MURDER BY THE NUMBERS (Eliot Ness)

by Max Allan Collins

  Curry had told them, when he radioed it in, to bring some saw-horses along, which they had, taking them from the trunks of the two squad cars and blocking off the street at either end of the block. Another round of orange-glowing flares was lit and dropped to the pavement. It seemed a pointless exercise to Curry—traffic had been nonexistent since he'd arrived—but it was procedure.

  "Why's it so quiet?" Curry asked Johnson. "Usually with a homicide, you gotta beat the spectators back with a stick."

  Johnson shrugged; hands in his topcoat pockets, his breath smoking. "Dead white cop in a Negro section. Wouldn't you run scared if you lived 'round here?"

  "They fear reprisals, you mean?"

  Johnson laughed without humor. "We two blocks from where the Joe Louis riot come down. Colored kid got shot that night."

  "Oh. Yeah. That's right."

  "We been working the east side together for some weeks now, Albert. You tell me. How do these people feel about cops?"

  "Not good. They fear 'em. Hate 'em. Distrust 'em."

  "That's right, and more. Now there's a dead ofay copper on the front lawn of a colored house. Regular east-side lawn jockey."

  Curry snorted a laugh. "You could be right. We could have a riot on our hands."

  "The coloreds ain't gonna riot again."

  "I'm not talking about the coloreds," Curry said, and he nodded toward the white uniformed cops who were putting up the saw-horse barricades. They were talking animatedly amongst themselves, obviously angry; one of them was standing by a squad car talking into the coiled hand-mike from his police radio.

  "You right," Johnson said. "That hunky's spreadin' the word. There's gonna be some black nappy skulls get crushed tonight."

  "I hope you're wrong. I hope we're both wrong."

  Sergeant Martin Merlo arrived with a photographer, who all but jumped out of the black unmarked sedan, left it out in the middle of the blocked-off street, and began taking pictures of the corpse and the area around the corpse. Flash bulbs popped like little gun shots, the brief explosions of light like eerie lightning.

  "Looks like you've done a good job, Al," Merlo said to Curry, shaking hands ceremoniously with the younger detective. Merlo was a slender, scholarly looking man in his late forties, with horn-rim glasses and a high brow.

  "Kind of tough at night," Curry said. "I haven't canvassed any of the neighbors."

  "Anybody touch the body?"

  "Not that we know of. Uh, do you know Detective Johnson? Toussaint, this is Sergeant Merlo."

  Johnson smiled, nodded, offered his hand, which Merlo shook, smiling back professionally. "We met couple times," Johnson said. "After Kingsbury Run, Sergeant Merlo, he practically an honorary citizen of the Roarin' Third."

  Merlo twitched an embarrassed smile. He had been the principal investigator of the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run murders, before the safety director took over the case. Though the case was considered unofficially closed, obsessive Merlo (unaware the real butcher had been secretly committed to an asylum) was still working it.

  Despite Merlo's obsession with the Butcher, Curry—like his boss, Ness—considered Merlo the best homicide cop on the department. Whenever the safety director's investigators encountered a homicide, Merlo was their man.

  Right now Merlo was combing the area around the dead man with a highbeam flashlight. Then he approached the body, kneeling as if to pray.

  Curry, standing nearby but out in the street, said, "I checked for rigor. None yet. Body's warm. He could've been killed here."

  "Doubtful," Merlo said, dousing the corpse with the flashlight; its beam landed on the face of the dead man, who had been a forty-year-old, jowly, dark-haired cop. The upper half of the man's face looked bruised.

  "Somebody rough him up before they killed him?" Curry asked.

  "No," Merlo said, shaking his head. "That bruising effect is lividity—when his heart stopped beating, the blood gathered on his left side, meaning he lay with his left side down when he died. Only now his left side's sunny-side up." Merlo shrugged. "They moved him."

  Curry, who really hadn't worked many homicides, a little flustered at not recognizing lividity when he saw it, said, "Obviously. They dumped him here."

  "But who dumped him?" Merlo said. "And why?"

  Curry thought about that. He turned to Johnson. "Did you know this guy?"

  Johnson yawned. "Sure. He worked the east side, out of the Third. But I don't think he was workin' tonight. And he wasn't no plainclothes."

