and hickory trees. The creek breaking into a sandy bend in a wide cut from her neighbor’s pasture.
The redheaded boy was there, still dressed in the mail-order suit, tie in his pocket and shoes knotted and hung on the root of a tree that grew straight out over the water. He played with a stick in the sand but smiled when he heard her swat away the limbs, leaves crunching underfoot.
“There better not be no snakes.”
“I swear on it.”
“And you try any funny business, boy, and I’ll scream my head off.”
“I swear.”
She walked down a smooth path, the trees giving the whole bend a nice stretch of cover like the top of a green circus tent. And she’d taken off her shoes and pulled her dress up to her knees, wading into the coolness of the creek that dipped over a rocky edge, flowing into a wide swimming hole that she’d been coming to since she could recall. The coldness of the water choked her breath, as she found the other side and took a seat beside the boy on a fallen oak.
He offered her another cigarette. And they sat there and smoked until the cigarettes were done. He just stood and walked down to the creek edge and began to take off his suit, hanging it beside his shoes just as natural as if he was in his own bedroom.
She knew her face must’ve turned red as she quickly turned away, eyeing his pale white hide from between her laced fingers, watching him toe at the water with his ole peter pointing up high and crooked as a wild divining rod searching for a well. He was skinny like a mongrel dog-she recalled that-and his ribs and stick-figure arms somewhat comical.
He immersed himself, spitting a fountain of water, and splashed and paddled around a bit, before calling her “a scaredy ole chicken,” and she told him to shut his damn mouth, with a sly little grin.
“You turn around and close your eyes,” she said. “And count to ten. I see you peeking, and I’m going to go straight home.”
“I swear on it.”
“I wish you’d say something else. The more you say that, the less I believe you.”
He paddled away and started to count to fifty. Dumb ole Cleo Brooks began to unbutton the front of her dress, getting down to her bloomers, and pretty soon those were heaped up on a hot rock, and she jumped on in the swimming hole, feeling that coolness around her, the relaxing sound of the creek bubbling over that sandy bend.
The boy paddled toward her.
She paddled away.
He got close, and she turned her naked butt to him.
She found herself in a little rocky elbow hidden under a jutting mossy boulder. The sunlight broke and scattered like ticker tape above her, and she reached up with her long, skinny arms to hold on to the rock’s point, shaking her head and telling that boy he better find his own real estate, mister.
“Scaredy-cat.”
“I ain’t scared of you.”
“How come you’re shaking?”
“I ain’t shaking.”
“Scaredy-cat.”
“I ain’t scared.”
He paddled to where he could stand and moved close, his long fingers reaching for her boobies like a fella trying to test the ripeness of fruit.
“Hey,” she said.
“That’s okay, sugarpie.”
“That ain’t how you touch a woman.”
“You ain’t no woman,” he said. “You’re a girl. And my brother tole me that a girl gets real excited when you touch her parts.”
“Cut it out.”
“Hold on, sugarpie.”
“See how you like it,” she said, laughing, and reached out and grabbed his pecker like she was trying for first prize in a tug-of-war, and the boy’s eyes got real big, and he toppled over into the water, and stupid old Cleo Brooks didn’t run but had to be bold and not a scaredy-cat and found herself on top of the boulder without a stitch, sunning herself from where the light broke out and warmed the stone. She rested on her elbows and closed her eyes, and figured that boy would run off with his sore pecker in his hand, but instead when she blinked in the dimming sun-thinking maybe a cloud had passed-she saw him standing over her, dripping and smiling, kneeling down and grabbing for her ankles.
“Close your eyes, sugarpie.”
“I ain’t your sugarpie,” she said, but let him lay flat on top of her and kiss her hard on the mouth, feeling for his crooked ole pecker and mumbling things he’d probably learned in romance stories from his mama’s ragged copies of Cosmopolitan. When he called her “darling” and “my love,” she snickered, and, boy, that’s when he took the chance and stuck it on in, and said, “If you don’t breathe, you won’t have a baby. It’s true.”
And so Cleo Brooks took a big breath, closed her eyes, and puffed out her cheeks, as the preacher’s son rode her like he was high on an old-fashioned bicycle going down a rocky path.
The whole meeting on the rock didn’t take ten seconds.
When he finished, her not feeling a thing, he crawled off her and walked over to his clothes and got dressed. Not looking at her till he knotted his tie tight at the throat. He tossed down a crumpled dollar she knew he’d stolen from the collection plate.
He shook his head and sat, saying, “You tricked me. You got the devil in you. Like all women. You tricked me.”
And that was the story that all Saltillo and part of Tupelo heard as her little white belly had grown large and she’d stood before his father on the front steps of the church, the preacher not willing to dirty the sanctuary with the likes of a tricky little girl like Cleo Brooks.
