Public Enemies_ America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI - Bryan Burrough [191]
Hoover handed the whole mess to Pop Nathan, directing him to “make a very thorough and vigorous inquiry.”15 Perhaps unsurprisingly, Nathan’s report, finished three weeks later, defended the Bureau’s actions and excoriated poor Hanni. Hanni’s allegations “would appear to indicate a disordered and possibly hysterical state of mind,” Nathan wrote Hoover, terming them “manifestly absurd.”16 Hanni was quietly shoved out of St. Paul and relocated to Omaha.
It was the last time any agent would criticize the Bureau for a very long while.
Little Bohemia persuaded Dillinger that for the moment there was no place safe for him to hide. After he and Van Meter spent a few nights huddled in a leaky shack outside East Chicago, Baby Face Nelson came to their rescue. cq On Monday, May 7, four days after the Fostoria robbery, Nelson arranged to purchase a red panel truck, a Ford Model A, the kind grocery stores used for deliveries, with an enclosed rear, windows in back, and a sliding door on the side. Dillinger intended to use the truck as a portable hideout and did; they threw a double mattress in back where they slept. The next few days he and Van Meter stayed on the move, driving the truck along the Indiana back roads as they planned their next step. More than anything, Dillinger wanted the cosmetic surgery he had been pestering Louis Piquett about for weeks.
Late on the night of Wednesday, May 9, running low on food, Dillinger and Van Meter pulled up behind Audrey Russ’s house in Fort Wayne. Had Purvis pursued the tip Russ’s boss gave him a week earlier, FBI agents might have been there to greet them. As it was, Russ climbed out of bed and let Dillinger inside while his wife prepared a meal. Both Dillinger and Van Meter appeared exhausted. They wore denim overalls, work shirts and battered caps. Mrs. Russ noticed Dillinger’s leg was still bothering him; he staggered when ascending the stairs, clutching the leg. Neither man said much, and after eating they left.
The next morning Audrey Russ went to his boss again. Together they telephoned the FBI, this time revealing their names, and told of Dillinger’s second visit. It was the FBI’s best lead since Little Bohemia. Though short of men, Purvis decided to station three agents at the Russ home. When Dillinger returned, they would be ready.cr
Indianapolis, Indiana Thursday, May 10
It was another lazy spring afternoon at the Dillinger filling station on LaSalle Street. Outside, a little boy on a bicycle traced circles in the dirt. Dillinger’s cousin, Fred Hancock, was waiting on a customer at 3:45 when he noticed the stranger standing by a kerosene drum in one corner of the yard. Hancock didn’t recognize the man, who was unshaven and wore overalls, a sleeveless jacket, and rimless eyeglasses. When the customer left, the stranger stepped over to the station window and rapped on the glass. Hancock looked the man in the eyes and was startled: it was Dillinger. In a parked car across the street, an FBI man named Whitson saw the stranger, too.
Dillinger handed the package to Hancock. In it were four smaller packages containing $1,200 in small bills: $300 for his father, $300 for Hancock’s mother Audrey, and $100 each for Hancock and Hubert Dillinger. Tell my father, Dillinger told Hancock, that if anything happens to me, he should give some of the money to Billie. Then Dillinger left.
Agent Whitson watched as the stranger crossed LaSalle Street and walked toward Washington Street. Glimpsing a deep cleft in the man’s chin, Whitson got out of his car and decided to follow him. The man walked quickly, reaching the corner of Washington Street about thirty yards in front of Whitson. Whitson trotted up to the intersection and turned the corner—nothing. The man was gone. Whitson walked up and down the street, peering into parked cars. Nothing. After a bit he walked back to his car, wrote up the incident in