Pretty Boy Floyd

by Larry McMurtry

  Charley Floyd himself stepped forward, and politely opened the car door for her. Viv was so nervous she almost tripped getting out.

  “Miss Brown, I’m Charles Arthur Floyd,” he said, taking off his hat. “This cowboy here is Mr. George Birdwell. I guess you done met his better half.”

  “I sure have,” Viv said. “She’s a snappy driver.”

  George Birdwell tipped his hat, and smiled his most charming smile.

  “Why, you’re pretty enough to court, ma’am,” he said. “If my better half runs off with some scoundrel, I’ll move to Muskogee just to serenade you.”

  “Mind your tongue, George,” Bob said. “I could live six lifetimes and not meet a worse scoundrel than you.”

  Then, before anyone could move, she drove off, leaving a cloud of dust in her wake.

  “Well …” George said, slightly embarrassed as he watched his wife drive off. “It ain’t the first time she’s left me eatin’ dust.”

  “Can’t you behave for five minutes, George?” Charley said, shaking his head at his partner.

  “Do you think she’ll come back?” he added.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” George replied. “A fortune teller couldn’t predict what Bob’s gonna do next.”

  “But how does she expect us to get Miss Brown back home?” Charley asked, a deep crease forming between his eyes. The chaotic nature of the Birdwell marriage weighed on him heavily at times. It had been his idea to speak to the young woman reporter; now, it looked like he and Bird would end up with the task of taking her home, to a town whose bank they had robbed not six weeks earlier.

  “I feel so lucky,” Viv said, again. Getting home was the last thing on her mind. “Of all the reporters in these parts, how come you picked me?”

  “We like the way you write up the ball games, ma’am,” George said. “I play a pretty good game of ball myself, and I’m often unhappy with the reporting. We watched two games you wrote up—maybe you saw us. You done an accurate job, so here we are.”

  “Do I get to ask questions, or how will this work?” she asked, opening her reporter’s notebook.

  “You can ask anything you want, only we won’t comment on specific jobs,” Charley said. “We’re tired of being blamed for every crime in the country, it just plain ain’t fair. The papers got us robbing banks from Chi Town to Florida.”

  “But you do rob banks, don’t you?” Viv asked. “How’s anybody gonna know which ones you rob and which ones you don’t?”

  “Why, we know,” Bird said. “We could give you a list, and it wouldn’t be no sixty banks, or anywhere near it.”

  “We can’t give her no list, Bird,” Charley said. “That’s one of the rules—no lists.”

  “Okay, scratch that question,” Vivian said. “Could you tell me how you got started in the criminal life?”

  “We’d prefer to be called outlaws, or bandits,” George put in. “Callin’ us criminals don’t do us justice, to my mind.

  “You see, there’s outlaws, and then there’s criminals,” he added. “Me and Charley, we’re outlaws.”

  “We’re like the James boys,” Charley said, with a grin. “Or the Daltons.”

  “Okay, then,” Viv said. “Outlaws it is. First question: How come you to start the outlaw life? Did you try something else first?”

  “Plowin’,” Charley said, still grinning. “I just plain got tired of sand in my socks, day and night.”

  “What about you, Mr. Birdwell?” she asked.

  “Horse bucked me and broke my neck, down in Vernon, Texas,” Birdwell informed her. “I couldn’t cowboy the rodeos for six months. I got so tired of that dern cast, I went berserk and robbed a bank—can’t tell you which one.”

  “You went berserk?” Vivian said, writing furiously.

  “Aw, don’t believe him, miss,” Charley said, rolling his eyes. “He’s just tryin’ to outdo me. I’ll be straight with you.”

  He put his foot up on the front bumper of his flivver.

  “I was just like any other kid growin’ up in Oklahoma. Then I got in that trouble at Akins about the post office, and I thought I better tear out of the country and get me some work. I landed up in St. Louis, and pulled that job, and of course they got me and took me back to serve my time up in Jeff City.”

  Charley paused, looking off into the field of corn stubble.

  “I was just a green country kid that got caught on a job that I didn’t know much about, but I guess that was the job that put its mark on me and I could never shake it off. I tried, though.”

