Nemesis: The Final Case of Eliot Ness (34 page)

"Because he's playing with us. Giving us the horselaugh. He gets kicks out of that, like the alienist told us." Merylo drew in his breath. "Because he knows we can't catch him."

Ness felt the words burrow into his brain. Because he knows we can't catch him. He knows.

Momentarily distracted from the evidence, Ness heard shouts coming from the all-too-close crowd.

"When are you going to catch this madman?"

"Why aren't you protecting us?"

"How many people are going to have to die before you do something?"

To the amazement of his colleagues, Ness turned toward the crowd, hands spread wide open. "We're doing everything we possibly can."

"You would've caught him long ago if he were killing people uptown!"

"No one cares about us!"

"He's making you look like a fool!"

Ness turned away. "Do you hear them, Merylo? Do you hear what they're saying?"

Merylo looked puzzled. "Who? The crowd?"

"They're laughing at us. Just like the killer is. Everyone is laughing at us."

"I don't hear anything. No point in listening to that mob."

"Get rid of them," Ness said, under his breath. "Disperse the crowd. Miles away."

"I'm not sure we have the right," Zalewski said. "This is public property."

"This is a crime scene. They're interfering with an official investigation."

"We'll need a lot more men."

"Then get them!" Ness snapped. "Get them now!"

Zalewski glanced at Merylo. Merylo nodded. "I'll get right on it, sir." He skittered away.

Ness approached Merylo, much too close, laying his hands on the man's shoulders. "We have to do something, Merylo. We have to catch this killer."

"We've been trying. We don't have anything. Our best suspect got away."

"We have to find someone else. We have to end this."

"I agree. But how? He owns this neighborhood. It's his own private hunting ground."

All at once, the words flashed through Ness's memory like a branding iron on flesh. Man is the most dangerous game. And these are the killing fields.

"That's it," Ness murmured under his breath. "That's the answer."

"What?" Merylo said, his face contorted. "What are you talking about?"

"He was giving us a clue."

"Are you feeling all right? I think maybe you need some rest. Get some shut-eye. You'll feel better in the morning."

Ness pushed away from him. "No. We have a busy night ahead, Detective."

"Doing what?"

"We need more men. Lots more. Forget about the crowd. Call everyone you know at the department. I'll call my people. Maybe we can even get some loaners from the fire department."

"To do what?"

"It's simple, Merylo. Why didn't I see it before? If we can't catch the killer, we'll remove his prey."

"And how are we going to do that?"

"By taking Shantytown away from him."

"Are you kidding? Do you know how many people are living out there? They'll never agree to move."

Ness peered straight ahead, his eyes fixed and glassy. "We won't give them a choice."

Ness stood in the midst of the assembled officers and volunteers at the top of the Eagle Street ramp, just on the edge of Shantytown. It was a pitch-black night, but from their vantage point they could still see the sprawling hobo village stretching out in the distance. Ness had managed to assemble twenty-five detectives and uniformed police officers. Several firemen and a fire truck. They were armed with clubs, guns, flashlights, hammers. Ness was carrying an axe handle, the same implement he had used to break down the doors of speakeasies and hooch warehouses. They were all hanging on his every word, ready to implement his instructions on his command.

"McDonald. I want you to take your men to the hill at the junction of Commercial and Canal. Stop anyone trying to slip out the back way."

"Understood."

"Go." They did. "Marshall Granger?"

"Yes, sir."

"I want you to park your truck at the crest of the ramp. Shine an arc lamp down on Shantytown. I want to be able to see what we're doing. I want to see everything."

"Understood."

"Good. Do it."

He split the remaining men into groups, then divided Shantytown, giving each of them a piece. "I want everyone taken out for questioning, then removed. No one takes anything with them. I don't want any evidence disappearing."

"Yes, sir."

"Consider this a military operation. An attack behind enemy lines. We miss nothing."

"Yes, sir!" the men responded.

"And then," Ness said quietly, "we make sure they never come back."

Ness led his team down the ramp and into Shantytown. Almost no one was up and about this late at night. Ness was instantly assaulted by the pungent smell of cheap liquor, human waste, boiled chicken. It was like stomping through the sewer. He hated it, but he kept marching forward, scattering stray cats with almost every step, plunging deep into the twisted heap of cardboard boxes and canvas and corrugated metal.

Ness pounded the door of the first hovel he reached with his axe handle. "Police! Open up!"

There was no response, but Ness could hear movement inside.

"Open up! This is your last chance!"

Chamberlin laid a hand on his shoulder. "Boss, even if it's made out of metal, it's still a home. They have rights."

Ness shrugged him away. "He's a squatter, Bob. He's not supposed to be here."

"But-"

"We're coming in!"

Ness battered away at the flimsy metal door. It didn't take much to knock it down.

The men shone their flashlights inside. The squalor was shocking. Chicken bones on the ground, several days old. Almost a dozen empty booze bottles. It stank worse in here than it did outside.

In the rear, a grizzled old man cowered, trying to hide himself in blankets. "D-d-didn't... do anything!"

"You'll have to vacate immediately," Ness said.

"I'm... not goin' anywhere! I d-d-didn't do anything!"

"You're drunk. Drunk and disorderly. Haul him away, men!"

"No! This is my home!" Two of Ness's officers stepped forward and grabbed the man's arms. "I ain't done nothin' wrong!"

"We just want to talk to you."

"Let me get my things!"

"No.

"This is all I got! All I got in the world!"

"Don't make me arrest you. You're a vagrant, and pursuant to Municipal Code section-"

"I got a job! Down at the factory. But I'll lose it if they find out I've been arrested!"

"You're just being taken in for questioning. Now go!"

