He understood and so did we. He’d only asked because he didn’t want to have to wonder the rest of his life if she might’ve said yes.
We were almost to Indytown when an announcer cut into the radio music to report all excited that Oklahoma Jack Clark had been captured in Hammond, about thirty-five miles east of Michigan City.
A taxi driver Jack had asked to take him to Chicago turned him over to the cops instead. According to the report, Jack was having terrible stomach pain and said he was glad he’d been caught so he could get medical treatment. I didn’t doubt it. What’s more, the old sheriff they’d taken hostage, Sheriff Neal, had shown up out of nowhere at the Gary police station. Everybody thought he’d been killed, but he was only a little worse for wear and had caught a bad cold.
Sheriff Neal told reporters he’d been abducted in his car by four escapees from the Michigan City penitentiary. They’d gone about a dozen miles when the car slid off into a ditch and broke an axle. The fugitives figured the highway would be full of cops any minute, so they took to the woods, hauling him along as a hostage. They spent two days tramping through the boondocks, chilled and wet and hungry, drinking from ponds and mud puddles. Neal said Dietrich was the leader of the bunch and gave Jack Clark a gun and the job of keeping an eye on him. But Neal and Clark were both in a bad way and had a hard time keeping up with the others, and yesterday around noon they’d been deserted.
After another miserable night in the woods, they’d stumbled onto a highway and hiked into some burg. Okie Jack made the sheriff give him his overcoat to cover up his prison issue. The other convicts had taken the sheriff’s wallet, but Neal had a few dollars in his pocket and they got a bite in a café. Neal said he didn’t think Jack was the sort to shoot him, but you never know, so he thought it best not to let on to anybody in the place that one of the fugitives in the news was right there among them. They then rode an interurban to Gary, where Jack wished the sheriff well and left him. And Neal went to the police station.
There was no word on the other three convicts, nor on the six of us. The announcer promised more details as they became available.
Poor old Okie Jack, Russell said.
Yeah, Red said. But don’t it sound familiar, Dietrich leaving a buddy behind?
We turned onto Mary’s block and everybody piped down and kept a sharp eye out for cops. I drove slowly down the street and past her apartment house, Copeland trailing me by a few car lengths. The coast looked clear, so I signaled Knuckles to pull over, and I parked at the corner and left the motor running while I went to get her.
Margo answered the door and smiled big when she saw me. It’s him, she called out, and gave me a hug. Mary came into the living room with a small suitcase in hand and her mother at her heels, looking none too pleased. Jocko wasn’t around. I’d find out from Mary that he’d been gone since the day after I showed up, none of them knew where to, or cared. Mary gave her mom a peck on the cheek and said to take care of herself. She hugged Margo and they said something to each other in whispers. Then Mary hooked her arm around mine and we hustled out of there.
I had Jenkins and Red switch cars because Jenkins was the smallest of us and could ride up front with me and Mary without crowding her, then Copeland followed me to the east-west highway and we headed for Ohio.
We’d barely cleared the city limits when I looked in the rearview and saw a car swoop around Copeland’s Olds and come up fast behind me. The silhouette of its rooftop bubble showed against the glow of Knuckles’ headlights.
Cops, I said.
Russ turned and looked through the back window. Two of them, he said. One’s checking something in his lap with a flashlight.
I’ll wager it’s a list of plates, Charley said.
They stayed close behind us for about another mile, then hit both the red light and the siren.
I said Here we go, and stomped on the gas and the Ford jumped forward like a dog let off a leash.
Whatever the cops were driving, it was pretty speedy too. I passed a farm truck at sixty-five and the cops stayed right with us, only a few car lengths behind. Through the rumble of the motor I heard a muted pop-pop and glanced in the mirror as the one leaning out the passenger window fired again with a yellow spark and there was a thunk against the rear of the car.
I said Get down, and Mary ducked her head below the top of the seat. Jenkins was hunched low against the shotgun door with his hand on the revolver in his waistband.
