Public Enemies_ America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI - Bryan Burrough [213]
The subject arose again on June 23, when Homer Cummings announced a new $15,000 in rewards for Dillinger’s capture. Nelson warranted only $7,500. “Looks like my price is going up,” Dillinger joked to Van Meter. “Watch Jimmy burn when he finds the government put a cheaper price tag on him than on me. And you, Van, you don’t rate at all.”
“Nuts to you,” Van Meter said. “You just better watch out that someone doesn’t cash in on that reward.”
At the Bankers Building, Cowley had agents on half a dozen stakeouts. He asked Washington for more men and got them. Eight agents had been added to the Dillinger Squad that month, bringing the total in Chicago to twenty-two. Still, by Wednesday, June 27, Cowley was no closer to catching Dillinger than when he arrived three weeks before. That day he held a strategy conference at the Bankers Building. Earl Connelley drove up from Indianapolis, Hugh Clegg came down from St. Paul, and a headquarters supervisor named Ed Tamm flew out from Washington.
They debated every lead and reassessed every stakeout. In Indiana, Connelley’s agents were watching a dozen places, while Connelley himself was keeping in regular touch with the informant Art McGinnis. Tamm argued they should increase the pressure on the Dillinger family. Clegg’s agents were launching raids all around the Twin Cities; that same day they had their first success, picking up Harry Sawyer’s bartender, Pat Reilly, who had been at Little Bohemia. Reilly prompted a flurry of news articles by stating he thought Dillinger was dead. Reporters flocked out to Mooresville to see John Dillinger, Sr., who assured them his son was still very much alive.
Cowley’s most promising stakeout was back at the Audrey Russ home in Fort Wayne; the Russes were insisting that Van Meter would return any day. Reversing himself, Cowley stationed four men there around the clock, including two of his best new marksmen, the Cowboys Charles Winstead and Clarence Hurt, who passed the days dodging the wrath of the combative Mrs. Russ.29 For the moment, Cowley was satisfied. They had agents working half the towns between Indianapolis and Chicago. Unfortunately, none were in the northern Indiana city of South Bend, which is where Dillinger struck that Saturday.
Dillinger’s robbery of the Merchants National Bank in South Bend was probably the most chaotic and confusing episode of his career. Among the few things known for sure is that the planning took place at a remote schoolhouse in Nelson’s territory, the northwest Chicago suburbs.dg Several nights that June, Van Meter and Dillinger drove out to the school to meet Nelson, who was usually accompanied by his growing band of acolytes, now including his California pal Johnny Chase; the rotund Bay Area bouncer Fatso Negri; his childhood friend, the racketeer Jack Perkins; and a Chicago mechanic Nelson knew from his racing days named Clarey Lieder. dh Only Negri was to give accounts of these meetings, and his versions changed over the years.di
To this day, no one is certain exactly who took part in the South Bend robbery. Eyewitnesses variously counted four, five, or six robbers; most versions put the number at five. Dillinger, Van Meter, and Nelson were confirmed participants. Jack Perkins was later tried and acquitted of joining them. It’s possible, if unlikely, that the fourth and fifth robbers that day were Johnny Chase and Fatso Negri.
The most intriguing theory about the other robbers’ identities has long centered on Pretty Boy Floyd and his sidekick Adam Richetti, whose disappearance had been so complete the FBI had not fielded a confirmed sighting of the pair in a year. One eyewitness firmly identified Floyd as the dark-complexioned “fat man” who worked alongside Dillinger in South Bend that day. Floyd’s involvement was suggested months later by Fatso Negri, who told the FBI he overheard gang members say they would be working with a