Emil Griffiths had been a traveling salesman all his adult life. He had traveled the plains from North Texas up through the Dakotas. He considered himself a sober man, experienced, and generally able and willing to take life as it came. But now, life had taken a completely unexpected turn. Just as he was beginning to think about the excellent supper he would soon be eating, he found himself in the passenger seat of his own car, with three total strangers. Besides that, they were headed in the opposite direction from his excellent supper, and heading that way fast—far too fast for his peace of mind.
“Sir, would you please slow down?” he asked. “This car is not broken in yet. You’re not supposed to drive it this fast until the engine’s settled a little.”
Charley ignored the comment. The road was gravel, and they were leaving a long column of dust behind them.
“Besides that, you’re kicking up the gravel,” Mr. Griffiths said. “You might scar the paint. If I come home with this paint job all scratched up, my wife will divorce me.”
“Sounds like you’re henpecked as it is,” Charley said. “Maybe a divorce would be the best thing. There’s always greener pastures.”
“Why don’t you let me shoot this wimpy little weasel?” Richetti asked. “He’s gettin’ on my nerves.”
“Shoot me?” Mr. Griffiths asked.
“Just a joke,” Killingsworth said. “Why don’t you lean back and enjoy the ride? Let Mr. Charles here drive as he sees fit.”
“But it’s my new car!” Mr. Griffiths protested. “Why can’t he drive as I see fit?”
Nobody bothered to answer the question.
The next thing to disturb Mr. Griffiths was that Charley drove right across the nice, paved road that would have led straight to Kansas City, and kept plowing along through the gravel at a reckless pace.
“Say, that was the road to Kansas City,” Mr. Griffiths pointed out. “It runs straight into town. What was wrong with it?”
Charley was amused. He knew the man must feel that life had suddenly twisted off in a crazy direction; he himself often felt the same way.
“Them paved roads are slick when it snows,” he replied.
“But it ain’t snowing,” Mr. Griffiths said.
“No, but it could start any minute,” Charley said. “That’s the prediction.”
By the time they saw the lights of Kansas City, Mr. Emil Griffiths was in such a state of nerves that he had produced a bottle of hootch from under the seat. After taking a long, warming swig himself, he relaxed a little and passed the bottle around. No one declined it.
When they saw the lights, Charley pulled off on a little knoll and killed the motor.
“Why are we stopping here, Mr. Charles?” Griffiths asked. “That’s Kansas City, dead ahead. I thought this was an emergency.”
“Oh, it is,” Charley said. “It’s just the kind of emergency that requires us to roll into town around midnight, or maybe one o’clock in the morning.”
“I never heard of that kind of emergency,” Mr. Griffiths said.
“Well, you have now, you yappin’ magpie,” Richetti barked.
“I still wanna shoot him,” he added.
Charley ignored the remark. Then he noticed that the sheriff was looking nervous again. Probably, he did expect to be killed—after all, he was a law.
“Everybody relax, Eddie’s just piss and wind,” Charley said. “There’ll be no gunplay tonight, and you’ll both be on your way home by breakfast time.”
“You ain’t gonna let this copper go, are you?” Richetti asked, taking his pistol out of his pocket when he said it. “That don’t even make sense.”
“Put the cannon away, bud,” Charley said.
“My wife’s never gonna believe this,” Mr. Griffiths said. “She’ll think I got a sweetie somewhere.”
“Sounds to me like you lead a dog’s life when you’re home—it might not be a bad idea to get one,” Charley recommended.
It got later, and more chill. Richetti, too dumb to put his hands in his pockets, kept blowing on them. When it was a few minutes past midnight, Charley drove on into Kansas City and stopped two blocks from the streetcar line.
“End of the line, folks,” Charley said. “You’re free to hop the streetcar.”
“What about my new car?” Mr. Griffiths asked. “You ain’t aiming to steal it, are you?”
“Nope, it’ll be parked at the corner of Sixth and Main, in about an hour,” Charley said. “If you care to hike that far, you can pick it up and give the sheriff a ride home. The keys will be under the front seat.”
