CHAPTER XXIII

FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS FOR A BADLY WRITTEN LETTER

The value of these letters to the gang, and the peculiar information revealed in them to the Secret Service, prompted the "Black-Hand" crowd to get together a fund of $500, which was offered by one of the crowd to a man now attached to the New York Police Department. With this money the gang intended to bribe this man to get the letters and return them to Mrs. Morello. Until this man, who was then a member of the police department and a detective, reads this, he will not suspect that I even knew of the offer.

There were other letters containing information of very valuable character to the Secret Service.

Now, when the arrest was made, the news spread through East One Hundred and Sixth Street, where Morello was living, and some of the scouts brought the information to Nick Terranova, a half-brother of Morello. Terranova thereupon rushed down to Milone's grocery store at No. 235 East Ninety-seventh Street to notify the members of the gang who might be there that Giuseppe had been placed under arrest.

There was a surprise coming to Nick when he discovered a number of Secret Service men in charge of the store, and the members of the gang taken away by the government's officers. He tried to act an imbecile, and pretended not to understand English when asked for a reason for his coming into the store. He was as communicative as the proverbial oyster.

At the time when Morello was arrested he was in bed with his son. Under the pillow of each was found a large revolver. Neither father nor son, it is needless to say, were given the opportunity to reach the weapons. The son has since been murdered.

And now that we are on the subject of letters I might relate that when the members of the gang discovered Comito had confessed what he knew of the counterfeiting scheme, they tried to locate Comito, who had been hidden by me. They tried a number of ruses in their efforts to locate him for the purpose, presumably, of murdering him.

One of their efforts was characteristic: Secret Service operative Rubano was thought by the gang to be the man who was communicating with Comito by mail. This was presumed by the gang without foundation. However, it was enough for the gang to feel that this was the way in which I was keeping in touch with Comito. Here is what happened:

Don Gasparo had a drug store at No. 23 New Bowery, where he also had a branch post office and received letters there for a number of the "Black-Hand" crowd. Some one wrote to the postmaster of New York, on a change of address card, and asked the postmaster to have all of Pietro Rubano's mail sent to No. 23 New Bowery.

Now you must sign your own name to the card asking for this change. So there was the difficulty of getting Rubano's signature to the card without his knowing it. That was easy for the writer. He forged Rubano's name on the signature line of the card. The gang was elated.

They would now get the "Squealer" Comito's letters to the Secret Service and locate and destroy the traitor.

But, like the plans of the little field mouse of whom Robert Burns wrote, the best laid schemes "gang aft agley."

I asked Rubano if he had made the request of the post office to have his mail addressed to the New Bowery place, and the detective told me it was news to him.

Then information came to me about Gasparo, and I found that the druggist had good reasons to stand in with Morello. He had formerly run a drug store up in the Bronx in the near neighborhood of Lupo and Morello's real estate venture and was a fast friend of Morello. In fact, he and Morello were co-workers in enterprises that do not propagate peace on earth and good will among men.

We started to lay a trap for Gasparo. I sent a number of letters from different parts of the country addressed to Rubano at the Custom House, New York, knowing that they would be forwarded to the New Bowery address.

The letters were placed in large envelopes of different and pronounced color and easily distinguishable to the eye when placed in the letter "R" box in Gasparo's branch post office.

Then I set Secret Service men to watch those who called for mail and to shadow any one calling for the large colored envelopes.

This scheme of mine did not work out, though, to any fruitful end because of the failure of any of the gang to call for the envelopes with Rubano's name on them. A number of the gang had gone in and out of the drug store for days, but not one took away any of the large colored envelopes. Either they were afraid to take the chance or some suspicious circumstance warned them off when at the post office window. Such things as a strange man passing and looking into the drug store, or the appearance of a stranger in the neighborhood, might have been sufficient reason for the member who started for the letters to refrain from asking for them at the last moment. These Morello-Lupo members are very suspicious, and in dealing with them this trait must always be considered.

Another incident of the efforts of the gang to locate Comito may be of interest at this point when I relate that the gang offered $2,500 to any one who would reveal to the "Black-Handers" the whereabouts of Comito. This $2,500 was offered to the same member of the New York Police Department who was also offered $500 for the return of the letters, two of which I have given a few pages back.