The Prince

by Vito Bruschini

  The Stokers would pretend to comply with the shadowy figure, leaving the neighborhood in peace for a time, but Brian decided that they would continue to keep their eyes open and discreetly monitor the territory indicated by the voice on the phone.

  In the weeks that followed, the area adjacent to Tompkins Square seemed reborn. The Stokers, especially Damien, were only occasionally seen around and they had even stopped demanding protection money from the businesses in the district.

  People in the neighborhood began greeting Ferdinando Licata with a certain deference. Even women stood aside to let him pass when he came by. At the fruit and vegetable market, he was allowed to go ahead of everyone, even though he refused the favor and preferred to wait his turn. And Michele, the owner, gave him much of what he bought for the trattoria free of charge, to Nico’s great joy.

  In short, word had it—who knows how such rumors are born—that the neighborhood’s peace was due to his intervention following the robbery at La Tonnara and the kidnapping of his niece’s daughter.

  Licata wasn’t pleased about this, because it put him in the spotlight; he’d much rather have been invisible.

  Ferdinando Licata knew that the Stokers posed a threat to the entire community. The Bontades certainly weren’t loved, either, but at least they had a code of honor that they respected. The Stokers had no rules, and this was not allowed in the Mafia culture. What’s more, he knew that somehow his intervention had not gone unnoticed and that his name was on the lips of everyone in the neighborhood.

  Licata had to confront a conflict within himself that had gone on for a lifetime. But he already knew the answer. He maintained that it was better to dip your hands in blood than in Pontius Pilate’s water.

  He was consumed with finding a way to get rid of the two families or at least the Irish clan.

  * * *

  Dixie was aware of the fact that the Genovese family had a stake in many of the city’s clubs and establishments. The day he and his friends had been forced to return the lemon merchant’s stolen money, he’d had the nerve to ask Sante Genovese to recommend him to the manager of some club where he could play and thus help make ends meet. Sante smiled at the simple request. Because he was an avid frequenter of clubs where swing was played and admired the musicians’ skill, he decided to help the unemployed artist. “At least you’ll leave my businesses alone,” he replied laughing, and he got him an appointment with his friend John Hammond.

  Hammond, a young man of twenty-nine, was already considered a great talent scout in the music world. He knew all the dives and hole-in-the-wall joints where jazz was played. He could recognize a true talent after only three notes. The previous year, he had organized a concert called From Spirituals to Swing at Carnegie Hall, the august temple of classical music. Showcasing all the performers that he thought had something to say in the contemporary music scene, his review was an enormous success.

  Hammond was able to place Dixie in several small combos to test his skills as a trumpeter. One of them was playing on Broadway at the Paramount Theater. On stage, renowned bands alternated with fledgling ensembles but invariably with top-notch musicians.

  The night Dixie made his first appearance, the big band was clarinetist Benny Goodman’s. The group he’d been put in, the Five Brothers, was led by a Sicilian named Giuseppe “Joe” Venuti, a jazz violinist with an open, likeable disposition. Dixie immediately found himself in sync with the man.

  Saro and Isabel, thanks to their acquaintance with Sante Genovese, managed to get two front row seats. It was a gala evening, and they had spent a fortune to rent their outfits. Isabel was dressed in a smooth red silk dress that harmonized perfectly with her hair, which she had swept up in an elegant chignon. The dress had a modest front with a white collar that lent her a schoolgirl appearance, but her back was completely bared by a sexy plunging backline that dipped nearly to her waist.

  For the first time in his life, Saro was wearing a white tuxedo. He felt ill at ease and feared he looked ridiculous, but thanks to his ability to adapt, after just a couple of hours he was sporting it like a second skin.

  Isabel was euphoric. “I feel this will be the night of my life,” she told Saro as they went to their seats.

  “Actually it’s Dixie’s night—if he doesn’t hit a bum note,” her friend said.

  “It’s our night,” the gorgeous redhead replied enigmatically.

  Saro’s heart skipped a beat. “Our?” He wasn’t sure who she meant.

