White Heat

Conductor didn't wanna play. How's this guy?

Nice and willing.

Stop the train and let us off.

When we tell you.

Ed, Cotton, when we get the train on the spur, start hopping. Go.

- Zuckie, you know what to do? - Sure. I throw the switch and beat it back...

All right, just do it. Stop the gabbing.

All right. This is where we want off.

Stop it right here.

Get away from those controls.

What's this, a holdup?

No, no. You're seven minutes late. We're just changing engineers.

A lot fancier than my old coal burner on the CandO.

Shut up!

Open up and you won't get hurt.

Sounds bad, Cody.

Why don't you give him my address too?

Only the Treasury stuff!

Hurry up, boys. Get in there.

- You won't get away with it, Cody. - Cody, huh?

- Go get the car started. - You got it.

You've got a good memory for names.

Too good.

Zuckie got scalded.

Come on, let's get out of here.

A week has passed since bandits jumped a mail train...

...coming out of the High Sierra Tunnel...

...and fled with $300,000 in federal currency, leaving four dead.

Treasury authorities now believe...

...that the gang has escaped to Arizona...

...where today a bank was raided and two tellers killed...

...with the same cold-bloodedness that characterized...

Now we're supposed to be in Arizona.

Any place would be better than this.

We gotta blow out of here.

Cody calls charging roadblocks unscientific.

It ain't safe having a crackpot giving orders. About time somebody took over.

- Who, for instance? - A very good friend of mine, me.

Where do you want the body sent?

Been golfing, Ed?

We got a sack full of dough and we're holed up here like a bunch of gophers.

When we moving out?

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in the spring.

I'll give it a lot of thought.

All right?

Mm.

Smells good, Ma.

If you're getting hungry, I could do with some help, son.

Verna.

Help Ma with the groceries.

Verna.

Well, if it ain't the sleeping beauty.

What else does a girl do around this bear trap?

There's plenty you can do without wearing out the mattress.

It's the only place I don't freeze.

I've been cold for a week, Cody. Not even a fire.

Who's gonna see a little bit of smoke a hundred miles from nowhere?

- Help Ma with the grub. - Cody.

He's getting worse. He needs a doc.

When the time comes.

- Want some coffee, Ed? - Thanks, Verna.

Let him get it himself.

My wife don't wait on nobody.

You know something, Verna?

If I turned my back long enough for Big Ed to put a hole in it...

...there'd be a hole in it.

Big Ed. Great Big Ed. Heh.

Know why they call him that?

Because his ideas are big.

Someday he's gonna get a really big one about me.

And it'll be his last.

That's the second one he's had in a month.

He's nuts, just like his old man.

It's these mountains, Cody.

It's not good for you, cold all the time.

You can't breathe the air.

Let's get out, son.

It's going. It's going.

- It's going? - Yeah.

- Are you sure? - Yeah.

It's like having a...

It's like having a red-hot buzz saw inside my head.

- No. No, not yet, son. - Hmm?

Don't let them see you like that. Might give some of them ideas.

Yeah.

Always thinking about your Cody, aren't you?

That's right.

Top of the world, son.

Don't know what I'd do without you, Ma.

Mm.

- Better? - Mm.

- Yeah. - Now go on out. Show them you're all right.

What are you all gaping at?

And I thought I told you to help Ma with the groceries.

Cody. Hey, Cody. There's a storm coming.

Every road's gonna be blocked, the guy said.

What guy?

- On the radio. - How long did he give it?

- Tonight. - Oh. That's just what I've been waiting for.

- Is everything packed? - We've been packed for a week.

You sure it's safe, Cody?

A storm keeps everybody busy.

Now, clean up this place, and clean it up right. And don't leave any calling cards.

I told you to keep away from that radio.

If that battery is dead, it'll have company.

It's your suitcase, Cody.

Why don't you keep it all?

You're cute. Come here.

Why don't you?

We could travel, buy things.

