MURDER BY THE NUMBERS (Eliot Ness) Read online

  The little man strutted out, whistling "Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho," and Sal finished his milk and left.

  CHAPTER 6

  Ness sat studying the Lombardi and Scalise files at the scarred rolltop desk in his City Hall office, a desk that had been with him since his Chicago days. It was Monday afternoon, and the day had been filled with routine but necessary administrative duties. Now he could have some fun. He began going over the records of the Negro cops, as well, which he'd had Curry drop off.

  Toussaint Johnson was indeed an interesting man; his folder was brimming with commendations. But Moeller was right about Johnson's connection to the numbers game: The Negro detective had been at the scene the night Rufus Murphy was shot and killed.

  Shortly before four, the intercom buzzed and his secretary's voice said, "A visitor, sir."

  "Does he have an appointment?" Ness said, absently, still studying the Johnson file, not remembering having anything scheduled.

  "No, sir. It's a Reverend Hollis."

  Ness looked up. "Send him in."

  The Reverend James A. Hollis entered. The tall dignified leader of the Future Outlook League, dressed in clerical black, approached Ness, who stood and met the man midway. They exchanged reserved smiles and firm handshakes. Then Ness offered Hollis a seat at the nearest conference table.

  "Reverend Hollis, I do have an engagement at four-thirty," Ness said, respectful but firm. "I'm afraid I only have a few minutes for you."

  "I understand, Mr. Ness, and I appreciate your seeing me with no notice."

  Hollis's speech was so well enunciated, it sounded almost British, though a vague vestige of the South lurked in the mellow, resonant baritone.

  "What can I do for you, Reverend?"

  "It's what I can do for you, Mr. Ness."

  "Really."

  A handsome smile formed slowly in the dark brown face; but the eyes behind the wire-rim glasses were cool. "I do want to commend you on your conduct last week, at the market. People could've been hurt. Thanks to you, they weren't."

  "Reverend Hollis, you're lucky you weren't. These boycotts and picket demonstrations may result in violence. We both know that."

  Hollis nodded. "Progress has its price. But I did want to say that I was . . . pleasantly surprised."

  Ness smiled humorlessly. "The Call and Post has made me, and my department, out to be heavies. The editor, who I believe is on your board, likes to link my name with charges of police 'terrorism' and 'brutality.' "

  "You've been criticized," Hollis admitted. "With some justification, I'm afraid."

  "I don't see it that way."

  Hollis cleaned his glasses on a white hanky; his expression was pleasant, his tones warm, but his words had bite.

  "When Negro bathers were being harassed at Woodland Hill Pool this summer," he said, "you withdrew the two Negro policemen who took the white bathers to task. When park police used their nightsticks on a Negro couple at Euclid Beach for no reason other than race, you stood behind your men. Similarly, you failed even to reprimand the officer who shot and killed a fifteen-year-old boy, in the disturbance the night Joe Louis defeated Schmeling."

  Ness did his best not to sigh. He said, with as much patience as he could muster, "Reverend Hollis, I am not the chief of police. You're speaking of matters that are not under my direct supervision."

  "That sounds suspiciously like passing the buck, Mr. Ness."

  "Perhaps. But I back Chief Matowitz in his decisions. As I understand these situations. Chief Matowitz responded responsibly."

  "That's your view, sir?"

  "Yes. Those officers were withdrawn from Woodlawn Hill Pool in an effort to cool off a racially tense situation. The couple you say were assaulted by park police were resisting arrest, for drunk and disorderly conduct. And they were convicted."

  "I see. You assume that the Negroes were lying."

  "If by that you're implying race prejudice on my part, I should point out that you're assuming the white cops were lying. It cuts both ways, Reverend. And the Joe Louis victory 'disturbance' you refer to, as you well know, was a full-scale riot that tore the entire Central-Scovill district apart."

  Hollis shifted uneasily in his wooden chair. "It was a celebration that got out of hand. Tragically out of hand. A fifteen-year-old boy died, shot in the back."

