He crossed himself, then found his first toehold in the wall of logs. He grabbed with both hands and clambered from one log to the next until his torso was above the roof. He reached for the stovepipe, but his arm wasn’t long enough. He carefully threw one leg over and crawled on his belly to the stovepipe. The smoke twisted right above us head. He took the extra clothes out from his overalls and shoved them deep into the pipe, packing them quickly and tightly. Then he dangled his legs over the roof’s edge and slid quietly down to the ground.
He quickly circled to the front door and drew out the heavy lead sap. Smoke corkscrewed out of the keyhole. Coughing came from within the cabin, then choking sounds, and a man’s voice cursing. Heavy footsteps, metal clanging like pots falling from a stove, then a crash of iron and a hissing sound, like water snuffing a fire. The cabin door burst open with a cloud of smoke, and a hulking man in a bearskin coat came stumbling out. His bearded face was concealed by hands rubbing at his eyes and by fits of coughing. A grey funnel of smoke sucked out of the cabin and past the man into the darkness.
Petrosino saw the man’s great size, but hesitated as the man bent over, gagging and spitting on the ground. When Petrosino clearly saw him, Petrosino raised the sap. Petto’s face was just looking up when Petrosino brought the sap down on his scalp. The blow disoriented Petto, and he staggered back with his hands up in self-defense, bleary eyes still blinking through tears. He coughed out a curse and threw wild punches in the air. Petrosino swung the sap at his crotch, and Petto doubled over, clutching his groin and wheezing desperately. Petrosino smashed him again on the head, then pushed him back inside the cabin’s haze. The room was only visible in patches as he struck Petto across the mouth and shoved him onto a bed. Petto tried to sit up, holding up his arms as a shield, gasping to speak.
Petrosino took out his .38 pistol and lit a small lamp while Petto tried to get his breath. On a side table were coins, lists of miners’ names, a loaded silver pistol, and the opened red envelope. In the weak light and dying embers from the woodstove, Petto’s bloodshot eyes thinned at Petrosino, and his grotesquely bearded face contorted violently.
Petto sputtered out, “I’ll. . . kill . . . you.”
“I got a .38 full of lead. What do you bid?” Petrosino took out the handcuffs, tossed them at Petto’s crotch. The air was still murky, but he saw clearly enough. “Put those on.”
“Fuck you, Parsley.” Blood trickled from Petto’s chipped teeth into the bristles of his beard. He rested on his elbows, and his right arm went under a pillow.
Petrosino whispered, “You think you can threaten me and my family and get away with it? You and your husband from the bathhouse? I know all about the Deputy, and I got news for you: you’re both fucked now. You’re gonna fry in the Chair.”
Petto’s face became a wolfish grin. “You have no right here. We’re in Pennsylvania.”
“That’s true. And you’re Luca Perrino here. But, when we get off the train in New York, you’ll be Petto ‘The Ox’ again, and I’ll say I found you hiding in the City. You have to pay for what you did to Madonnia.” Petrosino sat on an overturned washtub, resting his gunhand on his knee, still aimed at Petto’s head. “Now put those handcuffs on.”
“You’re alone, aren’t you?” Petto shook his head in disbelief. “Big balls.”
“I have men waiting for me in town.”
“You’re lying. How do you think you’re gonna make me go anywhere?”
Petrosino saw Petto’s eyes searching for the silver pistol on the table, and he knew there was no bringing this man in. Maybe he’d known it all along, and that’s why Adelina didn’t want him to go. She could read him better than anyone. He blinked her out of his mind and could see beads of sweat stippling Petto’s nose, could hear their shallow breathing, could smell the burnt air. His senses were sharpened. It felt as though he were on the edge of a cliff staring down into Petto’s cruel smile. Petrosino cocked the hammer on his .38 Smith & Wesson. “Be a man for once in your life, you gutless coward, and put the cuffs on. You’ll never make it to that gun, Petto.”
