A prowl car passed outside the car’s windows, and the way it drove lazy and relaxed was enough for Harv. He started the car, knocked it into first, and drove back toward the downtown.
“HAPPY ANNIVERSARY,” KATHRYN SAID, JOINING GEORGE IN Tich’s rumpled bed.
He reached to a nightstand and grabbed a pack of cigarettes and his lighter.
“I’m gonna buy you the biggest ring in Havana,” he said.
“I don’t need it.”
“We’re going to go to all those fancy clubs and drink rum. I’ll smoke cigars and fish.”
“What can I do?”
“Any damn thing you want.”
“Then what?”
“You want more?” George asked.
“I don’t like to be bored, George. I hate being bored.”
Kathryn turned her head on his chest to look at him. He ashed the cigarette into his palm and scatted it onto the floor, passing the cigarette to her. “Lang’s lemonade sure sneaks up on you,” she said.
“The trick is to keep on drinking.”
“So I heard.”
“Kit, pull the shades.”
“You got to be kidding.”
“We got the house all to ourselves.”
“This place is depressing.”
“Bed still works,” he said, rocking it back and forth with his butt, making the springs squeak.
“Come on.”
“It’s our anniversary,” he said.
“You read the papers?” she asked.
“Always bad news,” he said. “Take off that nightie.”
“I’ll leave it on,” she said. “Just be quiet.”
She kicked out of her panties and straddled him, George flat on his back and looking up at her with puppy-dog eyes. She reached for him, and he told her that he loved her.
She reached for him again, knowing this was going to take some work.
Kathryn slapped George across his face and told him to try a little harder. The strap of her slip had fallen off one shoulder by the time they finally got the show started, and she alternated with a firm hand on his chest and dropping them both loose at her sides, feeling him inside her, George with his eyes closed, Kathryn thinking that, in the weakened light, he really did favor Ricardo Cortez, and for a while there was a pleasant moment when he was Ricardo Cortez and this wasn’t a crummy nest of a bed but the biggest, fattest bed in Havana, with silk sheets, and guitar music floating in from the brick streets. And the air smelled like sweet flowers and tobacco, and she arched her back more, her mouth parted, and then reached her nails into George’s shoulder and said, “Did you hear that?”
“Damn it, Kit,” George said, opening his eyes and crawling out from under her.
She pulled down her silk slip
George walked to the window and peeked outside. “Nothing. Not a damn thing.”
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s finish.”
“I need a drink.”
He started slamming cabinets in the kitchen, looking for some more gin but instead finding Tich’s stash of Log Cabin bourbon, bottom-shelf kind of stuff, that George poured over ice. He turned on the radio, saying he was listening for any news on them but only finding some kids’ show again. He drank and brooded there on the sofa until the shadows fell across the floor. Tich was back sometime later, dragging that old foot and bringing them an angel food cake from his church service and a.45 automatic he sold to George for $17.50.
George grabbed the gun but didn’t eat a bit of the cake, and he and Kathryn both went to bed sometime late that night, not really knowing when, all that time kind of getting mixed together. They slept apart, Kathryn not waking until she heard Tich had returned, and the ugly little man handed her a telegram from Gainesville, Texas. HAD SEVERAL TOUGH BREAKS… DEAL FELL THROUGH. TRIED TO GET LATER APPOINTMENT. BEST PROSPECT WAS AFRAID. IMPOSSIBLE. CHANGED HER MIND. DON’T WANT TO BRING HOME A SAD TALE. CAN GO ON IF ADVISABLE. WIRE INSTRUCTIONS HERE.
“Where’s the bottle?” she asked.
HARVEY WALKED UP THE DRIVEWAY OF THE LITTLE HOUSE on Rayner early that Tuesday morning after sleeping a night in the car at a tourist camp over the river in West Memphis, Arkansas. With the.45 loose at his side, he checked the back door and found it unlocked. He pressed on, not knowing who all was in the house. The kitchen was bare, a black skillet left cold on the burner, with the grease turning white and hard. He shifted the gun in his hand and moved into the main room, where a bunch of pillows and blankets was left on the couch, full ashtrays and half-finished glasses scattered across the room. He looked for suitcases, satchels, anything where they’d keep his dough if they had it with them at all. But he’d take whatever they had, fight over it if it came to that, and then he’d be on the great, beautiful, open road.
He heard sounds coming from a back bedroom.
He crept forward, and through a narrow crack saw the nude back of Kathryn, who was on top of George and riding him. He only saw George’s hairy legs and big feet and was glad he couldn’t see more, finally spotting a fat leather grip at the edge of the bed.
“Hope I didn’t stop you from the morning routine,” he said, tipping his hat at Kit. She crawled off George and covered herself with the entire sheet, George stumbling to his feet.
He walked up to Harvey as naked as you please and shook his head.
“Take it, Harv.”
“How much is left?” Harvey asked. “I only want what’s mine.”
“Three grand, give or take a few hundred,” George said. “Rest is hidden.”
“I’ll be wanting the rest.”
“How were we to know you pooled your goddamn money with ours at Cann’s place?” he said. “Your own fault.”
“Good luck, George.”
“Where’s Miller?”
“Dead,” Harvey said. “Nitti snatched him.”
“How’d Nitti know?”
“Pussy sure can make a man blind,” Harvey said. “You better get your eyes checked, George.”
“Skip the commentary, you rotten SOB,” Kathryn said. “Get what’s yours and get gone.”
Harvey tipped his hat, the leather grip feeling heavy and fat in his left hand. He hoisted it onto the table and opened the top, a breeze through a cracked window fluttering the loose bundles of cash. He caught sight of two garbagemen conversing with a fella who’d just parked across the street. The man opened his hood and stood against the fat fender.
The garbagemen had good haircuts. The man with the busted car shifted his weight, placing a hand on his belt, the son of a bitch carrying a rod. All three men glanced up at the bungalow, trying not to stare, first light still an hour away.
Harvey didn’t say a word, only snatched up the grip and walked out of the kitchen, hopping a fence to another house and then another, before finding his machine parked out on Speedway, knocking it into first and thinking what a beautiful day it was going to be.
KATHRYN WOULD LATER HEAR HOW MA COLEMAN HAD REBUKED Lang and Geraline three times before shooing them away and telling them federal agents were everywhere. Lang tried his best to get back to that willow tree he’d been told about, Geraline pleading with the blind old woman to let her inside, saying that Kathryn missed her little Pekingese dog and needed her furs for the winter. But the old woman wildly aimed a little.22 and said they wouldn’t last a mile if they picked up Kathryn’s things. “If they knew what was good for ’em, they’d get back in their car and keep driving till they were out of Texas.” The whole thing didn’t seem to bother Geraline but rattled poor Lang so bad that the little girl had to hold his cigarette while he lit it. She even told Lang he didn’t have the nerves for gangster work.
He ignored the kid.
And then fifty miles down the road, she started in on how much she missed her folks and started to primp up to cry.
“You told Kathryn you wanted to go back to Memphis.”
“Please,” Geraline said. “I want my momma.”
And he’d found a station, walking inside with her and purchasing a one-way ticket to Oklahoma City. He handed her a five-dollar bill and wished her good luck.