imposing granite structures of downtown Cleveland to head down East Ninth Street toward the vile east-side area nicknamed the Bucket of Blood. They turned onto Scovill Avenue, a nightmarish slum street that ran from 55th Street to 14th Street on the edge of the Negro district. Late afternoon was blurring into early evening and those neons and street lamps that weren't broken or burned-out smoldered in the twilight and helped make a world that was all too real seem unreal.
The Bucket of Blood was an urban swamp of squalid cold-water tenements, ramshackle warehouses, filthy junk yards, and rat-infested garbage dumps. Mangy dogs and cats scurried; white eyes in dark faces looked with suspicion at the sedan as it glided by like an apparition. It was a street where addicts, bums, and winos mingled with honest out-of-work laborers and kids who scampered down streets littered with garbage, broken glass, and dog shit. This sordid world, Ness realized, was Toussaint Johnson's beat.
The Boll Weevil Bar was on the comer of Scovill and 35th, next door to a nameless flophouse. The long narrow boxcar of a bar had an endless counter at left with a scattering of tables along the right; the floor was covered with soggy sawdust. A few neon beer signs glowed on the walls and provided most of what little light there was; the air was stale and smoky and rippled with the strains of a Fats Waller tune, 'I Want a Little Girl to Call My Own,' from a colorful jukebox squeezed in the far corner. Two burly bartenders were working the customers, and looked capable of serving up ball bats as well as brews. The bar stools were filled with weary working men and petty hustlers and a few hard-eyed whores. Most of the tables were taken, too, primarily by drunks sleeping on their folded arms.
At one of the tables, with his back to the wall, was a big, angular-featured Negro in a dark brown suit that looked slept-in and a black fedora that looked run-over by a car, or maybe a truck. He was drinking a beer without any apparent enthusiasm. His angular eyes had a sleepy look, but that was deceptive: They didn't miss a thing.
Ness and Curry, the only white men in the place, were given the once-over by perhaps a third of the clientele. A good proportion were drunk or didn't give a damn. The two detectives approached the big angular Negro, who sat alone.
'Toussaint Johnson?' Ness asked. 'Detective Johnson?'
Johnson nodded. He rose and offered his hand. 'Director Ness. Pleasure.'
Ness shook the man's hand-it was a firm, dry grip that didn't try to prove anything, was just naturally strong. 'This is Detective Curry. He's on my personal staff.'
Johnson and Curry nodded at each other; they did not shake hands.
'Take a load off,' Johnson said. 'Buy you a beer?'
'Sure,' Ness said.
Johnson got up and went over and got three beers at the bar. His suitcoat was open and the strap of his shoulder holster showed; the bulges of big guns were obvious under either arm. He was called by some 'Two-Gun' Toussaint, Ness understood.
Johnson sat the three beers sloshingly down and the men each took one.
'Here's to crime,' Johnson said, raising his glass.
'We'd be out of work without it,' Ness admitted, and took a drink of the tepid beer.
'How'd did you find me?' Johnson asked.
Curry said, 'Your desk sergeant said you usually stopped in here when you got off duty.'
Johnson nodded. 'It's a friendly little place.'
'Unlike the Elite Cabaret,' Ness said. 'I understand you're working that case.'
'Oh yeah.'
'How do you read it?'
Johnson's smile was barely there. 'Knife fights on this side of town ain't no big deal. Usually.'
'Usually. Something unusual about this one?'
'Well, this has all three players windin' up real dead. Two got their throats cut, one got stuck in the belly. How's that happen, exactly? Does a fella who's got his throat cut up and stick another fella in the belly? Or does a guy gut-stuck waltz over and cut another fella's throat? How does that happen, exactly?'
'I don't think it could.'
Johnson's smile widened, but showed no teeth. Calmly he said, 'We found a topcoat in a garbage can.'
'So I hear,' Ness said.
'Had a label from some fancy haberdashery in Terminal Tower. A white man's topcoat, you ask me.'
'Well, I am. Asking you.'
Johnson nodded. 'Blood all over the top part. Blood type matches one of the dead fellas-Leroy Simmons. Kind of a spurtin' pattern on the coat.'
'Splashed there,' Ness said, 'when somebody's throat got cut.'
'Exactly.'
'What does it add up to?'
Johnson shrugged. 'Adds up to the Pittsburgh boys has all packed up and gone home. The east side is Lombardi's again, and the odds on the numbers is back to 500 to 1. Is what it adds up to.'
'I'd like that coat,' Ness said. 'Maybe we can track the owner.'
'I could use some help at that,' Johnson said, and sipped his beer.
'So could I. I've been checking up on you, Johnson. Your record is good. Damn good.'
Johnson's smile flashed white, suddenly. 'If I wasn't already on the force, you think I could get on?'
That stung Ness, and it was close to impertinent; but he had to give the man his balls for making the remark.
'Yes I do,' Ness said. 'You have a high school education, and you served in the war, and well. I'd like a hundred like you.'
'Maybe you would,' Johnson said. 'That way the Call and Post might get off your ass.'
Curry swallowed and looked at his boss. Ness was impassive for a moment, but then he laughed.
'You're so right,' Ness said. 'Are you interested in working with me, and my staff, on this numbers investigation?'
'I thought you'd never ask,' Johnson said, smiling again, but not whitely.
'You have a personal stake in this, after all.'
'Yes I do. You got a right to know this, Mr. Ness. I was a friend of Rums Murphy, the policy king. Before I was a cop, I was a bouncer in a place of his. Anyway. He was shot right in front of my eyes. I'm sure it was Lombardi's doing, and Scalise. I swore over my friend's bleeding body I'd get those bastards.'
'Why haven't you? You've been a cop all these years.'
Johnson laughed; it was as explosive as it was brief. 'Mr. Ness, before you started kickin' these crooked cops outa their cushy jobs, nobody was a cop in this town, badge or not. There was pressure and there was politics and there was a lot of money floatin' around up above me. All of that kept me from doin' anything about going after Murphy's killers. I was ordered off that case. I was told if I went near it, I'd be off the damn force.'
'I'm surprised that stopped you.'
'It didn't. I been talkin' to people for years. I know dozens of witnesses who could put those tally bastards behind bars. But I can't get nobody to talk in public.'
'Are we still up against that? Is this a dead end?'
Johnson shook his head, no. 'Not if we team up, you and me. Without me, you can't do it. You don't know who to talk to. You wouldn't know how to talk to 'em, if you knew who to talk to. I know. Who. And how.'
'But you've known that for five years, and what has it got you?'
'Not a damn thing-except, I know where the bodies is buried. Better still, I know who knows where the bodies is buried. And with my street savvy, and you to back me up, we can find witnesses, all right.'
Ness's eyes narrowed. 'My backing you up will do that?'
'It will. The east side may not love you, Mr. Ness, but they trust you to do what you say you'll do. They know you're not crooked. They know when you say you'll protect a witness, you'll protect a witness. That union deal proved that. Together, Mr. Ness, we can turn Mayfield Road into a goddamn parkin' lot.'
Ness grinned. 'You come through for me. Detective Johnson, and you'll be the first Negro sergeant on the force.'
'I was hopin' for chief,' Johnson said, deadpan. 'But I'll settle.'
