Handsome Harry

by James Carlos Blake

  Pearl snuck me a wadded news clipping that described the Indytown job as being skillfully professional. The reporter couldn’t conceal his admiration for the bandit who’d vaulted to the top of the cashiers’ cage and sat up there cross-legged and with his skimmer cocked over one eye while he held a gun on the manager below and announced the stickup.

  Matt Leach was on the case, still promising the public a swift arrest.

  When he read the clip, Charley said somebody had to have a serious talk with John about the gymnastics.

  I said somebody would, and pretty soon, to judge by the look of things—and I gave them the rest of the news. Pearl had informed me that immediately after the Indy heist John had gone to see our man Williams in Chicago and paid him the five grand. He’d watched Williams put five pistols into a two-hundred-pound shipping crate of spooled thread and then reseal the lid on the crate. On one corner of the lid John carved an X the size of a two-bit piece and he darkened the X with a fountain pen. The mark distinguished that crate of thread from two others in the same shipment coming to the Gordon Shirt Company at the Michigan City penitentiary. The crates would arrive at the shirt company dock on the twenty-fifth of the month.

  All right, Russell said, now we’re talking.

  We agreed that if the guns came in on schedule we’d make the break on the first of October, a Sunday. We’d take some of the visitors hostage and use their cars to make our getaway.

  I don’t know about you boys, I said, but I got my bags packed.

  The next time I saw Pearl I filled her in and told her to inform John. She said sure, but she hadn’t seen him since right after he did the Indy job and had no idea when she’d see him again. He told her that in addition to the Jenkins girl, who lived in Dayton, Ohio, he was also spending time with a Chicago girl named Billie Something. As far as Pearl knew, he hadn’t arranged any hideouts yet, but he had Knuckles Copeland scouting for places.

  Up to now I’d kept Mary in the dark about our plan. The only people outside M City who were in on it were Pearl, John, and our man Williams in Chicago. By the time Pearl brought the news about the guns, however, I had decided Mary could be a lot of help, and the guys took my word she could be trusted.

  She hadn’t been able to visit me in weeks because she’d been put in charge of the Sunday shift at the café, so I wrote a note saying Pearl’s a friend and signed it and rolled it into a little wad, and during our next visit I slipped it to Pearl through the screen. I told her to go see Mary at home and lay the thing out. Frankly, I didn’t know if Mary would throw in with us or not. But if she chose to stay out of it, I knew she wouldn’t fink.

  Later in the week I got a letter from her. It was the usual blah-blah about her job and how her mother and sister were doing, but that was all stuff to gull the censors. At the very end, she wrote that Aunt Pearl had dropped by the house to tell her of a vacation visit they would soon receive from distant family members they hadn’t seen in a long time. It sounds lovely, she wrote, and I know Cousin Earl is looking forward to it as much as I am.

  So she was in. But she should’ve known better than to think Earl could come with us. His lung trouble had gotten steadily worse, and a month ago he’d been put in the prison hospital. He was still in there, and word had it he wouldn’t last another month. I supposed he hadn’t let her know how bad off he was.

  Six days before the thread shipment was due to arrive, the warden ordered a lockdown and put the silent system in effect. Except for going to work or to eat we were kept in our cells, and any man caught talking on the job or in the mess hall got put in solitary.

  Nobody knew why the crackdown. The hacks were jumpier and grimmer than usual. We whispered to each other without moving our lips, all of us asking the same thing—What the hell’s going on? We were sweating plenty, wondering if somebody’d got wind of our plan. We figured the bosses weren’t on to us yet or we’d all be in the hole already, but they might’ve heard something and were closing in.

  It wasn’t until the next day that word came through the grapevine that a package of three pistols had been flung over the wall bordering the athletic field. But the guns were found by somebody other than whoever they were meant for, and the finder ratted to the hacks. The warden still hadn’t found out who the pieces were intended for and he meant to keep the crackdown in effect until the malefactors were identified. He had put out public notice that the prison was under lockdown and visitation was canceled indefinitely.

