Flynn tipped his hat, Ritchie picked up his report from the floor, and they both left. Schmittberger and Petrosino tried to follow them, but McClusky said, “Hold it, goddamn it!” They spun slowly and lingered in the doorway, as far as possible from McClusky’s big desk and leaden eyes. “What the hell was that?” McClusky asked Schmittberger.
“That? Why, that’s the federals doing what they do best: shitting all over us, Chief.”
McClusky seemed to like that response and cracked a smile. He went back to frowning quick. “Just the same, I told you not to agree with them. Both of you sold me a false bill with that Primrose angle, and I don’t want either of you sharing any information or even giving those cocksmokers the time of day. We’re still gonna break this fucking case. Us. Not them. That’s why I’ve got my best man on the job now. Isn’t that right, Jimmy?”
McCafferty said, “Ain’t a thing that a Yid or Dago can break that an Irishman can’t fix.”
“Oh, that’s good to know, Jimmy,” Schmittberger said. “Maybe you can come by the house later and tinker with my phonograph? It skips…”
“Clear out,” McClusky said. Petrosino pulled Schmittberger out and down the stairs until they were outside on Mulberry Street, shuddering beneath a black starless sky.
“Okay,” Petrosino said. “Spill.”
“What?” Schmittberger said resentfully. “You think I wanted to keep looking at your sourpuss and listen to your crying?” He poked Petrosino in the chest. “Don’t make me take the high road again. You got at my conscience and made us lose a big collar, you stupid little Dago.”
Petrosino clenched his fists and stuck out his chin. “What’re you blaming me for?”
“Because I listened to you, that’s why. You happy now? Now we’re in the shithouse worse than before.” Schmittberger took off his fedora and wiped sweat from his brow. Petrosino hadn’t noticed it before, but Schmittberger’s collar and the rim of his hat were soaked.
“You caught the time of death, didn’t you? That was your find, not that federal kid’s?”
Schmittberger sighed. “After we had our squabble, I went to Piper about it. Said we had some doubts and wanted to dig a little more. He said he expected no less of us. So I thought about what you said, that something didn’t feel right. And I remember we didn’t have time to look at the intake records at River Crest. So I went back by myself.”
“Why didn’t you report it to McClusky yourself?”
Schmittberger tapped his head, grinning, and walked down the street. “You might be a dick, but I’m a sleuth. If I tell the Chief that our collar is a bust, who does he shit on?”
“Us.” Petrosino followed him. “But if the Secret Service tells the Chief, then…”
“Then he’s the one who gets shit on. Sure, sooner or later it’ll flow down to us, but at least we’ve kept our heads down and our holes shut. Or so he thinks.”
“I might kiss you, Max, you know that? You had me worried.” Petrosino clapped Schmittberger’s back. “I was beginning to have doubts about you, that you might be hiding-”
Schmittberger punched him in the jaw. Petrosino stepped back, held up his fists, and said, “What the hell was that for? I know you’re not a crook, you stupid schmuck.”
“That’s not why I hit you. That was because you were right about the barrel case, and I was wrong. You can’t one-up me. I outrank you. Now did you badmouth me to Steffens, too?”
“No, damn it. I talked to him about the mafia. How’d you know I saw him?”
“Like I said, I’m a sleuth.” Schmittberger put his arm around him. “Now put your paws down. Let’s find a grog shop. I’m not sore anymore.”
“That’s swell, because now I’m sore.” Petrosino elbowed him hard in the gut, and Max doubled over and began laughing.
“I’ll buy the suds, Joe, but just the one. We gotta poke up early to pinch our Sicilians.”
II
THE MORELLO GANG
Chapter 14
“The next two suspects are the most dangerous in the entire gang,” William J. Flynn said to the group of twenty detectives and four Secret Service agents in the muster hall at 300 Mulberry Street. Everyone had bleary eyes and wore ugly suits to fit in with their targets. Some had rubbed dirt into their hands and fingernails, and some smelled like armpits and beer. Petrosino and Schmittberger had cut their night short at one in the morning, so they looked fresh as daisies by comparison. They sat next to each other in plainclothes, and Petrosino could smell yeast from Schmittberger’s moldy suit.
