Public Enemies by Bryan Burrough Page A

he was told; Richetti and Killingsworth slid into the backseat. In seconds Floyd had the big car rolling north. He told Griffith not to worry. “You seem like pretty good fellas. I believe I’ll let you get out of this.”
    At one point an airplane glided over the highway in front of them. Floyd hunched forward and watched it. Around six o’clock he coasted off the road east of Ottawa, Kansas, and brought the Pontiac to a stop in a ravine. They would wait till it was dark to drive into Kansas City.
     
     
    Frank Nash and his three captors stopped for a bite to eat in Conway, Arkansas. At a pay phone, Agent Joe Lackey called his boss, Ralph Colvin, at the FBI’s Oklahoma City office. Colvin was thrilled that Nash had been arrested, but he didn’t like the sound of two agents being tracked across rural Arkansas by gun-toting posses. He told Lackey to forget driving to Joplin and to head to Fort Smith instead, where they could catch an overnight train to Leavenworth. Colvin checked train schedules. There was a train leaving Fort Smith at 8:30 that night. It arrived in Kansas City at 7:00 A.M. before going on to Leavenworth. He called Kansas City to arrange an escort.
    Meanwhile, in Hot Springs, Dick Galatas took Frances Nash and her daughter to the airport, where he arranged for a plane to fly them to Joplin. When Frances said she was too frightened to fly, Galatas climbed in after her to calm her nerves. At 5:45 the plane touched down in Joplin. By nightfall they were at Deafy Farmer’s house south of town.
     
     
    “It’s a hell of a life being dogged around, and having to hide all the time,” Floyd was saying. In the secluded Kansas ravine, he sat on the grass, talking to Sheriff Killingsworth, who leaned back, his head resting on a rock. Walter Griffith sat in his Pontiac, as if guarding it, while Richetti snored lightly in the backseat.
    The more he talked, the more depressed Floyd appeared. “There’s no turning back for me now,” he said at one point. “Too many policemen want me. I haven’t got a chance except to fight it out. I don’t aim to let anybody take me alive.”
    Killingsworth gave him a look. “They’ll get me,” Floyd said. “Sooner or later, I’ll go down full of lead. That’s the way it will end. I might not have to been this way, you know, but for the damned police. I might be going straight, be living with a family and working for a living. I finally decided, you’re determined I’m a tough guy, a bank robber, that’s what I’ll be. They have themselves to thank.”
    Killingsworth, hoping to gain Floyd’s sympathy, mentioned his own family, his wife and young son. A cloud fell over Floyd’s face.
    “You shouldn’t kick about one day,” he said. “How would you like to be hunted night and day, day and night? How would you like to sleep every night with this thing across your knees?” He fingered the submachine gun lying beside him on the grass. “I have a son, too. Maybe you think I wouldn’t like to see him. When you get home, you can have your son with you every day and sit and talk with him. All I ever get to do is see mine once in a long while. Then all I can do is stand off and look at him for a minute.”
    At nightfall they drove into Kansas City without event. Around ten Floyd pulled to a stop in the packinghouse district. Floyd left the car and made a phone call, then drove to a spot near the corner of Ninth and Hickory. Another car soon coasted up. Killingsworth watched as Floyd and Richetti transferred their guns and a footlocker into the second car. After a minute Floyd got back in the Pontiac and ordered his two captives out onto the sidewalk.
    “Wait five minutes and then walk down and get the car,” Floyd said, motioning toward a spot where he intended to leave the Pontiac. “Drive on home and don’t call anyone, ’cause you’ll be watched.” As he drove off, Floyd told Killingsworth to take a set of golf clubs he had left in the trunk. “Something