Animal (13 page)

Valachi made up his mind quickly. In an attempt to save his own neck, he agreed to flip on old friends as well as total strangers, and in doing so broke the Mafia’s cardinal rule of
Omerta
(Silence). Valachi was transferred to New York’s Westchester County Jail in late June 1962 under the
alias Joseph DeMarco. Initial questioning had been done by the
FBN
, but once Attorney General Bobby Kennedy learned about the underworld defection, he pressed J. Edgar Hoover to insert one of his own agents into the interrogation.

Despite Valachi’s low-level status within the mob, he was able to provide a wealth of information both real and imagined about the syndicate’s organizational structure and its most influential and ruthless members. This information was not gleaned easily, however. At first, Valachi tried to say as little as possible. The
FBI
assigned Special Agent James Flynn to the case with an order to break down the mobster’s stone wall of silence. “I could see there was a definite hatred on Joe’s part against anybody in law enforcement at that point,” Flynn recalled years later in a documentary for
A&E
television.
²²
“He would talk and not talk. He would recognize the fact that you were in the room and stop talking altogether.” Flynn worked on Valachi for two months, plying the overweight prisoner with Italian specialties including Genoa sausage, pasta, and cheese. But the key to Valachi’s heart turned out not to be his stomach after all. It was information. Special Agent Flynn sat Valachi down for a talk that would either make or break his case.

“Joe, I’m gonna tell you one word and I want you to give me the other. If you don’t give it to me, we’re finished,” Flynn told Valachi. “
Cosa
,” the special agent whispered.
²³

“
Cosa Nostra
,” Valachi replied, nodding his head. “You know about it?”

Flynn nodded back. He had heard the words
Cosa Nostra
mentioned several times on wiretaps but was not fully aware of its meaning. Valachi would have to fill in the rest. Valachi informed Flynn that those inside the mob never referred to themselves as members of the Mafia. “That’s the expression the outside uses,” Valachi told him. The mobster explained that
Cosa Nostra
was a Sicilian phrase that meant Our Thing.
La Cosa Nostra
(the
FBI
added the
La
) quickly replaced words like “syndicate” and “hoodlum” in the bureau’s lexicon. Valachi then broke down
LCN’S
business model, which was a combination of best practices from both the corporate world and the military. Valachi described himself and others as soldiers, criminal infantry working in tightly knit crews called
regimas
who were led by
capo regimes
(lieutenants) that reported to twelve
capos
(heads) in select geographical areas.

Contrary to popular belief, Valachi had not been the first man to expose the inner workings of the mob. That information had been provided decades before, in 1940, by a Jewish contract killer named Abe “Kid Twist” Reles. Kid Twist, a vicious killer for the notorious hit squad Murder Inc., came under indictment for a string of gangland slayings in which he had applied a number of different killing methods from pistols to his personal favorite—the ice pick. With threats of the electric chair, prosecutors realized they could twist Kid Twist into giving up his Murder Inc. boss, Louis “Lepke” Buchalter. Abe “Kid Twist” Reles implicated Buchalter in the murder of a Brooklyn candystore owner for which he was later convicted and sent to the electric chair. Reles also turned in five other mobsters who were all found guilty and later executed for their crimes. The Murder Inc. turncoat was not done yet, however. Prosecutors had set their sights on Albert Anastasia, a high-ranking member of
Cosa Nostra
. Reles had given investigators key information to tie Anastasia to the murder of a longshoreman and union activist named Pete Panto, who had led an unsuccessful revolt against International Longshoremen’s Association leader Joseph P. Ryan, a close ally of the New York mob. Pete Panto disappeared in July 1939, and his remains were not discovered until nearly three years later, when they turned up in a lime pit in Lyndhurst, New Jersey.

Panto’s story was later used as an inspiration for the Oscar-winning 1954 film
On the Waterfront
, starring Marlon Brando. While Panto was still missing and feared dead, Reles told investigators that the union activist had been killed by fellow Murder Inc. hitman Mendy Weiss on orders from Albert Anastasia. Before Reles could testify, however, he took flight from a sixth-floor window at the Half Moon Hotel on New York’s Coney Island while guarded by six detectives. Investigators claimed Reles was killed while trying to escape, but popular theory suggests that the guards had been paid $100,000 to push Kid Twist out the window to his death. With his early and mysterious demise, Reles was immortalized by one New York newspaper as “the canary who sang, but couldn’t fly.”

