“An exciting life for a farmer,” Mrs. Quigley said, raising her eyebrows.

“You can bet on it, sister,” Kathryn said, turning for the door. “See you in the funny papers.”

Don’t feel bad about it, Harv,” said Kreepy Karpis, the yegg with the face of Frankenstein. “I mean, Jesus H. Coulda happened to anyone. The son of a bitch ambushed you. That ain’t fair.”

Alvin Karpis. Alvin Fucking Kreepy Karpis sat beside Harvey in an identical leather chair, smoking an identical two-dollar cigar, at Nina’s cathouse at one in the morning, trying to give Harvey Bailey advice on how to handle his business. The much younger yegg and that goddamn moron, Dock Barker, had pulled some pretty impressive jobs, but Harvey Bailey had been knocking over banks since Karpis was swiping gumdrops at the five-and-dime and tugging at his pecker in the school yard.

Both men wore Japanese robes provided to them by the management, a steady punch of Kid Cann’s who took over when Nina died. The place was class all the way-red velvet furniture, polished wood, brass fixtures, and burning gas lamps just like in the old days. Jesus, he hoped they laundered the robes.

“So George Kelly kicks in Kid Cann’s door,” Harvey said, pointing out the action with the cigar tip, “holding that Thompson, and tells the Kid to toss him the coin or he’d spray the whole place, colored orchestra and all. Verne had gone back into the joint to talk up that fan-dancin’ snatch, or things mighta been different. But it’s just me and the Kid sharing some fine whiskey and talking about the G coming down hard on all the rackets. I’m tellin’ you, there was a time when I woulda seen Kelly coming like the light on a fucking freight train.”

“What’d the Kid do?” Karpis asked, his hangdog face showing disappointment even when curious. You could stick a knife in the guy’s hand and he’d look the same. No pulse, no emotion. “George must have a big set of ’em to bust in like that.”

“Or he’s fucking stupid,” Harvey said. “The Kid tossed over the two grips. Hell, what’d he have to lose? He’d already made the cut and left one bag for me and one for George. I think the little Jew found some amusement in it.”

Harvey blew out some smoke, pondering the situation, watching it float up to the second-floor railing that looked down upon the salon and waiting customers, hungry and jazzed for it.

“And he walked out with the two bags?”

“You know the hell of it, Kreeps? You don’t mind if I call you that?”

“Not you, Harv. Always looked up to you. I know my face ain’t pleasing to some.”

“Well, the hell of it is, I don’t think George wanted the money,” Harvey said, ashing the cigar into a jade tray in the shape of a woman with spread legs. “He wanted to give me the big fuck-you because I laid his ears back in front of his woman. That’s just plain pussy-crazy.”

“What’d you say to him?”

“I told him he’d about pissed his pants before a job-and that’s God’s own, I’m telling you. I didn’t think he’d pull his shit together. I’ll be damned if it wasn’t the same nervousness each and every time. I don’t know how he pulled this one off. This thing in Oklahoma blows the fucking mind.”

“The Urschel job?”

“Can you believe it?” Harvey asked. “I read in Time magazine that it was the biggest ransom ever paid. Since we broke out, I been running my tail off around three states on nickel-and-dime bullshit, and here goes big, dumb George Kelly, knocking on the door of the top oilman in the Midwest-Step this way, please-goddamnit.”

“How much?”

“Two hunnard grand.”

“I wish someone would’ve fingered him to me,” Karpis said, crossing his bare feet at the ankle, taking a sip of booze, a hit of the cigar. “Must’ve been cake.”

“You better believe it,” Harvey said. “But kidnapping? C’mon. That’s not an honest man’s work.”

“Really,” Karpis said, smiling big while biting down on the cigar. “Ain’t money respectable?”

“You know the G likes the goddamn Touhy brothers for kidnapping that brewer-what’s his name? They might get the goddamn chair for that mess.”

“Let me borrow a hankie. I might cry.”

“Are you drunk?”

“I’m just plain happy, Harvey. High on life.”

“Who’s your whore?”

Karpis readjusted in the big, fat chair and pointed up to the railing cut into the ceiling. A redheaded girl, with pink lips and wearing a pink slip, waved down to the men. The girl Harvey had been with joined her, and she stared down, wrung-out, at Harvey, smoking a cigarette and motioning him back up with the crook of her finger.

“I got her all night,” Harvey said. “I swear to you, Kreeps, that little girl’s pussy is electrified. Does an old man good to get some fresh young tail. Gives me some real pep.”

“You goin’ after George?”

“He’s got my dough.”

“There’s more banks,” Karipis said. “More jobs. I could cut you in on a li’l somethin’ we’re workin’.”

“That’s mighty white of you, Kreeps, but Miller kinda got his heart set on acing George Kelly off the board.”

“Suit yourself.”

“He’s right, you know,” Harvey said, his cigar failing him, and he reached out to a whore that strolled by and told her to bring him more matches. He swatted her large, meaty ass and sent her on. “You don’t steal from another yegg. You cross that line and you’re like every egg-sucking bean counter. We lose that and we ain’t nothing. Not a goddamn thing.”

The whore tossed Harvey some kitchen matches, and he got the cigar going again and leaned his head back, his mouth breaking into a grin, seeing that young whore up there smiling back, a blond angel in the ceiling. If he wasn’t so goddamn wise, he’d think the punch loved him. That’s why you go to Nina’s: whores who could sell it all night long.

“The G won’t let him keep it,” Harvey said, wresting his hand loose off the chair, cigar burning warm in his fingers. “They’ll hunt that poor son of a bitch for the rest of his days.”

Over a cold brick fireplace hung an oval portrait of Miss Nina herself, a black-eyed beauty who smelled like sunshine and sweets and could do things to a man that he’d never forget. Harvey recalled her well. What was that, fifteen years ago? There were boundaries then, and rules, and the law knew ’em and the crooks knew ’em, and there wasn’t this jackrabbitin’ that was going on today. Today, a criminal was treated like some kind of social outcast. A bum with a tainted mind. A greedy leper.

“I’m done,” Harvey said, swilling the drink. “I want my coin, and I’m throwing in the towel.”

“There’s a guy who can cut your face to look like anyone you please. He can burn your fingerprints off, too. How’s the G going to find a man then? You’d be someone else, and no file will say you ain’t.”

“A man keeps his word,” Harvey said. “I just want what’s mine. What I earned. What’s wrong with that?”

“I don’t like to do a whore more ’an once,” Karpis said. “You do them more ’an once and they start thinking that you like ’em and they’ll want some kind of tip.”

“You walk into the bank, put down the cash, and get your farm back,” Harvey said. “You take that foreclosure notice and tell them to stick it far and high up their ass.”

“Ain’t a girl a fine thing?” Karpis said, stumbling up onto his feet, drink sloshing in his hand. “I think I’ll have a second helping.”

“People today. Greed. Pussy-mad.”

THE NARROW RUTTED ROAD SWOOPED SOUTH SIXTEEN MILES from Decatur, the seat of Wise County, Texas, where Jones and Detective Ed Weatherford had just met with the vice president of the First National Bank. The men’s badges had opened up the file of Mr. Boss Shannon, a respected cotton farmer who always kept about five hundred dollars in his savings account and was known to pay his mortgage on time. But Jones had also asked where they might find the biggest know-it-all in Wise County, and the vice president laughed and gave the name of their former examiner. And that examiner was called, and, after some telephone back and forth, the vice president raised eyes over half-glasses and told the men the examiner never saw how Boss ever made a living on the few acres of cotton he raised.