'That's not news.'
Ness smiled again, privately, ironically. 'A few nights ago,' he said, 'driving home, I was listening in on the police radio, and heard a burglary call. By the time it was answered by a squad car, I had time to commit six or seven other burglaries.'
'Gee, I didn't know you were moonlighting.'
Ness sipped his coffee, his expression turning sober. 'Just making a point. D'you know, I found one poor copper patrolling seventeen square miles of the city on foot?' He shook his head. 'Just yesterday I tried to find out what the hold-up was on replacement parts, so we can get some of these broken-down police cars repaired. The factory rep was polite enough, but explained he just couldn't help it. Seems after twenty years, they discontinued making replacement parts for the model in question.'
'Yeah, well, they don't make replacement parts for the broken-down cops in this town, either.'
'Some things just need flat-out replacing.'
Wild was well aware that Ness was referring to the twenty-one rookie patrolmen he'd sworn in earlier that week. Ness had gone over each and every application with a care that bordered on obsessiveness. Despite the time pressure he was under, Ness had interviewed each candidate personally. Wild supposed this mirrored the approach Ness had put into assembling his ten-man 'untouchables' squad back in Chicago. These rookies, Wild knew, were important to Ness; they were the future. Ness' plan, his dream, was to replace the old guard with a new breed of cop.
Even now it was on Ness' mind. He said, 'You know, I saw it in Chicago, and it's been the practice here, too. Police department appointments and promotions bought and sold, patronage and payoffs. That leads to a depart- ment rife with sloppy, out-of-shape cops. I know what I want out of my cops…'
Wild waved at Ness to stop. 'Don't tell me, don't tell me, 'A good officer should be a marksman, a boxer, a wrestler, a sprinter, a diplomat, a memory expert and, at least, a high school graduate. And most important, he should be honest.' '
Another twitch of a smile. 'I'm impressed. Flattered, even. That seems an exact quote.'
'It oughta be. You've worked it into half a dozen speeches around town in the past two weeks. Do you ever sleep, by the way?'
'I squeezed some in last year.'
Wild leaned back in his metal chair. 'I hear, on top of all this, you got some labor problems, too.'
Ness sighed. 'Yeah, we know the produce haulers are getting shaken down, for one thing. I've got the Vandal Squad on it. I put Captain Savage in charge and if any-body can get the job done, he can.'
'The labor boys hate Savage. And he hates them.'
'You're telling me. I had a call from McMahon today.'
McMahon was executive secretary of the Cleveland Federation of Labor.
'You told anybody about this call yet?' Wild said.
'Press, you mean? No. It just happened.'
'You prepared to tell me about it? The particulars, I mean?'
'Sure. Why not?'
'Whaddya know-pay dirt.' Wild got out his notepad and a stub of a pencil. 'Spill.'
Ness shrugged again. 'Not much to spill. He bitched about Savage being 'bitterly prejudiced' against the unions. They have some sort of committee that wants to make a report to me about it. I said I'd listen, but that. Savage was going to continue as head of the Vandal Squad in any event.'
'Why don't you put Savage someplace else? It'd be the politic thing to do.'
'You want me to behave like you say Flynt does? Hell with it. Savage is a good, honest cop. I have to get behind every one of that breed I can identify. And the Vandal Squad is where he's made his mark.'
'Some of that mark was made strike-busting.'
Ness frowned. 'He hasn't done any strike-busting for me. Look, I'll tell you what I told McMahon. Savage's principal assignment is investigating and suppressing window smashings, bombings, and other kinds of violence, which no legitimate union should have part of, anyway.'
Wild took down the quote and shut his notepad and said, 'Thanks. You're going to get an anti-union reputation, my friend.'
'It won't be deserved. I'm anti-racketeering.'
'You make me yearn for the good old days.'
'What good old days is that?'
'The good old days when there was a difference between the two.'
Ness laughed deeply. 'You're such a goddamn cynic, Wild. What makes you tick, anyway?'
'Curiosity. The same thing that killed the cat is what keeps Mrs. Wild's little boy lively. See, it's trying to figure out what makes a Boy Scout like you tick that keeps me interested in this ol' life.'
'You really think I'm a Boy Scout?'
'Actually, no. I think you're an ambitious young guy. A guy on his way up. But you got a problem, and it may hold you back.'
'Which is?'
'You can't get Chicago out of your blood.'
'What's that supposed to mean?'
'You shouldn't have taken this one on, Ness. It's career suicide. You got a month, maybe a month and a half, to get some Hollywood results, or you're screwed, right?'
Ness said nothing, which to Wild was an admission.
'You've already used up a month of your limited time, and you've done okay. You made some nice headlines, and the mileage you got out of the Harvard Club is a good start on what you need to get accomplished, I'll grant you. But where are you where your dirty cops are concerned? They're not exactly gonna blow the whistle on each other. How are you going to manage an investigation into a closed shop like that, let alone find out who their 'chief is?'
'It can be done.'
Wild wiped some fudge off his face with a paper napkin. 'In a year, maybe. Not in a month and a half.'
'And that makes me a career suicide.' For the first time Ness sounded irritated.
Wild shrugged. 'It's that problem I mentioned before.'
Ness laughed hollowly. 'I can't get Chicago out of my blood, you mean.'
'Yeah. You had such a good time chasing Capone's boys around back alleys and driving trucks through doors and playing cops and robbers, you just can't quite give it up.'
Ness looked into his coffee as if an answer might be there, to some question or other. 'That's what my wife says,' he said softly, almost absently.
'I don't think I've ever met your wife.'
'I don't think you have at that.'
Ness drank his coffee and looked out over the balcony, down to the lower level where shoppers strolled under the shadows of flapping flags of all nations.
Wild didn't need to be sent a telegram to tell him to drop the subject of Mrs. Ness, although he couldn't help wondering if the circles under Ness' eyes were from problems at home or from the long hours he put in. Of course, those factors might be related. What the hell. Wild went on to other matters, to the reason he'd asked Ness to come here today.
'What do you know about cemeteries?'
Ness' eyes widened at the apparent non sequitur. 'People are dying to get in?'
'I mean the cemetery business, ' Wild said. 'Real estate. Little bitty pieces of real estate.'
'I don't know anything about cemeteries, other than I know some people who wish I'd move into one.'
'Suppose I told you that you aren't the only guy in Cleveland playing G-man?'
Circles or not, Ness' eyes became alert. He sat forward and said, 'Enlighten me.'
'A Slav from the East Side, a railroad worker named August Kulovic, came to me with his fourteen-year-old daughter in tow. Seems before Christmas he gave his passbook worth fifteen hundred bucks to a so-called G-man calling himself Sidney White.'
'Gave it to him?'
