Nemesis: The Final Case of Eliot Ness (14 page)

"Why'd you dump her?" Zalewski asked, injecting himself into the conversation.

Polillo fidgeted with his date-stamp. "I loved Flo. I really did. Loved her like I've never loved anyone. Took care of her. But she was always a hard drinker. Didn't leave much room for me-she was in love with the bottle. I told her I'd had enough. She was going to have to give up the drinking, or give up me."

"And that was the end of it?"

"Not quite. She was sympathetic at first. Cried and everything. Showed me a side I'd never seen before. Said she was going to go visit her mother for two weeks to get herself straight. I said fine. So she went away for two weeks-and didn't come back. Few days later I saw her go into a restaurant right here in town with another man, some big husky guy who had his hands all over her."

Polillo stared down at his desk. "Few days later, I asked her for a divorce. She said,
Sure, why not?
That was the end of it. Adler gave me some cash, said he'd look after her." Merylo was amazed to see Polillo's eyes were misting. "All I wanted was the best for her. That's all I ever wanted."

Merylo's teeth clenched together. What a stupid job this was.

"You have any idea who might want to kill her?"

"No."

"You ever see her with any suspicious characters?"

"Haven't seen her at all for three years."

"Ever hear of a guy named Andrassy?"

"Saw his picture in the paper. Never saw him or heard of him before that."

Merylo folded up his notepad. "Thank you for your time. Zalewski?"

The two men made their way out of the post office.

"You think he was lying?" Zalewski asked.

"No."

"You think Adler was lying?"

"No. I don't think either of them knows a damn thing about it. Or Dollarhyde. Nobody we've talked to." He shook his head. "I thought identifying a second victim would be the key to solving this whole case. Seems I may have miscalculated."

Zalewski looked at him anxiously. "So then... where does that leave us?"

"Exactly where we've been all along." He opened his car door and slid behind the steering wheel. "Nowhere."

"You don't think we'll crack this case?"

"We'll crack it. Just not as soon as I'd hoped. But we'll catch this guy, you wait and see. 'Cause I won't stop trying until we do."

Ness was astounded when he saw how many people were waiting to hear him talk. He had readily agreed to speak to the Cleveland Advertising Club, one of the leading professional organizations in the city. Never hurt to brush shoulders with the folks who made the greatest contributions to the city coffers. This meeting was in the downtown hotel's largest ballroom and it was packed. He didn't see an empty seat anywhere. Surely these people couldn't all be advertising men!

No, he realized, as he scanned the room. Some of the attendees were women-wives, probably. Or secretaries. He even spotted some youngsters. One was wearing a button on his lapel with a picture of Ness cut out of the newspaper.

He wasn't just the safety director anymore. He was a teen idol. Right up there with Charles Lindbergh. A hero.

Come to think of it, hero status hadn't worked so well for Lindbergh, had it? Last Ness heard, he was still in Europe, dodging all the ugly publicity stemming from the kidnapping. Hauptmann was in jail awaiting trial.

Ness would have to be very careful.

"In any city where corruption exists, it follows that some officials are playing ball with the underworld. The dishonest public servant hiding behind a badge is more detestable than any street criminal or mob boss. If officials are committed to a program of protection, police work becomes exceedingly difficult, and the officer on the beat, discouraged from his duty, decides it is best to see as little crime as possible."

Ness gazed out at the crowd of stony faces. He didn't know what was going wrong, but this presentation was clearly not what most of the audience was expecting. It wasn't that they disagreed so much as they were... well, bored. He knew he wasn't a flashy speaker. Never had been. Could get his message across, but he lacked a certain pizzazz. That's why he had resisted all offers to run for public office. Mayor Burton might have a silver tongue, but he did not. Edna had suggested that he start with a joke, but his attempts at humor always flopped. Any time he tried to tell a joke he ended up being sorry he had started.

Ness outlined the evidence he had found that many police officers were taking bribes, tipping off mobsters, drinking on duty-or any combination of the above. He also explained what he had done to stop it.

"A public official always puts himself in danger when he threatens someone's livelihood. There are ripples throughout the community. Even if the cop is crooked, is his wife? Are his children? Should they be punished for what he has done? These are difficult questions. But I could not possibly accomplish the job I was sworn to do until these leaks were plugged. And so I suspended over three hundred officers. Most of them will never return to the force. And a strong message will be sent to those who remain."

That at least got a few heads nodding. Or were they just nodding off?

"Political favoritism can also bring a city down. I plan to submit a procedure to institute a system of merit-based promotion, with scientific civil-service testing, to determine who is promoted and who is not. As businessmen, you must understand the harm a city suffers when its economic resources are drained off to underworld mobsters who don't pay taxes. In the short time since I took office, our midnight raids have confiscated almost two million dollars in illegal booze. Ironically, even after the repeal of Prohibition, bootlegging is still the most profitable mob enterprise, smuggling Canadian hooch across Lake Erie. But they are also killing the city with gambling parlors. I don't know if gambling is morally wrong, but I know it turns criminals into financial tycoons. Do we really want the city run by men who won't obey the law? I think not."

Ness thought that was a pretty good argument, a clever way of converting even those men who liked a little drink and a poker game every now again-and he suspected there were several in the room- to his side. But he still wasn't reaching them. How could he strike home?

"How many of you drove to this meeting today?" Most of the men in the audience raised their hands. "Then you're lucky to be alive. As you must know, the traffic situation in Cleveland is horrendous. We've been voted the most dangerous city in America several years running. Did you know there were over four hundred traffic fatalities last year? Well, we're going to fix that, with something called a traffic light- something that ironically was invented in Cleveland but never used here. I've asked the city council to support an ambulance corps to get the wounded to the hospital faster, and a roving patrol of motorcycle officers who will be able to weave in and out of congested traffic. If all my plans are implemented, I believe we will see traffic deaths drop dramatically."

