The Mob and the City (11 page)

CAPO DI CAPI
: SALVATORE “TOTÒ” D'AQUILA

As we saw in the
previous chapter
, Joe Masseria rose to power as the leader of bootleggers and professional criminals during Prohibition. The Masseria Family became the largest mob syndicate in Gotham. By 1928, Joe the Boss had one obstacle standing in his way.

The
capo di capi
of the American Mafia between 1910 and 1928 was an extraordinarily secretive man by the name of Salvatore “Totò” D'Aquila. He spent the majority of his life in Palermo, Sicily, when that city was swarming with rival clans. Barely 5 feet, 2 inches tall, D'Aquila had a penchant for dressing well and speaking smoothly. Soon after disembarking, he became a confidence
man in Manhattan, talking his marks out of their money. D'Aquila gradually established himself as a gang leader with a base of power in East Harlem.
⁴

When Giuseppe Morello went to the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary for counterfeiting in 1910, Salvatore D'Aquila became
capo di capi
at the nadir of the Sicilian Mafia in the second decade of the twentieth century, only to see its fortunes reverse during Prohibition. Flush with cash, Totò D'Aquila moved his family to an elaborately furnished house across from the Bronx Zoo. By outward appearances, D'Aquila was a quiet family man with successful business ventures in real estate, olive oil, and cheese importing.
⁵

Behind the scenes, it was a different story. According to Nicola Gentile, a kind of freelance consultant to
mafiosi
in the 1920s, D'Aquila significantly expanded the reach of the
capo di capi
. D'Aquila became “very authoritative,” enlisted a “secret service” of spies, and brought trumped-up charges against rivals. Other informants confirm that D'Aquila presided over trials of
mafiosi
who allegedly broke rules of the mob. With D'Aquila acting like a kind of judge, the trials were held before the “general assembly” of Mafia representatives from clans across America.
⁶

6:20 P.M., OCTOBER 10, 1928, 13TH STREET & AVENUE A, LOWER EAST SIDE, MANHATTAN: THE DEATH OF SALVATORE D'AQUILA

In October 1928, the fifty-year-old D'Aquila and his wife were consulting a cardiologist on the Lower East Side. During the drive from the Bronx, Totò D'Aquila noticed something wrong with his sedan. After ushering his wife and children into the doctor's office, he went back outside and lifted the hood of the engine.

Three men came up to D'Aquila on the sidewalk. They engaged him in a conversation that turned into a heated argument. Suddenly, the trio pulled out guns and started blasting away. The autumn dusk was shattered by gunfire as nine bullets ripped through D'Aquila's heart, left lung, pancreas, and other vital organs. D'Aquila collapsed on the sidewalk drenched in blood as his killers escaped on foot.
⁷

JOE THE BOSS…OF ALL BOSSES

The death of D'Aquila paved the way for Masseria to become the boss of bosses. He was the obvious replacement: his Masseria Family was by far the largest in Prohibition New York. So, in the winter of 1928, the general assembly of the Mafia elected Giuseppe “Joe the Boss” Masseria to be
capo di capi
. Previously, the boss of bosses title was more honorary and consultative. The boss of bosses was seen as a kind of wise mediator among the Mafia families. But under D'Aquila, more and more authority had built up in the position. Masseria intended to take advantage of this to expand his interests in New York and westward to mob enclaves in Detroit and elsewhere.

The timing of Masseria's accession later fueled suspicions that he was secretly behind D'Aquila's murder. To this day, it is
not
at all clear that D'Aquila was, in fact, killed by men sent by Masseria.
⁸
But conflicts are sometimes launched on misinformation, and the underworld eventually came to
believe
that Masseria was behind it. “Masseria managed to kill Totò D'Aquila, becoming himself boss of the bosses,” summarized Nicola Gentile.
⁹

For now though, Joe the Boss of Bosses stood astride the Cosa Nostra. From the winter of 1928 through early 1930, the Masseria Family sought to expand its interests across the United States and to generate more revenues from New York. The general assembly of the Mafia supported him.

Then, like D'Aquila before him, Masseria began to overreach. Masseria's one-time ally Nicola Gentile said Joe the Boss started “bullying” Mafia representatives; further, his top lieutenants did “not permit objections” and “would command with the force of terror.” Joe the Boss's real problems began when he started to meddle with other Mafia families.
¹⁰

NEW YORK'S OTHER MAFIA FAMILIES, 1929–1931

When Joe Masseria became boss of bosses, in addition to his Masseria Family, there were four other Mafia families in New York City. As a brief overview, they were as follows:

• The second Mafia family was based in South Brooklyn, which as we saw was full of lucrative waterfront rackets (see
  chapter 1
  ). This family was headed by Alfred Mineo, an ally of Joe Masseria. But this South Brooklyn waterfront family would really be defined by Mineo's successors as boss, Vincent Mangano and Albert Anastasia.
  ¹¹
  
