Sam Wild, standing nearby and taking some notes, crossed over and swung a haymaker that started at his knees and ended on the chin of the thug, who went down on the cement harder than Shorty had.
There was no love lost between the Harvard Club's surly staff and the gloating reporters, whose papers had been harping about wide-open gambling in greater Cleveland for years, paving the way for raids like tonight's.
So, when the remainder of Patton's strong-arm squad went rushing over to thump Wild, the rest of the reporters picked up on that, and went rushing over themselves, fists flying and folding chairs getting folded over heads and backs. Ness had to go wading in again, some of his uniform boys backing him up, helping him try to pull the foes apart, only it just wasn't taking.
Finally Ness turned to one of the cops and held out his hand, palm up. "Loan me your service revolver, would you?"
The cop, a surprised young rookie, obeyed.
Ness fired the gun in the air.
Reporters and hoods froze in mid-swing.
Ness smiled at the group and waggled a finger of his free hand at them, as if to say, "Settle down, kids," handing the smoking gun back to the startled cop.
Then he called Flynt over and had him herd the thugs into one corner to get them cuffed.
Ness wandered over to Wild, looking down at the sprawling, sleeping hood, who Wild had coldcocked, starting it all.
"In Chicago," Ness said, "we call that assault."
"Good thing we're in Cleveland," Wild said with a grin, rubbing his bleeding knuckles.
Shorty Philkins was still on the floor as well, but not out cold.
"You might want to get a picture of this," Ness said to Shorty, helping him up, then heading for the office.
With several of Cullitan's constables backing him up, Ness stood at the door and said, "I can kick this one down too, if you like, Shimmy. Or maybe knock this little window out and send some tear gas in."
Brief silence.
And the door opened.
Inside were three of Patton's boys, who when patted down proved to be unarmed, though two were the original machine-gunners. A chair with a box on it stood next to a high, open window through which Patton apparently had fled. The office was as stripped as the casino: four large safes squatted along one wall with their doors open and their insides emptied. The floor was littered with betting slips.
Up above, an unoccupied machine-gun nest opened off one of the catwalks. From this cubbyhole, with slits for gun barrels, both the office and the main gambling room could be protected from a holdup or raid. It had gone unused tonight.
In the yard at the rear of the building, constables led by Assistant Safety Director Flynt and backed by Ness' cops found two moving vans, not unlike the ones the constables themselves had arrived in. One of the vans was pulling out; the other was partially loaded with gambling equipment but was unattended.
Ness stood in the big empty casino and shook his head, smiling at his own expense. He couldn't help but think of the Sweeney Avenue still, his last raid as a Prohibition agent, which had netted him a big, mostly empty building. Now his first gambling raid had netted him much the same.
"If you're thinking this raid's a flop," Cullitan said, coming up to him, "you're very wrong."
"Oh?"
"I wasn't looking for cases to prosecute. You weren't looking for arrests. We were looking to shutter this place. And the Thomas Club. And I think we've accomplished that."
Ness nodded. "I think we have. I think we've made life a little miserable for the Mayfield mob tonight."
"What about tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow I'll issue arrest warrants on Shimmy Patton, Gameboy Miller, and the other club operators. I'm still not looking for arrests, just encouraging the sons of bitches to stay out of Cuyahoga County."
Soon Ness slipped away. He was just a private citizen, after all. No arrests to make, no property to seize, for him. He felt good. He'd seen some Cleveland cops behave like cops tonight, even if they hadn't officially been cops at the time. He had little doubt that the press would play this up in his favor, which would give the Mayor precisely the publicity fodder he'd been looking for to kick off the battle of the budget. More important, to Ness at least, he'd gotten to kick down a door and tangle with some toughs. His heart had raced and adrenaline flowed.
It beat the hell out of a city council meeting.
CHAPTER 12
Eva Ness, nee Jonsen, sat in her modern apartment feeling like a stranger in what was supposed to be her own home.
She should have felt grateful, she knew, for such a lavish place. At least it seemed lavish to her, lavish compared to any standards she knew. In fact, the apartment was much smaller than their house in Bay Village, which they had not gotten around to renting yet. Good thing, she thought. The apartment consisted of two bedrooms, one of which Eliot had converted into a study, a kitchen, a living room, and one bath. Plenty of space, but not spacious.
Square footage wasn't the key thing; the location was. Their massive brick gingerbread-trimmed apartment complex fit right into this upper-crust area. The problem was, Eva didn't. What was she doing here, on the West Side of Cleveland, just a block from the lake? The only thing between them and Lake Erie was the even more expensive neighborhood along the lakefront.
They'd been on the lake in Bay Village, too, but that community was comfortably middle-class, and their house was nothing next to the big, fancy homes of Lakewood and Rocky River that separated Bay Village from Cleveland. This location was uncomfortably top-hat for her. She had tried, for almost two weeks now, to feel at home. They had moved out right after Christmas (she'd begged Eliot to have Christmas at Bay Village, and he'd given her that) and ever since she'd been, well, she'd been miserable.
She hated these strangely modern furnishings-the pastel colors, chrome trim, rounded surfaces, the air-brushed paintings of flowers. She much preferred the comfortable, homey furnishings at their Bay Village home, some of which they'd brought with them from Chicago. She was ashamed of herself for feeling this way, since the place wasn't costing them a cent. Eliot described it as a "fringe benefit." The mayor had insisted they move to Cleveland, and some rich friend of his had provided this apartment, already furnished. She and Eliot paid only the utilities and phone.
It was a dream come true. Why, then, did it feel like a nightmare? Why was she giving into these crying jags? It was more than just homesickness, though even now she had a pang at the thought of having missed Christmas with her family.
Partly, it was the crushing boredom. There was so little housekeeping to do; Eliot was home so infrequently, he didn't get much of anything dirty, outside of his clothes, and the bulk of those went to a Chinese laundry. And she was almost afraid to touch anything in this shiny pastel palace. She read movie magazines and romances; she sewed; and she listened to the radio- Just Plain Bill was her favorite program.
Eva had liked her life better when she was working. She missed that. It made her less mad at Eliot because she could hardly blame him for preferring the hustle and bustle of an office to a dull life at home.
He wasn't mean to her. He didn't have a mean bone in his body, at least that she'd ever seen. She marveled sometimes when she heard, or, more often, read in the papers, of his exploits. It seemed to have so little to do with the quiet man she-almost-lived with.
She thought, sometimes, about asking Eliot if she might go back to work. After all, they had no family for her to take care of. But he made a good living, and she assumed he'd be too proud for that. It wouldn't look right for a man with a job like his, she felt. So she never asked.