Comito did his best to remain calm. The plates were too small for the press, he explained. They could not be printed unless they were mounted on blocks, and there were no blocks in the house.
Cecala seemed to think that this was mere dissembling. "It is time we perhaps told you more of who we are and how we work," he replied.
There are twenty of us who have organized this affair. Others higher up in famous places know of it. They will receive their share. Should anything slip and we get into trouble there will be thousands of dollars for lawyers and we will be freed.We will respect you as one of us, and Katrina shall have respect at all times. When we have made millions, she will be sent to Italy with money of her own. But you, Don Antonio, you will stay with us for life.We are big, bigger than you know. ... You will know perhaps, later on, about the many branches of our society, and how it is possible for us to do things in one part of the country or world and have the other half of the affair carried out so far away that no suspicion can possibly come to us. After you have obeyed and seen some inkling of our power, you will be glad to become one of us.
The printer listened miserably as Cecala went on. The Sicilian talked for about ten minutes, setting out what was required and how it should be done. A hundred thousand sheets of paper had already been purchased, in various qualities and different sizes. The correct inks had also been procured. He himself would help to mix them.
Comito could only sit and nod his head. He would do his best, he said.
IT TOOK FIVE MORE DAYS to fetch the blocks, and when Cecala returned to the stone house he had another stranger with him. to fetch the blocks, and when Cecala returned to the stone house he had another stranger with him.
The newcomer was tall and muscular, with quartz-flecked hair: in his mid-forties, Comito guessed, and "apparently a Sicilian of high birth," since he dressed well and wore expensive jewelry. Cecala introduced him as Zu Vincenzo-"Uncle Vincent"-and explained that he had come to help with the printing of the notes. The newcomer had once run a small bank on Elizabeth Street. He was "very capable," Cecala added, and could be relied on for advice when he and Cina were not there. Zu Vincenzo brought the number of people living in the house to six.
The arrival of the blocks meant that there was no reason to delay the printing any longer, and the first proofs were struck off that night-though only after Comito had protested one last time and felt the full force of Cina"s violent temper. The men worked steadily until dawn on Christmas Eve, and it was only when the sun came up that they at last found the correct shade of green for the Canadian five-dollar note. That afternoon, Cecala and Cina selected the best of the samples and departed for New York, where the notes were to be "shown to persons qualified to judge them," and three days later they were back, this time with orders to print new proofs in a darker color.
Work on test printings of the counterfeits continued throughout the first week of January 1909. To Comito"s relief, Cecala and Cina stayed away from the stone house for much of the time, leaving Giglio and Zu Vincenzo to help him with the work. The three men soon settled into an unvarying routine-mixing inks, running proofs, adjusting the press-and the work proceeded largely in silence. The few conversations that Comito did overhear only encouraged him to say as little as possible. "They would tell me stories that made me shiver," the printer recalled, "laugh roughly and tell how much [money] they had frightened from someone, or how neatly they evaded the carabinieri carabinieri in the old country, or the fool police here." in the old country, or the fool police here."
Comito knew by now that he had been brought to Highland by a well-organized group of criminals. He knew, from Cina"s bragging and the stories Giglio and Zu Vincenzo told, that most of the men holding him had police records in Sicily. But he still had no clear idea of who exactly the men were or to which society or gang they owed allegiance. He guessed that they were members of the Black Hand, the group his uncle had warned him so adamantly against, and saw and heard nothing to change that opinion until one day in January when Giglio was absent and Zu Vincenzo told the printer more about the story of his life.
"While working," Comito would recall, Uncle Vincent told a thing that I shall never forget. He said that he had been a cattle raiser in his native town. That one day while in the country he had been approached by two men who stated that they desired to buy some oxen. He said that he wanted to see whether they had much money, so stated that he would not talk business unless he knew they meant business. One of them thereupon showed some money. Without a word of warning, Uncle Vincent stated that he threw his rifle to his shoulder and shot the man dead in his tracks. The companion had run when he had fired and he followed him, chasing him some distance. Upon catching up with him, as the man kneeled and cried for mercy, he swung his rifle by the barrel and "scattered the fool"s brains all over the field." Having killed them both, he returned to his first victim and rifled his clothes, taking 250 lire from the body.
Having committed a double murder for such a paltry sum, Zu Vincenzo had little option but to flee his village. He wrote his family a letter, explaining what had happened and telling them not to worry about him, then took a train to Palermo. In the harbor, Vincenzo found a sailing boat skipper willing to take him to Tunis for one hundred of his 250 lire, and there he stole sufficient money to book a pa.s.sage first to Tokyo, then to Liverpool.
It was, Zu Vincenzo told Comito, not until March 1902 [that] he sailed from there to New Orleans. He knew that on arriving here he would have no trouble, as he had so many friends who would help him because of what he knew about them. In fact he explained that this was one of the greatest secrets of success: "Find out something about someone and then hold it over their heads and you need never work."I was tremendously interested in this story and asked: "Have you worked while you have been in America these last six or seven years?""Never," he stated emphatically. "Nor do I ever expect to. It is too easy to live in this country without work. If I knew the man who invented "work," I would kill him with pleasure.""Then how do you manage to live?" I asked, remembering my struggle for work in New York."You are too new among us to know certain things," he replied in a mysterious way. "When you have become so deeply interested in the affairs of our society that you cannot stop, you will then know how to live without work.""Then you belong to some society?" I asked. "That gives you money?""Yes, but it is not like your Foresters or Sons of Italy. Nor is the money given to me in the way you think.""How then?" I asked."When you know of our [society] and its powers and wonderful workings, how it protects its members at all times, and the many other things that make it so valuable, you will forget all about these others you call societies now.""And what is the price of initiation?""Nothing.""No money?" I asked, astonished."No," he replied, "no money, but there is a price.""And what is it?""A courageous deed will be given you to do.""For instance what?""Well, Don Antonio, you have heard of tyrannical people who oppress and make laws, of rich men who have so much wealth they cannot spend it, of children of such people or of traitors?""Yes," I replied, wondering what this had to do with courageous deeds."Well, it might be necessary to punish them for their greed or arrogance. ... Perhaps they may have done something to hurt this society or one of its members, and you would be picked to punish them in secret.""And what is this society called?""It has no name.""Is it a mutual aid society?" I asked."No.""Where are its headquarters?""There is no one place. In all parts of the world except j.a.pan.""In Italy?""Yes, in Italy.""But the president and other officers, who are they?""Few of the members really know themselves. But that there are heads is certain. [Just] question an order once. [You] will be heard and punishment follows. Then too, when we are in sore need of funds, should the police become active, it is never hard to find money to protect the members.""Perhaps," I ventured, "it is the Masons?""No, it is a society with no end to its power. It is bigger than the Masons and will last as long as man."
