THE DARK CITY (Eliot Ness)

by Max Allan Collins

"Maybe."

  "Want to risk it?"

  "What about your dad?"

  "Think we can find him a ride home?" "I have a cop who can drive him home. Do you live at home with him?"

  "Yes. But I've stayed out all night before." "You said you hadn't been with a man in a year." She put her cheek next to his as they danced. "I lied," she said.

  THREE

  FEBRUARY 3 - MARCH 7, 1936

  CHAPTER 15

  The sun was shining in Cuyahoga County at one o'clock on this Monday afternoon, but it didn't warm William Wiggens. William—Willie to his friends, at least one of whom hadn't been particularly friendly—was just a body in ditch, and a snowy ditch at that. He lay face down at an odd, askew angle, like a child making a shape in the snow. His topcoat was black and so was his hair; he was hatless. He looked vaguely crumpled, like a discarded piece of paper. The splotches of blood on the snowy ground were turning black.

  "We've got to quit meeting like this," Nathan Heller said, Nate to his friends, one of whom was Eliot Ness.

  Heller, a sturdy six-footer in a brown topcoat and a darker brown hat, had just stepped from the squad car that had delivered him, at Ness' request, to this desolate rural spot outside Pepper Pike Village, Cleveland's easternmost suburb, just beyond Shaker Heights. A Pepper Pike patrolman, bundled in a light blue coat, stood nearby with several Cleveland cops in darker blue coats, their breath smoking.

  Ness was down in the ditch where Wiggens had fallen. He was bending over the body, having a look at the bullet wounds on the man. Or boy, really—Wiggens was barely past twenty.

  Ness stood with a sigh. "Young," he said. "So goddamn young."

  "Not so young," Heller said. "You don't get any older than dead."

  Ness nodded, and glanced at Heller, who took off his hat and riffled his head of reddish brown hair. His father had been Jewish, but it was his Irish mother he took after. He had dark blue eyes and was, Ness supposed, handsome, in a rugged sort of way. One corner of Heller's mouth often pulled into a half grin, which gave him a wise-guy appearance. Ness had known Heller a long time, and knew the man's flip cynicism was largely a self-defense mechanism.

  "Don't you get a little tired." Heller asked, putting the hat back on, that half smile tugging at his cheek, "of poking at corpses in roadside ditches?"

  Ness laughed, but it had a hollow sound. "This isn't the same. A gangster like Prank Nitti bumping off another gangster like Ted Newberry makes a certain kind of sense."

  "That sounds funny, coming from you."

  Ness shrugged. "Those boys were playing for high stakes, and they weren't really 'boys,' either. This poor kid was just an independent policy writer."

  Heller, hands shoved in his topcoat pockets, looked down unbelievingly at the corpse sprawled nearby. "Since when do you get killed over the numbers, for Christ's sake?"

  Ness held up two fingers. "There's two ways, in Cleveland. The May field Road mob has a foolproof, profit-every-day system for the numbers racket: they avoid any 'losing' days in their lottery by franchising individual operators who take the financial risk while the mob takes the cream of the profits. Any operators who come up short on a losing day wind up like Mr. Wiggens here."

  "Dead in a ditch," Heller nodded. "Is that what Mr. Wiggens did?"

  "Not necessarily. According to Captain Cooper, my man on the Detective Bureau, Wiggens was an independent. He wrote policy without a mob franchise. That's the other way you can die over the numbers in Cleveland."

  "How do you happen to have all this information at your fingertips? And, God, how I hate playing Watson to your Sherlock Holmes."

  "Elementary, my dear Nathan. Wiggens' blood-spattered car was found mid-morning, about a mile and a half from here. A shiny new blue Chevy coupe with a bullet hole in the rider's door. We've been looking for him ever since."

  Heller knelt over the body, as if playing Holmes himself. He looked at the wounds. Wiggens had been shot in the left temple, and in the left side, under the shoulder.

  "Powder burns," Heller said, standing, dusting snow off his topcoat with gloveless hands. "The bullets enter high and exit low."

  "And how do you read that?"

