WASH AWAY MY SIN

Bob Truluck

2007

[1]

     George Kelly—or Barnes, whichever you prefer—had horrible sinuses.  Allergies so bad his wife Kathryn couldn’t wear even the mildest cologne.

     Shame too.  A woman as good looking as Kathryn Kelly should have smelled like Paris.  She damn sure looked like Paris.

     I’d met the both, George and Kathryn, at a poker table in Kansas City.  Was looking for someone else at the time and was impressed by neither the man nor the novelty surrounding him.  The woman I was.

     Could have bedded her, I guess.

     George was making goo-goo at the chippie I was using for cover, Kathryn steaming.  She bailed the poker game and went out on the hotel’s balcony.

     I took a stretch and a piss, ambled out to mess up the night’s air with a ready-roll.  Kathryn was still out there, still fuming.

     She had a few choice items to unload about the quality of my companion.  I told her I couldn’t agree more—I was a private dick outta LA doing some snooping, needed a foil.  The chippie I’d hired was what a sawbuck got you in KC.

     I got a Betty Grabel then a Bettie Davis.

     “Not after me and Machine Gun I hope.”

     “No, dear.  I’d not have told you anything if I was.  I’d a had you.  I’m chasing a kike name a Pearlie Friedman.  Know him?”

     “What’s it worth?”

     I shrugged.  “The man who wants him wants him so bad he’s leaking dollar signs.”

     She laughed.  “I’ve seen him around some, but we don’t mix with that crowd much.”

     “Who do you mix with, sweetheart?”  Got the laugh.  It wasn’t a bad laugh.

     She told me I wasn’t hard to look at, drifted inside, giving me the coy smile, doing Grabel again before she disappeared.

     Before I stubbed the butt, Kelly wandered out, led by a cigar barely bigger than a dachshund.

     The paperboys had him tough.  I had him soft—a doughboy.  Decent size on him but lacking the essential for a bonafide red hot—the eyes.  Kathryn had those.    

     Kelly said, “You play decent poker, buddy, damn decent.  You outta Nevada?”

     “No, baby, I’m no pro.  Outta LA.  Do it as a hobby when I got the roll to bank it.”

     “I hear you.  Hey, your girl, Luanna?  You lookin’ to marry ‘er?”

     I laughed, pulled another Benson and Hedges from my breast pocket, lit it with the first.  “I’m just passing through, baby.  She’s not.  You hear me?”  This was going to the interesting side.

     “I hear.  Listen, you seen my old lady.  She looks all right.”

     “Yeah, she looks just fine.”  Like a double-scoop ice-cream cone looks all right in August.

     “You wanna trade out for the night?”

     I didn’t take it well.  I’m sure it showed.

     All I had was: “You serious?”

     He was serious.

     I told him lemme think about it.

     I had already thought about it.  I thought I’d just as soon sleep with Lizzi Borden as Kathryn Kelly.

     That was then.

[2]

         A couple of years later I’m tethering a hot Auburn and an adjusted agenda at the curb outside a club called Many Ha-Ha’s in Memphis.  I’d picked up the Auburn at a dinge juke joint two-three cuts off Beale.

     An old friend of mine named Johnny Chaplain had rounded it up for me.  Johnny also rounded up something else—street talk.

     Word on the street was somebody needed a fast ride quick.  Johnny said this certain party was hanging around this white juke club, Many Ha-Ha’s.  But the party was offering two for one on bills that needed some time to age and no one had taken them up on the barter.  Ransom dough can be red hot for years—no takers in Memphis.

     The situation left the Kelly’s stalled here, sitting on a mountain of marked bills from a kidnap.  Like I told Kathryn that time before: If I was looking for you, I’d a had you.  I had ‘em.  Maybe.

     Many Ha-Ha’s didn’t live up.  Square joint, no style, no ha-ha’s.  Tables and chairs from a home cooking place.  Primitive bar.  Plumbing pipe for a foot rail.  If the dive had been painted since Lincoln’s inaugural it fooled me.  Plain wood floor.  Spittoons.  All but the chickens, baby, and the end of Prohibition was still young.

