by Phil Growick
“It’s good we’re gonna get those guys now. By tomorrow, we’ll have to attend Mr. Rothstein’s funeral, if they let him be buried like he’s supposed to be,” Lansky said. “Ain’t no use in any of us stayin’ away as the cops know we all worked for him.”
All in the first car agreed.
It was early afternoon when the cars pulled up in front of Rusty’s, a bar on West Farms Square in the Bronx that was Malone’s headquarters. It flourished because it sat on a terminus of trolley cars, buses, an American equivalent to our underground called a subway, and only a few minute walk to one of the world’s truly great nature attractions, the Bronx Zoo. The lithe Bronx River ran along the exterior rear of Rusty’s.
The men in both cars had either pistols or “Tommy Guns”; so called because they were Thompson submachine guns from WWI. Neither car had any tags or plates of identification.
As Holmes had predicted, Malone and his men were inside drinking, celebrating their killing of Rothstein. They were sloppy and left no guards on the outside.
With almost military precision, all doors swung open and the men from both cars ran into Rusty’s. Malone, his seven men and the bartender were completely surprised and held their hands up in surrender.
“Now nobody is gonnna do nothin’ stupid,” Luciano said. “Guns out, barrel first, and throw ‘em on the floor! Now!”
When one of the men looked as if he was going to do something stupid, Siegel shot him in the head and said, “See what happens when you do something stupid?”
Schultz, Diamond and Reles waved all the men except Malone to the far end of the long, oak bar and stood there with their Tommy Guns on the remaining six, including the bartender. Malone remained at mid-bar. Buchalter remained at the front doors, watching.
Luciano walked slowly over to Malone with Siegel, Lansky and Capone right behind.
Malone was the same age and height and had the same ferocity as Luciano, but he didn’t have one tenth the brains. Luciano could see the fear in Malone. But Malone didn’t think he was showing it.
“So whaddayagonna do now, Charlie? That Jew ya worked for is dead. Why not join up with me and the guys and we can own this town?” Malone asked.
“I’m Jewish, too,” yelled Siegel and he shot Malone in the knee. Malone crumpled. His men made a slight move but Schultz, Diamond and Reles just waved their Tommy Guns and the men moved back.
As Malone lay on the floor howling in pain, Capone kicked him in the wound and said, “We ain’t even yet.”
Luciano then walked over to the men at the end of the bar.
“T’ hell with ya, ya dago piece of garbage,” said one of the men.
“See what I mean about doin’ stupid’ stuff. Now, how the hell stupid do ya have t’ be t’curse me out with me and my guys havin’ guns on ya and you got your brains up your ass?” Luciano asked.
Capone had come over. “Dago piece a crap, did ya say?” Capone shot him in the testicles. The other men recoiled and grabbed their own in reflex. Capone then gave a nod of the head to Schultz, Diamond and Reles who, with their Tommy Guns, dispatched the other men quickly, professionally, and with no wasted bullets. Diamond stood far enough back so that no blood would spatter his spats. He was unsuccessful.
This left only Malone, still on the floor and still howling in pain.
“Oh gee whiz, Numbers; you’re bleedin’ all over the nice floor and screechin’ like one of your freakin’ banshees. You’ll wake up the whole damn neighbourhood.
“I know, you need to cool off. How about I take ya for a swim? Would you like that, Numbers?”
With that, Siegel dragged Malone by the neck of his jacket to the back of Rusty’s, opened the back door and then dragged Malone down the rocky, little hill to the Bronx River.
“See, Numbers? You’re gonna cool off. Forever.”
Siegel turned Malone upside down so his head was in the water and he held his head down until Malone had, indeed, cooled off forever.
Siegel then joined the others and they went back to Manhattan.
In Capone’s apartment, Holmes had no idea of the savagery he had unwittingly unleashed. He would learn more, however, with time and become more inurned to it; drifting farther into a persona from which it might be impossible to disengage.
