A Bloody Business

by Dylan Struzan

  Caruso, not the singer, was Maranzano’s second in command and normal circumstances would dictate that he would ascend to lead the family. But these aren’t normal circumstances.

  Magaddino says, “He’ll step aside. What choice does he have?”

  Charlie pours whiskeys. They sit in comfortably worn leather chairs. Charlie and Magaddino go way back. They understand the street. They know who is around whom and what resources they have. Magaddino continues to influence the Brooklyn Castellammarese from as far away as Buffalo. His power is undeniable, as is Charlie’s.

  “Let’s hope whoever steps up agrees to keep the peace,” Charlie says. “I’ve had enough of this bullshit.”

  “Life is short,” Magaddino says.

  “It’s the business we’re in,” Charlie says.

  Magaddino raises his glass. “Alla tua salute!”

  Charlie says, “Salute,” and downs his whiskey. “I wonder how long it will take for Maranzano to be canonized. You can bet the Castellammarese will be singin’ hymns to his glory.”

  Magaddino shakes his head, “Not all of them. It ain’t ever easy, Charlie. It still ain’t easy. You still got trouble in New York. Lots of it.”

  He means the Irish guy and the German Jew. He means who is going to take over the Bronx? The beautiful Bronx. He means the end to the violence has not yet come to pass.

  Charlie stays mum. Coll’s death is only a matter of time, now. Nobody can tame the Mad Dog. The German Jew will keep the Bronx. Coll’s mob, should they survive, will be pushed aside. The worst of it is that nobody likes the Dutchman, not even his own men. Once that’s settled, then what? Who will rise to contend for control somewhere else? Some things never end. Some things never say, “Enough.” Trouble and violence are two of them.

  “How about a steak?” Charlie says.

  Magaddino agrees. “We’ll pretend we’re normal guys with normal jobs like all the other businessmen.”

  * * *

  The Castellammarese fathers gather to vote their choice for a new head. Caruso’s resignation opens the way for Joe Bonanno to stand up. Bonanno is twenty-six. He has roots in old-world sensibilities but is too young to be fully entrenched in old-world politics. Perhaps that’s why Charlie had given him a pass in the purge.

  The Sicilians grumble. Bonanno treads the razor’s edge between allegiance to his family and respect for Charlie Luciano’s strength. With few real choices, the Castellammarese agree to support Bonanno to lead the family.

  Time drifts quietly by without incident, allowing the Italians to go about their business without fear of retribution. The Brooklyn-based family that was once headed by Al Mineo sobers to a new reality. Slapped like ping-pong balls from one side of the war to the other, they now settle down with Vince Mangano as their head. Charlie agreed to give Scalice the pass if he agreed to quietly allow Mangano to take over. The Mad Hatter, Albert Anastasia, favored Charlie’s decision. Scalice gave a quick Hail Mary and passed the reins to Mangano, his underboss. It was only common sense. Better a living member than a dead boss.

  Tommy Gagliano thanked Charlie for the peace and went about his business.

  Joe Profaci held onto his position and acted as though nothing out of the ordinary had taken place.

  Thus, the five main New York families are cemented more or less by Charlie’s decree. From there, ripples fan out through the rest of the country, except for Chicago. It is agreed that the little mobs that fall under Chicago’s jurisdiction will wait to see if the Big Man is going to get jail time for tax evasion or if, as anticipated, he will pay a fine and skate free. It is understood that whoever leads Chicago leads the small mobs west of the Mississippi.

  Meyer and Charlie shuffle through the thick carpet of leaves that cover Central Park. The setting sun plays peekaboo with the narrow shafts that run between buildings, lighting up autumn’s foliage with brilliant shades of orange and red. Rain trickles from the heavens, saturating the air. Rain doesn’t matter. Charlie walks through the park with an air of ease. His overcoat keeps out the cold and wet. His fedora shields his eyes. Even his cigarette seems invincible to the weather.

  He says, “Why waste the taxpayers’ money running Capone through a trial when syphilis is doing the job for free?”

