Normally on a Monday, with a City Council meeting coming up at seven-thirty, Ness would have stayed in his office and worked straight through. But it was Ev's birthday and he had promised her they'd have supper together at the boathouse; then he could drive back and catch an hour or so of the meeting, for appearance sake, and return for a quiet evening with her.
He first met Ev MacMillan in Chicago, seven or eight years before, when he was still heading up the Justice Department's prohibition unit in Chicago. Daughter of a prominent stockbroker, she was really just a kid then, a fresh-faced art student; and Ness-married at the time-had taken notice of the attractive girl, but nothing more.
Then, a little over a year ago, at the Michigan-Chicago football game at Ann Arbor, he ran into her and some chums of hers at the stadium. He and Bob Chamberlin were staying at the same hotel as Ev, and she and her friends joined them for dinner. She had flirted with him, and he repaid the compliment, and as the wine flowed, things got friendly.
But sobering news, by way of a phone call, interrupted the proceedings: Ness's mother had died that afternoon.
Even though their relationship was but a few hours old, Ev insisted on accompanying him back to Chicago-she lived there, after all; and the two of them, still a little drunk, shared a compartment together and he cried in her arms. The thought should have embarrassed him, sober, over a year later, but it didn't.
He had stayed in Chicago for several days tying up family loose ends, and doing some work on the Chicago aspects of the then ongoing labor racketeering investigation. She had stayed by his side. Day and night.
And when it was time to return to Cleveland, she came with him-not to stay. Just to see if he was telling the truth when he whispered, "Cleveland is very beautiful during the wintertime." He didn't think she'd found it beautiful at all; gray, dirty Cleveland hardly suited her artistic sensibilities.
But Ness himself, apparently, did suit her; because she began applying for jobs on that very first visit. She was a gifted artist who had already illustrated several children's books for New York publishers, and he didn't have to pull a single string for her to land her job as fashion illustrator at Higbee's department store. A few months later, she moved to what she was inclined to call "the dullest, dirtiest city on earth."
Ev had no complaints, however, about the boathouse hide-away in posh suburban Lakewood. The boathouse, which belonged to one of the Burton/Ness financial "angels," was on Clifton Lagoon, the deepest mooring point on Lake Erie; the boathouse was in an exclusive subdivision with a private, guarded drive and high-tone occupants. Ness was probably the only non-millionaire of the bunch.
She had waited till after the November elections to move in with him; but there had been no direct talk of marriage. Apolitical though he was, Ness did not want to cause Mayor Burton any problems, nor did he want to endanger his own job. Cleveland was a conservative, predominantly Catholic community and Ness marrying for a second time would be viewed with disapproval by many a voter.
Setting up unmarried housekeeping together might seem dangerous in and of itself, but Ness was in so tight with the newspaper boys that the Ness/MacMillan cohabitation was unlikely to go reported. Even Jack Raper, who took catty swipes at Ness in his column from time to time, would look the other way on this one.
His first marriage, to the woman who had been his secretary back in his Chicago "untouchable" days, had not been an unhappy one, exactly; he still thought of his ex-wife with affection, and they kept in touch, though there had been no children. It had been the pressure of his profession-the long hours, the danger, and (Ness now realized) his reticence to speak about that-that had finally made their marriage come irreparably apart.
Usually, when he made this drive it was after dark; in the overcast winter late afternoon, the sky looked faded, like it was wearing out. The castle-like boathouse itself and the skeletal trees nearby were stark against the sky. Small but massive, the turreted structure rose two stories with a smaller, third tower-like story crouching on top; the lights were on in the tower, meaning Ev was at work. A half-story stone wall created a modest courtyard. The barrenness of this study in gray tones-gray sky, dark gray lacework of bare tree branches against that faded sky, darker gray stones of the castle itself-was made picturesque by the several inches of white on the ground. Only the cement ribbon of the road, yet another gray tone, broke the spell of the snow.
The breeze had some bite but he didn't mind, as he stepped out of the EN-1 Ford sedan, which he'd parked behind Ev's dark-blue Bugatti right in front. He paused to look at the frozen lagoon, white and gray and gray-blue stretching to the horizon. No yachts this time of year. The weather gave no special dispensation to the wealthy.