  He shrugged. "He knew the guy who shot him. Car was probably stopped and the guy was talking to him, standing on the running board, with Wiggens behind the wheel. And then the shooting started."

  "One guy, then?"

  "One guy shooting. Two guys in all. If they dumped his shiny new car half a mile from here, somebody had to drive it, while somebody else drove the car they came in."

  Ness was nodding. "That's how I read it, too. Willie used to work for Frank Hogey, who was the most powerful numbers boss in Cleveland, till the Mayfield gang muscled in. Now Hogey's in their pocket.'

  "So at least one of the hitters was probably somebody Wiggens knew when he was working for Hogey."

  "Yeah. And that's how this young man came to be dead today."

  They climbed up out of the snowy, bloody ditch.

  "This isn't your bailiwick, is it?" Heller asked. "Not that that would stop you."

  Ness said, "Cullitan called me. He's working with somebody from the sheriff’s office on this, and asked me to put some men on it, to keep the sheriffs boys honest."

  "So you're helping out."

  "Actually, Cullitan's helping me out. He knows this killing has more to do with Cleveland than Pepper Pike or Shaker Heights."

  "Yeah," Heller said, the wry half grin back again, "these ritzy suburbs ain't exactly Little Italy."

  "Not hardly. They don't play the numbers in neighbor-hoods like these. It's wall-to-wall golf courses out here."

  "The only number they're interested in playin' is 'fore,' "

  "Exactly. Let's stroll down this country lane a ways, shall we?"

  Heller shrugged, and whispered, "Why the need for privacy? There's nobody around here but us cops."

  Ness didn't dignify that with a response. He walked down the gravel road and Heller walked alongside him.

  Nathan Heller was the president of the A-l Detective Agency in Chicago, a small, one-man office that was doing good if unspectacular business in these Depression days. Ness had met Heller around '31 or '32, when Heller was still on the Chicago P.D., and was, in fact, the youngest plainclothes officer on the force. He had gotten there by graft, of course, but had suffered a dose of conscience when his idealistic father, an old union man who hated the cops and hated his son's becoming one, blew his brains out with Nate's automatic.

  Nate had, you see, given some of the graft money to his father, whose modest West Side bookstore was in trouble. Suicide had been the old man's response. Not long after, Heller had been called upon to get his badge even dirtier and had instead chosen to leave the department and go private.

  Heller, a relatively honest cop by Windy City standards, was one of Ness' few contacts on the Chicago police force, and Ness had been sorry to lose him as a dependable source. But just the same, Ness had helped his friend get started in the detective business, putting him in touch with some of his former clients, particularly one retail credit firm from his own private detective days.

  Last night, when he picked Heller up at Union Station in the belly of Terminal Tower, his old friend had wondered what he was doing in Cleveland.

  "You got cops and detectives up the wazoo," Heller told him, as they climbed one of six sets of stairways leading to the terminal's concourse. "What does the great high muck-a-muck of the Cleveland coppers need one lousy private op from Chicago for?"

  The sound of trains behind them made it necessary for Ness to nearly shout his answer, which considering the nature of the conversation made him feel uneasy.

  He said. "I can trust you, Nate."

  Heller, carrying his own bag, glanced at Ness and the familiar half smile started as he seemed to consider a wisecrack. But he left it unsaid and the smile faded.

  "I'll help any way I can," he said. "Just don't expect me to move to this one-horse town."

&nb
sp; Heller's remark seemed more than faintly ridiculous, as they were presently walking through the Steam Concourse, a vast chamber forty-some feet high, with a skylight the size of a football field, an array of huge bronze chandeliers, marble walls, and mammoth Greek columns. But it was hard to impress somebody from Chicago.

  "How long can you stay?" Ness asked.

  "A month," Heller said.

  "A month is perfect," Ness nodded. "Can you spare that long?"

  "I got Lou Sapperstein holding down the office for me."

  "Oh? And where does that leave the pickpocket detail?"

  "Who cares? Lou put in his twenty years and got his pension and got the hell out. It just don't pay to be a cop in that burg, not when you got a conscience."

  "Is he working for you?"

