Vendetta Trail (3 page)

Even as the man spoke, Hawke saw someone, dressed in a long black coat, standing out in the middle of the street, looking down at the body of the robber he had shot.

“Don’t go plannin’ nothin’ fancy for that fella, Mr. Welch,” one of the townspeople shouted. “We plan to put him away real cheap. As far as I’m concerned, you could just wrap him up in a tarp and bury him.”

Some of the others around him laughed.

“The law says I have to put him in a box. But don’t worry, Mr. Mayor. I will be very frugal,” Welch called back.

Sheriff Peach looked back at Hawke. “What’s your name, mister?”

“Hawke. Mason Hawke.”

Mason Hawke waited for the inevitable reaction that his name caused. But, to his relief, the sheriff didn’t seem to respond to it at all. Perhaps the town was too far off the beaten path for him to be recognized.

“Well, Mr. Hawke, I don’t know what brought you to our town, but I’m sure glad you showed up when you did.”

“I’m just passing through on my way to New Orleans,” Hawke said.

“‘Just passing through,’ you say?” The sheriff chuckled. “Well, I reckon you will stay around long enough to collect your reward, won’t you?”

“My reward?”

“I’d be willing to bet there’s paper out on these fellas,” Sheriff Peach said. “And even if there isn’t, I’m pretty sure the town will want to come up with something. Wouldn’t you say so, Mayor Felker?”

“Absolutely,” Mayor Felker said.

“So what do you say? Are you going to stay around for the reward?”

Hawke smiled. “Oh, I think you can count on that,” he replied.

“Mr. Hawke, have you had your lunch yet?” one of the town’s citizens asked.

“No, I haven’t.”

“My name’s Lambert. That’s my café across the street there. You come on over and have lunch—on me.”

“Thanks,” Hawke said.

In addition to the lunch provided by Lambert’s café, the town opened up the school auditorium that night for a potluck dinner. All the ladies of the town brought their special dishes, competing with each other for Hawke’s attention.
Hawke was gracious to all of them, but one blackberry cobbler reminded him so much of the cobblers his mother used to make that he looked up the lady who brought it and gave her his personal thanks.

“Why, I’m just glad I could make it for you, young man,” she said. “You doing so much for the town and all.”

“What is your favorite song?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I see a piano over there. If you will tell me your favorite song, I’ll play it for you.”

“You can play the piano?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh, how wonderful. I think ‘Home Sweet Home’ would be my favorite. Do you know it?”

“Yes, ma’am, I do,” Hawke said.

Hawke played the song for the lady who made the blackberry cobbler, then he took several more requests. That night he slept in the hotel, his room paid for by the bank.

As it turned out the three bank robbers were the Jensen Brothers. And as Sheriff Peach had suggested, they were wanted. The State of Missouri had put up a reward of one hundred dollars each for their capture. The next day the West Plains City Council voted to match the reward paid by the state, and they had a small ceremony during which they gave him the money.

“Did I hear you say you were going to New Orleans?” Fred Brown asked after the ceremony was over.

“Yes.”

“On horseback?”

“That’s what I had in mind.”

Brown shook his head. “It’ll take you another two weeks to get there by horseback. But you could board the train right here in West Plains and be there in two days.”

“That’s not a bad idea, but what would I do with my horse?”

“You can leave him with me, take him with you, or even sell him to me if you’d like. I’ll give you twenty-five dollars for him.”

“Make it fifty and I’ll throw in the tack.”

“Done,” Brown said.

HAWKE, WHO WAS SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS
richer now than he had been when he arrived in West Plains, stood in the predawn darkness, waiting for the southbound train. In the distance he heard the long mournful whistle of the approaching engine.

“Here she comes,” someone said.

Shortly after the whistle, Hawke could hear the chugging sound of the steam echoing through the hills, then, looking down the track, he saw the huge gas lantern that was attached just in front of the smokestack. The highly polished mirror behind the lantern flame gathered and intensified the light to cast a bright beam to illuminate the track ahead.

When the train arrived, Hawke could feel the power of the engine as it pounded by. The whirling steel wheels were nearly as tall as a man, turned by pumping driver rods that were wreathed by the feathery wisps of steam that escaped from the actuating cylinder. Still-burning embers dripped from the firebox and lay glowing on the track beneath the train.

The train squeaked and screeched as it drew to a stop in
front of the station. Even though it was at rest, it was still alive, venting steam from the relief valve like the gasps of some exhausted creature while its gearboxes popped and snapped as they cooled.

The conductor stepped down from one of the cars and looked out over the small assembly gathered. He pulled out his pocket watch, opened the cover, and examined it importantly. “How many do we have, John?” he asked.

