THE BARREL MURDER - a Detective Joe Petrosino case (based on true events)

by MICHAEL ZAROCOSTAS

  “The Clutch Hand? Morello?”

  She shrugged. “I only know him as Little Finger. He scares the hell out of me.”

  Petrosino slammed his fist on the table. “Don’t feed us chickenshit! We know your sister was running with him. That bastard baby she’s got is probably his spawn. So don’t go halfway. You go all the way with us or you get mashed like everyone else.”

  “You’d hit a lady, too, woudn’t you, you bastard?”

  “Not without taking my brass knuckles off first!”

  “Okay, don’t yell. Everyone knows he’s the capo. It’s the Morello gang, ain’t it?”

  “Yeah, it is. But I wanna hear you say it. So how did you meet Petto?”

  “Through my sister, Marie. She goes with Little Finger, like you said, and my Ox is Little Finger’s bodyguard. We ran into each other all the time, and he said how much he liked my hair. He would say it all the time. I like to wear a lot of silver combs.” She preened the sloping bird’s nest on her head. “It looks awful now, but I have pretty hair. I do.”

  “What’s his real name? It’ not Tomasso, is it?”

  “I don’t know what’s real anymore. He told me he didn’t have a wife and kids, that he only wanted me. So how do I know what’s real? All of you men are pigs. That’s real.”

  “Yes, we are, from the snout to the tenderloins,” Schmittberger said, “but what did he tell you his name was?”

  Petrosino tried not to smile. Federica was drowning in a lovesick puddle, after all.

  “He said his name was Luciano Petto. I knew he was from Corleone. They all are. He said when he made enough coin working for them he’d take me away. We’d run off and get married, and he’d do his own carnival shows.”

  “Where would he go if he was on the lam?” Schmittberger asked.

  Her eyebrows arched up, and a hopeful smile curled her lips. “He got away then?”

  Schmittberger glanced over at Petrosino and sighed. “Yes, my dear. But I should tell you that he sent a coded message to his wife that he’d be coming for her and the boys soon.”

  “With steamship tickets back to the Old Country,” Petrosino added with a nudge.

  “And he didn’t mention you once.”

  “That bastard, he’s going to take that witch instead of me?” Her eyebrows sunk, and her smile grew teeth. “Sure I know where he’d go hide. He always said that, at the first sign of trouble, he’d go to Pittston. He used to work in the mines there in Pennsylvania. He said he’s got a place in the woods where no one could ever find him. Or dare try. He told me one time, after he said how much he loved me. Pfft! He said, if I needed him, to write to the Pittston Post Office, special delivery to Luca Perrino. And my message would find him.”

  Petrosino and Schmittberger gave each other poker glances, not wanting to give away their glee over the flush hand she just dealt them. Petrosino wrote down the alias, Luca Perrino, and the details of Petto’s hideout in his butcher’s book.

  Schmittberger said, “Is there any other place he might go? Besides the mines?”

  “I don’t think so. You go to Pittston and see for yourself. I bet you all the tea in China the two-timing bastard’s there!”

  “Did you visit him at the Tombs after he was arrested?”

  She nodded, growing angrier. “The things I did for him, too! Do you know how a woman has to smuggle things inside a jail? It’s no stroll in Central Park.”

  “The course of true love never runs smooth, does it, sister?” Schmittberger said, nudging Petrosino. “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

  “What did you say?” Federica crossed her meaty arms.

  “Nevermind that,” Petrosino said. He imagined Federica making trips across the Bridge of Sighs, visiting Petto in the Tombs, and proclaiming her undying love while he passed her notes to have witnesses poisoned. Notes she likely hid in her crotch. “You said you hid things for him. When you visited the Tombs, did you help them pass information to the outside?”

  “Am I going to be in trouble for this? I can’t go to jail. I’ll die in there.”

  “You’ll go up the river for a long time. Unless you tell us everything. If you talk, the Inspector could fix it so they turn you loose. So spill. The gang passed notes, didn’t they?”

  She nodded, her fattened lip giving her a permanent pout.

  “So you can read the code they use then?”

  “No. My sister told me what was going on. There was a guard at the Tombs who knew the gang. From before. I don’t know how.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know, I never met him. You think they’d tell me? Besides, they pay off turnkeys all the time. Cops, too.” She smirked at Schmittberger. “Or didn’t you know that?”

