Honor Thy Father Part 7

"Well, how do you feel?" one reporter asked.

"Under the circ.u.mstances," Bonanno said, cautiously, "as well as could be expected."

At the bottom of the steps in front of the courthouse, Bonanno waved good-bye and walked with Krieger half a block to a parking lot. There he climbed into a 1965 white Lincoln and Krieger drove away.

Ten minutes later they pulled into a lot next to a tall building at 401 Broadway, the location of Krieger's firm, and arriving in the office lobby Bonanno saw his son waiting for him. The two men moved quickly toward one another and embraced for several moments. Then other men who had been waiting also embraced the elder Bonanno. Among the men were Labruzzo, Joseph Notaro, and Notaro's cousin Peter Notaro. There were affectionate exchanges in Sicilian, tears in the eyes of Joseph Bonanno, and awkward moments of silence. Then someone suggested that they all go uptown to La Scala Resturant on Fifty-fourth Street to have a few drinks and perhaps dinner. The elder Bonanno agreed. La Scala had long been one of his favorite restaurants. But first he wanted to go to a barbershop to get his long gray hair trimmed, wanted also to have hot towels on his face and a shoes.h.i.+ne. The men knew of a barbershop on West Forty-eighth Street that was on the second floor, making it easier for them to protect against a rival gang's "hit" man.

The men drove uptown in a three-car tandem. It was after 5:00 P.M. now, and the streets were crowded with office workers returning home; cars were b.u.mper to b.u.mper and horns were honking. Bonanno looked out with fascination at the pedestrians as he was driven slowly uptown; he noticed how fas.h.i.+on had changed during the months he was out of New York, and he told one of the bodyguards in his car that he would have to go to a tailor soon-his trousers had cuffs, and he noted that the prevailing trend was cuffless trousers. He also observed that the lapels of men's jackets were wider, and the shorter skirts that he saw some women wearing along the avenue amazed him.

As Bill sat in the car with his father, he could not help but wonder where he had been all those months, but he doubted that his father would ever discuss it with him. After all, a trial would be coming up sooner or later, although it might take years because of various delays; in any event Bill would surely be summoned to testify, and the less he knew the easier it would be. Still, Bill was intensely curious about whether his father had moved around from place to place-and how he had done it-or whether his father had remained generally in one place, and he wondered how close his father had come to getting caught, and how he had managed to avoid foolish mistakes during the interminable weeks of tension and solitude. His father now had a deep suntan, and he might well have been in North Africa or Haiti as the newspapers suggested, or even in any of a dozen other places beyond the hot sun-knowing his father, it was possible that the elder Bonanno had gotten the tan from a sunlamp as a ploy to mislead the FBI in court today.

Half of the men got out at the barbershop on Forty-eighth Street, while the others went to park the cars. As Bonanno sat in the barber's chair, a bodyguard sat waiting inside the shop and another man was posted outside the door at the top of the steps. Both men were armed.

Less than an hour later, they a.s.sembled at La Scala; they were given a large table, and drinks were quickly ordered and delivered. Most of the waiters seemed to know him and shook his hand, and other people in the restaurant recognized him from his photographs and stretched to get a look at him. He sat at the head of the table, made several toasts in Sicilian, and thanked the men for their loyalty. After a second round of drinks, there was much laughter at the description of how the FBI agent had grabbed Bonanno's hat in the detention pen and had looked without luck for labels or dry cleaner's markings that might serve as a tip-off as to where he had been. There was more laughter with the description of Morgenthau's crestfallen face on being told that Bonanno had just walked into the courthouse, and the stories continued for nearly an hour-then, suddenly, the laughter stopped. Joseph Notaro, one of Bonanno's most trusted captains, an individual who had devoted himself tirelessly to the organization throughout the chaos, sat slumped forward at the table. The men could not revive him. Notaro had just had a heart attack and was dead.

PART TWO.

THE WAR.

12.

NOTARO'S FUNERAL IN THE BRONX WAS ATTENDED BY dozens of members of the organization and also by several detectives and FBI agents who recorded the license plates of the cars and took photographs of the mourners. Joseph Bonanno swore silently as he pa.s.sed the agents on his way to the casket but he did not display his feelings openly. He was overcome with grief. His old friend, Notaro, dead at fifty-six, had been suffering from a heart ailment for years and yet his energy and loyalty remained constant throughout the ordeal following Bonanno's disappearance. On ten occasions Notaro had been summoned before the grand jury and asked questions about Bonanno and the organization, and each time Notaro was worried by government agents' hints that if he did not cooperate, his son, a young lawyer, might suffer the consequences, might possibly be disbarred from New York State; but Notaro held out against the pressure, saying nothing for which he would later be ashamed and not weakening as he continued to receive notices from the jury ordering him to reappear and to testify again. Notaro was scheduled to testify on the day following his death. dozens of members of the organization and also by several detectives and FBI agents who recorded the license plates of the cars and took photographs of the mourners. Joseph Bonanno swore silently as he pa.s.sed the agents on his way to the casket but he did not display his feelings openly. He was overcome with grief. His old friend, Notaro, dead at fifty-six, had been suffering from a heart ailment for years and yet his energy and loyalty remained constant throughout the ordeal following Bonanno's disappearance. On ten occasions Notaro had been summoned before the grand jury and asked questions about Bonanno and the organization, and each time Notaro was worried by government agents' hints that if he did not cooperate, his son, a young lawyer, might suffer the consequences, might possibly be disbarred from New York State; but Notaro held out against the pressure, saying nothing for which he would later be ashamed and not weakening as he continued to receive notices from the jury ordering him to reappear and to testify again. Notaro was scheduled to testify on the day following his death.

When the funeral ceremony was completed, Joseph Bonanno returned to his car and was driven to his son's home in East Meadow. The elder Bonanno traveled under heavy protection-armed men sat on each side of him in his car; two cars with other men drove to the front and rear along the highway; and two men also accompanied him inside his son's home, sleeping there at night and remaining on the alert there through the day. The newspapers that had given frontpage coverage to his surprise visit to Judge Frankel also reported the omnipresent threat of rival gunmen: The New York Daily News The New York Daily News's headline read BANANAS BACK, FEARED RIPE FOR KILLING. There was also speculation in the press that Bonanno had chosen to return at this time to direct a full-scale battle against the opposition, realizing, after his son's experience on Troutman Street, that there was no peaceful way in which to deal with Di Gregorio's faction or the Mafia commission led by Stefano Magaddino.

