Joe Bruno's Mobsters - Six Volume Set

by Bruno, Joe

  “Over this way, Kid,” Pioggi yelled.

  Before Kid Twist could react, Pioggi put a bullet in his head, killing him instantly. Cyclone Louie stood with his mouth open for an instant, then he started to run for his life. Pioggi and the Five Pointers chased Cyclone Louie, pumping bullets at him at a dazzling rate. Finally, shot five times in the chest and back, Cyclone Louie fell dead as a rock to the pavement.

  Pioggi, still outraged, refused to stop shooting. As luck would have it, Terry showed up seconds later, and just for the fun of it, Pioggi pumped a slug into her hip. Terry fell on top of the dead Kid Twist, but she lived to dance another day.

  As Pioggi jumped into a getaway car, a cop showed up at the scene. Pioggi fired again. This bullet knocked the cop's helmet off his head, but otherwise did him no harm.

  Pioggi finally made his getaway, and he went into hiding, while Kelly contacted Tammany Hall to see if he could negotiate Pioggi a favorable deal.

  A few days later, Pioggi turned himself in and pleaded guilty to manslaughter. He also testified that he had acted completely alone, which was quite disingenuous of him, since scores of people had seen the Coney Island executions.

  Pioggi was sentenced to 11 months in Elmira State Prison. He left the courthouse sneering. “What's 11 months?” Pioggi said. “I could do that standin' on me head.”

  Rodgers, Mary, “The Beautiful Cigar Girl”

  She was known as “The Beautiful Cigar Girl,” but the 1841 murder of 20-year-old Mary Rogers remains one of the most baffling unsolved murders in New York City's history.

  Rogers was a clerk in the upscale John Anderson's Tobacco Shop in downtown Manhattan. She was an amazingly beautiful girl, and famous writers like Edgar Allen Poe, James Fennimore Cooper, and Washington Irving, became her regular customers. Poet Fitz Green-Halleck was so smitten by Rogers, he wrote a poem in Rogers's honor. Many of the top newspaper editors and beat writers were also frequent customers at Anderson's; some just to get a brief glimpse of Rogers's beauty.

  On Sunday morning, July 25, 1841, at a Nassau Street boarding house owned by her mother, Rogers told one of the boarders, her fiancé Daniel Payne, that she was going out for the afternoon to visit her sister, a Mrs. Downing. That night, New York was hit by a severe thunderstorm, and Rogers did not return to the boarding house. Both her mother and Payne figured, that because of the storm, Rogers was spending the night at her sister's house.

  Yet on the next day, Rogers's sister told them that Rogers had never shown up at all, nor had she expected Rogers to visit. Joined by Rogers's ex-fiancé, Alfred Crommelin, they searched the city, but could find no trace of Rogers.

  Unfortunately, this was not the first time that Rogers had disappeared. In October 1838, Rogers's whereabouts were unknown for several days. When she returned, she said she had visited a friend in Brooklyn, even though she had not told her mother, or her employers, of her intentions to do so.

  After Rogers's second disappearance, Rogers's mother placed an ad in the New York Sun daily newspaper, asking if anyone knew “the whereabouts of a young lady, aged 20, last seen on the morning of the 25th, who was wearing a white dress, black shawl, blue scarf, Leghorn hat, light colored shoes, and light-colored parasol.”

  No one responded to the ad.

  On Wednesday, July 28, at Sybil's Cave in Hoboken, New Jersey, three men spotted something floating and bobbing on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. The men jumped in a rowboat, and they quickly rowed to the area where the object was located. When they got there, they found the dead body of a young woman. They tired pulling the body onto the rowboat, but after a few unsuccessful attempts, they tied a rope under the dead woman's chin and rowed toward shore.

  When the coroner examined the body, in addition to severe discoloration all over her once- beautiful face, he found a red mark, the shape of a man's thumb, on the right side of her neck. There were also several marks on the left side of her neck, the size of a man's finger, indicating Rogers had been strangled and her body dumped in the river. Crommelin, after reading the accounts in the newspapers of the body found in the Hudson River, traveled to Hoboken, and he identified the body as that of Mary Rogers.