  Evidently we weren’t the only ones who thought the best way out of M City was with the help of a few guns, but whoever these guys were they had tried to bring them in by more direct means than ours.

  At the mess table Russell whispered What’re the odds of this so close to our move?

  Only fucken morons would try a stunt like that, Red said, and nobody argued the point.

  There were shakedown inspections three times a day. Every cell house and factory and storeroom in the joint was searched with a fine-tooth comb. The guards never took their eyes off us while we were at work. Walt said he might not be able to sneak the guns out of the crate when they arrived, but even if he did manage it, the sort of shakedowns taking place would sure as hell uncover the pieces, no matter where he hid them. It looked like the plan was headed for a crash.

  And then, on the fifth day of the crackdown, three guys from another cell house were tagged for the guns and all of them got put in the hole. The lockdown and silent system were lifted. It was on a Sunday, so we were allowed out into the yard for the rest of the day. But the visiting ban stayed in effect and any visitors who showed up at M City were turned away at the front gate.

  The yard was humming with excitement. We sat together in the bleachers and talked things over. The crates of thread were due the next day, but rumor had it the warden was still nervous about the past week and would probably have more shakedowns in the immediate days ahead. What’s more, the warden hadn’t said when visitation would be reinstated, so we couldn’t even be sure there would be any visitors the next Sunday for us to take hostage.

  The way things stood, we all agreed it was too risky to wait that long.

  All right, I said. The pieces come in tomorrow and we go out the day after.

  If the pieces come in tomorrow, Russell said.

  They all looked at me.

  They’ll be here, I said.

  Walt was on the loading dock when the shipment arrived. He signed for the three crates of thread and had a dock crew dolly them over to the storeroom. As soon as the crew left, he took a closer look and found the crate with the small circled X. He pried off the lid with a crowbar and started digging through the spools inside. But he couldn’t find any guns and he began to panic. Then he pulled out a spool that felt heavier than the others. Snugged deep inside the spool was a pistol. Four other spools had guns in them too. Walt wrapped three of the pieces in a large burlap sack and jammed the sack between the back of a storeroom locker and the wall. The other two guns he put in the lower tray of a tool box.

  Three-eighty automatics, Walt said. Full magazine in each.

  Woo, Red said, that Johnny boy did it.

  I didn’t say anything but they could probably all read it on my face: I told you.

  The big day began with a chilly sunless morning under a sky the color of iron. It started to rain before we were done with breakfast, the kind of rain that looked like it would last all day. Perfect weather for our purpose.

  The shirt factory storeroom was never unlocked until after breakfast, by which time the bunch of us were scattered all over M City at our jobs. We couldn’t get together to make our move until lunch brought us back to the mess hall. We made a show of eating and then we went out to the main yard about fifteen minutes before the hack whistles would signal it was time to get back to work. A breeze had kicked up and the guys in the yard were hunkered into their shirts with collars turned up against the blowing drizzle. The puddles looked like shards of dirty glass. We picked our way around them as we
casually crossed over to the shirt factory and then went downstairs to the storeroom. It was full of shipping crates and tool lockers, empty cartons and tables stacked with new shirts ready for pickup.

  A moment later I was holding a gun for the first time in nine years, and I felt like the world had suddenly turned right-side-up. As soon as the piece was in my hand, I knew that within the hour I’d be free or I’d be dead.

  Walt, Red, Charley, and Russell got the other pistols. They looked half-crazed with exhilaration. We checked the magazines and worked the slides, jacking rounds in the chambers.

  Oh baby, I love that sound, Russell said.

  The resonance of authority, Fat Charley said. He was beaming like a jack-o’-lantern.

  The hack whistles shrilled outside.

  The only one looking unhappy was Okie Jack. His ulcers were worse than ever and his face was pinched with the pain of them. He caught me staring at him and gave a weak smile. Ah shit, Pete, he said, I’m okay.

  Anybody wants out, I said, now’s the time.

  Go to hell, Pete, Red said.

  I grinned back at him. After you, sir, after you.

