The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
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independent operation. 
And yet despite all this, it was an unequal battle until Vito Corleone evened out the odds 
with one master stroke. 
Maranzano sent a call to Capone for his two best gunmen to come to New York to 
eliminate the upstart. The Corleone Family had friends and intelligence in Chicago who 
relayed the news that the two gunmen were arriving by train. Vito Corleone dispatched 
Luca Brasi to take care of them with instructions that would liberate the strange man’s 
most savage instincts. 
Brasi and his people, four of them, received the Chicago hoods at the railroad station. 
One of Brasi’s men procured and drove a taxicab for the purpose and the station porter 
carrying the bags led the Capone men to this cab. When they got in, Brasi and another 
of his men crowded in after them, guns ready, and made the two Chicago boys lie on 
the floor. The cab drove to a warehouse near the docks that Brasi had prepared for 
them. 
The two Capone men were bound hand and foot and small bath towels were stuffed into 
their mouths to keep them from crying out. 
Then Brasi took an ax from its place against the wall and started hacking at one of the 
Capone men. He chopped the man’s feet off, then the legs at the knees, then the thighs 
where they joined the torso. Brasi was an extremely powerfull man but it took him many 
swings to accomplish his purpose. By that time of course the victim had given up the 
ghost and the floor of the warehouse was slippery with the hacked fragments of his flesh 
and the gouting of his blood. When Brasi turned to his second victim he found further 
effort unnecessary. The second Capone gunman out of sheer terror had, impossibly, 
swallowed the bath towel in his mouth and suffocated. The bath towel was found in the 
man’s stomach when the police performed their autopsy to determine the cause of 
death. 
A few days later in Chicago the Capones received a message from Vito Corleone. It was 
to this effect: “You know now how I deal with enemies. Why does a Neapolitan interfere 
in a quarrel between two Sicilians? If you wish me to consider you as a friend I owe you 
a service which I will pay on demand. A man like yourself must know how much more 
profitable it is to have a friend who, instead of calling on you for help, takes care of his 
own affairs and stands ever ready to help you in some future time of trouble. If you do 
not wish my friendship, so be it. But then I must tell you that the climate in this city is 

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