"Oh, Christ," Burton muttered under his breath, behind his towel as he rubbed his face. "Vehovic."
The man, whom Ness recognized as Anton Vehovic, Thirty-second Ward councilman, stepped aside and let Flynt and Wynston by. But he blocked the way for Ness and the mayor.
"Councilman," Burton said, his patience strained, "I have a luncheon date."
Vehovic, a round-faced man in his mid-forties, with a wisp of gray in his coal-color hair, blue eyes alert behind wire-framed glasses, folded his arms and smiled.
"I heard you guys hung around here together some-times," he said.
"That's right," Burton said. "Could you excuse us?"
"You could stand some excusin'. You guys talk real big about cleanin' things up. And that's what it is: just talk. Or was I dreaming you vetoed my slot-machine ordinance?"
Burton sighed. "I've told you more than once, Councilman, that my veto was reluctant, that I agree with you on principle. But my law director advised me that your ordinance wouldn't hold up in the courts. Get some legal advice and try again."
Vehovic snorted. "You got an excuse for everything. What's your excuse for all them vice resorts running high, wide, and handsome all over town?"
"That sounds like a subject you should discuss with my safety director," Burton said, smiling politely. "Why don't you handle this, Eliot?"
And having passed the buck, towel slung around his neck, His Honor moved on into the weight-lifting room and headed for the showers.
Ness knew Burton considered Vehovic a crank. And the councilman was a bit of a roughneck. He was a union man, a machinist at the New York Central Railroad shops in Collinwood, where even now he was an organizer, and had a reputation as an outspoken, square-shooting but eccentric champion of his people. He was also a man of direct action, a regular blue-collar hell-on-wheels. Not long ago, weary of waiting for the city road crew to fill some ruts in his district, the councilman-whose hobby was bicycling-rented a truck, bought a load of cinders, and filled the potholes himself, billing the city for the damage. The city paid up.
Ness rather admired the rough-as-a-cob hunky's zeal, but he understood why a polished pol like Burton would not. Vehovic was constantly on his feet in city council meetings making resolutions and proclamations and introducing ordinances in less-than-King's-English. On at least one occasion he showed up, straight from work, in his scruffy machinist's overalls. Sometimes, when not in an oratorical mood, he would sleep and snore. And now and then, not having had time to eat supper between work and the evening session, he sat in his councilman's chair eating from a can of sardines, the fishy fragrance wafting across the staid council chambers.
"You been pulling some raids, I see," Vehovic said, smelling something fishy himself, arms still folded over a husky chest, incongruous straw boater tilted atop the large round head. "But the big one wasn't inside the city limits. Wouldn't be afraid of steppin' on Fink's toes, would ya?"
Vehovic regularly feuded with the powerful Fink, councilman for the downtown district. Nominally a Democrat, Vehovic was, in practice, an Independent. And an independent Independent at that.
Ness didn't know what Vehovic was getting at, and said so.
"You gonna pretend you don't know that Fink's brother Tommy, his racetracks ain't enough for him, runs gambling joints all over the city, wide open? My ward included?"
"I've heard that rumor. We've raided a few of Tommy Fink's reputed joints and come up empty."
"Well, sure you have. Everybody at City Hall is either on the take or dead from the neck up. Why you think I cornered you and His Honor here at this sweatbox 'stead of there?"
Ness put the towel around his neck and smiled pleasantly. "I'm not on the take. Why don't you lead me to one of those 'wide-open' places?"
"Sure, only by the time we get there, they'll be puttin' on a church social in the joint."
"Why don't you give me a try."
Vehovic thought about that. He said, "You got that guy Savage working for ya, don't ya?"
"Yes I do."
Vehovic frowned. "He's down on the unions."
"I'm keeping an eye on him."
"You better not be down on the unions, or you'll have an enemy in me."
"I don't think we're going to be enemies, Councilman."
"He tossed me in the jug, once't."
"Pardon?"
"Your pal Savage. Tossed me in the jug, once't."
"Did you deserve it?"
"Hell, no! I was just tearing down this fence that was keeping the residents of my ward from usin' White City Beach."
"Wasn't that fence the property of Bratenahl Village?"
He lifted the thumb and fingers of one hand to his nose as if something stank, and it wasn't sardines. "Everybody agreed that fence oughta come down. He's a wise-guy, that Savage."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, he stood there watching me tear down the fence, and when I asked him why he hadn't arrested me yet, said, 'I figure you need to work off some of that extra weight, Tony.' "
Ness stifled a laugh and said, "Look. Why don't you meet me at my office in an hour?"
Vehovic checked his pocket watch. "Yeah, why in hell don't I? I took a half a day off anyways. Bein' the president of the local union has its advantages."
"I bet it does."
He pointed a stubby finger at Ness. "Just you and me. Nobody else. Including that fella Flynt of yours."
"Fine."
Vehovic nodded and trundled off like a small tank.
Ness shook his head and went to the showers. Later he joined the natty John Flynt for lunch at the Bronze Room in the Cleveland Hotel.
"Vehovic's a nut," Flynt said, matter-of-factly, dipping a spoon into French onion soup. The remark seemed strange, coming from this proper lawyer, with his tiny waxed mustache and formal bearing. He looked like a British colonel out of a Kipling story about India.
"He's his own man," Ness said. "I don't think he's crazy. He didn't go to Harvard, but he's not stupid, either."
Flynt pursed his lips in a frown. The mustache twitched. "He's a pest. Why's he such a social reformer? You know as well as anyone that he was in the speakeasy business."
"He wasn't. His father was, as I understand. That was before I came to Cleveland, long before."
"Well, he was vocally against Prohibition."
"You seem to be having a martini with lunch yourself."
Flynt bristled. "I just don't think he's sincere. I figure he's against vice in his ward because he wants to move one bunch of crooks out and another group in. His bootlegger cronies from the old days."
"Do you have anything to back that up? Or is that opinion, or instinct, or what?"
"It's an informed opinion. Let's let it go at that. But I'll tell you this: lining up with him in his feud with Councilman Fink would cause us nothing but grief."
"Why's that?"
"I know you don't like to talk politics…"
"Particularly not when I'm eating. But go ahead."
"Must I remind you that Fink carries more weight than any other single councilman? That he's a Republican, and our Independent mayor needs to have the regular party types on his side? Fink was a Davis man in the primaries, you know, but he got out the vote in his ward for Burton in the final election."
"You're thinking of the budget hearings."
"And the upcoming vote. Fink is helping decide your fate right now. And he'll carry a lot of weight with the voters in his ward if a bond issue has to get itself floated, to get your budget met. Do you really want to cause him trouble and embarrassment right now by going after his brother's interests?"
Ness smiled. "And when should I go after his brother?"
"If I were in your shoes, never. There are enough crooks to go around in Cleveland. Why not pursue some who don't have brothers on the city council?"