"The people will eat it up," Wild had said. A tall wiry guy right out of The Front Page, Wild had worked in Chicago and knew Ness from there. "He's the perfect P.R. move, and he can probably come as close to getting the job done as anybody."

Now Eliot Ness was sitting across from Burton's desk, and the question was whether or not Burton could convince the young G-man to take one hell of a gamble.

"Do you know why I've called you here?" Burton asked.

"Coordination between your people and mine?"

"No. I want to offer you a job."

Ness uncrossed his legs, then crossed them the other way.

"Go on," he said.

"My top priority right now," Burton said, "is law and order. Do you know what I mean by that?"

Ness lifted an eyebrow slightly, set it back down. "Frankly, it's usually just a political catch phrase."

"Granted. But what I mean is, I want this city to have a real police department again. Let me put it another way. I figure I can't clean up Cleveland until the police department itself is clean."

Ness sat forward. "That makes sense to me."

"I need a strong man to reorganize-to transform-that pitiful excuse for a police department into a modern, honest law enforcement agency. You've shown yourself to be a tough cop who doesn't flinch in a dangerous situation. And wading into our corrupt force will be dangerous as hell. The corruption is firmly entrenched. You won't just be stepping on toes, you'll be stepping on livelihoods."

"And lively hoods," Ness said, wryly.

Burton smiled momentarily, then soberly said, "It isn't just the Eliot Ness who drives trucks through locked doors that I'm interested in. It's the Eliot Ness who is a scientifically trained criminologist. The Ness who was an honor student at the University of Chicago, the site of some of the most advanced thinking in America, as regards social concerns. Your major fields of study, my investigation has revealed, were commerce, law, and political science."