Public Enemies_ America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI - Bryan Burrough [254]
It turned out to be an old bootlegging pal of Chase’s named Arthur “Fat” Pratt, who had left the Bay Area to join his family’s jewelry business in Helena, Montana. Pratt and his girlfriend, who were also on vacation, joined Chase and Backman for a trip to Coney Island, a few dinners, and a Mae West movie, Belle of the Nineties.
In quiet moments Backman begged Chase to leave Nelson permanently, and Chase seemed to be swayed. A simple man, he talked of buying a gas station somewhere and settling down, and Backman believed him. They couldn’t stay in New York forever. In bed at night, they discussed whether it was safe for Backman to return to Sausalito. Chase told her the FBI would pick her up for questioning. She promised she wouldn’t talk. He told her how to reach him, via a personal ad in the San Francisco Examiner.ef Once she returned to Sausalito and got her things in order, Chase promised, she could return to him and they would go straight. On September 30, Chase put her on a bus to the Newark airport. Back in San Francisco, she flitted between friends’ apartments for five days before Chief Menotti arrested her.
Backman’s story represented a trove of new leads. In New York, agents descended on the St. Andrews Hotel, where they identified a car Chase had purchased as an Airflow DeSoto sedan. Teletypes listing the car’s license plate number were sent to FBI offices and police stations across the West. Just as promising was the discovery that Chase had mailed a parcel to an Arthur Pratt in Helena, Montana. This information was relayed to the FBI’s Butte office on Tuesday, October 9, which called the sheriff’s department in Helena and asked it to check hotels for a man using the name “John Madison.” Hours later came word from Helena: Chase, aka Madison, had left the city just that morning.
After picking up a package of money he had mailed to Pratt for safe-keeping, Chase drove south to Nevada, reaching Reno that afternoon, just as the FBI learned he had been in Montana. Chase left his car at Frank Cochran’s garage on Virginia Avenue, asked for some minor repairs, then walked downtown and checked into the El Cortez Hotel, again using the name “John Madison.” The FBI was right behind him. Reno police found Chase’s car at Cochran’s garage the next day, Wednesday, October 10. That night, Agent Guinane and a group of agents arrived in Reno. The next morning they interviewed Cochran, who said a man had brought the car into his garage for repairs on Tuesday. “I don’t know him,” Cochran lied. “I presume he is a tourist.”
Guinane set a trap. “I’m going to need several armed men in the garage,” he told Cochran. “Chase will be back for the machine and we will grab him.” Guinane had brought along the Sausalito police chief, Manuel Menotti, who had known Chase for years. “Your duty, Chief,” Guinane told Menotti, “is to walk up to Chase when he comes into the garage. You talk to him and I believe you can get him away from Nelson. We’ll make Chase put the finger on Nelson.”
Though the agents didn’t know it, their plan was stillborn. That morning, even as Guinane arrayed his agents around the garage, Chase walked out of his hotel to stretch his legs. He decided to stroll by Cochran’s garage to check on his car. A block from the garage, Chase noticed two men in suits, talking. He suspected they were plainclothes policemen or FBI agents. Slowing to eavesdrop, he heard the words “federal agents” and “car.”11
Keeping his head, Chase walked to the offices of the Reno Evening Gazette, where he placed an ad in the personals section. The next day Nelson saw it. That