McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales - Michael Chabon [54]
She referred to Deputy Marshal Webster as “Carl” and the one from the Oklahoman said, “Oh, you two are on intimate terms now? You don’t mind he’s just a kid? Has he visited you here at the hotel?” Faye was staying a few days at the Georgian in Henryetta. The other reporters in the room would tell the Oklahoman to keep quiet for Christ sake, anxious for Faye to get to the gunplay.
“As I told you,” Faye said, “I was in the doorway to the kitchen. Frank’s over here to my left, and Carl’s opposite him but sitting down, his legs stretched out in his cowboy boots. I couldn’t believe how calm he was.”
“What’d you have on, Faye?”
The Oklahoman interrupting again, some of the other reporters groaning.
“I had on a pink and red kimono Frank got me at Kerr’s in Oklahoma City. I had to wear it whenever he came.”
“You have anything on under it?”
Faye said, “None of your beeswax.”
The Oklahoman said his readers had a right to know such details of how a gun moll dressed. This time the other reporters were quiet, like they wouldn’t mind hearing such details themselves, until Faye said, “If this big mouth opens his trap one more time I’m through and y’all can leave.” She said, “Now where was I?”
“Frank was leaning on the table.”
“That was it. He looked over at me like he was gonna say something, and right then Carl said, ‘Frank?’ He said, ‘Draw your pistol and lay it there on the table.’”
The reporters wrote it down in their notebooks and then waited as Faye took a sip of iced tea.
“I told you Frank had his back to Carl? Now I see him turn his face to his shoulder and say to him, ‘Do I know you from someplace?’ Maybe thinking of McAlester, Carl an ex-convict looking to earn the reward money. Frank asks him, ‘Have we met or not?’ And Carl says, ‘If I told you, I doubt you’d remember.’ Then—this is where Carl says, ‘Frank, I’m a Deputy United States Marshal. I’ll tell you one more time to lay your pistol on the table.’”
A reporter said, “Faye, I know they did meet. I’m from the Okmulgee Daily Times and I wrote the story about it. Was six years ago to the month.”
“What you’re doing,” Faye said, “is holding up my getting to the good part.” Messing up her train of thought, too.
“But the circumstances of how they met,” the reporter said, “could have something to do with this story.”
“Would you please,” Faye said, “wait till I’m done?”
It gave her time to tell the next part: how Frank had no choice but to draw his gun, this big pearl-handled automatic, from inside his coat and lay it on the edge of the table, right next to him. “Now as he turns around,” Faye said, starting to grin, “this surprised look came over his face. He sees Carl sitting there, not with a gun in his hand but Photoplay magazine. Frank can’t believe his eyes. He says, ‘Jesus Christ, you don’t have a gun?’ Carl pats the side of his chest where his gun’s holstered under his coat and says, ‘Right here.’ Then he says, ‘Frank, I want to be clear about this so you understand. If I pull my weapon I’ll shoot to kill.’” Faye said to the reporters, “In other words, the only time Carl Webster draws his gun it’s to shoot somebody dead.”
It had the reporters scribbling in their notebooks and making remarks to each other, the one from the Daily Times saying now, “Listen, will you? Six years ago Frank Miller held up Deering’s drugstore in Okmulgee and Carl Webster was there. Only he was known as Carlos then, he was still a kid. He stood by and watched Frank Miller shoot and kill an Indian from the tribal police happened to come in the store, a man Carl Webster must’ve known.” The reporter looked at Faye and said, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I think the drugstore shooting could’ve been on Carl Webster’s mind.”
Faye said, “I can tell you something else about that.”
But now voices were chiming in, commenting and asking questions about the