Murder on Pleasant Avenue

by Victoria Thompson

  “No, she shouldn’t,” Maeve agreed, ignoring Teo’s sputtered protests. “But you can do something very important, Teo. Go to the settlement house and tell Mr. McWilliam what happened. Then telephone Mr. Malloy. He won’t be in his office today, and I think he and Mrs. Malloy were taking the children out, but you can telephone his house and leave a message. Then you will have to wait for him to get home and telephone you to find out what is happening.”

  “Will he come?”

  “I don’t think anything could stop him from coming, but he’ll be too late, I’m sure. I hope we’ll have Gino back by the time he gets here.”

  Teo hurried away, leaving Maeve and Rinaldo alone in the milling crowd of people.

  “Thank you for making her safe,” Rinaldo said.

  “It’s an important task,” Maeve said, shrugging off his gratitude. “Go ahead and help your brothers gather up more men.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I’ll go get the motorcar.”

  “Mr. Malloy’s motorcar?”

  “Yes, Gino drove it up here today. We’ll need some way to get to him when we find out where he’s being held.”

  “But who will drive it?”

  Maeve said the one thing she knew, out of all that had happened today, would terrify him the most: “I will.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Maeve drove slowly and carefully. She hadn’t yet driven in the city, although Gino had let her spend hours behind the wheel when they were out in the country, looking for the kidnappers’ house. She pulled up to the curb near the saloon, and she couldn’t believe how many men had gathered in the appointed meeting spot, far more than would fit in the motor. She saw all the Donatellis of course, Mr. Cassidi and even Christopher McWilliam, but dozens more had joined them. They carried pieces of pipe and cord wood and boards obviously broken off packing crates or taken from construction sites. All of them were armed with something, but none of them carried a gun that she could see. She hoped that would be enough.

  She sat there for a long moment, allowing herself to really think of Gino for the first time. She’d been so busy planning his rescue, she hadn’t let herself even remember that he was being held prisoner, that he might also have been injured, because she knew he wouldn’t have gone willingly. He might be hurt or even dying and regardless of what they said about kidnappers not wanting to hurt their captives, people did sometimes die. Balducci certainly had no love for Gino or Mr. Malloy. He might see this as an opportunity to take Mr. Malloy’s money and Gino’s life in exchange for his own pride.

  Her eyes burned, but she refused to cry. There would be time for that later, if she needed to cry. For now she would only think about how to save him.

  Rinaldo had seen her, and he came running over, unable to disguise his amazement that she had really driven the motorcar. “I sent some of the men for wagons, too. There are too many to go in this.”

  “I can see that. You should let everyone else in the saloon go, but be sure you catch everyone who’s in the Black Hand. I’m sure everybody knows who they are. But be careful because they might have guns.”

  “We will take them away,” Rinaldo assured her.

  “Then knock them around a bit so that they’re really scared, but you don’t need to hurt them badly. When they’re good and scared, ask Balducci where they’ve taken Gino. If he resists, start beating on his men some more until one of them talks.”

  Rinaldo smiled, which made him look so much like Gino, she thought her heart would break. “Gino will be proud of you.”

  With that, he hurried back to rejoin the group that was quickly becoming a mob.

  She saw several open wagons had pulled up along the street. She only hoped they would soon have someplace to go. At someone’s command, the mob of men surged forward. Two men in front carried a beer barrel between them, and when they reached the saloon, they heaved it through the plate glass window.

  Breaking glass, Maeve observed, was one of the most distressing sounds on earth, and the roar of surprise and terror that followed proved it. Men came pouring out of the saloon, some bleeding and all of them stumbling and cursing and screaming. The mob caught and held a few of them and let the rest go. When the saloon had emptied, the mob surged inside, taking their captives with them.

  An eerie silence fell on the street as the terrified saloon patrons fled and the curious stood mute, waiting to see what would happen next. Even the mob had stilled as they went about their work inside. It didn’t take them long. Soon the mob emerged, pouring out of the saloon like one giant entity with a vital purpose. Maeve saw they had Balducci. He was bleeding from a cut on his head and his eyes were crazed with terror. Rinaldo threw him down into the street. He came up on his knees, seeming to beg.

  “If my brother is not there, we will come back here and burn this place to the ground with you in it,” Rinaldo told him.

  Balducci said something Maeve couldn’t hear, and then Rinaldo, Enzo, and the older cousins were heading for the motorcar while the rest of the mob separated and piled into the various wagons.

  Maeve realized that at some point she had risen to her feet, so she quickly sat back down, ready to drive when her passengers arrived. That was when she discovered Mrs. Cassidi was sitting beside her.

  “There will be children there,” she said at Maeve’s surprised look. “I can help.”

  Enzo was leading a man whose head was also bleeding and who was obviously not coming willingly.

  “He knows where the house is,” Rinaldo explained, squeezing into the front seat beside Mrs. Cassidi.

  Enzo and some of the cousins started to push their captive into the back seat, but he balked and started shouting in Italian, pointing at Maeve.

  Rinaldo grinned. “He’s more afraid of you driving this thing than he is of us.”

