Part 9 (2/2)

Crime had become increasingly organized since the Clutch Hand's imprisonment in 1910. The Lower East Side was dominated by Jewish gangs engaged in much the same rackets as the Mafia, and at least as successfully The West Side was partly Irish, and everywhere there were American criminals as well, involved in every form of business from illegal gaming houses to cocaine trafficking. The Italian underworld, meanwhile, remained as dangerous as ever, and even with Gallucci and Spinelli dead, the Terranova brothers were forced to deal with compet.i.tors based within a few blocks of their heartland on 116th Street. Most of these gangs, it is true, were weaker and less feared than the Morellos, but a handful were not, and of these the Terranova brothers' most dangerous rivals were other members of the Mafia. The first family was no longer alone. As early as 1912, New York was home to not one family but four.

- WHILE OTHER CITIES, including large ones such as Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles, never supported more than a single Mafia family, New York was too big and too much the focal point of Sicilian emigration for the same to hold true there. As hundreds of thousands of Italians continued to stream through Ellis Island each year, it was all but inevitable that the Morellos would eventually be challenged. Giuseppe Morello's open preference for Corleonesi was one reason for this; men from other Mafia towns in Sicily knew that they would find it difficult to rise to eminence within the ranks of his family. The city's sprawl was another; however strong the Morellos became, they could never dominate Brooklyn or the Bronx as they did Harlem, and it was in Brooklyn, sometime after 1902, that the second of New York's Mafia gangs was founded.

Its leader was Nicola Schiro-Cola Schiro, he was called-who had arrived in the United States from the small port town of Castellammare del Golfo around the year 1902. Castellammare had a strong criminal tradition, sending large numbers of emigrants to Chicago, Detroit, and Buffalo as well as to Brooklyn, and Schiro was thirty when he first appeared in the United States; between 1905 and 1910 he would find enough of his townsmen in New York to form a family. Like Schiro himself-who was an uninspiring leader, better at making money than he was at leading men-the Castellammare gang kept itself out of the news; the little that is known about the family survives in the words of Salvatore Clemente, who spoke of it to Flynn. Much the same can be said of the second of Brooklyn's families, this one organized by a Palermo Mafioso named Manfredi Mineo. Mineo, who also kept himself out of the public eye, was apparently an effective leader. His family, the smallest and newest of the city's four when Clemente described it early in 1912, would grow to be the largest in New York by 1930.

Both Brooklyn gangs seem to have acknowledged the Clutch Hand as boss of bosses before his imprisonment in 1910; both, certainly, attracted limited attention because they went about their business on the east side of the East River-where there were fewer newspapers and fewer nosy journalists-and because they steered well clear of Flynn by staying out of the trade in counterfeits. It was the third and last of New York's new Mafia families that caused the Morellos the most trouble, in part because the two gangs lived crammed uncomfortably cheek by jowl in Italian Harlem, but also because this gang's leader was a more formidable character than either Schiro or Mineo. Salvatore ”Tot” D'Aquila was another Palermitano, which meant that he came from a city in which there were as many competing cosche cosche as there were in New York. It also meant that he had been born in a town where the local Mafiosi considered themselves a cut above the yokels of the interior. as there were in New York. It also meant that he had been born in a town where the local Mafiosi considered themselves a cut above the yokels of the interior.

D'Aquila was less experienced than Schiro and Mineo. He was not quite thirty years old when he appeared in Manhattan, and though little is known of his first years in the United States, the first blot on his police record was a peculiar and fascinating one. In 1906, D'Aquila was arrested for working as a confidence man-an avocation that demands eloquence, quick thinking, and high intelligence of its pract.i.tioners, all useful attributes that were noticeably lacking in the majority of Mafiosi. D'Aquila was also, as he would soon prove, the toughest, strongest, and most aggressive of New York's rival bosses. It was the Morellos' misfortune that they shared the cramped and busy streets of Harlem with him.

