They stood silently for a while.
Then Curry blurted: "I believe there are evil people in the world."
"Do tell," Merlo said, watching the morgue boys climb the incline with wicker baskets in hand. They might have been carrying their laundry.
"We'll have a new mayor soon," said Curry. "Things may change."
"Don't hold your breath," Merlo said, "unless it's just to keep the smell of the Run out of your nostrils."
In less than three months, the new mayor would appoint Eliot Ness safety director of the city of Cleveland, and the young former T-man would indeed begin cleaning up Cleveland's corrupt department. And both Curry and Merlo would benefit.
But right now, detectives Curry and Merlo were wrapped in the darkness of the night and the Run and the evil that man was so obviously capable of; and the only light in this night was from the steel mills.
Not far away, standing in the darkness of the backyard of a run-down rooming house, a big almost-handsome blond man in a red and black plaid shirt was watching the two detectives and smiling.
ONE
July 1-26, 1937
CHAPTER 2
Searchlights stroked the night sky in alternating shades of red, white, and blue; a blimp glided into their cross fire, hovering above modernistic buildings poised along the lakefront, like the set of some fantastic science-fiction film. Moving beams of light rose from behind the lagoon theater and fanned out, painting the dark clouds with an aurora borealis.
On this cool if humid Saturday evening, wide-eyed visitors wandered a world that seemed quite apart from both Cleveland and the depression that racked it. Just two blocks from Public Square, citizens fleeing reality were greeted by seven seventy-foot pylons whose flat surfaces were rendered red, white, and blue by lighting. Beyond, for fifty cents admission, one could stroll, or take an open-air bus or grab a rickshaw to ride upon, freshly paved lanes through the immaculately landscaped gardens of the sprawling one hundred and fifty acres of the Great Lakes Exposition. Divided by its terrain into an upper and lower level, the expo's gifts to Clevelanders on the occasion of the city's hundredth birthday included starkly modern exhibition halls, where one might experience, via dioramas, models, and wall-size photographs, "The Romance of Iron and Steel"; an "International Village," where sidewalk cafes and shops sold authentic foods, drinks, and curios from forty countries; and a vast midway, where Spook Street, the "Strange as It Seems" museum, and the Midget Circus vied for attention.
It all seemed overly familiar to one patron this muggy evening, and not just because this was the expo's second year. Eliot Ness was a Chicago boy, and the Great Lakes Exposition was, he knew all too well, a rehashing of the even larger Century of Progress back home, in '33 and '34.
Many of the exhibits were the same, and even those that were new to the expo shared the severe, futuristic building designs that marked the World's Fair, though the pastel lighting effects there were replaced by brighter colors here. The Firestone Building again had its "Singing Fountains," colorful cascades of illuminated water with continuous classical music. Even Sally Rand was booked in—at the Streets of the World, a pale imitation of the Chicago fair's Streets of Paris where the famed fan dancer had first feathered her nest.
Not that Ness looked down upon this project. He was a city official, after all—safety director, in charge of both the police and fire departments—and as such, considered the expo a fine idea. It brought in much-needed jobs, even if only for a limited time, pumped in plenty of cash from expo-goers, and provided good publicity for a city too often dismissed as dull.
He had found Cleveland anything but dull. As a prohibition agent in Chicago, first as a Justice Department man and then moving over to Treasury, he'd waged a successful war against the likes of Al Capone and Frank Nitti. Later he'd battled moonshiners as a "revenooer" in the mountains of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio. Cleveland should have been restful by comparison, but what he found in this "dull" city were enough crooked cops, corrupt politicians, and prevailing gangsters to make a Chicago boy feel right at home.
Which was how the World's Fair-like expo should have made him feel, as well, but it didn't. It seemed a ghost town version of the Century of Progress—perhaps because tonight's attendance was so meager. Way down from last year's huge crowds. Well, the Fourth of July was around the corner, he thought; that should be a record-breaking day.
