“We think the Syndicate is using the mafia society as muscle for its gambling racket.”
“But why?” Petrosino said. “The mafia is a relic from the Old Country.”
“What do you know about the mafia, Mr. Petrosino?” Tarbell asked, a notebook open on her lap. Petrosino thought that she looked like a handsome teacher about to grade him.
“The mafia supposedly came from the old days when the French invaded Sicily. They say a young married couple was having a picnic to celebrate Vespers, and some French soldiers came upon them and took advantage of the girl and killed the boy. That started a revolt by the Sicilians, who eventually kicked the French off the island. Since that time, the mafia became a secret society to protect Sicilians against foreign invaders and corrupt overlords.”
“An old romance story. You’re quixotic, Mr. Petrosino.”
Petrosino blushed. “No, Miss Tarbell. The mafia today is mostly bands of brigands in the mountains of Sicily. They live off fear of a greater myth of its power.”
“We think it’s more than a myth. Our Italian sources say that branches of the mafia society exist in every town in Italy and that all Italians are in dreaded terror of it. And our own federal government says the society’s tentacles are reaching across the ocean to form a network of gangs here, where immigrants are easy marks. What do you say to that?”
“The mafia in Italy is dangerous. Like I told Steffens, Sicilians are hill folk that use vengeance as a way of justice. They don’t trust the law, so they take it upon themselves. But in America, it’s small gangs feeding on immigrants. The mafia isn’t organized to run a big racket.”
“But isn’t it?” Tarbell asked. “Sicily has always had a feudal system in place from Roman times. A few governing families organized like Caesar’s rule of the Roman Empire that enforce payment of tribute, discipline, and the bandits’ code of silence. What’s it called, Steff?”
Petrosino was reminded of Agent Ritchie’s description of the Morello gang. They thought of themselves as Caesars. He absentmindedly answered Tarbell, “Omertá.”
“That’s it,” Tarbell said. “The mafia has the same vertical structure of power anywhere. Landowners lease territory to gabelloti, and they in turn hire collectors who collect ‘tribute’ from the people. And if someone doesn’t pay, the collectors have armed gangs, the campieri, that use violence to command respect and enforce payment of tribute.”
“True,” Petrosino said, “but mafia muscle are called picciotti or ‘kids.’ Collectors are capos, and estate managers are Dons who get their territory from a legitimate source. What you’re saying may be true in Sicily, but it’s weaker in America. I know all the crooks in New York, and I’ve seen mafiosi here. But they’re brutes, Miss Tarbell, not masterminds.”
Steffens patted Petrosino’s hand. “And the Syndicate is using these brutes.”
“But why would this Syndicate use Italian muscle?” Petrosino said. “Before Lexow, the crooks used Irish gangs for muscle. Sometimes Jewish gangs or even rotten cops, if they had to. Why Italians? They can’t even talk their language.”
“That’s what we were hoping you could tell us. That and whether you could find out anything about rotten cops mixed up in the Syndicate.”
Petrosino mulled it over, snubbing out his cigar on his shoe sole. The ash fell as he thought about Schmittberger. “Yesterday, when I mentioned Schmittberger, how come you didn’t want to talk to him? He was in the game a long time ago. Maybe he could help.”
“We don’t want him involved.” Steffens looked sideways at Tarbell.
“Why not?” Petrosino leaned forward, squinting hard. “Don’t you trust him? Aren’t you the one who said he could be reformed and got him back on the job?”
“That was a long time ago, Joe. When I was naïve.”
“That’s horse… feathers. He’s not what you may think. Not a chance.”
Steffens adjusted his spectacles and swallowed hard. “I’m not saying that. I’m saying that he and his ‘Steamboat Squad’ used to collect monthly payments from gamblers and prostitutes and pass the money up to the brass. Sometimes he forced payment with his expert use of the billy. Back then, the payments tallied $20,000 a month. And he bought a nice house back then, which he and his wife still live in, which they can never pay off now. Not on an honest salary.”
Petrosino felt like all the air had been sucked out of him. “Look, Steffens, I came here because you mentioned the mafia to me. And it just so happens that I have another case that involves a Sicilian gang. So I thought if you scratched my back, then I’d scratch yours. But I don’t know anything about any Syndicate, and I don’t wanna know about them either.”