She had a daughter. The dumb boy went off to Bible college.
When Ora said let’s pack up and leave Mississippi, Kathryn didn’t hesitate. They bundled up the baby, packed two suitcases, and got on the train to Memphis and then onto Fort Worth. She took on the name Kathryn after a fancy woman who used to tip big at the Bon-Ton after a manicure.
Kathryn finished the cigarette on blind Ma Coleman’s porch, letting the wind take the ash and scatter it everywhere. She thought about how things mighta been different if she could have stayed in Saltillo, but none of the paths seemed that appealing to her.
She spotted the truck from a ways off, coming down the dirt road, kicking up the grit and the dust, and she stood from the wooden steps and walked blind, shielding the sun with her hand over her eyes until the truck stopped down by that beaten mailbox and out walked George R. Kelly, lugging two suitcases, his fine hat crushed and crooked on his head and sweat rings around his neck and dress shirt.
“Son of a bitch,” he said, walking. “Son of a bitch.”
Kathryn walked to meet him, not caring if her bare feet tore on the gravel, and stepped halfway up the road. “Where you been, you dumb ape?”
“You’re sore at me? If that doesn’t beat all.”
“Yeah, I’m sore. Took you long enough.”
“You and Louise took the car and ten thousand dollars.”
“I told you I’d be here.”
“You’re sore.”
“I’m sore.”
George let out all his breath, slipping his hat down over his eyes. He shook his head like she was the one who’d gone plain nuts.
“We got to bury the loot.”
“Grandma won’t be too pleased.”
“Grandma doesn’t have to know,” he said. “She’s blind.”
“She knows everything.”
George shook his head, as if contemplating a hell of an arithmetic problem. “Do you at least have a drink for me?”
“YOU KNOW WHY I CALLED,” CHARLIE URSCHEL SAID.
“Yes, sir,” Bruce Colvin said. “We got within a few hours of catching them in Des Moines. Their coffee wasn’t even cold. Their car was spotted in Buffalo. Yes, sir, we’re onto them.”
Charlie shook his head. “Not that.”
“Yes, sir,” young Bruce Colvin said. The young boy always looked spit-polished and clean, suit creased to a knife-edge. Hair neatly parted and oiled, a Phi Beta Kappa key hanging loose from a watch chain. “I see.”
“Figured you hadn’t had time for a proper meal.”
“No, sir.”
“Is your steak good?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So you know what I want to discuss?”
“May I say something first?”
“Of course.”
“She’s a fine girl.”
“Oh,” Charlie said.
The young man had met Charlie at the Cattlemen’s steak house right in the heart of the warehouse district, the cows so damned close it wasn’t but a few minutes between them taking a breath and sizzling on your plate. He cut a fat slab off the porterhouse and pointed the end of the bloody fork at Bruce Colvin.
“You are an impressive young man,” Charlie said. “I know you have the best of intentions.”
“Yes, sir,” Colvin said. The federal agent had yet to touch his steak, a buzzing conversation of cowboys and roughnecks all around them. A waiter stopped by the table and refilled their glasses of sweet tea and then disappeared. Colvin used his napkin to wipe some nervous sweat from his forehead. “I thought you and Mrs. Urschel might not be pleased, and there are some complications you should know about.”
“Because of the ongoing legal matters.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Isn’t this a private matter?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Does Agent Jones know?”
Colvin nodded, and took a small bite of his steak. Above him loomed the head of a long-horned steer with yellow glass eyes. The eyes were as large as golf balls.
“There’s been some trouble with the Shannons,” Colvin said. “We might not be able to bring them back to Oklahoma City for trial.”
Charlie listened and continued to chew the meat, along with the fat and gristle, remembering coming here with Tom Slick, the restaurant being one of Slick’s favorites because he didn’t have to rub elbows with the hucksters always trying to pick his pocket. Charlie remembered Slick sitting right here in this very booth, offering some solid advice on women, talking about one argument or another that Charlie had had with his late sister. What was that? Something about the women who gave you the worst trouble were the only ones worth having. Just what did he mean by that?
“There’s a hearing tomorrow in Dallas,” Colvin said. “We expect the judge to extradite, but their attorney will no doubt fight. He will appeal, and this could drag on.”
“What’s Agent Jones say?”
“He said he’ll take care of it.”
“How?” Charlie asked.
“I don’t know. Agent Jones is pretty determined to bring them back.”
“I don’t give a good goddamn about the Shannons,” Charlie said. “They treated me decent.”
“They were accomplices.”
“They’re not to blame. They’re simple and weak-minded.”
“We will find the Kellys,” Colvin said. “You have my word.”
“They’re not to blame either.”
“Sir?”
“I want to tell you something, Mr. Colvin, and I want you to listen. I need you to do me a favor, and I understand it may not be easy.”
