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“I’m pregnant.”

“You’re what?”

“Yeah, I’m pregnant.”

“Well, how in the hell did this happen?”

“You’re grown up,” Delaney said. “How in the hell do you think it happened?”

“You should have been a little more careful,” Karpis said. Immediately he saw it was the wrong thing to say. He bent over and kissed her. “Well, it’s okay,” he said quietly. “We’ll figure out what to do. I’m sure you don’t want a baby right now, do you?”

Delaney sulked.

“I tell you what,” Karpis said. “I’m going to have you go to St. Paul and visit your sister and I’ll make arrangements for an abortion. You want to do that?”

After a moment she nodded.

Karpis adopted a cheerful, encouraging tone. “While we’re at this,” he went on, “why don’t you go ahead and have your tonsils taken out at the same time? You get everything done at once.” Nels Mortenson, a prominent St. Paul doctor they knew, could do it.

“All right?” Karpis asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “All right.”

The next day, Karpis swung by Freddie Barker’s South Side apartment. “George Ziegler wants to see you,” Barker said.

Karpis found Ziegler at a Cicero tavern. “What’s going on, George?” Karpis asked.

“Well, I don’t exactly want to see you,” Ziegler said. “But there’s some fellows in the outfit downtown, they want to ask you some questions.” The outfit. The Syndicate. Karpis was immediately on guard. “What have you been up to, anyway?” Ziegler asked. He meant: What have you done to anger the Mob?

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Well, they’re getting a little skeptical of you. They was asking me if you might be tied with the Touhy outfit or anything.” Frank Nitti’s Chicago Syndicate remained at war with the suburban Touhys.

“Well, you know I’m not,” Karpis said.

“Yeah, I told them that you wouldn’t have nothing to do with, but . . .” Ziegler’s voice trailed off. “Anyway, go on downtown, over to the Motion Picture Operators Union. There’s some guys waiting to see you there.”

As Karpis drove downtown, he tried to relax: if Nitti wanted him dead, he would already be dead. At the union office he found three Syndicate men waiting for him in a back room. Two Karpis knew: Willie “Three-Fingered” White and Klondike O’Donnell. A third man, Phil Deandre, pulled up a chair and asked Karpis whether he was involved with the Touhys. “Hell, you know I’m not,” Karpis said.

O’Donnell smiled. “We know,” he said. But Baby Face Nelson was another matter. Nelson had old ties to the Touhys, and for some reason Nitti wanted Nelson dead. “We found out these guys are out there by you, and well, we’re gonna wipe ’em out,” Deandre said. “What we want you to do is move out ’cause there’s gonna be a lot of heat out there, and we don’t want you getting caught in it.”

Karpis promised he would move immediately. He rose, and Deandre admonished him not to warn Nelson. He patted Karpis on the shoulder. “You’re all right,” he said. “It’s just too bad that you went to stealing and got hot. You should have come and worked for us guys. We need guys like you.”

Karpis’s mind raced. He had to move fast. He drove back to Long Beach and made reservations for Delores Delaney’s flight to St. Paul. The next night, with Delaney safely in St. Paul, Karpis crossed the road to Nelson’s bungalow. “You want to come out to the car with me for a minute?” Karpis asked Nelson.

The two men walked into the evening air. To the north, Lake Michigan was blacker than the night. “Have you got any of these Touhy guys out here?” Karpis asked.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Nelson said.

“Listen. If you have any of them here or whether you haven’t is beside the point. You guys get the hell out of here right away.”

“What the hell? Are you telling us what to do?”

Karpis explained the situation with Nitti. “I’m sticking my chin right out there for a real bad left hook if something goes wrong with this,” he told Nelson. “I’m not supposed to talk to you guys about this but I’m not going to see you guys get slaughtered out here when you shouldn’t be, because you haven’t done anything except steal. So I’m leaving,