“Curse the fishes,” Petrosino hissed at the approaching shadow in the corridor. “With all your complaining about the PD, you were the last man I expected to see.”
Chapter 34
Secret Service Agent William J. Flynn sauntered down the basement corridor with a tall man behind him. Flynn had a gloomy look on his walrus face, as if he’d just gotten word of a death in the family. He had his straw boater in hand and didn’t offer Petrosino a handshake as he came up to the brick cell and examined the pair of exhausted men in chains. He looked at their condition and sighed. Their will to live almost sluiced out of their boiled skin.
“Joseph, what the devil’s going on here?”
“PD business. What’s this got to do with you and this fellow?”
“This man is a foreign dignitary, he works for the Italian Consulate.” Flynn waved his hand at the tall man. “Don Vito Cascio Ferro, this is Detective Sergeant Petrosino of the New York police. I’m sorry, I forgot your title, Mr. Cascio Ferro.”
“I’m the aide-de-camp of Signore Rafaello Palizzolo, the Deputy of the City of Palermo, and I’m ambassador to the Inglese and Ferrantelli families.”
“Swell, another Sicilian,” Petrosino said as he studied the man.
Cascio Ferro had a regal air. He was in his forties, tall but made more elongated by his black suit, plain black tie, and white shirt. His chestnut hair, blondish beard, and curved nose made him look like an Italian Mephistopheles. His eyes absorbed the jail surroundings with a hint of sadness.
Flynn tapped Petrosino’s hand. “Joseph, I need you to turn those men loose.”
“What for?”
“They work for Mr. Cascio Ferro.”
“So what?” Petrosino finally turned his eyes away from Don Vito. “How’d you know they were even here, Flynn?”
“I don’t know, Joseph. Someone must’ve called the Consulate and they called Treasury. I was ordered to come straight away and free them. What did you pinch them for?”
“You of all people?” Petrosino shook his head with a mocking laugh. “I would’ve never suspected you with the likes of these men. Did your boys help the gang pass notes, too?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just doing my job. Maybe you ought to do the same. Now I’ve got orders to have these men walk. Shake a leg.”
“Can’t do that. They’re arrested for obstruction and threatening witnesses.”
Flynn sighed and glanced anxiously at Cascio Ferro, who seemed completely unruffled as he reached into his pocket for a pipe and chewed on the stem. “Do you have any evidence against these men, Joseph? Because I heard you don’t have a thing.”
“You’ve got quite an information source. Did your tip-off tell you these men gave the death sign to witnesses at the barrel murder Inquest?”
“Did anyone see them do that? Do you have witnesses?”
Petrosino shook his head. “I know it was them.”
“Did you find weapons on them?”
“No, but I’ve seen them before…” Petrosino thought of the soda fountain and the firecrackers at his apartment. “I know a crook when I see one. Why’d they run, answer that?”
“Everyone runs from you, Joseph. Don Vito here is an upstanding man. He’s helped get Italian observers at the polls in the immigrant wards. He’s the kind of man who doles out holiday dinners and buckets of coal at Christmas time, and this is an election year, mind you.”
“Nuts. If we hold them until I Marconigraph a message to Italy, I bet you a thousand dollar bill that the Italian authorities will have rap sheets longer than your arm-”
“Excuse me, Detective,” Cascio Ferro interrupted, “but these gentlemen you arrested are no more crooks than I could fly over the moon.”
“I wasn’t talking you to, amico,” Petrosino said.
“Joseph,” Flynn said, holding his elbow, “you’ve got nothing on these men. It’s already been cleared from Mr. Willkie at Treasury down to the Central Bureau. You’re out of line. This is politics, not crime. We have to cut them loose.”
Petrosino shoved Flynn aside and squared up to Cascio Ferro. “Who are you anyhow?”
“I already told you that, Detective, or maybe your English isn’t so good?” Cascio Ferro repeated it in Italian.
Petrosino listened to the man’s elocution. By comparison to the Morello gang who spoke and carried themselves like shepherds and bandits from the hills, Cascio Ferro could pass for bourgeois. “When did you come to this country, Vito?”