This talk of living without working plainly appealed to Comito, who said: "I must enter soon, for all here are members but me, is that not so?" Zu Vincenzo a.s.sured him that they were-"Yes, and all trusted members too, powerful in this country"-and explained that new members of the society could not be admitted until they had met its bosses and shown them "respect." Only then, he said, would they "christen you."
"Christen me?" [Comito] cried. "I have already been baptized in the Roman Catholic religion, and now you would baptize me again?""Certainly, but this would not be a matter of religion. That amounts to nothing. This is more serious. Something you shall never forget.""More serious than religion?" I gasped. "That cannot be.""Is that so?" he asked laughingly. "That is what you think."
Initiation into the mysterious society, Uncle Vincent went on, took time. First a prospective member would be tested. Next came the bestowal of "a t.i.tle from us which you will bear in secret." But Comito was left in little doubt that the "test" of which Vincenzo spoke was murder: It is so arranged that if you succeed in doing what we [set] as a test, that you cannot afford to do other than stick with us for the rest of your lifetime. It is protection for us and [means] an easy life. That is why there are so few traitors. All over the world you will find our work flourishes, and it is because of the way in which we christen you that it is so. Some fools who know nothing say there is no such organization, and they cannot be blamed. They know so little. There is one, and a big one, stronger than countries and police. Some day, Don Antonio, after this work at hand is done, you will be given a test. Then you can learn much. None of we members ever do know it all.
Comito was transfixed by these accounts, and Zu Vincenzo seemed inclined to explain further, but at that point in the conversation Katrina called out from the kitchen and the Mafioso fell silent. "I had heard enough," Comito concluded his recollection. "The papers are full every day of such tests and deeds, [though] they do not read as such." And, frightened though he was, the printer began to think that he should seek acceptance by the nameless society. He was terrified-at least, so he explained it later-that he and Katrina would be murdered when the work was finished if the Sicilians decided they could not be trusted.
ORDERS FOR THE COUNTERFEITS were coming in from all over the country. A Brooklyn banker wanted to purchase fifty thousand dollars" worth of currency, and Mafia families elsewhere in the United States had been advised that they could buy two-and five-dollar notes at the rate of fifty cents on the dollar. This was a substantial increase on the price that Morello"s forgeries had commanded eight years earlier, and one that reflected the increasing professionalism of his counterfeiting operation. The gang now planned to run off twenty thousand of the Canadian bills and fifty thousand two-dollar notes in all-a total of two hundred thousand dollars in bad currency. were coming in from all over the country. A Brooklyn banker wanted to purchase fifty thousand dollars" worth of currency, and Mafia families elsewhere in the United States had been advised that they could buy two-and five-dollar notes at the rate of fifty cents on the dollar. This was a substantial increase on the price that Morello"s forgeries had commanded eight years earlier, and one that reflected the increasing professionalism of his counterfeiting operation. The gang now planned to run off twenty thousand of the Canadian bills and fifty thousand two-dollar notes in all-a total of two hundred thousand dollars in bad currency.
They printed the Canadian notes first. The zinc plates engraved by Antonio Milone for the five-dollar bills consisted of five pieces, corresponding to the colors needed for each bill: dark and light green, violet, red, and black. For all the forger"s efforts, they were far from perfect; even with practice, Comito found it all but impossible to stop ink blotching between the finer lines. The first three thousand bills were run off, nonetheless-a long and tedious process, since each one had to pa.s.s through the press five times, after which the sheets were separated from their fellows and spread out on the floor to dry, a process that took longer in the cold. All in all, the job took Comito and his companions in the old stone house a month to finish, and by the time the last of the five-dollar notes had been cut, counted, and stacked in an empty macaroni box, it was the end of January.
Cecala appeared and took away the counterfeits a few days later. "There were seventeen thousand five hundred and forty five dollars," Comito remembered, "[and] I understood that [he] was to take them to the people with whom he had arranged for their distribution throughout the entire country. I heard it said also that their distribution had been so arranged that the whole lot would be put out on the public within an hour of a certain day to be set and arranged for beforehand"-a highly implausible suggestion, but one that certainly ill.u.s.trated the soaring confidence within the Morello family.
The first proofs of the two-dollar bill were struck on the first of February. The American note was easier to print, at least in theory, since it had only three colors, but Comito soon discovered that the job was harder than it looked. The greens of the genuine note were particularly difficult to match. The next morning, after an entire night of fruitless experiment, the Sicilians conceded defeat. They needed the help of a specialist in printing inks, Cecala said, and Comito should go to New York to find one.
The counterfeiters had, it seems, correctly judged the shift in their companion"s mood; Comito could now be trusted not to run straight to the police. Presented with five dollars to pay the fare, and driven to the nearest railway station two days later, the printer stepped off his train in Manhattan at noon. He was unaccompanied and could have gone directly to the nearest station house. Instead he took the El, the elevated railway, north to a rendezvous with Cecala at 630 East 138th Street. This building, though Comito did not know it, was one of the tenements erected by the Ignatz Florio Co-Operative. It had been built by Giuseppe Morello.
Two and a half months had pa.s.sed since Comito had left New York, and he had been given little reason, in that time, to suppose that Cecala was not the leader of the counterfeiting gang. Now, though, he found his adversary waiting on the first floor of the building, fl.u.s.tered and considerably concerned. There was someone else that he must meet, Cecala said, as he ushered the printer up a second flight of stairs.
Comito had no idea who the man who stood waiting in the upstairs room might be, nor what he wanted, but he was instantly struck by the stranger"s air of effortless authority. "He was wrapped up in a shawl of brown color," the printer recalled, "oval face, high forehead, dark eyes, aquiline nose, dark hair and mustache, about forty years old." The first thing that Comito noticed "was that he had but one arm visible." The second was Cecala"s trembling deference as "with a great amount of ceremony and much display of importance," he introduced the printer to Morello.
"I was surprised in the change in Cecala"s manner when listening or talking to this man," Comito said.
He seemed to take the part of receiving orders from one with whom he was friendly but tremendously impressed with. He at times acted as though he feared at any moment he might cause the dislike of Morello. ... The very air seemed charged with suppressed excitement. I saw from the way in which Morello acted and was treated that he was a leader, and the deference shown to him at all times was convincing of his high standing among these men.
