"What is this?" one of them said, shrinking back.

Ness laughed shortly, put his. 38 away. "A federal raid, but I wouldn't worry about it. You boys are dismantling these boilers, I take it?"

"Yeah," the spokesman said. He was a beefy guy with five o'clock shadow and close-set dark eyes. "We're with Acme Boiler and Welding. We been working all week, dismantling these three steam-boilers."

"Well, go on with your work," Ness said.

Hedges bristled. "Christ on a crutch! Are you kidding? Let's take 'em in for questioning."

"Dismantling a steam boiler is not a federal offense," Ness said. "Let's see what's going on upstairs."

Hedges shook his head in disgust as the men resumed their work, and the sound of clanging metal followed the pair upstairs, where the other raiders had found nothing to speak of. No suspects, no alcohol, no nothing.

A few minutes later, one of Ness' men did discover a six-inch water line that had been run across Sweeney Avenue to a railroad roundhouse, and connected with the city's water mains. Water for the operation of the distillery, then, had been heisted off the city of Cleveland. Probably with the complicity of city officials, Ness thought. Well, at least that goddamn Davis administration was past history now. Unfortunately, the city's tarnished coppers seemed to thrive no matter whose administration was in power.

"I scratched my initials on one of those boilers," Hedges told Ness. The heavy set little agent had ducked back downstairs for a while,

"Why did you do that?"

"It'll turn up again, when they set this big still back up someplace else in town, and I'll be able to identify it."

Ness shrugged. "Maybe."

"What do you mean, 'maybe'?"

"I think this operation may simply be shut down."