Charlie says, “This ain’t no call to action. Not yet, anyway.”
Benny calls the Plaza. Shortly after that, Joe Adonis enters the suite. He looks at the solemn faces and drops into the chair next to Charlie’s.
Charlie says, “I got one thought keeps runnin’ through my brain. Why would a couple of micks work me over and leave me for dead just to find Legs Diamond? It don’t make no sense. Narcotics squad my ass. I asked Frank Costello to sniff around and see if the Irish knew anything about that night.”
Charlie paces the few steps between the chair and the window.
He says, “Who the hell wants me dead? I ain’t got no beef with the Irish. I keep wonderin’ if the Sicilians are the ones behind this somehow but it ain’t like the Sicilians to use cops to do their dirty work. If they wanted me out of the way, I’d be dead. Who hires coppers? The only guy that comes to mind is Joe the Boss. These old Petes get nervous when you earn too much. They figure you’re lookin’ to take over. He made me and Joe A. and Frank Costello take a loyalty oath. It’s that damned Mineo, I tell ya. He’s got the ear of the Boss and he’s whisperin’ all kinds of bullshit into it. I could see that from the start. The guy’s a no-good traitor to begin with. He snuck around to get Joe’s permission to kill his boss then he knocked the guy off right in front of his whole family…two little kids in the car. What kind of shit is that?”
Meyer says, “It could be the narcotics squad. You get opium for Joe the Boss. It’s no secret that Rothstein was bringing heroin in to this country through his antique business and that Jack Diamond was one of his distributors. You were cozy with Arnold. And, at one time, with Jack Diamond. They picked you up after Arnold’s death, didn’t they? Maybe they think you really did bump off Arnold to take over his rackets.”
“It’s a good story,” Charlie says. “But why kill me? They’re cops. Throw me in jail!”
Meyer says, “You’re bumping up against the Rockefellers when it comes to the drug trade. Maybe you don’t realize this. Why do you think there’s such a big push to make opium illegal in this country? Without opium to relieve their aches and pains, the people have no choice but to go doctors and get prescriptions. That’s big business. Even Coca-Cola has been forced to remove the cocaine in their drink. Think about it. Old Bill Rockefeller was a flimflammer. In his early days, he bottled raw petroleum and sold it as a cure for cancer. When that didn’t work, they called it a cure for constipation. I’m sure it was. After that he got into the patent medicine racket. He listed himself as a physician. Same old medicine, brand new label.”
“Whadya mean?” Adonis says.
“It was in the papers,” Meyer says. “The Bureau of Social Hygiene went into business with the Division of Medical Sciences for the sake of research. You know what they’re developing? Narcotics. You know who’s in bed with them? The Rockefeller Foundation. You keep fooling around with narcotics you’ll wind up dead, alright. Joe the Boss won’t need the Irish cops on the payroll to do it.”
Charlie settles back into the big leather chair and lights a Lucky Strike. This is all news to him. “I asked Jimmy Alo to check with Johnny Dunn and Eddie McGrath to see what they’ve heard, but so far they got nothing more than Costello got.”
“What about the cops that beat you?” Meyer says.
“They’ve been shuffled off to Siberia,” Charlie says. “They’re lucky I was laid up or I’d a taken care of them myself. Their captain knew the score. He sent them to cool their heels somewhere across the river.” He looks at Benny. “You any good with that pea-shooter of yours?”
Benny laughs, “I put four bullets in a running target, didn’t I? Is that good enough for you?”
Adonis says, “You really think it might be Joe the Boss?”
Charlie says, “These guys are always looking for ways to make you swallow your pride. You choke on it enough times, it changes you. You ain’t the same guy you once were. I’ve had a belly full of his Sicilian bullshit even if it ain’t him.”
He gives Meyer the look. Benny shoves the Colt into his shoulder holster.
“I’m packed,” Benny says.
Adonis gives a wry smile.
“I’m all for it but you do that and you won’t live through the week,” Adonis says.
“I ain’t afraid of dyin’,” Charlie says.
Meyer smokes and thinks.
