BULLET PROOF (Eliot Ness)

by Max Allan Collins

  Then Little Jim surprised Caldwell and spoke up.

  "If they get an indictment," Little Jim said, swirling whiskey in his glass, "that means a jury trial. No more of this behind-closed-doors grand-jury shit. No more ban on reporters. We'll know what's going on. We'll know who to bribe and who to put the fear of God in."

  Caldwell stopped pacing. He put his hands on his hips and smiled. "You know, you're right, bucko. It's too late to worry about the grand jury. It's spilt milk. But we can show Ness and Cullitan that their tactics won't work in a real trial in an old-fashioned American open courtroom."

  "If there even is a trial," McFate said, forcing a small smile onto his dour face. "I don't think Ness's got enough evidence to get an indictment. That grand jury's been meeting for over a month, and nothing's come of it."

  "On that count I'm afraid you're wrong, boyo," Caldwell said, shaking his head. "They've talked to over one hundred witnesses."

  "That just backs me up, lad. They wouldn't have to work so hard if something was really turning up. Do you really think somebody like Vernon Gordon is going to spill? He's still paying off, isn't he, to the window washers union?"

  "Yes," Caldwell admitted.

  McFate shrugged again. "See? This is a pain in the ass, knowing they're trying to nail us but not knowing what's going on exactly and not being able to do a damn thing about it. But it's not going to amount to nothing."

  "I wish I could share your confidence, laddie-buck," Caldwell said, sighing. "I think we'll be indicted on general principles. Cullitan won't need a shred of damn evidence. That grand jury won't have the guts to return a no-bill against Ness's say-so."

  McFate grunted matter-of-factly and sipped at his glass. "So then if there is a trial—and there won't be—we put the pressure on, where the witnesses are concerned. Police protection only goes so far, you know."

  "We don't have Harry Gibson anymore, remember," Caldwell said, lifting an eyebrow. "And this is no time to be bringing in somebody new for that kind of thing."

  McFate's optimism seemed to fade. "Too bad. We could use Harry along about now."

  Caldwell's laugh was short and sharp. "Are you joking? Losing Harry is the one good thing that's happened to us lately. At least we got home free, where Whitehall's concerned."

  McFate considered that and nodded, no longer missing Harry.

  In the outer office, a door slammed.

  Caldwell looked at McFate; McFate looked at Caldwell.

  Loud voices, the words themselves muffled by the closed door, were echoing out there; a commotion was brewing.

  And before either Jim had a chance to go and check up on it, the brunette secretary, looking flustered and a little scared, squeezed in the inner office, having opened the door only barely, closing it behind her. It was as if a wild beast were on the other side.

  Wide-eyed, breathless, she said, "There are some men here to see you, Mr. Caldwell."

  "Police?"

  "No," she said, shaking her head vigorously. "Some men from the union. Some of the members."

  The door behind her pushed open, pushing her rudely out of the way. She scurried to a neutral corner as half a dozen men in work denims and winter jackets poured in. At their head was Joe McFarlin, a shovel-jawed six-foot-two bruiser, a trouble-making roughneck as far as Caldwell was concerned.

  "We're seizing these headquarters in the name of the rank and file," McFarlin said.

  "The hell you are!" Caldwell said. "This is my private office. If you want an appointment with me, you—"

  McFarlin thumped Caldwell in the chest with a finger as thick as the base of a pool cue. "I want nothing from you but your ouster, you son of a bitch."

  McFate moved in between them, placed a hand on both their chests. "Joe. We've always gotten along, haven't we? If you have any complaints, there's ways to go about it. Procedures—"

  "Fuck procedures," McFarlin said, brushing off McFate's hand like an insect. "The procedure we're going to follow is the one that works best for union guys like us. A sit-down strike."

  "A strike?" Caldwell said, incredulous. "How the hell do you strike against your own union?"

  "Watch," McFarlin said. And he nodded to one of the men behind him, who exited and within moments came back with more men, pouring in from the hallway through the outer office to invade Caldwell's sanctuary.

