by Peter Watson
So, on their walk down the oak alley, Angelo had been keen to teach Liotta a lesson, and it was Silvio who had come up with the answer. Liotta himself had provoked it, by producing the boilerman, Nelson St. Joseph. Vito clearly thought he had the result of the race in the palm of his hand, and was showing off. But the boilerman was black and therefore totally at the mercy of Widow Milan.
The widow was doing well since the death of the steamboat captain. Word had gone around town that her gris-gris on Ezra Bell had worked in no time, and her custom had more than doubled. Therefore, she had been anxious to repeat her success and was more than ready to approach Nelson St. Joseph the next Sunday in Congo Square and warn him that if the Memphis lost the steamboat race, his own run of bad luck would be equally disastrous.
In this way, the race had become a trial of strength between Vito and Angelo. The widow had reported back that Nelson St. Joseph had appeared frightened when she delivered her threat, but Silvio had since heard that Vito had also threatened the man’s life if he failed to blow the boiler. Who was the nigger afraid of most?
They were an hour from knowing, maybe less. Upriver, the Mississippi curled out of sight beyond the Jackson Avenue ferry, in the area of town known as the Irish Channel, maybe three miles away. That’s where they would first glimpse the winning steamboat.
Silvio finished his muffuletta and went in search of a drink. Angelo had really gone to town for this party. The best food, expensive wines, a lot of his political cronies, a couple of judges even. And they had all come.
Anna-Maria was there, of course. People kept congratulating her and Silvio on their engagement. The wedding gifts were going to be something. Inside him, secretly, Silvio still couldn’t get used to the idea that Annunziata was married, but people already treated him with more deference as Angelo’s son-in-law, his genero, and he found he liked that. Genero sounded like “general.”
He reached the bar and took a bourbon, nodding to Madge Leigh. Carrie Freemantle was here, too, as was Stella, who, like others, carried a small telescope so she could better see upriver. Stella was more awkward than some of the other girls, but Silvio had found he had a soft spot for her, particularly since he had been told she had looked after Madeleine’s son while Maddie had been in prison. That problem, thank God, had been solved satisfactorily and he had set her up in a room of her own. He suspected that Anna-Maria knew everything but had decided to accept it. After all, she now had what she wanted. Or soon would have.
While he was talking to Stella, Silvio saw Nino edging toward him through the crowd. Nino jerked his head to one side, mouthed “Saloon,” and retreated. Silvio excused himself, threw a last glance upriver—nothing—and made his way aft. When he opened the saloon door, Angelo and Nino were both there, seated and nursing drinks.
“Close the door,” growled Angelo.
Silvio did as he was told, then sat down.
“If Vito wins today,” Angelo said with a sigh, “he’ll make sure everyone knows. That means, to start with, we lose the nigger business. In no time he’ll have a piece of the nigger wharves, whorehouses, the best bands. The Sicilians in town will be watching him, and watching us. If he wins they’ll be expecting a war.”
“And if we win?” Nino stubbed out his cheroot.
“We buy time. But that ain’t the point.”
“What do you mean?” Silvio spoke more roughly than he intended and Angelo looked at him sharply.
“Think,” said Angelo. “Think how foxy Liotta’s been. When we met him at Toussaint House he offered us the black boilerman as a gift. We could have bet on the Leathers and won a fortune.”
“But,” exclaimed Silvio, “if we’d accepted his gift, we’d have had to go along with him in other ways as well. Like sharing the docks. You want that? You know what they say in Sicily: the fox doesn’t sleep with the chickens.”
“I agree,” replied Angelo calmly. “And we couldn’t do that. But even so we’ve gone head-to-head with him. It was a good idea of yours, Silvio, to take him on with Widow Milan, and an even better one to have her on the ship today, to keep up the pressure. But we’ve played into his hands. Even if he loses today he’s won something. We’ve had to deal with him, see him off. Everyone knows that. They know this race is a tussle between us.” Angelo looked at Silvio. “Vito may even have known we had Widow Milan on the payroll.”
