BULLET PROOF (Eliot Ness)

by Max Allan Collins

  "No," Ness said, trying to keep his disappointment, his weariness, out of his voice. "You certainly don't. And I'm afraid the job you did on the Capones and Guzik and Nitti, in Chicago, have taught a lot of these hoodlums that the tax laws are the ones they best not break."

  "I wish I could be of more help."

  "It's generous of you to bend the rules like this, Elmer, in any case."

  "Well, there was one item of possible interest."

  That perked Ness back up. "Yes?"

  "A good share of Caldwell's income is derived from a company called Acme Brothers Glass Works."

  Ness scribbled the name on a notepad. "What do you mean 'derived,' exactly?"

  "Well, it's his company. He owns it."

  Rushing out of the office, heading over to the Hollenden on foot, Ness turned to Captain Savage of the Vandal Squard, who was accompanying him to the meeting, and said, "Ever hear of the Acme Brothers Glass Works?"

  "Sure," Savage said, and filled him in.

  Minutes later Ness was entering the back of the banquet room, looking across the sea of heads to the dais, where Frank Darby, small and bald and ardent, was patting the air and saying, "Our speaker will be here momentarily, gentlemen . . . your patience, please!"

  Ness caught Darby's eye, and Darby smiled and took a seat on the small stage while Ness moved up the center aisle. As people saw who their speaker on "Cleveland's Better Business Tomorrow" actually was, a wave of discontent moved quickly across the room.

  Ness took the stage but did not stand behind the lectern. He raised a hand in a stop motion, as if trying to hold back the tide of irritation.

  "I'm sure you all feel taken advantage of," Ness said, "by Mr. Darby and myself. Many of you have spoken either to me, or to members of my staff, about the labor racketeering problem in Cleveland, as it applies to you individually and collectively. And all of you, to a man, have sent me and my men packing."

  Seated about midway in the room, Vernon Gordon stood. He was white with anger. "I am a busy man, Mr. Ness. We are all busy men. We've every one of us told you how we feel about this matter."

  Smiling gently, Ness shook his head. "No you haven't, Vern. You haven't begun to tell me how you feel. You've told me what you've decided to do for the sake of expediency. For the sake of business."

  Gordon spoke through his teeth; he wore indignation like a second skin. "The taxpayers don't pay our salaries, Mr. Ness. We are in business. We have to be open for business, every day. You make it sound like we're doing something wrong, by trying to keep our businesses open and thriving."

  Ness looked hard at the man. "You are doing something wrong. You're in tacit collusion with these venal bastards. And you damn well know it, Vern."

  "I don't have to listen to this," Gordon said, and began to edge his way out to the aisle.

  "I said you haven't told me how you feel about the labor racketeering problem. But I know how you feel, Vern—you and every man in this room. You're mad as hell that you have to deal with these bastards. You're mad as hell with yourselves for giving in to them."

  Gordon halted in the aisle; he turned and looked at Ness and said, "Just what would you suggest we do?"

  Ness spread his arms, opened his hands. "Look around you. Look how many of you there are. Look at how many of the most successful—I would even say powerful—men in this city are sitting in this room. And this group, this successful, powerful group, is letting itself be pushed around by two petty hoodlums. Just because it's easier to pay 'em off than stand up to them."

  Gordon's arms were at his side. "You want us to testify."

  "You're goddamn right I want you to testify."

  Silence hung in the room.

  Then Gordon said, "Eliot, do you know what you're asking? I was almost killed." He turned and looked around, saying to his fellow businessmen, "Do you know what it's like to duck a damn tommy gun?"

  "Yes," Ness said.

  There were some smiles in the audience.

  Then Gordon turned back to Ness, and had to smile a little. He said sheepishly, "That was meant to be a rhetorical question."

  "Vern. Find a seat. Hear me out."

  Gordon sighed, shook his head, and with an air of resignation moved back down the row to his seat; but he sat with arms crossed and the expression of one who would be hard to sell.

  A man stood in the back row.