Enough. He'd tortured himself with this much longer than necessary. He'd wrap it up and let the good citizens get back to their homes and offices.

"Am I finished? Have I done all that needs to be done? Of course not. There are still problems to be confronted-perhaps the greatest of them being our out-of-control juvenile crime problem. So long as there remains a way to make our city safer, my job will never-"

"Mr. Ness!"

He looked up from his notes. A man in the third row had his hand in the air.

Ness had not planned to take questions. But what could be the harm? Maybe it would liven up this dour proceeding.

"Yes?"

"Mr. Ness, what are you going to do about this monster?"

"Um... could you be more specific?"

"This butcher. The Torso Killer."

An audible rumble rose from the audience. People leaned forward, shifted in their seats. For perhaps the first time since Ness had begun talking, they were interested.

"Well... you know..." Ness cleared his throat. "I'm not a homicide detective. I'm the safety director."

"How can anyone be safe while this man runs around killing people and cutting them up?"

"Well... I know it is distressing... but-"

Another man rose, a portly gentleman with pomaded hair who was dressed in an immaculately tailored three-piece suit. "Mr. Ness, I'm Congressman Sweeney. I'd like to know what exactly you plan to do to stop these killings."

"Well, again, that isn't really my job, and to tell you the truth, I don't know that much about it. But I believe that all crimes will cease to flourish if we continue to apply scientific methods to eliminating the elements that corrupt our society. We have an unprecedented ability to fight crime with forensic science. We can apply new technology to our traffic problem. We can employ sociological knowledge to combat juvenile delinquency. Despite the poor economy, this is a great time to be alive." He smiled, and the twinkle returned to his eye. "I pledge that I will use all these tools and more to make this city a safe place for you and your children. That's what a safety director does."

The audience responded with an enthusiastic round of applause.

JUNE 5, 1936

Gomez Ivey tried to see how far he could travel on one rail of the train tracks without falling off. As it turned out, he could go a good long way, especially if he used his fishing pole to keep himself balanced.

"Look at me!" Gomez hollered. "I'm the New York Central train!" "You ain't no train," Louis Cheeley shouted back. Louis was two years younger than Gomez-only eleven-but even Gomez knew he was far more sensible. He would never pull the same crazy stunts. Come to think of it, he normally wouldn't ditch school to go fishing, either. But he'd warmed to the idea pretty fast when Gomez suggested it. "You may be black, but you ain't no train."

"You think they'll miss us back at Outhwaite?" Gomez asked, referring to the school they both attended-or were supposed to attend. "They might miss us, but what they gonna do about it?" Gomez kept moving. "Serves them right. Who ever heard of having school this late in the year? When it's crazy hot outside. And the fish are bitin'."

"What's gonna happen if we get caught?"

"We ain't gonna get caught."

"Yeah, but-"

"Look, if you're so worried about it, you can just go home now."

"I'm not goin' home," Louis said, suddenly defensive. "I may never go home."

"Yeah, right."

"If my papa finds out I played hooky, I won't be able to sit down for a week."

"Aw, don't be such a baby."

"Easy for you to say. You ain't got no papa."

Gomez fell silent a moment, his lips pressed tightly together. "I've got a papa. Everybody's got a papa. He's just off gettin' work."

"Uh-huh."

"He's gonna be an engineer someday and he's gonna ride the rails just like we're doin', 'cept he's gonna be inside the train lookin' down at boys like us and pulling the whistle and givin' us the big smile."

"You be sure and let me know when that happens, Gomez."

"I will."

"I wanna be there on the tracks, wavin' back."

"You just do that."

Gomez was relieved when the kid decided to change the subject. "You got any change?"

"Not since I was born. Why?"

Louis wiped the sweat off his brow. "I was just imaginin' how good an ice-cold Nehi might taste right about now."

"Man, don't get me thinkin' about that."

"How can you not be thinkin' about that?"

"There's no point in-"

Gomez fell silent. He glanced down at a point between the train tracks and the rapid transit line, just beneath a willow tree.

"You see that? Over there." Gomez pointed. "Beneath the tree. Look like a pair of pants."

Louis squinted into the sun. "I think they're tweed."

Gomez jumped down off the tracks. "Let's check it out."

"What for?" Louis trailed a few feet behind. "You can't wear tweed this time of year, you fool. You'll melt!"

"Who's a fool? If there's a pair of pants that only some white boy would be wearin', there might be some change in the pocket. Aren't you the one who was wantin' some scratch?"

That changed everything. "Lead the way."

They walked over to the tree, wishing that a willow provided more shade.

The trousers were rolled up neatly and evenly, just at the base of the tree, where thousands of people passed every day.

Gomez tilted his head. There was something strange about all this. He wasn't quite sure what it was, but something was... not right. Off-kilter. Wrong.

He tentatively poked at the bundle with his fishing pole.

Slowly, one of the pant legs began to unfold.

A human head rolled out. Dirty, blood-soaked, severed at the top of the neck.

The boys didn't stop running until they reached home.

Ness closed the shutters on Chief Matowitz's office windows. He didn't want anyone observing, not even reading lips or taking cues from facial expressions. This was a private conversation. It had to be. This time, his concern was not that snitches in the police department might convey information to the mob. He was concerned that they might convey information to the press.

"There must be something more you can give me," Ness said, hovering over Matowitz's desk. "Toss me a bone. Something I can tell the newsboys."

"There isn't."

"There's always something."

"Not this time." Matowitz pushed away from his desk, creating more space between himself and his interrogator. "We got nothing."

"You told me you thought this was over."

"I said I hoped it was over. It's been-what? Three months since the last one?"

"Ought to be long enough for you to catch one killer."