• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Metcalfe didn’t make the connection until the car had driven out of sight. “That’s Baby Face Nelson,” he breathed.

He leaped off the front porch and ran for the inn, where there was a telephone.

“Sure as hell that was a G-man, and we caught him with his pants down,” Nelson said as they drove away. He caressed a .38 caliber pistol between the legs of his light-gray suit; he’d been prepared to kill Metcalfe. All his senses on alert, Nelson drove into Lake Geneva, hoping to find Eddie Duffy. Instead Nelson was the one seen, by Agent McRae, who spotted his car as he returned to the Hermanson house with groceries. McRae jotted down the plate number, Illinois 639578.

Nelson nervously cruised through Lake Geneva, then drove back south. He had the feeling the town was alive with government agents. He reached the highway and turned southeast toward the Chicago suburbs.20

Cowley took the phone call from Lake Geneva at 2:45. It was a poor moment for a crisis; most of his men were out of the office. Cowley called in two agents and told them to head for Lake Geneva at once, watching for Nelson’s car. He then took a phone call from Agent Bill Ryan, who was manning a phone tap with a rookie named Tom McDade.ek Cowley told Ryan and McDade to proceed to Lake Geneva as well.

Cowley thought a moment. If the driver in Lake Geneva really was Nelson, four men wouldn’t be enough. He spotted Ed Hollis; they would go as well. On their way out, Cowley passed Purvis’s office.

“Baby Face Nelson has just left Lake Geneva,” Cowley said.

“Let’s get going,” Purvis said, rising from his desk.

“It won’t be necessary,” Cowley said. “Hollis and I are just going to cruise around and see if we can spot the car on the highway. When we get set, I’ll phone you.”21 Purvis volunteered to call Washington. Cowley told him not to bother “as the information [is] rather vague.” Purvis called anyway, briefing one of Hoover’s aides.22

A half hour later, Agents Ryan and McDade were the first to reach Highway 12, parallel two-lane blacktops separated by a grassy median. They sped northwest toward the Wisconsin line, scanning approaching cars; Ryan had written down Nelson’s license plate number, 639578, and pinned it to the sun visor. McDade was driving their Ford coupe as they shot through Fox River Grove, where Ryan told him to pull over so they could check Louis Cernocky’s tavern. There was no sign of Nelson or his car, so they headed back toward Wisconsin.

Then, just as they left Fox River Grove, a black Ford raced past, heading southeast toward Chicago. Both agents peered at the plate.

“578!” they shouted in unison.

“Turn around!” Ryan snapped. He craned his neck to look at the passing Ford. “There’s two men and a woman in it,” he said; that met the description of the car in Lake Geneva. McDade eased into the median and completed a U-turn to follow the Ford.

Nelson watched the FBI car slow and turn. “What the hell is this?” he asked Chase, who was in the backseat, a Browning automatic rifle in his lap. “Let’s see who those birds are.”23

Nelson slowed the Ford, turned into the median and completed a U-turn of his own, pulling into the northbound lanes.

“They’re turning around!” Ryan snapped at McDade.

McDade and Ryan watched as Nelson’s car turned and drove north, passing them. A minute later, Ryan saw the Ford again head into the median and complete a second U-turn, reentering the southbound lanes.

“They’ve turned around again!” Ryan said.

Now Nelson was following the FBI car. “Let’s keep ahead of them,” McDade said.

“No,” said Ryan. “Let ’em come up and we can get a look at them.” Ryan slid his .38 between his legs.

Nelson stayed a few hundred yards behind the FBI car, going about 40 miles an hour. Both drivers kept their eyes on the other car. Then, without warning, Nelson slammed his foot on the accelerator, and the big Ford shot forward. Agent Ryan watched it approach.

“They’re right behind us!” he told McDade.

A moment later, Nelson pulled up beside the FBI car and honked his horn. “Pull