King of the Godfathers Read Online Free PDF

he had to annihilate the competition.
    But just as he was preparing to go to war against the Castellammarese, Masseria’s hunger for money and power led him to make a big tactical mistake. Masseria attempted to extort the ice-making business of one of his own crime captains, Gaetano Reina. When Reina resisted, Masseria had him killed in February 1930, just as the ice merchant was leaving a building on Sheridan Avenue in the Bronx. The killing of Reina prompted his gang members to ally with Maranzano and a period of Mafia assassinations and gunfights known as the Castellammarese War broke out in New York. It was a time of bloodshed that would ultimately go a long way to shaping the modern Mafia in the United States.
    The killings went on for over a year as Masseria struck against the bootlegging businesses of the Maranzano crowd. With allies like Thomas Lucchese, Carlo Gambino, Vito Genovese, and of course, Lucky Luciano, Masseria seemed in a stronger position. But Maranzano had important alliances as well, including the help of a young mob associate known as Joseph Valachi, who would eventually marry the daughter of the assassinated Reina. There was intense mob bloodshed in the war, with some estimates saying over fifty men died on both sides. Whatever the body count, the war proved bad for business and the costs were troubling Luciano and Genovese. They reached out to Maranzano in an effort to stop the fighting.
    In return for setting up Masseria for the kill, Maranzano agreed with Luciano and Genovese that the war would stop and that they would be safe. Masseria had escaped death a number of times, so he would not be an easy target. It was Luciano who rose to the task of setting the old man up for the kill. What happened next was reminiscent of a scene right out of The Godfather. Convincing Masseria that it was safe to have dinner outside of his Manhattan apartment, Luciano accompanied his boss on the afternoon of April 15, 1931, to Coney Island. The restaurant was a well-known Italian eatery run by Geraldo Scarpato. Masseria’s prodigious appetite was on display as he consumed plates of pasta and drank Chianti. After lunch Luciano convinced Masseria to play some cards and then excused himself to go the bathroom.
    With Luciano out of the room, several armed men suddenly arrived outside Scarpato’s at around 3:30 P.M. in a car driven by Ciro Terranova, the mafioso known as the “Artichoke King” because of the way he extorted the myriad pushcart peddlers in East Harlem. With Terranova remaining behind the wheel, a handful of gangsters—no one is certain just who took part—entered the restaurant and blasted away at Masseria, who died as soon as he hit the floor. When police arrived, Luciano told them he had been in the bathroom, a fact corroborated by the restaurant staff. Apart from a commotion when the shooting started, Luciano said he saw and heard nothing.
    With Masseria out of the picture, Maranzano moved quickly to consolidate his power and bring the other mobsters under his control. It was at a meeting in a Bronx social hall that Maranzano threw a big dinner attended by hundreds of Mafia members and associates. It was an event that for all practical purposes marked the formal organization of Italian organized crime in the United States as it would be known for decades. Though powerful mobsters like Capone in Chicago and Luciano were said to be against the idea of a big boss lording over the crime families, Maranzano pushed the idea of himself being anointed the Caesar of organized crime. According to the recollection of mob turncoat Joseph Valachi, Maranazano spelled out an organization of criminals that was modeled on the legions of ancient Rome.
    “Mr. Maranzano started off the meeting by explaining how Joe the Boss was always shaking down members, right and left,” Valachi said in his memoirs, the Valachi Papers, which were written by Peter Maas. “He told how he had sentenced all the Castellammarese to