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By Root 2084 0

later, the Hudson pulled to the curb beside the Federal Reserve couriers and their guards. Fred Barker and George Ziegler, handkerchiefs drawn over their faces, leaped out and trained submachine guns on the messengers, who handed over the five bulky bags on their dolly. The two were back in the car in less than a minute. Karpis pulled away, following the git he had drawn; Ziegler’s sidekick, the tall, tubercular Bryan Bolton, sat beside him with a Thompson on his lap. Two blocks west he swerved right on Franklin, sped north two blocks, then veered left onto Adams, heading west. The Hudson shot down Adams and soared across the Chicago River bridge.

At Halsted, Karpis turned north—straight into an oncoming Ford coupe. The two cars collided violently, sending the gang’s Hudson crashing into a telephone pole at the northwest corner of the intersection. As it happened, two uniformed Chicago policemen were standing on the southwest corner, walking toward their beats. One, Maurice Fitzgerald, forty-six, ran across Halsted to the wrecked Ford coupe, where inside several women could be heard screaming.

The second policeman, Miles Cunningham, a thirty-five-year-old father of two, stepped toward the Hudson. Dock Barker, a .38 in his right hand, emerged from the car, whose front end was caved in. “Cops!” he yelled. Bryan Bolton raised his submachine gun and fired a burst directly into Officer Cunningham, who crumpled, dead. Dock cried out; one of Bolton’s ricochets struck his right pinky finger, knocking the diamond out of a new ring. As Karpis and the others piled out of the Hudson and commandeered a passerby’s car, Bolton turned and began firing at Officer Fitzgerald, who took cover behind a traffic sign.

Furiously the gang began transferring items into the commandeered car. As they drove south, Karpis noticed the gas tank was nearly empty. At Ash-land Avenue they jumped out and stopped a second car, once again ordering its occupants out and transferring the bags and the guns. They drove in silence to a garage on the southwest side, shut the doors behind them, and emptied out the five money bags. It was then they learned that they had just stolen fifty pounds of mail.

The Barkers were furious. “Who the hell set this thing up?” Dock snapped, studying his bleeding finger. Ziegler looked sheepish as Dock turned on Bolton. “For Christ sake, you might have shot my whole hand off!” Fred Barker stepped in. “These things’ll happen,” he said. “There’s no need of arguing about this. The big thing is, did anybody leave their damn fingerprints in that damn Hudson? That’s more important than anything right now.”

The shoot-out in the heart of downtown Chicago was front-page news across the country. The next morning, at his South Side apartment, Karpis spread the Chicago papers across his kitchen table. Around ten Fred joined him. At first glance they were stunned by headlines of the massive manhunt launched by police and the FBI: 10,000 HUNT FOR POLICE KILLER GANG, blared the Chicago American. On closer reading Karpis realized things weren’t so bad. Detectives had found several guns in the abandoned Hudson, but apparently no fingerprints. The police, in fact, were saying they believed the robbers to be some combination of Machine Gun Kelly, Verne Miller, and Pretty Boy Floyd.

“I don’t know what the hell to tell you,” Karpis said. “This thing is going to turn out real bad, or it may turn out good, but I’ll tell you one thing right now. You go get your mother outta that building, don’t wait a goddamn minute. There’s too many people knowing now where you live and your mother lives.”

Fred made a face. He didn’t relish the idea of confronting his mother. “If you want, I’ll go with you,” Karpis said. “I know how you are. You’ll want to put it off.”

They found Ma a new apartment on South Shore Drive and arranged to have it furnished. That afternoon, as police raided underworld joints across the city, Karpis and Fred stood in a furniture-rental store, pointing out pieces they wanted for Ma’s new place. Afterward they moved her in. Only then did