Powerful new bosses such as Tot D'Aquila would almost certainly have risen to prominence whether or not Lupo and Morello had been jailed. It seems unlikely, though, that the first family would have faced quite so many threats so quickly had the Clutch Hand remained free. Morello's position as acknowledged boss of bosses would surely have prevented that; so, too, would the almost superst.i.tious awe in which he was held. And the Morello who had-at least if the police were to be believed-half a dozen members of his own family shot or hacked to death as a precaution would surely have dealt with emerging rivals more ruthlessly than his half brothers felt able to. The truth was that no criminal organization, even one as well established as Morello's family, could survive unscathed the jailing of so many of its leaders. Nor could the Clutch Hand's successors simply demand the respect that the old boss had so laboriously earned. Mafiosi, whether Sicilian or American, have always had a keen appreciation of charisma and expect more than mere efficiency from the men who lead them. From that perspective, the appointment of the colorless Lomonte brothers to lead the Harlem family had been a terrible misjudgment on Morello's part. It permitted rival Mafiosi to rise in a manner that would have been unthinkable a few years earlier. It also meant that Nick Terranova had to face threats that the Clutch Hand never had.

According to Nicola Gentile, the well-traveled Pittsburgh Mafioso, D'Aquila was a dangerous man: arrogant, ambitious, and feared rather than respected by his men. He was efficient, too, and with Lupo and Morello out of the way wasted no time in turning his own family into the strongest cosca cosca in the city. D'Aquila achieved this feat in part by attracting defectors from New York's other Mafia gangs; most came from the Morellos. Among those who joined his family in search of greater power and larger spoils by 1912 were two well-known members of the first family: Giuseppe Fontana, the old Sicilian Mafioso notorious for his involvement in the murder of the head of the Bank of Sicily in 1893, and Joseph Fanaro, a suspect in the brutal killing of Salvatore Marchiani who had also been arrested at the time of the Barrel Murder. in the city. D'Aquila achieved this feat in part by attracting defectors from New York's other Mafia gangs; most came from the Morellos. Among those who joined his family in search of greater power and larger spoils by 1912 were two well-known members of the first family: Giuseppe Fontana, the old Sicilian Mafioso notorious for his involvement in the murder of the head of the Bank of Sicily in 1893, and Joseph Fanaro, a suspect in the brutal killing of Salvatore Marchiani who had also been arrested at the time of the Barrel Murder.

The defection of a man of Fontana's experience and reputation was as good a sign as any of the s.h.i.+fting balance of power in Italian Harlem, and few of New York's Mafiosi can have been surprised when, with the Clutch Hand in prison, D'Aquila maneuvered to have himself acclaimed as boss of bosses. The t.i.tle still conveyed no formal powers, apparently, and the new boss engineered his elevation in the approved way, by acclamation at a meeting of the Mafia's general a.s.sembly. According to Gentile, though, D'Aquila was ruthless in his determination to acquire influence, and Salvatore Clemente's evidence confirms as much. Through Clemente, Flynn learned that the Palermo man possessed and exercised the power to summon all New York Mafiosi to meetings. D'Aquila, moreover, closely controlled the admission of new members into all four families. ”There are four gangs in this locality,” the Chief's informant said, ”and when a new member is proposed for any one of the four gangs, it is always brought up before [them all].”

By the autumn of 1913, in short, D'Aquila had established himself in a stronger position than Morello had ever claimed. His increasing dominance greatly worried the Schiro and Manfredi families of Brooklyn, as well as the Terranovas, and the strength of the D'Aquila family, which was by now equal to that of the other three Mafia gangs combined, posed such an obvious threat that for a time his subordinates combined their strength and openly opposed him. Clemente set all this out for Flynn, explaining that there are four gangs, that three of them are working together: the Manfredi gang, the gang headed by Nicola Schiro, both of Brooklyn, and the Lomonti gang of Harlem; that the fourth gang, led by D'Aquila of Harlem, is opposed by the other three gangs; that [men have] been shot on account of the feud between these gangs in all probability; that no doubt there will be more shooting soon.