“Shame what goes on in these places.” Cascio Ferro looked around, caressed the Belgian rabbit fur of an exquisite Borsalino hat in his hand. “I came here two or three years ago.”
“Which port did you come through?”
“New York. A steamship from Genoa or Le Havre.” Cascio Ferro’s bony fingers played with the rim of his black fedora. “First class passage.”
Le Havre was a well-known port for smuggling, Petrosino thought. He studied Cascio Ferro’s hand and noticed a gold ring in the shape of a snake coiled around his middle finger.
“Joseph,” Flynn said, “if you don’t turn them loose, I’ll have to proffer charges against you for interfering with a federal officer and then the brass will get wind of what you’re doing here, too. Torture of all things. Now do the Christian thing and let it be.”
Petrosino handed Flynn the keys to the shackles. “Here, you want to free your new chums? Go ahead, I bow to Treasury. Or Tammany. Or whoever snapped the whip at you.”
Flynn snatched the keys and slipped inside the brick cell.
“What are the names of those men in there?” Petrosino asked Cascio Ferro.
“Pietro and Paolo Rizzatto.”
“How do you know them?”
“I’m their padrino. I baptized them in our Church in Corleone.”
“Sure, I bet you baptized those nice altar boys. In the ways of the dagger.”
Flynn came out of the cell with Peter and Paul listlessly following. The pair of soaked prisoners stood behind Cascio Ferro, scowling painfully at Petrosino.
“Joseph, what the devil were you doing?” Flynn asked. “They look like barge rats.”
Petrosino ignored Flynn and kept staring at Cascio Ferro. There was something about this man that turned his hairs endwise. “Do you know Giuseppe Morello and Luciano Petto?”
“Never heard those names before.”
“What about Benedetto Madonnia?”
Cascio Ferro shook his head, pipe smoke curling out of his nostrils.
“Then why are your nephews threatening witnesses at Madonnia’s murder Inquest?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I vouch for these men. They work for me, and they’ve never threatened a fly on a horse’s tail.”
“You know nothing of the barrel murder case in this city? Someone stabbed Madonnia to death and shoved his balls in his mouth. Sounds like a crude Sicilian message, doesn’t it?”
“Sicily has an unfair reputation in this country, but you wouldn’t understand that.”
Petrosino played a hunch. “I heard they make the best counterfeit in Sicily. It would be easy to import that business here. Smuggle what you need into New York, get the right men, start passing it off as you go. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Don Vito, emissary of the honorable Sicilian government?”
“Blast it, Joseph,” Flynn erupted, “that’s enough. This man is a guest of the Consulate. Let’s go, Mr. Cascio Ferro. I’m sorry about this. . . misunderstanding.”
“Sometimes these things happen when a little man thinks he has big power.” Cascio Ferro smiled at Petrosino and turned to leave, but Petrosino grabbed his arm.
“I never forget a crook’s face, Don Vito. If I see you in my city again, I’ll fix you up.”
“Joseph, knock it off!” Flynn said.
Petrosino watched Cascio Ferro’s eyes turn cold, exposing a glimpse of venom in the elegant Sicilian. He set his Borsalino fedora on his head, towering o
ver Petrosino. His long features and silhouette gave him the air of belonging to a superior ancient race. “I’d like to see you in Sicily, Detective. I’ll give you a welcome a man of your stature deserves.”
“You would, would you?” Petrosino stepped forward, but Flynn stood in the way until the three Sicilians filed down the corridor and out the door.
Petrosino’s stomach turned as he watched the trio walk out, scott-free.
“What the devil’s the matter with you, Joseph?”
“I could ask you the same thing, Flynn, but I already know. You always complain that the PD is a ‘chamber of horrors,’ but now you’re rolling over for these scum.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. He’s just an I-talian politicker with pull, and those two puppets are nobody in your murder case.” Flynn turned to walk away and muttered over his shoulder, “You’ve cracked up, Joseph.”
