Why not? He never took much. He and his mother deserved something. It had been a federal court in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which had pasted the sheriff’s notice on his father’s store. A federal judge who had rendered the determination—Involuntary Bankruptcy. The federal government hadn’t listened to any explanations other than the facts that his father no longer had the ability to pay his debts.
For a quarter of a century a man could work, raise a family, get a son off to the state university—so many dreams fulfilled, only to be destroyed with the single banging of a wooden gavel upon a small marble plate in a courtroom.
Canfield had no regrets.
‘You have a new occupation to get under your belt, Canfield. Simple procedures. Not difficult.’
‘Fine, Mr. Reynolds. Always ready.’
‘Yes. I know you are… You start in three days at pier thirty-seven in New York City. Customs. I’ll fill you in as best I can.’
But, of course, Benjamin Reynolds did not ‘fill in’ Matthew Canfield as thoroughly as he might have. He wanted Canfield to ‘fill in’ the spaces he, Reynolds, left blank. The Scarlatti padrone was operating out of the West Side piers—middle numbers—that much they knew. But someone had to see him. Someone had to identify him. Without being told.
That was very important.
And if anyone could do that it would be someone like Matthew Canfield, who seemed to gravitate to the nether world of the payoff, the bribe, the corrupt.
He did.
On the night shift of January 3, 1925.
Matthew Canfield, customs inspector, checked the invoices of the steamer Genoa-Stella and waved to the shake-up foreman to start unloading hold one of its crates of Como wool.
And then it happened.
At first an argument. Then a hook fight.
The Genoa-Stella crew would not tolerate a breach of the unloading procedures. Their orders came from someone else. Certainly not from the American customs officials.
Two crates plummeted down from the cranes, and underneath the straw packing the stench of uncut alcohol was unmistakable.
The entire pier force froze. Several men then raced to phone booths and a hundred apelike bodies swarmed around the crates ready to fend off intruders with their hooks.
The first argument was forgotten. The hook fight was forgotten.
The contraband was their livelihood and they would die defending it.
Canfield, who had raced up the stairs to the glass-enclosed booth high above the pier, watched the angry crowd. A shouting match began between the men on the loading dock and the sailors of the Genoa-Stella. For fifteen minutes the opponents yelled at each other, accompanying their shouts with obscene gestures. But no one drew a weapon. No one threw a hook or knife. They were waiting.
Canfield realized that no one in the customs office made any move to call the authorities. ‘For Christ’s sake! Someone get the police down!’
There was silence from the four men in the room with Canfield.
‘Did you hear me? Call the police!’
Still the silence of the frightened men wearing the uniforms of the Customs Service.
Finally one man spoke. He stood by Matthew Canfield, looking out the glass partition at the gangster army below. ‘No one calls the police, young fella. Not if you want to show up at the docks tomorrow.’
‘Show up anywhere tomorrow,’ added another man, who calmly sat down and picked up a newspaper from his tiny desk.
‘Why not? Somebody down there could get killed!’
‘They’ll settle it themselves,’ said the older customs man.
‘What port did you come from again?… Erie?… You must have had different rules. Lake shipping has different rules—’
‘That’s a lot of crap!’
A third man wandered over to Canfield. ‘Look, hick, just mind your own business, all right?’
‘What the hell kind of talk is that? I mean, just what the hell kind of talk is that?’
‘C’mere, hick.’ The third man, whose thin body and narrow face seemed lost in his loose-fitting uniform, took Canfield by the elbow and walked him to a corner. The others pretended not to notice but their eyes kept darting over to the two men. They were concerned, even worried. ‘You got a wife and kids?’ the thin man asked quietly.
‘No… So what?’
‘We do. That’s what.’ The thin man put his hand into his pocket and withdrew several bills. ‘Here. Here’s sixty bucks… Just don’t rock the boat, huh?… Calling the cops wouldn’t do no good, anyhow… They’d rat on you.’
‘Jesus! Sixty dollars!’
