by Jack Martin
Earl left the hotel room, locking it behind him. Whistling a jazz tune, he strolled down to the elevator and rang for the car. When the operator opened the cage door, he strolled in without a backward glance. If he had looked around before entering the car, he might just possibly have spotted Agent Bierce waiting in the shadows at the end of the corridor.
Texas Highway Patrolmen Hughes and Bryant had parked their motorcycles on the shoulder of the state highway and were munching their lunchtime sandwiches in the noonday sun.
“Pretty damn boring,” said Hughes after a long silence.
“What, you want to get in a shootout with some of those gangsters up North?” replied Byrant. “That’s not for me. I get all the excitement I want chasing speeders and drunks. When you get down to it, that’s saving lives, and it gives me a good feeling.”
Hughes swallowed, then chuckled. He was older and more cynical than his partner, but he liked the younger man, and hoped he lost his idealism before some punk put a bullet through him. “Hell, you’re not even that strong on speeders. I’ve seen you let folks going ten, even fifteen over the limit go with just a warning.”
“Hey, it’s rough times on most folks. Even a small fine can make some of them go hungry for a week.” The young trooper nodded toward an approaching Ford. “Like that feller there. I suppose he’s doing about five over the limit, but what’s the point of spoiling his day over such a small crime.”
At the wheel of the Ford, Bonnie Parker frowned. “Clyde, lookit. Two state troopers. How we going to handle this?”
“How do we always handle Texas bulls?” snarled Clyde Barrow from the passenger seat. He twisted toward Methvin and Hamilton in the back and shouted, “Gimme the BAR!”
Methvin frowned. “Clyde, they aren’t showin’ no sign of trying to stop us. Maybe we should just roll by and see what—”
“Gimme the goddamn BAR!” screamed Barrow in a voice that seemed scarcely human. Methvin shrank back into the seat, while Hamilton scrabbled the heavy weapon off the floor and thrust it at Clyde. Clyde took it and worked the bolt to bring a round into the chamber. Yelling, he said, “Bonnie, slow down!”
Bonnie silently agreed with Methvin, but had long ago learned not to argue with Clyde when he was in one of his moods. She dropped the Ford into first gear just before she drew abreast of the two officers. Clyde thrust the stubby, sawed-off barrel of the BAR out the passenger window, and held down the trigger of the weapon for four seconds, sending twenty 30-06 rounds at the Texas lawmen. The tremendous detonations of the powerful rounds in the enclosed cabin of the Ford temporarily deafened all the car’s occupants, so Bonnie did not hear Clyde scream to hit the gas. Bonnie needed no urging, and quickly shifted into second, then third, and the roaring V-8 sent the car careening down the road.
As the sound of the Ford died away, absolute silence reigned over two motionless, torn bodies. A single crow circled the scene, then landed and began to peck at a half-eaten sandwich.
Director Hoover scowled as he was led into the Oval Office by a thin male secretary who offered him a chair in front of the enormous desk and then slipped out, closing the door behind him. Hoover sat and placed his briefcase on his knees, staring across the desk at the man he so despised. For no reason he could easily pinpoint, even the jaunty angle with which the President held his cigarette-holder irritated Hoover. Roosevelt tapped the ash of his cigarette into a massive marble ashtray and frowned back at Hoover. Most definitely not the famous smile that cameras and newsreels loved and endeared him to his fellow countrymen.
“Director Hoover, I have asked you here to discuss your inability to control your agents. I believe I made it clear in our previous meeting that your man Bierce, the one supposed to have a sterling reputation, is off the reservation. The fact that he once did a service for me some years ago does not buy him immunity from discipline. Bierce was to cry off looking into Senator Long’s affairs. Those were my explicit orders. Yet, I have received further complaints from the Senator. Are you unable to control your men?”
Hoover surprised himself by immediately leaping to Harry Bierce’s defense. “Sir, Agent Bierce has evidence of massive corruption on the part of the Senator, some of it pertaining to Federal violations. I have told him to pursue this wherever it may lead.” Hoover often found Bierce’s arrogance infuriating, but if he needed reprimanding—which he didn’t since he was acting on Hoover’s direct orders—Hoover would do it himself. He would be damned if he would let this crippled Bolshevik discipline a man of Bierce’s record.
