Pretty Boy Floyd

by Larry McMurtry

  “Bears are always eatin’ drunks,” he insisted.

  “Yeah, but Charley ain’t drunk,” Earl said.

  When the Mattville sheriff arrived, Luke was unlucky enough to let slip the awkward fact that Charley had told them he meant to jump the train.

  The sheriff’s name was Colley Colliers. He was a dignified man who didn’t appreciate incompetent performances on the part of law officers. Six hounds milled around his legs while he stood on the railroad tracks, trying to take the situation in. Two deputies and three deer hunters had followed him out to the train. The deer hunters had come along for the excitement. They were hoping Colley would deputize them before the shooting started, but he mainly seemed irritated by their presence.

  “You mean he told you he was gonna jump the train, and you let him?” he asked Earl.

  “Sheriff, we thought he was joshin’,” Earl replied.

  “I’da thought he wouldn’t of told us, if he meant to do it,” Luke added.

  “You boys don’t have the firewood to fuel much thinking,” the sheriff informed them bluntly. “When you take a prisoner to the pen, you have only one rule to keep in mind—you don’t let him out of your sight till you get him to the pen! If that means standing in the washroom with him, that’s what you do!”

  Just then, they heard something cross the track fifty yards or so down the tracks. Two of the deer hunters lifted their rifles and blazed away. One of the deputies was about to follow suit, when the sheriff yelled.

  “What do you vigilantes think you’re shooting at?” he demanded to know. “When I need random gunfire, I’ll ask for it.”

  “I believe I hit him, Sheriff,” one of the deer hunters proudly announced.

  “Probably a bear,” the conductor said. “These woods are full of bear.”

  “How the hell would you know, Shorty?” the sheriff asked. “I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve never seen one bear.”

  The group walked on down the way, swinging lanterns, and found a Jersey milk cow, stone dead on the tracks.

  “Uh-oh,” the deer hunter said.

  Sheriff Colley Colliers shook his head.

  “Amateurs are the bane of my existence,” he grumbled.

  16

  When the landlady knocked on the door and told her she had a telephone call, Beulah had been about to jump into bed with Beauregard Evans, her new boyfriend. Beauregard had already undressed and was sitting on top of the covers with his dick sticking straight up in the air.

  “I can’t come right now, tell ’em to call back, please,” Beulah said. She wished Beauregard would have the decency to cover his pecker with a pillow or something, but Beauregard was a cardsharp—he had few, if any, manners, but he did have dash.

  “They said it’s about your mother,” the landlady said, through the door.

  Beulah knew then it was Charley. Her mother was dead, and had been for five years. Beulah read in the newspaper about Charley’s daring escape, and she knew she’d be hearing from him—she just didn’t know when. The telephone was all the way down on the first floor, at the end of the hall.

  “Oh, my God, did she have another stroke?” Beulah said, thinking quick.

  “He just said it was about your mother,” the landlady said, again.

  “I gotta go talk, it’s Ma, she might be dying,” Beulah said, grabbing her robe. “I’ll be back in a minute, I gotta find out how she is.”

  Beauregard looked annoyed, which didn’t surprise Beulah. He leaned over and grabbed his pants—Beulah thought maybe he’d leave, which wouldn’t have broken her heart—but all he did was pull his pocket watch out of his pants pocket and prop it on a pillow. He didn’t say a word. The man meant to take her at her word—he wanted her back in one minute.

  Beulah tied the robe, flew down the stairs, and ran down the hall to the telephone.

  Charley was calling from a bus station in Akron, standing on one foot and then the other for fear some cop would spot him. He thought Beulah would never get to the telephone. Several times, he nearly hung up and bolted. He had nipped the money to make the call from the cash register of a small cafe across the street. He couldn’t wait forever, though he had no place to go. Early that morning, he had broken into a blacksmith’s shop and used a file to get the handcuffs off. He had also stolen a shirt and a pair of pants off a clothesline. They didn’t fit too well, but he couldn’t walk around Akron in prison stripes.

  “What took you so long?” he said, when Beulah finally got to the telephone.

  “Charley, I was about to go out on a date,” Beulah informed him. “I’m keeping him waitin’ right now.”

