Public Enemies_ America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI - Bryan Burrough [168]
The first family of the Manitowish area was the LaPortes. The elder daughter, Ruth, married a Milwaukee printer named Henry Voss, who began building tourist cabins in 1912. In 1928 the Vosses completed the area’s premier resort, the grand Birchwood Lodge on Route 51, which boasted a modern kitchen, a lavish dining room overlooking Spider Lake and a roaring fire in its great lobby hearth. There were three LaPorte boys: Lloyd, a fishing guide; lean, stoic George, who ran the grocery store; and the black sheep, Louis, a bootlegger who kept two stills running on Grants Lake all through the Depression.8
The younger daughter, Nan, transported her brother’s moonshine downstate, selling it to speakeasies there. In Racine, Nan met Emil Wanatka, a squat, gregarious Austro-Hungarian restaurateur. The two married and moved to Chicago, where they ran a rough little bar, a favorite of underworld figures, called Little Bohemia. In 1926 the Wanatkas returned to Manitowish and Emil bought land on Star Lake, just up from Birchwood Lodge, for a lodge of his own, a new Little Bohemia, completed in 1931. More a roadhouse than a lodge, the new Little Bohemia was little more than a two-story log cabin with a barroom, kitchen, and dance floor downstairs, a row of bedrooms above, and a cottage beside the back porch. It lay out of sight of the road, two hundred yards down a tunnel of towering pines from Route 51. Wanatka borrowed heavily to build it, forcing him to keep it open all winter. He ran dinner specials to lure the locals and kept his fingers crossed.
Working in the barroom that Friday afternoon, Wanatka was surprised when Van Meter entered and hailed him by name, explaining that he had a party of ten en route to Duluth and needed a place to stay. Wanatka said that was fine, and served the trio a pork-chop lunch while Mickey Conforti’s little bulldog, Rex, lapped at a saucer of milk. Van Meter spent the afternoon pacing the grounds, making his mental getaway map. The lodge was remote and empty. It would do fine.
Around five Nelson and Tommy Carroll drove up. Dillinger arrived a little later. Six men and four women now, they were the lodge’s only guests. At first Wanatka was thrilled. But he wasn’t stupid. He saw how Nelson ripped up the introductory note from Cernocky after letting him read it.9 The lodge’s sixteen-year-old waiter, George Baczo, carried the gang’s luggage and noticed that the bags seemed extremely heavy.
“There must be lead in this one,” he joked to Wanatka. “What are these guys, hardware salesmen?” Wanatka nodded. He knew these kinds of men from Chicago. With luck they wouldn’t stay long. Wanatka’s wife, Nan, sensed it, too. Everyone was given rooms upstairs except for Nelson and Carroll, who unpacked their bags in the cottage. Nelson was irked that Dillinger got a better room. “Well, who in the hell does he think he is?” Nelson snapped. “We’ll put him in the cottage.”10
Nan Wanatka served the gang steaks for dinner. “You play cards?” Tommy Carroll asked Wanatka once the dishes were cleared.
“Pinochle,” Wanatka said.
“How about poker?”
They played in the barroom, seven-card stud, Wanatka, Carroll, Dillinger, Nelson, and Hamilton. On the third or fourth hand the pot grew to $34, no small amount during the Depression. The last two in were Wanatka, showing a six and a king, and Dillinger, a king and an eight. When the bidding ended Wanatka reached for his winnings.
“Wait a minute,” Dillinger said. “Whaddya got?”
“I got kings and sixes.”
“Too bad, Emil. I got kings and eights.”
As Dillinger raked in the pot, his coat opened and Wanatka glimpsed the holstered pistol he was wearing. As he dealt the next hand the innkeeper peered at Nelson, sitting to