Part 9 (1/2)

Clemente began to prove his worth at once. It was his information that alerted the Chief to the existence of the Oddo farm and its grisly private graveyard. It was also he who warned Flynn that the Terranova brothers were making plans to s.n.a.t.c.h his children. But perhaps the most important details that the Chief's new man supplied were insights into the family's struggle to maintain its dominance in Little Italy. With Lupo and Morello locked away, potential rivals had begun to rear their heads. The Harlem Mafia had faced few threats on its home ground for years, not since the Barrel Murder showed just what the likely fate of any challenger would be; now, with the family seemingly leaderless, allies and old enemies alike began to circle. The next ten years would be bloodier by far than the preceding decade for every member of the first family.

The problem was lack of leaders.h.i.+p at first, and for this Giuseppe Morello himself was chiefly responsible, since he refused to cede power without a struggle. For months the Clutch Hand tried to run his family from a prison cell, pa.s.sing instructions to New York in elliptic Corleone slang that baffled even the Italian speakers a.s.signed to read his letters and eavesdrop on his conversations. It was only in 1911, with the failure of the appeal-and with it the realization that there would be no swift return to Manhattan-that he yielded control to two lieutenants. His chosen successors were the Lomonte brothers, Tom and Fortunato, both Sicilians, both racketeers, and co-owners of a saloon on East 107th Street, which they ran with Morello's crooked brother-in-law, Gioacchino Lima.

Why Morello's choice fell on the Lomontes is not known. There was little to recommend them, superficially at least. They were not family. Both were still young, in their late twenties, and neither had been prominent in Harlem's underworld, nor had either ever been charged with any serious crime. The brothers may simply have been the last men standing after Flynn jailed the family's established leaders. Whatever the truth, they were at least well known to the Clutch Hand; he had first met them when they organized a plasterers' union years earlier, and he employed one of their cousins in his grocery business. Whether the brothers were the right men to lead the Morellos into a new and far more complex criminal era, though, was doubtful even at the time that they were given command of the first family.

The years from 1911 to 1916 are among the darkest in the history of New York's Mafia-dark, in that they were a period of bloodletting and turmoil, but dark, too, because they are so poorly chronicled. Personal testimony is absent, police records are lacking, and, since the Morello family steered well clear of counterfeiting after 1910, even Flynn, with all his bulldog's tenacity, could devote no more than a fraction of his scant resources to keeping an eye on events in Little Italy. Manhattan's newspapers, too, cut back their coverage of crime after 1914. With the Great War raging in Europe, the disputes of a few bloodthirsty gangsters began to seem more petty than thrilling.

For the Morellos, their enemies, and their allies, though, the years that followed the counterfeiting trial of 1910 were deadly-the most violent that they had ever known. The first family had lost its leaders and nearly half its men; Flynn, who had estimated the strength of the Clutch Hand's gang at 110 late in 1909, convicted 45 of them in 1910, this at a time when the rising tide of Italian immigrants was sweeping a flood of young, ambitious criminals into New York. Districts that the Morellos had dominated a decade earlier now seethed with likely compet.i.tion.

The Lomontes responded to these threats as best they could. They rebuilt the strength of their family, initiating a number of new members. They also made deals and forged relations.h.i.+ps with other gangs. By doing so, the brothers b.u.t.tressed their position, but the protection they obtained through their alliances was gained at the expense of the family's clannishness and independence. Few of the newcomers who joined its ranks after 1910 were Corleonesi; some were not even Sicilian. And while the Lomontes' allies supplied extra strength, the Harlem Mafia was inevitably dragged into the disputes of its new friends.

A number of influential names make their first appearance in the Morellos' story at this time. One was Eugene Ubriaco from Cosenza, a Calabrian who had entered the United States in 1907 and became the first man from outside Sicily to rise to prominence within the Clutch Hand's family. Another was Joe DiMarco, an influential figure in the lucrative world of illegal gambling. DiMarco, his brother Salvatore, and another Sicilian, Giuseppe Verrazano (who ran card games downtown on Kenmare Street), gave the Morellos a larger stake in the criminal economy of southern Manhattan. The Morellos, in return, offered protection.

