Meanwhile, Nash did indeed earn, pulling several profitable jobs with Keating and Holden, as well as a few of his own. He also fell in love with a comely cook from Aurora, Minnesota, named Frances Mikulich. Life was good—until Keating and Holden were arrested and ratted him out…
“It’s a place he knew,” I said. “He could have hidden his gold here.”
Nina shook her head slowly, almost sadly. “What is it they say?” she said. “You can never go home again.”
“I don’t know if I agree with that. On the other hand, there’s no garage.”
“So?”
“For Nash to have returned his car to the dealership by eight sixteen, he would have had to unload it in broad daylight. This was a high-traffic neighborhood, even then. How could he get thirty-two heavy bars of gold inside the apartment building without being noticed?”
“Disguise it as something else.”
“That’s possible,” I agreed—but unlikely.
204 Vernon Street
It was a nondescript two-story house now covered with powder blue vinyl in the heart of an area we called Tangletown because of its confusing, meandering streets. There was a porch in front, yet somehow I couldn’t imagine the Barker-Karpis gang sitting there, watching the sun go down and calling out greetings to their neighbors.
The house was in a decidedly residential neighborhood called MacGroveland, and the people who lived there thought of it as the intellectual and cultural center of St. Paul, largely because Macalester, St. Thomas, and St. Catherine liberal arts colleges were located within the neighborhood borders. The rest of us thought Mac-Groveland—when we thought of it at all—was a bastion of self-absorbed, self-indulgent, self-gratifying tax-and-spend liberal politics. I wondered aloud if the neighbors knew the history of the nearly one-hundred-year-old house and if they would have been thrilled or appalled by it.
“Thrilled, I think,” Nina said.
“Really?”
“From what you told me about that era, the hoi polloi loved these guys.”
“I don’t know if love is the right word,” I said. “Admired, maybe, for breaking the rules and getting away with it. For a while.”
I flicked a thumb at the three-bedroom house.
“This is where Frank and Frances stayed the night before leaving St. Paul for Hot Springs,” I said. “No way Nash would have stashed his gold here. Certainly he wouldn’t have trusted Creepy Karpis and the others. I just wanted to see the place.”
“Why?”
“This is where it all started going bad, where the O’Connor System began to break apart. The system could only exist as long as the gangsters refrained from committing crimes within the city limits; it was the only way citizens could condone their presence. Except Alvin Karpis and the Barker boys, they couldn’t have cared less about the rules, and there was no Big Fellow O’Connor or Dapper Dan Hogan to keep them in line. First they kidnapped William Hamm of Hamm Beer fame and held him for one hundred thousand dollars. A lot of people helped, too, including the former chief of police, guy named Tom Brown. That went so well, they turned around and kidnapped Edward Bremer for two hundred thousand dollars.
“Bremer—that was like kidnapping a Kennedy. His family was so wealthy, had so many ties to the community—citizens were outraged. They simply could not believe that the criminals they had welcomed as if they were long-lost relatives would turn on them. So, for the first time in decades, they overwhelmingly supported the reformers who had been fighting the system, and the reformers cleaned house, starting with the cops. It didn’t take long, either. Twenty-one indictments—some of the cops were fired, some went to jail. Brown escaped prison because the statute of limitations ran out on the crimes that they could actually prove he committed, but he was dismissed from the cops just the same. Next came the city government, and that was cleaned up, too.”
“It’s kind of amazing to think that level of corruption existed here,” Nina said. “St. Paul is so squeaky clean now, a councilman could be disciplined for calling a campaign contributor on his office phone. That cop who was caught trying to fix a DWI for his brother-in-law, they jailed him—you’d think he was dealing drugs to grade school kids.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Nina. Stuff still happens, only it’s well hidden now. The days when St. Paul was an open city are long, long gone.”
1878 Jefferson Avenue
Harry “Dutch” Sawyer had lived in a modest one-story white stucco house with tan trim that was actually smaller than the Barker-Karpis gang hideout—only about thirteen hundred square feet built on about a tenth of an acre. It was hard to imagine him using it to throw the lavish parties for underworld associates that he had been famous for.
