"All due respect, Mr. Ness, that will go over like a lead balloon."
"Well, start pumping it up with hot air then, Chief." From what he'd heard today, Ness figured hot air was something Matowitz wasn't short of. "What a man does- not how long he's been on the city payroll, or who he knows-is going to be the basis for advancement in this department."
"Inspector Potter…"
"Let me worry about Potter. Good God, man, wouldn't you like to get out from under that bastard's thumb?"
The chief swallowed. Then he half smiled, like a kid caught in a lie, and nodded. "I would."
Ness pointed a finger at Matowitz. "What would you do, what's the first thing you'd do, if you didn't have to worry about that bastard Potter?"
The chief shrugged, then his expression darkened again. "I guess I'd break up that little political clique they got going over in the Detective Bureau. Do you know what kind of salaries they're pulling down?"
"Best pay in town," Ness nodded. "Better than a uniformed captain."
"What if I wanted to transfer some of those guys out of there?"
"You're the chief. Do it."
"You think I could?"
"I think that it would be a hell of an idea. I was going to suggest we transfer lieutenants and sergeants all over town, in every precinct."
The chiefs eyes got very wide and he looked as if the wind had been knocked out of him. Then he managed to say, "You're talking about hundreds of cops."
"That's right. And it would upset hundreds of apple-carts. The kind that have those rotten apples you were talking about."
"That would mean the bent cops would be uprooted. They'd have to start all over in a new precinct."
"Only we won't give them a chance. What do you say, Chief?"
Suddenly Chief Matowitz seemed very businesslike. His mouth was a thin straight line that barely opened for him to say, "Give me till tomorrow morning. I'll have the transfers ready for you to sign."
Ness smiled and nodded and rose. He buttoned up his topcoat and put on his hat. The parakeet was really making a racket.
"I think your bird is hungry," Ness said, just before he went out.
The chief was standing at a wooden file cabinet, digging some folders out, which he tossed on the polished desk top, finally cluttering it with some work.
"He can wait," the chief said.
CHAPTER 6
Reporter Sam Wild of the Plain Dealer had spent the morning at the Central Police Station gathering reactions from cops about the Ness appointment. Those reactions were pretty much as he expected: indifferent as dish water. "Wish him luck. He'll need it." "Sure, we'll cooperate. Why not?" Cleveland cops had seen safety directors come and safety directors go, but things usually didn't change much under the surface. Most safety directors didn't seem to mean anything to cops. Just a different name painted on the same old door.
So Wild was pleasantly surprised, in the tunnel-like first-floor headquarters hallway, to bump into Ness himself.
"Well, Mister Director of Public Safety," Wild said, grinning. "Bearding the lions in their den, I see."
Ness stopped and smiled faintly, as both uniformed and plainclothes cops walked by in either direction, none of them paying him any heed.
Walking again, Ness said, "Just had a little chat with the Chief of Police."
Wild smirked. "What'd he do, tell you about his brave 'boys' and his flowers and his birdie?"
"No," Ness said.
The safety director was walking quickly. Even a long-legged guy like Wild had to work to keep up.
"Give us a break, here," Wild said. "How about a quote?"
"Too early," Ness said.
"I thought sure you'd have a press conference this morning."
Ness kept walking. "I told you boys last night, I'd take action first, and talk later."
"Yeah, yeah. That made a swell quote, but that's yesterday's news. Newspapermen got to eat every day, you know."
Ness stopped again. "Would you excuse me, Mr. Wild?"
"Well, sure."
And then Wild realized why Ness had stopped.
Inspector Emil Potter, Chief of the Detective Bureau, had just come in the Twenty-first Street entry, toward which Ness and Wild had been so briskly moving.
Potter was a man in his mid-forties with black hair and shaggy black eyebrows and a Dracula-pasty face. None-the-less, he had a hearty, hail-fellow-well-met manner. He was about five nine but broad-shouldered, and looked like he could change a tire without a jack. His hat was in his hand and his dark gray topcoat flapped as he walked. When he saw Ness, the skin around his eyes tightened.
The two men faced each other. Wild stood just to one side of Ness, taking it in.
"Good morning, Director Ness," Potter said, with a smile that struck Wild as about as sincere as a street-walker's come-on. "This is the first chance I've had to congratulate you on your appointment."
Potter reached out a big hand, which Ness took, smiling back with similar insincerity.
"Much appreciated, Inspector. I left a message for you with your secretary."
"Oh?"
"Yes. I'd like to speak with you this afternoon at three o'clock."
Potter made a tch-tch sound. "Sorry. I have a meeting with my sergeants at two-thirty. Why not stop down to my office now, and we can chat?"
Ness checked his watch. "That's white of you, but I have an appointment at eleven with Traffic Commissioner Donahue about these record traffic fatalities we've been racking up."
Potter nodded. "That is a major problem."
Ness smiled blandly. "Good. You may be able to help me out in that area."
Potter, not following this, shrugged and said, "Anything I can do, Director."
"You can start by being at my office at three o'clock."
Potter's eyes narrowed, the shaggy eyebrows twitching. "I thought I'd explained… my meeting…"
"Cancel it. See you at three."
And Ness tipped his hat and moved on.
Potter stood there glaring at Ness, but Ness didn't see. Wild did, but quickly picked up his step and fell in with Ness.
"Nice piece of work," Wild said.
"How's that?"
"You're makin' Potter meet with you on your turf, not his."
Ness' smile was barely perceptible. He offered no other answer. They passed through the vestibule and out into the cold air.
Wild followed Ness down the steps, their breaths billowing like smokestacks.
"Headed back to City Hall?" Wild asked, digging his gloveless hands in his topcoat pockets.
"That's right."
"How about giving me a lift?"
"How about taking a streetcar?"
"Give me a break, Ness. I gave you one."
Ness stopped and looked at Wild, his expression impassive. "Really?"
"Yeah, I put in the good word for you. I was the first guy who mentioned you to Burton."
Ness dug under his topcoat in his pants pocket. "Let me see if I have a dime for your streetcar fare."
"Hey, City Hall's my beat. Give me a lift, for Christ's sake. I'm freezing my ass off out here."
Ness studied him, sucked in a long cold breath and let it smoke out. "Okay. But no press conference."
Wild shook his head, waved his hands. "Anything you say is off the record."
Ness thrust a gunlike pointing finger at him. "I'll hold you to that."
They walked up the cement ramp to the black Ford in the elevated parking lot. Ness had left the car unlocked and Wild climbed on in.
Wild sat and watched Ness, who was starting the car up. "What are you going to do to Potter?"
Ness looked at Wild carefully. "Off the record?"
"Yeah, yeah. Off the record."
Ness looked in his rear view mirror as he began backing up the Ford. "I'm going to promote him."