by Bruno, Joe
First, Luciano lured Masseria to the Nuova Villa Tammaro Restaurant in Coney Island. As Bugsy Siegel, Vito Genovese, Albert Anastasia, and Joe Adonis rushed into the restaurant to finish off Masseria, Ciro Terranova sat outside at the wheel of the getaway car. When the killers emerged triumphantly, Terranova, his knees knocking, was unable to get the car into gear.
Annoyed and disgusted, Siegel pushed Terranova aside and drove the getaway car himself.
When the news got back to Luciano about Terranova’s lack of courage, he banished him from the mob. Terranova became a pariah in New York City crime circles and was unable to earn enough money to eat a decent meal. Soon, whatever money Terranova ran out, and he died a broke and a broken man on Feb. 20, 1938.
As for Saietta and Joe Morello, even though they were sentenced to 30 years and 25 years in jail, respectively, by the early 1920s they were both out on the streets, causing murder and mayhem again.
There is some disagreement as to how it actually came down, but in 1920 Joe Morello, having served only 10 years of a 25-year sentence, was released from prison. There were reports that as early as 1911, Morello had tried to cut a deal with the government in exchange of information about the murder of New York City Police Lieut. Joseph Petrosino. However, there is no concrete evidence to back up this theory, but the fact remains, Morello was released from prison early for no stated reason.
After first trying to gain control of the rackets again and failing, Morello, like Ciro Terranova, joined the forces of Joe “The Boss” Masseria. Masseria, knowing Morello was a capable and willing killer, made Morello his bodyguard and a top captain in his crew.
Unfortunately for Morello, he got caught in the crosshairs of the Castellammarese War.
On Aug. 15, 1930, while Morello was counting money in an apartment at 352 East 116th Street with two other mobsters, Sebastiano Domingo, known as “Buster from Chicago” and another unnamed assassin burst into the apartment and began firing their guns. Morello’s two confederates were killed instantly. But “The Clutch Hand” would not go down without a fight.
Three decades later, Mafia turncoat Joe Valachi said “Buster from Chicago” had once told him, “Morello was tough. He kept running around the office, and we had to give him a few more shots before he went down.”
In all, it took eight bullets to send Giuseppe Morello into the hereafter; mostly likely downstairs, where there is plenty of fire and no air-conditioning.
*****
With a little help from the United States government, Ignacio “Lupo the Wolf” Saietta lasted a few years longer than Morello. In 1920, even though he had been sentenced to 30 years in prison, Saietta was somehow released on parole from a federal prison in Atlanta, Ga. Soon afterward, United States President Warren G. Harding commuted the remaining 20 years of Saietta’s sentence, on the condition that Saietta never return to a life of crime. Considering Saietta’s past, that condition was so ridiculous it deserves no comment.
However, there is also no proof that President Harding ever received any benefits, monetary or otherwise, for releasing Saietta into society.
Right out of the pen, Saietta tried to insinuate himself back into the New York City Italian mob. However, Saietta’s methods were predicated so much on violence, Joe “The Boss” Masseria - unlike when he accepted Morello into his fold with open arms - banished Saietta to Brooklyn, where Masseria allowed Saietta to run a small Italian lottery.
However, “Lupo the Wolf” was hungry for more money. As a result, he decided to run a “baker’s union scam,” whereby he forced all the bakers in Brooklyn to join his union, or else.
In 1936, when Saietta had reached the age of 60, his little extortion racket came under the scrutiny of Brooklyn District Attorney William F. X. Geoghan. Geoghan got a copy of Saietta’s pardon agreement with President Harding, which said only the President of the United States could cancel the agreement if Saietta returned to the rackets.
As a result, Geoghan, through New York Gov. Herbert Lehman, wrote a letter to then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt which said, “I am sending you an application for the revocation of the commutation of the sentence of Ignazio Saietta, alias ‘Lupo the Wolf.’
“I am exceedingly interested in this case. A few months ago I received a letter (the identity of the writer of that letter was not given out) that Italian people engaged in the bakery business were being intimidated by ‘Lupo the Wolf.’