“We just got this thing with Capone squared away,” Meyer says. “Let’s not give up the ship just yet. You’ve got that greaser in Brooklyn to think about, too. You kill your boss, you look like Mineo.”
“That greaser in Brooklyn wants to get rid of Joe the Boss,” Charlie says.
“Then we’re halfway there,” Meyer says.
“It’s a possibility,” Charlie says.
Meyer opens a window, allowing a fresh breeze to blow through the room. Benny waits for a sign that Meyer has sprung upon an idea. Adonis moves uneasily in his chair.
“I hate the cocksucker,” Adonis says. “I’m ready to take him out.”
“You want to wait,” Meyer says.
“Here comes Clarence Darrow,” Benny says.
“This ain’t no monkey trial, Meyer,” Charlie says.
“No?” Meyer says. “It’s dogma against reason. You said it yourself, the Americanized guys don’t like this bullshit any more than you do. They’re the ones on the street risking their lives while these old greasers ask for more and more tribute. The Sicilians are dogmatic about family. They’ve got their rituals. They find meaning in their traditions. You can’t set all that aside, the Italian fathers wouldn’t trust you if you tried to get rid of their bullshit. But you can put it in its place. This is America. The question here isn’t what makes us different but what do we have in common? We all want to earn. Get the Americanized guys talking about earning and you’ll have them on your side. These old Sicilians are like a couple of bulls fighting for dominance. They forget this isn’t Italy. Sicily may be the largest island in the Mediterranean, but that’s barely more than the size of Massachusetts. Wars over territory are trouble for nothing. Cooperation is always better than war. Identify the guys that can agree on that and you’ll know how strong you really are. The greasers never will because they don’t stop to listen. Eliminate the head and the rest follows.”
“How do we take out the head without starting a war?” Charlie says.
“Let them start the war,” Meyer says. “You said yourself they’re pushing for it.”
“You said you want the violence off the street,” Adonis says.
“When the Black Hand was making trouble, the police department created the Italian Squad. The law focused on the troublemakers. The greasers are the troublemakers. The law takes them off the street, we win. Now, who’s stronger, Charlie? Maranzano or Joe the Boss?”
“I don’t know,” Charlie says. “The Cleveland meeting put a pretty good scare into Joe the Boss. But the old man is greedy. He’s pushing the Sicilians for tribute and making plenty of enemies in the process. I’d say they’re about even right now.”
“O.K.,” Meyer says.
“If Joe the Boss goes to war, I go right along with him,” Charlie says.
“You have to be shrewd,” Meyer says. “Whalen’s got his secret police all over the street now. That’s what Capone brought on us with Frankie Yale’s murder. We’ve got to close the circle around us, keep things close to the vest.”
Adonis says, “You know Maranzano drives around New York with a machine gun mounted in the back seat of an armor-plated Cadillac. He can make the Valentine’s Day Massacre look like a schoolyard quarrel.”
“Then we have work to do,” Meyer says. “Who is with Joe the Boss?”
Charlie says, “Peter Morello and Al Mineo are his main advisors. They’re strong but Maranzano is strong, too.”
Meyer says, “If you’re smart, you let the game get caught in its own trap.”
The discussion goes for hours, then days. Meyer and Charlie debate the pros and cons of the drug t
rade. Meyer argues that drugs are bad for business. Who needs a war with the Rockefellers when there’s plenty to be made in whiskey?
Time moves on. The green vanishes from Charlie’s face and he begins circulating among the mobs again. He lunches with Peter Morello and Al Mineo. Then he dines with the Sicilians and makes inroads through conversations about honor, solidarity, and vengeance. A pattern of thought emerges among the men who embrace the ability to work the subtleties of diplomacy. As for the rigidity of Old World thinkers, Charlie makes mental notes.
* * *
Black Tuesday hits Wall Street like a bullet. The collapse of share prices puts the economy into freefall. The guys on the streets, always hungry, are now desperate to earn.
