Adonis Club, meeting place of the Black Hand gang. Inserts: Richard “Pegleg” Lonergan (L); “Needles” Ferry (R)
John Scalise (L) and Albert Anselmi (R), triggermen of the ambush of Sagaman’s Hall
Frankie Yale’s death, July 1, 1928
Vincenzo Gibaldi, who became “Machine Gun McGurn,” and his wife, Louise Rolfe
Al Capone
UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos
The St. Valentine’s Day massacre, 1929
DiPrimo was nonplussed. He shook his head and quickly changed the subject. Taking a closer look at the photo of his brother-in-law, he asked, “Tell me something…Why does Benedetto look sick in this picture… Is he sick?”
Petrosino felt now was the time to hit Benny the Convict with the whole load of bricks. Perhaps the shock of hearing that Madonia was dead would stir him into a confession that might finger the killer or killers.
“Your brother-in-law,” the lieutenant said slowly, each word measured for effect, “is no longer with us.…He is morto…”
DiPrimo paled. His eyes became glassy. His lips suddenly began trembling.
“You know something, you no good son-of-a-bitch, you boutan! I want you should pick up your fuckin’ ass and get out of here. I’m not talking to you no more…”
DiPrimo jumped to his feet and shouted to the jail guard standing outside the small lawyer conference room in which he was holed up with Petrosino. “Hey, screw, get me the fuck back to my cell. I don’t want to talk to this bum no more.”
As the guard opened the door and began leading him away, Di Primo shouted over his shoulder to Petrosino:
“Hey, I will take care of this when I get out of this fuckin’ hole. It’ll be on my own terms, you hear? On my own terms!”
Lieutenant Petrosino left Sing Sing with those words echoing in his ears. He had no more of a lead to Madonia’s killer or killers after his talk with DiPrimo than he had before he encountered him.
Where to go from here?
On the New York Central commuter train ride back to Grand Central Terminal, Petrosino decided to launch a bold frontal attack on the Mafiosi in an ultimate push to solve Madonia’s gruesome murder.
He called the homicide squad commanders to his office and passed out a typewritten list of fifteen names, all belonging to members of Morello’s gang.
“Have your men round up these guys and bring them to headquarters,” he ordered. “We’re gonna give them a going-over so we can get to the bottom of who knocked off Madonia.”
By 4:30 p.m.—four hours after detectives were dispatched on the mission—fifteen snivelling Mafiosi from Morello’s ranks were bunched together in a small ninth-floor interrogation room of the NYPD’s headquarters building. Petrosino and a team of detectives took them one at a time to another interrogation room next door and grilled them endlessly. The room’s lights had been doused and only the bulb from a goose-necked desk lamp shone directly on the face of the man being bombarded with rapid-fire questions:
“Where were you on that Tuesday when Madonia was killed, eh?”
“You know something, we know you love your leader…You have given Giuseppi Morello a blood oath…You would do anything he says to do—even kill, just like that! Didja?”
“Okay, you fuck, if you talk and tell us who did it, we’ll go real easy on you…”
On and on the questioning droned. But the mobsters’ lips were sealed. True to the oath of omerta, silence prevailed through all fifteen grillings.
Finally, frustrated, Petrosino sat at his desk and pencilled eight of the fifteen names on a pad. He tore the sheet out and handed it to Sergeant Michael Kearns.
“Hey, Mike,” he said sharply. “Throw these guys in the lockup. I want them to cool their heels. Maybe then we can get some answers from them…The others you can let go. I don’t think they can help us none.”
Giuseppi Morello, Ignazio Lupo the Wolf Sieta, Pepino Fontana, Gaetano “The Bull” Petto, Vito Cascio, Tony “Horns” Genoa, Giuseppi Favaro, and Vito LoBaido, whose alias was “Deaf Vito” because of his hearing loss since birth, were tossed into the slammer.
Only one of the top-ranked members of Morelli’s gang eluded the dragnet Petrosino put out for the roundup. He was Don Vito Ferro, who was the overlord of all Mafia activities in Manhattan and ruled in much the same way as Balsamo did in Brooklyn—although on a much smaller scale, since he was underboss to Don Giuseppi.
He may not have been clairvoyant, yet one could say that Ferro may have had a sixth sense. Perhaps he had gotten word from one of the cops on his pad about the impending roundup of Morelli’s gang—even that he was a target for arrest—and did the only thing that made sense. He high-tailed it to Brooklyn for an audience with Balsamo.
“What shall I do, Don Giuseppi?”
Balsamo could sense the man had lost his cool. He was playing scared cards. When a Mafiosi leader—indeed anyone in the ranks down to the lowliest bootlicker—exhibits fear, indeed even apprehension, about being taken up in a police sweep, then it’s best to have the guy hit the road.
“My advice to you, signore,” the godfather said firmly, “is to get out of town.”
Ferro tensed, hearing himself addressed as “signore.” It was an unmistakable signal: a man of Balsamo’s high estate would never address a Mafioso of lesser rank by that title. Unless he was being kissed off.
As Balsamo spoke the next sentence, Ferro knew for certain that he had indeed been written out of New York City’s Mafia.
“I want you should go right away to New Orleans,” Don Giuseppe said. “It will be nice and cool for you to be with Nick Favia. He is just beginning to set up an operation there, and I know he will appreciate to get help from a paisan with such knowledge and experience you can offer…”
Don Vito Ferro went into his fadeout from the New York scene shortly afterwards, and the Mafiosi he left behind went on to live another day. None of the nine “suspects” Lieutenant Petrosino held against their wills ever helped put a finger on the killer or killers.
Research has disclosed that there was only one torpedo who did the number on Benedetto Madonia: Gaetano The Bull Petto, one of the nine incarcerated gangsters who’d been under Lieutenant Petrosino’s nose for the whole month that the nine mobsters were held in custody.
Ironically,
