"What bookie joints are those?" Wild said, almost disgruntledly, swirling his bourbon in his glass. "Our esteemed safety director has shut down every bookie joint I know of. This city is getting as boring as its reputation, thanks to young Mr. Ness, here."
Seeley sipped his beer and said to Ness, "We lost count at eighty-four times in one month, when your men Powers and Allen kept raiding that same bookie joint… busted up the place so often the poor bastard bookie had to put two full-time carpenters on staff, to keep the place up and running. Finally said the hell with it and closed up shop."
"So what's left?" Fritchey asked. He laughed humorlessly. "The numbers game? You going to try to clean up the colored east side? That's rich."
Ness had an impassive expression, though a crease between his eyebrows belied that. He said, "First things first. There's another raid to make. Right here in downtown Cleveland."
"Another raid?" Seeley said. "What, is some penny-ante joint crouching in some corner somewhere? After you shuttered Maxie Diamond, what the hell is left?"
About a month before. Ness had invited the press along to view-and record-a lightning-swift raid on downtown Cleveland's biggest and busiest bookie joint, run by Maxie Diamond. A cigar counter and soft-drink machine provided the front for the East Ninth Street betting hall, and a bell and light system warned operators and players if any cops should arrive. Secret panels were built in the walls for racing sheets, telephones, betting slips, and playing cards to be stowed away, and in a secret room in the rear, a trapdoor and hidden panel permitted escape.
Diamond's success led to the construction of a second betting room in the basement; carpenters and electricians were put to work on what would have been a concrete anti-police fortress with steel doors. Ness had put an undercover man in the Diamond joint, and the undercover man tipped the safety director that the escape paths would be temporarily blocked because of the construction.
"We got some great pics on that little raiding party," Seeley said with a contented sigh. "Lucky for you Maxie didn't have those steel doors up. Even the great Ness couldn't kick in those babies."
There were smiles all around, Ness included, but Wild said, "Come on, fellas. Just because the bookie joints are pretty much shut down, that doesn't mean bettin' the horses in Cleveland is a thing of the past."
"Lombardi is taking a cue from his own racket," said Fritchey, casually. "Just like the numbers game-he's using runners."
"Right," Ness said, nodding. "Commission men. They work the streets, and call in the bets. Work for five percent of the bets plus a percentage of the winnings of their 'clients.' "
Wild raised an eyebrow. "Hell, that is a page right out of the numbers racket…"
"Black Sal Lombardi is nothing if not a shrewd business-man," Ness said, with grudging respect. "He's reduced his overhead and, at the same time, worked out a system that keeps crowds from congregating in one place and attracting police suspicion."
"With bookies continually calling in their bets," Wild said, "they don't have to haul around pocketsful of betting slips, meaning they won't get collared with any slips in their possession."
"No betting slips," Fritchey said, with a world-weary little shrug, "no evidence for a conviction."
"The perfect crime," Seeley said.
"No," said Ness, and a tiny smug smile tugged one corner of his mouth. "It's smooth, it's smart… but perfect it's not."
"Where's the loophole?" Wild said. "How do you raid a bookie joint that isn't there? What are you going to do, kick in the door of every phone booth in town?"
Ness sipped his coffee, savoring the strong brew, and the moment. He said, "Those phone calls the bookies make have somebody on the other end of 'em."
The reporters began to slowly nod.
"We've learned," Ness said, "that there is a 'nerve center,' with several dozen warm bodies working a battery of phones. That nerve center is within spitting distance, gentlemen."
"Yeah?" Wild said, sitting forward.
"It's on the seventh floor of the old Leader Building," Ness said, pointing. "Right across the street."
"Hot damn," Wild said. "When do we go?"
"Right now," Ness said. "You go call your photographers. Meet me across the street, in the Leader lobby, in five minutes."
The reporters were going even as the last word left Ness's lips.
Ness signed the check, slipped on his dark gray fedora, and, walking through the hotel's drugstore, stepped outside onto Sixth Street where a golden Indian summer afternoon awaited. He stood back from the stream of pedestrians for a moment and drank in the day. The Hollenden Hotel at his back, a fourteen-story red-brick Victorian structure on the southeast corner of Superior and Sixth, was the center of downtown Cleveland's social life. Public Square was a stone's throw away. City Hall, where the safety director's office was, was but a short walk north; there were several newspapers nearby, including the Plain-Dealer Building across the way diagonally. On the southwest side of Superior and Sixth was the tall gray nondescript Leader Building (the Leader, once a major Cleveland paper, had been swallowed up by the News years before).
This was the heart of the city-swarming with politicians, lawyers, newsmen, business executives, sportsmen. What better place for the nerve center of the city's gambling syndicate?
Jaywalking with care, the director of public safety crossed to the side entrance of the Leader Building, between a haberdashery and a cigar store. In the glorified hallway of a lobby, a bank of elevators on either side, Robert Chamberlin and several plainclothes cops were waiting.
"Got everything covered?" Ness asked his executive assistant. "Stairs, elevators, fire escape?"
"Yes indeed," Chamberlin said, a smile twitching under his tiny black mustache. "The press on the way?"
"They're scurrying after their photogs like rats after cheese."
"Knowing the sporting habits of the local press," Chamberlin smirked, "I can't think they'll be eager to see us close this shop down."
Chamberlin was a tall broad-shouldered man nearing forty, a lawyer who was equally at home with investigative and administrative duties. Shovel-jawed and sharp featured, with dark slicked-back hair, he had a military bearing that was partly offset by a wry sense of humor.
"Wild and the others do like to gamble," Ness admitted. "But they love a headline."
"Yes," said Chamberlin, "and we like to gamble, too, don't we? Tipping the press before a raid… they could leak it."
"That's why I waited till you'd had a chance to seal this building up," Ness said, "before I told 'em."
"There is a new wrinkle."
"Oh?"
"Shades of Maxie Diamond-they've installed a metal door."
"You're kidding; right in the hallway of an office building? That's a little conspicuous, isn't it?"
Chamberlin shook his head, no. "It's on the inside. I sent Al Curry up there posing as a confused Western Union messenger who went to the wrong office, and he got a good look. There's a receptionist in an outer office, and a big, heavy, gray steel door leads to the inner office, where the nerve center is."
Ness thought about that. "They'll be sitting at tables writing bets down on flash paper, with matches at their fingertips and wastebaskets at their feet. Damn."
"It's going to be tough to get in there before the evidence is ashes," Chamberlin admitted. "The receptionist obviously is a lookout man-a better-looking lookout man than the Mayfield Road boys usually utilize, if Curry's to be believed… but a lookout man nonetheless."
"Nobody's up on the seventh floor yet?"
"Right. Garner and the raiding party are waiting on the sixth floor, as you instructed."
Ness checked his watch. He made a clicking sound and said, "The reporters will be here any second. You bring 'em up to the seventh floor at four o'clock sharp."