MURDER BY THE NUMBERS (Eliot Ness)

by Max Allan Collins

  He got out his revolver; the gun in one hand, the garbage can lid in the other, he continued to kneel, but didn't look inside anymore. He looked only at his watch, at the second hand as it glided around the face; waiting for four o'clock.

  Four o'clock came and he stood. He took a breath, smiling, enjoying the adrenaline rush, enjoying this beautiful day, and he smashed the garbage-can lid into the window, shattering every pane in the lid's path, shards raining on the floor under the sill. Quickly but carefully, glass crunching under his feet, he hopped inside, tossing the garbage-can lid clatteringly to the floor, fanning the .38 before him, so it could take them all in.

  "Everybody on your feet," he shouted, "hands in the air!"

  Sixty eyes opened wide and thirty chins dropped to the floor. The bookies, men of every size and shape but each one wearing shirts with sleeves rolled up, their coats on their chairs, slowly rose.

  "This is a raid, gents," Ness said, moving along with his back to the wall; when he reached the steel door, he unbolted and swung it open. "No sudden moves . . ."

  As if to contradict their boss, Garner, Moeller, Chamberlin, and half a dozen plainclothes men rushed in, and began gathering the evidence.

  Soon flashbulbs were popping, and Sam Wild, lighting up a Lucky, smiled at Ness lazily and said, "You topped Maxie Diamond, after all—even bagged yourself a steel door."

  Ness said nothing, but allowed himself a small, self-satisfied smile.

  Wild erased it: "Now let's see how you fare on the colored side of town . . ."

  CHAPTER 3

  Albert Curry, youngest plainclothes man on the department, was disappointed he'd missed the action. Keeping watch in the alley had proved to be dull and, while much of what any police detective did was perfunctory and routine, Curry had been spoiled. Being attached to the safety director's office meant consistently lively duty.

  Curry was a fair-haired, pale, cherubic thirty and looked at least five years younger. He was standing beside his chief's black Ford sedan, leaning casually against the door, ready to drive him back to City Hall. He was watching with satisfaction and some envy as Bob Chamberlin, with the aid of several uniformed men, led a parade of disgusted-looking crooks in shirtsleeves and loosened ties out of the Leader Building into the back of a Black Maria waiting on Sixth; this was the second paddy wagon to be so filled.

  Typical of his chief's style, this raid had gone off smoothly and quickly. It was barely four-thirty and thirty-one arrests had been made (thirty males and one female, the blond receptionist, who'd gotten a private ride over to the jail with a policewoman chaperone). Ness and Will Garner were upstairs combing the office.

  From the alley Curry had seen Ness break the window and leap in that window, gun in hand. Well, maybe not leap (although the papers would surely put it that way); but Curry could hardly imagine another safety director in the country making such a reckless play.

  Curry admired that, though his boss did get some criticism for being a glory-hound, for going out in the field and investigating and leaving the administrative duties largely to Chamberlin and others. His chief's reputation as "the G-man who got Capone" was an important publicity tool for Mayor Burton; Curry saw nothing wrong with that.

  And to dismiss Ness as a publicity-seeking racketbuster was to ignore the facts: Ness was at the forefront of modern thinking in police science and criminology. A University of Chicago grad who studied with famed criminologist August Vollmer, Ness had modernized Cleveland's police department. He switched from cops walking beats to patrol cars with two-way radios, reorganized the traffic bureau, set up a juvenile delinquency unit, and much more.

  Only once had Ness disappointed Curry. Last month, on the Mad Butcher investigation, Ness had captured the mass murderer but allowed the madman to be quietly committed to an asylum; the "butcher," it seemed, was the son of a prominent and wealthy friend of the mayor's. Though the safety director was the least political public official Curry had ever known, Ness had obviously caved in to pressure from Mayor Burton and the "financial angels" who had the slush fund that made possible, in this depression, many of the safety director's investigations.