Upon their return, Luciano, Lansky and Siegel began to formalize their new partnership with Holmes; Capone would be leaving for Chicago in a few days and whatever his three colleagues decided was fine with him. He knew he’d get what he was due.
“Hey, Meyer, count good,” Capone said as a fond goodbye when he finally left for Chicago.
With Capone gone and many of his men with him, Luciano, Lansky and Siegel had to come to grips with the power vacuum left by Rothstein’s death; and if not handled properly, would most certainly lead to their own. There were much larger fish than Numbers Malone befouling the filthy waters of the Hudson and the East River.
Salvatore Maranzano and Giuseppe Masseria were the biggest of these fish. While these names remain unknown to most outside of the United States, to New Yorkers of this period, the names literally were equated with evil and death.
With Rothstein gone, the old “Mustache Petes”, as they were referred to by Luciano and other young gangsters on the rise, would soon begin a war to divide Rothstein’s territory and to enlist his young mobsters into their ranks.
After all, they reasoned, more territory needed more soldiers to protect it. Then you needed more soldiers to conquer more territory and to hold that territory. Ad nauseum. The Roman emperors had taught these men too well.
It was called the Castellammarese War because both Masseria and Maranzano had emigrated from that region in Sicily. And it was fought brutally and with no quarter. Right on the streets of New York.
Luciano, Lansky and Sigel, though very smart and very tough, did not have the numbers to overtly challenge either Maranzano or Masseria; even with Diamond, Schultz Buchalter and Reles. So they began to quietly gather other young mobsters who wanted no part of the Mustache Petes and who would gladly ally to eliminate Masseria and Maranzano.
The young Sicilian immigrants who fell in with Luciano would all to go on to criminal infamy: Carlo Gambino, Albert Anastasia, Frank Costello, Vito Genovese, and Joe Adonis, to name a few.
Yet in the midst of the war, Holmes continued the planning with his new business partners and tried not to become directly involved.
It was at an intense planning session between Luciano, Lansky, Siegel and Holmes, on how the spirits were to be delivered from Scotland to America that Lansky suddenly changed the topic.
Lansky said, “John, over the last few months, getting to know you and see how you think, and how you helped us with Malone, we agree that you think like Mr. Rothstein and not too many people could do that.” Luciano and Siegel nodded assent.
Luciano spoke next. “What Meyer is saying, is that with what we have going on, and which could hurt our business arrangement with you, we want you to be our consigliere.”
“I beg your pardon,” Holmes said.
Siegel said, “You know, our counselor. Like Meyer said, you got brains. You’re like Mr. Rothstein was, may he rest in peace.”
Lansky continued, “We need someone to trust as we go to war with them guys. Someone we can plan strategy with and bounce ideas off of, if you know what I mean.”
“A consigliere is a very special person in our thing. He’s the one who can see all the angles and help us play the right one,” Luciano said.
“I see,” said Holmes. And knowing that he could not refuse such an important request without fear of suspicion and then, perhaps, worse, he said, “Gentlemen, I am truly honoured that you hold me in such high regard and I solemnly accept your offer.”
“Good, it’s settled,” Luciano said and all three men rose from the table to shake
hands with Holmes.
“Imagine that, a limey consigliere. It’s like a Hebe Pope,” said Siegel.
“Crude, but true. Welcome,” Meyer said.
“C’entanni,” Luciano said. “To a hundred years, John.”
“Yeah, right. We should live so long,” said Siegel.
And with what was to happen to Luciano in the midst of the Castellammarese War, that statement proved preternaturally prescient.
Reilly Leaves London
After Reilly had regained his composure, and with assistance of some brandy, he looked at me and said, “A son. I never imagined that I’d be a father. Not with my life. Never. And tell me again, Tatiana, she’s completely all right?”
“Yes, yes. As a doctor and as a friend, when I left her and the family she was fine.”
“My God, where are they? Are they in London? Where are they?” He was practically shaking me.
“Calm down, Reilly, calm down. No, they’re not here. They’re in the Bahamas. On the island of Eleuthera.”
“I haven’t heard of it.”