“When I was a boy,” Steffens said, “the smartest men I knew were blacksmiths and niggers who handled mules and kicking horses. They always said the safest place to be was close up to the beast’s heels.”
“So you want me to be your nigger and stay close to the beast? If I didn’t know you better, Steff, I might be offended.”
“Would you at least keep an ear open for us, Detective?” Tarbell touched his hand.
“I won’t promise you a thing and I won’t hear another word about my friend. But I might keep both ears open on one condition: you scratch my back, too.”
“What do you need, Detective?” Tarbell said.
“I want you to reach out to your friends in high places and tell me what you can about a Sicilian crook named Guiseppe Morello from a town called Corleone.”
Tarbell asked for the spelling and jotted down the name in her book.
“I knew you’d come through,” Steffens said, standing and pumping Petrosino’s hand.
“Don’t thank me, Steffens. I think you’re all wet on your Syndicate. I’m just playing along because I want some dirt on that Sicilian. Good day, Miss Tarbell.”
Chapter 13
Sandwiches and hot beef tea had sounded good to Petrosino, but he wanted to escape Steffens’ office as quickly as he could. He felt like a snitch just for talking to Steffens and Tarbell about their theories of a Syndicate and rotten cops. He wondered if he would have been so friendly if Tarbell hadn’t been there. There was something pleasant and disarming about her. He wouldn’t have minded lunch with her, but instead he left alone and found a café where he ordered hot beef tea, a corned beef sandwich, and two pieces of apple pie with fresh cream. The lunch exorcised the demons of beer and rye that had possessed his stomach the night before. He took coffee with him and went back to his office at the Marble Palace refreshed and more worried than ever about the barrel murder and Schmittberger.
He sat at his blotter for a while, ruminating. He had plenty of other cases on the East Side. At the top of the list was an assault on ten Jewish workers in their garment sweatshop. Petrosino had already fished out the facts. The workers had gone on strike to protest long hours, and so they were beaten by Pinkertons and off-duty bulls hired by the sweatshop owner. But Chief Inspector McClusky had issued orders not to interfere with businesses “managing” labor, and, besides, the strikebreaker case had none of the mystery of the barrel murder.
What is Max thinking? Petrosino thought.
He heaved a loud sigh and unlocked the bottom drawer in his desk. He took out a dusty bottle of cheap whiskey and nursed it while he did paperwork until sundown. He grew woozy and more agitated about the barrel murder and decided to slip down to the basement. Police stationed all over the city reported fires and crimes in their precincts to Headquarters, and the reports were briefly posted in the basement telegraph office. The Poker Club of loafer reporters were down there, playing cards as always. They smelled of cheap beer and carried cynical smiles and blunt pencils.
Petrosino skimmed the usual fare of bulletins. A roof chase for a burglar, a baby fallen off a fire escape, and a sweatshop fire. For some reason, he had hoped there would be something he could connect to the barrel murder. But there was nothing. He started for the stairwell as he heard Schmittberger’s voice dodging questions fro
m the Poker Club.
A reporter asked, “Has the Coroner confirmed that Dr. Primrose committed suicide?”
“What else it would be,” Schmittberger said, “he hung himself.”
“There’s rumors that the man found in the barrel was working undercover for the Secret Service and was exposed and killed. Is that why federal lawmen are here now?”
“Why, you ought to get your eyes checked for specs. Secret Service? Why would they work a murder? They only count money over at the Treasury, didn’t you know?” The reporters laughed, and Schmittberger looked over their heads and noticed Petrosino. “Gents, have to go.”
Petrosino pretended not to see him and started up the stairs.
“Joe! Where you going? Hey, sourpuss!”
“What?” Petrosino stopped halfway up the stairs, clutching the rail.
Schmittberger walked faster. “Why didn’t you stop?”
“I didn’t see you.”
“Nuts.” Schmittberger caught up to him on the stairs. “I was looking all over for you. Jesus, you smell like … say, you got soused without me? I’m hurt.”
“Good.” Petrosino started upstairs again.
Schmittberger followed. “Now you’re pouting like a toddler, Joe.”