McClusky began mumbling behind Flynn, telling someone to fetch him a cigarette.
“Pipe down,” Flynn said in McClusky’s direction, making Petrosino smile. “At the top of the list is ‘The Clutch Hand’ Morello himself, who has a hideout at 178 Chrystie Street and also lurks about his restaurant and tenement on Elizabeth Street. Ritchie, pass out Morello’s particulars.” Agent Ritchie handed around a Bertillon card with Morello’s picture and physical measurements. Flynn paced in front of the men, waving his finger emphatically as he spoke.
“Morello is the ringleader, thirty-four years old and of unusual intelligence. You can’t miss him. He has a deformed right arm with hardly a finger on that hand. He’s hairy and has beady little eyes, average height at five feet seven.”
“Average maybe for a Dago,” McCafferty said, and snickering followed.
Petrosino said, “We make up for it in cock size.”
“Pipe down,” Flynn said. “You might not think much of him, but be careful with the Clutch Hand. He’s just as likely to slit the throats of backsliding members of his gang as his enemies. And he’s got a bodyguard with him at all times. The guard’s name is Tomasso Petto. He’s one of those physical culture types who’s done carnivals and strongman sideshows. We’ve shadowed Petto for a while now, and we’ve seen him use kettle bells and do calisthenics like Eugen Sandow in Edison’s moving pictures. Petto’s fellow gangsters call him Il Bove, Sicilian for ‘The Ox.’ We don’t have a Bertillon card for Petto, but Ritchie obtained this bill for our files. Pass it around so you get a good idea what this Ox looks like.”
Agent Ritchie handed around what looked like a carnival poster, and men laughed as the picture circulated the room. Petrosino and Schmittberger grabbed the bill at the same time. They grinned at the image of Petto in a leopard skin loincloth, holding a club and posing for a strength show and male beauty pageant. They nodded at each other as if to say, Let’s take him.
“Laugh now,” Flynn said, “but at one of those carnivals they tied a horse to each of Petto’s arms, slapped their backsides, and he kept the beasts from running off and pulling him apart. He’s also been known to break iron chains from around his neck. George, let’s have your roughest pinch Morello and his Ox.”
McClusky puffed his chest out, pointed at two men sitting in front. “McCafferty and O’Farrell there. They’ll bring down The Ox like he was Mary’s little lamb.”
The duo bobbed their heads, and McCafferty said, “You can count on us, Chief.”
Petrosino watched as Flynn examined the best of McClusky’s Irish lads, tubby and red-faced, sticking out their jaws like prizefighters in a stare-down. Flynn seemed unimpressed.
“Let’s have another pair of men to make it an even two-to-one advantage.”
Petrosino and Schmittberger looked at each other. “We’ll do it.”
“The Broom’s fine,” McClusky said, “but I need a bigger dog in that fight than Petrosino.”
“Joe’s the Bulldog of the East Side,” Schmittberger said. “He’s tougher than my wife’s flank steak.”
A couple of men laughed, and someone in the back gave a Bronx cheer.
“But, Chief, if they come along,” McCafferty said, “we’ll end up on a wild goose hunt for a loon!”
A dozen men snickered, and Petrosino and Schmittberger smirked.
“Can it back there!” Flynn said. “You want to take on your countryman, Joseph?”
“Sure,�
�� Petrosino said, “I’ll give him a little cerviletto.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s Italian for billy club to the spinal column.”
Schmittberger laughed.
“All right then,” Flynn said, “Joseph’s the fourth man on that team. Moving on to the rest of the suspects last seen with the murder victim in the butcher shop at 16 Stanton Street. Vito Laduca owns the butcher shop. He was arrested in Wilkes-Barre two months before for counterfeiting, but was eventually released and returned to New York. Pietro Inzerillo owns the Star of Italy café at 226 Elizabeth Street, where the counterfeiters regularly meet. Those two men, along with Antonio Genova, were seen with the ‘Newcomer,’ and they were the ones driving a wagon up to the butcher shop in the last hours before the killing. The other low-level gang members are the Lobaido brothers, Vito and Lorenzo, and Giuseppe Fanaro. I want two of you for every one of them. Many of these gangsters have been in prison before, and it’s natural to assume they aren’t going to turn to gospel singing for a living.”
