THE DARK CITY (Eliot Ness)

by Max Allan Collins

  CHAPTER 21

  It took only a week for Cullitan and his young staff of lawyers to do the financial research, but it was the longest week of Ness" life.

  Patience was not his long suit, and waiting for that other shoe to drop, where Cooper was concerned, drove Ness quietly crazy.

  He tried to tell himself that Gwen should not be held accountable for the possible sins of her father. He tried to convince himself that she had entered his life, his confidence, by chance. He nearly made himself believe it, too. They spent much of the weekend together, as they had the last several, and Saturday had been fine. They'd gone to the Hollenden Hotel where the newly redecorated Vogue Room was a futuristic dream world of coral and blue, silk wallpaper, and stainless steel, and they'd danced to Benny Goodman's orchestra, which played a bittersweet arrangement of "Pennies from Heaven" and an intoxicating "The Way You Look Tonight." And when they wound up back at the boathouse, he'd had enough romantic build-up—and enough to drink—to believe in her, to believe in what they'd been sharing these past weeks.

  Sunday had been tougher. He'd taken her to a movie, "Born to Dance," at the Hippodrome. She loved musicals. He didn't like any kind of movie, really, and his boredom led to daydreaming which led to sober reflection about the beautiful daughter of Captain Cooper, the lovely divorcee sitting next to him, eating popcorn as she stared at the silver screen, enthralled by Eleanor Powell who was dancing and singing "her jinx away," if the lyrics of her song were to be believed. He desperately wanted out of the theater suddenly; the matinee audience, a packed house, seemed like a mob that might turn on him any moment. Silly thought. He chewed his thumbnail.

  Gwen had cooked a meal for him after the show. She'd done this a few times, perhaps to show him she could. She waited on him, wearing her red silk Chinese lounging pajamas. She catered to his simple meat-and-potatoes tastes, which he appreciated. And she seemed to be a good cook, good enough to suit him, anyway.

  But it made him sad, somehow. The time he was spending with her here at the boathouse was too much like the time he used to spend with Evie at the Bay Village house. Gwen's brash modern-girl outlook was something that didn't show up much during these quiet evenings. Sitting in front of the fire together; playing two-handed rummy; taking turns stroking the fur of the cat who'd shown up at the back door last week. It was all so familiar. I've been here before, he thought. Why was he moving out of one life into another one, when the new one so resembled the old?

  Any man, getting romantically involved for the first time after his marriage had gone on the rocks, was bound to have such feelings. This Ness knew. He also knew, as they sat in front of the fireplace, the moment fast approaching when they would head upstairs and tumble into bed, that the strain of the situation could not withstand the pressure of what he suspected about her father. Suspicions which, of course, extended to her motives for getting involved with him.

  None of which he could discuss with her.

  "I'm going to sleep down here on the couch tonight," he said.

  Cuddled up in a ball next to him, she looked at him and smiled the crinkly smile. "Sure."

  "I mean it, Gwen."

  Her smile faded and her face became a blank, pretty mask that she hid behind, studying him. The soft flickering light from the fireplace made her look especially lovely. Without make-up, she seemed younger than her age. She had a very fresh-scrubbed and mid-western farm-girl look at odds with her practiced air of big-city sophistication.

  "You do mean it," she said, after a while.

  "Yes."

  She stared at the fire. The stray gray cat was curled up in front of it, sleeping. "Why, Eliot?"

  "I think we're moving too fast. I don't think I'm ready for us to be where we've gotten to."

  "Am I that bad a cook?"

  Laughing in spite of himself, he slipped his arm around her, his affection for her genuine. "Not at all. You can make gravy with the best of 'em. It's just, I'm not ready to set up housekeeping yet."

  She pulled away from him. It wasn't a gesture of anger—of hurt, perhaps, but not anger. She sat there hugging her legs, staring into the fire.

  "Have you finally gotten afraid of the publicity?" she asked. Softly. "Have we been too bold? The hotel rooms—spending so many nights together here?"

  He sighed. "That's not it."