Petrosino made the next floor’s landing and started for the hallway to his office.
“Stop, damn it!” Schmittberger shouted, still in the stairwell. “We’ve got another meeting.”
“What the hell for?” Petrosino turned around.
“The straw boaters are back about the murder,” Schmittberger whispered, adding a wink that made Petrosino hopeful. “Let’s go watch McClusky shit his drawers.”
McClusky was waiting for them, syphoning a cigarette down to a half-inch nub. A semi-circle of chairs faced the desk in his office. The Chief Inspector had apparently directed his underlings to spruce up the place with extra chairs and trays of cigars, teas, and bottles of mineral water. Petrosino noticed that there was now a photograph of President Roosevelt on the wall next to McClusky’s painted portrait. And McClusky’s favorite detective, Handsome Jimmy McCafferty, was sitting in a chair to McClusky’s right, notebook in hand, awkwardly holding a pen with three fingers. A teacup steamed on a sideboard next to him.
“The goddamn Secret Service is back,” McClusky muttered.
Schmittberger and Petrosino nodded, but both must have stared too long at McCafferty.
“Jimmy’s gonna be my fly on the wall from now on. That spread eagle jingoist Flynn thinks he knows all. Son of a bitch said I was ‘groping around in the dark’ last time. He’s just sore because we solved the barrel murder and left him out in the cold. I told him we’d hear him out, but that’s it. I’ll be damned if we’re going to re-open that case, especially now that Primrose confessed in his own hand and killed his damn self over it.”
“What does Flynn want us to hear out, Chief?” Petrosino asked eagerly.
An electric bell on McClusky’s desk jingled, and he tossed his cigarette in a spittoon and scowled at them. “Don’t agree with him. Just listen and yawn.” He hit the button on his desk, and the anteroom sergeant opened the door and let in Agents Flynn and Ritchie. The Secret Service men nodded hello, but said nothing. Ritchie carried a small leather portfolio.
“I’m missing supper for this,” McClusky said, “so it better be good, Bill.”
Flynn and Ritchie sat down, and Flynn gave McClusky a shake of the head. “No, it’s not good. You won’t like it one bit, but I feel obligated to let you know: Your killer is still aloose.”
“That’s a fine how-do-you-do.” McClusky took out a fresh cigarette. “So it’s true then, what the rumor mongers are saying? That the victim was one of your men undercover?”
Flynn scoffed. “Nonsense. We’d never botch an undercover job like that.” Flynn looked over at Schmittberger first, then hesitated and turned to Ritchie. “Go ahead, Ritchie, tell him what we’ve uncovered.”
Ritchie opened the portfolio and drew out a report. He placed it on McClusky’s desk, spun it around, and patted it. “It’s all in my report, Chief Inspector.”
“Well, spit it out, boy. You think I wanna read the god… the damn thing?”
Ritchie sat back down and said, “The barrel victim, who we call the Newcomer, was last seen alive at eight o’clock at night on Easter Monday, April 13, with the Morello gang. The first we heard of this Dr. Primrose was when your men pinched him. But it seemed queer to us that a man we’d never seen could’ve killed the Newcomer. So we did a little digging.”
“Into what?” McClusky asked, the cigarette flattened between his teeth. “Primrose confessed and committed suicide. What the hell is there to dig for? His grave?”
“Well, sir, a lot,” Ritchie said smugly. “We checked with the sanitarium. The intake records. And they show that Primrose was admitted at 10:15 p.m. on the evening of Monday, April 13. A ferry to River Crest takes-”
“A good half hour or more,” McClusky said. “So what? The victim was last seen at eight o’clock, you said so yourself. That’s an hour and a half window. Plenty of time to kill.”
“Chief, they may have a point,” Schmittberger said with a gloomy frown. Petrosino could see that he was laying it on thick, but no one else noticed.
“What point is that?” McClusky said.
“The Coroner’s report, sir. Dr. Weston said that he examined the victim’s stomach contents and that he’d just eaten a meal, potatoes or somesuch.”
“So what?” McClusky pointed his cigarette at Schmittberger.
“I’m guessing Mr. Ritchie is about to tell us about the time of death.”
