Then Gordon said, 'Eliot, do you know what you're asking? I was almost killed.' He turned and looked around, saying to his fellow businessmen, 'Do you know what it's like to duck a damn tommy gun?'
'Yes,' Ness said.
There were some smiles in the audience.
Then Gordon turned back to Ness, and had to smile a little. He said sheepishly, 'That was meant to be a rhetorical question.'
'Vern. Find a seat. Hear me out.'
Gordon sighed, shook his head, and with an air of resignation moved back down the row to his seat; but he sat with arms crossed and the expression of one who would be hard to sell.
A man stood in the back row.
'Mr. Ness,' he said, 'my name's Wilson-I have a shoe store on Euclid. I frankly don't know why I was invited here today. I paid a certain amount of tribute to Big Jim and Little Jim when I remodeled recently. I considered that a business expense. But when they came around wanting more, wanting me to kick in to this so-called window washers union, I drew the line. I told 'em to go fuh-Well, it's a physical impossibility, but I encouraged 'em to give it the old college try.'
There were more smiles, and some nods. Others in the room had shared similar experiences.
'Some of you,' Ness said, reaching in his inside coat pocket and withdrawing several folded, stapled sheets, 'are here because you are on this list.'
Like something choreographed for a Busby Berkley movie musical, every man in the audience sat forward, interested, alert.
'I should say, blacklist. I have obtained a copy of this infamous, legendary document, and it includes a good number of you, gentlemen. Some of you have been marked for vandalism that has not yet occurred. I would venture to say, Mr. Wilson, that your store windows will not last the month out. Others of you are not to be sold glass under any circumstances. Right now your windows are boarded up, and will stay that way, until you pay tribute to the two Jims-if they have their way, that is. This list has been circulated to every glass company in the city.'
He nodded to Captain Savage, who began to pass out copies, one per row.
'A few copies of the list are being handed out among you now,' Ness said. 'Have a quick look, find your name if you like, then pass it along. Don't keep it. We'll be collecting these as you go.'
Gordon stood again. 'Where did you get that list?'
'I'm not at liberty to say.'
'Will it hold up in court?'
'Prosecutor Cullitan tells me it has evidential value, yes.'
Gordon's skeptical expression faded as he sat back down, hands on his knees now.
'And today,' Ness said, 'another interesting piece of information found its way to my office-courtesy of the IRS, a group that probably is not high on any of your personal lists.' The remark brought murmurs of mild amusement. 'However, I think we owe the Internal Revenue Service a debt of gratitude in this instance. Their records indicate that James Caldwell is the owner of Acme Brothers Glass Works-which Captain Savage tells me has a lock on better than fifty percent of the market in Cleveland. Not only is Caldwell breaking your windows, gentlemen, and taking payoffs for allowing union glaziers to replace those broken windows, and hitting you up for washing those windows once they've been replaced… he's selling you the damn windows. It's his glass.'
'And our ass,' somebody in back said.
Now there was widespread laughter, but it died out quickly, choking on its own bitterness.
Ness raised a hand and an eyebrow. 'Gentlemen, you have heard me, and my staff members, speak of 'safety in numbers.' Look around you. I will promise you now that if I can't find sixty of you to testify, I won't ask any one of you to.'
The men began to look at each other, surprised by such an extreme statement.
'This inquiry is a wide-ranging one,' Ness said. 'I'm already in the process of gathering witnesses from outside the city, specifically businessmen who have been driven from Cleveland because of the tribute these gangsters demand. We will go to the grand jury with an unbeatable case, or we won't go at all. That's my pledge to those of you who are willing to get involved.'
Gordon stood again; this time he seemed almost embarrassed. 'Eliot, much of what you say makes sense. You're making a convincing case, I admit that. But I have a family. We're many of us, most of us, family men.'
'And you're testifying against gangsters,' Ness said, nodding. 'Your concerns are well-founded. But I promise you we will maintain strict secrecy as to the identities of the witnesses when the case goes to the grand jury. We'll allow no newspaper pictures taken in the courtroom. And we'll post police details at the homes of witnesses, making every effort to provide the maximum of protection.'
Gordon sat back down, slowly.
'I don't want any of you to tell me today, at this meeting, what you've decided. In order to maintain secrecy, we'll contact you individually. It was not my intention, today, to gather all of you together to put you on the spot.'
That eased the tension in the air, somewhat. And Ness could sense that he'd won, or was winning. He could see it in the faces. In the eyes.
'The Cleveland experience with labor racketeering in recent years,' Ness said, 'has been costly indeed. Construction has been choked. Building costs have soared. Vandalism has cost businessmen like yourselves, not to mention the public, thousands upon thousands of dollars. It has to stop. You have to stop it, gentlemen.'
A man off to the left stood. Ness recognized him as Oscar Reynolds, who ran a men's clothing shop in the Old Arcade.
'No offense, Mr. Ness,' Reynolds said, 'but aren't you making this out to be something rather larger than it is? This is a small-time extortion racket, not Al Capone.'
Ness smiled knowingly. 'Al Capone, or what he has come to represent, is exactly what this is. I am convinced that the labor racketeering in this city is tied into the national network of organized crime. The bootlegging gangsters who were orphaned by Repeal, gentlemen, quickly found other things to do with their talents
… and breaking your windows, and charging you for the privilege, is one of them.'
He let that sink in for a moment, then he said, 'Thank you for your time,' and quickly stepped down from the podium and left the room, even as Captain Savage was collecting the copies of the blacklist.
CHAPTER 14
Jack Whitehall took two pork chops off the platter and passed it to dinner guest Sam Wild. Whitehall's wife Sarah, in her blue-and-white print dress and white apron, finally took a seat in the small, blindingly white kitchen. Their two girls-Jane, six, and Dorrie, four-had eaten earlier and were in the living room, playing dolls.
'Delicious, Mrs. Whitehall,' Wild said. For a skinny guy, he was putting the food away pretty good.
Both men wore suits and ties and, despite eating in the kitchen, there was an air of formality about the occasion.
'Thank you, Mr. Wild,' Sarah said. And she smiled shyly and took a bite of her homemade applesauce.
Whitehall loved his wife very much; she was as attractive as the day he met her, back in Chicago, some ten years before. But her quiet femininity masked a streak of bad temper, as Whitehall well knew. When he stepped out on her, during her first pregnancy, and she found out about it, she had come at him with a rolling pin. Just like Maggie in 'Bringing Up Father,' only it didn't strike him as funny: it just struck him.
Hell, he wouldn't have her any other way. He liked her quiet manner, but he also liked her passion. He had never stepped out on her since, and swore to himself he never would again. He loved her too goddamn much, and besides, who needed another skull fracture?
'These pork chops are to die for,' Wild said, patting his face with a napkin.
Sarah smiled shyly.
'Of course,' the reporter said slyly, 'I always suspected you were an unrepentant pork-chopper, Jack.'
A 'pork-chopper' was, of course, a fat-salaried, do nothing union official.
Whitehall smiled thinly. 'Nobody ever called me that to my face before, Sam-even jokingly. Nobody ever felt