  Soon, in excess of forty men had squeezed into the modest room, their mortar-splattered shoes scuffing the floor. The air hung with the smell of sweat, strong tobacco (both chewed and smoked), and booze breath. Caldwell's secretary scurried out and nobody tried to stop her, but most watched her go, appreciating the view.

  "Make yourself at home," McFarlin told the men.

  And all forty-some representatives of the rank and file sat down. On the floor.

  "These are the union business offices," Caldwell said, almost yelling, moving through the seated crowd, searching for space and a sympathetic face. "If you want a meeting, go down to the union hall—that's what it's for."

  McFarlin, who other than the two Jims was the only man still standing, shouted over the heads of his fellows. "What about meetings you promised to call, Caldwell, that never got called? What about elections that were supposed to be held but were postponed till never?"

  Caldwell said, "We can discuss all that, but not like this. This is an illegal meeting, contrary to union rules—"

  "We've had our fill of your 'rules' and your 'rule,'" McFarlin said. "You and McFate and your henchmen have been usurping the power of the union long enough. Well, we're going to stage a sit-in campaign between now and three o'clock tomorrow afternoon, at which time we’ve called a rump meeting to elect officers to take your place."

  Caldwell laughed. "You'll fall apart in an hour."

  McFarlin smiled nastily. "We've got a majority of the two thousand members of the union behind us, Jim. And two hundred volunteers who are going to work in eight-hour shifts."

  McFate said, "You're not going to get away with this, lads. Do you think the AFL is going to allow—"

  "Sit-downs? Strikes?" McFarlin laughed. "I think they just might be familiar with those measures. I think they'll approve. Particularly if we find anything at all out of order in your records and files, which we intend to seize and give a thorough going over."

  Caldwell's face reddened. "Get out! All of you! God-damn it, I'm warning you!"

  "Ralph, Anton," McFarlin said to two of the burliest sit-downers, "show the boys out, would you?"

  Within minutes, Big Jim Caldwell and Little Jim McFate found themselves in an unceremonious heap on the sidewalk in front of their building. Their overcoats and hats, in light of the winter day, had been tossed on the pile. McFarlin, Ralph, and Anton stood with smiles and folded arms, blocking the entryway.

  Neither Jim had quite gotten himself up off the pavement when the sedan with the EN-1 license plates pulled into an empty space not far from where they were sprawled.

  Ness, hands in the pockets of his tan camel's hair topcoat, the sun winking off the gold badge on his lapel, approached them with a pleasant expression, his breath smoking in the chill afternoon air. Coming up behind him was Detective Albert Curry, the smug little bastard who'd turned up the heat on the two Jims when they were stuck in the lockup with those bums that time.

  "You boys lose something?" Ness asked. "Maybe I could assign a detective to help you find it."

  Caldwell got up, brushing himself off, putting on his overcoat, trying to recover his dignity. McFate was rising as well, his long face white with rage.

  Caldwell said, "These men assaulted us," and he pointed back to McFarlin and his two cohorts.

  "Really?" Ness said. "Were there any witnesses?"

  "They stormed our offices," Caldwell said, ignoring the question, "and ejected us from our own premises."

  "Who are these fellows?" Ness asked innocently.

  "Union members," McFate said, as if that were an obscenity.

  Ness shrugged. "Well, that's union
headquarters up there, isn't it?"

  "They're trespassing, goddamn it!" Caldwell said, shaking his fists, dignity be damned.

  "Illegal acts are being committed here," McFate said, just as angry as his partner, but superficially more in control. "You're a policeman. Do something about it."

  "Throw the bastards in jail!" Caldwell said. "Earn your goddamn paycheck, Ness!"

  "I'm sorry, boys," Ness said, arms folded, smiling placidly. "I can't do that."

  "Why in hell not?" Caldwell demanded.

  Ness shrugged again, smiled broadly. "Why boys— you know I try never to interfere in union business."

  McFarlin and his two cronies hooted with laughter in the background, while Caldwell and McFate burned, and another car pulled in. Plain Dealer reporter Sam Wild, with photographer Shorty Philkins in tow, stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  "Just happened to be passing by," Wild said. "Something up?"

  "You just happened to be passing by," Caldwell said dryly. "With a photographer."

