FIFTEEN

“MORMON ROBBER SEIZED!” headlined the Prairie Port Tribune. “LOCAL MAN ROBBER!” was the banner of the competing Daily Portion. Both papers reached the stands at 6 A.M. Both had completely sold out by 7:30. Second editions went just as quickly. So did a third. Elsewhere across the nation and beyond that morning, front pages carried word of Mule’s arrest. Toward midafternoon more personal material began to emerge. “CROOK PLEADS POVERTY!” the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner declared. “21C” took up the top half of the New York Post’s tabloid cover. The bottom half bore a cartoon of Mule, his pockets turned inside out, begging with a tin cup. “ROBBER SINGS … A SONG!” declared the Chicago Daily News. St. Louis’s Clarion displayed front-page photos of Mule and Kate Smith, above which was emblazoned: PATRIOTIC ROBBER TO BOOBY HATCH! “SUSPECT ROPED, CHAINED!” protested the University of California’s Berkeley Barb.

Rural southern newspapers, by and large, reported the incident evenhandedly. Most other publications tended, if not to favor Mule over the Bureau, then to negate FBI participation. Of two hundred and twenty-one headlines on the arrest that day and the next, only one, in the Natchez Statesman, mentioned the Bureau per se: FBI NABS MORMON SUSPECT.

Mule receiving media attention equivalent to what had been afforded the original robbery announcement and, later, news of the wizard, might have been anticipated. But Mule received treble this amount of press coverage and public interest. He became, overnight, America’s newest pop celebrity. Had the newspapers been a trumpet obligato to Mule’s apotheosis, as they certainly appeared to be, then Nancy Applebridge’s article was the opening movement. Somehow she was able to find a grammar school graduation photograph of Mule in a tasseled cap and suspenders, an expression of clear stupefaction on his face. Applebridge, in her press association story that appeared in nearly a thousand subscribing publications, made no mention that Mule, a chronic test-flunking truant, was five years older than his fellow eighth-graders and had racked up an even dozen juvenile arrests by the time the class of fourteen posed for the photograph before a wooden schoolhouse that had long since gone to dust—the old Samuel Clemens Elementary School not far from where Mule’s horse farm was.

Applebridge’s story dealt with childhood. That she managed to exhume the facts as quickly as she did was startling. The writing, admirably Dickensian, told of poverty and abandonment on the prairie … of Mule’s drunken father and the two Indian squaws he kept, either of which, or neither of which, may have been Mule’s mother. The father was a drayman of no particular aspirations who maintained a small stable. Here in the stable Mule dwelt and was thrashed. He ran away. Kept running away. Was thrashed more soundly each time he was returned by the authorities. The notion that the beatings may have caused brain damage was alluded to in Applebridge’s piece. As Mule grew older, rage accompanied his recalcitrance. He beat an infant with a stick and was arrested for the first time, was officially cited as a “violent child.” He became a whiskey drunk at the age of nine, complete with delirium tremens. When he was eleven he was hit full in the face by a baseball bat his father wielded. Two years later it was Mule swinging the bat full into his father’s face. Mule ran and hid with an uncle, an unemployed handyman who worked as a part-time janitor at the Samuel Clemens grammar school. Arrangements were made for Mule to live in the basement of the school and attend classes. He lived there but seldom went upstairs.

Mule came of age by himself, a scavenger on the prairie. He could not relate to people. Loved animals. Spent as much time with animals as possible. There was a possibility that Mule’s father had sired a daughter by one of the squaws … that this daughter may have been the woman seen in the teepee the night Mule was arrested by the FBI. Perhaps this sister’s name was Vonda Lizzie, the name Mule shouted out as he ran for safety. Perhaps Vonda Lizzie was the name of one of the Indian squaws, the one who was Mule’s mother. Applebridge posed the questions without offering answers. The final line of the article ended on Mule’s eighteenth birthday … the day he was graduated from grammar school.

Bumper stickers reading “FREE THE MORMON STATE ONE” began appearing on cars around Prairie Port. Then across the country. When Lamar “Wiggles” Loftus was returned to the city five days after Mule’s arrest and publicly cited as a Mormon State bank robber, bumper stickers were amended to: FREE THE TWO!

Unable to post the $250,000 bail imposed by Assistant United States Magistrate John Leslie Krueger, Wiggles was remanded to the county jail pending trial. His court-appointed Legal Aid attorney argued that such a high bail, with no proof of the charges yet offered, was both unheard of and unconstitutional.

