Public Enemies (80 page)

“I’ll drive a little slower,” Karpis said. He let the man go.

The next morning Karpis and Delaney cruised into Miami and drove to the El Commodoro, where Karpis checked in and introduced himself to the manager, Joe Adams, who had friendly ties with the South Florida underworld. Karpis left his car with Adams, along with his machine gun and a pair of bulletproof vests, all of which Adams volunteered to dispose of. (It was Adams who lent the car to his gofer, Duke Randall.) At Adams’s suggestion, Karpis and Delaney scampered through a rainstorm to the Bur-dine’s department store, where they bought the silk shirts and bathing suits they would need in Cuba. At nightfall Adams sent champagne and New York strip steaks to their suite for dinner.

The next morning, Adams dropped Karpis and Delaney off at the train station. By noon that Saturday, September 15, the two were in Key West, shuffling through the queue waiting to board the S.S.
Cuba
for the six-hour cruise to Havana. Delaney was transfixed by a suntanned young man who dived for coins the tourists threw. In fact, she was thrilled at everything, the aquamarine sea and the palm trees and the piña coladas. She was seventeen and pregnant and in love with the world. Karpis looked at her and thought,
God it’s great to be a criminal.

Havana in September 1934 was a city barely twelve months removed from the revolution in which a thirty-two-year-old sergeant named Fulgencio Batista had seized control of the government. American tourists had flocked to Cuba’s pristine beaches and sophisticated casinos during the 1920s, but the sporadic violence that littered the wake of Batista’s coup scared many away. Havana’s two casinos had begun a decline that wouldn’t be reversed until a little-known operator named Meyer Lansky arrived in 1938 to institute professional controls.

In the harbor, Karpis and Delaney descended the gangplank and were at once overwhelmed by the chaos of the Havana docks. Porters clamored to carry the gringos’ suitcases. Karpis had never seen such confusion. At the Parkview Hotel a bellhop took their bags. Karpis left a message for the owner, Nate Heller, a man Joe Adams said could be trusted. After washing up, Karpis went to scout the streets. He stopped at another place Adams had recommended, George’s American Bar, and introduced himself to the owner, who gave him two rum-and-Cokes on the house and briefed him on police customs. Karpis, never much of a drinker, found his knees weak when he left the bar.

At his room he found a message from Nate Heller. They met downstairs. “I’m going to live here awhile and I don’t think I care much for Havana,” Karpis said. “I thought maybe you might point out some place up the coast that would be suitable for me. I want a quiet place and I want to be away from everybody, the police and everybody else.”

Karpis watched for Heller’s reaction, but Heller only smiled. “We’ve got a lot of people here that don’t want to talk to the police,” he said. “You know, we’ve had some trouble here.”

“Yeah, I understand that.”

“Batista’s got control, but not like people think he has,” Heller continued. “You’ll hear shooting tonight. But don’t get excited about it because he’s only been in for a little while and things aren’t very stable. If anyone tries to talk about politics with you, just don’t get into a conversation with them. You understand?” Karpis nodded. Heller promised to find him a secluded beach house, and they agreed to meet the next day.

Afterward Karpis stood out on the sidewalk, soaking up the humid night air. “Excuse me,” a voice said. Karpis turned and saw another tourist. “Do you know where a drugstore is?” the man asked.

A bellman overheard the question and pointed out a drugstore down the block. “Hell, I’ll walk down there with you,” Karpis volunteered. “I’ll buy a deck of cards.”

Inside, Karpis bought a box of Bicycle cards, then stepped onto the sidewalk with the other American. Karpis was going to say something about the weather when suddenly there was a deafening explosion. A block to his left the Prado was filling with smoke. A bomb had exploded. “Come on!” the tourist yelled, running toward the smoke.

“Hell no!” Karpis said. He ran for the hotel, worried that police would soon be on the scene. In the lobby the clerk suggested Karpis stay in his room. Snipers would be on the rooftops soon. “Jesus Christ,” Karpis said, “I thought I was getting away from crime.”

