The men coming and going pay no attention. Their minds are no clearer than Coll’s. Coll runs the tips of his fingers across the stubble of his beard. He laments that Charlie Lucky has been caught up in the guinea web right after he freed himself from the likes of Joe the Boss. He resents the Irish who’ve gone along with the Italians and Jews. It’s a crying shame. Coll crawls through the desperation of his wretched life and conceives a new plan.
Big Frenchy is the Siamese twin joined to Owney Madden’s wallet. The right approach to Big Frenchy could put him on the road to recovery. Coll washes the self-pity from his face and calls his boys.
“Meet me for breakfast,” he says, then heads home where he falls into a deep, restless sleep.
When he wakes, in the cold sweat of disorientation, he finds his boys playing cards at the table in the dump of a kitchen he calls home. It is still dark outside.
“I told ya to meet me for breakfast,” Coll says, irritated by the intrusion.
“Ya just didn’t tell us which day,” Fats McCarthy says.
The darkness outside and the heavy coat on his tongue confirm the realization that he has slept through at least one day.
“What time is it?” Coll says.
“It’s two in the morning,” McCarthy says.
Coll rifles a small drawer in the kitchen cupboard then slams it shut. The boys go on with their game, waiting for him to cool down. Coll searches through the small flat, tearing through cabinets and books and small boxes. Half an hour later, he finds what he is looking for, a piece of torn paper with a phone number on it. It calms him.
“Listen up, you mugs,” Coll says, taking a seat at the table. “The way I see it, you gotta look out for your own. Only fools don’t know that much about life. We come to this country for opportunity. There’s a cruel joke for ya. What are we? We’re everybody’s dogs. We labor on the docks and in the factories and what do we get? We get shit; that’s what. Then when we finally get a break, fuckin’ guineas and Jews want to cut us out. ‘Play nice with others,’ Madden says. ‘Don’t go makin’ no trouble.’ Easy for him to say, drivin’ his fancy car and sittin’ on top of the world in Harlem. What makes him any different from us? Why should he have all the breaks while we get none? That’s the question I’m askin’. Well, let him put up a few dollars to help his own. Are you with me?”
The logic is indisputable. The mob ferries across town to a small hotel in Harlem where they huddle around a phone. Coll dials the number on the slip of paper, the number for the Club Argonaut on West 50th and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. His boys, what’s left of them, gather around.
Big Frenchy answers the phone. Coll hangs his head and cops a mournful tone, asks for a rendezvous. “Everything has gone to shite,” he says to Frenchy. “The cops are after me. They missed me but they got my only means of defense against that Jew bastard. If the cops don’t get me the Dutchman will. My life ain’t worth a plugged nickel on the street. I ain’t askin’ for much. Just a fightin’ chance, that’s all. I ain’t got nobody to turn to except you and Owney. You gotta know that. Whadya say?”
The sob story works. Frenchy grabs the pouch that holds the club’s evening take. He counts out a grand and shoves it into an envelope. The pouch goes back into the safe next to the .38 Frenchy keeps for emergencies. He grabs that, too, wipes it clean with his handkerchief, then wraps the .38 and shoves it into his coat pocket.
A young dancer at the club watches the whole thing.
“Ain’t you the big sucker?” she says.
“Yeah,” Frenchy says. “I’m a real saint. Come on, we’ll do our good deed for the night and then we’ll go someplace special.”
She nuzzles the big brute as they slide into the back seat of Frenchy’s Cadillac. The bodyguard joins the driver in the front. But Coll’s boys are on them before they can pull away from the club. Frenchy is dragged from the Cadillac and thrown into the back of Coll’s getaway car. Coll’s driver races up Riverside Drive and heads out of the city to a hideout in Westchester County.
“I got your cash,” Frenchy says to Coll when the commotion ends. “What more do you want?”
“Our piece of the pie,” Coll tells him. “Irish stick together.”
“I ain’t Irish,” Frenchy says.
Frenchy has the face of a boxer, big and round, decorated with a continual snarl. He has the muscle to match, which comes in handy, often, but Frenchy prefers reason.
Coll smirks, “You ain’t no Jew and you ain’t no guinea. I bet you ain’t no Frenchman, either. Where the fuck are you from?”