     I eased up to the bar, tossed a buck down, leaned against the rail being careful about splinters.

     “Whatever’s coldest.”

     A moke, door height, made of sticks slid up.  He’d wasted some Lucky Tiger on the hair. 

     “All the same, partner.”

     “For a buck you could surprise me.”

     “Sure, mister.”

     Long tall shoved off, went down a hall off the bar.

     Not long, he wobbled back, popped the cap on a tall brown bottle.  I didn’t recognize the brand but I did recognize ice cold.

     The barkeep put a finger to his lips.  “There’s only so much ice for a nickel beer.”

     I saluted him; he tossed a towel down.

     Low: “Keep it wiped down, okey?”

     I told him sure; enjoyed my dollar beer.

     Why not?  I was on a rich man’s expense account and the rich man didn’t care shit about his two hundred great ones in ransom.  Screw money.  This guy wanted pounds of flesh from people’s asses.  Trust me on this: odd behavior for a rich man.

     The gent’s name was Charles F. Urschel.  I didn’t know what the F was hiding but I had a clue.  Urschel had the opportunity to spend a few days with some of George and Kathryn’s kinfolk down in Texas.  Only Kelly and his running buddy Al Bates used Thompson .45’s as an invitation.  Then charged this Urschel fellow two hundred gees for the lodging.

     Had I gotten out of that tight spot with nothing but my life and my drawers, I’d have felt blessed.  Not Urschel.  His version: the Feds weren’t fast enough; the Feds weren’t smart enough; the Feds were chasing the money, catching the small fry who were passing off the dough—where the hell was Machine Gun Kelly?

     Wasn’t too hard.  I found him in Memphis second rock I flipped over.

     The beer was cool, the air in the bar wasn’t.  When I was done I went out, sat on a wood bench in a park across the street.  Some regular folks strolled by.

     Some irregular folks with pilots’ sunglasses, sideburns and pointed shoes went up a long stair beside a house two numbers north of the bar, disappeared through a screen door.

     A bit later, another irregular climbed the stair.

     Not long, all three irregulars plus Kelly and Kathryn came down the stair.

     She was stunning even on the lam.  Hennaed hair, tall pumps on her feet, a dress so diaphanous it had to be a dark color or you could have seen her garters.

     The crew went in the bar behind Kathryn.

     I ate a few cigarettes, got up strolled over, bellied at the bar again.

     “I’ll do scotch this go.  A dollar’s worth again.”

     “Sure, mister.  I’ll be back.”  The same hall.  Maybe there was a decent bar back there somewhere.

     Kelly and company had hemmed in a table at the back end of the room.

     Me, them—that was the customer list in its sad entirety at the moment.

     I put my spine to the rail, tilted my hat off my forehead.  I looked at them, smiled like I wasn’t a cop.  They looked—the whole table looked.  I read them.

     Kelly didn’t recall me.  Kathryn knew me, maybe even knew why I was there.

     My dollar pop came back.  Nice—a highball glass full, one dissipating ice cube bouncing around in there.

     I took it over to the table, sipped on the trip.  Nice scotch.  Another sip, I fronted across the table from Kelly, looked down.

     “‘Lo, George.”

     “I know you?”  Kelly drank to it.  Up close he didn’t look so good.  Rough, tense, shadow line on his jaw.  His eyes had been drunk for several days.

     Kathryn pointed.  “Poker game, Kansas City, I believe.”  A smile to make a moke wanna use a .45 caliber Thompson on another moke.

     “You got a good memory, ma’am.  Seven stud, nothing wild.”

     “You were the big looser, weren’t you?”  Razzing me for not taking Kelly up on the playmate swap in Kansas City those two years back.

     I caught her drift, played with her some.  “I walked out with three grand and change I didn’t bring in.”

     “Yeah, I recall now, buddy.  You cleaned up.”  Kelly thumbed at me.  “Guy’s holding four queens, I gotta solid flush, Kewpie Darrow’s got a damn boat, kings over sevens.”

     “Kings over sixes, baby.”