“Of course, I know you agree with me that it is disgraceful that men of the type of Ignazio Saietta are permitted to carry on their pernicious activities for years and years. If it is at all possible in the powers vested in you, I would most earnestly urge the commutation of the sentence of Lupo be revoked. And that he be deported from the country.
“After an examination of the application I feel confident that you and the Attorney General of the United States will readily wish to cooperate.”
This letter led to “Lupo the Wolf’s” goose being finally cooked.
After examining the evidence, President Roosevelt signed a warrant that permitted Detective Edward Murphy of the Bath Beach precinct to arrest Saietta at his residence at 7316 15th Avenue in Brooklyn.
Saietta violently protested his arrest, “shaking his white mane violently,” and claiming his innocence. Nevertheless, Saietta was taken to the Federal House of Detention, and seven hours later, handcuffed to two Federal marshals, he was deposited on a train at Penn Station - destination: the Atlanta Federal Prison to serve out the rest of his sentence.
Saietta was released from prison in December of 1946, but he died from natural causes less than a month later.
Lupo the Wolf’s death removed the last remnants of the Black Hand from the American soil they had so brutally sullied with the blood of mostly innocent men.
This brings us to:
The Boys from Brownsville
They started out as punk kids looking to make a small score anyway they could. However, the Boys from Brownsville advanced to being the right arm of Murder Incorporated; the most blood-thirsty organization in the history of America.
In the early 1920’s, the Shapiro brothers controlled the illegal activities in the Brownsvile section of Brooklyn with an iron fist. Meyer was the second-oldest, and he ran the show. Nothing was beneath Meyer, and he once claimed he owned 15 brothels in Brownsvile, with no partners except his brothers to share in the proceeds.
“I’m the boss of Brownsville,” Meyer said to anyone who doubted his clout.
Irving was the oldest Shapiro brother; not as bright or as tough as Meyer, but still considered the second-in-charge. Willie was the youngest of the three - not too bright and not too tough - not a good combination in the mean streets of Brownsville. Willie was basically considered a joke and lucky to have been born into the Shapiro family.
Besides running broads, the Shapiro brothers cornered the market in Brownsville on illegal booze and illegal slot machines. To continue to operate untouched, Meyer was smart enough to pay tribute to the bigger mob bosses from the other parts of Brooklyn (Meyer didn’t consider them partners; just the cost of doing business).
“We got everything straightened out our way,” Meyer told his brothers. “As long as we stay in our own backyard, we’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Then, a young street punk named Abe “Kid Twist” Reles began having ideas.
Reles’s father, Abraham, was an Austrian Jew; a humble man who had come to America to seek a better life. Upon his arrival in the “Mountain of Gold,” Abraham Reles supported his family by doing piece work in Manhattan’s Garment Center. Soon, he had saved enough money to start his own business - selling knishes on the streets of Brooklyn with his mobile stand, which Abraham Reles pushed from street corner to street corner looking for the busiest spot.
Abe Reles was a stocky 5-foot-2-inch menace with the large and powerful hands of a 6-footer. He abhorred his father’s honorable way of life. Reles quit school after the eighth grade and went to work as a gofer for the
Shapiros. The Shapiros used Reles for the most menial of tasks; running errands and sometimes keeping an eye on one of the many Shapiro-brothers-owned slot machines.
One day, Reles took a bullet in his back while minding a Shapiro slot machine (a mere flesh wound), but this got Reles to thinking.
He told his childhood pal Martin “Buggsy” Goldstein, “Why do we have to take the leftovers? We should cut a piece. The hell with those guys.”
(It was about this time that Reles took the nickname "Kid Twist," in honor of a previous New York City Jewish mobster named Max "Kid Twist" Zwerbach, who was killed in front of a Coney Island dance hall in 1908. Ironically, both Kid Twists met their end in Coney Island.)
Reles was the pied piper, and Goldstein was his follower. Whereas Reles was a tough runt who could kill with the best of them, the hulking Goldstein was the definition of street muscle. Reles snapped his fingers, and Goldstein jumped to attention and did what Reles told him to do. Reles decided that he and Goldstein should go into business for themselves; nothing big, maybe a few slot machines and a single brothel for starters.