  That sparked Curry's interest. "Oh? Then what in the hell was he doing here?"

  "Ask him," Johnson said, nodding toward the corpse.

  Somebody was shouting over by one of the saw-horse barricades. Curry glanced over and saw Sam Wild, arguing with a uniform cop. They looked close to blows.

  Curry walked over there and broke it up.

  "Let him pass," Curry said.

  The uniformed cop, a fiftyish paddy with a vein-shot nose, said, "On whose authority? Are you homicide?" He obviously thought Curry looked a little young to be in charge.

  "I'm Detective Curry, special assistant to the safety director. Let him cross the barricade."

  The older cop cleared his throat, said, "Excuse," and allowed the smirking Wild to pass.

  "What's goin' on?" Wild said. "I'm anxious to see this one-man St. Valentine's Day massacre."

  "You just stick with me. Don't ask anybody any questions. Did you find the chief?"

  "Yeah. Big Chief Ness was makin' whoopee with his squaw. I don't think he was thrilled to be interrupted."

  "So he's not coming?"

  "Don't be stupid. He's damn near here."

  Within moments, the EN-1 sedan was cruising past the barricade and pulled up beside Merlo's car and Ness hopped out, topcoat flapping.

  "Fill me in," he said to Curry, and Curry did.

  Ness went over and spoke to Merlo, who nodded as Ness gave him his orders.

  Ness came over to Curry, Johnson, and Wild, and said, "We're going to keep this block cleared off. I'm having some flood lights brought in so they can comb this crime scene efficiently. So far the only physical evidence anybody's spotted is the corpse itself."

  "I sure didn't see anything," Curry said. "But I think Johnson and I preserved the scene halfway decent."

  "I'm sure you did. I called the Detective Bureau and they're sending half a dozen boys to canvass this neighborhood, tonight. Somebody had to have seen something."

  "Don't count on it," Johnson said.

  Ness considered that. "Maybe we should pull in our Negro cops and have them do the questioning."

  "That would help," Johnson admitted.

  Ness called Merlo over and told him to call in the request for the colored cops; any of them who were off-duty were to come in, as well.

  Ness returned to the trio of men and asked Johnson, "What's your reading of this?"

  Johnson's mouth twitched. He said, "Scalise did this. With Lombardi's blessin'."

  "Why?"

  "To cause you trouble. Dead white cop in a colored section is goin' to fire up the frictions 'tween the police and the colored citizenry."

  Ness nodded gravely. "We're just a couple blocks from where that riot happened, and that kid was killed."

  "Right," Johnson said. "But we also are just a few blocks south of the white district. Easy to kill him there, dump him here."

  Wild, who was saying nothing, was lighting up a Lucky Strike; he wasn't taking notes, Curry noticed, but he wasn't missing a word.

  "This does sound like Lombardi and Scalise," Ness said, grinning like a skull. "We're gathering witnesses, trying to build confidence in our ability to safeguard those witnesses—and the Mayfield boys bump off a cop and dump him here. Here we are assuring witnesses of protection, and one of our own gets it, and is tossed in their literal front yard." He laughed bitterly.

  "Hell," said Johnson, "we just two and a half blocks from where one of our prime witnesses lives."

  Ness looked at him
sharply. "Who's that?"

  "John C. Washington," Curry said. "One of the former policy kings. You've talked to him."

  "He's a key witness, all right," Ness said, thinking that over. He checked his watch. "It's not even ten. Let's go over there and talk to him. Curry, Johnson, you ride with me. Sam, you want to come?"

  Wild grinned, pitched his Lucky into the night, trailing sparks. "Sure. No more dead bodies gonna turn up here."

  As they drove the two blocks, Ness kept going over it. "Okay, we know why they dumped the body in this district— to embarrass us, to generally ..."

  "Fuck up our investigation," Johnson said.

  "Yes. That's exactly right. But it doesn't explain why this man . . . what was his name, Clifford Willis? Why this officer was killed."

  "Like we said," Johnson said. "To cause trouble and embarrassment."

  "No. That's why they dumped him here. Not why they killed him. Johnson, you knew Willis?"

  "To speak to. Worked outa the same precinct."

  "Was he Scalise's man? Was he dirty?"

  "Not that I know of."

