"Why's that?"
Cullitan shrugged. "Cooper was amassing his fortune during Prohibition-1921 to 1931, the very time when he was operating as the supposed protector of the law in precincts like the Fourteenth and Fifteenth. Where, in reality, booze was flowing freely, thanks to paid-off police."
Ness snapped his fingers. "That may be the way to build our case."
"What do you mean?"
"The bootleggers! They're who Cooper was squeezing protection money out of."
Cullitan's smile was a thin line. "You know the old saying: bootleggers never squeal."
"That was never really true, and it sure as hell isn't true since Prohibition became not-so-ancient history. I think some former bootleggers might like to get back at the cops they paid protection to. When I was working with the Alcohol Tax Unit, busting stills and playing 'revenooer,' we used to always hear the bootleggers bitching' about how they never really made a decent buck in the speakeasy days. That police payoffs had bled 'em dry."
Cullitan smiled, thinking, nodding. "Bribery charges. That's what we'll get him on. Bribes paid to influence him with respect to his official duties as a police captain in the enforcement of laws of the State of Ohio."
Ness smiled, nodded, and finished the sentence, "Particularly relating to the possession, manufacture, and sale of intoxicating liquors."
"Can't quite get being a Prohibition agent out of your system," Cullitan said, "can you?"
"It worked in Chicago," Ness said, and he hoofed it over to the Standard Building.
He found Agent Hedges at the same old stand, a corner desk in the cramped room shared by five Alcohol Tax Unit agents. The other men were out in the field, but Hedges was taking care of the paperwork that was choking his desk, and manning the phone.
"Slumming?" Hedges asked Ness, with a smile that didn't hide his dislike. "It's a little early to be going to the health club to play footsie with the mayor."
Ness pulled a chair over and sat on it backwards. "You really like not having me for a boss, don't you, Bob?"
Hedges grunted and shook his head no. "Actually, the guy that took over is even worse than you were."
"Gee, that's hard to picture."
"This place is going to hell in a hand basket," Hedges said, glancing with wide eyes around the claustrophobic office. "Hundreds of joints are selling hooch. Rotgut and raisin jack and white mule. And we're not doing anything about it."
Ness made a sympathetic clicking sound.
"At least you're knocking some places over," Hedges said. "I gotta hand you that much."
"I'm working on it. I need a favor."
"From me?"
"From you. You were in this office a good many years before I was."
"I outlast all my bosses. It's my favorite trait."
"I need a list of known bootleggers who operated in Cleveland from '21 through '31. Can you put that together for me?"
"I could. But why should I?"
"Hedges, you don't like me, and I'm not nuts about you, or anyway I'm not nuts about your style. But we've got one thing in common: we aren't bent."
"That I agree with."
"Then help me. Do me that list. I'm trying to put some bent cops in jail."
Hedges thought, just for a moment. Then said, "Sure. Why not. It'll take me a day to do it, I'd say. And it'd help if you'd tell my boss you requested it, so I can get away with taking the time out."
"That's no problem. Could you give me a head start, though?"
"How's that?"
"Can you think of anybody in particular in those days who was especially resentful about paying police protection?"
Hedges laughed briefly. "We heard that sad song from just about every bootlegger in town."
"Then give me the name and address of a real prize whiner. Especially somebody who might've operated in the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Precinct. Somebody who really felt he was bled white."
"I can think of one. Joe Brody. Brodzinsky. He used to run a joint at East Sixty-fifth and Fleet."
"What's he doing now?"
"He's got a saloon in Garfield Heights. He told me he moved out there to get away from the Cleveland cops."
"You think he'd talk? Think he'd name names?"
Hedges shrugged. "You never know till you ask," and he returned to his work.
And Ness set out to do his.
CHAPTER 22
Brody's Bar and Grill was on Broadway, near Garfield Park, just south of Cleveland in the blue-collar suburb of Garfield Heights. The interior of the unpretentious square yellow building resembled a restaurant more than a bar, being less dimly lit than most, with plenty of tables, and booths lining three walls. Behind the bar, which took up only half of one wall, was the kitchen, somewhat visible through a short-order window, but nobody was cooking back there, because nobody was eating out here. It was after two in the afternoon, and the place wasn't very busy. Some truckers and a couple of grounds keepers from nearby Calvary Cemetery were drinking bottled beer at the bar. At the far end of the bar, by the wall, a young guy in white, probably an orderly from the state hospital close by, was playing a countertop pinball machine. An empty stool separated him from a uniform cop, city not suburban, who quickly headed for a corner booth as Ness came in, Sam Wild close on his heels.
Ness slid onto an empty stool and Wild sat at a table nearby. Behind the bar was a thin dark man of about forty in a bartender's apron. He'd been talking to one of the truckers but now he fell silent. His face was blade narrow and his nose blade sharp. So were his dark eyes, as he studied the man in the tan topcoat and brown fedora.
Ness took off his hat and smiled blandly at the bartender. "Beer," he said.
"Any special brand?"
Ness shrugged. "You're the doctor."
Speaking of which, the hospital orderly down the bar hit the jackpot on the pinball. "Hot damn!" he said. He hopped off his stool, ran over and squeezed between Ness and the trucker, and showed the bartender two handfuls of slugs. He was pale, about twenty, with acne on his neck, and he was grinning like an idiot.
"Pay up, Joe!"
The bartender smiled without much enthusiasm and said, "Lay 'em on the counter. We'll count 'em."
Ness smiled at the hospital orderly. "Going to trade those in for real money?"
"You bet!" the orderly said. The teeth in the idiotic grin were bucked.
"That's against the law in this county, you know," Ness said.
"Yeah, sure," the orderly said, smirking, waving Ness off.
The bartender was breaking a roll of nickels on the counter. He frowned at Ness and said, "Don't give my customers a hard time, bud."
"I could arrest you both," Ness said, neutrally.
The bartender filled the orderly's palm with real nickels, and smirked. "You're a cop? You don't look like a cop."
"What do I look like?"
"Teacher. No. Banker, I'd say. You got the clothes for it."
Ness turned to Wild and said, "Sam, find a phone and call Central Headquarters for me, will you? Have them send somebody over to take that machine out."
"Who are you?" the bartender asked, suspiciously.
"My name's Ness."
One of the truckers leaned forward to have a look at this, and snorted a laugh. "Oh, yeah? And I suppose you're the safety director, too."
"That's right," Ness said.
The bartender cocked his head back and looked at Ness through slitted eyes.
The trucker wasn't through. "Listen, pal, go peddle that bullshit somewheres else. It just so happens the director's a personal friend of mine."
"I see," Ness said. He raised his voice. "Well, if you don't believe me, ask the cop who's been hiding in that back booth since we came in. His drink's still at the bar."
At which the patrolman quickly slipped out of the booth, pulling his cap down over his lowered head. He moved quickly around the room, between the booths and the edge of the tables, and out the door.