Public Enemies by Bryan Burrough Page B

to remember me by,” Floyd said.
    “I won’t need anything to remember you by,” said the sheriff.

Fort Smith, Arkansas 8:30 P.M.
    The train to Kansas City was ten minutes late, and the three lawmen—Frank Smith, Joe Lackey, and Otto Reed—were nervous. They stood on the platform, peering down the track, glancing at the exits. Nash stood by in handcuffs. Suddenly a man approached Lackey. Everyone relaxed when he introduced himself as an Associated Press reporter, in the station by chance. The reporter motioned to Nash: Who was the prisoner?
    For the rest of his life, Joe Lackey swore he never answered the reporter’s questions. But someone did. A half hour after the three men and their prisoner boarded the train for Kansas City, the reporter’s dispatch crossed the AP wire: Frank Nash, one of the last surviving members of the notorious Al Spencer Gang of bank and train robbers that operated a decade ago, was recaptured today at Hot Springs, Arkansas, by three Department of Justice agents—who “kidnapped” him on the streets of the resort city. The six-paragraph flash described the kidnapping, the escape, and, amazingly, the agents’ intention to take the night train to Kansas City. It went out to dozens of AP offices, including the one in Hot Springs, where Dick Galatas had friends.
    Oblivious to the AP story, Nash and the three lawmen traveled to Kansas City in Drawing Room A, Car 11, Nash handcuffed to the upper berth. They were scheduled to arrive at Kansas City’s Union Station at 7:00 the next morning.
     
     
    In a hotel room barely two miles from where Frank Nash was stepping onto the train to Kansas City, Bonnie Parker was emerging from her delirium. It had taken six full days, her family would recall, for Bonnie even to recognize her sister Billie, who remained at her side, wiping her brow, changing her bandages. Clyde, too, stayed at her bedside all that week, never leaving for more than minutes.
    They were in a bind. They couldn’t stay in Fort Smith much longer. Clyde searched his mind for a safe place Bonnie could convalesce. Dallas was too risky. What they needed was a friend of importance, someone who knew how to hide. The more he thought about it, the more he was certain only one person fit the bill. As soon as Bonnie could travel, Clyde decided, he would go in search of Pretty Boy Floyd.

Joplin, Missouri 10:09 P.M.
    The phone rang at Deafy Farmer’s house. It was Hot Springs, for Galatas. Galatas took it, listened, then hung up. There was a change in plans. “They’re taking Frank by train to Kansas City,” he said.
    Frances Nash searched her mind for someone who could rescue her husband. She had only one hope, her husband’s best friend, Verne Miller. A onetime South Dakota sheriff who turned to crime after an embezzlement conviction, Miller was a rarity among Midwestern yeggs, a successful bank robber who moonlighted as a hit man for the Chicago and New York syndicates; his marksmanship was so accurate it was said he could write his name with a Thompson. A loner, cool and Nordic, Miller robbed banks alongside Harvey Bailey and the Barkers. At the moment, he was living in Kansas City with his girlfriend.
    At 10:17 Frances Nash reached Miller at his house on Edgevale Road. Miller already knew Nash had been arrested; a bootlegger friend, Frank “Fritz” Mulloy, had tracked Miller down on the golf course, relaying the message left in Chicago. “What shall I do?” Frances asked Miller. “What shall I do?”
    Miller assured Frances he would take care of everything, then hung up. Two hours later, the phone rang at the Farmer house.
    “Let me answer it,” Frances said. “I know it must be for me.”
    “This is Verne,” Miller said. “I’m down at the station.” Kansas City’s Union Station.
    Frances broke down again, sobbing into the phone.
    “Don’t take it so hard,” Miller told her. “You’ll see your Jelly again.”
    “What shall I do?” Frances sniffled. “Where can I