Abe “Kid Twist” Reles never got the chance to point fingers and tell his story in a public forum. That job would be left for Joseph Valachi. It wasn’t enough for Valachi to give up the goods on
La Cosa Nostra
behind closed doors. Attorney General Kennedy and
FBI
director Hoover both wanted a spectacle. These powerful men wanted the story told, but each through
his own prism. J. Edgar Hoover originally tried to break the story in
Reader’s Digest
, with the
FBI
taking full credit for exposing
La Cosa Nostra
, but he was overruled by the attorney general, who leaked his own version of the story to reporter Peter Maas at the
Saturday Evening Post
. Hoover was furious over the slight. “I never saw such skullduggery,” he complained in a May 23, 1962, memo. Hoover also added that Bobby Kennedy’s aides were “exploiting this whole situation for their own benefit.”
²⁴

Despite much infighting behind the scenes, Kennedy and Hoover presented a united front against the mob when they paraded Joe Valachi before Congress and the world in October 1963. The gangster’s highly anticipated testimony before Senator John L. McClellan’s committee on organized crime had become the hottest ticket in town. The attorney general’s wife, Ethel Kennedy, arrived early for a front-row seat. Caroline Kennedy’s White House kindergarten teacher was also there. Curiosity also got the better of Civil Rights pioneer James Meredith and Alice Roosevelt Longworth, who were both in attendance. “I wanted to get the smell of it,” the daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt told newspaper reporters.
²⁵

Once again, Valachi re-created the Mafia’s organizational blueprint for lawmakers and reporters in attendance. He also described the history of
La Cosa Nostra
in America as he knew it. The gallery hung on the informant’s every word, and as a reporter from
Time
magazine observed, “Valachi seemed to enjoy it thoroughly.” Battling a sore throat, the gravelly voiced Valachi sucked from a juice filled plastic lemon as he described his motive for breaking
Omerta
.

“First of all I want revenge,” Valachi told the committee. “I want to destroy them, Cosa Nostra, the leaders, the bosses, the whole thing that exists… . What did I get out of it? Nothin’ but misery.”
²⁶

Valachi’s testimony was carried live on national television for two straight weeks. He identified Vito Genovese as his
Cosa Nostra
boss and listed the names of Joseph Bonanno, Gaetano Gagliano, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Vincent Mangano, and Joseph Profaci as the original bosses of
La Cosa Nostra
’s five families. Valachi also revealed the Mafia’s secret initiation ritual for the first time in public. It started with a finger prick and the sharing of blood and culminated with the burning of the image of a saint in the palm of one’s hand. Valachi demonstrated the ceremony for
the committee and muttered the words he claimed he was once ordered to recite during his own induction. “This is the way I burn if I expose this organization.”

America was captivated by Valachi’s testimony and overlooked his penchant for mistakes. Despite having what was called a “photographic memory,” Valachi stumbled several times during the hearing, mixing up names and places of his alleged underworld exploits. Committee member Edmund Muskie of Maine called the hearings “a waste of time.” The true impact of Joe Valachi’s testimony would not be felt until years later, when Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act of 1970, better known as RICO, which strengthened and extended criminal penalties against the mob. Valachi also paved the way for
FBI
agents like H. Paul Rico and Dennis Condon to go after other mob associates, hoping to use them as weapons in the ongoing war against
La Cosa Nostra
.

