Yale had the handles mounted on a shiny foot-square mahogany board that had been bevelled and made to look like a plaque, and it was hung on the wall of Yale’s garage office at Fourth Avenue and Second Street in the borough’s Red Hook section. A gold nameplate engraved by a local jeweler carried a simple but meaningful message to all who pilgrimaged to Yale’s office on social or business calls:
IN MEMORY OF THE GREASEBALL
The jeweler who performed this engraving, gratuitously of course, was Robert Corn, whose store was on the east side of Columbia Street, between President and Union Streets, in downtown Brooklyn. Outside his store on the sidewalk next to the curb was a fifteen-foot-tall cast iron clock that was a landmark for more than a half century.
It was under this clock that the members of the organized crime gangs conducted their public assemblages for purposes of assigning “hits” or whatever other business had to be dealt with in the protection rackets, bootlegging, and the other illegalities the Mob was engaged in. Standing there beside that sidewalk timepiece many of the roaring, raging episodes of Mob violence were masterminded or hatched by the Mob braintrusts.
“Two-Knife” was never long in getting a replacement when he lost a knife in the line of duty. For the distance between an empty scabbard on Willie’s waist and the next knife that would supplant the one abandoned in a victim’s rib cage was as far away as the truck of his shiny black Model-T Ford. The brown leather suitcase that Willie kept in the back of his car didn’t contain a wardrobe for travel, although he often took out-of-town assignments to Newark, New Jersey, Wilmington, Delaware, or Springfield, Massachusetts, among other the locales.
The suitcase kept his supply of knives near at hand. He never allowed the stock to dwindle to less than a dozen blades. When he ran that low, Atierri would put everything aside and drive to the Bowery in Lower Manhattan, where all the wholesale restaurant and hotel supply houses were situated, and replenish his store with a couple of dozen shiny paring knives used by butchers and chefs.
Jimmy Sullivan knew none of this that Monday afternoon when he first encountered the Black Hand’s chief executioner. When Willie gave his name to the pier superintendent, the impadent Sullivan barked at him, “What the hell do you want with me?”
Joe “Rackets” Capolla and Joe “Big Beef” Polusi flanked Willie in his confrontation with the pier boss. That didn’t seem to faze Sullivan. He made no attempt to size up either the short, broad-shouldered Capolla, who in his mid-thirties already had the look of middle age, or Polusi, whose beefy build on a frame almost six feet tall made him look like the dockworker he’d been until the Black Hand recruited him as an enforcer.
Irritation burned in Jimmy Sullivan’s intolerant stomach. He had a built-in prejudice against anyone Italian, and a mere glance at the trio that had interrupted his work routine grated him into an attitude of total belligerence.
“Get it over with, Mac,” Sullivan said raspily. “I got too much work to do. Tell me what business you got coming to this dock.”
Altierri’s hands fidgeted. He unbuttoned his heavy black overcoat, slipped his hands underneath, and placed them over his suit jacket around his waist. Sullivan could not know why Two-Knife’s fingers were drumming nervously. Nor had he any awareness of the scabbards and the deadly instruments hidden under Willie’s jacket.
“We come to ask you something,” Willie finally said slowly, every word measured and uttered with restraint. It was the way he spoke when his anger was aroused. Sullivan’s gruff attitude didn’t endear him to his visitors.
“Whaddaya want to ask me?” he snapped. “I’m waiting. Ask me.”
Willie pointed toward the door of Sullivan’s office.
“In there, if you’ll be so kind,” Willie said. “This is private.” His voice was commanding now. Sullivan wasn’t frightened, but he sensed the authority that Willie carried. This guy and his pals were after something. Maybe it was a good idea to listen to why the hell they were there.
“All right,” the superintendent submitted. “Haul your asses in there and I’ll be with you. I got a couple things to do so my schedule doesn’t get fucked up.”
Altierri, Polusi, and Capolla made their way into the office. Sullivan went back to the dock and checked on the progress his longshoremen were making. He glanced up at the sky and shook his head in disgust. It was starting to snow. He shouted commands. “Hey, let’s move it! We got to get these crates into the warehouse before we get buried under! Hurry it up!”
The forecast was for six to eight inches. The snow had not been expected until nightfall. But it had already begun, and Sullivan was afraid it would be a bigger storm. It would take at least another three hours to clear the freighter’s hold, and the only way that could be done was by riding the men relentlessly.
Now he had an interruption. Those three Italians in his office, waiting to talk with him. About what? Well, he told himself resignedly, he’d go in and get it over with.
As they reached the office entrance, he turned for one last look at the dock. The crews were hustling, just as he wanted them to. Okay. The instant he slammed the door shut, Big Beef Polusi slipped behind him and turned the lock.
“What the hell you doing that for?” Sullivan demanded, whirling around and reaching to unlock the door. Before he could touch the lock, a piece of cold steel was slapped against the back of his hand.
“You want to lose some fingers, you put your fuckin’ hand on that lock,” Altierri scowled.
Sullivan was courageous but he wasn’t stupid. He didn’t survive the Marne and Belleau Woods battles by scrambling out of the trenches and charging blindly into the Krauts’ machine-gun nests. A well-aimed grenade was a much more sensible way to destroy the enemy than stupid bravery. The situation right now didn’t differ from the battlefront. Sullivan was surrounded by the enemy.
Capolla, Polusi, and Altierri hadn’t yet told the superintendent their business, but Jimmy had a good idea what he was up against. Big Beef and Rackets hadn’t even introduced themselves by name to Sullivan, but the .38-caliber automatics they were pointing at him announced their occupations more clearly than the fanciest calling cards they could have presented.
Altierri had told Sullivan his first name was Willie; but no one had to tell him Willie’s nickname after that introduction. The whack of steel against his hand followed instantly by the thrust of another sharply-pointed blade against the side of his thick neck signalled to Sullivan in the clearest terms that he was up against a two-knife killer.
“Okay, tell me what you want,” Sullivan said. His voice was more respectful, meeker.
“We gonna give you protection because we hear somebody is gonna put the torch to this warehouse tonight,” Altierri said through clenched teeth. “You catch?”
“What kind of protection?” Sullivan asked, not really surprised. “We already have protection from Denny Meehan—”
Altierri, who had been holding the flat side of his knife against Sullivan’s neck, suddenly turned the blade and pressed its razor-sharp cutting edge into the skin. The dock boss was gripped by palpable terror.
“Meehan can’t protect you no more,” Altierri wheezed. “That’s why Frankie Yale sent me to see you. He wants you to buy insurance from him from now on.”
Altierri dug the edge of the knife deeper into the fold of Sullivan’s neck. Jimmy knew that the slightest movement on his part would slit his throat down to his jugular.
“Look, gimme a break,” Sullivan pleaded,