  "That is a tragedy," Ness said, meaning it. "I'm told the policeman was firing warning shots into the air, but got jostled. Bricks were being hurled at him. Four policemen were hospitalized. Reverend. A tragic night indeed; but not an example of rampant police brutality."

  Hollis had a somber expression that stopped short of a frown. "It was obvious that the focal point of any Louis victory celebration would be East 55th and Central. Why didn't you detail more policemen, to prevent these things?"

  Ness shook his head in exasperation. "And then be accused of subjecting the east side to undue force? Reverend, how exactly can I win with you?"

  After an awkward moment, a chagrined smile spread across the preacher's face. "Mr. Ness, I believe I may have misjudged you in the past. You 'won' with me last week, at the market, let me assure you."

  Ness smiled politely, glanced at his watch. "Reverend, I really do have another appointment. If I can be of specific help . . ."

  "Mr. Ness, I think you know of the goals of the Future Outlook League."

  "I do, and I agree with them. You're trying to persuade white-owned businesses in Negro neighborhoods to hire Negro help."

  Hollis sat forward. "It's that, Mr. Ness, and more. We also advocate Negro ownership of businesses in those neighborhoods. That's why I am so encouraged, when I read in the white papers that you have made as your next target the Italian gangsters who hold the east side in their sweaty grip."

  Ness might have been amused by the preacher's arch phrasing had the sincerity of the words not been so deep. But he failed to see the connection between his attack on the Mayfield gang-ruled numbers racket and the F.O.L. advocating home-owned businesses. He told Hollis that.

  Hollis replied, "Before the Italians moved in, the policy and clearing-house business was a positive economic force on the east side. Men like Rufus Murphy contributed to charity, to churches, but even more important, they invested their money in Negro businesses."

  "I'm afraid, Reverend, that I still do not see your point."

  "I'm suggesting that the numbers game is a harmless diversion for my race, and one that provides many desirable economic side effects."

  "It's not so harmless when you start listing the corpses that have accumulated in the past five years."

  Hollis raised a finger. "That is not the doing of the Negro policy kings. That was a one-sided war. The Italians did all the shooting."

  "That would seem to be true," Ness admitted.

  "Frankly, Mr. Ness, you have a problem. You will need the evidence of the Negro numbers operators, who are now reluctantly aligned with Black Sal Lombardi."

  "That is definitely true."

  "How do you propose to gain their trust, then: support?"

  Ness pointed at himself with a thumb. "I'll offer police protection. I have a reputation for protecting the lives and even the identities of my witnesses. If you followed my investigation into illegal labor practices, you'll know that's true."

  Hollis was smiling again, the frustrated smile of a man trying to explain a complexity to a child. "You must understand, Mr. Ness, that the Negro numbers operators are going to be . . . reticent about cooperating with you, as they are technically law-breakers themselves."

  "No 'technically' about it. But I'm prepared to offer immunity in return for testimony."

  "Then I am prepared to help you. To act as an intermediary with the colored community."

  Ness leaned forward. "You are? Reverend Hollis, that would be most appreciated . . ."

  "But I would need to be able to pass along certain assurances."

  "What sort of assurances?"

  "That the policy and clearing house games will be tur
ned back over to the Negro community, once we've helped you drive the influence of the Italian gangsters out of our neighborhoods."

  "You mean . . . exercise a sort of benign neglect, where the numbers racket is concerned, once it's back in Negro hands?"

  Hollis nodded somberly.

  Ness frowned. "Reverend Hollis, I'm disappointed that a man of your stature, of your religious background, would even suggest such a thing."

  Hollis seemed both sad and amused. "Mr. Ness, policy is not a crime, on the east side. It's a small ray of hope, in one sense. In another, it's a rare example of economic independence for my people. There are others of 'stature' in the Negro community who feel as I do."

  Ness knew that Hollis meant Raney and the other Negro councilmen, who would certainly like to have the campaign contributions of the policy kings once again.

  Wearily, Ness rose.

  He said, "Thank you for stopping by, Reverend."

  "Will you think it over, Mr. Ness?"

  "I have," Ness said. "No deals."