  Because of her popularity with the press, Rogers's death became front-page news in all the New York City newspapers. Members of the press cast suspicion on her fiancé Daniel Payne, who had told the police, that on the day of Rogers' disappearance, he had visited his brother and had spent the day bouncing to and from several bars and restaurants in New York City. To prove his innocence, Payne produced sworn affidavits from witnesses, saying he was indeed where he said he was on the day Rogers had disappeared.

  The mystery of Rogers's death soon disappeared from the daily newspapers. The New York City police then consisted of motley night-time Watchmen and day-time Roundsmen, who were untrained and lowly paid commoners, with little incentive to solve crimes. These pseudo-policemen decided not to investigate any further, since the body of Rogers was found in New Jersey. The New Jersey police felt Rogers had most likely been killed in New York City and that the murder investigation was not their problem.

  Frederica Loss owned a tavern called Nick Moore's House, near Hoboken, New Jersey, not far from where Mary Rogers's body had been found. On August 25, 1841, two of Loss's young sons, who had been playing in the woods, found various articles of women's clothing, including a handkerchief with the initials “M.R.” on it. Mrs. Loss immediately notified the police of her sons' findings

  This new discovery ignited an investigation by the New Jersey police, since they now decided Rogers had indeed been killed in New Jersey. However, nothing became of the investigation and it soon ended.

  Throughout the years, several criminologists tried to explain who killed Mary Rogers, and why. Yet no credible evidence has ever materialized and no one was ever charged with the crime.

  A year after Rogers's death, Edgar Allen Poe, obviously saddened by the tragedy of “The Beautiful Cigar Girl,” wrote his famous novel, “The Mystery of Marie Roget.” The novel was set in Paris, and it duplicated the events that had occurred surrounding Rogers's death. In the novel, Poe's famous detective, Austin Dupin, concluded that the murderer was a naval officer of dark complexion, who had previously attempted to elope with Marie (Rogers), which explained her first disappearance in 1838. This mysterious Naval officer then killed Rogers in 1841 after she refused to marry him a second time.

  Poe's novel closely mirrored the most credible explanation of Mary Rogers's death, which was put forth by author Raymond Paul in the early 1970s. Paul's theory was that Daniel Payne had murdered Rogers, but not on the Sunday she disappeared (for which Payne had a solid alibi), but on the following Tuesday. Because Rogers's body was still in rigor mortis when she was found, she could not have been dead for more than 24 hours. Rigor mortis starts scant hours after a person dies, but then after 24 hours it gradually dissipates.

  Paul concluded, from the evidence compiled more than 130 years earlier, that Payne had gotten Rogers pregnant, and on Sunday July 25, 1841, he ferried her off to Hoboken to have an abortion. While her mother and former fiancée were looking for Rogers, Rogers was recuperating from the abortion in a Hoboken inn.

  Payne then returned to Hoboken on Tuesday, July 27, to pick up Rogers and bring her back to New York City. When Rogers told Payne she was breaking off their relationship, Paul concluded Payne strangled Rogers, then dropped her body into the Hudson River. Paul also deduced from the circumstances that Rogers's brief disappearance in 1838 was for the same reason: to have an abortion.

  After Rogers's death, Payne started drinking heavily. On October 7, 1841, Payne, after making the rounds of several New York City bars, purchased the poison laudanum. He took the ferry to Hoboken, then went to Nick Moore's House, where he got properly drunk. Soused, Payne staggered, holding a bottle of brandy, to the very spot in the woods where Rogers's clothing had been found.

  There, Payne wrote on a piece of paper, “To the world, here I am on the very spo
t. May God forgive me for my misspent life.”

  Payne put the note in his pocket, drank the laudanum, and washed it down with the brandy. Then he laid down and died.

  The newspapers, and the New York City police, thinking Rogers had been killed on Sunday, for which Payne had an airtight alibi, figured Payne had committed suicide because the love of his life had been murdered. Yet, the police investigation had been so cursory, incomplete, and totally inefficient, they never considered the fact that it was impossible for Rogers to have been killed four days before she was found, because her body was still in the state of rigor mortis.

  Although the murder of Mary Rogers has never officially been solved, her death was not in vain. The complete incompetency of the New York City police force, combined with pressure from an outraged New York City press and populace, compelled the city to totally revamp its policing procedures.

