The Axeman’s Jazz

by Ray Celestin

  They entered the main building and lit a pair of gas-lamps which provided a weak, flickering light. Hatener led them down a long, dingy corridor and into a windowless white-tiled room that Michael guessed used to be an operating theater. In the center of it was a medical contraption that reminded him of an electric chair, a shadowy nightmare of wood, leather and metal. Gregson and Jones placed the pair of gas-lamps on the floor, and then they buckled the still-unconscious Amanzo into the seat by his ankles and wrists. They told Michael to keep a watch, so he stayed in the corner of the room, smoking a cigarette, trying not to look at the scuff-marks and bloodstains around the foot of the chair, or the chair’s occupant, who loomed through the gaslight in an eerie chiaroscuro. Michael occasionally glanced at the others as they set about getting their tools ready – medical instruments, a length of rope, a bucket.

  When they had finished, Hatener nodded at Gregson, who picked up the bucket and threw the contents over Amanzo. Cold water smashed onto his face and he jolted upwards, inhaling sharply, eyes fluttering open.

  He gazed drunkenly around the room, his mind slowly coming to.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked in a drowsy voice.

  ‘The Hospital for Incurables.’ Hatener spoke with a gleam in his eye. ‘You’ve come down with a case.’

  Hatener sidled over to the table where they had laid out the medical instruments. He ran his hand over the ageing, rusted tools – amputation saws, scalpels, forceps, a Hirtz compass, a scarificator. He went through them one by one as he spoke, picking up each in turn and inspecting it, making sure Amanzo caught a glimpse of things to come.

  ‘My colleague Michael here says you’ve got some useful information relating to the Axeman,’ Hatener said with practiced matter-of-factness, ‘but you’re not forthcoming with the information.’

  Hatener picked up a scalpel and examined its rust-coated blade under the muddy light of the gas-lamp.

  ‘The rusty ones are the worst,’ chimed in Jones. ‘They don’t cut. They rip.’

  Hatener grinned and, scalpel in hand, approached Amanzo.

  ‘Now that you’re here, the only choice you got is, tell us now, or tell us later.’

  Amanzo peered up at Hatener and for a moment he looked apprehensive, frightened, and Michael felt a stab of sympathy. Then his teeth gleamed in the gaslight and he sneered.

  ‘Vaffanculo.’

  Hatener shrugged and brought the scalpel down onto Amanzo’s face, not in a slicing action, but with a turn of the wrist, like a man gouging out a hole. Amanzo screamed, a throaty, full-bodied scream that bounced off the walls and reverberated endlessly. He was hyperventilating from the pain and shock, gasping for breath. He had a wild look about him, bewildered, feral and angry.

  ‘Is that it?’ he sneered between gasps.

  Hatener brought the scalpel down again, this time on the other side of his face. Amanzo screamed and Michael caught a glimpse of exposed white cheekbone, like an iceberg in a bright-red sea. He turned to the wall and retched, hacking up bile that stung his throat and spilled onto the floor with a splatter. He heard Gregson and Jones laughing and he fumbled against the wall, scrabbling, reaching for the door handle. He stumbled into the corridor and slammed the door shut behind him. The corridor was black except for a faint orange glow coming from the gas-lamps in the other room. He wiped the bile from his mouth and slid down the corridor wall. He put his head in his hands and breathed deeply, the smell of vomit in his nose. He stared at the sliver of orange light creeping into the corridor from underneath the door, making a section of the floor tiles glow with a pale luminescence.

  He heard Amanzo scream again, even more blood-curdling now he was in darkness. He took a cigarette from his pack, put it in his mouth, and shakily struck a lucifer. The phosphorous flared momentarily, and the corridor flooded into his vision, dust-covered and dirty, receding on either side of him into blackness. He lit the cigarette and shook the lucifer out, plunging himself back into the dark.

  The screams became more frequent after that, accompanied by shouts from Hatener, goading and angry. Then he heard whispers and sobbing. He wasn’t sure how long it lasted, but at some point someone inside the room, Gregson or Jones, shouted his name. The tone was matter-of-fact, like someone asking for help with a household chore.