“I’ve seen garages bigger than this,” Nina said. “How wealthy was this guy?”
“Pretty wealthy,” I said. “Sawyer took over most of Dapper Dan Hogan’s rackets after Hogan was killed. In fact, some people claim Sawyer was responsible for Hogan’s murder, and from the evidence I read, I’m on their side. I suppose Frank could have trusted him with the gold.”
“What do you think?” Nina asked. She was leaning forward in her seat to get an unobstructed view of the front door. “Think he buried it in the basement?”
“Among other things, Sawyer ran the Green Lantern saloon in downtown St. Paul, which was a popular hangout for gangsters—Creepy Karpis called it his ‘private headquarters.’ Only it closed in 1934 and was razed to make way for the Wabasha Street Apartments in the 1950s, so we know the gold’s not there. Sawyer could have hidden it here, or he could have buried it on his farm in Shoreview, but I kinda doubt it. Sawyer was months on the dodge before they busted him for his part in the Bremer kidnapping. If he had the gold, I think he would have used it.”
August 3, 1936
1590 South Mississippi River Boulevard
The Hollyhocks Casino had always been crowded. St. Paul’s finest dressed in tuxedos and gowns and mingled with the most notorious gangsters of the age. Spectacular dinners were created by a Japanese chef and served downstairs in semiprivate dining rooms by Japanese waiters. The bar was stocked with European liqueurs. There was a spacious dance floor and a live band. Music drifted to the second floor, where there was roulette and dice and blackjack—the games supervised by professional croupiers who moved like dancers. On the third floor there were three large bedrooms where some of the guests often stayed the night, sometimes with their wives, sometimes with the wives of others. Above it all Jack Peifer soared.
Jack was a big-hearted German American kid from tiny Litchfield, Minnesota, good-looking and charming and no crook—he made sure Violet Nordquist understood that the only thing he had ever been arrested for was running liquor out of a “soft drink bar” in downtown St. Paul when he was a kid. He served three months and learned his lesson, he told her. He must have been telling the truth, because Vi noticed that he was rarely in town when anything illegal happened.
Jack seemed to know everybody. Among his friends were bank robbers and police chiefs, mobsters and politicians. He introduced Vi to them when they came to the casino. Violet had never known a more exciting man. Or more exciting times. Thinking back, that was probably why she gave up her career as a much sought-after fashion model to marry him. For the excitement.
Now the Hollyhocks was empty, the party over. No one used the sixteen-car garage anymore; no one leaned against the white Greek columns out front, drink in hand, and gazed contentedly at the Mississippi River flowing lazily beneath the bluffs beyond. Instead, Violet wandered the club alone, searching for loose floorboards as she had been instructed in Jack’s last letter to her.
Violet knew it all would come to an end. It had to. Only she didn’t know it would end so quickly and so violently. Within just a few short years, John Dillinger and his friends Homer Van Meter, John Hamilton, Tommy Carroll, and Eddie Green were all killed. So were Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd. So were Frank Nash and Verne Miller. So were Fred Barker and his mother. Doc Ba
rker was killed trying to escape from Alcatraz. Leon Gleckman drove his car into an abutment, either because he had a point-two-three blood alcohol level or because he didn’t want to go to federal prison. Jimmy Keating, Tommy Holden, and Harvey Bailey were sentenced to thirty-year prison terms. Machine Gun Kelly got life, and so did his wife. So did Harry Sawyer. So did Alvin Karpis. Vi had known them all; she had shared lunch with Frank and Frances Nash just days before they left for Hot Springs. They all had been welcome guests at the Hollyhocks Casino. Rubbing shoulders with St. Paul’s gentry. Men and women that Violet now bitterly felt were just as guilty as the others but who would never pay for their crimes.
