Carnival of Shadows

by R.J. Ellory

  Travis’s team of four was stationed in the main house, ready to make their way over to the smaller property where the Barrett Gang were holed up.

  When Michael Travis heard Madeline Jarvis coming in through the side kitchen door and calling out to her mother and father, he knew something was wrong.

  “Ma! Pa!” she hollered. “I’m in to make breakfast!”

  There had been much discussion regarding the Jarvis girl’s part in all of this. How involved was she? Had she merely been swept off her feet by the unlikely charms of Luke “Smiler” Barrett, or was she a conniving and mendacious accomplice, ready to sacrifice everything to protect her man and his accomplices? If she was not immediately silenced in that house, would she do all she could to alert Barrett to the presence of the Bureau? Or would she be solely interested in self-preservation?

  Travis did not know how Madeline Jarvis would react when faced with half a dozen federal agents; he did not know whether she would lie to save herself, whether she would scream like a fire siren and run to let Barrett know that the FBI were there, or whether she would simply drop into a dead faint from shock.

  Though Travis was never one to assume anything, he accepted the strong possibility that Madeline was close to her parents. The parents had given her safe haven, that much at least, and whether they had harbored the Barrett Gang knowingly, or had merely accepted that these dangerous-looking men were “friends”, still the more probable likelihood was that their cooperation was born out of love and loyalty to their daughter.

  And thus, as Madeline called out a second time to her parents, Travis turned and glanced at Farraday. He raised his hand, indicated that he was going into the kitchen alone. He even set down his gun.

  Farraday frowned, furiously shaking his head. This was not the agreed-upon plan. The plan was to silently overwhelm her by sheer numbers.

  Travis indicated once again that he was going alone, and he took a step forward.

  Farraday grabbed his shoulder, and Travis turned and looked directly at him, and in the young man’s eyes there was such a sense of unquestionable certainty that Farraday could do nothing but let him go.

  Travis went forward two further steps, and he stood in the doorway of the front room. One step to the left and he would be visible in the hallway. If she looked toward the front of the house, she would see him.

  He edged forward again, took two steps into the corridor.

  And then he spoke with as calm and reassuring a tone as he could muster.

  “Miss Jarvis?”

  A moment’s silence.

  “Miss Jarvis?”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Stay precisely and exactly where you are, Miss Jarvis. Do not move a muscle. Your mother and father are here. We do not wish for any harm to come to them.”

  Silence again, and it seemed to stretch forever.

  “I am walking over to speak with you, Miss Jarvis. My name is Michael. I am here to help you, but whatever you do, you must not move or make a sound. To move or make a sound right now would jeopardize the safety of your parents. Do you understand me?”

  “Ye-yes,” she said, and Travis could hear the fear and tension in her voice.

  Michael took another step, talking as he went.

  “I am an agent of the federal government, Miss Jarvis, and I can assure you that your parents will be safe if you do exactly as I say.”

  “O-okay, okay… yes… what do you want from me?”

  “Can I call you Madeline?”

  “Y-yes, sure.”

  “Okay, Madeline… I want you to assure me of something in return.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to assure me that you are not armed, that you have no firearms in your possession, that there are no firearms in the kitchen.”

  “There is a gun in the kitchen,” Madeline said. “I think there might be two.”

  “Where are they?”

  “On top of the cupboard here.”

  “Is that on the right side or the left side of the kitchen?”

  “The right.”

  “Well, okay. I need you to move as far as you can to the left side of the kitchen, and then I need you to kneel on the floor and lace your fingers behind your head. Can you do that for me, Madeline?”

  “Yes, I can, sir. Shall I do that right now?”

  “Yes, do that right now, Madeline.”

  A moment’s pause. The sound of movement.

  “I’m done, sir.”

  “Good. I am coming in now, Madeline, and once I am in the kitchen, we are going to talk about some things, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Michael looked back at Farraday. He indicated for Farraday to follow him with the remaining members of both teams.

  And then Michael went forward, one step at a time, slowly and calmly, until he stood in the doorway of the kitchen and looked left.

  Madeline Jarvis, twenty-five years old, was kneeling on the floor with her hands behind her head, her expression that of a lost and frightened little girl.

  “My ma and pa?” she said.

  “Are safe and secure. Do not worry about them. I give you my word they are okay.”

  The relief was immediately evident, and then she looked frightened once more.

  “Luke and the others are in the smaller building behind and to the left of the main house, right?” Michael asked.

  It was then that Farraday appeared, behind him six other agents.

  Madeline’s eyes widened visibly. She knew this was it. World War Three was about to erupt in the house across the road, and her boyfriend was going to die in a hail of government bullets.

  “Oh my Lord,” she said, the words audible, but the sound of them was more like an exhalation of despair.

  “They are all there, right?” Michael asked her. “Luke, Walter, Bill, Anthony, and Federico? They are all in the other house?”

  She looked at Travis. “Yes,” she said. “They are all there.”

  And he knew she was lying. Fear of what would happen had suddenly overwhelmed any real consideration for anything else, and she had instinctively lied.

  “You are lying,” Travis said.

