Max Collins - Bullet proff

"Please have a seat, Mrs. Whitehall," Ness said, gesturing to one of the conference-table chairs. "Can I take your coat?"

"No," she said. "I won't be staying long."

She stood, clutching her small purse, obviously embarrassed.

"Is there some way I can help you?" Ness asked.

She sighed and smiled awkwardly and said, "I'm here to make a long overdue apology."

"None is needed."

"The night Jack died, I was pretty rough on you."

"No apology is needed, Mrs. Whitehall."

"You weren't to blame for Jack's death. Both Joe McFarlin and your reporter friend Sam Wild have gone out of their way to explain that to me."

"Well… that's kind of them, but-"

"Mr. Ness. Please. This isn't easy for me. Joe, and Mr. Wild, made it clear to me that it was the Teamster activity at the food terminal that got Jack killed. And, in fact, it was you who brought Jack's murderer, that horrible man Gibson, to his demise."

Ness felt a wave of weariness wash over him; he sat on the edge of the conference table and said, "Mrs. Whitehall. I didn't intentionally cause the death of Harry Gibson. I was there to arrest him. Frankly, if I'd been more effective in my job, Gibson would've stayed alive, and we would have had the ammunition needed to put his bosses away for life, at least, or better yet, provide them a very hot place to temporarily sit."

She smiled in a manner that crinkled her chin; she seemed to be holding back tears. "You put those terrible men away. You worked very hard, and you put them in prison, this Caldwell and McFate. I followed it in the papers. I even went to the trial on several occasions."

"I know. I noticed you there."

"You've brought their house down. That's what's important. And Joe McFarlin tells me that, well, as he puts it, 'Democracy has been restored to the carpenters and glaziers unions.'"

Ness smiled. "Yes. I understand that's the case. A happy side effect of the investigation."

"Jack would have approved, Mr. Ness. He would have approved your efforts. I know he wouldn't have helped you, otherwise."

Ness couldn't quite bring himself to tell her that he'd essentially blackmailed her husband into helping him, holding that assault charge over Jack's head; but he did feel Whitehall would have been very glad to see Caldwell and McFate out of business and behind bars.

"I'm sorry I slapped you," she said, and, impulsively, she touched his cheek; her hand was cool.

"It's all right," Ness said. "Really."

"Thank you for… accepting my apology."

"None needed. None needed. You know, we may still put Caldwell and McFate away on a murder charge. Gibson had an accomplice who drove a car for him when he tried to shoot me, a while back. If we can find him-"

"It doesn't matter. That would be fine, but you've done quite enough. You've done very well."

The two stood and shared a stiff silence.

Then Ness, almost blurting, said, "You should be proud of your husband, Mrs. Whitehall, what he accomplished with his life."

"Even if you didn't always agree with his methods?"

Ness smiled one-sidedly. "A lot of people don't agree with my methods."

Worry touched her face. "Mr. Ness, I'm pleased that you think I should be proud of Jack. But can I suggest one thing? Where labor is concerned, please be careful that your activities are such that my late husband might be proud of you."

"Mrs. Whitehall, I'll make every attempt to-"

"No offense, Mr. Ness. But Jack was worried about you… about you living in that fancy castle they've given you, going to nightclubs and country clubs and all with society people. Someday they'll send you a bill, Jack said."

"I'll… keep that in mind, Mrs. Whitehall."

She studied him, her tears in check; then, following another impulse, she kissed him on the cheek, where she had once struck him.

Then she was gone, and he stood holding his face, recalling, for some reason, the burning sensation of her months-ago slap.

He sat back down at his desk and was finishing up some paperwork when the intercom buzzed.

"Another visitor without an appointment, sir," Wanda said. She sounded uncharacteristically impressed. "It's Cyril Easton."

So it was time to hear from Cleveland's richest financier. To hear how pleased the city's industrial leaders were with his work on the labor racketeering front. He would accept the compliments graciously, but already he felt unsettled.

"Yes," he said, and shivered. "Well, send him in."

As was the case with the two previous Eliot Ness novels, The Dark City (1987) and Butcher's Dozen (1988), I could not have written this book without the support and advice of my friend and research associate George Hagenauer. George and I have made several research trips to Cleveland, where we visited many of the sites of the action in this novel. We have had numerous sessions at the Western Reserve Historical Society, where the Ness papers are kept. We are both grateful to the helpful personnel at the Historical Society, City Hall municipal reference library, and Cleveland Public Library.

Despite its extensive basis in history, this is a work of fiction, and some liberties have been taken with the facts; the remarkably eventful life of Eliot Ness defies the necessarily tidy shape of a novel, and for that reason I have again compressed time, occasionally reordered events, and used composite characters.

Readers of Butcher's Dozen may wish to note that the action of this novel takes place in the period of time filling the gap between sections one and two of that novel.

Some characters, like Sam Wild and Albert Curry, are wholly fictional, although they do have real-life counterparts. Wild represents the many reporter friends of Ness, particularly Clayton Fritchey of the Press, who, like the fictional Wild, were assigned to cover Ness full-time; and Ralph Kelly of the Plain Dealer, who also covered the City Hall beat.

Big Jim Caldwell and Little Jim McFate are primarily based upon Don Campbell and John McGee, although neither of these notorious convicted felons were ever linked to the death of Arthur Whitelock, the real-life counterpart of Jack Whitehall. Whitelock's murder remains unsolved, although it was obviously tied to his unconventional union-organizing activities.

Harry Gibson is a fictional character, although he has several real-life counterparts in Cleveland labor racketeering circles of the 1930s. Specifically, the extortion racket at the food terminal (and Eliot Ness's investigation thereof) is based closely on fact, although dates have been shifted.

Among the historical figures included here under their real names are Mayor Harold Burton (whose congratulatory letter to Ness as it appears in this novel is a verbatim transcription, with the exception of the substitution of the names "Caldwell and McFate" for "Campbell and McGee"); Chief George Matowitz; Executive Assistant Safety Director Robert Chamberlin; Captain John Savage; Elmer Irey; Judge Alva Cortlett; and Prosecutor Frank T. Cullitan. Mentioned in passing, Frank Nitti and Louis Campagna of course existed; and the names of Eliot Ness's family members used herein are the real ones.

Will Garner, the former "untouchable," is based upon Bill Gardner, who was indeed on Ness's Chicago Capone squad. To my knowledge, Gardner did not work with Ness in Cleveland; but according to several sources, including Oscar Fraley's Four Against the Mob, at least one former "untouchable" was on the safety director's staff of investigators. But Ness did not publicize the names of his investigators, who were nicknamed in the press "the unknowns," a name that did not catch on in the manner of "the untouchables." Fraley implies in his slightly fictionalized book (most names are changed, for instance, and some dates) that this staff member was Paul Robsky; but in Robsky's own self-aggrandizing autobiography (co-written with Fraley), The Last of the Untouchables (1962), a work which outrageously all but omits Eliot Ness from the story of that famed squad, Robsky makes no mention of having worked in Cleveland. I chose to use Gardner as the basis for the ex-"untouchable" on the Cleveland staff because, frankly, I found him the most interesting of Ness's Chicago investigative team.