Dillinger

‘Not much to show for forty years of living, old girl,’ he said softly.

He toasted her, emptied the glass in a quick swallow and poured another.

It was perhaps an hour later that he became aware of the sound of a car approaching up the track outside and by then he was drunk enough to be angry.

‘The bastard, Sam,’ he said softly to the dog. ‘Back already.’

He stood up, took an old double-barrelled shotgun down from the wall, found some cartridges in a drawer, and loaded it as he went to the door. The hound dog whined anxiously and followed.

Doc stood on the porch outside, the gun ready in his hand, only the car which had stopped in the middle of the yard wasn’t the de Soto. It was a Ford coupé and the man in the black felt hat and neat dark suit who slid out from behind the wheel was definitely not George Harvey.

‘Hello, Doc,’ he called softly. ‘That’s a hell of a welcome.’

Doc lowered the shotgun in astonishment. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said. ‘Johnny Dillinger. You shouldn’t be here. They come looking for you just day before yesterday.’

‘Who’s they?’

‘A bunch of lawmen. Come in two cars. Fellow who asked about you stutters. Tall, wiry, big fellow.’

Dillinger laughed. ‘That must be Matt Leach. He runs the Indiana State Police.’

‘I wouldn’t laugh, Johnny. He said he’d break my ass if I was lying to him about your being here. He said he’d break your ass when he caught you.’

‘Somebody sent him a dime book called How To Be a Detective’, Dillinger said. ‘He thinks it was me.’

‘Was it you, Johnny?’

Dillinger rolled his eyes like Al Jolson. A picture of innocence.

‘Oh you’re a terrible man, Johnny.’

Somewhere thunder rumbled and there was that sudden quiet moment before a storm when everything seemed poised for a terrible down- pour.

Dillinger said, ‘Mind if I come in? I think it’s going to rain.’

‘Sure, sure, Johnny, but what if Leach comes back,’

‘I’ll just bring my insurance policy into the house with me if you don’t mind.’ Dillinger went back to the Ford. Doc watched him bring in the machine guns as if death was being carried into the house under both of Johnny’s arms.

And then the rains came, a heavy relentless downpour that churned the yard to mud as Dillinger sat on the porch, drinking Doc’s coffee and cleaning his tommy guns to perfection. The old man’s plaint was getting to him, making his eyelid tic.

‘Three thousand lousy bucks by next Monday,’ Doc was saying, ‘or they take over – even the furniture.’

‘Can’t you sell some of your land off and settle up your debt to the bank?’ Dillinger asked.

‘Not possible,’ Doc said. ‘Not under the terms of the mortgage. And there isn’t enough time. That bastard George Harvey is collecting as many small farms as he can and hoarding them for resale when times get better.’

The old man poured another drink. ‘Anyway, enough about me. What about you? That break from Lake View prison the other month must have been really something, wasn’t it, Johnny?’

‘For them, not for me,’ Dillinger said. ‘It was a breeze.’

‘You’re really number one, Johnny,’ Doc said. ‘I’ve known them all one time or t’other. None like you. I heard you was in California. The radio said you robbed a bank in Los Angeles last week.’

‘Sure wish I did. I heard I was in Houston and New Orleans doing the same thing on the same day. It’s OK with me. Just keeps the cops confused. What about your wife, Doc, she leave you on account of your drinking, the way she always swore she would?’

‘She left me all right, Johnny. Died last year. Top of that, my girl Carrie, who married a guy from Miami, well he got himself killed asleep at the wheel last year, and Carrie took the baby with her to the Florida Keys. She runs a café down there.’

‘Why don’t you join her?’

‘I couldn’t do that to her. I’d just be a burden. A dried-up old man with no money.’

Dillinger said, ‘I remember when this was the best hideout in Kansas. A man could get anything here. A night’s sleep, a change of car.’

Doc chuckled. ‘Remember the night I took that bullet out of your arm after the Fort Harris job?’

Dillinger smiled faintly. ‘You were a pretty damn good doctor for a country vet.’

‘Oh, I had my moments.’ He poured another whisky, ‘It’s funny, Johnny, but when you reach my age, you get to thinking what it’s all supposed to be about.’

‘Any answers?’

‘Oh, sure – three thousand dollars, that’s what my whole life adds up to, only I ain’t got it which means my life adds up to nothing. That’s a hell of a thing to contemplate.’

Dillinger sat there staring at him for a moment, then he stood up, picked up the old man’s yellow oilskin slicker, pulled it on and went down the steps to the Ford.

‘Where you going in the rain, you damn fool?’ Doc yelled after him.

When Dillinger came back, he was carrying a small case which he carried inside and placed on the table. He opened it carefully. Inside, there was a stack of money, each bundle neatly banded in a bank wrapper.

The old man’s eyes widened.

‘Fifteen grand there, all I have to show for a misspent life,’ Dillinger smiled. ‘Keep it for me. If I don’t come back, use it any way you see fit.’

‘No, Johnny, I couldn’t,’ Doc whispered. ‘God, where are you going?’ the old man demanded.

‘To see a man about a bank loan,’ Dillinger said, his back to the old man as he went down the steps to the Ford, got behind the wheel, and drove away.

George Harvey glanced at his watch. It was just after 2.30 and it occurred to him that an early finish might make sense today. The relentless rain which had cleared the streets of Huntsville outside hammered ceaselessly against the window of his office and filled him with acute depression. He was about to get up, when the door opened and Marion, his secretary, looked in.

‘Someone to see you.’

Harvey showed his irritation. ‘I don’t have any appointments.’

‘No, he knows that. A Mr Jackson of the Chicago and District Land Company. Says he’s only in town by chance and wonders if you could spare him a few minutes.’

‘Does he look like money?’

‘I’d say so.’