The Axman of New Orleans

by Chuck Hustmyre

  The Choctaw Club and the Ring were two sides of the same coin, but with identical heads stamped on both, and for most of the last decade that head had born the face of Dominick O'Malley.

  Emile despised Dominick O'Malley, and as he sat on the hard bench waiting for the arrogant bastard to grant him an audience, like some peasant begging to petition the king, Emile thought once again about what O'Malley had done to his father.

  Henri Denoux, through his French-language newspaper, La Fois d'Orleans, had been a crusader-most often a lone crusader-against the corruption he believed was sucking the soul from the city he loved. He wrote articles about vote buying, rigged elections, and the auctioning off city jobs, but La Fois d'Orleans was a small newspaper with a small circulation, and because it was printed in French it didn't have an English readership. Still, Henri Denoux's articles sometimes caused other newspapers to run similar articles in English.

  Which is why many people in New Orleans, both French and English, credited Henri Denoux with being the real author of the Ring's first political defeat since the end of the Civil War, when the Regular Democrats' candidate for mayor lost the 1888 election to reformist candidate Joseph Shakspeare.

  Shakspeare wanted to end corruption and political patronage in New Orleans, but to do that he knew he first needed to transform the thoroughly unethical and unprincipled Police Department into a modern, professional police force. So he appointed a like-minded reformer as the new superintendent, a former detective named David Hennessy. Hennessy, in turn, promoted an aggressive policeman named Connor Fitzgerald to be his chief of detectives.

  But the Shakspeare administration was only two years into its four-year term when Chief Hennessy was assassinated, and the Ring succeeded in forcing the mayor to appoint one of its own men as a replacement for the slain superintendent, a move that quickly led to the reversal of all of the reforms that David Hennessy and Connor Fitzgerald had made. Two years later, in the election of 1892, Joseph Shakspeare lost his bid for re-election to another Ring man. And everything went right back to the way it had always been.

  Henri Denoux was crushed, but he fought on, through three more Ring mayors, until during the first re-election campaign of Mayor Martin Beauchamp in 1908, when Henri intensified his quixotic quest against corruption by writing a series of scathing exposes that laid bare the mayor's incompetence and dishonesty. Yet despite Henri Denoux's best efforts, Beauchamp was re-elected by a landslide.

  Then, only a few days after the mayor was inaugurated for his second term, the Ring struck back. Emile was working for his father's newspaper at the time, and he remembered well how quickly the vicious campaign launched by Dominick O'Malley, then the Ring's henchman, had destroyed La Fois d'Orleans and Henri Denoux.

  Competing newspapers began running wild stories about his father, the sources for which were always unattributed or vague. One article alleged that Henri Denoux had swindled investors in a land deal in France and had fled to America to escape criminal prosecution. Another article said he had been caught in flagrante delicto with an underage girl. One even claimed it had been a boy. Yet another story described the privations of one of the city's prostitutes, left conveniently unnamed, who had given birth to Henri's bastard child and then been abandoned by him. None of the stories were true, but that didn't matter because no lie is so easy to believe as a lie involving money or sex.

  But the false stories were only one prong of Dominick O'Malley's coordinated attack. The other prong involved more direct action. Henri Denoux's employees received anonymous threats. Some of his newsboys were beaten up. Others who sold La Fois d'Orleans were warned to stop carrying it. One newsstand was set on fire. A grocer had a stick of dynamite thrown through his window. Advertisers were similarly threatened. Those who heeded the warnings were offered lower rates at other newspapers. One candy factory owner who stuck by Henri and continued to run ads in his newspaper suffered a devastating fire that put the factory out of business.

  A year after the mayor's inauguration, La Fois d'Orleans was bankrupt and had to shut down. Emile's father drank himself to death the following spring. Then Dominick O'Malley was named president of the Choctaw Club and chairman of the Regular Democrats.

  Emile was jerked out of the past when the office door opened and he saw, standing in the doorway and mostly filling it up, Dominick O'Malley's redheaded bodyguard, driver, and general factotum. "Mr. O'Malley will see you now," the man said.