The men laughed.
“I can tell you to a man that they will not want to go back to prison. Be on your toes and call in every quarter hour to get the signal. May the Lord be your shield and your stronghold.”
The teams of men split up and funneled out separately onto the back streets to begin tailing their assigned targets. Petrosino, Schmittberger, McCafferty, and O’Farrell walked casually toward Chrystie Street, making wisecracks about Petto’s caveman picture while they checked their service revolvers and saps and short “day” billies they had hidden in their pockets. Petrosino felt inside his suit coat pocket, comforted by the weight of his .38 pistol and Max’s long shadow beside him. They passed the graveyard next to Old St. Patrick’s and crossed themselves. Even Schmittberger.
Petrosino tilted his head at him. “What the hell was that, Max?”
“Can’t hurt.”
Petrosino smiled and said a prayer, “Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray.” Then he thought of the barrel victim’s face and added a silent prayer for the dead man’s soul. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
Schmittberger groaned. “Jesus, can we get on with it now, padré?”
The rain was light, soaking quickly into cobblestones and dissolving in sunlight cutting through pewter clouds. Petrosino and Schmittberger watched it vanish. They had made camp in an empty café across the street from Morello’s place at 178 Chrystie Street. McCafferty and O’Farrell had split up from them, O’Farrell strolling among pushcart peddlers, and McCafferty in a milliner’s shop trying on every single hat in the place.
“Slugabed must be sleeping the day away in his rathole.” Schmittberger stirred cold coffee and glanced out the window at the façade of Morello’s tenement as people trickled past it. “Look at that cunny fiend.”
Handsome Jimmy McCafferty left the millner’s and stood outside a bordello. A young woman came out and handed him something, and he tipped his hat and slid whatever she gave him in his hatband.
“Looks like he’s got a friend in that house.” Petrosino watched McCafferty through the window. “You used to be a pussyhound yourself, don’t forget.”
“Yeah, but at least I was a gentleman about it. And he’s smart as paint. When he took the civil service exam, he said County Cork was one of the original thirteen colonies.”
They laughed, then slowly sunk back into waiting and watching the East Side Ghetto hustle past the window. There were wagons, barrel organs, and tinkerers, but most of all pushcarts. Always peddling something. Gumdrops, candied peanuts, fruit, pretzels, combs, shoestrings, paper hats, macaroni, portraits of royalty from the Old Country, and carp. The three-cent-per-pound mongrel of a fish was the staple of life on the East Side. Petrosino could smell it now as people washed across the damp sidewalks, buying and selling carp.
Petrosino kept one eye on Morello’s building, trying not to be distracted by the cart traffic on Chrystie Street. He took out a picture of a man from his billfold.
“Who does this look like, Max?” Petrosino took out The World clipping of the barrel victim’s face, a profile shot from chin to crown. The photographer had cropped it to avoid the gruesome holes in the victim’s neck.
“I’ll be damned,” Schmittberger said. “Looks like your old man, don’t it?”
Petrosino put the clipping away. “Our victim was someone else’s papa or son, too.”
“Yeah.” Schmittberger shifted in his chair, uneasy. “I try not to think of that hole in the crotch.”
“We have to get close to the victim and figure out why he was tortured like that. The killer put him on display to thumb his nose at us. That’s not a gang’s doing, Max.”
“Primrose was a nice white American, but now that Flynn’s put the finger on a gang of Dagos, it bothers you, eh?”
Petrosino shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Was it true what McClusky said? In his office, when he asked why you became a cop.”
“Partly.” Petrosino squinted at Max, who had that all-knowing smile in his eyes. “When I first came here, I took to following some older toughs in the neighborhood. I thought they were grand. They spoke Italian with funny accents, and their leader, this kid named Ant, wore a fancy derby. They took me in like a pet for a while, and then one day, Ant turned on me. He licked me real good, and then he held a knife to my throat and said I better never show my face again.”
