EIGHTEEN

He was on the short side but trim. Framed in the narrow doorway of the railroad car, he looked taller. He wore a three-piece white summer suit and a tan straw hat with a snappy blue band and white alligator shoes and chamois spats, all of which had become part of his trademark. His face was modestly pinched. His surprised eyes were wide-set and owllike. The nose, buttonish. His white, nearly albino skin made a sparse blond mustache hard to discern in the filtering light of the railroad station. His lips were fragile and bore traces of rouge. With his straw hat on and riding low, as it did most of the time, he resembled a passive marsupial. When the hat came off, doffed of course in polite acknowledgment, a radical change took place. The slightly conical head with thinning blond hair was revealed, to no advantage. But so was that smile. And those white teeth. A smile so compelling, teeth so dazzling perfect that you wanted to shake this fellow’s hand. Take him to you. Vote for him. Trust him. Hat up, smile on, teeth bared … and he metamorphosed, instantly, from creature into character. There was no doubt Otto Pinkny was a character. He worked at it.

Otto Pinkny smoked thin cigars and cologned with Brut and quoted Elbert Hubbard incorrectly and had authored an incomprehensible cookbook, which wasn’t all that surprising since he had quit school in the fourth grade. Writingwise, Pinkny had murdered the English language more surely than the eleven known victims of his French-made burp gun. Speaking was a different matter. Otto was as garrulous an outlaw as ever was born. “A Casey Stengel of a gunsel,” Time had once commented. Otto had another oratorical attribute—he spoke in the third person.

“I know Otto Pinkny from a long time ago and intimately, and I can tell you he’s the species of bloke who’d turn himself over to the coppers before harming one hair on a little baby in their rompers,” he had proclaimed via phone to an all-night, call-in Philadelphia disc jockey show after errant bullets from his latest gun battle crashed through a window and wounded an infant girl.

When interviewed a year later in his death-row prison cell by “60 Minutes,” Otto told America, “Otto Pinkny is a churchgoing bloke and don’t smoke never. If chance should will it he gets himself married, he’ll be faithful to his wife and won’t never use no prostitutes again.”

After his spectacular prison break was likened to the exploits of John Dillinger and Billy the Kid by a Baltimore newspaper, fugitive Pinkny called the paper’s city editor with a veiled complaint. “Otto Pinkny is a student of history, and you better danged well believe him when he tells you that Johnny Dillinger was a stand-up bloke but Billy the Kid was a wimp who goes around shooting human beings in their backs instead of facing them face to face like Johnny Dillinger or Otto Pinkny done.”

Pinkny had burst into the public consciousness in 1968 by shooting it out with a gang of Birmingham, Alabama, gunmen. Black gunmen, four of whom were killed in the fray. No one knew Otto Pinkny was responsible until he called a Birmingham paper and told them so. He chatted with a local disc jockey about it as well. Though never saying so directly, Otto implied he had killed the black men in retaliation for their having raped and murdered his fiancée. The fiancée’s name was never learned, her body never discovered.

Seven months later in Pittsburgh he shot to death Joe Danker and Elroy Dobbins, notorious strong-arm men. Pinkny had explained by phone to a Pittsburgh deejay that death resulted from a dispute over money … that Danker and Dobbins tried to shoot him and that he was merely returning the favor. He was arrested in a phone booth the next day as he talked with yet another local disc jockey. Police assumed he must have been involved with Danker and Dobbins in some criminal activities, but before they could question him at length Otto Pinkny broke out of jail. Four months later he went against Tough Tommy Osler on a Savannah, Georgia, street corner. Friends of Danker and Dobbins had contracted Osler to track down and execute Otto Pinkny. It was Tough Tommy who lay dead after the exchange of bullets. A great deal of publicity was given to a report that Tommy was broke … that his contractors refused to pay even for his funeral … that it was Otto Pinkny who sent the money for a classy burial. Tough Tommy’s widow was outraged by this blatant lie, even allowed herself to be photographed holding up the family bank books and stock portfolio and the receipt from the funeral parlor which showed she alone had paid all expenses. The media, by and large, preferred the more romanticized version in which Otto Pinkny paid. Little play was given to the widow’s proof or her complaints that Otto Pinkny himself must have been the one who spread the nasty rumor, which of course was true.

Seven victims were now dead by Otto’s burp gun. Seven criminals, of varying venality, whom he had fought fair and square. Stood face to face with, was usually outnumbered by. Comparisons to Western gunfighting heroes of yore were inevitable. So too were bromides such as, after all, he’s not really hurting anybody except his own kind. The funeral-payment rumor evoked Robin Hoodish images.

