'Huh?' Ness said.
Johnson breathed out heavily and started over. 'Four hoods nobody ever seen before is driving all over the east side in a black Buick, offering five hundred bucks cold cash to anybody who'll cough up the name of any one of our seventy secret witnesses.'
'Damn,' Ness said.
'That's a lot of money,' Curry said breathlessly.
'You think that's a lot of money in the Hollenden Hotel,' Johnson said,
''magine what it is on the east side.'
'I wonder if they're getting any takers,' Chamberlin said.
'I don't know,' Johnson said. 'But it gets worse 'fore it gets better, and it don't get better.' He paused for effect. 'They're offering a thousand clams for the whereabouts of any witness.'
All of the men looked at Ness.
Minor witnesses were holed up in the YMCA, with considerable police protection. But key witnesses were hidden away in a safe house whose location was known only to Ness and his closest safety department associates-Chamberlin, Curry, and Garner-and the handful of crack rookie uniform cops that Ness had hand-picked to stand guard there.
' Ten thousand bucks wouldn't spring that information loose,' Ness said confidently. 'Nobody on the east side even knows the 'whereabouts.' '
Since that was supposed to include Johnson himself, the big Negro cop said, in a barely audible tone, 'The projects.'
The Outhwaite public housing project was a relatively new addition to the east side and one partially completed building, into which tenants weren't due to move for several months, was indeed where Ness was sequestering his key witnesses.
Ness flinched, as if a punch had been thrown. 'How in hell…?'
'Ain't much on the east side that I don't know,' Johnson said flatly. 'And what I don't know, I can figure out.'
'And if you know…'
'I ain't the only smart colored man in Cleveland, Mr. Ness.'
'What do you suggest, Detective Johnson?'
'I suggest we put together a couple of flyin' squads of our own, and go prowlin' the Roarin' Third looking for a black sedan that don't have cops in it.'
Ness was already getting up. 'That, Detective Johnson, is a fine idea.'
Curry, Johnson, and Chamberlin piled into the Negro detective's second-hand Chevy, while Ness and Garner took the EN-1 sedan. Garner, who had lived undercover on the east side for nearly a month in the earliest stages of the investigation, was familiar enough with the territory to guide the way; he in fact drove, while Ness kept an eye out.
It was a Wednesday night, colder than the night before, but the way the streets of the Roaring Third were hopping, it might've been Saturday. Jukeboxes exploded with uptempo music inside saloons burning with neon; colored men in every range of apparel from rags to zoot suits milled up and down the sidewalks, their boisterous voices spanning every human emotion, laughing, shouting, raging; whores decorated street corners and in the recessions of doorways junkies sat on cement steps like potted plants, only babbling. Ness noted with clinical interest the businesses that were undoubtedly numbers drops: tobacco stands, barber shops, news-stands-these wouldn't likely be open at eleven-something at night, otherwise. While he rode, studying this street of barbecue stands, bars, and bedbug-haven hotels, Ness flashed an order over the police radio to pick up the four hoods in the black sedan. Garner kept prowling. They were on Central, now, in the east fifties.
'Something,' Garner said, taking one hand off the wheel to point up ahead.
It was a black sedan, its tail sticking out of an alley, revealing a mud-spattered license plate. The doors were open.
'Pull over,' Ness said, needlessly, because Garner already was.
Ness jumped out of the car, just as it was stopping, and reached absent-mindedly for his gun. All he touched was the empty shoulder holster: He hadn't taken time to fill it.
No matter. The car, a new Buick parked in the middle of an alley next to a dignified two-story brick undertaking parlor, was empty.
Garner had a look inside the car. 'Registered to Roland Rushing.'
'That's the Emperor's brother. Go call it in. Will-have him picked up.'
Ness walked down the alley a ways, not looking for anything in particular. A cat scurried across his path and made him jump, a little. As the darkness of the alley gathered in on him, he suddenly became aware that he was walking unarmed down a ghetto alley, next to a funeral home. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned quickly, ready to swing.
'Easy, boss,' Garner said.
Ness sighed heavily. 'Gave me a start.'
'Carry a gun. You'll live longer. We got trouble-come on.'
Ness followed his old comrade out of the alley, as Garner's words flew out in an uncharacteristic rush: 'I was getting ready to put that APB out on Roland Rushing when I heard the call.'
They were to their sedan, now.
'What call?'
Garner, on the driver's side, looked gravely across the top of the car at Ness, standing on the rider's side. 'The dispatcher said Mrs. John C. Washington called for help-four men broke into her home looking for her husband.'
'Damn! Was she hurt?'
'Don't know.'
'Get the hell over there right now.'
The Hawthorne Avenue area felt even more like a trap tonight, as they turned back east past the fortress-like wall of factories, into the quiet neighborhood where the John C. Washington home had once again been invaded.
Two uniformed patrolmen were inside with the former policy king's queen; one of them stood near Mrs. Washington, who wore a pink satin robe, as she sat on the couch, crying into a handkerchief. The other cop was in the kitchen, applying a damp cloth to the head of a burly fiftyish Negro in sportcoat and no tie, the Washingtons' live-in bodyguard.
The living room had been turned upside-down; not as thorough a job as when the cops had played wrecking crew here a few months before. But thorough enough.
Ness sat next to Mrs. Washington. The slightly plump, very pretty woman looked up with a tear-streaked face, her mouth quivering, her eyes red and frightened and angry.
'We just got this place put back the way it should be,' she said, as hurt as a disappointed child, as bitter as a spurned lover.
'Yes, I know,' Ness said. 'I'm sorry. I wish you would've let us post men here, like I asked.'
'Johnny didn't want that. He said that'd tip everybody off that he was talking. We have bodyguards anyway. That oughta been enough.'
'Yes, it should. But we'll protect you from here on out.'
She was shaking her head emphatically. 'I'm tired of this, I'm so tired of this… first you damn white police ruin, my beautiful house, then more white men, criminals this time, come do the same blessed thing. You're all the damn same. Ain't no difference between you. White crooks, white cops, what's the difference?'
'I know it must seem that way to you, Mrs. Washington.'
Sometimes it seemed that way to Ness. He'd put as many cops in jail as gangsters, in this town.
He squeezed her shoulder gently. 'But it wasn't anybody white who sold you out, tonight.'
She blinked, cocked her head. 'What do you mean?'
'Those same four men who worked you over were riding around the east side earlier this evening, offering money for the names of witnesses.'
Her features tightened. 'You're saying, someone of my race took money to give up Johnny C.?'
