“No.” Lobaido pulled his hands together under his chin as if to pray.
“Do you know what the Bible says happens to murderers? You’ll be in hell, Vito, boiled in oil for an eternity.” Petrosino held Lobaido’s chin and stared through the kid’s watery eyes. “No matter how many masses your mama pays for, your soul will be damned forever.”
Lobaido screeched, “I know nothing! I’ve never hurt a soul, I don’t even like knives.”
Petrosino looked over at McClusky and Flynn, translating, “He just said he doesn’t even like knives. But I never told him the victim was stabbed to death.”
McClusky said, “Keep going,” with a dark glimmer of satisfaction in his eyes.
Petrosino patted Lobaido’s naïve face and whispered, “Who said anything about knives? I said a dead man had been found in a barrel. I never said he was stabbed.”
Lobaido’s eyes froze and stared vacantly for a few moments. His head slowly wilted between his narrow shoulders, and he mumbled, “The Fox will kill me now.” A teardrop formed thick and heavy and trickled down Lobaido’s cheek. A rivulet followed.
“Who’s the Fox?” Petrosino slapped him hard. Lobaido’s head bobbed back up, and his glassy eyes danced around in their deep sockets. He still said nothing. “Who’s the Fox? Why’d they kill that man, Vito? Tell me!” Petrosino punched Lobaido in the stomach, but his heart wasn’t in it. He knew this wasn’t the way through to the kid. Lobaido only wilted more, coughing and holding his stomach, whimpering louder.
“He’s as limp as a carp on Hester Street,” Petrosino said to McClusky and Flynn. He held back the kid’s mumbling about Il Volpe, The Fox. “He knows more than he’s letting on, but this little one’s too weak to have done any killing.”
Pietro Inzerillo stalked into McClusky’s office with flecks of grey in a grotesquely bushy moustache and a beard that stippled up to the temples of his head. He smelled of sweat as he hunched over his chair like an old stray dog cornered and outnumbered, pulling at his handcuffs. He gave McClusky a vulgar sneer and spat out in Sicilian, “Your mother fucked a monk.”
“What’d that cocksmoker say?” McClusky asked.
“You don’t wanna know, Chief.” Petrosino sat directly in front of Inzerillo and spoke in Italian, “You own the Star of Italy, right?” Inzerillo snorted and shook his head. “The barrel murder victim was last seen in your place on Monday night. How do you explain that?”
Inzerillo looked over at McClusky and Flynn. “No understand. Me speaka Siciliano.”
“’No understand,’” McClusky said angrily. “That’s all these animals know how to say.” He reached in a drawer, tossed a set of brass knuckles on the desk. “See if he understands that.”
Petrosino eyeballed the knuckles, then Flynn. Flynn looked down, brushed dust from his shoe. McClusky said, “Would you rather use a set of keys? Ain’t that your specialty, Sergeant?”
Petrosino wondered how the Chief knew. The last time he lost his temper in an interrogation, Petrosino had taken a set of keys in his fist and knocked out nearly every tooth in the man’s head. The thought of all those teeth on the floor agitated Petrosino now as he watched Inzerillo’s eyes shifting back and forth between McClusky and the brass knuckles on the desk.
Petrosino said to Inzerillo, “The dead man in the barrel deserves justice, Pietro. What if your father was killed? Or your son? Wouldn’t you want the police to find the killer?”
“You wouldn’t understand, you dog. A Sicilian would never ask another man to defend his honor. We have a saying, ‘If I live, I will kill thee. If I die, I forgive thee.’ But you’d go cry to the police instead of acting like a man. You’re nothing but a monkey dancing for them.”
“They think all of us are like you,” Petrosino said. “No good, dirty rotten fucking Dagos. And I despise you for that. Now talk. Tell me who the man in the barrel is.”
Inzerillo spat on the floor. “Go shit in your hand and slap yourself!”
Petrosino snatched up the brass knuckles. “Once more: who’s the man in the barrel?”
“You’re their monkey, asshole. Go on, dance for your Irish organ grinders.”
Petrosino reared back and pummeled Inzerillo in the mouth.
Inzerillo spat a jagged brown tooth onto McClusky’s neat oak desk and cursed at Petrosino, “You should’ve never come out of the whore’s cunt you call mamá.”