Oddly, one of Bonanno's bodyguards in his son's home was Stefano Magaddino's first cousin, Peter Magaddino, a stocky gray-haired man who was once close to the Buffalo don, but after repeated disagreements with his older cousin, whom he came to regard as overbearing, he moved to New York City and became rea.s.sociated with Joseph Bonanno. It was Peter Magaddino who had concurred in Bonanno's worst suspicions about Stefano Magaddino during 19631964-that is, Stefano's aim to control the Bonanno organization through the puppet leaders.h.i.+p of his brother-in-law, Gaspar Di Gregorio.

Peter Magaddino met Gaspar Di Gregorio many years ago in Buffalo after Di Gregorio had married Stefano's sister, and he concluded then that Di Gregorio was completely dominated by Stefano and would never be otherwise. Since Peter Magaddino had little respect for Di Gregorio and was appalled by what he considered his cousin's avariciousness, it was a simple decision in 1964 for Peter Magaddino to side with Bonanno-he admired Bonanno, whom he had grown up with and had known intimately as a young man in Castellammare del Golfo.

They were born in neighboring hillside houses, which overlooked the sea, to families that had intermarried in the past and had been allies in the feuds with the mafiosi in nearby towns. The Bonannos and Magaddinos were both large families with many branches, and for several generations they influenced the order by which people lived in that section. They subsisted from their farms, producing grain, olives, tomatoes, and other vegetables, and they raised sheep and cattle for slaughter or trade. They controlled jobs for which the government appropriated small funds, and they had influence along the pier and among the merchants, receiving tribute for their protection. They literally controlled the towns in that area as surely as had the ancient princes and viceroys before them, taxing their subjects for services rendered, services that included the arbitration of neighborly disputes, the recovery of stolen property, personal a.s.sistance in all family problems, personal redress for wrongs to one's honor or one's wife. They interceded with the judge at the trials of their countrymen and received favors from the politicians in Palermo in return for solid support in the hills. They often did things illegally, but their law was largely their own. For centuries their region's poverty and pestilence was ignored by the Sicilian government, by the parliament in Rome, by dozens of previous rulers overseas; so finally they took the law into their own hands and bent it to suit themselves, as they had seen the aristocrats do.

They believed that there was no equality under law; the law was written by conquerors. In the tumultuous history of Sicily, going back more than two thousand years, the island had been governed by Greek law, Roman law, Arab law, the laws of Goths, Normans, Angevins, Aragonese-each new fleet of conquerors brought new laws to the land, and no matter whose law it was, it seemed that it favored the rich over the poor, the powerful over the weak. While the law opposed vendettas among villagers, it allowed organized brutality and killing by government guardsmen or king's armies-wars were allowed, feuds were not-and the first to be conscripted into the king's armies were the sons of the soil. The laws regulating food, drink, dress, drugs, literature, or s.e.xual behavior were usually extensions of the life style of the n.o.bleman in power. They reflected his past, they varied if his background was prudish or permissive, if he was Christian or Moslem, if he was of an Eastern or a Western culture, if he was merciful or mad. The Germanic tyrant King Frederick II decreed that adulterous women should have their noses cut off, whereas other despots, lax and licentious, condoned concubines in court and the pursuit of other men's wives at will. The fact that the law was often inconsistent from generation to generation and was sometimes even contradictory to existing laws seemed of mild concern to the lawmakers, who were mainly interested in controlling the ma.s.ses and remaining in power.

Under such an unenlightened leaders.h.i.+p, feudalism was permitted to exist until the nineteenth century, and illiteracy prevailed in much of Sicily through the midtwentieth century, particularly in the barren mountain villages of the western region. Here in an atmosphere of neglect and isolation, families became more insular, more suspicious of strangers, held to old habits. The official government was often the enemy, the outlaw often a hero; and family clans such as the Bonannos, the Magaddinos, and numbers of other large families in neighboring seaside villages or interior towns were held in awe by their townsmen. Though certain of these leaders were vengeful and corrupt, they identified with the plight of the poor and often shared what they had stolen from the rich. Their word was nearly always good, and they did not betray a trust. Usually they went about their business quietly, walked arm in arm with the village priest through the square, or sat in the shade of cafes while lesser men stopped to greet them and perhaps seek a favor. While they bore the humble manner of other men in the town, there was nevertheless an easy confidence about them, a certain strength of character. They were more ambitious, shrewder, bolder, perhaps more cynical about life than their resigned paesani paesani, who relied largely upon G.o.d. They were often spoken of in hushed tones by other men but were never called mafiosi. They were usually referred to as the amici amici, friends, or uomini rispettati uomini rispettati, men of respect.

Since the ancestors of Joseph Bonanno and Peter Magaddino had long been part of the amici amici in Castellammare, the two men had a certain status at birth, and they were courteously treated wherever they went in the town. As a boy, Joseph Bonanno particularly liked to travel through the town on horseback, to swim near the old castle, to sometimes ride beyond the mountain through the wild pastures to his father's farm near the ancient temple of Segesta, a majestic structure with its thirty-six columns still intact though built during the cla.s.sical period of the Greeks. in Castellammare, the two men had a certain status at birth, and they were courteously treated wherever they went in the town. As a boy, Joseph Bonanno particularly liked to travel through the town on horseback, to swim near the old castle, to sometimes ride beyond the mountain through the wild pastures to his father's farm near the ancient temple of Segesta, a majestic structure with its thirty-six columns still intact though built during the cla.s.sical period of the Greeks.

He also traveled once to the city of Monreale to see the great cathedral that was constructed in the twelfth century under the Norman ruler William II, a cathedral whose interior was covered with seventy thousand square feet of exquisite mosaics and whose tremendous bronze doors were sculptured by Bonanno of Pisa. He read and reread the history of Sicily as a student, and he often wondered, on seeing such grandeur in towns of such poverty, why there had not been more citizens' revolts against the extravagance of the n.o.bility and the church. But he knew how successful the church was in convincing the people that the reward for their suffering would be found in heaven. He was also aware that those who were capable of organizing the ma.s.ses were often absorbed into the ranks of the amici; amici; and the and the amici amici were not reformers. They did not seek the overthrow of the system, which they doubted they could do even if they wanted to. They had learned to work within the system, to exploit it while it exploited the country. There was only one dramatic example in Sicilian history where the island's impoverished, embittered population was able to organize a successful national revolt against their oppressors, who in this instance were the French. The cause of the revolt occurred on Easter Monday in 1282, when a French soldier raped a Palermo maiden on her wedding day. Suddenly a band of Sicilians retaliated by butchering a French troop, and as word of this reached other Sicilians, more French soldiers were killed in town after town-a frenzied spree of xenophobia quickly spread through the island as gangs of men wildly attacked and murdered every Frenchman in sight. Thousands of Frenchmen were murdered in a few days, and it was claimed by some local historians that the Mafia was begun at this point, taking its name from the anguished cry of the girl's mother running through the streets shouting were not reformers. They did not seek the overthrow of the system, which they doubted they could do even if they wanted to. They had learned to work within the system, to exploit it while it exploited the country. There was only one dramatic example in Sicilian history where the island's impoverished, embittered population was able to organize a successful national revolt against their oppressors, who in this instance were the French. The cause of the revolt occurred on Easter Monday in 1282, when a French soldier raped a Palermo maiden on her wedding day. Suddenly a band of Sicilians retaliated by butchering a French troop, and as word of this reached other Sicilians, more French soldiers were killed in town after town-a frenzied spree of xenophobia quickly spread through the island as gangs of men wildly attacked and murdered every Frenchman in sight. Thousands of Frenchmen were murdered in a few days, and it was claimed by some local historians that the Mafia was begun at this point, taking its name from the anguished cry of the girl's mother running through the streets shouting ma fia, ma fia ma fia, ma fia, my daughter, my daughter.

