squeaking rolled on and faded and, finally, left them alone again.
Whitehall let some more light in from the inner office and said, 'Nothing in the receptionist's drawers.' Then he smiled. 'Actually, I've seen the dame. There's plenty in her drawers.'
Wild laughed a little at that; he was pleased to see some humor and humanity in the hulking Teamster. 'Let me just finish up this closet,' the reporter said.
It was a supply closet. Actual work was done out here. Typing paper, ribbons, various forms and application blanks neatly boxed and shelved.
And, in a box on the upper shelf, a stack of stapled sheets; each document, four mimeograph pages in length, listed various merchants in the city of Cleveland. A cover sheet, on Window Washers Union letterhead, said, 'The following have been deemed unfair to our local.'
Wild took one copy and put the box back on its high shelf.
His nervousness was gone, but he was, suddenly, famished.
Whitehall, who had come up behind him, was looking over Wild's shoulder at the list of business addresses.
'Want to blow this dump and get a bite to eat?' Wild asked the Teamster. 'I hear that little one-arm joint next door ain't bad. All the cops eat there.'
CHAPTER 13
The mahogany-paneled, marble-floored banquet room on the twelfth floor of the Hollenden Hotel was packed with restless humanity. More than one hundred of the one hundred and twenty-five whose presence had been requested by Chamber of Commerce president Frank Darby had shown up for the afternoon meeting, which had been given the vaguely compelling title, 'Cleveland's Brighter Business Tomorrow: A Plan of Action.'
The businessmen, seated in chairs facing the riser on which a lectern awaited a speaker, had no notion of the real reason for the gathering. Cigar and cigarette smoke and impatient murmuring mingled in the air.
Eliot Ness, the man who had unbeknownst to them called this meeting, was late.
He had been caught going out the door of his office by a phone call. But that phone call had been important enough to risk the annoyance of the captive audience that awaited him a few blocks away.
'Eliot,' the voice said, 'how is Cleveland treating you?'
'Fine, Elmer,' Ness said, sitting back down at his rolltop desk. 'Are you calling from Washington?'
Elmer Irey was the chief of the Special Intelligence Unit of the Internal Revenue Service. Irey had been the Treasury Department counterpart of Justice Department agent Ness in the two-pronged federal assault on Al Capone.
'I am calling from Washington,' Irey said. 'I'm not out in the field much these days, I'm afraid.'
'I doubt they can keep you behind a desk for long.'
'Well…' Irey trailed off.
Irey was a modest, soft-spoken, genuinely nice man; but Ness had a somewhat awkward, strained relationship with him. This stemmed from two things: Ness and his 'untouchables' had gotten much more press attention in the Capone bust than their IRS allies; and Ness had let Irey know he didn't approve of the Treasury Department going along with a plea bargain for Capone, which to the embarrassment of Irey and others was rejected derisively by the judge in the case.
'Were you able to check out those returns for me, Elmer? I know I'm trying to do a bit of an end run by coming to you…'
'Nonsense. We've helped each other before, and I trust we'll help each other again. Although I'm afraid I may not have been of much help, in this instance. Both Mr. Caldwell and Mr. McFate would appear to be law-abiding citizens, at least as regards their taxes. They file returns-on six-figure incomes, I might add-and pay their Uncle Sam his due.'
'They do a lot of cash business. Payoffs under viaducts, back-alley bribes, that kind of thing.'
'Well,' Irey sighed, 'we might well turn that up in a full investigation. And I would certainly take it seriously if you felt such an investigation was worth my unit's time. But I don't have to tell you the difficulty of tracing such transactions.'
'No,' Ness said, trying to keep his disappointment, his weariness, out of his voice. 'You certainly don't. And I'm afraid the job you did on the Capones and Guzik and Nitti, in Chicago, have taught a lot of these hoodlums that the tax laws are the ones they best not break.'
'I wish I could be of more help.'
'It's generous of you to bend the rules like this, Elmer, in any case.'
'Well, there was one item of possible interest.'
That perked Ness back up. 'Yes?'
'A good share of Caldwell's income is derived from a company called Acme Brothers Glass Works.'
Ness scribbled the name on a notepad. 'What do you mean 'derived,' exactly?'
'Well, it's his company. He owns it.'
Rushing out of the office, heading over to the Hollenden on foot, Ness turned to Captain Savage of the Vandal Squard, who was accompanying him to the meeting, and said, 'Ever hear of the Acme Brothers Glass Works?'
'Sure,' Savage said, and filled him in.
Minutes later Ness was entering the back of the banquet room, looking across the sea of heads to the dais, where Frank Darby, small and bald and ardent, was patting the air and saying, 'Our speaker will be here momentarily, gentlemen… your patience, please!'
Ness caught Darby's eye, and Darby smiled and took a seat on the small stage while Ness moved up the center aisle. As people saw who their speaker on 'Cleveland's Better Business Tomorrow' actually was, a wave of discontent moved quickly across the room.
Ness took the stage but did not stand behind the lectern. He raised a hand in a stop motion, as if trying to hold back the tide of irritation.
'I'm sure you all feel taken advantage of,' Ness said, 'by Mr. Darby and myself. Many of you have spoken either to me, or to members of my staff, about the labor racketeering problem in Cleveland, as it applies to you individually and collectively. And all of you, to a man, have sent me and my men packing.'
Seated about midway in the room, Vernon Gordon stood. He was white with anger. 'I am a busy man, Mr. Ness. We are all busy men. We've every one of us told you how we feel about this matter.'
Smiling gently, Ness shook his head. 'No you haven't, Vern. You haven't begun to tell me how you feel. You've told me what you've decided to do for the sake of expediency. For the sake of business.'
Gordon spoke through his teeth; he wore indignation like a second skin. 'The taxpayers don't pay our salaries, Mr. Ness. We are in business. We have to be open for business, every day. You make it sound like we're doing something wrong, by trying to keep our businesses open and thriving.'
Ness looked hard at the man. 'You are doing something wrong. You're in tacit collusion with these venal bastards. And you damn well know it, Vern.'
'I don't have to listen to this,' Gordon said, and began to edge his way out to the aisle.
'I said you haven't told me how you feel about the labor racketeering problem. But I know how you feel, Vern-you and every man in this room. You're mad as hell that you have to deal with these bastards. You're mad as hell with yourselves for giving in to them.'
Gordon halted in the aisle; he turned and looked at Ness and said, 'Just what would you suggest we do?'
Ness spread his arms, opened his hands. 'Look around you. Look how many of you there are. Look at how many of the most successful-I would even say powerful-men in this city are sitting in this room. And this group, this successful, powerful group, is letting itself be pushed around by two petty hoodlums. Just because it's easier to pay 'em off than stand up to them.'
Gordon's arms were at his side. 'You want us to testify.'
'You're goddamn right I want you to testify.'
Silence hung in the room.