  “Publicity,” Meyer says, popping open his umbrella. “The government needs a conviction to win public trust. Let’s say Capone gets jail time, will Nitti take over?”

  “He’s a figurehead,” Charlie says. “With Capone and Jack McGurn out of the picture, the strength is with the Fischetti brothers. Further down the line is Paul the Waiter and Tony Accardo.”

  “They call Nitti ‘the Enforcer,’” Meyer says.

  “Ha! That’s like the government. It’s good for his reputation. Nitti gets things done but he don’t pull the trigger,” Charlie says. “He’s weak. Everybody knows it. They call him the Enforcer to get respect.”

  Squirrels scamper through the leaves and up trees and disappear. Central Park shifts into low gear and quiets for the night. Even birds refuse their songs. Street lights kick on. Office buildings shine like otherworldly beacons at the end of Poets’ Walk.

  “Maranzano had some good ideas,” Meyer says. “If he would have kept his head, he could have had a nice slice of this town.”

  “The whole damn country is looking to see what New York is going to do now.”

  “Keep the Commission,” Meyer says.

  Charlie says, “Burn the paper. Kiss the ring. Sicilians feel all cozy with that Catholic shit. I ain’t Catholic. I ain’t even religious.”

  Meyer says, “Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Let them have their traditions in their own families. That doesn’t affect you. They’re tired of war. Most of them are broke. They’re relieved you didn’t stick your hand in their pocket. The fewer changes you make, the better.”

  “You’re probably right,” Charlie says. “Whatever happened to playing it low key? Avoiding the spotlight? We’re in it now, Meyer. Everybody in this goddamned city knows who we are.”

  They sit on a park bench and smoke.

  “The Commission is still a good idea,” Meyer says.

  Charlie squirms. “It’s old-world.”

  Meyer says, “It has a laundry list of problems.”

  “That’s puttin’ it lightly.”

  “Think of it as the League of Nations. It’s there to maintain peace. Each country has an equal say.”

  “Now you’re just playin’ with me,” Charlie says. “Aren’t you the guy that says let them settle their own disagreements? Never take sides. How is the Commission going to stop the killing?”

  “It can’t any more than the League of Nations can stop war,” Meyer says. “But that’s not the point. It creates a place where guys can solve problems that crop up.”

  “They’ll be scheming by the next morning.”

  “They’ll feel important. Respected. Honored. The strength lies with the five New York families and Chicago. Everybody else falls into place under them. Detroit. Cleveland. Philadelphia. All the major cities.”

  “What I don’t get is why you think I should be a part of it.”

  Meyer says, “Like it or not, you’re already part of it. Are you going to step away now and let them make the rules? We’d be back to square one.”

  “You think this can hold together?” Charlie says.

  Meyer says, “The Americanized guys are with us. They’re all thanking you.”

  Charlie takes the compliment with a grain of salt.

  They walk back to the Majestic and wait for Aaron Sapiro to knock. He’s their lawyer now. Meyer figures if a guy like Henry Ford can’t beat a guy like Sapiro then Sapiro sounds like a pretty good choice to set up their corporations. And if he is good at corporations, then he must equally be good at working out the agreements between CEOs, which is what Meyer is calling each of the five New York family heads plus Chicago and Buffalo, using the title in the same manner as U.S. Steel Corporation. “Chief” has a ni
ce ring to it.

  It’s eight o’clock in the evening when Aaron Sapiro lays out an array of pens and paper on Charlie’s dining room table and starts asking questions.

  “Where are you with this thing?” Sapiro says.

  Meyer has been talking with Sapiro, hammering out the technical details of the arrangement he and Charlie hope to forge with the Italians now that Maranzano is out of the picture.

  Charlie says, “Think of it as the League of Nations.”

  “But not delegates,” Meyer says. “We need tougher standards. These aren’t politicians. And no one guy is stronger than the others.”

  Sapiro says, “Then you can create a Board of Directors with an appointed Chairman.” He looks at Charlie. “The position can rotate through the various members. The Chairman is purely administrative. He doesn’t hold power over the other members of the board. I assume everyone has an interest in a common goal.”

