If my brain was no larger than yours, the Government would have had me long ago, as it is I am drinking good beer and will yet see you and your family like I should have left you at first-stone dead.
I don’t worry about Bates. He will be out for the ceremonies-your slaughter.
Now I say it is up to you; if the Shannons are convicted, you can get another rich wife in hell, because that will be the only place you can use one. Adios, smart one.
Your worst enemy,
Geo. R. Kelly
I will put my fingerprints below so you can’t say some crank wrote this. See you in hell.
Charlie took a breath, neatly folded the letter, and placed it into his pocket, scanning the courtroom for Bruce Colvin. Right as the judge entered and everyone stood, Charlie damn well heard an airplane overhead. He mopped his brow with a bleached handkerchief and excused himself, making his way from the courtroom, feeling like he was going to vomit.
In the public restroom, he steadied himself at a sink, splashing cold water in his eyes. As he dried his face and looked into the mirror, he spotted Bruce Colvin, standing over his shoulder.
“Betty was concerned.”
“I’m fine.”
“We’ve tapped two lines,” Colvin said. “Jarrett’s office and his personal line at home. We can put every conversation on phonographic records. It’s very clever stuff.”
Charlie steadied himself with hands on the porcelain sink.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“We have suspicions, too.”
“I said that won’t be necessary,” Charlie said, turning from the mirror and facing Colvin, the boy’s face withering in the volume of his voice. “My concerns were unfounded. I haven’t been well.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Do I need to call Mr. Hoover myself or will you please drop this matter? Walter Jarrett is not a crook.”
“May I see what’s in the letter?”
Charlie snapped it into his hands like a piece of trash on the way out. “Why don’t you just find the Kellys, so my family can sleep. Or are you having too much fun playing house?”
35
Kathryn lost George not long after he’d wandered into the Golden Pavilion of Jehol to find a toilet. She’d said to him, “Go ahead, George, take care of yourself just as we were about to see the Dutch dancers after missing them two days in a row.” Ever since they’d been at the Fair-their first day being Tuesday-George had been downright crazy for the Dancers of Tunis featuring the Amazing Iris, drinking gin from his hip flask, feeling like he was invisible with his blond hair and white suit, Panama hat, and purple-tinted glasses. All she wanted to see was one lousy traditional Dutch dance and to spend a little time on the Streets of Paris. But keeping track of George was the trick. And God knows where Gerry went-Kathryn wasn’t her mother-the girl showing up at the same time both nights on the Avenue of Flags, where they’d all wait in line for the Sky Ride, stretched high across the Fair, dodging spotlights, the pavilions lit up like ancient pyramids in blue, green, and yellow lights, neon wrapping the streamlined buildings. George would be full-on plastered and proclaim himself the real Buck Rogers and make folks in the Sky Ride laugh. He’d grown that goddamn cocky.
Not two seconds after stumbling out of the temple, he wandered up to her and asked her again about the Dancers of Tunis. “Don’t you know those girls aren’t from Africa,” she said. “They’re from Brooklyn. Two of ’em are nothing but common bubble dancers.”
“The hell you say.”
“One thing, George. I asked to see one thing.”
“So they dance in wooden shoes,” he said. “Where’s the kid?”
Kathryn shrugged. She lit a cigarette. They walked down the wide avenues hugging the lakefront. Signs pointing to every corner of the earth. LONDON. PEKING. DARKEST AFRICA.
“I bet she’s at the Enchanted Isle.”
“She doesn’t go for that kids’ stuff,” she said. “Told me she wanted to see where they made the beer.”
“Bavaria,” George said. “Heigh-ho, the gang’s all here. Let’s have pretzels, let’s have beer.”
The streets were fat with people, most of the men in crisp white shirts without ties and women in flowered dresses and straw hats, pouring past George and Kathryn, who walked in the opposite way, crowd pushing around them like water around a river stone.
“Did you call?”
“Hell, yes, I called,” he said. “What do you think took so long?”
“I figured the temple has a nice toilet.”
“Some fella keeps telling me that Joe will call me back. Said they’re working on getting us a car. Forged papers, all that stuff.”
“And then what, George?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“We leave the country?”
“This country doesn’t want us anymore,” he said. “Maybe Mexico. Maybe Cuba. Maybe Memphis.”
“Memphis?” Kathryn asked. “Are you kidding?”
“I’m tired,” he said. “Let’s get a drink.”
“WHAT ARE THE CHANCES?” DOC WHITE ASKED. “I’VE WALKED from one end of this damn Fair to the other twice and my feet done swoled up.”
“Let’s take a seat.”
Jones and White followed a crowd into a bigmouthed amphitheater, where some kind of spectacle was about to begin. This Fair wasn’t short on spectacles, Jones and White not being able to walk ten feet without some carny barker trying to lure them into some forbidden land, exotic culture, or a temple built to some damn company. He’d never seen a church as large as the worship halls they’d built to General Motors, Plymouth, and Hudson. Firestone and Goodyear. He took a seat by Doc White and pulled out some money for a boy selling Coca-Colas from a crate hung ’round his neck.
“The cable was sent from the Fair,” Jones said.
“That was two days ago, and Kelly ain’t that goddamn stupid,” White said, taking off his Stetson for a moment and running a forearm across his brow. “There’s no tellin’, and we’re wasting time.”
“Did you buy your wife somethin’?”
“Got ’er a souvenir spoon. You?”
“Bracelet,” Jones said, reaching into the pocket of his linen suit and finding a sterling silver band stamped with different exhibits from the Fair.
“Kelly ain’t here.”
“Today I seen things I never even considered,” Jones said. “Sixteen midgets emerged from a Chevrolet. A colored boy made a puppet whistle and dance. Belly dancers, sword swallowers. I walked the canals of Holland, the streets of Paris, and journeyed deep into China. A man even asked me if I wanted to meet someone named Freida Fred, an individual he noted was born with equipment of both sexes.”