Clemente's predictions were soon proved correct when, taking advantage of D'Aquila's absence from New York on a trip home to Sicily, the Terranovas took revenge on both defectors from their ranks. In November, Fontana was ambushed on his way to work on 105th Street by gunmen from the Morello and Mineo families. Fanaro followed him into oblivion three weeks later.

Two deaths still amounted to a squabble, not a full-blown war, and D'Aquila's response, whatever it was (Clemente remained infuriatingly silent on the subject), did not include an escalation of hostilities. That left the Terranovas free to deal with another of their sometime allies, the most powerful of all the gambling lords in Little Italy. Still smarting from Fontana's and Fanaro's betrayals, Nick Terranova went gunning for the DiMarco brothers.

JOE DIMARCO HAD FEARED for his life for several years. Stocky, clever, smallpox-scarred, and twenty-eight years old, he owned a stake in the Lomontes' feed business and pa.s.sed in the immigrant quarter as a restaurateur. DiMarco's real business, though, was running profitable card games throughout Italian Harlem, an avocation that required him to be nearly as well connected politically as Giosue Gallucci. He had been a Morello ally since at least 1910 but had fallen spectacularly from favor with the Lomontes' decline, not least because he would not give the Terranova brothers the larger share of gambling profits they believed to be their due. That had been uncomfortable, and over the next three years DiMarco had seen enough of Nick Terranova to recognize the murderous ambition in the rising boss. Word in the Italian underworld was that the two men cordially hated each other, that DiMarco had tried to have Nick shot, that the attempt had failed, and that the gambler's own life was now in danger. for his life for several years. Stocky, clever, smallpox-scarred, and twenty-eight years old, he owned a stake in the Lomontes' feed business and pa.s.sed in the immigrant quarter as a restaurateur. DiMarco's real business, though, was running profitable card games throughout Italian Harlem, an avocation that required him to be nearly as well connected politically as Giosue Gallucci. He had been a Morello ally since at least 1910 but had fallen spectacularly from favor with the Lomontes' decline, not least because he would not give the Terranova brothers the larger share of gambling profits they believed to be their due. That had been uncomfortable, and over the next three years DiMarco had seen enough of Nick Terranova to recognize the murderous ambition in the rising boss. Word in the Italian underworld was that the two men cordially hated each other, that DiMarco had tried to have Nick shot, that the attempt had failed, and that the gambler's own life was now in danger.

The Terranova brothers first struck back at DiMarco in April 1913, when an a.s.sa.s.sin hidden behind a fence on East 112th Street opened fire as he walked past. The gunman knew his job; DiMarco was shot through the neck, leaving a deep and b.l.o.o.d.y wound. Taken to the hospital still conscious, he was told that he would die. It took several skillful surgeons and an ”unusual operation” at Harlem Hospital to save him.

A year later, the Terranovas tried again. This time DiMarco was an even softer target: he was reclining, helpless, in a barber's chair on 106th Street when two men armed with sawed-off shotguns burst into the shop. This time the gambler was even luckier. Instead of closing to decisive range, his would-be killers opened fire from the doorway, turned, and ran. Lying there smothered in lather and blood, DiMarco felt cautiously about his body and found he had been wounded. A dozen pellets had struck home, but none had done serious damage. Again he survived.

Two narrow escapes would have been enough to persuade even an optimist to leave Harlem, and DiMarco was scarcely that. Late in 1914, he moved his operations more than a mile downtown, opening a large restaurant at 163 West 49th Street and hiring two gunmen to act as bodyguards. He rented an apartment above the premises and lived there with his brother Salvatore, seldom venturing out. These precautions were enough to keep him alive for another eighteen months, but they could not do so indefinitely, and in the summer of 1916 the Terranova brothers made a final effort to dispose of his elusive enemy and seize control of his gambling rackets. Everything was carefully arranged. There was to be no possibility, this time, of a mistake.

