MURDER BY THE NUMBERS (Eliot Ness)

by Max Allan Collins

  Matowitz had been a Cleveland cop since 1905. He had been chief since 1931. As a cop, he'd had a distinguished career, with two dangerous extradition cases—one to Mexico, another to Sicily—that were legendary on the force. Along the way, the determined, largely self-educated Czech-American had taken night school until he earned a law degree. But as a chief he had been too often a caretaker, content to enjoy the high position he'd worked so hard and so long to attain, enjoying his prestige, ignoring police corruption, looking forward to his pension.

  When Ness came on as safety director in 1935 with a plan to clean the crooked cops out of the department, Matowitz had been told to shape up or ship out. And the plump chief had done much better since then—he'd been a loyal player on the Ness team, at least, if not the leader the chief of police really ought to be.

  "Eliot," Matowitz said, humbly. "Have I done something to displease you?"

  Those remote blue eyes behind the wire-frames seemed genuinely hurt; that was an encouraging sign, as was the chief's use of Ness's first name—a liberty Ness had encouraged Matowitz to take (in private), but one that the chief had rarely taken.

  "We had a goddamn police riot on the east side last night," Ness said. "Or hadn't you heard?"

  The eyes went remote again. Matowitz folded his hands; slowly, ever so slowly, he began to twiddle his thumbs.

  "I'm aware there were difficulties last night," he said. Now his eyes became uncharacteristically hard, his jaw firm, though his thumbs continued to twiddle. "I'm also aware that one of my boys was slain."

  "An officer was murdered. His body was dumped in a quiet, peaceful residential neighborhood."

  "Near the Bucket of Blood."

  "Near it. Not in it. I have reason to believe that white gangsters, not black ones, did the killing."

  The thumbs stilled. Matowitz placed his hands palms-down on the desk. "The Mayfield Road gang?"

  "Yes."

  "Then this has something to do with the numbers-racket inquiry."

  "It has everything to do with it. Lombardi and Scalise are trying to foul up the works."

  "I see."

  "No, I don't think you do. The home of one of my principal witnesses was damn near demolished last night, by fifteen of your 'boys.' They've left me with a hell of salvage job to pull off."

  "Salvage job?"

  "I'm going to have to dig deep in the safety department's slush fund to repay that citizen, one John C. Washington, for the damages done. If I fund his repair work, maybe I can repay what those cops did to my house. Maybe I'll still have a witness—although when the word spreads, I don't know why anybody else on the east side would want to volunteer for that duty."

  Matowitz's features clenched like a fist. "Damnit, Eliot—a brother officer was slain! You have to expect . . ."

  Ness waved that off. "I know all about losing a brother officer. I had one of my best men, my best friends, die in my arms, back in Chicago. That didn't give me a license for taking mindless revenge—and I didn't. I stayed a police officer. I did my damn job—and put the bastards who did it away."

  "I think you're blowing this all out of proportion . . . one minor incident ..."

  "It was not one minor incident. I am told into the wee hours of the morning, last night, our patrolmen and detectives were prowling the Negro district, searching private citizens in bars and restaurants and private residences. Without warrants, without anything resembling due process. Systematic beatings and harassment."

  Matowitz avoided Ness's glare. The chief cleared his throat and got up from his desk; he moved slowly to the bird cage in the comer where he began to feed his parakeet, whose chirping had summoned him.

  With his back to Ness, he said, "I think you know how important the early hours of a homicide investigation are."

  Ness turned the chair and watched the chief feed his bird. God help me, he thought.

  He said, "Chief—did you authorize those raids?"

  "I didn't authorize the raid on Washington's home."

  "The others? The all-night terrorizing of the colored community by white cops? Was that your idea?"

  "Not my idea, no." He smiled at the parakeet. Waggled a finger at it. Then he lumbered back to his desk and sat again. "I had an emergency call, at home, from the captain at the Third Precinct."

  "Wanting to roust the populace. That is, the colored populace."

  Matowitz lifted and lowered his shoulders, matter of factly. "Yes. Those searches were made with my full consent and knowledge." The chief's eyes narrowed and he raised his voice to its booming commencement-speech timbre, wagging a finger at Ness now, rather than at the bird: "No law-abiding citizen need fear a search by the police."