Ness walked the paved midway, passing the "Panthéon de la Guerre," a war exhibit that had been at the fair, heading for "The Front Page," a concession that was new to this expo. Most expo-goers were dressed in casual summer clothes, but Ness wore a gray and black tie and a slash of white handkerchief in the breast pocket of his expensively tailored gray lightweight suit. He was a six-footer and slim, his features boyish, his expression shy, his gray eyes calm.
You would not guess, looking at him, that he was physically powerful, but he was. Despite a certain collegiate look, he had not earned his physique on a playing field, but in the Pullman plant on Chicago's South Side where he worked as a young man. Daily workouts on a handball court and jujitsu training kept him fit now. He didn't smoke. He did drink. Too much, at times, he knew.
He had gone hatless tonight—his only nod to the balmy evening—and as he hesitated before the tent of "The Front Page," he brushed a comma of brown hair back to its temporary place while he studied several sandwich board signs that bore mock newspaper front pages. MAN DIES IN ELECTRIC CHAIR! one headline said; WOMAN HANGED TILL DEAD! said another. The largest of all said. TORSO KILLER DEATH MASKS INSIDE! He bought a ticket at the booth and went in.
Attendance at the expo in general might have been off tonight, but the benches inside this tent were jammed. Ness found a place to sit at the end of one bench and got a funny, "Why the suit, mister?" look from the straw-hatted apparent farmer he sat next to before the lights dimmed.
A velvet curtain parted and revealed, centerstage, an electric chair much like ones Ness had seen in use in prisons. A pale, heavyset man in black, wearing a black string tie, looking like a parson, led a pale, thin fellow in a gray-and-white-striped prison uniform to the chair. The "prisoner" sat in the chair and allowed the parson to place the electrical cap upon his head. The parson then walked to one side of the stage, to an apparatus that included three large switches. Then he threw each switch, to much electrical sparking, much convulsing by the thin fellow in the chair, and much noise from the startled audience. An acrid smell filled the tent. The prisoner slumped in the chair. The velvet curtain closed.
The audience were talking amongst themselves, screams and shouts having given way to nervous laughter, and soon the curtain opened again. An attractive blond woman in a white evening gown stood with an expression as blank as death and a noose dangling nearby, the rope disappearing upward. Her hands were tied before her.
The audience, transfixed, stared at her. The only sound in the room was that of breathing.
The parson walked out on stage slowly, deliberately. He carried a hood. He placed it over her head, her shoulder-length blond hair hanging out from around the bottom of the hood. He placed the noose around her neck. Cinched it tight, behind her left ear.
The pastor stepped to one side. He raised his hand in a signaling fashion; when he brought it down, the blonde plunged suddenly down and out of sight, through a trapdoor. The rope pulled tight. Then it swayed.
The audience was still gasping as the curtains closed.
When they opened again, the pastor was on stage, smiling and gesturing to the thin young prisoner, who smiled and bowed, and the blond woman, who did the same. The audience applauded wildly; some whistled. Some people even stood up.
The lights came on, and the pastor, speaking for the first time, directed the audience into a section of the tent declared to be "The Front Page Museum of Crime." Several display cases held guns and clothing labeled as having belonged to John Dillinger and his associates. A shot-up car, roped off, was labeled the Bonnie and Clyde "Death Car." Another gl
ass case bore three death masks, three male faces, painted rather garishly, as if wearing feminine makeup. Their expressions were placid, strangely innocent, almost angelic. A large sign within the case, behind the frozen faces, said in large black block letters: "Do You Know Us? Any One of Us?" In smaller print, information was given about whom to contact at the Cleveland police department, making mention of the $5,000 reward posted by the city council. Ness smiled to himself as people paused at the display, studying the plaster faces. A uniformed cop—the real thing, not a security guard—was posted near the display case. His eyes narrowed when he saw Ness, and the two men nodded, imperceptibly, at each other.