DiMarco, the Herald's Herald's man in Little Italy reported, man in Little Italy reported, liked to play poker, and his enemies used that fact to lure him to his death. Some one guided him to a dark little room in the rear of a tenement down in James Street in the afternoon, where it was understood there was to be a poker game. DiMarco took one, or maybe two, of his bodyguards along. [One, Charles] Lombardi sat beside him at the poker table.How far the game had progressed, who was there in addition to DiMarco and Lombardi, and other incidents of the afternoon are blank to the detectives. They do know, however, that a ”straight flush,” a very unusual ”hand,” was dealt to DiMarco, for that ”hand” was found under his bullet-riddled body. They believe that the dealing of that hand was the signal for the ”gunmen” to open fire on DiMarco and his unsuspecting bodyguard. Twenty shots were fired, perhaps more. ... DiMarco was shot ten times and Lombardi twice. Eight or ten men who had been in the room and were a part of the murder plot escaped ”clean,” as the police say. That is, they got away before any one saw them and left only their hats as clews, and as ten straw hats were found the police are suspicious that they were left to mislead them.

There was a postscript to DiMarco's murder. The dead gambler's brother, Salvatore-long a force in the coal racket-was found dead two months later, sprawled in a clump of weeds on Was.h.i.+ngton Avenue. He had been struck hard across the forehead with some sort of club, perhaps a baseball bat, and lay with his skull turned to eggsh.e.l.l, his throat cut, and a large sum of money-the proceeds of the sale of his brother's restaurant-missing from his pockets. Salvatore's murder finished the DiMarcos as a force in the Italian underworld and made certain that there could be no feud with the Morello family. That, as it happened, was just as well, for by then the Terranova brothers were confronting a threat more serious than any they had faced. Over the East River in Brooklyn, a new power, hailing from Naples, was rising in the underworld-one as terrible and as murderous as the Mafia and no more willing to share the spoils of New York with others.

The Camorra had arrived in the United States. War was brewing.

THE CAMORRA, A CRIMINAL SOCIETY with roots deeper even than the Mafia's, had originated in Naples around the year 1820 as a mutual welfare fraternity for prisoners in the city's jail. It evolved outside of prison walls, moving first into extortion and then to the creation of a full-fledged gang of vicious crooks with bases throughout the city. The Camorra differed from its Sicilian rival in being far more hierarchical; among other things, it had a single recognized and formally anointed leader. In most respects, however, the Neapolitans worked in much the same way as the Mafia. There was a gang-a family-for each district of the city, led by a with roots deeper even than the Mafia's, had originated in Naples around the year 1820 as a mutual welfare fraternity for prisoners in the city's jail. It evolved outside of prison walls, moving first into extortion and then to the creation of a full-fledged gang of vicious crooks with bases throughout the city. The Camorra differed from its Sicilian rival in being far more hierarchical; among other things, it had a single recognized and formally anointed leader. In most respects, however, the Neapolitans worked in much the same way as the Mafia. There was a gang-a family-for each district of the city, led by a capintrito capintrito and consisting of anything up to a hundred men who were formally initiated into the fraternity and divided into four ranks. There was a central council, known as the Great Mother, which settled disputes and punished betrayals. And there were rackets, more or less identical to those run by the Sicilians: horse theft, blackmail, and the control of gambling. and consisting of anything up to a hundred men who were formally initiated into the fraternity and divided into four ranks. There was a central council, known as the Great Mother, which settled disputes and punished betrayals. And there were rackets, more or less identical to those run by the Sicilians: horse theft, blackmail, and the control of gambling. Camorra Camorra was, like was, like Mafia Mafia, a word used by outsiders. Initiated members of the fraternity referred to it as the Societa dell'Umilta, the Society of Humility, or as the Bella Societa Riformata, the Fine Reformed Society.

