suspense.'
He wiped his mouth with a napkin and smiled at her. 'I guess you don't realize you're dining with one of the most powerful figures in city government.'
'Powerful? City government?'
'Your husband is Cleveland's new Director of Public Safety.'
Her face lit up the room as she clasped her hands together. She rose, and came over and sat in his lap. She was soft and warm and smelled very good, like the flowers he'd (sort of) brought her, and her face was glowing.
'I'm so proud of you,' Eva said. 'This is the day, the day we've been waiting for.'
He squeezed her. 'Yes, it is. We've been working toward this for a long time.'
'You deserve a big kiss.'
'I think I do.'
She kissed him-a long, soft, sweet kiss that nearly ended dinner.
'Eliot,' she said, blue eyes flashing as she fell into a private joke of theirs, 'is that your gun?'
'Maybe I'm just glad to see you.'
She slid off his lap. 'Maybe you should finish your roast beef. I have apple strudel for dessert.'
'We may have dessert all evening.'
'We may,' she conceded, and she sat across from him and began eating with more enthusiasm now.
He had met Eva Jonsen in elementary school so perhaps it could be said they were childhood sweethearts. But they had gone to different high schools and, in truth, barely knew each other in those days. Both had grown up on Chicago's South Side, in Roseland, a working-class residential area outside the Pullman industrial district. Her father had worked at the Pullman plant, in fact, while Eliot's had owned a small but successful bakery. They hadn't gotten to know each other until years later, when she'd been Alexander Jamie's secretary.
Jamie, who was married to one of Eliot's older sisters, had left the Justice Department to become Chief Investigator for the Secret Six, a group of Chicago businessmen who were trying to break the Capone stranglehold on their city. The Secret Six had worked hand-in-hand with Ness and his squad of 'untouchables,' and Eva had eventually become as much Eliot's secretary as Jamie's.
With the kind of hours he was putting in, in those early Chicago days, he didn't have much contact with females-at least not decent females-and Eva had always been interested in his work and in him. She seemed to look up to him. She'd made it through high school and was a well-trained secretary, but the idea of a 'college man' made her swoon. They spent a lot of time together at the office, and elsewhere, with her swooning and him catching. Now their sixth wedding anniversary was approaching.
By a little after ten o'clock they were cuddled on the brown mohair couch in the living room, their shoeless feet up on the coffee table being warmed by the considerable blaze that he'd got going in the fireplace. The only other light in the room came from the electric bubbling liquid decorations on the small Christmas tree on a table in one corner.
He looked at her radiant face, the glow of the fire making it even more so, and felt very much in love with her. He knew they'd been drifting apart-his long hours, separation from her family back in Chicago, their failure to have a child, all of that and more, had been working against them. They were both quiet and tended to hold things in, and that didn't help, either.
But right now, he loved her. He loved her very much. He promised himself to do something about their situation. It did not occur to him, however, simply to tell her how much he loved her.
'I'm happy for you,' she said.
'Be happy for us, ' he said. 'This means more money. A real standing in the community. A real chance to try out my theories, my ideas about law enforcement.'
'You learned so much at the university, and you've had so little chance to use it.'
He knew she meant that in a positive way, but it rubbed him a little wrong. 'What do you mean?'
'Oh, you know, dear. All these years of chasing bootleggers. Kicking down doors and swinging an axe.'
He laughed. 'Sometimes I do feel like Carrie Nation in trousers.'
'No longer. You've busted your last still, Eliot Ness.'
He laughed shortly. 'I hadn't thought of that. I suppose I have.'
'That's behind you, all of that awful, dangerous work. And I'm so glad.'
Eva reached her face up to his and kissed him. That was unusual for her. She rarely initiated a kiss, or anything else. But her lips were warm on his, and she was eager, and he began to help her out of her dress. Then he undressed, and in the flickering light of the fire, on the mohair couch, they made love, with a desperation and enthusiasm that outdistanced any coupling of theirs in recent memory.
Soon-well, not too soon-they were a naked married couple clinging to each other, watching the fire slowly die. The lovemaking done, Ness was thinking about work again, his other marriage. Reviewing his day.
Just to keep things kosher, while still in Burton's office Ness had phoned his secretary at the Standard Building and dictated his resignation from the Treasury Department. He told her he'd be right over to sign it, and relished the disappointment in her voice as she said, 'Yes, sir.' Then he broke the news: 'Your old boss is the city's new safety director.' And he relished the girlish squeal that followed as well.
As he stepped from the mayor's office, with His Honor at his side, he'd been greeted by a small mob consisting largely of curious city employees, but in the front row were half a dozen reporters. This was no surprise as there was a press room just down the hall-right across from the safety director's office, actually-and, as it turned out, one of the reporters had seen Ness going into the Tapestry Room, and put two and two together.
The group included Clayton Fritchey from the Press, and Wes Lawrence and Sam Wild of the Plain Dealer. They were in shirtsleeves and suspenders and had pencils and pads at the ready.
Burton gave them a brief statement. 'I consider the appointment of the Director of Public Safety to be of the greatest importance…' and so on, and then the news-hounds started in.
'Does the appointment of Mr. Ness presage the naming of a new police chief?' Lawrence asked.
'I have no statement on that subject at this time,' the Mayor said. 'But I should point out that removal of a police chief requires a Common Pleas Court trial.'
'No new police chief,' Sam Wild said, scribbling. Wild was tall and lanky and pale, with dark blond curly hair. He had rather pointed features, like a pleasant Satan. He wore a red bow tie and a smirk. Ness knew the shrewd, cynical reporter from Chicago and liked him, within reason.
Fritchey, a man who talked the way he wrote, asked: 'What instructions have you given your new safety director about dealing with the staggering problem of reviving such a demoralized and corrupt department?'
'Yeah,' Wild added, looking up from his pad skeptically. 'It's no secret our police force is undermanned and stuck with ridiculously substandard equipment. It's also no secret the department's been drained of energy and ambition by two years of self-serving, dirty politicking.'
Ness had to admit Wild had balls, and Fritchey, too. Balls were what it took to ask the Mayor those questions, even if it was the previous administration they were skewering, even if it was silently understood by all parties that Burton's future depended upon his press.
Burton's smile was a thin, unreadable line. He said, 'Mr. Ness will have a completely free hand to develop the law enforcement policies of this city, as he sees fit. He will in fact be his own chief investigator.'
The reporters exchanged wide-eyed glances of a sort jaded newsmen rarely shared.
'That's unheard-of,' Fritchey said.
'Well, you heard it now,' the Mayor said. 'Mr. Ness is a former G-man, who wouldn't have it any other way. Now, if you'll excuse me, gentlemen.'
'Excuse me, Your Honor,' Wild said, standing so that he blocked the mayor's way back to his office. Borderline rude but ballsy, Ness thought. 'Are you sure this G-man stuff isn't just a ploy to squeeze some budget dough out of your upside-down cake of a city council?'
'As I recall, Mr. Wild,' Burton shot back with a nasty little smile, 'you yourself were one of those who suggested Mr. Ness as a possible candidate for this job.'
And Burton brushed past Wild and ducked into his office.
That, of course, hadn't really been an answer to Wild's question, but Burton-brains, guts, integrity or not-was still a politician. He knew all about answering questions without answering them.
