Ness winced. 'I'm so tired I forgot to apologize.'
'You also forgot to call.'
'I know. I know. I'm a heel.'
'You just get caught up in your work. Don't apologize for it. I admire that in you.'
'You do now. It'll wear thin eventually.'
'Think so? Did you have a good day?'
'Not bad. Not bad at all. Your father was in on it. We finally hit that place you made the calls to in the Eighth Precinct.'
'Really?'
Briefly he told her about the raid.
'It makes me think all this trouble is worth it,' he said.
'How's that?'
'Well, when I see old-time cops like your father and Savage pitching in with those rookies, busting the biggest bookie joint in town, suddenly I stop feeling like I'm chipping away at an iceberg with an ice pick. Suddenly I start feeling like maybe this job can really be done. If the clock doesn't stop ticking first.'
'Clock?'
'Never mind. Never mind…'
'I have faith in you, Eliot. I know you can do anything you put your mind to.'
'Do you? Do you, really?'
'Sure. I'll show you.'
'Hmmm?'
'Upstairs,' she said, and took him by the hand.
CHAPTER 20
It struck Ness as especially ironic that Cuyahoga, the river from which the county took its name, took as its name an Indian word for 'crooked.' The Indians surely had nothing metaphorical in mind for the river, which snaked crazily through the industrial valley Cleveland residents called the Flats. Steel mills and factories and warehouses sprawled throughout this bottomland area; loading machinery lurked like prehistoric beasts turned to framework iron, lording it over a flat prospering wasteland of decaying docks, iron-ore hills, industrial debris, and railroad tracks. Flames licked the gray sky and clouds of smoke mingled with it, a study in progress and its price. The skeletal steel structures of the various bridges spanning the valley cast shadows upon the land, like those of the Depression itself, which had cut into but hardly halted the activity of the industrial Flats. During the day, the Flats had a solemn, scarred beauty, the makings of a prize-winning black-and-white photograph. But to Ness, day or night, the Flats remained a mystery. To a Chicago boy, raised in a city where the lakefront was sacred, where lakefront parks and 'recreation and clean beaches thronged with people at play, not at work, this oily, yellow river that flowed out of Lake Erie, winding through a landscape dominated by machines, was a puzzle. Something in the back of his mind nibbled at him, reminded him, that the men helping him, the angels lining his slush fund, were the same ones who helped turn this valley into a pockmarked, profitable hellhole.
At night, to Ness, the Flats was an otherworldly place, a world of darkness cut only by an occasional streetlamp or the muted glow of a run-down waterfront bar and the blush on the cheeks of the low-hanging clouds, projected there by the open-hearth furnaces of steel mills. Looking toward the Cleveland skyline, all that could be made out was the lighthouse that was Terminal Tower. You could, Ness reflected, wander into the Flats at night and never come out. It was the perfect place to be set up for a rubout.
Which was much on his mind this Thursday night, because Ness, angling on foot down a steep cinder road into the Flats, was here to meet somebody. A Cleveland cop who'd insisted on his coming alone.
He left the city sedan half a block away and now stood by the mesh fence which separated him from a vast graveyard of taxi cabs. These cabs were here for storage and repair, the Depression having cut down the demand on the streets. Several streetlamps made this location slightly less dark-slightly-than most others in the Flats. Looming nearby, a vast, black abstract shape against the strangely rosy sky, was the massive Detroit-Superior High Level Bridge, the major east-west span across the valley, a double-decked structure of steel and reinforced concrete with a lower deck for streetcars, their occasional screech cutting the night like fingernails on God's blackboard.
He checked his watch. He was right on time-ten o'clock. He kept his right hand in his topcoat pocket, on his revolver. He kept his back to the wire fence, hoping if anyone were waiting for him here, with something other than a meeting in mind, that they weren't parked inside the lot with the taxi cabs. A streetcar screeched again, sparks of electricity flicking through the darkness, reminding him of the El back in Chicago. Only this was one hell of an El.
Several more minutes passed. Ness seldom felt nervous; tonight he did. He chewed his left thumbnail. He tugged at the brim of his hat. It was cold down here, by the river, colder than anywhere else in the city. And darker.
Another screech of a streetcar split the night, but when it faded, Ness could hear the sound of footsteps on the cinder pathway.
The man was young, almost a boy, baby-faced, pale, in a brown topcoat and brown hat. Both his hands were in his pockets. Ness kept his right hand in his.
The stranger withdrew one hand from his overcoat pocket; the hand was empty. He used it to remove his hat. His hair was dark brown and slicked back. He seemed nervous. His breath was smoking, as if his insides were on fire.
'Thanks for meeting me here, Mr. Ness.'
'You're Curry?'
'Yes, sir, I am.'
'When I found the note under my windshield wiper,' Ness said, keeping his hand and gun in his pocket, 'I didn't know whether to believe it.'
Curry shook his head side to side, lifted his shoulders, put them down. 'I didn't know what else to do. I knew I shouldn't call you. You never know who's listening.'
'You're right on that score.'
'I didn't think I should come to your office. I didn't know what to do. So I left that note on your car.'
'We've never met. How do I know you're Curry?'
'You have a gun in your hand, don't you, sir? In that coat pocket, I mean.'
'If you're not Curry, you'll find out soon enough.'
Curry-if he was Curry-swallowed, and smiled nervously. 'Let me just open my coat.'
He held it open, like a pervert in the park showing a woman his prize possession. But Curry's prize possession was a police officer's uniform.
'You can close your coat,' Ness said. 'That uniform doesn't necessarily make you a cop, and, even if it did, a lot of cops in Cleveland would like to see me dead.'
'Can I get out my wallet and show you my i.d.?'
'Slowly.'
He reached into his topcoat pocket and withdrew a wallet, flipping it open and handing it to Ness. His police i.d. card and photo were there. This was Curry, all right.
'You're the man Captain Cooper selected to go undercover,' Ness said.
Curry sighed, and smiled, in relief. 'I was afraid maybe the captain hadn't given you my name.'
'He did. I insisted that he do so. You were a detective?'
He nodded. 'Youngest one on the force. I was working traffic-I pulled some people out of a burning car and got promoted.'
'You didn't buy your promotion.'
'No, sir. My family doesn't have that kind of money.'
'And you allowed yourself to be put back down to uniform for this undercover assignment.'