  Curry admired his chief no less for being human; in this hard world, in these hard times, it was hard to imagine a better man than Eliot Ness. But the young detective knew that the Untouchable was haunted by the compromise. Lately, Ness had thrown himself into his work even more obsessively than before. He looked bad, physically, to Curry; years older than just a few months ago. Ness worked late, then stayed out drinking with Wild and other news hounds, and must have been getting precious little sleep. Curry was worried for his boss.

  The only saving grace, it seemed to Curry, was Ness's girlfriend, Ev MacMillan, a fashion illustrator at Higbee's; she was apparently a calming influence, though she liked the nightlife, too.

  Just as these thoughts were crossing his mind. Curry looked over to see Ness exiting the Leader Building with a wide grin and a spring in his step.

  "I'll drive, Albert," he told Curry cheerfully, and went around to get behind the wheel of the sedan with the special EN-1 license plate.

  Curry sat on the rider's side as Ness pulled out onto Superior.

  "Are you through upstairs, already?" Curry asked.

  "Garner's wrapping it up," Ness said, with a little shrug. Absently, he flicked on the police radio, keeping the volume at a low but decipherable hum. "We'll head over to Central Headquarters and question some of Lombardi's help, after they're booked. Maybe we'll get something."

  "Wish I'd gone in with you."

  "You didn't miss any action." He smiled over at Curry. "Things'll get lively as we close in on the Mayfield boys."

  They waited at a stoplight.

  Curry frankly wasn't convinced that the Lombardi investigation was going to flourish, now that the next logical step was to tackle the numbers game on the east side. That was foreign territory.

  The light changed and Ness turned right, onto Superior.

  "This little raid may turn out to be important," Ness said.

  "Oh?"

  "The receptionist had three bank books in her purse, but they weren't her bank books. They were in the name of the 'Chestnut Magazine Subscription Service,' only I doubt they've sold any subscriptions."

  "To a racing form maybe," Curry said, with a grin.

  Ness grinned back; he had one hand on the wheel, very relaxed in the aftermath of his success. "Those bank books show deposits of three quarters of a million bucks."

  Curry whistled low.

  "If we can do a little backtrack bookwork, we're going to make it hot for Lombardi and company. I'll call my federal friends over at the I.R.S."

  "If we can't nail 'em on the numbers racket," Curry said, nodding, "income tax evasion'll do just fine."

  "It worked for Capone," Ness said, softly. He turned onto Payne. "What makes you think we won't nail them on the numbers racket?"

  "Well, I . . ."

  Ness laughed shortly. "You have a point. Working the east side is a riddle I haven't solved. Albert, I want you to look over the records of every Negro cop on the force."

  "That won't be hard," Curry said, smirking humorlessly. "There are only ten of 'em."

  "I know. That's a problem. How can we launch an effective investigation in the colored community when we don't have enough colored cops to do the job?"

  "You don't need an army of men if you run an undercover operation. We've proven that time and again."

  Ness shook his head no. "Every one of those ten cops is well known in that part of town. None of them could go undercover effectively."

  "How welcome would Garner be, in Bloody Scovill? What's the Negro attitude toward an Indian?"

  Ness shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not very knowledgeable about race relations, I admit. And this is a good argument for getting more Negro cops on the force. . . ."

  As he trailed off, he was glancing at the two-way radio under the dash. Something had caught his ear. Curry hadn't been p
aying any attention to the broadcasts; apparently Ness had.

  "What is it?" Curry said, sitting forward.

  Ness shushed him and turned up the volume.

  "... Terminal, request back-up. We have a near riot situation here. . . ."

  Ness plucked the microphone off the radio unit.

  "This is Director Ness," he said. "What's the situation?"

  "This is Patrol Sergeant John Wilson, Director Ness." The voice over the small radio speaker was tinny but distinct. "We have what is developing into a riot situation here at the east side market."

  "Explain."

  "We've got picketers blocking the doors and things are getting out of hand. They've been here all day but the crowd that's supporting them, well, their numbers have been increasing throughout the afternoon."

  "Who are these picketers, the Future Outlook League?"

  "Yes—Hollis and his bunch."

  "How many men do you have?"