“What’s he saying?” McClusky asked.
“Nothing, Chief, just cursing.” Petrosino tossed the tooth in McClusky’s cuspidor, and it landed with a ding. Petrosino then buttoned Inzerillo’s shirt collar up and lifted the lapels on his filthy duster so they covered his neck.
“What are you doing?” Inzerilllo asked.
“So there won’t be any marks.” Petrosino took off his own tie and wrapped each end around his fists. Then he moved behind Inzerillo and looped the tie around his neck and pulled gently. Inzerillo began choking. “Who’s the dead man in the barrel?” Petrosino asked.
“Joseph, take it easy,” Flynn said.
Petrosino tightened the silk garotte and whispered in Inzerillo’s ear. “Go on. I don’t care if you say anything about the barrel murder now. Say something else about my mother. Go on. Show me how rough you are. I wanna see your eyes shit right out of your head.”
Inzerillo was kicking and squirming in the chair now, his face so flushed that even his beard looked red.
“For the love of God, Joseph, give him air,” Flynn said. “Turn him loose.”
“Hell, Bill, he ain’t gonna die,” McClusky said. “They usually pass out first.”
Petrosino could feel himself wanting to put the man to sleep, but he willed his hands to let go of the tie. Inzerillo wheezed and sputtered, then cackled madly.
Petrosino sat down and calmly put his tie back on. His hands were numb and grooved from where the silk cut off the blood flow. “He’ll take some time, Chief, if he talks.”
“My patience is running thin, goddamn it. Bring in The Clutch Hand.”
The two patrolmen at McClusky’s door carted off Inzerillo, who hissed curses on the way out, and the patrolmen quickly returned, shoving Giuseppe Morello in the chair facing Petrosino.
“Well, well, look at the almighty Clutch Hand now,” McClusky said. “How’s it feel to be pinched for murder instead of counterfeiting? See, I’m not the counterfeiting police, I’m the murder police, you greasy little Guinea.”
Petrosino translated, and Morello stared straight ahead, calmly, as if there were no other people in the room. McClusky must have been riled by Morello’s stoic demeanor. He came around his desk and slapped Morello. Morello’s left eye twitched. There were two egg-sized knots on his forehead above that eye, and Petrosino could see that Morello was trying not to show any pain. The bumps must have come from McCafferty and O’Farrell’s saps.
“You ever heard of a man named Primrose?” McClusky asked. “Americano?”
Morello spoke in a quiet monotone, with lips barely visible under a dense black moustache, “No understand.”
McClusky sat on the corner of his desk, nodding at Petrosino who translated McClusky’s question and added in Italian, “Figghiu di una brutta strega.” You son of an ugly witch.
Morello looked up at McClusky and shook his head.
“Were you at a butcher shop on Stanton Street on the thirteenth of April?”
No answer.
“What’s the name of the dead man in the barrel?” McClusky made a fist as Petrosino translated, and he pressed it against the knots on Morello’s head. The muscles in Morello’s jaw tightened, but he still said nothing. McClusky punched Morello’s forehead, toppling him and his chair backwards to the floor. Petrosino bent down to set Morello and his chair back up, and a shooting pain clawed its way across his ribs and clamped the air in his lungs. He growled at Morello to hide the urge to wince.
“This one’s as dumb as an oyster,” McClusky said and sat back down behind his desk. “Try some Italian on him, Sergeant.�
��
Petrosino said to Morello in Italian, “My name is Petrosino.” Morello yawned. “I know you’re a clever man, Giuseppe. You’re a leader of men, and I respect you for that.” Petrosino could sense the vanity. Even the most brutal ones had it, and he tried to tap into it. “I can see it in you now and in the way your friends show respect for you.”
Morello was still silent, but he looked content with himself.
“But there’s something in your behavior I don’t understand,” Petrosino said.
Morello’s dark eyes gleamed curiously.
“When I arrested you, you knew I spoke Italian and could understand you, no?”
Morello involuntarily, just barely nodded, Yes.
“And, yet, the whole time we were together, when I took you under arrest, you never asked me ‘why’? You see, men always ask me why when I put them in jail. But not you, Giuseppe. No. You didn’t ask me one question about why I pinched you. Isn’t that queer?”