Silvio was shocked. “You mean he set us up?”
“I ain’t sure. I’m just saying he’s a foxy fucker.”
Silvio was dazed. He had never been outthought like this before. If he had been outthought. “Then we kill him,” he said at length.
“Except he ain’t gonna sit around and wait for us to do it, like the Cataldos did. Anyone who dreamed up this little trap is gonna watch his back even in his sleep. And Liotta don’t sleep much.”
Silvio couldn’t believe it. He had been so pleased with his plan to have Widow Milan countermand Liotta’s orders to the boilerman. This couldn’t be a trap, it couldn’t.
A shout went up from outside. Silvio and the others scrambled for the door. Everyone was craning their necks upriver. Silvio saw Stella with her telescope to her eye. “What is it?” he gasped. “What is it?”
“A steamboat,” she said.
“One or two?” If it was two, the Memphis was still in the race.
“One.”
“Which one?”
“I can’t see yet. It’s too far away.”
For three more minutes Silvio waited in agony as Stella strained her eyes, searching for the name of the winning steamboat. His heart turned over in his rib cage. He simply refused to believe that Liotta had outthought him. Silvio’s plan to enlist the widow’s aid had been clever—fucking brilliant. But, he realized, cleverness wasn’t everything. Brains weren’t everything; you needed balls and had to be prepared to shed blood. That’s where Liotta had the edge this time—maybe. Silvio had been too busy making up for that slip after he’d thought too slowly to prevent his parents’ death. Angelo had paid too much attention to Silvio’s schemes, perhaps, and not enough to Nino’s undoubted ability to scare people. That was one reason why Angelo had cooled on the ice deal with Saltram.
Silvio saw it now. At the very point when he was to join Angelo’s family, his influence had ceased to grow.
“Nearly there!” shouted Stella. “I can see the writing between the smokestacks. I can’t read the letters yet … yes, yes, I can.… It’s … T.P. Leathers—yes! The Leathers.”
Silvio went cold. The Memphis had yet to appear. Her boiler must have blown. Liotta had won.
“I have to repay you, Silvio. I owe man freedom to you. You can have anything you want.”
Silvio and Madeleine were back in their regular room in Madge Leigh’s. Madge Leigh had been only too happy to take her back: she was delighted that Silvio should think enough of Maddie to rescue her from jail. But it was all done very discreetly. Anna-Maria was not to know.
“You please me just the way you are, Madeleine. I don’t want you to change.”
Madeleine took off her slip so that Silvio could see her body, touch it all over. He was embarrassed by her gratitude and embraced her to avoid showing it. There was something he had to tell her.
“Madeleine …” He faltered.
“What is it?” She looked up at him.
“I … there’s …” He faltered again. Sono maiale? Am I a pig?
“I know about the wedding,” she said softly.
“You do? How?”
“What d’you think us girls talk about all day? It was the first thing I heard when I got out of jail. Them other girls couldn’t wait to tell me.”
“I’m sorry—but I want to go on seeing you. I really do.”
She looked at him. “Men don’t marry whores, Silvio. I always known you liked me, but I ain’t never expected marriage, not wit’ you, anyways—”
“I’ll make it up to you, I promise. You’ll see. A couple months of marriage with Anna-Maria, I’ll get her
pregnant, we can go back to the way we always were, in the evenings, afternoons—”
She put her hand on his mouth to shut him up. “Stop that, Silvio! I’ll be here whenever you want me. I already told you that.”
He embraced her again. After a moment she pushed him away, gently.
“There’s one thing you might do for me, though.”
He propped himself up on one elbow. “There is? What?”
“You know how this city works. You got power. I gotta think about my little boy. I need a man.”
Silvio looked at her, puzzled.
“Don’t be selfish, Silvio. You got Anna-Maria, soon have a family. I need a man. I need to get into them quadroon balls.”