  Wild smiled genially. "Slow news day. Actually, there was a rumor that some rank-and-file fellas might attempt a takeover of your local's HQ today. Any truth to that?"

  Caldwell was steaming. He looked at Wild, then Ness. "You bastards are behind this, aren't you?"

  "Behind what?" Ness asked. "Oh, I've met a couple of these chaps before. Like Joe McFarlin over there. We met at Jack Whitehall's funeral. Had a nice chat. Joe and Jack were buddies, did you know that?"

  Caldwell said nothing to that; he knew better.

  But McFate didn't.

  "So you're not going to do your job," McFate said. "You're going to let these trespassers get away with it."

  "Some people get away with murder," Ness said coldly.

  Caldwell touched McFate's arm, hoping to silence him, but his normally taciturn partner continued: "Then you're not going to make an arrest?"

  "Oh, I'm going to make an arrest," Ness said. "Two arrests. That's why I'm here. Albert—cuffs, please?"

  Curry stepped forward and withdrew two shining pairs of handcuffs from his topcoat pocket.

  "Hands behind you, boys," Ness said.

  "You're arresting us?" McFate said.

  "Grand jury indicted you both this afternoon. Five counts of blackmail and extortion."

  Caldwell and McFate exchanged alarmed glances.

  Then McFate summoned a sneer and said, "It won't hold up. You got nothing."

  "Nothing," Ness said, "except ninety-seven witnesses who have testified to more than one hundred instances of blackmail, extortion, and general conspiracy aimed at Cleveland's business community. . . of course, my investigation isn't through yet. I may turn something up yet, you never know. Snap 'em on, Detective Curry."

  Curry snapped on the cuffs behind the backs of the two Jims.

  "Sorry, boys," Curry said. "We don't have the budget for a brass band and silk top hats for you."

  As the two were being walked toward the EN-1 sedan, reporter Wild was asking a few questions.

  "What's your purpose here today, Mr. McFarlin?"

  "Overthrowing a dictatorship," McFarlin said, smiling tightly, arms folded over a massive chest. "We've tried for several months to get a regular election, but we've been blocked by Caldwell, McFate, and their attorney. We expect to keep up our sit-in at least until tomorrow, when we'll hold an election, junk the former constitution, and draft a new one along democratic lines."

  "How about you, Mr. Ness? Anything to say to the press before you haul those two away?"

  Ness, about to get into the sedan, turned and said, "Ask Mr. McFarlin and some of his compatriots what they think of my efforts in the area of labor. This investigation began with complaints from businessmen. But since then, since the grand jury convened, my office has been flooded with calls and letters from rank-and-file union members. They've told us how union business agents like Caldwell and McFate sit in their offices and instead of sending legitimate union members on jobs, send patronage punks who don't do the work well, discrediting the name of union labor, thumbing their noses at employers, who don't dare fire the loafers because if they do, the job will get shut down by a strike. That sounds like a crime to me—which is where I come in."

  "Eliot Ness, friend of labor," Wild said archly.

  "No," Ness said. "Enemy of lice like them."

  And he nodded toward the glowering Caldwell and morose McFate as Curry pushed them bodily into the backseat of the sedan.

  THREE

  March 12, 1938

  CHAPTER 20

  CITY OF CLEVELAND

  Office of the Mayor

  March 12, 1938

  Director Eliot Ness,

  Department of Public Safety,

  City Hall

  Re: Caldwell and McFate Case

  Dear Eliot:

  Confirming and developing my oral statement immediately following my receipt of the news of the conviction of Caldwell and McFate, this letter is to express to you my official and personal appreciation of the exceptional public service which you rendered in this case.

  This case and the long investigation leading up to it has dealt with one of the worst conditions in Cleveland. It has been a major purpose of this administration to put an end to extortion and related forms of racketeering in Cleveland. From the first day that you joined us, you have in a quiet and modest way led the attack on this evil. The conviction of Caldwell and McFate marks a major victory in the battle, and I believe marks the turning point in our campaign to drive out the rackets.

  This particular case presented every kind of difficulty, culminating in the hard fought trial itself. I am deeply grateful to you for the competent, patient, and long, continued hard work that you did in connection with it. I know that not only Cleveland but the nation is indebted to you for the result attained.