  "Mr. Ness," he said, "my name's Wilson—I have a shoe store on Euclid. I frankly don't know why I was invited here today. I paid a certain amount of tribute to Big Jim and Little Jim when I remodeled recently. I considered that a business expense. But when they came around wanting more, wanting me to kick in to this so-called window washers union, I drew the line. I told 'em to go fuh—Well, it's a physical impossibility, but I encouraged 'em to give it the old college try."

  There were more smiles, and some nods. Others in the room had shared similar experiences.

  "Some of you," Ness said, reaching in his inside coat pocket and withdrawing several folded, stapled sheets, "are here because you are on this list."

  Like something choreographed for a Busby Berkley movie musical, every man in the audience sat forward, interested, alert.

  "I should say, blacklist. I have obtained a copy of this infamous, legendary document, and it includes a good number of you, gentlemen. Some of you have been marked for vandalism that has not yet occurred. I would venture to say, Mr. Wilson, that your store windows will not last the month out. Others of you are not to be sold glass under any circumstances. Right now your windows are boarded up, and will stay that way, until you pay tribute to the two Jims—if they have their way, that is. This list has been circulated to every glass company in the city."

  He nodded to Captain Savage, who began to pass out copies, one per row.

  "A few copies of the list are being handed out among you now," Ness said. "Have a quick look, find your name if you like, then pass it along. Don't keep it. We'll be collecting these as you go."

  Gordon stood again. "Where did you get that list?"

  "I'm not at liberty to say."

  "Will it hold up in court?"

  "Prosecutor Cullitan tells me it has evidential value, yes."

  Gordon's skeptical expression faded as he sat back down, hands on his knees now.

  "And today," Ness said, "another interesting piece of information found its way to my office—courtesy of the IRS, a group that probably is not high on any of your personal lists." The remark brought murmurs of mild amusement. "However, I think we owe the Internal Revenue Service a debt of gratitude in this instance. Their records indicate that James Caldwell is the owner of Acme Brothers Glass Works—which Captain Savage tells me has a lock on better than fifty percent of the market in Cleveland. Not only is Caldwell breaking your windows, gentlemen, and taking payoffs for allowing union glaziers to replace those broken windows, and hitting you up for washing those windows once they've been replaced . . . he's selling you the damn windows. It's his glass."

  "And our ass," somebody in back said.

  Now there was widespread laughter, but it died out quickly, choking on its own bitterness.

  Ness raised a hand and an eyebrow. "Gentlemen, you have heard me, and my staff members, speak of 'safety in numbers.' Look around you. I will promise you now that if I can't find sixty of you to testify, I won't ask any one of you to."

  The men began to look at each other, surprised by such an extreme statement.

  "This inquiry is a wide-ranging one," Ness said. "I'm already in the process of gathering witnesses from outside the city, specifically businessmen who have been driven from Cleveland because of the tribute these gangsters demand. We will go to the grand jury with an unbeatable case, or we won't go at all. That's my pledge to those of you who are willing to get involved."

  Gordon stood again; this time he seemed almost embarrassed. "Eliot, much of what you say makes sense. You're making a convincing case, I admit that. But I have a family. We're many of us, most of us, fam
ily men."

  "And you're testifying against gangsters," Ness said, nodding. "Your concerns are well-founded. But I promise you we will maintain strict secrecy as to the identities of the witnesses when the case goes to the grand jury. We'll allow no newspaper pictures taken in the courtroom. And we'll post police details at the homes of witnesses, making every effort to provide the maximum of protection."

  Gordon sat back down, slowly.

  "I don't want any of you to tell me today, at this meeting, what you've decided. In order to maintain secrecy, we'll contact you individually. It was not my intention, today, to gather all of you together to put you on the spot."

  That eased the tension in the air, somewhat. And Ness could sense that he'd won, or was winning. He could see it in the faces. In the eyes.

  "The Cleveland experience with labor racketeering in recent years," Ness said, "has been costly indeed. Construction has been choked. Building costs have soared. Vandalism has cost businessmen like yourselves, not to mention the public, thousands upon thousands of dollars. It has to stop. You have to stop it, gentlemen."

  A man off to the left stood. Ness recognized him as Oscar Reynolds, who ran a men's clothing shop in the Old Arcade.