Behind the display case was a large poster that bore the words "Do You Know This Man?" The poster showed the outline of a body, and superimposed over the chest was a photo of a handsome young man whose eyes were shut and whose longish dark hair seemed unruly. The poster, drawn with a cartoonists flair, mapped the location of various tattoos—right shoulder: butterfly; outer right arm: heart with piercing arrow; inner right forearm: crossed flags with the initials W.C.G.; inner side of left forearm: names "Helen and Paul" beneath the image of a dove; calf of right leg: anchor and cupid; calf of left leg: "Jiggs" comic strip character. A dotted line at right indicated height: "5 ft. 10 in." The poster was further labeled: "Age—22 to 25 years, dark or olive complexion, very dark brown hair, weight about 150 lbs."
"Hope this does some good, Mr. Ness," a female voice said.
Ness looked over his shoulder. A handsome if somewhat hard-looking brunette woman of about forty, wearing a red blouse and black skirt, was lighting up a cigarette. No one, other than Ness, recognized her as the "blond" hanged on stage.
"I appreciate the effort you're making, Mrs. Castle," Ness said.
She nodded, pulling on the cigarette. "Our biggest draw," she said. "I owe you a vote of thanks, even if I don't end up with a piece of that reward."
"If any of your patrons identify any of the victims, you'll get some reward money, that I guarantee you." Ness glanced at the death mask display, where people lingered in fear and fascination. "A lot of people are filing past those faces. Maybe somebody will recognize one of them."
"I don't know what I'd have done, without you and this 'Mad Butcher' character," Mrs. Castle said, smiling wearily. "You know, I had to fire Dillinger's father last week," she added, pronouncing "Dillinger" with the correct, hard g.
Ness nodded sympathetically. "I noticed you weren't listing him out front anymore."
"Yeah, pasted the Butcher come-on right over his. It's too bad. He's such a nice old gentleman. But people around here just don't seem to be interested, especially not in a town that's got a crazy 'torso killer.' Who wants to hear a nice old guy tell about how he ran a store while his boy John ran around loose and got in with bad company? Mr. Dillinger used to draw just dandy for me, but I guess his public-enemy-number-one son is yesterday's news. Any-way, thank you, Mr. Ness."
"You can thank Sam Wild of the Plain Dealer," Ness said. "It was his idea."
He smiled and shook hands with Mrs. Castle, nodded again to the cop on duty by the display, and slipped back out on the midway.
It seemed breezy suddenly, and he tucked his hands in his pockets, checking his watch before he did so. Nearly ten. Time to meet Vivian.
He walked briskly from the midway into the area dominated by the Hall of Progress and other massive modern structures, skirting illuminated fountains and decorative pools and the occasional sculpture of a ship or boat. Much of the expo had a nautical theme—even the lampposts were made to resemble masts; from where he stood, he could see Admiral Byrd's ship, The City of New fork, moored and lit up like a Christmas tree. Otherwise, Lake Erie, getting choppy, was free of craft.
Just to the west of the lagoon theater, where Vivian had been attending a fashion show, the three-story Horticultural Building rose, a red, blue, and mostly white affair fashioned after the streamlined forward deck of an ocean liner. Ness entered the massive boat of a building at the top of a twenty-five foot incline where two giant pylons framed the entrance.
From the top deck of this landlocked Titanic, Ness paused to enjoy the cooling crisp air and the bracing scent of the lake and the panoramic view to the west: a hillside replete with rock gardens, waterfalls, and rare plants, a five-hundred-foot slope of landscaped grass falling to a giant fountain and reflecting pool, and a promenade winding beneath the trees at the edge of Lake Erie. The deck, sparsely populated for a Saturday night, and the impressive view gave Ness a feeling of solitude and calm that he drank in like a thirsty man.
Vivian was sitting at one of the small tables beneath a red umbrella, drinking in the view herself—that, and a Bacardi. She was a slender blond—even seated, she appeared tall, which she was, nearly as tall as Ness. She wore, with casual grace, a light blue blouse and dark blue slacks with a white sweater about her shoulders, the arms tied about her neck, reminding him of the other blond and the noose. He touched her shoulder and she smiled without looking up at him, recognizing his touch.
"How was the fashion show?" he asked.
