"The mayor has at my request issued a proclamation, a directive," Ness said into the mike. "I'm not going to read it to you. I'm going to spare you the "whereases" and 'therefores.' But the gist is this: starting immediately, I'm establishing a peace zone of five hundred yards around this plant. Pickets who come any closer than five hundred yards will be arrested."
A general grumbling came up.
Ness spoke over it: "Furthermore, anyone seen with any weapon- any weapon: brick, billy club, bat, bottle, two-by-four, rock, any weapon-will be arrested. This is not limited to strikers. This includes company employees. Is that understood?"
Silence blanketed the men; eyes tightened with thought; a few heads nodded yes. A few men seemed to be near smiling.
"Strikers, you need to move back at least to the intersection of Dille and Broadway."
As Ness was saying this, the sounds of sirens cut the air.
Men looked back in panic, and Ness spoke into the mike, saying, "Yes, those are reinforcements. But we also have ambulances on the way. So please step away from the injured and allow the police to handle them."
Amid grumbling, one voice stood out: "Screw the police."
"This is not South Chicago," Ness said. "This is not Massillon. My men are carrying no firearms. But you'll get your head split open, breathe tear gas, and do time in the lockup if you do not disperse, now."
Slowly, with much grumbling and sighing, the men began to move away from the battlefield. Cops accompanied them, including the two mounted officers, breaking it up when little scuffles and shoving matches threatened to grow into something more. Other cops bent over the injured, and there were dozens of them. Blood pooled up here and there on the gravel. Bricks, bottles, clubs, broken boards, and various makeshift weapons were strewn about.
Ambulances began pulling in, and the wounded were tended to. Four Black Marias filled with reserve cops arrived, and Ness made a human barrier of the bluecoats across the front of the plant.
Ness, Chamberlin, and Curry were standing by the sound truck when a stocky, disheveled-looking individual in a suit and tie approached. The side of his head was bloody. Curry didn't know the man, but Ness did.
"Mr. Owens," Ness said. "You obviously need some attention for that injury. Just go with the ambulance attendants, they'll-"
"I'm fine, Mr. Ness. I just want to claim my truck."
"Oh. Are you sure you're in shape to drive?"
"Yes. I've had worse than this. I might have been able to help if… well, I got separated from the truck. When the shit hit the fan, I was up at the intersection, and… anyway. Appreciate what you did here tonight."
"What I did here tonight was my job, Mr. Owens."
"Well… I just wanted to express my gratitude. I doubt I can make that sentiment public… We, uh… have an adversarial relationship, after all…"
"Only in your eyes, Mr. Owens."
Owens swallowed, vaguely embarrassed. "Well. At any rate. You may have saved some lives here tonight."
He offered his hand and Ness shook it; then the safety director helped Owens to the sound truck, which he drove slowly off.
"Interesting reaction," Curry said.
Ness grinned. "I'll be a villain again by tomorrow. And the Republic bigwigs aren't going to love me, either."
"Do you really care?" Bob Chamberlin asked.
"Not in the least," Ness said.
"Maybe we ought to put that labor-racketeering investigation on the back burner for a while," Chamberlin suggested. "Otherwise we risk looking anti-union, which is political suicide…"
"No way in hell," Ness said. "Bob, stay here and keep an eye on things. Albert, see if that sedan will still drive. I better get back to City Hall and make my report to the mayor… and get him to issue that proclamation I said he made."
CHAPTER 3
"That's deuce," said Eliot Ness, in tennis whites, racket in hand, about to serve in the final set of a long game of doubles. Next to him was Mayor Burton, his sturdy frame leaning forward in anticipation of the return, and across the net from Burton was trim, bald, intense Frank Darby, president of the Chamber of Commerce and general manager of the May Company. Across the net from Ness was white-haired, wiry Cyril Easton, richest financier in the city. Of the four men on this grass court at Lake Shore Country Club, only Ness wore short pants; and of the four men on this court, from which Lake Erie could be shimmeringly seen, only Ness was not in his early fifties.
Nonetheless, the match had been hard fought. Ness played tennis well, though he was better at badminton and handball; the latter sports were part of a daily ritual at Dewey Mitchell's Health Club, whereas this complimentary membership to classily suburban Bratenahl's Lake Shore Country Club, with its golf-green-like tennis courts, was something new. He'd played on hard clay in Chicago and was just getting used to the faster play of grass.
Cleveland's safety director was physically in top shape, but these three older men were every bit as fit as he was: all of them worked out on a daily basis (Burton with Ness at Dewey Mitchell's), and the retailer and financier played with single-minded stamina that thirty-four-year-old Ness could only envy. Under a hot afternoon sun Ness and Burton had won the first set 6–2, lost the second 4–6, won the third 6–4, and lost the fourth 1–6.
And now Ness fired his fastest serve, and Darby's return flew out of bounds.
Burton smiled at Ness; Ness smiled back.
Ness served again, another fast one, but Darby was ready and lobbed it behind Burton, who scrambled back and managed a weak but sufficient backhand return, while Easton moved in for the kill with a slashing forehand cross-court.
Ness tore after it, lunging, catching a piece of it, tumbling to the grass, skidding, as the ball sailed over the net, whizzed down the baseline, and just caught the inside corner, for match point.
Minutes later, the four men were sitting at a white wooden table under a yellow-and-white umbrella on the terrace bar overlooking the courts, the lake providing a blue backdrop and gentle breeze. They had toweled off but their whites were moist with the game. They drank martinis.
"You play an interesting game, Mr. Ness," Easton said. He had a warm white smile and cold blue eyes. His face was deeply grooved, his features sharp; his flesh was a golden brown nearly as rich as he was.
"So do you, Mr. Easton," Ness said.
"Yours is a thoughtful, almost scientific approach," Easton said reflectively. "But you aren't afraid to take risks-to put yourself on the line."
"Or my wardrobe," Ness said wryly, gesturing to the stripe of green he'd added to his white short pants when he'd slid across the court going after that last point.
Mayor Burton sipped his martini. "It's nice to get away from the office for a few hours. I appreciate the invitation, gentlemen."
"So do I," Ness said, smiling, but behind the smile was apprehension. He knew that in some way this silver cloud had to have a gray lining. Tennis or not, this was a business meeting, a meeting called by one of the most important men in the city. In the state.
In the nation.
Cyril Easton had arrived in Cleveland from Canada with his Baptist minister father back in 1901; the intelligent teenager had favorably impressed one of the elder Easton's congregation in the Euclid Avenue Baptist church: a certain John D. Rockefeller. Under that wealthy wing, young Easton flourished, supervising and expanding Rockefeller's utilities interests; later, when Rockefeller associates formed a syndicate to send Easton on a Canadian utilities venture, only to pull out in the panic of '07, Easton found Canadian backers and began building a personal fortune.
By the late twenties Easton's utilities holdings rivaled Samuel Insull's; he controlled Goodyear Tire and Rubber, and merged and purchased his way into control of Republic Steel. He was said to be worth one hundred million in 1929.