Since Naples was nearly as poor as Sicily, there were nearly as many Neapolitans in the United States as there were Sicilians, and most large American cities had their Neapolitan quarter and their Neapolitan criminals. When precisely the society first established itself in New York is obscure, though almost certainly it gained its first footholds later than the Mafia did. What can be said with confidence is that a number of prominent Camorrists entered the United States between 1900 and 1910, that most settled in across the East River from the Morellos' strongholds, and that they formed two distinct but allied gangs, one based on Navy Street in Brooklyn and the other farther out, in Coney Island. The former gang, based in a coffee shop at 133 Navy Street, was led by Alessandro Vollero, a youthful-looking thirty-year-old capintrito capintrito who had arrived in New York in 1907 with his wife and children. Vollero's boss, Pellegrino Marano, ran the Coney Islanders from a restaurant, the Santa Lucia, which stood close to the amus.e.m.e.nt parks. who had arrived in New York in 1907 with his wife and children. Vollero's boss, Pellegrino Marano, ran the Coney Islanders from a restaurant, the Santa Lucia, which stood close to the amus.e.m.e.nt parks.

Thanks in large part to the strength of the Mafia, the Camorra was significantly less powerful and less organized in New York than its Sicilian rivals as late as June 1916. There were fewer Camorrists than there were Mafiosi-one member of the Navy Street gang put their total strength, with that of the Coney Islanders, at no more than forty men-and they made their money from gambling and from dealing in cocaine; the far more lucrative vegetable, ice, and coal rackets were all controlled by Sicilians. Members.h.i.+p, too, was a privilege granted far more easily by the Camorra than it ever was by the Mafia. One low-level Neapolitan gunman spent years working more or less honestly in Buffalo before being suddenly summoned to New York and asked to join the gang, apparently simply because he had known another of the Coney Island leaders, Tony Paretti-Tony the Shoemaker, he was called-when they were young in Italy. The Camorra did resemble its Sicilian counterpart in some respects: Loosely linked Neapolitan gangs existed in a number of cities, from Boston to Chicago and from Buffalo to Pittsburgh, and the Neapolitans also organized their own initiation ceremonies, which closely resembled those of their Sicilian rivals. The same Camorra probationer described being handed a penknife and ordered to draw blood from his friend Paretti's arm. Marano then ”went near the shoemaker's arm, and sucked the blood, and a little more blood came out. He said to me, 'You have gained.'” For all this, though, and ambitious though its leaders were, the Neapolitan gangs remained less influential than the Mafia even after Giosue Gallucci's death.

Relations between the Sicilians on one side and the Camorra leaders on the other were peaceful enough at first. The rival gangs stuck to their own territories, sharing the spoils of New York's rackets, and their leaders attended an annual ”smoker” in Brooklyn, arranged to encourage amity between the two organizations. All this changed, however, after the year 1915, as the Camorrists, sensing weakness, became determined to expand into Manhattan, and the Terranova brothers attempted to resist their advances. The outcome was the first of many modern ”wars” between rival factions of criminals.

One flash point was the Neapolitans' first appearance in Manhattan, when the Coney Island gang's Marano opened up a gambling house on Hester Street after Joe DiMarco was killed. Another was a budding feud between Vollero and Nick Terranova, whom the Navy Street gang boss blamed for the death of a close friend. It was only on the orders of Marano that Vollero agreed to keep the peace, at least until a conference between the two sides due to be held at the Santa Lucia late in June 1916.

Marano's plan was to bring the Mafia and the Camorra closer together, to ease friction between the gangs, tighten their joint control over the Italian underworld, and formally parcel out the New York rackets. The Neapolitans knew what they wanted from this arrangement-they were greedy for more money and more power, and Vollero particularly envied the Morellos' stranglehold over the artichoke trade. Motives were less clear on the Sicilian side, though the Terranovas were certainly anxious to avert the threat of fighting a war on two fronts-against the Camorra on one side and the even more grasping Tot D'Aquila on the other. If the Neapolitans read the first family's agreement to discuss concessions as a sign of weakness, though, they were sorely disappointed. When Marano announced that he wanted to discuss not just the vegetable racket but gambling, cocaine, and extortion, too, the Terranova brothers decided that they had heard enough. Unwilling to surrender their hard-fought-for dominance over any racket, Nick, Ciro, and Vincenzo stonewalled until the talks broke down. So far as Vollero was concerned, that was a declaration of war.

