'I see the captain's daughter waited to have a word with you,' Wild said.
'If you'd wanted a juicy story, you could've hung around and eavesdropped.'
They walked.
'Can you still see,' Wild asked, 'after having your eyes scratched out?'
'I don't blame her for being bitter.'
'Don't give me that! After what she did to you-'
'What did she do to me?'
'Well. That's between you and her, I guess.'
'Right.'
Their footsteps echoed.
'Don't you figure her father put her up to getting next to you?'
'I don't honestly know.'
'Don't you care, Eliot?'
'I care. But I don't know. And Gwen's one mystery I'm not about to investigate any further.' 'I care. But I don't know. And Gwen's one mystery I'm not about to investigate any further.'
The sun was shining on the skyline of Cleveland this May afternoon in 1936, as Eliot Ness and Sam Wild walked to Mickey's, a hole-in-the-wall bar on Short Vincent Avenue. The safety director drank straight Scotch, and the reporter drank bourbon. By the time a wobbly Wild escorted a quite drunk director of public safety to a room in the Hollenden to sleep it off, darkness had once again fallen.
