'Cops helped it happen.' Ness stopped. The wind was chilly, carrying flecks of ice. 'That same Plain Dealer reporter, Wild, came up with half a dozen instances where a cop in the neighborhood vouched for the G-man.'
'Have you pulled those cops in and questioned 'em?'
Ness smirked humorlessly. 'Yeah, and they played dumb.'
'Yeah, but they aren't.' Heller nodded back toward the ditch and Wiggens. 'Your policy racket couldn't be flourishing like it is without cops, plenty of 'em, looking the other way. That 'department within the department' you were talking about.'
'Exactly,' Ness said. 'Which is why I want you to go over to the McGrath Detective Agency.' He dug in his pocket for a list, which he handed to Heller. 'Those are twenty McGrath cops who accompanied Cullitan and me on raids against the two biggest casinos in Ohio. Both of which we shut down.'
Heller nodded, looking over the list briefly, then folding it and putting it in his billfold. 'And nobody from McGrath leaked news of the raids,' Heller said.
'Right. So they would seem trustworthy. But I've arranged with the agency for you to go over the employment records of each man. Check the background of each thoroughly. Phone around to prior employers. Check all their references.'
Heller was nodding.
'Whittle that list down to half a dozen men,' Ness said, 'and those six will be your little squad of investigators.'
Heller smiled in his smart-ass way. 'And what is my little 'junior untouchable' squad going to do?'
'Well, for one thing, you're going to tap the phones of two precinct captains, my own executive assistant, and a few other city officials.'
The smirk disappeared. 'Jesus. That isn't exactly like tapping Capone's line outside the Montmartre Cafe. What if I get caught at this? These are city employees.'
'I know. But the mayor gave me a free hand, and anyway, you won't get caught. This approach did work against Capone, remember.'
'You can't use it in court.'
'No, but it can sure tell us the lay of the land. Look, I don't particularly relish being a sneak-'
'So you brought me in to do your dirty work. Is it okay if I feel less complimented now?'
'Fine by me. You still interested in the job?'
Heller shrugged. 'Money's money. Where are you getting the equipment? That stuffs expensive. Don't tell me, some of your federal pals?'
'Yeah. They loaned me some Pam-O-Graphs. You can attach them to telephone lines and monitor conversations. I'll expect comprehensive field notes from all of your men.'
'I bet you will.' Heller sighed. He glanced up at the sky, where clouds now blotted out the sun. 'You're wading into murky waters, friend. Crooked cops who been that way since Prohibition passed. Gangsters who murder some pitiful punk over the numbers racket. Anybody take a shot at you yet?'
'No. I get the occasional death-threat phone call. Same old stuff-'we'll cut off your wang and dump you in a ditch.' That old song.'
'Yeah. And I'm sure they're just kiddin'. Your Mr. Wiggens didn't get his wang cut off, after all. Of course, when you're in Mr. Wiggens' condition, having a wang is small consolation, right?'
Ness looked at the sky. Where had the sun gone? It seemed like dusk and it was early afternoon.
Heller shook his head. 'Let's walk on back. This fucking cold town of yours, I'm getting frozen stiffer than that stiff in the ditch.'
They walked back.
'Thanks for coming, Nate.'
'Ten bucks a day,' Heller said, 'and expenses.'
Ness smiled and nodded. He opened the squad car door for Heller and the officer drove the private detective back to the dark city.
CHAPTER 16
The Murray Hill district, a somewhat isolated compact area often referred to as Little Italy, was considered home turf for the Mayfield Road mob, although many of the chieftains had moved to better, less claustrophic digs farther to the east. The closely grouped brick buildings tended to be narrow across the front while going back endlessly, built on the slope of Murray Hill Road itself, or the intersecting slope of May-field Road. The cold kept people indoors. In warmer weather, old men would sit on the steps of neighborhood shops arguing politics-national more than local-while younger ones would discuss work, or rather their lack of it. Although the neighborhood produced the occasional lawyer or doctor, as well as a good number of successful merchants, the majority of Italian men here were manual laborers. But about the best a laborer could hope for in these times was working a couple weeks a month for the W.P.A. for seventy bucks or so. During the day, in weather like this, the only activity on the street was the usual stream of women and children going to and from Holy Rosary, praying for better times. Nonetheless, crime wasn't much in evidence here, even at night. You might see some teenage boys playing craps under a dim street light, and occasionally a kid might steal coal from a railroad car to heat the family home. But that was about all. The speakeasy days were over.
In a cozy, unpretentious restaurant called Antonio's, a second-floor walk-up over a grosseria Italiana on Mayfield Road, Eliot Ness sat at a small round table. A thick red candle, its steady flame providing a modest glow in a room dark with atmosphere, dripped wax onto the red-and-white checkered table cloth. Across from him was Gwen Howell. They touched wine glasses.
Gwen looked as lovely as she had that first night at the Hollenden, even though this was the end of a long work day. She still wore the same light blue woolen sweater over a pale pink silk blouse and black skirt that she'd worn to the office twelve hours before. But she'd let down her lighter-than-honey blonde hair so that it brushed her shoulders. And she'd tucked her glasses away in a purse and freshened her lipstick, which again was stop-sign red. She looked like a million.
Ness told her so.
'Thank you, boss,' she said, as their glasses clinked.
Across the room, serenading a couple at another table, a man in a waiter's tux played 'O sole mio' on the violin with lots of vibrato.
'My pleasure,' Ness said, smiling at her, quite taken with her.
Gwen sipped her red wine. 'You said you wanted to celebrate. What's the occasion?'
He sipped his. 'Your first day on the job, of course.'
'Now that I'm your secretary,' she said, 'will we need to go to out-of-the-way places like this?'
Two evenings last week they'd wined and dined-late evenings, of course, since Ness tended to work till at least seven and often much later-at the Vogue Room at the Hollenden. They'd wound up in bed in a room at the hotel on both occasions. The morning after the President's Ball at the Hollenden, they did not wake up ashamed, nor had they felt compelled to blame their conduct on the champagne. Theirs was a grown-up affair from the start, and was now in full swing.
'No,' Ness said. 'We'll still take in the Vogue Room. And the Bronze Room at the Hotel Cleveland, too.'
'What about reporters? They're thick as flies around those places.'
'I'm thicker than that with them-the newshounds, that is. They'll leave me alone.'
'What makes you rate?'
Ness shrugged. 'Friendship and headlines, not necessarily in that order.'
She smiled wryly, a single dimple's worth. 'So you don't think being seen out with your new secretary is going to make the papers?'
Ness shook his head. 'Why, does it bother you being out with a married man?'
'It would if you weren't separated. Have you talked to her lately? Evie, I mean.'
He looked into the glass of wine. 'We speak on the phone. Once a week or so.'
'If you don't want to talk about it…'
