The Valachi Papers (24 page)

How the poison got into LaTempa's bottle of tablets was never established, but it effectively ended the proceedings against Genovese. After Dickey had deposited him in Brooklyn, Assistant District Attorney Julius Helfand tried for nearly a year to dig up more evidence. Finally he had to go into court on June 10,1946, to announce that he did not have a case. "Other witnesses [besides LaTempa] who could have supplied the necessary corroboration," he noted, "were likewise not available because they were missing or refused to talk and tell what they knew of this crime because of their fear of Genovese and the other bosses of the underworld, knowing full well that to talk would mean their death."

The presiding judge, in ruling that Rupolo s testimony by itself was not sufficient, told Genovese, "I cannot speak for the jury, but I believe that if there were even a shred of corroborating evidence, you would have been condemned to the chair." Those present in the courtroom observed that the defendant, who seemed annoyed at the formalities holding up his release, smiled slightly during the judge's talk and greeted prosecutor Helfand's remarks with a "stifled yawn."

(As a reward for his information, however useless now, Rupolo was given his freedom, although he was warned that he was virtually committing suicide in electing to leave prison. "Til take my chances," The Hawk said. For years he led a terror-filled existence, never knowing when his moment would come. Then his tightly bound corpse broke loose from some concrete weights and bobbed to the surface of New York's Jamaica Bay on the morning of August 27, 1964. He had been missing for approximately three weeks. His mutilated body contained a number of ice-pick wounds in the chest and abdomen, and the back of his head had been blown off. In 1967 four members of the Cosa Nostra went on trial for killing Rupolo because of his "activities" as an informer. All four were acquitted.)

Valachi did not see Genovese
at once after the dismissal of the Boccia indictment. "I had," he recalls, "some trouble of my own, and I didn't want to go running right away to Vito with it. He is just back from Italy and has beaten this murder rap, and I don't want him to think I am taking advantage of him. Anyway, who knows what he was going to be like after being away all those years?"

Valachi's "trouble" was a problem for the Cosa Nostra judicial process. He had used his fists against another member and, as a result, faced his most serious table to date. If this seems anomalous in the violent world he lived in, Valachi has a ready explanation for it:

It is a hard rule in this thing of ours from the days of Mr. Maranzano that one member cannot use his hands on another member. In

New York the no-hands rule is most important. It ain't all peaches and cream like in Buffalo, say, or them other cities where there is only one Family and everybody is together. It is different in New York. In New York there are five Families—really you must say there are six because when you mention New York, you got to mention Newark, New Jersey— and in New York we step all over each other. What I mean is there is a lot of animosity among the soldiers in these Families, and one guy is always trying to take away another guy's numbers runner or move into a bookmaking operation or grab a shylocking customer. So you can see why it is that they are strict about the no-hands rule.

I was always careful to observe it even when I broke up with that dog Bobby Doyle around 1940, after I caught him sneaking up to my wife and sister-in-law and telling them how I was hanging around with girls every night. Also there were a lot of members who tried to act tough, but in my book they are yellow. There was this time I am in a bar drinking with a girl when Joe Stutz, real name Tortorici, walks in. He is with Trigger Mike Coppola's crew, and first he tells the girl to beat it, and then he says to me that Mike is outside in a car and wants to see me. I find out later Mike was outside, but Joe Stutz don't have to go about it like that. It was a cheap move. He is trying to make me look bad with the girl, so I say, "If Mike wants to see me, he knows where I am. Good-bye."

That is an example of how some people will try to push you. I felt like rapping him in the mouth, but I will wind up on the carpet. Right? I took care of Joe Stutz my own way. He has this guy Patsy running a pizza place for him. Patsy is just a guy, not a member, but he has ideas. I go into the joint with this same girl and I say, "Any room?"

He says, "No," but a little too smart.

So I say, "Come here." Now this is the kind of place where you got to go down a couple of steps to get to the tables. Patsy is just at the bottom step, starting to come up, when I kicked him right in the belly. He is already puking before he hits the floor, and he is out cold. I say to the girl, "Let's take a walk. The food here is lousy."

The next day Joe Stutz is on the phone. "What's the matter with you?" he says. "You know I take care of the guy."

