BULLET PROOF (Eliot Ness)

by Max Allan Collins

  Heller slapped the air. "Look, put 'em all away on the racketeering charges. You're gonna have plenty of evidence. Don't be greedy."

  Ness smiled. "Look who's talking. The guy who's charging the city of Cleveland thirty-five a day."

  "It's my special rate."

  "It's your top rate."

  "You wouldn't want anything but the best. Besides, you still got that slush fund to dip into, don't you?"

  "Yes," Ness said, shaking his head no, "but it's not bottomless. That's a pool I can hit my head on the bottom of, if I take too high a dive."

  Heller smirked. "Well. You know my opinion."

  "And what is your opinion?"

  "Those businessmen who're funding you are at some point going to want something for their money. And I don't mean a safer Cleveland."

  Ness laughed shortly. "You and Sam Wild are sure cut out of the same cloth."

  "Are you comparing me with that sleazy reporter pal of yours? Why, we got nothin' in common, except one poor misguided friend."

  Ness smiled and climbed off the garbage can. "I better get back inside."

  "Yeah. You better. I'll go in with you. What time's the memorial service tomorrow?"

  "Two-thirty. You don't have to come, Nate. This was more than enough."

  "I'll be there. When are you heading back to Cleveland?"

  "I don't know. Wednesday, maybe. Maybe Thursday."

  "If you're still in town Wednesday, I'll buy you lunch at the Berghoff."

  "It's a deal," Ness said. "With the kind of money you're making off the city of Cleveland, you can afford it."

  They went back inside.

  Heller whispered, "Isn't that Ev MacMillan, the book illustrator?"

  "Yeah."

  "She's a doll. Is that a case you're working on?"

  "Yes it is. Hands off, Heller."

  "Just asking. Besides, do I look like a guy who'd come on to a dame in a funeral home?"

  "Yes."

  Soon Heller was having a conversation with several Chicago cops who had dropped by to pay their respects (the Wentworth District Station was two doors down), and Ness walked out onto the wide, shallow outer parlor where some of the mourners were smoking and lounging in the comfortable leather chairs. Ev was sitting, having a cigarette, taking a break from making conversation with strangers.

  He sat next to her. "How are you holding up?"

  "Fine. I'm sorry about that business with the wreath ... I guess I should have recognized what 'Frank and the Boys' referred to."

  "No you shouldn't. Forget it."

  "I hope you don't mind my sending that friend of yours back out there to see you."

  "So you've met Heller?"

  "Not really. He's a nice-looking man. What's the story on him?"

  "He used to be a cop. A plainclothes dick on the pickpocket squad. He was one of the few relatively honest cops I could count on as a reliable contact."

  "What is he up to now?"

  "He got into some political trouble on the force, and quit. The corruption was getting to him. He's more honest than he likes to think."

  She smiled knowingly, nodding. "At a time like this, it's nice to have a friend like that."

  He held her hand. "Yes it is. You know, you don't have to hang around here if you—"

  "Shush. Are you going to stay at the hotel again tonight?"

  "Well, I was planning to. If I stayed with Effie and her husband, the only bed available—"

  "Is your mother's."

  He swallowed. "Yes."

  "I have an apartment on the North Side, you know."

  "Don't you have a roommate?"

  "No. But I'd like to have one. Tonight."

  "This is . . ."

  "So sudden? Eliot, I like you. And I think you need somebody at your side, right now. We don't have to be anything but friends."

  He squeezed her hand. "Oh yes we do."

  She touched his face with a smooth, cool hand. "It's going to be fine. It's going to be fine."

  They rose, and he slipped his arm around her waist.

  "Did you ever hear," he said, whispering in her ear, "that Cleveland is very beautiful during the wintertime?"

  "Uh . . . no. I never heard that."

  "Well, don't you think you ought to judge for yourself?"

  She smiled gently and nodded.

  CHAPTER 17

  Evelyn MacMillan was in Cleveland, and in love, and only the latter could explain the former.