  Heller laughed. "That'd be sweet! My old boss, working for me. That'll never happen. He's planning to open up his own little office, but till he does, he's willing to hold down my fort."

  "Your agency's in good hands."

  "Yeah, yeah, but I'm not staying in this hick town a day longer than a month. Understood?"

  "Understood."

  "Now, what exactly am I doing here?"

  Later, Ness explained in detail at his Lake Avenue apartment just what his situation was—including the search for the "outside chief" and His Honor's ticking clock.

  "If we land our budget," Ness said, balancing a glass of Scotch as he leaned back on the uncomfortable modern couch, "I plan to put together a permanent staff of investigators. I've already sent word out to some federal men I know to see if I can entice them out of Uncle Sam's employ."

  "And if you don't get your budget,'' Heller said, "it's a moot point. You'll be warming the safety director's chair till Burton tries again next year."

  "Essentially. But I'd find something to do."

  "I'm sure you would. Brother! What a job you signed on for. This is reckless, even for you."

  "Time is running out," Ness admitted, "but we've had some nice headlines already." He smiled. "And I've got my slush fund."

  "Now that you got that," Heller said, with a little shrug, glass of rum in hand, "you should be able to go to town. But isn't this a little like being on the take?"

  Ness frowned. "What is?"

  Heller smiled. "Settle down, settle down. All I mean is, these businessmen are going to want something for their dough. Stands to reason."

  "Cleveland isn't Chicago, Nate."

  "It ain't the Land of Oz either. It's a nasty little place, where apparently the cops are so corrupt they make the boys back home look like priests. Of course, I've known priests with mistresses and kids, so what the hell."

  Ness swirled his Scotch in his glass. "Look, Nate. I appreciate what you're saying, and I've been over that with the mayor. But taking money from legitimate citizens, who have certain civic concerns, to fund undercover police work, is slightly different from taking graft from goddamn gangsters."

  Heller gestured magnanimously. "Hey, I don't mean to be critical. My shorts aren't entirely white either. Just watch it. There ain't no such thing as something for nothing."

  "I'm not naive, Nate."

  "I know you aren't. But sometimes you can be real selective about what you choose to see and hear."

  Ness shrugged.

  "You're sure it's okay I stay here?" Heller said.

  "There's a couch in my study. Folds out into a bed."

  "It's swell of ya, but—"

  "I can use the company."

  Heller studied him. "Are you and Evie really tossin' in the towel? I find that hard to believe."

  "We're just separated."

  Heller leaned back on the couch, his smile reflective. "Remember when I was dating Janey? The four of us would get together. We always looked to you as the ideal couple."

  "Well, that was foolish, wasn't it?"

  Heller sipped his rum. "Guess it was. I see selectively sometimes, myself. Hell. Janey and I didn't work out either, did we?"

  Ness sat forward. "How is business back home, Nate?"

  "When you change the subject, you really change it."

  "Would you be interested in moving here? Taking on a job as my chief investigator? For now it has to be temporary, of course, but with some luck, in a month or so I may be able to offer you a permanent position."

  Heller smiled, and it wasn't a wise-guy smile at all. He said, "That's damn nice of you. And I take it as one hell of a compliment that you regard my abilities that high. I wasn't sure you did."

  "I do."

  "Fine, but I don't want to get married. Much as I love ya, pal, I like being my own boss. If you pull this off, you'll be top dog in this town. But as soon as this angel of yours, Burton, bites the mayoral dust, as he will one day, you're probably going to be out of work just the same. And where would I be?"

  "I think I could see to it that your job was secure."

  "Maybe you could do that, but then I'd be right back in the middle of a police department again, wouldn't I? Where graft and corruption breed like flies on horseshit. Don't look at me like that. You look like a cross between a cocker spaniel and Jackie Cooper. I hate that. I'm complimented, and I'll help you out, but I ain't movin' here. I don't like this place." Then he added, "It's too damn cold," as if Chicago wasn't.

  "I appreciate your help, Nate, even in the short term."

  "Besides," Heller went on, "you already got a chief investigator: you. That's the only chief investigator you'll ever hire."