This story was told to Joseph Bonanno as a boy in Castellammare by his father, who had heard it from his his father, and while certain historians consider many aspects of the incident to be highly romanticized or exaggerated, there was no doubting that the ma.s.sacre abruptly terminated French rule of the island. But the French were soon followed by other rulers like themselves, corrupt, exploiting the land and inhabitants, and giving nothing in return except to the Sicilian aristocracy, who were the most corrupt of all. For hundreds of years Castellammare was a feudal estate, part of a dowery that n.o.ble families transferred from generation to generation, and even Sicily's unification with Italy in the mid-1800s did not improve living conditions for the average citizens-most continued to live in stone hovels without water or sanitation facilities, and with so many children they were unable to afford more than two meals a day. The only escape was through immigration, and by the early 1900s more than a million Sicilians had left the land, some going to South America or Canada and many more going to the United States. father, and while certain historians consider many aspects of the incident to be highly romanticized or exaggerated, there was no doubting that the ma.s.sacre abruptly terminated French rule of the island. But the French were soon followed by other rulers like themselves, corrupt, exploiting the land and inhabitants, and giving nothing in return except to the Sicilian aristocracy, who were the most corrupt of all. For hundreds of years Castellammare was a feudal estate, part of a dowery that n.o.ble families transferred from generation to generation, and even Sicily's unification with Italy in the mid-1800s did not improve living conditions for the average citizens-most continued to live in stone hovels without water or sanitation facilities, and with so many children they were unable to afford more than two meals a day. The only escape was through immigration, and by the early 1900s more than a million Sicilians had left the land, some going to South America or Canada and many more going to the United States.

Among those to leave was Joseph Bonanno's father, Salvatore Bonanno, a lean six-footer with a handlebar moustache who was one of the few whose departure was not provoked by poverty. Salvatore Bonanno was extremely bored and restless with life in Castellammare. As a young man he had given serious thought to becoming a priest, a career pursued by many ambitious youths in quest of wealth and social prestige (one of Bonanno's granduncles had been a bishop); but before Salvatore progressed very far, he became disenchanted with the church, resentful of the great treasury it h.o.a.rded, and one day he decided to reduce that treasury a bit by stealing several jeweled chalices, gold sacramental plates, and an ornate gold candelabrum. Then he left the monastery with his booty and returned home without guilt.

Soon he was helping to run the family cattle business, which included smuggling animals from North Africa, and he also supervised a family farm and vineyard that produced figs and grapes. At the age of twenty-five, he was cheered by the birth of a son, and he might have resigned himself to life in Castellammare if he had not heard so many enticing tales about America from those immigrants who sent back word. In 1906, at the age of twenty-six, with his twenty-one-year-old wife, Catherine, and his one-year-old son Joseph, Salvatore Bonanno sailed for New York. Upon arriving he was met by numbers of Castellammarese, who took the couple to the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn where hundreds of Sicilians had settled before the turn of the century. Soon Salvatore obtained an apartment and purchased a restaurant and bar on the corner of Roebling Street and North Fifth. The amici amici had already established themselves in small numbers in Brooklyn, operating an Italian lottery, trying to control the cheap labor market that their countrymen were providing American business, and selling their "protection" service wherever they could. But none of the had already established themselves in small numbers in Brooklyn, operating an Italian lottery, trying to control the cheap labor market that their countrymen were providing American business, and selling their "protection" service wherever they could. But none of the amici amici tried to extort money from Salvatore Bonanno; his family's position in Sicily was well known, and the New York tried to extort money from Salvatore Bonanno; his family's position in Sicily was well known, and the New York amici amici were hopeful that Salvatore might bring whatever skills and cunning that he possessed to their Brooklyn operation. were hopeful that Salvatore might bring whatever skills and cunning that he possessed to their Brooklyn operation.

But the Sicilian and Italian gangsters were of little significance at this period in New York, and Salvatore Bonanno did not greatly concern himself with their affairs. The big gangs in New York and other eastern cities were predominantly Irish or Jewish. The same elements were powerful in Chicago, and further to the West and Southwest, the big names in crime were Anglo-Saxon, spiritual descendants of the James boys, the Barkers, and Pretty Boy Floyd. Although some amici amici were receiving kickbacks and other considerations along San Francisco's Fishermen's Wharf, where many of the fishermen were Sicilian immigrants, the only city in which Sicilian or Italian gangs had made headlines was in New Orleans in 1890, and that episode turned out horribly for the gangmen. The headlines concerned two Sicilian factions battling for control of illegal waterfront operations in New Orleans and the efforts of a vigilant police chief to expose the racketeers. After the chief had ignored bribes and the threatening advice that he not probe further, he was shot in the street one night and died shortly after. A grand jury investigation blamed the murder on a "secret organization known as the Mafia," and nineteen Sicilian immigrants were brought to trial as princ.i.p.als or conspirators. When the suspects were not convicted, a group of enraged citizens, including the mayor and the press, voiced their disapproval, and many people suspected that the jury had been bribed. A large group of protesters marched to the jailhouse, and many of these citizens later broke into the prison where, while the guards were occupied elsewhere, they lynched or shot to death eleven of the Sicilians. News of this traveled around the world, and the Italian government severed diplomatic relations with the United States; although relations were later restored when President Harrison apologized and authorized an indemnity of approximately $30,000, it was many years before law-abiding Sicilian and Italian immigrants felt at home in New Orleans. were receiving kickbacks and other considerations along San Francisco's Fishermen's Wharf, where many of the fishermen were Sicilian immigrants, the only city in which Sicilian or Italian gangs had made headlines was in New Orleans in 1890, and that episode turned out horribly for the gangmen. The headlines concerned two Sicilian factions battling for control of illegal waterfront operations in New Orleans and the efforts of a vigilant police chief to expose the racketeers. After the chief had ignored bribes and the threatening advice that he not probe further, he was shot in the street one night and died shortly after. A grand jury investigation blamed the murder on a "secret organization known as the Mafia," and nineteen Sicilian immigrants were brought to trial as princ.i.p.als or conspirators. When the suspects were not convicted, a group of enraged citizens, including the mayor and the press, voiced their disapproval, and many people suspected that the jury had been bribed. A large group of protesters marched to the jailhouse, and many of these citizens later broke into the prison where, while the guards were occupied elsewhere, they lynched or shot to death eleven of the Sicilians. News of this traveled around the world, and the Italian government severed diplomatic relations with the United States; although relations were later restored when President Harrison apologized and authorized an indemnity of approximately $30,000, it was many years before law-abiding Sicilian and Italian immigrants felt at home in New Orleans.