  “Yeah,” Charlie says. “Everybody wants to keep livin’.”

  Sapiro says, “What are the problem areas? How will the board function? You need to decide what circumstances require the board’s involvement. You should have an accountability structure.

  In other words, everybody ultimately answers to the board and then the board decides how to handle the problems that arise. How often you meet is up to you. I guess there’s no real reason to talk about the term of the directors?”

  Charlie laughs. “Anything in that black bag of yours that keeps guys from scheming?”

  “Accountability,” Sapiro says. “Best I can do. And penalties for breaking the rules. Honestly, as you probably already know, even that is meager policing.”

  The conversation rambles through loopholes and hard reality. Charlie doesn’t expect the Sicilians to agree with him. He expects them to adhere to his proposal, though. Whether out of fear or respect, it really doesn’t matter.

  Al Capone plays host to the budding Commission. Nearly a hundred men show up in Chicago to hear Charlie out and to discuss the nature of the Commission. Charlie is the brazen radical among the conservative Sicilian families. He populates his mob with Neapolitans and Calabrese and makes alliances with Jews and Irishmen. He isn’t married. Has no son to inherit his empire. He has no stage, no throne, no throng of deferential soldiers. What he brings to the meeting is common sense.

  The men gather in a hotel banquet room. Capone entertains as a country entertains visiting royalty. Gold silverware and gold-rimmed china plates, crystal glasses filled with Dom Perignon, appetizers and hors d’oeuvre, a serving staff of hundreds that roll through the main event like the smoothest-operating machine. Afterward, the men sit back with dessert and cigars.

  Charlie stands before the crowd. The clinking of forks and the prattle of chitchat falls into silence. All eyes are on Charlie Lucky, the man that both killed his boss and takes responsibility for the assassination of Salvatore Maranzano.

  Charlie says, “I didn’t come here to be proclaimed the boss so let’s take that off the table right at the start. You’re here for the same reason I’m here. We’ve had enough of war. It’s time for peace and the profits that go along with it. You could say we are no different from any other major corporation. We have business interests that need protecting. We all see the need to stop the killing and start running our businesses like gentlemen. That don’t mean that we ain’t gonna have disagreements. It’s how we resolve these disagreements that will either destroy us or move business forward. We have a vested interest in keeping the peace, as they say. To keep the peace, we have to agree on certain rules.

  “We can all agree that Salvatore Maranzano had a good idea. He knew history. He knew how Caesar organized his army. That’s what he based Our Thing on, that structure with the capos and all. We all tried to make sure that all the families got a fair shake in organizing the men under them. Nothing is gonna change in that regard. We agreed to that before there was more trouble. It’s a good thing so let’s keep it that way.

  “What went wrong is that Maranzano wanted everybody to toe his line. That’s the trouble with a boss among bosses, or capo di tutti capi if you prefer the Italian way of saying things. Nobody here wants to be Caesar. It’s bad for business. What we’re going to try for is agreement among equals. We don’t live individually in little provinces where our word is law. We live together in big American cities. If we war with one another for control there won’t be no time for our men to earn. Killing ain’t the way to settle our differences. Maranzano agreed on that point. The killing has to stop.

  “America is a big country with lots of opportunities. As we spread out, we need to watch out we don’t step on each other’s toes. When there is a dispute within a family, it stays in that family. When there is a dispute between families, it comes up the ladder to the Commission. The guys in the dispute will sit before the family heads and try to work out their differences. If they fail, it is up to the Commission to make a decision and their decision stands. I’m not here to tell you what incurs death and what don’t. That’s up to each family except when a matter comes before the Commission. Then the Commission will have to decide on consequences. I want to make that perfectly clear. We’re gonna knock heads and then we’re gonna sit down and work things out.

  “We ain’t choir boys. It ain’t gonna be easy to tame things down but that’s what we gotta do. Say an opportunity comes your way and two guys from different families make a deal with each other. Everything has to be put on the table right then and there. If you don’t put it on the table, it doesn’t exist. Nobody can come along later and say ‘but I thought this or that.’ The pie’s already been cut up. There ain’t no more pieces left. We can make millions if we can work out this one simple thing.”

