For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz Age Chicago Read Online Free PDF Page A

when Nathan and Richard parked the car close by. Richard looked at his watch—twenty-five minutes past two! It had taken them exactly twenty minutes to drive from Pershing Road.
    Inside the station, steam rose from the train’s engine; passengers preparing for the journey to Boston were climbing the steps, settling into their carriages, saying good-bye to friends and relatives, and stowing their luggage in the overhead racks.
    In the bustle of departure, no one noticed Richard Loeb pay seventy-five cents for a ticket to Michigan City. And even if some casual observer had picked him out in the crowd, Richard’s disguise—black-rimmed glasses, a black hat, and a heavy overcoat—successfully obscured his identity. He entered the train at the rear door, a letter in his hand, looking for the telegraph box in the last carriage of the Pullman car. 4
    The telegraph box was empty. Richard placed the letter in the slats, so that it would be visible; the edge of the envelope peeked out half an inch above the metal slat. Jacob Franks would retrieve the letter, read its instructions, and follow the directions to throw the money.
    Richard jumped off the train onto the platform. It had taken less than five minutes to place the letter on the train; now he was walking back through the station, looking right and left, looking to see if anyone had noticed him, pushing his way through the crowd of passengers preparing to board the train—no, no one had noticed him.

    W HILE R ICHARD HAD BEEN PLACING the letter on the train, Nathan had called the Yellow Cab company to order a taxi to the Franks’s home on Ellis Avenue. Now he must make a second call, to Jacob Franks, to tell him to take the cab to the 63rd Street drugstore. Nathan took a deep breath and tried to relax. He placed the number and waited for the operator to make the connection. Almost immediately, someone picked up the phone on the other end, as if he had been waiting for the call.
    “Hello?”
    “Hello.” Nathan could feel his voice flutter with fright as he spoke into the mouthpiece. “Is Mr. Franks in?”
    “Who wants him?”
    “Mr. Johnson wants him.”
    “Who is that?”
    “George Johnson.”
    “Just a minute.”
    There was a moment’s silence. Nathan twisted the telephone cord around his fingers as he waited for Jacob Franks to come on the line.
    “Mr. Franks?”
    “Yes?”
    “This is George Johnson speaking…. There will be a Yellow cab at your door in ten minutes…. Get into it and proceed immediately to the drugstore at 1465 East 63rd Street.”
    “Couldn’t I have a little more time?”
    “No, sir, you can’t have any more time; you must go immediately.” 5
    Nathan replaced the mouthpiece and pushed open the door of the phone booth. As he stepped outside, he glanced at his watch. It was now two-thirty. Jacob Franks would be leaving his house almost immediately; within ten minutes Franks would be at the Ross drugstore waiting for their second phone call.
    There was no time to lose. They planned to call Franks from the Walgreen’s drugstore on the southeast corner of 67th Street and Stony Island Avenue. From there, they could drive the short distance to the pickup stop underneath the elevated railroad tracks where Franks would throw the money.
    But their intricate planning, their careful calculations, had come to nothing. The afternoon newspapers had already appeared on the newsstands. As Nathan and Richard drove up to the intersection, the headline on the early edition of the Chicago Daily Journal caught their eye. Nathan bought a copy of the paper and quickly scanned the article. The police had discovered the nude body of a young boy in a culvert near 118th Street! The body had not yet been identified, but surely it was only a matter of time before the police realized that the victim was Bobby Franks. 6
    Richard Loeb could scarcely believe that the body had already been found—less than twenty-four hours after he had killed Bobby! How could their