  It strained her artistic sensibilities to their limits to find anything aesthetically pleasing about this cold gray city. She supposed a stark watercolor of this bleak urban landscape would have its merits; a nice place to paint, but she wouldn't want to live there.

  But, nonetheless, she was considering doing just that.

  She had accompanied Eliot from Chicago on Thursday of last week, his family matters settled. Other than a brief emotional outpouring just hours after he learned of his mother's passing, he had remained stoic; but Ev knew he wasn't emotionless: he was just holding it all in.

  The death of his mother had affected Eliot deeply, whether he admitted it or not, whether he expressed it or not, and knowing that gave Ev an irresistible urge to be supportively at his side.

  So here she was in Cleveland, of all places. Where she had, of all things, spent the afternoon interviewing with Frank Darby at the May Company and Charles Bradley at Higbee's for a position as fashion illustrator. And both gentlemen had indicated that some work, if not a full-time position, would be available to her.

  She knew very well that Eliot had pulled some strings for her. That didn't bother her: She knew that all the string-pulling in the world couldn't get an artist a job if said artist's portfolio wasn't up to snuff. And hers was up to snuff, and then some. She was an independent woman, but she didn't mind having a man open a door for her.

  And she could see, from their evening at the country club this Saturday past, that this particular man was well liked and well-entrenched in the upper social circles of Cleveland (though till Saturday night the notion of Cleveland having any "society" had never occurred to her). There was no question that Eliot was an influential public official, and even more famous here than in his native Chicago.

  He had prominence and power and fame, and she liked that. Moreover, she liked him. She found him enormously attractive, even if he wasn't storybook hand-some or flashy. There was a boyishness about him that made her want to mother him. He had been, after all, a motherless child from the very start of their love affair.

  And, though just a little over a week old, it was a love affair, all right, in full swing. Nothing boyish about Eliot in that department.

  And as unglamorous, as cheerless, as colorless as this city was, there was one small pocket of it she had already come to cherish: King Eliot's castle. She had fallen immediately in love with the turreted boathouse at Clifton Lagoon in that posh pocket of posh Lakewood. It had a barren sort of beauty, this weathered gray-stone palace, the gray-blue of its front-yard lagoon broken only by the occasional wave and the luxury yachts moored there.

  Best of all, atop its two sturdy stories was a squat tower, which Eliot had already promised her for a studio.

  My, this had gotten serious fast.

  Today, she had met him at City Hall, just after five, but he hadn't got away till seven; she had amused herself till then, wandering the stately building, taking in particularly the famous painting The Spirit of '76, not the original but a copy by Archibald Willard himself. Perhaps Cleveland was cultured after all.

  Now, after an informal bite of supper at the Theatrical Grill, they were in the black Ford sedan with its personalized plates, EN-1, and she was sitting close to him, though both his hands were on the wheel. His eyes were not always on the road.

  They looked like twins, though quite by accident, both wearing tan camel's hair coats and leather gloves; her jaunty felt hat, with its turned-down brim, echoed his snap-brim fedora, although hers was wine color and his a dark
green.

  The windscreen wipers were on. It was snowing, gently. But even the snow in Cleveland seemed a sooty gray.

  "Why don't you put your arm around me, you big lug?" she said.

  They were moving west on Lakeside, passing by the courthouse.

  He gave her a smile that managed to be both sour and sweet. "I'm the safety director of the city, doll. I have an example to set."

  She laughed. "You do insist on calling me that, don't you."

  "What?"

  "'Doll.' It's so corny."

  "I seem to recall you calling me a 'big lug' not so long ago."

  "You got me," she said, and held up her wrists, locked together. "Slap on the cuffs."

  "You look like you might not hold up too well under the third-degree."

  "Why don't you get me back to that boathouse and see, copper?"

  He smiled at her again, a small one-sided smile, and put his eyes back on the road. He turned left on West Ninth Street, and glanced up at the rearview mirror. His eyes tightened. So did his lips.

  "Is something wrong?" she asked.

  "No."

  "Eliot, what is it?"

  "Probably nothing. That car behind us, that just cut off from that side street. . ."