  "There's a dozen of us."

  "I'm on my way."

  "But, sir—we need more back-up!"

  "And I'm going to give it to you. Don't let this escalate into a riot, officer."

  "I ... I'll try, sir."

  Ness clicked off, put the mike back on the radio unit.

  He arched an eyebrow. "I guess we're going to get our feet wet on the east side, Detective Curry."

  "What's going on?"

  "You're familiar with the Future Outlook League, aren't you?"

  "Frankly, no."

  Ness turned right on East 17th, working his way over to Woodland and 40th, where the east market was.

  "They've been around a couple of years. A Negro protest group. They're trying to get jobs for their people."

  Curry snorted a laugh. "Well, hell. You don't have to be colored to be out of work these days."

  Ness looked sharply at Curry. "No, you don't get it. They want jobs in their own neighborhood, in the east side stores whose clientele is colored, but whose clerks are invariably white."

  "Oh."

  "The Reverend James A. Hollis founded the group and he's its president. They use pickets and boycotts to pursue their goals. They're peaceful but persistent."

  "How active is this group?"

  "Very."

  Curry frowned. "Why the hell haven't I heard of them?"

  "Do you read the Call and Post?"

  That was Cleveland's primary black newspaper.

  "Well, no, of course not."

  "That's the only place you're likely to read about the F.O.L. The white papers and the radio stations pay them no heed."

  Curry didn't know what to say about that, or what to think about it, either. He didn't consider himself prejudiced; nor did he consider his city to be backward in race relations. This was the progressive north, after all, not some redneck southern bastion of bigotry. But once the investigation into the policy racket began to rear its head, Curry had started to realize just how separate the worlds of the Negro and the white races were.

  Curry glanced at the speedometer. The needle was nearing thirty-five.

  "Maybe we should hit the siren," he suggested.

  "No," Ness said curtly. "I don't want to add to the hysteria."

  Curry shrugged.

  Ness looked quickly at Curry. "We don't need a repeat of what happened at Republic Steel."

  "You cooled that off well enough."

  "Eventually. But a lot of heads got cracked, first. I won't have my police beating up civilians. These things can turn into shooting wars in an instant. Do the words Memorial Day Massacre ring a bell?"

  Ness was referring, Curry knew, to an incident in Chicago the year before when a parade of strikers was fired upon by cops; ten strikers were killed, hundreds were injured in the tear-gas-flung, nightstick-happy, bullet-ridden assault. It had happened in a field not far from where Ness grew up.

  The Northern Ohio Food terminal was a sprawling affair covering thirty-some acres from East 37th to East 40th between Woodland and Orange, with five massive concrete buildings and an only slightly smaller auction hall. It was a vivid, bustling world of fresh fruits and vegetables, wholesale meats, live and dressed poultry, butter, cheese, and milk, carted in from surrounding states and local producers as well. The facility was less than ten years old, a modern, clean, proficient wholesale market, serving the grocery, hotel, and restaurant trades.

  But it also served, with its four and a half acre grower's market, the predominantly black residents of the east side.

  "The Negro community that borders the terminal," Ness said, "supports the market here to the tune of twenty grand a day."

  The two men were carefully crossing busy East 40th Street, leaving the Ford parked across the way.

  "Brother," Curry said, trying to grasp just how much money twenty thousand dollars was. "No wonder they think this joint owes 'em a few jobs."

  "No wonder," Ness said dryly.

  At the front entrance of the market building, a yellow-brick structure a block long and half again as wide, a mostly colored crowd had gathered. Men, women, young, old, they were restless and packed and noisy; Curry couldn't understand much of what was being said, but the mood of the crowd seemed not one of anger, but curiosity: They were pushing and shoving to see better. Ness pushed through them like a knife through soft butter, saying "Excuse me" in a loud voice with the edge of authority. Curry followed along, feeling some trepidation that Ness, apparently, did not.