“Why the hell for?”
“Because I wasn’t Sicilian. He said I wasn’t rough enough to be one of them.” Petrosino tapped the derby on the table. “A couple years later, I knocked out all his teeth and took his hat.”
“That’s Ant’s hat?” Schmittberger grinned. “Jesus, McClusky had you pegged. And then Steffens asks you about the mafia society, too? No wonder you’re cross.” Schmittberger looked out the window, but his eyes darted back. “What did you talk to Steffens about, exactly?”
Petrosino could read his mind. “Not you, Max.”
“What then? About the barrel murder?”
“Nope.” Petrosino noticed that Max was acting indifferently, staring harder at Morello’s building across the street. He was keen to know, Petrosino thought. Too keen. “Steffens asked about the mafia. Has a theory that there’s a big crime Syndicate.”
“Does he now? That’s a gas. What’d he say?”
A man shouting at a crowd of boys caught Petrosino’s eye. “Steffens thinks three or four men control the gambling in the city and that the mafia is their muscle, but he was being cagey.”
“Who do you think would be in such a Syndicate?” Schmittberger turned and studied Petrosino now, lifting his cold coffee, wetting his moustache with it.
“They’d need a ward boss. Or the ward boss. I’d say Big Tim Sullivan could control a whole mess of gambling in this city.”
“Me, too. Did Steffens say he had proof on Big Tim? And what about the other two? Where’s he coming up with his dope? Did he say?”
Schmittberger’s questions came fast and made Petrosino suspicious. Schmittberger sensed it, too, and the tension hung taut between them like a clothesline in the Ghetto.
Petrosino said, “Steffens thinks there’s a city aldermen and a lawman, maybe even a federal. Since Big Bill Devery’s gone, I couldn’t think of another cop who could fit the bill.”
“Hmm.” Schmittberger stroked his dun whiskers. “If I were still in the game, I’d put my money on the top dick in the Central Bureau. He could start or stop any investigation he wanted in all of Greater New York. That’s the best insurance against any arrests or raids.”
Petrosino knew that Schmittberger was speaking from past experience and chose his words carefully, “Is that how it was when you were in the Tenderloin?”
Schmittberger nodded. “Madame West ran a bordello on West 51st, and the neighbors started complaining about the traffic and the, ah
em, noise. So being a fool, I go there and wave my billy around and threaten to shut her down. The next day, Chief Inspector Byrnes calls me to the rug. He says the woman was not a madame, nothing of the sort. She was just a mistress of a political friend of his, and the house was just a private residence owned by the politicker. He told me he’d have my head on a pike if I ever bothered her again. Afterwards, I found out she was paying $30,000 a year for protection, and that her politician friend was raking in the profits from the whorehouse. See, the Chief Inspector can always call off the dogs…”
“Chief Inspector, huh?” Petrosino chewed on it. “You might be onto something there, but I was thinking of something else. Flynn and his federal boys have been investigating Morello for a year, but they never pin a thing on him. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
“It does. But I wonder a lot. Like why you saw Steffens after I told you about him?”
“Max, it wasn’t to spite you. When Flynn talked about the Morello gang, I wanted to see if I could use Steffens to help us. Met his ‘boss,’ too. Get this: his boss man is a boss woman.”
“You don’t say. Is she a crabby old spinster?”
Petrosino shook his head, and something in the street froze him. He glanced over at the back counter and made sure the café owner was still in the back.
“Don’t look. Forty feet south, down the street, playing marbles with four boys. The son of a bitch’s shirt collar sticks out like wings because of the size of his neck.”
Schmittberger let go of his spoon. His face fell into a chalky frown. Petrosino could see that it took all of Schmittberger’s strength to keep from craning his neck. His lips formed the name, “Petto,” and Petrosino nodded and said, “Should we pinch him?”
“We’ve only got one mark in sight. The last thing we need is a fracas with the bodyguard in the street while the capo slips away.”
THE BARREL MURDER - a Detective Joe Petrosino case (based on true events) Page 11
