THE DARK CITY (Eliot Ness)

by Max Allan Collins

  Chief Matowitz had a broad, lumpy, friendly face and blue eyes that seemed distant behind his wire-framed glasses. He was wearing his chief’s cap, a lighter blue than his crisp uniform with its gleaming silver badge, dark blue tie, and red lapel flower.

  "I had a call from Mayor Burton first thing this morning," the chief said, pulling up a chair opposite his desk for Ness, "and was assured that my position is secure. I was relieved to hear that."

  "You've put in thirty-one years of service to the department," Ness said, sitting, unbuttoning his topcoat but leaving it on. "That's nothing to sneeze at."

  "I want you to know," the other man said, resuming the watering of his potted plants and flowers, "that I'm behind you one hundred per cent. Whatever it takes. Don't hesitate to call on me."

  "That's good to hear."

  "There's a lot of fine boys in our department. You hear a lot of scuttlebutt to the contrary, but don't you believe it. Why, I can quote you chapter and verse, comparing statistics of crime figures in other cities of similar size to our fine city, and you'll see our department is doing a top-notch job." His voice was shaking with emotion, or seemed to be, as he added, "The Cleveland Police Department is the finest in the world. I'm proud of my boys."

  Ness shifted in his chair, his irritation barely in check. "Chief, we have one of the worst departments in the world. And rooting out the corruption that makes it that way is my top priority."

  The chief balled his free hand and shook the fist and did his best to look determined. "And well it should be. Those rotten apples can spoil the whole barrel."

  Ness sighed and cleared his throat. "I feel we should discuss the situation."

  "So do I," Matowitz said forcefully. "So do I." He placed the watering can on a window sill and moved to the parakeet's cage, where he began feeding the bird bread crumbs.

  "Do you have any ideas, Chief?"

  The chief turned momentarily away from his chirping bird to look at Ness blankly. "Ideas?"

  "I thought you might have some suggestions on where our investigation might begin."

  "What investigation is that?"

  "Into our corrupt goddamn department."

  The chief’s face took on a thoughtful look. "Let me get back to you on that. I'd like to check with my staff on that one."

  Ness shifted in his seat again. This guy was driving him batty. "Chief, I'm going to be moving very fast. You're going to have to play some heads-up ball, here."

  Matowitz moved away from the bird cage. He walked behind the desk and sat. Ness was not sure whether the chiefs plant-watering and bird-feeding reflected a lack of concern, or masked his nervousness. Or maybe the guy just wasn't playing with a full deck.

  "I have heard bad things about the fourteenth and fifteenth precincts," the chief admitted, twiddling his thumbs. "Rumors, mainly. The Detective Bureau hasn't been able to confirm anything."

  "The Detective Bureau is something I wanted to discuss with you."

  "Oh?"

  "Chief of Detectives Potter strikes me as a problem."

  The chief’s expression turned grave. "Inspector Potter has many friends, Mr. Ness."

  "Friends in the Davis administration. Not Burton's."

  "He's still a powerful man ..."

  "I'm not surprised. The word I heard back at the Alcohol and Tax Unit was that Potter is the guy to see if you want your gambling resort or bookie joint protected."

  "That's a serious allegation."

  "And I don't intend to make it, not publicly."

  "You don't?"

  "No. Not yet, anyway. I'm going to transfer Potter. Maybe even promote him. But he's not going to head up our Detective Bureau anymore."

  Ness knew that Potter had been running the show in the department during the two years of Mayor Davis' feckless administration, and that Matowitz, a holdover from an earlier regime, had been more or less a figure-head.

  "You could run into trouble, Mr. Ness," the chief said. "The former mayor is still a powerful figure politically."

  "I know. I know all about the free-for-all that the city council's going to turn into. And I don't really care."

  Matowitz's expression darkened. He seemed to be taking Ness more seriously now, and, if nothing else, had stopped twiddling his thumbs. "If I might say so, this is nothing to take lightly, Mr. Ness."

  "Chief, I'm not a political appointee. I'm beholden to nobody, except Mayor Burton, and he only got me to take this job by promising me a free hand. So we're going to shake things up, understood?"