  Madeline Jarvis looked back at Michael as if he had seen right through her to the very core of her being.

  “Who isn’t there, Madeline? Who isn’t in the house?”

  Madeline glanced upward then—an immediate and undeniable reaction.

  “Someone’s upstairs? Who is upstairs?”

  “Tony,” she said. “Tony is upstairs. He has a wound in his leg, and my ma was looking after him. They moved him over here yesterday.”

  “That is not possible,” Travis said. “We would have seen that happen.”

  “It was very late. It was really dark. Luke carried him over on his back with a blanket around him.”

  Farraday was right beside Travis then.

  “He’s in the attic room,” Madeline continued. “Up there in the roof.”

  Travis turned to Farraday. “I suggest we act immediately. I don’t want to wait for another man to come across from the second house, not with Scarapetto upstairs. I’ll take Madeline and one other man. We’ll get Scarapetto. You lead the others on the house.”

  “Agreed,” Farraday said.

  “You have to take me up there,” Travis told Madeline. “I am going to follow you up into the attic, and you are not going to give Scarapetto any indication that I am with you, you understand?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I promise,” perhaps now assured that there was no way out of this, that she was as deep as she could go, that cooperation was perhaps her only route to some degree of mitigation.

  And so Farraday took the remaining five agents and briefed them on precisely what they were doing and why. None of them doubted the very real possibility of
a gun battle with Barrett and the three men in the house. Scarapetto posed a significant risk as well. All of them would be armed. All of them would be desperate to evade arrest. They would have no doubt that the hangman’s noose or the electric chair was awaiting them. To die in a shoot-out with the Feds, perhaps taking a few of the G-men sons of bitches with them, would be far more preferable than rotting in a jail cell and giving J. Edgar Hoover the satisfaction of seeing them executed.

  And so it went as planned. Madeline went on up to the attic, Travis behind her, Special Agent Webster behind Travis, and they managed to get into the roof without even waking Scarapetto.

  When he did wake, he opened his eyes to the sight of Michael Travis standing over him with a government-issue .45 in his hand, and it was a good ten seconds before the light of realization dawned in Scarapetto’s eyes.

  “Hey, you don’t fucking say,” were his words. “Fucknuts Travis. Well, blow me down with a fucking feather.”

  Madeline Jarvis was silent, standing to the right of Travis.

  “She turn us in?” Scarapetto asked. “That bitch was no good. I told him time and again that you never get women involved. Always the fucking weak link.”

  “No such thing,” Travis told Scarapetto. “The only thing Miss Jarvis is responsible for right now is the fact that you are still alive.”

  Travis took another step forward and aimed his sidearm directly between Scarapetto’s eyes. “Where are the firearms?” he said.

  “Go fuck yourself, Travis,” Scarapetto said. And then he sneered derisively. “You’ve got to laugh at the irony of this,” he went on. “I’ve been using your name for a good while now. People ask me my name, I tell ’em it’s Michael Travis. What do you have to say about that, fucknuts?”

  Travis did not respond. He instructed Madeline to kneel on the floor, her hands beneath her calves.

  Travis waved Webster over. “Aim your gun at this man’s head,” Travis said. “If he tries to move, shoot him.”

  Webster did as he was told, and Scarapetto just lay there as Travis searched the makeshift bed and surrounding area for weapons. He found a pistol beneath the pillow, another gun between Scarapetto’s feet.

  Travis took them both, emptied them of shells, set them on the floor. He then cuffed Scarapetto, hands in front so Scarapetto could manage the descent from the attic.

  Travis motioned for Webster to go down ahead of them.

  Travis then sent Madeline down, all the while Webster’s gun trained on her from below. Once she was down she was seated against the banister, her arms between the posts, her hands cuffed behind her.

  Then Travis sent Scarapetto down, Travis keeping his sidearm trained on him until he was similarly secured with his hands through the banister.

  Travis then descended.

  At that point, the gunfire began in the second house.

  Webster was told to stay with Scarapetto and the Jarvis girl, and Travis went back downstairs.

  Returning fire was coming from the upper windows of the rear building. One agent was down. Farraday was directing return fire and a phalanx of additional agents were already making their way down the road from the highway toward the house.

  The gun battle would rage for a mere eight minutes further. Two men would be brought out alive yet wounded—Barrett himself and Walter Forsythe. Barrett suffered a gunshot wound to the left shoulder, Forsythe a chest wound that missed his heart and other vital organs by mere inches. William “Wild Bill” Murchison and Federico de Tonti did not survive.

  Once Barrett and Forsythe had been handcuffed and placed in the back of separate vehicles, Travis returned to the smaller house to bring Madeline Jarvis and Anthony Scarapetto down. Webster took the girl, and Travis waited for an additional agent—John Langton—to assist him with Scarapetto.

  “So now you’re the big-shot G-man, eh?” Scarapetto said. He sat there on the floor of the landing, his arms behind him and through the banister. Despite his prone position, he still possessed an attitude of aggressive arrogance and condescension, as if he would never be anything other than the one in charge.

