The Axman of New Orleans
Page 27
Just as I reached the end of the hall, the front door burst open and the iron bolt flew across the room. It landed with a thud on the wooden floor. Two Sicilians stood in the open doorway, one behind the other. They looked at me and stopped. My New Orleans police detective's badge was clipped to my belt and clearly visible.
The one in the lead, a tough guy in his early thirties with a scar across his chin, reached under his coat. I pointed my forty-five at him.
He eased his hand away from his coat.
I kept my pistol aimed at him. "Step inside."
He started to turn his head to look at his partner.
"Don't look at him," I said. "Look at me. Step through that door nice and slow, or I'll put a bullet through your knee and drag you in myself."
He glared at me for a moment. Then he stepped into the grocery. The second man started to follow.
I shifted my forty-five to him. "Not you. Put your gun on the floor and beat it." In my condition, I knew I couldn't handle two men. Once they got inside and got the door closed, they would try to take me. Best to cut one loose.
The second man, several years younger than the first, looked to his partner for help, but the older man was staring at my Colt.
"Now," I said.
He reached under his coat and pulled out a small .32-caliber revolver. He set it on the floor.
"Kick it to me," I said.
He booted it across the floor.
"Now you," I told the older one. "Lay your gun on the floor and send it over."
He lifted out a big Colt .38 from under his jacket and laid it down. Then he kicked it and sent it skidding across the floor.
Looking at the young punk, I flicked the barrel of my gun at him. "I told you to get lost."
He backed across the porch and down the steps. Then he turned and ran.
"Close the door," I told the one with the scar.
He pushed the door shut behind him.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"Nu parru Inglisi," he said. I do not speak English.
I pointed to the pair of revolvers at my feet. "You understood it well enough a minute ago."
"Nu capisciu," he said. I do not understand.
I reached out with my forty-five and almost touched his nose. "Si dici na parola in Sicilianu iu ti ammazzu, capisci?" If I hear one more word in Sicilian, I'm going to kill you. Do you understand that?
He nodded.
I lowered my pistol. "Sit down."
The man looked around the grocery. There were no chairs.
"On the floor," I said.
He sat down and leaned his back against the door.
"Who are you?" I asked again.
He spit on the floor. "Nobody."
I stepped toward him and pointed my pistol at his scuffed leather shoe. "In three seconds you're going to be nobody without a foot."
His dark eyes burned with hatred. "Joseph."
"Joseph what?"
"Joseph Cangelosi."
"Why are you here?"
"I came to see if the widow wanted to sell the store."
"You brought guns," I said, "How much money did you bring?"
He shook his head in confusion.
"To buy the store," I said. "How much money did you bring with you?"
"None."
Behind me in the hallway, the floorboards creaked.
"How are you going to buy a store with no money?"
"It's not for me," he said.
"Who's it for?"
"I don't understand."
"Who sent you?" I said. "Who sent you to buy this store with guns and not money?"
He looked down at the floor. "That is resirvatu ... uh, confidential."
I drove the toe of my shoe into his crotch. He screamed and rolled into a ball, his hands clutching his groin.
Mrs. Pepitone gasped behind me.
"Who sent you?" I shouted at the man.
Lying curled on his side, he mumbled something in Sicilian, but I didn't catch it.
I kicked him in the ribs. "In English."
He squirmed against the door. "You know who sent me."
"Say it!"
He stared at me. "Matranga."
"What does Matranga want with a corner grocery?"
"He's buying them all over the city."
I bent down and pressed my forty-five against his forehead. "Why?"
"Stop," Mrs. Pepitone shouted.
I glanced over my shoulder. She stood in the hall entrance, hands raised to her mouth.
I stood up. "This man didn't come here to buy your store. He came here to steal it."
Her body trembled. "I don't care. There's been too much violence in this house already."
I turned back to the man on the floor and let my Colt hang at my side. "You're under arrest."
He groaned as he rolled onto his back, one hand still gripping his crotch. "What for?"
I stared down at him. "Breaking and entering. Carrying a concealed weapon."
"I have ... permesso."
"Permesso?" I said. "You have permission to carry a gun?"
He nodded.
"What kind of permesso?"
He propped himself on one elbow and reached into a jacket pocket.
"Easy," I said, raising the muzzle of my pistol.
When he pulled his hand out of his pocket, his fingers were curled around something shiny. I tightened my finger on the trigger of my Colt, but when he opened his hand he was holding a brass badge. The lettering said O'MALLEY DETECTIVE AGENCY.
I felt lightheaded. "Let me see your ticket."
He dug a tattered wallet from his hip pocket and pulled a card from it. Grinning, he extended the badge and card to me.
His grin grated my nerves. I thought about shooting it off his face. Instead, I snatched the badge and card from his hand.
The card was a concealed firearm permit issued by the Police Board. It was printed on thick gray cardstock and identified Joseph Cangelosi as a private detective employed by the O'Malley Detective Agency and Protection Police. The board had issued the permit in January, and the expiration date, which was usually dated one year later, had been left blank.