Suddenly Silvio saw what she was getting at. The quadroon balls were famous in New Orleans and unique to the city. They were a special way for beautiful but poor quadroon girls to meet rich men. The girls were taken to the balls by their mothers. There they were introduced to wealthy men who were as often as not married but were looking for young mistresses. All negotiations went on between the men and the mothers, who sold their daughters into a gentle sort of sexual slavery, which was nevertheless well paid and relatively comfortable. The mistresses were invariably set up with rooms of their own and provided for. Many men in New Orleans maintained two households—one white, one quadroon—for most of their lives.
Silvio smiled and nodded. “You’re so beautiful, Madeleine, you’d have no problem finding a man at one of the balls. But I have to find you a mother, to introduce you.” He nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Later, after they had made love, Madeleine fetched some wine from downstairs. When she returned she poured two glasses and got back into bed with Silvio. “Guess who’s at the bar.”
Silvio, taking the wine, shook his head.
“David Martell, the chief of detectives.”
“So?”
She shrugged. “When I was in jail, I heard some of the other girls talking. They was saying Martell’s not as straight as he makes out. That he knows Vito Liotta, an’ they each own a piece of the Red Lantern, on Rampart.”
Silvio buried his nose in his drink, thinking. He didn’t want Madeleine to see the surprise on his face, betraying his ignorance. Liotta and Martell! This Liotta was moving fast. This Liotta was smart as well as ballsy, very smart. Foxy, as Priola would say. Silvio drained his glass. Soon as this wedding was over, there was going to be one helluva war.
“The trousers look just fine, sir. Now try the jacket.” Silvio had never been called “sir” before, or if he had, he couldn’t remember the occasion. This new suit, by Chivasso of course, was part of Priola’s wedding gift. It was light gray worsted, from England, and highlighted his swarthy complexion, making him more dashing than ever.
The suit was the only wedding chore he had to go through with, unless you counted the rehearsal, later today. He had at one stage been bothered about choosing the right gift for Anna-Maria, but her mother, a small shrew of a woman who drank all day long, had come to the rescue for once. She had pointed out that there was an antique writing bureau in a shop on Magazine Street that Anna-Maria had fallen for. She would be able to take it on their honeymoon to New York, and use it to write home. It had cost him thirty-five dollars—a small fortune—but the problem had been solved.
He was looking forward to New York. It was, he was told, the only town in America that could rival New Orleans. There were fewer brothels but more theaters. He had never been to a real theater. They would be staying in hotels, another new experience, except it was probably like being on board ship, in first class of course. He had also been told there was a sizable Italian population in New York, and he wanted to see that, too.
For the time being, of course, Anna-Maria and he were going to live in New Orleans. But that might not always be the case.
“I’ll wrap the suit, Mr. Silvio. Will you take it with you, or shall I send it?”
“Send it, please.”
“My pleasure.”
Silvio went out. He looked at his watch: eleven-thirty. There was time for him to walk to Dick Saltram’s ice factory and still be there by noon, when he was supposed to meet Angelo and Nino, to judge the experiment. Angelo was only coming under protest, saying it was a waste of time, since he had already made up his mind. But Silvio wasn’t giving up so easily.
He walked west down Basin Street and turned into Commerce Street. That took him to New Levee Street and the West Cotton Press. He turned from New Levee into Race Street and then onto Religion Street, which brought him near to the orange market. If he looked north from here, he could see City Hall, where the police headquarters were. He hadn’t yet mentioned to Angelo what Madeleine had told him, that Martell and Liotta were in business together. Angie was burdened by this wedding business just as he himself was. It would have to wait.
Silvio stayed on Religion until he reached Felicity, where the factory was. From here he could see across the river to the New Orleans and Apelouses Railroad. A long line of brown-and-cream railroad cars stretched west.
As he reached the factory on foot Angelo’s carriage was just arriving, so they all went in together. Saltram was sent for, and when he appeared he led them into the big ice room.
“The experiment is at the far end. This way, please.”