The meeting was brief and to the point. Morello"s interest, it transpired, lay solely in resolving the problems with the two-dollar notes. He asked a number of searching questions about Comito"s expertise, and though he was plainly not impressed by all the answers-there was "a bit of distrust" in his eyes, the printer realized with a jolt-he agreed that they should find an expert in the art of mixing inks. Nothing seemed to disconcert him. When Comito said that he was frightened of discovery, the Clutch Hand promised to send arms and ammunition. "The first stranger who is suspected will be killed before he is asked questions and be buried in the wood where he will never be found," he added. "It is simple." Comito thought he spoke of murder "as though he were talking of lighting a cigar."
Morello seemed less than pleased with Cecala"s performance. "Nino," he murmured as the meeting ended, "I wish that you would not have the professor come here any more. You know that I am followed night and day by the detectives, and when they see a new face they arrest him. They think much of me, but can prove nothing. So to be safe we had best have no one connect with me who might be picked up."
"I know that," Cecala said, stung by the reprimand. "But what suspicions can they have of Don Antonio? We certainly have taken him with us nicely."
"These detectives are very smart," Morello snapped. "Do I not take much time to plan to outwit them?" And with that he left the room through a rear exit and, with a piercing parting glance back at Comito, vanished in the direction of the 138th Street El.
WORK ON THE TWO-DOLLAR bills resumed on February 6 and continued for several weeks. The correct shade of green ink was obtained, after a good deal of experiment, by Antonio Milone, who added several chemicals to the inks and sent a technician up to Highland to explain the technique. The new arrival, Giuseppe Calicchio, was a sad-eyed man from the southern region of Puglia who was in his early fifties and had once been a manufacturer of counterfeits in Italy. Calicchio had worked before with the Morellos, who respectfully referred to him as "Don Giuseppe," but he had little to show for the a.s.sociation. "He was dressed poorly," Comito thought, "and had a suit that made him appear as a mechanic." bills resumed on February 6 and continued for several weeks. The correct shade of green ink was obtained, after a good deal of experiment, by Antonio Milone, who added several chemicals to the inks and sent a technician up to Highland to explain the technique. The new arrival, Giuseppe Calicchio, was a sad-eyed man from the southern region of Puglia who was in his early fifties and had once been a manufacturer of counterfeits in Italy. Calicchio had worked before with the Morellos, who respectfully referred to him as "Don Giuseppe," but he had little to show for the a.s.sociation. "He was dressed poorly," Comito thought, "and had a suit that made him appear as a mechanic."
The counterfeiters settled back into an unvarying routine. Comito and Calicchio prepared the plates and mixed the inks; Giglio and Zu Vincenzo took the printed sheets from the press and dried them; the guards who still wandered through the woods outside would come indoors every few hours to clap and stamp their freezing hands and feet. To Comito"s relief, Cecala and Cina were absent most of the time. The two Sicilians had set to work to sell Morello"s five-dollar bills and spent several weeks traveling by rail throughout much of the United States to show samples to likely customers. The two men visited Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Boston, and Kansas City, returning occasionally to inspect the two-dollar notes that Comito was producing. Cecala complained occasionally about their progress-the U.S. bills were still not difficult to spot as fakes. But aside from their infrequent appearances, the work proceeded without alarm or incident for some weeks, until February 12 or 13, when the occupants of the stone house were startled to be woken at two in the morning by a brisk knocking at the door.
No one was expected, and the counterfeiters feared the worst. Zu Vincenzo seized his rifle and Giglio a revolver, which he c.o.c.ked as he stood waiting at the top of the stairs. It was Comito, still clad only in his underwear, who was sent downstairs to answer the knock-which he did very nervously, half expecting the door to be smashed down by the police. But the men waiting on the doorstep were friends: Ign.a.z.io Lupo, clad in a thick fur coat and radiating bonhomie, accompanied by Cecala and Cina, who dragged behind them a large bag crammed with the firearms and ammunition promised by Morello.
The guns that Lupo had brought consisted of several revolvers and a case of repeating rifles of the most modern design, each capable of firing fifteen shots a minute. The Wolf gave a brief demonstration of the weapons, to general acclaim; then, at his order, the rest of the gang settled down to modify the ammunition he had brought. Each slug was carefully scored crosswise across its tip, hollowing out the point to create dum dum bullets that, Lupo explained, "would spread out and tear nasty holes instead of neatly boring through." The idea was, Comito said, "accepted with much laughter," and the Wolf seemed pleased that any police who discovered the house would have "a pleasant visit."
By the time the bullets had been modified, Katrina had prepared a late supper for the gang. There were not enough chairs to go around, so she and Comito stood, "acting as waiters to these lords at the table," while Lupo, Cecala, and Zu Vincenzo gossiped and laughed with Giglio and Cina. The talk was of how the Wolf had evaded his numerous creditors and the New York police and spent the last three months hiding on a relative"s farm not far away, and of Cecala"s efforts to sell the forged Canadian bills.
"What news do you bring, Ign.a.z.io?" Zu Vincenzo asked at last. The meal was over and the Mafiosi were lounging around the stove sinking gla.s.ses of wine.
"You know all that I know," Lupo replied, "except perhaps that Petrosino has gone to Italy."
Comito had never heard of Petrosino, but he could scarcely mistake the bitter hatred that Morello"s men felt for him. "He has ruined many," the Wolf spat. "Here"s a drink to our success here, and a hope of death to him." And they all raised their gla.s.ses in a toast.
"It is a pity," Lupo added, "that it must be done stealthily-that he cannot first be made to suffer as he has made so many others suffer. But he guards his hide so well that it will have to be done quickly."
Comito thought of what Cecala and Uncle Vincent had told him of the many branches of their nameless society, of their boast that it was "possible for us to do things in one part of the world and have the other half of the affair carried out so far away that no suspicion can possibly come to us"-and of how confident they seemed to be that retribution was about to rain down on their enemy.
Whoever this Petrosino was, he thought, and whatever he was doing in Italy, he was clearly in the gravest danger.
CHAPTER 9.
