He was, after all, in the company of a government agent, Special Agent Sidney White, who was here to repay Gus the money the Depression had cost him. Uncle Sam cared about Gus Kulovic. So said Special Agent Sidney White.
At first Gus had been frightened. The knock at his door two nights before had been loud enough to wake the dead, even to wake Gus Kulovic, despite his bad hearing- which was getting worse and worse-a disability that dated back to the Great War. Yes, Gus had served his adopted country in the trenches overseas. He had not been wounded, but the shelling, the thunder of the shelling, had taken its toll on his poor ears.
Nonetheless, Gus had jumped from the sofa where he'd been napping after dinner, and his wife Marija, ten years younger than he, a plump plain woman who looked pretty to Gus, had come running from the kitchen, where she'd been doing dishes, apron flapping. The banging on the door had even summoned fourteen-year-old Mary, the youngest of their four children and the only one still at home.
"Do you owe money, Poppa?" the girl said sassily. She had her hair in braids and wore a calico dress. Cute as a button, Gus thought. A young skinny version of her mother. Despite her joking, the girl seemed a little frightened. The knocking was loud and insistent.
"We are not in debt, dumpling," Gus said, patting her shoulder. "Go back to your schoolbooks."
She made a face and went, but truth be told, she liked school. Gus was proud of her-she would be the first of his brood to finish high school.
He opened the door and a thickset bulldog of a man in a gray overcoat and a dark blue hat was raising a formidable fist to knock again.
"Yes?" Gus said. He was irritated by this interruption, but he kept his expression neutral. The man was too well-dressed to be a salesman, so he might be someone important. No use offending.
"August Kulovic?" The man's voice was low and resonant, like a radio announcer. He seemed "official" to Gus.
"August Kulovic is me."
The man, whose complexion was gray, remained as expressionless as stone as he withdrew a billfold and flashed a gold badge, returning it to his suit pocket.
"Sidney White," he said. "Special Agent. Could I have a word with you?"
"Of course," Gus said. He ushered the stranger into the modestly furnished flat, which took up the whole upper floor of this house on East Sixty-fourth Street. The most distinctive thing about the place, at the moment, was the good-sized Christmas tree with electric lights (Gus preferred candles, but Mary had cajoled him) over by the windows.
"Is there trouble?" Gus asked.
Agent White smiled. It was wide and white and reassuring, an odd smile to find in the midst of that round gray face with the dark eyes and bushy eyebrows.
"You're in no trouble, Mr. Kulovic. None at all. In fact, I'm here to help you."
Marija had disappeared but now she returned, without her apron. She had obviously been listening. She said, smiling stiffly, "Would you gentleman enjoy some tea and cookies?"
Agent White removed his hat and smiled again and said, "Very much, ma'am. It's so kind of you."
Marija's tentative smile relaxed some and she was gone again.
Gus took Agent White's coat and hung it on a rack near the door. He showed him to the couch, where they sat beneath a framed print of an East European landscape showing snow-capped mountains and a blue sky.
"It is kind of you, Mr. White, to offer to help me."
"It's the government that wishes to help you, Mr. Kulovic. It's Uncle Sam who wants to help."
"I see," Gus said. But he didn't.
"You're a veteran, aren't you, Mr. Kulovic?"
"Yes," Gus said, quiet pride in his voice.
"Uncle Sam hasn't forgotten that."
"Neither has August Kulovic."
"Nor should he. You've been steadily employed for some years now, haven't you?"
"Yes. Since I got home from the war, I work for East Side Rapid." He worked maintenance on the train line. But his hearing loss was getting more and more severe, and he didn't know how much longer he would last.
Marija entered with a tray of china cups, a teapot, and a plate of rocliky, filled butter cookies, which she smilingly served. Before she departed, Agent White spoke to her, thanking her, but Gus couldn't hear the words.
It was at this point that Gus realized Agent White had from his first word been speaking up for him. Even the G-man's knock had rattled the rafters, as if he'd known before arriving of Gus' hearing problem.
But Agent White knew of many things where August Kulovic was concerned.
"You have money with the Bailey Building and Loan," Agent White said, sipping his tea.
"Yes. How is it you know this?"
"I'm with the government, Mr. Kulovic."
"What branch?"
"I'm not at liberty to divulge that. It must remain secret. National security. You understand."
"Yes," Gus said. But he didn't.
"What we are doing at my agency must be done confidentially. Not everyone qualifies. Someone like yourself, a veteran, is given special consideration. You understand?"
"Yes," Gus said. And that he understood. That seemed only fair.
"It's a big country, and a lot of people have financial woes. This Depression has hit a lot of folks hard. Take yourself, for example. You put three thousand dollars into your building and loan society. And then hard times came, and your building and loan, like so many others, was forced to go on a restricted basis. The market value of your passbook was reduced to about fifteen hundred dollars."
Gus put down his tea cup. He looked hard into the dark eyes of the agent. "How do you know these things?"
The G-man smiled and shrugged. "It's my business to, Mr. Kulovic." Then the smile disappeared. "These facts and figures are strictly confidential. You needn't worry."
"I worry all the time about losing half my money."