Morello’s sharp obsidian eyes dulled and blinked. Petrosino leaned in face-to-face, whispering, “Tell me.” Morello began to speak but quickly stopped. In that moment of weakness, when there was nothing Morello could say, Petrosino believed that Morello knew all about the murder. He thought of what Ritchie had said, about Steffens and Tarbell comparing the mafia to Roman rulers, and he appealed to Morello’s vanity again: “You are a Caesar among your men, and Caesar can do no wrong. So if you speak to me, it’s your privilege to say what you want, and no one would ever dare dispute that privilege. Who’s ‘The Fox’? You?”
Morello’s eyes hardened again, stabbing angrily at Petrosino as if he’d been tricked.
McClusky thudded a letter opener against his desk. “What is it, Joe? What’d you ask the bastard? He looked pale as a ghost for a second there.”
“He did.” Petrosino was looking at Morello’s face, but the flicker of weakness had vanished. “I asked him how come he never asked why we arrested him. He couldn’t answer.”
McClusky grinned at Morello. “Maybe you’re not such a clever Dago after all, huh?”
Petrosino continued in Italian, “Who was that man in the barrel, Giuseppe? Did someone hire you to kill him? What did he do to deserve that?” Morello shook his head, almost smiling now. “You put him out of the way, didn’t you? But with that weak little claw of yours, you probably had someone else do your dirty work for you. You’re a wicked little monster.”
Morello shifted his deformity in the cuffs, trying to hide it, then said, “Petrosino, what a name. ‘Pitrusinu.’ ‘Parsley’ may be good for the police, but it gives us Sicilians indigestion.”
“I’ll give you indigestion if you don’t start talking.”
“You go against your own kind on the East Side,” Morello whispered. “Tsk, tsk. Trouble is coming to you, Parsley, don’t you worry.”
Petrosino grabbed Morello by the throat. “From you, you piece of shit?”
“What the hell is that Dago saying?” McClusky asked.
Petrosino still had Morello by the throat. “Nothing, Chief. He wants a lawyer.”
“Does he now? There ain’t no Constitution in here! Tell the bastard that.”
“George,” Flynn said, “if he asks for counsel, we ought to give him one.”
Petrosino immediately regretted saying that Morello asked for counsel.
McClusky growled, “Bill, what do you care about his goddamn counsel? Go find him a shyster on Centre Street if you like.” McClusky pointed at Petrosino. “Keep going, Sergeant.”
Petrosino whispered to Morello, “Omertá won’t save you. You gave yourself away.”
Morello smiled sleepily. Petrosino squeezed his throat harder until he stopped smiling.
“George, that’s enough,” Flynn said angrily. “This evildoer won’t talk. They view police as minions of Old Country oppression and keep mum. Especially him, he’s shut tight as a clam.”
“Then let’s put him back in the box and see if that changes his goddamn mind.”
“Let the prisoner go, Joseph,” Flynn said.
Petrosino took his hand off Morello’s throat. “You’ll break, Morello. Maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow, but when you do, I’ll be there waiting.”
“George, you can give them the Third Degree for a year,” Flynn said. “They’ll never talk. I know these crooks better than you ever will. Besides, we can’t hold them forever without charge. Why, it’s un-American, un-Christian even.”
“Horseshit, Bill, they ain’t American,” McClusky said, his wingtips on his desk. He was burning matchsticks down to his fingers and tossing them at his cuspidor.
Petrosino, Schmittberger, and McCafferty were standing on the Oriental rug, waiting for them to make a decision. It was almost one in the morning. They had interrogated all the suspects twice using every trick in the Central Bureau book, and Petrosino was losing focus.
“We’ll do just fine with a few more days of the Third Degree.” McClusky waved at Schmittberger. “Broom, go back through the suspect’s homes and sweep ‘em out.”
“Sir, my men already tossed ‘em. It’s one in the morning. Everyone’s asleep.”
“Good. Wake up their families and tear the places apart again. Don’t stop till you find something on these gangsters. You’re not to lay ear to pillow tonight.”
Schmittberger nodded. “How about an ear to bosom, Chief?”
“Get the hell out.”
Schmittberger snapped a salute, frowned at Petrosino, and marched out of the office.