"Well," I said, "teach him some manners. Teach him how to respect people. He shouldn't think that just because you're behind him, he can abuse the whole world. He's been picking up some bad habits from somebody. Do me a favor. Tell him you ain't the only tough guy around."

The incident that finally caused Valachi to break the no-hands dictum would have, by his account, provoked a saint. In 1945, as he had with the Paradise, he sold the Aida because the neighborhood was changing. Soon afterward, Frank Luciano, his partner in the gas stamp racket, invited him to join forces in a new restaurant called the Lido in the Castle Hill section of the Bronx. The liquor license was in the name of Luciano's son, Anthony, since he had no police record at the time. Valachi invested $15,000 as his share, and 250 customers turned out for the grand opening in the winter of 1946. With the approach of spring the average weekly take was around $2,500, and Valachi was delighted. "It was," he says, "almost too good to believe."

The first small cloud on the horizon appeared when Luciano kept putting off Valachi's request that they start drawing salaries on the grounds that they had to build up substantial capital reserve. "Well," Valachi told me, "I was getting worried. Here it is a month into the baseball season, and I ain't seen a dime." He began to investigate, but gingerly, he notes, afraid to hurt Luciano's feelings if his suspicions proved ill-founded. Then one afternoon he

bumped into a Bronx bookmaker who remarked, "Hey Joe, I like that partner of yours and his son. They lose with style."

"They been taking much of a bath?"

"Yeah, first the horses, and now every day it's baseball."

That night, in a chat with his partner, Valachi pointedly brought up the coincidence of Luciano's gambling losses and the fact that he had yet to pocket any money from the restaurant. Luciano reacted indignantly, mumbling that he had a good "rabbi," Cosa Nostra lingo for a lawyer at an underworld table, if Valachi wanted to pursue the matter.

"Listen, Frank," Valachi shot back, "we've been in business a long time what with the stamps and everything and we ain't ever had trouble, I'll say that. But if I find something funny, you are going to need more than a rabbi. I'm advising you, take heed."

The warning apparently had little effect. The next evening Valachi arrived at the Lido just in time to catch Luciano helping himself to a roll of bills from the office safe. Valachi grabbed him and said, "Frank, you got to be kidding."

Luciano frantically tried to pull away. "I got to have it," he shouted. "I dropped a bundle on the Yankees. Don't worry, I'll get it back."

Even as Valachi threw his first punch, the thought flashed through his mind that Luciano was purposely setting himself up for a beating. But he was so enraged now that he could not stop himself as he pumped lefts and rights into Luciano's face. Finally Luciano pulled free and ran into the cellar, Valachi right behind him. He cornered Luciano again and continued to pound him methodically until he slumped to the floor. "I got his blood all over me," he recalls, "and I swear I would have killed him if the pieman—meaning the guy who made the pizzas—don't grab me."

Valachi splashed a bucket of water on his unconscious partner

and went back upstairs to clean himself up. A few minutes later Luciano appeared, one eye already swollen shut, his nose smashed in, and staggered past him without a word. When he had reached the door, he turned toward Valachi and snarled, "Wait here, you cocksucker. I'll be back."

To Valachi this simply meant that Luciano would be returning with a gun. Like most Cosa Nostra members, Valachi never carried a pistol unless there was a specific reason for it, so he quickly called a "couple of guys" to come to the Lido with one for him. And as he sat waiting for Luciano, he had a moment to reflect on the irony of his situation. "From being right about this whole mess with Frank," he remarks, "all of a sudden I'm wrong. I'm in the right because he has been robbing me blind. Now I'm in the wrong by hitting him. I had violated the rule, and if there is a table, it is going to be for me."

Valachi fully expected Luciano to try to kill him since, by Cosa Nostra standards, he had sufficient provocation for it. But to his astonishment, after a tense hour or so, Luciano telephoned him and said, "Look, I'm sorry. I am willing to forget everything. Let's say it never happened."

Ostensibly agreeing to this, Valachi nonetheless suspected treachery. "I think to myself," he recalls, "that really the best thing is to forgive and forget, but maybe Frank has something else in mind. If I don't say nothing about this, and he does, I'm in even more trouble. So I decide I ain't going to take no chances. I'm going to outsmart Frank if he is trying to trick me."

