everybody's playing dumb where the racket's concerned, and the officers at the banks as well as those at the cemeteries are eager to show us what good citizens they are.'
Ness, standing across the desk from the smiling but weary prosecutor, nodding toward the paperwork said, 'What do we know now about Captain Cooper's financial circumstances?'
Cullitan gestured. 'You better find a chair, unless you just prefer falling on the floor.'
Ness sat.
'Under a variety of names, including Corepo,' said Cullitan, referring to a small notebook, 'Captain Cooper has sums totaling over a hundred and ten thousand dollars on deposit in four banks.'
Ness was glad he was sitting down. He whistled slowly. 'That's in addition to the hundred grand in cemetery real estate?'
'Yes. And we probably haven't tracked down all his phony names. And we believe-we know-he's filtered other money into the accounts of various relatives. His son, who owns several restaurants, for example.'
Ness sighed. 'How much has he earned as a cop?'
Cullitan checked his notes again. 'Sixty-eight thousand since he came on in 1906. His present salary is thirty- one hundred a year. Before the Depression, he was up to thirty-five and then when salaries were reduced in '33, he was down to twenty-six fifty.'
'Any other outside business interests?'
'Just his son's restaurants.'
'Any money in the family? His, or on his late wife's side?'
'No.'
Ness lifted his eyebrows, put them down. 'Then he's dirty. Real dirty '
'Can you help us prove that?'
'I'll have my best man on it.'
'Who?'
'Me.'
Cullitan's smile seemed damn near cherubic. 'You'll have to leave your desk for a while-won't that be rough on you.'
'I take no joy in this. I thought Cooper was a good cop. I trusted him.'
Cullitan nodded, the smile gone. 'It does make you wonder,' he said.
'How did you turn all this up so fast? Even with the banks and cemeteries cooperating, this is damn quick.'
'We had some luck. Cooper has a brother-in-law, name of Emil Kobern, a housepainter by profession, who doesn't appreciate his in-law getting him in bad with the law. When we got a line on Cooper's son being a repository for some of his old man's money, we started checking other relatives.'
Ness had to ask. 'What about his daughter?'
'Nothing there, except alimony money from her ex-husband. But we found that Kobern had forty-four thousand dollars in the Pyramid Savings and Loan Company, only when we questioned him, he said he'd never set foot in the place. He told us Cooper asked him permission to use his name, so that if anything bad ever happened to him, Cooper that is, in the line of duty, his brother-in-law would have immediate access to some money to help the family out.'
'That's a hot one.'
'Well, the brother-in-law went along with it, and much to his irritation he occasionally found himself having to go to the bank to withdraw money for Cooper's friends and business associates. For better than a year, at one point, he even took monthly payments from somebody, for Cooper, and deposited them in the account.'
'Is Kobern willing to testify?'
'Yes. He's very put out with Cooper for involving him in this.'
'Any chance he'll tell Cooper you questioned him?'
'I doubt it. Unless he was performing for us when he gave his statement. I think the lid's still on, where this investigation's concerned.'
'Somebody at one of the banks might let it slip. Or the cemetery company.'
'Perhaps. But I get the feeling Cooper may not be as popular with his business associates as he is with certain of the boys in blue. In fact, a lot of people will be happy if the heat for the cemetery racket shifts to Cooper.'
'The investigation can progress even if Cooper knows,' said Ness. 'But it would be nice to keep him in the dark a while.'
'Yes, it would.'
'Well, thanks, Frank,' Ness said, rising. 'Thanks for your hard, fast work.'
Cullitan shook hands with Ness and said, 'This thing ought to be right down your alley, an old Prohibition agent like you.'
'Why's that?'
Cullitan shrugged. 'Cooper was amassing his fortune during Prohibition-1921 to 1931, the very time when he was operating as the supposed protector of the law in precincts like the Fourteenth and Fifteenth. Where, in reality, booze was flowing freely, thanks to paid-off police.'
Ness snapped his fingers. 'That may be the way to build our case.'
'What do you mean?'
'The bootleggers! They're who Cooper was squeezing protection money out of.'
Cullitan's smile was a thin line. 'You know the old saying: bootleggers never squeal.'
'That was never really true, and it sure as hell isn't true since Prohibition became not-so-ancient history. I think some former bootleggers might like to get back at the cops they paid protection to. When I was working with the Alcohol Tax Unit, busting stills and playing 'revenooer,' we used to always hear the bootleggers bitching' about how they never really made a decent buck in the speakeasy days. That police payoffs had bled 'em dry.'
Cullitan smiled, thinking, nodding. 'Bribery charges. That's what we'll get him on. Bribes paid to influence him with respect to his official duties as a police captain in the enforcement of laws of the State of Ohio.'
Ness smiled, nodded, and finished the sentence, 'Particularly relating to the possession, manufacture, and sale of intoxicating liquors.'
'Can't quite get being a Prohibition agent out of your system,' Cullitan said, 'can you?'
'It worked in Chicago,' Ness said, and he hoofed it over to the Standard Building.
He found Agent Hedges at the same old stand, a corner desk in the cramped room shared by five Alcohol Tax Unit agents. The other men were out in the field, but Hedges was taking care of the paperwork that was choking his desk, and manning the phone.
'Slumming?' Hedges asked Ness, with a smile that didn't hide his dislike. 'It's a little early to be going to the health club to play footsie with the mayor.'
Ness pulled a chair over and sat on it backwards. 'You really like not having me for a boss, don't you, Bob?'
Hedges grunted and shook his head no. 'Actually, the guy that took over is even worse than you were.'
'Gee, that's hard to picture.'
'This place is going to hell in a hand basket,' Hedges said, glancing with wide eyes around the claustrophobic office. 'Hundreds of joints are selling hooch. Rotgut and raisin jack and white mule. And we're not doing anything about it.'
Ness made a sympathetic clicking sound.
'At least you're knocking some places over,' Hedges said. 'I gotta hand you that much.'
'I'm working on it. I need a favor.'
'From me?'
'From you. You were in this office a good many years before I was.'
'I outlast all my bosses. It's my favorite trait.'
'I need a list of known bootleggers who operated in Cleveland from '21 through '31. Can you put that together for me?'
'I could. But why should I?'
'Hedges, you don't like me, and I'm not nuts about you, or anyway I'm not nuts about your style. But we've
