"You were indicted this morning," Ness said.
Dark-haired, bright-eyed Polizzi shrugged, smirked, and had a bourbon and Coke, on Ness. Chuck Polizzi had done time for armed robbery, once, long ago; but more recently had beaten rap after rap. He obviously thought he had no reason to worry. But Ness, knowing the witnesses and the evidence, knew better. Polizzi would finally do his second stretch.
Ness had spent the morning with the Grand Jury, of course, and the afternoon on the phone to friends at the FBI, who had promised to arrest any of the five who fled, under the new federal fugitive law that made it a crime to cross a state line to avoid felony charges.
He'd also had a visit from Reverend Hollis of the Future Outlook League. Again, Hollis did not have an appointment, but Ness didn't care: He was eager to see the race leader. The victories of the day faded, momentarily, and the anger of the early-morning hours had returned like a chronic injury that flared up in bad weather.
But Hollis was angry, too.
"You're to be congratulated, obviously," Hollis said tightly, "on your success with the Grand Jury this morning."
"Thank you. Will you have a seat?"
"Thank you, no. I won't be here that long, Mr. Ness."
That may have been a tactic, Ness realized; the preacher, imposing in clerical black, was taller than the safety director and was looking down at him with condescension masquerading as righteousness.
"You did much damage last night," Hollis said, in a clipped, clearly angry fashion. "That raid at the Democratic League was the poorest possible public-relations move you could have made."
Ness was astounded. "What?"
"You've made yourself look extremely bad in the Negro community-white cops harassing some of the east side's finer citizens. The white press has given you a free ride, but the Call and Post will crucify you. I only hope it won't damage your ability to hang on to your witnesses in the coming trial."
Ness resisted the urge to remind the good Reverend that the "finer citizens" of the east side who were arrested last night included a man who engaged in a sex act on stage, as well as many of the enthusiastic audience members who had cheered him on.
Instead, Ness said, "Good God, man-the tip came from you, didn't it?"
Now it was Hollis's turn to look startled.
"Hell, no!" the clergyman said.
"Hell no?" Ness asked.
Hollis looked at Ness warily. "Frankly, that might have been a tactic my friend Councilman Raney would approve of-in a weak moment-but I have enough common sense to assess the ramifications of such a foolhardy enterprise."
Hollis always sounded like he was giving a sermon, Ness noted; and it was getting goddamn irritating.
Ness pointed a lecturing finger at the preacher-he didn't poke him with it, or shake it in his face; but he did point.
He said, "We had a call from one of your Future Outlook League members. Look in your own backyard, Reverend, if you want somebody to blame."
Hollis thought about that for a moment, then his eyes squinted behind his wire-frame glasses as he said, "Which member called? Did he give a name?"
"Well, no."
"Then how do you know it really was one of my members? Perhaps you should look in your own backyard, Mr. Ness."
There was an awkward moment then, as both men realized the anger they had brought into this impromptu meeting was ill-placed. Hollis nodded and twitched a smile of farewell; they did not shake hands before the preacher left.
That one, odd encounter had been the only inglorious moment in a great day for Eliot Ness and his staff.
"Cullitan's going to ask that bail be set at fifty grand per defendant," Ness said, between sips of champagne. "Except for Willie the Emperor-he's worth one hundred and fifty."
Curry smiled and shook his head. "Think the prosecutor can pull that off? That'd be an all-time record for a criminal case in this county."
"I think so," Ness said. "Judge Walther is one of the honest ones."
"Here's to Judge Walther," Chamberlin said, raising his glass, and the rest of the men followed suit, clinked, drank.
Ness glanced up and saw a big black man in a baggy brown suit moving quickly through the lounge, carrying a battered black fedora in one hand like a dead rat to be dumped in a garbage can. Most of the all-white patrons of the Hollenden lounge looked at Toussaint Johnson as if a rat were exactly what he was carrying.
"Detective Johnson," Ness said pleasantly. "Sit down and join us-have some champagne."
Toussaint Johnson shook his head, no. His harshly hand-some face looked like a carved African mask; his eyes were intense and troubled.
"Bad shit happening in Central-Scovill," he said.
"Sit," Ness said. This time it wasn't a request.
Johnson squeezed in next to Curry; the men were watching the Negro cop with rapt attention: None of them had ever seen him this close to upset before.
"There's a flyin' squad of dago hoodlums racing around the east side," Johnson said. "Offering cash money."
"Huh?" Ness said.
Johnson breathed out heavily and started over. "Four hoods nobody ever seen before is driving all over the east side in a black Buick, offering five hundred bucks cold cash to anybody who'll cough up the name of any one of our seventy secret witnesses."
"Damn," Ness said.
"That's a lot of money," Curry said breathlessly.
"You think that's a lot of money in the Hollenden Hotel," Johnson said,
"'magine what it is on the east side."
"I wonder if they're getting any takers," Chamberlin said.
"I don't know," Johnson said. "But it gets worse 'fore it gets better, and it don't get better." He paused for effect. "They're offering a thousand clams for the whereabouts of any witness."
All of the men looked at Ness.
Minor witnesses were holed up in the YMCA, with considerable police protection. But key witnesses were hidden away in a safe house whose location was known only to Ness and his closest safety department associates-Chamberlin, Curry, and Garner-and the handful of crack rookie uniform cops that Ness had hand-picked to stand guard there.
" Ten thousand bucks wouldn't spring that information loose," Ness said confidently. "Nobody on the east side even knows the 'whereabouts.' "
Since that was supposed to include Johnson himself, the big Negro cop said, in a barely audible tone, "The projects."
The Outhwaite public housing project was a relatively new addition to the east side and one partially completed building, into which tenants weren't due to move for several months, was indeed where Ness was sequestering his key witnesses.
Ness flinched, as if a punch had been thrown. "How in hell…?"
"Ain't much on the east side that I don't know," Johnson said flatly. "And what I don't know, I can figure out."
"And if you know…"
"I ain't the only smart colored man in Cleveland, Mr. Ness."
"What do you suggest, Detective Johnson?"
"I suggest we put together a couple of flyin' squads of our own, and go prowlin' the Roarin' Third looking for a black sedan that don't have cops in it."
Ness was already getting up. "That, Detective Johnson, is a fine idea."
Curry, Johnson, and Chamberlin piled into the Negro detective's second-hand Chevy, while Ness and Garner took the EN-1 sedan. Garner, who had lived undercover on the east side for nearly a month in the earliest stages of the investigation, was familiar enough with the territory to guide the way; he in fact drove, while Ness kept an eye out.
It was a Wednesday night, colder than the night before, but the way the streets of the Roaring Third were hopping, it might've been Saturday. Jukeboxes exploded with uptempo music inside saloons burning with neon; colored men in every range of apparel from rags to zoot suits milled up and down the sidewalks, their boisterous voices spanning every human emotion, laughing, shouting, raging; whores decorated street corners and in the recessions of doorways junkies sat on cement steps like potted plants, only babbling. Ness noted with clinical interest the businesses that were undoubtedly numbers drops: tobacco stands, barber shops, news-stands-these wouldn't likely be open at eleven-something at night, otherwise. While he rode, studying this street of barbecue stands, bars, and bedbug-haven hotels, Ness flashed an order over the police radio to pick up the four hoods in the black sedan. Garner kept prowling. They were on Central, now, in the east fifties.