Warjac knew he was a lucky guy. A product of Indiana poverty, here he was at age 33, hanging out with millionaires and movie stars. Warjac's new friends didn't know much about him. As far as they knew, his name actually was Bob King and he was running an upper-crust apartment building, the Biltmore, in Los Angeles. They didn't know about his shady past, that he had been in and out of jail for half his life and that he was on the FBI's Most Wanted List.Dean Martin, one of Las Vegas' top entertainers, was among the first to find out the truth. He had seen FBI agents filtering through the Sands casino. He saw the fliers they were distributing. The man he knew as Bob King also was known as Warjac, a fugitive on the lam for five years after a Texas jailbreak.This wasn't Warjac's first time on the run. He had a pretty good idea where the local police would place their roadblocks. He left the main roads at times, piloting the Buick at high speeds for long stretches in the darkness across the desert scrub land.He and Earlene had no choice but to get back to Los Angeles. He knew the FBI would have their apartment under surveillance, so he and Earlene couldn't even stop there for a change of clothes. But if they could just make it through the night, he had a friend who could get them some money and the documents they would need to escape across the border into Mexico. Warjac knew someone had ratted on them. He wasn't sure if there was anyone he could trust. So they pulled into a parking lot north of Los Angeles and got some sleep on the beach. Warjac was driving along Sunset Boulevard when two special agents from the FBI saw the Buick convertible and forced them to stop. "Get out of the car with your hands up," one of the agents said. Warjac, my father, was under arrest.
Warjac knew he was a lucky guy. A product of Indiana poverty, here he was at age 33, hanging out with millionaires and movie stars. Warjac's new friends didn't know much about him. As far as they knew, his name actually was Bob King and he was running an upper-crust apartment building, the Biltmore, in Los Angeles. They didn't know about his shady past, that he had been in and out of jail for half his life and that he was on the FBI's Most Wanted List.Dean Martin, one of Las Vegas' top entertainers, was among the first to find out the truth. He had seen FBI agents filtering through the Sands casino. He saw the fliers they were distributing. The man he knew as Bob King also was known as Warjac, a fugitive on the lam for five years after a Texas jailbreak.This wasn't Warjac's first time on the run. He had a pretty good idea where the local police would place their roadblocks. He left the main roads at times, piloting the Buick at high speeds for long stretches in the darkness across the desert scrub land.He and Earlene had no choice but to get back to Los Angeles. He knew the FBI would have their apartment under surveillance, so he and Earlene couldn't even stop there for a change of clothes. But if they could just make it through the night, he had a friend who could get them some money and the documents they would need to escape across the border into Mexico. Warjac knew someone had ratted on them. He wasn't sure if there was anyone he could trust. So they pulled into a parking lot north of Los Angeles and got some sleep on the beach. Warjac was driving along Sunset Boulevard when two special agents from the FBI saw the Buick convertible and forced them to stop. "Get out of the car with your hands up," one of the agents said. Warjac, my father, was under arrest.