Joe Bruno's Mobsters - Six Volume Set (57 page)

Masseria rolled flat on his back, as dead as the card hand he was holding.

In the death photos in the next day’s newspapers, all that was visible was Masseria's right bloody hand, palm up, holding the Ace of Diamonds. From that point on, mobsters considered the Ace of Diamonds a curse. Some even sent the Ace of Diamonds to an enemy, warning him he was about to join Masseria shoveling coal for the Devil.

With Masseria now quite dead, the four gunmen rushed to a waiting car, with a very nervous Ciro Terranova behind the wheel. Terranova was shaking so hard, he was unable to get the car into gear. Siegel angrily pushed Terranova aside
, and he drove the getaway car himself. A few years later, Terranova was banished from Luciano's mob, because Luciano agreed with Siegel, Levine, and Genovese that Terranova had no guts.

When Luciano finally exited the men's room, he found several nervous waiters, bullet holes in the walls and tables, and a dead Masseria on the floor. When the police arrived soon after, Luciano told the law that he didn't see anything because, “I was in the bathroom taking a leak. And I take long leaks.”

Since the waiters clammed up, and the police themselves had an extreme dislike for Masseria, no one was ever arrested for Masseria's murder. It is doubtful that the police ever looked for his killer.

When Maranzano heard about Masseria's demise, he was beside himself with glee. Maranzano immediately named himself the winner of the Castellammarese War and the new boss of the Mafia, and he made Luciano his right-hand man.

A few weeks after Masseria's demise, Maranzano called a meeting of every Mafioso in New York City, reported to be over 500 made men. The meeting took place in a large warehouse in the Bronx, near the Harlem River. At this meeting Maranzano divided these men into five separate crime families. As the five bosses of these families, Maranzano named Lucky Luciano, Albert Anastasia, Tommy Lucchese, Joe Profaci, and Joe Bonanno. Maranzano also appointed each family a second-in-command, or “underboss,” and he named Genovese as the “underboss” of the Luciano Family.

Of course, Maranzano also named himself the “Boss of All Bosses,” or the” Capi di Tuti Capi,” and this was not palatable to Luciano and the other Mafia leaders, who were tired of always h
aving someone lording over them taking a big piece of their pies.

Even though Maranzano promised that his new organization, which he dubbed “La Cosa Nostra,” or “Our Thing,” would keep peace and prosperity in the forefront of their operation, Maranzano secretly felt quite differently. He immediately drew up a list of people he wanted dead, because he felt their ambition
was a threat to his leadership. Luciano, Costello, and Genovese were all on that list.

Maranzano invited
the three men to a meeting in Maranzano's midtown office. At this meeting, Maranzano planned to have Vincent “Mad Dog” Cole, an especially vicious Irish killer, execute all three. Maranzano paid Cole $25,000 in advance with another $25,000 payable after the dirty deed was done.

However, Luciano had a mole inside Maranzano's inner circle - Tommy Luchesse - and Luchesse tipped Luciano as to the set-up. On the day of their intended demise, neither Luciano, Costello, nor Genovese were anywhere near Maranzano's office. Instead, Luciano sent four Jewish gang
sters, selected by Meyer Lansky and headed by Red Levine (who was also one of the shooters in the Masseria killing) to Maranzano's office. The four killers, posing as police detectives, bullied their way past Maranzano's bodyguards in the outer office, and then busted into Maranzano's inner office, where they shot and stabbed Maranzano to death.

The four killers then hurried out of Maranzano's office, followed by Maranzano's ex-bodyguards, who were now looking for new jobs. The men sprinted down the stairs
, and they barreled right into “Mad Dog” Cole, who was carrying a machine gun in a violin case. They told Cole that Maranzano was already dead and to beat it before the cops arrived. Cole did an about-face and followed the killers out of the building, having just received a $25,000 payday without doing a damn thing.

With Masseria and now Maranzano out of the way, the five Mafia families thrived. However, Genovese, along with Anastasia, the most vicious killers of the bunch, began an out-of-control killing spree.

