Hugh, one of Damien Stoker’s bodyguards, met with Cooper, and together they arranged a meeting between their respective bosses: Tom Bontade and Brian Stoker.
Chapter 35
On Second Avenue at Tenth Street, there is an open space with a dense stand of elm trees. At the center of this tiny grove is one of the city’s oldest churches: St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery, an architectural jewel. Isabel, seeing it the first days after she’d arrived in New York, had dreamed of one day getting married there, and now the dream was coming true.
After three days of passion, never once leaving the house, she had asked Dixie to marry her. They were good together, the sex was great, they were made for each other, and they couldn’t turn down their good fortune. Dixie thought it over a moment and then pronounced it an excellent idea. A few days to arrange the paperwork, and by the following week, the priest at St. Mark’s was blessing their union.
It was a bitter pill to swallow, but Saro served as their best man. Beaming with joy after the ceremony, the two newlyweds said good-bye to their friends and left on their honeymoon in a car that Tom Rice had lent them. They drove to nearby Coney Island, where they spent the most intense and passionate few days of their lives.
Saro spent those same days languishing with a bottle of cheap whiskey in an attempt to numb his senses and rid himself of the sense of guilt that cropped up whenever he thought about Mena. The image of the young woman he’d left behind in Sicily was still vivid in his mind. She had promised to wait for him, and Sicilian women are capable of growing old and still honoring a promise they’d made. But now Saro was no longer sure he could keep his word.
Since he’d arrived in America, he’d had no news of the girl. At first, when he was bitterly homesick, he had written to her at least once a week. Then he’d gradually taken more time between letters. Why had Mena never responded? Had something happened to her? Or maybe she no longer believed in their love?
These and other worries plagued him from the moment he opened his eyes in the morning until he went to bed. Like all young people, he hoped for a life rich with satisfaction, but fate had not been kind to him since day one, when he’d been rejected by his parents. Ever since he’d found out, he’d felt a great sense of guilt, taking upon his shoulders the sins of those two young people who had decided not to recognize him as the fruit of their love. But misfortune was not yet finished with him.
Chapter 36
There was a rule in the Mafia that when it came to profits, all personal grudges had to be set aside.
Tom Bontade and Brian Stoker decided to forget the “misunderstandings” that had divided them until then, agreeing to a truce that would last at least until they had concluded their deal with the outsider.
The two heads of family met on neutral ground, at a lounge in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Both patriarchs had witnessed numerous skirmishes in their lives and knew when it was time to stop the violence and call on diplomacy in their common interest: namely, dollars.
The meeting was arranged by Sante Genovese, who appointed his own consigliori, Mike Genna, as moderator.
“Sante Genovese has specifically asked that all hostilities be suspended during negotiations,” Genna began, setting his glass of whiskey on the table. “Our brothers in Sicily want to see if Cosa Nostra can be trusted. They want to know if we are together, if we are a unified body. Luciano, from prison, told them that trade with Sicily can be extended throughout the States because the families are united. For that reason, he doesn’t look favorably upon your disagreements.”
Though Genna personally represented Sante Genovese, he was careful to measure his words, because the two men before him embodied two of the leading families of New York, inspiring fear and commanding respect. Genna wanted to shout at them, “Enough of your crap! Thanks to you, business has fallen off in recent months because people are afraid and because the police are breathing down our necks!” But he knew he couldn’t express himself freely, so he exhibited all the declamatory arts for which he was well known.
“Mr. Genna, we’ve already smoked the peace pipe, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Tom Bontade, the eldest of the three, said with a wry smile. Brian Stoker nodded.
“Good. Forgive my frankness, but I am an ambassador here relaying someone else’s words and thoughts. Let’s move on now to the actions that must be taken. Sante asks me to tell you that if the amount of stuff you have is not enough, he will arrange to provide you with part of the shipment from his own supplies. What should I tell him?” He waited for the two to respond.
