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Nelson thought a moment. “Well, if I hit her, I’ll hit Johnny too,” he said.

Negri was flabbergasted. “Jimmy, you wouldn’t kill a swell guy like Johnny over a girl, would you?” he asked. “She and Johnny are going together now, but that won’t last long. You and Johnny have been together a long time. He’s the loyalest guy on earth. You can’t find another [like him].” Negri went on, repeating himself for emphasis.

“Well,” Nelson said, “I’ll talk to Johnny about it.”

When the others returned later that night, it was clear Chase had told Backman to make amends. She took Nelson a tray of food. “Here, Jimmy, is some swell food for you,” she said.

Without a word Nelson kicked the tray out of her hand. Food and dishes fell to the ground. Chase stepped forward, startled.

“What’s the argument?” he asked.

“I don’t want nothing off that bum,” Nelson said, meaning Backman.

“I don’t talk to your wife that way,” Chase said.

According to Negri, who was known to inflate his stories, Chase and Nelson each drew guns. Nobody moved. Finally Helen reached a hand toward Nelson, as if to mediate. “Get away from here,” Nelson snapped. “We’ll settle this.” For several long moments the two men stood facing each other, guns drawn. And then it passed. They lowered their guns, walked off into the darkness, and talked. The next day Backman and Chase rode across Iowa in Negri’s car.

That night, Wednesday, August 29, the group crossed the Mississippi River, stopping at East Burlington, Illinois; the Perkins family was anxious to get home and drove on to Chicago, taking Negri with them. For the next three days Nelson wandered Chicago’s western suburbs, stopping at road-houses to look up old friends, gauging the “heat” and sending out feelers to trusted contacts.

On Sunday afternoon, September 2, a hard rain was falling when Nelson pulled up in front of Hobart Hermanson’s tavern in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin; Nelson had spent several weeks that spring living in a cottage at Hermanson’s Lake Como Lodge, and wanted to do so again that autumn. Chase ran inside, returning a minute later to say they could probably find Hermanson or his handyman, Eddie Duffy, at Hermanson’s home outside town. They drove through the rain to Hermanson’s house. Duffy was home and welcomed them. Helen walked to the icebox and took out enough chicken for everyone. Nelson seemed relieved.

The tension between Nelson and Sally Backman remained, however, and Backman finally told Chase she couldn’t take it anymore. If he stayed with Nelson, she was going back to San Francisco. Chase talked it over with Nelson, and the two couples decided to split up. That night, Tuesday, September 4, Nelson dropped Chase and Backman on a corner in Elgin, Illinois. For three days the two young lovers slept till noon; at night they took the train into Chicago to dance. On the fourth day Nelson dropped by, handed Chase $3,500 in cash, and told how to reach him via a coded classified advertisement in the Reno paper. Chase promised Backman he would never work with Nelson again.

Despite the hysteria over Dillinger that summer, the Bureau continued its efforts to solve the mystery of the Kansas City Massacre. In March the belated identification of Adam Richetti’s fingerprint on a beer bottle found in Verne Miller’s basement had redirected the hunt for answers toward Pretty Boy Floyd. Sightings came in from every corner of the country: Montana, New Mexico, Miami, New York, New Orleans. Floyd’s estranged wife, Ruby, was touring off and on with a vaudeville show, Crime Doesn’t Pay. Agents bugged her hotel rooms but could find no evidence she was in touch with her husband.

Then, on May 16, Dwight Brantley, the Oklahoma City SAC, took a phone call from a seventy-six-year-old attorney in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, named A. W. Comstock. Comstock told Brantley he had been contacted by Floyd, who had asked him to negotiate a surrender. He said Floyd was broke and badly wounded, having been shot in the back by parties unknown. Comstock sought two