First, Genovese's wife (name unknown) suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth. The word on the streets was that Genovese had killed his wife and made her body disappear because he had fallen in love with a woman named Anna. The only problem was, Anna was already married to a man named Gerard Vernotico. This was merely a small obstacle to Genovese, who killed Vernotico by strangling him and throwing him off the roof of a Little Italy tenement. On March 30, 1932, two weeks after her husband's demise, Genovese married Anna.

In 1934, things started falling apart for Genovese, when he was involved in an extortion plot gone awry. One of his co-conspirators in the plot was Ferdinand Boccia. Genovese, fearful that Boccia was the weak link and would squeal, murdered Boccia himself. This would later come back to haunt Genovese.

In 1936, special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey set his sights on the Mafia, and on Luciano and Genovese in particular. After Luciano was convicted on a trumped-up charge of prostitution, allegedly orchestrated by Dewey himself, Luciano was sentenced to 30-to-50 years in prison. Before he left to do his time, Luciano named Genovese as the boss of Luciano's family. However, in 1937, Genovese was indicted for the murder of Boccia which had occurred three years earlier. Afraid of being fed the same fate as his pal, not-so-Lucky Luciano, Genovese escaped to Sicily, one year after Genovese had become an American naturalized citizen. With Genovese unable to supervise the Luciano family, Luciano, from prison, decreed that Frank Costello was now the head of the Luciano Family.

While Genovese was in Sicily he was a very busy man. Having reportedly taken $750,000 in cash with him, Genovese put this money to work for him on the streets.

Of course this was impossible to do without the friendship and cooperation of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who was intimately involved in World War II as an enemy of the United States. Genovese paid for the construction of a power plant for Mussolini in Nola, located in Southern Italy. Then Genovese contributed $250,000 for the construction of a municipal building that Mussolini wanted to build. Whenever Genovese got a little short of cash, he contacted his wife Anna in America, who was handling Genovese's business operations while he was in his self-imposed exile. During this time, Anna Genovese made frequent trips to Italy to replenish her husband coffers.

To show his gratitude for Genovese's largesse, Mussolini awarded Genovese the Order of the Crown of Italy, a high civilian honor. And because one good turn deserves another, in 1943 Genovese arranged for the murder in New York City of Mussolini's chief nemeses, Italian newspaper editor Carlo Tresa, who was stirring up the pot against Mussolini in his radical Italian newspaper
IL Martello
which was sold in Italian communities throughout America. The hit was done by up-and-coming mobster Carmine Galante, who shot Tresa in the back of the head as Tresa strolled down Fifth Avenue near 13
th
Street.

In 1944, Mussolini's empire started crumbling. Genovese, seeing the handwriting on the wall, switched sides and began working for the United States Army. Genovese was basically an informer, who led the Army to a slew of black market operators, with whom Genovese had been doing business. Soon, the Army got wise as to why Genovese was working with them so readily. It seemed that every time the Army shut down a black-market operation that Genovese had led them
to, Don Vitone took over that operation himself.

With the war over
and all of the witnesses against Genovese either dead or disappeared, Genovese made his way back into the United States. With no evidence against Genovese, the prosecutors simply dropped the Boccia murder case against him.

Genovese immediately tried to regain control of the Luciano family, but Costello, with the help of Lansky and Anastasia, was too firmly entrenched. So Genovese bided his time.

Genovese moved with his wife to a luxurious house in Atlantic Highland in New Jersey, and he took the guise of a civic-minded businessman who gave heavily to numerous charities, including the Boy Scouts of America. But in fact, Genovese was heavily involved in the narcotics business, raking in millions and building up his war chest to fight his way back to the top.

Genovese had a major setback in 1953, when Anna Genovese, claiming physical and emotional distress, sued Genovese for divorce. During the divorce trial, which was reported daily in the press, Anna Genovese said that her husband had stashed millions of dollars in European accounts, and that he grossed $20,000-$30,000 a week from the Italian lottery games. This caused Genovese much dishonor amongst his Mafia cohorts, and
he delayed his planned coup d'état for control of the Mafia families.