‘Two weeks’ pay, kid. Have a party.’
‘Okay—Okay, I will.’
‘Here they come, Jesse.’ The older guard by the window spoke softly to the man next to Canfield.
‘C’mon, hick. Get an education,’ said the man with the money, leading Canfield to the window overlooking the interior of the pier.
Down at the street-loading entrance, Canfield saw that two large automobiles, one behind the other, had pulled up—the first car halfway into the building. Several men in dark overcoats had gotten out of the lead car and were walking toward the phalanx of dock workers surrounding the damaged crates.
‘What are they doing?’
They’re the goons, kid,’ answered the guard named Jesse. They muscle.’
‘Muscle what?’
‘Hah!’ came a guttural laugh from the man at the tiny desk with the newspaper.
‘They muscle what has to be put in line. No what—who!’
The men in overcoats—five in all—began wandering up to the various stevedores and talking quietly. Cheek to cheek, thought Canfield. With a few, they shoved them humorously and patted their thick necks. They were like zoo keepers, pacifying their animals. Two of the men walked up the gangplank onto the ship. The head man, who wore a white felt fedora and was now the central figure of the remaining three on the pier, looked back toward the automobiles and then up at the glass-enclosed booth. He nodded his head and started toward the stairs. The guard, Jesse, spoke.
‘I’ll handle this. Everyone stay put.’
He opened the door and waited on the steel platform for the man in the white fedora.
Canfield could see the two men talking through the glass. The white fedora was smiling, even obsequious. But there was a hard look in his eyes, a serious look in his eyes. And then he seemed concerned, angry, and the two men looked into the office.
They looked at Matthew Canfield.
The door was opened by Jesse. ‘You. Cannon. Mitch Cannon, c’mere.’
It was always easier to use a cover having one’s own initials. You never could tell who’d send you a Christmas gift.
Canfield walked out onto the steel platform as the man in the white fedora descended the stairs to the cement floor of the pier.
‘You go down and sign the search papers.’
‘The hell you say, buddy!’
‘I said go down and sign the papers! They want to know you’re clean.’ And then Jesse smiled. ‘The big boys are here… You’ll get another little dividend… But I get fifty percent, understand?’
‘Yeah,’ Cannon said reluctantly. ‘I understand.’ He started down the steps looking at the man who waited for him.
‘New here, huh?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where ya’ from?’
‘Lake Erie. Lot of action in Lake Erie.’
‘What d’ya work?’
‘Canadian stuff. What else?… Good hooch that Canadian stuff.’
‘We import wool! Como wool!’
‘Yeah. Sure, friend. In Erie it’s Canadian pelts, fabric…’ Canfield winked at the waterfront subaltern. ‘Good soft packing, huh?’
‘Look, fella. Nobody needs a wise guy.’
‘Okay. Like I said. Wool.’
‘Come over to the dispatchers. You sign for the loads.’
Canfield walked with the large man to the dispatcher’s booth where a second man t
hrust a clipboard filled with papers at him.
‘Write clear and mark the dates and times perfect!’ ordered the man in the booth.
After Canfield had complied, the first man spoke. ‘Okay… C’mon with me.’ He led Canfield over to the automobiles. The field accountant could see two men talking in the back seat of the second vehicle. No one but a driver remained in the first car. ‘Wait here.’
Canfield wondered why he had been singled out. Had anything gone wrong in Washington? There hadn’t been enough time for anything to go wrong.
There was a commotion from the pier. The two goons who had boarded the ship were escorting a man in uniform down the gangplank. Canfield saw that it was the captain of the Genoa-Stella.
The man in the white fedora was now leaning into the window talking with the two men in the second car. They hadn’t noticed the noise from the pier. The large man opened the car door and a short, very dark Italian stepped out. He was no more than five feet three.
The short man beckoned the field accountant to come over. He reached into his coat pocket, took out a billfold, and withdrew several bills from it. His speech was heavily accented. ‘You a new man?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Lake Erie? That’s right?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What’s name?’