Wiggles Loftus was fated not to be the darling of the media and the public that Mule was. He didn’t have that certain spark, lacked star quality. Journalists, sifting through his background, chose to ignore his genuine war exploits, reported on what was routine and bland. Wiggles in jail was cooperative and bland. Particularly bland in comparison with Mule, who somehow managed, from his guarded room in the mental ward, to hold a live radio telephone interview with Chet Chomsky. Mule denied knowledge of, or complicity in, the Mormon State robbery. He did answer, when asked, that he saw nothing wrong with bestiality. Mule, in the media, was faithfully referred to as Corkel or Mr. Corkel. Everyone in Prairie Port, and probably farther, knew he was called Mule. Knew what the second part of the nickname was. Knew why.

Mule’s views on bestiality spawned as lively a controversy as had his calling the black assistant U.S. magistrate “white.” Some saw the “white” remark as a racial slur, others agreed with Mule. Krueger was criticized by some civil libertarians for allowing Mule to appear in chains, cited the case of black activist Bobby Seale and compared Krueger to Judge Hoffman.

When Mule refused to give further interviews, the networks competed with offers of money. An agent from the William Morris theatrical talent organization sent Mule a letter suggesting they represent him. One offer Mule responded to was from a tour-bus company that bid $500 monthly for exclusive rights on bringing visitors to the ranch, as the horse farm was now being called. Mule demanded $500 a week. A settlement was reached, $1,100 per month. The girl dressed like an Indian squaw at the ranch manned a roadblock, charged all nontour bus sightseers $1.50 admission. The concessionaire within the ranch proper paid a guaranteed $100 per week against fifteen percent of gross receipts on all sales of food, beverages and souvenirs. The biggest-selling souvenir was an Indian doll of Mule. The biggest seller in Prairie Port proper was a postcard of the Mormon State National Bank with a portrait of Mule superimposed in the upper left-hand corner and one of Wiggles in the upper right-hand corner. A local rock group renamed itself “The Mule” and tried to give a concert at the ranch.

Media preoccupation with Mule had borderline advantages for the FBI, helped divert attention from the fact that four men thought to be gang members were actively being sought. So far the names Cowboy Carlson and Sam Hammond had not been revealed. Nor had the media learned who Elmo Ragotsy was or where he was being held. The less the media knew of any of this, the better for Romor 91. The FBI needed time.

Jessup sat up front. Strom Sunstrom and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jules Shapiro rode in the back. Yates drove but had not been brought along merely as chauffeur. Jez had suggested Billy help them work out a strategy. A strategy was needed desperately.

What had sent the three FBI men and the Assistant U.S. attorney speeding south this midafternoon was official word that Mule Corkel would be proclaimed fit to stand trial and discharged from the hospital the day after tomorrow. He must then be immediately rearraigned before Assistant U.S. Magistrate John Leslie Krueger so bail could be set, as well as a trial date. Mule’s lawyer would unquestionably demand low bail. Worse than that, from the government’s standpoint, he might demand specifics on the charges against his client. Might want to be told the names of other co-conspirators, in custody or being sought, as well as anything else the government possessed which might prove detrimental to his client in a court of law. The government, in the person of Assistant U.S. Attorney Jules Shapiro, who would be prosecuting the case when the trial began, would press for high bail and attempt to divulge as little as possible. Assistant Magistrate Krueger, still smarting over media criticism of his handling of the earlier arraignment for Mule … of chaining Mule, as the assistant U.S. attorney and the FBI had suggested … might side with the defense lawyer, might lower bail … might, and these were the two worst fears of Strom and Jez, set an early trial date and want to know if any other co-conspirators were in custody.

Trial, under present circumstance, meant action against Mule, Wiggles and Ragotsy. Jules Shapiro was content with this. He considered the three to be highly prosecutable. True, no strong corroborating witness would be presented other than Ida Hammond stating Mule, Wiggles and Ragotsy had been at her house with the other members of the gang. And Ida’s reliability was a concern. She had wavered before. Had voluntarily told police Lieutenant Ned Van Ornum who the perpetrators were, then denied their complicity when talking to Cub Hennessy a few minutes later. But Van Ornum’s testimony in court of what Ida had told him would account for a great deal, should she renege. So would her daughter-in-law Natalie’s statements. Jules Shapiro put trust in the thesis that bank-theft prosecutions were exercises in circumstantial evidence. The evidence provided him by the FBI, circumstantial as it was, to his way of thinking would do the job. Even so, he reviewed aspects of it at the start of the auto trip with Strom and Jez and Yates.