Petrosino felt as if someone were watching him, and his stomach gurgled when Petto suddenly grinned.
“I think I’ll stay right here, Parsley,” Petto said.
A floorboard creaked from behind, and Petrosino turned his head to see the bowlegged man from the woods, pointing a gun at his back.
Petrosino slowly raised his hands up, still holding the .38, but pointed at the ceiling.
“Now we’ll try the cuffs on you, Parsley, and have some fun,” Petto said. “You know why you have such a hard cock for us Sicilians, Parsley? Because you’re not good enough to be one of us. Take his fucking gun.”
The bowlegged man said, “Who the hell is this bastard?”
Bimbo’s voice said, “That’s Petrosino.” And a gunshot rang out. The bowlegged man clutched his shoulder, reeling forward and firing his gun into the floor. Petrosino spun from the washtub and fired his .38 once into the bowlegged man’s head, and the man collapsed.
Another gunshot thundered from the bed, and Bimbo looked down at a hole in his shirt, saw the blood come, and fell backward. Petrosino dodged sideways as he and Petto exchanged fire. Thunder seemed to shake the cabin, pillows exploded into feathers, and tunnels of air whizzed through the room and splintered the wood. Then a calm.
Petrosino squinted through the floating feathers and the fog of gunpowder. Petto was sprawled out on the bed, motionless. His right hand was blown clean off, bits of flesh and bone caking the wall and the silver pistol on the floor. There were two holes in his massive chest, and blood and air gushed out of the wounds with a chilling hiss. Petto’s lips and eyes were the only things moving. The lips mouthed silent words, and the eyes rolled frantically in his skull.
Petrosino lowered his gun and moved closer to the bed.
Petto looked up at him and said, “Nell’inferno.” In hell. Blood gargled and choked into the sound of the death rattle.
Petrosino rushed over to Bimbo’s body in the doorway. The baseball had fallen out of the kid’s pocket and sat in a thickening red puddle. He lifted Bimbo’s head up. Bimbo’s eyes blinked open and twinkled for a moment. “I told you I could do it, Joe,” he mumbled. “I even shadowed you. How’s that for detective work?”
“You stupid kid.” Petrosino hugged him tightly. “Stay with me, son.”
“Are we still going to a bordello…”
Petrosino felt Bimbo’s last breath in his ear and said a prayer for his soul.
Chapter 42
Petrosino sat in his cubbyhole office at Headquarters, tearing through newspaper after newspaper, cutting out the articles that mentioned The Ox’s death and hoping to find Bimbo’s name. If he couldn’t find his name in print, he felt like the boy’s memory might slip away. He collected all the newspaper articles and locked them in his desk with Bimbo’s St. Anthony medal and the new baseball the kid had bought with his first pay. Then he took out a lock of hair he’d cut from Petto’s head and put it in an envelope addressed to the Lafayette Hotel with a note for Piper: This is what’s left of The Ox. I thought you’d like to have it. He hoped it would sting the bastard’s heart. Piper would’ve called the gift “Italian vendetta,” but it made Petrosino feel better for a short time. And when the feeling ebbed, Petrosino made for the nearest saloon and drank for two days straight.
The first night, he paid an extra ten cents to sleep at the saloon’s table. And, when he woke in the morning, he went through the same routine. By the third day, he hated himself and went out into the East Side in a stupor. He saw kids playing stickball and young bulls in uniform, and he couldn’t bear to watch. He could only imagine what it must’ve felt for Adelina to lose a child, and now he realized how much he wanted a son of his own. He had no one to turn to. Max was in hiding, preparing for trial with his lawyers, so he wouldn’t see him for months, if at all. He walked and walked until he ended up in Central Park in a downpour, watching a shepherd move the meadow sh
eep into their Sheepfold house. And when no one could tell, he buried his hands in his face and wept. After he was drained of all his guilt and sadness, he walked home, picking up The Times and McClure’s magazine along the way.
