Bad Boy Read Free

West Main Street in Oklahoma City. There was a family across the street whose little girl was always fighting with Maxine (or vice versa) and Mom, after a few words with her mother, decided that they were trash. Pop said that she shouldn’t make statements of that kind. We weren’t really acquainted with the people and shouldn’t form judgments until we were.
    Pop had served us “succotash” that evening, and Mom was not in the best of humor.
    “If you think so much of them,” she suggested, sweetly, “why don’t you call on them? Take them some of that stuff. They look to me like they’d eat anything.”
    There were a few more words, and, finally, Pop got up and put on his hat. Taking the kettle under his arm, he marched stiffly out of the house and across the street.
    Some thirty minutes later he returned—and with him he brought the detested neighbors: the man and woman and their little girl. The man was a small wiry fellow, with the bluest eyes I have ever seen. The woman was a gaudy, gushy type. At Pop’s instigation, they were paying us a social call.
    Mom sat with her lips compressed, emitting monosyllables when she was forced to. Pop, of course, became more and more hospitable.
    It developed that the man was the local agent for a St. Louis automobile dealer, and Pop promptly announced that he was interested in buying a car. Before the visit was over he made an appointment for a demonstration.
    When our visitors had finally departed Mom began to laugh rather wildly.
    “You buy a car! Are you crazy, Jim Thompson? We’ve got another baby coming, and we owe everyone in the country now. And you talk about buying a car! I’ll just bet you that fellow is a criminal! I’ll bet he steals those fine cars he drives around!”
    Pop said this was preposterous. “I refuse to discuss the matter further.”
    “Well, you won’t catch me riding with you! Me or any of the kids…” And we didn’t go, either.
    So Pop went for the ride alone, and several others. The price of the car was surprisingly cheap—so much so that Pop, who was usually agile in such situations, found it difficult to avoid buying, and Mom, who loved a bargain, wavered somewhat. But having stated so often that the man was a criminal, she would not back down.
    It was just as well. I cannot remember the guy’s last name now, although I should, as many crime stories as I have written. But his spry mannerisms and his bright blue eyes had earned him the sobriquet, among the police of six states, of “Monkey Joe.” He was the southwestern outlet for a gang of Missouri car thieves who had hundreds of thefts, and, I believe, thirteen murders to their credit.
    At the time the pinch was made Freddie, my other sister, had just been born, and we had other things than crime to talk about. But the magazine sections of the Sunday papers kept the case alive until we were less preoccupied. For weeks they were filled with the pictures and exploits of “Joe, the man with the monkey-blue eyes”—which may or may not explain why there was a sudden dearth of Sunday papers around our house.
    Pop said there was no connection.

5
    O ne day around the turn of the century, a large young man with the profile of President McKinley wandered into Territorial Oklahoma from Illinois. He had a certain ponderosity of manner which set none too well with his background. For, while he could be considered unusually well-read for his day, he had little formal education, and his working experience was confined to a few months as a railroad fireman and a year or so as a country schoolteacher.
    He conferred with a highly placed Republican relative—Territorial Oklahoma was governed by Republicans—and this man got him an appointment as a deputy United States marshal. He did not ask for help after that, nor did he need it. For the young man’s chief talent was something he had been born with, the ability to make friends. And, I may as well say now, it was to prove no unmixed