The dark city en-1

by Max Allan Collins

  By way of explanation, Ness tapped the gold badge on his topcoat lapel. The guy's eyes went wide, or as wide as they could. He was a man whose ugly face had been made uglier by punching, an ex-pug in his late thirties, wearing a cap, a plaid shirt, and faded brown slacks.

  "I saw you hit the buzzer," Ness told the pug. "And you're sitting by the only window in the place you can see out of. You're the lookout. You're under arrest."

  The lookout squinted his eyes in something like thought. He got up slowly, brushing dirt off himself; the Club Cafe wasn't spotless, nor was this guy's record, most likely.

  Then he shoved Ness with both hands, and Ness went back against a table, bumping it hard, where a couple of factory workers were eating; one of them said, "Hey!"

  And the lookout was out the door.

  "Let him go," Ness said, as Cooper leaned out the front door, gun in hand. "Let's get upstairs before Heller gets trampled out the back way."

  A skinny, weathered woman who'd been a waitress longer than Ness had been alive was pouring coffee for a customer at one of the tables near the door that led upstairs, unimpressed by the presence of the police. Ness asked her if she'd unlock the door. She sat down mutely at the table, joining the startled customer. Ness shrugged and walked over and kicked the door in.

  With Ness in the lead they went up the two flights of stairs three at a time, guns in hand, whisking by the second-floor landing, and soon were on another landing, facing a second locked door, which Ness also splintered.

  "Do they pay you by the door?" Savage asked with a grin.

  "That's an idea," Ness said, and as he led them into the bookie joint.

  The room was large; it had once been the hotel's ballroom, taking up nearly the entire upper floor. Red warning lights, high up on the walls, were still flashing to signal the raid. Ness' estimation of the number of patrons-men and a few women, a mixed bag running from workers to high-hats-seemed low. There were at least a hundred customers on hand. The flashing lights had kept them from going down the front stairs, and they were mobbed about the rear exit, jammed there, panicking, shouting. Heller, apparently, was blocking the way.

  Ness shouted out: "If you're not an employee, you won't be arrested! Stay where you are!"

  That settled them down. They started to mill about, but stayed over by the rear exit.

  The high-ceilinged room had the usual wall of payoff windows and huge blackboard where racing results were posted, but there was also a scattering of blackjack tables. Against the racing-results wall were seven men, employees apparently, wearing white shirts and black pants, their hands against the bottom of the blackboard. Ness' five fresh-faced rookies, dressed in business suits, were holding revolvers on the seven.

  The McGrath detective, Mike McCune, who at twenty-six was older than the rookies by some distance, approached Ness with a pleased grin.

  "Sorry to spoil your fun," McCune said, gun in hand, "but once those lights started flashin', we figured we oughta shut this place down."

  "Nice job of it, too," Ness said, holstering his revolver under his left arm. He took off his topcoat and slung it over a chair at a blackjack table. "Let's get to work," he said.

  Ness sat the seven employees down at two adjacent blackjack tables. One of them, a horse-faced, one-armed man of about forty, said he was Nick Selby, the manager. Savage seemed to know Selby, whispering to Ness that this was "One-Arm Nick, the famous blackjack dealer." Famous in Cleveland, maybe; Chicago boy Ness had never heard of him.

  At any rate, he put Savage in charge of getting Selby's statement, and had two rookies stand watch on the other six, instructing the eager beavers to put their guns away. He put the other three rookies in charge of taking the names and addresses of the patrons, and then releasing them.

  The rookies had frisked the employees already and found no weapons, but in the pockets of the three cashiers were envelopes of money with the stamp of Tommy Fink's Bainbridge Race Track.

  Heller came up the back stairs and joined them, taking in the big bookie joint and shaking his head.

  "I can't believe I helped shut this down," Heller said.

  "Why?" Ness asked.

  "I like to make a bet now and then myself."

  "So do I," Ness said.

  "Then what's the idea?"

  "Any police department that lets gambling operate openly is a corrupt department."

  "Yeah," Heller said. "So?"

  Ness smiled and said, "Go downstairs and get yourself a drink. Put it on your expense account."

