Scene inside the Adonis Social Club. Mayhem and murder with tables,chairs overturned and bloodstains galore.
Detectives sift through the evidence.
(International News Photo)
The actual Adonis Social Club Massacre occurred on Christmas Day, 1925. The owner of the speakeasy, Frankie Yale (renamed Frankie Lamiano in the Piper novels), had invited his former employee, Al Capone, to a Christmas party. Yale, the mob boss of the Italian “Black Handers” had been tipped off that a rival gangster, Richard “Peg-Leg” Lonergan, was planning on crashing the party, along with a group of five fellow Irish “White Handers”—Neils “Needles” Ferry, Aaron Harms, James Hart, Joe Howard, and John (Jack) Maloney.
The spacious speakeasy was packed with guests dancing to a jazz combo on the large stage. A mirrored ball was suspended from the high ceiling, reflecting moving lights across the revelers.
At 3:00 a.m., a well-dressed, drunken Richard Lonergan entered through the open double doors to the dancing and dining room with his companions. They began to sneer at the Italian men inside and make racial comments. Words such as “wops” and “dagoes” were shouted over the jazz music.
New York papers recorded the events that fateful night of 1925. First newspapers covering the event erroneously list the address as 154 20th street. The corrected address in subsequent editions was listed as 152 Twentieth street, Brooklyn.
As Lonergan and his troop emerged from the crowd into the open, Capone snapped his fingers. Suddenly the lights went out, tables were overturned, glasses were smashed, and the shooting began. With the jazz combo playing a lively tune in the background, the room erupted in a hail of flashing gunfire.
Men and women screamed as they scrambled for the doorway in a mad dash to escape the scene. Lonergan was the first to fall as several slugs ripped into his lungs and heart. In just a few moments, the Whiter Handers were lying dead on the hardwood floor. Lonergan still had a fresh toothpick dangling from his lips.
James Hart somehow escaped the massacre and was found unconscious by the police near Flushing and Throop avenues. At Cumberland Street hospital, he claimed to have been shot by passersby on the street.
Several witnesses were picked up and questioned, but everyone seemed to have amnesia about the event. Even the family living on the second story above the club claimed to the police that they heard nothing out of the ordinary from the club downstairs. On December 27, 1925, the police picked up ten suspects in connection with the homicide at the Adonis Social Club, including Capone, who claimed to be sitting in as a doorman for the club that evening. In the end, no one was ever prosecuted for the murder of Lonergan and his men.
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