     Kelly grinned.  “Man, what a hand.  Stakes went to nearly six gees.  You won.  Why come you only took three home?”

     “I was down so far the bottom of the well was tapping my feet when I hit the homer.  How you and the lady been?”

     “Been good.”  He didn’t sound like he believed it.

     Kathryn said, “I still think you were the big looser that night.”  Coming back to it, looking at me but making it about Kelly, how he was too dumb to get it.

     “Pull out a chair, buddy.”  Kelly pointed with a spare finger.

     I pulled, sat.

     “What’s payin’ the bills?  The queens?”

     I wagged my head.  “Nah.  Strictly a hobby.  I got a piece of this, a piece of that.  Know what I’m saying?”

     “I hear you.  Why Memphis?”  Being a cagey bastard for a simpleton.

     “A dinge I know off Beale picks up highbrow motor cars.  I fly out from the coast, drive one back.  I swing south of the border at Laredo.  Time I’m back in LA, the car’s clean as new—foreign registration.”

     Kelly clued up, sniffed at the bait.  He liked.

     Kathryn watched—I could feel it on the side of my face like sunshine.  I don’t know what face she was wearing.  If I looked at her I’d give it away.

     “What you pickin’ up this trip, buddy.  What was your name again?  Tom?”

     Kathryn: “Joe.”

     I nodded, still wouldn’t look at her.  “Got it already.  A thirty-two Auburn.  Super charged, a hundred-sixty horsepower.  Not much’ll touch her on a flat road.”

     Kelly nodded.  “Get somethin’ to drink, for God sake, how bout it, somebody?”

     The guys with the Kelly’s were southern slickers.  Pompadours, pegged pants, two-tone sport shirts, two-toned shoes with the pointed toes.  Big hayseed grins and unruly side-whiskers.

     Low-on-the-pole got up, went to the rail.

     “Whatchu get on somethin’ like that Auburn automobile it was in California?”

     I shrugged.  “I can put it in the newspaper out there, get retail.”

     “Bull shit.”

     I shrugged some concession.  “Close to retail.”

     “What’s retail?”

     I was getting ready to set the hook; I could feel it.

     Kathryn watched me pull him in.

     “Two, two and a half grand.”  I lied.  Legal it was worth maybe a grand.  I’d payed four C’s for it.

     “I’ll give you a grand.”  Kelly emphasized with a fist, one finger out, banging on the table, the one finger pointed at me.

     “I’ll drive it home for the other grand.” 

     “Fifteen, buddy, and you ain’t got no troubles.  Pick you up another high-ride in nigger town, make who knows what kinda dough.”  Slinging his jowls around.  “What’d you pay for it, a grand?”

     Yeah, sure, sweetheart.  “Eighteen, it’s yours.”

     “Seventeen.”

     Sold to the stupid guy in the stained straw hat and the five o’clock shadow.

     I looked at the key in my hand, tossed it at Kelly.

     He said, “I gotta get the cash.  It’s down the street.”

     “There a poker table down there?”

     Kelly grinned.  “What, you giving me a chance to win back my sixteen hundred?”

     “Seventeen.  Yeah, you’re lucky you can.  Anybody else here gamble?”

     Kathryn said she did.

     I said I’d noticed.

[3]

      A man without a car in modern society is nothing short of pedestrian.

     I walked my travel bag a few blocks from Kelly’s crib.  Pure Oil gas station, there was a sign in the window of a two-year-old Buick ragtop with good tires and most all the dinguses available.  Tan with red leather interior.  Two eighty-five I drove it off.

     Drove it back to the house.  Did a set of stairs that could have used some attention.

     A big Stetson answered the silly knock Kelly gave me.  The man said he was J.C. and I said I was Joe.  We left it there on names.

     He asked was I the poker player.

     I said I guessed I could be—I’d played some here and there.

     I elbowed the screen door open more, a bottle in each hand.

     “Wha’s that, fella?”

     “Greek moonshine, J.C.  Make your socks roll up and down.”

     “I might try me some a that.”

     “I hope you do.”

     J.C. said, “In the dining room.  Down the hall, second door to your left.  Come on.”

