The Gangster

Antonio Branco read it. Adam Quiller, a fat, little middle-aged Irishman he’d seen scuttling about the district carrying messages from the alderman. Quiller did Ghiottone favors in exchange for the saloon keeper delivering Italian votes on Election Day.

“Of course. I could have guessed and saved us both such trouble. But I had to know. Here, my friend. Drink!”

He opened the bars and offered the glass.

“Kid Kelly” Ghiottone lifted it in both hands and threw back his head. The water splashed on his lips and ran down his chin. What entered his mouth and spilled down his throat was cold and delicious. He tipped the glass higher for the last drop.

Antonio Branco watched the saloon keeper’s elbows rise until they were parallel with his shoulders. The movement caused his vest to slide above the waistband of his trousers. His shirt stretched tight over his ribs.

“Have another.”

He took the glass and poured it full again. “Tell me,” he said, still holding the glass, “how would the killer be told the target?”

Ghiottone, thoroughly beaten, could not meet his eye. He tried to speak and found he could whisper. “When you give me the killer’s name, I pass it up to—”

“To Adam Quiller.”

Ghiottone nodded.

Branco frowned. “Then the target is passed all the way back down the chain? That sounds slow, cumbersome, and not private enough. I don’t believe you are telling me all the truth.”

“I am, padrone. They didn’t say how, but it would not come down the chain. They have some other way of telling him the target.”

“And the money? The fifty thousand? How does that come?”

Ghiottone straightened up. “Through me. They will send me the money when the job is done. My job is to give it to you.”

Branco handed him the glass, saying, “That makes you a very valuable man.”

Ghiottone lifted it in both hands and threw back his head. This time, most of the water entered his mouth. He swallowed, reveling in the coldness of it, and tipped the glass to finish it.

* * *

Branco stuffed the body in a sugar barrel and nailed it shut and went to his stable, where he woke up an old Sicilian groom and ordered him to hitch up a garbage cart and dump the barrel in the river. Then he went hunting for Adam Quiller.

21

Late in the afternoon, when the Van Dorn detective bull pen filled with operatives preparing for the night by perusing the day’s newspapers and exchanging information, Isaac Bell sat alone, opening and closing a pocket knife, reviewing notes in the memo book open beside him, and listening.

“Tribune says the Harbor Squad found “Kid Kelly” Ghiottone floating in the river.”

“Looks like the Wallopers got some back.”

“Why would the Wallopers do Ghiottone? He didn’t run with Salata.”

“He was Italian, thereby permitting the Wallopers to demonstrate they, one, are enraged about their dope being lifted, and, two, have the guts to snatch him out of Little Italy. His body was a mess, according to the paper; looked like he was beat with hatchets.”

“That is not what happened,” said Isaac Bell.

“Thought you were napping, Isaac. What do you mean?”

“Ghiottone wasn’t beat up. At least not when he was alive.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Barrel staves were floating around the body.”

Every detective in the bull pen lowered his newspaper and stared at Isaac Bell.

“Meaning, they dumped the body in a barrel,” said Mack Fulton.

“And a ship hit the barrel,” said Wally Kisley.

“The steel-hulled, five-mast nitrate bark James P. Richards,” said Bell. “Outbound for Chile. According to the Harbor Squad.”

Bell continued practicing with the pocket knife. Mack Fulton voiced a question. “Can I ask you something, Isaac?”

“Shoot.”

“Your criminal cartel theory is driving you around the bend, and the Boss is all over you about the President.”

“I’m aware I’m busy,” said Bell. “Which is why I depend on you boys’ invaluable assistance. What do you want to know?”

“Being so engaged, what made you query Roundsman O’Riordan about an Eye-talian saloon keeper floating in the river?”

“What do you think?”

“Because,” Kisley answered for Fulton, “Isaac thinks Ghiottone is Black Hand.”

Bell shook his head. “That’s not what I got from Research, and they got their info straight from Captain Coligney, who used to ramrod the Mulberry Street Precinct. Ghiottone was a Tammany man — so what strikes me is, somebody’s got it in for Tammany Hall. Adam Quiller was tortured and murdered last Saturday; Harry Warren says he was Alderman King’s heeler. And this guy Lehane, Alderman Henry’s heeler, was also tortured.”

“Those reformers are getting meaner every day,” said Walter Kisley.

Bell joined the laughter. Then he said, “Both heelers were finally killed with a stiletto.”

“I didn’t see that in the paper.”

“You’ll see it tomorrow. Eddie Edwards just spoke with the coroner. The papers will go wild when they see all three victims connected by a stiletto.”

“How about connected by a Tammany boss under investigation who’s killing off witnesses?” asked Kisley.