  Charley saw red instantly. He’d been freezing and starving for three days, crawling through the woods and sleeping in ditches, and now Beulah was trying to rush him because she had a date, probably with some slick bozo whose middle name was pussy.

  “Tell your damn date to go to hell!” Charley said, through clenched teeth. “Whose girl are you anyway?”

  “Why, yours, I guess,” Beulah replied, startled at how mad he sounded. “I didn’t even know if you were dead or alive—what’s it hurt to dance a little?”

  “I’ll dance on your head!” Charley said. “I’ll bounce you across the sidewalk a few times if you don’t get rid of that mug and get up to Akron quick. Find Billy, and make him drive. Bring Rose if you want.”

  “That little jerk’s been two-timin’ my sister, I don’t know if she’ll speak to him, much less ride in a car with him,” Beulah said.

  “Where is Akron, anyway?” she asked. “Why can’t you come to Cincinnati?”

  “Because I’m the most wanted man in the state of Ohio, that’s why!” Charley said. “I’ve had nothin’ to eat for three days except a piece of pie, and I swiped that. Don’t stand there askin’ questions, just get Billy and get a car and come get me. I’ll be somewhere around the bus station.”

  “Honey, I miss you,” Beulah said. “I really miss you.”

  “Miss you, too—folks are lookin’, I gotta hang up,” Charley said. “Get up here, don’t let no grass grow under your feet.”

  “Grass don’t ever grow under my feet,” Beulah said before hanging up. But that wasn’t the way Beauregard Evans saw things—he was red-in-the-face mad when she got back to her room. He yelled at her, called her a two-timing whore, slapped her face, and even yanked her hair a few times.

  “Keep your hands off me, you masher!” Beulah screamed. “Get your drawers on and get out!”

  The landlady didn’t like loud fusses. She started banging on the door, which was probably all that saved Beulah from getting slugged.

  The landlady, Mrs. Temple, wasn’t exactly a prude, but she did have her standards.

  “Can’t you find a quiet boyfriend?” she asked Beulah, as Beulah and Rose were leaving.

  “I’m going to get a quiet one right now, he’s up in Akron,” Beulah said. “He’s real sweet, Miz Temple, you’ll see.”

  “You shouldn’t have mentioned Akron,” Rose told her, as they waited for Billy Miller to show up with the car. “The cops know you go with Charley—what if they come ’round asking questions?”

  “Oh, mind your own business, Rose,” Beulah said, flustered.

  17

  “You go flirt with the clerk,” Charley told Beulah.

  “That fool? He looks like he’s got chicken pox,” Beulah told him. They had only been in the dry goods store a few seconds. Billy and Rose were out in the car. Charley was still sore as hell at Billy because of the deputy; Billy still maintained it was self-defense. The drive had been tense.

  “I can’t rob no bank in clothes like this,” Charley said. “Hurry up and do it while he’s the only one in the store.”

  As soon as Beulah had the pimply clerk’s attention, Charley grabbed a suit, a white shirt, and a tie. He ducked into a dressing room and changed in thirty seconds. When he peeked out, Beulah had the clerk’s undivided attention. She was trying on hats, and when the clerk went back into the
storeroom to bring out more hats, Charley slipped away. He couldn’t resist taking a nice pair of gloves that were in a case not far from the door.

  Charley walked briskly across the street to the little bank, strolled in, and smiled at the teller, a freckle-faced girl of about twenty.

  “Miss, this is a stickup,” he said. He didn’t even have to show the gun.

  “Oh, Lord, mister, I wish you’d picked another bank,” she said, shaking.

  “Miss, you won’t be harmed,” Charley said, pleasantly. He took what cash he could reach, and left. When he jumped in the car, there was no Beulah.

  “I bet she’s still tryin’ on hats,” Rose said. “You known Beulah.”

  “Damn her, I just robbed the bank—what’d she think we come here for?” Charley said, exasperated. “Go get her, Rose, and make it snappy.”

  “Listen, buster, you’re the one told me to flirt with the clerk,” Beulah said, when Rose finally got her out to the car. Billy drove, while Charley counted the money. It was a little over six hundred dollars.