Karpis wasted no time getting out of Havana. Heller arranged for him to rent a six-room beach house down the coast outside the town of Veradero. It was as beautiful a spot as Karpis had ever seen. The sand was white as snow, the water alive with glints of blue and green. The house came with a fourteen-foot motorized skiff that Karpis used almost every day to fish in the Gulf of Mexico. He hired a maid and a houseboy and a Korean cook, none of whom could speak English. It was heaven.

A month passed. They did nothing but fish and walk the beach, collecting seashells. One evening at dusk, Karpis was sitting on his veranda when a pack of children approached to tell him there was a call for him at the town switchboard. It was Nate Heller with a message: Ma was on her way to Varadero for a visit; she had learned from Joe Adams where they were staying. Later that night Karpis was listening to
Amos ’n’ Andy
on the radio when he realized he was late to pick her up. He drove to the bus stop and found a red-faced Ma involved in a manic tug-of-war with a Cuban boy who was intent on helping her with her baggage. When Karpis walked up, Ma turned her anger on him, yelling that he was late. Karpis laughed and handed the boy a peso.

For three days, Karpis took Ma beachcombing and fishing, a peaceful interlude marred only by an afternoon when Ma failed to catch a fish and accused Karpis of sabotaging her fishing line. Karpis just rolled his eyes; that was Ma. When it came time for her to leave, Karpis drove her to Havana and put her on the flight to Miami.

While in Havana, Karpis dropped by George’s American Bar, where he was known as “Mr. Wagner.” The proprietor’s wife, whose hobby seemed to be drinking rum-and-Cokes from dawn to dusk, showed him a detective magazine. She opened it to a photograph of the Barker Gang.

“Why Mr. Wagner,” she slurred. “If I didn’t know you so well, I would swear this was you.”

“It does look a little like me, doesn’t it?” Karpis said.

She wouldn’t let it go, prattling on about what an uncanny resemblance the photograph was. Karpis forced a chuckle and offered to buy the magazine from her for thirty-five cents. “No, no, no” the woman said. She wanted to show it to her friends. At this point, the owner stepped from behind the bar and angrily snatched up the magazine. “Take the thirty-five cents!” he snapped. He winked at Karpis.

When he returned to Varadero the next day, Karpis could see Delores was growing restless. “Why don’t you go over to Miami for a few days?” he suggested.

“Would you let me?”

“Sure,” Karpis said. “Check into the El Commodoro and maybe if you want, you can go up there where Freddie and his mother are. While you’re over there, look around and maybe you’ll find someplace maybe you’d like to live ’cause we may not stay here much longer.” Karpis, too, was growing restless. Cuba was too violent for his tastes.

Delores spent a week in Miami and returned with a bulldog pup. She and Karpis fell back into an easy rhythm of eating, fishing, and sunbathing, until one night Karpis was listening to Lowell Thomas’s newscast and heard that Pretty Boy Floyd was dead.

“Jesus Christ!” he snapped. “They’re knocking everybody off!” He felt nothing.
Better him than me,
he thought.

Then, on a trip into Havana a few days later, he changed a one-thousand-dollar bill at a branch of the Royal Bank of Canada. Some of the bills he received in exchange, he noticed, were discolored. He checked the Federal Reserve numbers. They were from Minneapolis. He realized with a start that it was some of the Bremer kidnap money—money that was supposed to be in Caracas and Mexico City. Karpis felt double-crossed. This could mean FBI men streaming into Cuba.

He was still stewing a few weeks later when the radio carried news of Baby Face Nelson’s death. After a few days he drove into Havana. He needed to gauge whether Cuba was still safe. At the Parkway Hotel he took a room and asked for Nate Heller. He tarried a moment, talking to the clerk. It was then the pleasant-looking American asked if he would step aside so he could register.

 

 

Karpis watched the young man closely. He could tell from his felt hat and his winter suit he was American. Karpis was immediately suspicious. He watched as the man filled out a registration card, giving his name as Kingman and an address in Jacksonville.