"I-I don't unnerstand. My stuff-"

"Believe me, this is for your own good."

"But I don't want to go!"

Ness nodded to his men. "Take him to the way station at the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge. There are trucks waiting to transport the vagrants to the Central Police Station for further questioning. Now!"

Ness stepped outside. All around, he could see his men in action. They were raiding each and every makeshift home, hauling the occupants out. Most of the men looked drunk or hungover, but there were also women and a few children. They were confused, disoriented. They didn't understand why they were being awakened in the middle of the night and herded together. Children cried for their toys and dolls, but they were allowed to take nothing. The land was alive with the thunderous tumult of swearing, pleading, crying, dogs barking, doors being battered down.

Shantytown had become hell on earth.

By three in the morning, every living occupant of Shantytown had been rousted out and herded like human cattle to the nearest way station. Everyone was questioned and fingerprinted. Officers from the Animal Protective League patrolled the now vacant grounds, rounding up stray animals, saving them from what was soon to come. Ness and his men made a final sweep, searching the hovels for stragglers and evidence. They found nothing of value, nothing that related to the torso murders.

When he was sure the area was completely vacated, Ness enlisted the aid of two complete companies of firemen led by Battalion Chief Charles Rees.

"Are you ready, Chief?" Ness asked.

Rees nodded. "At your order, sir."

"The word is given, Chief." Ness turned his eyes toward Shantytown. "Burn it. Burn it to the ground."

The firemen swept through what was left of Shantytown pouring coal oil on the cardboard boxes, trash, personal property, everything. And when it had been thoroughly soaked, they set it on fire.

The blaze raced through Shantytown with a speed that amazed even Ness. What had only a few hours before been a teeming hobo village was now an inferno. Flames stretched to the sky; from a mile away people could feel the heat. The fire raged like an incinerator grown to the size of a city block, so intense that onlookers had to shield their eyes.

Now Shantytown really was hell on earth.

No more Shantytown? But it was so easy!

Perhaps that was the point. He had to admit he was intrigued. Finally, Eliot Ness had become interesting, For so long, he had been predictable. Just another policeman. And now this. How should he respond?

Nothing to do but to proceed with one's work.

But without Shantytown, where would he go to find his people? Perhaps it was time to move on...

But the business felt unfinished. Too much left undone. If he was leaving Cleveland, he needed to create some kind of climax worthy of the adventure. Some way to escalate the business, to bring it to a satisfying conclusion. The esteemed safety director had devoted so much time and energy to him. Wouldn't it be delightful if he could turn the tables? Man was the most dangerous game, after all.

He knew where Ness lived. He knew his wife was leaving him.

Endgame. That was what they called it back in the Chess Club. The time had come for the endgame.

The hunter and the hunted should meet. Face-to-face. What kind of conclusion would it be if he never had the satisfaction of looking into those eyes just at the moment when Ness realized how stupid he had been, how painfully ignorant, how utterly at sea?

Ness believed science could solve everything. But he had brought the safety director something science had no answer for.

Ness would never understand, would never realize how foolish he had been.

Till the day he died.

Ness slammed shut his bottom desk drawer the instant Chamberlin entered his office.

"Sir, have you seen the article in the Press?"

"Is it any different from the others?"

"Much the same. Except perhaps... stronger."

"We did the right thing, Bob. I don't care what the newshounds think."

Chamberlin gave him a long look.

"All right, maybe I care. But I won't be second-guessed. I'm the safety director. I have to do what's right for the people."

Chamberlin threw the paper onto Ness 's desk. "I think perhaps you'd better read the editorial. Sir."

Ness grabbed the paper and sought out the article in question.

"... dwellers are not thanking Mr. Ness for his concern about their remaining unidentified if their heads should be chopped off. Nor do they thank him for burning down the village. The net result of the director's raid seems to have been the wrecking of a few miserable huts and the confinement of the occupants. We can see no justification for the jailing of the jobless and penniless men and the wrecking of their miserable hovels without permitting them to collect their personal belongings and..."

Ness slapped the paper down on his desk. "Are these people blind? Do they not understand that we might have found evidence identifying the killer?"

"I wish we had," Chamberlin said. "We'd look a lot better."

"If we let people take anything, the killer would've taken everything."

"Some people think he did."

"That's ridiculous." Ness pushed himself out of the chair and began pacing. "If he'd been there, we'd have caught him. He just wasn't there."

"Which unfortunately makes some feel like we burned Shanty-town for no good reason. Like we were being cruel to people in need."

"Cruel? Those folks can relocate to the Wayfarer's Lodge. That's where they should have been in the first place. We can't have people camping out at Kingsbury Run. It's unsafe and unhealthy and perpetuates these murders."

"It still seems cruel to some-taking away from those who have little at all. Like instead of helping them, you're hurting them."

"Why would I do that?" Ness leaned against the windowsill and stared out at the city. "Have there been any more murders since we took away Shantytown?"

"It's only been a week."

"The answer is, no. No more murders."

"That we know of."

"No more murders because we took away the killer's hunting ground. Those vagrants the
Press
is so concerned about were easy pickings for the killer. Now he doesn't know what to do."

"For how long?"

Ness whirled on his assistant. "Are you questioning my judgment?"

Chamberlin thought a moment before answering. "Does it matter?"

Ness's eyes burned into Chamberlin's. "How long have you been against me?"

"I'm not against you."

"But you're attacking me over this Shantytown thing."

"I thought it was a bad idea at the time. I would've told you so. If you'd asked."

"Then I'm glad I didn't. I did the right thing." He paused. "I just didn't go far enough."

"What do you mean?"

"I took away the killer's victims. But that's not good enough for these people. They want more. They want the killer's blood."

"Are you feeling all right? You're talking a little-"