BULLET PROOF (Eliot Ness)

by Max Allan Collins

  Little Jim would reserve judgment on that, but he watched, spellbound, as his associate whirled into action, making one phone call after another.

  Shortly before noon, just hours and a flurry of activity later, Big Jim Caldwell and Little Jim McFate walked out into the glorious, sunny August day. One would think they had stepped not out of a six-story brick building, but a bandbox. They were dressed in black silk top hats that reflected the sunlight, striped trousers and swallow-tailed coats, vests with white piping, and Ascot ties snugged under wing collars. Their black shoes, peeking out from under pearl-gray spats, outshone the sun. Both carried gold-crowned walking sticks like scepters. They looked as grand as two petty crooks decked out in rental attire could ever hope to look.

  Grander.

  Parked at the curb were two glistening black Packard touring cars, their tops down; a colored chauffeur in uniform stood at attention, holding open the rear door of the first of the two Packards. Big Jim gestured regally for Little Jim to enter first. Little Jim did, and Big Jim followed, and the chauffeur shut the door with a satisfying metallic chunk and took his position behind the wheel.

  The second Packard, directly behind the first, was filled with a small but formally dressed musical group: a trumpet, a trombone, a clarinet, and a snare drum. The colored chauffeur of the second car had a glazed, wide-eyed look, like a black comedian in the movies. But his eyes were no wider, his expression no more glazed, than that of the two plainclothes police officers in the car parked in front of union headquarters, taking all of this in.

  Little Jim recognized the cop in the rider's seat as Albert Curry, one of the safety director's dicks. Neither he nor Big Jim knew the name of the other one, a big dark fellow who looked like an Indian, but they had come to know his face well. He and Curry had been their day-shift companions since the first day of the surveillance.

  "Driver," Caldwell said, "let the parade begin."

  And the first Packard pulled away from the curb, the second one slowly falling in line, with the two cops trailing after in their clunker of a black Ford sedan.

  "You know," Caldwell said, smiling almost sweetly, leaning his head so close to his partner their top hats touched, "Ness embarrassed Snorkey once. Snorkey went apeshit and starting busting stuff up."

  "Snorkey?"

  "Ah. You don't go back that far with the Outfit, do you, lad? Snorkey. Capone. Ness wanted to get some press attention, he wanted to embarrass Big Al. So he took all of the beer trucks that he and his so-called 'untouchables' confiscated and they had a big parade up Michigan Avenue, right past the Lexington Hotel, where they knew Snorkey would be watching. Fifty or sixty of the goddamn things. Just to give Snorkey the needle—and get in the papers."

  "Got a lot of attention, I'll bet."

  "Parades always do, bucko. Parades always do."

  And the three-car convoy made its way down Euclid Avenue, at noon, a slow procession that was taken in by laughing lunch-hour spectators, and the photographers of the press who had been tipped by Big Jim, who along with Little Jim tipped his silk hat regally to the amazed, amused crowds, who began to stop and line up along the sidewalks, waving back, some of them even cheering.

  Hoots of laughter filled the air as the curb-lined gallery read the banner draped across the rear of the first touring car:

  CALDWELL AND MCFATE'S CIRCUS

  COURTESY THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY

  CITY OF CLEVELAND

  At East Fourth Street the motorcade paused at the scene of a fender-bender accident: two taxis had crashed into each other, and the drivers were out, talking to a pair of uniformed cops. A small crowd had gathered, who now looked gleefully toward the Caldwell and McFate fleet. Little Jim, as they passed by the accident scene, noted that the windshield of one vehicle was spiderwebbed.

  Impulsively he shouted: "Hey—there ain't supposed to be no window smashing today, boys!"

  Howls and guffaws burst from the outdoor audience, and Big Jim patted the taller man on the back, knocking Little Jim's top hat off balance.

  "To think I ever accused you of havin' no sense of humor," Caldwell said.

  Little Jim smiled like the Mona Lisa and damn near blushed.

  And, of course, while all of this was unfolding, Curry and the Indian were bringing up the rear, the younger cop's face crimson with embarrassment. The car they were immediately tailing was the one bearing the musicians, a mere combo to be sure, but, small as they were, putting out a lot of sound.

