The Gangster

said, “He saved Richie Cirillo’s life.”
“I heard all about it. He’s drunk. Dumb luck he woke up in time and dumb luck he didn’t get the rest of you killed. Aloysius, you’re the best detective I know. I’ll welcome you back when you’re stone-cold sober and dry for the rest of your life. Until then, I don’t want to see your face.”
He stood up, turned, and hurried away. Then he turned back, knelt again, and awkwardly patted Wish’s shoulder. “Bejesus, man, I’ve known you almost as long as I’ve known Mack and Wally. I hope you can come back.”
“Thanks, Joe.”
Van Dorn stalked off.
Isaac Bell helped his old friend to his feet.
Wish said, “Sorry I let you down, Isaac.”
“You didn’t let me down. I’d have lost an apprentice without you. I’m only sorry the Boss doesn’t see it that way.”
Wish looked immensely sad and fumbled for his hip flask. “Don’t get on the wrong side of this, old son. The Boss is right.”
“What were you doing in the bank?” a police detective roared at the gangster the Van Dorns had turned over to him.
“Buy steamship ticket.”
“Where to?”
“Italia.”
“You’re lying, Pasquale. Your type don’t go back to Italy, they’d throw you in the hoosegow. What were you doing in the bank?”
“Big-a boom. Head hurts.”
“What is your business?”
“None.”
“Who do you run with? Salata?”
“Salata? Never heard of him.”
“Where do you live?”
“I’ve forgotten.”
The cop shouted, “You think I’m the soft mark, wiseacre? I’ll give you to Detective Petrosino. His boys’ll strip you down to your socks.”
“Won’t do no good,” Harry Warren muttered to Isaac Bell. “Sicilians don’t crack.”
Across the street, the killer whose nose Wish Clarke had broken insisted to the cops that he had been running into the Kips Bay for a beer when a drunk attacked him.
“Was that before or after you dropped your stiletto?”
“Not mine.”
“Pasquale, I got witnesses saw you stabbed a kid with it.”
“Nobody remember in trial.”
The cop winked at Harry Warren. “If they was Italians who saw you stick the kid, you’d probably be right, Pasquale. You’ve got the poor devils too scared to remember their own mothers. But my witnesses are Van Dorns. They got a saying. They never forget. Never . . . So let’s start over. What’s your name?”
“Pasquale.”
“What’s your name?”
“Pasquale.”
“He’s Vito Rizzo,” Harry Warren interrupted. “One of Salata’s boys, aren’t you, Vito?”
“Gimme lawyer.”
Warren said to Bell, “He’ll jump bail tomorrow.”
“We’ll press charges.”
“He’ll still be out on bail. They got pull at Tammany Hall.”
The cops and firemen restored order, and the neighborhood started to settle down. But even as they cleared the street of people gawking, a long line of depositors, clutching bankbooks, formed at the shattered front door of Banco LaCava.
Bell gave the cops on guard a look at his Van Dorn badge, and Harry Warren slipped each two dollars. They found LaCava stuffing his safe with the money he had scooped from the street and Bell’s squad had rescued.
“My business is ruined. People are running to my bank to take their money.”
“Why? You got your money back.”
“They can’t trust their money will be safe with me. They know the Black Hand will come again. I should have paid like my friend Branco told me.”
When Bell and Harry Warren were alone, the gang detective said, “His ‘friend’ Branco could be the guy who sent the extortion letter. First they send it. Then they just happen to show up like a friend or fellow business man, advising you to pay.”
Isaac Bell studied Antonio Branco from the café across Prince Street from Branco’s Grocery. Leaning, half seated, half standing, against a tall stool, he cut a well-to-do figure, in a tailored blue suit of broadcloth fit more for the board of director’s dining room than a bustling grocery. Ditto his custom-made shoes, polished to a mirror shine.
He was significantly taller than the clerks and drivers he was overseeing loading his wagons, an animated presence with flashing eyes, a trim mustache, and thick, curly hair black as anthracite. His face was constantly changing: a robust smile for a quick-moving employee, a harsh scowl for a laggard, a satisfied nod for a full wagon. An orange fell from a broken crate, he snapped it out of the air with a lightning grasp.
Bell crossed the street. Branco tracked him with alert eyes and a curious gaze as if instinctively aware that the tall detective weaving smoothly through the traffic had business with him. He stood up and crossed the sidewalk to intercept him, and Bell saw that he walked with a slight limp, with one foot kicking slightly to the side. It did nothing to diminish the impression of a coiled spring forged of the strongest alloy.
Bell extended his hand. “Isaac Bell, Mr. Branco. Van Dorn Detective Agency. I understand you told David LaCava to pay the Black Hand.”
Branco looked away with a sad smile. “I told David LaCava and Giuseppe Vella. Apparently, they should have listened to me.”
“But if you felt that way, why did you join their White Hand Society?”
“I was skeptical. But it was the right thing to help. Even if not wise.”
“Skeptical? Or afraid?”
When an expression of contempt hardened Branco’s face and steel glittered in his eyes, Bell was struck by an odd feeling that they had met earlier. Before he could pin the memory, Branco smiled, and the steely glitter softened to a good-humored sparkle. “There are forces it sometimes behooves us to accommodate.”
“Were you born in America, Mr. Branco?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
“You have a native’s command of the language.”
Branco beamed. “Would that were so. My accent ever marks me a newcomer.”
“It is barely noticeable,” said Bell, “while you turn a fine phrase. When did you arrive?”
“I first came as a harp slave when I was eight years old and I have lived here on and off ever since . . . You look puzzled. A ‘harp slave’ is a boy made to play music in the streets and bring his padrone the coins that kind people toss to him.”
“A slave implies a cruel master.”
Branco shrugged.