Public Enemies (78 page)

Monday, November 26, Nelson and Chase braved a drive into the city, depositing Helen on a street corner on the North Side; she said she wanted to see a movie. Instead, without telling anyone, Helen wandered into their old neighborhood. She walked by the homes of her parents and siblings, hoping to see someone she knew. Helen was never the most complicated soul, and it’s easy to imagine what she felt when she peered into the warm, well-lit homes of her family. As Helen wandered the streets, Nelson and Chase stole a sparkling black V-8 Ford from a dealership. Afterward they drove to a clearing outside Chicago to meet Clarey Lieder and Fatso Negri, who had arrived with Nelson’s Hudson.

“Well boys, nearly all the gang’s dead,” Nelson said, “so the first thing we gotta do is organize a new gang. There are plenty of jobs for us to do, but we can’t charge on anything until we get some more members. I want good reliable men, fellas like Ray Karpis.”
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Nelson still wanted what he had from the start, to team up with Karpis and the Barkers. The problem was, he couldn’t find them. Negri suggested they enroll Chicago gangsters. “Not in a million years!” Nelson said. “I know those rats. I grew up in Chicago. Do you think the G-men would have to hunt for months to run down a bunch of rats like those? No, every one of ’em would turn tail and surrender.”

Later that evening Nelson picked up Helen on the North Side. That night they slept in their car, as always. Nelson needed his rest. The next day, Tuesday, he had people to see in Wisconsin, after which he hoped to drive into Chicago and talk to Jimmy Murray about the train robbery. With any luck, it would be an eventful day.

Charles Winstead sat waiting in the upstairs bedroom of the Hermanson home, as he had done every day for three weeks. Cars came and went all day, many stopping on the way to the Lake Como Inn up the road. Agent Jim Metcalfe, the aspiring poet, was in the kitchen. They had sent a rookie named Colin McRae into town for groceries.

Around two, Winstead saw a big Ford V-8 coming up the road. “Get ready, here comes a car,” he hollered downstairs to Metcalfe.

Metcalfe wasn’t concerned: some days a dozen cars visited the Hermansons. He glanced out the window. The approaching car was caked with dust. It looked like the Hermansons’ Ford; they had left on a trip the previous Saturday, and he assumed they were returning.

“Everything’s okay,” Metcalfe yelled. “It’s Mrs. Hermanson.”

Metcalfe stepped onto the front porch to see if Mrs. Hermanson needed help unloading the car. The midday sun was glowing on the Ford’s windshield as it pulled into the yard; neither Metcalfe nor Winstead could see inside. Squinting, Metcalfe could just make out a woman sitting in the front seat. She was a kid, maybe twenty-one, wearing a dark coat with a fur collar.

From inside the car the driver asked if Hermanson was home.

“No,” Metcalfe said, “he isn’t here.”

“Well is Eddie here?” the driver asked.

“No.”

“Where is he?”

“He went downtown to do some shopping,” Metcalfe said.

The driver thanked him and backed out toward the road. Upstairs, Winstead took his rifle and, though he couldn’t make out a face, aimed it directly at the driver’s head. As the Ford drove off, Metcalfe caught a glimpse of the man behind the wheel wearing sunglasses and a flat cap. “Who was that?” Winstead yelled.

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.
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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 over!” Nelson shouted.

McDade and Ryan glanced over and saw Chase pointing the automatic rifle at them. “We gotta get outta here!” Ryan shouted. McDade ducked, then hit the accelerator. The FBI car surged ahead.

“Let ’em have it!” Nelson shouted, pushing Helen down in the seat. Chase hesitated; he didn’t know who was in the car.

Agent Ryan didn’t wait. He aimed his pistol at Nelson’s car and fired, squeezing off seven shots, the shells ejecting into McDade’s face. Nelson, holding a pistol in one hand and driving with the other, fired back. Windows on both cars exploded. Chase still hesitated.

“What the hell are you gonna do, sit there?” Nelson screamed. “Can’t you see they’re shooting at us!”

As the FBI car pulled ahead, Chase began firing the automatic rifle; somehow his shots missed the FBI car. Ryan and McDade pulled ahead. Nelson couldn’t catch up. “They must’ve hit the motor!” he said. “We’re losing speed!”

Ahead, Agent McDade lost sight of Nelson’s car behind him.

“Where are they?” he snapped.

“They’re falling back!” Ryan said.

Just then Sam Cowley and Ed Hollis, heading northwest in a black Hudson sedan, drove past the gunfight in the southbound lanes. Hollis pulled a U-turn of his own. Ryan and McDade, meanwhile, scanned the traffic behind them for Nelson’s car. Unable to spot it, McDade veered into a roadside field. Both agents jumped out, lay flat in the tall grass, and waited for Nelson to approach.

