Red Highway (13 page)

She hadn't been with Virgil for over five years, not since that traumatic visit she had paid him soon after he had been incarcerated in McAlester, when he had advised her not to wait for him. Despite his advice, she had not had anything to do with any man since. Not that she hadn't been asked; the office here in Miami was full of back-room lotharios who had been more than willing to “show her a good time”—which meant, of course, the nearest hotel or the back seat of a borrowed touring car. She had turned them all down.

Now, sitting here, typing up a bit of correspondence between her boss and the head of a similar firm in another city, Hazel asked herself for the thousandth time why she hadn't accepted those invitations. And, for the thousandth time, she came up with the same answer: Virgil Ballard. There had never been anyone but Virgil. It had been that way ever since they had first caught sight of each other, so long ago, in the little one-room schoolhouse just outside of Picher. It would always be that way. She loved him now as she loved him then, only stronger, because he had been away. She simply could not see herself going with anybody but Virgil Ballard.

The sad thing about it was that it was probably over. Two years had passed since the shootout in the streets of Picher, two years during which Virgil had had ample time to get over whatever affection he had once felt for her. In that time, he had looted banks, traded bullets with the law, paced the floor of at least two prison cells—and met other women. There was something about the smell of gunpowder, Hazel knew, that could make a man forget his first love. After all, hadn't he given her her freedom back in 1927? Why shouldn't he expect the same?

Mr. Simpson poked his head out his office door. He was a big man, with a ruddy complexion and thinning gray hair. “Are you still here?” He mocked anger. “It's Memorial Day, Hazel. Go home.”

“But Mr. Simpson, I have all this work to do. These letters—”

He waved her protests away. “It's late. Go home. Get some sleep. And I better not catch you in this office before noon!”

Hazel smiled, and said, “Thank you,” but she said it to a closed door. She stacked the papers neatly, replaced the cover on her typewriter, took her purse and hat from the clothes tree behind her desk, and left.

The night air, one flight down from the office, was cool and comfortable. Hazel stepped briskly through the small employees' parking lot and got into her automobile. It was a Hudson sedan, not exactly a brand-new 1933 model, but large and spacious and dependable. The high front seat creaked when she sat on it.

“What? No chauffeur?”

Hazel jumped, nearly knocking off her hat on the upholstered ceiling. In the rear-view mirror, Virgil's sunny face smiled impishly from the back seat. “Home, James,” he said.

“Vir—!” exclaimed Hazel, turning around, but she was cut off when two lips pressed firmly and passionately against her own.

The loudly ticking clock on the bedside table read 2:30. Hazel nuzzled against Vrigil's bare chest and drew the thin sheet up to her neck. She sighed. Sometime during the night, the moonlight had sneaked through the window of the hotel room, and now it illuminated their relaxed bodies.

“Virgil?” she said sweetly.

“Mmmmm?”

She twisted her head to look up at him. “How'd you know where to find me?”

He smiled sleepily. “Love finds a way.”

“No, I mean it.”

He grunted and rubbed his eyes. “I couldn't very well go back to Picher after what happened last time,” he said yawning. “So I took a chance and came here to see if I could find you at work. I got lucky.”

“But you didn't know what car I was driving.”

“I read the registration of every car in the lot.”

“Oh.” There was a stretch of silence, broken only by the sound of Virgil's even breathing as he slipped back into sleep. Then, “Virgil?”

His eyes sprang open. “What?”

“What happened in Kansas?”

“Nothing much. Me and ten other guys got sick of rotting while we was still alive. We got guns.” He took a cigarette from the pocket of his jacket hanging on the bedpost, lit it. “It wasn't pretty.”

“I guess not.” Hazel began to relax again, then remembered something and stiffened. “Did you read what the papers are calling you?”

Virgil snorted. “The Tri-State Terror. That's a laugh.” He spat out his cigarette smoke.

“That's not all. The government men say you're Public Enemy Number One.”

“Yeah?” He looked thoughtful. “I didn't know that.”

“They say you don't last long once they make you Number One.”

Virgil didn't answer.

“Marry me, Virgil.”

