I sat in the swing next to him; Karpis stopped rocking, but it rocked on a little anyway, on its own steam.
I said, “I don’t get you. You said something like that at supper, and I didn’t get you then, either.”
He sighed, and started gently rocking again; I joined in.
“Now look,” he said, as if explaining the obvious to a small child, “we’re strictly heist guys. We done some branching out into kidnapping, but that’s just another kind of stealing. Plus, our gang’s on the fluid side...”
“Fluid?”
“Yeah — people come and go. Me and the Barker boys have been together a long time, but we worked with dozens of guys, from time to time. Not tight and organized like you rackets guys.”
“What’ve you got against rackets guys?”
He made a face. “They’re too picky about what they’ll let you steal. They don’t like the kind of stealing that gets the heat turned on ’em; they’re in more public-service-type business.”
“Public service?”
“Yeah — pussy, drugs, bookmaking. That ain’t crime. That’s business. True crime’s you when get out and work for a living, like robbing a bank, or breaking into a place, or kidnapping somebody. Really give some effort to it. The rackets guys aren’t up for that. Yet at the same time, when those guys get mad at you, well, Jesus... anything can happen.”
“Yeah. Ask Doc Moran.”
Karpis raised a lecturing finger; he looked even more like a math teacher, now. “Okay, so maybe Chicago did okay Moran’s exit — maybe even requested it — but they didn’t pay for it. Killing people for money don’t appeal to me, or anybody connected with me. I’ll leave that to the rackets guys.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re no Chicago hoodlum.”
The Auburn keys were in my pocket.
“I’m not?”
I edged my hand near the gun under my arm.
“No,” Karpis smiled, “you’re from out East. You’re a fish out of water, in Chicago. You looking for some honest work?”
I sighed relief. To myself, that is.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Something real big’s coming up, soon.”
“How soon?”
“Friday.”
“This Friday?”
“This Friday.”
“Day after tomorrow, you mean?”
“Right.”
“What is it?”
“A snatch.”
Fine. Now I was mixed up in a kidnapping; I could see myself, being strapped into the chair, telling the reporters in the gallery how I was a private detective gone undercover to retrieve a farm girl.
“Interested?” Karpis asked.
“I might be,” I said.
“Decide by tomorrow. We’ll be driving back to Illinois, to a tourist court near Aurora. We’re meeting some people there, to go over the plans.”
“I appreciate the offer.”
“We can use you. We were counting on having Candy Walker, you know. And we don’t really have time to go pull somebody else in.”
“How could Walker have helped you, if he was recovering from plastic surgery?”
Karpis shifted his smile to one side of his face; it didn’t look any better there. “We just need someone to stick by the women. While we pull the snatch, and for a time, after. Easy work. Candy could’ve cut it, even with bandages on his puss.”
“I see. Well...”
“You’d only get half a cut — half of which goes to Candy. Or to Lulu, that is. We look after our own.”
“That’s only right.”
“Still, it should run five grand. What do you say?”
Five grand!
“I’ll, uh, sleep on it.”
“Good. Maybe you can get to know Lulu while you’re at it.”
“You got to be kidding... she just lost her man...”
“She’s going to need comforting. She needs somebody to look after her.”
“Well, uh...”
He put a fatherly hand on my shoulder; he was younger than me, and I owned suits that weighed more than he did — but his words carried weight just the same.
He said, “Guys like us got to pick our girls from the circles we move in. My first real girl was Herman Barker’s widow. Took up with her before Herman’s body was cool. It’s nothing to be ashamed of — just the facts of life in this game.”
“I do feel sorry for the kid,” I said, referring to Louise. This was perfect, actually: Karpis was trying to fix me up with the girl I’d come here after.
He slipped his arm around my shoulder. “Don’t feel like you’re getting sloppy seconds, Jimmy. Mind if I call you Jimmy? For example. I took up with a lot of whores in my time, but I never had any complaints about their personalities or their morals or brains or what-have-you. You can always trust a whore.”
That might make a nice needlepoint for Mildred Gillis to hang on her farmhouse wall.
“Now, Dolores, she was the sister-in-law of a guy I used to do jobs with; she’s been with me since she was sixteen. Don’t get the idea she’s fat, either — she’s just knocked up. Second time. We decided to have this one — what the hell.”
“Uh, congratulations, Karpis.”
“Thanks, Jimmy.”
I noticed a small figure walking across the farmyard toward the barn; he had a bottle of liquor in one hand, tommy gun slung over one arm.
Nelson.
“What’s he up to?” I asked.
“Oh — just taking his friend Chase some refreshment.”
“His friend who?”
“Chase. John Paul Chase. Guy worships Nelson; adores him.” He let out a nasty snicker that went well with his smile. “If Helen weren’t around, I think they’d be an item.”
“What’s Chase doing in the barn?”
“Staying there.”
“What do you mean?”
Karpis shrugged. “Staying there. He sits up in the loft with a rifle and keeps watch out that little window or door or whatever it is. See?”
I looked over toward the barn, and saw the open loft door, but nothing else.
I said, “Doesn’t anybody take turns with him?”
“No,” Karpis said. “Nelson told him to take that post, and he didn’t even blink. Just does whatever Nelson says. Sits up there and reads Western pulp magazines and keeps watch. Three days, now. Sleeps there, too — but I never knew a man to sleep lighter. Nice to have him around.”
“Hell, he didn’t even have supper with us.”
“Nelson took some out to him. He treats Chase fine — like a faithful dog.”
“Is there anybody else here I haven’t met yet?”
Karpis flashed that awful smile. “Not that I can think of, offhand.”
He went inside and I followed him; he joined the poker game, taking Nelson’s empty chair. I watched for a few moments, then went into the living room, where Burns and Allen were just getting over. When George had said “say good night, Gracie,” I asked Karpis’ girl Dolores about sleeping arrangements.
“You could take Doc Moran’s bed,” she suggested. “It’s free.”
“No kidding.”
“There’s a lot of bedrooms in this house, but they’re all taken. The Nelsons sleep upstairs, and Alvin and me have an upstairs bedroom, and so do Paula and Fred, and Candy and Lulu too, or anyway they did.”
“Where did Moran sleep?”
She pointed behind her. “There’s a sewing room back by the kitchen, and the two Docs each had beds back there. Cots, actually.”
“Where do the farmer and his wife sleep?”
“There’s a Murphy bed in the sitting room.”
This was turning into home away from home.
“The boys sleep in there, too,” she continued, “in pallets.”
“Sounds like a full house.”
“Sure is. Could be a topsy-turvy one tonight, though. Last I knew Paula was upstairs in her and Fred’s bedroom nursin’ Lulu.”