G-Man

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have wanted to write a Baby Face book for decades, but, as usual, the impetus that turned ambition to labor was ire, a big motive for cranky old men. The object of my anger was Michael Mann’s movie desecration of 1934 in his idiotic version of Bryan Burrough’s majestic Public Enemies—and I’m not even talking about Depp as Dillinger! Why buy a nonfiction book if you’re going to make it up and don’t move the story one iota beyond John Milius’s el cheapo Dillinger of 1973? What’s annoying particularly is that the Mann disgrace will probably be the last big-budget 1934 re-creation.

So my ambition was to write a 1934 book in which Dillinger and Purvis were cameos and the real action centered on the far deadlier Les and the far more heroic Sam, a great, powerful, and tragic American story, ending in one of the most hellacious gunfights on record and the only time in history when the head man hunter and the man huntee end up facing each other over Tommy guns. Who but an idiot tells a story that ends at the Biograph instead of Barrington and tells the love story of Dillinger and one of his (many) hookers, not the one — twisted, unexplainable, but somehow, I hope, moving — between Les and Helen?

But it’s a novel, so I get to fictionalize, even if I try my hardest to keep chronology, personality, action, weapons, technology, and geography as close to the real thing as possible. Obviously, my access to the year was via the completely fictional Charles F. Swagger, though those familiar with the Bureau’s history will understand that he’s a version of the great agent Charles Winstead — who did bring down Dillinger. I added some psychological twists from my own father, Charles F. Hunter, to get them out of my system.

Otherwise, I’ve tried to discipline myself in my alterations to history. One factual alteration was to make a bigger deal of the Baby Face Monitor than should be made, while at the same time eliminating the semi-automatic, Lebman-doctored Winchester Model 1907 that Les probably did use that last day. The reason was simply taste, as the Monitor has to be the coolest full-auto in use in 1934! Then too I streamlined the Northwest Highway car chase, eliminating an earlier run-in between Les and two FBI agents.

I should also mention that much of the imagery of Charles’s Great War nightmares is drawn from the poetry of Siegfried Sassoon.

On to thanks. Once again, old friend Lenne P. Miller was number one researcher and mastered the data and the sources in a way I never could. Besides Burrough, Lenne made great use of Steven Nickel and William J. Helmer’s Baby Face Nelson: Portrait of a Public Enemy. They got Baby Face in a way nobody else has. (Still the best account of Barrington is probably my friend Massad Ayoob’s article in the July/August 2007 American Handgunner.) Gary Goldberg, another great friend, helped on all manner of technical and electronic matters, like the Grumleys’ StingRay. Alan Doelp pitched in when Gary was out of town. Thanks to good buddy Ed De Carlo, ex-Top and ’Nam vet, of On Target shooting range, for loaning me the use of his persona in Chapter 6. As well, I pretty much counted on the same inner circle of readers for thoughts as I progressed. Thanks to Mike Hill, Bill Smart, and Barrett Tillman, for suggestions and, perhaps more important, encouragement. The great Jim Grady pitched in with enthusiasm and introduced me to serial-murder expert Mark Olshaker. Dan Shea, editor of the Small Arms Review in Henderson, Nevada, helped me plumb the mysteries of the Monitor, as did old friend John Bainbridge. Dr. John Fox, senior historian at the FBI, and Rebecca Bronson, also with the Bureau, got me some material on the Chase interrogations and trial preparation that are the only source of information on Barrington. Phil Scheirer, of the NRA, gave me insights into the values of ’30s gangster weapons. Bill Vanderpool, retired from the FBI, got me to Larry Wack, another retired agent, who is an authority on early Bureau personnel, though I should say that my workup of Chicago Field Office culture and personality is completely out of my own head and probably has more to do with the Baltimore Sunday Sun in 1976 than anything else. My sister, Julie Hunter, and her husband, Keith Johnson, put up with me in Madison, Wisconsin, on my trip up to Little Bohemia. My mother-in-law, Erlinda Marbella, put up with me on my trip to the Biograph and other Chicago-area sites.

In the publishing world, my agent, Esther Newberg, supervised the transfer between publishers and reunited me with old friend David Rosenthal, who originally bought Dirty White Boys all those years back and is now the major figure at Blue Rider.

And of course my indefatigable wife, Jean Marbella, supplied the coffee that has more to do with this book being finished than any will of my own. She provided other comforts as well.

To all of them, my thanks. And of course all mistakes, willed or accidental, are fully my own responsibility.