He'd been close to his mother, very close, and it hit him hard, though he didn't think it showed. It showed to Ev, who insisted on taking the train back to Chicago with him. She stayed at his side throughout the next several days. She'd been a good friend to him; settling his family's affairs required several more trips home to Chicago, during which time a warm friendship with Ev blossomed into something even warmer.
Earlier this week, after much urging from him, she had moved to Cleveland. She was a gifted artist and had already illustrated several children's books for major New York publishers; so he didn't have to pull many strings to get her the job as fashion artist for the Higbee Company, one of city's major department stores.
This was their first night out on the town together, after her move. Ev wore a sleek black gown with pink and green satin ruffles at the bust, her creamy shoulders bare. She was quiet and rather modest personally, but she always dressed dramatically for an evening out. The fashion illustrator side of her, he supposed.
'This is a lovely place,' Ev said, sipping her after-dinner champagne cocktail.
They were seated in yellow leather chairs at a corner table near a blue-mirrored wall in the Vogue Room off the lobby of the Hollenden Hotel. The Vogue Room was a streamlined, stainless-steel-trimmed nightclub with subdued, reflected illumination. The only light fixture visible was a steel chandelier over the central dance floor.
Ness, his back to the mirrored wall, sipped his Scotch and smiled and said, 'Not what you'd expect of Cleveland, I guess.'
'The town's not living up to its dull reputation. Very cosmopolitan, if you ask me.' She touched his folded hands. 'Eliot… I don't know what to say. I don't know how to thank you.'
'You'll find a way, doll,' he said, and smiled again.
She smiled big, showing pink gums above tiny white teeth; it was not a very cosmopolitan smile, but it appealed a great deal to Eliot Ness. 'It sounds so corny when you call me that. 'Doll.'' She shook her head.
'Do you mind?'
'I don't mind it at all. It's just… it sounds like something some… movie tough guy would call his 'moll.' Jimmy Cagney or somebody. I'm glad they didn't serve grapefruit tonight.'
He laughed. 'Well, I'm supposed to be a gangbuster. Haven't you heard?'
'Of course I've heard,' she said, gently swirling her champagne in its glass, looking down into the liquid as if it were a crystal ball she was trying to see the future in. 'It's just that I've never heard it from you.'
'I don't like to bring my work home.'
'I can understand that. You work long hours. But my work is something I can and really have to take home with me.'
'I told you, doll. You can have the tower for your studio. You can cloister yourself there all you want.'
He was referring to the upper floor of the boathouse.
She squeezed his hand. 'Oh, Eliot… I wish I could move in tomorrow.'
'I wish you could, too. We need to wait awhile.'
She nodded. 'Till after the municipal election.'
'I think it would be wise.' His divorce hadn't been publicized, but it would be if he remarried, particularly if he remarried soon. He wouldn't care to give Mayor Burton's political enemies any ammunition; Burton had won by a landslide last year, but crucial council seats were at stake.
'November seems so far away,' she sighed.
'Well, it'll give us a chance to get you acquainted with the city, and the city acquainted with you.'
'I suppose. But darling… how much distance do we have to keep?'
'Well,' he said, leaning toward her, whispering in her ear, 'I expect you to stay on your side of the bed tonight.'
She kissed her fingertip and placed it on his lips. 'I think I can manage that.'
Soon they were out on the dance floor, gliding to the strains of 'The One I Love Belongs to Somebody Else' as performed, and nicely, by Ina Ray Mutton's all-girl band. The world was bathed in coral lighting. They held each other close; she was a rather tall girl and they made a nice fit.
As the number was concluding, Ina Ray announcing the band's break, he felt a tap on his shoulder, as if someone were cutting in.
He turned and looked into the jade-green eyes of Vivian Chalmers.
'Am I going to have to ask to be introduced?' Viv's voice was cordial and her smile pleasant and white and dazzling; but Ness recognized something hard and hurt lurking in her eyes.
'Of course not,' he said, and gestured. 'Vivian Chalmers, this is Evelyn-'
'MacMillan,' Viv finished, smiling tightly but sincerely, shaking Ev's hand. Ev seemed a little embarrassed. 'You're the talk of the town.'
'Am I?' Ev asked ingenuously.
'Why, of course, dear,' Viv said. 'That's a plum job you pulled down at Higbee's. You must have friends in high places.'
Neither Ness nor Ev knew what to say to that. They just gave her polite smiles, and finally Viv slipped an arm around Ev's shoulder and said, 'Come on. Let's not be enemies.'
'Enemies?'
The two women physically were quite similar; only their hair color and apparel differed. Where Ev wore an evening gown, Viv's slender shape was tucked away in a crisp white flannel mannish suit, pin-striped black, over a black blouse.
Viv looked sharply at Ness. 'Hasn't this insensitive heel even mentioned me to you?'
'I can't say that he has.'
Ness wished he were anywhere else. Picking torso pieces out of the Cuyahoga, for instance.
'We were an item,' Viv said, walking Ev toward a side table. Ness followed like a pet. 'I don't say this to be bitchy. But some bitch will tell you about it-I'm surprised you haven't heard already-so let's get it out in the open.'
'F-fine,' Ev said.
'It's over between this big sap and me. Okay?'
'Okay,' Ev said tentatively.
'Now why don't you join us,' she said, 'for a drink.'
Ev glanced desperately at Ness. He shrugged. This was one rescue he couldn't manage.
And they approached the table where a dark, vaguely dissipated young man in a tux sat gloomily nursing a double Scotch; next to him was a couple, sitting close to each other, holding hands, apparently very much in love. The woman was older than twenty, but not by much, a pretty redhead who worked hard though not successfully at covering her freckles with makeup; she wore a rather low-cut, shiny green gown and, hidden freckles or not, was a fine-looking woman. Her beau was a husky, towheaded guy in white dinner jacket with black tie.
'I'm sure you folks know our celebrated safety director,' Viv said with a casual, almost dismissive nod in Ness's direction, 'but I know you haven't yet had the pleasure of meeting his lovely young dinner companion, Evelyn… what was it, dear?'
'MacMillan,' Ev said, a little confused, since Viv had known her last name a few minutes ago.
'She's a fashion illustrator with Higbee's,' Viv said. 'And this dashing drunken young fellow is Kenneth Morrison-his father is the real estate Morrison, a business which Kenneth seems also to be in, as coincidence would have it.'
The young man smirked at her and lifted his glass.
'And this charming couple is Jennifer Wainright and Lloyd Watterson. They're engaged, they're in love, they're disgusting.'
Watterson, whose blond, sunburned handsomeness was of a baby-face variety, stood and reached a hand out to Ness.
'This is a real pleasure,' he said with a big white smile. 'I've long been an admirer of yours, Mr. Ness.'
Ness shook the somewhat sweaty but very strong hand and smiled back and said, 'Call me Eliot. Isn't your father professor of anatomy at Western Reserve?'
'Why yes he is,' Watterson said, his smile turning crooked. He sat back down.
Ness held a chair for Ev, and then took a chair himself, with his back to the wall, while saying to Watterson, 'Your father was of some help to me, not so long ago.'