  He took a deep breath, stood and reentered the room. Amanzo’s face was covered in blood, and its contours didn’t look right. His eyes glistened and flickered in the gaslight and his head rolled around on his neck. Blood had doused his shirt and splattered across the floor tiles. Michael could see his chest pumping; he was hyperventilating, delirious from shock and blood-loss. They’d brought him to the very edge, to the point just before death, where he no longer had the energy left to lie, but just enough to answer questions. Michael wondered how fine the line was between the two states, and how many men had died in order for Hatener to perfect the skill of taking them there.

  Hatener nodded at Amanzo and slowly, unnoticeably at first, Amanzo nodded back. Jones approached and took a hip-flask from his pocket. He undid the leather strap on one of Amanzo’s wrists and pressed the hip-flask into his hand. Amanzo clenched his fingers around it, lifted it to his mouth and took a sip, his hand shaking, spilling the liquor onto the exposed flesh of his chin.

  ‘You . . . you got a cigarette?’ he asked.

  Michael stepped over to him and lit a cigarette. He took the hip-flask from his hand and slid the cigarette in between his fingers. It was only when he was up close that he noticed the five clay-like slugs at the foot of the chair. He looked up at Amanzo’s hand, the one that was still buckled down, and saw it was just a stump, dripping blood onto the floor.

  ‘Gimme a minute,’ said Amanzo.

  Amanzo put the cigarette between his lips and put his hand up to his face – feeling the wounds from the scalpel. He took another drag on the cigarette and removed it from his lips.

  ‘Ask,’ he said, his voice quavering, and Michael realized he was looking at a dead man.

  ‘Who’s the Axeman?’

  ‘Some . . . some French coon out in the swamps,’ said Amanzo, gasping. ‘Never met him. No one did.’

  ‘Who gave you the job to deliver the list to him?’

  ‘Sam Carolla,’ Amanzo hissed, almost whispering.

  Michael thought back to his meeting with Carolla in the barber’s shop. He remembered the joke Carolla had made about Annette, and he remembered his parting words, that the Axeman was a ghost. Pieces of evidence started to link together, one after the other, and a sequence of events that fitted the evidence formed perfectly in Michael’s mind, like an anchor-chain dredged link by link from ocean mud.

  ‘Tell me what you know,’ he said.

  Amanzo took a moment to inhale, deeply, raspily, and Michael thought of the blood that must be flooding into the man’s lungs.

  ‘Axeman had some kind o’ vendetta. Carolla had a list. He asked me to deliver it.’

  ‘And he swore to you if you did it, and you told no one, he’d get you made,’ Michael said, ‘because you were still an empty suit after all these years.’

  Amanzo nodded.

  ‘But you palmed the job off to Lombardi because it didn’t feel right, and you were worried about getting whacked, and you’d heard Lombardi was leaving town anyway. Except afterwards it turned out he wasn’t.’

  Amanzo nodded. Hatener and the others looked between the two of them, and then Hatener frowned and turned to Amanzo.

  ‘Why did Matranga want ’em dead?’ he asked.

  ‘It wasn’t Matranga,’ said Michael, interjecting. ‘Carolla was behind the whole thing. Isn’t that right?’

  Amanzo nodded again. ‘Carolla wants rid of the Don,’ he said. ‘Been the number two for years. But . . .’ Amanzo struggled for breath. ‘But he didn’t wanna war.’

  Michael should have realized earlier on, and he cursed himself for not seeing it. Carolla had used the Axeman to destabilize Carlo Matranga. He’d found a hit-man from out of town
to do the killing, someone with no links to the Family. A ghost. And he used the killings to spread fear throughout the city, to make the police crack down on the Family’s operations. Carlo Matranga’s position would be weakened to the point where eventually he’d be forced to step down. Then Carolla would take over in a bloodless coup, and the whole thing would look like nothing but pure bad luck for the Don.