Thus Valachi went by the book and contacted his lieutenant, Tony Bender. "Tony," he said, "I must see you. I just worked over Frank Luciano." Bender set up a meeting the same night in Greenwich Village at the Savannah Club, which, according to Valachi, he owned jointly with Vito Genovese. There Valachi related what had occurred, including Luciano's offer to disregard the beating. "Okay," Bender told him, "we will play it that way. I won't say anything, but if anyone calls me about Frank, I will say, 'Gee, I meant to talk to you about this. I know all about it from Joe.'"

A few days later Valachi learned that he had correctly gauged Luciano's duplicity. Bender telephoned him and said, "Well, you are on the carpet. There is going to be a table. Frank has reported that you beat him. It will be at Duke's. I'll let you know the date." Valachi was less than comfortable having to depend on Bender for support at the trial. But a rising young hoodlum named Vincent Mauro, whom Valachi had proposed for membership in the Cosa Nostra, was able to relieve him on this score. Mauro had subsequently become a Bender favorite, and he told Valachi that the wily lieutenant, this time at any rate, was being "sincere." "You are lucky," Mauro said, "as nobody likes Frank Luciano. What did you get mixed up with him for?"

"I wish I knew," Valachi said. But he remembers thinking at the time, "It showed how this thing of ours was going to the dogs. Who would think one member would steal from another member like he done?"

Even though he had admittedly "goofed," as he put it, Valachi now felt fairly hopeful that Luciano's thievery would take much of the sting out of the beating charges. Then a new and dangerous element entered the picture. The table had been postponed several times because of the illness of Luciano's lieutenant, Joseph (Staten Island Joe) Riccobono. Luciano belonged to the Vincent Mangano Family, whose underboss was the dreaded Albert Anastasia, and word was relayed that Anastasia himself would appear in Riccobono's place.

The news had, to put it mildly, an unsettling effect on Valachi. In die savage world of die Cosa Nostra, Anastasia had a reputation for incredible ferocity. He lived in a walled mansion in Fort Lee, New Jersey, with a spectacular view of the Hudson River; he was, among his various rackets, absolute ruler of the Brooklyn waterfront and is credited by police with either personally committing or directing literally scores of murders— by gun, by knife, and by strangulation. Worse yet, from Valachi's standpoint, Anastasia was as unpredictable as he was bloodthirsty. "Now I got to worry," he says, "and who can blame me? Everybody knows that Albert is a mad hatter. With him it was always kill, kill, kill. If somebody came up and told Albert something bad about somebody else, he would say, 'Hit him, hit him!' At the table there was no way of telling how he would be."

(Valachi cited a number of examples of Anastasia's handiwork. One of the most horrifying, all the more appalling because Anastasia gained nothing by it, was a celebrated killing that had baffled the police for years until Valachi talked. In 1952 a young Brooklyn resident named Arnold Schuster was en route home when he suddenly spotted a familiar face that he had seen on a "wanted" circular. It was Willie Sutton, the legendary bank robber and the object of a nationwide manhunt. Schuster told the police, and Sutton was arrested. As a result, Schuster experienced a brief moment in the limelight—and then was shot down in the street on March 8,1952. It was especially mysterious since Sutton was known to be a loner without affiliation in the organized underworld. According to Valachi, however, Anastasia happened to be watching a television news show when Schuster was being interviewed. Suddenly Anastasia exploded. "I can't stand squealers," he told one of his gunmen. "Hit that guy!" To cover himself, Anastasia

then had Schuster's killer Frederick Tenuto, murdered in turn. At the time Tenuto was being sought by the FBI for breaking out of prison. His body has never been found.)

When Valachi arrived at Duke's restaurant, his spirits lifted on being told that Vito Genovese was in a room upstairs, and for a moment he forgot about Anastasia. Tony Bender, in bringing him to the table, reminded him soon enough. "Remember," Bender whispered, "for Christ's sake, don't say anything while Albert is talking. You know how he is, so hold your tongue."

Luciano, Anastasia, and an Anastasia lieutenant, Anthony (Charley Brush) Zangarra, were already at the table when Bender and Valachi sat down. Anastasia assumed complete command and, as Valachi recalls, started "lacing" into him at once. "What the fuck's the matter with you?" he snapped. "After all, you been in this life of ours for twenty years. There is no excuse for you."