Of paramount importance was the whereabouts of the three defendants at the time of the perpetration. Ragotsy, Mule and Wiggles all appeared to have been in Prairie Port. Ragotsy had admitted so in his coerced confession. Crew members of his boat confirmed that Ragotsy left on a trip Friday noon, August 20 … as had been stated in the confession letter. A waitress in a Prairie Port diner frequented by Cowboy Carlson had identified a photograph of Wiggles as being the same man she had seen having breakfast with Carlson early Friday morning, August 20. Three different witnesses attested to Mule having been in Prairie Port the same morning.

No one had been developed who had seen any of the three from Friday afternoon through Sunday evening, August 22. Late Sunday night Ragotsy returned to his boat briefly, gathered up a change of clothes and left. Was gone five days. Gone until August 27. Mule wasn’t seen in Prairie Port until August 28. Cowboy Carlson, following his breakfast with Wiggles on Friday, August 20, was never seen again.

The missing gang members, Bicki Hale, Windy Walt Sash, Meadow Muffin Epstein and Worm Ferugli, were all from out of state … had last been seen in their home areas a week before the robbery, over the weekend of August 14 and 15. The only eyewitness to their whereabouts after that was Ida Hammond, who confessed all were at her farm the week prior to the theft. Following the theft only two spottings had been made. The night clerk in Baton Rouge had thought Bicki might be the man with five suitcases. The most recent sighting came from a travel agent in Key West, Florida, who reported Meadow Muffin Epstein looked like the man who tried to charter a boat to fish the waters off Cuba.

Jules Shapiro didn’t feel Ragotsy’s coerced confession was as inadmissible as Strom did. Excerpts of it could always be alluded to. It might even be allowed in toto. The physical evidence found inside Warbonnet Ridge, added to everything else, made a strong case, in the estimation of the government’s prosecuting attorney. Shapiro had no doubts that he could win in court. Should one of the suspects turn government witness, as Strom hoped, so much the better. If it didn’t occur, no matter.

Strom Sunstrom had more than prosecution on his mind. He wanted the rest of the gang: Bicki Hale, Wallace Sash, Thomas Ferugli, Lionel Epstein. He wanted more physical evidence … equipment with which the actual robbery had been perpetrated. Wanted to find the missing millions. Only fifty dollars in currency had been recovered. Recovering stolen monies was J. Edgar Hoover’s passion.

Ragotsy, as Strom saw it, might be the solution to everyone’s problems, might simultaneously enhance Shapiro’s prosecution and help the FBI investigation. If Ragotsy turned government witness and merely restated what he had told County Sheriff O. D. Don Pensler under duress, little would be accomplished. Ragotsy, after all, had denied being able to identify any of the other bank thieves aside from Cowboy Carlson. However, should Ragotsy know more than he had divulged in his blood-splattered statement, as Strom and Jez and Yates suspected he did, much might be achieved. How to induce Ragotsy into such cooperation dominated conversation over most of the two-hundred-mile auto trip to the Army hospital.

Shapiro, Strom, Jez and Yates conferred with the doctors attending Ragotsy, and viewed photographs and X-rays and medical charts while being briefed. They saw as well as heard what had happened in the county jailhouse of O. D. Don Pensler … that Ragotsy had nearly been tortured to death … that whereas his face was relatively unmarked his torso and groin had sustained savage beatings and near mutilation … that Ragotsy was in shock for the first few days at the hospital, could or would not speak for the next few days, could or would not eat and had to be fed intravenously … that over the last nine days he had made astoundingly good progress … that yes, he was clear-minded enough to be talked to at length now … that no, he had had no visitors, had made and received no phone calls, had mailed no letters or gotten any … that all in all, he was one tough cookie to have sustained what he had and come through this well this quickly.

Shapiro never considered speaking with Ragotsy. Doing so, while not illicit or unethical, could draw criticism. He had no intention of taking such a risk. Jules waited with Yates in the hospital cafeteria. Strom and Jessup headed for the officers’ wards.

Ragotsy, thin and tremulous and wearing blue slippers and a blue hospital robe, sat in a slant-backed wood chair on the observation deck off his private room. Lush and rolling terrain shimmered beyond in the dying reds of sunset. A hill breeze wafted. A far-off hoot owl began.