All these were added to in Miami, Florida. A South Miami narcotics kingpin by the name of Luis Herra had employed Otto Pinkny to help organize and protect the delivery of $2,000,000 in cash from a Miami bank to a boat captain in Jacksonville, Florida. The money was small potatoes to the billion-dollar operation run by Herra, but years of internecine war with competing dope gangs had left him irritable and overcautious. He hoped the mere inclusion of Otto Pinkny on the routine money run would discourage interference by rival marauders. Otto Pinkny insisted on transporting the money alone. Herra wouldn’t hear of it and assigned his bodyguard, a killer by the name of Cortez, to go along. On the way, Cortez, who had sold out his boss to a competitor, tried to kill Otto and wound up riddled through and dead in a ditch. Otto delivered the money to the captain, went back to Miami, got his payment from Herra and, thinking Herra had assigned Cortez to kill him, told Herra to pick up a gun and defend himself … told Herra he was going to shoot him for betraying him. Herra managed to push a secret alarm button. Otto mowed down the pair of bodyguards who rushed to Herra’s assistance. Otto forced Herra to hold a gun, let Herra raise it and take aim before blowing him away. By the time Otto had finished phoning the story to various disc jockeys he was friendly with across the country, a different account was heard, one in which Otto led a raid on an offshore-island bank controlled by Fidel Castro and stole money to help arm pro-United States guerillas within Cuba … and how in the transfer of this money to a guerilla ship captain in Jacksonville, Herra and his Castroite gunmen had tried to interfere.

Pinkny, for six months, eluded one of the largest manhunts ever mounted along the eastern seaboard. One in which the FBI participated for the first time, though only nominally, since the prime jurisdiction went to the narcotics division of the Treasury Department and fugitive charges were for homicide, a crime the Bureau was not authorized to investigate except in rare and specific instances. When Pinkny was finally apprehended it was in Pennsylvania, where a prior homicide warrant for him was outstanding. He was duly convicted and sentenced to die and sent to death row at the State Correctional Institution at Graterford, where he was visited by a television crew from “60 Minutes.” En route to seeing himself on a guardroom television set some weeks later, Otto effected a spectacular escape, and a total disappearance.

Otto Pinkny had been, until the Mormon State robbery, the second most publicized badman in the country. The first had been Willie Sutton. Pinkny, among his peer group, was paid the rare and awesome respect of never having been dubbed with a nickname. Not Machine Gun Pinkny. Not Killer Pinkny. Just Otto Pinkny. Never Otto alone. Never Pinkny alone. Always Otto Pinkny.

Despite his notoriety Otto Pinkny seemed not to have a private past. The FBI, which had entered the fugitive search for him after the Graterford prison break, found that before his Birmingham gunfight with the black gangsters no recorded data whatsoever existed on Pinkny. The underworld knew little or nothing of his pre-criminal life. The press, which did so much to popularize him; knew even less.

… Billy Yates, watching from the rear of the terminal platform as Otto Pinkny stood in the narrow doorway of the railroad car with one hand cuffed to a U.S. marshal and the other hand doffing his tan straw hat at the jam of media people waiting before him, wondered what the hell the flashy killer was really doing in Prairie Port. Yates didn’t for a moment believe Pinkny had any connection with Mormon State. What bothered him most as Otto threw a kiss and raised his fingers in a V for Victory and started down through the throng was why his déjà vu had returned and was so strong … why he sensed that somehow long ago he had witnessed damn near everything that was now going on …

“Your name?” Strom asked.

“I don’t got one,” Otto Pinkny answered;

“Everyone has a name.”

“Call me Everyone. I’m a friend of Otto Pinkny. That oughta be swell enough. I’m a friend of all the gents. And if I was you, I wouldn’t believe nothing the law over by South Carolina said. Otto Pinkny’s been thinking and he told me to tell you what he told them weren’t the whole-cloth truth. Want I should tell you what Otto Pinkny told me?”

“Later,” Strom said. “When were you born?”

“I can’t think back that far.”

“You can’t tell us how old you are?”

“I don’t got no age. I don’t got no name, ’cepting Everyone.”

“How old is Otto Pinkny?”

“Thirty-one.”

“When was Otto Pinkny born? What date?”

“Like I told, even him can’t think back that far.”

“What was his place of birth?”

“I don’t know. He don’t know.”

“He just grew up like corn?”

“Yeah, like Topsy.” Otto Pinkny bared that smile. For the first time since arriving at the eleventh-floor residency, bared it.

“What is Otto Pinkny’s current address?”

“Here.”

“Before here, before being arrested, what was his home address?”

“Everywhere and nowhere like me.”

“Does Otto Pinkny have a social security number?”

“Lots of ’em.”

“Does he have a legitimate social security number?”

