Born to Steal: When the Mafia Hit Wall Street (34 page)

The Waco deal wasn’t an IPO. It was a “15c2-11.” Waco was a teeny-weeny company whose shares were going to start trading over
the counter, which required filing papers. Form 15c2-11, to be exact. These kinds of deals were better than IPOs, because
you had to file fewer papers before you could begin to steal—or raise money, in the case of a legit 15c2-11.

Louis and Benny were going to share a half million warrants as their reward for selling $1 million in Waco paper. It looked
simple in theory. In practice, it was a fiasco.

“We’re all ready and prepared,” said Louis. “Our biggest client from way back at Todd, Ed Delano, he’s invested. Tension’s
tight because we’re waiting for the deal to come out. Nobody has money. Everybody’s going to get warrants from this deal and
we’re all going to come out okay.

“So we raised all that money and the deal isn’t going through. There’s a holdup at Nasdaq. I have to go down to Maryland to
see Shannon Johnson, and tell him we’ll give him as payment twenty thousand warrants for his company, YBC Associates, if he’ll
get the forms approved. So I drive down there to Maryland with the 15c2-11 in a manila envelope, and handed it to Shannon.
I didn’t want to send it overnight so I drove it down. It was a fucking pain in the ass. I went down there in the worst car
imaginable. A fucking 1984 Cutlass. I was uncomfortable all the way. By now the Benz is gone, the Ferrari is gone. I couldn’t
afford them no more.

“So the deal went through and everybody’s trying to scam U.S. Securities. Everybody—me, Benny, Alan—all of us were running
to get rid of our stock. But we couldn’t raise enough money to cross ourselves out of this shit.

“This U.S. Securities is not anywhere close to a chop shop. It’s an international brokerage firm. It’s owned by Chinese people.
There was always a problem. We were in Hing’s office every fucking day. This guy called. That guy called. The clients were
complaining.

“I couldn’t believe the shit that was going on. Alan Saretsky is totally out of his fucking mind. He’s trying to sell something
like two hundred thousand shares of common stock. He’s trying to cut John Hing in on it! I’m sitting in the room listening
to Alan trying to tell John Hing that he can give Hing money under the table. John Hing says, ‘I don’t understand.’ What was
he doing? The guy’s legit. I said, ‘Let’s look like we’re doing this legit. If we look like we’re doing it legit, we’re going
to pull this fucking shit off.’

“Then Charlie comes to the office like a gang-banger, looking to sell his fucking stock and get his money. Charlie came up
there and smacked me and punched me in the face in the conference room of this legit Wall Street firm! I said, ‘Charlie, you
got to keep your voice down. This isn’t like the other firms.’ He goes, ‘I don’t give a fuck!’ Bam! John Hing was right next
door. Charlie went to talk to him. About his ‘account.’ His account? He had a fucking nominee account! He had it under his
friend Sean. I go, ‘Are you fucking nuts? What are you gonna tell him? You’re Sean Dunleavy, you’re going to tell him?’ He
did! He told Hing he’s Sean fucking Dunleavy.

“So you got all these gangsters coming in and out and these U.S. Securities people are in suits and ties. They’re fucking
graduates of college. You got Charlie with a turtleneck and sports coat, tanned like he just came back from Florida, walking
around with Joe Botch. They just look like fucking gangsters. They didn’t belong there. The
Business Week
article had just come out. I used to tell Charlie, ‘You’re fucking nuts. You’re going to get in trouble. You can’t be coming
up to the offices dressed like this.’ He goes, ‘Don’t tell me how to handle my affairs.’”
^*

The Waco disaster was proof, not that Louis needed any, that Charlie was no businessman.

Waco wasn’t a total loss. A little money was made from the warrants—much less than anticipated, but enough to pay off Vinnie,
which was the purpose of doing the deal in the first place. He sold some of the warrants, before the Waco deal came out, to
a cold-caller named Tommy Deceglie, an older guy who was Benny’s brother-in-law. Louis put twenty thousand warrants in Tommy’s
account in return for $20,000 in cash.

Tommy expected that the warrants were going to rise to maybe $4.50, netting a $90,000 profit. Instead he wound up getting
$3 for the warrants, but that was still $60,000. Not bad on a $20,000 investment, no?

No.

Another dumb sitdown. This one was at a restaurant in Bay Ridge.

“This old Guy with the Bonannos, Elmo, was representing Tommy,” said Louis. “He was supposed to be Tommy’s uncle. That’s right—Elmo.
Like ‘Tickle-Me Elmo.’ I was so disgusted I didn’t think it was funny. Charlie used to make fun of it, though.”

