Vincenzo Ciancianna immediately identified the whiners, who were always the most numerous. He approached them and began speaking in their dialect, though as the years went by, his language had become increasingly bastardized by the addition of American words. With his protruding belly and jovial face, a big cigar stuck in a corner of his mouth, Vincenzo gave the impression of someone trustworthy. He promised the newcomers a place to sleep and maybe even a job, if they wanted one. Of course they did! For those poor, bewildered souls, his offer was a godsend, like sunlight on a rainy day or music from heaven.
The rat holes in which they were made to live and the work they were forced to do would forever bind them to the “family,” for which they would handle the most lowly, though necessary tasks, such as unloading smuggled goods that reached the harbor, well concealed in the holds of ships coming from Italian and French ports.
The Italian immigrants’ plight was doubly difficult, because not only did they have to defend themselves against other ethnic groups, such as the Irish, who had arrived before them, but they had to endure bullying and extortion from Italian families that dominated the neighborhoods and made them pay taxes and duties for protection that they could well do without. They knew, however, that if they rebelled, life would become unbearable: they would risk suffering a series of injustices and . . . accidents.
A cluster of newcomers formed around Vincent Ciancianna. That big belly and friendly face attracted the whiners like bees to honey. They were all convinced that the jovial Italian had been sent by the Lord, never suspecting that he was luring them into a trap with no way out. Vincenzo took one look and decided who would become a stevedore at the port, who would be sent to the laundries, the railways, the gaming parlors, and so on. He gave them each an application that was already filled out—handing them to the illiterates as well—and told them to show up that evening at the designated address and show the paper to the person who would greet them. That’s all they had to do; their hosts would see to getting them settled.
“This is la Merica, paisano, the land of plenty. So get going!” Vincenzo invariably ended with that phrase, and, as if by magic, a smile returned to everyone’s face. They thought they had finally emerged from the nightmare of poverty. So then America truly was the land of milk and honey! That illusion would last a few hours.
Saro too had joined the group of immigrants surrounding the friendly, well-dressed man. When it was his turn, Vincenzo Ciancianna studied him for a few seconds, pronounced him “Hotel porter,” and rummaged through his bundle of requests to find the application.
But Saro stopped his hand, which surprised the man. “Actually, I was a barber in Salemi,” he said hesitantly, letting go of the big-bellied man’s hand.
Vincenzo looked at him, confused. “Barber? I might have something for you,” he said and began searching again through the stack of requests for the one he was looking for.
* * *
The passengers belonging to the fourth category, the greenbacks, were usually important people. Sometimes there was even a mammasantissima—the head of a crime family—sent by Sicilian cousins to escape the persecutions of the fascist regime. The greenbacks had only two names committed to memory when they arrived in America: Miss Molly’s, a tavern that stood on a street not far from where the ships docked, and Vincenzo Ciancianna or his stand-in. As soon as they stepped off the pilot boat, they were to have someone tell them where the tavern was, and then, once they got there, they were to ask the host if “so-and-so” had arrived.
It was at Miss Molly’s that Vito Pizzuto ended up, and that afternoon he met the recruiter for the Bontade family: Vincenzo Ciancianna.
Though Vito Pizzuto was not a big boss, his ability to extort taxes was one of the testimonials that Tom Bontade valued most in his letter of introduction. The few like him who entered the families right away—there were never many of them—were given a certain sum of greenbacks on account.
* * *
There was no barbershop at the Baxter Street address on the southern edge of Little Italy; instead, to his great surprise, Saro found a funeral home. He pushed open the glass door and entered the shop outfitted with funeral apparatuses and accessories. A bald little man in a black jacket came toward him, wringing his hands. With a sad smile and a remorseful air, he said in a kind of Sicilianized English, “My sympathy to you and your family.”
Saro couldn’t comprehend a word he said. Shaking his head, he told the man in Sicilian, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
“Ah, but you’re a paisano.” The little man’s manner changed immediately. He shook his hand warmly, and became less obsequious and more open.
“I’m from Sicily, from Salemi. I wanted to ask, wasn’t there a barbershop here?” Saro handed him the form that the man with the big belly had given him at the port.
“And I’m from Messina; we’re practically neighbors.” The little man peered at the sheet of paper. “Oh, Ciancianna sent you. Fine, fine . . .” He looked him up and down. “Are you a barber?”
Saro nodded.
“All right, let’s not waste time. We’ll put you to the test right now.” He turned and motioned Saro to follow him.
The man led him into the back of the shop and then down a long corridor with doors on either side before finally entering a large, cold, dark room that smelled of formaldehyde. He switched on the light, and Saro saw three marble tables. The dead bodies of a very old woman and a middle-aged man, both naked, were lying on two of the slabs.
“Do they upset you?” the little man asked.
“Well, they don’t look too good,” Saro said ironically.
“Did you know that after death a person’s beard and hair continue to grow? Would you be able to trim and shave the men and fix up the women? Maybe put a little makeup on them? Some lipstick and powder? Of course, you would also have to dress them for the viewing by the relatives.”
“I can give it a try.”
