Murder on Pleasant Avenue

by Victoria Thompson

  “But they aren’t going to tell us,” Gino reminded him. “They’re terrified of the Black Hand.”

  “Won’t the police already be looking for those children, though?” Sarah said. “Maybe they know something we don’t.”

  “I could find Detective Sergeant Petrosino and ask him,” Gino said.

  “He won’t know anything about it,” Mr. McWilliam said grimly. “Mr. Cassidi never went to the police, and the parents of those children probably haven’t either. They’re—”

  “—terrified of the Black Hand,” Sarah finished for him. “I know. So how can you hope to find this house if no one will talk?”

  “If the windows are painted black, people will have noticed it. Gino and I can come back with the motorcar tomorrow and drive north. There are only a few places to cross the Harlem River, so we can stop along the way and ask people. Once we’re out of the city, they might not be as scared to talk.”

  But he was only putting on a confident face for Sarah’s benefit. Any place the Black Hand operated, people would be frightened.

  “I’ll see if I can find Petrosino,” Gino said. “He has a secret office somewhere in Little Italy. My mother will know where it is.”

  “If it’s a secret, how will your mother know?” Mr. McWilliam asked.

  Gino gave McWilliam a pitying look. “My mother knows everything.”

  “He means,” Sarah added, “that his mother knows everyone else’s mother. There are few secrets in Little Italy.”

  “Or in Italian Harlem either,” Gino added. “It’s just that they don’t tell them to outsiders.”

  Mr. McWilliam nodded and ran a hand over his face again. The poor man must be going crazy with worry for Miss Harding. Frank could imagine how he’d feel if Sarah had been kidnapped.

  “We’ll find her, Mr. McWilliam,” Sarah said, laying a hand on his arm.

  He nodded, although Frank could see he only wanted to believe her.

  “Let us know if you hear from the kidnappers,” Frank said. “Meanwhile, Gino and I will try to find Petrosino.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Gino’s mother did indeed know where the secret office was located, but she insisted on feeding Frank and Gino before allowing them to escape, since it was supper time by then and they surely were hungry. Frank had to admit he was grateful. Sarah had gone home and would be sitting down to supper with Maeve and their children about now, but he had no idea when he’d make it back home this evening.

  Petrosino’s office was above a barber shop in the heart of Little Italy. The stairs leading up were located in the rear of the building, where casual passersby wouldn’t see people coming and going. Although it was early evening by the time they arrived, they found Petrosino working at his desk.

  “Donatelli,” he said by way of greeting and rose to shake Gino’s hand. Petrosino was a short, stocky man, probably no taller than Sarah, but he gave the impression of being much larger. His dark eyes missed little, and he had a reputation for getting justice when no one else even tried.

  “You remember Frank Malloy, don’t you?” Gino said.

  “Of course,” Petrosino said, shaking Frank’s hand. “What brings you here?”

  “A young woman has been kidnapped from the Harlem settlement house, and we think the Black Hand is responsible,” Frank explained.

  Petrosino’s face tightened with quiet fury, but he just said, “Clear off a chair and have a seat so you can tell me about it.” The room held several desks, all piled high with folders and other papers. WANTED posters hung haphazardly on every wall. Frank and Gino found some chairs and sat down. Frank allowed Gino to tell the story.

  “This is exactly why we need men like you on the police force, Donatelli,” Petrosino said when he’d finished. “You know as well as I do that the Italians won’t trust anyone else. They hardly trust me. I’ve been begging for a squad of Italian Americans to deal with the Black Hand and the other criminals in the Italian community, but so far, my requests have been ignored. Meanwhile, there probably aren’t a dozen men on the entire force who speak Italian and none who speak Sicilian.”

  “Mrs. Cassidi told us they were holding children in the same house where she was,” Frank said.

  “I’m sure there were. We questioned a boy who was released—we knew he’d been kidnapped, but we weren’t able to find him. Then he just showed up one night. His uncle saw him walking down the street. His parents wouldn’t admit to paying the ransom of course. We always tell them not to, because that just encourages these villains to kidnap more people, but we can’t stop them, so we figured they paid, since the boy was released. Anyway, the boy told us there were other children there with him, but we hadn’t been notified of any other kidnappings, so we couldn’t do anything.”

  “Do you have any idea where this house might be?” Frank asked.

  “No, and the description you got from Mrs. Cassidi is the most information I’ve heard about it. The boy who was released couldn’t tell us anything at all except to describe the room where he and the other children were held.”

  “We think it must be north of Harlem,” Gino said. “Mrs. Cassidi said it was very quiet, like the country.”

  “Which would explain why no one claims to know where it is. I wish I could help you, but you seem to know more about this place than I do.”

  “How long do you think the Black Hand will wait before asking for a ransom?” Frank asked.

  “A few days. They want people to be frantic with worry first, but let me tell you something about the Black Hand. It doesn’t really exist.”

  “What?” Gino and Frank cried in unison.

  Frank shook his head. “But you just said—”

  “I said people have been kidnapped, but they weren’t kidnapped by some big, organized group that is responsible for all the crime in New York City, which is what the newspapers claim.”