They wouldn’t be shooting except they know it’s us, Russell said. He bent down to get the sawed-off from under the seat and I heard Charley work the slide on his .380.
Not yet, I said. Hang on.
I’d spotted a junction road up ahead and we were almost to it when I tapped the brakes and cut the wheel hard. We swerved into the turn with the tires skidding and the left side of the car started lifting as we went off on the shoulder and I thought we were going to roll. I heard the shotgun door snap open and Mary gave a little shriek and I managed to steer the car back onto the road and we sped on. I glanced over and saw the flapping door and no Jenkins and then looked in the rearview and saw the cop car sliding off the shoulder in a haze of dust and wham it hit a rail fence I hadn’t even known was there and knocked posts flying and lost a headlight and came to a sideways stop with the one light shining across the road. Copeland’s car wasn’t behind us anymore.
Then Russell and Charley were looking out the back window and blocking my view. Holy shit, Russ said.
I don’t see him, Charley said.
My God, Mary said, he just…sailed out. She flung a hand to show how Jenkins left the car.
I eased off the gas but Charley said it wouldn’t be smart to turn back. Those cops were shooters and we had Mary with us and for all we knew Jenkins had broken his neck.
He’s right, Pete, Russell said.
I stepped on it again.
We ditched the Ford in an alley in Shelbyville and swiped a pair of sedans, Russell grabbing a Hudson and me a Studebaker. In Greensburg we swapped plates with a couple of cars in a diner parking lot.
We had a tough time finding the hideout house in the dark but eventually did. Knuckles greeted us at the door with a drink in his hand. It was obvious he’d been hitting the sauce hard.
Jesus, he said, I thought they had you guys.
Shouse and Red were playing rummy and drinking beer at the table. Red said What kept you?
The house was clean and roomy enough for all of us, affording everyone his own bedroom except for me and Mary, who shared one. The place had a nice view of the river and was as secluded as Knuckles had said. You couldn’t see the house from the passing highway, and we made sure to keep out of sight of the road whenever we went outside to stretch our legs. To play it safe, we didn’t even buy our groceries in Hamilton, which was only a little way up the road, but sent Knuckles to Cincinnati for them. He brought back some newspapers too and we read all about Okie Jack’s capture and the continuing manhunt for the Michigan City fugitives. They were calling Sheriff Neal a hero.
Our first full day in the house was a Saturday and we mostly lazed around. Mary and I took a stroll along the riverbank and found the head of a toy wooden soldier. It was about the size of a strawberry, and because I’ve been a pretty good whittler since I was a kid I carved it into a little heart for her. She loved it and had me make a small hole at the top of the heart so she could wear it around her neck on a fine gold chain. Then it was her turn to surprise me by proving to be a first-class cook. She fixed a big supper of fried chicken that night and everybody said it was the best they’d ever had. When we were done with it, there was nothing left but bones. Charley and I and Russell did the dishes afterward.
We had just finished up in the kitchen when the report came over the radio that Jenkins had been killed by a bunch of farmers in some two-dog burg near Indianapolis. There’d been a shootout and he wounded some yokel before another one let him have it with a shotgun and took off half his head.
; The news put a damper on the rest of the evening and everybody went to bed early. Mary didn’t say much about it, but when we made love I felt how tense she was. Afterward, as we lay there in the dark, I said that what happened to Jenkins could happen to any of us, even to her, if she should have the bad luck to be too close to me at the wrong time. I said she better give a lot of thought to what she wanted to do.
I couldn’t see her face, and she didn’t say anything for so long I’d thought she’d fallen asleep. Just as I was about to nod off, she hugged me tight and said I’m doing it.