“We are sorry about the jail house business,” Strom said after introducing himself and Jez. Jez went to the bench along the sidebar and sat down. Strom leaned against the railing in front of Ragotsy. “We will register a complaint with the U.S. attorney general if you like.”

“A complaint?” Ragotsy watched the setting sun behind Strom.

“Against the county sheriff.”

“What’s that get me?”

“Revenge. Justice. Peace of mind.”

“How about the letter they made me sign? Does it get me back the letter? Unsign it?”

“No.”

Ragotsy’s smile was slight and mocking.

“We don’t believe that letter, Mister Ragotsy.”

The smile lingered.

“Mister Ragotsy, you are a valuable piece of merchandise, make no mistake about it,” Strom told him. “Valuable to us, the FBI. We spent most of the drive down here concocting ways to win you over. Be warned, an approach has been decided on and will be tried out here and now. We intend it to work. To win you over. Not by the means employed by County Sheriff O. D. Don Pensler, if I have my say, but by logic, Mister Ragotsy. Logic and the call of mutual interest. It makes no sense for either of us, the federal government or yourself, to remain at variance on this issue. In a word, Mister Ragotsy, we have you by the balls and intend to squeeze only gently.”

“There ain’t much of my balls left,” Ragotsy told him.

Strom nodded sympathetically. “We arrested Mule.”

“Arrest a mule? What for?”

“Wiggles is under arrest too.”

Ragotsy shrugged, betrayed no sign of recognition.

“We have a very bright young fellow with our office, Mister Ragotsy,” Strom said. “His name is Yates, and the agents joke about him knowing everything. He has an interesting theory about you. Would you like to hear it?”

Another shrug was shrugged.

“Mister Yates read your letter with great interest. Particularly the part about you not recognizing anyone else in the tunnel or cave the night of the robbery. Mister Yates, by the way, certainly believes much of what you said in the letter was so … that you were there and took part in it. Mister Yates believes that Sheriff Pensler might even have put in things he read in the newspaper about the robbery on his own. But there was one thing he couldn’t have put in. That you had to get out into the river in time to catch the Treachery. Only someone who knew that river well would know about the Treachery. That came from you, Mister Ragotsy. Our Mister Yates says so.

“… Getting back to the point, what Mister Yates wonders is how you could not have recognized Wiggles down there. Wiggles walks with a limp. Wiggles also worked on your boat, Mister Ragotsy. So we all think you fibbed a little bit in that instance. We think that if you fibbed once, you may have fibbed a second time. Was it just coincidence that brought you to Baton Rouge the same time as Wiggles and Mule?”

Ragotsy continued staring out at the fading sunset.

“Oh, by the way, Bicki Hale was also there in Baton Rouge.”

Ragotsy, for the first time, looked directly at Strom, then quickly glanced away.

“You missed Bicki, Mister Ragotsy. He left Baton Rouge just before the three of you got there. Checked out of his hotel carrying five large suitcases with him. Have any idea what was in those suitcases?”

Ragotsy shook his head. “I don’t know” what the hell you’re talking about. I don’t know no Bicki or whatever. I don’t know them other names you spoke.”

“Would you like us to leave?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’d like, if you don’t mind, for you to leave.”

“Before we say what happened to the money?”

“… If you wanna tell me what you got on your mind, tell me. I’ll listen to anything. I don’t get to see many people. Only don’t think I know anything about what you’re saying.”

Strom moved from the railing, took a seat to Ragotsy’s right … a seat from which he could clearly see Ragotsy’s profile in the young darkness.

“Our man Yates thinks, and we agree, that you went to Baton Rouge to get money owed you from the robbery,” Strom said. “Your share of the money. Following the robbery Mule and Cowboy were supposed to get off the Mississippi early on, go into the Big Muddy River and land at a place where Mule’s truck was waiting. They were supposed to have a third man with them only he didn’t show up. Where did you get off, Mister Ragotsy? Did you go with Mule and Cowboy when the wizard didn’t show up? It was the wizard who was supposed to be with them, wasn’t it? When the wizard walked out on you, all kinds of trouble started … like too much water being let into the tunnels?”

Ragotsy said nothing, stared rigidly ahead.

“Obviously, Mister Ragotsy, we know what went on that night in the tunnel and beyond. Obviously, someone connected with the robbery had to tell us. Don’t forget, we’ve had Mule and Wiggles in custody for almost three weeks now.”