  "Oh, horseshit, George."

  Matowitz flinched at that; Ness swore so infrequently that when he did, it got a reaction. Which was when and why he did it.

  Matowitz shook his head side to side. "I was backing up a homicide investigation. ..."

  "Did you receive a request from Sergeant Merlo, asking that those raids be made?"

  "Well, uh—no. I did not."

  "It's Sergeant Merlo's case, Chief. You don't back up a homicide investigation without checking with the detective in charge, first. Not on my police force you don't."

  Matowitz swallowed at the reminder that the force was not the chief's, but the safety director's.

  The big man sighed, as if he bore the weight of the world, and not just two hundred and twenty-seven pounds. "What do you want me to do?"

  "I want you to issue a departmental directive that only officers directly assigned to the Willis investigation are to conduct raids and searches relating to that investigation."

  Matowitz shook his head again. "Frankly, that seems foolish to me. The officers of the Third Precinct have a right to do something about their brother officer's death, and a responsibility to keep their eyes open on their beat, which happens to be the east side."

  Now it was Ness's turn to waggle a finger. "Keep their eyes open, yes. Nothing else. This morning, I had a blistering phone call from Councilman Raney. He was outraged about these police riots, and he wants them ended now. And Reverend Hollis of the Future Outlook League, an influential race leader as I'm sure you know, was waiting on my doorstep when I got to the office this morning. He expressed his out-rage, in no uncertain terms. And, last but not least, I had a friendly little call from his honor the mayor, who is anxious to maintain his own uneasy coalition with these and other race leaders. They backed him in the state election, last November, you may recall, and he wants to keep them on his side in the coming city elections."

  A faint, bitter smile settled on Matowitz's lumpy face. "I didn't know you catered to politicians and lobbyists."

  Ness was cold as he answered: "I cater to citizens, and I cater to the best interests of the city of Cleveland. I have an important alliance with both Raney and Hollis, an uneasy alliance, but an important one, without which my numbers-racket investigation would collapse like the self-control of the Third Precinct's finest last night."

  Ness stood. He gave Matowitz a cold hard look. "Don't screw it up for me, George. Put the word out, officially and unofficially. Anybody who makes a mess in the Negro district is going to find his head on my plate. Like they say on Murray Hill—capeesh?"

  Matowitz nodded. "Understood," he said.

  Ness breathed air out heavily. "Good. Thank you, Chief."

  Ness turned toward the door, moving past the bird cage with its well-fed parakeet; but Matowitz spoke again.

  "Eliot—why this partiality to the coloreds? I know this numbers investigation is important . . . but a cop was killed, a white cop. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

  Ness turned and looked at Matowitz, noting the man's genuine confusion, and said, not unkindly, "If I'm partial to them, it's a selfish interest. I need their help and I need their trust to make my Grand Jury case float. But they're citizens, too, George."

  "I didn't say they weren't, but . . ."

  "No
buts. I come from immigrant stock, and so do you—hell, you are an immigrant. If a Slovak like you can't put yourself in their place, who can?"

  Matowitz grimaced with momentary embarrassment. He nodded and looked rather blankly into space and said, hollowly, "You're right. I've always prided myself on impartially serving this town's polyglot population."

  Ness recognized the phrase from speeches Matowitz had made.

  The chief continued: "I've tried to make a sincere effort to see that . . . that everybody in this town is equal under the law."

  "I know you have, George. A cop killing brings out the worst in cops. But we have to rise above it."

  Ness walked over and offered his hand to Matowitz, who stood and shook it. The two men exchanged chagrined smiles, and the chief said, "I'll get that directive out right away."

  "Good."

  Ness was smiling when he exited the chief's office, which seemed to startle the blue-haired receptionist even more than his angry entrance; the secretaries behind the counter were buzzing amongst themselves as he went out.

  In the tunnel-like corridor he was heading for the Payne Avenue exit when he heard a familiar voice call, "Hey! I been looking for you!"