  Specifically, they were playing "Me and My Shadow."

  CHAPTER 11

  While Caldwell and McFate's "Big Parade" (as the press would soon call it) was still under way, Eliot Ness was finishing a quiet lunch at the Cleveland Hotel's posh Bronze Room, where in a back booth he and his executive assistant, Bob Chamberlin, were going over a travel itinerary.

  "As far as anybody else is concerned," Ness said, keeping his voice down, his eyes locking Chamberlin's, "this trip is strictly to confer with the Buffalo officials on matters of traffic control."

  Chamberlin sipped his coffee, nodded. "Particularly the news hounds."

  "Yes—including Sam Wild. Including the rest of our staff, for that matter. Have you made the appointments?"

  Chamberlin nodded again. "You'll start off with a contractor named Phillips."

  "He was cooperative on the phone?"

  "Very. I think he'll testify, once he's met with you and sized you up. He says he tried to do business in Cleveland over the past several years, but finally gave it up because of the 'extras' that were cropping up."

  " 'Extras.'" Ness shook his head in disgust. "Specifically, bribes, payoffs, and phony 'fines' that went to line Caldwell's and McFate's pockets."

  "Precisely." Chamberlin's ironic smile was smaller than his tiny mustache. "Phillips has a major construction business in Buffalo—he's engaged in building a chain of gas stations in a dozen cities right now, for the Tydol people—and he said to me, and I quote, 'You couldn't get me to Cleveland if I got a five-million-dollar contract, because the racketeers would have it all before I got through.'"

  Ness raised an eyebrow. "Well, let's hope we can get him to Cleveland to talk to a grand jury."

  "I think you can sell him on it. He's got a lot of bitterness toward the 'boys.' Now, next on the Buffalo agenda are two smaller contractors, home builders who—"

  Ness, sitting with his back to the wall, as was his habit, raised a hand in a stop motion. "Hold up, Bob. Here comes Albert Curry."

  "Curry?" Chamberlin said disbelievingly, craning his neck around to see for himself. "Isn't he on the detail that's keeping tabs on Big Jim and Little Jim?"

  "He's supposed to be," Ness said, a hint of irritation in his voice, but curiosity, too.

  Curry approached the booth and, hat in hands, looking sheepish but clearly angry, planted his feet and stood as if at parade rest. "I'm sorry to interrupt your lunch."

  "We've had our lunch, Albert," Ness said. "Why don't you sit down and not attract any more attention than you already have and tell us what you're doing here."

  Curry swallowed and slid into the booth next to Chamberlin. "I figured this is where you'd be. I had Garner let me out, and walked over. He's still on the job."

  "Then our subjects are still under surveillance?"

  "Oh yes. Look, Chief, I'm sorry to walk off the job and barge in on your—"

  "Albert. Spill."

  Albert spilled. In a rush he told of the humiliating procession he'd so recently been a part of.

  Chamberlin laughed humorlessly. "Those bastards certainly have their nerve."

  Ness smiled faintly. "They just have a sense of humor. Well, you know something? So have I."

  Curry began to smile, now, liking the sound of that.

  "You know," Ness said, pushing aside a half-eaten piece of pecan pie, "it seems to me that we've put the Kingsbury Run investigation on the back burner long enough."

  Both Curry and Chamberlin looked at Ness in frank confusion.
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  "What in God's name," Chamberlin said, "has the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run got to do with—"

  "Bob," Ness said pleasantly, pragmatically, "I want you to call Sergeant Merlo and have him pull some boys off the detective bureau. You know, the Butcher has been preying upon vagrants and the so-called dregs of humanity. It occurs to me that today would be a fine day to round up fifty or so of the filthiest vagrants in town, to question in our ongoing investigation."

  Chamberlin began to smile slowly.

  "Now since the Butcher only strikes at the most unfortunate of society's outcasts, naturally we needn't question anyone who appears to have had a bath within, oh, say . . . the previous three months."

  "Naturally," Chamberlin said, toasting Ness with a coffee cup, then sipping from it.

  "Have Merlo do this at once," Ness said. "And have him put them all in the same holding tank in the central jail."

