Firetale (21 page)

Record made on 12/29/1919

Archivist: Luca

It has been more than a month
since our second departure from New Orleans, but
I
’m still
peeved when I remember what we experienced in that city. Lazarus
did not want to come back here because, I suspect, too many
ambiguous memories were associated with the place. But Astaroth
insisted, hinting that in New Orleans we would find a couple of
new, and rather unusual, demionis for our circus.

We arrived in the city on
November 3, 1919
, just a week after the infamous Axe Man’s last murder.
Mike Pepitone was the twelfth victim over a year and a half, and
the city rustled anxiously, discussing suspects and listening to
jazz. On March 13, 1919, three days after the attack on an entire
family, a mysterious killer had sent a letter to the newspaper, in
which he threatened to kill after midnight everyone who would not
listen to jazz. That night, the dance clubs and bars of The Big
Easy were crammed with people, and the Axe Man did not kill or
cripple anybody. Since then the city listened to jazz, discussed
jazz, breathed jazz. Moneylenders and newsboys, stevedores and idle
playboys, poachers and street performers all believed that music
would save them from the killer, whose victims did not have an
obvious connection. The Axe Man could come for anyone. For a time,
social distinctions blurred. Death and Music were seated at the
same table of the rich and the poor.

Mr. Bernardius decided not to
perform. We arrived to pick up demionis and move on to some smaller
and simpler city. But before that
, we had to meet Domenico Scarafaggio, who
would lead us to demionis. I was not sure that this gentleman could
be trusted. His name was like a nickname, and I could hardly
imagine why a man could be nicknamed “the cockroach.” A couple of
decades ago, New Orleans was a transit point for thousands of
Italians who had fled from Sicily to South America. Many of the
refugees hadn’t had the strength or money to continue their
journey, and they settled on the banks of the Mississippi. And now
New Orleans was as Italian as it had once been French.

I suspected that Domenico
Scarafaggio was somehow connected with
the Black Hand, a criminal
organization of Italian immigrants that held the entire city in
thrall. Members of the “Hand” extorted money from wealthy citizens,
mostly Sicilian descendants of refugees. Those who refused to pay
were killed, kidnapped, or tortured. Of course, there were some in
the city who rebuffed the bandits, and on the streets and in the
bars there was fighting that battered not only members of the Black
Hand but also Italians who had nothing to do with criminals. When
the Axe Man began his attacks, people began to whisper that a “good
citizen” was seeking revenge against the “wops,” because most of
the killer’s victims were Sicilians.

The meeting with Scarafaggio was scheduled
in one of the best restaurants in the city. Mr. Bernardius was
clearly disturbed by the upcoming little journey to the human
world. He was worried that he had forgotten what it was like to be
among ordinary people doing ordinary things: walking the streets,
talking to waiters, choosing dishes, listening to music, and making
conversation. I was glad to be able to eat normal food instead of
our camp cooking. At the appointed time, Scarafaggio had not
arrived. We had been waiting more than an hour before the waiter
handed us a note saying that we needed to go out and walk a couple
of blocks, where we would meet someone who would drive us to
Domenico. We did as we were told and met four men who brusquely put
black headscarves over our eyes and literally pushed us into a HAL
Touring car and drove off like mad. The car was clearly not
designed for six adult men, and it shook and rolled from side to
side, thanks largely to our driver’s wild style of driving. A
couple of times I was very close to parting with the dinner I had
dreamt about for so long.

When the car stopped, we were
taken out of it and
made to walk along the street. Several times I heard a door
open before us, and our guards spoke to someone in English and
Italian in hushed voices. Then we started to descend. When the
black scarves were taken off, we stood in an illuminated low brick
corridor with a forged door at the far end. On the door was a
picture of a black hand, casually daubed. I had no doubt that the
scarves could have been removed sooner, but our companions
obviously wanted to inspire fear in us, to demonstrate their power.
In another situation I might be frightened, but after a good meal,
such showing off just amused me. As for Mr. Bernardius, his look
was unreadable.