No reaction from Ragotsy.

“I don’t think Bicki Hale ever meant to give you your money, Mister Ragotsy. I believe he misinformed you about the time the money was to be divided up. The men from the Prairie Port area, yourself and Mule Corkel and Wiggles, whom you brought in, were all told to be in Baton Rouge a week later than the other gang members. The one person Bicki wouldn’t cheat, his nephew, was planning on being in Baton Rouge a full weekend before any of you. Do you think Cowboy may have assisted Bicki in the holding out? Wasn’t that what you suspected Wiggles of as well, being in with Cowboy on the holding out?”

Ragotsy wet his lips in the darkness.

“If you don’t do something, Mister Ragotsy, Bicki Hale will get away scot-free … with your end of the money. He may be out of the country already.”

Strom was on his feet, pacing. “As matters stand now, only you, Mule Corkel and Wiggles Loftus will be going on trial … and soon. While you do, Bicki and the other men will be spending money like water. Will be millionaires. And out of our reach. I can’t say that the charges against you will be dropped or substantially reduced. But they might be if you suddenly remember seeing Mule and Wiggles down in the tunnel. Under those circumstances you would be a government witness … and entitled to extra considerations. We’ll be making the same offer to Mule and Wiggles when we leave here. There’s room for only one of you.” Strom stopped directly in front of Ragotsy. “Well, what do you say? Can we count you in?”

Ragotsy lowered his head, remained silent.

“Thank you all the same for your time. For hearing us out.” Strom walked from the observation deck.

Ragotsy turned and watched him go.

“Asshole,” Jez Jessup said, standing up. “The man does something no FBI man I’ve seen does, and you ignore him. He gives you your life back and you treat him like he doesn’t exist. He gives you your life and a chance to shag after some of the money with no questions asked and you sit there like Joan-of-fucking-Arc. Nah, you’re dumber than an asshole. You don’t even make the rank of enema. You’re what they call you, a river rat.”

“I don’t have to take your shit,” Ragotsy told him.

“You’ll take anything I give you, rat ass, and love it. We own you. Mormon State’s the best thing that ever happened to you. You’re going to crawl on your belly begging for more of my shit … begging I don’t give you up.”

“My lawyer will think different,” Ragotsy told him. “I got a right to lawyers. I wanna see him now. I want you outta here!”

“A lawyer? What kind of lawyer, homicide?”

“Homicide?”

“Like in murder.”

“What the fuck you talkin’?”

“For one thing, Cowboy Carlson. Remember, he was your roommate.”

“What about him?”

“You tell me.”

“You know something about Cowboy, say so!”

“The question is, what do you know?”

“Hey, fed, can the games. You seen Cowboy?”

“In the morgue with half his head blown off,” Jez said. “You musta been out of town when they fished him out of the water. He was weighted down and dumped in the Mississippi.”

Ragotsy reached into his pocket for a cigarette. “Who’d wanna kill the Cowboy?”

“You tell me.”

“… This is more of your bullshit! No one would kill the Cowboy.” Ragotsy lit the cigarette, puffed nervously. “And if he was killed, I didn’t know nothing about it. Hey, you don’t think I’d let the Cowboy get hurt, do you?”

“Somebody did.”

“You wouldn’t be prick enough to tag me for slamming Cowboy?”

“Not if I can help it.” Jez smiled. “I still want you for Mormon State. ’Course Baton Rouge may want you worse.”

“Baton what?”

Jez grinned. “Dum-dum, what kind of looney-toon are you? Mister Sunstrom just told you all about Baton Rouge. Don’t pretend you never heard about it.”

“Yeah, Baton Rouge. That’s down south, ain’t it?”

“It sure is … and you were seen there, asshole. Not only when you checked into the Packard Arms hotel under the name of Kenekee, but later. You were seen talking to Mule in the park. The day after that two eyewitnesses watched while Wiggles and Mule started fighting in the zoo. Then a zoo ranger comes along and tries to break it up and they attack him. Attack him just when you show up. You see them beat hell out of the ranger. You warn them another ranger is coming. That’s abetting a murder, rat ass. Abetting a murder in Louisiana is the same as committing it. The ranger they hit is still in a coma. If he dies, you’re up for homicide one. If he lives, you’re up for attempted homicide. Either charge supersedes federal bank theft … Mister Ragotsy, if I may call you that, you’re on a one-way ticket back to Louisiana. And while you’re being held for trial down there, guess what jail house they’re gonna stick you in? You got it, the county lockup belonging to O. D. Don Pensler. Whatever is left of them balls of yours, you better take a photograph of … for memory’s sake.”