  Hollis smiled patiently. He rose and said, "Life is more complicated than that, Mr. Ness. Consider it. Ponder it. My offer stands. Good afternoon."

  He nodded and Ness held open the hall door for the man, and let him out. Hollis's footsteps echoed out on the marble floor, sadly, ominously.

  Detective Albert Curry passed the clergyman on the walkway and met Ness, who was getting into his topcoat, at the office door.

  "Wasn't that that fellow Hollis? From the Negro protest group?"

  "Yes," Ness said, locking his office door.

  "What did he want?"

  "To protest," Ness said. "Let's take an unmarked car, Albert. We'll leave EN-1 in the parking lot."

  Curry nodded and followed Ness onto the open hallway; beyond the railing the City Hall atrium rose. "Moeller and the others are waiting at the station," he told Ness.

  "Fine," Ness said.

  A few minutes later, Curry was behind the wheel of a black Ford sedan.

  "Where did we get this tip?" Curry asked, driving.

  "Garner."

  "Already? He hasn't been undercover a week!"

  Ness shrugged. "He's good at it. Struck up a friendship with one of Frank Hogey's policy runners."

  Curry smiled over at his boss. "He's the biggest policy banker on the east side. And the only white one."

  Ness said nothing for a while, watching the downtown glide by his window. Then he said, "Hogey knows his way around the legal system. Used to be a Police Court bondsman. But if we make a good bust . . . maybe we can do some business."

  Soon they pulled up the ramp into the parking lot of Central Police Station at 21st and Payne, where they met Sergeant Moeller and two rookie patrolmen, who wore plainclothes for the occasion. Ness had requested that Moeller pull in two rookies, because Ness had virtually hand-picked every cop added to the force since he'd taken the safety director job. He could trust rookies.

  They took two unmarked cars, taking 22nd less than a mile down to Central Avenue. Off Central, on East 36th Street, in the slum-choked midst of the Central-Scovill district, was a run-down, wooden-frame house, the paint long ago having peeled off it, a big ungainly structure with a short front yard thick with dead weeds. The two cars rolled down the street, windows down.

  It was dusk already, though it was not yet six; the smells of pungent cooking spiced the air. All of the houses here were large enough to serve several families, but were ramshackle enough to topple in a strong wind. A few colored school kids were running down the sidewalk, playing a game Ness didn't recognize and laughing for no reason Ness could discern, other than childhood itself. He envied them their innocence, but not their future.

  As they had prearranged, the car with Moeller and the two rookies parked on East 36th, just down the block from the house in question. Ness and Curry drove around back, to the alley, where they parked and got out and skirted a tumble-down shack of a garage and walked quietly across the back-yard, where a dead dog was rotting next to a discarded mattress, to the rear of the house, where on the back steps a man and a woman, both colored, were smoking and laughing.

  The man, who might have been twenty, wore a dark gray suit with wide pinstripes and wide lapels and a dark tie with a jewel stickpin; he wore black and white shoes and looked as spiffy as a department store mannequin. The woman, who was probably five years older than the man she was sharing her cigarette with, had skin the color of copper and her slinky, clingy dress was of a shade only slightly darker than her own. She also wore black high heels and a choker of cultured pearls and her hands flashed with jewelry.

  They looked at the two approaching white men with suspicion, nostrils flaring, but held their ground.

  "You the man?" the man asked.

  Ness knew what the question meant and answered it by opening his coat to reveal his gold "City of Cleveland—Director of Public Safety" badge, which he'd pinned to his suitcoat lapel before leaving the office.

  The man raised an eyebrow and cocked his head. "You the man."

  Then without being told, he raised his hands, and Curry patted him down.

  Curry looked at Ness. "Clean."

  The girl, attractive and wide-eyed if a little hard, said, "You're Eliot Ness?"

  "Yes," Ness said, moving up the rickety steps. "If you'll excuse us, please . . ."

  And he moved past them, Curry on his heels. The back door opened directly onto a good-size kitchen, where aromatic pots steamed on a coal-burning stove. A heavy-set black woman in her fifties in an apron over a house dress was tending the pots, while at a beer bottle-littered kitchen table two black men in shirtsleeves and shoulder holsters sat playing cards.