Karpis walked to the elevator. To his alarm, Kingman followed him. The door closed. They were alone. As the elevator rose, neither man said anything. Karpis got off at his floor. In his room he turned the episode over in his mind. After a moment he told himself to forget it. This was stupid; the man was probably a salesman.

That evening Karpis kept a dinner appointment at George’s. Just as he sat down a car began honking outside. Karpis glanced out and saw it was Heller’s Model A Ford. He excused himself and walked out to the car. Heller was excited. Kingman
was
an FBI man. He had been to see him, seeking an introduction to the Associated Press bureau chief. They’d had drinks. “Well, I see according to the radio and the newspapers, you’ve just about wiped out all the gangsters over there,” Heller had told Kingman, as he related the conversation to Karpis.

No, Kingman said, they hadn’t. “Here’s the son of a bitch we really want,” the FBI man said, placing a photograph on the table.

Heller looked at Karpis. “Who the hell do you think it was?”

“Who?” Karpis asked.

“You.”

Afterward, Heller had taken the agent to see the AP man. The two had disappeared into a back room, leaving Heller outside. When the meeting was over Kingman emerged and, in Heller’s presence, asked the reporter, “What time can I get a bus for down there?”

The reporter turned to Heller. “What time can he get a bus in the morning for Matanzas?”

Matanzas was the capital of Varadero province.

Karpis kept his head. He drove through the night to Varadero, arriving around three the next morning. He and Delaney left at dawn, telling the servants nothing. They drove straight to the Havana airport, where Karpis put Delaney on a flight to Miami.

As he had in Cleveland, Karpis stayed behind to assess the situation, promising to take the boat to Key West the next morning. That afternoon he spoke to Heller, who had debriefed the AP man. Agent Kingman had given the impression that a horde of FBI men were on their way to Havana, lured by reports of Bremer money circulating in Cuba.

The next morning Karpis showed up at the dock for the steamer to Key West. He studied the crowds. Finally he took a deep breath, ascended the gangplank, and found his stateroom. Minutes ticked by. He was sweating. Finally he felt the throb of the engines and heard whistles blowing. The boat was casting off. He was safe.
³

 

 

The break came in Toledo. On Monday, December 3, the day the Flying Squad moved into its new offices in Chicago, a Detroit agent was sitting in the office of the Toledo district attorney, Frazier Reams, when Reams brought up something odd his brother had told him. Dr. Glen Reams was a Toledo surgeon. One of his patients said a woman he knew named Mildred Kuhlmann, a twenty-four-year-old from Liepsic, Ohio, had married Dock Barker that summer. After what one imagines was a jarring double take, the agent recognized it made sense; one of the Barker girls had mentioned that Dock dated someone named Mildred.

Eleven days later, on the morning of Friday, December 14, as agents scrambled to locate Mildred Kuhlmann, Frazier Reams called the Detroit SAC, Bill Larson, and asked to meet at Toledo’s Commodore Perry Hotel. When Larson arrived, Reams told him Kuhlmann was in Chicago. She had just telephoned one of her girlfriends, a woman named Mrs. J. A. Ranlow. After swearing Mrs. Ranlow to secrecy, Kuhlmann had spoken of how thrilling it was living with the Barkers, how Dock had bought her a five-hundred-dollar mink coat, how she was driving around with an actual submachine gun between her legs. She invited Ranlow to come join the fun. Mrs. Ranlow had left on a train before dawn, but not before leaving a forwarding address: Room 3121 at Chicago’s Hotel Morrison.

Larson called Earl Connelley in Chicago. Two agents, Sam McKee and the little poet Jim Metcalfe, walked up to the Hotel Morrison’s front desk an hour later. There were no Kuhlmanns or Ranlows registered at the hotel. But in Room 3121 there was a Mrs. A. R. Esser. They checked her phone records. All the calls were to Toledo.

A half-dozen agents kept the lobby under surveillance all that day. At 7:15, the two women came downstairs and announced they were checking out. Connelley stood by, watching. The women returned upstairs and a half hour later emerged from the elevators, a bellman carrying their luggage. With them was a short, heavyset man wearing a derby hat. The agents took note; they hadn’t seen him before.