  This has been by no means an attack on organized labor as such, as the service which you have rendered has been a service for the benefit of industry, labor, and the public at large.

  I hope that you enjoy your well-earned vacation and will return to your duties here, ready to continue the drive with your usual vigor and with increased assurance of success.

  With warmest personal regards,

  Harold H. Burton

  Mayor

  After reading it for a third time, Eliot Ness, seated at his rolltop desk in his office, folded the letter and returned it to its envelope. He buzzed Wanda, who entered promptly, steno pad in hand.

  "No dictation," Ness said, with a gentle smile. "Just another souvenir. Paste this in the scrapbook, will you?"

  Wanda smiled tightly and took the letter. "We may need a separate volume for '38, Mr. Ness. The wires and clippings are starting to pour in from all over the country."

  "Start a new volume, then," Ness said. "We want to give McFate and Caldwell their due."

  "Yes sir," she said, and exited.

  He blew out some air, and leaned back in the swivel chair. He was pleased with the response, locally and nationally, to the conviction of the "boys." The public statements of approval from union circles was perhaps the most gratifying—from the UAW president in Detroit to the national AFL rep. Even his old adversary George Owens of SWOC had been complimentary: "We are in back of Ness one hundred percent. The labor movement must be kept clean to survive."

  Of course, Owens had used the occasion to nudge Ness publicly about investigating industry, as well, who "have sent their stool pigeons, thugs, finks, spies, and agents to disrupt the labor movement." And he had a point.

  But Ness did not feel smug, or even proud. He did not feel much of anything except exhausted, and a weekend in a cabin near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, with Ev MacMillan, should be just what the doctor ordered. He was taking an evening train to Chicago, and intended to put unions, rackets, and Cleveland out of his mind for the next week.

  The trial had been hard fought, as the Mayor indicated, and Ness had spared no manpower in protecting the witnesses—the local ones who were put up in hote
ls or guarded at home, as well as those who came in by plane and train from Milwaukee, Boston, St. Paul, Detroit, Kansas City, Buffalo, Syracuse, Chicago, and Columbus. And he had gotten the local papers to cooperate in extending his grand-jury press-photographer ban to the trial itself.

  Of course, Caldwell and McFate had had a few tricks left up their sleazy sleeves. On the second day of the trial, Ness got a tip from Joe McFarlin that an attempt to fix one of the jurors was in the wind; a Nitti man had come in from Chicago with fifty thousand dollars in the kitty, to use in reaching a woman on the jury by way of her husband, who had business connections with Acme Brothers Glass.

  Ness informed Prosecutor Cullitan, who dismissed the juror without disclosing he knew of the bribe-in-the-works, replacing the juror with an alternate. Judge Cortlett, hard-nosed and refreshingly honest for Cleveland, was also informed by Ness, after which His Honor sequestered the jury for the remainder of the trial.

  Caldwell and McFate kept trying, though; they put together a thirty-grand defense fund. They brought in labor leaders from other cities as character witnesses. They testified coolly and even charmingly in their own behalf, both claiming never to have been in the same room before with star prosecution witness Vernon Gordon.

  Midway through the trial, defense attorney Corrigan demanded that Eliot Ness be barred from the courtroom because he was "impressing" the jurors with his presence. Judge Cortlett sent the jurors out of the courtroom and quickly denied the motion.

  But the jury—six men, six women, primarily labor-union men and the wives of labor-union men—were not buying anything Caldwell and McFate had to sell. The two Jims were found guilty on all five counts, and the judge, God bless his stern countenance, had denied them bail and gave them both ten-year sentences.

  At this point Judge Cortlett had taken an extraordinary measure. Speaking of the many precautions safety director Ness and Prosecutor Cullitan had taken to ensure an orderly trial, the judge pointed out that efforts had been made to influence the jury, including the apparent attempt to bribe one juror through her husband, as well as "suspicious incidents" during the trial when friends and even spouses of the jurors took front-row seats in the courtroom, having to be ordered out when they tried to impress the jury members with their friendly, back-slapping attitude toward the defendants.