The little man walked over to a small wheeled table that held the tools of the trade: scissors, razors, brushes, combs, and cosmetics. “Okay, get to work. Show me what you can do.”
He left him alone, and Saro immediately got to work shaving the male.
The funeral director came back after a half hour to check what Saro had done so far. The corpse’s hair was now slicked with brilliantine, and his face was shaven and fresh. Saro had also had time to apply a little powder to him, to conceal the ashen hue typical of cadavers. The little man seemed satisfied with the young fellow’s work.
“Okay, you’re good; you did very well for the first time. You seem reliable. Follow me, I’ll show you the rest of the place.” He turned off the light, and they walked through the corridor again. “See, these are the rooms where we prepare the dearly departed.” He opened one of the doors along the corridor.
The room was furnished with a bier, two wooden chairs, a large crucifix on the back wall, and several vases in which bouquets of flowers from the preceding funeral were arranged. There were no windows, and the room smelled like a morgue.
“You’ll get used to it, you’ll see. It’s funny how sooner or later we all resign ourselves to death, whereas it’s life we can’t get used to . . .” He closed the door and continued down the corridor. “You’ll prepare the corpses in these rooms. There are six of them. It’s unusual to have six bodies all at the same time. I’ve only had it happen a couple of times, due to score settling in the neighborhood. When war breaks out among the gangs, it’s a boon for us undertakers,” he said avidly.
“This room”—he indicated a door they were passing—“has a window. You can sleep here until you find another place.” Then he pointed to a double door on the other side of the hall. “And that’s the chapel. It’s where we bring the bodies for the relatives to pay their last respects. If they’re Catholics, we leave everything as it is. If they’re members of other faiths, we remove the crucifix and put up whatever they want, okay?” Unlike the other rooms, the chapel was nicely fu
rnished. It had pictures of saints on the walls, a row of chairs, a little altar with a wooden cross, and a small cabinet on the opposite wall. The room was illuminated by light filtering through a stained glass window with an image of the Holy Spirit in the center.
They returned to the back room, which served as an office of sorts. A table littered with papers functioned as a desk and probably also as a place to eat, since a plate with the remains of a meal stood among the papers. After sitting down, the little man came straight to the point: “These are the terms: I’ll give you six dollars a week. But I have to withhold two dollars for the association. You’ll pay me separately for the room, and there too I’ll have to keep twenty percent for the association.”
“What association?”
“You mean you don’t know? The Unione Siciliana. The Sicilian Union. It’s thanks to the unione that we can work in peace. What’s more, we undertakers should be doubly grateful to the unione.”
“Why is that?” Saro asked.
“The unione was created to offer immigrants a decent funeral and a grave on Sicilian soil. Immigrants may accept the sad plight of being a man without a country, but they all long to close their eyes beneath Sicily’s skies. If that’s not possible, since death often creeps up and carries us off without giving us time to prepare for the momentous step, they at least want to be buried back home. The Unione Siciliana is a kind of insurance. Those who join it are guaranteed a decent funeral and a ticket for the return voyage.”
“And if one doesn’t want to enroll in this association? I have no plans to die anytime soon.”
“Oh, so you want the benefits without spending a cent? Tell me, how would you have found a job and a place to sleep, just like that? What do you think, that it’s all a bed of roses here?”
“If those are the terms . . .”
“Either that or”—He made an eloquent gesture—“face the music.”
“I get it. I won’t argue, then.”
“Good, it’s better that way. Work starts at eight and ends at eight. Unless there’s some unexpected overtime. For meals you can fix something in the kitchenette back here. Hurry up and learn English. You’ll see, americano is a cinch. I think I’ve told you everything . . .
“Oh, my name is Enzo Carruba.”
“When do I start?”
“You’ve already started. Now, there are two bodies waiting for you to. Restore them to life.” He smiled at his own joke. “While you prepare the man, I’ll go get a dress for the old woman. So heartrending, these poor people.” He left, still smiling. Saro didn’t know if it was because he was pleased to have found a worker or because he was off his rocker by now.
* * *
At that time, New York was dominated by five major Mafia families.
The Genovese family was the largest and most deeply entrenched in the territory, and could count on three hundred affiliates. It dealt in extortions, contracts, waste collection, the fish market, and control of the ports of Newark, Elizabeth, and Fulton. It had a widespread network of gambling centers, ran the money-lending and drug trades, and had a powerful influence on the masons’ and carpenters’ unions.
The Gambino family had two hundred affiliates. It was involved in gambling, usury, drug trafficking, the recruitment racket, urban solid waste hauling, food products transport, as well as the Teamsters union.
The family of Joseph “Joe Bananas” Bonanno could rely on one hundred affiliates and was active in gambling, usury, drug trafficking, and the slot machines.
The other two families each had about fifty or sixty affiliates.
The Lucchese family operated mainly in New Jersey, with interests in money lending, drugs, extortion, and construction racketeering.
The Colombo family, active in Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island, was involved in gambling and extending loans at exorbitant interest.
From these five families another twenty-six evolved, each of which had jurisdiction over a specific chunk of territory.
