“Episode indeed,” Schmittberger said. “Was it a surprise to you that he’d castrated a man and could have canned his parts for sausage?”
Dold stared malevolently at Max. “That is not what I meant.”
“He should have been put in the Tombs,” Petrosino seethed. “Not this resort.”
Schmittberger glared at Dold. “I heard he got here on a ‘long green certificate’? How much did your affidavit cost to get him sent here instead of jail?”
“Gentlemen, I suggest you do your jobs and look for him now.” Dr. Dold turned for the door, but Schmittberger grabbed his wrist.
“If we don’t find Primrose,” Schmittberger said, “we’ll be back for you, Dolt.”
Schmittberger and Petrosino took the earless guard with them and headed for the river.
The River Crest watchman was snoring off an afternoon cocktail in his watchouse, a shack on the river’s edge. Petrosino, Schmittberger, and the earless guard took him by surprise.
Petrosino kicked the chair he was slumped in, and the watchman growled, “Fuck off!”
“Get up, shitbird,” Petrosino said and punched his ear.
The watchman quickly realized he was talking to the law and stood up, but the liquor was coming off him in fumes. “Ask the Gas Works man, he was the last to see him.”
“I know you,” Schmittberger said, “no wonder you left the Department for this job, sarge. Drunker than ten Injuns at midday. Have you looked for him yourself?”
“Not on your life. He’s raving-”
“Shut up. Did you see him? Does he have a knife?”
The watchman held up his hands pleadingly. “I don’t know. Ask the Gas Works man. He went that-a-way. He must be hiding, there’s no way off here without a boat.”
“You just stay here safe and warm then with your one-eared pal.” Petrosino slapped the watchman again for good measure, and he and Schmittberger left the earless guard behind. They made their way to the neighboring property to the south and saw a man’s dusky silhouette in the distance. He was wearing denim and a moleskin coat, standing in the grass and looking toward a stand of trees and an endless patch of brush sprouting all along the river.
“You looking for that loon?” the moleskin man called out. Petrosino and Schmittberger nodded and hurried to him. He shook their hands. “I’m Moylan, superintendent of the Consolidated Gas Works. I seen him a little while ago. I think the damn fool jumped in.”
“In the East River?”
Moylan nodded. “I had a few men look for him in the bushes. But we found naught. Then I heard someone shoutin’, ‘Save me, save me! I’m drowning!’ But we ain’t found no one. Must’ve drowned hisself by now. I hope.”
“There goes our picture in the paper, Joe. Maybe we should get grappling hooks in case we have to drag the river?”
Petrosino felt his fists tightening. Nightfall was a half hour away, at most. He looked around at the terrain and the river again, noticing a small tug coming down the water from the north. “What does the Gas Works do with its rubbish?”
“Some of it gets dumped in the river. But if we can sell anything, we put it on a scow.”
“What about a dock? They have a dock for hauling?”
Moylan pointed past the scrub at a leaning pier of old tree trunks and warped planks. Petrosino thought he saw a tug at the Gas Works pier and grabbed Schmittberger’s shoulder. He started running for the river bank and circled around the trees and the scrub brush. Fresh tracks ran along the bank, and he followed. A quarter mile later, there was a pair of patent leather shoes, muddied but new and good quality. He pointed them out to Max, who had a fierce glow in his eyes. They ran further south down the bank to the Gas Works pier, where they saw the tug starting up, three scows hooked to it, ready to make the trip across the East River to Manhattan.
Petrosino grabbed Max’s forearm and pointed. A figure was coming out of the water, climbing onto the last scow. It was a blond man in a cream nightshirt stained with blood, doing a crab walk, inching his way across piles of garbage toward the second scow.
“Curse the fishes!” Petrosino shouted.
They made for the pier, shouting at the tugboat captain to stop. But the captain had revved his engine, and the sounds of the tug and the bell and the river kept him from hearing. Duncan Primrose had scampered across two scows now, and he was jumping onto the scow closest to the tug. In a matter of seconds, Petrosino thought, he’d be surprising the tug captain, and who knew what havoc he’d do?
Schmittberger ran ahead of him like a galloping ostrich and screamed over his shoulder, “Move those little Dago legs!”