The five-member Police Board issued carry permits to every private detective in the city. The only requirement to be a private cop in New Orleans was a letter of employment by a recognized agency. As long as a man had a letter and wasn't on parole, the board would issue him a permit to carry a gun.
Dominick O'Malley was on the Police Board.
I slipped the badge and gun permit into my coat pocket and backed away from Cangelosi. "Get up."
Gingerly, he rose to his feet. "You shouldn't have treated me like that. When we see each other again, I'll get even with you."
I jerked my pistol toward the door. "Beat it."
He pointed at the two revolvers on the floor.
"Leave them," I said.
He gave me a hard stare. "Why?"
"Because you're not licensed to carry a gun. You touch one of those revolvers and I'll arrest you. Or shoot you."
"You have my badge and permit in your pocket."
I shook my head. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Cangelosi took a step toward me.
I raised my forty-five and gave him a good look down the barrel. "Come one more step."
He stared past the muzzle into my eyes and at my busted face and must not have liked what he saw. "This isn't over," he said. Then he turned around and yanked open the door, giving me one last glare over his shoulder as he limped out.
I holstered my Colt and turned around to face Mrs. Pepitone. She looked terrified.
"You need to leave," I said. "Go stay with your sister. You're not safe here anymore."
***
At 10:00 p.m., I walked into Central Station. Sunday nights were usually quiet. The desk sergeant was snoring, his head hanging over the back of his chair, mouth open. I climbed the stairs to the second floor and limped into the deserted squad room.
A few minutes later in the downstairs lobby, I slammed the heavy box down on the front desk. Inside the empty room, it sounded like a rifle shot. The desk sergeant jerked awake. He was a heavy man with a shock of white hair. After a glance at my face, he said, "What the hell happened to you, Fitz?"
I tapped my knuckles against the box. "I need a ride home."
He nodded and picked up the telephone. "I'll call for a motorcar."
"Thanks," I said.
Hours later, with the files spread across my kitchen table, I dug something out of one of them, a name from a newspaper article written in 1912, that confirmed something Mrs. Pepitone had told me. Unfortunately, it also confirmed my own folly in pursuing the idea that the brass button I had found in her house was connected to the killer and that the killer was a policeman.
CHAPTER 46
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1919
9:45 A.M.
The man who answered the door did not look like the man I remembered. John Dantonio had shrunk, eaten up by consumption in the two years since I had last seen him. Draped in a dingy blue bathrobe and wearing ragged slippers, he clung to the door for balance and stared at me through bleary red eyes. He smelled like he had not bathed in a long time.
"What do you want?" he wheezed.
"I need your help."
Based on what Mrs. Pepitone had told me and on the name I had found while digging through the old Axman files, I no longer believed the killer was a policeman, but I still believed Emile was onto something with his theory that the Axman was not a maniac and that his attacks weren't random, but were part of some wide-ranging conspiracy or criminal enterprise that involved Carlo Matranga and others, and that whatever the conspiracy or criminal enterprise was, it was being aided by corrupt elements within the Police Department. And the only way to prove that, and to salvage my career, was to catch the Axman.
Dantonio shook his head. "I'm retired." What was left of the former detective's once-luxuriant black hair had turned white, and his skin hung from his face like folds of melted yellow wax that quivered when he moved.
"Just a few minutes," I said.
He stared at me. Finally, he nodded. Then he shuffled across the den and lowered himself onto an old sofa. He pointed to a chair next to the coffee table.
I closed the door and sat in the chair. On the coffee table was a chipped enamel tray on which sat a glass medicine jar half-filled with white powder, a dirty drinking glass, a spoon, and tin pitcher.
"Help with what?" Dantonio said. His voice was weak and tired, and the words rattled in his throat.
"I'm lead detective on the Axman case."
"So I heard."
"One of the case files is missing."
"What case?"
"The Di Christina murder."
"That case had nothing to do with the Axman killings."
"I think it does."
Dantonio started coughing. From the pocket of his robe he pulled out a soiled white handkerchief spotted with blood and pressed it against his lips. When his coughing fit subsided and he pulled the handkerchief away, there was fresh blood on it.
"You worked the Di Christina case," I said.
He leaned over the coffee table and unscrewed the lid from the medicine jar, scooped two spoonfuls of the white powder into the glass, then poured in water from the pitcher and stirred the contents. "My doctor says it helps."
He drank half of it and set the glass down. "The Di Christina killing was a vendetta, plain and simple."
"It's connected to the Michael Pepitone murder."
"That was five years ago," he said. "You're wasting your time."
"Then why is the file missing?"
"Maybe it got lost. It happens."
"Di Christina's yellow card is missing too, and so are the yellow cards for everyone else associated with a Matranga thug named Salvatore Marcello."
"Who?" His eyes were starting to droop.
"Salvatore Marcello, a Black Hand man with a long record. You probably arrested him."
"I arrested a lot of people."
"He was shot dead Sunday night, two hours before Michael Pepitone was killed."