It was in Harlem, though, that the most unusual of the Lomontes' allies lived. She was a dumpy, mannish Neapolitan woman named Pasquarella Spinelli-square-faced, red-haired, and nearly sixty years old-and she was the owner of the largest livery stable for miles around: a tumbledown warren of corrugated iron hideaways that stood only a short walk from the brothers' feed store and stretched the width of a city block from its entrance at 334 East 108th Street. Though barely literate-she was well known in Harlem for keeping accounts scrawled with a lump of coal on whitewashed walls-Spinelli was rich, a successful businesswoman who lent money, leased tenements, and owned the Rex, the largest Italian vaudeville theater in Manhattan. To most of the population of East Harlem, she was also a sinister figure, and it was generally understood that most of her considerable fortune came from crime. The local police, for whom she acted as an occasional informant, knew Pasquarella as the head of a gang of horse thieves and extortionists, most of whom worked from her stable as grooms. She was worth three hundred thousand dollars, it was said.

The Lomonte brothers had good use for such an ally. For one thing, Spinelli was likely a valued customer of their feed store; for another, Nick Terranova, who ran the Morellos' horse theft racket, could use her stable to conceal his stolen animals-a service for which Pasquarella charged her customers the rate of five dollars a day. The closeness of the relations.h.i.+p between Spinelli and the Mafia was demonstrated in December 1911 when Nick opened a blacksmith's shop on her premises. What Pasquarella got from the arrangement is less clear, but it probably had much to do with her own need for protection in the Harlem underworld. Certainly a number of murders were committed on and around her property over the years (the Herald Herald, in 1917, would put the total at more than twenty), so many that the place became infamous throughout the borough as the ”Murder Stable.” According to New York rumor-and it was rumor that was printed as fact by newspapers as august and as cautious as The New York Times The New York Times-Spinelli's labyrinthine premises concealed makes.h.i.+ft torture chambers and murder rooms where the Morellos' enemies were questioned and killed, and the screams of their unfortunate victims could be heard drifting out across East Harlem late at night. In truth, accounts of this sort stemmed from error and imagination, but there is no question that Spinelli had many enemies and went in fear of her life.

If Pasquarella thought that the Lomontes and the Mafia could keep her safe, though, she was wrong. Only a few months later she was dead, shot through the head and neck by a pair of gunmen who had lurked outside the main doors to her stable and who had plainly waited some time for her to show herself. The murder was never solved; Spinelli's a.s.sa.s.sins escaped, and there were conflicting theories as to who had sent them. Some attributed the shooting to a vendetta Pasquarella and her daughter had been pursuing with some minor gangsters, while others, including the police, pointed to the machinations of her business partner, Luigi Lazzazzara.

In an underworld that was becoming more dangerous each day, no one could escape the consequences for long-not the owner of the Murder Stable, nor, as it soon became clear, even the Morellos themselves.

PASQUARELLA HAD BEEN one of Harlem's most prominent residents, but even her death made no difference to the smooth running of the Italian underworld. Lazzazzara took on the stable and the grooms, and the horse theft racket went on much as it had before. The same could not be said of the next murder to take place in the Sicilian quarter. That April, just three weeks after Spinelli was shot, Giuseppe Morello's only son was also killed. This time there were repercussions-for the boy's a.s.sa.s.sins, who were hunted down, and for the leaders of the Morello family themselves. By the time peace was restored a few months later, the Lomonte brothers had lost a good deal of their influence and a new boss had emerged from the ranks of the Harlem Mafia. one of Harlem's most prominent residents, but even her death made no difference to the smooth running of the Italian underworld. Lazzazzara took on the stable and the grooms, and the horse theft racket went on much as it had before. The same could not be said of the next murder to take place in the Sicilian quarter. That April, just three weeks after Spinelli was shot, Giuseppe Morello's only son was also killed. This time there were repercussions-for the boy's a.s.sa.s.sins, who were hunted down, and for the leaders of the Morello family themselves. By the time peace was restored a few months later, the Lomonte brothers had lost a good deal of their influence and a new boss had emerged from the ranks of the Harlem Mafia.