  The chief didn't seem to, but he said, "Understood."

  Ness sighed. He didn't dare mention Burton's ticking clock. If Matowitz got wind of the fragility of Ness' position, then the chief could lean back and do nothing except water his plants and feed his birds and wait for Ness to fail.

  Ness tried again, a different tack. "I looked over your record this morning before coming over. It's impressive. Impressive as hell."

  That threw Matowitz a little. He almost mumbled his thanks.

  "You're a good cop," Ness said. "And, I think, a clean one."

  The chief said, tersely, "No one has ever suggested that George Matowitz was on the pad."

  "You have one of the most distinguished records of any detective in the city," Ness went on. "Perhaps the country. You were dogged in your work, chasing killers to Mexico, and to Sicily. Hoodlums feared you. You were a boxer and a wrestler and you put those skills to use on the street."

  Ness stopped there. He could see in the older man's sagging face that he'd made his point, that the chief had discerned the unasked question: how could a hard-nosed, first-rate cop like you turn into an ineffectual, incompetent chair-holder?

  This man had, after all, been a cop for almost as long as Ness had been alive. Would time do that to him, too? Did years inevitably put the fire out?

  And the chief answered the unasked questions. He smiled, but there was sadness in the smile, and his hands were folded in a dignified manner as he said, "You're a young man, Mr. Ness. You're going places. When you get there, you will be better fit to judge."

  "I didn't mean to sit in judgment."

  "You're new to the city, Mr. Ness. I've been here a long time. Since I was six, since my father brought us over from Hummeno, in Austria-Hungary." His parakeet was chirping in the corner. The eyes behind the glasses grew even more distant, though they seemed to smile. "I remember Hummeno. Especially the orchard next door, and the fields where poppies grew." The eyes stopped smiling. "Cleveland wasn't as pretty. I remember selling shoes on Public Square and selling papers in front of May's Drugstore. There were a lot of fistfights, so I could maintain my . . . economic integrity. They called me 'greenhorn,' and I guess I was, but I took care of myself. It was a continual scrap for existence, your veritable survival of the fittest. But I made it. I learned to speak English. Do you hear an accent, Mr. Ness?"

  Ness shook his head.

  "I went to school, and I was good at my studies. I was a janitor, and an errand boy, a grocery delivery boy, finally a streetcar conductor, coming up in the world.

  Then I got into the police department, and I started going to night school. I guess I had about every job in the department—sub-patrolman, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, inspector, acting chief, director of Police Training School, Detective Bureau chief—and I was the first officer in charge of Cleveland's mounted troops. I took a civil service exam for every rank and no one, no one, ever beat me out in an examination." He was shaking a lecturing finger now. "I kept taking night school, too, Mr. Ness. It took me twenty years, but I passed my bar exam a few years ago—1928 to be exact. And in 1931 became chief. Chief of Police of a great city."

  "You're to be congratulated," Ness said, meaning it. "You made the American dream come true. And worked hard to do it."

  A firm jaw jutted out of a face long since gone soft. "That's right. I worked hard to get where I am. I would like to stay where I am."

  "And rocking the boat isn't a good way to do th
at."

  "That is quite right. I don't wish to rock the boat. I merely want to do my job."

  Ness laughed shortly. "That's a coincidence. I merely want you to do your job, too."

  Behind the wire frames, the eyes tightened. "Are you suggesting, sir, that I'm not?"

  "I'm suggesting nothing. I don't give a damn about yesterday. How you chose to stay afloat while the Davis administration was in power is between you and your conscience. But I'm putting you on notice today: following the path of least resistance is not going to help you hold onto your job. I'm your boss, and I say the boat needs rocking. And you, Chief Matowitz, are going to help me rock it or you'll find out how easy it is to drown on dry land."

  The chief thought about that.

  Then he began to nod, slowly. "Where do we begin?"

  Good, Ness thought.

  He said, "We cut out the politics and graft and favoritism, where promotions are concerned. Here on out, the only qualification for promotion will be ability and performance. Seniority be damned."