In New York City, however, Salvatore Bonanno remained aloof from gang activity and concentrated on learning English, traveling around the city, and operating his restaurant. When his son Joseph was old enough, he entered the first grade at the public school on Roebling Street. A year later, in 1911, Salvatore Bonanno was summoned home by his brothers in Castellammare. A dispute had erupted among various gangs in western Sicily, and while the Magaddino and Bonanno factions were still united, other large local families, such as the Buccellatos, were not and were suspected of conspiring with outside amici amici to take over control of the piers and other operations in Castellammare. Salvatore's land and cattle interests were threatened, he was told; so as soon as he and his wife could pack and board a steamer, they began the voyage back to Sicily. Joseph Bonanno was six years old and was speaking Sicilian with a Brooklyn accent. to take over control of the piers and other operations in Castellammare. Salvatore's land and cattle interests were threatened, he was told; so as soon as he and his wife could pack and board a steamer, they began the voyage back to Sicily. Joseph Bonanno was six years old and was speaking Sicilian with a Brooklyn accent.

By the time the family arrived in Castellammare, the threat of a widespread battle and series of vendettas had simmered down, and it was soon obvious to Salvatore that his trip home was something of a false alarm. He was initially angry with his brothers but decided to postpone his return to America for a while until he was absolutely certain that the disputes and misunderstandings were settled to everyone's satisfaction.

There was obviously great unrest throughout the island, particularly in the western region, and Salvatore Bonanno was more aware than ever of the divisiveness of the people. Sicily seemed to be an island of many islands, a mixture of individualists united only in their poverty, and their lives were so very different from those immigrants who had settled in Brooklyn and elsewhere in America. Salvatore noticed that no man in western Sicily ventured along the open road beyond the town without a shotgun in his saddle or a pistol in his pocket, which had not been the case in New York, although it might have been in the cowboy country of western America. Salvatore became increasingly aware, too, of the hostility of western Sicilians toward eastern Sicilians, especially since the western capital of Palermo had been overtaken in overseas trade by the eastern port of Catania, resulting in dwindling profits for the amici amici and everyone else who had linked their fortunes to Palermo. and everyone else who had linked their fortunes to Palermo.

The plight of western Sicily continued to be ignored by the Italian government in Rome, except in instances that were embarra.s.sing to Sicilians-such as the impeachment from the Senate of a popular representative from Trapani, capital of the western province of which Castellammare was a part, because he was charged with padding munic.i.p.al payrolls, installing his friends and the amici amici in political jobs, misappropriating certain funds for personal use or patronage, doing things that Sicilians believed all politicians did, including those in Rome. When the Italian government would not drop its charges against the Trapani representative, there were protests throughout Sicily, especially in the western region; the Italian king's picture was publicly burned, a local street was named in honor of the defamed politician, and a French flag was flown in the town square, suggesting that the Roman bureaucrats were no less hypocritical or despicable than the French had been centuries ago, and a few Sicilian citizens advocated a b.l.o.o.d.y revolt similar to the one that had occurred in 1282. in political jobs, misappropriating certain funds for personal use or patronage, doing things that Sicilians believed all politicians did, including those in Rome. When the Italian government would not drop its charges against the Trapani representative, there were protests throughout Sicily, especially in the western region; the Italian king's picture was publicly burned, a local street was named in honor of the defamed politician, and a French flag was flown in the town square, suggesting that the Roman bureaucrats were no less hypocritical or despicable than the French had been centuries ago, and a few Sicilian citizens advocated a b.l.o.o.d.y revolt similar to the one that had occurred in 1282.

The Italian government was not surprised by this response since many of its members.h.i.+p had long felt that Sicilians were incorrigible, impossible to understand, and perhaps even criminal by nature. The Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso came close to suggesting this in pointing out that while eastern Sicilians had been greatly influenced by Greek colonization, the western Sicilians had been more influenced by the Arabs, many of whom in the thirteenth century were driven into the hills behind Palermo and were forced to survive through their cunning and deception. Other Italian theorists suggested that western Sicilians living in or near Palermo were generally lazy and unambitious because they had been ruled for hundreds of years by the lax administration of the medieval Spanish. And there were other explanations, too, that were equally unflattering to western Sicilians.

Salvatore Bonanno resented the aspersions cast upon his region, particularly since he had seen for himself in America how hard western Sicilians were willing to work if given a chance. Not only did they work hard but they earned extra money to send back to their relatives in Sicily, and this financial bonus was a boon to the sagging Sicilian economy. Another benefit provided by their immigration was in making more jobs available to those who remained at home, and Sicilian landowners were often heard to complain of their inability to find sufficient numbers of farm workers.

But Salvatore Bonanno saw no change with regard to violence in Sicily-hardly a day pa.s.sed without a few people being shot in the streets because of one vendetta or another, and there was endless cattle stealing and kidnaping for ransom. Among the many murders during the early 1900s in Sicily was the fatal shooting of an American detective who had come to the island to learn what he could about the Mafia. His name was Petrosino. He was born in Italy and had immigrated at thirteen to the United States. Eventually he became a member of the New York City Police Department and then was selected to work with the Italian Squad, a secret unit established in 1904 to help curb the extortion racket that was growing in New York and was believed to be run by the Mafia, or, as it was also called, the Black Hand or the Unione Siciliane. Petrosino thought that he would be better equipped to fight the Mafia in America if he learned more about its origins in Sicily, and gradually he convinced his superiors to send him. He traveled there under an a.s.sumed name, and his mission was confidential, but as he strolled through a piazza in Palermo on the day of his arrival, he was approached from behind and was shot four times in the head and back. Petrosino fell dead in the street. His killer or killers disappeared into the crowds in the square and escaped.

