"There's nobody in there," he said, putting his own gun away. "And no car in the garage."
"You better put a call out on that sick son of a bitch," Wild said.
Curry looked pale, shaken. He glanced back at the bungalow and said, "If that isn't the murder lab, I'm Charlie McCarthy."
"Then do something!" Viv said.
"I've already done something," Curry said. "I radioed for the chief when I first spotted your fancy little car. You'll have to answer to him."
"He'll be grateful to us," Viv said, chin up.
"I don't think so," Curry said, looking past them.
The unmarked sedan with the EN-1 license plate screeched up to the curb, and an uncharacteristically rumpled-looking Eliot Ness sprang from behind the wheel and bolted across the weedy lawn toward them. His eyes were hard and ringed with lack of sleep; he was unshaven, pulled from the midst of a long day of interrogation.
"Explain," he demanded of all of them.
Viv flushed with anger, but Wild felt suddenly sheepish, as if he'd just noticed he'd stepped in something and was tracking it all the hell around. Curry filled his chief in.
"Maintain your watch," Ness told Curry. "In a few minutes I'll take this pair downtown and question them along with the rest of the vagrants." He looked sharply at Viv. "This is about the stupidest stunt you've pulled yet."
Her eyes flared; nostrils, too. "Well, you should've taken me seriously, you big sap!"
"I did take you seriously. That's why Lloyd Watterson is under twenty-four-hour surveillance. That's why I'm spending the day quietly showing his photograph to half the bums in creation. That's why my personal assistant is launching a full-scale investigation into the suspect. You two have tipped our hand, and most likely tainted the evidence.'
"You're welcome," Wild smirked.
Ness glared at them both and motioned them toward the Bugatti.
When they were seated within, he told them, "Wait," lifting a forefinger like a lecturing parent. Then, typically unarmed, he advanced upon the house.
He was inside perhaps ten minutes; he was ashen when he came out. He walked to the driver's side of the Bugatti and reached in and touched Viv's shoulder.
"If anything had happened to you," he said, to Wild as much as to Viv, "I'd have killed you."
Then the little sports car, trailing after the sedan licensed EN-1, leaving Curry and his Ford behind, drew away from the Run, under the shadow of the black, hovering cloud of shantytown smoke.
CHAPTER 18
Two days later, at eleven in the morning, in a warmly appointed suite on the fourteenth floor of the Hollenden Hotel, Eliot Ness sat at a massive library-style desk near a bay window overlooking Superior Avenue. Of simple boxlike design, with a broad, shiny surface, the dark wooden desk had a central, rectangular panel-where a blotter might normally be-that obviously concealed some device within. Electric wires and rubberized cable were connected to one lower side. To the right of where Ness sat was a comfortable-looking brown leather armchair. It was positioned forward somewhat, so that anyone sitting in it, while facing the same direction as Ness, would not be able to see him without a turn of the head.
Detective Albert Curry, his shirtsleeves rolled up, stood nearby and said, "Well, is that where you want it?"
Standing behind and to one side of Curry were two uniformed officers, who'd helped him haul the desk and chair over here from the Standard Building, where they'd borrowed it from federal friends of the safety director.
Ness, who sat and then sat again in the chair behind the desk, as if making a test, smiled tightly and said, "This is fine." And to the two uniformed men he said: "Thank you, boys. You can go."
They nodded and left.
Curry stood with folded arms and narrowed eyes and said, "What the hell is this all about?"
"I'm going to administer a lie detector test." He checked his watch. "In about half an hour."
There was a knock at the door.
"Should I get that?" Curry asked, and Ness nodded.
Bob Chamberlin, nattily attired as always, came in and went over to the desk and chair and said, "I see you're all moved in."
Ness nodded and gestured to a couch along the wall. "Sit down, Bob. Albert."
The two men did.
"We have an awkward situation," he said, coming out from behind the desk, "and for the time being it has to be… contained."
"Contained?" Curry asked.
Ness pulled up a straight-backed chair and sat across from them. "The mayor has made it clear that we need, at least for the time being, to keep the Watterson investigation under wraps. Now, what does Sergeant Merlo know about the events of the last several days?"
Curry shrugged. "Nothing. He got that lead from one of the shanytown vagrants that One-Armed Willie was doing time in the county jail in Cincinnati. He left by train Thursday afternoon to check it out. He got back this morning, I understand, but he doesn't work today."
"Albert," Ness said, "much as I dislike it, we need-for the present at least-to keep Merlo in the dark where Watterson is concerned. And every other active cop on the case as well. We're keeping this in-house-within the safety director's office."
"Well," Curry said, obviously somewhat confused, "I had to use several homicide detectives to gather some of what we put together yesterday. You did tell me to move quickly."
"Yes," Ness said, "and you've done very well. But only we three know of the significance-the seriousness-of the Watterson investigation."
"Chief, I don't understand… why are we…"
"Several reasons," Ness said. "First, I made a rather major mistake. When Vivian Chalmers gave me the lead on Lloyd Watterson, I immediately knew it was of possible, even probable, substance. But knowing how rash Viv can be, I didn't tell her so, playing down its importance. And at the same time, in no uncertain terms, I told her to stay out of the Butcher investigation."
"And naturally," Chamberlin said wryly, "that only served to light a fire under her."
Ness nodded wearily. "Yes. I should have known better than to tell that particular child to keep her hands off the cookie jar. And then she drafted Sam Wild to help her out, and he was just irritated enough at me, for not asking him along on the shantytown raid, to go along with her on that boneheaded fishing expedition."
"They did find the murder lab," Curry said.
"Did they?" Ness said. "We may never know. From what I saw, it certainly could have been-but the cabinets and refrigeration units I looked in were noticeably free of spare body parts. Of course, if we could get a crime-lab team in there… well. The family's lawyers are, for now at least, keeping us out."
"Can't we get a warrant?" Curry asked. "He did come after Wild with a cleaver, after all."
"Did he? That's Wild's word against Watterson's. Do you know what Watterson's stand is, on that little incident? Wild broke into his home-which is the truth, incidentally-and Lloyd only protected himself from an intruder. He overpowered Wild and tied him up until he could call the police. If anything, Sam Wild may face charges on breaking and entering, and assault-Lloyd is pretty bruised up around the face, I understand."
"But he threatened Wild with a goddamn!"
"Wild's word against Lloyd's. And, too, Wild is well-known to be 'unofficially' attached to my office. Evidence resulting from his intrusion into Watterson's home could be viewed as having been illegally obtained."
Chamberlin said, "Eliot, for Christ's sake-Wild isn't a cop, he's a reporter."
Ness smiled and shook his head. "Wild was there with Vivian Chalmers, remember-who for the last several years has been on the payroll of the city, via the safety director's office. No, gentlemen, we are screwed royal on this one. We don't even have enough yet to get a warrant to search that house."
Frustration walked across Curry's features. "But he is the Butcher."