Tom Bontade was the first to speak again: “As far as I’m concerned, I need three kilos to fill half the consignment.”
“We’re okay,” the Irishman said with undisguised pride.
That surprised Genna. “May I ask how you happen to have such a supply, Mr. Stoker?”
“The Puerto Ricans are helping us. We’re in talks with them. They procured ninety percent of what we were lacking.”
“ ‘We’re in talks’ means it’s not yet a sure thing, right?” Genna pressed.
“It means we have to guarantee the delivery. One of them wants to be present at the exchange.”
“But the Sicilian doesn’t want to deal with more than one seller.” Genna grew concerned.
“Don’t worry, I’ll guarantee it myself out of my own pocket,” Brian Stoker assured him. “The overseer will stay with me while someone else physically makes the exchange.”
“It will be one of my men,” Tom Bontade declared.
“Is that okay with you?” Genna asked Stoker.
“If you’re there to watch, it’s fine with me,” the Irishman said flatly.
The agreement was finalized. Now they could contact the Sicilian and set up the exchange.
Marta knew the Sicilian’s phone number and promptly passed the information on to Big Jordan.
After firming up the arrangement between Bontade and Stoker, Genna phoned Licata to introduce himself and suggest that they meet a few evenings later for a game of poker. The prince declined the invitation. He would send a trusted friend, Jack Mastrangelo, in his stead.
* * *
While these events were taking place, in another part of the city Saro was going to meet his bitter fate. His senses dulled by alcohol and his morale at a low, he wandered aimlessly through the streets until he came to Chelsea. He was intrigued by the amusing sign at the Blue Lemon and went inside in search of companionship.
He stopped at the bar and asked the young man who was making cocktails, “Do you have a ‘Juicy Woman’ for me too?” The drink was advertised as the house specialty.
“Sure thing, pal, we never run out of her,” the bartender replied with a phrase he repeated at least three hundred times a day.
He brought him a glass and poured a mixture of bourbon, gin, and vermouth, garnished with an olive. Saro drank it in one gulp and felt the fire in his stomach. He saw one of the girls from the club and pointed her out to the barman. “Give one to her too.” Marta moved away from the bar and approached him.
“Lovesick? Or were you fired?” she asked him, taking the glass the bartender had placed in front of her, but not drinking.
“Lovesick? What is love anyway? Have you ever known it?”
“We’ve all known a little love in our lives,” Marta replied patiently. “At least from our mother.”
“My mother didn’t even want to see me when I was born,” he told her, motioning to the young man behind the bar to serve him another fiery mixture.
“Then you’re in big trouble,” said Marta, starting to look around again. “You’d better knock back that rotgut and go to bed. You’ll see, things will look different tomorrow.”
A Gary Cooper–type came over and took the glass out of her hands. “What’s a doll like you doing in a place like this?” He took a sip of the cocktail and gave the glass back to the woman. “Can I buy you a beer instead of this crap?”
Saro felt humiliated. He knew he was in bad
shape, but he couldn’t let that bully get away with it.
“Hey, buddy, the young lady is with me,” he said, getting in his face.
But the man shoved him aside with unexpected force. “The young lady can be with whomever she likes.”
“Now, don’t fight,” said Marta, stepping between the two. “I already told you, handsome,” she said to Saro, “go home and sleep it off, okay?” With that, she turned to the tough guy and took his arm. “Where to, pal?”
“Call me Joe.”
“Okay, Joe. Let’s go to your place, or are you scared of your wife?”
“What’s my wife got to do with it? We’ll go to your place, of course.”
“Hold it! The young lady was talking to me!” Saro again tried to insist, but he knew he was making a fool of himself.
“And now she wants to fuck with me! Get away, you filthy dago,” he hurled back at Saro, calling him one of the offensive names the Americans had given the Italians.
Marta led the man out of the club before something nasty flared up.
