Thirty-fifty Street Bridge.
Ness, Curry, and several other men went through the shacks; it was a pathetically easy job. There were few possessions, and nothing resembling evidence at all, with the exception of a few cardboard boxes from the Market area, which were tagged and kept.
When the job was done, Ness went up to his car and radioed for several more fully manned fire trucks.
As he waited for them to arrive, he noticed that Curry was down amongst the shacks, wandering, hands in pockets, looking glum, like a lone performer caught in the spotlight of the huge searchlight, which was stationary now, no longer probing.
Ness worked his way back down the hill.
'What's wrong?' he asked Curry, walking alongside the restless young detective.
'Wrong?'
'You seem… out of sorts.'
Curry shrugged. Then he shook his head. ' It's wrong.'
'What is?'
'What we did here. These people live here.'
'I know that.'
'I know it doesn't look like much… it isn't much… but it was home to these people.'
Ness put a hand on the detectives shoulder. 'Albert, I know you lived with these people for a while. So it's understandable, how you feel. But don't forget we're helping get them out of harm's way.'
'I know,' he sighed, shaking his head. 'What you said earlier made sense.'
What Ness said earlier, in the briefing, was: 'The removal of the vagrants is for their own protection since, should they remain here, they might well become victims of the Butcher.' But Ness knew the reality was many of them would stay in the Flats, in the Third precinct-somehow, somewhere-and would remain the Butcher's meat.
Curry was saying, 'This effort should help us nail the Butcher. Maybe we nailed him here tonight. Maybe he's being questioned at Central headquarters this very minute.'
'It's possible,' Ness said.
Curry's youthful features contorted. 'But what do they do now? Or anyway, after we spring 'em loose? Where do the poor devils go?'
'They're going to have a choice,' Ness said. 'We're offering one-way train tickets out of town-Mayor Burton got me the money for that this afternoon. Or they can have their cases turned over to the Relief Department, and with a little luck wind up with a CCC or WPA job.'
Curry nodded. Sighed heavily. 'Yeah. Maybe this'll help some of 'em get back on their feet, at that. Still…
'I know, Albert. Look, why don't you go on home. Get some sleep.'
'What about all the questioning we're supposed to do?'
'I've got the vagrants covered. I don't need you. I need you on that other suspect.'
'The one you got the tip on? You think he's a good prospect?'
'Reliable source,' Ness said. 'We're doing a thorough investigation of the guy, soon as we've got this raid behind us, but in the meantime, you keep him under surveillance.'
'Starting when?'
'Starting when you wake up about noon after going home and getting some sleep. Get going. Right now.'
Curry nodded, smiled wearily. 'Okay, Chief. Soon as we're done here.'
'We're done. Take the car. The fire department will give me a ride.'
Curry nodded again and trudged up the hill. He looked back a couple of times at the deserted city of huts, frozen in the searchlight's now-motionless glare.
And now Ness wandered the ghost shantytown, feeling as melancholy as Curry.
It was still dark when, atop the hill, fire engines pulled up, five of them, manned to the hilt. Ness went up and gave instructions all around.
Two companies under Battalion Chief Reece dragged the tin-wood-and-cardboard shacks to the very bottom of the hill, some of the structures disassembling on the way, trailing pieces of themselves. The firemen gathered all of the pieces and tossed them on the pile, poured on coal oil, and torched the whole shebang.
Fingers of flame clawed the air; burning wood crackled and snapped. Soon the sound built to a roar, and the flames to a conflagration-albeit a controlled one. The night turned orange.
Ness stood staring down into what he'd wrought.
The fire was so bright, Ness barely noticed dawn. A cloud of gray smoke hovered over Kingsbury Run. On- lookers began to gather at the top of the hill.
'Just like Anacostia,' a middle-aged, stubble-cheeked man in a workshirt said to himself. Hands in his pockets, eyes glazed. He was standing next to Ness.
'Anacostia?' Ness asked.
The man glanced at Ness's suit and tie and smiled knowingly, said, 'You don't look like you was in the Bonus Army.'
'I wasn't,' Ness said.
'The big boys burned that Hooverville, too,' the man said expressionlessly, then turned and disappeared into the crowd.
CHAPTER 17
On Thursday, just after noon, Sam Wild sat at a small white-metal triangular table under a colorful umbrella and waited for Vivian Chalmers. The little outdoor cafe in the shadow of Terminal Tower was doing a brisk business; and the predominant topic of conversation here, and elsewhere in Cleveland for that matter, was the burning of shantytown.
Most folks appeared pleased that the city's worst eyesore had been removed, but others were annoyed at the rashness of the safety director's action. The sky was clear now, but all morning a gray smoke-cloud had hung over Kingsbury Run and drifted over downtown Cleveland as well. In the areas bordering the Run in the early morning hours, people awakened by the noise and/or glare ran to windows and thought the city was on fire. Telephones at police headquarters and at the local papers had rung off the hook.
As for Sam Wild, he was pissed off.
Specifically, he was pissed off at Eliot Ness, whose ass he wanted to chew out, the way his own ass had been chewed out all morning by his city editor. It really steamed him, thinking about all those coy remarks of Eliot's about private parties and bums and cops, at the country club last night…
As yet today, though, Wild hadn't been able to see the safety director, who was still burrowed in at Central headquarters questioning the dozens of vagrants pulled in on the two shantytown raids.
Vivian breezed in around twelve-fifteen. She was smiling and looked girlishly fresh; but something off-kilter lurked in the jade eyes, and her usually smooth brow was creased. She wore a pale orange dress; she sat, crossing her pretty brown legs.
'Thanks for meeting me,' Vivian said.
'My pleasure.'
'Speaking of which… about the other night…'
Wild waved it off, saying, 'We were both a little drunk. Forget it.' Then he grinned at her. 'Just don't ask me to.'
They were served lemonade and little ham-and-cheese and lettuce-and-tomato sandwiches with the crusts trimmed off the toasted bread. He wondered if there was a story in the missing crusts; he could use a scoop right now.
She smiled as she nibbled her sandwich.
'Looks like Eliot was a busy boy last night,' she said.
'Yeah, right,' Wild said disgustedly.