  One of the reasons Emile had come here this morning was to see O'Malley's redheaded bodyguard and to confirm for his editor that he was the same man who had driven the three Matranga goons to the Maggio funeral.

  Looking at him now, Emile could say to his editor with absolute certainty that he was indeed the same man. But Emile still didn't know the man's name, so he decided on the direct approach. "What's your name?" he asked as he followed the redhead into O'Malley's inner office.

  The man turned around and grinned, exposing a silver cuspid with a tiny diamond inset. "Why do you want to know?"

  "To make sure I spell it right in my article."

  The redhead stopped grinning and his eyes got tight. "You put my name in any article, boyo, and it'll be-"

  "Leave the man alone, Patrick," Dominick O'Malley said. "That's no way to treat a proper guest."

  The redhead, whose Christian name Emile now at least knew, stepped out of the way and let Emile walk past.

  Dominick O'Malley sat in a soft leather chair behind a huge desk made of dark wood, highly polished, that looked like it cost more than Emile made in a year, maybe two.

  Sprawled on a rug beside the desk lay a fawn-colored bullmastiff that appeared to be sleeping. The dog looked like he would be at least six feet tall if he stood straight up on his hind legs. A picture window behind the desk looked down on the dirty rooftop of a tenement. Without standing or offering his hand, O'Malley pointed to a pair of leather chairs in front of his desk. "Have a seat, Mr. Denoux. Patrick, fix the man a drink."

  "No, thank you," Emile said as he took a seat. He had no intention of drinking with the man who had wrecked his father's career, destroyed his newspaper, and indirectly killed him.

  "Suit yourself, but I hope you don't mind if I imbibe a bit myself," O'Malley said, his voice light and friendly. "I've got a long day ahead of me."

  Patrick pushed the door shut behind Emile, then walked to a service cart in the corner and poured a generous portion of Powers whiskey into a tumbler. He set the glass on the edge of O'Malley's desk before taking a seat on a leather sofa against the wall.

  O'Malley took a gulp and smacked his lips. "Ahh, no one makes whiskey like the Irish. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Denoux?" When Emile said nothing, O'Malley set the glass back on the desk, on top of a folded copy of The Daily Picayune. "So tell me, what can I do for a fellow gentleman of the press?"

  Emile didn't understand the reference to a fellow gentleman of the press, so he ignored it and got straight to the point. "What's your connection to a big Italian known as Doc?"

  O'Malley shrugged. "I don't know who you're talking about."

  Emile glanced at the newspaper. It was the Sunday edition, which had carried his story about the murder of Detective Obitz. Saturday's paper had carried his story about the brawl at the cemetery.

  Over the weekend, Emile had clashed with his editor, Gene Langenstein, over all the changes Langenstein had made to the two stories. Normally, Langenstein made only the most minor edits to Emile's work, usually nothing more than an occasional correction for spelling or punctuation. This time the edits had been substantial. From Saturday's funeral story, Langenstein had cut all references to the redheaded driver. "We can't print that he was O'Malley's man," Langenstein had said. "Because, by your own admission, you only caught a glimpse of him."

  He had also cut from the same story Emile's reporting about the frightened whispers of the name Doc, telling Emile, "Until you get more than a nickname, we're not running it."

  Worse still, Langenstein had ignore
d Emile's eyewitness account of the attack on Detectives Obitz and Dantonio. "Who do you think got a better look at him, you or John Dantonio?" the editor had said. "Dantonio says he was a Negro bandit who'd been robbing people uptown for weeks."

  Fuming, Emile shot back, "I heard him speaking Sicilian. Do you know any Negro bandits who speak Sicilian?"

  Langenstein had shaken his head. "I telephoned Dantonio at home. He says you're mistaken. The man never said a word to him, in Sicilian or in any other language, and he was as black as the ace of spades."

  Emile had stormed out of Langenstein's office determined to uncover enough information to expose O'Malley's driver for his part in the cemetery skirmish and to identify the Italian called Doc, who seemed to incite such fear in everyone.