"SEE THE FINE PARSLEY"
ON THE AFTERNOON OF NOVEMBER 15, 1908, AT MUCH THE SAME time that Antonio Comito was boarding his ferry up the Hudson River to Highland, the men of Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino"s Italian Squad raided a Black Hand bomb-making factory concealed in the rear of a tenement in Little Italy. The squad made five arrests and seized a total of nineteen evil-looking bombs of various designs, each of them tightly wrapped in cord or bandages and detonated by a twelve-inch fuse. Any one of these murderous devices would, the lieutenant remarked, be "fully capable of destroying a house." Three days later Petrosino was in the news again, announcing his solution to a kidnapping mystery in East Harlem, and over the next three months the Italian Squad was called in to investigate eight bombings, several dozen Black Hand extortion threats, and fully a score of murders in the immigrant districts, at least half of which were thought to be the work of various gangs. time that Antonio Comito was boarding his ferry up the Hudson River to Highland, the men of Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino"s Italian Squad raided a Black Hand bomb-making factory concealed in the rear of a tenement in Little Italy. The squad made five arrests and seized a total of nineteen evil-looking bombs of various designs, each of them tightly wrapped in cord or bandages and detonated by a twelve-inch fuse. Any one of these murderous devices would, the lieutenant remarked, be "fully capable of destroying a house." Three days later Petrosino was in the news again, announcing his solution to a kidnapping mystery in East Harlem, and over the next three months the Italian Squad was called in to investigate eight bombings, several dozen Black Hand extortion threats, and fully a score of murders in the immigrant districts, at least half of which were thought to be the work of various gangs.
The year was ending much as it had begun, with crime rates rising in Little Italy. The murder rate was up. The number of bombings was up, and so was the number of threats and Black Hand letters reported to the police-a total that scarcely reflected the incidence of extortion in the Italian districts in any case, as the members of Petrosino"s squad knew perfectly well. Attempts at turning back the tide got nowhere. James March, a wealthy Italian American who lived on the East Side, set up a "White Hand" society, consisting of respectable men willing to take a stand against the criminals, but it collapsed in only a few months, as had a similar organization in Chicago. "I have tried," March said, slumped in defeat, "to get up a society among the Italians for the purpose of giving information against blackmailing Italians to the police, but n.o.body will join it. Some of them would rather pay blackmail and thus encourage the scoundrels, than give information against them."
Italian crime was increasingly businesslike, better organized, more ambitious. When Petrosino rounded up the Black Hand gang led by one Francesco Santori, he seized account books filled with meticulously detailed entries that recorded the criminals" a.s.sociates and the names and addresses of the Italians who paid the gang protection money. "The list covered four pages," the detective wrote, "and showed that at least 60 men employed in labor camps in various parts of the state were paying to someone sums ranging from $1 to $3 a week." The greater sophistication of the gangs posed all sorts of problems. Petrosino himself found it increasingly difficult to employ his old methods of detection anywhere in Little Italy. Once it had been enough for him to adopt some rough disguise and mingle with the clientele in the right sort of saloons. Now he was swiftly recognized wherever he went. Crooks roped in small boys and street peddlers to warn them when the detective was spotted. The name Petrosino means "parsley" in the dialect of southern Italy, and petty criminals and toughened gangsters alike soon learned to be on their guard whenever vendors" cries of "I have some good parsley! See the fine parsley!" came ringing through the tenements.
Just as bad, in the detective"s opinion, was the continuing problem of obtaining convictions in the courts. Even the relative handful of Italian criminals who were arrested, charged, and tried still all too often escaped justice because terrified witnesses would not testify against them. The only real solution, Petrosino believed, was to deport as many undesirables as possible back to Italy and stop any more like them from entering the United States.
Petrosino had been urging New York to consider deportation as a weapon for years, ever since 1905, when the Stanton Street store once owned by Vito Laduca was blown to pieces by a Black Hand bomb and the men of the Italian Squad were driven to the point of exasperation by the impossibility of pursuing their inquiry to a successful conclusion. Italian crime had become "an epidemic," the detective observed then, and "the only remedy [was] deportation." He could pick out a thousand Italians who deserved to be sent back home. Within three years, Petrosino had increased that estimate; there were now five thousand Italians with criminal records in their hometowns who ought to be deported, he remarked to The New York Times The New York Times. As for stopping such men from emigrating to the United States, the solution was to persuade the Italian government to permit the New York police to operate a bureau on its territory. American policemen in Italy could examine the credentials of would-be immigrants and bar those with criminal records from entering the country.
There was, of course, no chance that the Italian government would let a foreign police force operate on its soil, and though the immigration laws were tightened somewhat in 1907-with the result that Petrosino received from Rome a list of fifty "notorious" criminals who could legally be deported back to Italy-the problems that the detective faced were scarcely lessened for several years. The new immigration legislation was loosely drafted, and as many as half of the men that Petrosino attempted to charge under it obtained their release before they could be hustled onto a ship back home. The only really positive change, in fact, was the appointment of a tough new police commissioner to succeed William McAdoo. Theodore Bingham, who took up the post in 1906, was the first head of the NYPD to publicly back Petrosino and vow to tackle the problem of crime in Little Italy.
General Bingham-he had served with the Army Corps of Engineers and came to New York from a long posting in Washington-was one of the more active and more controversial police commissioners in New York"s long history. A brusque, inflexible character who had lost one leg and had strong views on the problem of ethnic crime, the general was soon courting outrage in an article that suggested that fully 85 percent of New York"s criminals were "of exotic origin"-more than half of them Jews and a fifth Italians, he added. The latter, in Bingham"s considered opinion, were "a riffraff of desperate scoundrels, ex-convicts and jailbirds," views that caused such outrage that the commissioner was forced to issue a public apology. But Bingham stuck to the promises he had made to Petrosino anyway. He was willing to provide the resources needed to strike at the roots of Italian crime.
Petrosino was invited to submit his views in a report soon after Bingham took up his new job. His recommendations were sweeping and almost entirely impractical. The detective wanted a regulation banning more than one family from living in an apartment, which would reduce overcrowding in Little Italy and help "break up the gangs." He wanted pushcarts banned as well, "because they are used to transport bombs,"
and much tighter controls on the sale of explosives to Italians. Above all, Petrosino said, criminal law in general should be made more severe, "more Italian," because legislation enshrining the rights of individuals merely encouraged Sicilians and Neapolitans, who were not used to it, "to let loose all their lowest instincts." The best place to start, he added, would be to tighten the existing regulations on deportation and then encourage the Italian government "to send us the record of every criminal who has moved to America."
It was a remarkable doc.u.ment, one that reflected Petrosino"s years of frustration more than it did practical policy, and of course there was not the slightest prospect that most of its recommendations would ever be acted on. Bingham, after all, had no power to change the laws of the United States. In fact, the only one of the detective"s recommendations that could easily be pursued was the suggestion that more effort be put into obtaining copies of Italian penal certificates, which were doc.u.ments that detailed the criminal records of men who might seek to emigrate to the United States, and so highlighted who should be denied admission to the country.