He hung his topcoat in the closet, and slipped out of his suitcoat, which he folded neatly over a chair near the stairs. The brown leather shoulder holster that he always wore was, as usual, empty; he didn't like to carry a gun, but when a gun was needed, he liked to be ready. But it looked a little silly, he knew, and he crawled out of the leather harness before climbing two flights of stairs to the tower.
The top floor was a single medium-sized room that had been turned into Ev's studio. It was well-organized, but gave the impression of untidiness because various reference photos and fashion-section clippings and preliminary drawings were taped here and there to the cream, plaster walls. The studio was filled with the expensive matching oak pieces Ev's parents had had delivered from Chicago: a pair of file cabinets, one for business papers, another (shorter, wider) for storing artwork; a bookcase stuffed with reference volumes; and a large drafting table, at which Ev sat in an office-style swivel chair, working on a large black-and-white illustration of a woman wearing a mannish pinstriped suit. She was applying watered-down india ink as a wash, making the suit gray.
She didn't notice him, at first, so lost in her work was she. Her light brunette hair was pinned up, but half-heartedly; her handsome features bore no make-up and horn-rimmed glasses hid her almond-shaped eyes. Wearing a shapeless blue smock, she was hunched over the drawing board, squinting, her right hand moving with swift, sure strokes, laying in the gray tones with a fine brush. She was sitting near the heat; his fat gray cat, Big Al, was curled up there.
"Hi, doll," he said.
She smiled immediately, but didn't take her eyes off her drawing. "What are you doing home, you big lug?"
"I told you I'd come home and spend some time before the council meeting."
"I know you did," she said, eyes still on the drawing, the smile tickling her lips. "I just didn't believe you."
"Hey, I'm an honest public servant. Everybody knows that." He looked over her shoulder. "The women are going to dress like men this year, huh?"
"Just the top layer," she said. "Still lacy underneath."
"That's a relief. Want me to go down and make us some drinks?"
"I'll go down with you," she said, and laid down a final stroke of gray. She cleaned the brush in a small glass of water on the work table next to her and grinned at him, showing perfect tiny white teeth. "There. That ought to please Mr. Bradley."
Bradley was the big boss at Higbee's department store and Ev had nothing to do with him, really; but she was always saying that.
She tossed the horn-rims on the work table, rose, stretched, showing off her nice, slender figure, pulling off the blue smock to reveal a simple white blouse and navy slacks. She was damn near as tall as he was. When she was through stretching, she slipped her arms around him and gave him a hug and then a slow, sloppy kiss.
"Don't go to that damn council meeting," she said, and pouted.
It made him laugh; she was the kind of strong woman who only pouted for effect, and when she did, it was ridiculous.
"We'll see."
"I've got a roast in the oven."
"You did believe me, when I said I'd come home."
"Hope springs eternal. Skip the council meeting."
"Why, is that what you want for your birthday?"
She grinned; she showed an expanse of pink gum when she did that-not very glamorous, he supposed, but appealing as hell.
"You remembered," she said.
He hadn't mentioned, this morning, that her birthday was why he planned to come home before the meeting.
"Let's go down downstairs, doll-you fix us some drinks. I'll start a fire."
"You already have, big boy."
He had called her "doll" almost from the beginning, which she found "corny," though she responded to it in kind.
They moved down the narrow stairway together, bumping shoulders and hips, and she went to the liquor cart and made Scotch on the rocks for him and a small pitcher of martinis for herself, while he got the fire going. He took off his tie and pitched it into the darkness; she unpinned her hair, let it tumble to her shoulders. They sat and drank and watched the glow of the fire and felt the glow of the fire and said very little, kissing frequently.
"Shouldn't we have supper?" she asked, glancing toward the kitchen.
"Dessert first," he said, nuzzling her neck.
They had dessert on the couch and after they'd got dressed again, he helped her in the kitchen. She had a mussed look that made him want dessert again, but he set the table for supper, anyway.
They ate in the kitchen. Nothing fancy. His tastes in food were simple-strictly meat and potatoes-and she catered to it. But they often ate in restaurants, particularly if she was working in the studio at Higbee's as opposed to at home. After the meal, she served him apple pie a la mode.