  "No offense, Mr. Ness," Reynolds said, "but aren't you making this out to be something rather larger than it is? This is a small-time extortion racket, not Al Capone."

  Ness smiled knowingly. "Al Capone, or what he has come to represent, is exactly what this is. I am convinced that the labor racketeering in this city is tied into the national network of organized crime. The bootlegging gangsters who were orphaned by Repeal, gentlemen, quickly found other things to do with their talents . . . and breaking your windows, and charging you for the privilege, is one of them."

  He let that sink in for a moment, then he said, "Thank you for your time," and quickly stepped down from the podium and left the room, even as Captain Savage was collecting the copies of the blacklist.

  CHAPTER 14

  Jack Whitehall took two pork chops off the platter and passed it to dinner guest Sam Wild. Whitehall's wife Sarah, in her blue-and-white print dress and white apron, finally took a seat in the small, blindingly white kitchen. Their two girls—Jane, six, and Dorrie, four—had eaten earlier and were in the living room, playing dolls.

  "Delicious, Mrs. Whitehall," Wild said. For a skinny guy, he was putting the food away pretty good.

  Both men wore suits and ties and, despite eating in the kitchen, there was an air of formality about the occasion.

  "Thank you, Mr. Wild," Sarah said. And she smiled shyly and took a bite of her homemade applesauce.

  Whitehall loved his wife very much; she was as attractive as the day he met her, back in Chicago, some ten years before. But her quiet femininity masked a streak of bad temper, as Whitehall well knew. When he stepped out on her, during her first pregnancy, and she found out about it, she had come at him with a rolling pin. Just like Maggie in "Bringing Up Father," only it didn't strike him as funny: it just struck him.

  Hell, he wouldn't have her any other way. He liked her quiet manner, but he also liked her passion. He had never stepped out on her since, and swore to himself he never would again. He loved her too goddamn much, and besides, who needed another skull fracture?

  "These pork chops are to die for," Wild said, patting his face with a napkin.

  Sarah smiled shyly.

  "Of course," the reporter said slyly, "I always suspected you were an unrepentant pork-chopper, Jack."

  A "pork-chopper" was, of course, a fat-salaried, do nothing union official.

  Whitehall smiled thinly. "Nobody ever called me that to my face before, Sam—even jokingly. Nobody ever felt they knew me well enough to."

  Wild glanced up from his food, a nervous look flickering across his features. "Hey, I was just kiddin' around."

  Then Whitehall laughed and said, "Don't believe everything you hear about me, Sam. My reputation as a roughneck is exaggerated."

  Wild raised an eyebrow. "Well, you make the papers often enough."

  "Don't believe everything you read in the papers, Sam."

  "You're tellin' me?"

  "Labor organizers are to a man supposed to be muscle-bound, cigar-smoking slobs who get fat and cocky by stealing hard-earned dues out of the pockets of the overworked proletariat."

  Wild glanced at Whitehall's wife, obviously choosing his words carefully so as not to offend her. Then he returned his gaze to his host and said, "Jack, you can't tell me that you haven't . . . leaned on people, from time to time?"

  Whitehall shrugged. "It's a class struggle. And no class struggle is without its"—now Whitehall chose his words carefully—"physical aspects."

  Wild began to say something, then glanced at Mrs. Whitehall again, grinned wryly and returned to his pork chops.

  After dessert (pecan pie with ice cream), Whitehall and Wild withdrew to the front porch to have a smoke. They sat on the swing. Whitehall was about to roll a Bull Durham, but Wild stopped him, handing him a fat, fancy cigar.

  "Don't worry about reinforcing the stereotype, Mr. Whitehall," Wild said with arch formality, lighting a wooden match off a post and helping Whitehall get the cigar going. "I ain't about to write you off as a muscle-bound, cigar-smoking slob."

  Whitehall drew in on the cigar, relishing it; it was as rich as the lining of a millionaire's smoking jacket. "I thought you were a Lucky Strike man, Wild."

  "Oh I am," Wild said, smirking as he lit up his own fat stogie. "But I thought we oughta enjoy these Havanas together. After all, I got 'em out of Caldwell's office the other night."