  Someone gave him a whack, and he finally allowed himself to be shoved into the back seat.

  More men than she would have imagined managed to squeeze into the motor, and a couple even clung to the sides. Enzo translated the directions the captive provided to English for Maeve, and she drove north, out of the city, across the Harlem River, and into the country she and Gino had already explored so thoroughly. She drove slowly so the wagons could keep pace.

  Maeve had been right, it wasn’t far and no wonder they hadn’t found it. The house was probably over a hundred years old and surrounded by enormous trees, so it was practically invisible from the road. It looked deserted, with its blackened windows and overgrown yard.

  By the time they reached it, the men’s anger had cooled to grim determination. They climbed out of the motor and the wagons and gathered in the road.

  “They may have guns,” Rinaldo said.

  “They will be too shocked to use them if we surprise them,” Mr. Cassidi said. “They will not be expecting trouble.”

  No, they wouldn’t be. No one had ever challenged them before.

  The men started silently, spreading out so they could surround the house. Mrs. Cassidi grabbed Maeve’s arm. Maeve looked up in surprise and saw the fear on her face. Of course she was afraid. This was where she had been a prisoner for weeks.

  “Are you all right?” Maeve whispered.

  “I will be,” she replied.

  Someone shouted a command in Italian and then all the men roared out their fury. Smashing wood and shattering glass and a single gunshot made Maeve and Mrs. Cassidi instinctively cling to each other, but the cacophony did not last long. Soon an eerie silence fell, and Mr. Cassidi emerged from the broken front door and gestured them to come.

  Mrs. Cassidi did not hesitate. She strode forward as if in triumph, leaving Maeve to scurry behind. Mr. Cassidi said something to her in Italian, but she didn’t even look at him. She kept walking into the house. Maeve followed and they found two men kneeling in the front room, surrounded by t
he army of angry Italians. The two men had their hands raised in surrender, their expressions terrified.

  Both men obviously recognized Mrs. Cassidi, and their terror only increased when she spoke to them. One of the men replied in a wheedling tone, apparently begging for mercy. Mrs. Cassidi smiled with satisfaction and turned to her husband. Some silent communication occurred between them, and he strode forward without hesitation, raised the length of pipe he held, and crushed the man’s skull.

  Maeve cried out in surprise, but no one else made a sound except the other man being held. He started begging and pleading, but no one even looked at him. Plainly, Mr. Cassidi had avenged his wife.

  But where was Gino? Maeve couldn’t forget the single gunshot. Would they have killed him when they realized they had been discovered? Then she saw Rinaldo waving to her from the other side of the room. She skirted the body that now lay crumpled and the sobbing man still begging for his life and pushed through the crowd of rescuers to find a hallway leading to the rest of the downstairs.

  “Gino?” she asked.

  “He’s all right,” Rinaldo said, pointing to an open door.

  Maeve hurried in, her heart pounding. He was sitting on a cot, rubbing his wrists while Enzo untied a rope from around his ankles. “Gino!”

  He looked up in surprise. “Maeve, what are you doing here?”

  His hair was a mess and one eye was turning purple and his good suit was filthy and torn at the shoulder. “I could ask you the same question,” she said, and then burst into tears.

  “Dio mio,” Enzo muttered, shaking his head.

  Maeve didn’t care. She went to Gino, who tried to stand up but Enzo pushed him back down because he wasn’t finished untying the ropes, so Maeve could only throw her arms awkwardly around Gino’s shoulders and rest her cheek on his head and say, “Thank heaven you’re all right.”

  “Ouch,” he replied, jerking his head away because she’d pressed his swollen eye to her bosom.

  “Are you all right?” she asked through her tears. Why on earth was she crying now? “Except for that, I mean?” She gestured toward his bad eye.

  “And a splitting headache, yes, I’m fine. What on earth are you doing here, though?”

  “She drove us here in Mr. Malloy’s motorcar,” Enzo informed him happily. “She’s a pretty good driver for a girl.”

  Maeve cuffed him on the shoulder, making him laugh.

  At last he pulled the ropes free. “Do you think you can walk?” Enzo asked.

  “Give me a minute.” He looked up at Maeve. “There are children upstairs. I could hear them.”

  “Mrs. Cassidi came with us. She’ll look after them. Are you sure you aren’t hurt? How did they get you away from the festival?”

  “They sapped me.” He rubbed the back of his head gingerly. “I wasn’t completely out, but I couldn’t fight them, and two of them just dragged me away. People probably thought I was just drunk.”

  Of course they did.

  “How did you find me?” Gino finally thought to ask.

  Enzo glanced at Maeve and grinned. “Your girl suggested that we mob Esposito’s saloon and beat up Balducci’s men until one of them told us where you were.”

  Gino gazed up at Maeve for a long moment with a look of wonder on his face. Maeve thoroughly enjoyed it until he finally said, “What took you so long?”

  * * *

  * * *

  The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” Maeve whispered to herself as she hit each key. She was definitely getting faster at this. How many more hours would she have to practice before she got really good? Maeve wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.

  She heard footsteps in the hall outside the office and looked up expectantly, ready to greet a prospective client. But the person who stepped through the door wasn’t a client.

