Karamu Theater was part of Playhouse Settlement, three old adjacent 38th Street buildings near Central Avenue that had been remodeled, over the period of years since 1915, into a recreation and cultural center for the Negro community. Two white social workers from Chicago, Russell and Rowena Jelliffe, had originally intended the settlement house to be a bridge between the white and colored populations of Cleveland; but integrated projects, like productions of biracial plays, fell by the wayside as the Roaring Third became more and more a black ghetto.
Sam Wild had done a few feature articles on Karamu Theater over the years, most recently one about the nationally prominent Negro playwright Langston Hughes, who was based in Cleveland these days and had helped mount several productions of his own works at Karamu with their resident Gilpin Players. Wild knew these occasional articles did not reflect any sense of responsibility on the part of his paper to acknowledge the existence of Negroes in Cleveland; but were rather a sop to the prominent white liberals whose financial backing made the settlement possible.
The nearby Grant Park playground was absent of children on this winter afternoon, its swing sets and slides and such powdered white by the light snowfall. A colored man wearing several heavy frayed sweaters and an equally frayed stocking cap and worn cotton gloves was sweeping the snow away from the wide walk in front of the three old but refurbished brick buildings. Sam Wild led Eliot Ness into one of them, the Karamu Theater itself.
As they angled down the aisle, the two men took in the African-themed theater (Karamu was, after all, Swahili for "a place of joyful meeting"). Burlap painted with striking, primitive designs hung on the walls, where the house lights were also mounted, set inside carved wooden fixtures resembling West African chopping bowls. On the ceiling shone a bright yellow sun with black rays emanating in all directions, while the proscenium had bold diagonal stripes painted on it. On the bare stage, colored actors and actresses in street clothes with scripts in hand were running through something; their voices boomed in the theater, resonant, well-articulated. Not your usual Roaring Third dialect.
Sitting about halfway down the aisle at the left was a hand-some, well-groomed, chocolate-complexioned, mustached young Negro. He wore tan pants and a white shirt open at the neck. He had his feet up on the seat before him and was watching the rehearsal; he had a pad and pencil in his lap, on top of his prayerfully folded hands. "How you doin', Katzi?"
"Samuel," Katzi said, smiling; it was a seductive smile. The man's eyes were dark and alert, amused and sad. He hauled his feet down off the seat in front of him and stepped out in the aisle. He was of medium size, five-nine and slender.
"This would be the director of public safety," Katzi said, in a tone that mixed respect with irony.
"It would," Ness said, and returned the ironic smile, and extended his hand. Katzi shook it.
"Why don't you gentlemen have a seat here in my office?" Katzi said, with a magnanimous gesture. "If we keep our voices down, we can talk." He glanced back up at the stage.
"They're rehearsing Porgy-the DuBose Heyward play, not that jive-ass musical."
"Fine," Ness said, and nodded back up the aisle. "But let's sit back a ways, so we don't disturb them."
"Suits me," Katzi said, and moved up the aisle. He was as graceful as a dancer.
Wild had filled Ness in on Katzi's background, coming over. Katzi was a former policy runner and gambler who had worked for such diverse Roaring Third racketeers as "Bunch Boy" Smith, "Hotstuff" Johnson, and Johnny Perry; he had also been in solid with policy kings John C. Washington, Willie "the Emperor" Rushing, and Rufus Murphy.
Originally he had hung around with a strongarm artist named Ramsey, and the pair had been nicknamed "Big Katzi" and "Little Katzi" after the Katzenjammer Kids in the funnies. But Ramsey wasn't around anymore, and now Little Katzi was just plain Katzi.
Katzi, who'd had some college, had at one time possessed a reputation for violence. "Little Katzi will kill you," had been the word, from the pimps, hustlers, gamblers, and whores of the Roaring Third. He had packed a. 44 Colt revolver and had once pistol-whipped the white proprietor of a restaurant on the fringe of the ghetto when refused service. A few years back, Katzi had done a stretch at the Ohio pen for armed robbery. He was on parole now.
Wild had only known Katzi for the past two years; but he liked and respected, warily, the charming if unpredictable young Negro. In the pen, Katzi hadn't been required to do hard labor, having a disability pension from the Ohio State Industrial Commission for a work injury years before. Instead he'd spent his time teaching himself to be a writer, and began publishing articles and stories in Negro weeklies like the Call and Post and then in pulp magazines like Abbott's and finally (making Wild somewhat envious) selling short stories to Esquire and Coronet.
Katzi was the only colored reporter in Cleveland; true, he was basically just a stringer, writing vignettes for the editorial pages of the News. But it was a singular distinction none-the-less, and he was currently working on the WPA writers project, writing the history of Cleveland for the Ohio guidebook.
