CHARLES LUCIANO, alias CHARLIE LUCKY, Number One racketeer of New York.
THOMAS E. DEWEY, Special Prosecutor of rackets in New York County (subsequently District Attorney).
NANCY PRESSER, racketeers’ playmate, gun moll and prostitute.
RALPH LIGUORI, hold-up man, dope runner, and Nancy’s boy friend.
GASHOUSE LIL, jilted by Liguori.
THELMA JORDAN, a prostitute from the Middle West.
BENNIE SPILLER, a loan shark, Thelma’s boy friend.
JENNIE THE FACTORY, an old-time madam.
DAVE MILLER, booking agent for a string of prostitutes.
AL WEINER, a booker, who took over the prostitution business of his father, Cockeyed Louis, when Louis went to prison.
JACK ELLER, a booker, who took over Nick Montana’s prostitution business when Montana went to prison.
PETE HARRIS, booker of the best-looking string of prostitutes in town.
MILDRED HARRIS, Pete’s wife, a former madam.
FRISCO JEAN ERWIN, one of Pete Harris’s sweethearts.
CRAZY MOE, a male madam and underworld go-between.
LITTLE DAVM BETILLO, a ferocious gunman of the Capone and Luciano mobs, active head of the prostitution racket.
THOMAS PENNOCHIO, alias TOMMY BULL, old-time thug and dope-runner.
LITTLE ABIE WAHRMAN, head of Davie Betillo’s strong-arm squad.
JIMMY FREDERICKS, front-man for the vice ring.
COKEY FLO BROWN, the smartest madam in town, sweetheart of Jimmy Fredericks.
GOOD-TIME CHARLIE, a pimp.
JO JO WEINTRAUB, lobbygow of Pete Harris.
JEANETTE LEWIS, Jo Jo’s girl friend.
JOE BENDIX, a hotel sneak thief.
MOLLY BROWN, a Waldorf-Astoria bathmaid.
MOSES POLAKOFF, Luciano’s lawyer.
GEORGE MORTON LEVY, Luciano’s trial lawyer.
CAESAR BARRA, counsel to Betillo and Pennochio.
DAVID P. SIEGEL, ahrman’s lawyer.
SAMUEL J. SIEGEL, Fredericks’s lawyer.
Various prostitutes, madams, pimps, gunmen, dope peddlers, racketeers, and lawyers.
Scene: Manhattan Island—its brothels, hotels, all-night restaurants, side-streets and courtrooms.
Time: 1933 to 1936.