by Fred Galvin
She stiffened slightly and looked down, adjusting her napkin—not blatantly, but just enough for me to notice. Then her smile returned quickly. “Nope! It took me exactly one round at roulette to donate it all back to The Knights Templar Inn & Casino.”
“One? You bet all that hard-earned money on one roll at roulette?”
Again her eyes darted downward and she took a sip of her tea. With a hint of her accent she said, “That is a stupid game. No skill. I bet red. Fifty-fifty odds, right? Freakin’ little ball settled on black. Gone.” Wave of her hand. “Easy come, easy go. Pfft.”
Abruptly, she switched gears and asked brightly, “How about you? Make any stops on your way back to your room?”
I contemplated telling her about the slot machine but decided I’d keep that one to myself … and Jen.
“I was exhausted. I watched the last inning of the Yankees–Twins game. Tell me, how in hell will they ever play a World Series in Minneapolis if the Twins win a pennant?”
“Huh?”
“Their ballpark, beautiful as it is, is open air! It was built in 2010 and it doesn’t have a roof, not even a retractable one! With the playoff system the way it is, the World Series can go into very late October. It snows in Minneapolis in late October! And the snow could last until April! No roof? What the hell were they thinking? They’d have to play the home World Series games in some warm-weather park. I don’t get it.”
She just stared at me blankly.
“Never mind. End of rant.” I looked up at the waitress. “I’ll have number two, scrambled, bacon, wheat toast, grape jelly, small white milk.” I put down the menu and sipped my coffee.
“Well, DD, they probably figured they won’t have to worry about it because the Red Sox will be winning most of the American League pennants anyway.”
“Pfft!” was my adult response.
We spent the morning walking the famous Atlantic City boardwalk, not all four miles of it, but I’ll bet we did at least half. I was shocked to learn it was opened in 1870. Geez, that’s only five years after the Civil War ended! Anyway, it was a beautiful day and we had a nice walk. As we strolled, Ronnie took my arm and it was very comforting to me to have her as my friend and know she truly cared about my well-being.
We were back at my apartment in Manhattan by midafternoon. I thanked Ronnie for her friendship in my time of need. She gave my hand a squeeze. “Do you want me to come up? It will be different and difficult for you with Jen’s things gone.”
I turned and looked up the steps. “No, thanks. I need to do this alone.”
“Okay. You take care, Dan. You know how to find me any time. I mean it. Do not be a stranger.”
The St. Augie’s ladies had done a thorough job of organizing Jen’s items that I had designated that I wanted to keep. Those were all stowed neatly in Jen’s portion of the closet, just enough out of sight so as to not be a constant reminder but still close enough. They had also cleaned the apartment completely. I guess they figured a single man at least needed a head start.
There was a note on the table.
Dear Dan,
We have donated all of the items you designated to the Goodwill store at 220 E 23rd St. We have receipts for your tax records if you want them. Also, we can recommend a housekeeper if you should want one. Take care of yourself and be sure to come by the church. You will always be welcome.
God bless you.
I was more than a bit overwhelmed. Somehow they had managed to transport Jen’s belongings no small distance to the Goodwill center and they had been thoughtful enough to not automatically assume I wanted to use the donations as tax deductions, which I did not. The thought of financially benefitting was abhorrent to me and these ladies were considerate enough to realize that may be the case. I was briefly overcome and sat down on our bed. Through tears I looked around the apartment but didn’t see Jen anywhere.
Finally, my tears stopped. I sighed heavily. I felt very lonely.
Chapter 16: The late Louie Calzone
One of the last cases I had worked before I retired involved a body found in a dumpster behind a Target store on the corner of Clinton and Grand Streets on the Lower East Side. The ID came back as Louie Calzone, a denizen of the streets with a serious gambling habit and one of Ronnie’s closest CIs.
The medical examiner concluded Louie’s demise was caused by BFT, which is ME- and CSI-speak for blunt force trauma. In poor Louie’s case, this was the result of a rather violent collision between his head and a rounded blunt object, consistent with a wooden baseball bat. Louie was known on the Lower East Side as a prolific (if not very successful) gambler and a steady customer of the mafia bookies who controlled betting in the area; namely, the Mariucci Family. The head bookie, or bookie-in-charge, was our very own Fast Frankie Finacci, a known Mariucci Made Man.
According to CIs Ronnie and I used, as well as others utilized by the 7th Precinct, Fast Frankie had a reputation on the streets as running the Mariucci bookie business with efficient albeit ruthless and unforgiving discipline. He would take just about any action that came his way. He maintained a steady stream of business by guaranteeing and delivering prompt payoffs to all winners. The flip side was that he also demanded prompt payment on all losers, plus a significant vig.
Frankie had a small group of soldiers to issue his “warnings” to delinquent clients but word had it that he frequently did the real dirty work himself, and that he rather enjoyed it. One of Frankie’s punters that we questioned for another case said that dealing with Frankie “can be real profitable if you know what you’re doin’. He’s okay as long as you’re paid up and kept up with the vig but if you fell behind far enough, well, he can really go all psycho. It’s like he gets insulted, and he don’t like being insulted. He says it makes him look bad.”