During the wait on the knoll, Mr. Griffiths had produced a second bottle of whiskey. Jack Killingsworth had drunk more than was his habit—despite himself, he felt sad for Charley Floyd.
“Why don’t you give it up, Charley?” he asked. “I mean it—give it up. Except for your record, you seem decent. Give it up, and take your chances in the courts.”
“Go home to your wife and boy, Jack,” Charley said—he didn’t smile.
“But why not?” the sheriff asked. “Ain’t it better than bein’ shot down?”
“I say we kill the copper, and the drummer, too,” Richetti said. “They’re both gonna crow like roosters.”
“Aw, button your lip,” Charley snapped. “Let ’em crow.”
“I sure wish you’d think about it,” Jack Killingsworth said.
Charley just shook his head.
“I’m like an old wolf, Jack,” Charley said. “I’m like an old wolf who’s been hunted too long. There’s not much left now but the hunt—not for me. Once upon a time, I might have made a good hound. But that time’s gone … now, it’s just the wolf against the hounds.”
“Charley, there’s too many hounds,” Killingsworth said. “You can’t outrun them all.”
Charley straightened up.
“It takes quite a few hounds to bring down a wolf, Jack,” he said.
“There’s a nice set of golf clubs in that car with the two flats, Sheriff—if you’re back that way, take ’em, to remember me by,” he added.
“I don’t think I’ll be needin’ anything to remember you by, Charley,” the sheriff replied. “I’ll be tellin’ my grandkids this story, someday. And I’ll tell you something else—for the business you’re in, you’ve been a real gentleman.”
“You’ll notice I didn’t scratch the paint, Mr. Griffiths,” Charley said. “Thanks for sharing the hootch. Streetcar line’s that way,” he said, pointing.
Griffiths and Killingsworth got out, and started up the cold, dark street.
Charley put the car in gear, and drove up beside them for a moment.
“Say, if you get hungry on the way home, there’s a swell cafe in Lee’s Summit,” he told them. “Good flapjacks.”
The wind picked up as soon as the moon rose in the night sky. The two men hunched their necks down into their coat collars, and started walking again, toward the lights of downtown Kansas City.
“Was that Pretty Boy Floyd?” Mr. Griffiths asked, when all they could see of the Pontiac was two tiny red taillights.
“Charles Arthur Floyd,” Jack Killingsworth said. “That’s the way he prefers to be addressed.”
BOOK FOUR
1933–1934
1
Beulah Baird had just stepped out of the corner grocery store, when a paperboy held up the newspaper and she saw the headline: “MASSACRE AT UNION STATION—FIVE DEAD!”
She started to buy the paper, then realized she didn’t have but three cents in her coin purse. She had run out to buy spicy sausage for Charley’s breakfast, and bought some fudge on impulse. Now, she was broke.
“Would you just hold that paper steady for a minute?” she asked the newsboy. “I wanna read about the massacre.”
“Lady, can’t you buy it?” the newsboy asked. “What if everybody wanted free reads?”
“You’d starve, so what?” Beulah barked.
“So what yourself!” the newsboy said, annoyed. Beulah was forced
to be a little nicer before he’d let her read past the headlines. Finally, she was nice enough that he gave her the paper. She promised to bring him the nickel for the paper the next day.
On the way up the stairs to her rooms in the boarding house, she saw a line that upset her so much she dropped the sausage, and the fudge, too: “J. Edgar Hoover claims the massacre was headed by Pretty Boy Floyd. A reliable witness, Hoover said, placed Floyd at the scene.”
Beulah was so unnerved, she left the sausage and fudge on the stairs, and raced into the room. Charley was still under the covers, dressed in nothing but his undershirt. He had slept hard—even now, Beulah could see that he hardly had his eyes open.
“Look at this!” she said, throwing him the paper. “You gotta get out of here.”
“Why? I just got here,” Charley said, before he focused on the headlines.
“Oh, they got Jelly Nash, he was nothin’ but a snitch,” he said. Then he saw the line about Pretty Boy Floyd.