Morello's son was still young, only seventeen, when he was killed, and his death was all the more shocking for being unexpected. Calogero's death took place on a clear evening early in spring, a few blocks north of the Morellos' strongholds, as the boy was strolling up Third Avenue with his friend Joe Pulazzo. Just as they reached 120th Street, a group of men emerged from several doorways. Pa.s.sersby heard voices raised, then several shots. The two groups had been grappling a moment earlier, and the shots were fired from point-blank range. Morello was. .h.i.t once in the stomach, invariably a fatal wound at the time; Pulazzo took a bullet through a lung. Reeling back, the Mafiosi drew their own weapons and returned fire, mortally wounding one attacker. The two Sicilians were outnumbered, though, and so badly wounded that neither could get more than a few blocks from the scene of the ambush. Calogero, trailing smears of blood, staggered as far as Lexington Avenue before collapsing against some steps. An ambulance was summoned, and as the dying boy was stretchered aboard, a pa.s.sing priest climbed in and gave the boy the last rites. Morello, Pulazzo, and their wounded a.s.sailant all died the next day in the hospital. None had said a word to the police.

Word of the triple shooting filtered down to Flynn next morning, and the Chief's inquiries soon revealed the basics of the story; Calogero's attacker had been ”one Barlow, alias Kid Baker,” a gang leader from the Upper East Side. The motive for the ambush, though, was harder to discern; Baker had no ties to the Mafia, and there was all sorts of speculation in East Harlem. One report suggested that Morello had been a police informant, killed on the orders of his family when his betrayal was unveiled. Another theory was that the ambush had had its roots in disputes over the control of prost.i.tution in the Italian neighborhoods.

Salvatore Clemente would fill in the facts. Clemente's version of events differed considerably from the rumors that were circulating on the street. As it was, though, the counterfeiter's reports shone vital, unexpected light upon a little-known part of the Morellos' saga: the eclipse of the Lomonte brothers and the rise of Nick Terranova to the leaders.h.i.+p of the first family.

It was at Calogero's funeral, Clemente said, that he first learned the truth about the murder. He was by then a favorite of the Terranova brothers-he had lent them the money to hire handsome carriages for young Morello's funeral procession-and they confided what had actually happened on 120th Street. Calogero, the Terranovas explained, was not merely the unlucky victim of a street brawl. He had been shot down as part of a vendetta: revenge, on the part of the Madonia family, for the murder of the barrel victim nine years earlier. The ambush had been carefully planned; Morello had been lured up Third Avenue by an urgent message sent not by Kid Baker but by Baker's lieutenant. The lieutenant, who was Madonia's nephew, had begun a scuffle to create a pretext for the shooting; afterward, according to the Terranova brothers, he had gone to Lucy Madonia in search of protection and begged her to use her influence to make peace. When Mrs. Madonia refused to intervene, the nephew was forced to flee New York for Italy.

The three Terranovas thirsted for revenge. Calogero was, after all, a Mafioso-even at seventeen, he had been ”carrying a gun” for the first family. The brothers were also deeply concerned at the effect the news of the murder would have on the boy's father. ”The family,” Clemente said, ”did not know what to tell Morello, as they fear when he hears of the death of his son it will perhaps kill him.” They were also thoroughly disgusted by the Lomonte brothers' failure to seek vengeance. The Morello family's new leaders made no attempt to find Calogero's killers. Their unwillingness to avenge his death was a grave breach of Mafia custom, and at young Morello's funeral Nick Terranova publicly humiliated them, placing a hand upon his nephew's coffin and loudly swearing revenge. He would ”butcher every one” of the Kid Baker gang, he vowed.

