Read The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano: The Mafia Story in His Own Words Online
Authors: Martin A. Gosch,Richard Hammer
Tags: #Biographies & Memoirs, #Leaders & Notable People, #Rich & Famous, #True Crime, #Organized Crime
The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano: The Mafia Story in His Own Words (69 page)
Three days later, those who could or who cared gathered at the Holy Trinity Church in Naples to celebrate the requiem mass for the dead man. Father Scarpato came down from Mount Vesuvius to eulogize his friend’s passing. Giovanni Passeggio and other friends from the world of respectability were there, and so were the friends who had labored close to his side in the good old days in New York and in the days of exile in Italy. They were men grown old now, like Joe Di Giorgio and John Raimundo, and with
his death, they were bereft and uncertain in their own exile. The central figure in their lives was gone.
Joe Adonis received permission from Italian authorities to attend. He arrived with a mournful expression, tears in his eyes and a final tribute to his old friend — a massive floral wreath with a black band on which, in gold letters, was inscribed the ancient gangland farewell: “So Long, Pal.”
Pat Eboli remained a few days more to help with the disposal of Luciano’s goods. Of his family, only his brother Bartolo made the trip. Of his friends, associates, comrades, followers in the American underworld, none appeared, though Lansky sent a floral offering and so did many others, most of them anonymously. There was no word from Vito Genovese in Atlanta, though some said that on that day he was smiling, effusive and more generous than was his habit.
More than three hundred people — many of them watchful police officers from Italy, the United States and Interpol, not mourning but on duty — sat through the mass and then, on foot, followed the flower-bedecked coffin in its silver-and-black funeral carriage, drawn by eight prancing black horses with floral plumes, and the other flower-laden carriages; they walked on as the procession wound slowly through Naples to Poggio-Réale’s English Cemetery where the body was placed in the chapel to await a final decision on the place of interment.
In life, Luciano’s desire had been to return to the place he had always thought of as home, the United States. That was not to be. But if not in life, he had hoped that at least in death, when no one could any longer consider him a danger, his body would be permitted burial there. He had made plans for that day; in 1935, he bought ground and for twenty-five thousand dollars built a small vault, large enough for sixteen coffins, in St. John’s Cathedral Cemetery in Queens. His mother, father, an aunt and an uncle were already buried there. Now the request was made to the United States Embassy in Rome to permit Luciano to join them.
The question was debated for some days. During those days, the estate left by Luciano was settled. There was the penthouse on the Parco Comola in Naples, registered in Bartolo’s name. He quickly sold it for less than half its value and evicted Adriana,
though at the intervention of Pat Eboli, he reluctantly gave her three thousand dollars in lire and allowed her to take away her clothes and other personal possessions. There was the farm at Santa Marinella; that, too, was sold for less than its real worth. A search of all Luciano’s papers and records, in Naples and elsewhere, turned up no loose money and only the records of a single bank account, in the Banco Americano in Naples, containing sixteen thousand dollars. If there was anything else, it was never discovered.
Early in February, American authorities in Washington and Rome decided there would be no peril in permitting Luciano’s remains to return to New York for burial. On February 7, the body arrived on a Pan American Airways cargo plane. It was met by a score of reporters, fifty FBI men, narcotics agents and New York City and state police — and two mourners, Luciano’s brothers, Bartolo and Joseph.
The coffin, with a simple silver plate on its lid bearing only the name Salvatore Lucanía, was placed in a hearse and driven at high speed to St. John’s Cemetery and there placed into the vault with its simple Grecian columns and the legend
LUCANIA
. Only about a hundred feet away was another vault, with the legend
GENOVESE
. There, within seven years, Vito Genovese would come to his final rest.
It was all over in minutes. There was no graveside ceremony. As the bronze doors were closed, some of those watching noticed a stained-glass window in the vault, depicting a bearded saint leaning on a shepherd’s staff. Bartolo Lucanía was asked who the saint was. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not acquainted with saints.”