  “Then who is responsible?” Gino asked.

  “Small groups of crooks. They’ll have a leader and a few men to do the work, but they aren’t connected in any way with the other small groups of crooks. The kidnapping idea is something they brought over from Italy, and somebody decided to decorate the ransom letters with pictures to frighten the families. They drew a hand holding a dagger dripping with blood, and people called it La Mano Nera, the Black Hand. Or maybe it was the newspapers who called it that. Whoever started it, the newspapers spread the name and also the fear.”

  “Of course they did,” Frank said bitterly. “They love to scare people. It sells more newspapers.”

  “Americans always think criminals are smarter than they are, too,” Petrosino said, “so they think the Black Hand is run by some really clever criminal who has hundreds of men doing his work for him all over the city.”

  “I see,” Frank said. “But it’s really just a small gang of men. Or rather several small gangs.”

  “That makes it harder to stop them, too, because if no one knows who you are, no one can betray you.”

  “Do you have any idea who might be behind the kidnappings in Italian Harlem?” Gino asked. “Is it the Sicilians?”

  Petrosino shook his head. “Everybody wants to blame the newcomers, but the Sicilians are just ordinary crooks. They also do a bit of counterfeiting and run a lottery, too. It’s the Calabrians who do the kidnapping and extortion,” he said with an apologetic smile. Gino’s family was from Calabria.

  “Any Calabrian in particular?” Frank asked.

  “A name I’ve heard a lot is Nunzio Esposito. He’s been in East Harlem for almost ten years, and he’s done pretty well, although he doesn’t seem to do any of the work himself.”

  “Any idea where we could find him?”

  “He owns a saloon on a Hundred and Sixteenth Street, but you can see him parading all around East Harlem, too. He likes to toss pennies to the children
and give the impression that he’s helping the community.”

  “We’ll find him,” Gino said.

  “Yes,” Frank agreed. “And we should probably find him before we go looking for that house.”

  “Then we should go looking for him tonight,” Gino said. “He’s not likely to be holding court in the morning.”

  “He won’t be alone, no matter when you go,” Petrosino warned. “If he’s the one behind the kidnappings, he isn’t going to appreciate you asking him about it, and his men won’t either.”

  But in the end, it didn’t matter because Nunzio Esposito was nowhere to be found in East Harlem that night, even though several people told them he would surely be at his saloon. They did get some dirty looks for asking about him, though.

  “Do you suppose Esposito oversees the kidnappings himself?” Gino asked as he and Frank headed for the El station for the ride home.

  “Petrosino said he doesn’t get his hands dirty,” Frank reminded him. “He’s probably just taking a night off, or maybe he has a lady friend he’s visiting.”

  “I hope he’s not taking a personal interest in Miss Harding. I keep thinking about what Mrs. Cassidi went through.” Sarah had waited until McWilliam had left them to share the news that Mrs. Cassidi had been raped, since she didn’t want to terrify him even more than he already was. The news had terrified Frank and Gino almost as much, though.

  “So do I, but maybe we’ll be lucky and find her before she comes to any harm.” But even if she wasn’t raped, a young woman as innocent as Jane Harding might never recover from an experience like this.

  * * *

  * * *

  The next morning, Gino came to the Malloy house early so they could take the motorcar. Frank still preferred not to drive it himself, which was more than fine with Gino and even more fine with Frank. Sarah saw them off. She was planning to spend the day at the maternity clinic on the Lower East Side, although she made Frank promise to telephone her if he got any news about Miss Harding.

  They stopped at the settlement house before setting out on their search, just in case Miss Harding had returned. They didn’t hold out much hope of this, but it didn’t hurt to check.

  “Not a word,” Mr. McWilliam told them when they found him in his office. He looked as if he hadn’t slept at all, although he’d taken pains to shave and dress in fresh clothes. “I don’t know how long I can just sit here and do nothing.”

  “You’re protecting Miss Harding’s reputation,” Frank said. “And it’s not likely you’d be able to learn anything if you did start demanding answers from people. Leave this to Gino and me.”

  “You’re right of course, but the waiting . . .”

  “We’ll find her, Mr. McWilliam, and if we don’t, the kidnappers will probably want to release her quickly when they realize someone is looking for her.”

  “How are we going to pay a ransom, though?” McWilliam asked. “The settlement doesn’t have any funds for something like that. We can barely make ends meet as it is.”

  “Maybe her parents could pay it,” Gino said.

  “I can’t imagine they have the money for something like that, and we can’t even ask them,” McWilliam said, nearly panicked at the thought. “If they find out she’s been kidnapped, they’ll make her come home, and they’ll never allow her to marry me, not if it means she’ll be living here.”

  Of course they wouldn’t. Frank knew he’d never let his own daughter marry a man whose work put her in constant danger. He didn’t bother pointing out that Miss Harding herself was probably not going to want to stay at the settlement after this experience either. No sense upsetting McWilliam any more than he was already.

  “Gino and I are going to see if we can locate the house Mrs. Cassidi described. We’ll telephone around noon to let you know how we’re doing and to see if you’ve had any news about Miss Harding.”

  “Is there anything I can do in the meantime?” McWilliam asked.

