lawmen started to leave, Frankie shouted, “Hey, you forgot to tell me the score. What was it?”
The detective walked back to the table. His gait was deliberately slow. He approached Yale, looked down at him for a long moment, then took the left lapel of Frankie’s suit between his thumb and forefinger.
Frankie smiled sardonically as he craned his neck to look up at him. When he spotted the fire in the sleuth’s eyes, he wiped the grin off his face.
Running his fingers up and down the lapel he’d taken hold of, the detective drew in a long slow breath, as though trying to restrain his anger.
“Frankie if you didn’t know twelve people were shot, then I’m letting you know it now. And you might also be interested to know that three of them are dead. That’s murder, Frankie, and I want to assure you that I and these men who are with me are going to work night and day to break this case.”
The detective gave a slight tug on Frankie’s lapel and took his hand away. He had a last word to offer.
“Three murders, Frankie,” he said, “but you’re going to get a break when we nail you. Because you can only fry once in the chair.”
Yale and his lieutenants kept absolutely silence as they waited for the detectives to disappear out the door. No sooner had they gone then there was an explosion of laughter.
“Didja hear that?” Frankie asked, his voice almost cracking. “Twelve hits! Twelve hits! And three bull’s-eyes! Magnifico! I gotta call Big Al and tell him we’re gonna send his boys a bonus.”
Yale summoned Argolia to the table.
“Fury,” he said ecstatically, “how many tables over there for the wedding party?”
“Fourteen,” the reply came.
“Okay, and you got two more here, right?” Frankie said. “Put a bottle of vino on every table. It’s on me. And go tell the bride and groom I’m gonna drink a toast to their health and happiness.”
Augie the Wop began applauding Frankie, and everyone at the two tables joined in. Yale all at once called out to Argolia, who had begun instructing the waiters to get the wine.
“Angelo,” Frankie said loud enough to be heard for several tables around, “maybe I can get to kiss the bride, too, eh..?”
By then the injured at Sagaman’s Hall had all been removed to the hospital and the three bodies had been photographed by police and taken to the morgue. Detectives were still milling through the crowded hall interrogating witnesses for possible leads.
The cops were no more likely to get information from the White Handers than they could hope to develop leads by questioning Yale and his Black Hands. Even if someone in the hall had been able to identify the gunmen, he wouldn’t tell the police. The micks and the ginzos had their own code of laws, and it was incompatable with those adopted by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution.
Wild Bill Lovett and gang didn’t need the police or any court of law to arrest, prosecute, convict, and execute the perpetrators of the bloody outrage visited on Sagaman’s Hall. They had their own methods for striking back. The police knew that. The Black Hand knew that. In fact, even the public that read of the ambush chronicled in big, bold, black headlines in the next day’s newspapers knew that.
The only question in anyone’s mind was when the White Handers would mete out their punishment to the Black Handers.
The Godfather Is Thinking of Retirement—But Not Just Yet
A steamy, hot afternoon in August 1920.
Children playing stickball near the foot of downtown Brooklyn’s Hamilton Avenue were distracted from their game by the arrival of Patrolmen Arthur McConnel and James “Red” McNulty. The cops were hauling five teenaged boys into the nearby 76th Precinct police station.
“Get your asses inside!” the kids heard McNulty yell.
The redheaded cop swung his nightstick and landed well-aimed blows to the butts of the teens.
The kids were suspected of a shoplifting spree at Cheap, Cheap Sissler’s Dry Goods Store on Union Street the day before.
As McConnel and McNulty lined up the young suspects before the booking desk, manned by Sergeant Joseph Malveesy, one of them, fourteen-year-old Frankie “Squat” Savino, protested:
“We didn’t rob nuthin’, I swear.”
Suddenly young Frankie moaned. Patrolman McNulty had swung his nightstick on the kid’s behind again with the admonition, “Shut up, you lying little bastard!” Then he and McConnel turned to Malveesy and informed him of the purported shoplifting.
“Take them into the interrogation room and question them,” the desk sergeant directed the officers.
Once the teenaged “hoods” were inside the interrogation room, Patrolman McConnel took over the questioning.
“All right, you!” he shouted at Nick Delesperanzo, “where the hell were you yesterday at about three-thirty in the afternoon?”
“I was home…I was doing…my homework,” the terrified Nick responded. “I’m not kidding, sir. You could check if you want to, sir…”
Before the youngster could finish the sentence, he was clobbered anew by McConnel.
“Shut up you little sniveller,” the fifty-eight-year-old cop roared.
“And the same goes for you, snot-nose!” the policeman addressed Frankie DeMaio, who had tried to put a word in edgewise.
“I want you brats to shut up and listen to what we’re gonna ask,” McConnel ranted.
He turned to Nick Delesperanzo:
“By the way, Nickie, don’t think we won’t check your story out.”
McConnel refocussed his attention on young Delesperanzo and scowled, “You lying sonofabitch, you don’t even go to school no more—so why the fuck you giving me this horseshit line?”
“I don’t really understand what this is all about,” protested Nick Delesperanzo. “You ain’t told us nothing about what we were supposed to have done…”
Feeling that McConnel was being too abusive with the teenaged suspects, officer McNulty broke in.
“Someone pointed you guys out this morning and said that you did some shoplifting in Cheap, Cheap’s store.” The redheaded cop then reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a slip of paper with a list of stolen merchandise reported by the store’s owner, Nathan Sissler.
“Two dozen shirts, ten pairs of socks,” he started to read. “And fourteen pairs of women’s silk stockings…”
McNulty