  Now she looked at him, her eyes moist, her lips trembling. Just a little. Just a little. She wouldn't crack, this girl.

  She said, with the slightest tremor in her voice, "You're keeping something from me, Eliot. I haven't known you long, but I know you well. What are you keeping from me?"

  "Nothing."

  "Don't lie to me. Don't you lie to me."

  "Baby, I ..."

  "Don't call me 'baby.' Don't tell me we're through and then still call me 'baby.' "

  "I didn't say we were through. I just said we were moving too fast."

  "What is it? What's come between us?"

  "Please don't ask again."

  "It's Evie, isn't it?"

  "What?"

  She was nodding to herself. "It's Evie. She wants you back. That's it, isn't it? She's had second thoughts and wants you back."

  "Yes," Ness lied. "You're right."

  She sat Indian-style now, her arms folded across her generous bosom. Her expression was firm, her tone ironic. "And you feel you've invested too many years in the marriage not to give it another go. Give it a fair trial."

  "That's it exactly."

  She sat there peering into the fire, its warmth soothing. Outside the wind was howling, but it seemed far away. Her anger seemed to fade. Without looking at him, she reached out a hand and put it on his arm.

  She said, "I guess I can't blame you. And I don't blame her for wanting you back."

  He didn't know what to say to that. Evie, in the few phone conversations they'd had, had shown no sign whatsoever of wanting him back.

  She stood. She smoothed her Chinese pajamas with both palms and smiled bravely. "Better change my clothes."

  "Why?"

  "I'm not staying the night, Eliot. I have my own car. I think I should just go."

  "You don't have to."

  "I think it would be easier on both of us, don't you?"

  He said nothing at first, then nodded.

  "I still plan to be in for work tomorrow morning," she said.

  "I plan for you to be. You do a fine job for me there."

  "Boy," she said, with a one-sided smile as crooked as the Cuyahoga, "knowing that makes me feel just swell."

  And she'd gone, and this morning at work, she'd been pleasant and businesslike and no one would ever have guessed anything was wrong between the two of them. But then they'd always kept their romance out of the office—even when they were alone in his private office, nary a knowing glance, let alone a kiss, was ever exchanged—and so it was business as usual.

  And the first order of business had been to go over to Cullitan's first-floor office at the Criminal Court Building, where the other shoe finally dropped, but good.

  Behind the wire-framed glasses, Cullitan's eyes were bloodshot. He'd been putting in even longer hours than usual, and Cullitan was perhaps the one local government official who put in longer hours than Ness. The big man sat at his big desk in his Spartan office and gestured to the ledger books and other papers stacked there.

  "We've had good cooperation from the banks," he told Ness, "and even the cemetery companies. Of course, everybody's playing dumb where the racket's concerned, and the officers at the banks as well as those at the cemeteries are eager to show us what good citizens they are."

  Ness, standing across the desk from the smiling but weary prosecutor, nodding toward the paperwork said, "What do we know now about Captain Cooper's financial circumstances?"

  Cullitan gestured. "You better find a chair, unless you just prefer falling on the floor."

  Ness sat.

  "Under a variety of names, including Corepo," said Cullitan, referring to a small not
ebook, "Captain Cooper has sums totaling over a hundred and ten thousand dollars on deposit in four banks."

  Ness was glad he was sitting down. He whistled slowly. "That's in addition to the hundred grand in cemetery real estate?"

  "Yes. And we probably haven't tracked down all his phony names. And we believe—we know—he's filtered other money into the accounts of various relatives. His son, who owns several restaurants, for example."

  Ness sighed. "How much has he earned as a cop?"

  Cullitan checked his notes again. "Sixty-eight thousand since he came on in 1906. His present salary is thirty-one hundred a year. Before the Depression, he was up to thirty-five and then when salaries were reduced in '33, he was down to twenty-six fifty."

  "Any other outside business interests?"

  "Just his son's restaurants."

  "Any money in the family? His, or on his late wife's side?"

  "No."

  Ness lifted his eyebrows, put them down. "Then he's dirty. Real dirty "

  "Can you help us prove that?"

