Both guards wore O'Malley security badges.
"Name?" the Irish guard said.
"Dispenza," Provenzano said. "Vincent Dispenza. And this is my cousin, Alfredo."
As the guard jotted the names in a logbook, I stood at the edge of the window, head down, the brim of my cap covering my eyes. When the guard finished, he looked at me. "What's wrong with him, he can't speak?"
Provenzano shrugged. "He don't-ah speak-ah no English. Besides, he is-how you say?-scimunitu."
"Slow," the Italian guard said.
Glancing up at the second guard, Provenzano said, "Si, Grazi " He looked back at the Irish guard. "He's slow."
Although I was still looking down, I could feel the Irish guard's eyes on me. "So all you speak is eye-talian?" he said.
I didn't answer.
"We are here to unload the Independence," Provenzano said.
Speaking to me, the Italian guard said, "Tu para Inglisi?" Do you speak English?
I shook my head, continuing to look at the ground. "No Inglisi."
Several seconds passed. Then the Irish guard waved us through. "Go on. Get moving."
Provenzano gave the man a servile nod. "Thank you, sir." Then to the Sicilian, he added, "Grazi."
We walked through the gate and onto the docks.
For a hundred yards we followed the thin line of Sicilian stevedores, all of whom seemed to be walking toward a two-story wooden building that stood at the head of a long pier stretching out over the river. My left leg started to ache.
"Did you notice the fence?" Provenzano whispered.
"No," I said, still keeping my eyes down.
"The whole thing is new," he said, "from one end of the docks to the other."
"Why?"
"You'll see."
Halfway to the two-story building, which I guessed housed the harbormaster, Provenzano veered away from the other Sicilians and angled toward a huge warehouse three piers down. A couple of stevedores gave us curious looks, but they turned away when Provenzano glared at them. From birth, Sicilians learn to mind their own business.
The Thalia Street Wharf stretched for almost two miles along the east bank of the Mississippi River, from Race Street on the south end to Girod Street on the north. Along the entire length of the wharf, scores of wooden piers jutted out into the river. At the head of each pier stood a warehouse. The warehouses were owned or leased by import-export companies and shipping agents. Some were large brick buildings. Others were little more than tin shacks.
The warehouse Provenzano led me to was of the former kind, at least 300 feet long and 100 feet wide. The building was dark and the pier in front of it was empty. The rolling doors that faced the pier and the river were locked, the handles wrapped in thick chains and secured with a heavy padlock. Twelve feet above us, a row of windows lined the sides of the building just below the tin roof. Most of the windows were propped open, but they were too high to reach.
I followed Provenzano past the front of the warehouse to the far side, where, just back from the corner, stood a wooden door. The door was windowless and secured by a deadbolt. Provenzano pulled a foot-long steel pry bar from beneath his jacket. One end of the bar tapered to a flat tip. The other end was hooked. He wedged the tapered end between the door and the jamb, six inches above the lock. He had trouble working the tip into the tight seam, so he pounded on the hooked end with the heel of his palm. When the tip was in deep enough, he grasped the hooked end with both hands and yanked on it. With a crack of splintering wood, the door popped open.
I cringed as I looked over my shoulder, sure someone had heard the God-awful racket.
Provenzano glanced at me. "Let's go." Then he stepped through the door and disappeared into the vast darkness of the warehouse.
I followed him.
The high grimy windows let in just enough light so that I could make out the straight lines of the rafters that supported the ceiling. Below that, everything was black. The air inside the warehouse was filled with the overpowering sweet smell of ripening fruit.
A match flared in front of me. I saw Provenzano's face reflected in the harsh light. He lit a candle he had pulled from his coat pocket. Then he dropped the match onto the wooden floor and stepped on it.
With Provenzano holding the candle over his head, the flame cast a faint ring of light that reached out about six feet. In that yellowish glow, I saw long rows of stacked wooden crates filled with a variety of fruit, bananas, pineapples, peaches, plums, and so on. Nodding for me to follow him, Provenzano walked down a narrow aisle between two rows of stacked crates, headed toward the back of the warehouse. I fell in close behind him. Halfway down the length of the building, we turned left at an intersecting aisle and walked to the other side.
We had not spoken since we stepped through the door.
At the far side of the building, we turned right and followed another narrow aisle to the back of the warehouse. In the dim candlelight, I saw the edge of a patchwork of canvas tarpaulins draped over a stack of wooden crates. The stack was four feet tall and at least thirty feet wide. I couldn't tell how deep it went.
"What is this?" I whispered.
Provenzano bent down and grabbed a corner of one of the tarpaulins and threw it back, exposing the first row of crates. Each crate was two feet wide and one foot tall, and made of rough-cut wooden slats with a couple inches of gap between them. I saw the reflection of glass bottles between the slats and read the stenciled lettering on the front of one of the crates.
RON PLANTADOR
Un producto de Costa Rica
I recognized the words as Spanish, and although I did not speak the language, New Orleans had once been a Spanish colony and anyone raised here could not help but pick up a few words. In English, the lettering on the crate read: PLANTER'S RUM, A product of Costa Rica.
