Public Enemies_ America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI - Bryan Burrough [248]
For three days Karpis and the Barkers paced Ma’s apartment in Chicago, waiting for word that the money had been exchanged in Havana. Tuesday morning, Dock said to Karpis, “You want to take a look at something?” Karpis stepped to the window and glanced down. Outside, Willie Harrison was standing on the corner, a newspaper under his arm.
Freddie trotted downstairs to get him, and relief swept the group when Harrison walked into the apartment. Everything was fine, he said. The money had been exchanged in Havana. McDonald was waiting with the clean money in Detroit. Karpis and Freddie left immediately. They had only one stop to make, at the Casino Club in Toledo. They had received a message that Helen Ferguson needed to meet.
They should have been driving into an FBI trap. But by the time Ferguson was summoned to the Casino Club that night, she hadn’t talked with an FBI agent in two days. Inside, Bert Angus told her to sit and wait. According to a statement Ferguson later gave the FBI, she was then “contacted” by Fred Barker. Apparently it was a quick conversation. Ferguson asked for money. Barker said he didn’t have any. She asked to see him again. Barker told her to meet him in three nights, in front of the Sears store on East 79th Street in Chicago. Then Barker walked out to the car where Karpis waited and drove off. There wasn’t an FBI agent within fifty miles.20
As Helen Ferguson scurried back to her hotel to telephone her missing FBI handlers, Karpis and Barker left Toledo and drove through the night to Cash McDonald’s house in the Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe. McDonald was waiting with Harry Sawyer. The money, almost $66,000, was on a table; McDonald had taken a 15 percent cut. McDonald insisted that Karpis count it, and he did. “Are you sure now that this money is going to show up as you said, in Caracas and Mexico City?” Karpis asked McDonald.
“Yes, there’s no question about that,” McDonald said.
“I just wanted to know . . .”
“Why?” McDonald asked. “You figuring on going down to Cuba to live?”
“I don’t know where I’m going to go,” Karpis lied.
“Where you gonna go, Ray?” Sawyer asked.
“I really don’t know. What do you want to know for?”
“Well, just in case you wanted to get hold of me or I wanted to get hold of you.”
“You know something, Harry?” Karpis said. “You’d better not be planning on getting ahold of anybody. If I were you, I’d try to figure out where the hell to go to get out from under this heat. This thing is going to be real bad, and you might as well face it. You can forget every connection you had, everything. If you want to stay here, you’re going to have to stay away from everybody.”
They slept that night at McDonald’s. The next morning, they said their good-byes and drove back to Chicago. Karpis and Freddie looked up George Ziegler’s old sidekick, Bryan Bolton, gave him Ziegler’s share of the money, and told him to get it to his widow. Afterward they returned to Ma’s apartment. “I’m leaving tonight,” Karpis announced. “I’m not staying in this goddamn town no longer.” Karpis refused to say where he was heading. Dock volunteered that he and Campbell planned to return to Toledo; maybe they could learn something about the women’s situation. They left. When they were alone, Karpis told Freddie he was heading for Miami. He pointedly failed to mention where he was going from there.
“How can I get ahold of you?” Freddie said.
Karpis suggested they relay messages through the Miami hotel, the El Commodoro. The manager could be trusted. “But I don’t want nobody else to know where I’m going,” Karpis said. They drove on to Ma’s hotel, where Karpis told Delores to pack up. She didn’t understand. It was almost midnight. “We’re not coming back here,” he said. “We’re leaving tonight.”
“Well, am I going to see you again soon?” Ma asked.
“I don’t know,” Karpis said. “But right now I’m taking Delores with me and we’re going down to Florida. Now if you come down there, well and good, I’d like to see you and Freddie, but I couldn’t care less whether I see any of the rest