Wild explained the scam to Ness, who sat listening intently, his expression darkening.
'The only reason Kulovic got suspicious,' Wild said, 'was his daughter. She can read. She read the 'surety bonds,'-even though the Kulovics had been warned not to handle bonds 'cause if they got them dirty, they'd be worthless. And Miss Kulovic found out her father had bought some overpriced cemetery lots.'
Irritation tugged at the corners of Ness' mouth and eyes. 'Why do you know about this, and I don't?'
'Well, you do now, thanks to me. But Kulovic first went to the cemetery itself and was told they didn't own these lots. A sales organization did. That sales organization's office was no longer at its listed address, in the Hanna Building, no less… although I'll bet they're still in town, doing business under another name. Anyway, Kulovic called the cops and they sent him to the Better Business Bureau, who said they couldn't help him. He went to several lawyers who didn't want the case. No-body to sue, since the cemetery companies had done nothing illegal laying off some of their plots to an investor. Finally, the poor old guy did the smartest thing he ever did. He left government and business and lawyers behind and came to the fourth estate. He dropped by the paper, and I happened to be in my office instead of cover-ing City Hall that day, and if you've wondered why my shining face has been so scarce the last couple of weeks, I've been busy putting together one hell of a story.'
'Which breaks when?' Ness' eyes were narrow. Their placid gray did not lessen the intensity of his gaze.
'Soon. Of course, I'd have a better story if I could lead with your statement to the effect that you plan to tackle this nasty little sting. I've been digging, Ness. I turned up and talked to half a dozen other victims, and that's just the tip of the iceberg, I'd wager. This is just one neighborhood. I bet they're hitting all over town.'
Ness was nodding. 'Systematically hitting ethnic neighborhoods, taking advantage of devalued passbooks and their illiterate holders. I think your instincts are right.'
'One other nasty angle.'
'Which is?'
'In some instances, the neighborhood cop has paved the way for the scam artists to make contact with their marks. Vouched for them.'
'Bent cops again,' Ness said, tightly.
'They're a common denominator in this burg. Anyway, those are the facts. So what's your pleasure?'
Ness lifted an eyebrow. 'Why don't we go over and talk to Cullitan about this?'
Wild shrugged. 'If that's how you want to go.'
'I hate to say it, but his men could investigate this better than any cops I could come up with at the moment. This sounds like the makings of a grand jury investigation to me.'
Wild grinned. 'That'd make a swell lead for my story. But for your purposes, isn't a grand jury a slow way to go?'
'Cullitan's in my corner; he'll move fast if I ask him to. Do you have a list of the victims you've uncovered so far? Kulovic and the others?'
'Sure.' Wild got out his notebook, flipped to the proper page. 'You want me to copy 'em down for you?'
'No, thanks,' Ness said, reading Wild's list. His eyes narrowed. 'Jesus,' he muttered.
Wild had never heard Ness say that before. It made the reporter sit up.
'Do you know what neighborhood this is?' Ness said.
'More or less,' Wild shrugged. 'Middle of the East Side.'
'Remember the Joanna Home fire?'
'Sure. That old folks' home. Burned right before Christmas. Two old goats got themselves incinerated.'
'They weren't goats. They were men.'
'Jeez, excuse me, Saint Ness. I'm such an insensitive lout.'
'You are at that. And you don't have much of a nose for news, either.'
'What are you talking about?'
'All your victims are elderly, or at least getting up there, and they all live in this same Slovak neighborhood.'
'Right. So?'
'The Joanna Home is smack in the middle of that same neighborhood. The two elderly victims of the fire were Slovaks, just like the victims of your sting.'
Wild waved that off. 'I thought the fire warden said that house was a firetrap, that the fire started in some faulty wiring and went up a wall into the laundry room and that was that.'
Ness didn't reply. Instead he took the reporter's notepad and from inside a jacket pocket took a pen and a small spiral notebook, in which he copied the names and addresses of the victims.
'You really think its arson,' Wild said.
Ness pushed the notepad back across the small table and tucked his notebook and pen back in his pocket.
'Let's keep that angle out of your story, for right now, okay?' Ness smiled, but it wasn't very convincing. 'It's just a hunch, this arson thing. Let's just leave it at that.'
'What's in it for me, if I do?'
'You'll be the only reporter along for the ride when I make my policy raids soon.'
'You're moving against Frank Hogey?'
'I might be.'
'Hot damn. You got yourself a deal.' Wild didn't have to think that one over. The cemetery scam was an investigative piece, not news, and no other paper in town was onto it. 'Where to now? Cullitan's office?'
'Not just yet. First let's go out to August Kulovic's place on East Sixty-fourth. You've got some pretty fair staff artists at the Plain Dealer, don't you?'
'Yeah,' Wild shrugged. 'So?'
'So we're going to take one of 'em with us. I'd like a picture of Agent Sidney White.'
'Good idea,' Wild said as he and Ness left together, leaving melting ice cream and half a cup of coffee behind. 'From what I hear, he looks a hell of a lot more like a G-man than you do.'
CHAPTER 14
The next evening, Friday, was bitterly cold and windy and starlessly bleak. All in all, a good night to stay inside and hope that tomorrow would be more suited for making merry, or Mary, whichever the case might be. The citizens of Cleveland seemed to know just how vain a hope that was, however, because thousands of men and women, young and old, weren't waiting for a better tomorrow. They were crowding into the Hollenden and Carter Hotels tonight, for F.D.R.'s Birthday Ball, paying a buck a ticket to dance 'so that crippled children might walk.'
Most of the action was at the Hollenden, on Superior Avenue near Public Square, and not just this evening. The fourteen-story, red brick Victorian structure, all towers and bay windows, had been built in 1885 by the owner of the Plain Dealer. It was the hub of Cleveland's downtown social life, only a stone's throw from City Hall and diagonally across from the Plain Dealer building. The Hollenden drew newspapermen, politicians, lawyers, and, it was said, the higher-ups of the so-called Cleveland Syndicate. Whether any of the latter were among the three thousand or so people now crammed into the hotel's ballroom was anybody's guess.
Eliot Ness, who of late had been frequenting the hotel's taproom, the Vogue Room, had never seen a gangster-or reputed gangster-in the Hollenden, but the rumors persisted.
But tonight, gangsters weren't much on his mind. Nor had he put on this tux because he felt like dancing. He had thought about calling Eva, to take her up on her offer to attend social functions with him, but couldn't quite bring himself to pick up the phone.
At first he had hoped time would heal their marital wound. As the days passed into weeks, he began to enjoy the solitude. It only occasionally felt like loneliness to him. He missed her; he did miss her. And he entertained thoughts, particularly at night alone in the double bed, of making it up to her somehow. Putting the marriage back together.
But he didn't know how to change the way he lived, or more specifically, the way he worked. Or perhaps it wasn't that he didn't know how to; he didn't want to. He wasn't a homebody, that wasn't his style. Perhaps Evie would miss him, too, and come back, willing to accept him on his own terms.