“You gotta be kidding.”

“What’s Otto Pinkny’s mother’s name?”

“He never said.”

“Is his mother alive?”

Otto Pinkny shook his head.

“What was his father’s name?”

“Otto Pinkny never knew his father.”

“… I was asking for his father’s name.”

“He never mentions it.”

“Does Otto Pinkny have any brothers?”

“He would have liked to, but he don’t.”

“Does he have any sisters?”

“Otto Pinkny’s by himself in the world. No relative at all, nowhere.”

“Is Otto Pinkny married or single?”

“Single.”

“Has he ever been married?”

“Someday he will be.”

“Where did Otto Pinkny go to school?”

“Otto Pinkny educated himself. Read books by himself.”

“But did he ever attend school?”

“Once, until the fourth grade.”

“Where was that?”

“He can’t think back that far.”

“Has Otto Pinkny served in the armed forces?”

“No one by the name of Otto Pinkny ever put on a uniform, but he loves his country just the same. He’d die for his country. No man is worth his salt who ain’t ready at all times to risk his body, to risk his well-being, to risk his life in the great cause of his country.”

“That sounds like a quote, that last part.”

That smile shone and with it those perfect white teeth. “You’re pretty sharp.” The tense, taut body relaxed somewhat, shifted in its wooden chair. “Yeah, President Teddy Roosevelt said it.”

“You read Teddy Roosevelt?”

“I don’t read nothing.”

“… Does Otto Pinkny read Teddy Roosevelt?”

“No, he only reads Elbert Hubbard. You read Elbert Hubbard?”

“We have a man here in the office who does.”

Lips parted and teeth showed. “Bet the poor chump was up all last night reading Elbert Hubbard.”

It was Strom’s turn to smile for the first time. “As a matter of fact he was up all night with Elbert Hubbard. He read it before, but I asked him to brush up.”

Strom checked his notes. Otto Pinkny, seated directly across the conference table from him, glanced around, noticed what he hadn’t bothered to look at earlier: Jez and Brew sitting against the rear wall. “Hi ya, blokes,” he told them. “Morning, ma’am,” he said to the stenographer in the corner.

“You were arrested when?” asked Strom.

“Ain’t never been arrested.”

“When was Otto Pinkny arrested?”

“Want every time?”

“The last time.”

“Over by a crackerville called Twin Lakes, which is in South Carolina. Dumb dog luck is all it was. Otto Pinkny forgets to stop at a red light, and who’s right there shading itself under a tree and stuffing its fat face with garlic and grits, a copper. Reeks to high heaven, the fat copper does, and lucky for him Otto Pinkny only shoots his own kind. If Otto Pinkny shot fat coppers, he wouldn’t be where he is today, the fat copper or Otto Pinkny. Nah, Otto Pinkny lets the copper take him to the place, and someone at the place does the burn on Otto Pinkny, only he can’t be sure. Otto Pinkny’s got these fingerprints that don’t print too good on account of they got fried off way back and don’t hold the ink like you need for printing. And that’s how they catch on finally. On the busted prints that only smudge. All them coppers is heroes now, and the fat copper’s the pride of the litter. Like the man said, the whetstone may be dull but it sharpens the shiv.”

“This arrest for running the red light occurred on what date?” Strom asked.

“Six days ago, whenever that was.”

“Do you know the exact date?”

“Nah. A Saturday, maybe.”

“Let’s go back to Otto Pinkny’s fingerprints. You said his fingers had been fried off? Fried so badly they didn’t respond to printing?”

“All that garbage about prints not burning off is crap. Otto got his burned off.”

“Intentionally?”

“Accidental.”

“What kind of accident?”

“Something exploded.”

“And burned the skin on his fingers off?”

“Yeah.”

“What exploded?”

“Who knows?”

“Something flammable?”

“If you get burned, it’s gotta be flammable.”

“It could have been a nonflammable explosion. It could have been a heat explosion. A bomb? Natural gas?”

“Nah, it was flammable.”

“When was the explosion?”

“Way back.”

“Way back when?”

“He don’t remember.”

“Where did it explode?”

“He never said.”

“His burned-off fingerprints, do they look anything like the scars on your fingers?”

Otto Pinkny glanced down at the back of his hands. “Yeah, they do.”

“So that’s one thing you and Otto have in common, those burned fingers?”

“We got a lotta things in common. Mister, why you working so hard? Why you boning me while you do? I come to cooperate, didn’t I? I volunteered. All you gotta do is ask and I’ll answer. Anything you wanna know, I’ll answer.”

“Let’s get back to your traffic arrest at Twin Lakes. You said it occurred eight or ten days ago.”

“It ain’t me what got arrested.”