“Don’t worry, it’s a beautiful place. I was with them for about a year. And, I must tell you, I’m the one you have to thank for spanking your namesake into the world.”
“You, you were the doctor for Tatiana?”
“Well, of course. Who the dickens did you think? The bloody head of the Royal Medical Society?”
“No, no, I meant that I couldn’t be happier that Tatiana and the baby were in your hands. They couldn’t have been safer.”
“Quite true, quite true. Now compose yourself further because Elizabeth will most certainly be here shortly to see just what has become of me. I’ll simply introduce you as an old and dear friend from the army, a comrade I haven’t seen in years.”
“Perhaps you can choose a word other than ‘comrade’, doctor.”
“Yes, yes. Of course.” And they both laughed just as Elizabeth knocked at my study door.
After Elizabeth satisfied herself as to my safety and saw how sincerely happy Reilly and I were, she left us in peace once again with a twinkling, “Please don’t get too rowdy. We wouldn’t want to disturb our nice neighbours, now, would we?”
I then began to relate all that happened to me and Holmes and the Romanovs after Reilly had taken leave of us in Russia.
I told him of our voyage to the island, of our becoming settled and happy, of the hurricane, of the birth of baby Sidney, and of everyone’s health when I departed on the fifth of July. It seemed so long ago, but had only been less than a month since I left Eleuthera.
Then, after a very deep breath, I told him of the supposed death of Holmes and Yardley and Preston, their homeward-bound ship supposedly sunk by the Germans. I told him of the visit of the man with the red beard and what he had told me: that “they” whoever “they” are, had Holmes in their captivity and if I wrote of his last great adventure serving his King and country in the Great War, Holmes would remain alive. If not, he would disappear “like coins the hands of a cheap magician.”
I told him of the killing of Newsome, of my direct meeting with Lloyd George. I told of my meeting with Clay who had gone off to discover if Holmes was still alive, and of my promise to dramatize Clay’s own death at the hands of disgruntled henchmen, which I did in “Feet of Clay”, so that he could adopt another identity and be free.
“So Holmes may still be alive somewhere?” he asked.
“I most fervently hope so.”
I then took from one of my desk drawers a sheaf of newspaper clippings I had saved about Holmes’ heroic death and then my own deceitful tale of his death.
Finally, I told of the visit of my smaller nanny who had come to repay a favour Holmes and I had done for his family, by unspooling the web woven by Lloyd George and what I had dubbed “the Black Faction”. But Reilly knew nothing of a red-bearded man and his tale of Holmes still being alive.
Now, spent myself, I said to Reilly, “I’ve told you everything, I believe. But I’ve not the mind to decipher the puzzles that you and Holmes find so elementary. Other than Holmes, I cannot think of another, but you, who I would expect to untangle this Gordian’s knot.”
He said not one word, at first, but sat immobile looking into my eyes. But I saw wheels turning behind them, as I had so often in Russia.
Finally, he spoke. “Watson, while I appreciate my equation with Holmes, our minds work in a very different manner. Holmes’ mind divines the mystery, my mind devises it. I’ve listened very carefully to all you’ve just said, but until I have the time to ponder this at length, I have no answer or assurance of Holmes’ fate to give you.
“However, our government has separate divisions, which, ironically, remain divided in every respect. One will work against the good of the other so that it may be more successful even though it may cost England most dear.
“As you may suspect, I have my resources both within and without, government which I will use to the utmost. But, Watson, as much as I truly wish to aid you about Holmes, I wish to see my wife and baby even more. I’m going to see them first, before anything else.”
And though he immediately saw my desperate disappointment, he heard me quietly say, “I understand. I do.” I then gave him the secret and detailed information he would need to find Tatiana, baby Sidney and the Romanovs at the compound on Winding Bay.
As Reilly left me, with one hand holding hard my right and his other on my shoulder, he said, “John, for the good of your family, if only the loyal, loving hound could but turn into a jackal.”
With that he was gone. And I could not have known at that moment that the faint words of hope he had given me about Holmes were nothing more than gossamer comfort.