Genovese waited until 1957 to make his attack. Since his return from Italy, it was estimated that Genovese, through drug dealing, Italian lotteries, and his activities with corrupt labor unions, had accumulated about $30 million of
“play money” to invest in treachery. His three main obstacles to achieve his mission of Mafia control were Frank Costello, Albert Anastasia, and Meyer Lansky. Since Lansky was Jewish and therefore not eligible to be in the Mafia, Genovese figured if he took out Costello and Anastasia, Lansky would have no other choice but to fall into line.

Genovese tried to take the
first bite of the apple in 1957, when he sent hulking ex-boxer Vincent “The Chin” Gigante to ambush Costello in the lobby of Costello’s Park Avenue apartment building. As soon as Costello entered the building, Gigante emerged from the shadows, pointed his gun and said, “This is for you, Frank!”

However, not being the best shot in the world, the bullet Gigante fired simply grazed Costello's head. A quick rush to the hospital emergency room
, and Costello was back in his own bed that same night. True to the code of omerta, after Gigante was captured and brought to trial, Costello refused to identify Gigante as his attempted assassin.

Genovese's second upwardly-mobile move was more successful.

On October 25, 1957, Genovese arranged for the murder of Anastasia, who was filled with lead by two men as he sat in the barber chair at the Park Sheridan Hotel. Genovese originally gave the murder contract to his ally Joe Profaci, the head of one of the Mafia five families, and Profaci allegedly subcontracted the hit to Crazy Joe Gallo's Red Hook Brooklyn crew. Anastasia's murder was never solved and over the years several men privately took credit for the hit, including Gallo.

With Genovese still angling for his Mafia takeover, Costello and Lansky, with the approval of Luciano, who was now exiled in Italy, devised a scheme whereby they could put Genovese out of commission for good without killing him. They enlisted the aid of an ambitious mobster named Carlo Gambino, who was looking for a rise to the top himself. Gambino approached Genovese about a proposed
multimillion international drug deal that would supposedly net them tons of money. Even though Genovese had outlawed drug dealing in his own crew, Don Vitone didn't figure this ban extended to him, so he greedily approved. Then Gambino, through his crooked connections in law enforcement, arranged for Genovese to be arrested on a drug conspiracy charge. However, the Feds needed proof before they could try and convict Genovese.

The wily Gambino knew a convicted minor drug dealer rotting in Sing
Sing Prison named Nelson Cantellops. He approached Cantellops through an intermediary, and he suggested if Cantellops would testify in court that he had witnessed Genovese being involved in several big-money drug deals, Gambino would arrange for Cantellops to be paid the whopping sum of $100,000, a suspended sentence and a release from prison. To accomplish this, Costello, Lansky, and Luciano would contribute $50,000, and Gambino would kick in the other $50,000.

Luciano later said about the sting, “We had to pay him (Cantellops) pretty good.”

Cantellops thought about the proposition for about two seconds before he agreed to take the bribe.

Then
, an anonymous tip was called into the New York Narcotics Bureau saying that Cantellops would be willing to trade information on Genovese for his freedom. With Genovese being such a big fish and Cantellops hardly a minnow, the government readily agreed.

In 1958, Genovese and 24 members of his crew were arrested for violating the new Narcotics Control Act.

In 1959, at Genovese's trial, Cantellops was the star witness for a full four weeks. Cantellops said under oath that he had personally witnessed Genovese and his underlings over the years making numerous drug buys. He also said that for two years he had acted as a courier for Genovese, carrying heroin from New York City to other cities around the country. Cantellops testified that on one occasion he had accompanied Genovese to a meeting in the Bronx, where it was discussed how to divvy up the heroin-selling territories.

Based almost exclusively on the testimony of Nelson Cantellops, Genovese and all 24 of his cohorts were found guilty. Genovese was sentenced to 15 years in prison, to be served at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia.

While in prison, Genovese continued to run his crime family through intermediaries. Mobster Joe Valachi later testified before the John L. McClellan's Subcommittee, that while in jail Genovese, because he knew he had been framed, became extremely paranoid. Genovese trusted no one, and he even ordered the execution of his top aide, Tony Bender, because he wrongfully suspected Bender of being involved in the set-up.