MURDER BY THE NUMBERS (Eliot Ness) Read online

  "And," Ness said, "the president of the stall operators association will meet with you tomorrow morning, here at the market, to talk about jobs for Negroes—if you'll agree to call off your picketers."

  Hollis raised a forefinger. "I'll only do that if ..."

  "Mr. Hollis, I'm not a negotiator or a mediator between you and the stall operators. I'm just a messenger. There's a gentleman waiting inside to speak to you. I suggest you go inside, before the doors are locked."

  Hollis nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Ness."

  He offered his hand and Ness, twitching a smile, took it, shook it.

  Hollis entered the market; his fellow protesters, their signs leaned against the side of the building, were relaxing, smiling, patting each other on the backs.

  Ness approached one of the cops; they were watching warily as the crowd continued to disperse.

  "Sergeant Wilson," Ness said, "gather your men, just over there." He pointed off to one side of the building, away from the picketers.

  "Yes, sir."

  Within five minutes the dozen officers were grouped in two rows of six, standing at attention.

  "Relax, men," Ness said, with a wave. "You had a tough situation here today. I know you did your best. But some of you didn't help it any, bullying that crowd of onlookers." He looked sharply at the cop who had come within a whisper of using a nightstick on the colored woman. "What's your name, officer?"

  "Peterson," the cop said, a defensive tone in his voice.

  "What exactly did you think you were doing?"

  "Well . . . my job. Keeping the niggers in line; they were disrupting the marketplace, sir."

  Ness winced at the word "niggers." He walked over to Peterson and stood very close to him; looked him right in the face. The two men couldn't have been more than an inch apart, Curry figured.

  "I don't give a damn what color they are," Ness said. "They're citizens who we're hired to protect and serve."

  Ness backed away; he looked at all the men, hard. The sound of produce trucks could be heard in the background, grinding sounds that went well with Ness's barely controlled outrage.

  "My men aren't going to go around beating up women with nightsticks." He glared at Peterson. "Is that understood, officer?"

  Peterson swallowed. "Yes, sir."

  Ness looked at every face. "Is there any man here who disagrees with me? Is there any man here who thinks it's our job to beat up civilians, colored or white?"

  The cops, shamefacedly, shook their heads no, eyes avoiding Ness.

  Without another word, Ness turned his back on them and with a nod to Curry walked away from the market.

  "You drive," Ness said, as they reached the Ford.

  Curry drove.

  Ness was brooding.

  On the ride to the Central Jail, Ness said only, "We do have our work cut out for us on the east side."

  Curry couldn't have agreed more.

  CHAPTER 4

  The following morning at City Hall, Ness gathered his key people for a council of war.

  The men were grouped around one of three big conference tables that took up much of the floor space of the spare, masculine, wood-panel-and-glass office.

  On one side of the table was Bob Chamberlin, looking almost professorial in a three-piece suit, smoking a pipe whose tobacco had a sickly sweet signature. Next to him was bullet-headed Sergeant Moeller of the vice squad, in a lived-in-looking uniform, cap on the table before him like a blue and white meal; he was an unpretentious, street-smart cop Ness had come to respect.

  Detective Curry sat across from them, wearing a blue suit with a darker blue tie hanging loose; Albert looked bushed—the boy must have been up all night working, if the bags under his eyes were admissible evidence.

  And next to Curry, in shirtsleeves but with his tie snugged tight, was big Will Garner, Ness's old comrade from the Chicago bootleg-busting days. The Indian was smoking a cigar of a cheap, harsh variety, its fumes battling the sweeter ones of Chamberlin's pipe.

  Ness was at the head of the table, standing; like Chamberlin, he wore a three-piece suit and a tie. He rarely took off his jacket or loosened his tie, and today was no exception, though it was stuffy in the office. Too cold outside to open a window, not cold enough for steam heat to kick in. Pipe and cigar smoke swirled like fog.

  "I've spoken to Prosecutor Cullitan," Ness said, tossing a fat manila file folder on the table before him, "and he's in back of us all the way. He's eager to take another of our 'epic investigations,' as he puts it, to the grand jury."

  "Well then, Eliot, it's going to have to be the numbers racket," Chamberlin said, gesturing with his pipe. "We've done a hell of a job, harassing the bookie joints damn near out of business . . . but we don't have anything directly on Lombardi and Scalise."

