“Then Fred opened up with a machine-gun. I thought I was a goner. Slugs nipped at my clothes and splattered my shoes with dust. It was a pretty tough moment. One of the Feds started grinding his machine-gun, and that put Fred off. I got under cover with slugs still chasing me.
“We fought it out for over an hour, but they didn’t stand a chance A burst of automatic rifle fire caught Ma as she was peering through the window. When we found Fred, he had fourteen slugs in his carcass.”
So he had gone on. He paraded them all before her—BabyFace Nelson, Frank Nash, Roger Touhy, Jake Fleagle; violence, shooting, racing cars, police sirens. He had never done better.
“And they took me for a ride,” he went on, scowling at the ceiling. “Me! They took me in a wood, and they said I was washed up. There were three of them. There was a guy called Wineinger. I can see him now. A pot-bellied little runt, with a scar where someone had bashed him with a bottle. There was Clyde Barrow, thin and mean, with ears like a bat. And Gustave Banghart. They were a dangerous, tough mob, and it didn’t look so good. I hadn’t anything to lose, so I jumped Wineinger and got his rod. It was the fastest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I came out of that wood on my feet, and I came out alone.”
Oh yes, he had never been better, and she had listened without moving, absorbed, excited. Her intent interest had been a spur to his imagination.
“I’m glad you told me,” she had said, when he finally stopped talking. “It was what I expected of you.”
Then he had edged the conversation round to Sydney. He wanted to know more about Sydney—what he did, where he lived, how Cora and he got on together.
But she didn’t tell him much. She suddenly became guarded. She said she didn’t know much about Sydney herself. He didn’t tell her things. Look at that nine pounds! He hadn’t told her about that. Didn’t that show how secretive he was? They never had any money—at least, that was what Sydney always told her. He was supposed to be the breadwinner. She didn’t do anything except keep the flat. Yes, they had a flat off Russell Square. George must see it one day. Sydney didn’t welcome visitors. He wasn’t sociable, but when he was away, George must come.
George had a vague feeling that Cora was frightened of Sydney. “He’s very domineering,” she said, “and we fight.”
But when he pressed her for details, she rather pointedly changed the subject.