Pretty boy, p.5
Pretty Boy, page 5
Bert Walker
I knew Pretty Boy in Jeff City. He once helped me whip a couple of spades wanted my smokes and I appreciated his help and told him he ever needed for anything to look me up once he got out of the joint.
“I thought you were pulling a hard thirty,” he said.
“I am, but you think this place can hold a guy like me?”
I don’t think he believed me until I went over the wall. Charley had already gotten out by the time I made my escape and I know there are those who say he helped plan it. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. I’d never rat any guy out, especially a guy like Charley Floyd.
Things got hot for us in K.C. because of too many crooked cops, and too many bad gangsters if you know what I mean. Loyalty don’t mean nothing to some guys. I introduced Charley to my old partner Nate King. Nate at that point was doing time with Nellie Maxwell, someone who I also have a bit of history with and who also happened to be one of the best boosters in town. Nellie said she’d cook and clean for us while we pulled jobs. Charley liked the idea we’d have somebody to cook and clean for us.
“Sort of like the rich guys do,” he said.
Yeah, I told him, but I didn’t tell him the rest of it.
“How you feel about Akron, Ohio?” Nate said, while we were all sitting around contemplating our futures in K.C.
“Ohio?” Charley says. “Gee, ain’t that a long ways from K.C.?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But I cased some banks there — they look easy. You boys ever see how easy those farmer banks look? Some of them are in towns don’t even have a stop sign. Christ, I think you could open most of ’em with a spoon.”
We look at each other and say, “What the hell.”
I don’t think Charley had ever been farther east than Kansas City. He said, “Man, they grow a lot of corn here” when we drove through Illinois and Indiana.
Corn, farmers, banks. Charley sniffs the air. He’s wearing a pinky ring, dressed like a swell. I think to myself, wait till these farmers get a load of him.
Pretty Boy Floyd
Nate’s right. Lots and lots of farmers in Ohio, which means there are lots of little farmer banks just sitting around. I guess we’re a gang now: me, Bert Walker, Nate King and Nellie Maxwell. But we don’t have any name like the Ma Barker Gang or anything like that, and we don’t want any. I tell the others the key is not to draw any attention to ourselves.
We rent a small yellow house near downtown Akron.
“We don’t rob any of the local banks,” I tell the others once we get settled in.
This I tell them one morning while we’re eating some of Nellie’s flapjacks the morning after we arrive. The air outside is so cold you could break it with a hammer. I’m still trying to figure out the deal between Bert and Nate and Nellie. The two of them have eyes for Nellie and she seems to have eyes for both of them. The weird thing is their sleeping arrangements. Some mornings I see both Bert and Nate coming out of Nellie’s room. And sometimes when I’m in my own room at night, I can hear them all in the next room together. But I don’t want anything to do with that kind of action. I don’t share, for one thing. But hearing them in there like that, laughing, making noises makes me miss the hell out of Beulah and Ruby. I wonder if I’m not in somebody else’s dream, for it’s like I’m outside myself watching this guy with my face living like this, doing these things. I wear myself out pacing the floor, watching the moon slip beyond the trees. Can’t sleep.
“What banks do we rob if not the local ones?” Bert says, the syrup dripping off his chin as he stuffs his mouth with a big brown flapjack.
“I hear they got some big banks up in Toledo,” I say.
“Toledo? That’s what, four, five hours by car from here?”
“All the better. We drive in, do our business, and drive out again.”
“Like dogs who don’t shit where they sleep, right?” Nate says.
“Yeah, something like that.” I can see they like the plan.
“Bank robbers, huh,” Nate says, twirling a revolver on his finger.
“Like Jesse James,” I say. “We rob banks like Jesse and Frank did.”
“Yeah, I remember you got a thing for Jesse, always talking about him while we were up at Jeff City.”
“He invented bank robbing,” I say.
Nate looks up, still chomping on those flapjacks and says, “Didn’t somebody shoot him in the head?”