Louis won this one. At the sitdown it became clear that Tommy had lied to Elmo about the dispute. Not wise, as there was nothing
especially cuddly or tickleable about Vincent “Elmo” Almarante, a convicted drug dealer. Louis—as would have befit a Real
Wall Street arbitration—had brought along trading records that contradicted Tommy on major points. “Elmo tells Charlie he’s
sorry he brought us down there, it was a misunderstanding. I left and Benny told me the guy got smacked around after that.
Every time I saw Tommy after that I made him miserable about it. Balls of the guy,” said Louis.

A fair decision, not that he gave a shit anymore.

FENCE JUMPER

It was time to kill Charlie.

When Charlie started to talk about Stefanie, he crossed a line. Niggers raping Stefanie? Uh-uh.

This whole niggers-raping-Stefanie stuff, and the resulting need to kill Charlie, was maybe the most unpleasant part of Louis’s
mid-career crisis. Here he was, twenty-three years old—an old man by chop house standards. When he left U.S. Securities in
June 1997, Louis realized it was all over. He was through. The joy of stealing was gone. Now it was a struggle. Now he was
just like everybody else, living from check to check, payoff to payoff, scam to scam. But there were no scams on the horizon,
and the money he had was flowing out to Atlantic City and the bookies and loan sharks.

For the first time as an adult he couldn’t afford stuff. First the boat and now the cars were gone. He couldn’t afford the
payments—and besides, Charlie had been using the Ferrari and the Mercedes as much as he was. He was down to one car, one wife
(not counting Charlie), and soon he would have a child. Stefanie was pregnant. They both agreed that it was a bad time.

Charlie was pissed about missing out on the Waco warrants. Disappointment really brought out the worst in him, and Charlie’s
worst was unpleasant in many ways, some of them new. Louis theorized that maybe Charlie had some kind of deep-seated fear
of rejection. But he didn’t spend too much time analyzing it, and neither did Charlie. Instead Charlie did what psychologists
recommend as healthiest for one’s psyche. He kept in touch with his feelings.

“Around the time of the Waco deal he wanted money, I forget for what, and I didn’t have it. I went to see him at his house.
I took off my shoes, like I usually do, came into the apartment. I said, ‘Charlie, I really don’t have it.’ He goes over to
the stove and sticks his hand in this pot holder hanging by the stove. He took out a .38 revolver. I was shitting my pants
almost. Took it out, put it right on my fucking head. ‘I can blow your fucking head off right here.’ At that moment I don’t
know what he’s going to do. I said, ‘Come on, Charlie, man, what the fuck are you doing, man? I’ll have it. I’ll have it.’
He says, ‘If next Sunday comes and I got to take this fucking thing out of the pot holder, I’m going to fucking use it.’”

But that was almost okay. Charlie was mad. He tended to get mad. That was Charlie. But Stefanie—no, that was off-limits. Louis
was a man, and men don’t let their wives be raped by niggers, even in theory.

“He started saying the craziest shit. Getting real abusive like. He says, ‘I’ll have six niggers come and rape your wife.
How’d you like that? You lying scumbag.’ I went, ‘Charlie, that’s out of line.’ He says, ‘Out of line, my fucking ass. I’ll
come myself.’ I say, ‘Now you’re going to rape my wife? I don’t understand. First you said you’d have niggers rape my wife.
Now it’s you?’ He goes, ‘Don’t fuck around with me. Don’t mind-fuck me.’ He said that because I used to play with him sometimes.
He says, ‘Everything’s a fucking joke. This is not a joke.’ He’s screaming. He was crazy.

“So Charlie’s talking about niggers raping Stefanie, and I’m trying to make a joke out of it, and he’s pushing it. He goes,
‘She’s probably fucking another guy. You’re so fucked up she’s fucking other guys,’ and I say, ‘Charlie, don’t even talk about
Stefanie. I don’t give a fuck. Don’t get too personal,’ I told him. He goes, ‘What, are you going to defend yourself over
this thing?’ and I say, ‘Just don’t talk about Stefanie and I won’t have to defend myself.’ It just died out. He kind of backed
down a little bit. I would have raised my hands back to him that time. That’s the only time I would have raised my hands back
to him. I said to myself, ‘If he raises his hands to me right now, I’m going to get the best of this motherfucker.’ I would
have taken out every frustration I ever had in my life on him.”

After that, Louis realized he wanted Charlie dead. He deserved it. It was becoming torture. The phone calls. The beatings.
Now Stefanie? Enough.

