Public Enemies_ America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI - Bryan Burrough [273]
He was still stewing a few weeks later when the radio carried news of Baby Face Nelson’s death. After a few days he drove into Havana. He needed to gauge whether Cuba was still safe. At the Parkway Hotel he took a room and asked for Nate Heller. He tarried a moment, talking to the clerk. It was then the pleasant-looking American asked if he would step aside so he could register.
Karpis watched the young man closely. He could tell from his felt hat and his winter suit he was American. Karpis was immediately suspicious. He watched as the man filled out a registration card, giving his name as Kingman and an address in Jacksonville.
Karpis walked to the elevator. To his alarm, Kingman followed him. The door closed. They were alone. As the elevator rose, neither man said anything. Karpis got off at his floor. In his room he turned the episode over in his mind. After a moment he told himself to forget it. This was stupid; the man was probably a salesman.
That evening Karpis kept a dinner appointment at George’s. Just as he sat down a car began honking outside. Karpis glanced out and saw it was Heller’s Model A Ford. He excused himself and walked out to the car. Heller was excited. Kingman was an FBI man. He had been to see him, seeking an introduction to the Associated Press bureau chief. They’d had drinks. “Well, I see according to the radio and the newspapers, you’ve just about wiped out all the gangsters over there,” Heller had told Kingman, as he related the conversation to Karpis.
No, Kingman said, they hadn’t. “Here’s the son of a bitch we really want,” the FBI man said, placing a photograph on the table.
Heller looked at Karpis. “Who the hell do you think it was?”
“Who?” Karpis asked.
“You.”
Afterward, Heller had taken the agent to see the AP man. The two had disappeared into a back room, leaving Heller outside. When the meeting was over Kingman emerged and, in Heller’s presence, asked the reporter, “What time can I get a bus for down there?”
The reporter turned to Heller. “What time can he get a bus in the morning for Matanzas?”
Matanzas was the capital of Varadero province.
Karpis kept his head. He drove through the night to Varadero, arriving around three the next morning. He and Delaney left at dawn, telling the servants nothing. They drove straight to the Havana airport, where Karpis put Delaney on a flight to Miami.
As he had in Cleveland, Karpis stayed behind to assess the situation, promising to take the boat to Key West the next morning. That afternoon he spoke to Heller, who had debriefed the AP man. Agent Kingman had given the impression that a horde of FBI men were on their way to Havana, lured by reports of Bremer money circulating in Cuba.
The next morning Karpis showed up at the dock for the steamer to Key West. He studied the crowds. Finally he took a deep breath, ascended the gangplank, and found his stateroom. Minutes ticked by. He was sweating. Finally he felt the throb of the engines and heard whistles blowing. The boat was casting off. He was safe.3
The break came in Toledo. On Monday, December 3, the day the Flying Squad moved into its new offices in Chicago, a Detroit agent was sitting in the office of the Toledo district attorney, Frazier Reams, when Reams brought up something odd his brother had told him. Dr. Glen Reams was a Toledo surgeon. One of his patients said a woman he knew named Mildred Kuhlmann, a twenty-four-year-old from Liepsic, Ohio, had married Dock Barker that summer. After what one imagines was a jarring double take, the agent recognized it made sense; one of the Barker girls had mentioned that Dock dated someone named Mildred.
Eleven days later, on the morning of Friday, December 14, as agents scrambled to locate Mildred Kuhlmann, Frazier Reams called the Detroit SAC, Bill Larson, and asked to meet at Toledo’s Commodore Perry Hotel. When Larson arrived, Reams told him Kuhlmann was in Chicago. She had just telephoned one