Public Enemies_ America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI - Bryan Burrough [114]
It was intoxicating, and it made them careless. On his first afternoon driving the streets, Pierpont inexplicably stopped to chat with a pair of policemen. He introduced himself as a Florida vacationer, then pointed out a car and told the officers he thought he was being followed. One of the cops chatted with Pierpont while the other followed the strange car. Pierpont proudly showed him his new Buick’s appointments, the speedometer, the power steering. They talked about the desert weather, getting so friendly Pierpont volunteered the name of the place he was staying. When the second officer returned he said the other car was harmless. With a wave and a thank-you, Pierpont drove off. All in all, it was a perfectly idiotic thing to do.
Days they spent sightseeing, nights in the clubs. Things went smoothly until Tuesday morning around six, when a leaky oil furnace in the Congress Hotel’s basement caught fire. Flames leaped up the elevator shaft, and the building was soon wreathed in smoke. Firefighters arrived within minutes, and one, William Benedict, was puzzled to see two men propping a ladder against a third-floor window. It was Makley and Clark, who explained they were trying to retrieve their luggage. Once the fire was under control, Benedict went upstairs to Room 329, kicked down the door, and brought out a heavy fabric box. Unbeknownst to Benedict, it contained Makley and Clark’s submachine guns. Makley thanked him profusely and tipped him two dollars.
Three days passed. On Friday morning, January 25, the fireman who had helped Makley and Clark, William Benedict, was leafing through an issue of True Detective magazine when there, staring up at him from the page, was the “Mr. Davies” whose luggage he had rescued from Room 329. When a deputy sheriff drove by, Benedict hollered and showed him the magazine. By lunchtime Benedict’s story was making the rounds at police headquarters. It struck a chord with a patrolman named Harry Lesly, who had heard a strange story from a pair of tourists that same morning. The night before the hotel fire, the tourists said, they had shared a few drinks at a nightclub with a man who introduced himself as Art Long. Mr. Long, actually Russell Clark, had a few too many tequilas, and was soon telling the pair how easy it was to weather the Depression if a person could use a submachine gun. The two noticed that the men in Mr. Long’s party appeared to be wearing shoulder holsters.
The two stories sent detectives thumbing through Wanted posters. “Mr. Davies,” it turned out, perfectly matched a photo of Charles Makley. A patrolman telephoned the Hotel Congress and learned that Mr. Davies’s luggage had been taken to a rented bungalow on East Second Street. By 1:30 that afternoon three Tucson policemen were sitting in a squad car watching the house. Not long after they arrived, Makley walked out to his Studebaker with his torch-singer girlfriend. As he pulled away from the curb, the squad car slid out behind him.
The three policemen followed the car into downtown Tucson, where it parked outside the Grabe Electric Company. The cops walked inside, found Makley standing at a counter, and told him he was under arrest. Makley protested, saying he was a vacationing Florida businessman. An officer told him he could explain the mix-up downtown.
At the station, Makley was led into Chief C. A. Wollard’s office.
“What’s your name?” Wollard asked.
“J. C. Davies,” Makley said. “Come up to my house. I can clear this up in a minute. All of my papers are there.”
The chief, eyeing Makley’s mug shot, said he needed to fingerprint him. Makley objected.
“Well, Makley,” Wollard said, “we’re gonna fingerprint you whether you like it or not.” He was thrown in a cell.
One down, three to go. The chief called in three of his best men, Sergeants Frank Eyman and Dallas Ford and a detective named Chet Sherman. Somewhere in Tucson, Wollard suspected, the rest of the