7

Uncaged

There’s just no place for a street fighting man

THE ROLLING STONES

Following his parole in 1960, Joe Barboza carried over his bookmaking business from prison to the street. Starting with a $2,000 loan from his boxing manager, Eddie Fisher, Barboza managed to parlay the money into $25,000 in just one year. Fisher also kept Barboza on the books as an employee at Scooterland, a scooter sales showroom behind the Hotel Statler. He worked there for nine months and was made assistant manager despite the fact that he rarely set foot in the place. Instead, Joe took to running around with like-minded young thugs looking to make a quick score. One of those men was Guy Frizzi, an East Boston tough guy who reminded Barboza of the actor George Raft. Frizzi had a short temper and a long rap sheet. He was known to slap around his girlfriends and anyone else that fell out of his favor. Barboza was drawn to Frizzi partly because of to their similar backgrounds. Both had grown up in reform school and prison and had been behind bars at the same places at different times. Frizzi had also been incarcerated at the Concord Reformatory, where he once had his two front teeth knocked out. The two made a dangerous pair, and even on the nights they weren’t looking for trouble, trouble certainly found them.

In May 1962, Barboza and Frizzi walked into Alphonso’s Clam House to check out a new lounge act when they encountered a red-headed gangster believed to be a bookie on the rise in the Boston suburb of Malden. Barboza and Frizzi took a table with their friend Skinny Spindale. Guy Frizzi gave the Malden bookie the once over and was not impressed.

“Fuck him,” Frizzi said to Barboza.

The red-headed shylock must have overheard the slight, because at that moment one of his companions walked over to Barboza’s table and ordered Skinny Spindale to put out his cigarette.

“We don’t wanna start no fire,” the man said.

The Animal sensed a problem and stepped in to try to defuse the situation. Barboza was on parole, after all.

“Look, we don’t want no trouble,” Joe told the man. “You want trouble, bother somebody else.”
²⁷

But the guy wanted trouble, and at that point so did Guy Frizzi. The two men began launching haymakers at each other in the middle of the club as patrons began to clear out. Barboza remained close by while the pair continued to slug it out. His eyes narrowed and his anger grew. Ferocity soon replaced his fear of violating parole and going back to prison. The Animal wrapped his thick hand around a beer bottle and smashed it on a table. He then lunged forward with the shank and stabbed the man in the back; the bottle’s broken edges lacerated the man’s skin under his coat. Much to Barboza’s disbelief, the man barely flinched and kept swinging at Frizzi, connecting with his nose and sending Guy’s eyeglasses flying through the air. Joe knew that his friend was blind without his glasses, so he decided to end the battle once and for all. The Animal stared over to the red-headed bookie, who seemed to be taking great pleasure in the violence.

“Fuck you and fuck Malden,” Barboza shouted.

The Animal then stepped in between Frizzi and the bookie’s henchman and knocked the man cold with two crushing blows.

Barboza was arrested and booked for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Surprisingly, he was not kept behind bars because of the parole violation. Instead, he was allowed back on the streets while the case against him was pending.

A few months later, one of Barboza’s bosses at Scooterland secured him a job at Duffy’s Tavern in the shadow of Paragon Park along Nantasket Beach in Hull, Massachusetts. Joe worked part-time as a bouncer during the busy summer season. The area was a breeding ground for fights, especially on those hot summer nights when temperatures rose and tempers flared. Joe kept a close watch on Duffy’s and the surrounding businesses. Young men looking to make names for themselves quickly learned to stay clear of Nantasket Beach on the nights Barboza was on duty. One group of young trouble makers did not get the message, however. Barboza spotted the gang huddled near the go-cart track, harassing the ride operator. Joe could have simply told the group to move along, but the Animal was
not in a talking mood on that particular evening. Instead, he launched himself at all seven men, knocking down the two biggest guys he could find. A friend of Joe’s also joined in the melee. Barboza looked over to his buddy and was caught off guard by the gang’s biggest guy, who managed to wrap him in a tight bear hug. Joe’s powerful arms were now pinned against his sides as the thug continued to squeeze. What Joe’s opponent did not realize, however, was the fact that Barboza had learned during his many years in prison to use every part of his body as a weapon. Joe broke one arm free and grabbed the guy’s head and pulled it toward him. The Animal opened his mouth wide and chomped down on his opponent’s face, tearing away a part of his cheek. Barboza easily broke free as the young thug covered the gaping wound on the side of his face. Police sirens wailed and the Animal fled into the darkness with the metallic taste of fresh blood on his lips.