“That’s another screw I worry about.”

“Mr. Urschel?”

“Boss.”

“He’s gettin’ a cut,” Bates said. “No one wants to whittle this thing down any more.”

“You really gonna quit?”

“You bet,” he said. “A fella can get set up with this kind of dough.”

“ Denver, huh?”

“Yep.”

“Albert?”

He turned to her, burning down the cigarette and fishing for a new one in his pocket. She pulled a cigarette from her purse, lit it, and passed it on to him. She found a place on the edge of the farmhouse porch to let her legs hang off free and loose, and Bates joined her after a while. The laughter and loud talk had become too much.

“How will I know if there’s trouble?” she asked.

“You studied the picture of Kirkpatrick?”

She nodded.

“You see anyone with him, anyone too friendly, you step off the train at any station and call us,” he said. “He’s supposed to come alone, and that’s the only way we’ll go ahead with the drop. You unnerstand?”

“You just look out for George.”

“Your man will come back in one piece,” Bates said, cigarette hanging loose. “I promise.”

“It’s not him I’m worried about.”

“You sure are hard-boiled sometimes, Kit,” Bates said. “We’re on Easy Street now.”

“That’s the kind of talk that will get us all killed. Or worse.”

“You love him, though?”

“Who?”

“George.”

“I married the dumb bastard, didn’t I?”

“But do you love him?” Bates asked. “When I think about seeing my sweetie, it makes me feel all funny in the gut.”

“Yep,” she said. “George makes me feel all funny.”

Bates laughed and smoked some more, watching the same herd of cows, following down a line of crooked posts connected with miles of barbed wire.

“The funny thing about you and George is that sometimes he’s talking but I hear you coming out of his mouth.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I don’t mean nothing by it,” Bates said. “Just something I’ve noticed for some time. I’ve known George Barnes since he was running moonshine out of Memphis. And now I see this fella who folks ’round here call ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly, with his slick hair and two-tone shoes. But I’m not really sure if that’s you or George… It’s all screwy.”

“You’re the screwy one, Albert,” she said. She smiled and kissed him on the cheek in a sisterly way. “You look out for both of you. And don’t worry, I’m pretty good at spotting a cop.”

“I know, sister.”

“No more hard times.”

“Welcome to Easy Street.”

“Keep the light on…”

10

The men gathered in the shadow of the Urschel house with pistols and sawed-off shotguns and waited for the bank president to arrive with the cash. An Oldsmobile rolled into the drive and flashed its lights twice. Berenice Urschel answered back from the second floor with a flickering flashlight, and they were moving. Jones followed Kirkpatrick, and Kirkpatrick took the grip and got into the car with Jones driving. They headed to the train station, both men holding grips now-Kirkpatrick holding a leather bag filled with old newspapers and magazines and Jones carrying a lighter-colored bag filled with twenty pounds’ worth of ransom money. If they were jumped at the station or on the train, Kirk would give up his bag.

They proceeded up into the observation car as instructed, and the strain of it reflected on Kirkpatrick, who let out a long breath, his face covered in sweat, hand reaching into his suit pocket for a silver flask. He took a healthy drink and nodded to Jones, who sat opposite him on a long communal bench and shook his head. So far, the men were alone. Just a negro porter, who asked them for their tickets and if they’d care for anything at all, and Jones had simply asked if they were running on schedule.

Jones checked his timepiece. He lit his pipe.

A half hour left till they were on their way.

The platform filled with dozens of men in straw hats and ladies in summer dresses. Little kids toting little bags and porters carrying steamer trunks on the strength of their backs. Jones looked to the rear of the train, where the glass formed a wide-sweeping window, and saw another Pullman heading toward them, pushed along slow and easy, until it joined to the observation car with a click. The coupling jarred the men, and then there was another hard click, and the porter noted the men’s confusion.

“Got to add two more,” he said. “Taking on extra passengers in Kansas City to go to the World’s Fair.”

Kirkpatrick was on his feet, telling the man they had to change cars, they must change cars, this was not acceptable at all. They had been promised an observation view, had paid for the view, and he damn well wanted a view.

They got seats on the last Pullman, Jones and Kirkpatrick taking a seat on two old camp stools pulled out into the vestibule. The air was hot, and it wasn’t until the train got going that a good crossbreeze collected over the railing and pushed across their faces, Jones and Kirkpatrick sitting in that last car, watching the brick warehouses and ramshackle houses fading from view until there were only wide rolling fields of dry grass and dead cornstalks.

“Right side,” Jones said. “I’ll watch the left just to make sure.”

They made it all the way to Tyson when the car door slid open and an attractive woman dressed in black with dark lipstick asked if she could join them.

Jones stood and said: “Please.”

She smelled just like the flowers Mary Ann cut fresh and kept in the house till they dried and turned. The turning seemed to make ’em even more sweet.

HARVEY AND VERNE WATCHED GEORGE, KATHRYN, AND ALBERT Bates pile into that big blue Cadillac and disappear down the country road. George said they were going to visit some old speaks, Kathryn wanted to see Gold Diggers of 1933, and Albert Bates said in a mutter he had some business needed tending. And Harvey didn’t ask any questions, just wished them well as they took off into the night, and he settled onto the porch with Verne and old Boss Shannon, who’d been plied with enough corn liquor to kill a goat. Old Boss talking about how two hundred thousand people had crammed into downtown Saint Louis to march on behalf of the NRA and celebrate all that Blue Eagle nonsense, and he recommended that they all get a solid gun and a piece of land because this country was about to become one filthy fascist nation with Roosevelt no better than Adolf Hitler himself. “You know Hitler treats his own people like animals. If he got one that don’t suit ’im, they’ll sterilize ’im. God’s own truth, I read it in the paper. I wonder what they’d do with an old man like me?”

“How’s the farm, Boss?”

“Fair to middlin’,” he said. “Don’t have enough water. Got me a hog that’s turned on me. He’s supposed to be ruttin’ but the other day damn near tried to kill me. I can’t figure it out.”

Miller looked to Harvey. Harvey flicked the long ash from his cigar and shrugged.

“Can we go take a look at that hog?” Miller asked.

“Sure thing, boys,” Boss Shannon said. “Let me get a lantern.”

“Say, Boss,” Harvey said, “where’s ole Potatoes these days?”

“You know he got that girl from down the road with child? Well, he married her, and now she’s knocked up again. I ’spec you could say he’s taken on responsibility. He don’t like it when I call him Potatoes no more. But I can’t seem to wrap my mind ’round it. That kid will always be Potatoes to me. Hold on there, fellas.”

Harvey worked on the cigar. The late-night light, not dark but almost purple, still burning deep to the west, almost making him feel like he could see clear over to California and the Pacific Ocean, all wide and endless like a filthy dream.