“His cousin,” I say. “He was just thirty-nine. Live fast, die young.”
Nate swallows down his pancake. He looks at me, then Bert, then Nellie. I can see in his eyes he’s trying to gauge what a bullet in the brain feels like. He gets this look on his face like he’s not going to like it if it happens to him, forks himself another flapjack. I’m young but I feel old.
Bert Walker
I got pals I owe. I figure we’re going to start hitting banks we need to go in loaded for bear. I tell this to Charley and Nate. Charley’s sitting at the table in his undershirt, his hair combed straight back, shiny with Brylcream. I’m not sure I trust him any more than I trust Nate where some things are concerned. I see the way Nel looks at Charley sometimes. I know he’s a real ladies’ man. I figure it’s enough I got to share her with Nate. But Nel’s wild and more than one guy can handle. Nate calls her a nymphomaniac. Was up to her, she’d probably say, sure, invite Charley to our party too. Hell with that. I got a feeling I might be in love with her.
“This extra guy you’re talking about,” Charley says, when I tell him I think we need some more firepower. “He ever do heists before?”
“This is a solid guy,” I say. “Solid as you and Nate.”
A cigarette is dangling from Charley’s lips and when he speaks he don’t bother to remove it, talks around it, the smoke curling up into his eyes so he has to squint.
“Solid, huh?”
“Yeah, real solid guy.”
Charley nods, sips his coffee. I never seen such a cool customer for having such a hick background. He says he’s married to an Indian. Has a kid by her. He’s like a Chinese puzzle, hard to figure out. I know this much, I wouldn’t want to go up against him in a fight. Some guys just have that way about them, guys you don’t want to fool with when push comes to shove. Charley’s one of those guys.
Bill Gannon
I get a call from Nate asking how I’d feel about pulling some jobs. I got a wife that’s pregnant and three kids running around biting my ankles and most the factories shut down. There are soup lines all over the place: good, honest, hard-working guys standing in line to eat like they’re a bunch of bums or something. Guys a lot smarter than me. I did it myself a time or two — stood in those soup lines, and I hated feeling like a fucking beggar. So when Nate asks me how I feel about pulling some heists, I say, how you think I’d feel about it? I’m in. Nate says he called a couple of other pals of his — Lefty Salazar and Joe Horvath, but that Lefty’s in a wheelchair from getting his foot amputated by a railroad car he was stealing coal off of, and Joe’s in the Ohio state pen — again. Guys like us never come to a good end. The good life wasn’t meant for guys like us, it was meant for other guys. My wife wants to know where I’m going when she sees me putting on my overcoat and slipping my .45 in a special inside pocket.
“Get these kids and you some food, get some rent money, that’s where I’m going,” I say.
“Oh Jaysus, Willy, tell me yar not going to do what I think ye are.”
She’s straight off the boat from County Cork, still got that mick accent.
“Don’t worry, Colleen.” I kiss her pretty red hair.
“Shar, shar, don’t wary,” she says. “Like I ain’t got a right to wary about me future, about me kids’ future, about you, me own husband, Willy.”
It’s snowing the day I drive off toward Akron. Perfect, I think. Even the weather is against guys like me.
Pretty Boy Floyd
Bill Gannon seems like a solid enough guy. Quiet, the way I like them. Bert tells me Bill’s married, got three kids and another on the way. I wonder what his family will do if he gets caught or shot. But I guess that’s on his plate not mine, I’ve got my own worries.
We knock over three banks — all around Toledo, and one across the line in Michigan — this little farmer bank with a cornfield across the street. It’s all easy work, but the payoff’s not that great. Nobody’s all that happy with the take, the risks we take. Bill says he knows of “a sweet little number just outside Toledo.” He says, “I thought about knocking it over by myself once — it looked that easy.”
“Why didn’t you if it was so easy?” I ask him.
“I was working in the factory, had a good job until recently when all the factories closed down. I didn’t need to rob no banks. But ever since Black Friday there’s no work. I haven’t had a decent job in months. Now, I’d rob a church if I had to.”