The President’s face reddened. “Goddamnit Hoover, there is more at stake than some petty violations of Federal law. Despite all that I try, the economy remains in the toilet! The public won’t be patient much longer. I need time, time to work us out of this mess. The Republicans can’t do anything to stop me for the foreseeable future, but Huey Long can! He is the only one in the Democratic Party who could take the nomination away from me in two years’ time. You’re a smart man, you know what that would mean. Long acts an awful lot like that strutting fool in Italy and the Jew-baiter in Germany. With mobs of hungry, desperate people behind him, he could sweep into this office in two years and create a dictatorship. I cannot allow that to happen.”
“Your political concerns are no affair of mine,” replied Hoover, opening the thin briefcase on his lap.
“Then Director Hoover, you leave me no choice but to ask for your—”
Several large photographs plopped on the desk before the president. He froze for a moment then snatched them up and began to examine them, eyes widening as if he could not believe what he saw. Hoover casually threw several pages of transcripts onto Roosevelt’s desk. The President glanced at the papers, then looked up to Hoover, ashen-faced.
“Mr. President, my agency and my agents are not to be interfered with while we pursue this or any other investigation involving violations of the laws of the United States of America. If it is any consolation, I believe Agent Bierce may be able to take care of your Long problem.” Without further ado, Hoover snapped his briefcase shut, then rose and walked toward the door.
“What about … these?” Roosevelt asked, gesturing feebly at the pictures and transcripts.
“You may do with them as you wish. After all, they are only copies. Good afternoon, Mr. President.” Hoover let himself out of the Oval Office, softly closing the door behind him.
For several moments, Roosevelt stared at the documents that could destroy his career. Then, hands shaking, he crumpled them into tight balls and put them in his large ashtray. He took the gold-plated lighter from his desk and ignited the paper. He continued to stare at the ashtray long after its contents had been reduced to fluffy ash.
Constable William Campbell, the only lawman in the small Oklahoma community of Commerce, edged himself out of his Model T and slowly stretched his aging body. An unforgiving sun beat down on his sixty-year-old frame as he wiped the sweat off his lined face with a dirty bandana. He felt older than his age. In truth, he had felt that way ever since his wife passed away in ’22. Shouldn’t have married her, he thought morosely. Too many years between us. Besides, the child planted inside her is what killed her. Still, for a few years we were happy; not much money, but we were happy.
He shook his head and tried to concentrate on the positive. The job of constable didn’t pay much, but he was paid more than many who lived in the Depression-sacked Midwest, enough for him to support his daughter. His little girl was the one true joy of his life, and he was grateful for her. Intelligent, attractive, hard working around their motherless house, he viewed her as God’s blessing on his declining years. All he wanted now was to live another ten years and see her safely married to a good man. Then he would gladly join his wife.
Campbell started at the sound of a single shot coming from the town’s lone bank. Without conscious thought, he began running toward the bank building. As he fumbled to draw his heavy revolver, he saw three men and a small woman erupt from the bank. To his amazem
ent, he saw that the small woman was holding an ungainly BAR, a weapon he had not seen since his service in the Great War. Before he could think of what to do, the woman swiveled toward him and fired three rounds in one second. Constable Campbell felt himself fly backward as several hammer blows drilled into his torso, felt the impact of the dusty street on his back as he landed, his head bouncing on an old paving stone, then he felt nothing more.
As the dusty Ford V-8 roared out of town, screams of passers-by on the streets and customers as they burst from the bank filled the air. From the ramshackle schoolhouse only half a block away, teachers and students of various ages alike poured onto the street, afraid, yet desperate to see what had happened. A gangly twelve-year-old girl detached herself from the crowd and ran to the body that lay in the street. She looked down, expressionless for a long moment, then she sat and moved the bloody head into her lap. Silently, she began to cry. It would be several hours before she could be persuaded to let the body be taken from her.