"How would you like to get your whole three thousand dollars back, dollar for dollar, in cash?"
"I would like it fine. I need that money. I want to buy a house for my old age."
"And so you shall. You just give me that passbook and you'll have your money back in sixty days. Maybe sooner. Every penny of it."
Gus scratched and shook his head. "I want the money, all right, Mr. White. But how are you going to do it?"
"Don't you worry. That's our business."
"Whose business?"
"The government. We are, in a limited, selected manner, aiding and assisting passbook owners in distress, by giving them dollar-for-dollar value in return for passbooks. And we give bonds as security for the passbooks."
"Bonds?"
"Yes. You needn't turn over the passbook, now. I can come back in a few days with your security bonds, and you can sign some documents."
Gus sighed, gestured with his palms up. "Mr. White, I don't read or write good. I don't have education."
"Can you sign your name?"
"Yes, but…"
"That's all that's necessary. May I stop by Thursday and discuss this further?"
"Yes, I…"
"Good. I'll have the necessary documents with me."
Agent White stood and extended his hand to Gus, who stood also and shook the hand.
"I must be going," Agent White said. "I have several others to contact. Some of them your friends, no doubt."
And the G-man was gone.
Gus hadn't known what to think. Hope was bursting in him, but he had spent too many hard years-among them these last Depression years-to give in to this unfamiliar feeling.
His wife was worried, too.
"Who is this man?" she said.
"He had a badge."
"When he comes back, ask to see it again," she said, shrewdly.
"I don't know much about business or anything," Gus said. "But this sounds good."
"Ask to see the badge."
Tonight Agent White had come calling again. They sat on the same sofa, but instead of Marija's tea, they drank from the whiskey bottle Agent White had
brought, tucked away in a briefcase along with his important papers.
"A toast to you, Mr. Kulovic," Agent White said, and they clicked glasses. "To August Kulovic, who soon will have his savings back!"
They had several more drinks and several similar toasts.
"Oh," Agent White said, "I almost forgot. I brought along your security bonds."
From the briefcase Agent White withdrew several long sheets of paper. Each of them had a gold seal, which looked very official to Gus. A word starting with the letter "G" was at the top of each page.
"Beg your pardon, Mr. White," Gus said, and rose. He went to Mary's room, where the teenager was sitting at a small desk doing her math homework. She was not yet in her pajamas, and so Gus did not hesitate to ask her to come out into the living room.
Agent White frowned as the girl entered the room.
Gus picked up the documents from the couch and handed them to his daughter. He asked her what the word starting with "G" was.
" 'Guarantee,' Poppa." She was studying the papers, flipping through them, making a face. "This paper says something about cemetery lots. Are you buying cemetery lots?"
"Dumpling…"
"Why are you buying cemetery lots, Poppa?"
Agent White rose and gently snatched the documents from the girl's hands.
He said to her, "Excuse me, but you have to be careful with these." He smiled apologetically at Gus. "They're for your protection, remember. You've got to give them back to me when we pay you your money. If you start reading them, you'll get them dirty. They're no good if you get fingerprint marks all over them."
Mary looked at the G-man with narrowed eyes and smirked and said, "Poppa…"
"Go to bed, Mary."
She sighed. "Okay, Poppa. G'night."
"Good night, dumpling. And thank you for your help."
But she was gone.
"She's a bright girl," Agent White said, as Gus sat back down.
"She's going to finish high school," he said.
"Maybe college," Agent White said. "You can consider that when you get your savings back."
"That is true."
Agent White poured Gus another drink and toasted the girl's future.
"You need to hand over that passbook," the G-man said, "and we can send it in to Washington and get everything fixed up."
Gus was shaking his head. "I don't need a lot of graves. What would I do with them?"
Agent White laughed, softly. "Why, you don't understand, Mr. Kulovic. We're not selling you any cemetery lots. We just want you to be protected while we're getting your three thousand dollars for you. These lots are a surety bond."
Gus nodded, slowly. "They're just… security."
"Right. Exactly. All you have to do is hold onto this security and give it back to me when I bring you your money."
"I would like my money. I need it."
"Of course you would. And you should have it. Uncle Sam wants you to have it."
Gus thought of Marija, sewing in the bedroom. He said, "Can I see your badge again?"
"Why, certainly, Mr. Kulovic.
The badge was a polished gold and seemed very, very official to Gus. Satisfied, he handed it back to the agent.
Agent White leaned close, conspiratorially, and said, "What I'm about to tell you is strictly confidential. You must turn that passbook over to us, immediately if not sooner. Your building and loan society is on shaky ground. It might have to close up. We can't help you, once it's shut down."
"You can't?"
"That's the one limitation of our agency. We can only sign up distressed passbook holders while they're part of an active savings and loan."
Gus had a sinking feeling, amid all that whiskey. "What if they go under tomorrow?"
White smiled tightly, reassuringly. "Once you've turned your passbook over to me, and we've signed these documents, you're safe."
Gus finished his latest glass of whiskey.
"This is a wonderful country," Gus said, "America."
"Uncle Sam cares about you," Agent White said. "That's the God's honest truth."
Gus sighed, smiled. He glanced at the large Christmas tree with its fancy electric lights.