I look at Bert and Nate. They shake their heads.
“We’re in,” they say.
“I’m tired of hitting nickel and dime jobs,” I say.
Bill says this one is different. “How is it different?” I say.
“They got rich farmers up that way.” Bert and Nate laugh.
“Who ever heard of a rich farmer?” I say. “You’d be surprised at what some of those old farmers got in banks.”
“I hear they keep their money in tin cans buried in their back yards,” Bert says.
“I hear they keep it sewn in their mattresses,” Nel says.
I think of Daddy Walter, think there were probably guys like us running around thinking the same thing about him, how he must have had money to have a grocery store. Rich farmers! Shit, I doubt it very much, but the others seem sold on the idea.
I’ve got no choice but to go along with the rest of them. When I think about it hard enough, I don’t believe any of us have any real choice in how life plays out for us.
Nellie Maxwell
I know there have been lots of things said about me, some true, some not so true. Sure, I made a living shoplifting and I was good at it. And if I got busted, I’d just cry me a river and usually the cops let me go. Sometimes I had to do more than just cry a river — some of those cops take advantage of a girl they get the chance. Cops are just like every other guy I ever met — they all want the same thing when it comes right down to it. But before you label me a tramp, remember in those days there wasn’t any work to be had and everybody was doing what they had to do to survive. I admit, I enjoyed the work and I enjoyed the people I met and I enjoyed Bert Walker and Nate King and Charley Floyd too. Of course you could say I enjoyed Bert and Nate a lot more than I did Charley. But that’s because Charley never gave me a chance to enjoy him. I don’t think Charley ever approved of me. But it wasn’t like he had any room to point fingers at others, if you know what I mean. Charley wasn’t exactly a saint. Still, he was a damn good-looking guy and if he had asked me, I’d have done it with him. I mean I like men, what can I say. But still, there were mornings when I’d awake before the sun came up and I’d be in bed with Bert and Nate and wonder what the hell was I doing with my life. I’d feel blue and lowdown and even thought about killing myself a couple of times. But then the sun would come up and break against the snow and sparkle so prettily I’d want to cry with happiness. For I had men who loved me and took care of me and that’s a lot more than some women could say.
Pretty Boy Floyd
The bank job in Toledo went wrong right from the start. I learned my lesson that day about listening to other guys telling me how easy a job was.
We go in guns drawn and line everybody up, only Nate’s got them lined up right in front of the window while me and Bert are making for the safe. Bill is outside in the getaway car with the engine running.
Next thing I know Bert is conking the bank manager over the head with his pistol, screaming at the guy, “Open the fucking vault! Open the fucking vault!”
The guy’s curled up on the floor holding his bleeding head saying, “It’s on a time lock, oh Lord, it’s on a time lock! Please don’t hit me no more.”
Bert is giving the guy the toe of his shoe. “Stop it,” I tell him. “Let’s just get the money and get out of here.”
“We can’t get the money, it’s all in the damn vault!” Bert is yelling at me now, his face red as a beet. “This prick’s got it all locked up in a damn time-locked vault!”
Then I see that Nate has got the customers lined up in front of the window, their arms up in the air and I’m about to say to him, “Are you nuts?” when we hear this siren go off so loud nobody can think.
“What the fuck is that?” Bert says to the bank manager, who is trying to wipe the blood out of his eyes.
“Alarm,” he says. “They got you bastards now.”
“Cocksucker!” Bert kicks the guy again and his eyes roll up in his head.
I hate this sort of action. I just want to rob banks; I don’t want to hurt anybody.
I start grabbing what I can from the teller drawers and order Bert to stop kicking the guy and grab what he can and in less than a minute we’re running out and jumping in the car.
“What the hell went wrong in there?” Bill says.
“Everything. Drive and ask questions later!”
I’m not even sure I know where we’re going, but Bill says he knows Toledo like the back of his hand, that he grew up around here. It’s the only reason I agreed to let him be wheelman.