  Heller put a hand on Ness' shoulder. "This means a lot to me. I guess I'm really one of the 'untouchables,' now, huh?"

  "Don't touch me," Ness said, plucking off Heller's hand with a mock nasty look, making the private detective laugh. Then Heller went down for a drink while Ness began going over the premises methodically.

  Cooper accompanied Ness to the office behind the payoff windows. On the floor, splayed open face-down where the cashiers had discarded them when the warning lights started flashing, were the ledger books in which bets were recorded. A scattering of cash, also dropped by the fleeing cashiers, littered the floor with green, together with curls of adding-machine paper-each window had its own machine. A big safe in the office stood open, containing several hundred in cash, but, more importantly, revealing books and various other papers stacked within. Ness began thumbing through a volume.

  "These are very complete records," he said. "Daily business summary sheets. Lord, they're making a killing here. Daily totals of receipts range from five to ten grand."

  Cooper whistled softly.

  Ness ran his finger down a ledger page. "Here's a typical day. Overhead is minimal, to say the least. They're paying ten bucks a day for the wire service, ten more for racing forms and scratch sheets, nine for rent… get this: 'D.P., seventeen dollars.' "

  "What do you make of that?" Cooper asked.

  " 'Daily payoff,' " Ness said.

  "Or 'department of police,' " Cooper offered.

  "Either way," Ness shrugged. He knelt and traced a finger across the spines of the books within the safe. "Damn. These things go back to '29. Ha. I'd say there's a good chance we've got Tommy Fink, councilman's brother or not."

  "How so? The judges won't back you up on this. We're looking at the same old suspended sentences and nothin' fines."

  Ness stood. "Doesn't matter. There's enough here to call in the tax boys."

  "I get it," Cooper said, smiling. "You're talking income tax evasion, not gambling."

  "It worked in Chicago," Ness said, and went out in the other room, where Savage approached him and spoke sotto voce.

  "They copped to it, all of 'em but One-Arm Nick: recording bets, running the wire service, dealing blackjack. We got a good bust here."

  "What about this One-Arm character?"

  "He's protecting Tommy Fink."

  Ness walked over and smiled and sat down next to the one-armed man. "We know for a fact Fink owns this building."

  "I heard that myself," Nick said. He was smoking a cigarette, trying to look calm. He wasn't.

  "So you admit you work for him."

  "I don't work for anybody. I run this place."

  "So you just rent the room from Fink then."

  "Naw. I rent it from somebody else."

  "Who?"

  He shrugged. "Funny. I never caught his name."

  "Funny," Ness said, and stood, calling to the rookies. "Get a Black Maria and haul them to the jug. The Ninth Precinct, not the Eighth. We'll get a stenographer and get down their stories." He looked at Fink's men. "You can all have a restful night in jail till you get your fines and suspended sentences tomorrow."

  The men at the two tables grinned at each other.

  Ness put a hand on the back of Nick's chair and said, "Of course, your evening's not going to be so restful, Nick."

  "Yeah? Why not?"

  "I'm going to have some nice bright lights set up, and then I'm sending somebody out to look for your arm."


  "My arm? What…?"

  Ness smiled pleasantly and said, "I've never conducted an interrogation at the Ninth Precinct before. They may not have any rubber hoses handy. We may need something to beat you over the head with."

  Nick didn't like the sound of that.

  It took several hours to cart out the gambling equipment and the stacks of records, which the rookies loaded into paddy wagons from the Central Station. Spectators gathered, perhaps a hundred of them, braving the cold to witness this unheard-of event: a successful gambling raid in Cleveland.

  Heller was sitting in the Club Cafe drinking coffee, not rum, when Ness came down to leave for the precinct house.

  "How much cash was up there?" Heller asked.

  "A couple grand," Ness said, "more or less. Today's receipts."

  "Healthy little operation."

  "It isn't feeling so good now."

  Heller stood, yawned. "For a guy who likes excitement, Eliot, you seem determined to turn the world into a dull damn place."

  "That kid we saw in the ditch," Ness said, moving out into the chill evening, Heller following, "isn't in the world at all, anymore. Dull or exciting."