Salvatore Bonanno's presence had a restraining effect on the mafiosi of Castellammare and neighboring towns and villages in the province of Trapani. Since he had been in America during the five years in which there had been much dissension among the gang leaders, much infiltration of traditional boundaries, and unauthorized brigandage, he was able to avoid taking sides with one faction or another; as a result, he could arbitrate disputes with apparent objectivity. Though he was young, he commanded respect from his elders; and though he was soft-spoken, he could be vengeful if necessary, and more than one corpse was found along the narrow hilly roads of Castellammare after his judgments and warnings had been ignored. Tall and formal of manner, he was a conspicuous figure wherever he went, and the people of the town were beginning to extend to him the deference that custom required.

But in 1915, in his thirty-seventh year, he became ill with a respiratory ailment that was not adequately treated, and in November of that year, while he sat at home writing a letter, he quietly died. He still held the pen in his hand and seemed to be meditating at his desk when he was discovered in that position by Peter Magaddino, then thirteen, who had entered the house looking for his friend Joseph.

The death of Salvatore Bonanno was recognized throughout the province of Trapani, and several hundred people followed the horse-drawn casket through the town toward the cemetery near the base of the mountain. In the procession were all the important families of the area-the Magaddinos and Buccellatos, the Vitales, the Rimis, the Bonventres (Mrs. Bonanno's family), and dozens of other clans together with the priests and politicians. At the head of the cortege walked Joseph Bonanno, eleven, with his mother, thirty-one, dressed from head to toe in black, the color she planned to wear for the rest of her life.

Weeks after the death of his father, Joseph Bonanno returned to school, deeply depressed but finding comfort in his close companions.h.i.+p with Peter Magaddino. It was to Magaddino that he confided things that he withheld from his many cousins and uncles, and one recurring dream that possessed Joseph Bonanno as a boy was to run away from home and become a sea captain of a large ocean liner like the one in which he had crossed the Atlantic with his parents. Sometimes he awoke in the middle of the night screaming with visions of himself sinking with his s.h.i.+p, seeing the bow slowly submerging into the sea. Much of his boyhood was preoccupied with death, not only his own but the death of people he did not know in distant places. He overheard people speaking in Castellammare about the many Sicilians killed fighting in Europe for the worthless Italian government in World War I, and he saw many servicemen returning to the town with amputated limbs or with strange ailments due to inhaling gas on the battlefield. He saw pieces of black cloth on the doors of numerous homes, signifying that there had been a death in the family, and it seemed sometimes that every woman he pa.s.sed on the street was wearing a black dress, and every man wore a black band around his sleeve or on his lapel. Death was the obsession of Sicilians, they paraded their mourning colors almost with pride, and even on bright sunny days, Castellammare seemed black. Among the few vivid recollections of gaiety that Joseph Bonanno had as a boy was the s.h.i.+p's voyage from New York on which were many Americani Americani in brightly colored clothes laughing among themselves, singing in the bar. in brightly colored clothes laughing among themselves, singing in the bar.

In 1920, when she was thirty-seven, his mother died. Joseph Bonanno was an orphan at fifteen. He was left with the large house and other property in addition to the farm, cattle, and interests in other businesses. In a town where the great majority of the 14,000 population was dest.i.tute, Joseph Bonanno was an individual of rare wealth, and his uncles vied to become his official guardian. They argued endlessly among themselves and bitterness ensued; it lasted for more than a year as young Joseph Bonanno s.h.i.+fted between their homes, feeling embarra.s.sment and disgust as the squabbling continued. Finally he made up his mind to leave Castellammare. He arranged for his uncles to have enough money sent each month so that he could support himself, and he left to them the problem of dividing the property and other valuables to their own satisfaction. He was going to live in Palermo to attend a nautical college, and his friend Peter Magaddino went with him.

The two young men lived for two years in the capital, and it was a time of great excitement and confusion in Sicilian history. Mussolini had risen to power in Italy in 1922, and he had made trips to Sicily where he delivered speeches promising improvements and reform. In the beginning, Mussolini was cheered by most elements of Sicilian society-the aristocrats applauded his call for the restoration of grandeur, the ma.s.ses responded to his program for a better life, even the mafiosi were impressed with his valorous demeanor and flamboyant oratory. The mafiosi also a.s.sumed that he would work with them, as other politicians had done, in return for their a.s.surance of political support. But the Mafia bosses in Sicily greatly underestimated Mussolini's ego. He was not the sort of man who could tolerate secret groups that he could not control, and a few incidents occurred during his visits to Sicily that sharpened his indignation against the Mafia's traditional independence and lawlessness.

On one occasion, while Mussolini was attending a meeting, someone stole the hat that he had left in an outer room; the police could not recover it, and then someone suggested, to Mussolini's chagrin, that perhaps the Mafia's aid might be sought. On another trip to Sicily, Mussolini was touring a town in the province of Palermo with the mayor who was also the local Mafia chief. When the mayor observed the many policemen in Mussolini's entourage, he expressed surprise, informing Mussolini with obvious pride: "As I have the whole of this district under my orders, Your Excellency has nothing to fear when you are by my side." Then the mayor, turning to some of his men standing nearby, added: "Let no one dare touch a hair of Mussolini's head. He is my friend and the best man in the world." Mussolini could barely contain his fury. When he returned to Rome he initiated plans to arrest the mayor and to begin a campaign to eliminate the Mafia, which he regarded as the scourge of Sicily and a tremendous impediment to the island's progress and control.

The man a.s.signed to confront the Mafia was a ruthlessly efficient Fascist and former police officer named Cesare Mori; and if Mori, as the prefect of Palermo, did not totally destroy the Mafia in the next few years, he most a.s.suredly did drive it underground. Unhindered by the strictures of justice, Mori's police units arrested hundreds of mafiosi or suspected members, tortured them with electric wires, cattle whips, fire, and stretched and squeezed them on the medieval rack. That many innocent people were condemned unjustly did not concern Cesare Mori, who was backed solidly in the campaign by Mussolini. Most of the island's aristocracy were generally pleased by Mori's results, for now they no longer had to worry so much about the plundering of their property.

Joseph Bonanno, however, was appalled by what was happening, and together with Peter Magaddino and other students in Palermo, he joined a young radical organization that circulated anti-Fascist literature, denounced Mussolini in billboard posters, and stole or damaged the photographs of him on display in public buildings. This activity soon came to Mori's attention, and arrest warrants were issued against the students. But Bonanno, Magaddino, and five others with Mafia connections in western Sicily went into hiding, and later in 1924 they were smuggled on a freighter bound for Ma.r.s.eilles.