He cleaned himself up and read Lincoln Steffens’ article, New York: Good Government In Danger, and then an article in The Times: Head of Morello Gang Released From Federal Custody on Bail. He knew he was sober and in his right mind again, because he was enraged. He put on his derby, took the copy of McClure’s, and walked to Washington Square Park. He found both Steffens and Tarbell in their office drinking tea and frowning over splays of newsprint on their desks. Before they could even say hello, he laid into them.
“Not a single goddamn word about the barrel murder! You didn’t even mention Alderman Murphy, Big Tim Sullivan, or Piper. No one would even know that Madonnia was butchered because he threatened to expose their gambling Syndicate and the Morello gang’s counterfeiting game! Damn it to hell, Steffens!”
“Joe, calm down.”
“The hell I will. You rehashed the evils from the 1890s that Lexow already uncovered. So what? This isn’t a prosecution of Tammany’s new crooks! Why, it’s just a toothless prayer for reelecting the Reform ticket!”
“Joe, why are you all in a lather?” Tarbell stood up and held Petrosino’s hand. “What ever is the matter? This isn’t about Steff’s article.”
“I lost someone dear to me. And it was my fault.” Petrosino slumped into a desk chair. “Then I read that Morello’s on the street again. The two of you sold me a false bill of goods. You said that if I helped you tumble out who was in the Syndicate you’d go after them. You said, ‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’ And I was damned fool enough to believe you.”
“Now hold on a minute, Joe.” Steffens stood with his palms up. “We wrote that article the way we said. Mr. McClure vetoed it and made us change it all.”
“What?”
“That’s right. We put in the details about the Syndicate and the Deputy Commissioner, but he said we didn’t stand a chance agains the libel laws. He said it would ruin McClure’s and every one of us for good. I never would’ve-”
“I don’t care what that yellow bum says. You still owe me. Both of you. Put your coats on and let’s go. We’ll try it my way now and see if the pistol is mightier than the dagger.”
“What the devil are you talking about?”
“Where are we going?” Tarbell stood, unconsciously reaching for her overcoat.
“The two of you and all your friends, the Reverend Parkhursts and the Goo-Goos and all the Park Avenue folks in the City Club. You’ve got a lot of pull with Seth Low. See, I don’t want to answer to Tammany men in the PD anymore. I want to answer only to him.”
“Mayor Low?” Steffens adjusted his specs.
“That’s right. The Clutch Hand’s back on the street. His whole gang is back, except for The Ox. I’m outnumbered, Steffens. Don’t you remember when you said that if I had ten men, real men, then I’d whip the whole crooked lot of them? You remember that?”
“Of course.”
“Well, the three of us are going straight to City Hall. You’re good at shame, Steffens. You’re gonna tell Mayor Low that he’ll be judged by the cops he appoints and that the reporters know that Tammany’s been putting a list of crooks over on him. You’re gonna shame Low into giving me an honest squad of ten Italian cops or else you’ll start writing articles about how his ass will be booted out next election. Isn’t that so, Miss Tarbell, pardon my language?”
“Damn right, Detective.” Tarbell put on her coat and pulled Petrosino’s hand, leading him to the door. “Let’s go raise hell.”
“Say, that could be a story,” Steffens said. “You could call it The Italian Squad.”
Max Schmittberger
Joe Petrosino
Special thanks to Detective Mark Warren and the NYPD Commissioner’s Office, Leonora Gidlund and the Municipal Archives of the City of New York, Correction Officer Arthur Wolpinski of Sing Sing Correctional Facility, the New York City Police Museum, the New York Public Library, the New York Transit Museum, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, the New York Historical Society, the Ossining Historical Society Museum, the NYPD Columbia Association, the Joe Petrosino Museum in Padula, Italy, the U.C. Santa Barbara Davidson Library, Kevin Smith, Penn Whaling, the Ann Rittenberg Literary Agency, and my family in the United States and Sicily.
THE BARREL MURDER - a Detective Joe Petrosino case (based on true events) Page 31