The Black Hand

11

We stood on the West India dock, out of the way of the watermen unloading a ship full of cotton from America. The sun was hot, beating down unmercifully, melting tar and bringing a sheen to every man’s face, but Barker did not remove his hat or coat. I assumed we were watching only the Sicilians, but when an English worker passed by, Barker plucked his sleeve and murmured a name.

“Mr. Tillett?”

The man Green had recommended was a young fellow with a fawn-colored mustache. He seemed too young to be a foreman, but as usual the Guv was correct.

“Who are you?” he asked guardedly.

“Cyrus Barker. I’m a private enquiry agent. Might we have a few moments of your time?”

“I’m busy at the moment, as you can see. What is this in regard to?”

“I’d prefer to speak privately,” Barker insisted. “I believe there is a public house nearby called the Drake.”

“I am temperate,” Tillett replied. “And, anyway, I cannot simply leave. I still have two more vessels to unload.”

“Where, then, and when?” Barker pressed, as if to say You cannot avoid me. Tillett sighed and stood, arms akimbo for a moment.

“Oh, very well. There’s a tearoom called the Brown Betty in the next street. I’ll meet you there in an hour.”

“Done.”

Tillett moved off, and it was as if neither of them had spoken. I looked at the Sicilians bringing large bundles of cotton wrapped in burlap down the gangplank. No one openly looked our way, but then they would no more draw attention to their actions than we. I thought we would be forced to wait another hour in the heat, when at the far end of the docks there was a commotion.

A group of men parted, and Victor Gigliotti stalked across the dock. He shouted in Italian, and I could tell by the inflection that he was cursing. He buttonholed a young Sicilian and started yelling at him. I thought it a dangerous thing to do, knowing how they carry knives, but the young man merely shrugged as if to say whatever had upset the Italian wasn’t his affair. Gigliotti argued with a second man, who pointed to a third, who shrugged in exactly the same way as the first. No one took responsibility for whatever had enraged Gigliotti. He turned to the first man again, the closest to him, and gave him a strong shove, knocking him off his feet. The young fellow hissed a curse of his own around the now broken cigarette in his mouth and pulled a dagger. The phalanx of men Gigliotti had brought with him would not stand for that; to a man, they ripped pistols from their pockets. Faced with a half dozen armed bodyguards, the young Sicilian dropped his blade and went back to shrugging, all innocence. This incident, I realized, had become a powder keg that could blow up very quickly.

“What is the trouble?” Barker called out. He has no qualms about inserting himself-or me, for that matter-into a dangerous situation.

“Barker!” Gigliotti cried, and suddenly all six pistol barrels pointed at us simultaneously. He waved impatiently at his men and they stood down, returning their weapons to pockets, waistbands, or hidden holsters. “Come look at this! You won’t believe what they have done!” He led us across to the warehouses. The dock here was wet; and in front of one of the warehouses, large blocks of ice were melting.

“They have deliberately unloaded my ice this morning and put it in the smallest warehouse, allowing half of it to melt out here! And look! They have scraped off most of the sawdust. The sawdust insulates the ice. And they used the warehouse on the end, facing east. This was deliberate! My ice-it came all the way from Greenland, merely to melt on these God-rotting docks! I will kill the man who did this to me!”

I stepped into the entrance of the building beside my employer. Inside, it was cool, but the floor was a mash of sawdust and water. The ice in tall, concave blocks had washed away the shavings until one could nearly see right through them. He was right: they were ruined. If he and his men hurried now, perhaps they could save half the shipment.

Cyrus Barker passed to the ship unloading cotton and came over with Ben Tillett. The Englishman gave a low whistle.

“What happened here, then?” he asked. “Who unloaded this?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Gigliotti said.

Tillett checked the schedule. “This wasn’t meant to be unloaded until tonight.”

“I just said that!” the livid Italian cried.

“I’m not doubting your word, sir,” the foreman said diplomatically. “Let me go into the office and see what has happened.” He trotted off toward the East India Docks office while Gigliotti fumed and muttered to himself.

“There is not a moment to lose if I am to save what is left of this ice. I must have all my vehicles brought here immediately!” He turned and hurried off after Tillett.

I shook my head, looking at the melting ice, but I couldn’t help enjoying the cool air and shade. I glanced at my employer. “Do you think this was deliberate?”

“Of course it was,” Barker said.

“They are trying to rattle him.”

“They’re succeeding,” my employer growled. “In that note they said he’s had things too much his way, and they are right. No one here has dared try this sort of thing with him before. They’re scrappy, I’ll say that for these Sicilians. One has to earn their respect.”

“By that, you mean we’ll have to,” I muttered.