Jez was halfway to the door before stopping and turning back to Ragotsy on the dark observation deck. “By the way, those two eyewitnesses to the assault on the ranger were FBI agents. If it was worth their while, they might not remember seeing you there. Call me if you have a change of heart.”

Hearing the particulars from Jez as they drove from the Army hospital, Strom was pleased with the sweet-and-sour gambit they worked on Ragotsy. Felt it had come off even better than calculated. Was certain Ragotsy would cave in during their next visit. Jez wondered if they hadn’t underestimated the initial effectiveness of the ploy. He believed he had Ragotsy near the breaking point when he walked out on him, per plan. Jez speculated that had he stayed longer, Ragotsy might have capitulated.

Jules Shapiro thought the right procedure had been followed but did suggest a departure from the original strategy for the days ahead … that instead of Strom and Jez working the sweet-and-sour for a second time, Jez go back by himself. Make Ragotsy feel he was all alone, trapped in a cage with the cobra.

Getting to Wiggles in the county jail and trying the ploy on him, as Strom and Jez did the next morning, proved unproductive. The gimp-legged war hero appeared indifferent, even bored, by their efforts.

An attempt to see Mule in the mental ward was embarrassingly frustrated in the downstairs lobby by the public defender, who in front of a battery of lingering news people denied Jez and Strom access to his client unless he himself was present.

Denis Corticun and Harlon Quinton arrived for the eleventh-floor meeting as requested, sat opposite Strom and Cub Hennessy at the conference table.

“What is this?” Strom held up a copy of the list of names Cub had gotten from the Mormon State bank and then shoved it at Harlon Quinton. Corticun reached for it. “I would appreciate, Denis, if you let Quinton view it first.”

Quinton read, glanced up with a bland expression of ennui, said nothing.

“Look familiar?”

“Not offhand.”

“It was given to you upstairs,” Strom told him as Corticun examined the page.

“Many things get sent to us.”

“Not us, you.”

“Many things get sent to me. I am, after all, in charge of the central files.”

“That’s what bothers me,” Strom said. “Part of your responsibility is to notify us of everything that comes in. And to send copies of all data down to us. I don’t remember being sent that list!”

“My God, man, we can’t go traipsing after every little detail,” Quinton replied. “We have nearly four hundred volumes of data up there now. Minutiae occasionally gets overlooked.”

“Even when it’s hand-delivered?”

“Even then.”

“Hand-delivered by the assistant manager of Mormon State bank and addressed specifically to Denis Corticun and intercepted by you? You still don’t remember?”

Quinton turned to Corticun. “He just doesn’t understand anything …”

“I understand one thing.” Strom talked evenly. “I’m kicking your ass off the central files. You’re finished with them.”

“My friend,” Quinton said, “I’m headquarters. Field doesn’t tell headquarters what to do.”

Corticun interceded. “We can work this out, I’m sure. I remember this page quite well. I was expecting it. Chandler, the bank president, called me on it. Said he was sending it over. I may have forgotten to tell Harlon here.”

“Was it investigated?” Strom asked.

“Investigated?” Quinton repeated.

“We got the master list the bank gave the police,” Strom said. “A list of everyone who was on the bank premises prior to the robbery. We were following up on those names. The page you were given says we shouldn’t bother with seven of them and that three new names should be added. Were those three new names investigated by you?”

Corticun and Quinton exchanged looks. Quinton spoke. “As a matter of fact, they were. I remember now. There were three names. We of course followed up on them. How did you know?”

“Just guessing.” Strom indicated the page. “Followed up on those three names, right?”

“Yes, those three.”

“What did you find out?”

“They all had alibis.”

“Your memory seems to have returned,” Strom said.

Quinton ignored that. “All three men, the three names, were being interviewed for night watchman positions at Mormon State, or so we thought. The first two names were men who already were watchmen for other companies. The bank had run short of applicants for the watchman jobs and turned to an employment agency which specializes in security people. An agency with offices in downtown Prairie Port that advertises in the neighboring states. All three men on that list went to the agency, where they were given a time to appear at the Mormon State bank for an interview. Two of the men went to Mormon State and had their interviews. At the time of the robbery one of them was at another job and the other was at home.