"Two desserts," he said, savoring a bite. "I'll get fat."
"If you want a third dessert, we can go back in front of the fireplace."
" You might get fat."
She smiled warmly. "I might like that."
He touched her hand. "I'd love it. I want children with you."
She gave him an arch look. "Are you proposing?"
They'd never really talked about it, directly.
He shrugged, smiled enigmatically, and finished his pie. Then he rose, walked to the closet by the front door and got the small package out of his topcoat pocket.
She was still finishing her slice of pie. She looked up at him, as she licked an ice-cream mustache away, and her eyes got wide as she saw the small pink-wrapped, silver-ribboned package and knew at once what it was.
She opened the little package greedily and looked at the less-than-breathtaking diamond ring as if it were more than breathtaking. She slipped the ring on and held her hand out and looked at it.
"Eliot-it's lovely! Lovely. How could you afford…?"
"It's not exactly the Hope diamond, doll."
In truth, the manager of a jewelry store he'd helped out last year in the labor extortion inquiry had given him a hell of a price break.
She stood and hugged him and kissed him, a cold ice-cream kiss, but ice-cream sweet, too. He slipped his arm around her and they walked back into the living room and sat on the couch before the smoldering fire, feet up on a divan.
"Eliot… do we dare do this?"
"Sure-but we ought to keep it to ourselves."
"Like, I shouldn't wear this ring?"
"Well, not to Higbee's… it'd just get in the way, wouldn't it? You work with your hands, after all…"
"Your reporter pals are going to know."
"They won't say anything."
"When can we… go public?"
"After the mayoral election. I owe that to Mayor Burton."
"That's November… almost a year…"
"I know. I'm sorry."
She sighed, but nodded; she looked at her ring wistfully. "You owe that much to Burton."
"This'll be his last mayoral campaign."
"Oh?"
"Keep it under your hat, but greater political prospects are around the corner for him."
"Governor? Senator? What?"
"Something like that."
She intertwined her legs with his. "This town'll be needing a mayor, you know."
"I suppose that's true."
"Nobody could beat you."
"Me? I'm no goddamn politician."
"Well. Nobody could beat you."
"Don't be silly."
"Think about it."
"I hate politics like poison."
"Then prove it. Skip the council meeting tonight."
"I shouldn't."
"You owe me, buster. You invite me to move in with you, turn this stone castle into our little love nest, and then you stay out all night all the time,"
He had, in fact, been out all night several nights a week for over two months now.
He shrugged. "It's the nature of this current case."
"How do I know you're not shacking up with some floozy at the Hollenden?"
She was well aware that he had set up a second, temporary office in a suite at the Hollenden Hotel, where he was interviewing witnesses for the numbers racket investigation, often at night.
He shrugged good-naturedly. "Why don't you hire a detective to follow me?"
"What, some private eye like your friend Heller, back in Chicago? I wouldn't trust him with change for a dollar."
"Then I guess you'll just have to trust me."
"What the hell kind of questioning are you doing in the middle of the night?"
"Well… I really can't say."
"Oh for Christsake, Eliot-who am I going to tell? You trust me, and I'll trust you, okay?"
He smiled. "Okay. We have to protect the identity of our witnesses. So we pick them up in the middle of the night-if anyone's around, we pretend to be arresting 'em."
"These are all Negroes? Numbers racketeers?"
"For the most part. In some cases, we do arrest them, when we have somebody who we think would make a good witness, but who needs some convincing."
"What kind of convincing? Third-degree convincing, you mean?"
"No. That's not my style. We explain our strategy, which is to get such a large number of witnesses that no single individual can be blamed by the bad guys for any indictments that come down. We preach safety in numbers."
"So you escort these witnesses to a room in the Hollenden."
"Yes-alley entrance, up the service elevator. We spend a lot of time giving them reassurances that they'll have protection from reprisals."
"And this works?"
"We have going on fifty witnesses, at this point."
She whistled. "That's not bad-safety in numbers, all right."
There was a knock at the door. An insistent knock.
He looked over his shoulder toward the sound, suspiciously. He didn't get many people knocking at his door out here-anybody who didn't live in the subdivision would have to get by the guard at the gate, and the guard would've called ahead in such a case.