They remained briefly in Ma.r.s.eilles, went next to Paris. There Joseph Bonanno visited one of his cousins, who was an artist, and he marked time while arrangements were being made in Castellammare by the amici amici for the seven young men to be smuggled into the United States. There was considerable communication between the mafiosi of Sicily and the United States at this time due largely to the fabulous smuggling and bootlegging business created in the United States in 1920 by the pa.s.sage of the Eighteenth Amendment banning the manufacture and sale of alcoholic drinks. Mafiosi were traveling back and forth between the two countries carrying messages and recruiting men in Sicily to come to America to work in the vast illegal industry generated by Prohibition. Many people from Castellammare were now rising in the ranks of the American underworld as organizers or enforcers, and many others were contributing their services to the bootlegging industry by driving trucks that delivered the product to speakeasies, by working as smugglers along American piers, by manufacturing homemade whiskey and wine in their stills at home, as they had done in the old country, and selling it to central organizations. Among these people were several friends of the Bonannos, and when they heard that the son of Salvatore Bonanno was coming to America they pledged to help him in every way possible. for the seven young men to be smuggled into the United States. There was considerable communication between the mafiosi of Sicily and the United States at this time due largely to the fabulous smuggling and bootlegging business created in the United States in 1920 by the pa.s.sage of the Eighteenth Amendment banning the manufacture and sale of alcoholic drinks. Mafiosi were traveling back and forth between the two countries carrying messages and recruiting men in Sicily to come to America to work in the vast illegal industry generated by Prohibition. Many people from Castellammare were now rising in the ranks of the American underworld as organizers or enforcers, and many others were contributing their services to the bootlegging industry by driving trucks that delivered the product to speakeasies, by working as smugglers along American piers, by manufacturing homemade whiskey and wine in their stills at home, as they had done in the old country, and selling it to central organizations. Among these people were several friends of the Bonannos, and when they heard that the son of Salvatore Bonanno was coming to America they pledged to help him in every way possible.

Leaving France, Bonanno and his young friends sailed first to Cuba, where they were met by amici amici and provided with a small boat and a pilot who took them at night to the western sh.o.r.e of Florida, slipping them in through a private dock in Tampa. Tampa was a smuggler's paradise during Prohibition, with its many inlets offering a variety of entrances and its low-hung tropical foliage and abundant trees providing excellent concealment as swift motorboats arrived to deliver whiskey or people. Waiting to greet Bonanno and the others at the dock was a man named Willie Moretti, the Florida representative of the Jewish gangster who controlled the rackets in New Jersey, Abner (Longy) Zwillman. and provided with a small boat and a pilot who took them at night to the western sh.o.r.e of Florida, slipping them in through a private dock in Tampa. Tampa was a smuggler's paradise during Prohibition, with its many inlets offering a variety of entrances and its low-hung tropical foliage and abundant trees providing excellent concealment as swift motorboats arrived to deliver whiskey or people. Waiting to greet Bonanno and the others at the dock was a man named Willie Moretti, the Florida representative of the Jewish gangster who controlled the rackets in New Jersey, Abner (Longy) Zwillman.

It was not uncommon in the twenties for mafiosi to be working in organizations controlled by Jews; the Mafia was not yet the h.o.m.ogeneous syndicate it would become, and mobsters of Irish, Jewish, and other origins were still big names in organized crime. Dutch Schultz controlled the numbers rackets in Harlem and the distribution of beer. Louis Lepke and Jake Shapiro were top labor extortionists, and they had trucks transporting stolen or contraband merchandise around the nation, and their enforcement gangs were under Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky. There were other figures such as Arnold Rothstein in New York, Charles (King) Solomon in Boston, and Frank Erickson in Florida. Erickson worked closely with Frank Costello, who was one of the first Italo-American gangsters to make a fortune during Prohibition. Costello, who had immigrated to the United States from southern Italy at the age of four with his parents, was a prominent rumrunner in 1923 under Bill Dwyer, who commanded a fleet of twelve steel-plated speedboats, armed with machine guns, that carried whiskey from Canada to the eastern seaboard and Chicago.

It was perhaps in Chicago that the mafiosi were making their strongest impact at the time of Joseph Bonanno's arrival in the United States. The gang of Johnny Torrio, composed of several Sicilians like himself, was beginning to overpower the Irish gangs that had been preeminent for years. Torrio's chief a.s.sistant was Al Capone, a Neapolitan, and it was said that they were each earning about $50,000 a week during the early period of Prohibition, although it was a risky business with street murders almost daily. After the Torrio-Capone men killed Dion O'Banion in November 1924, O'Banion's backers retaliated and came close to killing Torrio. Although he recovered from gunshot wounds in the hospital, he decided to abdicate the leaders.h.i.+p to Capone. This decision was received unenthusiastically by some Sicilians in the outfit, who would have preferred to work under one of their own, but since there was no Sicilian to match Capone's organizational ability, his political connections throughout Illinois, and his personal acquaintances.h.i.+p with mobsters around the country, there was no choice. And during the next five years, despite the almost constant warfare with lesser rivals, the Capone gang prospered as had few gangs before it, earning about $50 million a year from bootlegging, according to tax agents, about $25 million from gambling, and close to $10 million each from prost.i.tution and narcotics. Capone's operating expenses were also high; they included an estimated $15 million a year in contributions to the Chicago police and to other city and state officials.

In New York City at this time, the top Mafia figure was a short, squat old-style southern Italian with a moustache named Joe Ma.s.seria, who was known as Joe the Boss. Though he did not possess Capone's talent for organization, Ma.s.seria was shrewd and fearless, and in his gang were several ambitious young men who would achieve great notoriety in the future. Among them was his chief aide, Lucky Luciano, twenty-seven, who had come to the United States at nine from a town east of Palermo, Lercara Friddi, where his father had labored in the sulfur pits. There was also the twenty-seven-year-old Vito Genovese, another laborer's son, who had immigrated at fifteen from the village of Nola, near Naples.

Joseph Bonanno, who was nineteen when he arrived, did not immediately a.s.sociate himself with Luciano, Genovese, or other followers of Ma.s.seria who gathered in certain hangouts in Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Bonanno instead went directly to the Brooklyn neighborhood where he had lived as a boy with his parents more than thirteen years ago, and he was pleased and surprised at how many people from Castellammare were now cl.u.s.tered within the teeming blocks of Roebling and Havemeyer Streets, Grand Street and Metropolitan Avenue, North Fourth and Fifth Streets. During his first few weeks in Brooklyn, as the entire neighborhood welcomed him, he heard again the familiar accent of western Sicily, recognized the surnames, saw in their faces a resemblance to relatives still in Castellammare. He also had relatives of his own living in Brooklyn at this time, as did his young traveling companions, all of whom found lodging in the neighborhood except for Peter Magaddino, who had made previous arrangements to join his cousin Stefano and the other Magaddinos who had settled in Buffalo.