  "They're too well insulated," Moeller said, with a matter-of-fact shrug. "And not all the bookie joints are Lombardi's, anyway."

  Ness nodded. "We tend to think of Lombardi as the 'Little Caesar' of the Mayfield Road gang, and he's certainly its single most powerful figure. But under the general umbrella of the Mayfield mob are half a dozen interrelated, overlapping but independent racket bosses."

  "The numbers racket, though," Moeller said, lifting a forefinger, "is Lombardi's alone. Him and his cousin Scalise."

  The haggard-looking Curry sighed. "But isn't Lombardi just as well 'insulated' where numbers are concerned, as he is in his bookie-joint interests?"

  "Oh yes," Moeller said, nodding. "I know of eighteen direct underlings, and some fifty pickup men . . . Lombardi and Scalise own the colored east side, but you rarely if ever see them there, these days."

  "These days," Ness said, and pointed his finger at Moeller. "That's the key."

  "What do you mean, Eliot?" Chamberlin asked, relighting his pipe.

  Ness held up five fingers. "When Lombardi and Scalise muscled in on the policy racket, just five years ago, they came on strong—Young Turks, second-generation mafia intent on proving themselves. Meaning they did much of the work themselves . . . Scalise particularly."

  Moeller was nodding again. "And Scalise does, on occasion, show up himself to this day, if some heavy intimidating needs doing. Besides which, that sadistic little bastard likes that sort of thing."

  Ness flipped open the manila folder before him. Mug-shot photos of Lombardi and Scalise, enlarged to 8"-by-10" size, stared at the men.

  "Unlikely as it seems," Ness said, "Salvatore Lombardi is only twenty-eight years old, and his cousin Angelo a year younger."

  He pointed at Lombardi's picture; the face was a fleshy oval with a placid expression and baby-faced features, though the dark eyes were gun-metal hard.

  "Sal took over the family bootlegging business when his papa, Anthony, 'Big Tony' they called him, was gunned down in 1927 by the Torellos."

  "I take it Big Tony was a Mustache Pete," Garner said.

  "Yes," Ness nodded, "a traditional Black Hand racketeer who considered himself a pillar of his immigrant community. In Chicago, of course, and New York, street toughs like Capone and Bugsy Siegel rose up and rubbed out the Mustache Petes. But in Cleveland, the Mustache Petes were never deposed, and today the Mayfield Road gang is run largely by their children."

  Chamberlin knew all of this, at least vaguely; Moeller knew it by heart. But young Curry, and out-of-towner Garner, knew little and nothing, respectively, of the Mayfield Road gang's brutal history.

  "Are these kids as tough as their daddies?" Garner asked, a nasty smile working around his stub of a cigar.

  "Don't underestimate them, just because they didn't come up from the streets," Ness cautioned. "Remember two things when you're tempted to write off Black Sal Lombardi: His early years were spent in one of the roughest tenement sections of America; and at twenty-eight he's no younger than Capone was at the peak of his power."

  Ness plucked the photo of Scalise out of the folder and slid it down the wooden table where the men could get a better look at the narrow-faced, hollow-eyed, live
r-lipped gangster.

  "As a case in point," he said, "Sal and his cousin Angelo, when they were both still teenagers, took care of the Torellos personally, in a series of killings that culminated in the slaughter at so-called 'Bloody Corner' back in '29."

  "Were they convicted of those crimes?" Garner asked.

  "No," Ness said.

  Garner laughed silently, flicked his cigar ashes into a round glass tray, and said, "And today they got hired help, doing the dirty work."

  "Providing the insulation," Curry added.

  "Today they do," Ness said, and smiled nastily. "Today. Yesterday, five short years ago—no. Five short years ago they were Young Turks who wanted that side of town to know who was boss. Who to fear."

  "They made their point," Moeller said, glumly, raising his hairy eyebrows. "Nobody on the east side, black or white, has ever offered evidence against them."

  "Let's come back to that," Ness said. "Let's consider just what the nature of the Lombardi set-up is. Sergeant Moeller, for the benefit of the rest of us, who aren't as intimately acquainted the vice scene in Cleveland, share a little history with us. Please."

  Ness sat down.