  “I didn’t tell you to flirt with him into next week,” Charley said. “What did you think I was doin’, pickin’ daisies?”

  “You could’ve been flirting yourself, for all I know,” Beulah said, pouting.

  They found a rooming house in Bowling Green. It had ugly brown wallpaper, but it was on a quiet street—a little too quiet, to suit Beulah and Rose. It rained all afternoon. Billy Miller was in a stiff temper because he hadn’t been allowed to participate in the robbery.

  “Can it, I didn’t want you machine-gunnin’ the teller,” Charley said.

  “I ain’t even got a machine gun!” Billy protested. “You could of let me watch the street, at least.”

  “I did—you just watched it from inside an automobile,” Charley said. “Stop your yappin’, this was a bread-and-butter job. We needed livin’ money, that’s all.”

  “So next time can I go in?” Billy asked.

  “If you’re good,” Charley said.

  “What if I ain’t?” Billy said, annoyed by Charley’s attitude.

  “If you ain’t, we’ll just have to shoot you,” Charley replied. He didn’t smile when he said it, either.

  Beulah and Rose had spent most of the afternoon filing their nails, and listening to the radio.

  “Say, ain’t you Mister Sunshine,” Beulah said, looking at Charley.

  Charley kept looking out the window at the grey sky.

  “Getting a word outa you is like pulling a tooth,” Beulah said.

  “Who asked you to pull a tooth?” Charley snapped.

  He got up and walked into the bedroom. A minute or two later, Beulah followed. She approached Charley timidly.

  “Charley, are you just blue, or did I do something?” she asked.

  Charley sat on the bed, looking out the window at the Ohio rain. He could look so sad sometimes that it made Beulah want to cry. She got kind of desperate when Charley looked that way.

  “Can’t you tell me what’s the matter? What have I done now?” Beulah asked.

  “Nothin’,” Charley told her. “Nobody’s done nothin’.”

  He breathed out a heavy sigh.

  “Sometimes I miss Oklahoma, that’s all,” he said. Beulah felt like crying.

  “I guess it’s a faded love we got going here, if you could have me to fuss with and still miss a sorry place like Oklahoma.”

  “What’s so sorry about Oklahoma?” Charley asked, defensive.

  “Nothing, if you like hot, dry, and ugly,” Beulah said.

  “Shut up about Oklahoma!” he snapped. “That’s only part of it.”

  “So what’s the other part?” Beulah asked.

  “I don’t like bein’ hunted like a damn varmint,” Charley said.

  Later, they kissed and made up, but Charley couldn’t shake his blue mood. When Beulah was out of the room, he would sneak looks at the picture of Ruby and Dempsey he’d kept since the day he got out of prison. Looking at the picture made him wonder how life could turn out so different from what a person thought it was going to be. Ruby looked so sweet—and Dempsey was such a good, cheerful little boy. They were still his family; they always would be.

  There were times when he couldn’t afford to look at the picture—if he did, he’d break down and sob.

  18

  Few barbers had the patience to deal with Charley, and the barber in the Bowling Green, Ohio, barbershop was no exception.

  “Could you even up them sideburns, sir?” Charley asked. He was studying the haircut closely in the mirror.

  “Mister, they are even,” the barber said.

  “Not quite,” Charley informed him. “The one on the right looks longer to me.”

  “It ain’t, unless I’m goin’ blind,” the barber replied.

  “Don’t argue with him, he’s stubborn,” Billy Miller said. He’d been finished with his haircut for about ten minutes.

  “Your eyesight could be fadin’ a little,” Charley said. “The one on the right’s longer. Not by much, but it’s longer.”

  The barber held his temper with difficulty.

  “Whatever you say,” he said. “In this barbershop, the customer is always right.”

  “Even when he’s dead wrong?” Billy remarked.

  “Aw, shut up,” Charley said. “Why don’t you run outside and see if you can keep the girls from spending all our money?”

  “I’d rather wait till the barber gets teed off enough to cut your throat,” Billy replied.

  The barber pretended to level the sideburns, though he knew they were perfect.