The stack comprised at least a couple hundred cases of Costa Rican rum, the immediate significance of which escaped me.
"What does Costa Rican rum have to do with anything?" I said.
Provenzano handed me the candle and used his pry bar to force the lid off one of the crates. He pulled out a bottle and handed it to me. I held the candle close and studied the Spanish label for a moment, trying to pick out words I recognized. Then I noticed something else. "There's no tax stamp," I said.
"Exactly," Provenzano said. "And that is the key."
"The key to what?"
"Everything."
"Explain it to me," I said, feeling more than a little dense.
He took the candle back and held it out as far as he could reach over the stack of crates. "All of this was smuggled in from Central and South America."
"Why?" I said, still confused. "Booze taxes aren't high enough to make smuggling it profitable."
Provenzano lowered the candle. "Not now. But in two months it will be a ten-million-dollar business."
Of course!
Prohibition. Which on January 17, 1920, would make all intoxicating beverages illegal. And cause the price of booze to jump tenfold.
"Now do you understand?" he asked.
"I'm starting to," I said. "Who owns this warehouse?"
Provenzano smiled. "The Matranga Fruit Company."
I nodded. The puzzle was coming together. The stevedores who unloaded the ships worked for Carlo Matranga. He contracted the security company, the O'Malley agency, that protected the docks. He owned the company that distributed fruit to every grocery in the city. And now with Prohibition just two months away, he would control the importation and distribution of illegal booze.
"Right now all he can get is rum and beer," Provenzano said, "but he just set up a company in Costa Rica to import Canadian and Irish whiskey, so he could smuggle it into New Orleans."
"And store it all here," I said, "with Dominick O'Malley's private police force guarding it."
"That's why he put up the new fence."
"How do you know all this?"
He laughed. "Because I'm trying to do the same thin
g."
"Then I'll arrest both of you."
Provenzano shook his head. "Smuggling liquor is a federal crime and you're a city cop."
"Then why are you showing me this?"
"Because Matranga is killing honest Sicilians."
"To get his hands on their stores."
Provenzano nodded.
A loud bang echoed across the warehouse. From the direction of the noise, it sounded like the door we had broken into. I heard voices, two men talking in low tones, trying to be quiet but doing a lousy job of it.
"Guards," Provenzano whispered. He blew out the candle. "They must have been making their rounds and seen the door jimmied."
CHAPTER 50
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1919
10:55 P.M.
Breaking and entering Carlo Matranga's fruit warehouse in the company of his archrival, Gennaro Provenzano, had put me in an untenable legal position. Without a search warrant, it was illegal, and no different than common burglary, despite the stack of untaxed contraband booze, because Provenzano was right, untaxed liquor was a federal crime and outside of my jurisdiction.
From the direction of the side door, a yellow flashlight beam swept across the warehouse. I grabbed Provenzano's arm. "We have to get out of here."
"Follow me," he said.
We crept toward the rear wall, skirting around the covered stack of rum.
"Is there a back door?" I asked.
He didn't answer.
Behind us, I now saw two flashlight beams. The guards had abandoned stealth and were hurrying toward us along parallel aisles between rows of stacked fruit.
When Provenzano and I reached the wall, we turned right, skimming along it all the way to the far corner, searching for a door. There was none. Instinctively, I touched the forty-five on my right hip.
We were huddled only inches apart and Provenzano must have seen my gesture. "What do you want to do?" he asked. His voice sounded calm. I could tell he had been in tight spots before.
I considered his question. The guards were probably Matranga men, cutthroats most likely, working under the cover of O'Malley's security company to protect the docks. But I didn't know that for sure. One of them, maybe both, might be retired from the Police Department and just trying to supplement a meager pension. I couldn't justify killing them. Had we been in France and had they been German sappers, I would have killed them quietly, bashing in their brains or slicing open their throats. But we weren't in France and they weren't Germans.
"We'll have to go out the way we came in," I whispered.
Provenzano's eyes flashed in the dark. "What if they left somebody to guard the door?"
"We'll deal with that when we get there."
A minute later, creeping along a tight aisle toward the front of the warehouse, we found ourselves at a dead end, blocked by a wall of crates. With Provenzano close behind me, I felt my way to the right, hoping to find a way around. Moving on the balls of my feet, I shuffled toward the middle of the warehouse, two yards ... four yards ... eight yards.
I couldn't find the end.
Finally, after sidestepping more than a dozen yards, I came to the end of the wall. When I peered around the corner, I saw another cramped path between rows of mismatched crates that ran toward the front of the warehouse. The row on the left was at least eight feet high, but the crates on the right side of the path were stacked no higher than four feet. On the other side of that short row of crates was a security guard. He was less than ten feet from me. In the yellow back glow from his flashlight, I could see him shuffling past in a stalker's crouch, a revolver clasped in his hand.
To my left, on the other side of the taller row of crates, I saw another flashlight beam playing against the ceiling. The second guard was on a parallel path with his partner, roughly even with him.
Moving only my head, and that very slowly, I turned to Provenzano and raised my finger to my lips.
He nodded.