  But for the short term, Nate Heller was indeed working for Ness, and first thing this Monday morning, Ness had sent him to the Salvation Army shelter where the Joanna Home residents were still being housed.

  As they walked slowly along the gravel road, about a quarter mile away from the body of William Wiggens, Ness asked Heller, "What did you find out?"

  "Half a dozen of the Joanna Home old folks did in fact invest in that cemetery scam of yours," Heller said. "Only none of "em know it's a scam. They think the government's going to turn their passbooks into gold. They think they're holding 'surety bonds,' for Christ's sake."

  "Were the two old men who died also investors?"

  Heller shrugged. "Nobody seemed to know. I don't think your phony G-man approached them as a group. He talked to them one or two at a time." Then with sarcasm he added, "Confidentially."

  Ness clicked his tongue. "That's the standard pattern. I talked to one of the victims myself a few weeks back. Gus Kulovic, the guy who blew the whistle to my pal on the Plain Dealer."

  "Whoever hustled that neighborhood was one smooth scam artist."

  Ness lifted an eyebrow. "Well, we got a good sketch of him by having Kulovic work with a cartoonist from the paper."

  "I don't suppose you i.d.'ed the finagler, or you'd have said."

  "We didn't i.d. him, no. He's got a round, bulldog mug. Looks familiar to me, really rings a bell, but I just can't place him."

  "Maybe it'll come to you. You know a lot of crooks."

  "That I do. But I never knew a con artist who could turn around and pull off something like this . . . murder by arson. Con men by nature aren't violent criminals."

  Heller made a face. "Spare me your criminology crap. If I've learned anything in this business over the years, it's that people are capable of about anything."

  "These Joanna Home refugees you talked to," Ness said, getting back to the facts and away from Heller's bleak philosophizing. "Did any of them hear the two victims complaining about the so-called surety bonds?"

  "No. And these old folks were pretty sharp. It's not a bunch of geezers with Swiss cheese for memories. They still got a lot on the ball, most of 'em. But not enough, unfortunately, to see through this scam."

  Ness sighed. "Like you said last night—sometimes people hear what they want to hear, see what they want to see."

  Heller nodded. "In times like these, if somebody tells you the money you invested before the crash can magically come back, you want to believe, you desperately want to believe
it."

  "Cops helped it happen." Ness stopped. The wind was chilly, carrying flecks of ice. "That same Plain Dealer reporter, Wild, came up with half a dozen instances where a cop in the neighborhood vouched for the G-man."

  "Have you pulled those cops in and questioned "em?"

  Ness smirked humorlessly. "Yeah, and they played dumb."

  "Yeah, but they aren't." Heller nodded back toward the ditch and Wiggens. "Your policy racket couldn't be flourishing like it is without cops, plenty of 'em, looking the other way. That 'department within the department' you were talking about."

  "Exactly," Ness said. "Which is why I want you to go over to the McGrath Detective Agency." He dug in his pocket for a list, which he handed to Heller. "Those are twenty McGrath cops who accompanied Cullitan and me on raids against the two biggest casinos in Ohio. Both of which we shut down."

  Heller nodded, looking over the list briefly, then folding it and putting it in his billfold. "And nobody from McGrath leaked news of the raids," Heller said.

  "Right. So they would seem trustworthy. But I've arranged with the agency for you to go over the employment records of each man. Check the background of each thoroughly. Phone around to prior employers. Check all their references."

  Heller was nodding.

  "Whittle that list down to half a dozen men," Ness said, "and those six will be your little squad of investigators."

  Heller smiled in his smart-ass way. "And what is my little 'junior untouchable' squad going to do?"

  "Well, for one thing, you're going to tap the phones of two precinct captains, my own executive assistant, and a few other city officials."

  The smirk disappeared. "Jesus. That isn't exactly like tapping Capone's line outside the Montmartre Cafe. What if I get caught at this? These are city employees."

  "I know. But the mayor gave me a free hand, and anyway, you won't get caught. This approach did work against Capone, remember."

  "You can't use it in court."

  "No, but it can sure tell us the lay of the land. Look, I don't particularly relish being a sneak—"

  "So you brought me in to do your dirty work. Is it okay if I feel less complimented now?"