  As Emile had slammed the editor's door on the way out, Langenstein had shouted, "And don't pester Dantonio. He put in his retirement papers yesterday."

  Emile hadn't turned back, but the news had hit him like a punch in the gut. John Dantonio was one of the bravest cops on the force. In 1900, Dantonio-then just a patrolman-had stormed into a burning building beside Chief of Detectives Connor Fitzgerald to shoot it out with a madman who had murdered seven people, including four police officers. For his bravery, Dantonio had been promoted to detective. Since then, he had been threatened by the Mafia with assassination dozens of times and had escaped two attempts on his life. Now, after back-to-back encounters with this mysterious Italian, he was suddenly retiring.

  Staring at the smug expression on Dominick O'Malley's face, Emile felt like jumping on the desk and kicking him in the teeth. Instead, he said, "You know exactly who I'm talking about. Just like you know that Doc was one of the men who beat up the pallbearers at the Maggio funeral."

  O'Malley tapped a finger on the newspaper. "I read something about that. You really should talk to Peter Provenzano. I understand those were his men who started that fight."

  "It wasn't a fight. Three goons with clubs attacked unarmed men at a cemetery."

  "Then why didn't the police arrest anyone? I read that a couple of detectives were there."

  "Because the goons belonged to Matranga," Emile snapped. He jabbed a finger at the redhead lounging on the sofa. "And your man there was driving them."

  Patrick smiled, showing his diamond-studded silver cuspid.

  O'Malley leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his desk. His chair gave a loud creak. "That's a slanderous allegation."

  "It's true, and you know it," Emile said. "Just like you know it was one of those same three Italians who killed Teddy Obitz and pistol whipped John Dantonio."

  "I don't know any such thing, Mr. Denoux." O'Malley picked up the newspaper. "In fact, I read in this very newspaper that the man who killed Detective Obitz and nearly killed Detective Dantonio was a Negro."

  Emile felt his face flush.

  The paper crinkled in O'Malley's hands. "Here it is, right here," he said. Then he cleared his throat and read. "At about three o'clock Saturday morning a hastily assembled posse of policemen cornered the murderer of Detective Obitz in an equipment yard at Girod and Saratoga streets. After receiving no answer to their demands for surrender, the policemen rushed the bandit. During the ensuing melee, numerous rounds were discharged and the cold-blooded killer was shot dead."

  O'Malley skipped farther down in the story. "The 25-year-old Negro, known as Abraham Price, was employed at the equipment yard as a night watchman and was not known to have a criminal record. His employer, George Jurgens Jr., owner of the equipment yard, said Price was from Alexandria and that to his knowledge the man did not possess a revolver. 'The Negro struck me as being an ignorant country darky,' Mr. Jurgens said."

  O'Malley read the last paragraph. "The weapon with which Obitz was killed has not been found." Then O'Malley rolled up the newspaper and dropped it into a trashcan beside his desk. "Isn't that your story, Mr. Denoux? Didn't you write that?"

  "The police killed the wrong man," Emile said.

  "And how do you know that?"

  "Because I saw him. Face to face. From not much farther away than I am from you right now. He was no Negro. He was an Italian, the same Italian I saw your gunsel driving at the Maggio funeral. That's what's going in my next story."

  A smile creased O'Malley's broad face, but it wasn't a friendly smile. "You really shouldn't do that."

  Emile knew he was getting nowhere. To get answers, he had to push O'Malley harder. In addition to a fondness for liquor, Henri Denoux had passed on to his son a passion for gambling. Emile loved to play cards. Bridge was his favorite game. When he had no hand, he bluffed.

  "I know who Doc is," Emile said. "And I'm going to put his name and yours together in tomorrow's headline."

  O'Malley's chair rolled back on its casters as he stood and pounded both fists down onto his desk, nearly sending his whiskey glass tumbling over the edge.

  The redhead jumped to his feet. So did the bullmastiff.

  Staring down at Emile, who had kept his seat, O'Malley said, "You mention my name in connection with that funeral or that dead detective, and you'll never write another story because I'll chop your fingers off one by one and feed them to my dog." He nodded toward the bullmastiff, who let out a warning growl.