  “Yes, ours: mine and Domenico’s,” Isabel explained, staring at him with those huge blue eyes that sparkled with joy. “I’m going to ask him to marry me.”

  Saro darkened and slumped in his seat. “I thought marriage proposals were made by men.”

  “Maybe in your country. In Ireland, it’s we women who choose.”

  Immediately the image of Mena materialized in Saro’s mind. He had promised her eternal love, but he was irresistibly attracted to Isabel’s northern beauty. Perhaps it was her uninhibited ways that enticed him, whereas Mena was so reticent about her feelings.

  A drum roll called him back to reality. John Hammond appeared on stage and promptly introduced Benny Goodman and his orchestra. The curtain parted, and there was prolonged applause from the audience when Goodman came on after the orchestra’s opening.

  Afterward, other bands and smaller groups took turns. Presented for the first time that evening were the three best boogie-woogie pianists, whom Hammond himself had discovered pounding away on the keys in Harlem dives. They performed a new version of “Honky Tonk Train Blues,” literally making the theater shake. From that night on, a new dance craze exploded across America, and, some years later, the stepped-up tempo would accompany entire European nations as they danced to celebrate their liberation from Nazi-fascist tyranny.

  Following the wild notes of the three pianists, the appearance of the Five Brothers did not generate the same enthusiasm.

  Bandleader Joe Venuti decided on the spot to change the repertoire, adding some uptempo selections with a strong beat and extensive riffs. Playing with him and Dixie were several talented musicians, including saxophonist Joe Bishop, who also played in the Woody Herman Orchestra. They performed a number of infectious rhythms, making the band an overwhelming success. Dixie held his own in the company of those veteran soloists, and he too received his fair share of applause during the performance.

  At the end of the set, Isabel and Saro joined their friend backstage to congratulate him. Tom Rice, the music critic from New York Herald, had arrived before them and was raving about Dixie’s talent.

  Isabel gave Dixie a hug and kissed him on the cheeks. Dixie, elated, held her tight and kissed her deeply on the mouth. His tongue thrust in, in search of hers, and Isabel, who had been waiting for just this moment, returned his kiss passionately.

  The kiss was so ardent and prolonged that musicians and friends turned and applauded the sudden outpouring. The two broke apart, as if dazed by their outburst, and blushed, intertwining their fingers and squeezing their hands tightly together as one.

  Saro went to his two friends. He was happy for them, but his joy was merely an outward show. “Well, congratulations twice,” he said to Dixie. Witnessing the passion that had exploded between the two, he felt a bitter wind blow though his heart. He was about to leave, but Dixie stopped him. “Hey, wait, we’ll go drink a toast together, as always.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t want to be a third wheel,” said Saro.

  “I have one desire: to share this evening’s success with my two dearest friends.”

  “Well, now you only have one left,” Saro smiled, looking at Isabel. “Someone here has become something more than a friend.”

  “Did you hear that, Isabel? He says you’re no longer my friend.”

  The Irish redhead looked at her hero blissfully and nodded, as she gave him another kiss on the mouth.

  “Let’s go get drunk! This time the night won’t be long enough for us!” Dixie cried, and the
three left the theater arm in arm.

  Chapter 34

  When Prohibition ended in 1933, organized crime, which had built its financial empires on the alcohol trade, was forced to find a new substance to replace the one that had become legal. And what better choice than strictly prohibited narcotic substances? The Mafia soon became the biggest dealer in the drug market, transforming drug addiction into one of the worst plagues of all time.