  "Well, I get your point, and this town sure could use some cleaning up. Just don't overdo it. Need me anymore tonight? Any of your cop pals need rides home?"

  "No, Nate, on either count. Thanks for your help."

  "You coming home tonight? Or are you heading out to the boathouse again?"

  "The boathouse. You'll have the apartment to yourself tonight."

  "Not necessarily," Heller said, smiling a little, tipping his hat, pushing through the throng of spectators and heading for his car.

  Under bright lights at the Ninth, One-Arm Nick Selby didn't change his story. Ness, who didn't use either a rubber hose or a dismembered limb during questioning, took satisfaction in simply ruining Nick's evening, and complicating his life. He wanted Nick to give serious consideration to a new line of work, or at least a change of scenery. And he wanted to send a message to the Mayfield Road mob, and to gamblers like Fink, and to Fink's councilman brother, as well.

  It was almost midnight when Ness left the Ninth Precinct house, and nearly one A.M. when he reached suburban Lakewood. He pulled into the private drive, checking in with the guard in the little booth, before heading down the winding drive to the nest of cottages and boathouses, one of which was now a hideaway of sorts for him.

  The boathouse, on Clifton Lagoon in the ritziest part of Lakewood, was a fringe benefit compliments of Mayor Burton's friend Alexander Wynston. Legally, the safety director had to maintain a residence in Cleveland; he had to have a listing in the city directory, so the Lake Avenue apartment had to stay, death-threat phone calls and all.

  But Ness wanted a place where he could get away, where he could spend some time alone or with a lady friend, like Gwen Howell, without having to worry about the prying eyes of neighbors. Even with the papers on his side, gossip could get around and do damage.

  So Burton had arranged this additional residence for him, the third counting the Bay Village house where Evie was, but he hadn't set foot out there since they moved. Ness had been staying here most evenings for several weeks now, leaving his apartment to Heller.

  For a relatively small building, the boathouse looked massive, its design-like a castle, with two stories of gray stone topped by a squat tower-setting it apart from the more traditional frame structures of the surrounding cottages. Its yard was walled off with more gray stone, and there was even a moat of sorts, frozen over now.

  Ness didn't feel much like a king, however, even if a queen of a woman waited within, probably long since asleep. He felt like a very tired cop. He parked the car in front of his castle, behind Gwen's little Chevy coupe, and paused to look at the front yard, which was Lake Erie. The lake was just across the drive, or anyway the lagoon that became the lake was-an endless stretch of gray-blue in the moonlight.

  He wondered whether tonight had been a triumph or a disaster. The papers would love the story and the mayor would get the best Ness publicity yet. But Tommy Fink's brother on the city council would hardly be happy. Somehow he couldn't make himself care. He had done his job. What the hell else could they ask of him? He was a tired cop who'd done his job.

  Then he let go of the thoughts and wandered into the boathouse without turning on any lights. He hung his topcoat in the hall and drifted into the living room which took up half the lower floor; its pale yellow stucco walls were trimmed with dark wood, and occasional wildlife paintings and prints gave the place a male ambiance. He tossed his jacket on a chair and loosened his tie and dropped himself into a soft brown sofa in front of the fireplace, wishing it were going. He thought, for a moment, about sitting in front of the fireplace with Evie, back in Bay Village.

  "It's not too late," a female voice said.

  For a moment he thought it was Evie.

  But of course it was Gwen. She was in a sheer blue nightgown. Even in the dim light, he could see the lovely shape of her, the generous breasts, the supple muscles of her stomach, the blonde triangle, the sleek legs. Evie would never have worn such a gown. Evie was no prude, but neither was she forward. Gwen was a modern, anything-but-modest woman. He liked this quality in her, but was nonetheless a little thrown by it. He wondered if he'd ever get used to it.

  "Too late?" he asked.

  She settled in next to him. "For a fire. We could still build a fire."

  "Let's just go to bed."

  "Did you have anything to eat? I could fix you something."

  "Let's just go to bed."

  "And sleep?"

  "We can negotiate that."

  "I don't know why I'm even speaking to you."