Cooperation between the gangs did not cease immediately; it was Vollero who supplied the gunmen who killed Joe DiMarco, and soon after the gambler's murder the Terranovas came down to Navy Street with fifty dollars, a gift for the a.s.sa.s.sins. By August 1916, Vollero was actively plotting his enemies' destruction.

In the end, though, it was not Vollero but Marano who decided that the time was right to dispose of the Morellos. The Coney Island boss's motives were clear enough-he wanted to seize control of the Mafia's rackets and in particular the three most valuable: the artichoke trade, the lottery, and gambling. The Morellos' dominance of the lottery particularly incensed him. ”Yes,” one of Marano's men would remember him raging, ”it is true that these s.e.m.e.n want to keep that game uptown, but they will have to figure it with me. I will show them who Don Pellegrino Marano is. I will have them all killed.”

Tony the Shoemaker agreed. ”All the Neapolitans are s.e.m.e.n,” he chipped in, ”because if we could all get together and agree, after this job is done, we would all be wearing diamond rings; and we would get all the graft.”

Marano's first task was to persuade the Navy Street gang to back his plan. This was by no means an easy matter; for all Vollero's scheming, most of the Navy Streeters, who were based just over the East River in Brooklyn, had long been just as friendly with the Morellos as they were with the Coney Island gang. The Morellos had even saved the life of one of Vollero's closest friends, Andrea Ricci, in some otherwise unrecorded incident a short time earlier, and it took Marano quite some time to persuade his fellow Neapolitans to agree to his scheme. Even then there were dissenters; Vollero's chief lieutenant, Leopoldo Lauritano, frankly told other members of the gang that he found the Sicilians more trustworthy than the Coney Islanders. In the end, though, greed won out. As Marano's right-hand man explained matters to the reluctant Ricci, ”You must consent to the killing of the Morellos, because you know that up in Harlem there is quite some money to be made. You and I have been there. If we open up a saloon, you know that we can make money with the ice and coal.”

”Andrea, you must consent,” Vollero added. ”You see, there is the graft on the artichokes, the policy [lottery] graft and the zicchinetta zicchinetta [card games], and the ice and coal. We had DiMarco killed to satisfy them. Now we can kill the Morellos to get this graft.” [card games], and the ice and coal. We had DiMarco killed to satisfy them. Now we can kill the Morellos to get this graft.”

The Brooklyn Camorra of 1916 was nowhere as fearsome as the Morello family. It was far less well organized-both the Navy Street and the Coney Island gangs had existed for no more than a year or two-and not so well resourced. There was, for instance, little of the cooperation that stood the Sicilians in such good stead; both Vollero and Marano closely guarded important portions of their operations, the Navy Street boss refusing to share the cash he made peddling cocaine ”to theatrical people and waiters,” and Marano keeping the profits of his Harlem lottery for himself. Because of this, the Neapolitans agreed, it would be wildly dangerous to allow themselves to be dragged into a lengthy war. Their best and perhaps only hope was to remove the entire Morello leaders.h.i.+p in a single stroke. Dispose of the Terranova brothers and their aides, Marano and Vollero thought, and their Harlem rackets would fall naturally, like ripened fruit.

It took the Camorra bosses a little less than a month to plot the Morellos' deaths. Six Mafia leaders were invited to Navy Street early in September, ostensibly to discuss the division of the New York rackets: the three Terranova brothers, Stefano ”Steve” La Salle, Eugene Ubriaco, and lastly Giuseppe Verrazano, who had taken over from DiMarco as head of the Morellos' gambling interests. With those men dead, Vollero thought, what remained of the first family would flounder, leaderless. The foot soldiers of the Morello gang would either be reduced to petty crime or be forced to join forces with the Neapolitans of Navy Street.

