"Bullshit! We didn't move fast enough on this, and they got wind of our raid, and they're moving it!"

"Or maybe they're just out of business. Maybe they figure the risk isn't worth it."

"Don't talk stupid."

"It's over, Agent Hedges. Show's over. It's getting too late in the day to be a Prohibition agent-considering Prohibition's been over for, how many years now?"

"The Mayfield Road boys ain't gettin' out of the alcohol business," Hedges insisted. "There's still dough in it."

"You may be right," Ness said. He didn't want to argue the point.

And to a degree, Ness knew, Hedges probably was right. The illegal product was cheaper than legal, what with federal and state taxes added on. Bootlegging would continue.

But not like before. Not like Chicago. In both Chicago and more recently, in Cleveland, where the flow of liquor from Canada was the primary concern, there had been enough activity to keep the life of a "revenooer" lively. It had taken a long time after the advent of Repeal for a steady supply of good, legitimate liquor to reach the market, for the American liquor industry to gear back up and serve its public. The mob had been taking care of that public for a long time, and a transition period was to be expected.

That transition period was over. These days the Cleveland boys-the Mayfield Road mob-were moving into gambling and numbers and union racketeering. Just like the Capone outfit back home. To Ness, the huge, empty warehouse on Sweeney Avenue, and the remnants of the mammoth distillery that haunted it, were symbols of an era's end. And proof that the job that had once done him proud was now a force. It just wasn't about anything anymore.

He checked his watch. It was nearly four; he would have to get one of his raiders to give him a lift. He had a four-thirty meeting at City Hall with newly elected Mayor Burton, but he had no idea what it was about. Coordination between federal and local law enforcement perhaps.