Louly said, “How old you have to be?”

He told her to keep straight ahead.

She said, “You aren’t staying at the hotel?”

“I’m at a tourist court.”

“Charley there?”

“He’s around someplace.”

“Well, he was in Sallisaw yesterday,” Louly sounding mad now, “if that’s what you call around” seeing by Joe Young’s expression she was telling him something he didn’t know. “I thought you were in his gang.”

“He’s got an old boy name of Birdwell with him. I hook up with Choc when I feel like it.”

She was almost positive Joe Young was lying to her.

“Am I gonna see Charley or not?”

“He’ll be back, don’t worry your head about it.” He said, “We got this car, I won’t have to steal one.” Joe Young in a good mood now. “What we need Choc for?” Grinning at her close by the car. “We got each other.”

It told her what to expect.

Once they got to the tourist court and were in No. 7, like a little one-room frame house that needed paint, Joe Young took off his coat and she saw the Colt automatic with a pearl grip stuck in his pants. He laid it on the dresser by a full quart of whiskey and two glasses and poured them each a drink, his bigger than hers. She stood watching till he told her to take off her coat and when she did told her to take off her dress. Now she was in her white brassiere and panties. Joe Young looked her over before handing the smaller drink to her and clinking glasses.

“To our future.”

Louly said, “Doing what?” Seeing the fun in his eyes.

He put his glass on the dresser, brought two.38 revolvers from the drawer and offered her one. She took it, big and heavy in her hand and said, “Yeah…?”

“You know how to steal a car,” Joe Young said, “and I admire that. But I bet you never held up a place with a gun.”

“That’s what we’re gonna do?”

“Start with a filling station and work you up to a bank.” He said, “I bet you never been to bed with a grown man, either.”

Louly felt like telling him she was bigger than he was, taller, anyway, but didn’t. This was a new experience, different than with boys her age in the woods, and she wanted to see what it was like.

Well, he grunted a lot and was rough, breathed hard through his nose and smelled of Lucky Tiger hair tonic, but it wasn’t that much different than with boys. She got to liking it before he was finished and patted his back with her rough, cotton-picking fingers till he began to breathe easy again. Once he rolled off her she got her douche bag out of Otis’s grip she’d taken and went in the bathroom, Joe Young’s voice following her with, “Whoooeee…”

Then saying, “You know what you are now, little girl? You’re what’s called a gun moll.”

Joe Young slept awhile, woke up still snookered and wanted to get something to eat. So they went to Purity, Joe said was the best place in Henryetta.

Louly said at the table, “Charley Floyd came in here one time. People found out he was in town and everybody stayed in their house.”

“How you know that?”

“I know everything about him was ever written, some things only told.”

“Where’d he stay in Kansas City?”

“Mother Ash’s boardinghouse on Holmes Street.”

“Who’d he go to Ohio with?”

“The Jim Bradley gang.”

Joe Young picked up his coffee he’d poured a shot into. He said, “You’re gonna start reading about me, chile.”

It reminded her she didn’t know how old Joe Young was and took this opportunity to ask him.

“I’m thirty next month, born on Christmas Day, same as Baby Jesus.”

Louly smiled. She couldn’t help it, seeing Joe Young lying in a manger with Baby Jesus, the three Wise Men looking at him funny. She asked Joe how many times he’d had his picture in the paper.

“When I got sent to Jeff City they’s all kinds of pictures of me was in there.”

“I mean how many different times, for other stickups?”

She watched him sit back as the waitress came with their supper and he gave her a pat on the butt as she turned from the table. The waitress said, “Fresh,” and acted surprised in a cute way. Louly was ready to tell how Charley Floyd had his picture in the Sallisaw paper fifty-one times in the past year, once for each of the fifty-one banks robbed in Oklahoma, all of them claiming Charley as the bank robber. But if she told him, Joe Young would say Charley couldn’t of robbed that many since he was in Ohio part of ‘31. Which was true. An estimate said he might’ve robbed thirty-eight banks, but even that might cause Joe Young to be jealous and get cranky, so she let it drop and they ate their chicken-fried steaks.

Joe Young told her to pay the bill, a buck-sixty for everything including rhubarb pie for dessert, out of her running-away money. They got back to the tourist court and he screwed her again on her full stomach, breathing through his nose, and she saw how this being a gun moll wasn’t all a bed of roses.

In the morning they set out east on Highway 40 for the Cookson Hills, Joe Young driving the Model A with his elbow out the window, Louly holding her coat close to her, the collar up against the wind, Joe Young talking a lot, saying he knew where Choc liked to hide. They’d go on up to Muskogee, cross the Arkansas and head down along the river to Braggs. “I know the boy likes that country around Braggs.” Along the way he could hold up a filling station, show Louly how it was done.

Heading out of Henryetta she said, “There’s one.”

He said, “Too many cars.”

Thirty miles later leaving Checotah, turning north toward Muskogee, Louly looked back and said, “What’s wrong with that Texaco station?”

“Something about it I don’t like,” Joe Young said. “You have to have a feel for this work.”

Louly said, “You pick it.” She had the.38 he gave her in a black and pink bag her mom had crocheted for her.

They came up on Summit and crept through town, both of them looking, Louly waiting for him to choose a place to rob. She was getting excited. They came to the other side of town and Joe Young said, “There’s our place. We can fill up, get a cup of coffee.”

Louly said, “Hold it up?”

“Look it over.”

“It’s sure a dump.”

Two gas pumps in front of a rickety place, paint peeling, a sign that said eats and told that soup was a dime and a ham-burg five cents.

They went in while a bent-over old man filled their tank, Joe Young bringing his whiskey bottle with him, almost drained, and put it on the counter. The woman behind it was skin and bones, worn out, brushing strands of hair from her face. She placed cups in front of them and Joe Young poured what was left in the bottle into his.

Louly did not want to rob this woman.

The woman saying, “I think she’s dry.”

Joe Young was concentrating on dripping the last drops from his bottle. He said, “Can you help me out?”

Now the woman was pouring their coffee. “You want shine? Or I can give you Kentucky for three dollars.”

“Gimme a couple,” Joe Young said, drawing his Colt, laying it on the counter, “and what’s in the till.”

Louly did not want to rob this woman. She was thinking you didn’t have to rob a person just ‘cause the person had money, did you?

The woman said, “Goddamn you, mister.”

Joe Young picked up his gun and went around to open the cash register at the end of the counter. Taking out bills he said to the woman, “Where you keep the whiskey money?”

She said, “In there,” despair in her voice.

He said, “Fourteen dollars?” holding it up, and turned to Louly. “Put your gun on her so she don’t move. The geezer come in, put it on him, too.” Joe Young went through a doorway to what looked like an office.

The woman said to Louly, pointing the gun from the crocheted bag at her now, “How come you’re with that trash? You seem like a girl from a nice family, have a pretty bag… There something wrong with you? My Lord, you can’t do better’n him?”