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“This ain’t gonna be like the Hamm thing,” Karpis said. “This is going to be a hot son of a bitch. How much money you think you ought to get for the guy? I wouldn’t want to do it for less than half a million dollars if I did it.”

“Hell,” said Sawyer, “you ain’t gonna get that kind of money from nobody. Let’s be reasonable about this thing.”

“How much?”

“Well, you could get two hundred thousand dollars without any trouble.”

“Don’t hand me any crap about trouble,” Karpis said. “’Cause that’s all you’re going to get out of this goddamn thing.”

Sawyer turned to Barker, who hadn’t said a word. “What do you think about it, Freddie?”

“Two hundred thousand dollars sounds real good to me.”

Barker turned to Karpis. “What the hell is all this talk about heat? That’s all we’ve had anyway since 1931 is heat.”

“Okay, Freddie,” said Karpis. “But I’m telling you now, if we do this thing, this ain’t gonna be like anything else we ever did.” He’d go along if they wanted, Karpis said. “But I’d hell of a lot rather rob a bank any day. I’d rather do anything than kidnap this guy. If we’re gonna kidnap somebody, let’s kidnap somebody besides this guy here. Let’s go to some other town, too.” They talked about working in Chicago or Indiana, but neither seemed promising: the Dillinger Gang had brought swarms of police into both areas. Sawyer argued that St. Paul was the perfect venue: corrupt cops, good men to work with, and no Dillinger. By daybreak they reached a compromise: if Shotgun George Ziegler favored the job, Karpis said he would go along.

He and Fred continued debating the merits of kidnapping Bremer on the drive back to Chicago. Karpis had a million reasons not to. Among other things, he pointed out how easily the FBI had traced Machine Gun Kelly’s ransom money. “God, all you do is worry,” Fred said. It was true. Karpis had realized the stress he was under only when his girlfriend mentioned how much weight he had lost. He had promised to eat a pint of ice cream each day to put it back on.

“We’d better start making some money,” Karpis said, “and start figuring on getting the hell out of this country because things are going to get real bad. You can read the papers, you can see for yourself what Hoover’s saying, what the attorney general is saying. They want all them laws passed, and they’re going to get a lot more of them FBI guys . . . So whatever we’re going to do to make money, we’d better make it by next summer and get the hell out of here or we’re both going to get killed or get caught.”

Barker said nothing. “Which brings me to your mother,” Karpis said. “Now I’ve brought it up two or three times to you about you’re going to have to do something with her. We’re going to have to quit living with her. You know that, don’t you?” Barker got defensive, as he always did when Karpis brought up Ma. “I got that apartment, didn’t I?” Barker said, alluding to a new flat he had rented for Ma.

“Yeah, but hell, you ain’t staying there. You’re staying home.” Even on the nights when he went out with his girlfriend, a drunken harpy named Paula Harmon, Barker was sneaking home to sleep at his mother’s. He let the matter drop. It was impossible to talk to Fred about Ma. She was a meddler, always complaining about their girlfriends, and if Fred wasn’t careful, she would get them killed. If the FBI found them, how nimble in flight would a sixty-year-old woman be? “Come on,” Barker said when they reached Chicago, “let’s go on over with my mother. She gets kind of lonesome. She keeps wondering why you don’t come over more often.”az

The next day Karpis found Ma immersed in her jigsaw puzzles. She worked on them for hours each day, and whenever Karpis came by, she dragged him into sorting the pieces at her side. As Karpis sat down beside Ma, Fred staggered out of his bedroom. He had obviously been up late. “I was over at Paula’s last night,” he said in a low voice.

“What did your mother say?” Karpis asked. “Anything about coming home late?” Fred was more frightened of his mother than of the police.