Bingham decided to start with those.
IT WAS THE Herald Herald that announced the news, on February 20, 1909. that announced the news, on February 20, 1909.
Theodore Bingham had taken stock of the situation in Little Italy and decided on a radical solution, the New York newspaper reported. There would be no further expansion of the Italian Squad, no revisions to existing regulations. Instead, a brand-new squad had been created, a "secret service" branch of the Police Department, and Petrosino had been appointed to head it. The lieutenant had been given fourteen men and instructed to use them "to crush the Black Hand and anarchists of the city"-extortionists and political radicals alike being more than willing to use bombs in order to achieve their aims. That was not all, however, for the Secret Service branch was to have a far wider jurisdiction than the Italian Squad. Bingham reserved the right to deploy Petrosino and his men "for any purpose that [he] may see fit"-which, as the Herald Herald noted in a worried aside, meant, at least in theory, that "New York now has a secret police service similar to those in Paris and other national capitals." noted in a worried aside, meant, at least in theory, that "New York now has a secret police service similar to those in Paris and other national capitals."
For the moment, though, the Secret Service branch was to be devoted to Italian crime, and it was to work covertly. Petrosino aside, none of its officers were named; nor were its men to be subject to scrutiny by the NYPD. Petrosino was to answer directly to the commissioner, and Bingham had secured thirty thousand dollars of private funding, almost certainly from the same rich Italians who had tried and failed to set up the White Hand society seeking to take a stand against Italian criminals. It was enough to keep his new squad running for at least a year without the need to account to New York"s aldermen, or anybody else, as to what the cash was being spent on.
What persuaded Petrosino to accept a transfer to the Secret Service branch is not known. Quite probably he was persuaded by the commissioner"s promise that the new squad would be better equipped to tackle Italian crime and that someone would be sent to Europe to obtain the longed-for penal certificates. If so, the lieutenant"s enthusiasm failed to survive the general"s next bombsh.e.l.l. Bingham wanted Petrosino himself to travel to Italy.
Going home as an important emissary, nearly forty years after arriving in the United States, ought to have appealed to the detective; it might have been seen as one of the great challenges of his career, perhaps even as an opportunity to recuperate from his exhausting round of work in Manhattan. As it was, though, the offer was not welcome. The mission demanded a diplomat, someone capable of establishing warm relations with the Italian police, which Petrosino a.s.suredly was not. It might also be dangerous. Bingham"s man knew perfectly well that plenty of his former adversaries were now at large in Italy, particularly Sicily, and that many would be only too pleased to renew acquaintance with an old enemy on their home ground.
In truth, though, the reason why the detective preferred to stay at home was more personal. At the age of almost fifty, after long decades of bachelorhood and lonely devotion to the force, Petrosino had married in December 1907. And on the last day of November 1908, his first child, a daughter, had been born. Traveling to Italy would mean leaving his wife and baby girl behind.
Most people were surprised at Petrosino"s marriage, perhaps even the policeman himself. He was known among his colleagues as a determinedly solitary man, one who worked long hours and endless overtime and devoted his few moments of leisure chiefly to music. Petrosino was an inveterate operagoer, haunting the stalls and the standing areas of the Metropolitan Opera in his s.n.a.t.c.hed hours away from work; at home, in his own small apartment, he liked to practice on the violin. In the autumn of 1906, though, at an Italian restaurant on Spring Street, his eye had fallen on the proprietor"s daughter. Her name was Adelina Saulino, she was a widow, and she was thirty-seven years old, nine years the detective"s junior.
The courtship was protracted, conducted in the few hours Petrosino was able to s.n.a.t.c.h away from the demands of the Italian Squad. Mostly it was conducted at the restaurant, under Adelina"s mother"s eye. It was two years before Petrosino proposed, and according to a family tradition, the betrothal was not especially romantic. "You too must be very lonely," the detective began the wished-for conversation. "We could get along well together."
The marriage was a happy one, however, and Petrosino began to spend less time at work and more at home, particularly after his first child was born. By February 1909, his old enthusiasm for police work had noticeably diminished. He felt tired, even dispirited, and that was hardly surprising, since he had served very nearly three decades with the NYPD, more than almost any other officer, and half of them as a detective, with all the long hours and the dangers that entailed. He was forty-nine years old, he was due a pension, and he hated the idea of being away from his new family. Bingham had told him that the round trip to Italy, traveling via Genoa, Rome, and Palermo, would take almost three months.
According to the faithful Sergeant Vachris, who came down to the pier to wave him off, Petrosino left New York in "the worst of moods." He knew that he would be taking risks traveling in Sicily. "Watch out, boss," Vachris would remember warning him. "Down there, everything"s Mafia."
PETROSINO SAILED IN COMFORT on the liner on the liner Duca di Genova Duca di Genova, traveling first-cla.s.s with cash supplied from Bingham"s secret service fund. He could hardly do so under his own name, however, and the confidential nature of his journey dictated that he adopt a false ident.i.ty. Petrosino made the voyage under the alias Simone Velletri, supposedly a Jewish businessman. He carried with him two smart, brand-new yellow leather suitcases and spent the first days of the voyage sequestered in his stateroom, studiously avoiding other pa.s.sengers. When he did eventually emerge on deck, he told those who asked that he was returning home to Italy in search of a cure for a digestive complaint.
Petrosino"s caution was entirely justified. He was too well known in the Italian community, and far too recognizable, to pa.s.s undetected on a vessel filled with New Yorkers. And on board the ship, sailing in steerage, was at least one criminal whom he had personally arranged to have deported to Italy and who might welcome the chance to take revenge. As it happened, there was no trouble on the Duca di Genova Duca di Genova, but Petrosino was certainly recognized by at least one member of the liner"s crew: Carlo Longobardi, the purser, who had seen his photo in the papers and approached him so enthusiastically that Petrosino was emboldened to confide his true ident.i.ty, even unbending to the point of spending several hours regaling his new acquaintance with memories of his most famous cases. Petrosino made another acquaintance on board, too: a younger man who went by the name of Francesco Delli Bovi and was so often seen in Petrosino"s company that later the Italian police would take a special interest in him. When they discovered that Delli Bovi had disembarked with Petrosino at Genoa and then vanished-no trace of him was ever found-it would be suggested that the mysterious pa.s.senger had been a secret agent of some sort, sent to worm his way into the detective"s confidence.