“The third man shouldn’t have been on the list, that last name, Teddy Anglaterra. He showed up at the employment agency’s office in Prairie Port between nine and eleven Friday morning, August twentieth. They made an appointment for him to be interviewed later that afternoon at Mormon State. He never showed up at Mormon State for that interview, wasn’t on the Mormon State premises. We found out he lived in Illinois and is a drunk. He liked making appointments for job interviews but seldom kept them. That’s all there was to it.”

“And that’s what you forgot,” Cub couldn’t help saying, “… that’s what slipped your mind, all of that?”

Strom resumed pacing. “Why weren’t we told about Anglaterra and the other two men?”

“Oversight,” Quinton said. “Don’t blow it up.”

“You have no authority to investigate anything occurring in Prairie Port. That is strictly an eleventh-floor matter, particularly when the subjects may have been at the bank premises the day of the robbery. Your only obligation was to send their names downstairs to us.”

“My God, we were pressed. I believe I mentioned that.”

“You won’t be pressed any more.” Strom turned to Corticun. “I don’t give a damn who technically has the say here, me or headquarters. Until I hear from Mister Hoover directly, I’m dumb enough to think I’m boss.” His finger dropped at Quinton. “Him, I want out of here on the double, or, my God, I will kick his ass all the way out myself. The central files I want brought down from the twelfth floor. We operate them from here on.”

After several moments, Corticun nodded his assent.

Jessup, the following afternoon, replaced one of the U.S. marshals escorting Mule from the hospital. He sat alone with Mule in the back seat talking quietly for the fifteen-minute drive to the federal building. He went upstairs and watched Mule being rearraigned before Assistant U.S. Magistrate Krueger. He witnessed Mule calmly learn his bail was set at half at million dollars … and meekly respond that he couldn’t raise so much money, and passively allow himself to be led away to the county jail, while his Legal Aid lawyer shouted to heaven on high that the arraignment was an outrage and his client’s civil rights had been denied and justice aborted. In the evening, at the county jail, Jessup again managed to be with Mule alone, to talk to him another forty minutes. The results Jez reported back to Strom were unhappy ones. Mule wanted no part of the FBI or their plan.

Jessup and Yates then returned to the Army hospital. Only Jessup went in to see Ragotsy, stayed for three hours and came away empty-handed. He went back two days later, remained inside with Ragotsy less than twenty minutes. After that, Ragotsy refused to see him again. So did Wiggles and Mule.

He was as unexpected as a summer blizzard. Harry Janks, Chicago’s rumpled and Wellesian and bulge-bellied “defender of the damned.” Lawyer Harry, heir apparent to the red braces and stentorian spell-mongering of wondrous Clarence Darrow himself. Greedy Harry, who long ago swapped principle for profit, laid down his sword to sup at the table of the very dragons he once set out to slay. Sword or no, he cut a wide swath, Harry did. How, in his flamboyance, he managed to reach Prairie Port unnoticed, remain there unnoticed another day and a half, was nothing less than stunning. What he was doing in Prairie Port proved even more stunning … to the FBI.

The men had been summoned at 10:30 at night, entered the office building through the back or side entrances. All resident agents, except for Strom, were seated in the press auditorium by 11:15. So was Denis Corticun and twelfth-floor agents who had worked directly on Romor 91.

Strom, pale and shaken, entered at 11:20. The surprise, for all, was who followed him into the room. First came assistant to the FBI Director, A. R. Roland. Behind Roland strode Harry Janks.

Roland took the podium, in slow, hesitant words said that a mistake had been made which was not the fault of anyone present … that mistakes simply happen, occasionally, in investigations. He then thanked Harry Janks for being so considerate and going directly to Director Hoover rather than the press. Ruefully, Roland introduced Janks.

Thumbs hooked into his trouser top, he walked to the podium, confronted the audience, shook the shock of silver hair away from his eye. “I have been here before,” he told his listeners. “I tried a case here in Prairie Port before most of you were born. Your Mister Grafton was the law here then. I am regretful he is not present today. He taught me a lesson with that case. My client was a young extortionist whom Mister Grafton had arrested. A lad from a somewhat well-to-do family. The family had put me on retainer, one of the few times I ever did receive remuneration in those years of so long ago.”