  All right, Walt said, here goes. He slipped his piece into his waistband under his shirt and he and Fox went up the stairs and out the door.

  It felt like an hour but probably wasn’t ten minutes before Fox returned. As we’d planned, he brought the superintendent of the factory back with him, a guy named Stevens, telling him that Dietrich needed to see him right away about some kind of shipping mix-up. Stevens came down the stairs ahead of Fox and halted at the bottom step when he saw me and Red off to the side, holding pistols on him.

  Oh God, he said, and dropped his clipboard.

  Easy does it, George, Fox said, you’ll be all right.

  We made him sit on a carton out of sight of the stairway and told him to keep his mouth shut.

  After another eternal quarter-hour Walt got back. I knew who was with him as soon as I heard the voice say This better be good, Dietrich, or your ass is mud.

  Albert Evans—the day captain. We’d expected Walt to come back with one of the hacks and here he came with Big Bertha himself. Russell knew the voice too, I could tell by his look. We heard their feet clumping down the stairs and Walt saying Listen, I found the hooch down here and I don’t want you guys thinking it’s mine.

  As they got to the bottom of the stairs, I stepped out with my gun raised. Hey there, Bertha, I said.

  Evans stood fast and gaped at me. It was all I could do to keep from shooting him in his liver-lipped mouth.

  Russell went up to him and pressed the muzzle of his pistol under his chin. You ugly sack of shit, he said, I owe you plenty.

  Evans’s eyes were showing a lot of white. Don’t do it, Clark, he said. You’ll fry.

  Charley put a hand on Russell’s arm. Somebody’ll hear the shot and we’re finished, he said.

  We need him, Russ, Red said.

  Russell snapped on the safety and stuck the pistol in his waistband. Evans looked relieved.

  Then Russell drove a fist into the bastard’s big belly and Bertha’s breath blew out of him and he fell to all fours, gagging hard, and vomited.

  I stepped between them and told Russell that was enough, Red was right, we needed the guy. And not all busted up.

  Russell leaned around me to spit on Evans. Fat son of a bitch, he said.

  Burns and Jenkins hauled Bertha to his feet. He was pulling hard for breath, his eyes streaming and his face waxy. I said for him to wipe the puke off his chin and pull himself together. I told him and Stevens exactly what I expected from them. I emphasized that if anything went wrong for any reason, they would be the first to die.

  I told Stevens to pick up his clipboard and look his usual official self. I asked if he was married and he said yes sir, and he had two young children. I said that was real nice and if he did everything right he’d live to see them again.

  Sure thing, Mr. Pierpont, he said, you give the orders.

  You bet your life, I said.

  The guys without pistols armed themselves with small iron bars used for prying the lids off shipping crates. All of us except Stevens and Evans took up an armload of folded shirts. They hid the weapons in our hands. Anybody who saw us would see Big Bertha in charge of a work party transporting an order of goods.

  All right, I said, let’s do it.

  Nobody on the factory floor paid us any mind as we came up from the storeroom and went outside into the chilly drizzle. Stevens was in the lead, me and Red directly behind him, the other guys trailing us in a loose double column with Big Bertha at the rear, flanked by Dietrich and Charley.

  We walked slightly hunched over the shirts in our arms like we were trying to keep them dry. Almost the full length of the yard lay between us and the warehouse, which fronted the yard and flanked the admin building. The warehouse was where we delivered shirt orders for local pickup. You’d go into a little sort of alcove off the yard and up to a double-barred window manned by two civilian clerks and a pair of M City guards with shotguns and you’d pass the shirts and invoices through the bars. This time, however, when we came abreast of the alcove we kept on going.

  It was still a good twenty yards to the yard gate at the administration building, and as we headed toward it I had a momentary sensation of being in one of those dreams where you’re steadily moving toward something but never get any closer to it. At every step, I expected to hear somebody yell for us to halt and the fireworks to begin. I took a casual look up at the nearest guard tower and saw a gun bull watching us. Then he turned away. He’d seen Big Bertha ramrodding us and that made everything jake.

