Sins of the Father Read online

  After she maintained his grasp long enough to ensure he was interested again, she said, “You’re not coming in?”

  “I couldn’t. Your father…”

  “He’s passed out. He won’t wake up.”

  “That’s not the point… I don’t want to dishonor—”

  She cut him off. Neither of them really wanted to follow that road. She could tell he wanted to come in, and she wanted him to. And she had the right words to convince him.

  “My father just doesn’t want to be alone. And if you don’t come in here, then I’m going over there.” She nodded toward Sonny’s apartment. “You’re choice, sailor.”

  He said nothing else, but kissed her again, with more abandon than before, and allowed her to lead him inside.

  His coat was off before they were in the kitchen.

  Sonny

  Broadway, Manhattan—June 8, 1928

  All thirty-five hundred seats in the Metropolitan Opera House were filled. Still, Sonny and Maranzano had plenty of room in their suite, with a few guards behind them to ensure they weren’t disturbed.

  “Are you enjoying yourself, Vincente?” Maranzano asked as he clapped along with the rest of the audience as the violinists took their bow and began to prepare for the next song.

  “More than I can say, Mr. Maranzano.” He had grown up loving when his father sang opera, or when classical music came on the radio. His father didn’t have quite the same pipes as the lead vocalist.

  “I considered inviting the others, but I don’t believe any of them have developed the tastes necessary to enjoy this evening. Perhaps Peppino, but I thought it would be nice for the two of us to spend some time together.”

  Sonny swelled with pride, and averted his gaze to avoid embarrassment.

  “More tea, sir?” a waiter asked from the other side of the guards.

  “Vincente?” Maranzano deferred to him first.

  “No, I’m okay.” Sonny wasn’t a fan of tea, but he did try to drink it around Maranzano, as the man considered himself a connoisseur.

  “I’ll take some, then.” The guards parted and allowed the man to fill Maranzano’s cup.

  The stage crew dimmed the lights, focusing in on the lead vocalist.

  “Have you ever heard Puccini?” Maranzano asked.

  “I don’t believe I have.”

  “I saw him once, in Naples. I was a young man, too young to appreciate it fully. Perhaps this man can do him justice.”

  The room seemed to take a collective inhale as the vocalist prepared himself.

  “Go ahead.” Maranzano nodded at the gold cigarette case in Sonny’s hands. He had been dying for one since the first act, but had abstained since Maranzano disliked the smell. “No, go on. I want you to enjoy yourself, Vincente.”

  Sonny nodded with gratitude and hurried to light one for himself.

  The lead vocalist began singing, quietly at first. It seemed a relatively tame song for the climax of the show.

  “There was a sacred relationship back in Sicilian. A man, il consigliere, would take a young boy, not his own, and raise him. A sacred mentorship. The man would teach the boy the ways of the world, and how to conduct himself. Even fathers would defer to il consigliere in difficult matters.”

  The opera singer lifted his voice, a deep tenor that reverberated off the roof of the Metropolitan Opera House, and probably all down Thirty-Ninth Street.

  “Did you ever have a mentor like that, Mr. Maranzano?” Sonny asked. He wasn’t sure Maranzano had been able to hear him. Regardless, the man didn’t answer.

  When the volume of the performance died down a bit, Maranzano set down his tea on a saucer between them and leaned closer.

  “I did. I loved him dearly. Everything you see before you is because of that man.” Maranzano gestured to himself. “He was my father, my brother, my friend…all in one.”

  “What happened to your il consigliere?”

  Maranzano moved back in his seat and took a sip of his tea. His eyes seemed to soften with pain.

  “He died when I was still a young man, many years ago.” He raised his voice over the music, which seemed uncharacteristic. “But not before he taught me all he knew. I’ve become just like him, but perhaps better. I—” His voice was finally drowned out by the noise as the horns picked up and convalesced with the lead vocalist’s beautiful rendition of Puccini: “My name, no one shall know. No… No…”

  Sonny felt the hair rise across his arms, legs, and neck.

  “I have come to look on you in this way, Vincente.”

  Sonny’s eyes glistened, and he didn’t know why.

  “I could never be better than you, Don Maranzano,” he said. He had never referred to him in this way before. Perhaps it was Maranzano’s words of tradition, or the opera singer’s voice. Perhaps it was the violin.

  “I don’t praise those who don’t deserve it. And I don’t allow people into my life who are not worthy of it.” He gestured to the suite he had reserved for the two of them.

  “I only want to be like you.”

  Maranzano leaned across and placed a hand on his knee. Something about the gesture reminded Sonny of his father, so much so that he was forced to avert his gaze to hide the tears. He half expected Maranzano to pull out a deck of cards and tell him he could say curse words while they played.

  Alonzo would have been happy for him to have an il consigliere like Maranzano.

  The two sat in stunned silence as the vocalist reached the climax of the song: “Vincerò, vincerò, vincerò”—“I will win, I will win, I will win!”

  The entire audience jumped to their feet and belted out their applause as the musicians all took their bow.

  “And we will win, Vincente. This war of ours. It will begin soon, and we will win.”