  “Watch yourself, butterbean,” Schmittberger said, his eyes boring through her.

  “The Fox is one of those cops you’re talking about,” Petrosino said, “isn’t he?”

  Her eyes froze, glued between her eyelids. “Who?”

  “The Fox. He’s a cop, isn’t he? Someone with police pull, mixed up with the gang?”

  Schmittberger grabbed her hand before she answered. “Don’t you lie, butterbean. I can see the wheels of deception spinning in your eyes. Not one damn lie or you’ll be doing hard labor till your nice pretty hair is old and grey and falling out of your little head.”

  She nervously tucked a skein of hair behind her ear. “He used to work at a Turkish bath.”

  “Who? The Fox?”

  “No. My man. Luciano. When he came to New York, he wasn’t making any coin at first. He did physical culture shows at Coney Island, but they were only once or twice a month. So he made extra money as a rubber.”

  Petrosino and Schmittberger looked at each other. “Where? Which bathhouse?”

  “Different ones on the East Side. I don’t know.” Her head shrunk back into her body. She looked down at her lap, trembling. “I can’t say it. You’ll say it’s horrible.”

  “What do you mean? Which bathhouse was it?”

  “I don’t know! It doesn’t matter.” She put her head in her hands, pulling at her hair.

  “Listen, woman,” Petrosino said, thinking of ways to harness her anger, “you’ve got more trouble coming and it’s not just from us and the law.”

  She peeked up from her lap. “How do you mean?”

  “His wife wants to prefer charges against you. Oh, don’t look so surprised. She’s a decent woman. You know what she called you? ‘A bilge-sucking whore that makes Scotch Ann look like the Virgin Mother.’”

  “What! She thinks she’s better than me, does she, with her fancy clothes? I didn’t do anything to that evil bitch! What’s she got against me? What charges?”

  “Alienation of affection and adultery. She said she’s gonna fix it so that you never see him again. She said you ought to be burned at the stake like the strega you are.”

  “Let her try it!” Federica hammered her fist down on the table. A tuft of her own hair was in her fist, ripped from her scalp. “Then I’ll tell everyone that her husband likes men, too!”

  Petrosino stared straight ahead at her, not wanting to turn and see the look on Max’s face.

  A teakettle whistle escaped Schmittberger’s mouth.

  “So your great big man, The Almighty Ox, is a boylover?” Schmittberger said.

  “Go to hell. It wasn’t like that. You don’t know a thing about him. He’s a good sweet-”

  “Shut up and listen,” Petrosino said. “It doesn’t matter if he was raping chickens. I asked you who The Fox was, and you’re going on and on about a bathhouse and your man’s cocksucking ways. Your man met The Fox in a bathhouse, didn’t he? He was his rubber. SAY IT GODDAMN IT!”

  “YES!” she hissed, clawing at her head again.

  “Why was The Fox mixed up in the gang? And what’s his real name?”

  “I don’t know. I never knew.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “He said it was a man with a beard
the color of a fox. That’s why he called him Barbarossa, too. No one else called him that. He said he was crafty like a fox, too.” She tore at her head again, wildly tossing black shafts of hair on the table. “Look what you made me do now. They’re gonna kill me, you bastards!”

  Petrosino dashed around the table and snatched her flailing arms, clamping her wrists back to her shoulders. “He was behind the the barrel murder, wasn’t he? This cop? That’s why Benedetto Madonnia was killed! It was more than a squabble over gang money, wasn’t it?”

  “ANSWER HIM!” Schmittberger roared.

  “I don’t know!” Federica screeched.

  Petrosino slapped her face back and forth, as hard as he could. Her fat lips were bleeding, and she laughed insanely. “He liked it rough, too!”

  “Answer me, woman! Why did they put Madonnia in the barrel?”

  “You want to fuck me, don’t you? Here!” She kept cackling and tried to pull up her petticoats. “I’ll fuck you both, right here on the table. Do it, you limp-dick bastards!”

  Petrosino held her wrists behind her back, holding her down, and shouted in her face, “WHY DID MADONNIA DIE?”

  “BECAUSE HE WAS GONNA SQUEAL TO THE POLICE ABOUT THE FOX!”

