"Oh," Agent White said, "I almost forgot. I brought along your security bonds."
From the briefcase Agent White withdrew several long sheets of paper. Each of them had a gold seal, which looked very official to Gus. A word starting with the letter "G" was at the top of each page.
"Beg your pardon, Mr. White," Gus said, and rose. He went to Mary's room, where the teenager was sitting at a small desk doing her math homework. She was not yet in her pajamas, and so Gus did not hesitate to ask her to come out into the living room.
Agent White frowned as the girl entered the room.
Gus picked up the documents from the couch and handed them to his daughter. He asked her what the word starting with "G" was.
" 'Guarantee,' Poppa." She was studying the papers, flipping through them, making a face. "This paper says something about cemetery lots. Are you buying cemetery lots?"
"Dumpling…"
"Why are you buying cemetery lots, Poppa?"
Agent White rose and gently snatched the documents from the girl's hands.
He said to her, "Excuse me, but you have to be careful with these." He smiled apologetically at Gus. "They're for your protection, remember. You've got to give them back to me when we pay you your money. If you start reading them, you'll get them dirty. They're no good if you get fingerprint marks all over them."
Mary looked at the G-man with narrowed eyes and smirked and said, "Poppa…"
"Go to bed, Mary."
She sighed. "Okay, Poppa. G'night."
"Good night, dumpling. And thank you for your help."
But she was gone.
"She's a bright girl," Agent White said, as Gus sat back down.
"She's going to finish high school," he said.
"Maybe college," Agent White said. "You can consider that when you get your savings back."
"That is true."
Agent White poured Gus another drink and toasted the girl's future.
"You need to hand over that passbook," the G-man said, "and we can send it in to Washington and get everything fixed up."
Gus was shaking his head. "I don't need a lot of graves. What would I do with them?"
Agent White laughed, softly. "Why, you don't understand, Mr. Kulovic. We're not selling you any cemetery lots. We just want you to be protected while we're getting your three thousand dollars for you. These lots are a surety bond."
Gus nodded, slowly. "They're just… security."
"Right. Exactly. All you have to do is hold onto this security and give it back to me when I bring you your money."
"I would like my money. I need it."
"Of course you would. And you should have it. Uncle Sam wants you to have it."
Gus thought of Marija, sewing in the bedroom. He said, "Can I see your badge again?"
"Why, certainly, Mr. Kulovic.
The badge was a polished gold and seemed very, very official to Gus. Satisfied, he handed it back to the agent.
Agent White leaned close, conspiratorially, and said, "What I'm about to tell you is strictly confidential. You must turn that passbook over to us, immediately if not sooner. Your building and loan society is on shaky ground. It might have to close up. We can't help you, once it's shut down."
"You can't?"
"That's the one limitation of our agency. We can only sign up distressed passbook holders while they're part of an active savings and loan."
Gus had a sinking feeling, amid all that whiskey. "What if they go under tomorrow?"
White smiled tightly, reassuringly. "Once you've turned your passbook over to me, and we've signed these documents, you're safe."
Gus finished his latest glass of whiskey.
"This is a wonderful country," Gus said, "America."
"Uncle Sam cares about you," Agent White said. "That's the God's honest truth."
Gus sighed, smiled. He glanced at the large Christmas tree with its fancy electric lights.
"Vesele Vianoce," Gus said.
Agent White didn't understand.
"Christmas come early this year," Gus said.
Then he went and got his passbook and gave it to Agent White.
Who agreed with Gus about Christmas coming early.
CHAPTER 5
The Central Police Station at Twenty-first and Payne, in a West Side industrial district, was a four-story sandstone fortress nearly as gray as the bitter-cold overcast morning, a box with walls five feet deep. The ornate bronze trim of the building did not make it any less forbidding.
Eliot Ness pulled his city vehicle, the black Ford sedan the Mayor had promised, up the ramp next to the massive building and left the car in the elevated parking lot there. He glanced up. On the fourth floor the windows were barred-jail facility. Just the holding tanks, actually. The gray stone wedding cake of a building just down the street, the Cuyahoga County Criminal Courts Building, housed the county jail, considered one of the most modern jails in the States. An underground tunnel, which Ness had traversed more than once, connected the two buildings.
And the two buildings, police headquarters and the court/jail facility, were impressive structures, to say the least. Effective civic symbols of the law at work. It struck Ness as more than a little ironic that they served such a corrupt, broken-down, out-of-date police department.
He walked up the steps between the globes on twin poles at the Twenty-first Street entrance. Once past the small vestibule, he was in a narrow hall with a curved one-story ceiling, yellow plaster walls, and slate floor. Cops, both in uniform and plainclothes, were sleep-walking the tunnel-like hall, with about as much spring in their step as a Hooverville mattress. No one recognized the city's new safety director. Ness had a hunch it wouldn't have mattered if they had.
The chiefs office was on the left just down the hall and Ness stepped inside, took off his hat, smiled at the pleasant, middle-aged receptionist and said, "Eliot Ness to see Chief Matowitz."
She looked up with a bland smile, blinking behind glasses. "Do you have an appointment… did you say 'Ness'?"
"Yes, I did."
Her smile turned nervous, and she said, "Excuse me a moment," and moving in a birdlike manner she went into the inner office, briefly.
Soon Ness was ushered into the wood and pebbled-glass office, which was similar to his own at City Hall but slightly smaller, where the beefy, six-foot, fifty-three-year-old Chief of Police stood watering the pots of plants and flowers that lined the inside of a frosted windowsill.
"Mr. Ness, I'm flattered that you've dropped by." The chief set his watering can on the edge of a polished mahogany desk uncluttered by work and came around to extend his hand for Ness to shake, which he did. The hand was moist, from the watering can, not from sweat. In one corner was a birdcage on a stand, where a parakeet chirped.
Chief Matowitz had a broad, lumpy, friendly face and blue eyes that seemed distant behind his wire-framed glasses. He was wearing his chief’s cap, a lighter blue than his crisp uniform with its gleaming silver badge, dark blue tie, and red lapel flower.
"I had a call from Mayor Burton first thing this morning," the chief said, pulling up a chair opposite his desk for Ness, "and was assured that my position is secure. I was relieved to hear that."
"You've put in thirty-one years of service to the department," Ness said, sitting, unbuttoning his topcoat but leaving it on. "That's nothing to sneeze at."
"I want you to know," the other man said, resuming the watering of his potted plants and flowers, "that I'm behind you one hundred per cent. Whatever it takes. Don't hesitate to call on me."
"That's good to hear."
"There's a lot of fine boys in our department. You hear a lot of scuttlebutt to the contrary, but don't you believe it. Why, I can quote you chapter and verse, comparing statistics of crime figures in other cities of similar size to our fine city, and you'll see our department is doing a top-notch job." His voice was shaking with emotion, or seemed to be, as he added, "The Cleveland Police Department is the finest in the world. I'm proud of my boys."