Curry said, "Mr. Washington-why do you think you were singled out for this?"
Nobody said anything, though Ness looked shrewdly at Curry.
Finally Washington answered: "Maybe this is going on all over the east side… police terrorism running rampant. There are a lot of police in Cleveland."
Ness looked at Johnson. "What do you think, Detective?"
"Johnny just happened to be close to the scene of the crime," Johnson said, matter-of-factly. "Easy target for somebody lookin' to take somethin' out on somebody."
Eyes narrowed, Ness said, "Did you know Clifford Willis? The officer shot?"
Bristling, Washington said, "Am I a suspect? We entertained friends earlier this evening, and arrived home at…"
Washington's wife looked at Ness with disdain.
Ness patted the air with one hand. "No… that's not why I'm asking. But if there's a connection…"
Washington stood and his wife stood with him; they might have been Siamese twins. "Mr. Ness. If you gentlemen wouldn't mind leaving me, and my wife, to what is left of our home…?"
Ness nodded, sighed, stood. "We'll talk later, Mr. Washington. I'm sorry this happened."
"I should hope so."
"I don't just mean your house, Mr. Washington. A police officer was killed tonight. Let's not lose sight of that."
"Yes," Washington said, looking about his ruined home significantly. "But that's such small solace."
And the former policy king, in the midst of his stormed, sacked castle, pointed to the door.
CHAPTER 12
Ness strode down the tunnel-like first-floor hallway of the Central Police Station like a bullet down a barrel. Cops and civilians alike got out of his way, looking downward as they did, as if feeling immediate guilt for some wrong they'd forgotten doing. He swung open the pebbled-glass door marked CHIEF OF POLICE with such force that he startled the generally sunny, blue-haired receptionist working behind the counter with several younger secretaries, all of whom looked up with similar alarm.
"The Chief back from lunch yet?" Ness said. His words were quick, clipped.
"Why, yes, Director Ness."
"Alone?"
"Yes, uh… would you like me to let him know you're…?"
But Ness had already lifted the movable portion of the counter and moved past the receptionist, marched to the pebbled-glass marked GEORGE J. MATOWITZ, CHIEF OF POLICE and twisted the knob and pushed open the door.
He found the chief watering his precious potted plants that lined the frost-covered window just behind a vast polished mahogany desk.
"Why, Director Ness," said the chief, with a mild smile, looking at his visitor while continuing to water a particularly flourishing plant. "This is a pleasant surprise."
"If that's what you think, George," Ness said, shutting the door firmly, taking a seat across from the desk, "then your years as chief have dulled your detective's instincts."
Matowitz frowned, not with displeasure, but confusion; he set the watering can on its designated perch on the window ledge beside the plants, and took a seat behind a desk that always seemed to Ness a little too tidy, a little too absent of any indication of real work being done.
The chief was a big, lumbering man, six feet tall and as husky as a tackle on a football squad; in his mid-fifties, Matowitz had a broad, craggy face and an amiable manner. He was relentlessly well-groomed, his dark blue uniform as crisp as a cracker, his dark blue tie neatly knotted, his badge a polished shining silver, his blue-and-white hat square on his head like that of a proud ship captain. A fresh red carnation rode his lapel; the chief did love his flowers. But his light blue eyes behind bifocal wire-framed glasses often seemed remote, to Ness, distant.
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?"