  "What about it?"

  "It doesn't have a license plate."

  "What does that mean?"

  "Probably nothing," he said lightly, smiling again, but his eyes kept flicking back to the rearview mirror.

  She turned to look, and he touched her arm, gently.

  "Don't," he said.

  "You could call on your police radio or whatever it is, couldn't you?"

  "It's nothing. He's fallen back. There's two cars between now. It's nothing."

  Her heart was pounding. Cleveland didn't seem so dull all of a sudden.

  "Coming up," Eliot said, "is proof that this fair city does have its cultural qualities."

  He was nodding to a massive concrete-and-steel bridge spanning the Cuyahoga and its industrial area; with its many arches and abutments, it did have a certain skeletal beauty.

  "Largest double-decker concrete bridge in the world," he said, with what might have been pride but probably was dry humor. And he was still looking in the rearview mirror.

  "How very interesting," she said, and she moved closer to him, not for comfort, but to get a better look at that mirror herself.

  Eliot guided the sedan up the ramp onto the upper level of the bridge, the screech of the streetcars below cutting the air like a wounded animal's cry. There were four lanes of traffic up here, moderate traffic at the moment; the pedestrian walkways on either side weren't getting any business at all right now.

  The landscape below was a gloomy one—the Flats, Eliot called it; a long freighter heavy with iron ore was moving upriver, heading for one of the steel mills, no doubt. Looking down at the Cuyahoga, which seemed yellow under the glimmer of city lights, she was amazed by this city's lack of regard for itself. Earlier she'd gotten a load of the lakefront, which was littered with industry, a wasteland of smokestacks and salt mines. Not like back home, where the lake was damn near sacred.

  For a moment she forgot about the car behind them.

  And when she looked in the rearview mirror, she didn't know what she was looking for.

  "What color is it?"

  "What color is what?" he asked.

  "The car! That's following us."

  "I don't think he's following us."

  "Is he still back there?"

  "Yes. Three cars behind us."

  "What color is it, damn it!"

  "It's a dark blue Buick sedan."

  She looked in the rearview mirror again. She could see the car; it was too far back, and the bridge not well lit enough, for her to make out anything else.

  He took one hand off the wheel and patted her leg. "It's nothing," he said. "A man in my line of work learns to be careful."

  "The alienists call it 'paranoid.'"

  "That, too."

  "Eliot. I think he's moving up."

  "He's just passing. We're going a little slow and the cars behind us aren't passing. He is. Nothing to get excited about."

  "He's coming up. He's coming up on us!"

  "Please, Ev. Easy. It's just a car. It's just . . . get down! Down!"

  She ducked down on the seat.

  "Eliot, what is it?"

  "I saw a glint of what might be metal. Get on the floor. Get on the floor!"

  She got on the floor, up in front of the rider's seat, as low as she could, against and under the dash.

  "He's pulling alongside," Eliot said. "Brace yourself."

  Eliot hit the gas pedal and a metallic staccato thunder shook the night, and the car. The windows on Eliot's side shattered, like brittle ice, emptying in on Eliot.

  "Eliot!"

  "Stay, down! I'm fine. .."

  He was slouched behind the wheel, head up only barely enough to see as he drove; the roar of both accelerating vehicles replaced the monotone chatter of what she supposed was a machine gun, as they raced along the bridge.

  "Do you have a gun?" she shouted.

  "No," he said. "Just stay down. These doors are heavy—hard for bullets to penetrate."

  What a comfort that was.

  "I'm going to ram him. Hold on!"

  She braced her hands against the underside of the dash and the car swung over into the next lane and there was a metallic crunch as their car sideswiped the adversary vehicle, jolting it and her.

  Then Eliot swerved back, and the tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat resumed, landing up toward the front, she thought, across the side of the engine hood.

  Eliot hit the pedal again, and the car lurched forward, but just as suddenly he hit the brakes and slid with a smack against the guardrail to the right, jostling Ev, shaking her like a child by an angry abusive parent.