THE WORLD
Chapter 35
The Inquest was moved from the courtroom to Coroner Scholer’s chambers, where it was barred from the public. Jerome had rested his case for indictment at five o’clock in the afternoon with an array of sensational exhibits: Dr. Weston’s pronouncement of murder, the pocket watch, the pawn ticket, the stilettos and knives found on the gang, the gruesome Morgue photos, and the barrel itself. Scholer sent the twelve German jurors into the deliberation room and told them not to come out until they had reached a decision. It had been two hours since, and Petrosino had grown anxious waiting at the Criminal Courts Building. Schmittberger found him at the back entrance, and they shared a few slugs from Schmittberger’s hip flask.
“As of five o’clock,” Schmittberger said, “I’m officially off suspension and on the job.”
“How’d Jersey go?”
Max winked. “Did the ole train trick.”
“You pinched Federica? In New York?”
“Damn right. Tracked her down waiting for a train in Jersey. I put on a conductor’s cap and pointed at the northbound train and yelled, ‘Next stop PATERSON! All aboard!’ She and a few other folks looked confused, but they got on. Of course, the next stop was Suffern. So as soon as the train crosses into New York, I put the bracelets on her and she starts squawking.”
“Did she talk?”
“Nope. She’s a tougher walnut than her man Petto. But I got her on ice. How’d our witnesses do?”
“Almost fell apart like the Dewey Arch. Let’s not loiter here waiting for the jury. I’ll get dyspepsia. I want to collect my winnings anyhow. Remember?” Petrosino took out his betting stub. “The Senators licked our Highlanders 7 to 2.”
“I saw. The sports pages are calling the Highlanders a bunch of damn Yankees. Hell, that Bimbo could pitch better than Chesbro. Why’d we bet both ways on that game?”
“You’ll see.”
On the way to the gambling parlor next to Snigglefritz’s Saloon, Petrosino explained what had happened at the Inquest and in the sweat box with the Rizzato brothers and Don Vito Cascio Ferro, and how Flynn must be a grafter for springing them from the Eldridge Precinct jail.
“I knew Flynn when he was on the Police Board,” Schmittberger said, “and he never struck me as a Tammany man. Remember that house burglar stoolie I had in Satan’s Circus? Boob Sidensheiner?”
“I liked Boob. Wasn’t he a dwarf?”
“He crossed Flynn’s path once. A rich family left their home in Gramercy for the summer, and Boob and his pal drove up a stevedore wagon and pretended they were movers. They picked the lock and started unloading the family’s furniture. They had trouble with a big armoire, and Boob saw Flynn and a couple strawboaters coming along. He knew they were the law and was leery at first because he said Flynn looked as hard as the eye of a Customs House officer. But instead of acting shifty, Boob said, ‘Could you lend a hand to a fellow Christian?’ Flynn smiled, said something about Jesus, and directed his Secret Service men to help load the armoire. Boob said he made off with a fortune and had Jesus and The Law to thank for it…”
Petrosino laughed. “I wouldn’t have pegged Flynn as a grafter either. But he must be.”
When they made it to Mercer Street, they saw a dead horse on the side of the road beneath a lamppost. Its mottled grey legs were sprawled across crooked cobblestones, and its shoes were falling off in the gutter. Six little boys sat on the curb, dangling their feet in the brown puddled water, poking sticks at the carcass. One of the boys was leaning next to the horse’s toothy head and comparing a marble to its opaque lifeless eyeball. A swarm of flies and mangy dogs gathered for their turn at the flesh. The sight put Petrosino in an even fouler mood.
“Look at them making a playground of that carcass. Already numb to death. Get away from that horse! Skedaddle!” Petrosino grabbed the slowest straggler by the collar. “Not you. You take this stub into that parlor there and bring me back the dough.” Petrosino handed him the stub. “I’ll give you a tip. Go on now.”
The little boy’s blackened hands snatched the stub, and he darted into the gambling parlor. He came back with a five-dollar certificate and four silver dollars. One buck had gone to the house for its rake. Petrosino bit each coin and flipped one to the boy who grinned and ran off. Petrosino moved under the lamppost and held the certificate up to the fuzzy globe.
“So?” Schmittberger said.