  "Guns on the table and not a sound," Ness said quietly.

  The two men froze for a moment, then dropped their cards before them, and carefully withdrew their revolvers, setting them on the table like a cautious bet they were making.

  Curry collected the guns, dropping one each in an overcoat pocket; then he had the men stand, cuffed them together, and cuffed one of them to a water pipe near a Hoosier cabinet.

  Ness did not wait while Curry did this, but went on up the back stairs, which were to the left of the door as you came in. The narrow, dark stairway rose to a small landing.

  He knocked sharply, said "Police," and then kicked the door open.

  A dozen people, all but one of whom were colored, were in the center of the large, largely unfurnished room, gathered around a big wooden table where eleven adding machines were being used to tally up the day's take. Adding-machine tape curled in snakelike coils on the table. On the floor nearby were two steel trunks brimming with thousands of betting slips. A short fat safe squatted in one corner.

  They all seemed stunned by Ness's presence, their fingers still poised at their adding machines. All but the white man—Frank Hogey—were seated. A generally well-dressed lot, ten men and two women, they were essentially accountants and Ness—who had worn no gun to the raid—felt no threat from them.

  "Stay right where you are," Ness said. "Nobody's leaving."

  Hogey, a genial, stocky, balding man in his early forties, wearing a brown suit, a red tie loose around his neck, said, "There'll be no trouble, Ness. Don't worry. My boys behave."

  At that moment, a razor-thin man in tortoise-shell glasses and a natty suit and tie bolted from the table and headed for the door, pushing past Ness, who reached out and grabbed him by one arm. The guy swung at Ness, and Ness ducked, losing his grip on him.

  "Now, Junior," Hogey was saying in the background.

  Junior, his eyes wide behind the glasses, reached under his shoulder under his coat and came back with a snubnose .38.

  "I ain't goin' back to jail, Mr. Hogey. Not for you nor nobody."

  With Junior's eyes on Hogey, it seemed a good time to grab that gun, which Ness started to do, when Junior turned his gaze back on Ness and pointed the gun forcefully, meaningfully at the detective.

  "Back off," Junior said.


  And he backed out of the room out onto the landing.

  Then, for no apparent reason, framed in the doorway, still facing them, Junior crumpled to the floor and lost his balance and slid down the back stairs, clatteringly.

  Curry stepped in from the landing. He'd been standing to one side of the door out there. His face was bloodless. He was holding his revolver by the barrel, having used the butt to club Junior.

  "I hope I didn't kill him," Curry said.

  Ness smiled gently. "Why don't you check and see. And get Moeller and the rookies up here. We've got some arrests to make."

  Then Ness turned to Hogey and said, "Why don't you open that nice little safe over in the comer, Frank? Let's see what your take was today. . . ."

  The take had been twenty-five thousand dollars.

  In the papers it would be called, accurately, "the biggest haul in Cleveland history against the numbers racket."

  And policy king Frank Hogey had been nailed but good; caught on the premises with evidence to spare.

  In an interrogation room at Central Police Station, Ness spoke to Hogey about this and more.

  "We have you, Frank."

  Hogey, seated in a hard wood chair, one leg crossed casually across the knee of the other, said cheerfully, "It would seem so."

  "You're going to jail."

  "Possibly."

  "Unless, of course, you don't want to go to jail."

  "Ness. Spit it out. What are you trying to say?"

  Ness shrugged. "I'm saying that you used to be your own boss. You used to be the most powerful policy king of the east side."

  "I still am."

  "No. You're a glorified stooge, and not all that glorified. You're a traffic cop between the Italians and the coloreds. And you know it."

  The mask of geniality slipped a bit; his cheek twitched and he said, "I do all right."

  "You could do better."

  Hogey's face showed no interest.

  Ness pressed on anyway. "You testify against Lombardi and Scalise, and I'll arrange immunity for you. On this charge, and on anything else that comes out in the numbers investigation."

  Hogey's eyes glazed over. "I don't think so."