“Aye, lad, and it won’t be easy.”

A few minutes later, Tillett trotted back, full of news. “What a to-do,” he said. “Apparently, one of the Sicilians-and, of course, we don’t know which one-got the dock guard drunk early this morning and the ice was unloaded under cover of darkness. The sailors aboard ship said that the paperwork looked to be in order, but the waterman took it away when he was finished. He was Sicilian by the cap he wore, but he knew how to use the dock hoist. These blocks weigh a ton or more.”

“I suppose, if one were to question these dockworkers, they would say they were all snug in their beds this morning in Clerkenwell, and each could vouch for the presence of the others the entire night,” my employer said.

“Shall we report it, anyway?” I asked.

“Wasted breath. This was just a feint at Gigliotti’s head.”

Victor Gigliotti returned from the offices looking even less satisfied than he was when he left.

“Green will do nothing!” the Camorran cried, throwing his hands in the air. “Sir Alan would not have allowed such a thing to happen. He would have run off every Sicilian on these docks. My ice, my beautiful ice, all the way from Greenland. ‘Nobody saw anything, Mr. Gigliotti.’ ‘We cannot blame the Sicilians without proof, Mr. Gigliotti.’ Pfuh!” Here he gave an Italian gesture, a raking of his chin with the back of his fingers in the direction of the offices. “If he cannot even stand up to a few low-browed Sicilians, he is half a man!”

Gigliotti’s first wagon arrived about a quarter hour later. He moaned at the state of his ice all the while. The slush had crossed the threshold and seeped out across the docks toward the harbor. Finally, Gigliotti could take no more and charged toward the Sicilians, who were now done with the cotton and waiting for the next ship to arrive. The Sicilians united were not as docile as before. They charged back, breaking into a shouting match in Italian in the center of the dock with Gigliotti and his men.

“Wait for it,” Cyrus Barker said casually, pushing at a shell on the ground with the tip of his stick.

The shouting escalated. As a Briton, I had to marvel at the way these men argued: with expansive gestures and deep passion. It was like watching an impromptu opera. Gigliotti raised a finger and started to declaim something. I didn’t understand what he was saying until he got to the final word. That at least was one I’d heard before. It was “vendetta.” At once, Gigliotti turned, and with his entire entourage, stalked off, leaving the Sicilians jeering at his retreating form.

“There it is,” Barker said. “The Camorrans and the Mafia are officially at war.”

An hour later, Ben Tillett sat across from us at the Brown Betty having tea. He ate the cucumber and cress sandwiches but eschewed the sliced ham. Apparently, he was a vegetarian as well as a teetotaler.

“Mr. Green mentioned your politics,” Barker commented. “Are you a Fabian?”

“I am,” Tillett admitted, wiping crumbs from his mustache. “Do you consider that relevant?”

“Indirectly. The East End seems to be full of socialists these days.”

My understanding of my employer is based upon the slightest changes of his expression. In this case he turned his rough-hewn face a half inch toward me, which meant he was regarding me from behind his smoky black lenses. It was true that my best friend, Israel Zangwill, was a member of the Fabians, and he had been quietly agitating for me to join. Cyrus Barker was a staunch conservative and would have no use for a radical reformer in his household. Everywhere I turn it seems I’m stuck between Scylla and Charybdis.

“Our membership is expanding,” Tillett said with enthusiasm, “but there is a lot of work to be done in the East End.”

“I understand there is a problem at the dock regarding a promise of hours?” the Guv asked.

“Yes. We’re trying to get Mr. Green to agree to pay every laborer for at least three hours a day. The men have to stay whether or not a ship arrives in port, or the work goes to someone else. It only makes sense that they get paid for it.”

“I wish you luck convincing the dock owners of the need to pay idle men.”

“Something has to be done,” Tillett explained. “These men have families, mouths to feed. Green needs to bring an end to the casual labor system.”

“I understand the Sicilian workers have added to the trouble.”

“Yes, they have,” the young man said, pouring himself a second cup of tea. He had decimated his plate of cucumber sandwiches. “Their numbers have trebled in the last year or more, and they’ve become a force to be reckoned with on the docks. The long periods of inactivity while waiting for a new boat to arrive often lead to fights and drunkenness. They’ve taken up the issue of paid hours as well but are rather heavy-handed in their methods. Sometimes I wonder if there’s going to be a fight between the Sicilians and the rest of us.”

“Are all the Sicilians involved?” I asked.

“No. Perhaps I should have made that clear. Some of them are good family men, but pressure is being put on them to conform. I wouldn’t be surprised if their families were threatened.”

“Have you ever heard of an organization called the Mafia?” the Guv asked.

“I can’t say that I have. What is it?”