Nick wasted little time in making good on his promise. A week after Calogero's death, he vanished from East 116th Street one evening and reappeared the next morning with news that he had tracked down and killed the first member of the Baker gang. A few weeks later, the youngest of the Terranovas murdered again, this time shooting down the man who had sent his nephew the message that lured him to his death. Nick, clearly, was taking considerable risks; he and his brothers would undoubtedly be suspects if the killings were discovered. When Clemente called on them next day, he found his friends rehearsing alibis and ”constantly sending out for papers and observing that there was nothing in them of it yet”-good news, of course, since it meant that the police knew nothing of the murder.

Terranova grew substantially in stature in these months. He was the youngest of three brothers, and only twenty-two years old in 1912; a year earlier, when Morello had been jailed, he had been thought too young and inexperienced to succeed as boss. Now, though, he revealed himself to be a natural leader, and by avenging Calogero's death he acquired an influence that matched and then eclipsed that of the two Lomontes. Other members of the Morello family began to ask him for advice and to depend on his decisions. The Lomontes, for their part, backed away. The brothers severed at least one of their ties with the Morellos at about this time, giving up their saloon on East 107th Street and opening another in its stead. The new tavern stood two blocks to the north, and they ran it in partners.h.i.+p with a man called Gagliano. Gagliano was the family name of another group of Mafiosi from across the East River in the Bronx.

It took time, of course, for the inexperienced Terranova to acc.u.mulate enough support to rival the Lomontes; Clemente was still referring to the first family as the ”Lomonti gang” as late as 1913. What does seem indisputable is that the brothers' influence declined as Nick gained power. When that happened, the Lomontes turned to yet another ally for support. They turned to the King of Little Italy.

GIOSUE GALLUCCI, THE MAN who gloried in that t.i.tle, was generally agreed to be the most influential Italian in New York. He had arrived in the United States in 1892 from Naples and gradually established himself as a power in East Harlem. By 1912 he had business interests throughout the district. He ran much of the ice trade in the summer and controlled the coal trade in the winter. He was also one of the biggest moneylenders in the Italian quarter, owned a string of cobbler's shops, dealt in olive oil, enjoyed a near monopoly on hay and feed sales to the district's livery stables, and was the owner of a popular bakery at 318 East 109th Street, where he lived in an apartment over the store. Everybody knew him; hundreds owed their living to him, and thousands more paid him in one way or another. ”To Gallucci,” said Salvatore Cotillo, who would rise from a middle-cla.s.s home in Harlem to become the first Italian-born Supreme Court justice in New York, ”all people were either hirelings or payers of tribute. It was a matter of concern in the neighborhood if you were looked down upon by Gallucci.” who gloried in that t.i.tle, was generally agreed to be the most influential Italian in New York. He had arrived in the United States in 1892 from Naples and gradually established himself as a power in East Harlem. By 1912 he had business interests throughout the district. He ran much of the ice trade in the summer and controlled the coal trade in the winter. He was also one of the biggest moneylenders in the Italian quarter, owned a string of cobbler's shops, dealt in olive oil, enjoyed a near monopoly on hay and feed sales to the district's livery stables, and was the owner of a popular bakery at 318 East 109th Street, where he lived in an apartment over the store. Everybody knew him; hundreds owed their living to him, and thousands more paid him in one way or another. ”To Gallucci,” said Salvatore Cotillo, who would rise from a middle-cla.s.s home in Harlem to become the first Italian-born Supreme Court justice in New York, ”all people were either hirelings or payers of tribute. It was a matter of concern in the neighborhood if you were looked down upon by Gallucci.”

So far as the city's newspapers were concerned, the King was a legitimate businessman-the epitome, in fact, of the successful immigrant. He was a physically imposing man, large without being particularly tall, and always immaculately dressed in tailored suits. He sported magnificent waxed mustaches, and, at a time when New York's Mafia bosses still dressed in ordinary working clothes and only the dandified Lupo the Wolf had any pretensions to elegance, he flashed a $2,000 ring and fastened his s.h.i.+rts with diamond studs worth an additional $3,000, as he swaggered around Harlem swinging his loaded cane.

