Red Highway (5 page)

“You look good, Floyd,” said Virgil, disengaging himself from the big man's baseball glove-sized hand. All the Mosses were as strong as oxen.

“Ralph has told me some good things about you,” observed Farrell mildly. In contrast to the Moss brothers, his manner was reserved. “Of course, Ralph has been known to stretch the truth at times.” He smiled then, but his eyes were grim.

Ralph shook his oxlike head. “Not this time, boy. Virgil can make a Mack truck stand up and dance the Charleston. As wheel men go, he's the king.”

Farrell didn't say anything to that. He turned and headed for the next room. “In here.”

Virgil followed him, flanked by Floyd and Ralph. “How d'you like this place we got here, Virgil?” asked Floyd. “Humdinger, ain't it?”

“Yeah.” Virgil looked around at the sitting room in which he found himself, at the expensive carpet and the big new leaf-patterned easy chairs.

“Not bad. I didn't know you guys were doing this well.”

Ralph snorted. “Don't take nothin' at all. You lay down a couple hunnert a week, and you got yourself the Taj Mahal. There's houses like this all over Miami.”

“I'm more comfortable in these surroundings,” explained Farrell, who had unbuttoned his pinstriped jacket and taken a seat in one of the chairs, motioning for the others to do the same. “The time for planning heists in low dives and condemned buildings is past. These days, it's top drawer all the way or nothing.”

“That seems true enough,” said Virgil, sitting down in the chair opposite Farrell. “I been reading about you in the papers lately. You got off pretty clean in Oklahoma City, and again in Tulsa.”

Farrell cast off the compliment with a gesture of indifference. “Those were small jobs, not worth the effort. The pay's low, and the risks are high. Let me give you some advice.” He leaned forward in his chair. “Stay away from the big cities. Shawnee, McAlester, Muskogee, they're no good. You never know when they're gonna be digging up the streets or when some jerk in a J.C. Penney truck is gonna jackknife right in front of you. Hit the small towns, the one-street burgs. Those banks are chock full of cash from rich farmers and grain industries. Just drive in and drive right out again with thirty grand in your back seat. It's as simple as that.”

Virgil studied the gang leader's smooth features. “I see you been talking to Ralph.”

Farrell smiled again, genuinely this time, white teeth flashing in his dark face. “You mean Dawes. Yes, I've been talking to Ralph about it. The only reason we haven't hit it before now is that he talked me into waiting for you.” The smile faded. “I hope it was worth it.”

“Take my word for it, Roy,” piped up Ralph, who was seated beside his brother on the sofa. “This kid's hell on wheels.”

“So you told me. But it's been four years since either of you has handled anything heavy. Can he still do it?”

Virgil let a smile play around the corners of his mouth. “You supply the wheels, Mr. Farrell,” he said, “and I'll supply the driving.”

“Well, we'll see about that soon enough.” The gang leader got to his feet and looked down at Virgil.

“You got any plans for the next week or so?”

“Nope.”

“Good. Because you're gonna be staying with us.” Farrell drew a slim black billfold from inside his jacket and began counting out bills. “First, get what you need; toothbrush, razor, clothes. Then come back here.” He laid the bills in Virgil's outstretched hand, just as he got up from his own chair.

Farrell paused before replacing the wallet. “You got a piece?”

Virgil fingered the money in his hand. “A piece?”

“A gun. You got a gun?”

Virgil shook his head.

“Here.” Farrell gave him the rest of the money. “Get yourself a good one. I don't want any of my boys to pull a job unarmed.”

“Thanks a lot, Mr. Farrell,” said the initiate, shoving the money into the pocket of his cheap jacket. “You won't be disappointed for giving me this opportunity.”

“Roy,” said the other paternally. “Call me Roy.”

The city of Miami was only about three times the size of Picher, but it was much more prosperous. The traffic here was considerably heavier, the buildings taller and more concentrated, and the impersonal atmosphere that had long ago come to places like Oklahoma City and Tulsa was just beginning to make its presence known in Miami. It was an up-and-coming town, and it showed itself as such by the number of improvements and additions that had been made while Virgil Ballard had been marking time in Jefferson City.

