Dressed in black, black fedora pulled down, the assassin carried the shotgun in his left hand like a relay racer's baton, and now twisted around to shoot a right-hand revolver at Toussaint, who hit the dirt, bullets flying overhead, crunching into the wood of the house behind. He went to return fire but the assassin was climbing into the rider's side of the sedan and the door shut just as Toussaint's next three thunderous shots puckered the metal door.

The car squealed away and was kicking up gravel as it made its turn toward the street by the time Toussaint was standing in the drive, ready to fire again.

He had missed the license plate, but earlier had caught a glimpse of the man's white face, a ghostly white male witch of a face with a pointed chin and a thin sharp nose; the pulled-down fedora obscured the rest.

Behind him he heard screaming.

A woman screaming. Mamie, Toussaint thought. Rufus's wife, wakened by the gunfire.

He ran back to Murphy, and indeed his dead friend was in the arms of his beautiful portly widow, her white nightgown a blotter of crimson from the still-flowing blood. Toussaint stood helpless in the drive, the two fabled silver revolvers loose in the hands of his dangling arms, pointing impotently, limply down.

The car was gone.

So was Rufus Murphy.

And Toussaint couldn't think of a damn thing to say or do, to comfort Mamie. He fell to his knees; blood dampened his trousers; tears dampened his face.

He didn't say a word.

But in his head Toussaint Johnson vowed to God or the devil or anyone who was interested that the men who did this would pay and the color of" their skin wouldn't mean shit.

Only the color of their blood.

ONE

SEPTEMBER 26-OCTOBER 1O, 1938

CHAPTER 2

In the dimly lit, walnut-paneled lounge of the Hollenden Hotel, Eliot Ness was conducting a low-key, informal press conference with representatives of Cleveland's three major papers. It was Monday afternoon, just after three o'clock. Squeezed into one booth with Ness were burly Webb Seeley of the News, slim Clayton Fritchey of the Press, and lanky Sam Wild of the Plain-Dealer,