She was convinced that that’s why Jack had been murdered. Jack claimed he was “an ordinary citizen from a typical good Minnesota family.” Prosecutors said he was a “fixer,” a “mob banker,” and a “go-between” who regularly introduced gangsters to corrupt police officers, government officials, and wealthy benefactors. He was convicted of helping to plan the kidnapping of William Hamm; Vi collapsed in shock when the thirty-year sentence was read. Part of the evidence against him was the heavy telephone traffic that came in and out of the Hollyhocks Casino during mid-June of 1933. Jack never explained in court, but Vi knew many of those calls were from Brent Messer to Jack and from Jack to Verne Miller; they involved the Kansas City Massacre, not the Hamm kidnapping. Jack might have said so during his appeal, except he was found dead from cyanide poisoning only eight hours after he had been sentenced. Some claimed he committed suicide. Vi agreed with those who believed Jack was killed to keep him from testifying against members of the St. Paul aristocracy.
The thought of it made Violet stamp her foot. A board groaned in reply. She stamped some more, moving her foot in six-inch increments along the floor until she heard a hollow squeak. A few more stamps, a few more squeaks. She dropped to her knees and pried up a loose board. Beneath the board was the money Jack had promised her, enough for Violet to start her life anew. Twenty-five thousand dollars in cash.
“The man loved his wife,” I said. “For all of his faults, he truly loved Violet. He left her the twenty-five G’s to rebuild her life with. If he had the gold, I think he would have left that for her, too.”
“Would you have left me the gold?” Nina asked.
“I would never have left you, period.”
“Hold that thought.”
Mahtomedi Avenue between Spruce and Rose streets
I parked the Audi illegally along the shoulder of the busy avenue midway between the two narrow side streets.
“Take your pick,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Nina asked.
Six houses lined the avenue, half facing east, the others west. On the east side was a small cottage with a brick facade, a one-story frame house with forest green siding and a much larger two-story house between them that was made up to look like a log cabin. On the west side was a two-story frame house with redwood siding next to a second two-story, this one with blue vinyl siding, and a one-and-a-half-story cottage with red shakes and yellow trim.
“Frank and Frances Nash lived in one of these houses.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know; the information is sketchy. All I know is that they lived on Mahtomedi between Rose and Spruce. We can eliminate the pretend log cabin and the redwood house because they were built after 1940. All the others were built between 1901 and 1930.”
The houses were located on the east side of White Bear Lake in the City of Mahtomedi, about two miles from Nina’s own home and ten miles from the St. Paul city limits. The gangsters had used the area as a kind of vacation hideaway. When they weren’t on the lake, they gambled at the Silver Slipper roadhouse and drank at Elsie’s speakeasy and ate at Guardino’s Italian Restaurant, all within easy walking distance. Or they crossed the lake and danced at the Plantation nightclub.
“If I had to choose, I’d pick the red and yellow cottage,” Nina said. “It’s the cutest.”
“Somehow, I don’t think Frank Nash went for cute.”
“I bet Frances did.”
She had me there.
“Was he living here when the gold was stolen?” Nina asked.
“Something else I’m not sure of.”
“If they were living here when Nash robbed the bank, why would they stay at Vernon Street with Karpis and the Barkers?”
I shot a finger at her. “Good point. Maybe he was afraid the cops were after him and he felt the house wasn’t safe.”
“Except, if he thought it wasn’t safe, it’s unlikely he would have stashed the gold here.”
“Another good point.”
Nina sighed heavily. “We’re no closer to the gold than when we started, are we?” she said.
“You didn’t think we were going to just drive over and pick it up, did you?”
“Yeah, I kind of did. Was hoping anyway. I’m being silly.”
“That’s because you’re weak from hunger. C’mon. We have one more stop.”
958 Mahtomedi Avenue
To reach the entrance to Guardino’s Italian Restaurant we had to climb up three concrete steps and slip between two brick walls. On one wall was a faded poster of an Italian flag. On the other was a detailed map of Mahtomedi—also faded—with a star designating where we were. A mesh screen door recently painted black stuck when I pulled but came free with a jiggle of the handle. The big glass interior door was already opened. We stepped inside onto a slightly warped plank floor that had been sanded so often it seemed to be nearly worn through. Right away we were assailed by the strong aroma of garlic, homemade sausage, and marinara sauce.