  Whitehall had a good laugh over that, and Wild joined in some, and the two big men sat on the porch swing, like a courting couple, swinging and smoking, gently, swinging and smoking.

  "Are you and Ness really pals?" Wild asked after a while.

  "That's putting it a mite strong. We worked side by side in the Pullman plant in Chicago, for about six months. We got along. He was a smart kid. Hard-working little son of a bitch."

  "He hasn't changed much. Sometimes I feel like planting a nice fat cream pie in that S.O.B.'s smug puss."

  Whitehall laughed. "I thought you two were friends."

  "Yeah, we're friends. But I'd still like to hit the bastard with a pie."

  "Well, he did con us into doing his work for him." Whitehall sat and enjoyed the warm, gentle breeze for a few moments; it went well with the Havana. Then he said: "We make an unlikely team, Sam, considering the bullshit your paper's been printing about the Teamsters."

  Wild shrugged. "You shouldn't have passed that motion barring the press from your meetings."

  Whitehall didn't push it; nor did Wild. They sat in silence, listening to the noises of the neighborhood, the muffled sound of radios, the clinking of dishes being washed and dried, the traffic of the nearby main thorough-fare.

  "I don't know whether I'm supposed to tell you this or not," Wild said.

  "You want me to get some whiskey, to help you decide?"

  "Yeah. Why don't you?"

  Whitehall went in and got a bottle and two glasses and returned. He poured Wild, and then himself, a drink.

  "Anyway," Wild said, "you have a right to know, although by all rights it should be Ness who tells you."

  "Tell me."

  "Then again, he might not tell you. Might not want you told."

  "You tell me. We put our butts on the line."

  Wild thought about that. Then he raised his glass to Whitehall and Whitehall raised his and they clinked glasses in a toast to their teamwork.

  "Vernon Gordon came forward," Wild revealed.

  "Damn. That's good news."

  "You're goddamn right it's good news. Gordon was the key witness, the one guy Ness felt he had to get in front of the grand jury. I mean, Gordon suffered the most outrageous vandalism of anybody. Machine fuckin' gun, no less."

  Whitehall raised a hand. "Keep it down, please. Better watch the language. My kids are right inside."


  Wild made an apologetic face and gesture, and went on. "Ness spoke to a whole group of them, a hundred or more of the businessmen that the two Jims have been preying on; and he told them he wouldn't ask any of them to testify unless there was a total of sixty witnesses that came forward."

  "So how many came forward?"

  Wild smiled. "Sixty-one."

  "Ha. Just made it."

  "Any number of 'em, including Gordon, said they'd testify in any case."

  "How did Ness pull that off, anyway?"

  Wild grimaced. "I don't know how he pulls off half of what he pulls off. But he's got a good share of the business community behind him."

  Whitehall sipped his whiskey, nodding. "That's what worries me about my old co-worker."

  "What?"

  "I'm afraid he's gonna wind up in the pocket of those 'prominent businessmen' and 'captains of industry' and 'social leaders' he hangs out with at the country club and so on. Hell, he lives in a damn boathouse that belongs to Wynston, who's got dough in Fisher Body, for crying out loud."

  Wild was slowly nodding. "I know. I been telling him that. But he doesn't want to listen. Eliot Ness likes to think that those guys are civic-minded and that all they'll ask of him is to do his job and do it well. Which he does in spades, obviously."

  Whitehall shook his head. "It won't be that simple. The bill will come due. Again and again."

  Wild shrugged. "What can I say? I agree with you."

  They sat in silence, drinking and smoking.

  Finally, Wild stood and said, "I got work to do. And it's getting late."

  Whitehall rose. "Thanks for coming."

  "Thanks for the invite."

  The two men shook hands, smiling at each other with cigars stuck in their smiles.

  Then Whitehall accompanied Wild back inside, where the reporter thanked Sarah again and said his good-byes to her and the kids.

  Once Wild had been seen off, Whitehall removed his suitcoat and his tie and shoes; he put on his bedroom slippers and padded into the girls' room, where Sarah, in her dressing gown, was reading them The Wizard of Oz. He sat on the edge of the bed, stroking Dorrie's hair, listening to the gentle, musical sound of his wife's voice.