  “Gino,” she said in surprise. “Are you . . . How are you feeling?” Mr. Malloy had told him to take all the time he needed to recover from his ordeal, but it had been only two days.

  His black eye had turned several ugly shades of yellow and green, but he was still very handsome. He’d paused awkwardly half-in and half-out of the door, as if uncertain of his welcome. “Where’s Mr. Malloy?”

  “He’s out on a case.”

  Gino frowned. “Without me?”

  “It was an easy one.”

  He nodded. Then he came all the way into the office, and she saw he had simply been concealing a bouquet of flowers he held in his other hand.

  “I, uh, brought you these.” He held out the flowers.

  “That’s nice,” she said uncertainly. She got up and walked around her desk to take them. “What is the occasion?”

  He made a face. “To thank you for . . . well, you know, what you did.”

  She pretended to be surprised. “Did you think I’d let somebody kidnap you and not do anything?”

  Gino sighed. “Enzo and Rinaldo both told me how the whole thing was your idea.”

  “Not the whole thing,” she demurred. “It wasn’t my idea to burn down the house.” The rescuers had decided to show the Black Hand their opinion of the kidnappings by setting fire to the house once they’d freed the kidnapped children. They’d left the dead body of the man Mr. Cassidi had executed inside as a further warning. No one, they knew, would be interested in investigating either the killing or the fire.

  “Maybe not, but my brothers were even afraid to open the envelope. Without you . . .”

  He was right of course, but Maeve didn’t need to embarrass his brothers any more. “They were just in shock. As soon as I realized they could get a bunch of angry Donatellis together, it was obvious they could do what nobody had been able to do before. I just had to mention that somebody in that saloon would know where you were. They did the rest.”

  Gino shook his head. “My mother can’t believe they let a girl drive a motorcar.”

  Maeve grinned at that. “She was awfully surprised when I dropped you and your bothers and cousins off at the house. I still can’t believe your brothers rode with me.”

  “They’ll be telling their grandchildren about it.”

  Maeve thought about Teo’s baby and wondered if Gino knew yet. “Are you really all right?”

  “My head still aches a little, but Mr. Malloy sent a doctor to look me over and I’m fine. The only thing that might not recover is my pride.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He pulled another face. “Being rescued by a girl.”

  She didn’t have to pretend to be annoyed. “I didn’t do anything you wouldn’t have done for me.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But nothing, and the men did all the rescuing.”

  “You just told them what to do. Rinaldo said you were as brave as a man.”

  “I wasn’t brave at all. I was scared spitless when I realized they’d taken you. They wanted fifty thousand dollars! How do you even carry that much money? I was sure they just planned to kill you out of revenge.”

  “And that scared you?” he said with a little too much interest.

  “Of course it did! You’re my . . . friend. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “Is that all I am, a friend?”

  “I . . .” Suddenly, Maeve couldn’t seem to catch her breath.

  “Maeve?” He reached up and gently cupped her face in his hands.

  “Wait!” she cried.

  “Wait for what?”

  “If you kiss me, we can never go back.”

  “Go back where?”

  Was he an idiot? “Back to being friends!”

  He smiled at that. “I don’t want to go back there. Do you?”

  She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. “I’m not Italian and I’m not Catholic and your mother hates me.”

  “Forget all
that. Do you just want to be friends?” he demanded.

  “No, I don’t,” she said with a sigh.

  Author’s Note

  As the grandchild of Italian immigrants, I really love researching and writing about the Italian-American experience. I’ve also been anxious to “meet” more members of Gino’s family and to advance Maeve and Gino’s relationship, at least a bit. Fans have been nagging me about them for a while now, so I thought it was time. This book is the result of all that.

  I learned some interesting things while researching this book. I was a little surprised to discover that the Black Hand was not part of the Mafia or, as I originally believed, the forerunner of the Mafia. It was, in fact, a completely separate group, operated by Calabrians, that challenged the Mafia, which was run by Sicilians. The Black Hand did sell protection and kidnap women and children, as I described here. It was finally ended by Postal Inspector Frank Oldfield, a member of the most powerful federal law enforcement agency at that time. Who knew that about postal inspectors? He took down train robbers, murderers, and embezzlers, and in 1909, he finally was able to take down sixteen members of a Black Hand organization, resulting in the first international organized crime conviction in America.

  Joseph Petrosino was a real police officer in New York City, one of the first Italian officers on the force and a pioneer in the fight against organized crime until he was assassinated in 1909 while in Sicily on a secret mission.

  Settlement houses were an early attempt to meet the needs of the poor in a practical way. Perhaps the most famous of these was Jane Addams’s Hull-House in Chicago, but many existed in other cities as well. In 1895, the Union Theological Seminary Alumni Club started a settlement house in East Harlem. I based the Harlem Settlement House on this one, although I located it in a different place and changed many details.

  The Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is a real church in East Harlem. They still hold the annual festival I describe, although now it is held in August instead of July. They did not add the dancing Giglio until 1909, which broke my heart because I wanted to include it in this story, but it was too historically inaccurate to “fudge.” Maybe I can use it in another story.