Any of Frankie’s clients who had a bad run and fell behind were dealt with swiftly and aggressively, serving as a message to all others. Usually, one “warning” was issued, frequently in the form of a broken appendage such as a finger, toe, or nose. Kneecaps and limbs were favorite targets. And that was just the warning. Continued delinquency could result in more extreme “persuasive” actions that may result in removal of said appendages and even ears, or actions involving family members and even pets. Once, one of Frankie’s delinquent clients found his wife’s pet poodle literally nailed to the passenger seat of his car as he entered it to come home from work. A bloody note under the nail read “Next time it won’t be the dog. You got 24 hours.” Not quite the horsehead scene from The Godfather but still quite effective.
As I mentioned, the news of Louie’s death saddened Ronnie to a significant extent. In our world, loss of a CI, while not frequent, was not uncommon. While we worked hard to protect their identities from the mob, occasionally word could circulate that so-and-so “may be in bed with the cops” and that was usually bad news for the CI, who would suddenly drop out of the local scene. Where he dropped to was frequently the bottom of the East River or some back alley. But we became hardened to that fact of life. CIs knew the risks. The financial rewards for their tips and a look-the-other-way posture by the cops while the CIs did their business were worth it to them.
Perhaps Louie had fallen too far behind and couldn’t catch up on his debt plus vig to Frankie. Or perhaps he fell victim to another street vermin ratting him out. Maybe a little of both. Anyway, I guessed Ronnie had become a little too close to Louie, as we sometimes do, and she was quite shaken up by his violent death.
As I’ve said, I was about ready to retire when Ronnie and I caught the Louie Calzone case. Even so, we both still had the same old spark to find poor Louie’s killer, especially Ronnie, given he was her CI. Circumstances made it seem like an obvious mob hit. It was known that Louie was deep in the hole to Frankie and had endured several warnings to pay up. He had tried but kept falling short. Word on the streets was most likely that the hit was carried out by Fast Frankie Finacci himself to send a message to all who may be contemplating skipping the
ir financial obligations.
If so, Frankie had been very careful. Forensics could find no physical evidence tying him, or anyone else, to the crime. The street urchins who pointed the finger at Frankie were reluctant to do so officially and certainly would not testify against him for fear of suffering the same fate as Louie or worse, whatever that may be. We made promises of protection and forgiveness of sins, past and future, but we had no takers.
Another one of Ronnie’s CIs, Wesley “The Weasel” put it succinctly: “Yuz can’t babysit me forever. Those guys have eyes and ears everywhere and they have long memories. They’ll just wait. If I ratted, I’d be a goner sooner or later.” We couldn’t blame him. He probably was right.
We had a difficult time putting the case to bed. With no physical evidence directly linking anyone to the crime and no DNA or any decent fingerprints found, we were floundering. The only lead we had was that the bat swinger was probably a right-handed pull hitter from the angle and contour of Louie’s head trauma.
We picked up several Mariucci goons whose alibis checked out, of course, because they were all backed up by fellow mobsters. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack full of needles. I guess that would make it a needlestack rather than a haystack, right? After a comment like that Jen would just look at me then look heavenward, shake her head and ask “Why me?”
A typical alibi interrogation would be something like …
Ronnie: Okay, Vito. Where were you between seven and midnight last night?
Goon Vito: I was with Lighthorse Leo Leonardi and his sister Leona having dinner at her place. Yuz can go ask them. We had lasagna.
He had actually pronounced “ask” as “ax” in true Lower East Side mobsterese. Ironically I had imagined that Vito had actually axed some unfortunates with a real ax in his colorful career.
We knew the answers to our follow-up interrogations of Lighthorse Leo and Leona would be something like “Yeah, sure. Vito was here with us for dinner. We had lasagna. We have leftovers. Yuz want some?”
I did have one burning question. How does one end up with the name “Lighthorse”?
Sorry, minor digression.
When we questioned Frankie himself, his alibi predictably was “Yeah, I was with Vito and Lighthorse Leo Leonardo at his sister’s place. Her name is Leona. Yuz can ax them. We had lasagna. They might even have some left over.”
We didn’t even bother checking back with Lighthorse and Leona, although later Ronnie said the lasagna sounded like it would be good heated up. “Those mob types really know how to do up Italian, especially lasagna: homemade noodles, rich meat sauce, plenty of ricotta cheese.”
I just stared at her.
She stared blankly at me. “What!”
I grinned. “So now you’re dining with the mob?”
She just waved me off with a very good NY mob Italian accent. “Fuhgeddaboudit.”
~~~
To put it simply, bookies are evil in various degrees.
A day in the life of a New York City mob bookie can start early and go late or vice versa. It can be boring and exciting (usually both), profitable (often) or losing (seldom), and sometimes bloody (less frequent but it does happen). In that last case, the blood usually belonged to one of the bookie’s delinquent clients who was being “persuaded” make his account current.