  He turned and smiled easily as Sam Wild, trenchcoat flying, came running up, feet echoing off the slate floor. The reporter's felt hat was in his hand. He fell in stride with Ness as they walked toward the exit.

  "What flavor's Matowitz today?" Wild said, with a grin.

  "What do you mean?"

  "You been chewin' his ass out, haven't you?"

  Ness laughed shortly. "Any answer to that question would definitely be not for publication."

  "Don't bother answering. You got a car? I don't."

  "Ride along, then. Why were you looking for me?"

  "I got an appointment with a possible news source. I think you oughta meet him."

  They stepped outside into the cold, blowing afternoon. A light snowfall was dusting the world.

  "Why is that?" Ness asked, as they walked to the parking lot adjacent the four-story gray sandstone fortress that was the Central Police Station.

  " 'Cause I don't think you've got a line yet, on why that cop was killed last night."

  Ness said nothing. They walked up the cement ramp to the parking lot. The snow made the cement slick and they slid a bit.

  Wild said, "Has that guy Johnson given any reason why he thinks Willis was shot?"

  "No," Ness admitted.

  "What about Sergeant Moeller?"

  "No."

  "Well, hell, they oughta know the straight dope on Willis. That colored cop works the same precinct, and Moeller works vice, which means he oughta know the Negro district like the back of his hand."

  Ness thought for a moment before answering. "Still off the record?"

  "Yeah, yeah. God help me you should actually give me any information."

  "Moeller said that he heard Willis was dirty."

  "Oh. Any details? Any mention of Lombardi and Scalise?"

  They had stopped beside Ness's black sedan. "No. Just rumors. Let me ask you something. Why wasn't that police riot in the paper this morning, under a big Sam Wild byline? Why didn't anybody cover it? No radio or anything."

  Wild smirked. "I'm sure the Call and Post will play it up big, but they're a weekly." He lit up a Lucky, cupping his hands against the snow-speckled wind. "Hell, Eliot—no paper'll touch colored news in this town. Nobody cares."

  Ness felt a chill, and it had nothing to do with the weather. "What the hell are you covering this case for, then?"

  The reporter blew out some smoke; where the smoke stopped and his breath began was a mystery. "The numbers investigation is different. That's a nice juicy crime story with your popular mug right in the middle of it. That, my friend, will get the usual headlines, black-face players or not."

  Ness glowered. "A white cop was killed. What about that?"

  Wild raised an unconcerned eyebrow. "It got some play."

  "For a cop killing, minor. Nothing big enough for a byline. And no mention of any Negro connection, other than the address itself."

  Wild shrugged, then scowled. "Hey, I'm freezing my nuts off. Let's blow."

  Ness looked at him carefully. "You did write a story, didn't you?"

  "Yeah, yeah, I wrote a story. My managing editor killed it. I knew he would, but hell—I thought if I wrote it up snazzy, and mentioned your name a couple times, I'd get my Pulitzer."

  "You do care."

  "Huh?"

  "About the people on that side of town."

  "Oh, yeah. I'm a regular missionary. Can we go?"

  They got into the EN-1 sedan.

  "Got a heater in this thing?" Wild said, rubbing his hands together, cigarette bobbing up and down in his mouth like a thermometer in the mouth of an impatient child.

  "Yeah," Ness said, starting the car. The heat came on immediately; it was still warmed up from driving over.

  Wild sighed contentedly. "God bless the taxpayers. They think of everything."

  "Why don't you invest in some gloves?"

  "I already did. I gave 'em away."

  "Gave 'em away?"

  Ness pulled out onto Payne.

  "Yeah," Wild said. "To a colored guy last night."

  Ness looked at him sharply. "What colored guy?"

  Wild shrugged, grinned. "The one who was gonna find some stuff out for me, by this afternoon. The one we're gonna go talk to right now."

  CHAPTER 13

  Karamu Theater was part of Playhouse Settlement, three old adjacent 38th Street buildings near Central Avenue that had been remodeled, over the period of years since 1915, into a recreation and cultural center for the Negro community. Two white social workers from Chicago, Russell and Rowena Jelliffe, had originally intended the settlement house to be a bridge between the white and colored populations of Cleveland; but integrated projects, like productions of biracial plays, fell by the wayside as the Roaring Third became more and more a black ghetto.

