Читать книгу Slaughter in the Streets. When Boston Became Boxing’s Murder Capital онлайн

11 страница из 34

He landed awkwardly, his head wedged into the under-railings of a wooden chair. As Frankie bled out on the attorney's floor, so went his plans to dominate the waterfront.

The story was a sensation. Boston police fanned out as far north as Portland, Maine, in search of Lombardo and his men, while The Boston Globe built up Frankie as a little terror who had dominated the local crime scene “with a grip of steel.” Also played up was the seemingly minor detail of how Frankie and his brother “fought within the squared circle.”

One had to wonder if Frankie's life would've been different had he been victorious in his first and only professional fight. Would he have pursued boxing, or would he still have gone into crime? Then again, Stevie was very successful in the ring, and his taste for robbing was just as developed as Frankie's. Maybe crime and boxing were in them in equal parts. Maybe it was inevitable that one of them would be killed in a North End gun battle. After all, Boston already had a history of fighters being killed gangland style.