He didn't make a sound for a long time. Then he dragged in a lungful of smoke and let it out slowly though his nostrils. “You're on,” he said and crushed her to him.

The youngster looked up at Virgil, an eager light snapping in his clear blue eyes. He was small and slight and wore big horn-rimmed glasses that kept sliding down his freckled ski nose. His hair was so blond it was almost white and was getting thin in front. Virgil appraised him quickly, then looked to Alex Kern for an explanation.

“I been telling you about Boyd Harriman,” said Alex, his hand on the youngster's shoulder. “Boyd's hell with a machine gun.”

The boy smiled shyly, but didn't say anything.

Virgil regarded him through narrowed eyes. Standing as he was, his frail frame dwarfed against the majestic Missouri landscape that surrounded them, he didn't look like much. “How old are you, kid?”

“Twenty-three.” He had a high-pitched voice, squeaky and irritating.

“Hell, this punk isn't nineteen. What the hell are we running here, a goddamn orphanage?” The question was put to Kern.

Undaunted, Alex replied, “Age don't mean nothing in this business, as long as you're good at what you do. This kid's dynamite, I tell you.”

“Yeah. We'll see.” Virgil strode over to the car, a new 1933 Plymouth six, stolen, reached through the open back window, and hauled out a Thompson submachine gun. This he carried over to where Boyd Harriman was standing and slammed it into the boy's chest. “Show us,” Virgil demanded.

It took Harriman a second to get over the shock of the sudden burden, then he smiled and curled his frail hands lovingly around the big curved grips. He dropped the gun to hip level and let his bespectacled gaze sweep the lush landscape that rolled placidly before him. At last he pointed down the hill. “That tree,” he said. “Watch.”

He set his feet about a shoulder's width apart, fiddled with the gun. Then he let fly. The gun stuttered long and loud, spitting gleaming brass cartridges from the breech. Bullets spattered against the stout apple tree at the foot of the hill, splitting and splintering the rough black bark as they traveled upward toward the crotch, gouging a ragged bone-white pattern up the middle of the trunk. The branches shook and released a torrent of green leaves and shriveled apples to the ground. When he had finished, the twisted tree looked as if it had been struck by lightning. Not one bullet had gone past the trunk.

Virgil took his eyes from the scarred target and looked at the youngster. Harriman was a vague shape in a blue haze of drifting gunsmoke, a litter of brass cylinders at his feet. The echo of the staccato gunfire rumbled away over the hills like distant thunder.

“Where the hell did you learn to shoot like that?” Virgil wanted to know.

Harriman smiled and let the smoking barrel droop. “My pa smuggled a BAR back from France in '18. Taught me how to use it.”

“Boyd was with the Detroit Purple Gang for a year,” volunteered Alex. “You learn with those boys.”

“Well, Mr. Ballard? Do I get the job?” The boy grinned and pushed his eyeglasses back up his nose with his free hand.

“Call me Virgil,” said the other, extending his hand.

The next day, Virgil left the office of the Justice of the Peace with his new bride. He was decked out in a light tan suit and spats, and sported a flat straw boater at a rakish angle over his left eye. Hazel had on a tight yellow dress with a bit of lace at the neck. For virginity's sake, a white veil fluttered from her flowered hat. They made an attractive couple as they climbed into the Plymouth six, the “Just Married” sign on the back courtesy Alex Kern and Boyd Harriman, and drove off.

Alex and Boyd met them as they pulled into the driveway of the frame house outside of Stockton, Missouri.

The Stockton Farmer's Bank & Trust job was their smoothest to date. They left the engine running and Virgil and Boyd, each toting a machine gun, ran through the bank's open door while Alex Kern remained on the sidewalk with a revolver concealed in his jacket pocket. The vault was open behind the marble counter. Boyd stood in the middle of the floor, machine gun leveled at three bank employees and the handful of customers who huddled as far away from the gun as they could get, and Virgil went into the vault and scooped the money into his bag from the file drawers along the concrete walls. When he had finished, he and Boyd hustled back out the door, collected Alex Kern, and were off before the alarm began clanging. It was the best wedding present Virgil could have hoped for.