The next day we all went up to St. Marys in two cars. It was a pretty morning of crisp air and soft autumn sunlight. St. Marys was a trim little town, nice and quiet except for the church bells, with red and gold trees shedding leaves along the streets. We cruised around and got acquainted with the place. The cop station had only two cars in the lot. We drew a street map of the bank’s neighborhood and we made our own road map of the surrounding region, including every farm lane not shown on a regular map and marking the exact distances between every road and intersection. Then we went back to the river house and made copies of the map for each of us to study until we had them memorized.
On Monday morning Russ and Charley and I went back to St. Marys to case the bank itself. I was wearing my phony-lens spectacles, and Russell was cultivating a mustache that was coming along nicely. We wore seersucker suits, white skimmers, and green bow ties and looked every inch like yokel businessmen. Take it from me, a simple disguise is the best. The only one of us who never used any kind of disguise at all was Fat Charley. He looked so thoroughly common, so ordinary and benign, he didn’t need one.
We took turns going into the bank on different pretexts—to break a large bill, to ask directions to some local address, to pick up an application for a checking account—and each of us took a good look at the layout. We then put our heads together and drew a diagram of it while we had lunch in a rear booth of a café. We went back to the hideout by way of one of the getaway routes we’d decided on, making a stop at a hardware store in Greenville to buy two large cartons of roofing nails. That was my own embellishment on the Lamm method. If they came after us we’d dump the nails behind us. See how far they chased us on flat tires.
That evening we had a light meal of soup and sandwiches and went over the plan until everybody had his job down pat. The only hitch was Copeland, who’d started puking before supper and would keep at it, off and on, for the rest of the night. He’d picked up a case of beer and a couple of bottles of whiskey from a bootlegger in Cincinnati and had been taking nips from one of the bottles all afternoon. He wasn’t drunk but he was sick as a dog, and it was Charley’s guess that he’d gotten a batch of bad booze. I wasn’t sympathetic. He wouldn’t have been so sick if he didn’t have such a taste for the stuff.
His condition caused us a problem. The plan called for three guys in the bank, one on the street, and a pair of drivers—one for the heist car and one to wait with the switch car outside of town. Without Copeland, we’d either have to leave the switch car unattended, never a good idea, or go in the bank with only two guys, which we could do, but it was always best to go in with three. Lamm had thought so and I did too.
When Mary said she’d be willing to take Knuckles’ place with the switch car, we all stared at her for a minute. I could see she was serious. There were grins around the table.
She gets an equal share, I said.
I should say so, Fat Charley said.
Red said Holy smoke, Pete, you been smooching it up with a damn bandit.
Mary just beamed.
We pulled it off a little before closing time. I hadn’t been sure the other guys would share my disdain for masks, but they did.
Masks or not, Fat Charley said, they’ll know who we are.
Russ said Who cares? They got enough on us already to lock us up forever. A hundred more robberies ain’t going to make it any worse.
Fuck ’em, Red said. I want them to know who I am.
Mary was waiting in Copeland’s Oldsmobile at a small picnic park not far from a highway intersection and about three miles west of town. Russell was at the wheel of the Hudson, parked halfway down the block from the bank and with a clear view of the doors. Shouse had the street. Red and Charley and I did the inside work.
The manager and an assistant were at their desks and a single teller was in the cage. Charley paused inside the door and checked the time on the bank’s wall clock and pretended to set his watch. Red unfolded a road map and went over to the manager to ask if he knew the best route to Bellefontaine. I strolled up to the cage.
The teller didn’t seem to recognize me from the day before when I’d gone in to get change of a twenty. I shoved a flour sack across the counter and brought up the sawed-off from under my coat. I told him to empty the drawers into the sack and be quick about it.
He went white, and I thought Not again, remembering my first bank job ever and the teller who fainted off his stool. Luckily, this one managed to stay conscious.
I heard Red tell the manager not even to dream about touching a goddamn alarm button. He had his gun to the guy’s head. A few customers came in while I was scooping up the cash in the vault, and Charley got them together all nice and quiet. When I came out of the vault we ordered the bunch of them in there and Charley told them to stay put until the manager had counted aloud to five hundred.