  Moeller stood. "Five years ago, the numbers business in Cleveland was in relatively harmless hands. The 'Big Four' policy kings were Rufus Murphy, John C. Washington, Willie 'the Emperor' Rushing, and Frank Hogey. Hogey was the only white, but his help was mostly colored. Anyway, Lombardi and Scalise made threats, raided some places, finally began a shooting war. Murphy was killed, shot down in his driveway. Washington was shot, too, but not killed. Rushing and Hogey were worked over. Washington recovered, and retired, defeated. Rushing and Hogey are Lombardi's stooges, now."

  "Before the Big Four were muscled in on," Garner asked, "did they control the whole numbers racket on the east side?"

  Moeller shook his head, no. "There were any number of independent operators. These poor sons of bitches were made examples of by Lombardi. I can think of five, offhand, who were flat-out murdered, usually by cruising assassins."

  "This wasn't all confined to '33," Ness said. "Over the years, whenever an independent operator has tried to find a niche on the east side, he's been rubbed out."

  Back in '36, less than two months after he took the safety director job, Ness had encountered an example of Lombardi and company's discipline: A young independent policy writer named William Wiggens turned up dead in a ditch in the suburb of Pepper Pike. A colored youth barely twenty.

  Moeller sat down, as Ness again rose, saying, "The late and unlamented Dutch Schultz of New York City, at the peak of his perverted power, never enjoyed a numbers set-up as profitable and perfect as Lombardi's. Schultz was smart enough, in the wake of Repeal, to horn in on the Harlem numbers racket . . . but he was content to take the bad with the good, the losing days with the winning ones. Here in the Forest City, though, there's no such thing as a losing day for the Mayfield gang."

  "Why?" Garner asked.

  Ness shrugged and smiled slyly. "They aren't gambling; they aren't risking nickel one. You see, they franchise individual operators, who take all the financial risk, while Lombardi and Scalise get a hefty forty percent of the take."

  "Slick," Garner said, with a certain admiration.

  "But keep in mind a single operator might lose as much as five thousand to ten thousand dollars in one day, if a certain number hits. And if any operator comes up short, on a losing day, he winds up in a ditch, courtesy of the Mayfield gang."

  Ness dug in the manila folder and scattered several photos of bullet-riddled corpses, one crumpled like a paper cup on a city street, another slumped bleeding over his steering wheel and, yes, several sprawled in ditches.

  "Obviously, then," Ness continued, "Lombardi and Scalise have built up no loyalty whatsoever among their franchise holders. These operators, though tied to the Mayfield gang through what is essentially an extortion scheme, are in effect still independents. And they are the same people that Lombardi and Scalise terrorized into complying, some five years ago."

  "So," Chamberlin said, nodding slowly, "that's why you keep emphasizing the past: You plan to get these operators to testify against Lombardi and Scalise, regarding the campaign of terror the two of 'em waged five years ago."

  "That is the plan," Ness said. "That and a campaign of terror of our own—raiding numbers banks, policy drawings, disrupting the flow of business."

  Moeller cleared his throat and Ness and the others looked at the uniformed officer, who shrugged and said, almost sheepishly, "No offense, Director Ness . . . but we don't have a very good handle on where the various numbers operations are located. First of all, they tend to shift around . . . . second of all, frankly, we're talking the colored east side here. And we have less than a dozen colored cops on the force."

  Ness looked at Curry. "You've been going over the files on those Negro officers?"

  "Yes," Curry said, blinking away tiredness. "Several of them have outstanding records . . . this fellow Toussaint Johnson, especially."

  Moeller was shaking his head. "There's a problem inherent in using these colored cops. These boys do a good job, but remember that they got their positions out of patronage."

  "You mean," Ness said, "through Councilman Raney."

  "Yes," Moeller said, nodding. "And Raney, and I cast no aspersions, it's a part of that way of life over there, but Raney undoubtedly got his share of backing outa the Big Four policy kings, in the old days. They kept his campaign chest full."

  Ness felt a twinge of irritation. "What's your point?"

  "Well, again, I mean to cast no aspersions on the colored cops or their patron, but it's well known that these boys took the tribute of the policy kings. This Toussaint Johnson was said to be Rufus Murphy's bagman."

  Ness looked at Moeller hard. "I don't like rumors, Sergeant Moeller. I like facts."

