Wild shrugged, grinned. "I'm just a curious sort of guy. You remember me from Chicago."
Ness grinned back. "Sure I do. You were a pal of Jake Lingle's."
Ness was referring to the notorious murdered newsman who after a brief period of martyrdom proved to have been in Capone's pocket, a major scandal for the Chicago newspaper world a few years back.
"I knew Jake," Wild said, trying not to sound defensive. "That doesn't make me a crook."
"It doesn't make you an archbishop, either."
"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. I can give you some leads now and then."
"I'll appreciate that. I can tell just looking at you you're a public-spirited citizen."
"Banana oil. Aren't you wise to who you're chauffeuring around? Simply the best police reporter in town."
"Why, is Clayton Fritchey riding the running board?"
"Very funny. But I got a good memory, too. I remember Chicago myself. For instance, how you liked seeing your name in print, especially when it was in headlines. 'Eliot Press,' we used to call you."
That only seemed to amuse Ness. "Really," he said archly.
"Yeah." Wild jerked a thumb at his chest. "Treat me right and I'll treat you right. You can't afford to be on the bad side of the fourth estate. You ain't political. So you'll rise or fall on your press clippings."
Ness said nothing, but he did throw a sideways glance at Wild, and smiled a little himself.
"You know I'm right," Wild said. "Burton brought you in for publicity value: 'Former G-Man Appointed Safety Director.' The public eats up this G-Man shit with a spoon."
Ness smiled wryly, a secret lurking in his steel-gray eyes that Wild wished he could get at.
"I'll grant you part of my job is a cosmetic one," Ness admitted. "But right now I have to stay off the record for two reasons: I don't want to alienate the rest of the press; and I haven't had a chance to do anything yet. Give me a chance to get the lay of the land, for Christ's sake."
"That's fair enough, I guess. At least you aren't pretending you weren't hired for your press value."
"I was hired," Ness said, "to make the new administration, the reformers, look like they're getting something done. I'm helping 'em keep their campaign promises."
"Just like Chicago," Wild said, nodding. "You had to show the public that gangsters in the Windy City weren't immune from some good old-fashioned law and order. That there were a few cops in the world that couldn't be bought. And you pulled that off, while the tax boys did the less flashy work that really put ol' Scar face away."
Ness nodded.
Wild went on: "But I don't think you're very likely to have such luck with the Mayfield mob, frankly. And if you plan on cleaning up the police force, you'll need a broom bigger than God's."
Ness was driving with both hands on the wheel now, turning right on Sixth. He didn't look at Wild as he asked, "If you think I'll be a washout, why come along for the ride?"
"It'll be fun seeing you try to do the impossible," Wild said good-naturedly. "There'll be some dandy headlines in it for both of us, while you do."
"You seem pretty convinced I'll fall flat on my face."
"Or thereabouts." Wild shook his head. "I just don't think you know what you're up against."
"Care to enlighten me?"
"Sure. Why not." Wild smiled tightly, smugly. "Ever hear of the 'outside chief?"
Ness said nothing for a moment, the car humming along. Then: "No."
"The 'inside' chief,' of course, is Matowitz. The chief within the department. Inside the system."
"You're not suggesting Matowitz is corrupt."
"Hardly. He put those blinders on all by himself. No-body paid him to. Matowitz isn't the point."
"Well, get to the point."
Wild shrugged with one shoulder. "It's just a rumor."
"A rumor."
"A rumor. Backroom talk. To the effect that a very high-ranking police official is on the pad."
This time Ness shrugged. "That would be no surprise on a department as… troubled… as this one."
"Don't worry," Wild smirked. "We're still off the record. If you want to call the department 'corrupt,' be my guest. I won't repeat it in print."
"Make your point."
"The point, simply, is this high-ranking cop is said to be the 'outside chief.' The chief of the 'department within the department.'
"
Ness' eyes tightened. "The department within the department, huh?"