  "Jesus!" Wild said, as they rounded the corner of 46th. "What the hell is goin' on up there?"

  Three red-and-blue squad cars were parked in the street at askew angles in front of the yellow frame Victorian. All the lights were on in the house, and blue shapes were moving in the windows; cops were swarming all over the front porch. There was yelling, male; there was the sound of breaking glass; there was a scream, female.

  "What the hell is this?" Ness said, under his breath.

  Curry glanced over at his chief, and saw the glazed, hollow look that spoke great anger on the part of this quiet man.

  Ness pulled up next to the squad cars and jumped out of the sedan, leaving it running. Curry, Wild, and Johnson followed as the safety director ran up the sidewalk onto the front porch. The cops there, who seemed to be in the process of dismantling a porch swing, froze with surprise at seeing the safety director standing before them, obviously not pleased.

  "What in hell are you men doing?" he demanded.

  Their arms fell to their sides, swinging limply; they were like school kids caught being naughty.

  He didn't wait for an answer; he moved on inside, and Curry followed. Johnson and Wild waited outside.

  The inside of the house was a shambles. The beautiful little home's furniture was upended and in many cases splintered into scrap wood; the banister on the second-floor staircase had been kicked apart and its posts stuck out at odd angles, and some were gone, like a smile missing many of its teeth.

  Ness wasn't smiling. This damage was being perpetrated by uniformed police officers, who were roaming the small house, trashing it, busting out windows with nightsticks, ripping drapes apart like rapists tearing the clothes off a virginal victim.

  John C. Washington, dressed in silk pajamas, and his pretty, plumpish wife, who was in a silk dressing gown, were standing beside the fireplace. He had his arm around her shoulder and she was burying her face in his chest; the woman was crying, the man was standing tall, coldly furious, as his house, his possessions, were turned into rubble before his eyes, by representatives of the city government.

  Ness grabbed one of the cops by the arm, a heavy-set red-haired fellow of perhaps thirty, who turned with a snarling expression, until he saw who he was snarling at, and melted like wax.

  "Who's in charge?" Ness demanded, shaking him. "Who the hell's in charge!"

  "No . . . nobody. We just got the call ..."

  "What call?"

  From upstairs came the cracking of furniture getting busted up, the sound of shattering glass.

  The red-haired officer gestured helplessly with both hands. "A white cop was killed, Air. Ness. A white cop!"

  "What does that have to do with this?"

  "Johnny C. is a policy racketeer, Mr. Ness. Surely you know that."

  Ness threw the man against the stairs.

  He stalked back outside. Curry followed him, close as a shadow.

  Ness stood in the street. Curry was at his side. Johnson and Wild were across the street on the sidewalk, just taking it all in.

  "Give me your gun," Ness said to Curry.

  "What are you going to do?"

  "Give me your goddamn gun."

  Curry swallowed. Ness swore only rarely, and hardly ever used a gun. From under his shoulder Curry withdrew the .38 revolver and handed it to Ness.

  Who fired it into the air.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Six times.

  Gun still held upward, smoke twirling out the barrel, Ness stood in the middle of the street and waited.

  Cops emptied out of the house like Johns in a whorehouse fire. They had guns in hand and wore expressions of rage.

  And they were stopped short, all of them, when they saw who was standing in the street before them.

  "You men," Ness said, evenly, through teeth gritted so tight they ought to have broken, "are going to give your names and badge numbers to my assistant, Detective Curry, here. Then you're going to get the hell out of my sight. And when you're drifting off to sleep tonight, ponder this question: Why am I a police officer? And when you've searched your soul on that one, ponder this: Will I still be a police officer tomorrow morning?"

  Glumly, sheepishly, they gathered around Curry, who took their names. Fifteen of them. The men muttered excuses. The word "nigger" turned up frequently, the phrase "cop killers" equally often. Within ten minutes, they were gone, their squad cars sliding slowly away, sirens off, red-and-blue tails tucked 'tween their legs.

  Curry went inside, where Ness was talking to Washington and his wife. A place on a couch that was more or less intact had been cleared of rubble and glass. Washington sat with his arm around the shoulder of his trembling wife.

  Ness stood before him, hat in hand. "We can put you up in a hotel, Mr. Washington."

  "No, sir. I have friends in my own community."