  "I don't mean to share hearsay, Director Ness. But we have to be practical about this. And every cop knows that you got to pay attention to the grapevine."

  "Well," Ness said, dismissively, "it's irrelevant. If my investigation into police corruption didn't turn anything up on these Negro cops, that's good enough for me."

  "Fine," Moeller said, pleasantly. "But when it comes to the numbers racket, colored cops have their own vested interests, and their own way of seeing things. To them, the numbers ain't a crime. It's a way of life."

  "We need an undercover man," Curry said, cutting in sharply, "and none of the Negro cops could be effectively used in that capacity, obviously. Too well known."

  Ness looked at Garner. "Will, do you think you could fit that bill?"

  Garner thought about it for a moment, puffing his cheap cigar. Then he shrugged and said, "I think I'd be accepted on the east side. I think I could take an apartment on Central Avenue. I could hang out. I could pick up on where policy drawings are being held. I could do that."

  Ness smiled. "You do that very thing."

  "But how," Curry said, with frustration, "are we going to get these policy operators to talk to us, much less testify against Lombardi and crew?"

  "It's in their best interest," Ness said.

  "They won't see it that way," Curry said.

  Moeller said, "I think this young man is right."

  "Then we'll educate them," Ness said. "We'll collar 'em on illegal lottery charges and offer them a free ride if they cooperate."

  "It might work," Chamberlin said.

  "It might," Moeller said.

  Curry shrugged. "Worth a try . . . but it's not like you're holding a murder charge over their heads or anything. I think we need to find some other door to go in. This is Central Avenue, the Roaring Third Precinct, it's Bloody Scovill . . . it's their world, not ours."

  Ness, feeling another twinge of irritation, said, "Do you have any suggestions, Albert?"

  "No," he admitted, glumly. "But I don't agree with Officer Moeller about the unreliability of these Negro cops. I think at the very least you need to talk to them and get their s
uggestions. They know their part of town, and we don't."

  The irritation fading, Ness said, with a gentle smile, "Albert, that's helpful. Thank you."

  With a nod, Ness dismissed the men, stopping Garner momentarily to set up a time later that day to plan the Indian's undercover assignment in detail.

  And he buttonholed Moeller for a moment, as well.

  "This fellow Hogey," Ness said. "He's one of the original Big Four numbers kings, and he's white. Where do we stand with him?"

  Moeller smiled on one side of his face and shook his head. "Hip-deep in nothing, is where we stand, Director Ness. He's the only holdover from the old days whose income hasn't dropped."

  "Why's that?"

  Moeller shrugged. "It's like you said—he's white. He's a glorified stooge, but he's in thick with Lombardi and Scalise. Color don't mean shit to Hogey, if you'll pardon my French."

  "Sure it does," Ness said.

  "Oh?"

  "If it's the color green."

  Moeller laughed shortly, nodded, and went out.

  Ness went to the conference table, picked up the photos of Lombardi and Scalise, and pinned them to his bulletin board. Then he stood and studied the brutal faces in brooding silence.

  CHAPTER 5

  That evening, a few minutes before ten o'clock, Sal Lombardi was sitting in a back booth of a bowling alley bar, drinking warm milk. The Pla-Mor Lanes, all forty of them, took up the entire second floor of a two-story row of businesses (florist, liquor store, fish market, druggist) on Kinsman Avenue, just into Shaker Heights. Sal owned the building, but the only business he owned there was the Pla-Mor. He didn't bowl himself, but his cousin Angelo did, and, besides, it was a good legit business. More than a front, or a money laundry: It paid its own way.

  To look at him, you would think Salvatore Lombardi was the calmest man in Cleveland. A big man, five-eleven and two hundred and twenty pounds, neatly attired in a dark brown tailored suit with a green striped tie with emerald stickpin, he sat impassively with both hands caressing the glass of milk as if he were warming his hands. His eyebrows were as thick and dark as mustaches; his hair was dark and combed back, staying in place with a minimum of oil. Despite a hooked nose and hooded eyes that were as dark as his eyebrows, his olive-shaped, olive-complected face had a softness. His mouth was almost feminine, cupid-like, his small chin cushioned on a larger second one. For a thick-necked, thick-fingered gangster, Sal Lombardi had a surprisingly gentle demeanor.