Frenchy scowls. “What difference does it make to you?”
“You and Owney are real cozy with that Jew bastard.”
“It ain’t like that,” Frenchy says. “There’s rules now. You gotta play by the rules. You wanted in with the Dutchman. Nobody twisted your arm. You want out, you gotta go through channels.”
“Channels!” Coll says. “What the fuck are you talking about? Since when do we have channels?”
“Since now,” Frenchy says. “We all agreed.”
“I didn’t agree. Maybe you didn’t notice, this ain’t no schoolyard. We’re playin’ this my way,” Coll says. “How much you got on ya?”
Frenchy pulls the envelope from his coat pocket and tosses it to Coll. Coll checks the contents and laughs.
“A thousand dollars? I want a hundred grand and I want it in small bills.”
The Mad Dog isn’t just mad anymore, he’s rabid. He leaves Frenchy to contemplate the situation while he gets Madden on the phone.
“I got your boy here,” Coll says. “If you want him back still breathin’, you’ll get me the cash.”
Madden is rattled. He agrees to Coll’s terms and the dropoff Coll has orchestrated. Satisfied with money in hand, Coll releases Big Frenchy and goes his way.
Madden is relieved to see his pal in one piece. But rumors about the kidnapping are circulating around Broadway. He makes a few calls. By Thursday, according to the New York Times, Assistant Chief Inspector John J. Sullivan denies the rumor that Big Frenchy was held for ransom.
“It’s just common sense,” Madden says to Frenchy as he folds the newspaper and lays it on his desk. “Who needs that kind of publicity in this town? Somebody would be grabbing you off the street every other week.”
“The kid doesn’t understand business,” Big Frenchy says. “He’s still livin’ on the street. He’ll never play ball. You know that, don’t you? He crossed the line here. Charlie Lucky won’t stand for it. That’s the way it is now. That’s the change we got on accounta the greaser war.”
Halfway across town, Salvatore Maranzano reads of the incident and pushes Tommy Lucchese for clarification. Lucchese hems and haws. While he possesses a Sicilian pedigree, his parents immigrated to America when he was a boy, barely ten years old. The old ways are not sufficiently entrenched in his thinking as to outsmart an old fox like Maranzano.
“Most likely a kid named Vincent Coll,” Lucchese says. “He’s got a temper and he’s low on cash. He tried to kidnap a radio announcer a little while back. Maybe you read about it. You know the Schultz-Coll beer wars? That’s the kid. Vincent Coll. Irish guy. Hates the Dutchman.”
Maranzano mulls over the implications of this new and promising situation. He trusts Tommy Lucchese, who has been with him since the beginning of the Castellammarese War. It was, after all, the death of Lucchese’s boss that put the war in motion.
“What do you know about Coll?” Maranzano says. “What does he want?”
“Right now, he wants money,” Lucchese says. “A couple of my guys heard him talking to Jack Diamond in a Bronx saloon. He wants to get rid of the Dutchman and maintain a hold on the Bronx beer market.”
“The Irish lack discipline,” Maranzano says.
“They’re tough as nails,” Lucchese says.
“Shifting sands,” Maranzano says. “The Irish have never forged a great empire.”
“They routed the British,” Lucchese says.
>
“A country divided cannot stand,” Maranzano says.
* * *
Charlie and Meyer drop in at the Dutchman’s worn-out saloon surprised to find him sprawled behind his desk reading Al Capone: The Biography of a Self-made Man. The heavy spring of the swivel chair strains as the Dutchman leans back, feet propped on the desk’s edge. Bo Weinberg sits on a dilapidated couch reading the newspaper.
“Picking up pointers?” Charlie says to the Dutchman.
Weinberg comes to attention.
The Dutchman says, “I gotta give the Big Guy credit. He’s had his share of trouble with the Irish. Took the St. Valentine’s Massacre to get things under control. I was just readin’ about Yale, when he got knocked off by them four gunman on accounta double-crossin’ Capone. For all the trouble with the Irish, it’s the Sicilians you gotta watch out for. This part’s all about Aiello. Says a crew slipped out of Brooklyn to take revenge on Lombardo. Brooklyn! All on accounta the Unione Siciliana.”