     Led me along to the second left.  No door—a pass-through to the dining room.     “Hey, buddy.  You get wheels?”  Kelly in the beat, stained white straw and an

undershirt.

     “Yeah.  This town’s full of ‘em.  Whose deal?”

     No pompadours.  Kelly, Kathryn, a guy introduced as Lang.  I didn’t know if it was first or last.  Didn’t really care.  He could’ve been the local version of upper crust hooligan.  Looked slick till he lost the suit coat and showed me some jaundiced shirt underarms.

     J.C. and his big hat sat with us.  Five hands present but another someone was due any minute.

     Then Kathryn decided she didn’t want to play.

     We bought chips and a portly man with fat, deft hands and no name joined us.  He had a bowler hat that he didn’t remove.

     The table drew for deal.  The fat man won.  My jaw didn’t bounce off the floor.

     I watched him shuffle.  Almost prissy hands, small and fast.

     He wore a loud, plaid suit which, along with the impertinent bowler, gave him a bumpkin air.  His hands weren’t bumpkin—hands straight from up-town.

     I was in for a fleecing.  Kelly had a dealer and his two spoilers—J.C. and Lang—who would be in on the fix, knew the ever so subtle signals.  A rub at a chin.  A hand through the hair.  Even a nose pick if need be.  High man stays on me, everyone else folds.

     I’d brought Kelly’s marked bills, another two grand of a rich guy’s retainer and two bottles of ouzo.  I’d bought the exotic hootch in Florida—Tarpon Springs.  It was the real toy.  I’d been saving it for a special occasion.  Here it was—special occasion.

     They let me win a hand here and there, no biggies though.  I took a few at the end and blamed it on the ouzo.  J.C. had gotten into the stuff and was passing out shots.  Everyone but Kathryn and me’d had four of five.  I was down a little over two grand and full of two short ones.

     We got another eight hundred out of me but it wasn’t easy.  I had to fold aces and jacks, a winning rack.  Kathryn stood behind me, watched me taking falls.

     The ouzo had the room a little funny for me—everything a few degrees left or north of something—but I was thinking it was a fog for everyone else.

     I went all in on a king high, got cleaned out.

     J.C was telling Kelly it was Greece whiskey, slurring it out.  Kelly tried to focus on the bottle, took a slug instead, did it from the neck.

     “Whooey.  That’s some liquor, buddy.  Where you goin’?”

     “I gotta get a room before it gets too late.”  I had a room.

     “Come back.  Drink a few with us.  Bring more money next time.”

     “Sure, baby.  I’ll bring a wheelbarrow full.  See you boys next time.”

     Kathryn appeared on cue in the hall.

     “What’re you driving?”

     “A tan Buick canvas top.”

     “Give me five minutes.”

     A pretty good kiss came with it.  She pressed into my body, wrapped me in her womaness, showed me how well it fit.

     I stumbled out to the Buick, took a couple shots of rum to chase the ouzo away.  The rum did okay, but I’d planted a couple of snootfuls of coke over the passenger visor to counter the opium in the ouzo.  I put the coke in my nose.

     Two minutes, she opened the door and slid in.  I watched the windshield.  The coke kicked in, caressed the rum.

     It was raining the day I was born.  It was raining now.

      Four in the morning, Kathryn and I were back, sitting at the curb in the tan Buick.  She was on my end of the red leather seat.

     Six of the best hours I’d ever lived had come to an end.

     I kissed her.  Was the last good kiss I ever had.

     She said, “You’ve got us, don’t you, Joe?”

     “Yeah, baby.”

     “Whadda you say to a break for the lady?  I could corner a few grand.  I’m sure you’re not shatting on uppers.  South America’s cheap.”

     “Whadda we waiting on?”

     She reached over, touched my face.  “My family depends on me, Joe.  I’m all they’ve got between them and the soup-line.  I just can’t right now.  Let’s go to Texas.”

     The damned green eyes.  Diamonds—they were that hard.

     “I’ll call my guy, cut my deal in half if he’ll let you slide.”

     “What if he says no, Joe?”

