'A month is perfect,' Ness nodded. 'Can you spare that long?'
'I got Lou Sapperstein holding down the office for me.'
'Oh? And where does that leave the pickpocket detail?'
'Who cares? Lou put in his twenty years and got his pension and got the hell out. It just don't pay to be a cop in that burg, not when you got a conscience.'
'Is he working for you?'
Heller laughed. 'That'd be sweet! My old boss, working for me. That'll never happen. He's planning to open up his own little office, but till he does, he's willing to hold down my fort.'
'Your agency's in good hands.'
'Yeah, yeah, but I'm not staying in this hick town a day longer than a month. Understood?'
'Understood.'
'Now, what exactly am I doing here?'
Later, Ness explained in detail at his Lake Avenue apartment just what his situation was-including the search for the 'outside chief' and His Honor's ticking clock.
'If we land our budget,' Ness said, balancing a glass of Scotch as he leaned back on the uncomfortable modern couch, 'I plan to put together a permanent staff of investigators. I've already sent word out to some federal men I know to see if I can entice them out of Uncle Sam's employ.'
'And if you don't get your budget,'' Heller said, 'it's a moot point. You'll be warming the safety director's chair till Burton tries again next year.'
'Essentially. But I'd find something to do.'
'I'm sure you would. Brother! What a job you signed on for. This is reckless, even for you.'
'Time is running out,' Ness admitted, 'but we've had some nice headlines already.' He smiled. 'And I've got my slush fund.'
'Now that you got that,' Heller said, with a little shrug, glass of rum in hand, 'you should be able to go to town. But isn't this a little like being on the take?'
Ness frowned. 'What is?'
Heller smiled. 'Settle down, settle down. All I mean is, these businessmen are going to want something for their dough. Stands to reason.'
'Cleveland isn't Chicago, Nate.'
'It ain't the Land of Oz either. It's a nasty little place, where apparently the cops are so corrupt they make the boys back home look like priests. Of course, I've known priests with mistresses and kids, so what the hell.'
Ness swirled his Scotch in his glass. 'Look, Nate. I appreciate what you're saying, and I've been over that with the mayor. But taking money from legitimate citizens, who have certain civic concerns, to fund undercover police work, is slightly different from taking graft from goddamn gangsters.'
Heller gestured magnanimously. 'Hey, I don't mean to be critical. My shorts aren't entirely white either. Just watch it. There ain't no such thing as something for nothing.'
'I'm not naive, Nate.'
'I know you aren't. But sometimes you can be real selective about what you choose to see and hear.'
Ness shrugged.
'You're sure it's okay I stay here?' Heller said.
'There's a couch in my study. Folds out into a bed.'
'It's swell of ya, but-'
'I can use the company.'
Heller studied him. 'Are you and Evie really tossin' in the towel? I find that hard to believe.'
'We're just separated.'
Heller leaned back on the couch, his smile reflective. 'Remember when I was dating Janey? The four of us would get together. We always looked to you as the ideal couple.'
'Well, that was foolish, wasn't it?'
Heller sipped his rum. 'Guess it was. I see selectively sometimes, myself. Hell. Janey and I didn't work out either, did we?'
Ness sat forward. 'How is business back home, Nate?'
'When you change the subject, you really change it.'
'Would you be interested in moving here? Taking on a job as my chief investigator? For now it has to be temporary, of course, but with some luck, in a month or so I may be able to offer you a permanent position.'
Heller smiled, and it wasn't a wise-guy smile at all. He said, 'That's damn nice of you. And I take it as one hell of a compliment that you regard my abilities that high. I wasn't sure you did.'
'I do.'
'Fine, but I don't want to get married. Much as I love ya, pal, I like being my own boss. If you pull this off, you'll be top dog in this town. But as soon as this angel of yours, Burton, bites the mayoral dust, as he will one day, you're probably going to be out of work just the same. And where would I be?'
'I think I could see to it that your job was secure.'
'Maybe you could do that, but then I'd be right back in the middle of a police department again, wouldn't I? Where graft and corruption breed like flies on horseshit. Don't look at me like that. You look like a cross between a cocker spaniel and Jackie Cooper. I hate that. I'm complimented, and I'll help you out, but I ain't movin' here. I don't like this place.' Then he added, 'It's too damn cold,' as if Chicago wasn't.
'I appreciate your help, Nate, even in the short term.'
'Besides,' Heller went on, 'you already got a chief investigator: you. That's the only chief investigator you'll ever hire.'
But for the short term, Nate Heller was indeed working for Ness, and first thing this Monday morning, Ness had sent him to the Salvation Army shelter where the Joanna Home residents were still being housed.
As they walked slowly along the gravel road, about a quarter mile away from the body of William Wiggens, Ness asked Heller, 'What did you find out?'
'Half a dozen of the Joanna Home old folks did in fact invest in that cemetery scam of yours,' Heller said. 'Only none of 'em know it's a scam. They think the government's going to turn their passbooks into gold. They think they're holding 'surety bonds,' for Christ's sake.'
'Were the two old men who died also investors?'
Heller shrugged. 'Nobody seemed to know. I don't think your phony G-man approached them as a group. He talked to them one or two at a time.' Then with sarcasm he added, 'Confidentially.'
Ness clicked his tongue. 'That's the standard pattern. I talked to one of the victims myself a few weeks back. Gus Kulovic, the guy who blew the whistle to my pal on the Plain Dealer. '
'Whoever hustled that neighborhood was one smooth scam artist.'
Ness lifted an eyebrow. 'Well, we got a good sketch of him by having Kulovic work with a cartoonist from the paper.'
'I don't suppose you i.d.'ed the finagler, or you'd have said.'
'We didn't i.d. him, no. He's got a round, bulldog mug. Looks familiar to me, really rings a bell, but I just can't place him.'
'Maybe it'll come to you. You know a lot of crooks.'
'That I do. But I never knew a con artist who could turn around and pull off something like this… murder by arson. Con men by nature aren't violent criminals.'
Heller made a face. 'Spare me your criminology crap. If I've learned anything in this business over the years, it's that people are capable of about anything.'
'These Joanna Home refugees you talked to,' Ness said, getting back to the facts and away from Heller's bleak philosophizing. 'Did any of them hear the two victims complaining about the so-called surety bonds?'
'No. And these old folks were pretty sharp. It's not a bunch of geezers with Swiss cheese for memories. They still got a lot on the ball, most of 'em. But not enough, unfortunately, to see through this scam.'
Ness sighed. 'Like you said last night-sometimes people hear what they want to hear, see what they want to see.'
Heller nodded. 'In times like these, if somebody tells you the money you invested before the crash can magically come back, you want to believe, you desperately want to believe it.'