Meyer says, “You’re big news, Arthur.”
“It’s Coll that’s making the news,” he says. “They write about me because nobody cares about a dumb mick.”
“How about toning down the publicity at least until we deal with this other situation?”
“You don’t run a beer business without breaking a few eggs,” the Dutchman says. “I’ll get Coll sooner or later.”
“Leave it to Madden,” Charlie says.
“The Killer ain’t got the instinct for it no more,” the Dutchman says.
Charlie says, “Leave it to Madden. He knows how to reel Coll in.”
The Dutchman moans, “When are you gonna take care of this other situation? Tell ’em, Bo.”
Weinberg folds his paper and lays it beside him.
“There’s a couple of new guineas running numbers out of a joint on 127th. They got quite an attitude about it, too. Say they’re taking over the Italian numbers and if we have any sense at all, we’ll butt out of their business. Either these knuckle-heads don’t know who they’re dealing with, which is highly unlikely, or they’ve been told to go forth and conquer. They set up shop in the back of a pharmacy on 127th.”
The Dutchman says, “You shoulda taken out that cocksucker when you hit the other greaser.”
Meyer says, “We want things to settle down.”
“You’re too soft, Meyer,” the Dutchman says. “And let me tell you, things ain’t settling down, or ain’t you noticed? Hell, Charlie was there, at the big Bronx meeting, along with half the Italians in town.”
Meyer says, “There are rules, now. Protocol. We’ll take care of the greaser without starting a world war. We don’t need the government trying to take care of it for us. They’re going through New York like they went through Chicago. You of all people should know that. They’re on your back for tax evasion.”
The Dutchman looks at Weinberg.
Weinberg says, “Some of the boys say Caesar’s compiling a hit list.”
Charlie says, “Yeah and everybody in this room is on it.”
The Dutchman says, “You play it too low key, nobody knows you’re the guy in charge.”
Meyer says, “Those that need to know, know.”
The dullness of the Dutchman’s foresight could fill a dozen books. But Meyer wouldn’t need to read them. Life in the ghetto and a decade of Prohibition has been education enough.
Charlie says, “We’ll move on Maranzano when the time is right. In the meantime, work with Madden on the Coll problem.”
The Dutchman curls back into his chair and opens his book.
“This greaser in Brooklyn ain’t your only problem. Coll might be gunning for me but don’t think he don’t know that you’re the one calling the shots, Charlie. Maybe him and that greaser have teamed up to take us all out. One hand washes the other. Vincent Coll gets the beer business in the Bronx and the Sicilian gets Manhattan. I’d watch my back if I was you.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” Charlie says. “Have we got your cooperation?”
The Dutchman shrugs in reluctant agreement.
Charlie and Meyer hit the sidewalk and make their way up the block to Charlie’s car.
“I’m guessin’ it’s Gagliano’s guys running the numbers. They filter over from the Bronx, push the limits, see what they can get away with. I’m sure they have Maranzano’s blessing for this whole thing. I’ll talk to him.”
Charlie and Meyer have been working the undercurrent of discontent that runs through the foundation of Salvatore Maranzano’s grand Sicilian dream. More than one guy in the neighborhood is restless over Maranzano’s rise to power. Ciro Terranova still wants revenge for the death of his nephew. Tommy Lucchese and Tommy Gagliano bought into Maranzano’s dream but Maranzano’s death tirade at the Bronx meeting has them thinking. Joe Profaci never wanted war in the first place but he was nonetheless happy when Joe the Boss disappeared.
Maranzano argued Julius Caesar’s position that “war gives the right to the conquerors to impose any condition they please upon the vanquished.” The vanquished, who seemed to include all those gathered in the Bronx hall, were stunned into silence. Maranzano had praised them as the victors, then levied a host of dos and don’ts that choked the life right out of the victory celebration.
A lot of the old greasers died in the Castellammarese War and that’s fine with the Americanized guys. In spite of Maranzano’s chest beating, Charlie Luciano is looking more like the de facto victor. The Tenderloin belongs to him, a fact that has Caesar scheming.