  "Oh?"

  "You said you'd be home early tonight. I didn't know you meant early in the one-in-the-morning sense."

  Ness winced. "I'm so tired I forgot to apologize."

  "You also forgot to call."

  "I know. I know. I'm a heel."

  "You just get caught up in your work. Don't apologize for it. I admire that in you."

  "You do now. It'll wear thin eventually."

  "Think so? Did you have a good day?"

  "Not bad. Not bad at all. Your father was in on it. We finally hit that place you made the calls to in the Eighth Precinct."

  "Really?"

  Briefly he told her about the raid.

  "It makes me think all this trouble is worth it," he said.

  "How's that?"

  "Well, when I see old-time cops like your father and Savage pitching in with those rookies, busting the biggest bookie joint in town, suddenly I stop feeling like I'm chipping away at an iceberg with an ice pick. Suddenly I start feeling like maybe this job can really be done. If the clock doesn't stop ticking first."

  "Clock?"

  "Never mind. Never mind…"

  "I have faith in you, Eliot. I know you can do anything you put your mind to."

  "Do you? Do you, really?"

  "Sure. I'll show you."

  "Hmmm?"

  "Upstairs," she said, and took him by the hand.

  CHAPTER 20

  It struck Ness as especially ironic that Cuyahoga, the river from which the county took its name, took as its name an Indian word for "crooked." The Indians surely had nothing metaphorical in mind for the river, which snaked crazily through the industrial valley Cleveland residents called the Flats. Steel mills and factories and warehouses sprawled throughout this bottomland area; loading machinery lurked like prehistoric beasts turned to framework iron, lording it over a flat prospering wasteland of decaying docks, iron-ore hills, industrial debris, and railroad tracks. Flames licked the gray sky and clouds of smoke mingled with it, a study in progress and its price. The skeletal steel structures of the various bridges spanning the valley cast shadows upon the land, like those of the Depression itself, which had cut into but hardly halted the activity of the industrial Flats. During the day, the Flats had a solemn, scarred beauty, the mak
ings of a prize-winning black-and-white photograph. But to Ness, day or night, the Flats remained a mystery. To a Chicago boy, raised in a city where the lakefront was sacred, where lakefront parks and 'recreation and clean beaches thronged with people at play, not at work, this oily, yellow river that flowed out of Lake Erie, winding through a landscape dominated by machines, was a puzzle. Something in the back of his mind nibbled at him, reminded him, that the men helping him, the angels lining his slush fund, were the same ones who helped turn this valley into a pockmarked, profitable hellhole.

  At night, to Ness, the Flats was an otherworldly place, a world of darkness cut only by an occasional streetlamp or the muted glow of a run-down waterfront bar and the blush on the cheeks of the low-hanging clouds, projected there by the open-hearth furnaces of steel mills. Looking toward the Cleveland skyline, all that could be made out was the lighthouse that was Terminal Tower. You could, Ness reflected, wander into the Flats at night and never come out. It was the perfect place to be set up for a rubout.

  Which was much on his mind this Thursday night, because Ness, angling on foot down a steep cinder road into the Flats, was here to meet somebody. A Cleveland cop who'd insisted on his coming alone.

  He left the city sedan half a block away and now stood by the mesh fence which separated him from a vast graveyard of taxi cabs. These cabs were here for storage and repair, the Depression having cut down the demand on the streets. Several streetlamps made this location slightly less dark-slightly-than most others in the Flats. Looming nearby, a vast, black abstract shape against the strangely rosy sky, was the massive Detroit-Superior High Level Bridge, the major east-west span across the valley, a double-decked structure of steel and reinforced concrete with a lower deck for streetcars, their occasional screech cutting the night like fingernails on God's blackboard.

  He checked his watch. He was right on time-ten o'clock. He kept his right hand in his topcoat pocket, on his revolver. He kept his back to the wire fence, hoping if anyone were waiting for him here, with something other than a meeting in mind, that they weren't parked inside the lot with the taxi cabs. A streetcar screeched again, sparks of electricity flicking through the darkness, reminding him of the El back in Chicago. Only this was one hell of an El.