"Fashionable," she allowed. A smile tickled the corner of an attractive if wide and thin-lipped mouth lipsticked bright red; her teeth were as white as porcelain, her eyes green as jade, her suntan brown as amber.
Vivian Chalmers was a divorcéé of thirty with no children and plenty of social pull. Her father was a banker—a solvent one—and she was, as the society pages liked to say, "an all-around sportswoman"—expert trap-shooter, golfer, tennis player. She had also been, for well over a year, an active agent of Ness's—unpaid, other than satisfying her sense of adventure—in his ongoing war against the Mayfield Road mob, the gangsters who controlled gambling, prostitution, and the policy racket in these environs.
Ness would call upon her to case various gambling joints he planned to raid; she, as a socialite, could take a fling in any joint she chose without raising any suspicion. He had proposed this alliance in bed, having met her hours before at a country club dance where the both of them got a little drunk. She had accepted the offer of being an undercover agent for him as readily as she had accepted being undercover with him.
"I'm surprised we never got out here last year," she said, meaning the expo. Her voice had an edge to it, a mannishness that somehow took nothing away from the woman she was.
"Well," he said softly, "we weren't being seen together much, were we?"
She looped her arm in his, cuddled, grinned widely. "No. Not you and your undercover agent."
He smiled gently and looked away.
Still, he caught the tightening around her eyes as she said, "It's getting chilly."
"It may rain," he allowed.
"I wasn't talking about the weather."
He looked at her. Jade eyes that were hard and soft at once. Like her.
"It can't go on, Vivian."
"They've made me, you mean."
He sighed. "Yes. I'm afraid Patton and Miller and their people do have you made. Your presence in those clubs has been too often followed by my presence. Besides," he said with a shrug, "we have the gambling situation pretty well under control now."
She withdrew her arm. Looked out at the lake. "But we're not just talking about police work, are we?"
He licked his lips. Measured the words. Said, "We can't live together, Viv. Sooner or later it'll catch up with us."
She'd been staying for several months at the Clifton Lagoon boathouse, where Ness lived, though it wasn't his official address. The boathouse was a perquisite of his job.
"Because you're a public figure," she said. "With enemies. Political and otherwise."
"Exactly."
"Bullshit."
He winced. He couldn't get used to a woman talking like that. Her sailor's mouth was something that both excited and repelled him. Like her adventurousness in the bedroom.
"There already have been mentions in the columns," he said, "about moonlight swims and dawn boat rides."
"Hell, you have the press in your pocket," she said bitterly, dismissively. "Sometimes I think you and Sam Wild are sleeping together behind my back."
He glanced to see if anyone else was within earshot.
"For God's sake, Viv—"
"I embarrass you. I was fun for a while, but I'm not exactly the prospective next Mrs. Eliot Ness, am I? You don't think I'm up to the job."
Was there a quaver in that strong voice? he wondered.
"I asked you to marry me," he said gently. "You said no."
"Why . . . why don't you ask me again?"
"Would the answer change?"
"It might."
He took some of the gentleness out of his tone. "I want children, Viv. I want a very conventional wife, a very conventional life. I'm not very imaginative, I'm not very adventurous, when it comes to my private life."
"I know." She smiled a little, shaking her head, looking out at the choppy lake. "You save your imagination and your goddamn adventurousness for your job. You save almost everything you have for your job."
"That's who I am," he said unapologetically.
She leaned forward, touched his hand, which was resting on the white metal table, and said, "Don't you see it, you sap? I'm right for you. You're going places, and I can help you get there. You love the social life, don't try to kid me. And with me at your side, you're going to climb all the faster. You can fly right to the top of the social register."
"That's something you can give me, Viv. And that's fine, far as it goes. But it's not as important to me as you think."
"What is?"
He spelled it out for her: "Making my next marriage work. Making sure . . . nobody get hurts this time."
A waiter dressed like a ship steward came and took Ness's order and departed. Ness studied the reflection of the overcast sky on the restless lake surface while Vivian studied him with sympathetic eyes.
BUTCHER'S DOZEN (Eliot Ness) Page 2