Ness edged into the final row of seats at the rear of the theater; Katzi followed and Wild followed him. The three men sat and Wild asked Katzi if it was okay to smoke in here.
"It is if you offer me one," Katzi said, and Wild did.
Wild lit Katzi's Lucky, and asked, "How's the WPA writing comin'?"
"Beats diggin' sewers for 'em," he said. "Last year this time, I was dredging creeks in the snow and ice, out in the suburbs. As WPA gigs go, this one's a plum."
"You going to write a paragraph on Karamu in the guidebook?"
"Naw. I'm doin' a little piece on it for Howard."
N. R. Howard was the editor of the News.
Wild lit his own Lucky. "How's the prison novel comin'?"
"Done. Showin' it around, without much luck. So, Samuel. Is that why you wanted to get together? To ask me about my career? Oh, hey, thanks for the gloves, man. I'm makin' a livin' writing, but just barely. A buck a piece for these damn 'vignettes' don't go very far."
Wild reached in his coat pocket and withdrew a ten-dollar bill. "How far will this go?"
Katzi grinned, his eyes flickered. "The meter is runnin'."
Ness said, "Was Clifford Willis a dirty cop?"
Katzi shifted in his seat and grinned lazily at the safety director. "That depends on how you define dirty."
"Why don't you define it for me, then."
"In your way of thinking, Willis was dirty. Where I come from, the numbers is a part of the way things are, and so is paying off a cop for protection. But, yeah. He was on the pad, to the numbers racketeers."
"Scalise and Lombardi, you mean."
Katzi blew out smoke; up on the stage the actors were emoting, their voices echoing like an insistent conscience.
"That's recent history," Katzi said, with an easy smile.
"Go back a few years, when the Emperor opened his first policy house. Before that, Rufus Murphy had the only policy house in Cleveland, the Green House. He made sweet money, Rufus did-that illiterate son-of-a-bitch sent his daughter to school in Paris."
Ness was listening politely, but Wild could tell he wanted Katzi to get to the heart of things.
But Katzi was a storyteller and couldn't be hurried. "So Emperor Rushing, who was running gambling houses up till then, sent for a pal in Chicago name of Cateye, who knew the policy racket, and they opened up the Tijuana House. After the Emperor opened his house and was real successful, a lot of colored hustlers, gamblers, pimps, club owners, businessmen got in on the act and opened houses of their own. The policy racket was booming."
"Which means," Ness said, "the cops working the Negro district went on the take."
"It sure does. And Willis was working that beat as a patrolman."
Ness sighed. "What about Toussaint Johnson?"
"What about him?"
"Was he on the pad?"
Katzi's eyes narrowed shrewdly. "I understand Toussaint is workin' with you these days."
"That's right."
"So do you really want to know the answer to that question?"
Ness said nothing. Then he nodded.
"Well," Katzi said, with a big grin, "I don't think I'll answer it, anyway. Toussaint is a hell of a guy-and I can tell you this, he is not on the pad, today. He hates those Italian mobsters like fire hates water. He is not on the pad. You dig? You understand?"
"Yes," Ness said.
"But Willis was," Wild said. "On the pad."
Katzi nodded emphatically. "When policy was booming, and the alky mob got Repeal dropped in their ugly laps, that's when Black Sam and Little Angelo muscled in."
"Did you witness any of that?" Ness asked, quickly.
"No. I was in the pen at the time. When I went inside, Rufus, the Emperor, and Johnny C. were on top of the world. When I come out a couple years ago, they were dead, turned stooge, and retired, respectively. And Willis was on the Scalise and Lombardi payroll."
"I see."
Katzi laughed; it was mellow. "You know, you were the best thing that ever happened to Willis."
"Me?" Ness said, shocked.
"Willis was a patrolman, remember. He had a taste of the take, but nothin' major, mind you. When you come in back in '35 like a big brass band, you shook things up by transferring cops from one precinct to another, all over town."
"Right," said Ness, somewhat defensively. "That upset crooked apple carts all over the city."
"Sure it did. It was smart. Hey, I'm not bein' critical, Mr. Ness. And a whole lot of those transfers you made were big cheeses. Officers-captains and lieutenants and sergeants and detectives. Am I right?"
"Of course you are," Ness said, trying to mask his confusion, not terribly well. "That's where the power was. We had a crooked department within the real department, in those days. They had their own structure, their own 'chief.' "
"I know. You sent a whole bunch of those high-ranking boys to the pen, including their chief. Hell-I met some of 'em there, and you'll be glad to know it was no picnic for 'em."
Now Ness smiled. "I'm not sorry to hear that, no." The smile faded. "But you still haven't said exactly how it is I'm 'the best thing that ever happened' to the late patrolman Willis."
