The brick moved.
I took another breath and got ready to push again. Provenzano wrapped his hands around the pry bar. We pushed together.
The brick popped out.
We shoved out a third, then a fourth.
Then I saw the reflected glow of a flashlight to our left. The guard was coming back. I handed Provenzano the pry bar. "Knock out a few more bricks," I said, drawing my Colt and aiming down the passageway toward the glowing light. The guard had not yet stepped into the passage. I fired a shot. The light went out. The guard shouted, "Harry, they're over here."
I heard an answering shout from deep inside the warehouse. Beside me, Provenzano was pounding away at the bricks. He had knocked out two more. He rolled onto his back and kicked at the outer edges of the hole we had made.
To our left the flashlight flicked on. The beam came around the corner and was low to the floor. I aimed at the lens, the bright beam silhouetting my sights. I assumed the guard was behind the stacked crates and was just sticking the light around the corner to see what would happen.
I fired my forty-five. The lens exploded.
"Shit," the guard shouted. "Harry, they shot out my light!"
When I glanced over my shoulder, I saw Provenzano had knocked out three more bricks. The hole was big enough for us to worm through. Provenzano wriggled out feet first. I half-expected him to get shot. But he didn't.
I fired one more shot down the passageway to keep the guard's head out of sight. Then I shoved my arms through the hole and squirmed through.
Outside there was no one waiting for us, though I did hear the echo of someone shouting far down the wharf. The other guards must have heard the shots, but they were probably having trouble figuring out where they had come from.
Provenzano was squatting beside the wall waiting for me. His revolver was in his hand. "This way," he said. Then he stood and ran along the wall toward the back of the warehouse.
I holstered my pistol and hobbled after him.
Behind the building, we crouched against the back wall. Fifteen feet away stood the new fence, eight feet tall, made from sheets of tin nailed to a frame of thick wooden posts and cross-braced two-by-fours.
"Can you climb that?" he asked.
"I'll have to," I said, though I was pretty sure I couldn't.
Provenzano didn't move. Instead, he turned to look at me. Sweat ran down his face. He spoke fast and low. "Matranga is buying groceries all over the city. He's going to open a speakeasy in the back of each one. Through his connection to O'Malley, he has the Police Department in his pocket, and the cops will shut down every illegal joint except his. So after January 17th, Matranga will own every bar in this city."
"What about the feds?" I asked.
He shook his head. "What are a dozen federal agents going to do against six hundred policemen?"
"How does this tie in to the Axman?"
"He works for Matranga," Provenzano said. "He makes sure the right grocery stores are for sale. One in each neighborhood."
"What's his name?"
"I don't know."
There were voices echoing down the side of the warehouse.
"What about my father?"
Provenzano stared into my eyes. "Carlo Matranga had your father murdered."
"My father died trying to arrest a fugitive."
The footsteps were closer.
Provenzano scrambled to the fence. I followed him. He looked at the top, then at my leg. "Are you sure you can get over this?"
I braced my back against a post and clasped my hands together to form a stirrup. "I'll boost you up."
"What about you?"
"I'm a policeman. They can't do anything to me."
"Are you sure?"
I nodded. "Hurry up before we both get caught."
Grabbing my shoulders, Provenzano raised one leg and put his foot in my hands. "Your father was a good man, but he did not die the way you think. It was Matranga ... and O'Malley."
I nodded toward the top of the metal fence. "Later. Right now you have to go."
When he put his weight on me, my leg almost gave way. Then he climbed onto my right shoulder. Somehow I managed to stay on my feet. I heard the crunch of metal as Provenzano stepped on top of the fence. Then his weight was off me and he jumped over. I heard a loud thud and a heavy grunt as he crashed onto the thin strip of ground between the fence and Fulton Street.
A few seconds later, two security guards came barreling around the corner of the warehouse. They had guns in their hands and were aiming them at me.
I held up my badge. "I heard gunshots and climbed the fence to see if I could help."
The two security guards looked at each other. Then they lowered their guns.