  Years earlier, in May 1929, in a luxury hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, mobster Frank Costello was able to bring together the elite figures of the American Mafia. The meeting ended with the founding of the Cosa Nostra. Salvatore Lucania, known as Luciano, a purebred Sicilian, did not take part in that Atlantic City conference because his violent, unprincipled character was not viewed well by the Italian Mafia communities in America. Nevertheless Luciano was an invaluable element in the new organization, and Costello, as the intelligent strategist he was, was well aware of it. In fact, only Luciano was capable of establishing ties with French and Italian drug traffickers. Already by the end of the 1920s, he’d been able to build a sophisticated organizational structure that imported large quantities of drugs from production sources, sending them into big-city neighborhoods via pharmaceutical companies and foreign chemical industries. In those years, there were not yet laws against the misappropriation of heroin and morphine from shipments intended for therapeutic uses. Thanks to this trade, Luciano managed to accumulate an immense fortune which began to bother some of his enemies.

  Five months after the meeting in Atlantic City, Luciano was seized at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Fiftieth Street by three killers who forcibly shoved him into a high-powered black car that then headed toward the outskirts of Brooklyn. They drove the car into a dilapidated warehouse. Legend has it that Luciano’s only words were “Do what you have to do, but hurry up about it.”

  He didn’t get his wish. He was subjected to every kind of torture. The three thugs hanged him upside down, suspending him from a hook on a hoist. They bound his wrists with wire. They ripped off his expensive suit and lashed his entire body with a belt. Then the most sadistic of the three had fun carving his skin with the tip of a knife. One of the others used his face as a punching bag, rearranging his features. It was sheer butchery. Thinking they’d killed him, the three left him there.

  But they’d miscalculated Luciano’s mettle; he was rescued by a vagrant and taken to a hospital, where he kept his mouth shut. From that day on, Salvatore Lucania became “Lucky” Luciano to the world.

  Luciano disappeared for a few months, well concealed in a hideout protected by friends. He waited for his wounds to heal, for his bones to knit, and for the bruises to fade, and then he returned to take up the reins of his organization that, in the meantime, had not missed a beat. The huge drug profits, greater than any other illicit trade, even allowed Luciano to buy off government officials. The New York market was his, but he had been skillful enough to subdivide it into twenty territories, each under the jurisdiction of a family that regularly paid out a tenth of its earnings into his coffers.

  Luciano had been able to organize the distribution of drugs with the ability of a great strategist through a close network of relationships that could not be traced back to him. And, in fact, prosecutors in New York were never able to accuse the biggest drug trafficker of all time of dealing in narcotics.

  The drug market represented a significant percentage of the Bontade and Stoker families’ incomes as well. The two families were often in dispute over the simple fact that their territories bordered each other’s. The Bontades, who in turn were under the Genovese family, controlled part of Little Italy, while the Stokers held sway farther east and north in the Hamilton Fish Park neighborhood.

  In the past, a turf invasion by one or the other families would be settled with a good round of bullets. But after the establishment of the Cosa Nostra in Atlantic City, resolving disputes individually was expressly forbidden. The first paragraph of the Atlantic City pact stated that any dispute must be governed by an executive committee.

  The entire workings were well known to Ferdinando Licata, who had decided to play his hand in that very territory.

  Licata had not been with a woman since he’d arrived in America. Now he was beginning to feel the desire for one, so one Saturday he announced to Betty that he would be seeing some Sicilian friends that evening, and she shouldn’t wait up for him.

  Licata knew where to go. A Neapolitan guappo, a cocky tough guy introduced to him by Jack Mastrangelo, had recommended a girl at the Blue Lemon in Chelsea, well equipped with everything: coke, a luxurious room, and a pair of tits that would make Hedy Lamarr envious. But what interested Licata even more was the fact that the young woman hated her boss, Lucky Luciano.

  That Saturday evening, Ferdinando Licata put on the most youthful outfit he had, dabbed on some cologne, and went to the Blue Lemon. The setting was like millions of other clubs: red velvet armchairs, discreet private booths, cafe tables for dining, lounges for watching the show. The girls were first-class: there was nothing vulgar about them, and their plainly visible curves would have made a dying man leap out of his sickbed.

  Ferdinando Licata took a seat at a distance from the stage. He asked the waiter for a bourbon—and Marta. The man went away and shortly afterward, the young woman materialized beside him.