  "I got you," Chamberlin said, setting the cup down, nodding to Curry, who slid back out of the booth to allow Chamberlin to be on his way.

  "Bob?"

  Chamberlin turned. "Yes?"

  "How long will this process take, would you think?"

  "Not very. Three hours at the outside."

  "Fine. Go to it."

  Curry was still not following this. His own smile had long since faded.

  "Chief," he said, "I have nothing against reactivating the Butcher investigation . . . God knows I never thought that guy Dolezal was guilty anyway, but why now?"

  Ness leaned across the booth. "Albert," Ness said to the young detective, "wouldn't you say you witnessed a flagrant example of the law being broken today?"

  "Huh?" "

  "Disturbing the peace. Don't you think that two representatives of rank-and-file union members would know better than to disrupt the lunch hour of Cleveland's citizens with some noisy, traffic-clogging 'parade'?"

  And Curry finally got it. "Yes, yes... definitely a law was broken. And they didn't have a permit for a public display like that."

  "Well, you should make sure first. Check at the county clerk's office at City Hall. It should take you, oh... about three hours."

  Curry was nodding, grinning.

  And Ness's smile turned very nasty. "Then I want you to go up to that union office and arrest Big Jim and Little Jim, or if they're still parading around in a touring car, pull them over... but either way, throw their fat asses in jail. In a certain holding tank."

  Curry was grinning like a Cheshire cat, now. Without a word, he scurried out of the Bronze Room. Ness, pleased with himself, ordered a Scotch.

  Around four-thirty that afternoon, back in his office, Ness was at work cleaning up administrative paperwork to clear the way for his upcoming two-day Buffalo excursion. There was a characteristic (shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits) knock, which he recognized as Sam Wild's at the private-entry hall door. He rose from his rolltop desk and unlocked the door and Wild stumbled in, like a drunk.

  Only he was intoxicated with laughter, not booze. Tears were streaming down his face.

  "Hello, Sam," Ness said.

  Wild, unable to speak, waved at Ness, found a chair over by one of the conference tables, and draped himself in it, long legs sticking out like a scarecrow's. The reporter laughed and laughed, finally digging a handkerchief out of a pocket to wipe his eyes and blow his nose.

  "You are my hero," Wild said.

  Ness was sitting back at the rolltop desk, with his chair swiveled around to face his friend. "Why, thanks. I do try to set an example for you. Give you something to shoot for."

  ."Well, I'll never top this." Wild's laughter had subsided, but he was grinning like a guy holding a winning sweepstakes ticket. "Busting Capone was nothin' compared to this."

  "Compared to what, Sam?" Ness asked innocently.

  Wild gestured over his shoulder with a thumb. "I was just over at the jail. Now I'll tell you what you already know, 'cause your fine hand is obvious in this: those smelly fuckin' bums you rousted on the Kingsbury Run case, there must be fifty or sixty of 'em, are sharing a cell with Big Jim and Little Jim, still decked out in their finery for that parade they put on today."

  "No kidding."

  "I never smelled anything so bad as those bums packed together in that holding tank. Pee-you! What a foul stench. And then somebody turned on the steam in the cell block, full blast. Every radiator in the joint was going."

  Ness shrugged, "It is cool, for August."

  "I mean, those guys smelled bad enough, before they got sweated out. And all the while Caldwell and McFate are going fuckin' nuts. They're screaming their lungs out. They look like a couple of corsages that got left out in the rain."

  "I'm sure their lawyers will get them out soon enough."

  "I'm sure. But oh you gave me a good laugh—and a great punch line for my story on the 'big parade.' They thought they were making suckers out of you, but they forgot the golden rule."

  "Golden rule?"

  "PT. Barnum's. There's one born every minute. They made a sap out of you, but you made bigger saps out of them. My hat's off to you."

  Ness leaned back in the chair. "I can't take credit for having the steam turned on."

  "I'm sure that was that kid Al Curry's idea. He was hanging around, watching 'em like they was monkeys in the zoo. And they're grabbing onto the front bars like they are monkeys, too, in their wilted monkey suits."

  Ness smiled and sighed. "I do wish I could see it."

