THE DARK CITY (Eliot Ness) by Collins Max Allan

Author:Collins, Max Allan [Collins, Max Allan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Speaking Volumes
Published: 2010-12-23T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

The next evening, Friday, was bitterly cold and windy and starlessly bleak. All in all, a good night to stay inside and hope that tomorrow would be more suited for making merry, or Mary, whichever the case might be. The citizens of Cleveland seemed to know just how vain a hope that was, however, because thousands of men and women, young and old, weren't waiting for a better tomorrow. They were crowding into the Hollenden and Carter Hotels tonight, for F.D.R.'s Birthday Ball, paying a buck a ticket to dance "so that crippled children might walk."

Most of the action was at the Hollenden, on Superior Avenue near Public Square, and not just this evening. The fourteen-story, red brick Victorian structure, all towers and bay windows, had been built in 1885 by the owner of the Plain Dealer. It was the hub of Cleveland's downtown social life, only a stone's throw from City Hall and diagonally across from the Plain Dealer building. The Hollenden drew newspapermen, politicians, lawyers, and, it was said, the higher-ups of the so-called Cleveland Syndicate. Whether any of the latter were among the three thousand or so people now crammed into the hotel's ballroom was anybody's guess.

Eliot Ness, who of late had been frequenting the hotel's taproom, the Vogue Room, had never seen a gangster—or reputed gangster—in the Hollenden, but the rumors persisted.

But tonight, gangsters weren't much on his mind. Nor had he put on this tux because he felt like dancing. He had thought about calling Eva, to take her up on her offer to attend social functions with him, but couldn't quite bring himself to pick up the phone.

At first he had hoped time would heal their marital wound. As the days passed into weeks, he began to enjoy the solitude. It only occasionally felt like loneliness to him. He missed her; he did miss her. And he entertained thoughts, particularly at night alone in the double bed, of making it up to her somehow. Putting the marriage back together.

But he didn't know how to change the way he lived, or more specifically, the way he worked. Or perhaps it wasn't that he didn't know how to; he didn't want to. He wasn't a homebody, that wasn't his style. Perhaps Evie would miss him, too, and come back, willing to accept him on his own terms.

Perhaps when these crucial months of his new job were past, when the Mayor's ticking clock had run out, he could find a way to fit her back into his life.

Had he invited her along tonight, he'd have been distracted from the important work there was to be done. He was fund-raising, and it wasn't for crippled children.

He needed that Secret Six type of slush fund desperately. Without the support of a trustworthy investigative staff, his task was hopeless. Maybe it was hopeless even with such a staff, but at least he could give it the old college try.

It was now almost midnight and Ness' arm hurt from shaking hands and his face hurt from smiling.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.