It was Charles “Lucky” Luciano who, in the early 1930s, had called for such well-defined territorial areas to put an end to the family wars that had racked the syndicate in previous years. Still, from time to time, it happened that some boss who was overly greedy or too sure of his offensive capabilities overlooked the rules and invaded territories or activities that were not within his jurisdiction.
On the Lower East Side, two minor families, the Sicilian Bontade family and Brian Stoker’s Irish clan, vied for the funeral racket and cemetery plots. The Bontades were better organized, but the Stoker family was more ruthless, having recruited the most vicious criminals from the Bronx and Queens, regardless of whether they were Irish, Puerto Rican, or Polish.
* * *
After several months, Saro had mastered the tasks of shaving, applying makeup, and dressing the corpses, and had acquired a fairly good command of the new language. Events in Salemi seemed far away; there was no place for looking back in America. His only regret had a name: Mena. Her memory remained fresh in his mind.
One morning he was restoring the facial appearance of a young girl whose family wanted her to be attired in the wedding dress that she had not lived long enough to wear. She had arrived from Italy with malaria, but the inspectors at Ellis Island hadn’t noticed it and had granted her a visa. Unfortunately, the disease had already devoured her liver, and she passed away a few weeks after achieving her dream of coming to America and just ten days before her marriage to the man who had asked for her hand, and for whom she had braved the difficult ocean crossing.
Saro was proud of how he had made her up and laid her out. He considered her one of his best works. He had rouged her cheeks, applied lipstick, and powdered her face meticulously to conceal the pallor of death. The long white lace veil spilled over her shoulders onto the gauzy wedding dress.
Saro wheeled the casket, mounted on a trolley, from the makeup room to the mortuary chapel. He threw open the double doors and entered with the coffin, setting it in the center of the room, which had already been decked out with flowers. Shortly afterward, the family and the priest arrived, welcomed by Enzo Carruba.
The girl’s mother and father burst into tears at seeing her so beautiful: she seemed to be still living and breathing. The other members of the family were also moved at the sight of the poor girl. The groom-to-be chose not to attend the ceremony since he had no ties to her, no sentimental bond or familiarity. It had been the parish priest who had decided on their union.
The officiating clergyman gave a brief sermon that did not console the family, and after a half hour of tears and wailing, it was all over. The relatives left the chapel to prepare for the funeral ceremony, orchestrated as only the Italians know how. Enzo Carruba was pleased with himself because everyone complimented him on how he had planned the service and how he had done up the ill-fated girl. The tip was appreciable, and it vanished quickly inside the pocket of the little man’s jacket: that money was not taxable by the racket, unless someone was an informer.
When the family had gone, Saro was left alone with the deceased. He went to the cabinet in the back of the room to get a screwdriver to fasten down the lid of the casket, then proceeded to close it, after glancing one last time at the unlucky bride.
Suddenly he heard someone running down the corridor. He turned and saw a disheveled, panting man with a bushy mustache burst into the chapel, clearly in a panic.
“You have to help me! Stoker’s men are after me. Hide me!” Saro judged from his accent that he must be Neapolitan.
“My padrino will reward you!” the man implored desperately, referring to his godfather. “Save me!”
Moments later, two Irishmen burst through the front door of the funeral home just as the girl’s relatives were leaving. Enzo Carruba, though frightened, tried to block their way.
“Signori—gentlemen—please; there’s a funeral.”
The first of the two Irishmen, who seemed to be in charge—strong as a bull, with short red hair—stopped him wit
h his left hand, while his right hand, hidden in his pants pocket, gripped a semiautomatic pistol. “Who are you?”
“I’m Enzo Carruba,” the undertaker replied, hoping his name would be familiar to him. But evidently Carruba had never buried any of that freckled individual’s relatives, because the Irishman gave him a violent shove, knocking him to the ground.
“Don’t be a hero, and you’ll save us all a lot of trouble. Is there a back door to this place?” Freckles asked.
The little man shook his bald head. A grin lit up the Irishman’s face as he beckoned his buddy to follow him, thinking that he had his prey trapped.
The two began kicking open the doors to the small rooms used for preparing the corpses, but it was as if their quarry had dissolved into thin air. Then they noticed the double doors of the chapel and heard noise coming from inside. Freckles motioned the other man to be on guard. Aiming their pistols, they tiptoed toward the chapel. Freckles shouted an order, and the two thugs hurled themselves inside, ready to shoot.
Saro spun around, raising his hands. In one of them he was gripping his ever-present razor.
“Stop! Don’t move!” Freckles shouted, approaching with caution, while the other man searched the corners of the room looking for their prey. “Drop that razor and move away from there,” he ordered. Saro stepped aside and dropped the razor, truly frightened.
“Don’t hurt me; I’m only doing my job,” he said, trying to appease the overexcited gunman.
Freckles went up to the coffin and, not taking his eyes off Saro, glanced at the purple drape that hung to the floor, hiding the wheels of the trolley. At that point the second man came over and stood on the opposite side of the coffin. Now both were ready to fire. Freckles grabbed the edge of the drape and quickly raised it, aiming the gun under the coffin. But there was no one there. The Irishman continued to look around for a possible hiding place. Except for the chairs, a small cabinet and the casket, the room held no other furnishings.
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