They ran to the end of the pier just as the last scow was sliding by, and they both leapt onto it. Petrosino’s stomach hit hard, knocking the wind out of him, and he slid back, his feet dangling in the water. He shouted at Schmittberger, who grabbed him by the back of his jacket and yanked him on. Petrosino’s derby went rolling across the garbage and he snatched it before it could drop into the cold ink of the East River. They had no time to catch their breaths, up and crawling again, sliding through filth and coal dust and broken metal parts.
By the time they reached the tugboat and threw their legs onto the deck, Primrose was holding a deckhand from behind, forearm under his throat, and his other hand holding a sharp piece of metal against the deckhand’s chin. The captain was at the wheel, glancing back frantically, saying something to Primrose.
Petrosino and Schmittberger took out their billies and approached the wheelhouse.
“The Czar’s orders must be obeyed!” Primrose shouted. “Take me to see my wife or I’ll cut this one’s nose off! DO IT, you Jap cockeater!”
“Easy there, Primrose,” Schmittberger said.
Primrose turned to the back of the boat, still manhandling the deckhand. Petrosino could see the “knife” wasn’t a knife at all. It was a shoehorn, but the smaller end of it had been sharpened to a deadly point. As Primose tensed, the shoehorn punctured the deckhand, and blood beaded and trickled down the deckhand’s cheek.
“Stay away from me!” Primrose shouted. “I’ll take his Jap head clean off if you move an inch! I’m the Czar of Russia!”
“Sure, you’re the Czar,” Schmittberger said. “Why, you’re the President and Mayor all in a bunch. Now, let him go, Primrose, or you’ll be the Man in the Iron Mask, too.”
“Hang it, Max,” Petrosino whispered, “not now damn it. Don’t set him off.”
“I’m a rich man,” Primrose said, eyes unblinking and bright sea-green. “I can pay you $50,000 if you just let me be. When we land in Manhattan, just let me go and don’t follow.”
“That sounds like a fair bargain, Duncan,” Petrosino said. “But you can’t hurt anyone, all right? We’ll just finish our boat ride, then we’ll all be on our way. Deal?”
Primrose didn’t answer. The men tensely held their positions as the boat neared 12th Street. Petrosino and Schmittberger held their billies down by their thighs now, watching Primrose’s hand on the sharpened shoehorn. Primrose quieted down for a moment, on the verge of tears. His eyes fought to stay open, both wild with rage then suddenly pathetic with fear.
Schmittberger whispered, “He’s getting tired, Joe.”
Primrose convulsed with tears, cheek to cheek with the deckhand. “I just want to see my wife! What’s taking so damn long? You’re trying to kidnap me! Land now!”
“I’m supposed to go all the way round past the American Line piers to West 45th,” the tug captain said, looking back at the detectives, and they shook their heads at him and mouthed the word, LAND, as they passed under the Brooklyn Bridge. “Fine fucking mess, this is. All right, it’ll get me canned, but I’ll try that little pier there.”
“You agreed not to hurt him,” Petrosino said to Primrose, pointing at the deckhand.
“Yes,” Primrose said calmly, “just land. I need to see my wife.”
As soon as the tug was within twenty feet of the pier, Primrose threw the deckhand at Petrosino
and Schmittberger and snatched up a bale stick. He struck the captain across the mouth, and the captain fell on his knees, clutching his face. Primrose took four strides and leapt onto the dock, making the jump easily before sprinting full speed into the city.
By the time the tug was close enough for Petrosino and Schmittberger to jump onto the pier, they lost sight of him. But they followed a string of screams until they found Primrose barefoot in the street in his bloody nightshirt, squawking, “The Czar’s orders must be obeyed! Death to the disobedient Japs and Dagos!” He had the bale stick in one hand and the shoehorn in the other, threatening passers-by.
Petrosino put away his billy and took out his .38. Max nodded and kept a billy in hand as they marched through a crowd swirling around Primrose, who swung the bale stick at a storefront and shattered a plate glass window. An old woman passed too close, and he struck her on the head and knocked her out cold. The crowd shouted at him and followed his whirlwind path, and Petrosino and Schmittberger shoved people out of the way as men picked up stones and hurled them at Primrose. But Primrose was unfazed. He lunged again and again, and the crowd danced backward.