In Little Italy, however, Gallucci was generally understood to have made much of his immense fortune from crime-from racketeering, mostly, and extortion. Unlike the Morellos, though, he had taken the profits of his criminal enterprises and used them to insinuate himself into every aspect of life in the immigrant quarter. The King ran what purported to be the New York office of the Royal Italian Lottery but was in fact nothing more than a front for his own numbers racket, and he sold thousands of tickets every month throughout Harlem. More important, he was also heavily involved in politics. He was ”certainly the most powerful Italian politically in the city,” one newspaper remarked, ”and during campaigns was exceptionally active.”

Gallucci's ability to mobilize the vote in Harlem, to get immigrants registered and to make sure they cast their ballots as he told them to, allowed him to wield the sort of power that Morello never had: power that stretched beyond the confines of the Italian neighborhoods. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants meant hundreds of thousands of valuable votes cast, and, as a partisan of the all-powerful Democratic political machine, which ruled Manhattan from its headquarters at Tammany Hall, the King possessed influence that his rivals could only dream of. Tammany rarely lost an election, and that meant that it controlled the city's police, not to mention the huge army of bureaucrats responsible for handing out city construction contracts and licensing saloons. With Tammany at his back, Gallucci was all but immune from prosecution, and though he was occasionally arrested for minor crimes, the cases never seemed to come to court. The Herald Herald observed in the spring of 1915 that the King was then ”out on $10,000 bail on a charge of carrying a pistol, and so strong has been his political influence that it even reached Was.h.i.+ngton, and in two years he has not been tried on the charge.” observed in the spring of 1915 that the King was then ”out on $10,000 bail on a charge of carrying a pistol, and so strong has been his political influence that it even reached Was.h.i.+ngton, and in two years he has not been tried on the charge.”

Thanks to their interest in the feed store on 108th Street, the Lomonte brothers had known Gallucci for several years, and an alliance offered them security and influence. To other members of the Morello family, however, the friends.h.i.+p between the Lomontes and the King was deeply shameful. Gallucci, after all, was Neapolitan, and, in the Morellos' diminished state, he was also the Lomontes' superior, at least in the districts around his 109th Street base. It was a distinction so obvious that it was even noted by the New York newspapers. For the Herald Herald, which followed Italian affairs more closely than the other English language dailies, the Sicilian brothers were actually nothing more than mani forti mani forti-strong men, bodyguards-in the retinue of the King.

THE LOMONTES' FALL had its beginnings in the weakness that they showed in failing to avenge Calogero Morello's death in 1912, but, bolstered by their alliance with Gallucci, it was not until two years later, in May 1914, that the elder of the brothers lost his life. Fortunato, then thirty years old, was murdered in the open, in broad daylight, by a gunman who approached to point-blank range and fired three shots. The boss died almost at once, hit in the neck, chest, and stomach only a few yards from the entrance to the Murder Stable and in the heart of ”King” Gallucci's territory. His killer escaped in the confusion. had its beginnings in the weakness that they showed in failing to avenge Calogero Morello's death in 1912, but, bolstered by their alliance with Gallucci, it was not until two years later, in May 1914, that the elder of the brothers lost his life. Fortunato, then thirty years old, was murdered in the open, in broad daylight, by a gunman who approached to point-blank range and fired three shots. The boss died almost at once, hit in the neck, chest, and stomach only a few yards from the entrance to the Murder Stable and in the heart of ”King” Gallucci's territory. His killer escaped in the confusion.

It was Salvatore Clemente who first drew attention to the oddness of Lomonte's murder. Few shootings in East Harlem were quite such public affairs, nor was there usually much mystery about the killer. Lomonte's death, though, might have been designed to demonstrate how powerless he was, and, asking around, Clemente discovered that the gunman's ident.i.ty was a mystery even to the leaders of the Morello family. None of the witnesses had ever seen the man before. ”No one appears to know who shot Lomonte,” the informant said. ”They think it was a stranger.”