  “I’m afraid not,” Frank told him.

  Leaving a discouraged McWilliam in their wake, Frank and Gino went back downstairs, where they found a rather shady-looking character lurking on the sidewalk near the settlement’s front door.

  “You Malloy?” he asked as Frank and Gino came down the front stoop. His pockmarked face wore a forbidding scowl, as if he’d practiced it in front of a mirror. He wore a cheap checked suit with a gaudy gold chain across his vest, from which a number of fobs dangled. He apparently had a nervous habit of fingering them, which made a slight jingling sound that was oddly festive.

  “That’s right,” Frank said, unimpressed. “What’s it to you?”

  “Mr. Esposito is looking for you.”

  “That’s good. We were looking for him last night.”

  “He knows. You shouldn’t go around asking about him.”

  “Why not?” Frank asked with all the innocence he could muster, which probably wasn’t much.

  This seemed to stump the man, who just stared back with unabashed irritation. “You need to come with me.”

  “Why?” Gino asked, not to be outdone by Frank’s brazen lack of respect.

  “Because Mr. Esposito wants to see you.”

  “Where would he like to meet?” Frank asked, as if Esposito were inviting him for a social event.

  “At his saloon. Come with me.”

  “We’ll take our motorcar, if you don’t mind. We’ll meet you there,” Frank said, nodding to Gino, who had to bite back a smile.

  Frank climbed into the motor, which they’d parked in front of the settlement house, while Gino cranked the engine to life.

  “Wait a minute,” the man protested. “You was to come with me.”

  “There’s no need to escort us,” Frank assured him pleasantly. “We know where it is.”

  Gino hopped into the motor and eased it into gear while the thug stood there sputtering helplessly.

  “That was rude,” Gino informed Frank as they drove away. “He’ll be looking for revenge.”

  “I hope so,” Frank said. He’d felt like hitting something ever since Teo Donatelli had told him about the kidnapping.

  The saloon was closed, so Frank let Gino pound on the front door until someone came to answer it.

  Another thug, this one more puzzled than threatening, finally answered their summons. “What do you want?”

  “We’re here to see Esposito,” Frank informed him, pushing his way inside before the thug could stop him. Gino followed, still trying not to smirk. “He’s expecting us.”

  The thug suddenly seemed to understand, and he stuck his head out the door and looked up and down the street. “Where’s Balducci?”

  “Is he the gentleman who was sent to fetch us?” Frank asked. “He’ll be along in a few minutes, I’m sure. Now, where is Esposito? We haven’t got all day.”

  This lack of respect obviously shocked the thug, who scurried away wearing a horrified expression.

  “Are you sure you want to antagonize this fellow?” Gino asked.

  “We aren’t policemen, so they’ll know we don’t have any real power. I like to give the impression that I do anyway.”

  Gino nodded his understanding.

  After only a few minutes, the thug returned and said, “Mr. Esposito said he’ll see you.”

  Frank thought this very generous of him since he’d ordered them to come, but he didn’t bother to say so. They followed the thug to the back of the saloon and down a dark hallway to an office. It was furnished well, with an impressive oak desk and several wingback chairs for visitors. A sofa along one wall looked as if it might serve as overnight accommodations in a pinch.

  Nunzio Esposito was a remarkably handsome man of about forty. He wore a neatly trimmed mustache and his hair was thick and dark and just curly enough to be attractive. His suit was tailor-made and a diamond ring winked fr
om his right hand. He didn’t bother to rise.

  “Mr. Malloy,” he said with what sounded like mild surprise. “I understand you have been looking for me.”

  Frank sized up the seating situation and took one of the wingback chairs, motioning for Gino to do the same. He didn’t want to be left standing like a supplicant to this man who was probably used to people showing him a lot more respect than Frank was prepared to do.

  “Yes, we have,” Frank said when they were seated. “We were told you might be able to help us.”

  “Help you with what?” Esposito was no longer pretending to be surprised or even unconcerned. Now he just looked annoyed.

  “A young lady is missing from the Harlem settlement house. We were told you might be able to help us locate her.”

  Esposito narrowed his eyes and studied Frank for a long moment. “Missing, you say?”

  “Yes. We believe she may have been kidnapped for ransom, and the people at the settlement house are very concerned because they don’t have any way of paying a ransom.”

  “Of course they do not. Everyone knows this.”

  This wasn’t exactly the response Frank had expected. “Then why would someone have kidnapped her?”

  Esposito sat back in his chair and considered both of them for a time. “I fear you have wasted your time, Mr. Malloy. No one from the settlement house has been kidnapped.”

  III

  Frank exchanged a glance with Gino, who looked as confused as Frank felt. “How can you be so sure no one has been kidnapped?”

  This of course was a trick question. If Esposito knew who had been kidnapped and who had not, that would mean he was behind the crimes.

  But Esposito didn’t seem to mind the tricky question or its implications. “I did not say no one has been kidnapped. I said no one from the settlement has been.” He gave them both a small, smug smile.

  Frank considered this information for a long moment, trying to figure out what hidden meanings it might hold. “Can you speak for all the other Black Hand groups, too?”