And before long Michael wasn’t just driving, he was really driving—zooming! But the boy was steering the wheel like in the moving pictures, like a cartoon bug driving a cartoon car, and his father settled him down, and then the car moved straight and steady…and fast.
Farmland seemed to whiz by on either side of them.
“Okay, son, easy now.”
But the boy was having a great time, unaware how barely in control of the vehicle he was.
“Easy, Michael! Forty-five miles an hour is too fast.”
Suddenly, as if it materialized, a tractor was up ahead of them, moving very slow; had this been a field, the tractor would have been doing fine, clipping right along—but on a road, the machine beast was crawling, and the boy was stunned by how fast they had come up on it…
“Watch out for the tractor, son…the tractor…watch out for the—son of a bitch!”
Instinctively, the boy whipped around the tractor, shrieking past, and when he glanced over, his father was white, his eyes wide…afraid, really really afraid…
“We made it!” Michael said, excited, relieved, elated.
“Yes we did,” his father said dryly, settling into his seat, color climbing back into his face.
They had a few more close calls, and when a haywagon crossed the road ahead of them, the boy hit what he hoped was the right pedal and the Ford squealed to a stop, thrusting son and father forward.
“Papa, these brakes are swell!…Are you all right? Are you sick?”
“No…no, son. I’m fine. You’re doing fine…Looks hilly a few miles up ahead. Let’s practice taking curves.”
Other than the scrape with the tractor, Papa never raised his voice, once. He stayed at it, working with his son, guiding him, giving him confidence; and by midafternoon, they were in St. Louis, Missouri, where the boy—sitting high enough in his seat to pass for a teenaged driver—got his first taste of sharing the road with other drivers, not all of them considerate. This came easier than his father had expected—but ex-paperboy Michael had, after all, maneuvered his bike through all kinds of traffic back home.
And by the end of the day, Michael O’Sullivan, Jr., was ready for his new job.
The next morning, O’Sullivan—his fedora and topcoat brushed, his dark suit, too—approached the entrance of the St. Louis Bank and Trust Company. With his no-nonsense manner, a black leather bag in his right hand, he looked better than just presentable—he might have been a doctor, or perhaps a businessman, lugging a valise filled with important papers.
The boy waited down the street, in a legal parking place, motor running. O’Sullivan nodded at his son who, behind the wheel, swallowed, and nodded back.
The high-ceilinged marble lobby was less than crowded, but a share of farmers, housewives, and businessmen stood at the teller windows in lines that weren’t moving fast. He paused inside the door, nodding to a bank guard, who nodded back—an older man, retired cop probably, but armed.
Heading across the lobby at a leisurely pace, O’Sullivan gave the place a slow scan, mentally recording the layout, the positions of people and things. He approached the teller windows, heading toward one that was closed, where a small brow-beaten man in glasses and bow tie and shirtsleeves was getting chewed out by an older, heavier man, also in glasses, but wearing a crisply knotted striped tie and a tailored suit amidst these off-the-racks.
“…You ask for proper identification or you’ll find yourself in the bread line. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
O’Sullivan waited until the officious man seemed finished, then said through the window grating, “Excuse me, gentlemen—I understand Mr. McDougal is your bank president.”
The bow-tied teller pointed. “This is Mr. McDougal.”
After frowning at the stool pigeon, McDougal said, “You’ll have to make an appointment with my secretary, sir.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to call ahead, Mr. McDougal. But this concerns a major depositor…from out of town.”
McDougal began to speak, but the words caught as he took a closer look at O’Sullivan. Then he said, “Yes…of course…step this way, please.”
McDougal led the way, even opened the door for O’Sullivan with an after-you half-bow, closing the door behind him, making a fuss over showing his visitor to the chair across from the big desk in the medium-sized office dominated by a huge safe. Officiousness had been replaced with obsequiousness, as the bank president took the chair behind the desk, eyeing the black bag O’Sullivan had placed on its glass-covered top, to one side, by framed photos of wife, grown children, and grandchildren.
