good friend Al,” Yale said, “you are justified to ask for that. I will pay it.”
Yale hung up and pushed the phone away in disgust.
“How you like that?” he asked.
“Why’s he putting such a big bite?” Augie the Wop asked.
“Because,” Yale replied, shaking his head resignedly, “Al say the train fare from Chicago cost more than from Cleveland.”
When Al Capone told Frankie Yale he’d put Anselmi and Scalise on the next train to New York, that was merely a figure of speech. Underworld contract killings never come off that quickly. It takes skillful and time-consuming conniving to plot the successful rubout of a rival gangster, mainly because the intended victim is constantly alert to the dangers of assassination. Consequently, he takes precautions to protect himself.
So a number of long-distance calls between Brooklyn and Chicago followed in the days after Yale’s first talk with Capone. The prickly details of the demanding assignment had to be ironed out.
Yale had decided he wanted to hurt Wild Bill Lovett in the worst of ways. But the most severe punishment the White Hand leader could suffer would not be his own death, Frankie decided.
“We gotta hurt his people,” Yale said on the phone to Scalise. “I know just how to do it.” Frankie proceeded to tell Scalise about the forthcoming Valentine’s Day dance that the White Handers were to hold in Brooklyn’s Sagaman’s Hall.
“I have in mind an ambush,” Frankie suggested. “What do you think?”
Scalise wanted to know who Yale wanted killed.
“Anybody!” Yale shouted. “Shoot crazy! Hit the crowd! You don’t have to aim. Just shoot. Make a big score!”
Scalise got the message. He told Frankie that he and Anselmi would show up at Frankie’s garage at seven o’clock on the night of February 14th.
“I’ll send my boys to meet you at Grand Central,” Yale offered.
No need for that, Scalise replied. When he and Anselmi go on a job, they make their own way.
And at precisely the hour promised, Scalise and Anselmi walked into the garage. They introduced themselves to Yale, and then Scalise asked, “Who’s the wheelman?” Yale pointed to Frenchy Carlino. “The best driver in the whole world,” he said with a wink.
“Yeah,” smiled Anselmi, “if he’s that good how come he ain’t working in Chicago?”
When laughter abated, Scalise turned to Carlino.
“What you driving?”
“Nineteen-twenty LaSalle,” Carlino replied.
“Not bad,” Scalise said. “You got it ready?”
Carlino assured the Chicago gunmen that the car had just been tuned up, that it had a full tank of gas, and was raring to go.
“Good,” Anselmi grinned. “If the wheels don’t move, you don’t move. And that could be very bad…”
Thirty-six members of the White Hand gang were whooping it up in Sagaman’s Hall. Thirty-three of them had their wives with them; the other three had brought their best girls.
Frankie briefed the killers on what had to be done.
“You see,” he said with a frown, “when you go in there you gotta make sure you get them at the tables, when they are sitting…”
“Hey, Frankie,” Scalise interrupted. “You trying to tell us our business? We know what we gotta do. We don’t need no instructions. Capeesh?”
Yale was taken aback.
“Listen, John,” he said, stiffening, “you are in strange territory here, and all I am trying to do is help you. Remember, you came here to do the job for me…”
“All right, wise guy, what you want to say?” Scalise demanded gruffly.
“I want you to shoot in the left side of the dance hall because that’s where all the big-shot micks sit, get me?”
“All right, Frankie, you wanna give me floor plan?” Scalise asked with a disdainful stare.
Yale sensed that he was up against a breed of underworld killer who wasn’t about to take orders from him. But at the same time he held to a confidence that since Scalise and Anselmi had been sent by Al Capone, they could be depended on to do the job.
“Okay,” Yale finally yielded, “this is gonna be your show.”
Forty minutes later, Scalise and Anselmi were driven by Frenchy Carlino to the corner of Schermerhorn and Smith Streets.
“There’s the hall,” Carlino rasped. “Remember, up the stairs on your right to the balcony. And don’t forget—come out fast because I’m gonna drive my ass off if I don’t see you after I hear the shots.”
Scalise and Anselmi left the car without a word and walked into Sagaman’s Hall. The party was in full swing. Hardly anyone noticed the two Chicago mobsters, dressed in light-brown overcoats, dark fedoras, spats, and brown leather gloves. The gloves came off as Scalise and Anselmi climbed the flight of stairs to the swinging doors which opened on the empty balcony. The gathering that night was modest in comparison to the crowds that jammed the hall on other festive occasions: this was a special affair, limited to the White Hand gang. And they had all been seated on the main ballroom floor.
Scalise and Anselmi pushed past the swinging doors and entered the darkened balcony. There they had an unobstructed view of the celebrants. For a moment, they stood at the edge of the balcony rail, unnoticed in the darkness, and surveyed the activity. The orchestra had just finished playing an Irish jig and the revelers had gone back to their tables.
Anselmi nudged Scalise.
“The left side, isn’t that what Yale wanted?” he muttered.
“What the hell’s the difference?” Scalise shrugged. “This is a snap whatever side you wanna hit. But if Yale wants the left side, then let’s make him happy.”
The two killers whipped out the nickel-plated revolvers they were carrying in holsters under their coats and took aim at the crowd of men and women sitting at the tables. An instant later, a steady fire began to pour a deadly fusillade of .45-caliber bullets into the crowd.
Women’s screams pierced the haze of cigaret and cigar smoke and the steady bark of the bullets. Both men and women instinctively dove under tables. Others stood or sat, too paralyzed either by surprise or fear to seek cover. Still others fought and clawed their way through the panic-stricken crowd for the emergency exits and the front entrance.
Scalise and Anselmo reached for the second revolvers they carried as backup when the supply of bullets was exhausted in the weapons they had first used.
Then the triggermen raced down the balcony stairs and out the main entrance almost before the last echoes of gunfire had faded.
Carlino had opened the doors of the LaSalle