  Emile leaned back in his chair, intentionally striking a pose in the face of O'Malley's looming figure that he hoped projected an attitude of indifference. "There is a way to keep your name out of the story."

  O'Malley peered down his nose. "I'm listening."

  "Let me talk to Doc."

  For several seconds, O'Malley stared at him.

  Emile ignored the tingle at the back of his neck that warned him he might be overplaying his hand. "Otherwise, your name goes right next to his. On the front page."

  O'Malley picked up his glass and drained the rest of his whiskey. He smacked the empty glass back down on the desk, then glanced at Patrick. "Throw this bum out."

  The big redhead grabbed Emile by the collar and jerked him out of the chair. Emile tried to fight back, but the strength of the man was incredible. The redhead paused just long enough to yank open the door; then he flung Emile into the lobby and sent him skittering across the floor and crashing into the far wall, where he fell heavily onto the hard wooden bench on which he had sat so uncomfortably while waiting for his audience with the king.

  Through the open door, Emile could see O'Malley still standing behind his big desk. "You have crossed me at considerable peril to yourself, Mr. Denoux. Do it again and you'll end up exactly like your father. Or worse. But I'm a forgiving man, thanks to my belief in the teachings of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You treat me fairly, and maybe I can find a spot for you at my newspaper. Because you never know when you might find yourself in need a job."

  Emile twisted around until he was sitting on the bench, not draped across it. His ribs hurt. "Your newspaper?"

  O'Malley let out a short bark of a laugh. "So you haven't heard, then?"

  "Heard what?"

  "That last Friday I bought myself a newspaper, The Daily Item."

  The redhead reached for the door to close it.

  "I didn't catch your name," Emile said.

  "Shea," the big man said. "Patrick Shea."

  Then he slammed the door.

  CHAPTER 25

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1919

  2:00 P.M.

  A sign hanging on the front door of the Pepitone grocery read CHIUSU. Sicilian for closed. I knocked until Mrs. Pepitone cracked the door a few inches. "What do you want?" she said.

  "I have more questions for you."

  "I already told you everything I know."

  "I don't think you have."

  She shook her head. "You cannot keep coming to my house. I must take care of my children. And arrange my husband's funeral. Please leave me alone."

  She tried to close the door, but I blocked it with my foot.

  "I'm here for your husband's revolver."

  Her eyes narrowed. "Why?"

 
"I don't have to explain my reasons to you, Mrs. Pepitone. I'm a police detective investigating a murder."

  "My husband was killed with an ax."

  "How many shots did you fire?"

  Through the crack in the door I could see her shake her head. "I already told you, I have never fired-"

  "You fired two shots."

  "If you do not leave, I will call the superintendent. He left me his card. He said to call him if I needed-"

  "Call him. Tell him Detective Fitzgerald is here and that I'm looking for the revolver that your husband used to kill Salvatore Marcello."

  She raised a hand to her mouth.

  Behind the door, I heard a man whispering in Sicilian. I rammed the door open with my shoulder and stepped inside.

  Mrs. Pepitone stumbled backward into the arms of a short, round man in a dark suit. He had a bushy mustache tinged with gray and looked to be in his fifties. After setting Mrs. Pepitone upright, the man tried to push me back out the door. I shoved him aside. Mrs. Pepitone screamed.

  "Pipe down," I told her.

  The round man glared at me, though he was careful to keep his distance. He spoke to me in English but with a heavy Sicilian accent. "What do you want?"

  "Who are you?" I said.

  He drew himself up. "My name is Angelo Albano."

  "He is my brother-in-law," Mrs. Pepitone said. "He was married to my sister." On the word sister, she crossed herself as if for someone who had died. "Mr. Albano has agreed to help me run the store after my husband's funeral."

  "When is that?"

  She looked down. "Tomorrow." There was a catch in her throat. Her pain was palpable.

  "I apologize for having to bother you at such a time, Mrs. Pepitone. Just give me your husband's revolver and I'll leave."

  Albano cleared his throat. "What was that you said about Salvatore Marcello?"