“Anything, sir.”
“I want you to realize this favor has nothing to do with your relations with my niece. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you know how to tap a man’s telephone line? This damn thing doesn’t stop or end with the Kellys.”
The boy looked as confused and mindless as the steer over his head. His blue eyes widened as he leaned in and whispered, “Who?”
Charlie looked up from his steak for a moment and then began to saw into the meat closest to the bone. “The son of a bitch who just walked through the door.”
Colvin craned his head, and said, “That’s Mr. Jarrett.”
“That’s your villain in this picture,” Charlie said. He broke off a piece of toast and sopped up the blood and juices. “He lunches here every day.”
“Sir?”
JONES HAD ARMON SHANNON BROUGHT TO THE LITTLE WINDOW-LESS room in the basement of the Dallas Courthouse. Nothing but a small table and a couple chairs, an ashtray, and a pitcher of ice water. The pitcher had started to bead up and sweat in the airless heat. Jones removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, exposing his hand-tooled rig and.45. He paced the room, studying on what he knew about old Potatoes’s situation, until the boy was hustled in, manacled at the wrist and ankle, and seated with a firm hand.
The deputy locked the metal door behind him.
“You and George are good buddies, I suppose.”
Armon said nothing.
“Your daddy says you look up to him.”
Armon looked at the floor.
“Would you like some ice water?”
Nothing.
Jones poured a couple glasses and pulled up a chair near Armon. The boy just sat and sulked, not lifting his eyes.
“You’re in a hell of a pickle, son,” Jones said. “I don’t think you need a high-dollar lawyer to explain that. You’re looking at a lifetime in prison. You need me to tell you a little bit about those animals who live there?”
The boy lifted his eyes.
“’Spec not. I bet your friend Mr. Kelly might’ve told you a few of the highlights from when he was in Leavenworth.”
“Prison can’t hold ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly.”
“ ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly. Yes, sir. Desperado hero. You think a man’s a hero for holding a gun to a fella’s spine and keeping him hostage? You need to get into your thick head that’s just plain old-fashioned cowardice. You need to be thinkin’ about your own self. Your wife and that little girl of yours. You’ll be feeble and gray before you see ’ em again. A good chance that baby will be taken by the state on account of her parents being in prison.”
“My wife wasn’t party to this.”
“How are we to know if you’re not talking to us? Your daddy is a smart man. He told us a good bit, and I gave him my word that we’d make that known in court.”
“I’m not a rat.”
“You learn that from a Cagney picture? Hell, son, you’re just a farmer. Look at the dirt under your nails.”
“I won’t rat on ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly.”
“He ain’t Billy the Kid.”
“You want me to stand up for the bankers and oilmen?”
Jones rubbed his face, took a sip of water, and leaned back in his chair. “I came to you because I told your daddy I’d try. This is a favor, son, and it won’t come ’round again. You need some plain talk and understanding of this predicament. You think Kelly and your stepsister would do the same for you?”
“I know they would.”
Jones took another sip and grunted. “You want to bet?”
“Kit told me you coppers would try and buddy up. She said y’all can’t breathe without telling a lie.”
“I’m offering you time. You’re young enough that you can still claim some of it. Your story doesn’t have to go like this.”
“Go to hell.”
“Boy,” Jones said, sadly, “that just doesn’t sound right coming out of your mouth. I knew you’d be like this, and some of the fellas thought they might be able to get you to tell them where to find the Kellys by stomping the ever-living shit out of you. I told them that wasn’t necessary. I figured you had a level head.”
“You figured wrong.”
Jones stood.
“How much they promise you?”
“They ain’t paying me.”
“I’d at least ask something for my child,” Jones said. “Don’t be foolish. You know Kathryn spent up toward two thousand dollars just on panties, shoes, and such? They’re living it up. Big parties, spending sprees, booze, and high times. I bet they’re laughing at the ole Shannon family.”
“They’ll bust us out.”
“You think George is worried about you?” Jones asked, slipping into his suit jacket and reaching for his hat.
Armon looked down at his manacled legs. “Fuck you.”
“Boy, those words just don’t fit your mouth,” Jones said. “High times. While your youngun is about to be sent to the orphanage, they’re popping champagne bottles.”
“They’ll bust us out.”
“Sure,” Jones said, reaching for the door. “Did you know Kathryn doesn’t even speak to her other kin? They’ve tried to call and write her for years, but she thinks she’s too good for ’em. Just like she thinks she’s too high-hat for you, Potatoes.”
“That’s a lie.”
“I’m a trained investigator, son.”
“She visits her grandma in Coleman ever since I know’d her. She loves that old woman. Stick that in your pipe, copper.”
Jones knocked on the door for the deputy. The door cracked open. “You sure are a tough nut, Potatoes. I just plain give up.”