  "I can't excuse what happened tonight. But I can assure you I will have a crew from the city here tomorrow to help clean your place up. And I'll get funds to help cover the damage done."

  Washington said nothing; his eyes were cold.

  "There was a cop killing tonight," Ness said. "I have reason to believe your old friends Lombardi and Scalise were responsible—but they left the body on your doorstep, in effect."

  Standing across the room by the fireplace, contemplating a picture in a broken frame of a fat uniformed colored soldier, Johnson said, "Cops go bughouse, Johnny, when one of their own gets it."

  Washington said nothing.

  Ness said, "We need your testimony, Mr. Washington. We can't let Lombardi and Scalise get away with, this ruse."

  Washington sighed heavily. " 'Ruse'? Does this look like a ruse to you, Mr. Ness? My home, is it a ruse? Or does it look more like a shambles?"

  Curry said, "Mr. Washington—why do you think you were singled out for this?"

  Nobody said anything, though Ness looked shrewdly at Curry.

  Finally Washington answered: "Maybe this is going on all over the east side . . . police terrorism running rampant. There are a lot of police in Cleveland."

  Ness looked at Johnson. "What do you think, Detective?"

  "Johnny just happened to be close to the scene of the crime," Johnson said, matter-of-factly. "Easy target for somebody lookin' to take somethin' out on somebody."

  Eyes narrowed, Ness said, "Did you know Clifford Willis? The officer shot?"

  Bristling, Washington said, "Am I a suspect? We entertained friends earlier this evening, and arrived home at. . ."

  Washington's wife looked at Ness with disdain.

  Ness patted the air with one hand. "No . . . that's not why I'm asking. But if there's a connection . . ."

  Washington stood and his wife stood with him; they might have been Siamese twins. "Mr. Ness. If you gentlemen wouldn't mind leaving me, and my wife, to what is left of our home . . . ?"

  Ness nodded, sighed,
stood. "We'll talk later, Mr. Washington. I'm sorry this happened."

  "I should hope so."

  "I don't just mean your house, Mr. Washington. A police officer was killed tonight. Let's not lose sight of that."

  "Yes," Washington said, looking about his ruined home significantly. "But that's such small solace."

  And the former policy king, in the midst of his stormed, sacked castle, pointed to the door.

  CHAPTER 12

  Ness strode down the tunnel-like first-floor hallway of the Central Police Station like a bullet down a barrel. Cops and civilians alike got out of his way, looking downward as they did, as if feeling immediate guilt for some wrong they'd forgotten doing. He swung open the pebbled-glass door marked CHIEF OF POLICE with such force that he startled the generally sunny, blue-haired receptionist working behind the counter with several younger secretaries, all of whom looked up with similar alarm.

  "The Chief back from lunch yet?" Ness said. His words were quick, clipped.

  "Why, yes, Director Ness."

  "Alone?"

  "Yes, uh . . . would you like me to let him know you're . . . ?"

  But Ness had already lifted the movable portion of the counter and moved past the receptionist, marched to the pebbled-glass marked GEORGE J. MATOWITZ, CHIEF OF POLICE and twisted the knob and pushed open the door.

  He found the chief watering his precious potted plants that lined the frost-covered window just behind a vast polished mahogany desk.

  "Why, Director Ness," said the chief, with a mild smile, looking at his visitor while continuing to water a particularly flourishing plant. "This is a pleasant surprise."

  "If that's what you think, George," Ness said, shutting the door firmly, taking a seat across from the desk, "then your years as chief have dulled your detective's instincts."

  Matowitz frowned, not with displeasure, but confusion; he set the watering can on its designated perch on the window ledge beside the plants, and took a seat behind a desk that always seemed to Ness a little too tidy, a little too absent of any indication of real work being done.

  The chief was a big, lumbering man, six feet tall and as husky as a tackle on a football squad; in his mid-fifties, Matowitz had a broad, craggy face and an amiable manner. He was relentlessly well-groomed, his dark blue uniform as crisp as a cracker, his dark blue tie neatly knotted, his badge a polished shining silver, his blue-and-white hat square on his head like that of a proud ship captain. A fresh red carnation rode his lapel; the chief did love his flowers. But his light blue eyes behind bifocal wire-framed glasses often seemed remote, to Ness, distant.