- That's what money's for. - Hmm.

- I look good in a mink coat, honey. - Mm-hm.

You'd look good in a shower curtain.

We're pals, Cotton.

You'll see that I get away all right, see that I get to a doc?

Sure, sure, Zuckie.

All set.

- Cody? - Yeah?

I was pretty good back there on the train, huh, Cody?

- Pretty good for my first job, huh? - Yeah, you were great.

You won't leave me here. You'll take me with you?

We can't take any chance of being picked up with you in the car.

We'll send a doc right away.

You're gonna let me die.

Cotton?

Cotton, don't leave me.

Suppose they find him, Cody? You know how Zuckie talks.

He won't talk. Cotton.

You meant what you said about sending a doc?

Yeah, sure. A specialist. You.

Here, if you're such a pal of his, go back and make it easy for him.

Go.

Rest easy, Ma. We're 300 miles from the tunnel. What have they got?

A corpse without a record.

Nothing to tie him in with the tunnel job or us.

Don't make a sound, Zuckie. It's me, Cotton.

Look, I'll try to come back.

- Here's some cigarettes, huh? - Thanks, Cotton.

- Yeah. - Thanks.

Ed, we'll separate. Go east until you hit the highway and double back over the bridge.

Stay on dirt roads all the way. You hear?

Hope I didn't get you up here on a wild-goose chase, Mr. Evans.

Geese we're looking for are pretty wild.

A couple of hunters found him frozen up in the mountains.

We started wondering. Stranger, bullet hole in the roof of the cabin...

...particularly the condition of his face. Tell him, doc.

Despite the third-degree burn, the eyebrows and hairline weren't even singed.

That means either boiling water or steam.

So we thought of a steam engine.

Hmm, good hunch. Get me his clothes.

Ernie.

Get his fingerprints and take a mask of his face.

Here you are, Mr. Evans.

Nothing in the pockets but this pack of cigarettes.

So like you told me, Mr. Evans, I made the rounds for a month.

Drifting, kind of. Not too eager.

You know, just dropping a word in the right ear...

...that I'm interested in picking up a few odd dollars.

Not a buck from the tunnel job showed up.

They haven't buried it in tin cans, Willie. Keep looking.

Okay.

I'll go out the back way, if you don't mind.

If any of the boys spotted me coming up here, I'd be in a real jam.

- Did you get anything out of Willie? - A blank.

This will cheer you up, Phil. Spectrograph of dirt from the tunnel.

Spectrograph of dust deposits taken from the dead man's clothes.

No doubt about it. They're identical.

It all adds up and places our friend in the morgue right at the scene of the crime.

Oh, looks like we're in business.

From Washington.

"Have no fingerprint record, dead man."

Well, that's one I never expected. Dead man, dead end.

"But prints on cellophane of cigarette package...

...belong Giovanni 'Cotton' Valetti.

Known member, Jarrett Gang."

And I thought you were never gonna talk, baby.

- Where's Ma? - She went to the market.

- Which one? - She don't tell me those details.

What difference does it make?

I'll tell you what difference it makes. They've got Zuckie in a morgue upstate.

- T-men tied him in with us on the tunnel job. - What?

Yeah. We're all as hot as pistols.

I don't know how they did it. Somebody must have tipped them.

It's always "somebody tipped them," never "the cops are smart."

We had enough food for a week. What'd she have to go out for?

You like strawberries, don't you? Well, she just had to get some for her boy.

Evans speaking.

Her car is parked outside pointing west.

Good. I'll be down there right away.

Now, there'll be a marker on the rear bumper.

Mm-hm, that's what I thought, Mr. Evans.

Where Ma goes, Cody goes.

We'll use the ABC method.

I'm B.

I'll keep first position behind suspect on Arango Boulevard.

Two-two-seven, you're A.

You drive parallel on Lattimer.

Okay.

Three-two-three, you're C. The same on Fairchild.

- Got that? - Okay.