Wild smiled patiently, as if teaching a child. "The crooked cops know each other. They protect each other. They're a department within, and yet outside of, the department. And their 'chief-whoever he is-directs things, makes assignments, passes the graft around even-handedly and keeps everything and everybody in line. So rumor has it."
"I see."
"Are you sure you haven't heard this rumor before?"
"Not in such detail. Never that there was a so-called 'outside chief.' "
Wild lifted his eyebrows, set them down. "It's just a rumor. I wouldn't print it in the paper."
"I understand," Ness nodded. "Thanks, Wild."
"And their ties to the May field Road mob are, well, obvious."
"That much I knew."
"I figured you had to know something. Now. What are you going to do for me?"
Ness thought for a moment, then, eyes still on the road, said, casually, "I'm going along with a squad of cops on a betting-joint raid tomorrow. How would you like to be the only reporter along for the ride?"
"It beats a streetcar all to hell," Wild grinned.
"I ask only that you don't make a sap out of me," Ness cautioned. "I'm just tagging along to check out their procedure. See if the raid goes off without a hitch."
"Or whether somebody tips off the place," Wild said, nodding.
"Right. It won't make a big story for you, but it'll be a start. Anyway, just stick around. Be patient. There's going to be plenty of dandy headlines for you in the next couple of months. I can just about promise you that. Now, here's City Hall."
CHAPTER 7
Eliot Ness had never really seen a fire before.
That is, not a fire in the sense of a burning building, like this modest, run-down two-story frame house that was managing somehow to retain its structure while the inside of it burned, the flames having eaten away much of the roof to lick the night sky. Now that the fire was more or less under control, the flames no longer rose from the top of the house. Instead, a strangely white column of smoke climbed into the overcast sky to make it even more cloudy, while flames twitched in the otherwise dark and broken windows of the house, like the flickering within the eyes of a jack o' lantern.
Ness had been here almost from the beginning. He'd even pitched in with getting the old people out of the house and onto the cold street. Many of them were in robes and even pajamas but neighbors had come out bearing heavy coats to help the shivering, bewildered old folks; some of them were barefoot, and neighbors rustled up shoes and slippers for impromptu footwear. Most of these now-homeless elderly were wheezing from the smoke, several were crying, and a few vomited onto the frozen ground.
Two were dead. Two old men who'd shared a room in the back of the house, on the ground floor, where the fire had started. Incinerated. Their bodies, the charred logs that had been their bodies, were removed by firemen who'd carried them out of the steaming, smoking building, cradled in their arms like black babies, to be deposited in asbestos-lined wicker baskets, and put in the back of a Black Maria, bound for the morgue.
It had shaken Ness. A fire striking one small building-a dilapidated house passing as a refuge for the aged, just another shabby frame house on the East Side, in a working-class, mostly Slovak neighborhood-made for a full-scale disaster.
Especially in Cleveland, where the fire department was using equipment that was modern only in the sense that horses weren't pulling it. Ness had taken the safety director's job because of its relationship to the police de-partment, to
law enforcement. He had not, frankly, given the fire department much thought.
Thus far he'd had only one brief meeting, on Thursday morning, with Fire Chief Grainger. All else had been police matters. The mayor's two-month ticking clock made that the top priority. This included dealing with Potter, who'd seethed silently at the news of his "promotion," and the betting-parlor raid, on which he'd allowed Wild to come, where as expected someone had phoned in a tip-off, queering the bust.
Tonight, Friday, he was learning that the fire department was just as troubled as the police. Corruption wasn't the problem. The men Ness had seen tonight did their jobs bravely and relatively well. However, he'd also seen fire hoses with low pressure due to leakage, patched hoses that wouldn't fit hydrants without some imaginative jury-rigging, and a hook-and-ladder truck so decrepit that it, arrived after the two police squads and the pumper truck and the ambulance.