“Otto’s arrest at Twin Lakes. Eight to ten days ago, was it?”

“… Six days ago.”

“And Otto was taken to the jail house and booked and printed, but his fingers wouldn’t print and that’s how they identified him?”

“… That’s right.”

“How long after he was printed, or misprinted, was he identified?”

“Two days.”

“He was in that jail house two days before positive identification was made?”

“Yeah.”

“During those two days did he contact anyone?”

“Just sat and waited.”

“For what?”

“What d’ya think, to be let out.”

“You mean to be let out without being identified?”

“Yeah.”

“After he’s identified, then what?”

“He’s gotta wait for the celebrating to end. When them coppers find out who they scooped up by mistake, they have themselves a Mardi Gras right in their station house. They’re running and hugging and slapping each other on the back and kissing each other on the lips and swilling beer and eating pies and cakes and chips. Them coppers is so thrilled by themselves they give Otto Pinkny some of the beer and pies, and Otto tells them when they’re done good-timing, he’d appreciate making the one phone call the Constitution says he got coming to himself. The coppers give him the phone, and he calls up the FBI and says if they wanna celebrate Christmas early, they best grab some stockings and earmuffs and get right on over to see him ’cause he’s gonna give them the present of their lifetimes.”

Otto was comfortable now and on a roll, had slouched down somewhat in his chair with the thumb of his right hand hitched into the vest fob … jiggled the upraised thumb of his other hand in front of him from time to time for emphasis. “The FBI gets there lickety split, and Otto Pinkny tells them he’s got this reservation problem. All kindsa places want him to come stay with them, and they’ve put aside rooms for him, and he don’t know which one to pick. The room is on death row, and that gives Otto Pinkny pause, seeing how he’s already visited the accommodations in Pennsylvania and don’t really care for the view. Pennsylvania’s pretty good about not frying them people it sentences to death, but dead or alive Otto Pinkny can’t look forward to spending time in Graterford Penitentiary. Florida’s got a first-class reservation for him, too, and he don’t like that one no better ’cause Florida executes more cons than any state in the country, and even if they let him off with life plus ten they’d be putting him in a prison chock full of friends of Luis Herra and all them other Latino blokes. Florida or Pennsylvania, the chances are better than not Otto Pinkny won’t be taking the pipe and will become their most famous roomer. What holds for Pennsylvania holds for Florida. Otto Pinkny don’t like the view from either place. State places is always run down and third class. Otto Pinkny tells the FBI he won’t go third class nowhere and that a long time back he planned ahead and arranged for a first-class reservation. Why do state time when you can have a federal holiday at Lewisberg, Pennsylvania, he tells them. And then he tells them the name he made the reservation under … Mormon State National Bank.

“This fed who was talking to Otto Pinkny was named something or other, and his jaw fell open so far when Otto said that, it bounced on the floor and hit him back in the face, ‘You telling me you got in on Mormon State just to beat state time?’ the fed says when he gets his jaw put back on.

“‘The thirty-one million’s got a lot to do with it,’ Otto Pinkny says. And Otto Pinkny tells him he don’t go in on nothing no where. Don’t take orders from no man living. When Otto Pinkny does something, he’s the boss. Otto Pinkny tells the fed if he wants to find out all about Mormon State, he better start asking questions before his mind gets changed. The fed goes running out of there and makes a telephone call, and brand-new feds come down and Otto Pinkny tells them all about Mormon State, and the next thing he knows, you come and talk with him and bring him here.”

Strom indicated a thick folder of transcripts. “And that is the statement you made to the FBI agents in Twin Lakes?”

“I didn’t make no statements.”

“Is this the statement Otto Pinkny made in Twin Lakes?” Strom’s hand was on the transcripts.

“You read it, you tell me.”

“Are these the questions and his answers?”

“Yeah, it looks like what got typed up.”

An upraised transcript was flapped by Strom. “I’ve read what this says most carefully. It was made to two FBI agents from Washington who are not as familiar with the facts as the people here. You are to be reinterviewed by six of our agents who know the most about Mormon State. If you are cooperative, and convincing, you may very well get that room with a view you prize so much. The reinterviewers will cover three specific aspects. First, the planning of the crime. Second, perpetration. Third, the getaway and aftermath. We will take a brief break and then begin.”

“There are two questions Otto Pinkny won’t answer,” Otto Pinkny said. “He ain’t saying who the other people in the score were, and he ain’t saying where the thirty-one mil is. If everything goes okay and Otto gets sent to Lewisberg or someplace as good, then he’ll tell you. But you don’t get nothing on the come. He told ’em in Twin Lakes, they don’t get them two questions on the come.”

“Then he may not get to Lewisberg.”

“Wanna bet?”