‘Cannon.’
The Italian looked at the man in the white fedora.
The man shrugged. ‘Non conosco…’
‘Here.’ He handed Canfield two fifty-dollar bills. ‘You be a good boy… We take care of good boys, don’t we, Maggiore?… We also take care of boys who ain’t so good… Capisce?’
‘You bet! Thanks very…’
It was as far as the field accountant got. The two men escorting the Genoa-Stella captain had reached the first automobile. They were now forcibly holding him, propelling him against his will.
‘Lascia mi! Lascia mi! Maiali!’ The captain tried to break the grip of the two hoodlums. He swung his shoulders back and forth but to no avail.
The small Italian brushed Canfield aside as the goons brought the captain up to him. The ship’s officer and his two captors started shouting at the same time. The Italian listened and stared at the captain.
And then the other man, the man who remained in the back seat of the second automobile, leaned forward toward the window, half hidden in the shadows.
‘What’s the matter? What are they yelling about, Vitone?’
‘This commandante doesn’t like the way we do business, Padrone. He says he won’t let us unload no more.’
‘Why not?’
‘Sirifiuti!’ shouted the captain, sensing what was being said though not understanding the words.
‘He says he don’t see anyone he knows. He says we don’t have no rights with his ship! He wants to make telephone calls.’
‘I’ll bet he does,’ the man in the shadow said quietly. ‘I know just who he wants to call.’
‘You gonna let him?’ asked the short Italian.
‘Don’t be foolish, Vitone. Talk nice. Smile. Wave back at the ship. All of you!… That’s a powder keg back there, you imbeciles!… Let them think everything’s fine.’
‘Sure. Sure, Padrone.’
All of them laughed and waved except the captain, who furiously tried to release his arms. The effect was comic, and Canfield found himself nearly smiling except that the face in the automobile window was now in his direct line of sight. The field accountant saw that it was a good-looking face—striking would be the word. Although the face was somewhat obscured by the wide brim of a hat, Canfield noticed that the features were sharp, aquiline, clean-cut. What particularly struck the field accountant were the eyes.
They were very light blue eyes. Yet he was addressed by the Italian ‘padrone.’ Canfield assumed there were Italians with blue eyes but he had never met any. It was unusual.
‘What do we do, Padrone?’ asked the short man who had given Canfield the hundred dollars.
‘What else, sport? He’s a visitor to our shores, isn’t he? Be courteous, Vitone—Take the captain outside and let him…make his phone calls.’ Then the man with the light blue eyes lowered his voice. ‘And kill him!’
The small Italian nodded his head slightly in the direction of the pier entrance. The two men on each side of the uniformed officer pushed him forward, out the large door into the darkness of the night.
‘Chiarna le nostri amici…’ said the goon on the captain’s right arm.
But the captain resisted. Once outside, in the dim spill of the door’s light, Canfield could see that he began violently thrashing his body against both escorts until the one on the left lost his balance. The captain then swung into the other man with both fists, shouting at him in Italian.
The man who had been shoved away regained his balance, and took something out of his pocket. Canfield couldn’t distinguish its shape.
Then Canfield saw what it was.
A knife.
The man behind the captain plunged it into the officer’s unguarded back.
Matthew Canfield pulled the visor of his customs cap down and began walking away from the automobiles. He walked slowly, casually.
‘Hey! You! You! Customs!’ It was the blue-eyed man from the back seat.
‘You! Lake Erie!’ the short Italian yelled.
Canfield turned. ‘I didn’t see anything. Not a thing. Nothin’!’ He tried to smile but no smile would come.
The man with the light blue eyes stared at him as Canfield squinted and pinched his face below the visor of his cap. The short Italian nodded to the driver of the first car.
The driver got out and came behind the field accountant.
‘Porta lui fuori vicin’ a l’acqua! Sensa fuccide! Corteddo!’ said the short man.
