"Pardon me, but what is this Pallozzo gang and who are the Quatrones?
I'm tremendously interested in this affair."
"The Pallozzos and the Quatrones," Donnelly explained, "are two Italian gangs which have come into rivalry over the fruit business. They unload the ships, you know, and they have clashed several times. You probably heard about their last mix-up—one man killed and four wounded."
"I never read about such things," Dreux acknowledged, at which the Chief's eyes twinkled and once more wandered over the little man's immaculate figure.
"You are familiar with our Italian problem, aren't you?"
"I—I'm afraid not. I know we have a large foreign population in the city—in fact, I spend much of my time on the other side of Canal Street—but I didn't know there was any particular problem."
"Well, there is, and a very serious one, too," Blake assured him. "It's giving our friend Donnelly and the rest of the city officials trouble enough and to spare. There have been some eighty killings in the Italian quarter."
"Eighty-four," said Donnelly. "And about two hundred outrages of one sort or another."
"And almost no convictions. Am I right?"
"You are. We can't do a thing with them. They are a law to themselves, and they ignore us and ours absolutely. It's getting worse, too. Fine situation to exist in the midst of a law-abiding American community, isn't it?" Donnelly appealed to Dreux.
"Now that will show you how little a person may know of his own home," reflected Bernie. "Has it anything to do with this Mafia we hear so much about?"