As the guards passed us, I edged around the corner of the wall of crates. Behind me, Provenzano tripped and fell.
In the stillness of the warehouse, the sound of him hitting the wooden floor was like an exploding hand grenade. Both flashlights swung toward us.
I reached back and grabbed Provenzano's wool jacket and hauled him to his feet. "Run!"
Both guards shouted "Stop!" at almost the same instant, the words echoing through the cavernous building. Then I heard the pop of a gunshot and the simultaneous whizzing of a ricocheting bullet.
I took off at a lope, my left leg not quite able to keep up with my right. Provenzano ran beside me. "They're shooting at us," he said, as if I hadn't noticed.
"I know," I wheezed, my good lung already starting to betray me.
Behind us another shot went off. This one closer. I heard the bullet smack into a crate not five feet to my right.
Provenzano had his revolver in his hand. "Should we shoot back?"
"No ..." I took a breath. "We're the ones breaking the law." Then I was out of breath. Limping badly, I ducked into a slit between two high rows of crates.
Provenzano was right behind me. "Are you hit?" he asked.
"No," I croaked.
"What's wrong with your leg?"
I ignored him. I needed every breath I could get.
We had to turn sideways to squeeze down the passageway. It ended at a brick wall. If my sense of direction was right, it was the outer wall of the warehouse on the side we had first entered. I knew the door we had jimmied was to our right, at least another thirty yards, but that way was blocked by stacks of crates. This part of the warehouse was a maze, a warren of narrow, twisting passageways. The only way we could turn was left.
Looking behind us, I saw a flashlight. I dove to the left, behind a stack of crates, dragging Provenzano with me. An instant later, the guard behind us fired. The bullet slammed into the brick wall.
"That was close," Provenzano whispered.
We needed to slow our pursuers down. I pulled my Colt and stuck it around the corner. I snapped off two shots, making sure to keep the muzzle angled up toward the ceiling so I wouldn't hit the guard.
My leg was throbbing, and I could barely get half a lungful of air into my chest. I nodded down the passageway we had turned into.
"That's the wrong way," Provenzano said.
"Only way ... to go." Not waiting for a reply, I holstered my forty-five and hobbled down the path. From around the corner came another pistol shot and the sound of a second bullet striking the brick behind us. I felt Provenzano's hand on my back, pushing me onward.
"Hurry," he said. "We have to get out of this ... tunnel."
He was right. The passageway felt like a tunnel. There was little more than a foot of space between the stacked crates to our left and the brick wall on our right. With the guards shooting at us, even the high ceiling seemed to have compressed down on our heads.
Fifteen yards down the passageway, we passed a small opening on our left near the floor. I jerked to a stop. Provenzano ran into my back and knocked me over. He tried to stop me from falling, but I was already too far gone and he fell on top of me.
"Why did you stop?" he said. "The Matrangas will feed me to the alligators."
I pointed to the opening. A large crate lay across two smaller ones, forming a square hole. I wrestled my way out from under Provenzano and stuck my head into the opening. The stack was only one crate thick, with an open space behind it. I squirmed through the hole. Provenzano followed me. I went left, he went right. We lay on the floor. I held my breath.
In the passageway we had just quitted, I heard cautious footsteps approaching. No light shown down the path. The guard must have turned off his flashlight after realizing it gave away his position. Directly across from us, the footsteps stopped. I heard the guard breathing.
I took a shallow breath through my nose.
The guard's light switched on, reflecting off the floor and through the opening.
What will I do if he gets on his bel
ly and sticks his head through that opening?
The question was one I didn't have to answer because the guard walked past us, continuing toward the back of the warehouse. However, there was another guard out there somewhere, and probably more on the way.
"Where's the other one?" Provenzano whispered in my ear.
I shrugged.
As the guard's steps moved farther away, I poked my head back through the hole and glanced down the passageway to the right in case the first guard had been acting as a decoy and the second guard was waiting for us. No one was there. I looked the other way. The passageway was clear. The guard who had passed us had turned left somewhere.
I saw a faint sliver of light. I started to squeeze out through the hole, but Provenzano tugged on my ankle. I reached my hand back and signaled him to follow. The light was twenty feet to my left, near the back of the warehouse. I crawled toward the light. Provenzano scrambled to catch up.
The light was seeping through a tiny gap between two bricks a foot above the floor. I pushed one of the bricks. It moved. I pushed again. The brick moved more, and the sliver of light got wider. Provenzano caught up with me. "Give me your pry bar," I whispered as I rose to a sitting position. "Then keep a lookout for the guards."
Provenzano handed the pry bar to me. I nudged the tip against the loose brick. Then with one hand gripping the middle of the bar and the other hand pressed against the curved end, I shoved. The brick popped out and fell onto the pier, landing with a thud that might as well have been a Howitzer.
"Shh," Provenzano warned.
He glanced down the passageway to the right. I glanced left. Then I held the end of the pry bar against the other brick and shoved with all my strength.
Nothing happened.
I took as deep a breath as my functioning lung would allow and shoved again, this time putting more weight behind it.
The Axman of New Orleans Page 29