  "I'll have my best man on it."

  "Who?"

  "Me."

  Cullitan's smile seemed damn near cherubic. "You'll have to leave your desk for a while—won't that be rough on you."

  "I take no joy in this. I thought Cooper was a good cop. I trusted him."

  Cullitan nodded, the smile gone. "It does make you wonder," he said.

  "How did you turn all this up so fast? Even with the banks and cemeteries cooperating, this is damn quick."

  "We had some luck. Cooper has a brother-in-law, name of Emil Kobern, a housepainter by profession, who doesn't appreciate his in-law getting him in bad with the law. When we got a line on Cooper's son being a repository for some of his old man's money, we started checking other relatives."

  Ness had to ask. "What about his daughter?"

  "Nothing there, except alimony money from her ex-husband. But we found that Kobern had forty-four thousand dollars in the Pyramid Savings and Loan Company, only when we questioned him, he said he'd never set foot in the place. He told us Cooper asked him permission to use his name, so that if anything bad ever happened to him, Cooper that is, in the line of duty, his brother-in-law would have immediate access to some money to help the family out."

  "That's a hot one."

  "Well, the brother-in-law went along with it, and much to his irritation he occasionally found himself having to go to the bank to withdraw money for Cooper's friends and business associates. For better than a year, at one point, he even took monthly payments from somebody, for Cooper, and deposited them in the account."

  "Is Kobern willing to testify?"

  "Yes. He's very put out with Cooper for involving him in this."

  "Any chance he'll tell Cooper you questioned him?"

  "I doubt it. Unless he was performing for us when he gave his statement. I think the lid's still on, where this investigation's concerned."

  "Somebody at one of the banks might let it slip. Or the cemetery company."

  "Perhaps. But I get the feeling Cooper may not be as popular with his business associates as he is with certain of the boys in blue. In fact, a lot of people will be happy if the heat for the cemetery racket shifts to Cooper."

  "The investigation can progress even if Cooper knows," said Ness. "But it would be nice to keep him in the dark a while."

  "Yes, it would."

  "Well, thanks, Frank," Ness said, rising. "Thanks for your hard, fast work."

  Cullitan shook hands with Ness and said, "This thing ought to be right down your alley, an old Prohibition agent like you."

  "Why's that?"

  Cullitan shrugged. "Cooper was amassing his fortune during Prohibition—1921 to 1931, the very time when he was operating as the supposed protector of the law in precincts like the Fourteenth and Fifteenth. Where, in reality, booze was flowing freely, thanks to paid-off police."

  Ness snapped his fingers. "That may be the way to build our case."

  "What do you mean?"

  "The bootleggers! They're who Cooper was squeezing protection money out of."

  Cullitan's smile was a thin line. "You know the old saying: bootleggers never squeal."

  "That was never really true, and it sure as hell isn't true since Prohibition became not-so-ancient history. I think some former bootleggers might like to get back at the cops they paid protection to. When I was working with the Alcohol Tax Unit, busting stills and playing 'revenooer,' we used to always hear the bootleggers bitching' about how they never really made a decent buck in the speakeasy days. That police payoffs had bled 'em dry."

  Cullitan smiled, thinking, nodding. "Bribery charges. That's what we'll get him on. Bribes paid to influence him with respect to his official duties as a police captain in the enforcement of laws of the State of Ohio."

  Ness smiled, nodded, and finished the sentence, "Particularly relating to the possession, manufacture, and sale of intoxicating liquors."

  "Can't quite get being a Prohibition agent out of your system," Cullitan said, "can you?"

  "It worked in Chicago," Ness said, and he hoofed it over to the Standard Building.

  He found Agent Hedges at the same old stand, a corner desk in the cramped room shared by five Alcohol Tax Unit agents. The other men were out in the field, but Hedges was taking care of the paperwork that was choking his desk, and manning the phone.

  "Slumming?" Hedges asked Ness, with a smile that didn't hide his dislike. "It's a little early to be going to the health club to play footsie with the mayor."

  Ness pulled a chair over and sat on it backwards. "You really like not having me for a boss, don't you, Bob?"