"Probably a neighbor," she said, sensing the questions he was asking himself. "Somebody needs a cup of sugar or something."
The knocking continued, obnoxiously.
"I don't think so," he said. He got up, tucked in his pants, and got a gun from the top drawer of a small desk near the front window, where he took a moment to gently part the curtains and peek out.
"It's a man," Ness said, almost whispering, "but from this angle, in the dark, can't make him out."
She was still on the couch. She said, softly but audibly, "Is that gun really necessary?"
"I hope not."
He went to the front door and stood to one side of it and called out, "Who is it?"
"Answer the goddamn door, Eliot!"
Sam Wild.
He opened the goddamn door. The cold hit him like a bucket of water. The reporter, his tan gabardine trenchcoat belted tight, his snap brim felt hat pulled down over his eyes, hands in fur-lined leather gloves, nonetheless looked colder than hell. His breath was fog.
"Temperature dropped," Ness noted.
"Let me in, damnit! Freezing my nuts off, pardon my French."
Ness made a sweeping gesture for him to enter and Wild stepped in, shutting the door himself, then said, "Nice and toasty in here."
Ness said, sotto voce, "It's Ev's birthday, Sam. We're celebrating. This sure as hell better be important."
"It's important, all right. Your own people have been trying to call you for over an hour."
"What do you mean, trying?"
Ev's voice came from just behind him; she had snuck up on the great detective. "I'm afraid I took the phone off the hook," she admitted. "Right before dinner."
He turned and looked at her sharply.
She winced.
He sighed and worked to soften his look and, with a tense smile, said, "Please don't ever do that."
"I'm sorry," she said. She obviously meant it, but her feelings were hurt. She slipped back into the living room. He turned back to Wild.
"So?" he said, irritated.
"You ever hear of a cop named Willis? Clifford Willis?"
"No."
"He's a white cop working the Negro district. Or he was."
"Was?"
"He got shot tonight."
"Oh, Christ. Where?"
"If you're talking anatomy, he got shot a lot of places. If you're talking geography, the body turned up in the front yard of a house on Hawthorne."
"Christ! That's just a block off Central…"
"Yes. A very lively colored neighborhood. And a very dead white cop. Your boys are at the scene right now. I volunteered to come fetch you."
Ness nodded. "What's the exact address?"
"5718 Hawthorne."
"Okay. Thanks, Sam. You go on. I'll be along in my own car, in a minute."
Wild nodded, said, "Sorry I busted in on your, uh, celebration."
"Don't give it a thought. See you at the scene."
Wild nodded again and went out.
Ness went into the living room, where Ev was sitting quietly, even morosely, staring at the dwindling fire.
He stood before her. "You want me to throw a few logs on before I go?"
He didn't wait for her to answer, just went ahead and did it. Got the fire going again, strong; it blazed, casting an orange glow on them.
She looked up at him yearningly. "Must you go?"
He put the iron poker back and sat down next to her. "Cop killing in the colored district."
"I understand," she said. And she did. There was nothing whiney about it; disappointment, yes-but not resentment.
He sat with her for a moment. "I didn't mean to snap at you."
"I shouldn't have taken the phone off the hook."
He said nothing.
"I just wanted to spend one damn evening with you. Is that a crime?" Here was some resentment. But no bitterness, at least.
"It's not a crime," he said. "It is a crime, leaving you alone on your birthday, though. Tell you what."
"What?"
"Make you a deal. I won't hold it against you, for the phone, if you don't hold it against me, for going."
She smiled wickedly. "Maybe I want you to hold it against me."
"Hold what against you? Oh. That. Listen, doll, I gotta go…"
"This minute?"
"This minute."
He stood.
She looked beautiful, hair around her shoulders, clothes in vague disarray. "Can I wait up for you?"
"Sure. I'll try not to be long. Keep the fire going, why don't you? But if you do go up to bed, I'll wake you when I get home."
"You better."
He found his tie and put it on and the shoulder holster, too, though he left the gun behind. He was putting on his topcoat when she called to him from the living room.
"Eliot! Thank you. Thank you for the diamond."
"You're welcome, doll. Don't let the fire go out."
"I won't," she said, "if you won't."