Ritchie nodded. “That’s right. Time of death was fixed at somewhere between 11 o’clock on Monday evening and 1 o’clock Tuesday morning, the day he was found. So there’s no chance that Primrose could have killed him because he already would have been at River Crest Sanitarium for almost an hour.”
“Miles away in Astoria,” Flynn added, with a bit of relish. “You fell for a false confession, George. Even your own Coroner opined that there was more than one weapon and perhaps more than one killer.”
Petrosino wanted to say, I knew it. He shifted in his chair, gripping the arms tightly.
Schmittberger raised an eyebrow at him, annoyed by the fidgeting.
McClusky quietly snubbed out his cigarette and licked at his scaly lips, smiling slightly. “What are you trying to do here, Flynn? You got something against me?”
“Justice is God’s work. I’m only trying to find out what happened, George.”
“You can have that back, boy.” McClusky shoved the report across his desk until it fell on the floor at Ritchie’s feet. “I’m still running this Bureau, and I’ll make sure we get our man.”
“See, George, that’s where you’re wrong. The only suspects now are the men last seen with the victim. The Morello gang. And that’s my bailiwick.”
“Horseshit. Let’s see what General Greene has to say about your trying to railroad me.” McClusky picked up the receiver from his Upright telephone. “Get me the Gen-”
“Go ahead and ring the Police Commissioner. I spoke to him about this case, and he’s already given Treasury his blessing. It seems he doesn’t want the bad press for any bumbling with the Primrose angle. He doesn’t mind us Secret Service taking the heat for a little while. So you’d do well to defer to me on this, George.”
McClusky squeezed the receiver, then rammed it back into its hook.
Flynn ignored him and said calmly to Petrosino, “Joseph, you’re acquainted with the Italian gangs in the City. Does it tally with any other killings? Like Luigi Troja or Joe Catania?”
“Hang on,” McClusky said, “what do they have to do with this?”
“Luigi Troja was stabbed in his Harlem saloon last year,” Flynn said. “Catania was an Italian grocer killed in Brooklyn a few months ago. Word on the street was that Catania was possessed by the liquor devil and wont to open his mouth freely about the affairs of a mafia g
ang he was in and their criminal exploits. We think that particular gang is the Morello outfit.”
“Those cases were before you made Chief Inspector, sir,” Petrosino said, glancing at McClusky’s suspicious eyes. “Catania’s body was stuffed in a potato sack and thrown over the cliff in Bay Ridge. Four little boys found him with his throat cut from ear to ear.”
“Do you think it’s related, Joseph?” Flynn asked.
“Wait a damn minute.” McClusky snapped his fingers. “How do we know that Primrose didn’t hire someone to kill the victim? Maybe he paid off this lot of Dagos?”
“Possible,” Flynn said, turning back to Petrosino. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Petrosino said. “The barrel killing is more personal. The killer here butchered the genitals clean off and shoved them in the victim’s mouth. Then there’s the torture signs on the neck. Catania’s wound was one fatal slash, which seems like a mercy killing by comparison. And if this was a gang snuff or even a murder contract, why would they put the barrel victim on display in the middle of the street and chance being caught?”
“Well, I think there’s only one way to get more answers at this point.”
“And what way is that, Bill?” McClusky asked facetiously.
“My men can swear an affidavit that the victim was last seen with the Morello gang on Easter Monday. So I’m inclined to round the gang up now unless anyone objects? George?”
McClusky stared bitterly at Flynn, brooding. “Fine.”
“Sir, we could pinch the entire gang and squeeze them until one of them sings,” Petrosino said. “But, if we do, we better take them all at the same time or else they’ll send a signal through the East Side so the others can fly the coop.”
“Then it’s settled.” Flynn turned to McClusky. “Get every available plainclothes man to poke up early tomorrow morning. Muster here at 7 o’clock. My agents will spot the suspects’ locations and keep a tail on them through the night. We’ll take them all at the same time if we’re not too late.” Flynn stood, donned his straw boater. “We have a lot of fox dens to raid tomorrow. Sleep well, gentlemen. The Lord loves the just.”
THE BARREL MURDER - a Detective Joe Petrosino case (based on true events) Page 10