“Where’s a cop when you need one?” Schmittberer muttered, pushing through. “Cover me, Joe, so I can get one good lick with my billy, and he’ll fold straight up.”
Petrosino fired a warning shot in the air, and the crowd opened up.
Primrose shouted, “Let the War of 1812 begin!” and threw a livery driver to the ground and stood over him with the shoehorn. Petrosino covered Schmittberger as Max dove in and smashed Primrose’s arm. The shoehorn clinked to the street. Schmittberger clubbed Primrose on the head, but Primrose stood straight up and swung back with his bale stick. Schmittberger ducked and tackled him to the ground, and Petrosino holstered his gun and piled onto both men. They rolled around in the gutter for what seemed like hours to Petrosino, and finally Primrose wilted and began giggling like a child.
“My wife is the Czarina. She’s fixed up with the King of Italy to assassinate me. But I still love her!” He looked at Petrosino, who was sitting on his chest with Schmittberger. “Go on, you dirty Dago spy, do me in!”
Petrosino said to Schmittberger, “Even the loons?”
“I keep telling you, Joe, it’s the garlic.”
“You said one good tap with your billy? He’s still moving.” Petrosino struggled to stay on top of Primrose. “You used to be an artist. You used to hit ‘em once, and they’d flop down like a fish. You’re losing your touch.”
“You’re hurting my feelings, Joe. Loons are different, they’re always strong as a bull moose. Hold him. No time for the strait jacket.” Schmittberger snatched up irons from his rucksack, and they cuffed him. Then Schmittberger patted him down and stopped when he reached inside the nightshirt pocket. He wiped his fingers on the nightshirt and slapped Primrose. “Joe, look inside his pocket.”
Petrosino didn’t want to, but he couldn’t resist. He pulled open the pocket, saw a fresh ear caked in bright blood, and muttered, “You crazy bastard.”
“Add petit larceny,” Schmittberger said as they dragged him through the crowd.
“I’m a millionaire,” Primrose pleaded. “I’ll pay you both $100,000 to let me go!”
“Shut your fucking hole, you loon.” Schmittberger slapped Primrose.
A boy shouted, “The old woman’s dead!”
Angry cries erupted, and men came forward with a noose. Petrosino pointed his pistol at the first one’s nose, and the lynch mob retreated. A delivery wagon drove by, and Schmittberger snatched the horse’s bridle and shouted at the driver to halt. They tossed Primrose onto a pile of flour sacks, hopped on, and told the driver to whip up the horse quick. Petrosino and Schmittberger held down the lunatic doctor as he curled up on a flour sack and sang:
“Hello Central, give me heaven!
For I know my mother’s there.
You will find her with the angels
Over on the golden stair.”
Chapter 8
McClusky’s Irish boys were still at Headquarters when Petrosino and Schmittberger processed Dr. Duncan Primrose in the basement. They made cracks at the smell coming off Petrosino’s clothes and at Primrose’s hospital gown. Primrose was a limp bundle of chains on a wooden bench, momentarily lucid, staring wide-eyed at them all as if he’d just rubbed a nightmare from his bleary eyes.
“Say, pal, am I dreaming?” Primrose asked Petrosino.
“Nope, you’re pinched for murder in the first and six counts of assault.”
Detective “Handsome” Jimmy McCafferty watched Petrosino write the arrest report, smiling with his big mocking teeth. Despite his mouthful of piano keys, he had a reputation as a “masher” or Casanova. Even the puritanical police matrons doted on McCafferty, always running their hands through his wavy black hair and pinching his dimples.
Petrosino glanced at McCafferty’s lush head of hair and self-consciously raked his own receding hairline.
McCafferty’s teeth sparkled as he whispered over Primrose’s shoulder, “I can’t believe that you, a genteel fair-haired doctor, a white man of all people, stooped down to massacre a Guinea on the East Side. The Italian niggers in Sing Sing will eat you alive, boy-o.”
McCafferty called out to the other dicks with a voice like a pistol shot, “Can you believe it, boys?! Can you believe this nice Caucasian doc is a stone cold butcher? Maybe we ought to cut his balls off and see how he likes it? Just one of them for fun, eh?” McCafferty poked at Primrose’s crotch, and Primrose cowered meekly and began weeping in spasms.