• The third was the Castellammarese clan of central Brooklyn, headed by Nicola “Cola” Schiro. These men haled from the port village of Castellammare del Gulfo (“Castle on the Sea of the Gulf”) on the northwestern coast of Sicily. This lawless village was thick with
  mafiosi
  known for their ferocity. The Castellammarese, who liked to boast that they were “Men of Honor,” were among the most insular and chauvinistic
  mafiosi
  in Sicily.
  ¹²
  
• The fourth was the Joseph Profaci Family, also based in Brooklyn. Joseph Profaci and his clan mostly came from a suburb outside Palermo, Sicily. With his relative Joseph Magliocco as his underboss, the Profaci Family held a mix of bootlegging interests, the numbers lottery, and some legitimate businesses. Profaci would later secretly ally himself with the Castellammarese clan.
  ¹³
  
• And fifth, but not least, there was the Gaetano Reina Family. The Reina Family had its base in central Bronx and East Harlem. Gaetano Reina took control over much of north New York City's wholesale ice business (a valuable business before refrigeration) by muscling out competitors and taking over routes. Reina's top lieutenants were Tom Gagliano and Tommy Lucchese, close partners who would be pivotal in the upheaval to come.
  ¹⁴
  

The New York Mafia families would soon divide into different coalitions, for and against the boss of bosses Joe Masseria. To keep track of the New York families, and their cross-country alliances,
table 3–1
serves as a handy reference guide for this chapter:

PROXY FIGHT IN CHICAGO: AL CAPONE VS. JOSEPH AIELLO

Enter Alphonse Capone. During the late 1920s, Al Capone's “Chicago Outfit” was battling Joseph Aiello's Family for bootlegging territory around the Windy City. Capone was the Brooklyn-born son of poor Neapolitan parents; Aiello was a Sicily-born “Man of Honor.” Given their ethnic backgrounds and prejudices, the Sicilian
mafiosi
might be expected to back Aiello. And most did.

Joseph Aiello's strongest allies were Gaspare Milazzo in Detroit and Steve Magaddino in Buffalo, both of whom were Castellammarese. They maintained cross-country links with the Castellammarese clan of Brooklyn. They sided first with their fellow villagers, and then with fellow Sicilians. Non-Sicilians like Capone were a distant third.
¹⁵

By contrast, as we have seen, Joe Masseria did
not
care so much about Sicilian lineage. Although accounts differ as to who approached whom first, everyone agrees on the outcome: Joe Masseria and Al Capone forged an alliance. Capone would become part of the Mafia through the Masseria Family, if he eliminated Joseph Aiello. The alliance was out in the open.
¹⁶

FEBRUARY 1930: THE REINA FAMILY REBELS

On the evening of Wednesday, February 26, 1930, boss Gaetano Reina was walking with his blonde mistress to his parked coupe in the Bronx when assassins with a sawed-off shotgun fired ten slugs into Reina's body. As with Salvatore D'Aquila's death in 1928, it is
not
clear whether Gaetano Reina was killed by the Masseria Family. Reina was involved in the wholesale ice racket, which was
awash in violence as competitors fought to control routes. Reina seemed to be expecting an attack at any minute: the police found a loaded .32 caliber revolver in Reina's pocket and a rifle with one hundred extra shells in a secret compartment in his car.
¹⁷

Nevertheless, Masseria's subsequent actions convinced some that he ordered the hit on Reina. According to Joseph Bonanno, Masseria endorsed Joseph Pinzolo, one of his alleged sycophants, as the replacement boss for the Reina Family. Tom Gagliano and Tommy Lucchese, the top lieutenants of Gaetano Reina, began plotting their revenge. They believed that Masseria was behind Reina'a death, and they were unhappy that Pinzolo was taking over as boss. Reina's murder was “why Tom Gagliano fought with all his might against Joe the Boss,” mob soldier Joe Valachi was told by the faction. The Gagliano/Lucchese faction was the first group in New York to start secretly conspiring against Joe Masseria.
¹⁸

There are, however, reasons to doubt the Gagliano/Lucchese faction's story of why Joseph Pinzolo ascended to boss. Their faction numbered only about fifteen dissidents in the two-hundred-member Reina Family. Most seemed to have accepted Pinzolo. Gagliano and Lucchese may have simply been jealous that they were passed over for Pinzolo.
¹⁹

MAY 1930: THE CASTELLAMMARESE CLAN REBELS

The other rebellion in New York City was among the Castellammarese clan in Brooklyn. The official “cause for war” for the Castellammarese clan was the murder of their fellow Castellammarese, Gaspare Milazzo, a boss of Detroit, Michigan. On May 31, 1930, assassins killed Gaspare Milazzo and his driver Sam Parrino in a fish market. This time, Giuseppe “Joe the Boss” Masseria's links to the assassins were close. Joe Masseria was supporting Milazzo's crosstown rival Chester LaMare, whose soldiers were identified by the police as the killers of Milazzo.
²⁰
Milazzo's murder helped trigger a chain reaction in New York.