  Starting in 1845, Watchmen and Roundsmen became obsolete, as New York City finally created a police force, comprised of men specifically trained to prevent and investigate crimes.

  Rothstein, Arnold (The Brain)

  Arnold Rothstein was the most notorious gambler of his time; a bootlegger of great proportions and a master-fixer of everything imaginable. Rothstein was so adept at what he did, he reportedly fixed the 1919 World Series.

  Rothstein was born on January 18, 1882, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. His father, Abraham Rothstein, owned a dry-goods store and a cotton processing plant. Rothstein's father, a devout Jew, was also a mover and shaker in New York City politics, and he was called by his friends, “Abe the Just.” Abe Rothstein was so popular with the New York City politicians, in 1919 a dinner was staged in his honor, which was attended by New York Governor Al Smith and Judge Louis Brandeis.

  Yet, young Arnold wanted no part of his father's life. At the age of 15, Arnold began sneaking away from his fancy Upper East Side home to mingle with the fast-moving crowd on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Rothstein loved to gamble, and soon he was a fixture at downtown card and dice games.

  Having limited funds at that age, Rothstein would “borrow” money from his father in outlandish ways. As the Sabbath approached, Abe Rothstein would stash his money and jewelry in a dresser drawer in his bedroom. Young Rothstein, knowing his father's habits, would take the money from his father's drawer, spend all day gambling, then replace the money before sundown. One time, he even stole his father's watch and pawned it. That day, Rothstein won big at poker. Then before sundown, Rothstein redeemed his father's watch from the pawnbroker and put it back into his father's drawer, without his father being any the wiser.

  Rothstein later explained his passion for gambling. He said, “I always gambled. I can't remember when I didn't. Maybe I gambled just to show my father he couldn't tell me what to do. When I gambled, nothing else mattered. I could play for hours and not know how much time had passed.”

  Successful gamblers sometimes make enemies, and Rothstein was no exception. In 1911, several gamblers, he had regularly taken to the cleaners, decided to teach Rothstein a lesson. As good as he was with dice and cards, Rothstein was even better with a pool stick. So his “pals” imported pool shark Jack Conway from Philadelphia to show Rothstein he wasn't the pool player he thought he was.

  After Conway challenged him to a match, Rothstein got to pick the pool parlor in which they would play. Rothstein picked John McGraw's Pool Room, owned by the legendary former manager of the New York Giants. Every known New York City gambler was in the pool room that night, mostly betting against the cocky Rothstein. After Rothstein lost the first match to 100 (probably on purpose), he and Conway engaged in a 40-hour marathon, in which Rothstein won every 2 out of 3 matches they played. During that two-day period, Rothstein won thousands of dollars, and he earned a reputation of being cool and collected under pressure.

  Rothstein's prowess at gambling caught the eye of local politician and a mighty fine crook himself: Big Tim Sullivan. Sullivan hired Rothstein, now called “The Brian” by his associates, to manage his gambling concession at the Metropole Hotel on 43rd Street. That was the big break Rothstein had been waiting for.

  Rothstein parlayed his stint at the Metropole into owning his own gambling joint on Broadway, in the glitzy Tenderloin section of Manhattan. Rothstein's reputation attracted such known gamblers as Charles Gates (son of John W. “Bet a Million” Gates), Julius Fleischmann (the Yeast King), Joseph Seagram (Canadian Whiskey baron), Henry Sinclair of Sinclair Oil, and Percival Hill, who owed the American Tobacco Company. Playing poker, Hill once lost $250,000 in one night to Rothstein.

  In 1919, after Prohibition was enacted, Rothstein became a major bootlegger. He fell in with several young criminals, including Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, both of whom looked up to the classy Rothstein as their mentor. Rothstein made sure all his young Turks made money, by cutting them into every whiskey deal he was involved with. It was during this period, that Rothstein received his second nickname: “The Fixer.”

  Rothstein had sucked up to Tammany boss Charley Murphy, and using Murphy's clout, Rothstein fixed thousands of bootlegging criminal cases. Out of 6,902 liquor-related cases that made it to court, with Rothstein's influence, 400 never made it to trial and an incredible 6,074 were dismissed completely.