"I was investigating murders when you were still in knickers," Dantonio said, his words starting to slur. "Every victim comes with a slew of problems-money problems, family problems, neighbor problems ... romantic problems. It's easy for a new detective to assume that one of those problems was the reason for the killing. But the sad truth is, a lot of times it's just bad luck, bumping into the wrong person at a bar, splashing mud on someone's shoes ..."
"It wasn't just bad luck that Salvatore Marcello and Michael Pepitone were killed on the same night."
Dantonio waved a frail hand at me. "Even if they were arguing that day, and even if you think ..." His eyes were losing their focus. "One of them killed the other, you're supposed to be working the Axman case, and it was the Axman who killed-"
"How do you know that?" I said.
"Know what?"
"That Michael Pepitone killed Salvatore Marcello. Or that they'd been arguing earlier that day."
His eyes widened in confusion. "You told me."
"No, I didn't."
Dantonio's eyes darted to the glass holding the rest of his medicinal concoction, which I suspected contained opium.
"How did you know?" I demanded.
"I'm tired," he said, his eyes going droopy again. "You need to leave."
"I'm not leaving until I find out the truth."
He doubled over into another coughing fit, dredging up deep wet hacks that left globs of blood and phlegm smeared on his handkerchief. When he finally stopped coughing, he fell back into the cushions and fought to catch his breath.
"Who told you, John?"
"The superintendent came by to see me," he said, his voice weak, barely above a whisper. "To check on me, not to talk about you. He drops by every so often. He happened to mention that you surprised him at his house. He said you're enthusiastic, but your ideas are ... screwy."
"Did he tell you about the bullet match?"
Dantonio waved dismissively. "It's voodoo science, like reading tea leaves or goat entrails. The idea that you can match two bullets by comparing random scratches on their sides is silly. Like a phrenologist claiming to predict criminal behavior by feeling the bumps on a person's skull."
"Why did you lie about who shot Teddy Obitz?"
Dantonio tried to push himself higher on the sofa. "I didn't lie about anything. A Negro shot Teddy."
"Emile Denoux was there. He said the man was Italian and was speaking to you in Sicilian."
"That's ridiculous," Dantonio said, grabbing the arm of the sofa and pulling himself forward. "Look, I'm sick and I want you to leave."
"One more question."
He leaned back and let out a rasping breath. "What?"
"Who is Joseph Monfre?"
Dantonio stared at me, his eyes suddenly alert, the opium cobwebs gone. "Where did you hear that name?"
"Who is he?"
Dantonio reached for the glass on the coffee table and took a sip of his potion.
"He also goes by the name Doc Mumphrey," I said.
"I don't know him."
"You worked the Sciambra case back in 1912."
He nodded.
"I've been reading all the old Axman files, and I found a newspaper article that mentioned a man named Joseph Monfre. Neighbors reported seeing him lurking around the Sciambras' grocery for a couple of days before the murders."
"At almost every murder I've worked, the neighbors claimed someone had been lurking around," Dantonio said. "It doesn't mean anything."
"The article said he was picked up for questioning."
"So what
?"
"Did you question him?"
"I told you, I don't know him," Dantonio said.
"The Sciambras' neighbors knew him."
"Pull his yellow card if you're so curious about him."
"It's missing."
He shrugged.
"There were two men arguing with Michael Pepitone last Sunday," I said. "Both were Italian. One was small. The other was big. The newspaper article from 1912 described Monfre as a big Italian. How tall was the man who shot Teddy Obitz?"
"He was a Negro."
"Emile Denoux says he was the same man who busted up the Maggio funeral."
"Denoux doesn't know what he's talking about."
"He says the night Obitz was shot, you told him the Axman murders were part of some huge extortion racket."
Dantonio sagged back into the sofa. "Denoux is a fool."
"Monfre is from Naples," I said. "His father was Camorra."
"If you know so much about him, why do you need me?"
"Because that's all I know."
"The Axman is a lunatic. He kills people at random."
"That's not true, John, and you know it."
"I'm dying," he said. Then he coughed into his handkerchief, leaving more phlegm and more blood. "So just leave me alone and let me die in peace."
"Mrs. Pepitone fired two shots at the man who murdered her husband. She recognized him as the man who goes by the name Doc Mumphrey. She doesn't know his real name, but she said he was the same man who was with Salvatore Marcello that afternoon arguing with her husband. And I think he's the same man who killed Anthony and Johanna Sciambra, who attacked the Maggios' funeral, and who killed Teddy Obitz. And that means he's the Axman."
Dantonio's eyes closed and his hands fell into his lap. For several seconds, I thought he had died. Then his chest rose and air gurgled inside it. He had only fallen asleep. I looked out the window beside the front door and saw the mid-morning sun streaming through the glass. When I looked back, Dantonio was holding a two-inch Colt revolver in his right hand, resting it on his knee. "I told you to leave."
"What are you doing, John?"
"Get out." He raised the Colt, aiming it at my stomach.
I stood up. My forty-five was on my hip, but I wasn't going to pull it on another policeman. So I turned around and walked out.