Nelson, whose car was fast losing speed, saw Cowley’s car make the U-turn. In the rearview mirror he watched as the FBI car approached. “There’s a Hudson,” Nelson said. “It’s gaining on us.” Nelson tried to pick up speed, but it was no use; his engine was failing. Cowley and Hollis drew closer. Suddenly, just as they approached a roadside park in the town of Barrington, Nelson spun the steering wheel hard to the right and veered off the highway. He stopped on a dirt road beside the park and yelled for everyone to get out of the car. Helen scrambled into a ditch.

Agent Hollis didn’t see Nelson’s car until he was abreast of it. He slammed on the brakes, which screeched loudly, enough to draw the attention of customers at a Standard Oil station across the highway and a Shell station about 750 feet further down the blacktop. The FBI car skidded to a diagonal stop in the right lane, 150 feet past where Nelson and Chase stood beside their car, readying their guns.

Nelson stood on the running board and opened fire with an automatic rifle before Hollis and Cowley got out of their car. Gunshots slammed into the back of the Hudson. Chase laid a rifle across the hood of the Ford and began firing as well. Then Nelson’s rifle jammed; he threw it to Chase, yelling for him to reload it. Nelson snatched up a Thompson and resumed firing.

Cowley leaped out of the FBI car, a submachine gun in his hands. A desk man his entire career, the squat, jowly Mormon was the last man Hoover would have wanted facing off with Nelson. Neither Cowley nor Hollis wore a bulletproof vest; Cowley complained they were too heavy. Nor had Cowley, despite the Bureau’s pleas, bothered to qualify on the pistol range. Nonetheless, crouching beside his car, Cowley fired a burst at Nelson, who returned the fire. At least six of his bullets struck Nelson in the stomach and chest, shredding his intestines.

Nelson doubled over in pain but, with adrenaline coursing through his body, somehow continued firing at Cowley. Two rounds hit Cowley in the midsection. He sagged to the pavement, rolling into a ditch beside the car. One bullet had torn through Cowley’s stomach, the other his chest. A bulletproof vest would likely have stopped both rounds.

Hollis jumped out the driver’s-side door onto the highway and fired blasts from his sawed-off shotgun, a blizzard of pellets that struck Nelson up and down both legs. Nelson still would not fall. He staggered forward, now firing at Hollis, who retreated across the highway, seeking the slender cover of a telephone pole. After emptying the shotgun Hollis pulled his pistol and fired as he ran. A bullet from Nelson’s submachine gun hit him flush in the forehead. Hollis crumpled to the pavement just as reached the telephone pole.

Nelson staggered toward Hollis, badly wounded. Onlookers at the two gas stations watched in amazement as Nelson lurched over to the fallen agent. Several witnesses later claimed that Nelson fired into Hollis as he lay on the ground; he didn’t. Ignoring Cowley, who lay in the ditch, Nelson limped to the FBI Hudson and slid behind the wheel. He slipped it into reverse and managed to back it up to his car.

“Throw those guns in here, and let’s get going!” he rasped to Chase. Chase did as he was told, grabbing up guns on the ground and tossing them into the Hudson. He started to get into the front seat when Nelson said, “You’ll have to drive. I’m hurt.” Chase circled around the car, opened the driver’s door and pushed Nelson across the front seat. Blood was everywhere. “What’ll we do about Helen?” Chase asked as he slid behind the wheel.

“We can’t fool with her now,” Nelson said. “We’ll have to leave her.”

Just then Chase spotted Helen running toward the car. She hopped into the backseat with the guns and Chase drove off.

 

 

The first onlooker to reach the scene was William P. Gallagher, an Illinois state patrolman who happened to be selling tickets for an American Legion benefit at the Shell station down the highway. Hearing the shots, Gallagher had taken a rifle from the station and fired at Nelson’s fleeing car. As it drove away, Gallagher and another man, who had stopped his car upon seeing the gunfight, sprinted across the highway to Hollis. Hollis lay facedown beside the telephone pole, a gold badge pinned to his chest. The back of his head was blown off. Gallagher tried to speak to him. Hollis, who had minutes to live, managed only a heavy gasp. His eyes moved.

Gallagher then hustled over to Cowley, who lay in the ditch, his feet on the pavement, blood covering the right side of his face; there appeared to be a gunshot wound to the side of his eye. “Don’t shoot, government officer,” Cowley whispered. Gallagher leaned down.

“Was Hollis hurt?” Cowley asked.

Gallagher nodded.

“Look after him first,” Cowley said. He told Gallagher to call the Chicago office, Randolph 6226, and report what had happened. He also asked Gallagher to reach his wife and tell her he had been called out of town and wouldn’t make it home for dinner.