  The fathers listen and like what they hear.

  The next day, Charlie meets with the heads of the five New York families, Chicago, and Buffalo. Everybody else will fall in line with one of these mobs. Places like St. Louis, Philadelphia, New England, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland have a chain of command that leads to representation on the Commission.

  Charlie distributes the outline of ideas that Aaron Sapiro has written up in official jargon that reads like every agreement between major corporations. Some of Maranzano’s rules remain. Screwing another man’s wife, violating his daughter, disgracing his family, these things remain strictly off limits with the standard consequence. Disrespect of any kind against another member will not be tolerated. These matters are self-evident.

  The fathers adjourn and talk over the details. Maranzano’s vision, the parts that the Sicilians bought into, is still intact but it has been fortified with the ability to protect individual gangs from a power grab.

  Meyer, a non-participant in the Italian world, stays in the background. Still, the link is obvious. When there is trouble between Jews and Italians, Meyer will stand up for the Jews.

  “And the Irish?” Gagliano says.

  Charlie says, “What about the Polacks? And the Chinese? Who else is around? The guys that want to join us, can. Then they’re under the same rules as you and me. The Irish ain’t joiners. They don’t want to be no part of us. They want to be on their own. Let them do what they want to do. When there’s trouble, we reason with them the same way we reason with everybody else.”

  Gagliano says, “The way Capone reasoned with Bugs Moran?”

  “We’re here to prevent another massacre,” Charlie says. “We gotta be patient and smart. Seabury is diggin’ into the corruption in Tammany Hall. A lot of Irish power will fade with that investigation. The Irish are mostly interested in the beer business anyway, that and the docks. It’s been their business all along.”

  Gagliano nods. The fathers reconvene and accept Charlie’s terms.

  Charlie says, “If anybody has a beef, speak up now. After today, we all agree to toe the line.”

  Nobody says a word.

  * * *

  The beer war in the Bronx continues. Tales of the battle fill newspapers. Manhattanites wor
ry that New York has become as violent as Chicago. The public outcry against the Baby Killer reaches its crescendo, a shout so loud it reaches Governor Roosevelt in Albany. Roosevelt commands the boys in blue to deal with the “damnable outrage.” If they do not, he will appeal to Washington for Federal aid and bring in troops that will stop the violence. Vincent Coll disappears from public view.

  Meyer Lansky meets up with Charlie Luciano at a candy store on the corner of Second Avenue and St. Marks Place. They shoot the breeze and enjoy an egg cream.

  “Madden might need help with Vincent Coll,” Meyer says. “Why don’t we bring in a couple of Jimmy Alo’s guys? Eddie McGrath and Johnny Dunn? Maybe they can reason with the guy.”

  Charlie nods. It’s a good idea. Jimmy is tight with the Irish on the street. And besides, Jimmy has a flourishing beer business with interests in the Bronx.

  “He’s become quite the diplomat,” Meyer says.

  Jimmy is in the thick of a game of gin opposite Ben Siegel when Charlie and Meyer walk in. They discuss the Irish situation with Jimmy.

  Meyer says, “What’s the feeling about Vincent Coll among the Irish?”

  “From what I understand, everybody thinks highly of Coll,” Jimmy says. “I don’t know him personally but people say he’s a smart guy. They blame the trouble on the Dutchman for killin’ Coll’s brother. The kid was all right before that. The Dutchman treated them guys like slaves. I guess they got tired and rebelled.”

  Charlie says, “Coll crossed the line when he kidnapped Frenchy.”

  Jimmy says, “He was broke. What else could he do?”

  Charlie says, “He shoulda come to us.”

  Jimmy says, “The Dutchman would kill him for that.”

  The conversation isn’t what Charlie expected. He grouses. He hasn’t seen a pillow since yesterday afternoon following an unusually long night on the town. The dancer was exceptionally limber, he recalls.