  "All due respect, Mr. Ness, that will go over like a lead balloon."

  "Well, start pumping it up with hot air then, Chief." From what he'd heard today, Ness figured hot air was something Matowitz wasn't short of. "What a man does— not how long he's been on the city payroll, or who he knows—is going to be the basis for advancement in this department."

  "Inspector Potter ..."

  "Let me worry about Potter. Good God, man, wouldn't you like to get out from under that bastard's thumb?"

  The chief swallowed. Then he half smiled, like a kid caught in a lie, and nodded. "I would."

  Ness pointed a finger at Matowitz. "What would you do, what's the first thing you'd do, if you didn't have to worry about that bastard Potter?"

  The chief shrugged, then his expression darkened again. "I guess I'd break up that little political clique they got going over in the Detective Bureau. Do you know what kind of salaries they're pulling down?"

  "Best pay in town," Ness nodded. "Better than a uniformed captain."

  "What if I wanted to transfer some of those guys out of there?"

  "You're the chief. Do it."

  "You think I could?"

  "I think that it would be a hell of an idea. I was going to suggest we transfer lieutenants and sergeants all over town, in every precinct."

  The chiefs eyes got very wide and he looked as if the wind had been knocked out of him. Then he managed to say, "You're talking about hundreds of cops."

  "That's right. And it would upset hundreds of apple-carts. The kind that have those rotten apples you were talking about."

  "That would mean the bent cops would be uprooted. They'd have to start all over in a new precinct."

  "Only we won't give them a chance. What do you say, Chief?"

  Suddenly Chief Matowitz seemed very businesslike. His mouth was a thin straight line that barely opened for him to say, "Give me till tomorrow morning. I'll have the transfers ready for you to sign."

  Ness smiled and nodded and rose. He buttoned up his topcoat and put on his hat. The parakeet was really making a racket.

  "I think your bird is hungry," Ness said, just before he went out.

  The chief was standing at a wooden file cabinet, digging some folders out, which he tossed on the polished desk top, finally cluttering it with some work.

  "He can wait," the chief said.

  CHAPTER 6

  Reporter Sam Wild of the Plain Dealer had spent the morning at the Central Police Station gathering reactions from cops about the Ness appointment. Those reactions were pretty much as he expected: indifferent as dish water. "Wish him luck. He'll need it." "Sure, we'll cooperate. Why not?" Cleveland cops had seen safety directors come and safety directors go, but things usually didn't change much under the surface. Most safety directors didn't seem to mean anything to cops. Just a different name painted on the same old door.

  So Wild was pleasantly surprised, in the tunnel-like first-floor headquarters hallway, to bump into Ness himself.

  "Well, Mister Director of Public Safety," Wild said, grinning. "Bearding the lions in their den, I see."

  Ness stopped and smiled faintly, as both uniformed and plainclothes cops walked by in either direction, none of them paying him any heed.

  Walking again, Ness said, "Just had a little chat with the Chief of Police."

  Wild smirked. "What'd he do, tell you about his brave 'boys' and his flowers and his birdie?"

  "No," Ness said.

  The safety director was walking quickly. Even a long-legged guy like Wild had to work to keep up.

  "Give us a break, here," Wild said. "How about a quote?"

  "Too early," Ness said.

  "I thought sure you'd have a press conference this morning."

  Ness kept walking. "I told you boys last night, I'd take action first, and talk later."

  "Yeah, yeah. That made a swell quote, but that's yesterday's news. Newspapermen got to eat every day, you know."

  Ness stopped again. "Would you excuse me, Mr. Wild?"

  "Well, sure."

  And then Wild realized why Ness had stopped.

  Inspector Emil Potter, Chief of the Detective Bureau, had just come in the Twenty-first Street entry, toward which Ness and Wild had been so briskly moving.

  Potter was a man in his mid-forties with black hair and shaggy black eyebrows and a Dracula-pasty face. None-the-less, he had a hearty, hail-fellow-well-met manner. He was about five nine but broad-shouldered, and looked like he could change a tire without a jack. His hat was in his hand and his dark gray topcoat flapped as he walked. When he saw Ness, the skin around his eyes tightened.

