Under an Outlaw Moon by Dietrich Kalteis

Author:Dietrich Kalteis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2021-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

…nineteen

November 22, 1938

Stretching his back muscles, feeling tight from the four-hour drive that started in Detroit, he took them through Battle Creek and Kalamazoo. Driving like he was never going to stop, this ninety-mile-an-hour Plymouth he stole, passing fifty-mile-an-hour drivers on a forty-mile-an-hour road. Blowing by some crawling Edsel, the driver taking his half of the road out of the middle, Bennie passing on the shoulder.

Stopped for gas and sandwiches at a roadside stand, Bennie telling Stella to get set for the best ginger ale in the world. Stella admitting it was pretty good, looking at the bottle of Vernor’s. The Swiss on rye wasn’t bad either.

Bennie had driven north to buy a couple of cars, built some new aliases in Michigan, creating a false trail. Now he was heading west, planning to go south, wind their way back to New Orleans, where they’d been hiding. Stella falling in love with the place, the food, the music and the warmer weather.

“They got cars in Kansas, you know?” she said. “And we can make up names anyplace.”

“We’re throwing the lawmen off the trail, you know that. Anybody they ask gives the names we left behind and points them the wrong way.” Bennie always feeling they were being hunted, and right now he was trying to steer her out of the dark mood she’d been in since he drove through Michigan, guessing it was because they were this close to her mother’s place and he wasn’t going to swing by. Being patient with her, saying, “Besides, there’re more cars in Detroit than anyplace else, and along with some nice sights.”

“Sights? Name one thing was worth seeing?”

“Well, you liked the shops on Woodward Avenue. And the Packard factory. How about the electric streetcars, you never seen them before, and said you liked that bridge all the way to Canada.”

“Big deal, Canada.”

“Well, I’m hoping that’s where they think we’ve gone. Plus you got in some shopping when I got the cars. Seemed to be having a good time.”

She had to admit to that, buying a couple more dresses and pairs of shoes. Picked out a herringbone suit for him, replaced the one he ripped in the crash back in Osage City. Surprised him with a two-tone pair of city shoes to go with it. Telling him if he was going to be on the run, he ought to do it in style, like his hero John Dillinger, the man always doing his bloody business in a nice suit.

Driving what he called his fresh Pontiac, he left a dark brown Buick he bought in a rented garage in Highland Park, just in case they needed it sometime. Bennie seeing the sign now for Crown Point, Indiana, five miles ahead, putting them just south of Chicago. He took out the folded paper, a hand-drawn map he’d made before they left Detroit that morning. “Know what I said about it, but I guess the only thing’s gonna put a smile back on your face is if we stop in at your mother’s.

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