“I decided—that was it. But I needed someone to come with me. I was afraid to go alone. I went to my father. I talked to him
outside the house. I said, ‘Dad, I don’t know if he’s going to show up or not, but I can’t live with me thinking he’s going
to show up. I got to kill him. Let’s go to Brooklyn, take a fucking gun, ring his doorbell, shoot the motherfucker, and leave
him dead. Nobody will care.’ We’d get back in our car, and go away. Throw the gun in the fucking water. Nobody would even
know. We’d ring the doorbell at seven in the morning. He’d think it’s his fucking coffee. He’d open the door.
Pkowwww!

“I’d be so happy. ‘Aw, Charlie. Look at you. You’re a fucking mess when you’re dead. You idiot. You shouldn’t have talked
about the niggers fucking Stefanie. You fucking retard.’ I swear I would have spit in his face. No remorse at all. But my
father says no, don’t do it.”

Nick said he would talk to his old friend Butchie, the connected guy Fran didn’t like, who was supposedly tight with Alphonse
Persico, boss of the Colombos. Butchie knew a Guy. The Guy would talk to Charlie. And that would be that. The new Guy would
say to Charlie, “Listen, you got to calm down and leave the kid alone.”

Louis was going to get himself a new Guy. He was going to jump ship.

It would be a perilous move in any organization that values loyalty. But there can be valid reasons for moving from one part
of an organizational chart to another. Louis figured the Guy world was like any other structured, logically run operation,
with dispute-settling mechanisms and hierarchy. When he wasn’t treated right at Hanover, he had gone to Roy to complain and
Roy had been reasonable and agreed with him and moved him to another broker. Louis had his reasons now, even more than at
Hanover. So Louis figured it would all turn out okay.

Butchie had Louis get in touch with a Guy named Robert Luciano, who ran a precious metals shop, My Way Gold, on Avenue S just
off Stillwell Avenue in Bensonhurst. Luciano would be the one to deal with Charlie and keep Charlie away. So Louis went to
the gold shop.

Louis went there one unseasonably chilly afternoon. He remembered it was chilly because Luciano began the meeting by telling
Louis to take off his clothes. After checking for a wire and finding none, Luciano wasn’t oozing with solicitude, but he was
civil. He let Louis get dressed and asked Louis about his debts. Yes, he had debts, a couple. He would pay Luciano and Luciano
would pay the debtors. Sort of like a credit counselor. He would talk to Charlie, assuming the role now of small-town family
lawyer. He would tell Charlie to cease using coercive debt-collection tactics. The charge? No charge. It would be a favor.
He was being nice. Luciano seemed to be a nice guy. He was in his mid-thirties, a bit pudgy.

Louis was happy after he left Luciano. Okay, he was jumping ship. Charlie wasn’t going to like it. Well, fuck Charlie. You
just don’t treat a person that way and get away with it. You don’t abuse their wives, even verbally. Now Luciano was going
to be his Charlie, getting the cut that he used to give Charlie. Fuck Charlie. Fuck him.

The good feeling lasted a few days. Louis was between brokerages, so he was making the rounds, trying to find a place that
might accommodate him. One day he went to visit a firm in Manhattan. It took about an hour. Louis came downstairs and there
he was. Charlie.

Charlie walked up to Louis. He didn’t hit him, which kind of disappointed Louis because he figured that he had it coming,
that hitting him would be enough. Instead, Charlie just talked to him quietly. “He says, ‘I’m just letting you know something.
If you think this is gonna work, you’re going to die.’ And he just left. I was, like, ‘Oh man. He’s mad. I’m dead,’” said
Louis. He called Luciano immediately from his cell phone.

“He just found me,” he told Luciano. Louis could hear a sigh on the other end of the phone. It made him feel good, just a
little. “Ah, that fucking guy,” Luciano said. He said he’d call Charlie. He hung up.

Later that day, Luciano called him back. “He won’t come near you no more,” he told Louis.

For several nightmarish days, it was as if Charlie had nothing better to do but to call Louis’s pager. He was relentless.
The pager was constantly buzzing. It was almost as if his pager were some kind of malfunctioning circulation-boosting vibrator,
the way it was buzzing constantly.

Louis didn’t call him back. Luciano, while not exactly exuding warmth, had made it clear that he would get Charlie off his
back. Louis figured that was going to happen. It might take a while, but it would happen. He still held that hope when he
went to see Luciano to make a payment. He was a little short—he was supposed to pay Luciano $6,000 for distribution to his
creditors, and he only had $4,000. But he figured that a partial payment would be okay, as this was supposed to be a friend
of Butchie and Butchie was a friend of his father, not to mention his tightness with Alphonse Persico.