  The admin yard gate was a large iron-barred thing that opened onto a courtyard containing the door to the main gate inside. A gun tower loomed over the courtyard and the bull came out on the catwalk with his rifle in his hand. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Bertha raise a hand at him. The bull returned the wave and went back inside.

  The guard on duty at the rear gate booth was an old-timer named Swanson. He’d come out of the booth with his rain slicker on as we closed in on the gate. Hey, Mr. Stevens, he said, what’s this?

  Special delivery, Stevens said. The warden said to bring these shirts over and leave them at the main gate.

  I was impressed by Stevens’s coolness. I’d been afraid he’d give the game away with his face or voice, but he did fine.

  Nobody said nothing to me, Swanson said. He looked past us to Big Bertha and said Hey, Albert.

  It’s okay, Swanny, Bertha said, open up.

  O-kay, Swanson said with a shrug. He took a big key off his belt and worked it into the lock, muttering about the meaninglessness of official procedure and how nobody ever informed him of anything.

  The lock clunked open and Swanson grunted as he pulled the heavy door back and we entered the courtyard. It was the first time I’d been in there since the day I’d arrived at M City. My pulse was thumping in my throat.

  Don’t look like this rain’s gonna let up any time soon, does it Albert, Swanson said. He turned toward the building door but Bertha said Lock it back up, Swanny.

  Swanson said Ah hell, Albert, you fellas are just gonna come right back out again.

  Lock it, Evans said.

  I had told Bertha to make sure Swanson locked the rear gate again. If things started jumping I didn’t want any of the yard hacks coming in behind us.

  Swanson sighed like a man much imposed upon by unreasonable authority and relocked the gate. Then he went to the other door, a huge wooden thing with iron bracings, and pulled it open. We filed into a wide and brightly lit corridor with long wooden benches running along the windowless walls. Bertha closed the door behind us.

  A dozen yards down the corridor was the main gate, which was actually two gates—one door at either end of a barred cage the full width of the passageway and some twenty feet long. A few yards on the other side of the cage the corridor ended at a heavy door like the one to the courtyard. Beyond
that door was an alcove that gave onto the admin lobby.

  Each of the main gate doors was manned by a guard, one inside the cage, one on the far side of it. They had been chatting through the bars when we came in, and they stared narrowly at us as we followed Stevens up to the cage with our arms full of shirts.

  The outer guard asked what was going on.

  I said Now, and we dropped the shirts and I shoved Stevens hard against the bars and pointed my gun at the guard inside the cage and told him to stand fast. Russell had Bertha by the shirt collar and his pistol pressed to the back of his head. Red held his gun at Swanson’s ear.

  The hack in the cage threw his hands straight up and said Oh God, don’t shoot. The other guard started backing away toward the alcove door but Charley aimed at him through the bars and said, Halt right there, my good fellow. And the hack did.

  I told the one in the cage to unlock the gate and make it snappy. The guard worked the key and the lock clunked and I pushed the gate open and Russell propelled Big Bertha ahead of him across the cage and rammed him face-first into the bars on the other side. Evans groaned and dropped to his knees with a deep gash in his forehead and blood running down his face. Russell clubbed him on the ear with the pistol and then kicked him in his fat belly for good measure.

  I made the inside guard sit on the floor with his hands in his pockets and ordered the other guard to open the second gate. The guy just stood there. You could see in his eyes he was thinking of saving the day. Charley cocked his piece and said Be reasonable, sir.

  The hack eased forward and worked his key in the lock, but he was slow about it, and I knew he still had the notion of being a hero. Then the lock turned, and when Charley stepped back to let the gate swing open the hack whirled around and broke for the alcove door. But Red had seen it coming and ran out and caught the guy by the shirt collar before he got to the door, and he slung him around hard into the wall. The hack bounced off and fell on his ass and Red grabbed him by the hair and hit him twice with his pistol barrel and the guy keeled over on his side with his hands over his nose and blood seeping between his fingers.