Ness had been on his way home this Friday night, after a long afternoon of meetings with various commissioners and department heads, when he heard on his one-way police radio the call go out for police backup on a fire at an old folks' home at 933 East Seventy-eighth Street. It seemed like a good opportunity to check out the fire department in action. It was already ten o'clock, and he had a brief thought of Eva waiting for him well into the evening, but he dismissed it.
He had pulled up in the Ford and leaped out and pitched in, helping those old people out the front door. The frame house was distinguishable from its neighbors only by its state of dilapidation, a small sign saying JOANNA HOME that hung from the roof over the porch and, of course, the fact that it was very much on fire.
"I'm the safety director," Ness had snapped at the team of three firemen who were trying, with little success, to get the pumper truck in operation. "Where the hell's your hook-and-ladder?"
They looked at him and shrugged, in unison, and went back to their work. It would have been amusing, if the air hadn't been filled with the crying and coughing and rasping and puking of the dozen or more old people, trooping out of the house like refugees, aided by fire fighters and neighbors.
The hook-and-ladder arrived minutes later, and Ness identified himself to the battalion chief who rode on board, a middle-aged potbellied Irishman with a nose as red as the fire.
"Where the hell have you been, Chief?"
"Director Ness, I'm sorry-but you can only get to a fire so fast when your truck's so old it can only climb hills in reverse gear. Now if you'll be excusing me, sir, I have a fire to put out."
Ness had no answer to that, and when he got a look at the ancient, rusted-out hook-and-ladder, he could only sympathize.
The fire fighters did a good job, considering. They began by quickly, thoroughly wetting down the houses on either side of the burning one. The street was filled with curious neighbors, including those who'd fled the homes bordering the Joanna, and the two police squad cars, which Ness had beat to the scene by several minutes, another fact that didn't sit well with him, began crowd control procedures, keeping them back on the other side of the street. The front of the house became a wall of ice as water from the hoses froze on contact. The whole scene was a nightmare of hot and cold, fire and ice.
"These goddamn winter fires are the worst," one soot-rouged fireman told Ness, in a panting, hoarse voice.
Ness understood. He had watched the frustrated fire fighters, kneeling over the frozen-up hydrants, using blow torches to melt them down-fighting fire with fire.
One group of firemen was in the house, while another group climbed ladders, smashing out upper windows, having already done so on the first floor. They seemed somewhat scattered in their efforts, with many of the younger men frantically asking older ones what to do next. The battalion chief to whom Ness had spoken seemed to be the only one with authority, and he was busy directing the outside hoses.
The fire fighters had decided the building was now empty. A fortyish, rail-thin woman was in charge, but it had not yet been pinned down if she was the owner or not. Mrs. Winters proved to be as cold as her name.
"This'll cost me a pretty penny," she disgustedly told Ness, who had inquired after the old people, getting from the gray-robed woman an exact count of the number of "patients" at the home.
"If you're thinking of repairing this place," Ness said, "I wouldn't count on it."
Her witch's face contorted. "You think the damage is going to be that bad?"
"I think your 'home' is an obvious fire trap and you're out of business."
She scowled and moved away, disappearing into the crowd of neighbors.
The Salvation Army contingent showed up in a beat-up truck and an old flivver. From the truck the uniformed men and women began dispensing doughnuts and coffee to the elderly victims, and using the flivver to shuttle them to a nearby hospital. It disturbed Ness to see that the Salvation Army was better organized and more efficient than either of the public departments under his command.
Chief Grainger showed up when the fire was well under control, a second hook-and-ladder and another truck already on the scene. A sturdy blue-eyed, white-haired man of fifty-five, Grainger was in full uniform and looked pretty spiffy. Ness wished the department had a single fire truck that looked so fit for duty.
"My men have got things in hand, I see," the Chief said proudly as he approached Ness, where he stood in the middle of the street watching the fire.
"They do," Ness admitted. "On the other hand, I think the neighbors putting together a bucket brigade might have done about as well."
The two men were bathed in the shadowy flickering of smoke and flames from across the way.