"Vesele Vianoce," Gus said.
Agent White didn't understand.
"Christmas come early this year," Gus said.
Then he went and got his passbook and gave it to Agent White.
Who agreed with Gus about Christmas coming early.
CHAPTER 5
The Central Police Station at Twenty-first and Payne, in a West Side industrial district, was a four-story sandstone fortress nearly as gray as the bitter-cold overcast morning, a box with walls five feet deep. The ornate bronze trim of the building did not make it any less forbidding.
Eliot Ness pulled his city vehicle, the black Ford sedan the Mayor had promised, up the ramp next to the massive building and left the car in the elevated parking lot there. He glanced up. On the fourth floor the windows were barred-jail facility. Just the holding tanks, actually. The gray stone wedding cake of a building just down the street, the Cuyahoga County Criminal Courts Building, housed the county jail, considered one of the most modern jails in the States. An underground tunnel, which Ness had traversed more than once, connected the two buildings.
And the two buildings, police headquarters and the court/jail facility, were impressive structures, to say the least. Effective civic symbols of the law at work. It struck Ness as more than a little ironic that they served such a corrupt, broken-down, out-of-date police department.
He walked up the steps between the globes on twin poles at the Twenty-first Street entrance. Once past the small vestibule, he was in a narrow hall with a curved one-story ceiling, yellow plaster walls, and slate floor. Cops, both in uniform and plainclothes, were sleep-walking the tunnel-like hall, with about as much spring in their step as a Hooverville mattress. No one recognized the city's new safety director. Ness had a hunch it wouldn't have mattered if they had.
The chiefs office was on the left just down the hall and Ness stepped inside, took off his hat, smiled at the pleasant, middle-aged receptionist and said, "Eliot Ness to see Chief Matowitz."
She looked up with a bland smile, blinking behind glasses. "Do you have an appointment… did you say 'Ness'?"
"Yes, I did."
Her smile turned nervous, and she said, "Excuse me a moment," and moving in a birdlike manner she went into the inner office, briefly.
Soon Ness was ushered into the wood and pebbled-glass office, which was similar to his own at City Hall but slightly smaller, where the beefy, six-foot, fifty-three-year-old Chief of Police stood watering the pots of plants and flowers that lined the inside of a frosted windowsill.
"Mr. Ness, I'm flattered that you've dropped by." The chief set his watering can on the edge of a polished mahogany desk uncluttered by work and came around to extend his hand for Ness to shake, which he did. The hand was moist, from the watering can, not from sweat. In one corner was a birdcage on a stand, where a parakeet chirped.
Chief Matowitz had a broad, lumpy, friendly face and blue eyes that seemed distant behind his wire-framed glasses. He was wearing his chief’s cap, a lighter blue than his crisp uniform with its gleaming silver badge, dark blue tie, and red lapel flower.
"I had a call from Mayor Burton first thing this morning," the chief said, pulling up a chair opposite his desk for Ness, "and was assured that my position is secure. I was relieved to hear that."
"You've put in thirty-one years of service to the department," Ness said, sitting, unbuttoning his topcoat but leaving it on. "That's nothing to sneeze at."
"I want you to know," the other man said, resuming the watering of his potted plants and flowers, "that I'm behind you one hundred per cent. Whatever it takes. Don't hesitate to call on me."
"That's good to hear."
"There's a lot of fine boys in our department. You hear a lot of scuttlebutt to the contrary, but don't you believe it. Why, I can quote
you chapter and verse, comparing statistics of crime figures in other cities of similar size to our fine city, and you'll see our department is doing a top-notch job." His voice was shaking with emotion, or seemed to be, as he added, "The Cleveland Police Department is the finest in the world. I'm proud of my boys."
Ness shifted in his chair, his irritation barely in check. "Chief, we have one of the worst departments in the world. And rooting out the corruption that makes it that way is my top priority."
The chief balled his free hand and shook the fist and did his best to look determined. "And well it should be. Those rotten apples can spoil the whole barrel."
Ness sighed and cleared his throat. "I feel we should discuss the situation."
"So do I," Matowitz said forcefully. "So do I." He placed the watering can on a window sill and moved to the parakeet's cage, where he began feeding the bird bread crumbs.
"Do you have any ideas, Chief?"
The chief turned momentarily away from his chirping bird to look at Ness blankly. "Ideas?"
"I thought you might have some suggestions on where our investigation might begin."
"What investigation is that?"
"Into our corrupt goddamn department."
The chief’s face took on a thoughtful look. "Let me get back to you on that. I'd like to check with my staff on that one."
Ness shifted in his seat again. This guy was driving him batty. "Chief, I'm going to be moving very fast. You're going to have to play some heads-up ball, here."
Matowitz moved away from the bird cage. He walked behind the desk and sat. Ness was not sure whether the chiefs plant-watering and bird-feeding reflected a lack of concern, or masked his nervousness. Or maybe the guy just wasn't playing with a full deck.
"I have heard bad things about the fourteenth and fifteenth precincts," the chief admitted, twiddling his thumbs. "Rumors, mainly. The Detective Bureau hasn't been able to confirm anything."
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