Brooklyn’s waterfront rackets grow cutthroat. Vince Mangano, known simply as “the Executioner,” digs his claws into the backs of the dock workers forcing them to pay a fee for work. He and the wannabe Caesar see eye-to-eye when it comes to kickbacks. With Mangano overseeing the docks, Maranzano can bring in more of his Sicilian paesans. The waterfront becomes his fief. He tracks the ships coming in and notes their cargo. His men redirect into their own trucks whatever strikes their fancy. It is a lucrative business that allows Mangano to grow in strength.
Mangano doesn’t care to hide his hatred of Joe the Boss. Joe Profaci makes the rounds among the Sicilian fathers more as an opportunity to talk about his hometown of Palermo than to side with anyone who stands against the new Caesar’s foe. Profaci is comfortable in his business. He has his men under control. His year in a Palermo prison, convicted on theft charges before he left his hometown, makes him happy to be in America.
“Why rock the boat,” Profaci says.
And Maranzano replies, “Our honor is at stake.”
Profaci soothes Maranzano’s discontent with a dozen front-row Broadway tickets.
“Take your family,” Profaci says. “Forget about Joe the Boss. The past is in the past. I’m a citizen of this country now. You should think about becoming the same.”
Maranzano senses a prick to his Italian roots and decides he needs to step up his campaign for the old ways. He hears Tom Reina, from the Bronx, is unhappy with the moves Joe the Boss is making. He invites him to lunch.
Reina hails from Corleone. He arrived in America when he was ten and, eventually, took control of the ice box racket in the Bronx and East Harlem. He complains loudly about Joe the Boss. What had started as an alliance between him and Joe quickly descended into a troubled relationship. Reina has his own mob. Joe the Boss wants to dictate policy. Reina doesn’t want the intrusion.
Reina says, “What have I to do with Joe the Boss?”
Maranzano looks over his demitasse espresso cup and raises his brow. The retort is obvious. We are Sicilians. We will not be conquered by anyone.
Ripples of the discontent roll across the East River and fall upon the ears of Joe the Boss. He bristles and schemes, thinking about ways to gain control. His solution is predictable. Sicilian pride must be broken.
Joe Bonanno, a young turk under Maranzano’s tutelage, sizzles at the mention of Joe the Boss.
“New York is a volcano,” he says. “One day it will erupt in his face.”
Maranzano is pleased with Bonanno’s insight. Surrounded by pistoleros, he and Bonanno circulate among the Brooklyn Sicilians. Maranzano talks about bringing the Sicilian fathers together much like the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, with him at the top, of course, as Pope, which not coincidentally means Father. In deference to Caesar, Maranzano cloaks the proposed order of his organization in military terms. Capo di tutti capi, which translates as head of all heads, is the top position. The boys on the street easily use the crasser boss of all bosses, a term Maranzano firmly rejects. A father is not a boss. His job carries the weight of counselor and protector. The capo famiglia is next in line. He makes all the important decisions for his family. Profaci would be a capo famiglia as would Vince Mangano and Tom Reina. The capo bastone is second in command in a family and is followed by the caporegime, or captain or lieutenant, who heads a group of soldiers. The soldiers are the lowest rank among the members.
All this is music to Tom Reina’s ears.
Charlie brings the news of Maranzano’s vision for the Italian unification to Meyer who scoffs.
“It will never work with one guy at the top,” he tells Charlie. “He can try.”
“And fail,” Charlie says.
Meyer says, “He sets himself up for failure. One guy making all the decisions…and what happens when nobody likes his decrees?”
“He sends out soldiers,” Charlie says.
“One more reason to hate the prince,” Meyer says. “Never set yourself at the top. You instantly become the fall guy. The Jews have a better arrangement. We call it beth din. It means house of judgment. A counsel of men invested with legal powers in matters of religious litigation.”
“A bunch of lawyers?” Charlie says. “The Italians ain’t like the Jews.”
Meyer nods.
Charlie says, “These guys fight to sit at the head of the table. This ain’t King Arthur.”
Meyer says, “Even if Maranzano wins, he loses. His ego has carried him away. When he makes his move, and he will, the Jews will take care of business.”
Just then Jimmy Alo walks into the Claridge suite.