  “Michael Fucknuts Travis becomes a big-shot fucking G-man, and now you’re gonna get yourself a fucking medal from that faggot Hoover and his faggot boyfriend, Clyde Tolson, and all you faggots gonna have a big fucking homo party and tell each other how fucking great you are, right?”

  Travis felt his blood rising. He would not let this man see him riled. He smiled at Scarapetto and stayed silent.

  “Oh sure, smile away, fucknuts, ’cause you ain’t gonna see me hang for this, you son of a bitch.”

  Travis again said nothing. The wounded cur dog snaps the loudest when backed into a corner.

  Travis released Scarapetto’s right hand from the cuffs and reapplied the cuff in order to walk him down the stairs to the kitchen where other agents were ready to take him to a waiting car. Scarapetto went on cursing and yapping while Madeline Jarvis just appeared utterly overwhelmed. From the moment she had left the attic she had not said a word.

  Downstairs, Farraday was surveying the situation, the collateral damage, taking stock of all that had occurred in such a short span of time. He had left the second house and returned to the main property once the surviving members of the Barrett Gang had been secured. It was then that events transpired that would later be analyzed step by step, moment by moment, not only to determine why an agent was killed in the line of duty, but also why Michael Travis had acted alone in securing the cooperation of Madeline Jarvis when first she entered the main house. Lastly, questions would be asked and answered about the precise circumstances of the fatal shooting of Anthony Scarapetto.

  At the base of the stairwell, seeing agents leaving by the front door, Scarapetto had turned and started running toward the rear of the building. His movements were awkward, as his hands were cuffed, but he was desperate. Travis went after him, followed him out into the yard where Scarapetto was faced with a thirty-yard expanse of scrubbed earth and nothing to shield him from a clean shot.

  And here he turned and faced Travis, utterly certain in his belief that Travis did not possess the nerve to shoot him right there in cold blood.

  “Stand still, Anthony,” Travis told him. “If you move, I will shoot you. Have no doubt about that.”

  “Screw you, fucknuts,” Scarapetto replied. “You ain’t got the nerve. You was a faggot wimp when I knew you, and you’re a faggot wimp now.”

  Travis was struck with an image of his father, that single bright blue eye looking back at him from the kitchen table.

  Travis held the .45 steady in his right hand. The muzzle was aimed unerringly at Scarapetto’s heart.

  “On your knees, Scarapetto. You’re going in, no two ways about it. Dead or alive, you’re going in.”

  “You go fuck yourself, Travis. You never had any fucking guts, you know that? Even back then you were a pathetic fuck…”

  Travis took one step forward and Scarapetto fell silent.

  It was a strange conspiracy of emotions that assaulted Travis in that moment. Scarapetto enraged him, a dark edge to that rage, that same desire to obliterate, to hurl himself at the man and tear him apart. And yet there was a calmness in his thoughts. He knew what his father would have done, but he was not his father. And yet he could hear his father, almost as if Anthony Scarapetto now represented everything that he had hated about Jimmy Franklin—the arrogance, the condescending tone, the sneering self-aggrandizement. So it was that one part of himself faced another part of himself, and yet his own identity was lost in the space that sat between them.

  “Down on your knees,” Travis said, aware of how steady his hand was.

  “Go to hell,” Scarapetto hissed, and started to turn.

  “Jimmy!” Travis heard himself say, and then he pulled the trigger.

  There was one shot and one shot only.

  Th
e bullet entered Scarapetto’s heart.

  Nevertheless, Travis believed that Scarapetto was well and truly alive for a good thirty seconds after the bullet hit him. He knew he had been shot, he knew that shot was fatal, and he knew that Michael Travis had indeed possessed the nerve to put him down.

  After it was done, Travis stood over him. Looking down at the man’s face, and the rage that had filled his chest just seemed to wash away like a bloody cloth beneath running water. He did not understand what he had experienced, and he did not know that he wished to.

  Anthony Scarapetto’s last dying breath was accompanied by a desperate and pathetic flurry of kicks.

  A small cloud of dust rose from the ground around his feet and then settled.

  It would be more than a week before Michael Travis met with Executive Assistant Director Bradley Warren. It took place in one of the Lincoln Bureau offices, and no one but Warren and Travis were present.

  “I have read and reread the numerous and varied reports of everything that happened that day,” he told Travis, “and there are certain questions I have for you, young man. First and foremost, I want to know why you acted alone in securing the cooperation of Madeline Jarvis when she first entered the main building to prepare breakfast for Barrett and his accomplices.”

  Travis could not answer with anything but the truth. “Because I felt certain how she would best respond, sir,” was what he said. “I believed that mention of her parents would engage her attention and cooperation. I also felt very strongly that the surprise appearance of half a dozen unknown men would cause a panic reaction and might thus have served to alert Barrett and the others that she was in trouble.”

  “You were sufficiently certain of this to modify an approved strategy in situ?”

  “Yes, sir, I was.”

  “Well, that doesn’t excuse the fact that protocol is protocol, Agent Travis, and even if an agent had not been shot, we would still be conducting this internal inquiry. Other law enforcement bodies might believe themselves excused from such thoroughness if a positive result is achieved, but the Bureau is not just any law enforcement body.”

  “No, sir.”