Fortunato's death left Tom Lomonte nominally the boss of the first family, but the younger of the brothers was by this time not much more than a figurehead. Certainly he lacked the power to offer any sort of aid to Giosue Gallucci, who now himself became the target of an unknown enemy. The King was well used to the ordinary feuds of Little Italy; he had survived several, and though there were inevitably casualties (his own brother, Gennaro, had been shot dead in 1909 in the depths of the Gallucci bakery), he had thus far always won his wars. As recently as 1912, the King had become enmeshed in a struggle for power with one of Harlem's most notorious Black Handers, Aniello Prisco-a murderous cripple who gloried in the lurid alias of Zopo the Gimp-and when the extortionist unwisely attempted to levy tribute on 109th Street, he was summarily executed by a Gallucci bodyguard. The gunman who killed Zopo was later charged with murder, but few who knew the King were surprised when the man obtained an acquittal on the grounds of self-defense.

This time, though, the boss was dealing with a more implacable enemy. Half a dozen determined attempts were made on his life-he was shot twice in the body in 1913, and again during a gun battle on First Avenue a year later. By then, bodyguarding Giosue Gallucci had become a spectacularly dangerous occupation. The King himself told a friend that ten men had died protecting him over the years, and by the spring of 1915 he was so concerned for his safety that he rarely ventured more than a few yards from his 109th Street bakery and took to wearing a lightweight chain-mail vest, a rare item then obtainable only from certain arms dealers in Chinatown. When yet another bodyguard was killed early in May, shot by a sniper who had been aiming at the boss, even the King grew fatalistic. Henceforth, he told a Herald Herald reporter who called on him, he would go about his business without protection. ”But they will get me,” he added. ”I know that they will get me yet.” reporter who called on him, he would go about his business without protection. ”But they will get me,” he added. ”I know that they will get me yet.”

Who ”they” might have been, the Herald's Herald's man did not suggest, but it was evident to all Harlem that Gallucci's enemies were well resourced, well organized, and astoundingly persistent. The a.s.sa.s.sins' chance came a few days later, at ten on the evening of May 17, when the King ventured briefly out of his bakery and hurried four doors down East 109th Street to a coffee shop owned by his teenage son Luca-”a place where men could gather, sip coffee, chat, and play pool, and the police said that if they were well enough known they could get something in that coffee.” As the same reporter told it, man did not suggest, but it was evident to all Harlem that Gallucci's enemies were well resourced, well organized, and astoundingly persistent. The a.s.sa.s.sins' chance came a few days later, at ten on the evening of May 17, when the King ventured briefly out of his bakery and hurried four doors down East 109th Street to a coffee shop owned by his teenage son Luca-”a place where men could gather, sip coffee, chat, and play pool, and the police said that if they were well enough known they could get something in that coffee.” As the same reporter told it, as the two men entered the coffee house they saw several strangers there. Two more followed them in. Some one in the rear opened the widows saying the place was too warm. Suddenly the lights went out and a man cried in Italian-”We've got them at last!”Then the shooting began. At least seven shots were fired. Luca threw his father back to the wall and held himself against him, crying ”Shoot me! Shoot me!” They did.Before the echoes of the shots had reached the street, the a.s.sa.s.sins, five or six of them, ran out, turned the corner of First Avenue, leaped into a waiting automobile, and were driven away. Neighbors and the police soon found Gallucci and his son, both mortally wounded. ... [The killers had] sent a bullet through his stomach and another through his neck. At Bellevue Hospital it was said he could not possibly recover.

Gallucci and his son were both still conscious when they reached the hospital, but neither one would talk or help identify their killers. (”Both,” another newsman recorded, ”steadfastly refused to say how their wounds were inflicted, although a.s.sured death was imminent.”) To the police, though, there were clues: Gallucci's killers had lain in wait for him, perhaps for days; there had been half a dozen of them; and they had taken the one chance they were offered swiftly and with savage determination. That narrowed down the list of suspects quite considerably.