Chief Grainger bristled, but kept his tone respectful as he said: "My men are dedicated public servants, Director Ness."
"I know they are. I'd like to see what they could do with equipment manufactured after the turn of the century."
Grainger shrugged, and smiled humorlessly. "We do what we can with what we're given."
Despite the truth of that, it struck Ness that Grainger was copping out. "It's going to take more than new equipment to overhaul this fire department, Chief. I've seen less than a crack team at work here tonight. More training is obviously needed. I may not be an expert about firefighting, but I know that much."
"Training takes money, too," Grainger said.
"Agreed," Ness said tersely. "And I want your detailed budget request as soon as possible. Make that part of it."
"First thing Monday soon enough?" Grainger asked.
"That would be helpful."
"You think we'll get what we ask for?"
"We'll know in a couple of months, won't we?"
The Chief nodded glumly and tipped his cap to the safety director as he left to join his men, not pitching in, just observing and cheering them on.
Ness checked his watch. It was almost midnight and he hadn't even called Eva. Damn.
He was heading for his car when the mayor's limousine pulled up, sliding a little on the glassy street, iced over from the fire fighters' hoses. His Honor, dressed in a tux, an expensive gray topcoat draped over his shoulders, stepped out of the back seat, as the police driver held the door open. Mrs. Burton remained in the car, a vague shape in a white stole. The crowd of neighbors began smiling and chattering; a few hollered hellos to the mayor, and he smiled tightly and waved back at them.
"I was on my way home from a banquet at the Hollenden," Burton explained to Ness. The mayor, in white tie and tails, was an incongruous figure in this neighborhood, standing in an ice-slick street before the burning ramshackle frame house. "I heard an old-age home had caught fire. I thought I should check it out…"
Just yesterday Ness had ordered a police radio installed in the mayor's car, at His Honor's request. He had also presented Burton with a gold Safety Department badge, which had pleased the mayor, who seemed to have a childlike enthusiasm for cops-and-robbers stuff.
"Fire's under control," Ness said.
"Fatalities?"
"Two," Ness said, and gave
particulars, as many as he knew, anyway. "And thirteen more inhaled a lot of smoke. The Salvation Army's helping us get them to Mount Sinai and Glenville General."
Burton nodded gravely. He looked over at the burning house across the way. "When I heard an old-age home was on fire, I envisioned something else."
"Me, too. I wonder how many of these rattraps are passing for nursing homes."
"We'll have to find out."
"And we will. You know, we have to talk money."
The mayor snorted. "Is there any other subject?"
"The fire department's in sad shape."
Ness began giving details, but Burton interrupted, saying, "Let's get away from the smell of smoke." He gestured down the street, past the thinning crowd of gawking neighbors. "Let's walk and talk.
"You've obviously seen why my overriding concern is getting our budget past the council," the mayor said, as they strolled down the dimly lit streets lined with ramshackle frame houses.
"I can certainly see why we need money for the police department," Ness said. "Money other than the graft some cops are pocketing, that is."
"You've spent the past two days on the prowl, haven't you, Eliot?"
It was the first time Burton had called Ness by his first name.
"I spent most of the afternoon in my office. But yes, I've been out and about. Went on a sorry excuse for a bookie-joint raid this morning. Toured some of the precincts."
"What have you seen?"
Ness shrugged. "A bunch of sloppy, poorly trained cops who are low in morale, to say the least, some of whom-perhaps many of whom-are so corrupt they make a Chicago cop look like St. Francis of Assisi."
"These are rank-and-file cops you're talking about. Any sign of corruption higher up?"
"Not specifically, but I heard an interesting rumor."
He told Burton about the so-called "outside chief."
"Damn," Burton said, his voice breathy. "If such a man exists, and you could nail him…"
"You'd have your top-ranking corrupt cop for the papers, and at the same time we'd knock the pins out from under our 'department within the department.' We'd accomplish something substantial."
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