“He wants to wipe out the opposition,” Meyer says.
“Opposition to his taking over as capo di tutti capi,” Charlie says. “War of liberation my ass. This incurs death, that incurs death. Who is he to set the rules for me?”
“He thinks he can stop the killing by decree,” Meyer says. “There has to be equality among the families.”
“That won’t stop the killing either,” Charlie says.
Meyer agrees. “But you can keep them from meddling in the business of other families. That’s what the Commission should do. Those that won’t go along with the plan have to be removed.”
“But you said it yourself, you can’t kill everybody.”
“Guys that get a pass will think twice before causing trouble,” Meyer says. “Maybe by then things will settle down in New York and we can get on with business.”
“That’ll be the day,” Charlie says.
* * *
Maranzano sits in the back seat of his armored Cadillac and ruminates about all the little mobs around the city, a million little fingers that hold the Big Apple in a death grip. Joe Valachi is driving. They’re approaching 107th Street when a shot rings out. Valachi ducks and looks around. He swings the car wildly, rushing away from the gawkers and nearly runs headlong into Central Park. He slides through the intersection onto 108th Street as a sedan races past him.
The next day, in a safehouse in Brooklyn, Maranzano reads the newspaper account of the near miss. “A bookmaker’s feud,” the newspaper calls it. The gunfire injured four children and killed another.
It takes the police two weeks to narrow their attention to Vincent Coll as the likely culprit. By then, the Mad Mick is being referred to as the Baby Killer. A nationwide manhunt ensues. The Baby Killer is wanted dead or alive.
With a sigh of relief, Salvatore Maranzano returns to his Grand Central office to carry on the business. He calls Tommy Gagliano to a meeting. Tommy walks beneath Mercury, Minerva, and Hercules into Grand Central, the busiest terminal in the country. Gagliano looks up at the painted ceiling with glowing gold-leaf constellations of the night sky. He blends into the hustle and bustle of commuters. Shards of light filter through the tall, arched windows and create a godlike presence in the Main Concourse. The magic works. Gagliano is infused with determination as he makes his way to Maranzano’s office.
Maranzano invites Gagliano in and closes the door to his private space. A large oak desk dominates the room. Behind him are book
cases filled with classical literature and historical books. One glance at the tomes tells whoever cares to know that Maranzano is a well-educated student of history.
“What do you think of Charlie Luciano?” Maranzano says.
The question comes out of left field.
“He’s always been fair and square,” Gagliano says.
“Yes, but what of his ties with Jews?”
Gagliano ponders the question. His reputation as the Quiet Don appeals to Maranzano’s stoic sensibilities. With one eye on preserving his foothold in the Bronx and the other on what Maranzano might have in mind for the powerful Luciano, he considers his reply judiciously.
“It is always best to stick with your own kind,” he says. “I have no immediate problem with Charlie. Are you concerned about his loyalty to Cosa Nostra?”
“Let us not be naive,” Maranzano says. “This is a man who would kill his boss to advance to the forefront.”
Maranzano’s point is well taken.
“You offered him amnesty,” Gagliano says. “I assume he wanted Joe the Boss dead as much as anyone else.”
“You have interests in the Bronx. What is your position on the beer war?”
“It doesn’t impact me one way or the other,” Gagliano says.
“And Charlie Luciano?”
“He’s more with the whiskey distribution,” Gagliano says.
“But the Jews are tight, are they not? And there is a Jew in Harlem working the Italian lottery. We can use the situation in the Bronx to further our own business.”
Gagliano is no fool. He has endured the murder of two bosses, Tom Reina and Joseph Pinzolo, and come out on top, which is exactly where he intends to stay. Does Maranzano intend to just fan the war or engage in it? If he engages, the Jews are unlikely to stand by and watch.
“Any publicity is bad publicity,” Gagliano says. “On the other hand, the beer war draws attention away from us.”
His answer pleases Maranzano who struts around his office like a peacock in spring. Gagliano recalls Caesar’s decrees: The capo’s word is indisputable. Death is the penalty for not obeying your caporegime. He need not wonder if the decree extends to Caesar’s word. The look in Maranzano’s eyes says it all.
A Bloody Business Page 48