“Jesus, he’s a fucking nancy,” McCafferty said to Petrosino. “How’d you find him, Joe?”
“Sleuthing,” Schmittberger answered from behind a newspaper, sitting at a desk adjacent to Petrosino. “You ought to try it some time, Jimmy.”
McCafferty snorted. “That’s swell advice, Inspector.”
“I’m innocent, I tell you!” Primrosed cried out.
McCafferty spun and kicked Primrose’s crotch. “That’s what they always say. ‘It’s not me, judge, I swear on me mudder’s grave!’”
The Irish dicks cackled in the background.
“The old woman you attacked is alive,” Petrosino said to Primrose. “So that charge is a molehill compared to the killing. Why’d you butcher that man?”
Primrose said nothing, and the Irish dicks goaded him, “Come now, Nancy!”
“Why’d you put him in the barrel like that?” Petrosino asked. “Did someone help you?”
Primrose slumped on the bench in his irons and pissed himself.
“It’s no use, Joe, let’s have a word upstairs,” Schmittberger said, putting down his newspaper and rising. He said loudly to McCafferty, “Sergeant, clean up that piss and then let The World’s man take the prisoner’s picture.”
McCafferty half-saluted.
Schmittberger pointed at McCafferty. “Do it again, the right way.”
McCafferty scowled and gave Max a full military salute.
Schmittberger nodded at Petrosino, and they left Primrose shackled to the bench with the other Central Bureau dicks taunting him while the pair slipped upstairs to Petrosino’s office.
“I couldn’t stand listening to those Irish punks anymore.” Schmittberger shut the door. “Let’s telephone our rabbi and give him the dope. Ask him if he thinks we should hold him here or send him to the Tombs where they can have a police alienist examine him.”
Petrosino picked up the telephone receiver in his office.
Schmittberger shook his head. “Across the street, use a public line. The telephone switchboard operators are the worst gossips in all of Greater New York.”
“You think the T/S girls would leak the connection between us and our tip?”
“Does JD Rockefeller have a million dollars?”
“I’ll say.” Petrosino stood and hesitated. Something had been gnawing at him. “You ever solve a big one like this so quick, Max?”
“Sure. Remember that Sicilian pr
ostitute last Christmas? Only took us an hour to find her father with his hands still wet with her blood. Why, what’s wrong?”
Petrosino shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“He confessed. And Weston said the killer must have been strong as hell to slice through the victim’s neck the way he did, remember? The two of us could barely hold Primrose down.”
“True. But Weston said more than one weapon and maybe two killers or more.”
“‘Convinced myself, I seek not to convince.’ That’s Poe.” Schmittberger wiggled his eyebrows and bristly moustache. “We got the collar, Joe, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
Petrosino sighed and slipped out of Headquarters to a public telephone booth in a boarding house down the block. He rang Piper at home and advised him that they had captured their man after a chase and that they would tip the “Poker Club” of reporters at Headquarters so the morning would have front-page screamer headlines. Piper told him not to mention his name and to send Primrose to a padded cell in the Tombs.
“I’ll make sure Sandy has an alienist take charge of the prisoner at the Tombs and assess his sanity,” Piper said on the telephone. “The less control George the Peacock has, the better. And I want you two to know how pleased I am. Don’t be surprised if you get letters of commendation and an extra day off a month, perhaps even a pay bump, lad.”
Petrosino hung up the telephone. They’d solved the biggest murder in the city in less than a day, and not a single Irishman would get credit for it. For a moment, he was distracted with dreams of promotion and glory. From bootblack to White Wing, he said to himself, and now Sergeant and maybe Captain someday? A decade ago, he never would have dreamed of the possibility of an Italian running an entire precinct. But now in the twentieth century, it didn’t seem so absurd. Look at Max, he told himself, a Jew Inspector.
“Captain Petrosino,” he whispered as he walked back to the Marble Palace, oblivious to the gusts of cold air that buffeted his derby. There was always this euphoria after a solved case, then the reality of his position and melancholy would settle on him like so much coal dust. It must have been what the opium fiends felt like when they visited their dragon dens in Chinatown for a moment of bliss and then a long sad sleep.
THE BARREL MURDER - a Detective Joe Petrosino case (based on true events) Page 6