The investigation proceeded only slowly, nonetheless. Then, on October 13, 1915, Tom Lomonte was murdered, too-in public. He was loitering on a street corner on 116th Street, talking to a female cousin, when a skinny youth crept up from behind and shot him three times in the back. A nearby policeman heard the shots, spotted the gunman, and pursued him as he made off down First Avenue. After a short chase, the youth darted into a tenement at 36 East 115th Street, scrambled up the stairs to the first floor, and hammered on the door of an apartment owned by a Mrs. Maria Pappio. By the time the pursuing officer reached the spot, he had thrown off his clothes, dived into a bed, pulled the covers up to his chin, and was pretending to be asleep. The policeman was not fooled; he dragged the boy out, searched under the bed, and there found a machine pistol. The gunman was dragged off to the nearest precinct house, where, under vigorous interrogation, he gave his name as Antonio Impoluzzo, admitted that he was nineteen years old, and said that he lived downtown, on East 39th Street, where he had only the most modest of criminal records.

There was no clear connection between Lomonte and the boy who killed him. So far as the police were able to establish, Impoluzzo had no friends, no family, and no business whatsoever on East 116th Street; nor did the detectives who investigated the Lomonte murder obtain a confession or anything but the feeblest of alibis from him. At the boy's trial, the same December, the jury heard a week of evidence but no mention of any motive, and he went to his death in the electric chair less than a year later without ever uttering a word about the murder.

Whether the killer kept silent out of loyalty or fear n.o.body knew, but the police were quietly convinced that he had been hired and sent uptown to kill Lomonte precisely because there was no chance he would be recognized in Harlem. The real question was who would need to take precautions of this sort, and the answer-as both Flynn and the police believed-was that Lomonte's death had probably been ordered by someone who lived in Harlem-the same person, in all likelihood, who had also ordered Fortunato's murder, and possibly Gallucci's, too. Someone whose own men would have been only too easily recognized on 107th Street.

Looking at the murders from a detective's point of view, the most likely killer was whoever benefited most from this series of b.l.o.o.d.y deaths. And, from that perspective, one suspect stood out. The deaths of the Lomonte brothers and Gallucci, after all, had one important thing in common: They might all have been designed to restore the Morello family to its old ascendancy.

CHAPTER 12.

ARTICHOKE KINGS.

GIOSUE GALLUCCI'S DEATH IN MAY 1915 LEFT THE MORELLOS the dominant force in Harlem's underworld. Led now by Nick Terra-nova, the first family experienced little difficulty in seizing control of the lucrative Royal Lottery, as well as Gallucci's share of the coal, ice, and olive trades. There were other ways of making money, too, and if some were now in sharp decline (Black Hand crime became increasingly uncommon after 1912), others soon emerged to take their place. New forms of crime included labor racketeering-often involving the exploitation of workers via their unions-and, increasingly, narcotics, in which the police suspected the Morello family dabbled from around the middle of the decade. Gambling, too, became practically a Mafia monopoly. The family was richer than ever, probably earning tens of thousands of dollars in the twelve months after Gallucci's death. the dominant force in Harlem's underworld. Led now by Nick Terra-nova, the first family experienced little difficulty in seizing control of the lucrative Royal Lottery, as well as Gallucci's share of the coal, ice, and olive trades. There were other ways of making money, too, and if some were now in sharp decline (Black Hand crime became increasingly uncommon after 1912), others soon emerged to take their place. New forms of crime included labor racketeering-often involving the exploitation of workers via their unions-and, increasingly, narcotics, in which the police suspected the Morello family dabbled from around the middle of the decade. Gambling, too, became practically a Mafia monopoly. The family was richer than ever, probably earning tens of thousands of dollars in the twelve months after Gallucci's death.