  Chapter 38

  Black tumbleweed clouds rolled across the horizon. Petrosino and Schmittberger could see their breath as they strode to the Deputy’s lair at the Lafayette Hotel. Petrosino felt like he might vomit. He and Schmittberger didn’t want to believe it, but they knew that Federica had told the truth.

  Sandy “The Whale” Piper was outside the Hotel, tilted against a lamppost, gobbling vivid green jelly candy from a brown bag. Almost as if he were waiting for them, knowing they were coming. His pudgy face had lost its dim smile, replaced by a hardened smirk in the pink taffy of his skin. Two men were standing behind him, grey marionettes in overcoats. They looked like washed-up Pinkertons. Before Petrosino said a word, The Whale winked a pink eyelid and motioned him inside the Hotel. Petrosino and Schmittberger glanced at the overcoats and then each other.

  “Shouldn’t you be at the Tombs playing with keys?” Petrosino said to The Whale.

  “My day’s ended.”

  “Who are these turnips with the pretty coats?”

  “Private guards for my uncle. Isn’t he a public figure, the Deputy Commissioner, and shouldn’t he have them like everyone else? Only the City’s too tight to pay, shame on them.”

  “They can wait outside.”

  “No, it’s all right, Joe. The bigger the audience, the better.” Schmittberger waved at a hulking shadow crossing the street toward them.

  Bimbo Martino in his bluecoat, waving his billy as a greeting.

  “Inspector, sir,” Bimbo said, out of breath. “I came as fast as I could-”

  Schmittberger said, “Nevermind the apology. Come join the party.”

  The Whale looked Bimbo up and down, and Petrosino could see that he was sizing him up. The Whale looked a little irritated.

  “What’s the matter, chubby?” Schmittberger said. “There’s three of us, and three of you. We can play cards after. Joe likes a Dago game called scopa, but I’m a poker man myself, play a little skat, too. Now why don’t we scat inside and see your uncle?”

  The six of them went inside the hotel, eyes constantly watching each other, passing a bellboy, and into a private parlor in the restaurant. Deputy Commissioner Duff Piper was sitting alone at a table, feeding tablescraps to a black Scottish terrier. He looked up at them and beamed through his tawny beard and shabby old suit.

  “Good to see you, lads! Come have a seat.” The codger cleaned his hands on his napkin and looked down into the tiny mirror in his top hat, wiping his mouth. “Well, what are you waiting for, lads? Sit. Begorra, look at the size of the greenhorn with you, too!” Piper eyed Bimbo and tapped a new walking stick against the side of the table. Petrosino noticed that it had an ivory figurehead on the cap, could have been a dog or a jackal. Or a fox.

  Piper said, “You’ve both got faces longer than a cat’s tail. What’s the matter?”

  “We did a little digging,” Schmittberger said, “and found out that you and Dr. Dold from River Crest Sanitarium are both members of the The St. Andrew’s Society. Et tu, Bruté?”

  “Me and about a thousand other Scots in the city. What of it?”

  “You sold us a false bill. You used that lunatic to cover it up.” Schmittberger crossed his arms and stood towering over Piper’s table. “And one of my men said you’ve been running me down behind my back. You said, ‘The Broom is a big dolt.’ That I was being used like a stick, not to sweep up crooks, but to enforce the law against backsliders in your little Syndicate.”

  “Sit down.” Piper smiled like a grandfather listening to a child’s tale. He patted the chair next to him, but neither Schmittberger nor Petrosino moved. “I didn’t say that, Max, not exactly. What I said was that you were a big dolt, but that I admired you. And that your Sergeant here is a little dolt whom I love, too. And I also said that I could beat the both of you at any game, crooked or straight, any time I pleased. That’s what I said.”

  “You’re a Republican, Duff. How could you throw your lot in with Tammany?” Max leaned forward, putting his palms on the dining table. The two overcoats hovered close by. “How could you goldbrick me like that? You introduced me to Sarah for shit’s sake.”

  Petrosino held Schmittberger’s shoulder and spoke up, “That rancid tub of lard you call a nephew over there, he was the one who put Primrose out of the way. It all tallies. He’s the Deputy Keeper at the Tombs, he can pass notes in and out, and he can even have a man strangled and make it look like suicide. I bet if I get a handwriting expert like Bill Kinsley to look at Primrose’s suicide note and the gang’s Caesar Code, he’d say it was Sandy’s penmanship here.”

