Public Enemies_ America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI - Bryan Burrough [199]
The next morning, Tuesday, May 22, Clyde drove them into Shreveport. He parked the tan Ford in front of the Majestic Café. Methvin ran in for sandwiches and soft drinks, sitting at the counter while a waitress prepared the order to go. As he waited, Clyde noticed a police car coming toward them. Leaving Methvin behind, Clyde jammed his foot onto the accelerator, the sound of his squealing tires causing heads to turn. Methvin realized he had been abandoned. It was the break he had been looking for. Slowly he eased out of the café, leaving the sandwich order unfilled. Looking both ways, careful to make sure Clyde was really gone, he walked out onto the sidewalk and made his escape. On the edge of town he caught a ride and by mid-afternoon was safely at his brother’s home back in Bienville Parish.26
Henry Methvin had held up his end of the bargain, but his parents were tardy holding up theirs. Not wanting to be seen with Sheriff Jordan, Ivy Methvin waited till that morning to find his intermediary, John Joyner, and send him to Arcadia with the news that Bonnie and Clyde had returned. In his testimony at Henry Methvin’s 1936 trial, Joyner said he was unable to locate Sheriff Jordan till after nightfall that Tuesday, May 22. Meantime, Bonnie and Clyde swung by the Methvin shack in search of Henry, startling the Methvins. When they left, the elder Methvin went in search of Jordan, too.
By the time Sheriff Jordan telephoned Frank Hamer in Shreveport, Hamer’s posse already knew Bonnie and Clyde had returned. According to Ted Hinton, he had telephoned the Shreveport police chief, thinking he would introduce the chief to Hamer as a courtesy. The chief surprised Hinton by telling him two of his officers believed they had seen Clyde outside the Majestic Café that morning.cy When the chief mentioned that a young man had fled the café shortly after, leaving his order behind, Hinton glanced at Bob Alcorn. “Henry Methvin,” Alcorn said.
They drove to the Majestic, found the waitress who had taken Methvin’s order, and spread several photographs before her. “See anybody in there who looks like the man who wouldn’t wait for his sandwiches?” Hinton asked. The waitress pointed at a photo of Methvin.
“That’s him,” she said. “Same eyes, same pimply face. There’s no mistake.”27
Not till that night did Sheriff Jordan, alerted by John Joyner, reach Hamer. It was time to set the ambush. They agreed to meet in Gibsland. Before leaving, Hamer dialed Lee Simmons in Austin and left a cryptic message: “The old hen is about ready to hatch. I think the chickens will come off tomorrow.”
According to Sheriff Jordan, the ambush party rendezvoused in Gibsland a little after midnight. There were seven of them: Jordan and his deputy, Prentiss Oakley, Hamer and Manny Gault, Bob Alcorn and Ted Hinton, and Ivy Methvin. They grabbed sandwiches, checked their guns, and drove down darkened dirt roads to the spot Jordan and Hamer had chosen. It was nothing more than a brush-covered embankment on the roadside, wreathed by mossy oaks and evergreens. Its only advantage was the view it gave of the road between Gibsland and the John Cole house. Standing back in the brush, they could see a good half mile in either direction. Hamer was satisfied. They pulled the cars back into the trees. In the darkness they constructed an impromptu blind of sticks and stray bushes and sat back to wait. If Clyde and Bonnie were coming to or from the John Cole house, they had to pass this point.
The hours passed slowly. “One of the longest nights I ever spent,” Jordan recalled. The men took turns dozing in the cars, two at a time. Those awake slapped at chiggers and mosquitoes. Ivy Methvin drove home and reappeared in his rattletrap truck just before dawn. He begged them to call the whole thing off. “He said we would all be killed,” Jordan recalled. “It was warm and the mosquitoes like to eaten