  Williamsburg, Brooklyn—June 8, 1928

  Sonny was dragging his feet with exhaustion by the time Maranzano’s driver dropped him off at his Williamsburg apartment. As sapped as he was physically, his mind seemed electrified from the music. He could still hear the Puccini ringing in his ears.

  Exhausted or not, he was going to have a difficult time falling to sleep.

  He started fumbling through his keys until he noticed something on the doormat beneath him.

  Reaching down to grab it, he realized it was his suit top. The one he had worn when he’d taken Millie out on the town.

  His heart began to race, fearing that her father might have found it and realized something had happened. Reaching into the breast pocket, he found a carefully folded note.

  The penmanship was delicate and elegant, the kind of practiced script only a seamstress could cultivate.

  Sonny,

  I had a marvelous time with you. I look forward to the next time my father passes out—I expect you to take me out again.

  With kisses,

  You know who

  P.S. You had a hole in the stitching, so I patched it up.

  Sonny found himself smiling as he pulled the suit to his face to see if he could get a whiff of her perfume. He found only the smell of his cigar smoke, but, still, the smile didn’t fade.

  He really hadn’t been expecting to hear from her after what Charlie Buffalo had pulled. He had told himself the next morning that if it hadn’t been for the booze, she would have about-faced and run away the moment she’d seen the prick. And she certainly wouldn’t have invited him in.

  Perhaps Sonny was as wrong in his estimations this time as he was about the stock market before the crash.

  Then his grin evaporated.

  He wouldn’t be able to take her out again if they went to war with Masseria’s people.

  He wouldn’t be able to go anywhere. And he certainly couldn’t take her anywhere.

  HEARINGS BEFORE THE

  PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS

  OF THE

  COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS

  UNITED STATES SENATE

  EIGHTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS

  FOURTH SESSIO
N

  PURSUANT TO SENATE RESOLUTION 17

  OCTOBER 6, 1963

  Chairman: When, Mr. Valachi, do you believe Salvatore Maranzano took over as boss of the Castellammarese clan in Brooklyn?

  Mr. Valachi: I can’t say with certainty, Senator.

  Chairman: Your best estimate, then.

  Mr. Valachi: Sometime in the summer of 1930. I was still working out of the Bronx and Harlem at the time, and we didn’t keep up much with their family. But things were starting to get hot, and their father, who we knew as Cola, disappeared that summer.

  Chairman: He disappeared?

  Mr. Valachi: That’s right, Senator. I heard he left. The strongest boss at that time, Masseria, demanded he pay a tribute or he’d find him. So he paid the money and then left the States, or at least that’s what I was told.

  Chairman: That’s when you believe Salvatore Maranzano came to lead the family?

  Mr. Valachi: Correct, Senator. There was a big meetin’ in Buffalo. The nationwide leader of the Castellammarese was Stefano Magaddino, everyone knew that. So Maranzano and a few of his guys went to Buffalo to settle things. Maranzano was going to be the leader, and he received funding and weapons for the war from their guys in Chicago and Buffalo. We even heard about that in the Bronx. We knew things were changing.

  Chairman: The “war,” a war between Masseria and Maranzano?

  Mr. Valachi: Yes, Senator, but it was bigger than that. Our family was in on it too. Our godfather, Tommy Reina, was killed in February of that year, and we all thought it was Masseria who done it.

  Chairman: You believed Joseph Masseria was behind the murder of your family’s boss?

  Mr. Valachi: Correct, Senator. We couldn’t prove it, but afterward, Masseria appointed one of his guys to lead our family. Most of the guys went along with it ’cause they didn’t want a war, but there was fifteen of us or so that didn’t like it.

  Chairman: There were fifteen members of your organization who didn’t like the new boss?

  Mr. Valachi: Yes, Senator. We couldn’t trust everyone, so we didn’t talk about it much. But this guy, Pinzolo, was no good. We didn’t like him. Reina’s top lieutenant, Tommy Gagliano, thought he deserved to be boss, and we thought he did too. So we were ready for war.

  Chairman: You and your associates were preparing to go to war with Masseria?

  Mr. Valachi: Correct, Senator. We heard rumors about Maranzano’s people gearing up, and we figured it was our best shot to take out the boss of bosses.

  Chairman: And where did the Consentino brothers figure into this? Were they part of this war effort as well?

  Mr. Valachi: Yes, Senator. Sonny was working directly under Maranzano, and the other two were with us.

  Chairman: Enzo and Vico Consentino were working with you in your organization?

  Mr. Valachi: Correct, Senator. I didn’t know they were brothers until after the war. I knew Vico as “Bobby Doyle.” He and Enzo the Thief didn’t look alike, and they pretended like they barely knew each other.

  Chairman: Why did they do this?

  Mr. Valachi: Well, the bosses wouldn’t say a word if they thought someone would want revenge. It could cause a headache. Vico thought if he changed his name, they might trust him with more information than they would Enzo the Thief.

  Chairman: Was his alias successful?

  Mr. Valachi: Senator, I didn’t know about who he really was until much later—no one did. So I guess so. But he didn’t get the answers he wanted. Rumor was Mr. Reina was supposed to sing about it, but then he got clipped.