Frank Hamer and his three fellow lawmen arrived in Commerce in two dusty Plymouths just as the young girl, numb from grief, was being led away from her father’s body by a sympathetic teacher. The cars stopped short of the small crowd, and Hamer eased his bulk out of the driver’s seat of the first car. He quickly took in the gathering—mostly dirt farmers and their worn-out-looking wives, with a few obvious merchants, all of them visibly beaten down by the Depression, as well as the Dust Bowl conditions that had ravaged Oklahoma, sending not only their best topsoil whirling away in vast choking clouds, but their livelihood, too. Hamer took in the body lying on its back, along with the several gaping holes and a large puddle of coagulating blood. The crowd turned to look at Hamer as he approached, flashing his Texas Ranger badge.
“Bonnie and Clyde,” Hamer said in his drawling yet authoritative voice. It was a statement, not a question.
A thin, stooped man in a threadbare suit stepped forward. “It looked like them to me, sir. Who are you? Your badge says you’re Texas Rangers, but this here’s Oklahoma.”
“Name’s Hamer,” the Ranger responded, ignoring the question as to his legal jurisdiction. “Been chasing Bonnie and Clyde for weeks now. Found they had been spotted up near Wanette, heading in this direction. Who are you?”
“Dallas Burton. I’m the mayor. I also run the bank over there, for what it’s worth. That gang cleaned us out. About $220 total.”
“That’s not much.”
“Folks hereabout don’t have much. Lot of them owe on their mortgages, but what would be the point of foreclosing on them? They’d have to pack up a Ford and go to California looking for work, and the bank would just have a bunch of worthless farms.” Burton looked down on the body. “Besides, that bitch thought $220 was worth a good man’s life.”
“Who is he?” asked Hamer, gesturing at the body.
“William Campbell, our Constable. Good man. Widower with a twelve-year-old daughter. God knows what will happen to her.”
Hamer thought of the fatherless children of his friend Joe Crowson, and his face hardened. “Which way did Parker and Barrow go?”
The mayor gestured vaguely at the road leading south. “That way. It leads to Southern Arkansas, but there is a paved connecting road that could take them into Northwest Louisiana.”
“Thanks. I’d like to use your telephone to alert police departments in those directions. Single officers, or even pairs of them, must not try to take the gang by themselves. They’ll just get killed trying. After my phone call, we’ll be hitting the road ourselves.”
“Sure. Use the phone in my bank. In the meantime, if you’ve no objections, we need to take Campbell’s body to the county seat. We haven’t a coroner, or even an undertaker.”
Hamer nodded and abruptly turned and marched toward the bank, his fellow Texans hurrying to catch up. Ted Hinton came up alongside his boss, and speaking in a low voice, said, “I know I’ve brought it up before, but as this mayor mentioned himself, I’ve got to say that we shouldn’t be following Bonnie and Clyde outside of Texas. We don’t have the legal authority to arrest them outside of our state.”
“That’s not a problem, Ted.”
“And why’s that, Frank?”
Hamer, grim, focused forward. “Because we won’t be making any arrests.”
It was nearing sunset the following day. Earl Long looked out the window of Huey’s enormous office in downtown Baton Rouge and sighed heavily. He turned to the thickset thug, a state policeman, who had escorted him into the office and said, “I do thank you kindly, officer, but you can go now. Brother Huey has some business he wants me to conduct private-like.”
The scowling guard normally would never have left a person alone in the Senator’s office, but this was Huey’s half-crazed little brother, who, for some reason, Long trusted above all others. Without a word, the thug turned and exited the room, closing the heavy oaken door behind him.
Earl again sighed, then cackled incongruously. Part of him was worried, even frightened, about how his brother had not only given him instructions on the Bierce matter, but had added directions on another, even more sensitive matter. Another part of him, the strangely twisted part, was vastly amused that he, poor little old Earl Long, the one called simple by his own family, was trusted with such important duties by the next President of the United States.