I was not to hear from him until he appeared once again at my door, more than two years later.
The Castellammarese War
“To paraphrase Machiavelli, ‘Hold your friends close and your enemies closer’,” said Holmes.
“I ain’tholdin’ nobody close but dollies,” smirked Siegel.
“Will you shuddup and listen to the man,” said Lansky as he playfully hit Siegel in the back of his head.
“Charlie,” Holmes said, “you must meet with Masseria and offer him fealty.”
“Huh?” Siegel asked.
“It means, Benny,” Luciano said, “that I gotta go to Masseria and tell him that we’re all gonna be workin’ for him. We’re gonna be soldiers for him.”
“No way, no way I’m gonna work for that fat, greaseball, dago bag of crap.”
“Calm down, Benny and listen,” Lansky cautioned again.
“Ben,” said Holmes as calmly a parent would when trying to teach a child to obey, “you’re not really going to be working for him. You must make him believe that you and Meyer and Charlie can be trusted. Then, when he’s lulled into false security, he can be dealt with.”
“Dealt with? What’s dealt with?” asked Siegel, only a bit more calmly.
“We can kill him,” Luciano said.
“Now, that I understand. Yeah, I’ll deal with him, all right,” and Siegel pulled out the pistol he had in his pants.
“Put it away, putz,” said Lansky.
“And just how do I convince him that Ben and Meyer and me and the rest of the guys with us are gonna be working for him?”
“Quite simple, really. Bring him a bag full of money. A very large bag filled with money. In ancient times it was called an offering. One gave a valuable gift to prove one’s oath of fealty.”
“Money’s no problem,” said Lansky. “How much do you think we should give?”
“Large enough to wet his appetite and that by working for him, you’ll be able to bring him much more. Now be sure to have your pistols with you. You’ll be searched anyway and if you came without your weapons, they would think something i
s awry. And don’t become alarmed when they rummage through the money in your bag. They’ll just to be sure there are no weapons hidden inside.”
“Can’t you talk English,” said a frustrated Siegel.
“Yes, I can. Can you?” answered Holmes in jest.
But though both Lansky and Luciano expected some usually demented outburst by Siegel, he just reared his head back, slapped his knee and said, “Good one, Johnny, good one.”
“Anything else?” asked Luciano.
“Yes. No matter what he demands of you, agree. Most assuredly he’s going to demand too much. That will be a test. Hesitate, negotiate. If you give in immediately to his demands he’ll know you’re lying; and all three of you might as well dig your graves right there.
“And Ben, though you and Meyer will be separated from Charlie by Masseria’s men, please don’t become worried. They’ll do no harm to him unless Masseria doesn’t believe him. But, of course, Charlie will make him believe him.”
“Done,” said Luciano.
The very next day, Luciano, along with Lansky and Siegel, went to meet Masseria at one of his favorite restaurants, Nuova Villa Tammaro in Coney Island, Brooklyn. Outside the front door, and after all three men were frisked, as the Americans say, by one of Masseria’s guards, Luciano was told to follow him inside to Masseria’s table, but Lansky and Siegel were detained by other guards.
Remembering Holmes’ injunction, Siegel’s only outward sign of discontent was his incessant smoking and an almost involuntary walking in circles. This, however, because of Siegel’s reputation, was looked upon with humor by Masseria’s guards, one of whom muttered under his breath, “Crazy, kike.”
Though both Siegel and Lansky heard the remark, before Siegel erupted, Lansky had grabbed his arm, looked straight into his eyes, as he had hundreds of times before in their young lives, and willed Siegel to calm down and continue walking in his ceaseless circles.
Luciano was walked through what appeared to be the normal Italian restaurant of the day in lower New York. A large dark, oak bar was to the right, with a few small tables with red and white checkered tablecloths to the left. Then they walked through two frosted-glass doors to a private room. There were guards seated at tables to the right and left rear, with a large center table where sat Giuseppe, “Joe the Boss”, Masseria.