'No.'
'Fifty thousand dollars a year and all the headlines you can fit in your scrapbook. Think about it.'
'I have. Good night, and go to hell.'
Ness opened the door and began climbing out. Behind him, Horvitz said, 'I can give you your crooked cops.'
Ness paused, then pulled the door shut. He looked at the little mole-like man.
'Well,' Horvitz smiled, 'not all of them. We need some friends on the force, after all. Isn't that what this conversation is all about?'
'This isn't a conversation, Mo. It's a bribe. And if I had a better witness than your 'chauffeur' here, you'd be in cuffs. Keep talking, and I'll cuff you another way.'
'I'll give you a special fish, Mr. Ness. A great big blue fish.'
'What are you talking about?'
'I'm talking about the name of the high-ranking cop who controls every bent bull on the department.'
The 'outside chief.'
'Why in hell would you want to give me that name?'
Horvitz shrugged. 'Maybe he's getting too big for his britches. Maybe it's just time for a change.'
'Then why don't you just give me the name, no strings?'
'Are you interested in my offer?'
Ness grabbed two fistfuls of Horvitz's gray suit lapels and pulled the little man within an inch of his face and stared into frightened rodent eyes.
'I'm interested in the name,' Ness said.
Then he felt something in his neck.
Something cold, something metallic, something very much like the nose of a revolver.
Ness let loose of Horvitz and shoved him, easily, back to the other side of the car. The revolver withdrew from Ness' neck.
Ness withdrew from the car.
Horvitz leaned out the rear door. He'd regained his composure but he was a little ragged around the edges.
'I never took you for stupid before, Ness.'
'You're not going to take me for anything,' Ness said as he walked away, talking back over his shoulder toward the Lincoln. 'I'll let your blonde know she can come down and join you now. It must be past her bedtime, anyway.'
CHAPTER 17
Ness, in a gray sweatshirt and black gym trunks, dove for the birdie, slicing with his racket, knocking the projectile back over the net so that it dropped gently at the feet of the similarly dressed Mayor Burton. Burton winced in good-natured defeat and said, 'That's all, folks,' and the four men, Burton paired with John Flynt, and Ness with automobile manufacturer Alexander Wynston, one of his slush-fund angels, left the court, breathing heavily, and picked up their towels and wiped off the sweat, except for Ness, who was the youngest and didn't sweat much anyway,
Burton and Ness met before lunch several times a week here at Dewey Mitchell's Health Club in the Standard Building, for workouts that included badminton, hand-ball, or jujitsu. Ness was giving His Honor lessons in the latter. By mutual consent they left all discussions of budgets and ticking clocks outside the building, except that today, Burton had broken the rule. In the locker room, as they'd gotten dressed for their game, Burton asked Ness if he was any closer to finding the 'outside chief.' Ness had admitted he wasn't.
And Burton had said, 'We need him, Eliot. Or we need something just as big. It's a matter of weeks now. And the way the factions in the council are squabbling, the rocky way the budget hearings are going, it doesn't look good.'
Other than that, today, Wednesday, had been no different than any other workout at the club-except for the presence of the stocky figure who stood waiting in the doorway between the badminton court and the weight-lifting room, virtually barring the way. He was an absurd, potbellied figure in an unseasonal straw hat and a brown topcoat open over a brown suit, with a black bow tie and a red rose in his lapel. He was smoking a cigar and looked as out of place in this health club as a nun in a beer hall, and had a similar holier-than-thou demeanor.
'Oh, Christ,' Burton muttered under his breath, behind his towel as he rubbed his face. 'Vehovic.'
The man, whom Ness recognized as Anton Vehovic, Thirty-second Ward councilman, stepped aside and let Flynt and Wynston by. But he blocked the way for Ness and the mayor.
'Councilman,' Burton said, his patience strained, 'I have a luncheon date.'
Vehovic, a round-faced man in his mid-forties, with a wisp of gray in his coal-color hair, blue eyes alert behind wire-framed glasses, folded his arms and smiled.
'I heard you guys hung around here together some-times,' he said.
'That's right,' Burton said. 'Could you excuse us?'
'You could stand some excusin'. You guys talk real big about cleanin' things up. And that's what it is: just talk. Or was I dreaming you vetoed my slot-machine ordinance?'
Burton sighed. 'I've told you more than once, Councilman, that my veto was reluctant, that I agree with you on principle. But my law director advised me that your ordinance wouldn't hold up in the courts. Get some legal advice and try again.'
Vehovic snorted. 'You got an excuse for everything. What's your excuse for all them vice resorts running high, wide, and handsome all over town?'
'That sounds like a subject you should discuss with my safety director,' Burton said, smiling politely. 'Why don't you handle this, Eliot?'
And having passed the buck, towel slung around his neck, His Honor moved on into the weight-lifting room and headed for the showers.
Ness knew Burton considered Vehovic a crank. And the councilman was a bit of a roughneck. He was a union man, a machinist at the New York Central Railroad shops in Collinwood, where even now he was an organizer, and had a reputation as an outspoken, square-shooting but eccentric champion of his people. He was also a man of direct action, a regular blue-collar hell-on-wheels. Not long ago, weary of waiting for the city road crew to fill some ruts in his district, the councilman-whose hobby was bicycling-rented a truck, bought a load of cinders, and filled the potholes himself, billing the city for the damage. The city paid up.
Ness rather admired the rough-as-a-cob hunky's zeal, but he understood why a polished pol like Burton would not. Vehovic was constantly on his feet in city council meetings making resolutions and proclamations and introducing ordinances in less-than-King's-English. On at least one occasion he showed up, straight from work, in his scruffy machinist's overalls. Sometimes, when not in an oratorical mood, he would sleep and snore. And now and then, not having had time to eat supper between work and the evening session, he sat in his councilman's chair eating from a can of sardines, the fishy fragrance wafting across the staid council chambers.
'You been pulling some raids, I see,' Vehovic said, smelling something fishy himself, arms still folded over a husky chest, incongruous straw boater tilted atop the large round head. 'But the big one wasn't inside the city limits. Wouldn't be afraid of steppin' on Fink's toes, would ya?'
Vehovic regularly feuded with the powerful Fink, councilman for the downtown district. Nominally a Democrat, Vehovic was, in practice, an Independent. And an independent Independent at that.
Ness didn't know what Vehovic was getting at, and said so.
'You gonna pretend you don't know that Fink's brother Tommy, his racetracks ain't enough for him, runs gambling joints all over the city, wide open? My ward included?'
'I've heard that rumor. We've raided a few of Tommy Fink's reputed joints and come up empty.'
'Well, sure you have. Everybody at City Hall is either on the take or dead from the neck up. Why you think I cornered you and His Honor here at this sweatbox 'stead of there?'
Ness put the towel around his neck and smiled pleasantly. 'I'm not on the take. Why don't you lead me to one