Abbandando, “Dasher,”
247
Adams, Francis W. H.,
199
,
200
,
214
,
235
Aderer, Edwin,
222
Adonis, Joe A. (Giuseppe Antonio Doto),
48
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55
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61
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66
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73
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87
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95
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313
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348
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372
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32–33
; womanizing of,
50
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283
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286
,
442
; jewelry theft,
70
,
111
,
121
,
419
; vanity of,
79–80
; murder of Masseria,
131–132
; as family man,
151
; role during LL’s prison term,
240
,
273
; and Kefauver hearings,
367–368
; move to Italy and life there,
374–375
,
382
,
419
; visits to LL in Italy,
381–382
; characterized by LL,
419–420
; at LL’s funeral,
449
Aiello, Joseph,
129
Akers, Herbert,
194
Alo, Vincent “Jimmy Blue Eyes,”
125
Alotti, Fernando,
371
,
393
,
396
,
379
Alpert, Alex “Red,”
246
Anastasia, Albert (Albert Anastasio),
16
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49
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79
,
105
,
138
,
186
,
240–251
passim,
270
,
285
,
286
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308
,
309
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310
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311
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348
,
372
,
383
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385–386
,
389
; personal characteristics,
24
,
38
; loyalty to LL,
38
,
136
,
313
; violent nature,
38
,
199
,
239
,
282
,
391–392
; on plan to murder Masseria,
128
; involvement in murder,
131–132
,
253–254
,
276
; service record,
255
; idea for LL’s parole,
261–262
; and narcotics,
309
; power struggle with Genovese,
395
; murder of,
395–397
,
428
Anastasio, Albert.
See
Anastasia, Albert
Anastasio, Anthony “Tough Tony,”
199
,
261
,
262
,
270
,
282
Anderson, Clark,
443
Anslinger, Harry: legal war on LL,
240
,
305
,
309
,
315
,
323–326
,
332
,
333
,
348
,
355
,
363
,
374
,
376
,
379
; nickname,
293
; letter from LL,
358–359
Arnold, Dorothy (alias Dorothy Sherman, Dixie),
202
Atlantic City convention,
103–108
Bache, Julian (Julie),
55
Baker, Phil,
153
Balitzer, Peter (alias Peter Harris),
193
,
201
,
204
,
205
,
212–213
,
223
Bananas, Joe (Joseph Bonanno),
125
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126
,
128
,
129
,
134
,
136
,
173
,
286
,
311
,
383
,
384
,
399
,
417
,
430
Barone, Riccardo “Il Barone,”
301
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302
Batista, Fulgencio,
169
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239
,
284
,
307
; and Meyer Lansky,
233–234
,
348
,
418
; flees from Cuba,
417
Bender, Tony,
115
,
117
,
129
,
150
,
285
,
345
,
382
,
387
,
402
,
403
Berkman, Meyer,
191
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194
,
203
,
223
Berman, Otto “Abbadabba,”
176
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187
Bernstein, Abe,
105
Betillo, David “Little Davy,”
189
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194
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202
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Biondo, Joe,
344
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357
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362
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363
,
396
Black Sox scandal (1919),
40
Bloom, Samuel,
96–97
Boccia, Ferdinand “The Shadow,”
174
,
234
,
272
; murder of,
275
,
309
Bonanno, Joseph.
See
Bananas, Joe
bootlegging,
13–19
,
31–68
passim,
74
,
302
; beginning of national monopoly,
106–107
boxing,
225
Boyle, James,
252
Breitel, Charles D.,
191
Brennan, John J.,
194
“Broadway Mob,”
37
Brown, “Cokey Flo” (Florence Brown; alias Flo Martin, Flor Marsten),
206–208
,
212
,
220
,
236
,
237
,
259
Brunder, Wilfred,
175
Bryant, Frederick H.: on acquittal of Schultz,
181–182
Buchalter, Louis “Lepke,”
7
,
39
,
48
,
49
,
105
,
136
,
159
,
182
,
183
,
218
; loansharking in garment district,
38–39
,
76–78
,
124
,
170
; violent nature of,
199
,
239
; underground,
240–241
; and narcotics,
240
,
242
; arrest and conviction,
242–244
; conviction and execution,
248–249
,
250
Bug and Meyer Gang,
37
,
49
,
94
,
172
,
291
buying-off.
See
“greasing”
Calascibetta, Egidio,
362–363
Calasudo, Antonio,
328
Calderone, Salvatore,
136
Callace, Frank,
357
Camorra,
10
Cantellops, Nelson,
404–405
Capone, Al (Alphonse),
30–32
,
58
,
92
,
96
,
104
,
105–106
,
136
,
180
,
218
; murders,
30
; personal characteristics,
30
,
40
,
70
,
105
; syphilis and death,
40
,
311
; domain of,
81–82
; temper of,
105–106
; arrest and prison term,
107
; and racetrack betting,
107
; alliance with Masseria,
128–129
; Chicago party for LL,
145
; prison term of,
163
; on tradition of “paying up,”
147
; conviction and trial,
180