Behind the door
was a room that was
twelve feet by twelve feet. Mr. Domenico Scarafaggio sat behind a
large table covered with expensive leather. Frankly, I had imagined
it would be like this. He was short, frail, with greasy hair and
the eyes of a person prone to hysteria. At his desk, Scarafaggio
seemed even smaller and more ridiculous. In the corner of the room
stood a table with a small gramophone that was playing “Clarinet
Marmalade.” Domenico tried to impress us as a connoisseur of jazz,
and instead of greeting us, he told us that, in his opinion, this
tune would soon be a real hit.

He stood and walked around the
table. The short
man sat on the edge of it and began to introduce himself,
but not without ostentation. Radiating self-importance, Scarafaggio
told us that he was a caporegime of the Matranga family, to which
everyone in New Orleans paid, from sailors and whores to
businessmen and politicians. Even the Provenzano family had been
forced out of town, unable to cope with the pressure of Matranga.
His speech was accompanied by vigorous gestures, most of which
depicted a pistol shot or a knife stab, as well as some amazing
expressions on his weasel face.

Mr. Bernardius listened
patiently
to
the criminal underground history of New Orleans to the
accompaniment of the jazz tunes. When the capo realized that his
stories did not impress his guests, his expression became so sour
that even the guards behind us grunted anxiously. He gave up on us
and pressed some pedal under the table, which slowly began to move
toward the back wall. Under the floor was a passage illuminated by
electric lights. Scarafaggio invited us down with him. After
descending a couple of dozen feet, we heard horrifying screams of
rage and pain, half human and half animal. I had heard about the
brutality and ruthlessness of the Black Hand. The Sicilians cut off
snitches’ tongues, hacked off the hands of those who left to join
another gang, and did not hesitate to slay entire families. It
seemed to me that the press was exaggerating these stories, trying
to raise circulation, but those screams gave me the creeps,
although I, like any archivist, had heard and seen the most
gruesome things.

T
he tortuous underground corridor ended in
a huge hemispherical room. In its center, on huge X-shaped
crucifixes, two giant naked bodies were tied. One’s skin was gray,
and the other’s green. Ogres. The captives were as tall as Mr.
Bernardius, but much broader in the shoulders. Their skin, by the
standards of ogres, was still fresh, not covered with hard growths
and warts. An ogre’s skin is like tree rings or the wrinkles on a
woman’s neck, a way to determine the age of the creatures. These,
apparently, were still quite young. Creatures of that kind like
swamps and privacy, and I could not remember the last time anyone
in Louisiana had met an ogre. Both creatures were covered with
wounds and dark red blood, almost black, and thick. A few men with
bats and chains were circling the ogres, laughing. The men egged
each other on, discussing which of them would be lucky enough to be
the first to kill one of the creatures. The thugs taunted the
ogres, who, immobilized, could only growl in response.

Mr. Bernardius told Scarafaggio
that with every blow
, the price he would pay for the ogres would drop a
thousand dollars. Clearly not used to people talking to him that
way, the shorty’s eyes flashed hatred. Domenico glared at Lazarus,
pouring out threats. The ringmaster just reminded “the roach” about
Mr. Star. I do not know what Scarafaggio knew about Astaroth, but
on hearing the earthly name of the demon, the capo of the Matranga
family stepped back and ordered his men to leave. I asked him to
bring food for the ogres and to add some sleeping pills, which I
had brought with me, to it. The feeding process was unusual. We had
to fasten pieces of meat stuffed with sleeping pills to the end of
a long pole. The guards who had escorted us from the restaurant put
the poles close to the ogres’ muzzles, and the monsters eagerly
tore off chunks of flesh and devoured them. The sight of the
monsters eating apparently frightened Scarafaggio’s people. When
the ogres fell asleep, the Sicilians warily unfastened them from
the crucifixes.