As discussed earlier, a bookie’s client list is quite a mixed bag. There was a financial advisor who spends other people’s money on his own gambling addiction, to the sum of $50,000 in each of the past two years. It was only a matter of time before the old bill caught up with him, if he cared. As I mentioned, there were drug dealers, thieves, cops, judges, doctors, politicians, students, lawyers, and everyday types just trying to get ahead or merely to cover last week’s or even yesterday’s losses.
Frankie’s dealings included the people who were gambling away the money they needed to put food on the table at home, look after families, and pay their rent or mortgage. Folks have lost their homes and lives through the selfish attitudes of bookies like Frankie.
His justification? “Hey, they found me. I didn’t go looking for them.” The latter was questionable.
One guy was on his way to the bank for his employer when he “found” Fast Frankie. He put $2,600 of his employer’s money on a game between the Knicks with eleven points to beat the Lakers that night. Of course the Lakers won by twenty-six. Want to know how stupid he was? The next day he gets a loan for $2,000, probably from a shark in a different part of town. Does he pay his employer? No! Instead he puts it on the Rangers straight up to beat the Penguins on the ice at The Garden the next night to chase the extra $600 to get the money in the bank before his boss finds out. Of course the Penguins win 3-0. After the game the guy jumps in front of the 4 train. He had a wife and two young daughters.
Frankie’s reaction? “Shit-for-brains shudda known the Knicks had no chance against LA. I couldn’t take that action fast enough. And then pickin’ the Rangers over Pittsburgh? Geez, the Police Athletic Club’s team could beat the Rangers. At least the 4 train was a sure thing.” Mr. Compassion.
In big cities, bookies were almost as common as barbers. Their “offices” ranged from the top floors of sleek office buildings to kitchen tables or even diner booths. Frankie could usually be found at the Delancey Social Club on the Lower East Side.
Such “social clubs” were popular with the New York City Mafia. Famously, the Ravenite Social Club on Mulberry Street in Little Italy hosted the Mafia types for over sixty-five years. The Anastasia and Gambino Families made the Ravenite their nerve center in the 1950s. Its last infamous tenant was John Gotti, who moved his headquarters from Queens to the Ravenite in the 1990s.
The Delancey Social Club was supposed to be for members only but Frankie made sure his important clients all had the current password. The best of the bookies mostly built clientele through personal “referrals” without the benefit of advertising, marketing, or promotion. Frankie made sure word got around that he was backed by “a solid organization.” It didn’t take much to figure said organization was the Mariucci Family.
You may ask, why place bets with a mob’s bookie? While the risks were obvious, the prime benefit was that there was plenty of financial backing and most likely they had some local cops and politicians on their payroll. Hell, probably had some as clients too, maybe even lawyers. Wait … maybe? Nah. For sure.
Frankie knew that gaming and bookmaking were all about the odds and not about winning or losing. It was about the right price and that was all. Enforcing the right vig could make Frankie a wealthy guy. He had clients that played all year long and they would play anything. They just liked to gamble and Frankie was their main guy.
Rarely, but it did happen, the Delancey Social Club would be the object of an NYPD raid. If Frankie wasn’t tipped off in time and got nabbed, he’d go to jail. But with the amount of other crimes that the cops were dealing with he’d patiently wait, spend a day, and then get bailed out. The bail would be small. He’d get a court date, go in, plead guilty, and get a misdemeanor, most likely from a “friendly” judge. He’d be back at the club after a couple of hours for business as usual.
The morning after finding Louie Calzone’s body in the dumpster, we had Frankie “detained for questioning” for four hours at the 7th Precinct as Ronnie’s and my guest. We knew he did it. He knew he did it. He knew that we knew. But we couldn’t pin it on him and he knew that too. He didn’t even bother calling his lawyer. We didn’t have enough to hold him for further questioning. He was smug and cocky, especially toward Ronnie. He gave the impression that no NYPD dick could tie him to Louie Calzone, especially no NYPD dickless female dick, and especially not this dickless female dick. As he rose from his chair in the interrogation room, he smirked at Ronnie and brushed past her.
“See ya ’round, honey.”
I was ready to restrain her. In an unusual burst of venom, Ronnie sent Frankie packing with, “Get the fuck out of here but don’t ever think th
is will be the last time we meet.” Frankie’s smirk dipped slightly and he glared at her, fire in his eyes. She didn’t back down, fire in hers. It was an unusual display of emotion for my partner.
After Frankie left the room I asked her, “What was that?”
She was barely holding herself back from chasing after him. “Oh, sometimes I get so pissed that these sleezeballs can blatantly murder someone and just walk.” She sighed resignedly. “Yeah, I know. Louie Calzone wasn’t exactly a stand-up citizen, but he was still a human being. To cave his head in that brutally, that’s really cold.”
So Frankie spent precisely zero hours, zero minutes, and zero seconds behind bars for making solid contact against the left side of Louie’s head with a swing that would have lined a solid single to left at Yankee Stadium. The irony was not lost on Frankie. As he had looked down at Louie just before he swung the bat he had uttered, “Louie Calzone, meet Louisville Slugger.” No one saw it, no one heard it, no one knew Louie Calzone’s final resting place was in a dumpster behind a Target store. Sad.