'That's all that's necessary. May I stop by Thursday and discuss this further?'
'Yes, I…'
'Good. I'll have the necessary documents with me.'
Agent White stood and extended his hand to Gus, who stood also and shook the hand.
'I must be going,' Agent White said. 'I have several others to contact. Some of them your friends, no doubt.'
And the G-man was gone.
Gus hadn't known what to think. Hope was bursting in him, but he had spent too many hard years-among them these last Depression years-to give in to this unfamiliar feeling.
His wife was worried, too.
'Who is this man?' she said.
'He had a badge.'
'When he comes back, ask to see it again,' she said, shrewdly.
'I don't know much about business or anything,' Gus said. 'But this sounds good.'
'Ask to see the badge.'
Tonight Agent White had come calling again. They sat on the same sofa, but instead of Marija's tea, they drank from the whiskey bottle Agent White had brought, tucked away in a briefcase along with his important papers.
'A toast to you, Mr. Kulovic,' Agent White said, and they clicked glasses. 'To August Kulovic, who soon will have his savings back!'
They had several more drinks and several similar toasts.
'Oh,' Agent White said, 'I almost forgot. I brought along your security bonds.'
From the briefcase Agent White withdrew several long sheets of paper. Each of them had a gold seal, which looked very official to Gus. A word starting with the letter 'G' was at the top of each page.
'Beg your pardon, Mr. White,' Gus said, and rose. He went to Mary's room, where the teenager was sitting at a small desk doing her math homework. She was not yet in her pajamas, and so Gus did not hesitate to ask her to come out into the living room.
Agent White frowned as the girl entered the room.
Gus picked up the documents from the couch and handed them to his daughter. He asked her what the word starting with 'G' was.
' 'Guarantee,' Poppa.' She was studying the papers, flipping through them, making a face. 'This paper says something about cemetery lots. Are you buying cemetery lots?'
'Dumpling…'
'Why are you buying cemetery lots, Poppa?'
Agent White rose and gently snatched the documents from the girl's hands.
He said to her, 'Excuse me, but you have to be careful with these.' He smiled apologetically at Gus. 'They're for your protection, remember. You've got to give them back to me when we pay you your money. If you start reading them, you'll get them dirty. They're no good if you get fingerprint marks all over them.'
Mary looked at the G-man with narrowed eyes and smirked and said, 'Poppa…'
'Go to bed, Mary.'
She sighed. 'Okay, Poppa. G'night.'
'Good night, dumpling. And thank you for your help.'
But she was gone.
'She's a bright girl,' Agent White said, as Gus sat back down.
'She's going to finish high school,' he said.
'Maybe college,' Agent White said. 'You can consider that when you get your savings back.'
'That is true.'
Agent White poured Gus another drink and toasted the girl's future.
'You need to hand over that passbook,' the G-man said, 'and we can send it in to Washington and get everything fixed up.'
Gus was shaking his head. 'I don't need a lot of graves. What would I do with them?'
Agent White laughed, softly. 'Why, you don't understand, Mr. Kulovic. We're not selling you any cemetery lots. We just want you to be protected while we're getting your three thousand dollars for you. These lots are a surety bond.'
Gus nodded, slowly. 'They're just… security.'
'Right. Exactly. All you have to do is hold onto this security and give it back to me when I bring you your money.'
'I would like my money. I need it.'
'Of course you would. And you should have it. Uncle Sam wants you to have it.'
Gus thought of Marija, sewing in the bedroom. He said, 'Can I see your badge again?'
'Why, certainly, Mr. Kulovic.
The badge was a polished gold and seemed very, very official to Gus. Satisfied, he handed it back to the agent.
Agent White leaned close, conspiratorially, and said, 'What I'm about to tell you is strictly confidential. You must turn that passbook over to us, immediately if not sooner. Your building and loan society is on shaky ground. It might have to close up. We can't help you, once it's shut down.'
'You can't?'
'That's the one limitation of our agency. We can only sign up distressed passbook holders while they're part of an active savings and loan.'
Gus had a sinking feeling, amid all that whiskey. 'What if they go under tomorrow?'
White smiled tightly, reassuringly. 'Once you've turned your passbook over to me, and we've signed these documents, you're safe.'
Gus finished his latest glass of whiskey.
'This is a wonderful country,' Gus said, 'America.'
'Uncle Sam cares about you,' Agent White said. 'That's the God's honest truth.'
Gus sighed, smiled. He glanced at the large Christmas tree with its fancy electric lights.
'Vesele Vianoce,' Gus said.
Agent White didn't understand.
'Christmas come early this year,' Gus said.
Then he went and got his passbook and gave it to Agent White.
Who agreed with Gus about Christmas coming early.
CHAPTER 5
The Central Police Station at Twenty-first and Payne, in a West Side industrial district, was a four-story sandstone fortress nearly as gray as the bitter-cold overcast morning, a box with walls five feet deep. The ornate bronze trim of the building did not make it any less forbidding.
Eliot Ness pulled his city vehicle, the black Ford sedan the Mayor had promised, up the ramp next to the massive building and left the car in the elevated parking lot there. He glanced up. On the fourth floor the windows were barred-jail facility. Just the holding tanks, actually. The gray stone wedding cake of a building just down the street, the Cuyahoga County Criminal Courts Building, housed the county jail, considered one of the most modern jails in the States. An underground tunnel, which Ness had traversed more than once, connected the two buildings.
And the two buildings, police headquarters and the court/jail facility, were impressive structures, to say the least. Effective civic symbols of the law at work. It struck Ness as more than a little ironic that they served such a corrupt, broken-down, out-of-date police department.
He walked up the steps between the globes on twin poles at the Twenty-first Street entrance. Once past the
