Public Enemies_ America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI - Bryan Burrough [188]
Purvis had high hopes they would find something useful in the sixteen pieces of luggage the gang abandoned. But other than an enormous collection of guns and license plates, the bags proved only that the gang members were pedestrian dressers. There were black suits and green ties and blue silk bathrobes, scraps of Mickey Conforti’s poetry, an overdue novel from the St. Paul library. The best lead was a business card found in Nelson’s bag for a priest named Philip Coughlin, an old family friend whom agents tracked down in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette. Coughlin cooperated, filling the Bureau’s growing file on Nelson.cn Purvis put Nelson’s mother and sister under surveillance.
That Saturday night, as Boss McLaughlin’s questioning continued, Volney Davis drove into Chicago and stole a car for Dillinger. The next day Dillinger and Van Meter thanked Dock Barker for his help and, after leaving their bloodied car on the North Side, drove to East Chicago, where after two days they managed to reunite with Tommy Carroll.
The next evening, Wednesday, May 2, the three men pulled up behind a frame house in Fort Wayne. The house was owned by Audrey G. Russ, a construction worker who knew the Van Meter family. Startled by the appearance of the country’s most-wanted man on his doorstep, Russ agreed to let them stay the night. His wife and eleven-year-old daughter looked on, amazed, as Dillinger lugged in four submachine guns, several bulletproof vests, and a bundle of two dozen license plates.
According to an FBI report, Dillinger was in a voluble mood as he sat in the Russ’s kitchen, regaling the frightened family with details of his escapes from Crown Point and Little Bohemia. “Dillinger stated that they’d never take him alive and that before he went he would take several with him; the inference being that he would manage to kill a few officers before he could be taken,” the report says. “Dillinger also stated that he was sore about the fact that the newspapers thought that he had bought his way out of the Crown Point jail, stating that the credit for the best trick he had ever pulled was taken away from him. He also stated that he had rounded up ten trustees and seven deputy sheriffs before he managed to get his hands on a real gun.”
Dillinger laughed at the police who were hunting him, calling them “a lot of clucks.” It was the “Feds” he said he feared; they could go anywhere, he said, spend anything, even rent airplanes. As he talked he rubbed his leg, the one wounded in St. Paul. He’d aggravated it in a fender bender a couple of days before, he said, when Tommy Carroll lost control of their car and smashed into a tree.11
The next morning Dillinger and Van Meter asked for steaks for breakfast. They were hungry; they had a big day ahead. For the first time in two months, they had a bank to rob.
By that Monday, April 30, though he had missed his chance to capture Dillinger in Aurora, Purvis felt he was making progress. After the debriefing of Boss McLaughlin, agents dispatched to the Irving Park Hotel identified the mysterious “Smith and Jones” as Russell Gibson and Izzy Berg; a doorman said the two had been working on something with Dr. Moran the last few weeks. Unfortunately, Moran and his pals had disappeared the previous Friday, the day the papers carried news of McLaughlin’s arrest. Agents fanned out across Chicago, interviewing anyone who knew Moran in hopes of finding his wastrel bunch.co
In Indiana, meanwhile, Earl Connelley increased pressure on Dillinger’s family. His men had been questioning Hubert Dillinger and other relatives for weeks. The outlaw’s nephew Norman Hancock proved the most pliable. That day Connelley persuaded Hancock to drive to help John Dillinger, Sr., build a fence. If Dillinger was hiding at his father’s farmhouse, Connelley told Hancock to take out his handkerchief and wipe his face. Two dozen Indianapolis cops stood by to move if the signal was given. Connelley and a half-dozen agents