The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano: The Mafia Story in His Own Words Read Free

“corrupting” influence he was constantly warned at home and by the Church), avidly absorb the knowledge and lessons that escaped him, that seemed to soar through their brains to a region beyond his reach. But there was something he learned by watching them; it stayed with him through the years, overcame his suspicions and the inculcations of home and Church, and, unlike most of his Sicilian and Italian associates in later life, drew him to them and opened the way to friendship; they had brains, they were smart, they could prove extraordinary allies.
    He was certain, though, that the “old broads,” as he called his teachers (none of whom he could remember by name), had nothing to teach him. But almost without realizing it, he did learn a concept from them that he would eventually bend and distort for his own use. This was the time of union struggle for acceptance and power, and that struggle germinated and flourished on the Lower East Side where the only work available was in sweatshops at long hours and low pay. “Some of the mothers of guys I knew used to work on them sewin’ machines, and if they got up to get a glass of water or open their mouths to breathe some air, some bastard foreman could fire ’em just like that.” In such a climate, Samuel Gompers became a hero and his fledgling International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union a cause to be devoutly espoused. “The old broads in school was always hammerin’ away about union. Of course, what they meant was Washington and Lincoln and the whole country. But to us, unions was somethin’ that had to do with gettin’ people a couple bucks more or a chance to work a few hours less, a chance to organize and become strong. I used thoseideas in the twenties, with Lepke and Tommy Lucchese, when I figured out a way to organize the unions and take ’em over. Later, when the newspapers were callin’ me the head of the labor rackets in New York, I used to wonder if my old teachers knew that they was the ones that taught me all the principles about organizing people.”
    In the classroom, Lucania’s behavior only infrequently brought him into open conflict with authorities. That, perhaps, was because he was so rarely in the school. He became a chronic and persistent truant, appearing only to make what profit he could. Very early he had noticed that some of the older Irish and Italian kids were waylaying the younger and smaller Jewish kids on their way home from school, beating and robbing them. Lucania turned this to his profit. For a penny or two a day, he sold his protection to the potential victims. If they paid, they could be sure that their daily trips to and from school would be made in safety, for though young Lucania was never a giant, he was tough enough and old enough to make his promise of protection stick.
    It was all part of the widening street world he was learning. In that world, he scrounged for money any way he could get it. Realizing early that “some people had money and some people didn’t,” he had determined that he was destined to be one of those who had it. He ran errands, carried packages from a neighborhood ice cream parlor, the grocery, for anyone who needed an errand boy. Soon he discovered there were easier ways; he branched out into pilfering whatever was lying loose.
    But his was still a limited world, made narrow by Sicilian parental authority. The truant officer was often at the door of the Lucanias’ flat, and those visits were invariably followed by a beating from his father. His mother tearfully pleaded with him to finish school, and he would promise that he would. (When he quit at fourteen, after the fifth grade, and got his working papers, he was sure that he had made good on that promise.) But the truancy persisted, and finally on June 25, 1911, the Board of Education took its ultimate stern measure: he was committed to the Brooklyn Truant School, to remain for four months.
    “This first time I was locked up is like a fog