“I’ve come in regard to the Chicago money you’re holding,” O’Sullivan said.
“Well, this is a pleasant surprise,” the bank president said, hands folded like a man sitting down to a big fine meal. “I wasn’t expecting a deposit until the end of the month—business Chicago-way must be good.”
“Actually,” O’Sullivan said, reaching over for the bag and undoing its clasp, “I’m making a withdrawal.”
And O’Sullivan reached down into the bag and came back with the Colt .45.
McDougal’s ass-kissing smile disappeared—fear painted the man’s face a pale shade.
“Hands on the desk, sir…Listen carefully—I want dirty money only, the off-the-books money you’re holding for Capone.”
The banker didn’t miss a beat. “It’s…it’s all right here,” McDougal said, smiling sickly, gesturing to the big safe filling a corner of the office, behind his desk.
“Good. Open it.”
The terrified banker got up and went to the looming iron box and dialed the combination—it took several tries, nervous as he was; but soon McDougal was hauling out a safety deposit box, which he rested on the desk, opening it to reveal stacks and stacks of cash.
“Fill the bag,” O’Sullivan instructed.
The banker did as he was told.
During which, O’Sullivan said, “I read anything in the papers about this…if I read that the savings of innocent farmers were wiped out by a cruel and heartless bank robber…I’ll be unhappy.”
As he piled the bricks of cash into the bag, the banker—still nervous but past the shock, somewhat—asked, “Are you insane, man? You obviously know whose money you’re taking. You must know what kind of animals you’re stealing from. They’ll find out who you are, they’ll track you down and—”
“The name is O’Sullivan. Michael O’Sullivan. Would you like me to write it down for you?”
O’Sullivan took the bag of money from the banker—who was more astounded now than afraid.
“They’ll kill you,” the banker said, trying to fathom this event.
He pointed the gun at the banker’s chest. “Tell Frank Nitti, tell Al Capone, that Michael O’Sullivan will stop bothering them if they give up Connor Looney. Until then, I’ll feed at their trough. Tell them!”
“I will! I will…”
O’Sullivan removed two fat wads of cash from the satchel. “This is for you. Call it a handling charge. The boys in Chicago will never know—I sure as hell won’t tell them.”
The banker, blinking, shaking his head, asked, “Why cut me in? The upper hand is yours…”
“It’s tidier this way. Less risky for both of us. This way you won’t be apt to press a button and cause something unfortunate on my way out. You see, Mr. McDougal, if I start shooting, people are going to die…and you’ll be one of them.”
McDougal nodded. “I understand.” And he opened a desk drawer slowly—knowing the standing O’Sullivan could see his every move—and placed the two bricks of cash inside, covering them with some papers.
“Good decision,” O’Sullivan said. “How would you like to do a little advertising for me?”
“Advertising?”
“If you have any trusted colleagues looking for an opportunity…you might want to spread the word. Let them know that when I come around, they shouldn’t hit any hidden alarms. It’ll
be safer…and more profitable…if they cooperate.”
“And…if I do this?”
“You’ll receive a bundle in the mail, now and then. A surprise from Santa. You just think Christmas is over.”
The banker was shaking his head again. “You really trust me not to say anything?”
“If you can’t trust your banker, Mr. McDougal,” O’Sullivan said, hoisting the satchel of money, touching the tip of his fedora, “who can you trust?”
Within a minute O’Sullivan—black bag in one hand, other hand with the gun in it shoved into his topcoat pocket—was standing outside the bank, stepping out to the curb, waiting in the chill St. Louis air. Then the Ford drew up ever so slowly.
O’Sullivan looked through the window at the anxious boy behind the wheel.
“No rush, son,” he said with a faint smile.
He got in, and they drove off.
The boy was amazed by how smoothly it had gone. And as he tooled confidently through downtown St. Louis traffic, he realized he was indeed his father’s wheelman, his accomplice…if not his confidant.