“It is a secret criminal organization centered in Palermo. I believe the leader of your dockworkers is a member. Have you seen a recognizable leader among them?”

“I haven’t,” Tillett replied. “But that’s just the thing. They seem to arrive each morning with a planned agenda. For example, the Sicilians will save space for one another, allowing their members to go off and cause trouble in Poplar, and then they’ll alert each other when a ship’s arriving. Frankly, we don’t know whether to disallow the practice or adopt it ourselves. It flies in the face of several centuries of tradition.”

“But then, so do socialism and paid hours,” Barker said.

“Touche, Mr. Barker,” the young man admitted. “You’ve got me there.”

“How do the Italians stand in this situation?”

“They’re getting fed up,” Tillett replied. “The English confuse them with the Sicilians, and the Sicilians consider them rubbish. They nudge them in passing while unloading, knocking them off balance. One even fell off the gangplank the other day, breaking his elbow. Frankly, we’ve never cared for the Italians, but we prefer them to the Sicilians by a long chalk.”

“Do you take this morning’s situation with the ice to be a continuation of the problem?”

“Definitely. Gigliotti’s the most successful Italian in London. Until now, even the Sicilians have bowed to his demands. I’m sure this will cause ripples from here to Clerkenwell.”

“Let me put two questions to you, if I may. Do you think a battle planned by the Sicilians would be straightforward and on the level?”

“No, I do not.”

“Nor do I. Do you think if the confrontation does not come to pass that the Sicilian element will settle in quietly and merge with the general population of London?”

“The only way they’ll merge with the population,” Tillett admitted, “is if they are at the head of it.”

“Aye,” Barker said. “I agree. So do you intend to sit on your hands and let the thing wash over you? There’s going to be a dock fight with belaying pins and marlin spikes and whatever comes to hand.”

“You sound as if you’ve been in this sort of scuffle before.”

“I was a ship’s captain before I was a private enquiry agent, and an able seaman before that.”

“What do you want of me, Mr. Barker?” Ben Tillett asked. He was an educated man of the middle class as far as I could tell, but one does not last among the Fabians without being able to ask a blunt question when necessary.

“If I were a Sicilian leader and I knew a dock fight were in the offing, I would start making alliances among my fellow Sicilians, as well as with anyone else I could coerce into joining. If I were working for the welfare of the docks, I would expect the English watermen to stand with the Italians, and I would want you to organize them.”

“Me?” Ben Tillett asked.

“Aye. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders and refuse to be intimidated the way Mr. Green is. If you agree, your dockworkers would follow.”

Tillett gently set his cup down in his saucer, but I noticed his cheeks suddenly flushed.

“Who are you, Mr. Barker?”

“As I said, I am a private enquiry agent. At present, I’m working for Her Majesty’s government. It might interest you to know that your late employer did not die of a heart attack. He was assassinated by a method perfected in Sicily.”

“I have only your word for that.”

“That is correct, Mr. Tillett. If I or anyone else handed you a letter claiming to prove themselves an agent working secretly for the government, that letter would be false. I could give you the names of five men who could provide references, but that would depend on whether you trusted those five men, and frankly, I don’t have the time. I have learned enough about you in the last half hour to trust you to gather a force to combat the threat of Sicilians taking over the docks. I ask you to trust me to lead it.”

“Based solely upon your word?” Tillett asked, a trifle desperately.

“No,” I put in. “Based upon mine, as well. I’ve seen three people killed by this Sicilian, whoever he is, and a fourth is in the hospital. I was present when Mr. Barker was hired, and there are very definite signs that Sicilian criminals are trying to take over the London underworld. The docks are the one place where there is open conflict, and he has chosen you because he believes you’re capable and honest. He makes snap judgments like that sometimes. Now you can have a controlled conflict organized by Mr. Barker, or you can have open warfare whenever it erupts, and people will probably be killed. That’s all I have to say.”

“I’ll be frank with you, gentlemen. I’ll have to think about it and talk with a few watermen I know and trust about whether it is in our best interests and also whether they trust me to lead them. There might be one among them more fit to lead than I.”

“Find out what information you can, then, Mr. Tillett,” he said, as if the young man were another assistant to be ordered about. “And speak to your men. Give me an idea of how many you can recruit. Here is my card.”

“Very well, Mr. Barker,” he said, taking the card and studying it. “I’ll do my best. Now I must get back to the dock and see what’s happened to Mr. Gigliotti’s ice.”

We watched him exit the tearoom. Barker pushed his cup away from him with one of his thick fingers.

“You really think we can do it, sir?” I asked.

“As you so ably put it, lad, the fight is inevitable. Our only hope is to turn it to our advantage.”