However, Reles knew the Shapiros had too many men on the street and that he needed to make alliances with other street toughs in order to bring his plans to fruition. Reles told Buggsy they should pay a little visit to Happy and the Dasher.
Harry “Happy” Maione and Frank “Dasher” Abbandando were two Italian good-for-nothings who headed the “Ocean Hill Hooligans,” a ruthless street gang which ran the bookmaking and loansharking operations in Ocean Hill, Brooklyn, which was adjacent to Brownsville. Maione, the elder of the two, was the boss; Abbandando was his second-in-command.
“Dasher” got his nickname because he had been a dashing baseball player for the Elmira Reformatory where he had spent most of his youth. In fact, people said the hulking Abbandando could have been a hell-of-a professional baseball player if that had been his bent. The movie-star-handsome Dasher also had a slight problem with women: he enjoyed raping them. Years later, as he awaited his murder trial, Dasher admitted he had participated in dozens of rapes, but he denied one rape in particular.
“That one didn’t count,” Dasher said. “I married her later.”
Dasher’s usual mode of murder was the ice pick, because, “It didn’t make too much noise.”
Happy Maione was short and mean, with beady eyes that seemed to bore a hole into the forehead of the person he was berating. In fact, Happy was called “Happy” because a smile rarely crossed his protruding lips.
Once, in order to kill someone who Murder Incorporated said needed to go, the slender Maione dressed up as a sexy woman and knocked on the apartment door of his mark (after removing the light bulb in the hallway, of course). The sucker eyed what he thought was an attractive dame in the peephole of his door (for once Maione was smiling; his fake eye-lashed eyes were fluttering too). As a result, the mark opened the door with the glee of a schoolboy on his first date. As soon as the door flung open, Maione and his accomplice dotted the victim with several bullet holes.
Abe Reles figured mean thugs like Happy and the Dasher would be swell partners in a takeover of the Brownsville rackets. He approached the Dasher first.
“How about we get together for a little bookmaking?” Reles told the Dasher. “We could handle some betting; you here, and me and Buggsy in Brownsville.”
The Dasher was not too sure this was the right thing to do.
“I don’t know. Me and Happy are okay here,” the Dasher said. “And what about those Shapiros? They won’t like it.”
“Let me worry about those bums,” Reles said. “I’m for Kid Reles from here on in.”
Reles set up a meeting between himself and Buggsy, and Happy and the Dasher. Reles got right to the point.
“Those bums can be taken,” Reles told Happy.
Happy was willing to listen, but not too eager to join forces.
“What’s on your mind?” Happy said.
“Listen, if we put a mob together we could take everything over,” Reles said.
Happy was still unconvinced. “Look, I’m the boss of Ocean Hill, and I get left alone. Why should I stick my neck out?”
“You throw in with us, and we all move in,” Reles said.
“Where do I fit in if I do?” Happy said.
“Simple,” Reles said. “We take care of the Shapiros; then we take over. Everything goes into the pot: Brownsville, East New York, Ocean Hill – everything. Then we cut down the middle.”
Happy, who secretly hated Reles (and he knew Reles hated him, too), told Reles he’d think about it.
Happy then approached his mentor, Louis Capone, about Reles’s proposition. Capone (no relation to Al Capone) was ostensibly a Brooklyn restaurateur, but was, in fact, a big-time gangster with close ties to Mafioso like Joe “Adonis” Doto and Albert “The Lord High Executioner” Anastasia. Capone was knee-deep in loan-sharking and was also a force in several labor union rackets.
New York City District Attorney William O’Dwyer once told the New York Times, “Capone had his fingers dipped in every dirty crime committed by the organized crime gangs. He was the contact between lesser lights like Reles, Straus, Maione, and Goldstein, and bosses like Anastasia and Buchalter (Louie Lepke). But he was not a real head of the mob.”
Happy figured if Capone gave his blessing for a marriage between Happy and Reles, it must be the right thing to do. So Happy laid out Reles’s plan to Capone.
Without hesitation, Capone told Happy. “It sounds real good, Hap.”