Chapter Thirteen

It was dusk when the big Plymouth jostled into the driveway of the rented house and braked to a bouncing halt. Hazel, who had been sitting on the couch, reading, put down her copy of
Liberty
and got up to flick on the porch light. She was wearing slippers and a long quilted dressing gown.

Alex Kern and Boyd Harriman piled out of the car and started for the porch. Boyd had his machine gun tucked securely beneath his arm. Alex carried the money bag. Behind them, the car rolled forward toward the garage, Virgil at the wheel.

“What happened?” Hazel asked anxiously when the two had entered.

The black sack thumped heavily onto the linen-covered dining room table, propelled by Alex's long arm. “Only twenty-five thousand dollars, that's all.” His face was split by a huge grin.

“Smoothest piece of work I ever saw,” piped Boyd. He began breaking down his machine gun and laying the parts on the tablecloth. “Like a clock. The boys in Detroit would of admired it.”

Hazel ignored the compliment to her new husband's skill. “Did anybody get hurt?”

“Only the bankers' pocketbooks.” Virgil, who had entered through the side door of the garage, came in from the kitchen. He grabbed Hazel, spun her into his arms, and kissed her, hard. She didn't respond. He drew away and studied her in a puzzled way.

“Twenty-five grand, three ways.” Alex thought for a moment. “That's over eight thousand apiece.”

“Four ways,” Virgil corrected him, turning away from Hazel. “We agreed, remember? One cut goes to Hazel because she's in with us.”

“Yeah. I forgot.”

“That's fair. She gives us respectability when we rent a place to stay.” Boyd busied himself with cleaning the machine gun. He blew down the barrel and looked through it at Virgil.

Virgil carried his machine gun, which he had been holding in one hand, over to the narrow closet door and swung it open. Shotguns and pistols and machine guns and open boxes of ammunition gleamed from the closet's interior.

Boyd whistled. “Some arsenal.”

“Mostly rented,” said Alex, loosening his tie. “Virgil knows a guy in Oklahoma City.”

Virgil clapped his machine gun into the closet beside the others and pushed the door shut. “Renting guns is a pain. We got to get some of our own.”

Alex said, “How do you plan to do that?”

“Same way as last time.”

“Police station?”

Virgil nodded. “There's a place here in Missouri that's perfect. Guns till hell won't have 'em.”

“Man!” exclaimed Boyd, impressed. “Rob a police station! You guys got nerve.”

Hazel went into the bedroom and slammed the door with a bang.

Alex stared after her. “What's eating her?”

Virgil didn't answer. He went to the bedroom door and gave the knob a yank. It didn't budge. “Hey!” He rattled the knob. “Unlock it, Hazel. Or I'll shoot it off.”

“Leave her alone, Virge,” said Alex. “You know women. Maybe she just wants to be alone.”

“Well, she's not gonna be. Not on our goddamn honeymoon, she isn't.” He banged on the door.

After a moment, there was a click. Virgil opened the door and went in, closing it behind him.

Boyd looked at Alex, mirth showing through his big glasses. Alex glared back and began snickering. Then they both laughed out loud.

After unlocking the door, Hazel had gone back to the bed, and now she lay on her back, staring at the bright yellow-papered ceiling. Virgil came in quietly and stood looking down at her. “All right,” he sighed. “What is it this time? Sore because I left you alone on our honeymoon.”

She didn't answer, but intensified her study of the ceiling.

“Is it because two strange men are coming along on our wedding trip?”

Silence.

“You might as well tell me. I'm going to find out sooner or later.”

There was still no response.

Virgil sat down on the edge of the bed. “Why don't you want me to rob banks?”

Hazel stirred. Her gaze swung to her husband for the first time since he had entered the room. “It's not just the banks,” she said. “It's everything. You've escaped from three prisons. You're wanted for the murders of three men, one of them a policeman, to say nothing of all the places you've robbed. J. Edgar Hoover made you Public Enemy Number One. The order is out to shoot you on sight.” She turned over on her side and looked him full in the face. “Virgil, isn't that enough?” Her pretty features were distorted with mixed anger and anguish.

“So now it comes out.” Virgil looked more saddened than annoyed.

“I couldn't hold it back any longer. Give it up, Virgil. There's nothing in it for you anymore.”