He strode over to the tall bookcase behind the Senator’s desk chair, felt around the top right edge, and heard a small snick. Then tugging, the bookcase slid open. He now saw the familiar space hollowed out of the wall, and the familiar object it contained: the rumored deduct box. It was a simple tin box, three foot high by three foot long by two foot deep. He grunted as he picked it up and carried it over to the desk where it landed with a thud. From his pocket, he produced the simple key his brother had given him, unlocked the box, and opened the lid wide.
Packed inside was the largest amount of cash money any mortal was ever likely to see in one place, outside of the Treasury. After all, ten percent of all state salaries came to quite a sum, even in these hard times. Most of it was gathered into neat blocks of $100, $50, and $20s, but there was still an amazing amount of loose cash that had not yet been counted or sorted.
Earl feasted his eyes on all that wealth for more than a minute. Then he opened a battered briefcase that was propped up on the credenza, and carefully counted out bundles of $100 bills, until he reached $60,000. He then shoveled the money into the briefcase and snapped it shut. He locked the deduct box and restored it to its hiding place. Whistling a jaunty tune, he opened the door to the office and waved good-bye to the scowling guard. With a light step, he exited the building and climbed into his Chevrolet, throwing the briefcase casually onto the passenger seat. He started the car with a roar and pulled out into the street, nearly hitting a trolley. Earl Long had a lengthy drive ahead of him, and wanted to get to his destination as soon as possible.
Half a block behind him, Harry Bierce sat behind the wheel of a powerful Hudson Convertible Coupe. Smiling to himself, he started the engine and pulled carefully out into the light traffic, taking care to get neither too close, nor too far from Earl Long’s Chevy.
It was nearly two in the morning when, after the long, hard drive Earl Long got to the little run-down motel on the Louisiana-Texas border. He turned off the rattling engine of his Chevrolet and yawned long and loud. He would give anything to check into this fleabag motel and sleep for twelve hours, but he knew sleep would have to wait. The previous day he had placed a call from a payphone to a cousin of Clyde Barrow’s. A few hours later, the cousin had placed a return call indicating a time and a place for a meeting in a terse, clipped voice. The early morning hours were the time; this decrepit motel was the place.
He rubbed his eyes and exited the car, taking the briefcase with him. He went to the room with the number he had been given and knocked softly. The door was thrust open, and Clyde Barrow, holding a heavy Colt automatic in his right hand, greeted him. In the room, Bonnie, Methvin, a
nd Hamilton lounged on the bed, holding pistols just in case.
“’Bout time,” growled Barrow in a low, menacing voice. “Git in, and keep your voice low. There’s nobody in the rooms to either side of us, but you can never tell how far a voice carries at night.”
With no outward sign of any fear of the gangsters, Earl entered the room. Clyde closed the door behind them.
A quarter mile down the road Harry Bierce stood beside his Hudson. Even with his keen eyesight, he could not make out who had opened the motel door to Earl Long. He took in the situation: there was no real cover between him and the motel, but the night was moonless and there was little illumination provided by the motel’s dim neon sign. Deciding swiftly, he began to approach the motel as silently as a cat stalking its prey.
Inside the room, Earl and Clyde stood, facing one another, while the others lounged with feigned indifference on the beds. Clyde was the first to speak.
“This better be important, Long. Told you the last time to only call my cousin on the most important things. If the bulls pick him up because of this, I’ll kill you, Senator’s brother or no.”
“Relax, Clyde, there’s no way your kin will get in trouble because of this,” replied Earl, ignoring the others. “Besides, you’re not going to kill me. You’re relatively safe in Louisiana. You see, my brother has told the state police on the sly that he regards you as a very low priority. You can’t say that in Texas, Arkansas, or Oklahoma. People there are riled up about your latest string of killings. Big brother will make this state hotter for you than all the others combined if you kill me.” Earl stopped, as if contemplating his next question. “I understand the two Texas troopers, but was it really necessary to machine-gun that old constable? He was a widower with a kid.” Earl shook his head sadly.
“He pulled a gun on us,” snarled Bonnie, making her voice deliberately harsh to hide the regret she harbored over that particular killing.