Charlie says, “You got some kind of nerve showing your face around here.” He turns to Meyer. “This bastard…last night me and Benny were at the Stork Club with a couple of broads, dancers, and we’re workin’ ’em pretty good. Jimmy, here, waltzes in with Joe A. Of course, we call them over to our table. A few hours later they walk off with our broads! Can you beat that? Those were our broads.”
Benny says to Jimmy, “You guys stay in Brooklyn where you belong.”
Alo laughs. “Forget those broads. I got a Broadway producer tryin’ to get me to back his show, what with the market crash and all. I told him I’d give him the money if he can find half a dozen broads interested in a good time. He’s gonna bring them around to the Stork Club tonight. You want to join us?”
“What time?” Benny says.
“Eight o’clock,” Alo says.
“You came all the way over here just to soothe your conscience?” Charlie says.
“I don’t need no enemies,” Jimmy says with a casual laugh that disguises the true nature of his visit. “I got to talkin’ with Joe A. last night. There’s a couple of Irish guys I know real good, guys with connections with the Irish on the docks. These guys aren’t lookin’ for a fight but they won’t run from one either. I’d like to bring Johnny and Eddie around sometime to see if we can work things out like gentlemen.”
“Sure,” Charlie says. “Bring them around.”
He looks at his watch. It is a quarter to seven, just enough time to stop at Polly Adler’s house to enjoy a little satisfaction.
* * *
It is a short walk from the Claridge Hotel to the Grand Central Building where Salvatore Maranzano has set up a “real estate” office on the ninth floor. Meyer strolls through the terminal and into the building. The would-be Caesar has chosen to locate his headquarters where he can overlook Park Avenue and sit at the center of the web of tracks where trains arrive and depart, going well beyond the city of Cleveland and botched Mafioso gatherings. Grand Central is the gateway to the entire country.
From the ninth floor picture window outside the office, Meyer stops to take in the city. The people are as hard as the edifices they build: steel, limestone, brick, the building blocks of skyscrapers that dwarf humanity. It is no small irony that the Italian word for a very tall man is grattacielo which literally means “scraping the sky.” Maranzano will not don a top hat to make him look more important. He has purposefully located himself at the hub of Manhattan to make that statement. If it were possible, he would try to take over the world. The hubris of the man drives Meyer’s determination to make sure he doesn’t.
* * *
November 4, 1929, exactly
one year to the day since Arnold Rothstein was shot and killed by George McManus. Arnold’s father kneels over his son’s grave and prays for the magnification and sanctification of God’s name. He has in mind the words of Ezekiel and the vision of God coming to save his children, Israel, in a fury of pestilences and rage.
“My son,” he says to Arnold’s decaying bones. “I pray you have put repentance in your heart, that you might be released from your Gehinnam into His mercy.” He raises himself slowly to his feet and rests his hand on the tombstone. “The trial of your killer starts on the eighteenth. If you are in Olam Ha-Ba, this farce will mean nothing. But if you are thinking about coming back to this life and starting over, I say to you, go with Him.”
Abe the Just mourns and hopes that God sees the sincerity in his heart.
Chapter Sixteen
In Vino Veritas
NOVEMBER 1929
The Puncheon Grotto, known simply as “No. 42” among the regulars, is smack in the middle of the piece of land where John D. Rockefeller Jr. intends to build a new opera house for the Metropolitan Opera.
Jack Kriendler and Charlie Berns, who own the Puncheon Grotto, grumble and hit the streets. They have been promised eleven thousand dollars if they will break their lease and move on.
“Do you think this thing with Wall Street is going to bust us, too?” Jack says.
Charlie Berns stuffs his hands in his coat pockets. Charlie has a bookish look, round face, thinning hair, dark-rimmed glasses. His look suits the financial end of the club. Jack, on the other hand, pours on the showmanship. The cousins have carefully built their clientele from New York’s upper crust. They’ve come a long way since the days of the Red Head in Greenwich Village, which drew in the rowdy college crowd. A year later, they left the Village to open the Club Fronton at 88 Washington Place. Three years later they left Washington Place to open at 42 West 49th Street. And now they’ve got to move on.
A Bloody Business Page 33