     I knew; I couldn’t say. 

     “Smoke this while I make a phone call.”

     I handed her a reefer.

     The phone booth in front of the bar was dirty but had service.

     I called a guy in Oklahoma named Urschel.  He was in bed like any sane person but he took my call after a long wait.

     “The hell are you?”

     “Memphis.”

     “Tennessee?”

     “There’s another?”

     “Don’t get cute, young fella.”

     “I’m not cute, Mr. Urschel.  I’m not young tonight and full of no sleep and no coffee.  Please just listen.”

     I got done and we spent a few nickels on some silence.

     “So let me get this straight.  You’ve set them up—Kelly and his wife—but you’ve fallen for the wife and want to give back half my money and nail only Kelly?”

     “Yes, sir,”

     More wasted nickels.

     “I believe I hired you to put the both in jail, mister.”

     “Yes, sir, you did.”

     “Then, that’s what I expect for my money.  Nothing more, nothing less.”

     “Screw you, Mr. Urschel.  Hope you rot in hell.”

     I dumped the connect while he begged hell out of my pardon.

     Kathryn was dreamy when I got back to the Buick, dreamy in near red hair.  Skin like raw milk.  Eyes on fire.

     She put out a hand, caressed my face again.  “If I’d have met you five years back we’d be wealthy and retired.”  Off in Neverland.

     “Baby, you got two choices.  South America’s cheap.  We could light out—I got the dough and the Spanish to carry us like royalty for ten-fifteen years.  We can’t come back though, ever—you say you can’t do that so it’s not a choice.”

     “What’s my other choice, Joe?”

     “You know, Kathryn.  You’ve got the one choice—the cophouse.  Right now.”

     She shifted around, leaned against her door.  “No can do, Joe.  Oh, I’m so tired.  So, so tired.  We’ve been running since September, Joe—two months.  I gotta see my old ma, give her some money for lawyers—the G-men have her locked up.  I’ll need a lawyer myself.”

     Yes, she would.  “Kat, you don’t have time for that.  You got time to go save yourself.  Worse rap, you do a couple a years.  Cut a good deal today, give them Kelly, give them the dough.”

     “Take me to Texas, Joe.  I need to see my old ma first.  I’d rather be in jail in Texas.”  She lay her head back.

      One way or another, Kathryn was going to see a rough night.

     “Come on, baby.  Let’s go see the cops.”

     “Let’s go to Texas.”

     “Let’s go to Chile.”

     She laughed, popped the door.  “I don’t even know where Chile’s at.  Sounds cold.  Joe, please call tomorrow.  Let’s work this out.”

     “Baby, don’t go.  Let’s get past this right now.”

     “Not tonight, Joe, sweetie.”  Out of the car she was unencumbered by my charm.  “No cops before coffee.”

     Ten feet, maybe twelve, I said: “It could have been good, sweetheart.  I’da run away with you.”

     She never turned.  Over a shoulder, she waved, said, “You’ll call me tomorrow.  We’ll talk about it.”

     It took me twenty minutes before I didn’t feel mule-kicked in the gut.  I got out of the car, moved slowly.  I hurt, physically hurt.

     Loosened up, I walked across to the phone booth, got a sleepy operator.

     “Hey, toots, you wanna get your name in the paper?”

     “You said what?”

     “You wanna be famous for a few days?”

     “What’s the joke, buster?”

     “No joke, doll.  Listen up.  There’s some guys from D.C. got the whole top floor a the old Peabody, the nice rooms.  Get one of them on the line, tell him Machine Gun Kelly and some a his boys are at a very green house two numbers north of a bar called Many Ha-Ha’s.  You got that, sugar?”

     Some quiet.

     “Who’re you?”

     “Just a guy knows where Machine Gun Kelly is.  This is straight dope, sweetie.  You want I say it again, you write it down this time?”

     The rain became serious, beat me from booth to car, came in sheets to the city limit sign.

     Maybe a mile—maybe twenty, maybe fifty—outside Memphis the sky cleared and poured a beautiful sunrise over a damn sad morning.

     I’d rather it had rained all day, washed away my sin.