not been honored so much in all my life. I am overwhelmed…”
“I appreciate how you feel,” Balsamo said as the waiter came to the table with the salad.
“I want you to come with me tomorrow night. We will meet under the clock at nine o’clock and go to eat at Cafiero’s Restaurant around the corner.”
But Balsamo had a condition in arranging for the succession of leadership that would go to Vincenzo Mangano.
“You bring your brother Phillipo with you tomorrow night, capish?” the godfather ordered.
“Why, Don Giuseppe?” Mangano asked surprised.
“Because the two of you make a great team,” Battista replied. “I think you and Phillipo, who I think has a big set of steel balls, can’t miss when you work together. The two of you gonna make some team.
“You, Vince, are very, very smart. And Phillipo…well I told you how tough I think he is…You two, together, cannot miss to be the big boss that our thing needs here…”
Balsamo loved any man who used his brain and had the highest respect for him. But he also appreciated a man with muscle—only, of course, as a last resort after all else had failed to convince a recalcitrant antagonist.
This had been Don Giuseppe’s credo since his earliest days as the godfather of the Black Hand. And even in very recent times, such underworld bosses as Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Joe “The Boss” Masseria, who had been nurtured by Balsamo, had been counselled to follow the golden rule he preached about maintaining power and control over subordinates.
Balsamo was no ordinary mob kingpin. He had a special magnetism that drew the respect not only of the Mafiosi under his command but that of all the people with whom he made contact. Don Giuseppe spoke three languages: his native Italian, English, and Spanish. That stood him in good stead in the neighborhood when he’d sit in the shade on a hot summer’s day outside his tenement and welcome the residents to his side. They were, most of them, either Italian or Puerto Rican immigrants, many newly arrived.
They could neither read nor write the language of their adopted country. When they received letters written in English, they knew that they could have an immediate translation simply by going to Don Giuseppe for this favor. He was all too willing to perform it.
So grateful were many of these immigrants that they treated Balsamo as though he were royalty. Some even kissed his hand out of gratitude for the favors he performed for them.
Away from his residence, strutting along the sidewalk of Union Street for a rendezvous under the clock with his enforcers, Don Giuseppe set the standard for the way an early twentieth century mob boss should look. And in the weeks and months leading up to his decision to pass the reins of leadership to Vincenzo Mangano, Battista envisioned how his hand-picked suecessor would look in his Chesterfield. Satisfied, Don Giuseppe was then convinced Mangano was perfectly suited to be his successor.
Before he entered retirement, Balsamo also envisioned still another leadership role—one that had not been previously played. He decided someone should serve as “peacemaker.” This Black Hander would have the specific mission of stepping in when disputes arose in the ranks and mediating the differences before violent means were taken to settle the conflict.
In the wisdom that came with his long experience as head of the original Black Hand gang, Balsamo wanted to avoid the needless rubouts that grew out of an “uncivil act” committed by one card-carrying Mafioso against another. In the past, the animosity often led to the murder of a rival. Don Giuseppe felt such killings were a total waste of worthy members who could better serve the Black Hand alive than dead.
The appointment of “The Prince of Peace” went to James “Jimmy” Crissali, a trusted, loyal member of Balsamo’s waterfront enforcers. Quick-witted and cool-headed, his qualities made him an excellent choice to be the first mob consigliere of Kings County— indeed, the first anywhere.
In time, consiglieres would be appointed in Mafia families all over New York and then in every part of the country where the Black Hand operated.
This is how Battista Balsamo planned to bring his many years of rule over the Black Hand to an end. He was itching to sit back and relax and watch his successors carry on the “good works” he had started and developed for the Black Hand. But he simply couldn’t abdicate the throne immediately.
At this stage the Black Hand was in the opening round of its war with the White Hand for domination of the rackets in Brooklyn and parts of Manhattan. Much blood had been spilled already; yet much, much more would flow in the months and years ahead in the great struggle for gangland supremacy.
A quarter century had passed by the time Don Giuseppe Balsamo introduced Sicilian mobsterism as a deadly art form to the United States.
The year was 1895 and Giuseppe Balsamo, then a vibrant twenty-four, landed in New York after an Atlantic crossing in steerage from Palermo and was processed through Ellis Island with the hundreds of emigrants arriving daily.
Because he had had a high ranking in the Mafia in Sicily, Giuseppe was catapulted almost immediately into a significant role of leadership in what then was a fledgling branch of Black Handers seeking to plant their roots in the United States for the purpose of exacting tribute from their fellow Italian immigrants.
Balsamo soon came to be known as Don Giuseppe and his counsel was sought by other Mafiosi in areas other than Downtown Brooklyn, where Battista had set up his operation.
One of those who wanted Balsamo’s guidance was Giuseppi Morello, a tough, ruthless Black Hand leader in East Harlem. Morello was being challenged for a piece of the action in his territory by an upstart Mafiosi, Benedetto Madonia, who was seeking to expand his realm as boss of a gang that was into counterfeiting and operating on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and looking to take over Morelli’s turf and use it as a clearing house for his funny money. He planned to enlist Italian shopkeepers, under the threat of bodily harm or even death, to dispense the bogus bills to their customers—and trade off their legitimate tender to Morelli for a profit of twenty-five cents on the dollar.
Morello was supported in his leadership of the East Harlem Black Hand by his equally menacing brother-in-law Ignazio “Lupo the Wolf” Sietta. But neither knew how to handle the challenge they now faced from Madonia.
“What do you think, Don Giuseppe?” Morello asked on that Sunday evening of April 12, 1903, when he and Sietta had journeyed to Balsamo’s headquarters in Brooklyn. The Harlem mobster was begging advice on how to handle the threat from the upstart counterfeiter.
“This is no good to let happen for you,” Don Guiseppi counselled. “Before you wink, you will have Treasury Department agents in your neighborhood and they will make things very hot for your other business…”
“What do you say we do, my good friend?” Morello wanted to know.
Battista made a slicing motion with his hand across his own throat.
Morello turned to his brother-in-law with raised eyebrows. Lupo the Wolf smiled and nodded his head knowingly.
Battista Balsamo’s message had gotten over loud and clear.
“Thank you very much for your advice,” Morelli turned back to Balsamo. “I appreciate…”
Two days later, the afternoon of April 14th, a Tuesday, New York