The hands moved up, strummed the red suspenders. “My client, the young and wealthy ne’er-do-well, afforded me a piece of evidence I felt would have won the case for me. And I would have won most assuredly … had my client been telling the truth. He wasn’t. He was flimflamming. I lost. Mister Grafton saw I was of despair and took me to his favorite saloon. A speakeasy. Liquor was illegal in those years. We had whiskey and coffee, and Mister Grafton suggested a rule I might follow in the future. Never trust a client, even if he’s telling you the truth.

“We all, of course, forget that. Yourself and myself. My clients are your adversaries, your suspects. Persons whose relationship with the truth is tenuous at best. I believe, had you invoked Mister Grafton’s rule and mistrusted what several of them said, we all would have had a happier day.

“I am here in Prairie Port to represent three new clients, Mister Marion Corkel, Mister Elmo Ragotsy and Mister Lamar Loftus. I can understand your zeal and frustration concerning them, but I cannot allow, without recourse, the abuse of their constitutional liberties. My options at recourse were many, but I accepted the one at hand. A chance to talk to you directly … and to scold you a little.

“Sirs, you have perpetrated more heinous criminal acts in attempting to apprehend and convict my clients than they have in their misguided careers. I contend that the very warrants on which they were arrested were improper. I contend that Mister Corkel, following his illegal apprehension, was denied immediacy in contacting a lawyer, which is guaranteed by the Constitution … that you, the FBI, most assuredly delayed contacting the public defender until the latest possible moment. I contend that one of my clients, Mister Ragotsy, was technically placed incommunicado in a hospital after his return from the South. I know of no attempt by either you or the military authorities in charge of the hospital to contact any of Mister Ragotsy’s kin.

“As to your efforts to convince Mister Ragotsy, Mister Corkel and Mister Loftus to become witnesses for the government, I must regretfully say I find them reprehensible. You were deceptive in getting to them. You were deceptive when with them. Replacing a U.S. marshal duly entrusted to guard and protect Mister Corkel so you could offer him a so-called deal is downright felonious. You may disagree, but I know the law it transgresses. And poor Mister Ragotsy, in one sentence you spew sympathy for the beating he has taken in jail, while in the next sentence you mentally abuse him even worse … scare and befuddle him into thinking that should he consult a lawyer you would arrange to have him accused of homicide rather than bank theft. I can assure all of you he will be accused of neither.

“Sirs, you have falsely arrested my three clients. You have trusted the worst truth of all, facts. Or should I say the misinterpretation of facts.” Janks raised a sheaf of papers straight up into the air, held it there. “These here are the other facts. The true facts. They show what you either misread or did not bother to confirm … sirs, my three clients were not in Prairie Port at the time Mormon State National Bank was burglarized. They were in Illinois. Emoryville, Illinois. These papers contain the sworn statements of eyewitnesses who saw them in Emoryville that night and for six days thereafter … I will tell you something else that is not in these papers. Messrs. Corkel, Ragotsy and Loftus had gone there for the same reason they were in Baton Rouge three weeks later … to steal cigarettes. My clients, sirs, are truck hijackers, not bank thieves. Inept hijackers at that. They had the wrong information about what to rob in Baton Rouge and got into a fight over it. In Emoryville the shipment they were waiting for never arrived.

“Sirs, if you wish to investigate my clients for conspiracy to hijack, I suggest you alert your offices in Illinois and Louisiana. As for the homicide charges with which you threatened Mister Ragotsy repeatedly, as well as Mister Loftus and Mister Corkel, do go ahead and alert the Baton Rouge officials. Homicide is not federal purview, as we all well know. Perhaps the Baton Rouge police might wish to know why two FBI agents, who witnessed the assault, have still not told local authorities who the assailants are. Don’t you think it better for all concerned if most of this is forgotten?… if all charges are quietly dropped and my clients agree not to sue for false arrest? I do. You and I, dear friends, will live to fight again another day at a different place, I assure you. Let us have this hour pass.”

The documents were held higher. “My clients did not rob Mormon State National Bank. They could not have.”

Corticun’s phone call ordered the flying squad into action. By the morning they confirmed that every affidavit presented by Harry Janks was true … that eleven unimpeachable citizens of Emoryville, Illinois, had seen Mule, Wiggles and Ragotsy in their town at the time of the robbery and for a week thereafter. Seven of the eleven were either operators or employees of the hotels where Mule, Wiggles and Ragotsy had stayed. Three different hotels … as had been their pattern in Baton Rouge.