“Listen to me,” George said, pulling her hands together at the wrist. “Listen. I talked him down to ten grand. They drive Urschel back.”

Kit shook her head and wiped the tears from her cheeks. She breathed in through her nose and kept on crying, goddamnit. Like some kind of baby.

“Kit.”

“You pussy.”

“Kit.”

“Don’t you dare take it in the ass from that son of a bitch,” she said.

“It’s been decided.”

“Among men?”

“Yes.”

“I think you and your buddies from the Green Lantern Saloon are about as tough as a sewing circle,” she said. She grabbed the back of George’s big neck and pulled him in close to where their noses touched. Both of them were breathing hard from all the talk and excitement and the heat. Far off in the trees, some cicadas clicked and whirred. An old hound came loping out from the barn and lay down at George’s feet, but Kathryn kept on. “I know. I know.”

“What?”

“Kill him.”

“I can’t kill Harvey.”

“Not Harvey,” she said. “Urschel. You go with that dumb yegg like you’re okay with the deal. And when he takes you to Urschel, I want you to take out that.38 and put a hole right in the center of that rich man’s head. I never wanted you to take him back anyway. He can make you and Albert. He’s been to my momma’s house. He’s eaten her chicken, for fuck’s sake.”

George stood there in the heat with his mouth wide open.

Kathryn leaned in and gave him a big kiss on his stubbled mug. She kissed it again and again until his mouth closed and his eyes focused, seeing the sense in what she’d said.

“Do it,” she said. “Go do it now.”

13

Charlie had resigned himself to his own death for some time. He’d pretty much made sense and order of the affair after meeting up with Tom Slick in the wilderness and now being chained again in this blind purgatory; he knew these people were going to punch his ticket real soon. But life had been good and exciting. He’d been a successful man, raised a good family, and after becoming a widower did the sensible thing in marrying Berenice and joining their fortunes. He would not be maudlin about the day or try to conjure up a prayer. When that bullet hit his brain, he’d just be closed for business, and he knew damn well that time would continue. He just wished like hell he could remember what Tom Slick had told him out there in the vast stretches of land after he’d touched his staff to that parched earth and a black pool of oil had formed at his feet. He’d wanted Charlie to get off his knees and follow him up and over that hill, but as Charlie’d tottered and stumbled, Tom’s staff held high, he’d fainted and fallen and dropped in and out of consciousness, looking right into the face of that prize bull with a white face. That’s when Tom Slick changed into the figure of a limping man with silver hair and a bandanna across his face, saying, “Well, hello there, Mr. Urschel. Goin’ someplace?”

The old shack’s door squeaked open, and he was unchained again.

Here we go.

Charlie found his feet, holding on to the posts of a metal bed. He was told to turn around and take the bandages from his eyes. He complied and was led to a crude wooden bench, where he sat down.

He heard a click, and before his blurry eyes appeared the long, sharp blade of a straight razor. He wanted to think of a prayer but just couldn’t think of one that fit the situation.

He took a breath and swallowed, knowing it would be his last.

But instead of feeling the blade across his neck, he saw a mug of hot lather slid onto the table, and he looked up into the mirrored image of a man he didn’t recognize. Sure, he knew the features and eyes, they’d been with him since birth. But the gauntness and salt-and-pepper beard were those of a much older man.

“Shave those whiskers,” the big man said. “You look like a goddamn tramp. Whoa. Don’t turn around. Don’t you dare turn around. You know how this dance is done. We’ll bring you a change of clothes and a hat. It’s a new straw hat, and I’m pretty sure I got the size right.”

Charlie nodded.

He was free. They were taking him back.

He looked into the rust-flecked image of himself and lathered his face in the hot light coming from the west window. The razor was dull and old, and his whiskers took a good bit of pulling and coaxing till they’d be shaved away. Cuts and all, he felt like a hundred-dollar bill.

There was a knock on the door, and Charlie was told to face the wall.

His eyes were retaped, and he took the procedure like a sick man takes the dressing of his wounds. He heard the weathered voice of the old man now tell him that he had a fresh shirt and pants. He’d brought back the shoes he’d worn here.

Charlie didn’t answer. What was he supposed to do? Thank him?

He just nodded and stood there, blind and dumb. The most well-read man of women’s literature in the country.

And then he felt a pair of bony arms wrap his body and pull him tight, and an onion breath in his face told him, “You be careful, Mr. Urschel. Everything’s all right. Yes, sir. God bless you.”

The door opened and closed again.

“They’s gettin’ the automobile ready,” said Potatoes. “Mr. Urschel, how ’bout a smoke for ole time’s sake? I brung you a real good one. I can fetch you some hot coffee, too. It was fresh this mornin’.”

“Son?”

“Yes, Mr. Urschel?”

“You can stick that cigar up your ass,” Urschel said. “Tell that son of a bitch I want to be taken back to my home right now.”

“I’M NOT KILLING CHARLIE URSCHEL AT YOUR FOLKS’ PLACE.”

“Can you think of somewhere better?” Kathryn asked.

“For five grand, the boys will take Urschel back to Oklahoma City like we promised,” George said. “That’s on the level.”

“Fuck no.”

“ Harvey said if we don’t agree to the deal, they’ll just let Urschel out close by where he can lead the law back to the farm,” George said. “They said your dumb stepdaddy lost ’im and they found ’im wandering the road to Damascus nuttier than a squirrel, so they’re claiming they’re owed something.”

“Bullshit.”

“I know,” George said. “But Miller ain’t gonna let him go without a fight. What are you gonna do?”

“You’re gonna tell Harvey we’ll pay out five grand for a finder’s fee. And I’ll tell him to go fuck himself.”

“Kit.”

The boys worked out some kind of screwy handshake deal about meeting up at the Green Lantern, where they’d get their cut and change out the rest. Turns out those damn Jews wanted twenty percent to turn the bills, but Bailey was convinced the ransom money serial numbers had been recorded. And, of course, that was something that never even crossed the minds of George and Albert. George only thought a lot about how to spend the dough, not a thing about marked bills.

“Are we still gonna kill ’im?” she asked.

“We meaning me.”

“Either way.”

“Let me think,” George said.

“I’ll hold my breath.”

They left the next afternoon, and sometime past ten o’clock, it seeming like they’d been riding forever since Paradise, George slowed right outside the Norman city limits. He didn’t speak, neither of them being dumb enough to make a sound with Charlie Urschel all trussed up on the backseat floorboard.

George had finally gotten up the nerve. He stopped the big car, and they got out to whisper to each other.

“Why here?”

“You want to do it in your own backyard?”

“Over there,” she said. “Behind that billboard.”

A small light shone on a billboard of a little nigger boy eating a huge slice of watermelon and a white man with big clean choppers telling the boy to BRUSH WITH COLGATE, SAMBO!