Public Enemies_ America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI - Bryan Burrough [214]
Whoever accompanied Dillinger that day, it’s clear that tensions were rising between members of the gang. As usual, Nelson was the irritant. He thought Dillinger and Van Meter were living far too openly, and he repeatedly said so. This led to an angry confrontation at the schoolhouse one night between Nelson and Van Meter, after Nelson discovered Van Meter had reunited with Mickey Conforti, whom Nelson deemed untrustworthy. As Negri put it:
Jimmie [Nelson] got into an argument with Van Meter, something about his living with a girl and he said the girl is no good and Van Meter said the girl is good, and Johnnie [Chase] said [to me], “Let’s take a walk,” and I take a walk because I expected [shooting] any minute. And so they settled it and after awhile Johnnie was telling me, he says that Van Meter promised Jimmie that he was going to hit his girl—bump her off . . . The argument got so hot that I could pretty near hear everything . . . [Van Meter] promised Jimmie that he was going to hit that girl and that if he didn’t, I think Jimmy will kill him . . . I thought there was going to be an awful shooting scrap there.30
The anecdote illustrates Nelson’s renowned volatility and the lengths Dillinger and Van Meter would go to humor him; there’s no suggestion Van Meter ever seriously considered killing Marie Conforti. It was in this emotional climate that the gang debated its next target. According to Negri, they studied several banks in Illinois and Indiana before eventually choosing the bank in South Bend. Van Meter had reconnoitered it that week, wearing his pince-nez. On Friday night, June 29, the gang made final plans at a meeting at the schoolhouse, checking their guns and bulletproof vests. They would need them.
South Bend, Indiana Saturday, June 30
It was a hot, bright summer morning when the gang’s car pulled up just past the intersection of Wayne and Michigan Streets in the heart of downtown South Bend at 11:30 A.M. Trolleys rattled up and down Michigan Avenue. The sidewalks were thronged with shoppers. Out in the intersection a twenty-nine-year-old policeman named Howard Wagner was directing traffic. An amateur boxer named Alex Slaby had just parked his car on Wayne Street when a brown Hudson pulled alongside him, double-parking. Slaby watched as four men jumped out. One looked familiar. He wore overalls, a straw boater, and a handkerchief over his right hand. As Slaby stared, trying to place him, Dillinger drew back the handkerchief and thrust a pistol toward him. “You better scram,” Dillinger said.
Slaby watched, stunned, as Dillinger and two of the others disappeared around the corner, toward the Merchants Bank. With a start, he realized the bank was about to be robbed. Slaby got out of his car, studying the waiting Hudson, whose engine was idling, and began to reach for the keys, which dangled in the ignition.
“What are you doing?” a voice said. Slaby turned and saw a young blond-haired man in front of the car, a machine gun barely hidden beneath his suit coat. It was Nelson. “Nothing,” Slaby said. He walked off unmolested, heading to a pay phone to summon police.
Around the corner, Van Meter pulled out a rifle and stationed himself at the bank’s front door while Dillinger and the unidentified “fat man” entered the bank. Dillinger wasted no time with niceties that day. Two dozen customers were in the lobby, lining up in front of the teller cages. Dillinger whipped out a Thompson submachine gun and shouted, “This is a holdup!”
Instinctively, most of the customers raised their hands and backed away, lining the walls and inching toward a rear wall. A bank vice president hid below his desk. A group of nine or ten people scampered into a conference room and locked the door. Ignoring them all, Dillinger stalked through a waist-high swinging door and began clearing stacks of cash off