A liar, thief, murderer, Madeiros was a man whose uncorroborated word would be worth nothing. His sister and friends testified that he had the mind of a child of ten, and like his parents was subject to epileptic fits. Even before he had quit school at age fifteen he had been arrested a dozen times. In Providence, Rhode Island, in January 1920, he emerged resplendent in the blue-gray uniform of a lieutenant in the American Rescue League and proceeded to solicit money. The League existed mostly in the imagination of one Arthur Tatro, who wore more elaborate insignia on his Salvation-Army style uniform and called himself captain. He and Madeiros bivouacked in the four-story, bathless, threadbare Zack’s Hotel—its ground floor conveniently a saloon—Tatro sharing a room with Madeiros’ sister Mary, who was given the rank of second lieutenant for her services, while Madeiros bedded in with a young red-headed girl, the sole private of their little army. For some months they drummed the streets in Fox Point—the Portuguese section of Providence—and in neighboring Fall River, Taunton, and New Bedford. On May 1 Tatro’s private army was outflanked by the police and arrested for fraud and impersonation. Madeiros was picked up at his rescue work in New Bedford’s Bristol House, a combination cabaret and brothel. While he was out on bail the Providence police caught him breaking into a shop on May 25. In July, beginning his term in the House of Correction, he apparently had no money. Yet five months later he left Providence with twenty-eight hundred dollars of unknown origin in his pocket. Not until 1923 did he return. Then for a time he set himself up as a contractor and built several garages, none of which made him a profit. However, with a little hijacking on the side he managed to keep himself in funds. In March 1924, he went to work for Barney Monterios, a Cape Verde Island Brava, who ran the Bluebird Inn at Seekonk, about four miles from Providence. Conveniently just over the Massachusetts line, this rural haven combined the features of a roadhouse, dance hall, and speakeasy, in which Providence gangsters could relax undisturbed by thoughts of the police. Upstairs there were always a few girls available. Barney ran the place with the help of a brass-blonde companion, Mae Boice, who was sometimes thought to be his wife. Madeiros helped build a dining annex at the end of the dance floor, drove Mae around on errands, acted as bouncer in the evenings when the boys got a little too steamed, and spent much of his spare time upstairs with a new girl, Tessie, a plum-smooth little Italian. He had two revolvers with him, a .38 and a .45, and sometimes as he lay on the bed he used to scare Tessie by shooting the flies off the ceiling. Once when he was in the yard amusing himself by shooting at trees, he picked off Mae’s cat as it passed with its three kittens. Mae was furious, although she later forgave him and with time developed a certain affection for him.