Joseph Bonanno lived in the home of his mother's oldest brother, Peter Bonventre, who owned a barbershop. Peter Bonventre was a generous and kindly man who was earning an honest if unimpressive livelihood from barbering. Like the majority of immigrants from Sicily and Italy, Bonventre was a law-abiding, humble man to whom the journey to the New World was the highpoint of his life, the fulfillment of a dream, and he was willing to begin at the bottom and work his way slowly upward. He saw his life as a step in a new direction that would hopefully be followed and improved upon by the next generation, but he was not driven by any desire to achieve for himself great wealth, power, or prestige. He had a younger brother who was smitten by these things, and this brother was now a member of the neighborhood mafiosi. Peter Bonventre wondered whether his nephew would also become a member of whether he could work within the law; and after Joseph Bonanno had been in Brooklyn for a while, Bonventre asked him if he would possibly consider a career as a barber, perhaps one day acquiring a shop of his own. Bonanno smiled and thanked his uncle for his concern, saying that he would give it some thought. But privately Bonanno was surprised by his uncle's lack of insight-not in a thousand years would Bonanno become a barber or anything of the sort. He did not sail thousands of miles across the sea, and slip through the dragnet of American security, to devote himself to the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of other men's hair. Even at nineteen, though he had no specific goal in mind, Bonanno envisioned himself a leader of men, an individual destined to face great challenges, to a.s.sert himself, to prosper and become a man of respect in a new land. While he was quite certain that he could not attain the respect he sought within the legal confines of an American society that was dominated by Anglo-Saxons, that was governed by men whose grandfathers had muscled their way to the top and had rigged the rules to their own advantage and had learned all the loopholes, he did believe that the ruling cla.s.ses in America as in Sicily had great respect for two things-power and money-and he was determined to get both in one way or another. The perfect time to do so, of course, was right now, when possibly most of the nation's citizens were breaking the law and making the bootleggers rich. So in his first year in Brooklyn, Bonanno affiliated himself with the neighborhood mafiosi, who were obviously doing very well; they were driving new cars and wearing finer clothes than their humble countrymen who got up each day at dawn to toil in factories or work in construction gangs.

The mafiosi, who slept late in the morning, usually met each afternoon in their private storefront club on Roebling Street, and they would sit drinking black coffee or playing cards. A few doors away from their club was a large bakery that was also a front for a bootlegging business, and after dark the bakery trucks would travel through the city delivering pastries and bread, whiskey and wine, to certain speakeasies and restaurants. The trucks sometimes also drove to freight yards or piers with boxloads of machine guns to be s.h.i.+pped to Al Capone to help fight his rivals in Chicago.

Within a remarkably short period of time, Bonanno was regarded by the other men in Brooklyn as a potential leader. They had initially accepted him because of his name, but soon they recognized his precocious talent for organization and his quick instinct for seizing opportunities. He greatly expanded their whiskey business after having personally visited the owners of speakeasies, and he did this without resorting to threats or pressure; his polished manner and pleasant appearance were a.s.sets and he extended easy credit to those speakeasies raided by the police. He expanded the Italian lottery to other areas of Brooklyn, and he invested the money that he earned in several businesses-clothing factories, cheese shops, a funeral parlor-and he covered his total earnings so adroitly that he would never be convicted of tax evasion.

His name and maneuverings soon became known to Joe Ma.s.seria in Manhattan, who was becoming increasingly suspicious of the growing number of Castellammarese in Brooklyn. Ma.s.seria sensed that the Castellammarese were gradually disa.s.sociating themselves from his overall leaders.h.i.+p, and in 1928 he demanded higher tribute as a test of their loyalty. When they did not agree to his terms, Ma.s.seria had one of their men shot to death on a Brooklyn street and another was captured and held in a hangman's noose until the prisoner's friends raised $10,000 in ransom.

But these incidents did not achieve Ma.s.seria's desired results-the Castellammarese became hostile and more clannish-and finally Ma.s.seria lost his patience and decided to annihilate the entire group. His campaign started slowly with the destruction of alcohol trucks and with sniper's bullets fired from cars moving fast through the Brooklyn neighborhood, and by 1930 there were a number of murders committed by both sides, and the "Castellammarese War" became a national issue in the underworld as top gangsters in other cities either supported or opposed Ma.s.seria's plan to destroy the Castellammarese. Some gang leaders sent money or guns to the faction they were backing, others sent cars and men. Joe Ma.s.seria had, in addition to Lucky Luciano and Vito Genovese, such underlings and advisers as Joe Adonis and Carlo Gambino, Albert Anastasia and Frank Costello. Even though Al Capone was having battles of his own in Chicago, he was sympathetic to Ma.s.seria's cause; and in 1930 Capone's men were credited with killing a Chicago boss named Joseph Aiello who had been sending $5,000 a week to the Castellammarese in Brooklyn.

The boss of the Castellammarese during the war was not Joseph Bonanno, who was twenty-five, but an older man of forty-Salvatore Maranzano, a lean, tall, pensive Sicilian with a receding hairline and severe almost ascetic features. Maranzano had been a close friend in Sicily of Joseph Bonanno's father; and, like Bonanno pere pere, and Bonanno fils fils, he was an avid student of ancient history. Maranzano was particularly interested in the Roman Empire under Julius Caesar, and Maranzano's apartment in Brooklyn contained many volumes about Caesar's wars and tactics. Maranzano's chief aides in 1930 included Bonanno and Joseph Profaci, Thomas Lucchese, and Joseph Magliocco. Maranzano also had an important ally in Gaetano Gagliano, who had been an officer in another gang whose leader Ma.s.seria had eliminated; Gagliano not only s.h.i.+fted his men to Maranzano's side but Gagliano himself contributed several thousand dollars to the fight against Ma.s.seria. Another powerful force behind Maranzano were the Castellammarese in Buffalo, led by Stefano Magaddino, who was sending Maranzano $5,000 a week as well as supplies and vehicles.

It became apparent by 1931 that the momentum had s.h.i.+fted against Joe Ma.s.seria, who had lost approximately fifty men during the first year of the fighting and whose followers were slowly realizing that their cause was hopeless and unnecessary. The Castellammarese were better organized, more unified than Ma.s.seria's people, and they also had a force of approximately 400 men, which was larger than Ma.s.seria's group, some of whom were now defecting. Ma.s.seria's advisers, Luciano and Genovese, angry because their profitable bootlegging business and other enterprises had declined during the prolonged feud, began to urge Ma.s.seria to make peace with Maranzano-or, if not peace, to at least apply more pressure on Maranzano by enlisting the aid of Jewish gangs and other ethnic organizations. But Ma.s.seria, a victim of his own pride, stubbornly refused.