  It was true. Marta’s breasts proved as enticing as the Neapolitan had promised, and that night, in the girl’s alcove, the prince was able to uphold the honor of Sicilian males.

  “My compliments, Prince. Italians never disappoint. A girl could be in danger of falling in love with you,” the woman flirted.

  Though he knew she was just playacting to please him, the prince was flattered by it. “Love is nothing to be scared of. Would you be afraid to fall in love with me?” he teased her, encircling her waist with his strong arms.

  But she released herself from the embrace and straddled him, immobilizing both his wrists. She leaned over him, so that her breasts brushed against his face. “You haven’t yet told me what line of work you’re in.”

  “I work at being wealthy,” he said with a crafty smile, trying to lick a nipple.

  “You make it sound easy. Will you teach me how?”

  “Sure, I’ll give you my card before I leave. There are people with millions in the bank who don’t know how to invest their money. I have the ability to increase their capital a hundredfold in just a few days.”

  She pressed against him and began sucking his earlobe. “I’ll call you Croesus, then. Whatever he touched turned to gold.”

  “Well, my gold is drugs.” He whispered the last words and smiled at seeing Marta’s face. “Disappointed?”

  “No, I’m surprised. I never would have thought . . .” Marta turned over on her side. The magic was over.

  “They’ve given me a lot of money. A hundred thousand dollars. I have to buy some stuff, and I’m scrambling to find the right dealer. So far I’ve only come up with small fry. I need one dealer who can provide all the goods at once. That’s how I always play it safe with the law.”

  “A hundred grand is quite a lot of dough.”

  “One deal, and it’s done. That’s why I only want to talk to a distributor. But I want premium goods, I’m willing to pay a higher market price, but it has to be top-quality stuff—and I have two weeks’ time. If I can’t find it here in New York, I’ll go looking for it in Chicago.

  “Now you know why I’m so rich. But remember . . .” he said, putting his finger to his lips.

  All the same, he knew that type of woman perfectly well, and was fully aware that she would relay everything to her pimp, who in turn would inform the middleman who was in direct contact with the family. A tip that juicy might be worth an extra share of drugs for everybody. Fernando Licata decided it was time now to move out of his room at La Tonnara and rent a room somewhere so that his niece and her family wouldn’t be associated with his new activities.

  The b
ait pitched by Ferdinando Licata was immediately sniffed out by one of the big shots in the Bontade family: “big” in the true sense of the word, because Big Jordan in his youth had been an Olympic rowing champion. Over the years, his body had turned into a mass of lard, probably as a result of performance-enhancing drugs consumed in large doses during his years of competition. Over six feet tall and weighing 330 pounds, he looked like a lumbering giant or, worse yet, a frightful fairytale monster. Big Jordan’s cousin Joe Cooper, on his mother’s side, was one of Tom Bontade’s bodyguards. And Tom held him in high regard because, since the time they were kids, they had never lost touch. He was a kind of brother to him.

  Marta, the peppery French girl, was the only one who could satisfy Big Jordan’s libido. It was during one of the long, exhausting nights devoted to the peculiar erotic rituals necessary to awaken the big man’s desire that little Marta told her client what she had learned from Licata.

  “He wants a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of drugs?” the giant repeated, his interest piqued.

  “That’s right. But he wants to make one single purchase. He does that to cut down on the risks,” the young woman said, and then went back to business.

  Big Jordan told Cooper about the tip, and together they informed Tom Bontade.

  The bid was quite unusual. Furthermore, proposing a price that was drastically higher than the going rate violated all the rules. But the deal was too attractive for Bontade to pass up. One hundred thousand dollars was a considerable sum: one-sixth of a full year’s sales. But where to find twenty kilos of cocaine in less than two weeks?

  In underworld circles, news like that travels at the speed of light. Within a few hours, the request to purchase a huge amount of pure cocaine made the rounds of the families in New York. To meet such a demand, it would be necessary to combine the supplies of two or three families.

  The Bontades were approached by the Stokers. They too had heard about the exorbitant request and wanted to form an alliance with their perpetual rivals.