“This is a lie, I was nowhere near Union Station,” he said. “I was right here with you.”
“I know that, but Hoover don’t,” Beulah said. “He’s gonna try to pin this on you for sure.”
It was the first time since George Birdwell’s death that Charley had slept soundly. He didn’t even dream—a rare thing in itself. Waking up had been like pulling himself out of quicksand. He barely remembered he was in Kansas City with Beulah. In fact, until she shoved the newspaper in his face, he thought he might be back in Oklahoma; he almost expected to roll over and see Ruby next to him. Now, life itself was beginning to resemble a nightmare, one from which he might never wake up. Charley felt dazed. He kept reading the same sentence of the newspaper story over and over again, trying to grasp the facts. Two federal agents were bringing the notorious outlaw Jelly Nash up from the McAlester pen in Oklahoma, which was not far from Sallisaw. Several other agents met them at Union Station and helped them get Jelly into a car. Nash was due to testify at a big trial involving the rackets. No sooner was he in the car than several men rushed up, and let go with Tommy guns. Jelly and four G-men were killed. One G-man, sitting right next to Jelly, didn’t suffer so much as a scratch.
“They can’t pin this on me!” Charley insisted. “I’m just a bank robber. I don’t even know Jelly Nash.
“I ain’t involved in the rackets in K.C., why would I wanna kill him?” he added.
“Charley, we gotta get out of here,” Beulah said. “Every cop in Kansas City knows I’m your girlfriend. It won’t be no time before they’ll be swarming all over this place.”
“I don’t even have a car,” Charley said. “Richetti was going to try and steal one, but that was before this happened. We won’t get far in a stolen car. You’ll have to go buy one.”
“Me? I don’t know nothin’ about cars,” Beulah said. “All I know how to do is ride in one.”
“Go cook the sausage,” Charley said, getting out from under the covers. “I got to think this over.”
He jumped up and got dressed. His head throbbed from drinking too much the night before. The fact that he had let Sheriff Killingsworth and Mr. Griffiths go only a few hours before the massacre wasn’t going to look good: it placed him in K.C. just in time to be part of what happened at Union Station.
While Beulah was frying eggs and making sausage, Charley grabbed a tablet and hastily penned a note:
Dear Sirs,
I Charles Floyd want it made known that I did not participate in the massacre of officers at Kansas City, Missouri.
Charles Arthur Floyd
He and Beulah had no sooner sat down at the table than they heard a car drive up. Beulah looked out the window, and saw a police car. Charley had just taken his first sip of coffee.
“I told you we should have left,” Beulah said. “Now it’s too late. They’re headed up the sidewalk.”
Charley took a quick look out the window.
“It’s just three goons,” he said. “Stick my plate in the kitchen and keep drinking your coffee.”
“But Charley, what’ll I say?” Beulah asked. “They’ll be here in a minute.”
“Flirt, if you get the chance,” Charley said. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled under the breakfast table, taking the Tommy gun with him. Fortunately, it had a long tablecloth covering the top of it.
“Flirt? I ain’t good at flirtin’ this early in the day,” Beulah said. “I ain’t even had my coffee yet.”
“Just do it, Beulah,” Charley said, exasperated.
“What if they want to come in?” Beulah asked.
“Of course they’ll want to come in,” Charley whispered. “If they get pushy, it’ll be their lookout.
“Turn up the radio,” he ordered. “Turn it up, and keep it turned up.”
Beulah did as she was told. “Shuffle Off to Buffalo” blared through the room, just as the policemen knocked on the door.
“Say, who is it? I’m in my robe,” Beulah said loudly.
“Open the door, lady,” one agent said. “It’s the law.”
“Maybe you are and maybe you ain’t—I need to see a badge before I open up,” Beulah said.
“You can’t see a badge through a door, lady,” the man said. “We’re G-men—let us in.”
“Couldn’t you slip a badge under the door?” Beulah asked, stalling. “I’m a single girl, I have to be careful.”
“The badge won’t fit under the door—quit stalling,” a second agent said.