CHAPTER 51
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1919
9:30 P.M.
I sat on a bench in Saint Anthony's Garden, directly behind Saint Louis Cathedral, waiting for Emile. Although the garden had been named in honor of a Catholic saint, it had also been a favorite venue for dueling until the mid-1850s, when the Police Department finally began enforcing the laws against fighting duels. The new enforcement effort hadn't put an end to dueling, but it had forced the affaires d'honneur to move to City Park, on the outskirts of town, where it was harder for the police to sneak up on the duelists and their seconds.
The garden was cloaked in darkness, the only relief being the dull glow from a couple of gas lamps mounted on wrought-iron poles. Sound carried a long way in the dark, and I heard the gate open even though I could barely see it. A few seconds later, I spied Emile Denoux walking toward me, lugging a suitcase in one hand and carrying a leather messenger bag slung over the opposite shoulder. As he drew closer, I noticed he looked somewhat haggard. "What's wrong?" I called out.
"Colette threw me out," he said as he shuffled toward me.
"Why did she do that?"
He let out an exaggerated sigh. "Because the birthday present I gave her wasn't as expensive as the one I gave my mistress."
"You have a wife and a mistress?"
"You can't have a mistress unless you have a wife," he said as he reached me. "Otherwise, all you have is a girlfriend." Then he set his suitcase and messenger bag on the ground and dropped onto the bench beside me.
"It's hard enough keeping one woman happy," I said. "How do you manage two?"
He shrugged. "I'm French."
"French or not," I nudged my shoe against his suitcase, "you must be doing something wrong."
"I will sort it all out."
"How are you going to do that?"
Emile smiled. "You are very naive about the ways of women, my friend. I will buy Colette a more expensive gift than the one I gave Mireille, and she will forgive me."
"That's it?" I said. "That's all you have to do? Maria would have cut off my-"
"Quelle horreur," Emile said with a shudder. "Fortunately, French wives expect their husbands to have mistresses. They only get mad if the husband shows favoritism to the mistress."
"Are you sure Colette is going to take you back?"
He nodded. "It will take a few days, perhaps a week. In the meantime, perhaps I can stay with you?"
I hesitated a moment, long enough to make my friend nervous. "As long as you're sure Colette or this other woman ... What did you say her name was?"
"Mireille. She is a quadroon, one quarter negress, so young and so sweet." He pinched his fingers together and kissed the tips. "Like a delicious morsel of chocolate."
"As long as you're sure neither of them are going to show up at my house with a gun."
A broad smile creased his face. "Merci, mon ami." He clapped me on the shoulder. "Merci."
"Now, can we talk about something important?"
"But of course."
"What did you find out about Monfre?"
He pulled the messenger bag onto his lap. "Quite a lot, actually. I didn't realize our archives were so comprehensive." He unbuckled the flap on the bag and pulled out a large envelope.
"I also spoke to ex-detective Tobias Conrad."
"You found him?"
"It would be more accurate to say that he found me. He called me at the newspaper and said he heard that I had been looking for him. We met later in the dining room at the Grunewald."
"That was a good idea."
"He is the one who suggested a public meeting. After hearing about what happened to me the last time, he thought it would put my mind at ease. He told me, and after meeting him face to face, I believe him, that it was not he who set me up. He wasn't even at the bar on Frenchmen Street that night. So Ferrell must have paid the bartender to lure me there."
"I knew Tobias Conrad when he was a cop, and what happened to you, that didn't sound like him."
"I agree," Emile said. "But there are powerful forces trying to stop us."
"Did he tell you anything about Harriet Lowe?"
Emile nodded. "She died without ever regaining consciousness after her surgery."
"So her statement ..."
"Was fabricated."
"Why?"
"Monsieur Conrad wasn't sure. He knows next to nothing about the Axman case. All he is sure of is that after Mademoiselle Lowe died, Superintendent Thompson and Captain Campo ordered him and Detective Detmar to write a statement that implicated Louis Besozzi as her attacker."