  The sedan stopped up against that rail, and Eliot was sitting up now, calling in on the hand microphone of his police radio. He let go with a flurry of words, which she was in no shape to hear, but it did register that there was almost no emotion in his voice, other than perhaps a cold, tight anger.

  He clicked off the mike and looked down at her with concern, the emotion finally coming through.

  "Are you all right?"

  "I don't know. I honestly don't know."

  He reached his hand out. "They're gone. They've gone on and won't be back. You're safe."

  She took his hand and allowed him to pull her up on the seat. There was glass everywhere, particularly on him, tiny bits of it, flecking his shoulders like dandruff, but also bigger pieces. The windscreen, she saw, had not been touched. The motor was still running.

  "Why didn't you get hit," she said, "when they shot out that side window?"

  "They didn't shoot it out," he said. "It broke from the impact. I'd already ducked down, so the gunner aimed for the door. Hard to shoot through a bulky car door, even with a Thompson."

  "You mean, we were safe as long as we were down low?"

  "No. A third of the bullets would make it through, probably, and a third of those would do damage. He probably fired off a hundred rounds."

  She swallowed. "Why are we alive?"

  "He hit behind us, and in front of us. Tommy gun's not much for hitting a moving target when you're shooting from a moving vehicle. He was stupid—a shotgun would've made a lot more sense."

  "Oh, really? A shotgun would've made sense."

  He smiled at her, touched her face. "Let's get out of this thing before we cut ourselves to pieces on this broken glass."

  Then they were standing on the bridge, in the chilly night with its sooty snow drifting like dust motes, traffic having screeched to a halt. Eliot's assessment of the damage was correct: the pattern of bullet holes—nasty round holes that puckered away the paint around them, groupings so close that some of the holes gathered into larger, gaping ones—were along the rear door and up along the side of the front left fender. But not a tire was flat.

 
He brushed the glass fragments off him with gloved hands and then he grinned at her sheepishly and said, "Does Cleveland still strike you as dull as dishwater?"

  "No," she said, and she grabbed onto him, hugging his arm. Then he took her into his arms and in front of God and Cleveland and the startled motorists making their way around the stalled vehicle, he kissed her slowly and passionately.

  "I'm sorry," he said, still holding her. "I'm so sorry."

  "Don't be sorry," she said. Her fear was slipping away; she was now caught in an ephemeral moment of romance and melodrama that she would remember fondly till her dying day.

  "Somebody's going to be sorry," he said. And his face was hard, now; nothing boyish about it.

  Sirens slashed the stillness.

  Soon two squad cars were on the scene, and she leaned against the guardrail, feeling strangely exhausted and oddly distanced, as Eliot gave the details to the uniformed officers. The young, towheaded detective called Curry pulled up shortly thereafter, rushing up to his "chief," his anxiety as apparent as his devotion.

  Eliot filled in Curry, who said, "Did you see who it was?"

  "No. It was a man, with a hat slouched down and a plaid scarf over his lower face, like a damn highwayman. That's all I saw, and not very well, at that. That tommy gun was talking."

  "But there were two of them?"

  "Yes. He had a driver. That's a shift in M.O."

  Curry sighed. "No license plate. We'll find the car abandoned in the Flats somewhere, no doubt."

  "No doubt. But I want you to start picking up those spent forty-fives. Let's see if we can match this machine gun up with the one that ate Gordon's restaurant and killed Jack Whitehall."

  Curry nodded. "Too bad we can't tie it into that incident at the food terminal. We've got three witnesses now, who will come forward and identify Harry Gibson as having shot up that farmer's car, including the farmer himself."

  "But without any spent bullets from the terminal shooting, to make comparison, we don't have the link we need."

  "I know." The young detective sighed. "Do you want me to close traffic off on this bridge? And treat it like a crime scene?"

  "No. That's impractical. Just collect the bullets from the backseat of my car and take the appropriate field notes."

  Curry nodded. "I'm glad to hear you say that. It's too late to preserve the integrity of this as a crime scene, anyway. Too many gawkers have stopped along the way to interfere with the evidence."