bribes, at times being offered weekly payoffs damn near as large as their yearly salaries.
After Capone's conviction, Ness was appointed Chief Investigator of Prohibition Forces in Chicago, a post he held down till mid-1933, when he transferred from the Justice Department to the Treasury and became a 'rev- enooer,' closing down hundreds of hillbilly stills in the moonshine mountains of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio. In August 1934 he became Chief Investigator of the Treasury Department's Alcohol Tax Unit in the northern district of Ohio, working out of Cleveland.
He'd attracted some publicity in Cleveland, though Burton had only been vaguely aware of Ness until two weeks before, when several newspaper reporters, including Sam Wild of the Plain Dealer and his city editor Phil Porter, began touting Ness. They knew Burton was shopping around for the right man to clean up the police department, and Ness-who was relatively new in Cleveland, and had no political ties or interests-seemed ideal for the job.
'The people will eat it up,' Wild had said. A tall wiry guy right out of The Front Page, Wild had worked in Chicago and knew Ness from there. 'He's the perfect P.R. move, and he can probably come as close to getting the job done as anybody.'
Now Eliot Ness was sitting across from Burton's desk, and the question was whether or not Burton could convince the young G-man to take one hell of a gamble.
'Do you know why I've called you here?' Burton asked.
'Coordination between your people and mine?'
'No. I want to offer you a job.'
Ness uncrossed his legs, then crossed them the other way.
'Go on,' he said.
'My top priority right now,' Burton said, 'is law and order. Do you know what I mean by that?'
Ness lifted an eyebrow slightly, set it back down. 'Frankly, it's usually just a political catch phrase.'
'Granted. But what I mean is, I want this city to have a real police department again. Let me put it another way. I figure I can't clean up Cleveland until the police department itself is clean.'
Ness sat forward. 'That makes sense to me.'
'I need a strong man to reorganize-to transform-that pitiful excuse for a police department into a modern, honest law enforcement agency. You've shown yourself to be a tough cop who doesn't flinch in a dangerous situation. And wading into our corrupt force will be dangerous as hell. The corruption is firmly entrenched. You won't just be stepping on toes, you'll be stepping on livelihoods.'
'And lively hoods,' Ness said, wryly.
Burton smiled momentarily, then soberly said, 'It isn't just the Eliot Ness who drives trucks through locked doors that I'm interested in. It's the Eliot Ness who is a scientifically trained criminologist. The Ness who was an honor student at the University of Chicago, the site of some of the most advanced thinking in America, as regards social concerns. Your major fields of study, my investigation has revealed, were commerce, law, and political science.'
'What job are we talking about, Mayor? Chief of Police?'
Burton shook his head no. 'We have an honest chief. He happens to be rather ineffectual, but never mind. He is well-liked, and I would have some difficulty pulling him out without stirring up a political fuss that would just get in our way. No, I'm talking about the Director of Public Safety. The top slot.'
Ness smiled, just barely. 'That's a job I'd be interested in.'
Burton pressed on. It was too early for such an acceptance. Ness didn't know the facts yet. 'You'd be the youngest Director of Public Safety in the city's history. I consider you the ideal candidate to direct the investigation into, and purging of, our corrupt police department… but your role would be much more wide-ranging than that. You'd be in charge of twenty-four hundred men in the city's police and fire departments. It's a big job for a young man. Are you up to it?'
'Yes,' Ness said.
'I think you are, too. I don't think there's a better man for this job.'
'Do I sense a 'but' in all this?'
Burton sighed, nodding gravely. 'You do. In all honesty, this job is not a plum. In effect, I'll be tossing you a hand grenade and you'll be smothering it with your body.'
'Frankly, Your Honor, I'm not exactly following you.'
Burton stood. Almost absently, he said, 'You realize, I'm sure, that I may well owe my election to the previous Director of Public Safety…'
Safety Director Martin J. Lavelle, a former police captain who had driven a Rolls Royce, had been present last summer at a wild, drunken party on a boat on Lake Erie, where a young woman had fallen overboard and drowned. The safety director had failed to report the death, and when the papers got hold of it, several days later, there was hell to pay for the Davis administration.
'I think,' Ness said, smiling with wry self-confidence, 'I can get you just as much publicity, but with a slightly different slant.'
'That's what I'd be counting on. Frankly, your publicity value is as important to me as your credentials, impressive as they are. I'm not unlike a theatrical producer in this, Mr. Ness. That is, I'm looking for a star. And you're it.'
Ness shrugged. 'The headlines'll happen. I'm not worried.'
'But you should be. You'll be under the gun. The clock will be ticking'.'
Ness frowned, in confusion, not displeasure. 'What clock will be ticking?'
Burton went to the window. He brushed back a beige curtain and looked out at his dark city. 'You'll be up against possibly the most corrupt police force in the nation. And they're a well-established part of the city's landscape. The Detective Bureau and the precinct commanders in particular have strong political ties.'
'Excuse me, but what do you care? This is your administration now.'
Burton looked at the young G-man and smiled. 'You really aren't political, are you, Mr. Ness? The city council is going to be up for grabs. The reform Republicans, with whom I'm shakily aligned, will go toe-to-toe with the old- line Republicans, while a couple varieties of Democrats sow dissent and pursue their own vested interests. All the while former mayor Davis will be working behind the scenes to make me as unsuccessful as possible, largely but not exclusively through his friend Councilman Fink.'
'Could make for merry hell.'
'Could make for merry hell indeed. For me to accomplish anything as mayor, I'm going to have to hold onto this office for several terms. And to survive this term, I have campaign promises to keep.'
Ness nodded. 'Chief among them, cleaning up the cops.'
'Exactly. But corruption isn't our only police problem. We've got a badly out-of-date, poorly equipped police force whose very squad cars are falling apart. The fire department's in similarly sad shape.'
'So it comes down to money.'
'Money. Budget. Take the job, and you'll have to submit budgets on both the police and fire departments within two weeks.' Burton sat back down. 'Budget hearings will begin shortly after the first of the year. By early March, the council will vote. And if we don't get our budget you'll be hamstrung from the outset. You won't be able to get a damn thing done. You'll be an automatic lame duck.'
Ness breathed out slowly. 'By that you mean you'd have to let me go at the end of your term, and try again with a new safety director.'
'I'd most likely let you go before that. And I think you know what it would do for your career in law enforcement. Having come in with great fanfare in the press and then accomplishing nothing, you'd look a fool. I won't pretend otherwise. I won't sugarcoat it. Meanwhile, I'd most likely bring in a new safety director about this time next year and, I would hope, find someone else with impressive credentials who might help me land the budget I need next time around.'
'I see what you meant about that hand grenade.'
'I'm not sure you do. What this comes down to is that you would have to get results in the police corruption investigation-spectacular results-before March. That's your ticking clock. You'd have barely more than two months to produce. You'd have to fill the headlines with such derring-do and miraculous modern police work that even a politically divided and quite possibly corrupt city council cannot ignore your budget demands.'
Ness shifted in the chair. 'Specifically, what sort of results would you expect?'