  “It would take a surveyor to get them sideburns more even,” he said, finally.

  “The right one’s still longer,” Charley insisted. “You didn’t even cut any more off it.”

  “I was just leveling, sir,” the barber said, stiff.

  After the barber gave him a final combing, Charley reluctantly got out of the chair, and paid the man.

  “You ought to think about gettin’ some specs, sir,” he told the barber. “Your eyesight’s fadin’.”

  “I need a new wallet,” Billy said, once they were out on the street.

  “What for? Once Beulah and Rose get through in that store, you won’t have nothing to put in it,” Charley said. “I’m gonna go over and drag them out.”

  Zibe Castner, the deputy sheriff of Bowling Green, knew the flivver was suspicious the minute he saw it. He was sitting in a diner finishing his coffee when he looked across the street and saw two swells in a strange car pull up to the curb and get out. The driver was a big, strapping fellow; the passenger was short, and strutted about like a banty rooster. After they strolled off down the sidewalk, Zibe finished his coffee and darted over to examine their flivver. It had Missouri plates, which was uncommon in itself. Then he headed in the same direction as the two men, glancing in storefronts as he went, hoping to catch a glimpse of them at close range. At the barbershop, he took a quick peek through the window and saw the big man who parked the car sitting inside, getting a haircut. The man looked like Pretty Boy Floyd to Zibe—the man who had embarrassed every law enforcement officer in Ohio by escaping from a train as it was taking him to the pen.

  Zibe saw Floyd, or the man he suspected was Floyd, come out of the barbershop with his squatty little companion. The two crossed the street, and went into a department store. Zibe was relieved; he figured that meant he didn’t have to collar the two crooks. He could trot around to the jail and get Sheriff Galliher, who would no doubt be happy to reinforce him.

  Unfortunately, when he burst into the jail with the news, Sheriff Galliher was engrossed in the latest issue of Spicy Detective, his favorite magazine.

  “Chief, I got somethin’ hot,” Zibe Castner said.

  “Leave me alone, Zibe,” the sheriff said. “Nothing could be hotter than Spicy Detective. That’s what the word ‘spicy’ means—hot.”

  “There’s a car with Missouri plates parked in front of the barbershop,” Zi
be said. “Two men just left the barbershop and went into the department store.”

  “So what?” Galliher said, not taking his eyes off the magazine. Zibe couldn’t blame him, really; Spicy Detective did have some pretty racy illustrations.

  “It’s no crime to get a haircut,” the sheriff added. “It’s not even a crime to be from Missouri, it’s just bad luck.”

  “I think it might be Pretty Boy Floyd,” Zibe blurted out. “I’m just about sure.”

  That changed the sheriff’s attitude pronto. He dropped the magazine on his desk, and reached for his pistol.

  “Let’s go catch him,” he said. “If I was to arrest Pretty Boy Floyd, they’d probably give me a free subscription to Spicy Detective.”

  By the time Charley and Billy got across the street to the department store, Beulah had already piled up seven or eight things she wanted to buy. Rose, who preferred to look, was trying on a hat.

  Beulah gave Charley’s new haircut a close look. Then she gave him a peck.

  “Charley, you’re cute when you’re all spiffed up,” she said. “Only your sideburns are too short.”

  “That’s what the barber tried to tell him,” Billy said.

  “Beulah, you could spend money in your sleep,” Charley said. “Hurry up and pay, we need to move.”

  “What’s the rush?” Beulah asked. “Me and Rose want to look in that big store down the street.”

  “I might buy a new hat if the girls are gonna keep shoppin’,” Billy said.

  “Give it a pass,” Charley told him. “You look dumb enough in your old hat.”

  “You don’t ever say nothin’ nice to me,” Billy said, feeling sorry for himself.

  It had been a cloudy day, but the sun broke through just as the four of them stepped out of the department store. Charley was carrying all of Beulah’s packages, a bulky load.

  “This stuff would fill a boxcar,” he said, but he was joshing. Sunshine always picked up his spirits. Beulah was cute, there was no getting around that—and he had come to like her sass. There were far worse things in life than traveling around with a sassy girl who had swell legs.