  Hedges grunted and shook his head no. "Actually, the guy that took over is even worse than you were."

  "Gee, that's hard to picture."

  "This place is going to hell in a hand basket," Hedges said, glancing with wide eyes around the claustrophobic office. "Hundreds of joints are selling hooch. Rotgut and raisin jack and white mule. And we're not doing anything about it."

  Ness made a sympathetic clicking sound.

  "At least you're knocking some places over," Hedges said. "I gotta hand you that much."

  "I'm working on it. I need a favor."

  "From me?"

  "From you. You were in this office a good many years before I was."

  "I outlast all my bosses. It's my favorite trait."

  "I need a list of known bootleggers who operated in Cleveland from '21 through '31. Can you put that together for me?"

  "I could. But why should I?"

  "Hedges, you don't like me, and I'm not nuts about you, or anyway I'm not nuts about your style. But we've got one thing in common: we aren't bent."

  "That I agree with."

  "Then help me. Do me that list. I'm trying to put some bent cops in jail."

  Hedges thought, just for a moment. Then said, "Sure. Why not. It'll take me a day to do it, I'd say. And it'd help if you'd tell my boss you requested it, so I can get away with taking the time out."

  "That's no problem. Could you give me a head start, though?"

  "How's that?"

  "Can you think of anybody in particular in those days who was especially resentful about paying police protection?"

  Hedges laughed briefly. "We heard that sad song from just about every bootlegger in town."

  "Then give me the name and address of a real prize whiner. Especially somebody who might've operated in the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Precinct. Somebody who really felt he was bled white."

  "I can think of one. Joe Brody. Brodzinsky. He used to run a joint at East Sixty-fifth and Fleet."

  "What's he doing now?"

  "He's got a saloon in Garfield Heights. He told me he moved out there to get away from the Cleveland cops."

  "You think he'd talk? Think he'd name names?"

  Hedges shrugged. "You never know till you ask," and he returned to his work.

  And Ness set out to do his.

  CHAPTER 22


  Brody's Bar and Grill was on Broadway, near Garfield Park, just south of Cleveland in the blue-collar suburb of Garfield Heights. The interior of the unpretentious square yellow building resembled a restaurant more than a bar, being less dimly lit than most, with plenty of tables, and booths lining three walls. Behind the bar, which took up only half of one wall, was the kitchen, somewhat visible through a short-order window, but nobody was cooking back there, because nobody was eating out here. It was after two in the afternoon, and the place wasn't very busy. Some truckers and a couple of grounds keepers from nearby Calvary Cemetery were drinking bottled beer at the bar. At the far end of the bar, by the wall, a young guy in white, probably an orderly from the state hospital close by, was playing a countertop pinball machine. An empty stool separated him from a uniform cop, city not suburban, who quickly headed for a corner booth as Ness came in, Sam Wild close on his heels.

  Ness slid onto an empty stool and Wild sat at a table nearby. Behind the bar was a thin dark man of about forty in a bartender's apron. He'd been talking to one of the truckers but now he fell silent. His face was blade narrow and his nose blade sharp. So were his dark eyes, as he studied the man in the tan topcoat and brown fedora.

  Ness took off his hat and smiled blandly at the bartender. "Beer," he said.

  "Any special brand?"

  Ness shrugged. "You're the doctor."

  Speaking of which, the hospital orderly down the bar hit the jackpot on the pinball. "Hot damn!" he said. He hopped off his stool, ran over and squeezed between Ness and the trucker, and showed the bartender two handfuls of slugs. He was pale, about twenty, with acne on his neck, and he was grinning like an idiot.

  "Pay up, Joe!"

  The bartender smiled without much enthusiasm and said, "Lay 'em on the counter. We'll count 'em."

  Ness smiled at the hospital orderly. "Going to trade those in for real money?"

  "You bet!" the orderly said. The teeth in the idiotic grin were bucked.

  "That's against the law in this county, you know," Ness said.

  "Yeah, sure," the orderly said, smirking, waving Ness off.