  In 1919, through former featherweight champion Abe Attell, several Chicago White Sox baseball players approached Rothstein about fixing that year's baseball World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. It's not clear whether Rothstein actually bankrolled the fix, or turned them down completely. However, what is clear, is that Rothstein bet $60,000 on the Reds, and he pocketed a cool $270,000.

  In 1928, the wear and tear of all his dealings and double-dealings had a severe effect on Rothstein. He started to lose more often than he won at cards. Rothstein's downfall started when he got involved in a marathon poker game, that began at the Park Central Hotel on September 8, and ended on September 12. Among the gamblers involved were Nate Raymond and Titanic Thomson. When the dust settled, Rothstein had lost $320,000 to Raymond and Thomson, which he refused to pay because he claimed the game was fixed.

  On November 4, 1928, Rothstein was eating at Lindy's Restaurant, when he received a phone call requesting his presence at the Park Central Hotel to discuss the payment of his gambling debt. Before he left Lindy's, Rothstein told the waitress, “I don't pay off on fixed poker.”

  Because guns are traditionally not allowed at such meetings, Rothstein gave his gun to an associate to hold until he got back.

  A few hours later, the Park Central doorman found Rothstein slumped over a banister in the hotel.

  “Please call a taxi,” Rothstein told the doorman. “I've been shot.”

  Rothstein was taken to the Polyclinic Hospital with a bullet in his gut. When the police asked him who had shot him, Rothstein replied, “Don't worry. I'll take care of it myself.”

  Rothstein fell in and out of delirium for several days. One afternoon, his estranged wife came to the hospital to see him. Rothstein told her, “I want to go home. All I do is sleep here. I can sleep at home.”

  Rothstein died a few hours later at the age of 46. No one was ever arrested for Rothstein's murder.

  Arnold “The Brain” Rothstein's funeral was attended by every card-shark and gangster in New York City. Lucky Luciano said later about Rothstein, “Arnold taught me how to dress. He taught me how not to wear loud things, how to have taste. If Arnold had lived longer, he could have made me real elegant.”

  Schultz, Dutch (Arthur Flegenheimer)

  Mob bosses come in all shapes and sizes. Some are brilliant. Some are just plain dumb. Almost all are homicidal maniacs. However, only one was a certified lunatic, and his name was Dutch Schultz.

  In 1902, Schultz was born Arthur Flegenheimer to German/Jewish parents in the Bronx. His father abandoned the family at an early age, and young Flegenheimer took assorted jobs, including one at the Schultz Trucking Company. Despite his legitimate work at the trucking company, young Flegenheimer
took up with a gang of crooks, who during Prohibition, did a little illegal importing of hooch (from Canada to New York City) on the side.

  When he was pinched for the first time by the cops, Flegenheimer gave his name as Dutch Schultz, which was the name of the son of the boss of the Schultz Trucking Company. Later, the headline-happy Schultz would tell the press that he changed his name to Dutch Schultz because it fit in the newspaper headlines better than Arthur Flegenheimer did.

  “If I had kept the name of Flegenheimer,” Schultz said. “Nobody would have ever heard of me.”

  Schultz quit the trucking business, and he decided he could make a mint off the Harlem numbers rackets, where it was reported that the locals bet a staggering $35,000 a day. Schultz set up a gang that included crazed killer Bo Weinberg, mathematical genius Otto “Abbadabba” Berman, and Lulu Rosenkrantz, who could kill with the best of them too. Schultz and his crew invited the black gangsters, who ran the numbers show in Harlem, to a meeting. When the black gangsters arrived, Schultz put a 45 caliber pistol on the table and told them, “I'm now your partner.”

  And that cemented the deal.

  Yet Schultz was not satisfied with just making a ton of cash off the Harlem numbers racket. He wanted to make 100 tons of cash; maybe even more. So, he enlisted the genius mind of Abbadabba Berman to rig the Harlem numbers game so that he could achieve his goal.

  The Harlem Age newspaper, instead of using the New York Clearing House Reports for its daily three-digit number, used Cincinnati's Coney Island Race track to determine the winning numbers. The only problem was, Schultz owned that particular race track. So all Berman had to do was go over the thousands of slips bet that particular day, and before the seventh race at the track, he knew which numbers Schultz did not want to win. Then one phone call to the race track, and like magic, the final numbers were altered for Schultz's monetary benefit.