Papa had told Michael he hoped there’d be no bloodshed, no fuss, but did not reveal to the boy how he hoped to achieve that.
“You didn’t say it would be this easy,” Michael said.
“You have to be prepared for anything,” his father said. “I need you alert…pull over. I’ll take the wheel, now.”
“Do I have to?”
His father just looked at him, and Michael pulled into a restaurant parking lot.
Still in the passenger seat, Papa repeated, “You have to be prepared for anything.”
“I know.” Michael shrugged. “I’m a Boy Scout, aren’t I?”
And his father leaned back in the seat, covered his face and, at first, Michael thought Papa was crying.
But he was laughing—softly…The only time he would do that, in the time they’d spend on the road together.
TWELVE
Over the next two weeks, my father and I knocked over four banks, and that was just the beginning. At the time I wondered why we put so many days between robberies; looking back, I realize my father was craftily creating a nonpattern, a patchwork of plunder that defied analysis. It made for a lot of driving, but a bank in Illinois would be followed by one in Nebraska; Iowa might be followed by Oklahoma, with him filling his satchel in Wisconsin next.
We could certainly afford the gas.
The compartment in the backseat, where I had hidden myself away on that rainy night, was stacked with bricks of money, decorated with various bank wrappers. And we were probably on the fourth robbery before my father finally explained the absence of gunfire and police.
His pattern was always the same—politely announcing himself as a representative of Chicago, revealing his gun in the bank president’s office, the gathering of Capone money, a sharing of the proceeds with the banker, and a threatening but almost courteous exit. After the first several robberies, the word had spread and most of the bankers seemed to be waiting for my father—in a good way…eager for their bonus.
It was a good thing, too, that these hold-ups were so nonviolent, because I didn’t get the hang of my wheelman role all at once. The lack of a parking place, on our second job, sent me around the block, and I got turned around somehow, and left my father cooling his heels at the curb with a bag of money in one hand and gun in the other (in his topcoat pocket). He probably stood there less than a minute, but it must have seemed a lifetime before I showed up—coming in the wrong direction, hitting the curb, making Papa jump back.
But every time I got better, and I was probably as smooth and professional a getaway driver as anybody in the outlaw game—Bonnie and Clyde, and Ma Barker and her boys, had nothing on the O’Sullivans.
It didn’t take long for the Capone forces to get wise to our tactics—not the aiding and abetting of the bankers, but that Michael O’Sullivan was plundering their hidden coffers. After all, Papa advertised it—encouraged the bankers who were in collusion with him to tell Chicago the looting would stop, when Connor was turned over to him.
So after the fourth robbery, we found a farmhouse where the people were away, and borrowed their barn to turn our green Ford into a maroon one. Good thing, too, because on the fifth robbery, we rolled up to find a contingent of Capone thugs milling around outside the bank Papa had chosen.
My father nodded at me, and I drove away. No problem. And the Capone money was spread around in too many banks all over the Midwest for goon squads to be sent to all of them.
My father didn’t smile much—not ever, but especially not after my mother and brother were murdered. Sometimes at night, though, in our shabby little motel rooms, he would sit and grin. I would ask him what was so funny, and he would tell me.
“I’m just thinking about Frank Nitti,” Papa would say, “and how he must be taking all this.”
In the executive suite on the top floor of the Hotel Lexington in Chicago, Frank Nitti—impeccable in a gray pinstriped suit, immaculately groomed right to every hair on his mustache, ex-barber that he was—listened on the phone as the president of the Loose Creek, Missouri, Farmers’ Savings and Loan explained what had happened.
Nitti listened quietly. His secretary, a handsome, professionally attired woman of about thirty who’d been taking shorthand when the call came in, sat with her legs crossed, waiting to get back to it. Her boss seemed placid.
Then he exploded into the phone: “How much did he take?”
The voice on the end of the wire said, “As I said, seventy-five thousand, Mr. Nitti—all of it, everything you had with us. He said he’d kill me, otherwise!”
Relaxed again, seemingly, Nitti replied: “I’m sure he would have.”