As more of Ma.s.seria's men were injured or killed during the winter of 1931 and as more alcohol trucks were stolen by Maranzano's hijackers, Luciano and Genovese and three of their colleagues secretly visited Maranzano and made a deal. They would have Ma.s.seria murdered if Maranzano would guarantee their safety and status in the underworld after the deed was done. Maranzano agreed. And so on the afternoon of April 15, 1931, at Scarpato's Restaurant on Coney Island, after Lucky Luciano excused himself from the table at which he had lunched with Ma.s.seria and walked into the men's room, gunmen entered the restaurant and blasted bullets at Ma.s.seria, hitting him in the back and the head. Ma.s.seria fell heavily to the floor and died instantly. When the police arrived, Luciano told them that he had seen nothing, having only heard the noise; and the restaurant employees, confirming that Luciano had indeed been in the men's room at the time of the shooting, were unable to identify the killers.

After Ma.s.seria's funeral, Maranzano presided at a meeting attended by 500 people in a hired hall in the Bronx and explained that the days of shooting were over and that a period of harmony was about to begin. He then presented them with his plan of reorganization, one loosely based on Caesar's military command-the individual gangs each would be commanded by a capo capo, or boss, under whom would be a sottocapo sottocapo, underboss, and beneath the underboss would be caporegimi caporegimi, lieutenants, who would supervise the squads of soldiers. Each unit would be known as a family and would operate within prescribed territorial areas. Over all the family bosses would be a capo di tutti capi capo di tutti capi, a boss of all bosses, and it was this t.i.tle that Maranzano bequeathed to himself.

Luciano, Genovese, and other former members of Ma.s.seria's gang were unhappy about this last point. They saw boss rule as obsolete, an anathema to the effectiveness of a large organization; they feared that Maranzano had become, like Ma.s.seria before him, obsessed with a sense of singular power, and they saw no solution but to plot against him.

They moved with extreme caution, for Maranzano was a formidable figure after Ma.s.seria's death, and quite prosperous, too, as gangsters from around the nation made sizable contributions to fund-raising benefits held in Maranzano's honor. At one such banquet in Brooklyn, Maranzano was believed to have received more than $100,000. But Maranzano was not quick to share the profits with his underlings, nor did he return many of the trucks that had been stolen from men like Luciano; he was also said to have shared in merchandise stolen from a man who was on his side, Thomas Lucchese.

And so while Maranzano basked in glory through the summer of 1931, Luciano intrigued against him, slowly succeeding in convincing even such loyalists as Bonanno and Profaci that Maranzano was in reality an old-fas.h.i.+oned tyrant, not much better than Ma.s.seria, and certainly ill equipped to unify the diverse groups in organized crime into a large modern syndicate. When Maranzano learned of Luciano's campaign against him, he hired men to kill him. But before Maranzano's mercenaries could do the job, Luciano's own hired a.s.sa.s.sins-four Jewish gangsters, posing as detectives, who were affiliated with the Siegel-Lansky mob that was friendly with Luciano-walked into the real estate office that was Maranzano's "front" in the Grand Central Building, at Park Avenue and Forty-sixth Street, where they flashed their badges at the men who sat in the outer room, entered Maranzano's suite and, catching him by surprise, shot him four times and stabbed him six times in the abdomen.

There would be several other deaths on that day-September 11, 1931-and also on the following day, most of the victims being old-style gangsters referred to as Moustache Petes or greasers, men considered too stubborn, illiterate, and incapable of fitting into the modern scheme of things.

The modern scheme, as outlined by Luciano at later meetings, would abandon Maranzano's "boss of bosses" position but would preserve most of Maranzano's other ideas on the organization of "families." Luciano urged that mafiosi no longer seek power through threats and vendettas, but instead adopt the more subtly aggressive tactics of large modern corporations, some of which had been founded by robber barons but were quietly committed to profiteering within a free-enterprise code of rules and restrictions. While Luciano hoped that the mafiosi would continue to work with other ethnic gang leaders, particularly with men like Meyer Lansky, who was a genius at finding profitable investments for Mafia money in legal as well as illegal enterprises, Luciano also believed that members.h.i.+p in the Mafia itself should still be limited to men of Sicilian or Italian origin. Despite their many differences and jealousies, the Sicilian-Italian element felt a rapport with one another that they did not feel with outsiders. Though its members.h.i.+p of perhaps 5,000 was a small percentage of the more than 100,000 individuals that law enforcement officials estimated to be involved in organized crime, it was tighter ethnically at this time than were members of Jewish gangs, Irish gangs, hybrid gangs, or the numerous cliques and free-lancers around the country. If it could remain cohesive, it could dominate the underworld.

Luciano was not alone in advocating less violence-Frank Costello had spoken similarly at a gathering of gangsters at Atlantic City in 1929-but Luciano was now a most persuasive figure. At thirty-four, living up to the nickname that had been inspired by his luck at gambling, he had managed to dispose of both Ma.s.seria and Maranzano, and yet, partly because he had resisted the top job himself, he was able to convince the surviving leaders of his sincerity for solidarity and peace. Without tactlessly denigrating the life of Maranzano, Luciano nonetheless deglamorized him in the eyes of most Castellammarese by depicting him as a victim of excessive power, a follower of Caesar in an era of the organization.

Lucky Luciano was a consummate organization man, and while younger men like Bonanno and Profaci remained individualistic in outlook, they had no difficulty in relating to Luciano, a fellow Sicilian whose astuteness and forward-looking approach they quickly respected. Bonanno was in agreement with Luciano that the "boss of bosses" t.i.tle should be eliminated and that no one boss should have the right to dictate to other bosses-the individual bosses would be largely autonomous in their designated areas. Bonanno was somewhat concerned, however, about the future role of the commission and the specific steps the commission could take in the interest of maintaining peace within the national brotherhood. During the five months that Maranzano had been the boss of bosses, Bonanno worked with Maranzano on a concept of the commission, but neither Maranzano nor Bonanno had been entirely satisfied with the result. Bonanno still felt that a commission might develop into a policy-making body that could intrude upon the autonomy of individual bosses, and Bonanno urged at the meetings that the commission be clearly designed to serve as a forum for debate or explanation but not as an agency with power. Other Mafia leaders, less independently minded, were not opposed to the prospect of an authoritative commission, although they did not wish to argue for it. There had been so much disagreement among the mafiosi in recent years that they no