by Norman Lewis
The solution in this case was to go straight to the nearest village to the house of a man who happened to have a criminal record and arrest him. He became the essential fifth bandit. His resignation was astonishing. He kissed his family goodbye, allowed himself to be chained up without protest and was led off. Solitary confinement in the iron womb of Poggio Reale awaited him. Then a long, slow wasting away of body and mind on the island of Procida, of which little but blood-chilling legends was known. When, if ever, he returned to his village he would find his children gone and his wife grown old. How much better it would have been, how much more humane, simply to have shot all five ‘while attempting to escape’.
May 9
The impudence of the black market takes one’s breath away. For months now official sources have assured us that the equivalent of the cargo of one Allied ship in three unloaded in the Port of Naples is stolen. The latest story going the rounds is that when a really big-scale coup is planned and it is necessary to clear the port to handle bulky goods, someone arranges for the air-raid sirens to sound and for the mobile smoke-screens to provide their fog, under the cover of which the shock-troops of the black market move in to do their work.
Stolen equipment sold on the Via Forcella, and round the law courts – where one-man-business thieves without protection are tried and sentenced by the dozen every day for possession of Allied goods – is now on blatant display, tastefully arranged with coloured ribbon, a vase of flowers, neatly-written showcards advertising the quality of the looted goods. COMPARE OUR PRICES … WARRANTED PURE AUSTRALIAN WOOL … MONEY BACK IF FOUND TO SHRINK … YOU CAN MARCH TO KINGDOM COME ON THESE BEAUTIFUL IMPORTED BOOTS … IF YOU DON’T SEE THE OVERSEAS ARTICLE YOU’RE LOOKING FOR, JUST ASK US AND WE’LL GET IT. Tailors all over Naples are taking uniforms to pieces, dying the material, and turning them into smart new outfits for civilian wear. I hear that even British Army long-coms, which despite the climate still find their way over here, are accepted with delight, dyed red, and turned into the latest thing in track suits.
In the first days the MPs carried out a few halfhearted raids on the people specialising in these adaptations, but they found too many smart new overcoats made from Canadian blankets awaiting collection by Italian friends of General this and Colonel that to be able to put a stop to the thing. Last week the Papal Legate’s car, held up by pure accident in some routine road-check, was found to be fitted with a set of stolen tyres. Many apologies and smiles and His Reverence was waved on. Other than commando daggers and bayonets, they don’t display looted weapons in the stalls, but the advice from my contacts is that there is no problem except the cash in arranging to buy anything from a machine-gun to a light tank.
The trouble now is that certain items which can be freely and easily bought on the black market are in short supply in the Army itself. This applies currently to photographic equipment and materials, practically all of which has been stolen to be sold under the counter in shops in the Via Roma, and to certain medical supplies, in particular penicillin. Every sick civilian can go to a pharmacist and get a course of penicillin injections at a time when supplies in the military hospitals are about to run out. At last the time has come when the effect of the black market on the war effort has become evident. It could have been wiped out, but because of the secret involvement in it through their Italian connections of some of our high authorities, it was not. Now, the decision has been reached that something will have to be done. It is too late now to abolish the black market, but at least an attempt will be made to tidy it up. Probably for this reason I was called on today by the FSO and ordered to investigate the penicillin racket.
The first move was to visit the pharmacist Casana with whom we have been on excellent terms, and to ask him in the strictest confidence where his penicillin came from. Casana a little shocked, but resigned, supplied the name Vittorio Fortuna, living in the Via dei Mille, but warned me that if he was called as a witness against this man he would probably lose his life. I checked this name with other pharmacists, all of whom knew of Fortuna and agreed that he was known to deal in penicillin, although they all denied any connection with him. Fortuna, they agreed, was under the protection of someone in Allied Military Government. Having heard this, I decided that my best course was to go to the American Counter-Intelligence Corps, who are well in with AMG, whereas we are not.
Although we and the CIC perform roughly the same function in Naples, and they have recently moved into the floor above us in the same building, there has never been any official contact between us. Currently their strength is about twenty-five agents and one officer. Those who have been lucky enough to glimpse it say they have the finest filing system in all Italy, but they are handicapped by the fact that not a single one of them speaks a word of Italian, which makes them wholly dependent upon an interpreter who once featured on our list of suspects. The organisations, often working separately and without any exchange of information on the same cases, constantly overlap and sometimes come into conflict, so that with fair frequency we lock up each other’s friends, and spring each other’s suspects, treading on each other’s toes with what might be described as good-humoured tolerance.
Our only collaboration with the CIC has been the agreement by which we borrow their jeeps for holiday jaunts in return for a bottle of whisky, which inexplicably is the only thing any American soldier could possibly desire for his pleasure or comfort that the PX does not supply. My whisky-for-jeep arrangement is with Special Agent Frank Edwards, and I discussed the matter of Fortuna with him.