Whatever the truth, Petrosino left the Duca di Geneva Duca di Geneva keen to complete his mission as rapidly as possible. Boarding the first available train for Rome, and clutching a slip of paper on which his new friend Longobardi had recommended some hotels, he arrived in the Italian capital that same evening, registered at the Hotel Inghilterra under another a.s.sumed name, and was up early the next morning to call at the U.S. emba.s.sy. The amba.s.sador, Lloyd Griscom, had already received a telegram from Washington about him and provided letters of introduction to the Ministry of the Interior and to the local police. Petrosino filed both in his yellow suitcases alongside the materials he had brought with him from New York: a list of two thousand Italian criminals whose penal certificates he wanted, notes on several possible informants in Palermo, and his .38-caliber revolver. keen to complete his mission as rapidly as possible. Boarding the first available train for Rome, and clutching a slip of paper on which his new friend Longobardi had recommended some hotels, he arrived in the Italian capital that same evening, registered at the Hotel Inghilterra under another a.s.sumed name, and was up early the next morning to call at the U.S. emba.s.sy. The amba.s.sador, Lloyd Griscom, had already received a telegram from Washington about him and provided letters of introduction to the Ministry of the Interior and to the local police. Petrosino filed both in his yellow suitcases alongside the materials he had brought with him from New York: a list of two thousand Italian criminals whose penal certificates he wanted, notes on several possible informants in Palermo, and his .38-caliber revolver.
Lieutenant Petrosino apparently felt safer in Rome than he had aboard the Duca di Genova Duca di Genova. He was a stranger in the city, and there seemed no reason why he should be recognized, nor why anyone should take the slightest interest in what a squat, balding "businessman" was doing. He called formally on the chief of police, seeking the necessary permissions to continue with his mission and adding letters of introduction to the authorities in Palermo to the contents of his suitcases. For the rest of his stay in the capital, however, the detective took care to retain his anonymity. Planning a quick visit to his family home in Padula, he warned his brother, who still lived there, "not to let anybody know anything, not even your wife."
Petrosino would have felt considerably less sanguine had he known that his absence had already been noticed in New York, and far worse had he realized that the Italian-American newspaper L"Araldo Italiano L"Araldo Italiano, reporting on Bingham"s secret service plans days earlier, had printed the information that he would leave for Italy-a detail that the newspaper could have obtained only from someone inside the Police Department. The same story ran in several other dailies, most damagingly from the lieutenant"s point of view, in the New York Herald"s New York Herald"s European edition, which was printed in Paris but widely circulated throughout the continent. The article in question was scarcely sensational; it was tucked away on page six of the newspaper, and it mentioned Petrosino only in pa.s.sing. But it was enough. News of the detective"s mission appeared in several Italian papers, and by the time he reached Rome, hundreds of people in Europe and the United States knew that he was making for the city and that he would travel on from there to Sicily. European edition, which was printed in Paris but widely circulated throughout the continent. The article in question was scarcely sensational; it was tucked away on page six of the newspaper, and it mentioned Petrosino only in pa.s.sing. But it was enough. News of the detective"s mission appeared in several Italian papers, and by the time he reached Rome, hundreds of people in Europe and the United States knew that he was making for the city and that he would travel on from there to Sicily.
Petrosino"s first inkling that his secret was out came on the afternoon of his second day in the Italian capital. Pausing for a moment outside the Press Club on the Piazza San Silvestro, he was hailed by two Italian American newspapermen whom he knew from New York. Visibly annoyed at being recognized, the detective begged the men to tell no one he was in the city. The reporters agreed, even offering to show him around the sights, but it soon became clear that they were not the only people to have spotted Petrosino. That same afternoon, while walking through the city center, the lieutenant noticed a poorly dressed man staring at him. "I know him," the detective told his friends, though he could not remember where they had met. Afterward, when the man made off Petrosino put his police skills to good use and followed at a distance. He trailed the stranger to a nearby post office and watched while he composed a telegram. When the man stepped to the counter to send it, the detective sidled closer and heard enough to realize that the cable was on its way to Sicily.
- HOPING, APPARENTLY, TO CONFOUND anyone still following him, Petrosino decided not to travel to Palermo on any of the pa.s.senger ships that shuttled up and down the Italian coast. Instead he took a train to Naples, where he paid the skipper of a mail boat to take him on board. The little steamer sailed south overnight, reaching Sicily next morning, and the detective stepped ash.o.r.e in a quiet corner of the Palermo docks at dawn on February 28. He was convinced that his arrival had gone unremarked. anyone still following him, Petrosino decided not to travel to Palermo on any of the pa.s.senger ships that shuttled up and down the Italian coast. Instead he took a train to Naples, where he paid the skipper of a mail boat to take him on board. The little steamer sailed south overnight, reaching Sicily next morning, and the detective stepped ash.o.r.e in a quiet corner of the Palermo docks at dawn on February 28. He was convinced that his arrival had gone unremarked.
Perhaps feeling he had left his enemies behind in Rome, Petrosino soon recovered most of his self-confidence. He continued to take elementary precautions, checking into his hotel under a false name and donning a rough disguise for several of the journeys that he took outside the city to gather penal certificates. But he also made a number of simple errors, creating a trail that any determined enemy might follow. He opened an account under his own name at the Banca Commerciale in Palermo and freely revealed his true ident.i.ty to the waiters in the Cafe Oreto, a homely place on the Piazza Marina where he ate supper with dangerous regularity. After his first few days in the Sicilian capital, Petrosino also felt secure enough to walk around the town without his revolver. He left the gun in his hotel room, stowed inside one of his suitcases.
Everything about the detective"s actions over the next few days suggests that he was anxious to finish his work in Sicily as rapidly as possible. He worked ferociously long hours, beginning on the morning of his arrival, when, having called briefly on the U.S. consul, William Bishop, he put in almost a full day"s work in the Palermo courthouse. He spent the next three weeks either in the courthouse or in the records offices of half a dozen outlying towns, copying out hundreds of certificates by hand. On Sundays, Petrosino stayed in his hotel and typed up his notes.
By the end of the first week of March, Petrosino had acc.u.mulated more than three hundred penal certificates from all over western Sicily, each of which was enough to secure the deportation of an Italian criminal from New York. He had also gone a long way to fulfilling a second aim of his mission, disbursing almost two thousand lire from Bingham"s secret service fund to establish a network of informants on the island. This was especially dangerous work, since the men whom he approached were mostly criminals. Several, almost certainly, were more likely to report Petrosino"s appearance in Palermo to their friends in the underworld than they were to a.s.sist the hated police, no matter how much money there might be involved. The detective"s presence in the Sicilian capital could not remain secret for much longer.