The girls who worked at the Blue Lemon had the use of several rooms upstairs, which the owner made available to them in exchange for half of what they earned. The rooms were reached by a service stairway. That way, public morality was safeguarded, or so they said.
Marta and the tough guy went to the building’s alley and climbed the metal staircase. The man, following her, massaged her shapely behind with the excuse of giving her a push to boost her up. Marta laughed, enjoying it, and the client laughed too as he touched her again, this time pushing his middle finger into the crack of her buttocks.
Saro followed them out just in time to witness the scene. They seemed like a pair of happy lovers.
He was depressed, and his loneliness suddenly formed a lump in his throat.
He watched the two close the door behind them, and it was like dying. He doubled over with rage and impotence. He cursed his fate, railing against the entire world, but especially against that vulgar tough guy and that whore who had refused to stay with him. He raised his head, his vision clouded by the alcohol he’d consumed. He stared at the door and began climbing the metal steps.
* * *
In 1926 an article written by an anonymous crime reporter had appeared in Collier’s magazine, observing that the greatest contribution to crime was developed in that generation: “It is nothing less than a diabolical engine of death . . . the paramount example of peace-time barbarism [and] the diabolical acme of human ingenuity in man’s effort to devise a mechanical contrivance with which to murder his neighbor.”
The writer was talking about the Thompson submachine gun, known by gangsters as “the Chicago Piano” or “the Chopper.” The “Tommy gun,” its other nickname, was invented by Brigadier General John T. Thompson, who served as director of arsenals during the First World War. The commander had developed it for use in trench warfare, but the first models didn’t appear until 1920, well after peace had already been established. Because of its firing potential, it had been boycotted by both the army and the police, but for the criminal world, it was a radical step up and soon became the regulation weapon for every gangster.
The Thompson weighed just under nine pounds and was so easy to use that anyone could fire it. It had a firing rate of one thousand .45-caliber bullets per minute. At a distance of 450 yards, it could pierce a three-inch-thick wood slab, and at closer range, it was capable of breaking through a wall. It could even be purchased by mail, in unlimited quantities. The law required the seller only to record the buyer’s first and last name, which most of the time turned out to be that of some eighty-year-old woman who knew nothing about it. The gun caused a great deal of bloodshed from Chicago to New York, leaving a trail of notorious massacres.
Later on, in the thirties, when the gun law became more restrictive, Thompsons could be obtained only through the black market at a price of $2,000 apiece.
That’s how much Jack Mastrangelo, Ferdinando Licata’s trusted man from Brooklyn, had paid.
This time Mastrangelo had arranged to meet two small-time hoods from Harlem at Pelham Bay Park in the Rodman’s Neck section of the Bronx, a perfect place to practice with those guns because there were no houses for miles and the road hadn’t been used much in years.
It was the second time that Mastrangelo was meeting the two hoods. The first meeting had been to get to know them, to see if they were up to the task he had for them. He concluded that they were a couple of low-level punks, but vicious and unprincipled enough to handle the job.
Mastrangelo arrived ahead of time and hid the car behind some bushes, a mile from where they were to meet. Then he approached the spot, making a wide detour, two Thompsons slung over his shoulder.
At the spot where he’d told the two hoods to meet him, there was a corroded sign for a discontinued bus stop.
Mastrangelo took cover behind a tree and waited patiently for the pair to arrive.
Twenty minutes later, he heard a car approaching in the distance. A rusty Ford appeared around the curve, carrying three men. There were only supposed to be two, and that insubordination riled him. He recognized the third young man: Abraham Solo. He had nothing to fear from him; he was a hothead like the other two. Driving the car was Gabriel, the eldest of the three, known as “Spike,” and beside him sat Cornelius. The gate-crasher, Abraham, whom he’d met during a robbery at a grocery store, was in the backseat.
When they got to the intersection, Gabriel pulled off the road and stopped the car, raising a huge cloud of dust. Once it had settled, Mastrangelo, from his hiding spot, saw the three get out of the car and stretch their legs.