The driver pushed Canfield in the small of the back toward the pier entrance. ‘Hey, c’mon! I didn’t see nothin’! What d’you want with me!… C’mon, for Christ’s sake!’
Matthew Canfield didn’t have to be given an answer. He knew exactly what they wanted from him. His insignificant life.
The man behind him kept pushing, nudging him onward. Around the building. Along the deserted side of the pier.
Two rats scampered several yards in front of Canfield and his executioner. The growing sounds of arguments could be heard behind the walls of the cargo area. The Hudson River slapped against the huge pylons of the dock.
Canfield stopped. He wasn’t sure why but he couldn’t simply keep walking. The pain in his stomach was the pain of fear.
‘A lesta chi!… Keep movin’!’ said the man, poking a revolver into Canfield’s ribs.
‘Listen to me.’ Gone was Canfield’s attempt to roughen his voice. ‘I’m a government man! You do anything to me, they’ll get you! You won’t get any protection from your friends when they find out…’
‘Keep movin’!’
A ship’s horn sounded from the middle of the river. Another responded.
Then came a long, screeching, piercing whistle. It came from the Genoa-Stella. It was a signal, a desperate signal, which did not let up. The pitch of its scream was ear shattering.
It distracted—as it had to—the man with the gun beside Canfield.
The field accountant lashed out at the man’s wrist and held it, twisted it with all his strength. The man reached up to Canfield’s face and clawed at the sockets of his eyes while pushing him toward the steel wall of the building Canfield gripped the wrist harder, harder, and then with his other hand clutched at the man’s overcoat and pulled him toward the wall—the same direction the man was pushing—turning at the last second so that his executioner slammed into the steel.
The gun flew out of the Sicilian’s hand and Canfield brought his knee crashing up into the man’s groin.
The Italian screamed a guttural cry of anguish. Canfield threw him downward and the man lunged, writhing, across the deck to the edge of the pier, curled up in agony. The field accountant grabbed his head and slammed in re
peatedly against the thick wood. The skin broke and blood came pouring out of the man’s skull.
It was over in less than a minute.
Matthew Canfield’s executioner was dead.
The shrieking whistle from the Genoa-Stella kept up its now terrifying blast. The shouting from within the pier’s loading area had reached a crescendo.
Canfield thought that the ship’s crew must have openly revolted, must have demanded orders from their captain, and when they did not come, assumed him murdered—or at least held captive.
Several gunshots followed one after the other. The staccato sound of a submachine gun—more screaming, more cries of terror.
The field accountant couldn’t return to the front of the building, and undoubtedly someone would come out looking for his executioner.
He rolled the body of the dead Sicilian over the edge of the dock and heard the splash below.
The whistle from the Genoa-Stella stopped. The shouting began to die down. Someone had assumed control. And at the front end of the pier two men came in sight. They called out.
‘La Tona! Hey, La Tona! La Tona—’
Matthew Canfield jumped into the filthy waters of the Hudson and started swimming, as best he could in his heavy customs uniform, toward the middle of the river.
‘You’re a very lucky fellow!’ said Benjamin Reynolds.
‘I know that, sir. And grateful it’s over.’
‘We’re not called on for this sort of thing, I realize. You take a week off. Relax.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Glover will be here in a few minutes. It’s still a bit early.’
It was. It was six fifteen in the morning. Canfield hadn’t reached Washington until four and he was afraid to go to his apartment. He had phoned Benjamin Reynolds at home and Reynolds had instructed the field accountant to go to the Group Twenty offices and wait for him
The outer door opened and Reynolds called, ‘Glover? That you?’
‘Yes, Ben, Jesus! It’s not six thirty yet. A lousy night. My son’s kids are with us.’ The voice was weary and when Glover reached Reynolds’s door, it was apparent that the man was wearier.
‘Hello, Canfield. What the hell happened to you?’
Mathew Canfield, field accountant, told the entire story.
The Scarletti Inheritance Page 7