The one thing that Petrosino did not do-in fact, conspicuously avoided doing for days after his arrival in the city-was to advise his Italian counterparts that he was in Palermo. He seems to have concluded, for whatever reason, that he could not trust the local authorities, and it was not until March 6 that he at last went to call on Balda.s.sare Ceola, the commissioner of police, to present his letters of introduction.
Petrosino had some reason to fear that the carabinieri were in league with local crooks and Mafiosi. Accommodations had existed for many years between gangsters and police in many Sicilian towns, to the mutual benefit of both. But Ceola was a northerner, sent to Palermo from Milan eighteen months previously in the express hope that he would stay free of the taint of corruption, and he felt very much offended-as much by Petrosino"s evident suspicion as by his rudeness in not calling earlier. Meeting the renowned American detective in person, moreover, Ceola found himself underwhelmed. The commissioner was a gentleman, like most senior Italian police officers: urbane, well educated, and at ease in the highest of society. The short, scarred Petrosino, with his abrasive manners and New York-accented Italian, made a distinctly unfavorable impression. "I saw at once," Ceola wrote to the prefect of Palermo, "that Lieutenant Petrosino, to his disadvantage, was not a man of excessive education." An unwise one, too, Ceola thought. When he offered the services of a bodyguard, Petrosino refused point-blank to accept one.
It seemed for some time that the detective was right, that his presence in Palermo was still unknown, and that word of his arrival was, if anything, more likely to leak through the police than anyone else. He worked on steadily for another week without apparent interference, and on Thursday, March 11, he called again on Bishop to inform him that his work was nearly done, that he would be leaving for New York in a few days" time. Each time he left the consulate, however, Petrosino had to pa.s.s through a large crowd of Sicilians hanging around outside, mostly men waiting in line for visas, and this time he was recognized. Two Palermo criminals had joined the line. One of these men was Ernesto Militano, a young thug described by the police as "an incorrigible robber of prost.i.tutes" who was renowned as the owner of "the finest pair of moustaches in Palermo." The other was Militano"s friend Paolo Palazzotto. Palazzotto had returned to Sicily less than a week earlier after spending several years in the United States. He too had been deported from New York by the Italian Squad.
The two men both caught sight of the detective, and Palazzotto jerked forward as though to confront him. He was restrained by Militano, and Petrosino emerged from the crowd unscathed, clambered into a waiting carriage, and clattered off. Palazzotto had to content himself by shouting out, loud enough for everybody in the crowd to hear: "There goes Petrosino, the enemy of the Sicilians. He"s come to Palermo to get himself killed!"
IN FACT, HAD PETROSINO only known it, his presence in the capital was already all too well known, not only to Ceola and the police but to a number of his enemies as well. only known it, his presence in the capital was already all too well known, not only to Ceola and the police but to a number of his enemies as well.
The Herald"s Herald"s article of February 20 was responsible for most of the damage. It had been picked up by article of February 20 was responsible for most of the damage. It had been picked up by Il Il Mattino Mattino of Naples and then run by several other Italian papers. Enrico Alfano, the powerful former head of the Neapolitan Camorra, seems to have learned of the mission in this way. So, too, according to one newspaper, did a group of Baltimore Black Handers that Petrosino had broken up and had deported the previous summer. Best informed of all, however, were the members of the New York Mafia. According to Antonio Comito"s testimony, Giuseppe Morello and his men knew that the detective had sailed for Italy as early as February 12, a full week before the of Naples and then run by several other Italian papers. Enrico Alfano, the powerful former head of the Neapolitan Camorra, seems to have learned of the mission in this way. So, too, according to one newspaper, did a group of Baltimore Black Handers that Petrosino had broken up and had deported the previous summer. Best informed of all, however, were the members of the New York Mafia. According to Antonio Comito"s testimony, Giuseppe Morello and his men knew that the detective had sailed for Italy as early as February 12, a full week before the Herald Herald published and only three days after the published and only three days after the Duca di Genova Duca di Genova sailed. Their intelligence, no doubt, had come from sailed. Their intelligence, no doubt, had come from L"Araldo Italiano L"Araldo Italiano, which had broken the news of Petrosino"s mission three days earlier.
Lupo and Morello had every reason to wish Petrosino dead, Lupo perhaps most of all after the humiliation of the beating he had taken, and the two men had long bemoaned the difficulty of killing the policeman in Manhattan. "d.a.m.ned detective," the Wolf exploded once within Comito"s hearing. "The devil guards himself too thoroughly. When he walks it is with a loaded revolver in his hand covered by a pocket, and two policemen without their blue coats walk near him eyeing everyone." In Palermo, though, things would be much easier. The family had plenty of friends in the city, and Petrosino had a good deal less protection.
The chance was far too good to miss, and within days of the detective"s sailing a pair of Mafiosi left for Naples and Palermo, their fares paid by the Morello family. Both men sailed under aliases, but their real names were Carlo Costantino and Antonio Pa.s.sananti, and they had been employed in Brooklyn as managers of two of Lupo"s grocery stores. Arriving home, they explained that they had come to Italy to avoid some pressing creditors.
Costantino and Pa.s.sananti spent a few days with their families. Then they traveled into the Sicilian hinterland to call upon the man they had come to Sicily to find. He had been with Morello in New York years earlier and was now the most powerful Mafioso on the island. His name was Don Vito Cascio Ferro.
FRIDAY DAWNED OVERCAST, threatening rain, and Petrosino took an early train out of Palermo. He spent the morning in the courthouse of the nearby town of Caltanissetta, copying penal certificates there, and was back in the Sicilian capital that same afternoon, keeping an appointment before retiring to his hotel room to type up his work. At some point he pulled out a small pocketbook he had brought with him from Manhattan, which contained his handwritten notes on Sicilian criminals. Reaching for a pen, the detective added a new name to the bottom of a list. "Vito Cascio Ferro," he scrawled in his spidery script, "born in Sambuca Zabut, resident of Bisaquino, Province of Palermo, dreaded criminal."