  Chairman: So both Enzo and Vico Consentino were searching for information about their father’s killer? And they were using their involvement in organized crime to do so?

  Mr. Valachi: That’s correct, Senator. They were just like Sonny. They didn’t talk to him much, but all three were trying to find answers. The war was a means to an end. They wanted to find the killer, and were prepared to kill anyone that got in the way.

  Part V

  Sonny

  Williamsburg, Brooklyn—June 12, 1930

  “The dinner is amazing, Millie,” Sonny said. She may have only been half Sicilian, but she cooked as well as any of the ladies from the old country.

  “Less salt next time,” her father said, chewing with his mouth open. Sonny hadn’t been around the Irish much, but Millie’s father, Patrick, fit the bill.

  Patrick worked on the subway construction in Manhattan and didn’t get home until late. He made up for lost time by drinking his body weight on the way back to their apartment. He was always angry, and held women in low regard.

  “Alright, Dad.” Millie smiled at Sonny and rolled her eyes.

  Sonny remained the friendly neighbor to Millie when her father was around. He was infatuated with her, couldn’t look away from her every move, but he certainly wasn’t going to let Patrick see that. She invited him over for dinner more often than he could accept, and other times, she placed a pan of freshly baked deserts on his doormat. He felt suspended. Was she really interested in something more, or was the night out just an anomaly?

  “Would you like something else to drink, Sonny?” she asked when she noticed his cup was dry.

  “You gonna start paying us for the room service?” Patrick asked. “You eat here as much as I do.”

  Sonny, suddenly uncomfortable, reached into his pocket and began to slide a few dollars across the table. Millie leaned across and slapped his hand.

  “He’s our guest, Pa,” she said firmly. Patrick only grumbled in reply.

  “At least let me help with the dishes,” Sonny said, placing a napkin over his own to signal that he was finished. He didn’t want to remain if he was unwelcome.

  The phone rang, and Millie rose to answer it.

  Sonny watched as confusion spread across her face.

  “It’s for you.” She held the receiver out to him. Equally perplexed, he hurried across the room to answer it.

  “Hello.”

  “Sonny?”

  “Who is this? How’d you get this number?”

  “You need to go outside. A car will be there to pick you up. Get in and don’t ask any questions.” Sonny eventually determined that the voice belonged to Charlie Buffalo. He relaxed, but not much.

  “Understood.” He wanted to ask if something was wrong, but before he could decide whether or not he should do so, Charlie hung up.

  “He even takes his calls here now?” Patrick said. “You need to start paying rent.”

  Sonny set the receiver down and looked at Mille. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  He nodded at the dirty dishes across the table and the pots on the stove.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of that.” She waved him off. “It’s fine, really.”

  He kissed her cheek, as a good neighbor should do, and shook Patrick’s hand, neither of them pleased to do so.

  He waited on the curb, anxiously watching each car as it passed. The vehicle that held his attention the most was the one that eventually pulled to a stop in front of him. A sleek black Pierce Arrow, fast as lightning and worth more than Sonny’s apartment.

  “Take a seat, padrone,” Bonanno said from the driver’s seat. Sonny hurried to do so, turning around to find Maranzano in the back seat.

  “I’m sorry for the last-minute notice, Vincente. I’ve been called to a meeting. I wanted you both there.”

  “Should we make a call to Antonello?” he said, but Bonanno cut the wheel and pulled back out into the dinner-rush traffic.

  “That won’t be necessary. We need as few men as possible for this,” Maranzano replied definitively.

  Sonny wanted to ask what was happening, but remembered Charlie’s warning to not ask any questions. Luckily, Maranzano seemed to pick up on this.

  “I’ve been summoned by Joe Masseria.”

  Sonny’s hands began to shake.

  “Joe the Boss?”

  “He has requested a sit-down,” Bonanno said.

  “Why wo
uld Joe the Boss want to sit down with any of us?” Sonny said, disregarding Charlie’s advice.

  “There are two reasons,” Maranzano said, reserved and still. “He either heard about my trip to Buffalo, where I met with Stefano Magaddino, or he hasn’t heard of it. In the first case, this is likely a trap. And he will kill me. In the second, he thinks I can be persuaded to betray Magaddino, or perhaps the rest of the Castellammarese.”

  Bonanno whipped through traffic, anxious to test what looked like a new car.

  “You’re going to a meeting you believe might be a setup?”

  “We can’t play our hand too early. If he doesn’t know about my activities, then I cannot refuse him, or he will assume I am prepared for war. This should hold him off until we are ready.”

  Maranzano had materialized a notebook, and he poured over the contents. Sonny didn’t know how to feel about being included in what very well might be an ambush. In a strange way, he felt honored.

  “Another thing, Vincente. The Hook Hand will be present,” Maranzano said. Sonny’s mind returned to the image of the Hook Hand that was engraved in his mind. A cold, emotionless face, white as clay with two deep-set black eyes. “This isn’t our opportunity to strike. That will come later. But I wanted you to have the chance to look at the man who killed your father. You deserve to see the man who has caused you so much pain.”

  “I appreciate you bringing me, Mr. Maranzano,” Sonny said, just loud enough to be heard over the rumble of the car.