“I’m glad you understand, sir. He said to say his name was O’Sullivan and that he was prepared to give up his ‘fun,’ as he called it, if you’d turn over a Conrad Looney to him.”
“That’s Connor Looney,” Nitti said patiently.
“It may well have been. I do apologize. I wish there were some way—”
“May I just ask, Mr. Ingstad, one small question.”
“Certainly, sir.”
“Do you have security guards on staff?”
“Oh, yes. Two at all times. Former police officers. Very efficient.”
“Are they armed?”
“Certainly. We take all reasonable precautions.”
“Well, perhaps not all. One last question?”
“Yes?”
“What the fuck are we paying you for?”
And Nitti slammed the receiver in the hook, glancing at his secretary, shaking his head in disgust. “Where were we…?”
The door burst open and Connor Looney stalked in, the bodyguard Nitti had assigned to him, Little Louis Campagna, on the man’s heels. Looney was not drunk at least, but he looked terrible, his suit rumpled, his complexion gray and waxy—like he hadn’t slept in days. Weeks.
“I’m working,” Nitti said tightly from behind his desk, not rising. “What the hell’s the idea, barging in on me? You make an appointment like anybody else.”
“The hell with that,” Connor said, standing right across from Nitti. “Where is my father?”
Nitti flinched a nonsmile. “What do you mean, where is he?”
“I’ve been calling the house—his office—trying everywhere. He’s either not there, they say, or there’s no answer.”
“How should I know?”
The slender gangster began to pace. Campagna took a step back, but kept an eye on his charge. Connor was saying, “Has my own father turned his back on me? Now, you want me to make a fucking appointment? Why the hell is no one talking to me? I don’t know whether I’m a leper or a goddamn prisoner!”
Nitti, arms folded, composed in the detached way he preferred, said, “You’re not a prisoner, Connor. You’re my guest—under my protection. That’s what your father wants.”
Connor came back over to the desk, leaned on it, his expression
indignant, eyes flaring. “I can protect myself. I’m not afraid of Mike O’Sullivan.”
“You should be.”
“What, you believe these stories about him? Angel of Death? He’s just a man.”
“The night of the Market Square Riot, how many men did he kill? Protecting your father? And where were you?”
Connor ducked the question. “Listen, I can handle myself. Let me out of here—I’ll find the son of a bitch and—”
“Just what O’Sullivan would love.” Nitti stood behind the desk. “And you can’t handle yourself. That’s the point, here. You’re a big baby, all confused, sucking his dick like it’s his thumb.”
Connor’s eyes flared again, nostrils too, like a rearing horse. “Go fuck yourself, Nitti!”
Nitti was cool, calm, as he replied: “Sonny…listen carefully. The only thing keeping you alive is you’re John Looney’s kid. Your father covered Al’s back a thousand times, and Mr. Capone does not forget such favors.”
“My old man covered Capone’s back, and your back, with Mike O’Sullivan! Explain that, Nitti!”
The diminutive ganglord held up his hands, in “stop” fashion; Campagna continued to monitor the conversation closely.
Nitti said, “I don’t have to explain anything to you, you worthless little prick.”
Connor paced again, in front of the desk, now. “Worthless, huh? Aren’t you being a little shortsighted, Frank? Aren’t you forgetting who your real friend is? The Tri-Cities area, it’s a goldmine—a goldmine my old man owns. And he is an old man—and what you’re really protecting is your future…’cause I am your goddamn future, you dago bastard. And talk to me like that again and I’ll be your angel of fucking death. Capeesh?”
Connor stormed out, followed by Campagna, who threw Nitti a shrug on the way out.
Nitti sighed and looked at his secretary in a what-are-you-gonna-do manner. “Sorry for the unpleasantness. The language.”
“That’s all right, Mr. Nitti.”
He sat back down. “But if that clown’s the fucking future, we should all go straight.”
And before Nitti got back to his dictation, he rang up Harlen Maguire, and told him to find O’Sullivan and the kid.
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