  “If we’d done both these interviews separate like I wanted, we could lie as much as we wanted to,” Birdwell interjected.

  “Me, lie—after that one you told about your broken neck?” Charley asked. “Your damn neck ain’t never been broke.”

  “A neck can heal, like any other limb,” George informed them.

  “I don’t think the neck is a limb, Mr. Birdwell,” Vivian corrected.

  “The way George is always stickin’ his out, might classify it as a limb,” Charley remarked.

  “Don’t you ever feel guilty, robbing some little bank that’s barely making it as it is?” Vivian asked.

  “Ma’am, all the money we take is bonded money,” Charley informed her. “It don’t hurt nobody’s pocketbook except the big boys, and they can stand a little hurt.”

  “You’ve been accused of more than sixty bank robberies and ten killings,” Viv said. “Have you done all you’ve been accused of?”

  Charley shook his head. “We’d have to be eighty years old to have done everything we’ve been accused of,” he said. “And we ain’t killed no ten men.”

  “We’ve done more robberies than any other bandits, though,” Bird-well said. “Charley’s too modest to count his victories, but I ain’t.”

  “The worst part of runnin’ with George is the braggin’,” Charley said. “I was raised to tell the truth. If George was raised that way, it didn’t take.”

  “Hide not thy light under a bushel,” Birdwell said, unfazed.

  “I have to ask about the killings,” Vivian said.

  Birdwell gazed off at a covey of quail that had been flushed from a thicket by some varmint. Charley, suddenly pensive, stood up straight, and took a deep breath.

  “We ain’t cold-blooded killers, ma’am,” Charley said solemnly, after a moment. “I never killed except to survive. It was shoot or be shot.”

  “Any regrets?” Viv asked.

  “I ain’t educated, and my folks didn’t have much, but I was raised to be decent, Miss Brown,” Charley said. “I have plenty of regrets. Bushels, as George might say.”

  A hawk soared over, high, riding the wind. To Vivian’s and Charley’s surprise, George Birdwell pulled out his pearl-handled revolver and fired several shots at the hawk. The hawk flew on to the west.

  “What would make you think you could hit a flyin’ hawk?” Charley asked.

  “I was trying to get revenge for all Bob’s chickens they’ve et,” Bird-well said, carefully taking the empty shells out of his pistol.

  “Mr. Floyd, I know you’ve torn up mortgages and given away money—folks all over these parts think of you as a hero because of that. Your name will live in the history of these country folks for generations. Do you consider yourself a Robin Hood?”

  “Nope,” Charley said. “I’ve helped folks who’ve helped me. I’ve always tried to treat folks square. We’ve helped a few others who were needy because of the hard times.”

  “He has—I ain’t in it for charity,” George said.

  “He ain’t as hard-hearted as he acts, Miss Brown,” Charley said.

  “Mr. Floyd, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation has you on the Public Enemies list now,” Viv said. “How do you feel about that?”

  “I hate it,” Charley said bluntly. “I ain’t nobody’s enemy. Folks that know me can tell you I ain’t a danger to nobody who ain’t shootin’ at me.”

  “What’s the worst thing
about life as an outlaw?” Viv asked. The light was beginning to fade.

  Charley looked at Birdwell, who was inscrutable, for once.

  “Is it the danger?” she asked. “Gettin’ shot at?”

  “It’s not bein’ able to go home, Miss Brown,” Charley said, finally. “I got a wife and son. I miss ’em bad. Not bein’ able to see my wife and boy—that’s the worst thing.”

  Charley’s mood quickly sank; Vivian knew then that the interview was over. The stars came out, but Bob Birdwell didn’t reappear. Finally, Charley and George drove the young woman back to Muskogee themselves.

  “Now, why would Bob do that, just run off?” Charley kept asking, as they headed toward town.

  “Maybe she had an appointment,” Vivian said, in an effort to keep things even.

  “An appointment to drive her husband crazy—that’s the only appointment that gal had,” Birdwell said. “She has one of them appointments ever’ two or three days. It’s what made me a rambler.”