  Sam Wild had done a few feature articles on Karamu Theater over the years, most recently one about the nationally prominent Negro playwright Langston Hughes, who was based in Cleveland these days and had helped mount several productions of his own works at Karamu with their resident Gilpin Players. Wild knew these occasional articles did not reflect any sense of responsibility on the part of his paper to acknowledge the existence of Negroes in Cleveland; but were rather a sop to the prominent white liberals whose financial backing made the settlement possible.

  The nearby Grant Park playground was absent of children on this winter afternoon, its swing sets and slides and such powdered white by the light snowfall. A colored man wearing several heavy frayed sweaters and an equally frayed stocking cap and worn cotton gloves was sweeping the snow away from the wide walk in front of the three old but refurbished brick buildings. Sam Wild led Eliot Ness into one of them, the Karamu Theater itself.

  As they angled down the aisle, the two men took in the African-themed theater (Karamu was, after all, Swahili for "a place of joyful meeting"). Burlap painted with striking, primitive designs hung on the walls, where the house lights were also mounted, set inside carved wooden fixtures resembling West African chopping bowls. On the ceiling shone a bright yellow sun with black rays emanating in all directions, while the proscenium had bold diagonal stripes painted on it. On the bare stage, colored actors and actresses in street clothes with scripts in hand were running through something; their voices boomed in the theater, resonant, well-articulated. Not your usual Roaring Third dialect.

  Sitting about halfway down the aisle at the left was a hand-some, well-groomed, chocolate-complexioned, mustached young Negro. He wore tan pants and a white shirt open at the neck. He had his feet up on the seat before him and was watching the rehearsal; he had a pad and pencil in his lap, on top of his prayerfully folded hands. "How you doin', Katzi?"

  "Samuel," Katzi said, smiling; it was a seductive smile. The man's eyes were dark and alert, amused and
sad. He hauled his feet down off the seat in front of him and stepped out in the aisle. He was of medium size, five-nine and slender.

  "This would be the director of public safety," Katzi said, in a tone that mixed respect with irony.

  "It would," Ness said, and returned the ironic smile, and extended his hand. Katzi shook it.

  "Why don't you gentlemen have a seat here in my office?" Katzi said, with a magnanimous gesture. "If we keep our voices down, we can talk." He glanced back up at the stage.

  "They're rehearsing Porgy—the DuBose Heyward play, not that jive-ass musical."

  "Fine," Ness said, and nodded back up the aisle. "But let's sit back a ways, so we don't disturb them."

  "Suits me," Katzi said, and moved up the aisle. He was as graceful as a dancer.

  Wild had filled Ness in on Katzi's background, coming over. Katzi was a former policy runner and gambler who had worked for such diverse Roaring Third racketeers as "Bunch Boy" Smith, "Hotstuff" Johnson, and Johnny Perry; he had also been in solid with policy kings John C. Washington, Willie "the Emperor" Rushing, and Rufus Murphy.

  Originally he had hung around with a strongarm artist named Ramsey, and the pair had been nicknamed "Big Katzi" and "Little Katzi" after the Katzenjammer Kids in the funnies. But Ramsey wasn't around anymore, and now Little Katzi was just plain Katzi.

  Katzi, who'd had some college, had at one time possessed a reputation for violence. "Little Katzi will kill you," had been the word, from the pimps, hustlers, gamblers, and whores of the Roaring Third. He had packed a .44 Colt revolver and had once pistol-whipped the white proprietor of a restaurant on the fringe of the ghetto when refused service. A few years back, Katzi had done a stretch at the Ohio pen for armed robbery. He was on parole now.

  Wild had only known Katzi for the past two years; but he liked and respected, warily, the charming if unpredictable young Negro. In the pen, Katzi hadn't been required to do hard labor, having a disability pension from the Ohio State Industrial Commission for a work injury years before. Instead he'd spent his time teaching himself to be a writer, and began publishing articles and stories in Negro weeklies like the Call and Post and then in pulp magazines like Abbott's and finally (making Wild somewhat envious) selling short stories to Esquire and Coronet.