"Why didn't they forge her signature?" I said. "Why draw needless attention to the statement by not signing it? A signed statement is admissible in court if the person who gave it dies before the trial."
"I asked him that very question. He said they did not have any exemplars of Mademoiselle Lowe's handwriting on which to base a passable forgery. He and Detective Detmar were afraid if they signed it without knowing what her real signature looked like, Besozzi might later recognize it as a forgery and challenge it in court."
"That makes sense," I said. "As frame-ups go, it was a pretty good one. The only reason it didn't work was because the killings continued after Besozzi was in jail. Thompson isn't in charge of this. He's just a lackey. And he must have thought the killings were over. But Matranga needed them to continue. I guess he wanted to buy more grocery stores."
"Does that mean you believe Gennaro Provenzano?"
"I believe him because what he said fits with what I dug up at the clerk of court. Matranga is buying grocery stores all over the city, and he's not doing it so he can sell more bananas. Matranga is a rackets man, and this will be the biggest racket in history. Bigger than prostitution, shylocking, and gambling all rolled together. Not everybody goes to bawdy houses, or borrows money, or gambles. But just about everybody drinks, especially in this town, and they're all going to need somebody to supply them with booze."
"This will easily make him the richest man in the city," Emile said. "Maybe in the entire state."
"And he has all the pieces in place," I said. "Supply, transportation, distribution, and security. Which means that starting on January 17th, Carlo Matranga will own every shot of liquor and every glass of beer poured in New Orleans, and with Dominick O'Malley and Frank Thompson protecting him, no one will be able to touch him."
"It is a very grand scheme," Emile said. "And too much, I think, for one reporter and one policeman to stop."
"You're right," I said. "It's way too big for us to handle. And as Gennaro Provenzano pointed out, my jurisdiction doesn't include Prohibition. But it does include murder."
"Did you find out the rest of what Monsieur Provenzano knows about your father's death?"
"I called him three times today, but I couldn't reach him."
"Maybe he doesn't really know anything," Emile said. "Maybe he's just using you to try to stop Matranga."
"He knows something," I said. "And I'm going to find out what it is. But what about you? Are you going to write a story about what Tobias Conrad told you?"
"It will be on the front page tomorrow."
I pointed to the envelope in his hand. "Is that about Monfre?"
He opened the envelope and removed a stack of old newspaper clippings. "One thing I learned was that he was definitely the man I saw beating people up at the Maggio funeral."
"How can you be sure?"
Emile handed me the first clipping. It was folded in half. I unfolded it and saw a newspaper photograph of a man in his mid-twenties, with dark eyes and black hair combed straight back from his forehead. He had a cruel smirk on his face.
"That picture is from twelve years ago," Emile said, "but I'm positive that was the man I saw at the funeral. And the man who shot at me later that night."
"It's hard to forget someone who tried to kill you," I said, remembering in sharp detail the German who had gotten his bayonet stuck in my leg just long enough for me to shoot him in the face with my Colt .45. I remembered his dirty blond hair and pasty skin, his cheeks streaked with mud, the stubble of whiskers covering his chin, the days-old cut across the bridge of his nose, his knotted hands gripping the wooden stock of his rifle, and the look of horror when he realized he was going to die.
"There's more," Emile said.
"Tell me."
"You said Monfre's yellow card is missing, right?"
I nodded.
"What about case files?" he asked.
"I don't know if there are any case files," I said. "I assume there must be some, but case files are indexed by file number, not by name. Without his yellow card, I can't look them up. That's why we have the card file."
Emile smiled. "What about personnel records?"
"Why would I check personnel records?"
"Monfre used to be a policeman."
"What?" In the quiet of the garden, the loudness of my own voice startled me.
"It's true," Emile said. "He was fired in 1907 after his brother, Stephano Monfre, was identified as one of the people involved in the Walter Lamana kidnapping and murder. Joseph and Stephano were renting a house on Saint Philip Street across from the Lamana family when the boy was kidnapped. After the boy's murder, several of the conspirators were convicted and hanged, but Stephano got away."