  The crowd was louder toward the front, and obviously angry. A line of picketers with signs—NEGRO EMPLOYMENT NOW; BOYCOTT WOODLAND MARKET; NEIGHBORHOOD JOBS—Was blocking the doors. They were well dressed. Curry noted; suits and ties on the men, Sunday dresses and hats on the women. They looked like a church group. Maybe they were: One older man wore a clerical collar.

  "Keep back!" a uniformed cop was saying; he had his nightstick in hand. He was speaking not to the picketers, but to the crowd, which was pressing in closer. Even the picketers seemed unsettled by the burgeoning mass of humanity.

  Between the picketers and the crowd were ten cops, all white, spread out as thin as a pensioner's paycheck; they looked tired and exasperated and, Curry thought, frightened, though to the untrained eye the cops wore fierce expressions.

  Ness looked over his shoulder at Curry. "They can't be doing any business in there," Ness said loudly, right in Curry's ear. "I'm going inside. Stay here!"

  Ness moved forward; he spoke briefly to a cop, who recognized him, and several of the cops saw Ness and grinned, as if the cavalry had arrived. Perhaps, Curry thought, it had.

  Ness approached the picketers. He sought out the older, dignified man, a preacher if his collar was to be believed, a tall, balding, bespectacled individual in the middle of the sign-carrying group. Ness offered his hand and the man, after a heartbeat, shook it. Ness spoke briefly, politely. The cleric nodded and allowed Ness to pass by him and enter the building.

  Five minutes went by. Curry stayed on the edge of the crowd; without a uniform, joining the spread-out cordon of cops would be futile. He stayed there, alone in the crowd, one white blank face in a sea of black hostile ones, feeling for the first time what it was to be in the minority.

  Part of the feeling was fear; but it was a more complicated feeling than that. He would lie awake that night thinking about it, as unsettled as the cops holding back this throng.

  Over to his left, Curry saw an angry black woman in her fifties shouting at a cop, a florid-faced veteran who obviously knew his way around a nightstick. The cop moved close to the woman, and with his hand on the butt of his holstered gun, the nightstick tight in his other hand, began to shout back at her. His face was as red as the stripes on Old Glory, and the woman was matching his anger, the veins and cords standing out in her neck as though straining to keep her head attached to her body. Several other women, all of them, like their shouting friend, wearing floral dresses and Sunday hats, began screaming angrily at the cop.

  Who suddenly drew back his nightstick, grabbing on t
o the woman with his other hand, clutching her arm.

  Curry moved forward, but someone else moved faster.

  Curry hadn't seen Ness come back out from the market, but he obviously had; he gripped the wrist of the nightstick-wielding hand of the cop, and pushed him back, firmly, but with no apparent anger. The cop, his grasp on the woman's arm broken, glared briefly at Ness, then recognized him, and the red drained from his face and he was as white as a lamb, and as sheepish.

  The woman, whose anger had been replaced by fear, looked at Ness and smiled and nodded, and she seemed embarrassed, as well, but the crowd was still yelling, and closing in.

  Ness moved back to the picket line and yelled, "Please!" at the top of his voice.

  The crowd ignored him.

  He yelled it again.

  And again.

  And the noise subsided just enough for him to get it out: "The market is closed!"

  The noise picked back up, as that news was discussed, and then as Ness repeated, "The market is closed!" it again subsided.

  "The market is closing its doors for the day," Ness said, loudly but not yelling. "Please disperse!"

  It took several more tries. "You've closed the place down! Disperse peacefully!"

  Finally, Curry moved toward Ness, as the crowd behind them began milling out and away.

  Ness had approached the older, dignified man in the clerical collar and was speaking to him.

  "The market manager agreed to shut down early," Ness was saying, "to put an end to this confrontation."

  Normally the market stayed open well into the evening.

  The preacher was nodding. "A wise decision," he said.

  "Well, frankly," Ness said with a small smile, "they haven't done a hell of a lot of business today, thanks to you folks. You effectively shut them down, anyway."

  "We did not resort to violence, Mr. Ness."

  "I know that. If you had, you'd be in jail, Reverend Hollis."

  So, Curry thought, this was Hollis, the Future Outlook League's founder and leader.