What prompted Petrosino to make this note on this day is an intriguing question that has no certain answer. Cascio Ferro had not lived in the United States for years-he had made his escape from New York on the morning after the Barrel Murder, the only member of Morello"s gang to do so. Traveling from Manhattan to New Orleans, he had returned to Sicily in 1904 and steadily acc.u.mulated a great deal of power. Petrosino had probably been given his name by one of his informants, but when and for what reason is a mystery. As things turned out, however, the addition of Cascio Ferro"s name to the policeman"s notebook on this day of all days would seem especially significant.
Petrosino remained closeted in his hotel room until evening. As it grew dark, at about 6 P.M. P.M., a violent electric storm broke over Palermo, pelting the stones of the Piazza Marina with heavy rain. The deluge lasted for an hour and a half, and by the time it ceased at 7:30, most of the people of the town had sought the shelter of their homes. The square was empty when Petrosino grabbed his umbrella and overcoat and hurried to the Cafe Oreto for dinner.
The streets were slick with water and the clouds overhead were still so black it seemed likely the storm would resume. Petrosino did not linger over dinner. He took his usual table up against a wall, where he could keep an eye on everyone who entered the cafe, and ordered pasta with tomato sauce, fish, fried potatoes, and a half liter of wine, all for 2.70 lire.
According to the recollections of the cafe"s waiters, the detective was just embarking on the cheese course when two men entered the restaurant, looked hurriedly around, and went over to his table. The conversation was brief, and the two men did not sit down; after a few moments Petrosino waved them away. But as the strangers exited the restaurant, Petrosino rose to follow them. He threw down three lire to pay for his supper and left without waiting for the change.
On other evenings, the detective had turned left out of the cafe to return to his hotel. But on this night he crossed the road and went straight ahead, making his way around the Piazza Marina and keeping to the fence enclosing the Garibaldi Garden. The police who retraced his movements the next day thought he had been heading for a spot he had agreed to for a meeting with the strangers from the restaurant.
He walked exactly 220 yards, almost to the northwest corner of the square. The time was 8:50 P.M P.M.
Three shots rang out in rapid succession across the piazza, then, after a short pause, a fourth, which most likely was the coup de grace. The square was almost deserted after the rain; the only people in the vicinity was a group of pa.s.sengers waiting for a streetcar on the square, and of these, only one, a sailor named Alberto Cardella, was brave enough to investigate. Cardella ran the thirty yards to the corner of the Garibaldi Garden in a few seconds, quickly enough to see a small, squat man sway away from the fence and collapse and to watch two men as they burst from the shadows, crossed the road, and lost themselves in the courtyard of the Palazzo Partanna opposite. Several gates in the courtyard exited into nearby alleys, and a few moments later the sailor heard the sound of a carriage driving away. Almost immediately after that, the lights illuminating the square suddenly flickered and died. Someone had cut the flow of gas to the piazza, making it impossible to organize an effective pursuit.
By the time another of the streetcar pa.s.sengers had hurried to the nearest shop for candles, almost a quarter of an hour had pa.s.sed and Cardella had been joined by the medical officer from his ship. The doctor made only a cursory examination; even by candlelight it was clear that the stocky figure sprawled along the fence was dead. Petrosino had been hit three times at close range, in the right shoulder, the cheek, and the throat. The third wound had been the fatal one. He lay next to his umbrella, blood still oozing from his mouth; his derby hat-long a familiar sight in Little Italy-had rolled toward the gutter. A heavy Belgian revolver sat abandoned on the pavement a few feet away-one of the a.s.sa.s.sins", since the detective"s gun was still in his suitcase at his hotel. Going through the dead man"s pockets, Cardella found a police badge, a checkbook, a notebook, some cash, and an unstamped picture postcard, addressed to Petrosino"s wife, which ended with the salutation "A kiss for you and my little girl, who has spent three months far from her daddy."
IT TOOK FIFTEEN MINUTES for the first policeman to reach the scene, and rather longer for Commissioner Ceola, summoned hastily from his box at the theater, to take command of the investigation. for the first policeman to reach the scene, and rather longer for Commissioner Ceola, summoned hastily from his box at the theater, to take command of the investigation.
Ceola knew the murder would be a sensation. Petrosino was a U.S. citizen, and no U.S. police officer had ever before been killed outside his country in the line of duty. The Americans were bound to be outraged at the murder and to wonder why their man had not been afforded better protection. And the killing itself-with the getaway carriage standing waiting and the perfectly timed extinguishing of the piazza"s lights-had clearly been meticulously planned. There was also the mystery of the dead man"s willingness to follow two strangers out into the Palermo night. For some reason, Petrosino had trusted the men who had killed him.
Ceola"s men rounded up as many witnesses as they could to the events in the Piazza Marina, but to little effect. No one had heard much, and only Cardella would admit to having seen a thing. A mechanic named Luigi Schillaci, whose job it was to oil and lubricate the streetcars at the nearby terminus, said that he knew the men who had fled into the Palazzo Partanna, but by the time he reached police headquarters he had changed his mind. "I didn"t see anything and I didn"t hear anything," the engineer now insisted.
With Ceola to urge them on, the Palermo police were nothing if not energetic. They rounded up 140 suspects, among them Ernesto Militano and Paolo Palazzotto, the crooks Petrosino had encountered outside the American consulate. Both men excited a good deal of suspicion; they had been in the Cafe Oreto earlier that evening, and Militano had suddenly shaved off his famous mustache-"Because my woman likes me better without," he protested. In the end, though, Ceola and his men decided that the murder had been too well planned and too cleanly executed to have been the work of petty criminals. As the days went on, they became increasingly convinced that Petrosino had been murdered by the Mafia.
The most important targets of Ceola"s roundup were Sicilians whom Petrosino had helped deport from the United States, and one of the first men held was Carlo Costantino. A porter who came from Costantino"s hometown, Partinico, told the police he had seen Morello"s man reclining on a bench in the Piazza Marina only a few hours before Petrosino was shot. Antonio Pa.s.sananti had been sitting next to him, the witness added; he remembered the two men clearly because he had thought that both were in America. A report from the police in Partinico brought more incriminating evidence. Vito Cascio Ferro, Ceola learned, had turned up in the town a few weeks earlier, asking after Costantino and his partner and evidently well aware that they were due in from New York. There was also the peculiar matter of a pair of telegrams that Costantino had sent and received. The first, addressed to "Giuseppe Morello, New York," had been wired the day after the Mafiosi arrived in Sicily, and it was so peculiar-apparently in code-that the telegraph operator at Partinico had forwarded a copy to the local chief of public safety. "I Lo Baido work Fontana," the message said. Morello"s equally inscrutable reply was found in Costantino"s pocket. "Why cut his whiskers off?" this cable read.