After making sure they hadn’t been followed, he emerged into the open.
“Our agreement was that only two of you would come,” he said as he walked closer, the two Thompsons across his shoulder.
“Come on, Jack, don’t talk crap. Two, three, four, what’s the difference?” Gabriel said, approaching him. “Abraham can be a big help to us.”
Abraham grinned. “A big help, yeah.”
“Well, that’s your business,” Mastrangelo said, taking the two guns from his shoulder and handing one to Gabriel and the other to Cornelius.
“Momma, this is super stuff!” Cornelius said, gripping it, pretending to fire a round at his buddies.
“Let’s move and get off the road; somebody could come by,” Mastrangelo said with a sigh, heading toward a nearby hollow. They walked about a hundred yards, and he said, “Here, this is fine. Watch out for the recoil. You have to grip the handle tight with your left hand, or you could end up killing one another. And don’t keep your finger on the trigger, otherwise you’ll use up the magazine in a few seconds. Fast bursts is what you want. There’s no need to aim. Come on, try it. Shoot at that tree.”
The two guys first did exactly the opposite of what Mastrangelo had told them: they held down the trigger the entire time and didn’t grip the handle tightly enough. The magazine ran out, and they’d hit everything except the tree.
“Goddamn idiots,” Mastrangelo muttered. “Those magazines cost thirty bucks apiece on the black market. Want me to charge you for them?” He snatched the Thompson out of Cornelius’s hands and gripped it correctly. “I said short bursts. Short! Otherwise you’ll run out of cartridges too fast. Also, you have to hold the gun tightly. Your hands must have a firm grip on it. Make believe you’re holding on to a colt you have to break in!” He dropped the empty magazine and put in a new one. Then he pointed the weapon toward the tree and began firing short bursts. The blasts sent huge splinters flying off the trunk. Mastrangelo’s aim was perfect: he always hit the same spot, until the trunk was completely sheared off, and the tree crashed to the ground.
“I want to try too,” Abraham said, but Mastrangelo handed the Thompson back to Cornelius.
“No, Abraham, not you.”
The next attempts were better. A half hour later, having used up all the magazines, the two Harlem punks were ready for the mission. “So
, Jack, now you gonna tell us what we have to do?”
“All in good time. I won’t tell you anything now because otherwise you’d go blabbing it all to your girlfriends, and within an hour everybody would know. It’s a very delicate mission; that’s why I didn’t want any busybodies in the way. This operation will decide your life for the next twenty years. But if any of you talk and let something slip, I swear I’ll make you eat your tongue. Now go back to Harlem and pretend nothing’s going on.
“Look me straight in the eye,” he barked. “If you open your mouth, I swear I’ll cut out your tongue. Mastrangelo’s word.”
“What about the pay?” asked Gabriel, the tough negotiator of the group.
“You’ll know soon enough. I told you, you’ll be sitting pretty for the rest of your fucking life.”
Jack Mastrangelo had made himself clear, and not one of the three talked about the job they were about to do for the Sicilians.
Chapter 37
In the early hours of dawn, the streets and sidewalks of New York offered up the remains of the killings that had occurred the night before: dishonest drug dealers, addicts who had overdosed, gamblers caught cheating, unfortunate prostitutes. No one would have paid any attention to them if it weren’t for another stratum of humanity that lived one step lower, who in the morning went rummaging in the garbage looking for a bone to strip clean or an umbrella to mend.
When an old beggar woman snatched up a cardboard carton that could be sold for a few pennies, she discovered Saro’s body, huddled in a fetal position. He looked dead. The old woman continued poking through the garbage cans in the alley. She was used to such encounters in the early dawn and thought maybe later she’d notify her friend at city hall, a policeman who sometimes handed her a quarter for a glass of warm milk. Suddenly she was startled to see the “corpse” turn over, gasping in pain.
The Prince Page 33