  Wild hauled himself up out of the chair, stretched, yawned. "Well, hell, they're probably sprung by now. Anyway, I got a story to write—thanks to you."

  "Don't mention it. Have you, uh, talked to that Teamster yet?"

  "Whitehall? Yeah. We made contact. You want details?"

  "No."

  Wild smirked. "Didn't think so. Why do I have the idea that you put the two of us together 'cause you think we share a common bond?"

  "And what bond would that be?"

  "Whitehall and me, we ain't either of us adverse to breaking a rule or two."

  "Sam, I was just giving you a lead on what might make a good sidebar piece. Human interest."

  "Right. I don't know what I was thinking of. Nothing you do ever's got an ulterior motive, does it?"

  Wild tipped his straw fedora to the safety director, and slipped out into the hall; the press room was just down and across the way.

  Ness went back to his desk and looked over the traffic statistics he'd need to be familiar with on the official leg of his Buffalo trip. He was just setting the material aside when he heard a commotion in his outer office. He rose and went to the door and peeked out on a room as large as his own; it was here that his secretary and several clerks kept desks and tended files, and responded to citizens who walked up to the wide counter with a complaint or request.

  The two citizens who had bellied up to this bar had a complaint.

  They were Big Jim Caldwell and Little Jim McFate, and they were still in their tuxes, although their top hats were long since abandoned and they looked like figures from a wedding cake—a stale one. Their finery looked wrinkled, withered, unwashed; their hair clung tight and yet haphazardly to their scalps, where it had dried after the drenching of sweat from the steamy jail cell.

  And they smelled very bad indeed. They carried a cloud of body odor with them like a loser carried bad luck.

  "We demand to see the safety director!" Caldwell was shouting. His voice was hoarse, his face devoid of blood. Next to him, horse-faced, morose McFate was trembling with rage, like a child on the verge of tears.

  The women in the outer office were taken aback by this loud, unsightly, malodorous intrusion—even Ness's efficient, redheaded secretary Wanda, who usually could ward off the most insistent and obnoxious constituent without batting an eye.

  "You can't see Mr. Ness without an appointment," she was saying.

  Ness stepped out into the outer office just far enough to be seen, smiled benignly and said, "Send the gentlemen in, Miss Goodson. They'r
e old friends of mine."

  He went into his office and stood with his arms folded, waiting. When the gamy, bedraggled pair entered— Caldwell first, McFate shutting the door rattlingly behind them—Ness gestured to two chairs at a nearby conference table.

  Caldwell gestured no, with a violent motion. He said, "You think you're pretty goddamn cute."

  "Frankly," Ness said pleasantly, "my being cute never occurred to me. My mother's accused me of that, from time to time, but just about nobody else ever has."

  Caldwell pointed a finger like a gun; he said, through clenched teeth, "We can take anything you can dish out, pally, and throw it right back at you!"

  "Oh," Ness said, sitting on the edge of the conference table, "I didn't realize that's why you dropped by."

  "What?" Caldwell said.

  "To confess. I can get my secretary in here and you can make a formal statement. You can begin with the Gordon's extortion and vandalism and work backward. . . ."

  Caldwell sneered. "You don't need your girl, because we're not here to confess to shit. We came to say that you, Mayor Burton, and the Chamber of Commerce, and all the fat-cat industrialists in the city, are trying to ruin the labor movement. Well, it won't work, pally."

  "Mr. Caldwell. Mr. McFate. If you have anything to do with the labor movement, that fact hasn't come to my attention as yet. And I've been examining your activities rather closely, gentlemen."

  "Bring on your investigations," Caldwell said derisively, "bring on your indictments. You're bluffing. You haven't got a thing on us."

  Ness said nothing; he just smiled blandly at the two disheveled men.

  "Go ahead," McFate said, stepping forward ominously. "Do your worst, big shot."

  "You boys have courage coming up here," Ness said. "I'll give you that."

  "It's not courage," Caldwell said. "It's conviction. You're just part of the national attack on all labor by the moneyed interests, trying to weaken the movement by attacking aggressive leadership like us."

  "Why don't you save the bullshit for the rank and file," Ness said coldly. "Although I doubt very many of them are buying it these days. Maybe you can find a paper to peddle it to."