  The two men faced each other. Wild stood just to one side of Ness, taking it in.

  "Good morning, Director Ness," Potter said, with a smile that struck Wild as about as sincere as a street-walker's come-on. "This is the first chance I've had to congratulate you on your appointment."

  Potter reached out a big hand, which Ness took, smiling back with similar insincerity.

  "Much appreciated, Inspector. I left a message for you with your secretary."

  "Oh?"

  "Yes. I'd like to speak with you this afternoon at three o'clock."

  Potter made a tch-tch sound. "Sorry. I have a meeting with my sergeants at two-thirty. Why not stop down to my office now, and we can chat?"

  Ness checked his watch. "That's white of you, but I have an appointment at eleven with Traffic Commissioner Donahue about these record traffic fatalities we've been racking up."

  Potter nodded. "That is a major problem."

  Ness smiled blandly. "Good. You may be able to help me out in that area."

  Potter, not following this, shrugged and said, "Anything I can do, Director."

  "You can start by being at my office at three o'clock."

  Potter's eyes narrowed, the shaggy eyebrows twitching. "I thought I'd explained . . . my meeting ..."

  "Cancel it. See you at three."

  And Ness tipped his hat and moved on.

  Potter stood there glaring at Ness, but Ness didn't see. Wild did, but quickly picked up his step and fell in with Ness.

  "Nice piece of work," Wild said.

  "How's that?"

  "You're makin' Potter meet with you on your turf, not his."

  Ness' smile was barely perceptible. He offered no other answer. They passed through the vestibule and out into the cold air.

  Wild followed Ness down the steps, their breaths billowing like smokestacks.

  "Headed back to City Hall?" Wild asked, digging his gloveless hands in his topcoat pockets.

  "That's right."

  "How about giving me a lift?"

  "How about taking a streetcar?"

  "Give me a break, Ness. I gave you one."

  Ness stopped and looked at Wild, his expression impassive. "Really?"

  "Yeah, I put in the good word for you. I was the first guy who mentioned you to Burton."

  Ness dug under his topcoa
t in his pants pocket. "Let me see if I have a dime for your streetcar fare."

  "Hey, City Hall's my beat. Give me a lift, for Christ's sake. I'm freezing my ass off out here."

  Ness studied him, sucked in a long cold breath and let it smoke out. "Okay. But no press conference."

  Wild shook his head, waved his hands. "Anything you say is off the record."

  Ness thrust a gunlike pointing finger at him. "I'll hold you to that."

  They walked up the cement ramp to the black Ford in the elevated parking lot. Ness had left the car unlocked and Wild climbed on in.

  Wild sat and watched Ness, who was starting the car up. "What are you going to do to Potter?"

  Ness looked at Wild carefully. "Off the record?"

  "Yeah, yeah. Off the record."

  Ness looked in his rear view mirror as he began backing up the Ford. "I'm going to promote him."

  The sedan rolled out onto the brick street in front of Central Headquarters, turning left on Twenty-first. They rumbled along, turning left on Superior, as Wild continued to grill Ness.

  "Why are you promoting Potter?" Wild asked. "He was Mayor Davis' boy, so he's no pal of your boss."

  Ness drove casually, one hand on the wheel. "Wait and see."

  "Why do I get the feeling you're going to take on the whole goddamn police force?"

  Ness glanced at him, smiled again, very slightly. "I'm planning to take on the Mayfield Road mob. That's who I'm planning to take on."

  Wild laughed hollowly. "The Mayfield Road mob. You make it sound ominous."

  "Isn't it?"

  "They're just a bunch of savvy wops giving the public what it wants."

  "Is that right." Ness' voice was as flat as stale beer.

  "Hell, every city has its version of the Mayfield mob."

  Ness stopped for a red light and gave Wild a hard, cool look. "And every city has its version of a police force. My version isn't going to look the other way where gambling's concerned." He turned his gaze on the red light. "The Mayfield Road mob has been raking in some two hundred thousand dollars a week on gambling. The numbers racket alone is pulling in better than half that amount."