'For a reporter off the record, you ask a lot of questions.'
Wild shrugged, grinned. 'I'm just a curious sort of guy. You remember me from Chicago.'
Ness grinned back. 'Sure I do. You were a pal of Jake Lingle's.'
Ness was referring to the notorious murdered newsman who after a brief period of martyrdom proved to have been in Capone's pocket, a major scandal for the Chicago newspaper world a few years back.
'I knew Jake,' Wild said, trying not to sound defensive. 'That doesn't make me a crook.'
'It doesn't make you an archbishop, either.'
'Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. I can give you some leads now and then.'
'I'll appreciate that. I can tell just looking at you you're a public-spirited citizen.'
'Banana oil. Aren't you wise to who you're chauffeuring around? Simply the best police reporter in town.'
'Why, is Clayton Fritchey riding the running board?'
'Very funny. But I got a good memory, too. I remember Chicago myself. For instance, how you liked seeing your name in print, especially when it was in headlines. 'Eliot Press,' we used to call you.'
That only seemed to amuse Ness. 'Really,' he said archly.
'Yeah.' Wild jerked a thumb at his chest. 'Treat me right and I'll treat you right. You can't afford to be on the bad side of the fourth estate. You ain't political. So you'll rise or fall on your press clippings.'
Ness said nothing, but he did throw a sideways glance at Wild, and smiled a little himself.
'You know I'm right,' Wild said. 'Burton brought you in for publicity value: 'Former G-Man Appointed Safety Director.' The public eats up this G-Man shit with a spoon.'
Ness smiled wryly, a secret lurking in his steel-gray eyes that Wild wished he could get at.
'I'll grant you part of my job is a cosmetic one,' Ness admitted. 'But right now I have to stay off the record for two reasons: I don't want to alienate the rest of the press; and I haven't had a chance to do anything yet. Give me a chance to get the lay of the land, for Christ's sake.'
'That's fair enough, I guess. At least you aren't pretending you weren't hired for your press value.'
'I was hired,' Ness said, 'to make the new administration, the reformers, look like they're getting something done. I'm helping 'em keep their campaign promises.'
'Just like Chicago,' Wild said, nodding. 'You had to show the public that gangsters in the Windy City weren't immune from some good old-fashioned law and order. That there were a few cops in the world that couldn't be bought. And you pulled that off, while the tax boys did the less flashy work that really put ol' Scar face away.'
Ness nodded.
Wild went on: 'But I don't think you're very likely to have such luck with the Mayfield mob, frankly. And if you plan on cleaning up the police force, you'll need a broom bigger than God's.'
Ness was driving with both hands on the wheel now, turning right on Sixth. He didn't look at Wild as he asked, 'If you think I'll be a washout, why come along for the ride?'
'It'll be fun seeing you try to do the impossible,' Wild said good-naturedly. 'There'll be some dandy headlines in it for both of us, while you do.'
'You seem pretty convinced I'll fall flat on my face.'
'Or thereabouts.' Wild shook his head. 'I just don't think you know what you're up against.'
'Care to enlighten me?'
'Sure. Why not.' Wild smiled tightly, smugly. 'Ever hear of the 'outside chief?'
Ness said nothing for a moment, the car humming along. Then: 'No.'
'The 'inside' chief,' of course, is Matowitz. The chief within the department. Inside the system.'
'You're not suggesting Matowitz is corrupt.'
'Hardly. He put those blinders on all by himself. No-body paid him to. Matowitz isn't the point.'
'Well, get to the point.'
Wild shrugged with one shoulder. 'It's just a rumor.'
'A rumor.'
'A rumor. Backroom talk. To the effect that a very high-ranking police official is on the pad.'
This time Ness shrugged. 'That would be no surprise on a department as… troubled… as this one.'
'Don't worry,' Wild smirked. 'We're still off the record. If you want to call the department 'corrupt,' be my guest. I won't repeat it in print.'
'Make your point.'
'The point, simply, is this high-ranking cop is said to be the 'outside chief.' The chief of the 'department within the department.'
'
Ness' eyes tightened. 'The department within the department, huh?'
Wild smiled patiently, as if teaching a child. 'The crooked cops know each other. They protect each other. They're a department within, and yet outside of, the department. And their 'chief-whoever he is-directs things, makes assignments, passes the graft around even-handedly and keeps everything and everybody in line. So rumor has it.'
'I see.'
'Are you sure you haven't heard this rumor before?'
'Not in such detail. Never that there was a so-called 'outside chief.' '
Wild lifted his eyebrows, set them down. 'It's just a rumor. I wouldn't print it in the paper.'
'I understand,' Ness nodded. 'Thanks, Wild.'
'And their ties to the May field Road mob are, well, obvious.'
'That much I knew.'
'I figured you had to know something. Now. What are you going to do for me?'
Ness thought for a moment, then, eyes still on the road, said, casually, 'I'm going along with a squad of cops on a betting-joint raid tomorrow. How would you like to be the only reporter along for the ride?'
'It beats a streetcar all to hell,' Wild grinned.
'I ask only that you don't make a sap out of me,' Ness cautioned. 'I'm just tagging along to check out their procedure. See if the raid goes off without a hitch.'
'Or whether somebody tips off the place,' Wild said, nodding.
'Right. It won't make a big story for you, but it'll be a start. Anyway, just stick around. Be patient. There's going to be plenty of dandy headlines for you in the next couple of months. I can just about promise you that. Now, here's City Hall.'
CHAPTER 7
Eliot Ness had never really seen a fire before.
That is, not a fire in the sense of a burning building, like this modest, run-down two-story frame house that was managing somehow to retain its structure while the inside of it burned, the flames having eaten away much of the roof to lick the night sky. Now that the fire was more or less under control, the flames no longer rose from the top of the house. Instead, a strangely white column of smoke climbed into the overcast sky to make it even more cloudy, while flames twitched in the otherwise dark and broken windows of the house, like the flickering within the eyes of a jack o' lantern.
Ness had been here almost from the beginning. He'd even pitched in with getting the old people out of the house and onto the cold street. Many of them were in robes and even pajamas but neighbors had come out bearing heavy coats to help the shivering, bewildered old folks; some of them were barefoot, and neighbors rustled up shoes and slippers for impromptu footwear. Most of these now-homeless elderly were wheezing from the smoke, several were crying, and a few vomited onto the frozen ground.
Two were dead. Two old men who'd shared a room in the back of the house, on the ground floor, where the fire had started. Incinerated. Their bodies, the charred logs that had been their bodies, were removed by firemen who'd carried them out of the steaming, smoking building, cradled in their arms like black babies, to be deposited in asbestos-lined wicker baskets, and put in the back of a Black Maria, bound for the morgue.
It had shaken Ness. A fire striking one small building-a dilapidated house passing as a refuge for the aged,