But Virgil wasn't paying much attention to these as he stepped into the town's main street and looked around. At the end of the street, nestled between the bank and a grocery store, he spotted the establishment for which he had been searching. He trotted down the sidewalk, threading his way through the passersby, and stopped before the building marked STACKENAUER'S SPORTING GOODS. An impressive array of lanterns, sleeping bags, rifles and fishing rods was arranged in the window, behind which stood a young man in a natty blazer, smiling out at his potential customer. Virgil pushed the door open and went in.

Once inside, he made his way through the maze of axes, tennis rackets, and other outdoor accouterments, and stopped at the glass counter. The young man in the blazer had beaten him there, and he came to a kind of attention behind the counter, the eager smile still on his face. “May I help you sir?” he asked.

“I'm looking for a pistol,” said Virgil unsmiling.

“Well, sir, you came to the right place.” The counterman stepped back and spread his hands on the counter to indicate the guns that were laid out beneath its glass top. “Your choice, sir. We have all kinds, old and new.”

Virgil looked the guns over. There was, indeed an admirable variety on display. Colts and Remingtons and Walthers and Mausers and a few Virgil had never heard of lay side by side in the case, their curved grips and blue barrels shining proudly against the counter's plush red interior. After a moment of decision-making, he settled on a battered 9 mm. Luger, German Army model 1908, lying neglected between the gleaming six-shot Smith & Wesson and a vicious-looking Remington automatic. He pointed out the older gun. “Can I see that Luger?”

“The Luger?” The counterman looked crestfallen. “Yes, sir,” he said, and slid open the glass panel in back, reaching for the gun in question.

When Virgil had it in his hands, he turned it over and over, enjoying the feel of the hefty firearm. Long and sleek and heavy with most of its weight in the oversize grip, the Luger was neither beautiful, like the Smith and Wesson, nor deadly-looking, like the Remington, but held a curious kind of dignity in its obvious serviceability. It looked exactly like what it was: an obedient machine that could be relied upon to do the job for which it was designed.

“I'll take it,” said Virgil. “How much?”

The man in the blazer looked dismayed. “Are you certain this is the gun you want, sir? It's over fifteen years old, after all. Now, this Colt—” he reached toward the sliding panel.

Virgil interrupted him. “The Luger. How much?” He reached into his pocket.

The counterman shrugged, defeated. “Fifteen dollars.”

Virgil spread three crisp five dollar bills on the counter. “Oh—and I'll need two boxes of ammunition.”

“Yes, sir. That'll be another two dollars.” The counterman snatched down two dusty boxes of 9 mm. cartridges from the shelf behind him and placed them before the customer, who had laid another pair of bills on top of the others. Then he swept up the money, put it in the cash register at his elbow, and handed Virgil his receipt.

“Do you have a paper bag?” inquired the other. “I don't want to stretch out my pocket.”

Virgil waited for the man in the blazer to make some smart comment about the quality of his customer's jacket, but he remained silent and handed him a paper bag from the shelf.

Virgil slipped the pistol into the bag and placed the square boxes on top. “Thanks.” He turned and headed for the door. “Nice day.”

“If you say so, sir,” replied the man behind the counter, staring morosely at the thirty-dollar price tag on the Colt revolver in the case.

Chapter Five

Red dust billowed from the La Salle's rear tires as it left the curves and roared into the straightaway. Virgil, one hand on the wheel, watched the reflections of trees flow across the deep purple finish on the long hood, listened to the gutteral booming of the exhaust, felt the powerful engine respond to his silent command, and fancied himself God. The whole world was rolling away beneath those greedy wheels. Nothing could catch him.

“How do you like it, kid?” said Roy Farrell, seated beside him. “They don't make 'em any faster than this, you know.”

“It's beautiful. Where'd you get it?”

Ralph Moss laughed from the back seat. Virgil heard him shift the shotgun on his knees. “We bought it. Can you believe it? Tell 'im Roy.”

Farrell nodded his assent. “A guy in Oklahoma City had it. He needed money, so I offered him four thousand. He took it.”

“Four grand?” repeated the driver incredulously. “For a La Salle?”

“He wasn't too happy about it.”