“I’ve got an idea, Chief,” Petrosino said. “Let’s turn one of them loose.”
“You wanna loose these terrorists back on the street?” McClusky said through a cloud of burning sulphur. He licked his fingers and put out another match. “Go home and sleep till your head’s on straight.”
“Not all of them, Chief. Just the youngest one. Vito Lobaido. The first time we turned the screws on him, he almost cracked. And now he’s whining like a baby in The Box.”
Flynn and McCafferty were glancing at a clock on the wall.
“Chief,” Petrosino persisted, “the only reason he hasn’t reached The Break here is because he’s scared of his fellow gang members. They’re the ones keeping him shut tight. I’ve got a feeling about him.”
“Not a chance,” McClusky said. “He’ll be on a steamship to Italy before you can say, ‘Won’t you come home, Bill Bailey.’”
“Not if we tail him, George,” Flynn said.
“That’s right,” Petrosino said. “We’ll turn him loose on a witness bond. Tell the rest of the gang he was the only one who didn’t have a weapon on him. They’ll buy that.”
“I don’t like it,” Jimmy McCafferty said. “We should move Lobaido to a dorm room in the House of Detention for Witnesses. That way he won’t skip.”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t he skip, Petrosino?” McClusky asked.
“Because he’ll go home and lick his wounds,” Petrosino said. “Then he’ll seek guidance. He’s too green to know what to do. At the least, he’ll spread the word that the gang needs a lawyer and try to get them sprung. It could lead us to bigshots we don’t know about.”
“And we’ll know if he goes on the lam,” Flynn added, “because we’ll have a tail on him.”
“No, I’d rather keep him in here and make him sweat.” McClusky snuffed another match on his wet finger. “Petrosino had his chance trying Italian on them. Now I’m gonna let McCafferty have a go, speak some Irish to them.”
“Chief, it’s only one day. We turn him out, put a tail on him, and let him get a taste of freedom. He’ll think he’s gotten away scot free, and he’ll be comfortable. Then tomorrow night, we’ll give him a surprise visit with a tap on the head. He’ll squeal quick then, because his friends won’t be around to clam him up.”
“George,” Flynn said, standing and putting on his overcoat, “you’re going to turn Lobaido loose. That’s the long and short of it.”
McClusky gave McCafferty an irritated look, some furtiv
e conversation in the way they nodded at each other and wouldn’t look at Flynn.
“All right, Bill, I’ll have McCafferty tail Lobaido,” McClusky said. “Go get your beauty rest. We’ll keep the fires lit and do your job for you.”
Flynn said, “Good night,” unfazed, and left.
McClusky said to Petrosino, “We’ll see if Lobaido breaks when he’s alone like you say.”
Petrosino didn’t like the idea of McCafferty keeping watch on Lobaido. He stood up and thought of saluting and leaving the office, but stopped. “Chief, I should tail Lobaido. I know his language, and I know the East Side like the-”
“You got your way in front of your Secret Service pal. But you won’t tell me who to send on detail. Not you or that big Jew. McCafferty’s on the job, end of telegram. So why don’t you just go home now, Sergeant, and let me run the Central Bureau for a while?”
As Petrosino left the office he heard McCafferty whisper, “Fuckin’ Dago.”
Chapter 17
Petrosino barely slept. His right side was swollen, but it was anxiety over the murder that kept him awake. At sunrise, he took a cold bath, aspirin, and a shot of whiskey to numb the pain and crackling noise in his ribs. Then he headed to the Marble Palace eager to see Schmittberger. He shuddered in the morning chill, seeing his breath form a mist as newsies cried out, “Mafia gang arrested for barrel murder! Read it here!”
He picked up The World and skimmed it on the way. The front page was crowded with mugshots of the Morello gangsters, and an article said that the police had botched the arrest of Dr. Primrose and that his death had been ruled a suicide by the Coroner. Chief Inspector McClusky commented that they had the killer among the batch arrested, but he wouldn’t say which one. Nor would he comment on whether Primrose was still a suspect or a false confessor. The article concluded that the Central Bureau was still in the dark about the victim’s identity, and this agitated Petrosino because it was true.
THE BARREL MURDER - a Detective Joe Petrosino case (based on true events) Page 13
