"I know this doesn't have a hell of a lot to do with the Vandal Squad," Ness admitted, as the four men huddled under a pool of streetlamp light. "But I had to ask people I can trust. And you're one of the few, Jack."
"Funny thing," Savage said. "I was in this place just a few weeks ago."
Savage had been investigating a series of stink bombings of cafes that had refused gamblers permission to install slots and dice games.
"I know," Ness said, nodding. "I remember. That's another reason I invited you. You can fill us in on the layout."
Savage did so, quickly. The Club Cafe was a typical workingman's bar, with a long counter along the left wall for stand-up drinks and lunches, a wall of booths at the right, and tables in between. The back wall had double doors into the kitchen, a chalkboard menu, and a Paradise Hotel sign, with rates and an arrow that pointed to a closed doorway at the right.
"That," Ness said, "is the stairway to the third floor. But if they've seen us coming, it'll be locked, my undercover boys say."
"That means the cafe employees work for Tommy Fink, too," Savage said.
"He owns the building," Ness shrugged.
Cooper, his round face flushed with cold, asked, "Is there an alley exit?"
"Yeah," Heller said, who'd been told as much by the McGrath operative. "I'll cover that, if you like."
"There's probably a hundred patrons up there," Ness said, "and only four of us. Can you handle that exit alone?"
"Sure," Heller said, patting under his left arm. "I'll have a gun and they won't."
"You hope," Savage said.
They walked down the street toward the corner building. Cars and trucks were going by, but the night was cold enough to keep the sidewalks nearly empty. Heller headed around the building to cut into the alley, while the others went into the cafe.
Savage walked up to the bar, where a little Irish bartender was serving beers to a couple of truck drivers, and told the man, "Put your hands on the counter. This is a raid, and I'm in no mood for a warning buzzer."
"Too late," Ness said, pulling a heavyset guy out of a booth just inside the door, grabbing him by the upper arm, tossing him on the floor like an empty beer bottle.
"What the hell," the guy said. He looked up from the floor with a scowl, fists ready, tiny pig eyes narrowing, wondering who the hell Ness was.
By way of explanation, Ness tapped the gold badge on his topcoat lapel. The guy's eyes went wide, or as wide as they could. He was a man whose ugly face had been made uglier by punching, an ex-pug in his late thirties, wearing a cap, a plaid shirt, and faded brown slacks.
"I saw you hit the buzzer," Ness told the pug. "And you're sitting by the only window in the place you can see out of. You're the lookout. You're under arrest."
The lookout squinted his eyes in something like thought. He got up slowly, brushing dirt off himself; the Club Cafe wasn't spotless, nor was this guy's record, most likely.
Then he shoved Ness with both hands, and Ness went back against a table, bumping it hard, where a couple of factory workers were eating; one of them said, "Hey!"
And the lookout was out the door.
"Let him go," Ness said, as Cooper leaned out the front door, gun in hand. "Let's get upstairs before Heller gets trampled out the back way."
A skinny, weathered woman who'd been a waitress longer than Ness had been alive was pouring coffee for a customer at one of the tables near the door that led upstairs, unimpressed by the presence of the police. Ness asked her if she'd unlock the door. She sat down mutely at the table, joining the startled customer. Ness shrugged and walked over and kicked the door in.
With Ness in the lead they went up the two flights of stairs three at a time, guns in hand, whisking by the second-floor landing, and soon were on another landing, facing a second locked door, which Ness also splintered.
"Do they pay you by the door?" Savage asked with a grin.
"That's an idea," Ness said, and as he led them into the bookie joint.
The room was large; it had once been the hotel's ballroom, taking up nearly the entire upper floor. Red warning lights, high up on the walls, were still flashing to signal the raid. Ness' estimation of the number of patrons-men and a few women, a mixed bag running from workers to high-hats-seemed low. There were at least a hundred customers on hand. The flashing lights had kept them from going down the front stairs, and they were mobbed about the rear exit, jammed there, panicking, shouting. Heller, apparently, was blocking the way.
Ness shouted out: "If you're not an employee, you won't be arrested! Stay where you are!"
That settled them down. They started to mill about, but stayed over by the rear exit.
The high-ceilinged room had the usual wall of payoff windows and huge blackboard where racing results were posted, but there was also a scattering of blackjack tables. Against the racing-results wall were seven men, employees apparently, wearing white shirts and black pants, their hands against the bottom of the blackboard. Ness' five fresh-faced rookies, dressed in business suits, were holding revolvers on the seven.
The McGrath detective, Mike McCune, who at twenty-six was older than the rookies by some distance, approached Ness with a pleased grin.
"Sorry to spoil your fun," McCune said, gun in hand, "but once those lights started flashin', we figured we oughta shut this place down."
"Nice job of it, too," Ness said, holstering his revolver under his left arm. He took off his topcoat and slung it over a chair at a blackjack table. "Let's get to work," he said.
Ness sat the seven employees down at two adjacent blackjack tables. One of them, a horse-faced, one-armed man of about forty, said he was Nick Selby, the manager. Savage seemed to know Selby, whispering to Ness that this was "One-Arm Nick, the famous blackjack dealer." Famous in Cleveland, maybe; Chicago boy Ness had never heard of him.
At any rate, he put Savage in charge of getting Selby's statement, and had two rookies stand watch on the other six, instructing the eager beavers to put their guns away. He put the other three rookies in charge of taking the names and addresses of the patrons, and then releasing them.
The rookies had frisked the employees already and found no weapons, but in the pockets of the three cashiers were envelopes of money with the stamp of Tommy Fink's Bainbridge Race Track.
Heller came up the back stairs and joined them, taking in the big bookie joint and shaking his head.
"I can't believe I helped shut this down," Heller said.
"Why?" Ness asked.
"I like to make a bet now and then myself."
"So do I," Ness said.
"Then what's the idea?"
"Any police department that lets gambling operate openly is a corrupt department."
"Yeah," Heller said. "So?"
Ness smiled and said, "Go downstairs and get yourself a drink. Put it on your expense account."
Heller put a hand on Ness' shoulder. "This means a lot to me. I guess I'm really one of the 'untouchables,' now, huh?"
"Don't touch me," Ness said, plucking off Heller's hand with a mock nasty look, making the private detective laugh. Then Heller went down for a drink while Ness began going over the premises methodically.
Cooper accompanied Ness to the office behind the payoff windows. On the floor, splayed open face-down where the cashiers had discarded them when the warning lights started flashing, were the ledger books in which bets were recorded. A scattering of cash, also dropped by the fleeing cashiers, littered the floor with green, together with curls of adding-machine paper-each window had its own machine. A big safe in the office stood open, containing several hundred in cash, but, more importantly, revealing books and various other papers stacked within. Ness began thumbing through a volume.