“Three passengers, two express bags,” the station master replied.

The conductor snapped the watch cover closed. “All aboard!” he shouted. Then to the station master, “Better get the express bags on quick. We’re runnin’ about half an hour behind.”

“I’ll get right on it,” the station master promised, turning to hurry back to the depot.

Hawke waited politely until a man and his wife boarded, then he got on behind them. The interior of the car was lighted with gimbals-mounted lanterns and he walked down the aisle, passing passengers who were already aboard and sleeping through this stop, until he found an empty seat. Having bought a small suitcase to replace the saddlebags when he sold his tack to Fred Brown, Hawke now put the suitcase in the luggage netting just overhead. That done, he settled into his seat.

Almost immediately, it seemed, the train started forward in a series of halting, jerking motions until it began rolling smoothly. Shortly thereafter a porter came through the car extinguishing the lanterns. Hawke was sitting on the left side of the car and, through his window, he could see the first glimmering pink of dawn as the train headed south.

That evening Hawke changed trains in Memphis, Tennessee. Paying extra for a Pullman car, Hawke slept through
the night, waking in Jackson, Mississippi, early the next morning. There, he changed trains again.

It was now early evening of the second day, and Hawke was in the dining car of the train he had boarded in Jackson. This train was known as
The City of New Orleans
and it was the last one he would have to board for this trip.

“Anything else I can get you, sir?” a white-jacketed steward asked, approaching Hawke’s table.

Hawke, who had just enjoyed a dinner of roast prime rib of beef, brussels sprouts, and baked potato, picked up the napkin and dabbed at his lips.

“No, thank you. I’ll just finish my coffee.”

“Very good, sir.”

“How long until we arrive in New Orleans?”

“I believe the conductor said we would be there in about an hour and a half,” the steward answered.

“Thank you.”

As Hawke sipped his coffee, he looked through the window that opened onto his table. Right now they were on a strip of land that separated Lake Pontchartrain from Lake Maurepas, and at this particular point it was so narrow that, from either side of the car he could see only water.

His coffee finished, he left the dining car and returned to his seat. Earlier in the afternoon the porter had given him a copy of the
New Orleans Picayune,
and Hawke decided to take advantage of the last light of the day to finish reading it.

He was startled to find a story about Big Callie in the newspaper.

He also found a story about the seamier side of New Orleans.

That’s an interesting take on the situation, Hawke thought as he finished the article. Placing the blame for the Negroes who were killed upon the very Negroes who were killed.

As the light had now grown too dim for further reading, he put the paper down. He watched the sun set over Lake Maurepas, setting the water afire with its dying color of blood red. A few minutes thereafter it grew totally dark and as Hawke continued to look through the window, he saw that they were coming into New Orleans.

The train passed by a very large estate with a beautifully manicured lawn and a huge house that reminded him of some of the palaces he had seen during his tour of Europe. He wondered who lived in such a house, and he watched it until he could no longer see it.

IN A DARK ROOM OF THE SAME LARGE HOUSE
Hawke had observed, the gleaming orange burn at the end of a cigar disclosed the fact that someone was standing at the window, watching the train pass. Joseph Tangeleno, the man with the cigar, was relatively tall for a Sicilian. Above his powerful frame was an oversized head, furry eyebrows that met in the middle, and deep-set, dark eyes. He continued to watch the train until it disappeared around a distant curve in the track.

Many suggested to Tangeleno that a man of his means could afford to have a house farther away from the tracks, but he always waved their suggestions aside. They didn’t understand that he liked being this close to the railroad. He liked to watch the trains when they passed by. The trains gave him a visible link with a modern miracle which could, within a matter of days, whisk someone from New Orleans to any part of this huge country, from New York to San Francisco.

Joseph Tangeleno had been in America for twenty years, but he still spoke with a heavy Italian accent. He was born in Sicily, where membership in the Mafia was a way of life,
though the word “Mafia” was rarely used by its actual members. That is because “Mafia” is not an Italian word, and its definition has never been clearly established. Some say it means: “This honored thing of ours.” The members called it la Cosa Nostra, the Arm, the Clique, the Outfit, the Tradition, the Office, the Honored Society, the Combination, or simply, the Family.

Back in Sicily, the Mafia adhered to a rigid code of the vendetta that took literally “an eye for an eye” and “a life for a life.” It was this very code that brought Joseph Tangeleno to America in the first place. When Joseph’s eighteen-year-old sister was dishonored, Joseph killed the man who was responsible. That forced him to come to America, not fleeing the law, but fleeing the family of the man he had killed.

