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ability to act on them.
    When he was a teenager, Lonergan stole a bicycle and made money renting it to other kids in the neighborhood. Soon he had earned enough to buy more bikes, and eventually opened his own shop. One day an Italian hoodlum named Bonanzio tried to talk the Irish youth into letting him sell narcotics from the store. Lonergan’s response was to beat him up and kick him out. Bonanzio got even by sending a friend into the shop to sell Lonergan a stolen bike, and then telling the police that the business was handling stolen merchandise. When the youthful proprietor was found with the stolen property, he was charged and sent to a work farm, where he met his future boss and brother-in-law, “Wild Bill” Lovett.
    While the police were searching the Adonis Social Club for clues, a patrolman from the Clymer Street Station found another White Hander, James Hart, crawling on the sidewalk a few blocks away from the club. He had been shot in both legs, and collapsed from shock and blood loss as the officer approached. When he regained consciousness at Cumberland Street Hospital, he told the authorities that Christmas revelers had shot him from a speeding automobile.
    Incredibly, a family occupying the apartment on the second floor of the club building said that they had heard nothing unusual. The police didn’t believe them, as the gunfire, screams, and shattering glass that accompanied the chaos must have been deafening, but were unable to prove otherwise.
    It took a while, but the truth emerged. Early on the evening of December 25, Lonergan met five of his men at a speakeasy on Skrillman Street; Aaron Harms, Needles Ferry, James Hart,  Joe Howard, and Patrick “Happy” Maloney. The more they drank, the more they cursed the Italians, until around midnight they finally hailed a taxi and ordered the driver to take them to the Adonis Social Club, which was an Italian-owned hangout.
    Once inside, they commandeered a table in the cabaret area, which contained a bar and small dance floor. Other patrons became uneasy when one of the White Handers exclaimed that his brother could “lick the bunch of” Italians in the bar. Sensing what was coming, the female singer took a break with the cigarette girl, so White Hander Joe Howard got up on the small platform and began to sing.
    One account states that Lonergan and his crew started berating Irish girls who came in with Italian escorts, yelling at them to start seeing “white men.” They peppered their loud conversation with words like “dagos” and “ginzos.”

Finally, the Italians had enough. One of them beckoned to “Needles” Ferry, who had been especially abusive. When he approached the man’s table, words were exchanged, and a bottle was smashed against his face. No sooner had Ferry hit the floor when the lights suddenly went out, guns were produced, and bullets rained on the White Handers.
    Lonergan and Harms fell side by side, drilled in the head and chest. There was a loaded pistol in the Irish gang leader’s vest, and he grabbed for it even as he went down, but died before he could return fire. Ferry collapsed with lead peppering his face and stomach.
    When the crowd fled for the door, Howard, Maloney, and Hart escaped with them, although Hart was wounded. Someone must have tried to drag Ferry outside, abandoning him when it was clear that he had died.

    Al Capone after his arrest. Photo courtesy of Mario Gomes / Al Capone Museum
     
    The police picked up Happy Maloney and Joe Howard after the female singer, Helen Logan, and the cigarette girl identified them. They in turn implicated James Hart, who stuck to the story about holiday partygoers shooting him.
    Within days, detectives arrested eight Italians who had been in the Adonis Social Club that night. They included the club owners, John “Stickum” Stabile, “Fury” Agoglia, and Anthony Desso. Also caught in the net was future Chicago kingpin Al Capone, who was visiting his Brooklyn birthplace