The capo had to call several
henchmen to remove
the ogres from the wooden crosses and transfer them to
large wooden boxes, iron-bound, in which we would move the monsters
from the city. While his people worked, Domenico Scarafaggio told
us how the ogres came to him. A few years earlier, the Matranga
people had found the ogres in the marshes near the town while
trying to get rid of the body of some unlucky debtor. The Black
Hand thugs did not kill the sleeping monsters but brought them to
the boss as a gift. The head of the family, Charles Matranga, was
delighted. The ogres became something like favorite dogs. He
created a new diversion, which he called “hunting with hounds.”
Debtors, competitors, or simply people who dared to talk back to
the boss of the family were taken to the swamp, where Charles
unleashed his “doggies.” Sometimes the boss used the ogres to
impress and intimidate people with whom he was negotiating. For a
more striking effect, he dressed up the ogres in expensive black
suits and bowler hats.

The details of how Matranga had
been treating these poor creatures horrified me. All those
qualities
that are attributed to ogres in fairy tales—bloodlust,
aggressiveness, ruthlessness—are true. But these creatures are
conscious. Maybe they aren’t as smart as humans, but with proper
care and upbringing, they can be true and strong companions.
Charles Matranga kept them like dogs, cultivating in them only the
most disgusting features. Not surprisingly, over time, the ogres
were out of control. And so the Axe Man appeared in New
Orleans.

The big city
frightened and excited the
ogres. They grew up, became stronger, and their behavior became
increasingly irrational. In fits of aggression, they began to
attack people. That explained the Axe Man’s lack of a system. The
Axe Man, it seemed, never chose his victims in advance and
sometimes did not follow through, leaving the unconscious victim
lying in his own blood. Most of the survivors were so shocked by
the attacks that they refused to believe they had been assaulted by
something unhuman, blaming each other or the dead. But there were
those who confessed they had seen an incredibly huge man, and
sometimes two, dressed in black suits and bowler hats. The ogres’
behavior created a lot of problems for Matranga, but they had once
served Charles well. When his consigliere was due to come to the
city, the boss heard rumors that the lawmen and the Provenzano
family were going to intercept him. That’s when Matranga’s people
wrote the cops a letter written on behalf of the Axe Man.
Instantly, the streets became deserted, the police appointed guards
at pubs and reduced the number of patrols to a minimum, and even
Joseph Provenzano did not dare come out of his lair. And Matranga’s
consigliere quietly and comfortably reached his
destination.

But there were too many problems with the
ogres, and when they attacked Mike Pepitone, the boss decided to
get rid of the brothers. Pepitone was an associate of the
Matrangas, not a family member but a man who works for it. And one
of the rules of the Sicilians is that there can be no fights in the
family.

Charles requested
that Scarafaggio
take care of the ogres. But Mr. Star came to Domenico and convinced
him that there were many ways to get rid of unnecessary things. For
example, to sell. Thirty thousand dollars impressed the caporegime,
and he agreed.

We came
to his lair that night to buy his
ogres.

To my surprise, Mr.
Bernardius
told Scarafaggio he would pay only twenty thousand. The
other ten thousand was a fine for the bad condition of the
“product.” I understood that it was an attempt to punish Domenico
for abusing the ogres, but I was afraid Lazarus’s confidence would
lead us into trouble. However, before Scarafaggio could object, Mr.
Bernardius asked if it was true that the boss always got a share of
any transaction, even if it was made outside the family. And if
that were true, then what would happen to those who didn’t share?
Mr. Bernardius said that he heard that in Chicago one of the
members of the Black Hand had withheld money from the boss. The
boss’s men found him and shoved twenty bucks up in his ass. But the
poor man did not resist. Dead people do not resist. Scarafaggio was
humiliated and angry, but he found the strength to smile, to praise
Mr. Bernardius’s awareness, and guide us to the exit.

The next morning we left
town.
The
young ogres slept so soundly on two piles of straw in the van that
even road bumps could not wake them.