Virgil shook his head and smiled. These bank robbers knew how to live.

Farrell reached over the back seat. “Give me that road map. I want to see where we are.”

Floyd handed him the map. He rattled it and spread it across his knees. “Dawes. Let's see … here it is.” He planted a finger on the northeast section of Oklahoma. Then he folded the map and laid it on the seat beside him. “Three miles, kid. Three miles to paradise.”

Or hell, thought Virgil facetiously, and laid a hand on the heavy lump in the pocket of his new jacket.

Constable Ed Fellows had been the law in Dawes since 1887. Before that, he had been the sheriffs deputy, and before that, the stable boy. He had once replaced a shoe that had been thrown by outlaw Ford Harper's horse; four years later, duty had forced him to shoot Harper.

Now, at age sixty-six, he was still a formidable sight, for he stood six-foot-five in his knee-length trooper's boots, and, though he was stooped and had grown a slight paunch, was otherwise built like Red Grange, raw-boned and sinewy. His face was long and tanned and bony, his hair bleached white by the merciless sun. Standing with one elbow propped up on the top of the single gasoline pump in front of Fred Benson's service station, his charcoal-gray uniform spotless, he appeared quite capable of handling any emergency that should come to his town.

He was talking with Benson when the big La Salle pulled up in front of the bank. The doors opened and three men got out, leaving a fourth sitting behind the wheel. Two of them were each carrying something; without his glasses the constable couldn't tell what the objects were. One of the carriers stayed outside on the sidewalk while the other two men went into the bank.

Fellows excused himself and left Fred Benson to tend to his pump while he checked out the automobile. Part of it was healthy curiosity: he had never seen a La Salle close up.

Virgil sat peacefully behind the wheel, listening to the engine's full-throated idle. He glanced over at Floyd Moss, in the doorway of the high old brick building that was the Dawes bank. Standing there, holding a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun to discourage any unwanted visitors, he didn't look much like an Oklahoma plowboy anymore.

There wasn't much to see in Dawes, as Virgil found out when he looked it over through the La Salle's windshield. A small bakery stood next to the bank, and another door in the same building led to a general store. Beyond that, a department store rose three stories into the air, the top floor of which was boarded up and still showed signs of an ancient fire in the scorched bricks above the windows. A sign advertising its annual sale hung at a dilapidated angle across the front of the building. It had obviously been up there over a year. On the opposite side of the partially paved street stood a pair of frame buildings, one a boarding house and the other a private residence. A single-pump filling station faced the bank, billing itself FRED'S SUPER SERVICE. Virgil jumped when he spotted the man in uniform approaching. He shot a glance at Floyd. The straw-headed hick wasn't looking in the right direction.

The man in uniform had reached the car and was circling around toward Virgil's side. He was wearing a gun. Virgil hit the horn hard. Roy Farrell and Ralph Moss were just coming out of the bank when the horn sounded. Farrell had a .45 automatic pistol in one hand and a big burlap sack in the other. Ralph had a shotgun. They noticed the constable right away.

Ed Fellows froze at the sound of the horn. He whirled to face the robbers, bringing his thumb down on the leather flap of his holster at the same time. He never got it open. Ralph shoved the shotgun into the constable's midsection and fired. The top half of Fellows body twisted almost all the way around and a huge slop of blood splattered over the side of the La Salle. He was lifted off his feet, his uniform cap flew off, and he landed in a heap on the edge of the sidewalk. His cap hit on its edge and rolled all the way across the street and into the filling station.

Farrell was on the other side of the car and had the door open by the time the man landed. “Gun it!” he hollered, just as the Moss brothers catapulted themselves into the back seat, rocking the La Salle on its axles. Virgil let out the clutch and stomped down on the accelerator. The car shot forward in an explosion of exhaust and flying gravel. In a few seconds the town was behind them, growing smaller in the rear-view mirror as they roared northward.

“Son of a bitch!” exclaimed Ralph Moss in the back seat. “The bastard was going for his gun! I didn't want to shoot him. Son of a bitch!”

“Forget him,” said Farrell, who had opened the sack and was pulling out thick sheaves of bills. “Look at this! There must be over twenty grand in this bag. What a haul!”