Edwards said that it was well known in the CIC that Fortuna was a lieutenant of Vito Genovese, and he gave me a thumbnail sketch of Genovese’s history. Genovese, according to Edwards, was not, as described on our files, ex-secretary to Al Capone, nor was he even a Sicilian, but had been born in the village of Ricigliano, near Potenza. He had been second-in-command of a New York Mafia ‘family’ headed by Lucky Luciano, Edwards said, and had succeeded to its leadership when Luciano was gaoled, after which he had been acknowledged as the head of all the American Mafia. Shortly before the outbreak of war Genovese had returned to Italy to escape a murder indictment in the US, had become a friend of Mussolini’s, and then, with the Duce’s fall, transferred his allegiance to Allied Military Government, where he was now seen as the power behind the scenes. Genovese controlled the sindacos in most towns within fifty miles of Naples. He leased out rackets to his followers, took a toll of everything, threw crumbs of favour to those who kept in step with him, and found a way of punishing opposition.
What was to be done? Nothing, Edwards said. The CIC had soon learned to steer clear of any racket in which Genovese had a finger – and his finger was in most. Too many American officers had been chosen to go on the Italian campaign because they were of Italian descent. For this reason it was hoped they might easily adapt to the environment, and this they had done all too well. The American-Italians in AMG reigned supreme and knew how to close their ranks when threatened from without. An American CID agent who had cottoned on to the fact that the notorious Genovese was in virtual control in Naples and set out to investigate his present activities, soon found himself isolated and powerless, and all the reward he had had for his pains was loss of promotion. And would this situation apply in his opinion in the case of any Briton who threatened Genovese’s interests? Edwards didn’t know, and suggested I might go ahead and try. He would be most interested to see what happened.
The Allied Military Proclamation, in one or another of its many clauses, seems to authorise one to do almost anything to anybody who, to use the proclamation’s own words, ‘does any act to the prejudice of the good order, safety or security of the Allied Forces’, and I put a copy of the proclamation into my pocket before going to see Fortuna. He was a calm, handsome man, with a religious medal dangling in the opening of his shirt, a controlled but charming smile, and a strange primness of manner, which came out in the exclamation ‘Mamma mia!’ when I explained the reason for my call. H
e irritated me by addressing me as if I were a child, using verbs in the infinitive and speaking with exaggerated slowness and clarity. I showed him the proclamation and told him I was going to search his flat, and he smiled and shrugged his shoulders and invited me to go ahead. The search took a full hour. I worked my way methodically through the rooms, and in doing so discovered nothing more than the normal range of black-market goods that one would expect to find in any flat of this kind. I probed and poked into every corner, examined floorboards, tapped on walls, checked the cistern, dismantled a big old-fashioned gas-heater, and at last in a wastepaper basket under the kitchen sink, found an empty carton that had contained penicillin and with it one damaged phial.
Showing Fortuna the penicillin I told him I was going to arrest him and, still perfectly relaxed and agreeable, he said, ‘This will do you no good. Who are you? You are no one. I was dining with a certain colonel last night. If you are tired of life in Naples, I can have you sent away.’
On the way to Poggio Reale his mood never changed, and he became chatty and affable. Would they cut his hair off and make him wear prison uniform? I told him they wouldn’t until he’d been tried, found guilty and sentenced. When was I going to question him? To this I replied, as soon as I could find the time, but that there might be some little delay, owing to pressure of work. And in the meanwhile? he asked. In the meanwhile, I told him, he’d stay in Poggio Reale where he’d be out of harm’s way. I handed him over to the half-crazy turnkeys, who fingerprinted him and signed him in, and told him I’d see him in two or three days. He laughed, and said, ‘You won’t find me here when you come back.’
May 11
To Poggio Reale to see Fortuna, whom I found dapper and imperturbable as ever. He was busy with what looked like an excellent meal specially brought in, and courteously invited me to join him. He gave me the impression of a man buoyed up with secret knowledge of the way his future was likely to go. I told him that I was so hard pressed for time that I could only spare ten minutes, and that if he felt that there was anything he should say, now was his chance, because I was not sure how long it would be before I could get back again. He asked me what I wanted of him and I told him all the details of the racket in penicillin, including the names of those concerned, and in particular those employed by AMG. Any co-operation he could give in this way would be taken into account at his trial. Fortuna said, ‘Whatever I tell you or don’t tell you makes no difference. I’ll be acquitted.’
This, as I had to agree inwardly, was a strong possibility. We had filled the prison with little men like the half-crazed Antonio Priore who had been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for petty crimes, but every single one of the big fish, Signorini, De Amicis, Del Blasio, Castronuovo, and the rest of them had got off scot-free. Witnesses had disappeared or they had retracted their evidence. They had perjured themselves in court, and gone cheerfully to prison as a result of their perjury. Repeatedly the prosecution had bungled its case and whether by accident or design essential documents had constantly been lost. We knew through our informants of at least one case in which one of our judges had been offered, at a dinner-party, a huge sum to see to it that a man up for trial was cleared. Whether or not he accepted it we should never know, but the defendant was found not guilty. All such powerful and well-connected defendants were found not guilty, while the cells of Poggio Reale and Procida were crowded with small-time receivers and thieves who would rot away in them for the rest of their useful lives. Justice was never seen to be done; and if ever there was a place where it was on sale, it was Naples. If the defence could afford to employ Lelio Porzio, the finest criminal lawyer in Italy, acquittal was certain. In defending one client he delivered a speech lasting two and a half days, in which Browning and Shakespeare were quoted, and the proceedings at one point were held up to allow the judge and jury to regain emotional control. It cost a fortune to retain Porzio but in our experience he had never been known to lose a case.