“Will you be gentlemen if I open up?” Beulah inquired. “I don’t tolerate rude behavior, I’ll tell you that right now.”
“Open this door or watch us bust it down!” the first agent snarled.
Beulah turned the lock, the door burst open, and the agents lunged into the room—all three G-men had their pistols drawn.
“All right, where is he?” the first agent asked.
“Don’t come bargin’ into my home askin’ questions!” Beulah said, indignant. “You could at least take off your hats.”
All three kept their pistols ready. None of them removed their hats.
“I said, where is he?” the first G-man repeated, through clenched teeth.
“How long ago did Floyd leave?” the second agent asked. “We know he was here.”
“I ain’t answering questions from no rude men!” Beulah snapped—her ire was up. “And stay out of my kitchen!” she added, when the third agent went in to look around. He popped right back out.
“He’s been here,” he said. “There’s a plate on the sink, the sausage is still hot.”
Charley was trying to watch feet—he wanted the men to be as close together as possible before he made a move.
“Oh, blow your nose, that was my pa left that plate in the sink,” Beulah said.
“Yeah, and I’m Ty Cobb,” the third agent said. “Let’s go downtown, sister. We got a lot to talk about …”
Charley put one palm on the underside of the tabletop and grabbed the table edge with his other hand—lifted it—and charged the agents. Glassware and plates flew everywhere, but he slammed the agents so hard with the table that all three went down. Before they could recover and collect their wits, Charley had them covered with the Tommy gun.
“Let’s have the pistols, boys,” he said. The agents didn’t put up a fight—they were all too scared to move.
Charley reached in his shirt pocket for the note he had scribbled.
“Mr. J. Edgar Hoover’s your boss, ain’t he?” he asked them.
“Yeah, he’s the director,” the first G-man answered.
“Beulah, give him this note,” he said, handing it to her. She handed it to the first agent.
“I want you to read it, and then I want you to make sure it gets to your boss,” he added, speaking to the first G-man.
The agent took the note from Beulah and hastily read it.
“It’s the truth,” Charley said. “I had nothing to do with it. I just got into town late last night. I’ve got two witnesses
to prove it. I never laid eyes on Jelly Nash, and had no reason to kill him.”
“We don’t expect you to admit it, bud,” the second agent said.
“If I went in for Tommy-gunnin’ folks, all three of you goons would already be dead,” Charley informed them. “I would have plugged all of you while you were out there on the sidewalk.”
The agents said nothing.
“You ain’t no jury,” Charley told them. “I don’t care if you believe me. Just give that note to Hoover.
“If the law wants to cut me a fair deal, I’m ready to talk,” he added. “Be sure Mr. Hoover knows that.”
Beulah was nervously trying to gather up the spilled glassware, forks, spoons, and the butter.
“If the landlady sees this rug, I’m in trouble,” she said.
“Get packed, we’re leavin’,” Charley said. “Don’t take a ton of clothes, either. I’m not interested in movin’ your private department store.”
“What about these mugs?” Beulah asked. “Are we gonna just leave ’em sitting here?”
“Sure we are,” Charley said. “If they get hungry, they can lick up the butter. Then the landlady won’t be so mad at you.”
He covered the agents, while Beulah tore up a sheet. Then she covered them with one of their own pistols while Charley tied their hands and ankles and made three crude gags. He was good with knots. The agents could eventually wiggle out, but it would take them at least an hour.
“I meant what I said,” Charley told them. “If I’m offered a fair deal, I’ll come in.”
Beulah went down the hall to the phone and called a taxi. Then she lugged her two suitcases, one by one, down to the street and waited for the taxi to show up. When the taxi finally arrived, the elderly driver was smoking a stogie the size of a pipe.
“That’s a noble smoke you got there,” Charley told the driver. “How much to take us to Mexico?”
“Mexico, Missouri?” the man inquired.
“No, not Mexico, Missouri,” Charley said. “Mexico … the country!”
“I was born in Mexico, Missouri,” the old man said. “That’s the only reason I asked. Pretty Boy Floyd just gunned down six lawmen there.”