  It explained why no one in New Orleans knew who the killer was, and it proved Luca was telling the truth when he had told Michael that Carlo had asked him to investigate. Why hadn’t Michael seen it before? Especially as Carolla had acted so cocksure in the barber’s shop – covering up his worry at having the investigation brought right to him. Michael thought of the tarot cards left at the scenes to make the murders look like the work of a Creole, or a Negro, designed to throw everyone off the scent. He thought of the crazed letter sent to the press, with its talk of hell and jazz and demons – racial fears that further misdirected and confused the city.

  Amanzo coughed and a mouthful of blood spilt from his lips and landed on the floor with a slopping noise. Michael stared at the man and noticed a dazed, half-dead look in his eyes. His chest heaved as he struggled for breath, and again Michael had the sense he was looking at a man already over the river. ‘They tried to kill you outside the precinct, they’re gonna try again. Tonight,’ he said, rasping desperately for breath. ‘At your house.’

  Michael stared at Amanzo, the full chill of panic and fear bearing down on him as he realized the danger Annette and the children were in. He balled his fists and swung a punch at Amanzo. The punch connected and Amanzo’s head rolled back with a sickening crack. Michael turned and raced out of the room.

  ‘You get in contact with the precinct,’ Hatener said to Gregson. ‘Tell ’em what’s happening, and to meet us at Talbot’s. Jones, you get rid o’ Amanzo, then follow us.’

  ‘Sure thing, boss,’ said Jones. ‘I’ll get the incinerator fired up.’

  54

  Shin-high water rippled around Luca’s legs before sluicing off down the hill in front of him. He stood at the top of an incline, surveying the path ahead – a road leading up into Marigny, houses on both sides, and in the middle, like white-water rapids, floodwater avalanching down the road, cascading into a pool at the bottom.

  He had stopped by the hotel. Sandoval had found Bianchi and left him an address – an apartment to the north of the French Quarter, somewhere on the far side of the floodwater that was turning the city into a lake. Luca felt nauseous, his hands shook and his breathing was hard; spending all day in wet clothes had given him a fever.

  He heard voices, and lights glimmered over the surface of the water, a bustle of people approaching from the side. They looked like refugees – hastily dressed and weary, led by three policemen in waterproofs who held all-weather electric lamps in their hands. They stopped when they saw Luca and exchanged puzzled glances.

  ‘What you doing, bud?’ asked one of the policemen, shouting over the noise of the storm.

  ‘Going to a friend’s house,’ Luca replied.

  The policeman frowned and pointed down the incline. ‘Down there?’ he asked.

  Luca nodded.

  ‘Ain’t ya heard?’ shouted the policeman over the sound of the wind and rain. ‘River’s burst, broke the levees. We’re evacuating.’

  ‘Thanks for the warning, officer,’ Luca shouted. ‘But I have to find my friend.’

  The policeman eyed Luca suspiciously, guessing he must have been planning on robbing houses, or looting shops.

  ‘Can’t let you do that, bud,’ he said.

  ‘What you gonna do? Arrest me? You can’t arrest me and evacuate all them people at the same time.’ He nodded at the evacuees flocking behind the policemen. ‘I’ll be fine, officer. Thanks for your concern.’

  The policeman stared at him then exchanged a few words with his colleagues.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Your funeral, bud.’

  He waved his hand at the others and the group moved on down the road, the evacuees frowning at Luca as they stumbled past.

  Luca watched them go, then took tentative steps down the road, the water pushing at his calves, threatening to take his legs from under him. He was about halfway down the incline when something crashed into him, some piece of debris picked up by the water. It was heavy and jagged and it knocked him off balance. He dropped into the torrent, felt himself spinning, moving downwards. With each roll he smacked into the road and his fractured rib burst with pain.

  After a few seconds his body smashed into something hard. He grabbed onto whatever it was and pulled himself up, the pain in his torso excruciating. He opened his eyes and looked around. He was holding onto a lamppost in the middle of the lake that had formed at the bottom of the street. He stared back up the incline – the waterfall had pushed him at least a hundred yards – then he waded to the far side of the pool.