"You transferred all the big boys outa the Roarin' Third," Katzi said, with a matter-of-fact shrug. "Who did you think was gonna move up into position? A patrolman like Willis, who was on the pad already, and still working the Roaring Third! The new higher-ranking boys were afraid to take a piece of that action, with you in town, throwing crooked captains and the like in the clink."
Ness was nodding. "So Willis, a relatively little fish, fell through the cracks of the system. And became a bigger fish because he was in the right place at the right time."
"That's the story, Mr. Ness. And you know, a crook has no morals. He'll work for anybody, if they got the dough."
"What are you saying?"
Katzi blew out blue smoke, shrugged, smiled one-sidely. "The reason why Willis was killed was he went against Lombardi and Scalise."
"In what way?"
"You know that killing over at the Elite Cabaret, a while back?"
"Of course."
"Well, what do you know about it, exactly?"
Ness seemed on the verge of irritation; he didn't like a snitch who asked questions. "We know that it represents the Mayfield Road gang chasing that Pittsburgh bunch out of the city. Scaring them off Lombardi and Scalise's turf. And we suspect Scalise himself murdered those men."
"That's the word on the street on the subject," Katzi confirmed. "But can you prove it?"
"We traced a bloody coat from the alley of the Elite to a haberdashery where Scalise has done business-but we couldn't find a clerk to admit making the sale, or a sales slip either."
"Five'll get you ten," Katzi said, "Scalise killed Willis, too. Personally."
"What makes you say that?"
Katzi shrugged again. "Scalise is meaner than a drunk snake. He likes hurtin' people. He likes killin' people. Everybody in the Roaring Third knows that."
Ness had an intense expression. "And why would he've killed Willis, his own man, a cop he had in his own pocket?"
"That's what I been telling you, Mr. Ness. Few months back, Willis did business with the Pittsburgh boys."
Ness looked sharply at Wild; there was the motive. At last. There was the motive.
"Word on the street," Katzi was saying, "is that the Pittsburgh outfit offered Willis more than Scalise and Lombardi were payin', if he'd help 'em move in. And he did. And he dead."
Ness digested that, then asked, "Why'd they wait so long to pay Willis back for his betrayal?"
"How should I know? Maybe to keep you from putting two and two together. Maybe to make Willis sweat some before they chilled him. Maybe to line up a new cop fixer, first. Hell, you're the detective."
Ness thought about that.
Katzi crushed his cigarette under his heel on the theater floor. "Think you can put those mother-raping dago bastards away, Mr. Ness?"
"Oh yes," Ness said.
"Good. I got no love for 'em, myself."
"Why's that?" Wild asked. Katzi didn't seem to him the sort of guy who would give a damn one way or the other.
"Oh, they killed my cousin a few years ago," he said, casually. "One of the independent policy operators they rubbed out."
"What was his name?" Ness asked.
"Willie Wiggens," Katzi said, emotionlessly.
Ness looked at Katzi long and hard.
Then he said, "Thank you, Katzi," and shook the man's hand again. Any irritation had vanished; bare gratitude had taken its place. He dug into his topcoat pocket. "Here's a little more for you."
He handed Katzi a fin and the smoothly affable Negro took it gladly.
"If there's anything else I can do for you," Ness said, "let me know. Information like this is greatly appreciated."
"Well, you can put a word in for me with the parole board," Katzi said, as they all stood, and moved out into the aisle. "I'd like to get my citizenship restored and put the past behind me."
"That's an admirable goal," Ness said. "I'll see what I can do."
"Appreciate it. But I got no delusions about the past going away altogether."
"I know what you mean," Ness said, with a glum smile. The past had, after all, caught up with him today.
Wild nodded and smiled to Katzi, who said, "See you in the funny papers, Samuel," and sauntered down the aisle and took a closer seat, watching the rehearsal, where deep voices boomed.
Out in the gently blowing snow, the wind nipping at them, Wild said to Ness, "How's that for a source?"
"Goddamn good," Ness admitted. "But it frustrates me that I had to come here to get it."
"Hey, come on. Using stoolies is what police work is all about."
"Maybe. But I hate like hell to have to get from a stoolie information that my own men are keeping from me."
On the way back, Ness looked over, from behind the wheel of his sedan, and said, "Is that fellow a good writer?"
"Better than I am," Wild said with a smirk.
"I ought to read something of his. What's his real name?"
"Himes," Wild said. "Chester Himes."
"I'll try to remember that," Ness said.
"Remember him to the parole board," Wild said, "if you're really interested."
Ness nodded.
But Wild could see that the safety director was already lost in other thoughts. Thoughts of Lombardi and Scalise, and a police department that even after all of Ness's efforts and successes in cleaning it up remained a fortress of self-interest.