  “I doubt that, bud,” Charley said. “You were born ramblin’.”

  “So were you, Robin Hood,” Birdwell replied.

  Vivian thanked them both profusely when they let her out at her house.

  “Our pleasure, ma’am,” both men said.

  Then they drove off, like phantoms, into the night.

  20

  J. Edgar Hoover chewed up three quarters of a cigar as he read Vivian Brown’s interview with Pretty Boy Floyd. Agent Melvin Purvis watched his boss chew the cigar with a good deal of apprehension. The Director of the Bureau of Investigation was not one to slobber up a good Cuban stogie; he only chewed cigars when his temper was rising. Agent Purvis wished he’d had the good sense to throw the Muskogee paper in the wastebasket. But if he had taken that sensible tack, some eager-beaver G-man would have yanked it out and taken it to Hoover anyway. Trying to hide something from the Director was usually the wrong thing to do; it was that not hiding it wasn’t exactly the right thing to do, either. On certain days, there was no right thing, where the Director was concerned.

  “I’m beginning to think all Okies are criminals,” Hoover said.

  Agent Purvis held his peace.

  “Who let this girl talk to Floyd, anyway?” Hoover asked, grinding what was left of the stogie between his teeth. “Where’s our nearest office?”

  “We’ve got a man in Fort Worth,” Purvis replied. “Maybe we got two.”

  “Get ’em up there, today!” Hoover said. “Tell them to have the editor of this goddamn paper fire that girl at once. I’ll want a retraction, too—front page, soon as possible.”

  “What if he won’t?” Purvis asked.

  “Why wouldn’t he?” Hoover asked. “This is the Bureau, Purvis. When we demand a retraction, we get one.”

  “I’ve known people from Oklahoma to be a little stubborn, sir,” Purvis remarked. “They’re apt to act independent, down in Oklahoma.”

  “The hell they will,” Hoover said, picking up the telephone. “I’ll phone and have that girl fired myself. In fact, I’m going to blister her ear a little, first.”

  When Sam Raines, editor of the Muskogee Blade, picked up the phone in his inky little newsroom and was told he was talking to none other than J. Edgar Hoover himself, he thought it was one of Viv’s boyfriends, playing a joke.

  “I think it’s Rickie,” Sam told Viv. “He’s pretendin’ he’s J. Edgar Hoover.”

  Viv was trying to finish her report on yesterday’s Rotary Club social, and she was in no mood to tolerate any fiddle-faddle from Rickie Burnett when she was trying to get an assignment in shape for print.

  “Hello, what do you want?” she asked, annoyed, tucking the phone against her neck so she could keep typing.

  “Are you Miss Brown of the Muskogee Blade?” Hoover asked, not pleased by the temerity of the young lady’s tone.

  “Yes, who is this?” Viv asked, glancing at Sam Raines. Whoever it was, it definitely wasn’t one of her boyfriends.

  “I’m J. Edgar Hoover, weren’t you told?” the Director spat. “You’ve done a grave disservice to your country by printing those lies about two dangerous criminals. I’m sure you know who I mean.”

  Despite her youth, Vivian Brown was not to be bullied, as Rickie Burnett and a number of other men, young and not so young, had discovered, to their collective dismay.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” Viv said. “I’m an honest reporter. I don’t print lies. What I wrote about Mr. Floyd and Mr. Birdwell was the truth.”

  The Director was not used to being talked back to, by brash girls from Oklahoma—or from anywhere, for that matter. He took the Cuban stogie out of his mouth for a second, and glared at Agent Purvis, as if the whole affair were entirely his fault.

  “You’re out of your depth, young lady,” Hoover said. “Not only that, you’re out of a job. I won’t tolerate front-page stories that glorify public enemies. Pretty Boy Floyd is a killer, wanted in several states. You’ve let him use you and your newspaper to help win public sympathy.”

  “He already has public sympathy in these parts!” Vivian snapped back. “Bankers are no friends of the tenant farmers in Oklahoma, and folks down here look up to Charley Floyd and George Birdwell—they’ll remember things they’ve done for years and years, and their children will remember them, too!”