I thought about the brass button I had found inside Mr. and Mrs. Pepitone's house. "How long was he a policeman?"
"Seven years," Emile said. "After he was fired, several bar owners and gambling hall and brothel operators came forward and complained that he had been extorting money from them. The district attorney charged Monfre with extortion, but the case ended in a mistrial because no one showed up to testify against him."
Emile spread several clippings on his lap. "If you read between the lines of these old articles, it's clear he was quite brutal. The day before his extortion trial was scheduled to begin, there was a string of dynamite attacks at the homes and businesses of the witnesses against him. Even though Monfre was out on bail, no one could prove he was responsible for the bombings."
With a sick feeling in my gut, I realized John Dantonio had lied to me. He not only knew Joseph Monfre, he knew Monfre had been a policeman.
I also remembered the Lamana case. I was sixteen years old when a Black Hand gang kidnapped eight-year-old Walter Lamana. When negotiations for the ransom broke down, the kidnappers killed the boy. The story was front-page news for weeks. Dantonio had been the lead detective. He had also worked the Sciambra case, yet he told me he couldn't remember questioning anyone named Monfre.
I had known John Dantonio most of my life. He was my father's friend and protégé. He was a good cop and an honest man. The only reason he would lie to me was because he was scared. I also knew Dantonio to be a brave man. He had proven that many times during his distinguished career. Whomever he was afraid of, he lacked the ability to fight.
I held the newspaper photograph of Monfre closer to the light. "Joseph Monfre is the Axman."
For a full minute neither of us spoke.
Then Emile said, "As much as I want to say that we've caught, or at least identified, the Axman, how can that be? The killings began in 1911 with Joseph Davi. Back then, the Drys were nothing but a bunch of crackpots, who no on
e took seriously."
"I don't think the early murders were about Prohibition," I said. "Something is still missing, something we don't understand. There was a five-and-a-half-year gap between the Sciambra murders and the attack on Edward Andollina and his sons. Something must have changed."
Emile thumbed through his stack of newspaper clippings. "Monfre served time at Angola."
"When?"
Emile unfolded a long article. "In 1912, he was arrested for throwing a dynamite bomb into a grocery on Palmyra Street."
"The Sciambra murders were in May of that year," I said. "When was he arrested?"
Emile's eyes skimmed the clipping. "December 13th, the same day the bombing happened. At two o'clock in the morning, the grocer, a man named Graffagnini, and his family were asleep in the back. Monfre threw a bomb through the front window and nearly destroyed the store, but the back rooms were mostly undamaged."
"It was just a warning," I said. "If Monfre had been trying to kill them, he would have thrown the bomb through the bedroom window."
"Could it have been part of a Black Hand scheme?"
I reached into my coat pocket for my notebook. "When did Monfre get out of prison?"
Emile dug another clip from his stack and held it up to the light. It was a short article, no more than two inches long. "He was paroled in December 1917."
"Does it give the exact date?"
As I flipped backward through my notebook, Emile peered closer at the clipping. "This article is from Monday, December 17th," he said. "It says Monfre was paroled on Saturday, so that would have been ... the 15th."
I found the page I was looking for. "Joseph Andollina and his sons were attacked on December 22nd, 1917. Exactly one week after Monfre was paroled."
"We were there together at that crime scene," Emile said. "That's the day you told me you had signed up for the war."
The words in my notebook began to blur as I stared at them. I thought about Maria, about how she had died alone while I was in France trying to prove something to myself.
"You are right," Emile said. "Joseph Monfre is the Axman."
I nodded.
Emile pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. I breathed in a little of the smoke. I hadn't smoked since I was wounded. I hadn't wanted to. Now I did. I also wanted a drink and time to mull everything over, but time was something I was sure I didn't have. Thompson would get rid of me as soon as he could. His first step would probably be to bring me up on departmental charges, the same way he did to Tobias Conrad.
The Axman of New Orleans Page 30