There was no doubt that Porzio would defend Fortuna, too, if the case could ever be brought to court, and that so far I had no firm witnesses, although I hoped to get one. What was needed was a little time, and in the meanwhile it seemed essential to keep Fortuna in a place where he would be at least hampered in his efforts to bend the law to his will, intimidate all possible witnesses, and call his friends in AMG to his aid. To undermine his unshattered belief that he would be rescued in a matter of days, I mentioned in anecdotal fashion, but with perfect truth, that such was the chronic muddle in the administration of the gaol that prisoners actually got lost, and cited a case – through a mix-up over names – where two detainees had been called for in the night, put on a boat in the port and shipped off to Tripoli in the belief that they had escaped from gaol there. This information was intended to convey a hint that it was always possible that something of the kind could happen to him, Fortuna. But I knew it couldn’t, and that Fortuna was not the kind of man to allow himself to be victimised by a bureaucratic blunder. I was trying a little bluff, without too much hope of success. Fortuna was accustomed to dealing with men with far-reaching and mysterious powers, and I hoped that he might be encouraged in the fallacy that I possessed them too, and for this reason might be inclined to come to terms. He seemed impressed, but still had nothing useful to say, so I told him I hoped to be back in a week and went off to see Casana again.
Nothing would induce Casana to change his mind not to give evidence against Fortuna – this much I expected, but he said he had heard of someone who probably would for a consideration, a certain Dr Lanza who was a business rival of Fortuna’s. Casana couldn’t approve of Lanza, who he mentioned was from the North, and therefore completely indifferent to matters of honour.
I found Dr Lanza in his clinic, which smelt not only of ether but success. He had a fine Lancia car outside with an AMG sticker on the windscreen, and he showed me affectionate letters and recommendations from half a dozen colonels, and passes enabling him to go anywhere within reason. The doctor had an absolutely frank and straightforward proposition to make. In exchange for giving evidence against Fortuna, who had sold him penicillin he only subsequently found out to have been stolen, he asked for a solemn promise that a way would be found of getting him to Rome as soon as it fell. Lanza admitted, as if to an act of Christian charity, that his motive for the trip would be to fill his car with pharmaceutical and other products bought at prices as low as one-fiftieth of those currently paid in Naples. I told him that such a deal might be considered. It seemed a low price to pay for the certainty – because it was unlikely that Lanza could be made to disappear, or retract his evidence – of a victory over the black market.
Back to Poggio Reale in the hope that Fortuna might have weakened. I was by now certain that Lanza would give evidence, and would be an excellent witness, having discovered that there was an additional motive to the commercial one in the form of a long-standing feud between the two men. For all this, optimism was waning. I was reminded of the ominous fact that at our last interview I had found Fortuna in a cell by himself, although such was the prison overcrowding that up to six, even occasionally eight, men were put into a cell together. His cell had looked well kept, which suggested to me that he paid another prisoner to look after it. In fact he was being treated as a privileged person. Anything could happen in a place like Poggio Reale. It was a mysterious world of which we knew nothing with certainty, but of which we heard the most astonishing rumours. One heard of prisoners whose names were on the register spending weekends in Capri, and of the aristocrats of the underworld – of which Fortuna would be one – giving champagne parties in their cells on their saints’ days for their cronies and the ladies of the town; of family visits and the usual exchange of gifts at Christmas and the Epiphany and Easter. If it is a fact that in Naples everything is for sale, how much more true must this be in Poggio Reale?
A message waited at the Ufficio Matricola to say the Governor wanted to see me. When I went to his office I saw the American maste
r-sergeant, supposed to have been dismissed as adviser to the Governor for selling prison equipment. He was sitting in the anteroom, and he looked up from the comic book he was reading, waved and smiled, and I went in. It turned out that the Governor himself was away sick. His deputy, a small, dried-out, light-starved functionary, sighed deeply before pushing a doctor’s certificate across the desk. This said that Fortuna was suffering from appendicitis with grave complications, and as the facilities for his treatment were not available in the prison, he had had to be moved out to a civilian hospital.
The Deputy Governor’s eyes met mine and he cupped the tips of the fingers of his right hand and allowed it to oscillate slowly from the wrist. The gesture meant ‘what do you expect? This is Naples. These are the facts of life.’
What was to be done? I was absolutely certain that I could take a doctor with me to this hospital where we should find Fortuna with an incision in the abdomen. We should be told that he had been operated upon for the removal of the appendix – and he quite possibly had. Ways and means would be found to see to it that he was running a temperature by the time we were admitted. We should be told that recovery would be slow, and convalescence long. After that the ball would be in my court. I could insist on taking him back to Poggio Reale, where the hospital facilities would certainly be primitive, but it would look like victimisation to anyone who did not know the inside facts of the case, and Fortuna would have some justification for an appeal to AMG, who would be certain to refer the matter to No. 3 District.