Capone even convinced Happy to take in another Capone protégé, Vito Gurino, a 5 foot-6-inch, 265-pound ox, who could kill someone as easily as eating a meatball sandwich. This gave the Reles-Maione crew one more valuable assassin in their war against the Shapiros.
So the alliance was made, and Abe Reles’s and Happy Maione’s gangs merged into one formidable group of killers. The Shapiros had a few proficient gunslingers of their own, but with the addition of his new torpedoes, the tide seemed to be turning in Reles’s favor.
*****
Word spread quickly around Brownsville about Reles’s and Maione’s ambitions, and Meyer Shapiro was not too happy.
“Brownsville belongs to us,” Meyer told his brothers. “Nobody moves in here.”
Reles’s first order of business was to approach a young punk named Joey Silvers (Silverstein), who was one of the dupes the Shapiros used for their small stuff. Reles paid Silvers, and he paid him well, to tip off Reles whenever there was an opportunity to ambush the Shapiros and kill all three brothers in one place at one time. Soon, Silvers contacted Reles and told Reles that all three Shapiros were holed up in a gambling house and would be leaving shortly, making them naked to a sneak attack.
Not having time to assemble the rest of the crew, Reles and Buggsy brought along a new confederate named George DeFeo. When they arrived at the gambling house, sure enough, the Shapiros’ car was parked right out front. Reles’s plan was to icepick the tires and then nail the Shapiros as they approached their car.
However, before Reles could even pull out the icepick, the Shapiros opened fire from the safety of the house. Buggsy took a bullet in his nose, and Reles absorbed another one in his stomach. DeFeo was shot dead instantly.
Reles and Buggsy made it to safety, and with the help of a mobbed-up doctor, they slowly licked their wounds and began figuring out how to take out Silvers for his betrayal, along with the Shapiros.
However, Reles had underestimated the depravity of Meyer Shapiro.
One cool autumn night, Meyer Shapiro jumped into his jalopy, and he scanned the streets of Brownsville looking to hurt Reles where it hurt most: below the belt. He spotted the pretty young thing while she was window shopping at a local clothing store.
She was the 18-year-old girlfriend of Abe “Kid Twist” Reles.
Shapiro swerved his car to the curb, and before the girl knew what was happening, she was in Shapiro’s car, kicking and screaming, but no match for a hardened thug like
Shapiro.
Shapiro drove with one hand, and with his free hand he slapped and punched the girl into submission.
Then Shapiro sped to a secluded area on the outskirts of Brownsvile, and he raped Abe Reles’s girlfriend. And if that wasn’t enough, as an added message, Shapiro pummeled the young girl’s face with both fists, as if she were a man.
After the young girl’s face was a grotesque mask of blood, bumps, and bruises, Shapiro opened the passenger door and kicked her to curb. She lay there for a while, and then she dragged herself to her feet and staggered back to Brownsville.
She told Reles what had happened, and her swollen face told everything.
Reles was incensed; women were off limits.
Reles slowly plotted his revenge.
Reles’s first order of business was to recruit another strong-arm for his crew. He picked a dilly in Harry “Pittsburgh Phil” Strauss, destined to be the most deranged killer in the history of Brownsville, if not in the entire United States of America.
Strauss, who had never been to Pittsburgh (he just liked the name), was called “Pep” by his friends. It was later said Strauss liked committing murder so much (it was reported he killed anywhere from 100 to 500 people), he often volunteered for murder contracts because, as District Attorney William O'Dwyer once said, “Just for the lust to kill.”
Strauss was a connoisseur in the art of killing. He used whatever weapon available, but his favorites were the ice pick (like his compatriot Dasher), and a length of rope, which Strauss used to truss up his victims backwards from ankles to throat, and then let them linger there as he watched them strangle themselves to death.
Reles later said, “When we got Pep it was like we put on a whole new troupe.”
Reles also recruited a nasty Irish killer named Seymour “Blue Jaw” Magoon, who got his moniker from the fact that he had a five o’clock shadow all day long.
Healed from his wounds, Reles called for a meeting with Happy and both crews.