  “Miss Brown, you’re clearly hysterical,” the Director replied. “Give me your editor. Perhaps he has more respect for law and order. You should have contacted the authorities at once!”

  “What I did was give two men a chance to tell their side of the story,” Vivian informed him. “They’ve been accused of everything under the sun. I don’t think it’s fair.”

  “Who told you to think?” Hoover asked. “These are serious matters, beyond your grasp. You should stick to writing up socials and leave serious reporting to men. Give me your editor, now!”

  Viv shrugged, and handed the phone to Sam Raines, who was squinting at a page of proof. Sam had ink on his forehead, a not uncommon occurrence.

  “Sam Raines, Muskogee Blade,” Sam said. “What can I do for you?”

  “You can fire that impertinent girl, and print a retraction on your front page tomorrow,” Hoover said. “That’s an order.”

  “Print a what?” Sam asked.

  “Retraction—retraction!” Hoover ordered. “The public should know there wasn’t a word of truth in that story you printed today.”

  “Why, there were words of truth in it if Viv wrote it,” Sam said. “Viv’s our best reporter … in fact, she’s our only reporter. I wouldn’t fire her if the sky was to fall.”

  “I’m the Director of the Bureau of Investigation,” Hoover informed him. “I won’t have this kind of palaver.”

  “And I’m an American citizen. We got freedom of the press in this country, don’t we?”

  “Yes, and you’re abusing it,” Hoover said. “You’re aiding and abetting public enemies—killers, robbers, disturbers of the peace. If you want to help your country, do what I tell you—fire that girl, and retract that story.”

  “No, sir,” Sam Raines said. “You got your nerve, calling up a newspaper in the United States of America and trying to tell an editor what to print.”

  He hung up the phone, and went back to squinting at a page of proof.

  “Thanks, Sam … thanks for backing me up,” Vivian said.

  “Honey, are you sure this basketball score’s right?” Sam asked. “Seemed like Chickasha beat us by more than six points.”

  “It’s right, Sam,” Vivian said. “You left and got drunk, and missed the best part of the game. They got way ahead, but we nearly caught up.”

  “Oh,” Sam replied. “That was the night before the morning I had that hangover.”

  Sam Raines looked reflective.

  “You oughtn’t to drink so much, Sammy,” Vivian said. “Couldn’t you slow down a little?”

  Sam Raines looked out the window. The wind was whipping dust across the street, no different than
any other Muskogee afternoon.

  “Maybe when the weather gets better,” he sighed. “These long winter nights get to me.”

  21

  Charley was home just long enough to bake three pies. Ruby thought she was dreaming when she saw him walk in the back door. She was peeling spuds, and cut herself with the knife when Charley grabbed her and kissed her. Then he swooped upstairs, and in a minute, swooped back down, with Dempsey in his arms.

  “What are you doin’ here?” Ruby asked. “They watch this house twenty-four hours a day, hoping you’ll show up.”

  “Hi, Daddy,” Dempsey said. He kept saying it, as if he couldn’t believe his daddy was really home.

  “Hi, Daddy,” he said, over and over.

  “Hi, bud,” Charley said, smiling and rolling up his sleeves. It always felt so right being with his family. He had come in with a big sack of groceries which he promptly began to unpack, while Ruby and Dempsey sat at the table and watched.

  “Have you found me a pony yet, Daddy?” Dempsey asked. Every morning since the saddle came, he’d jumped out of bed and looked out the window, to see if there might be a pony in the back yard.

  “No, because I’m lookin’ for the best pony in the world, for my boy,” Charley said. “Honey, I thought we had a rolling pin.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m so nervous I ain’t thinking,” Ruby said. “The rolling pin’s in that cabinet by the stove.”

  Charley turned, and flashed her a grin.

  “If you’re worried about them bulls up at the corner, forget it,”he said. “They’re drinkin’ hootch. I seen ’em pass the bottle when I snuck into the alley. They wouldn’t notice me if I sat on the front hood of their flivver.”

  “I sure hope not,” Ruby said, not entirely convinced.

  Charley came back to the table, and gave her a big kiss and a squeeze.