“We got a tail,” Bill says, looking at the rearview mirror.
Bert turns and looks out the back window. “It’s a fucking fire truck,” he says. “Jesus, these farmers. I’m surprised they aren’t chasing us with a tractor.”
“Yeah, a goddamn John Deere with a plow on the back!” Nate says.
“Lose them,” I say.
It’s all so ridiculous I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Nellie Maxwell
The boys come in all breathless, drop two bank bags on the kitchen table. Charley’s mad, you can tell by the way he’s quieter than the others, the way he paces the floor like a tiger. We count out the money: less than two grand. Two grand split five ways is a lot less money than any of us were counting on.
That night I ask Bert and Nate what went wrong.
“Don’t ask,” says Bert. “Everything,” says Nate.
“You hadn’t lined those folks up in the front window so’s everybody could see what we we’re up to we would have gotten out of there clean,” says Bert.
“You said line ’em up, I lined ’em up.”
I’m thinking I wish I were spending this night with Charley instead of the two dummies. But Charley has gone out for the evening by himself and I’m stuck with Bert and Nate and nobody’s having any fun. They stop arguing long enough to paw at me and I feel like we’re just a bunch of animals off in the woods somewhere without any feelings, just going on instinct and animal lust. It makes me sick to feel like that. I get up off the bed and say, “You two want to screw somebody, screw each other.” I go out into the empty living room and drink what’s left of a bottle of gin and taste Charley’s mouth on the lip of the bottle. The night is just outside the window and I hate looking at it and I hate everything about my life just then. But I know in a day or two, I’ll be okay again — until the next time. But I wonder if the day will come when I won’t feel okay again, when I’ll never feel okay again.
God, it seems I’m always waiting for the next good time to come along, the next bad time to pass.
Pretty Boy Floyd
I’m getting a bad feeling with this group. Bert’s got a mean streak in him a mile long and Nate’s a dummy. Bill’s just in it for a quick score then back to his wife and kids which means he’s not a pro, and in this business you’ve got to be a pro or you’re headed straight to the slam or a waiting bullet. Nellie is just Nellie, a woman with empty eyes. I miss Ruby and Jackie. I miss Beulah too. I miss Daddy Walter and how it was before I realized how damn poor we all were. I write my brother Bradley a letter:
Dear Brother,
I sure do miss everyone. Tell E.W. and Rossie Ruth and Ruby Mae and Emma and Mary Delta I miss them all. Tell Mother I miss her too. I wish I could be there with you now. Things are fine with me. Don’t believe everything you might read in the newspapers about me. They have me robbing every bank from OK to NY. Hell, I never even been to NY. Ha. Ha. I don’t suppose you ever hear from Ruby? I sure miss my son and her. I’ve got lots of things to tell you when I see you again. If I see you again. Boy, I don’t know why I said that. Don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen to me. I’m even looking for honest work, thinking I’ll change my life around like Daddy Walter wanted me to. He was right, crime don’t pay. Make sure you and
E.W. stay on the straight and narrow. Take care. Your loving brother, Charley.
I carry the letter around in my pocket for three days before I mail it. It has the weight of lies. And when I drop it into the mailbox, I can still feel the weight of its lies in my pocket.
Somewhere I hear church bells
&
It sounds like a toll of those dead
&
those yet to die
&
Mine is tolling among the names.
6
Pretty Boy Floyd
A month goes by, we play cards, drink beer, and stay close to the house. We read in the papers about the bank heist — small article, but we all agree to cool our heels for a time. I hear Nellie in there with Bert and Nate every night, going at it. They’re either fighting or doing the other thing, almost always drunk. Sometimes I wonder how long it’s going to be before Nate kills Bert over her, or the other way around. I don’t know how people can live like that.
One night Bert says he’s taking Nellie out on the town, and does Nate want to come along or stay and play gin rummy with me. “Sure, I want to go,” Nate says. “What do you think?” They ask me if I want to go, too. No.