Arriving in New Orleans, Tangeleno got a job at the riverfront, loading ships. Here, he found the same type of hierarchy he had dealt with in Sicily, only here, the man in charge was not Mafioso, or even a Sicilian. Here, the man in charge was a Cajun by the name of Henri Bejeaux.

Bejeaux controlled every aspect of life on the riverfront. Tangeleno had to get permission from Bejeaux to work, and he had to work the ships Bejeaux said he could work. He also had to pay Bejeaux a tribute, which Bejeaux called a “dock tax.”

At first, it didn’t bother Tangeleno all that much because he was used to living in hierarchical societies. But when he realized that Bejeaux wasn’t being fair to him, or to any of the other Sicilians and Italians who lived and worked in New Orleans, he asked a couple of the other Sicilians who were being equally mistreated to go with him to have a talk with Bejeaux.

“What are you going to say to him, Tangeleno?” Nicholas Morello asked.

“I am going to ask him to listen to reason,” Tangeleno replied.

“And if he will not listen to reason?” Sal Vizzini asked.

“I will let him know that I am disappointed.”

Tangeleno, Morello, and Vizzini met with Bejeaux in his office. Taking onto himself the responsibility of speaking, not only for the three of them but for all the many Sicilians in New Orleans, Tangeleno presented their grievances. He told how the Sicilians were the last to get work, and when they did get work it was generally the most difficult jobs that paid the least. He further pointed out that the tributes the Sicilians had to pay were based upon a standard assessment and not by the job. That meant that while they were given the jobs that paid the least, they were assessed the same as the other workers.

“Is that it?” Bejeaux asked when they were finished. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“I thought you might listen to reason,” Tangeleno said.

“Get out of my office, you guinea bastards,” Bejeaux said with a dismissive wave of the back of his hand.

Tangeleno didn’t say another word. Instead he stood, nodded at the other two, and they left. Tangeleno didn’t go far. When he came to work that day he brought a shotgun with him, which he hid behind some loose boards in the closest warehouse. Now, in full view of the others, Tangeleno retrieved the shotgun, loaded both barrels, then went back into Bejeaux’s office.

“What do you want now?” Bejeaux asked.

Tangeleno didn’t answer him. Instead, he pulled both triggers on the shotgun and blew away half the Cajun’s head.

Tangeleno “made his bones” on that day and was accepted, immediately, by the other Sicilians as a man of honor. Within a short time after that, he was occupying the same position Bejeaux had occupied: assigning jobs and accepting tributes from the other workers.

He soon saved enough money to buy the
Avanti
, a fast, 800-ton side-wheeler, which he put into the shipping busi
ness. Shortly thereafter, the Civil War began and Tangeleno used the
Avanti
as a Union blockade runner. That made Tangeleno a hero to the South, because the
Avanti
brought in much needed goods. But it also helped Tangeleno, because the goods that did make it through the blockade brought top dollar.

Tangeleno’s loyalty to the South only extended so far, though. He would not accept payment in Confederate money. He demanded—and got—gold, silver, or federal dollars. Joseph Tangeleno was a very successful blockade runner and by the end of the war, he was an exceptionally wealthy man.

New Orleans was slow in recovering from the war. Although it had not been physically destroyed, as had Atlanta and some of the other Southern cities, it had been invaded by Carpetbaggers. Carpetbaggers were Northern opportunists who came into the city to take possession of all commercial, as well as political, vantage points.

In the minds of the residents of New Orleans, the police, the city hall, the state house, and the federal government were all entities that had been put in place by the reconstructionists to make Southern citizens suffer as their punishment for participating in the war. As a result, most of its citizens no longer thought in terms of U.S., state, or even local government for functions and services.

This was especially true among the immigrants of the city, and when a local businessman wished to establish a grocery store, a laundry, a bakery, or a restaurant, he didn’t go to any government facility. When a woman wished to make arrangements to bring over her mother and father from the old country, she didn’t go to Immigration. When seeking redress for a grievance, the injured party didn’t go to the Justice Department.

In New Orleans, where one went, on all these occasions, was to Joseph Tangeleno. Tangeleno, they knew, had the con
nections and the resources to get things done. But he was not the only one they came to when they needed help against some transgression; he was also the one they feared when they were the transgressors. He was the final authority, the benevolent dictator, and when he was spoken to, it was always with a respectful “Don” before his name.

To outsiders, it might appear that Tangeleno was running a monolithic organization, but in fact, he now had an adversary, a much younger and very ambitious man named Carlos De Luca. De Luca was born in America, so he had the best of both worlds: American citizenship and very close ties with his Sicilian connection. De Luca called his organization the Family. His second in command—and enforcer—was Vinnie Provenzano.