“This batch is top-notch, Max. It would fool most folks. And look, it’s the National Iron Bank of Morristown.”
“Same bank as before? The Morello gang’s handiwork?”
Petrosino nodded. “Let’s go see if Steffens is in his office. He’ll want to hear this.”
Steffens paced in front of the tryptich of windows overlooking Washington Square Park as the moon glimmered. Tarbell and McAlpin watched intently as he recited a few lines from what must’ve been a draft article: “Tammany is bad government; not inefficient, but dishonest; not a party, not a delusion and a snare, hardly known by its party name – Democracy; having little standing in the national councils of the party and caring little for influence outside the City. Tammany is Tammany, the embodiment of corruption.”
“You might want to say something like, Hypocrisy is not a Tammany virtue,” Tarbell said, “’but rather Tammany proclaims its genuine intentions: Tammany is honestly dishonest.’”
“Honestly dishonest.” Steffens paused to jot it down. “I like that one, Minerva.”
Petrosino and Schmittberger stood in the entrance and began clapping. The other three started from their chairs, then grinned, beckoning them inside.
“Come in.” Steffens adjusted his spectacles. “I was just working on my article, New York: Good Government In Danger. I thought you two would be in Court.”
“No patience for waiting,” Petrosino said. “But we found some things of great interest.”
“Do tell, Detective?” Tarbell rose up and offered her hand, and Petrosino took it and handed her the five from the gambling parlor.
She looked at the bill. “This is bigger than my last book advance.”
Petrosino smiled and said, “That’s the money I won betting on a baseball game. It was paid off at one of Alderman Murphy’s dives.”
“I see. So, Mr. Schmittberger, you lost your money on those damn awful Yankees?”
“Why, Miss Tarbell, my ears are red from such salted language.”
Steffens got up and looked at the bill. “What of it?”
“The five is counterfeit. My original bet though was with good money.”
“You mean the gambling houses are printing this stuff?”
“No, Steff. You remember you couldn’t figure out why the Syndicate would use an Italian gang. Now we know. The Sicilians are experts at manufacturing counterfeit. They never had two coins to scratch together in the Old Country either, so it was a cinch for them to import it here. In fact, that’s some of the best work I’ve ever seen.”
“I see.” Steffens took the note and sat down in his chair, examining it under the green shade of his desk lamp. “Remarkable. You k
now, I haven’t told you this, but we have records from government hearings where Alderman Murphy, Big Tim Sullivan, and the Liquor Dealers Association met with the city council about the Excise Laws. See, Murphy’s getting protection at his establishments to not only sell liquor but also games of chance.”
“And with the Sicilian gang, his Syndciate wins all the way around,” Petrosino said. “First, they fix the odds in their favor. If you lose, they collect good money. If you win despite the house edge, they pay your original bet in good money and your winnings in bunco notes. And what gambler is gonna complain if they ever found out? That’s what the Sicilian enforcers are for. It’s a two-way profit scheme and a brilliant way to circulate the phony money.”
“Then the gambling racket must be even more than the six millions I estimated before.”
“Joe and I call it ‘money laundry,’” Schmittberger said. “Washing out the bad with the good coming in. And we think they use the Italian gangs for a lot more than counterfeit. Like extorting protection money, collecting bad debts, and pushing a button on rivals to make ‘em disappear. After all, who’s better with a knife than an Italian? We even think they’re using the Morello gang to get out the Italian vote. Tell ‘em, Joe.”
“Flynn came to the Eldridge Station with a bigshot Sicilian named Don Vito Cascio Ferro, and made me release two Sicilians who threatened me and a witness at the Inquest. I think the Secret Service could be getting a share of the spoils while they look the other way. Flynn said something about Italian poll watchers, and we all know there must be three hundred thousand Italians here from the Old Country. That’s a lot of votes…”
“Well, I’ll be Darwin’s monkey!” Steffens shook his head. “So it was a federal law man then? That strait-laced, goo-goo Flynn is mixed up in this Syndicate?”
THE BARREL MURDER - a Detective Joe Petrosino case (based on true events) Page 26