The Scarlatti Inheritance(25)

“Fine, Mr. Reynolds. Always ready.”

“Yes. I know you are.… You start in three days at pier thirty-seven in New York City. Customs. I’ll fill you in as best I can.”

But, of course, Benjamin Reynolds did not “fill in” Matthew Canfield as thoroughly as he might have. He wanted Canfield to “fill in” the spaces he, Reynolds, left blank. The Scarlatti padrone was operating out of the West Side piers—middle numbers—that much they knew. But someone had to see him. Someone had to identify him. Without being told.

That was very important.

And if anyone could do that it would be someone like Matthew Canfield, who seemed to gravitate to the nether world of the payoff, the bribe, the corrupt.

He did.

On the night shift of January 3, 1925.


Matthew Canfield, customs inspector, checked the invoices of the steamer Genoa-Stella and waved to the shakeup foreman to start unloading hold one of its crates of Como wool.

And then it happened.

At first an argument. Then a hook fight.

The Genoa-Stella crew would not tolerate a breach of unloading procedures. Their orders came from someone else. Certainly not from the American customs officials.

Two crates plummeted down from the cranes, and underneath the straw packing the stench of uncut alcohol was unmistakable.

The entire pier force froze. Several men then raced to phone booths and a hundred apelike bodies swarmed around the crates ready to fend off intruders with their hooks.

The first argument was forgotten. The hook fight was forgotten.

The contraband was their livelihood and they would die defending it.

Canfield, who had raced up the stairs to the glass-enclosed booth high above the pier, watched the angry crowd. A shouting match began between the men on the loading dock and the sailors of the Genoa-Stella. For fifteen minutes the opponents yelled at each other, accompanying their shouts with obscene gestures. But no one drew a weapon. No one threw a hook or knife. They were waiting.

Canfield realized that no one in the customs office made any move to call the authorities. “For Christ’s sake! Someone get the police down!”

There was silence from the four men in the room with Canfield.

“Did you hear me? Call the police!”

Still the silence of the frightened men wearing the uniforms of the Customs Service.

Finally one man spoke. He stood by Matthew Canfield, looking out the glass partition at the gangster army below. “No one calls the police, young fella. Not if you want to show up at the docks tomorrow.”

“Show up anywhere tomorrow,” added another man, who calmly sat down and picked up a newspaper from his tiny desk.

“Why not? Somebody down there could get killed!”

“They’ll settle it themselves,” said the older customs man.

“What port did you come from again?… Erie?… You must have had different rules. Lake shipping has different rules.…”

“That’s a lot of crap!”

A third man wandered over to Canfield. “Look, hick, just mind your own business, all right?”

“What the hell kind of talk is that? I mean, just what the hell kind of talk is that?”

“C’mere, hick.” The third man, whose thin body and narrow face seemed lost in his loose-fitting uniform, took Canfield by the elbow and walked him to a corner. The others pretended not to notice but their eyes kept darting over to the two men. They were concerned, even worried. “You got a wife and kids?” the thin man asked quietly.

“No.… So what?”

“We do. That’s what.” The thin man put his hand into his pocket and withdrew several bills. “Here. Here’s sixty bucks.… Just don’t rock the boat, huh?… Calling the cops wouldn’t do no good, anyhow.… They’d rat on you.”

“Jesus! Sixty dollars!”

“Two weeks’ pay, kid. Have a party.”

“Okay.… Okay, I will.”

“Here they come, Jesse.” The older guard by the window spoke softly to the man next to Canfield.

“C’mon, hick. Get an education,” said the man with the money, leading Canfield to the window overlooking the interior of the pier.

Down at the street-loading entrance, Canfield saw that two large automobiles, one behind the other, had pulled up—the first car halfway into the building. Several men in dark overcoats had gotten out of the lead car and were walking toward the phalanx of dock workers surrounding the damaged crates.

“What are they doing?”

“They’re the goons, kid,” answered the guard named Jesse. “They muscle.”

“Muscle what?”

“Hah!” came a guttural laugh from the man at the tiny desk with the newspaper.