  He made slow progress, holding onto the sides of buildings anywhere he could, and eventually he got out of the water, onto a road leading up the other side of the incline. The water was rushing towards him this time. He moved up the road like a mountaineer, making sure his grip was secure before he placed his feet. When he reached the top, the going was easier, perpendicular to the flow of the water. He crossed three streets and finally arrived at the tenement. Bianchi’s apartment was on the second floor. He tramped up the stairs, knocked on the door, and after a few seconds it was opened by a heavy-set Sicilian in a gray cotton suit.

  ‘Luca,’ said the Sicilian with a grin. ‘You look like a fish.’

  Luca stumbled into the apartment and collapsed into an armchair, putting his hand to his face and breathing as deeply as he could, trying to force down the nausea coming up from his stomach. He heard voices around him, shimmering in and out of his mind, and felt someone shaking him. He glanced up. Sandoval was standing over him, looking concerned.

  ‘Luca, you OK?’

  Luca nodded. Sandoval stared at him, unconvinced.

  ‘Get to the bathroom and dry yourself off.’

  Luca rose unsteadily and looked around him. He was in a living room, dimly lit, along with a handful of picciotti – foot soldiers with heavy jaws and gun-bulges in their jackets. And sitting in an armchair further away was the man he guessed to be Bianchi, a gaunt figure, in his early seventies, wild-eyed and angry.

  Luca found the bathroom off the corridor and stepped inside. Harsh electric light bounced off the white tiles, stinging his eyes. He turned the hot water on and splashed his face, then he took his clothes off, and for the second time that day dried himself off with a towel. He called for one of the men to bring him some of Bianchi’s clothes.

  He changed and returned to the living room.

  ‘You wanna drink?’ asked Sandoval.

  Luca nodded. ‘Something strong.’

  Sandoval crossed to the drinks cabinet and took out a bottle of rye.

  ‘Help yourself,’ Bianchi said sarcastically.

  Sandoval ignored him, poured two glasses and returned to Luca. He took a cigarette case from his inside pocket, offered one to Luca and they both lit up.

  Luca leaned his head back in the chair and sighed.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ asked Sandoval.

  ‘Getting back from out of town,’ Luca said, his tone making it clear he wasn’t really in the mood to talk.

  Sandoval nodded. ‘He told us everything. I’ve spoken to Carlo. Good work, Luca.’

  Luca nodded and took a gulp of the rye, finishing it in one. He passed the glass to Sandoval who refilled it for him.

  ‘This guy definitely the last?’ asked Sandoval.

  ‘I think so,’ said Luca.

  Sandoval handed him the refill, and Luca took a sip. He eyeballed Bianchi, who was still sitting in his chair with his hands folded in front of his stomach. He was a thin, gray-haired man with defiant, birdlike eyes and leathery farmer’s skin. Bianchi noticed him staring and the two locked eyes.

  ‘Why didn�
�t you run?’ asked Luca. ‘You saw all your partners getting killed and you stayed.’

  ‘Why should I run?’ He spoke vehemently. ‘If I die, I die in my own house.’

  The old man had a venom to him, a puffed-up righteousness that was jarring and somehow false. Luca stared at Bianchi for a few moments longer then he stood and walked over to the window, moving the blind aside to peer into the street below. The water had risen, making Luca feel like he was standing at the top of a ravine, surveying an angry river below. The storm had knocked out the streetlamps – he couldn’t see much but the galloping flood and the lights of the surrounding apartments, murky in the darkness.

  He turned back around and scanned the room. Bianchi was still in his chair, Sandoval was standing by the door to the kitchen, nursing his drink, and the foot soldiers were leaning over the coffee table, playing a game of brìscola with a set of Neapolitan playing cards.

  Luca realized that the smoke from the cigarette was making his breathing worse. He stubbed it out in an ashtray, poured himself more of the rye and went to sit down. He closed his eyes for a moment and before he knew it he had drifted off and was in the midst of a feverish dream. He dreamt of a field in Sicily, the field he used to farm with his father when he was a child. He saw his father standing some way off, and as he approached he saw that his father was crying because the field was barren, covered in rocks and the burnt stubs of trees. His father looked up at him, tears in his eyes, and Luca realized with a pang of panic that the man wasn’t his father.