  “Caesar which? You sound touched in the head. You’ve been reading your name in the papers too much, Joe, and now you think you’re Sherlock Holmes.” Piper put his terrier on his lap, stroked the dog gently, and looked up with wide enchanted eyes. “Keep going, lad. I love a good fable. Let me know when I’m supposed to be frightened, and I’ll cover my eyes.”

  “You’re The Fox,” Petrosino said with a finger point. “I haven’t figured out how you got to Vito Lobaido and poisoned him, but I know you’re the third boss in the Syndicate. Benedetto Madonnia knew about you, and he was going to rat you out along with the Morello gang to the police. The real police. It would’ve destroyed you. So you made an example of him. You let the whole City know that only you could do the destroying, not the other way around. You put his manhood in his mouth to silence anyone else who might rat. It was a Sicilian message.”

  Piper smiled. “Real police. I’m as real as the sun, lads, I assure you. But I’ll never get catched because if you get too close, you’re liable to burn. And there’s the difference betwixt-”

  “We know your nephew turned Petto loose.” Schmittberger thumbed at The Whale. “It couldn’t be anyone else. We heard one of the bondsmen came in with a big stack of bills folded up in a hanky. So what in the name of the Seven Sutherland Sisters happened? Did Petto climb down their hair? Or did the gang give you and this fat pig extra ‘sugar’?”

  “Well, lad,” Piper said, “you’re the confessed grafter. Not I. And Petrosino’s Italian. Maybe he knows how that Ox got out of The Tombs? They’re all thick as thieves, Dagos.”

  “You met Petto in a Turkish bath,” Petrosino said, “and that’s how you recruited the gang for the Syndicate. You got your Whale here to switch Petto out of jail with a ringer, just when he got indicted for the barrel murder. Because you were sweet on him, weren’t you?”

  Petrosino watched Piper’s eyes flicker. He’d struck his weak spot. No one else knew that Piper was a boylover, Petrosino thought. Why would they?

  “Lads,” Piper said, grinning and waving his walking stick at The Whale and the two guards, “would you step outside? Leave the Inspector and the Sergeant with me. It’s all right.”


  “Uncle, I’m nay goin’ nowhere. That Jew clype just called me a grafter.” The Whale loosened the buttons on his tight-fitting uniform and rolled up his sleeves. He pointed at Petrosino and Schmittberger. “T’aint no filthy money here, boys. Why, we take it down to Chineetown and have it laundered after we get it. Ain’t that right, Uncle?”

  “No,” Petrosino said, “that’s why you threw your lot in with the Morello gang. It all tallies. For years, they’ve have been making counterfeit for Sicilian aristocrats who pass it off on peasants. They’re the best at the job, so why not have them do it here? Your Syndicate takes in clean money from gambling houses and saloons, then you pay out with the Morello gang’s counterfeit. That’s how you do your laundry.”

  “Jings, that’s a fine thing!” The Whale said. “Ye of all people calling us ‘grafters’! Your Jew boss here was a bag man for Clubber Williams in the Tenderloin, and we all know that yer a dirty little Dago yerself, ain’t ye? A low-down, motherless, clarty lot of bog scum-”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Petrosino saw a colossal fist slam into the billowing white cheek of The Whale. There was a cracking sound like a horsewhip in everyone’s ears, and The Whale’s face contorted with a rush of air escaping from his mouth. He toppled and rolled to the floor, his arm extended up to the ceiling, frozen in unconsciousness.

  Bimbo stood, fist still clenched, hectoring over The Whale.

  The puppets in overcoats reached for pistols, but Schmittberger already had his army issue Colt .45 pointed at them. Big as a fire poker. Petrosino slid sideways, hand on his .38.

  Piper started laughing, and everyone slowly looked over at him. An old chuckling Santa Claus with a silvery red beard, shaking his head, giggling. “You’re behaving like wee toddlers. Put the guns down, lads!” Piper clacked his walking stick on the floorboard, and his guards showed their hands and helped The Whale back to his unsteady feet.

  Schmittberger put his .45 away.

  “That was a helluva a right, lad,” Piper said to Bimbo. “You could’ve licked John L. Sullivan with that one, I’ll say.” They all stared at each other for a moment and snickered at the truth of it. “It was the insult about motherless that got you, wasn’t it? Did you lose your mum?”