Eliot Ness by Douglas Perry Read Free Book Online Page B

offerings on the second and third floors, but he and his partners did do a fair amount of drinking on the ground level. While in college Eliot had discovered that he enjoyed booze, and becoming a Prohibition agent hadn’t changed that. He had an illicit drink almost every evening—often more than one—before heading home to his parents’ house. And now he was drinking as part of the job—and getting a bit loud about it, laughing and slapping backs.Even Basile joined in, pretending he didn’t understand when anyone spoke Italian to him; he was posing as “just Mexican,” just a boozer. It was an enjoyable way for the men to build up their bona fides.
    That done, Kooken and his two junior agents returned to the Heights on another night, this time leaving their car on a back road outside of town and walking in through farm fields and empty lots, each taking a separate route. They met up in an alley after satisfying themselves that they’d avoided the “Mafia scouts”—fledgling gangsters at unofficial checkpoints, gas-station attendants on the edge of town, grandmothers peering out living-room windows. Now, keeping to the shadows, they followed their noses, for the stink of fermenting mash was almost impossible to hide. They put in miles during the night, staying low in the darkness as they came up on farmhouses and squat suburban homes, and then doubling back again for a second pass.The men found more than a dozen illegal brewing operations and took “careful notes,” which they knew they’d need for search warrants. The next day, and for the rest of the week, they made sure to be back out in the open, especially at the Cozy Corners, laughing it up, drinking, being seen. Finally, they sought out Giannini again. They made plain they knew where most of the stills in the Heights were—and that they wanted to be real partners with the Martino crew. Giannini excused himself, leaving the three special agents and Basile to sit and worry. Albert slammed back a whiskey; Eliot chewed on his thumb. Soon, two large men loomed over the table.
    “Come and talk to the boss,” the twin statuary said.
    The agents stepped through to a back room, where they found Gianniniand a “big, swarthy,” heavy-shouldered man—Joe Martino. They barely bothered with pleasantries. Eliot, assigned the role of eager beaver, laid it out for the don of Chicago Heights: a full partnership, all aspects of the business, including gambling and the other rackets. They could provide protection for everyone in the organization—everyone they knew about. Martino gave the kid a hard-eyed appraisal, before sitting back and sweeping the lot of them with a half-lidded gaze.
    “How do I know you can put in the fix?” he said.
    The agents waved their badges like backup singers. “Money will do anything,” one of them said.
    “How much?”
    Kooken smiled. “First we’ve got to see how much it’s worth to you.”
    Eliot, “the hungry one,” threw his knowledge of the syndicate’s operations in Martino’s face. The forty-five-year-old Mob boss had managed to stay out of jail—and the cemetery—for years while running a good-size bootlegging ring in a particularly violent corner of Chicagoland, but he apparently bought what this greenhorn agent was selling. He joked about owning Kooken, and local cops galore, and that he would own this pushy new kid, too. That made Eliot push harder still. The young agent loved the opportunity to assume a role, to take on a bigger and bolder personality than his own.He and Martino “had quite an argument about the amount to be paid,” Eliot recounted later.Finally, they grudgingly agreed on a weekly payment amounting to a thousand dollars a month, and the special agents shoved away from the table. No one seemed especially happy with how they were leaving things.
    Frank Basile, who’d been standing by the door like a servant, looked ashen as the agents turned toward him. He took Eliot’s arm. “The