I’d figured it for a five-minute job but we were out of there in a little over four. Russell pulled up in front of the bank and we got in the car and he drove us off nice and easy.
Oh man, Red said, oh man.
The alarm still hadn’t sounded as we eased around the corner and then all of us were laughing like we’d just heard the best joke in the world.
Somebody tell me, Russell said, how long we been out of M City?
We have been at large exactly one week today, Charley said.
World, watch your ass, Red said.
In minutes we were at the picnic spot and Mary smiled big at the sight of us. I took the shotgun seat beside her, and Charley and Red got in back. She drove us out of there nice and smooth, and Shouse and Russell followed along.
We were all still pretty pumped up from the job, and Red said Boys, we are one fine fucken team if I do say so myself. Then looked at Mary and said Pardon my Turkish, honey.
She looked at him in the mirror and said I think you speak it quite fluently, Jack, and got a big laugh. She always called him Jack, ever since finding out some of the cons had called him Three-finger Jack.
At the next highway intersection, Mary turned south but Shouse kept going west. He and Russ wouldn’t get back to the hideout till an hour after us—in a brand-new Chrysler they’d stolen in Celina. They ditched the Hudson in the woods along Grand Lake.
We made the next day’s newspapers, of course. And of course there’d been a to-do—cops all over, roadblocks, the usual routine. The bank employees had looked at mug shots and put the finger on us. Matt Leach came over from Indiana and told reporters he was hot on our trail. They probably laughed at him as hard as we did.
The haul was twelve thousand, a convenient sum for cutting into shares. Four thousand would go to Sheetz, and everybody in the gang got $1,050, including Mary. She said she’d never expected to see that much money in her hand in her life. She got to hold even more when we named her the keeper of the common kitty and gave her the leftover $650 bucks to hold.
Copeland was a little sheepish in accepting his cut, saying he felt like he hadn’t done much to earn it. Shouse said he could say that again. Mary said Oh hush, Ed. I told Knuckles he’d done plenty in getting us the hideout house and letting us use his Olds for the switch car. Besides, all that mattered was he was in the gang, and as long as I had anything to say about it, every member would get an equal share of every job.
The only problem we had with that job was the money itself—it was too new. You could smell it all through the house. It looked so unreal Russell said if
he didn’t know where it had come from he’d swear it was counterfeit. The bills were perfectly smooth and they crackled when you balled them up and no matter how hard you tried to smooth them out again they stayed so stiffly crinkled it was hard to stack them neatly. With money that new, the cops were sure to circulate the serial numbers and alert every business in the Midwest to report all transactions in which they received brand-new currency.
Nobody was for selling the cash. We all hated fences—a bunch of thieves who rarely paid more than fifty cents on the dollar. We figured the thing to do with the money was age it.
We put the bills in a big sack and took turns beating the sack against a tree truck for a while and then walking back and forth on it. We filled a large bucket with damp dirt and mixed in a touch of lard for that slightly greasy feel paper money gets over time and we worked the cash around in the dirt by the handfuls. Then we rinsed the bills under the tap and spread them on cookie sheets and put them in the oven at low heat. We took them out again while they were still damp and balled up each bill and then opened it up and passed it to Mary who pressed it flat with a clothes iron. It was a day’s work, believe me, but at long last the money looked and felt and even smelled a little like it had been around a while.
Before we did all this, we set aside Sonny Sheetz’s cut. If he wanted his money aged he could do it himself.
Late that afternoon a man and two kids wandered across the rear of the property, carrying fishing poles and a bucket and stringers of fish. Russ and Red watched them from behind the curtain and figured they were taking a shortcut home from the river. The man and kids all had a good look at the cars and no telling who they might talk to about them. That night we all slept in our clothes and took turns keeping watch out the window. The next morning we cleared out of the river house and moved to Cincinnati.
Handsome Harry Page 14