By the back wall Dick Saltram had built a small cold room, about the height of a man. “I laid the ice in the boxes because, obviously, when it melts it turns into water and you wouldn’t want the holds of the ship sloshing about with water, saturating the fruit. The boxes are designed to hold the water for a few hours until you can throw it away. They have handles, to make it easier to carry the ice, which can be quite heavy.
“Now, I put a crate of peaches, a crate of melons, and some oranges inside this cold room. And there you can see an identical range of fruit just lying here, in the open room. Let’s look at that first.”
He picked up some oranges. One or two seemed fine, but they were very soft. Others, however, were disfigured with patches of a whitish blue. “Necrotic coryneum,” he said. “Mold.”
The peaches were worse. The skins had wrinkled and some had turned brown. When they were handled, they felt squishy and the skins broke. Inside, there were brown patches on the yellow flesh.
The melons seemed least affected. But then Saltram said, “Watch this,” and he cut one of the melons in half. Although its flesh was a deep pink, it was bone-dry.
“Now let’s look at the refrigerated fruit.” He stooped into the little room and reemerged a moment later with some oranges and melons, which he handed to Silvio. Then he went back for the peaches.
All the fruit had a fine coating of dew, tiny drops of water, but the fruit itself was firm, too firm to eat in fact. None of the oranges showed the slightest trace of mold, the skins on the peaches were smooth and fresh-looking, and when Saltram cut into a melon, its flesh was succulent and juicy.
The others all stood waiting for Angelo to speak.
“Mr. Saltram, I understand you are Italian but have changed your name. Why? Are you ashamed of being Italian?”
This was not at all the kind of response Silvio was expecting. He went to interject but Saltram cut him off.
“No, no. It’s okay.” He held out his arm, to stop Silvio. “Mr. Priola, I am interested in science and technology. That’s where the future is. Occasionally I need credit, from the banks. They are prejudiced against Italians. I was getting turned down for loans, I never even got interviews—because of my name, Scalice. So I learned English and changed the name of the company. That’s all. I’m still a Catholic, we speak Italian at home, my mother’s fettuccine is as wonderful as ever, and my younger brother will soon be joining the choir of St. Louis’s. I’m not ashamed of being Italian, but I’m not a fool either, and I don’t want to be poor.”
Priola nodded. He appeared to sympathize. “I’m impressed by your experiment, Mr. Saltram. I cannot deny that. You have the brains of a bishop, as we say in Sic
ily. But I have a number of problems at the moment that are no concern of yours, except insofar as they affect my decision to make new investments.”
“Angelo?”
They all turned to Silvio. “Instead of sending Anna-Maria and me on an expensive honeymoon in New York, Angie, why not spend the money on fitting out one ship—just one—and let it sail between New Orleans and Natchez? Those boats bring cotton downstream, and that doesn’t need to be refrigerated. So we don’t need any refrigeration plant in Natchez.”
Angelo seemed to be listening hard, so Silvio hurried on. “See what effect the freezing has on business in, say, six months. I know what you’re worried about”—he wouldn’t mention Liotta in front of Saltram—“but I think we should get into refrigeration before anyone else does. If it works as well as I think it’s going to, Angie, it will be great publicity, and bring us a lot of trade. If we don’t do it, and others do, we may lose trade.”
Angelo eyed him. “You’d give up New York for that?”
“I’m not giving it up. This thing will be a success. I’m just delaying it for a few months.”
“What about Anna-Maria?”
“She’ll do what you tell her.”
Angelo could at least agree to that.
He stood for a moment, thinking. Then he looked from Silvio to Saltram. “All right, sir, you got yourself a deal. Real foxy. We choose a ship and you can fit her out, and supply the ice.” He looked at his watch. “Now you’ll have to forgive us. We can do my daughter out of her honeymoon but we can’t delay her rehearsal.”
St. Louis’s Cathedral had been built facing the river and the French Market. The square in front of it was partly paved with stone and partly planted with trees and grass. Pigeons and seagulls strutted there in equal numbers.