I took a deep breath. “Ambrosia,” I said.
Nina rolled her eyes at me, but then she had been eating too much of Chef Monica’s cooking lately and had become spoiled.
There was a tiny bar with only three stools in the corner next to a door leading to the kitchen; the rest of the room was filled with comfy beat-up chairs, ancient wood tables, and worn booths. The walls were decorated with the photos of Italian heroes: Frank Sinatra, of course, Dean Martin, Joe DiMaggio, Martin Scorsese. In one, Tony Bennett had his arm around the shoulders of a small elderly gentleman with silver hair. The man was wearing an apron with the name of the restaurant on it; the photo was taken just outside the front door.
“Tony Bennett ate here?” I asked.
The waitress who distributed the place mats, silverware, and water glasses in front of us nodded. “Oh, sure,” she said. “A lot of famous people did. That photo with Tony, it was taken in 1958, ’59—it was one of Grandpa Joe’s fondest possessions. For weeks after he ate here, all Joe would play was Tony Bennett records. And then the night Rosemary Clooney ate here—where is that photo?”
The waitress found it hanging in the booth next to ours. It was nearly identical to the Bennett photo, except this time Joe had his arm around Rosemary and was beaming like a man who had just fallen in love. The waitress was laughing heartily when she gave it to us to examine. “Grandpa Joe,” she said. “What a character.”
“He was your grandfather?” Nina asked.
“Oh, yes,” the waitress answered. She offered her hand first to Nina and then to me. “I’m Rosemary Guardino, and before you ask, yes, I was named after Rosemary Clooney.” She laughed again as if it were a joke she had heard for the first time.
“A lot of gangsters ate here, too, I hear,” Nina said.
“Oh, yes. Plenty of them.” She waved at the walls of the small restaurant. “We have pictures all over the place, but we didn’t start putting them up until the mid-eighties.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“How do I explain it?” Rosemary sat next to me in the booth as if we were old friends; I scooted over to give her room. “This whole area”—Rosemary waved her hand in no particular direction—“used to be a kind of resort area for the gangsters who stayed in St. Paul.”
I smiled like a kid whose outlandish story had just been confirmed by a higher authori
ty. Nina rolled her eyes some more.
“John Dillinger ate here. So did Homer Van Meter, Harvey Bailey, Bugsy Siegel, Machine Gun Kelly—all those badmen.”
“Frank Nash,” I said.
“Oh, yes, him and his wife. They used to live about a half mile down the road.”
“Between Rose and Spruce streets.”
“That’s right. You know about him?”
“Do you know which house he lived in?” I asked.
Rosemary shook her head. “I really don’t. Here—” Rosemary left the booth and crossed the restaurant. “Hey, how you doing?” she asked the couple eating in a booth near the front window. “Everything all right? Do you need anything? Be sure to give a shout if you do.” She removed a photograph from the wall above the man’s head and returned to us. She gave me the photo, holding the frame so she wouldn’t smudge the glass.
“That’s Frank Nash and his wife, Frances,” Rosemary said.
I studied the picture of a balding Frank Nash and a lovely, stylish brunette with long, wavy hair, a narrow face, and eyes that seemed to sparkle even off a seventy-five-year-old black-and-white print. I handed the photograph to Nina.
“Was that taken here?” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” Rosemary said. “It could have been taken—you know, it could have been taken in the booth where you’re sitting now.” For some reason I glanced around as if looking for proof of it. “Most of the photos we have were taken somewhere else by somebody else and we just put them up, but my father says this one was taken right here. He was only a kid when it was taken, but he says he remembers. He says Frank Nash was a very nice man, very polite to him and Grandpa Joe and especially to my grandmother. That’s why they took the picture, because he was such a nice man. They didn’t take pictures of the others. I guess they weren’t so nice.”
“You display the photos,” I said.
“Oh, yes,” Rosemary said. “I was telling you that story. Remember when Geraldo Rivera did that TV special where they opened Al Capone’s vault and there was nothing in it? It was over twenty years ago.”
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