Stealing a Chevrolet and returning to Kansas City

The theft of a Chevrolet and the return to Kansas City turn the fugitives’ lack of money into a renewed criminal plan. Dick drives the decision: he believes the city offers a chance to pass forged checks quickly, while Perry sees the return as a danger that could connect them to the Clutter killings. Their journey brings them back to the place Dick considers useful, but it leaves Perry waiting, increasingly convinced that the risks he warned about have caught up with them.

The decision to return

The return begins while Dick and Perry are sheltering in a barn, cold, wet, hungry, and nearly out of money. Their recent meals have been sparse: Salvation Army soup the previous night, and stolen chocolate bars and chewing gum during the day. With little cash and no secure prospect ahead, Dick argues that Kansas City is the place where he can pass forged checks. He imagines moving quickly, obtaining enough money, and perhaps going on to Florida for the winter. The plan rests on speed and confidence rather than safety: Dick knows that their earlier forged checks may have prompted a warrant, yet believes a brief visit can still succeed.

Perry objects that returning is reckless. He has already told Dick that the idea seems irrational, and now repeats the dangers of going back, especially because Dick may be wanted for violating parole. His concern reaches beyond the forged checks. He fears that the authorities may connect them to the Clutter case, a possibility he associates with execution. Dick dismisses that fear and insists that no connection has been made. The disagreement exposes the difference between them: Dick treats the return as a manageable opportunity, while Perry cannot separate it from the consequences that might follow if their earlier crimes are uncovered.

Finding the Chevrolet

During their exchange in the barn, Dick strikes a match to light a cigarette. Something in its brief light draws his attention across the barn to a cow stall, where he finds a black-and-white, two-door 1956 Chevrolet. Its key is already in the ignition. This discovery changes the immediate terms of their plan: the men have a car in which to make the return, without needing to arrange another means of travel. They take the opportunity and set out in the vehicle, later referred to as the Iowa Chevrolet.

The car enables a hurried overnight journey rather than a secure one. Dick and Perry drive through heavy rain and stop twice to siphon gasoline from vehicles parked on the quiet streets of small towns. Perry handles the siphoning, a task he believes he is particularly good at. Their travel depends on theft at each stage: the Chevrolet provides transportation, and gasoline taken from other cars keeps it moving. The details make their mobility precarious. They are heading toward a city where Dick expects to commit another fraud, but the journey itself adds further unlawful acts and leaves them dependent on avoiding notice.

Arrival and separation

At sunrise, the pair reach Kansas City and go first to the airport. In a men’s lavatory they wash, shave, and brush their teeth, then spend two hours napping in the airport lounge. These ordinary preparations offer a pause in the trip, but do not change its underlying purpose. Afterward, Dick drives Perry back into the city and drops him at a self-service laundry, promising to return within an hour. Perry carries a large straw suitcase holding clothes belonging to both men; he puts the load into a washer and uses a lead slug, one of several they had bought in Mexico, to operate it.

The laundry provides Dick with a place to leave Perry while he goes off, supposedly to pass forged checks. Perry is familiar with laundromats and usually finds watching clothes being cleaned relaxing. On this occasion, however, he is apprehensive. He knows they have returned to Kansas City in a stolen car and without money, against his advice. The division of their tasks leaves Perry without knowledge of what Dick is doing or control over how long he will be gone. When the washing and drying are finished, Perry repacks the suitcase and waits.

The return’s immediate cost

Dick is overdue by half past ten. As the minutes pass, Perry imagines that Dick may have been stopped for writing a bad check or driving a stolen car, and then fears that the police may have connected him to the Clutter murders. His leg pain, which he associates with approaching panic, intensifies his alarm. Perry tries to reassure himself that Dick would not confess under pressure, but he also knows that Dick’s declarations of toughness do not necessarily hold when he is at a disadvantage. The narrative makes the return’s consequences immediate through this alternation between imagined arrest and attempted reassurance: the danger remains uncertain, but Perry experiences it as imminent.

Perry also considers a less threatening explanation for Dick’s absence. During the drive, Dick had expressed a wish to see his parents, despite feeling ashamed about the forged checks and their departure. Perry thinks Dick may have gone to visit them, but knows the family home has no telephone, so he cannot check. The uncertainty leaves him stranded in the city, with little money and the lead slugs in his pocket, unsure where he could go if Dick did not come back. By the time he leaves the laundry, the return has delivered neither the easy money Dick hoped for nor reassurance for Perry. The stolen Chevrolet has carried them back to Kansas City, but their renewed scheme has instead placed Perry alone in a public waiting place, measuring each delay against the prospect of arrest.