Free the Hot Kid (2005) by Elmore - Carl Webster 0 Leonard

machine gun nest in that woods in France.
    Late in October, who walked in the grocery store but Joe Young. Louly knew him even wearing a suit, and he knew her, grinning as he came up to the counter, his shirt wide open at the neck. He said, "Well, I'm out."
    She said, "You been out two months, haven't you?"
    He said, "I been robbing banks. Me and Choc."
    She thought she had to go to the bathroom, the urge coming over her in her groin and then gone, Louly took a few moments to compose herself and act like the mention of Choc didn't mean anything special, Joe Young's grin in her face, giving her the feeling he was dumb as dirt. Some other convict must've wrote his letters for him. She said in a casual way, "Oh, is Charley here with you?"
    "He's around," Joe Young said, acting shifty, like he was being watched. "Come on, we gotta go."
    "I'm not ready just yet," Louly said. "I don't have my running-away money with me."
    "How much you save?"
    "Thirty-eight dollars.
    "Jesus, working here two years?" "I told you, Mr. Hagenlocker takes almost all my wages."
    "You want, I'll crack his head for him."
    "I wouldn't mind. The thing is, I'm not leaving without my money."
    Joe Young looked at the door as he put his hand in his pocket saying, "Little girl, I'm paying your way. You won't need the thirty-eight dollars."
    Little girl--she stood a good two inches taller than Joe Young, even in his run-down cowboy boots. She was shaking her head now. "Mr. Hagenlocker bought a Model A Roadster with my money, paying it off twenty a month."
    "You want to steal his car?"
    "It's mine, ain't it, if he's using my money?"
    Louly had made up her mind and Joe Young was anxious to get out of here. She had pay coming, so they'd meet November 2 at the Georgian Hotel in Henryetta, around noon. The day before she was to leave Louly told Sylvia she was sick. Instead of going to work she got her things ready and used the curling iron on her hair. The next day, while Sylvia was hanging wash, the two boys at school, and Mr. Hagenlocker was out on his tractor, Louly rolled the Ford Roadster out of the shed and drove into Sallisaw to get a pack of Lucky Strikes for the trip. She loved to smoke and had been doing it with boys but never had to buy the cigarets. When boys wanted to take her in the woods she'd ask, "You have Luckies? A whole pack?" It didn't cross her mind she was doing it for fifteen cents. The druggist's son, one of her boyfriends, gave her a pack free of charge and asked where she was yesterday, acting sly, saying, "You're always talking about Pretty Boy Floyd, I wonder if he stopped by your house."
    They liked to kid her about Pretty Boy. Louly, not paying much at- tention, said, "I'll let you know when he does." Then saw the boy about to spring something on her.
    "The reason I ask, he was here in town yesterday, Pretty Boy was."
    She said, "Oh?" careful now. The boy took his time and it was hard to keep herself from shaking him.
    "Yeah, his family came down from Akins, his mama, two of his sisters, some others, so they could watch him rob the bank. He had a tommy gun, but didn't shoot anybody. Come out of the bank with two thousand five hundred and thirty-one dollars, him and two others. Gave some of the money to his people and they say to anybody he thought hadn't et in a while, everybody grinning at him."
    This was the second time now he had been close by: first when his daddy was killed only seven miles away and now right here in Sallisaw, all kinds of people seeing him, damn it, but her. Just yesterday . . . She had to wonder if she had been here would he of recognized her, and bet he would've.
    She said to her boyfriend in the drugstore, "Charley ever hears you called him Pretty Boy, he'll come in for a pack of Luckies, what he always smokes, and shoot you through the heart."
    The Georgian was the biggest hotel Louly had ever seen. Coming up on it in the Model A she was thinking these bank robbers knew how to live high on the hog. She pulled in