A dozen members of Vollero's gang gathered on Navy Street the day before the meeting in order to go over the arrangements for the planned murders one last time. Three men had been chosen to do the killing, and arrangements were made for their guns to be loaded with special ammunition-bullets smeared with garlic juice and pepper, which were believed to cause infection in a wound and would, it was hoped, account for any Morellos who might be only injured in the ambush. The pistols themselves were concealed in a special cupboard hidden in the wall, and various other Camorrists were a.s.signed lesser tasks: greeting the visitors, making them drinks, and escorting them to the Navy Street cafe.

The ambush had been planned for the afternoon of September 7, a warm early autumn Thursday, and the Camorra a.s.sa.s.sins made sure they were ready in plenty of time, carefully concealing themselves in doorways that looked out onto a corner of Johnson Street. To Vollero's dismay and disappointment, though, only two of the six Morello bosses appeared for the meeting: Nick Terranova and his friend Eugene Ubriaco. The reason for the others' absence was never known; Terranova's willingness to travel to Brooklyn without bodyguards suggests he was unaware of the Camorrists' treachery, and most likely the decision to leave the other four members of the gang behind was nothing more than ordinary caution. Whatever the truth, Nick's usually well-tuned sense of menace failed him now. Noticing that the Camorrist who served his gla.s.s of Moxie looked drawn and had turned white with stress, Terranova looked him up and down and said, ”What is the matter? You are kind of pale. Don't you feel well?” ”I don't,” the man replied, and the Mafia boss shrugged the matter off. ”Why don't you have someone examine you?” he said; then, when it was time to go, he and Ubriaco strolled off arm in arm down Johnson Street to their b.l.o.o.d.y deaths.

Vollero's gunmen held their fire until the men were close. Then, emerging from their doorways, they unleashed a hail of bullets, catching their targets from several angles. Terranova was the first to die; the Morello boss had no time to do more than half draw a revolver from his pocket before he crumpled in the nearest gutter, shot six times. Ubriaco lasted a few seconds longer, pulling his gun and backing off along the street as he tried to pick off his attackers. The Camorrists proved to have the better aim, however; Ubriaco was shot through the heart after discharging five of his six bullets. He collapsed on the pavement, his body lying amid shards of gla.s.s from windows shattered in the fight. By the time the last echoes of the fight had died away, Vollero's men had fired some twenty times. They had also disposed of the Morellos' most effective leader.

There was a long police investigation, naturally; the deaths had been too violent and too public, too close to children playing in the streets, to be brushed aside as gangland killings often were. The Camorrists, though, were unconcerned; they made regular protection payments to the local Italian detective, Michael Mealli, who was one of the first policemen on the scene and who conspicuously failed to turn in much in the way of evidence. They also felt safe on their own territory. ”The police cannot get any witnesses down there,” Vollero was heard to boast of Navy Street. ”We can take care of the witnesses, we can get witnesses to prove anything we want. ... They dare not come forward to testify against me.”

Nick Terranova's death shook the Morellos to their core. Caught unawares by the sudden outbreak of hostilities, the Harlem Mafia was reduced to something close to disarray and soon lost another half dozen of its members. Four Morello a.s.sociates were shot dead in Philadelphia; a gambler named Joe Nazarro was taken up to Yonkers, shot, and thrown under a streetcar simply for talking to the Mafia. Then, a month after Terranova's murder, Vollero managed to corner another Mafia leader, Giuseppe Verrazano. Verrazano met his end in a restaurant on the Bowery, shot down by two more Camorra gunmen. After that, Ciro and Vincenzo Terranova felt vulnerable even on East 116th Street. The Terranovas stuck close to their headquarters, and their confidence was further shaken when neighbors reported that a group of Neapolitans had been attempting to hire rooms that overlooked the entrance to their apartment block.

In fact, Vollero's and Marano's effo

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