Smalltime

by Russell Shorto

  Later I called the church that runs the cemetery and learned that Russ had purchased his burial plots in October of 1960. That marked yet another out-of-the-ordinary move—along with selling his businesses and buying a handful of life-insurance policies—that he made in the year of his unraveling, the year Pippy diFalco was killed.

  When we were back at my mother’s house, something else popped into my mind that might have been another piece of this final puzzle in my search for my namesake. I suddenly recollected my dad saying something a long time ago—it might have been his own father’s death and burial that prompted it. At that time I was more likely to be embarrassed by this sort of information than interested in it. Tony was going on about the legendary card games Russ would host, how he would cheat with skillful abandon. And how the guys he beat would settle up with him in all kinds of ways, depending on what their business was. Sometimes a priest was in on the game, gambling with money from the collection plate. And because of that, I seemed to remember Tony saying with a laugh, as if it were a punchline, as if somehow it just stood to reason in a crazy kind of way, his dad had wound up in possession of the real estate where, one day, they would all find themselves.

  Epilogue

  IT WAS A January afternoon, but I had the rental-car windows wide open because the whipping breeze, salted by the Atlantic Ocean shimmering on my right, was mild and humid. The towns rolling by coalesced into sprawl: Port St. Lucie, Vero Beach, Palm Bay, Titusville. Exiting Route 95 at Daytona, I made a couple of quick left turns and pulled into the nursing-home parking lot.

  “I’m here to see Erwin Slomanson. I believe he’s in Room 17C.”

  The attendant, a Black male nurse, led me down the hall and opened a door. “Slow Motion! You got a visitor!”

  A while back, I had brought the Panera guys what I thought was some news, telling them that my dad had heard that Rip had died. They surprised me by reacting skeptically. I think it was Chooch Boscola who said, “Rip did that before—put out a rumor that he died.” Toward what end, nobody knew. I decided I should devote some time to seeing if he was still around. None of the guys had been in contact with him for a long time. They agreed, though, that he had been in Florida for years.

  Eventually I got the phone number of somebody named Debbie, who was either a niece of Rip’s or the daughter of an old friend of his. I called. She was happy to talk about Rip. Yes, as far as she knew he was alive. She gave me the name of the nursing home—and a heads-up. “I was down there in Florida with him a few years ago,” she said. “We were in a bar. This guy was hitting on me. He kept at it, the way some guys do. All of a sudden Rip sticks a gun up to his head and says, ‘She said no, OK?’ That’s Rip.”

  The door opened into a pleasant room with two beds, a table between them, and a TV. Both beds were neatly made. Rip was sitting on one of them, dressed in a blue-and-white checked shirt, jeans, and sneakers. He was thin and, for a man in his late eighties, looked quite fit. He had white hair and a frothy white mustache. When I came in he was playing solitaire on the bed. A cartoon was on the TV.

  I had called in advance. He didn’t seem to remember. He reacted to my introduction of myself as though he hadn’t heard it before. “You’re Tony Shorto’s son? Holy shit! Russ’s grandson! No kidding!”

  He had a bright, friendly voice; he exuded cheery energy. I could see my dad, seventy years earlier, getting caught up in it. He had apparently been all over the country in his time, from Chicago to Miami, but Johnstown was his prime. He remembered. As I brought up names, he had stories. “George Sapolich was a boxer—I used to run around with him, but he had a different perspective on life than me. He just wanted to hold on to his territory. I wanted to expand, to get out of town. Mike Gulino! Mike was a flashy guy. He had control of certain areas. Russ Shorto … very quiet. Little Joe! Oh, man. Little Joe hired me to do jobs. He’d want me to go get money from whoever owed him.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “I had a gun! A .48. I’d stick it in the guy’s face. Go right up to him, in a bar or wherever, I didn’t care. I’d beat the shit out of them. I was pretty well known. They didn’t fuck with me. Jesus, you’re bringing back memories! Hey, what was your last name?”

  I had to pause a second. “Shorto.”

  “No shit! Are you related to Tony?”

  “Yes. His son.”

  “So you must be related to Russ!”

  It went on like that. He would burrow down into some little moment from deep in the ’50s, recalling all the color and juice of it, then his brain would hit the Reset button.

  “So my dad, Tony Shorto. You met in prison?”

  “Yeah! I was the boss of the Cat Gang! We had DAs, twelve-inch pegs, three-inch rises. We were notorious! We robbed Penn Traffic! We’d go beat people up.”

  “Tony did that?”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, Tony didn’t like that much. He was a little different. Most of the guys in the gang, they were lonely, depressed, had nobody to talk to, so they hung out together. Tony wasn’t like that. He was … personable.”

  “You went with my parents when they ran away to get married.”

  “Yeah! We went to South Carolina, I think. Somewhere down South. Your mother was a sweetheart.”

  “Tell me about Pippy.”

  “Pippy! He and I had a big disagreement about a bet. I had a fight with him. I was pretty bad in those days. Six-foot, one-eighty-five and all muscle. I was notorious!”

  I took a breath. I had never asked this question before. I tried to say it in a relaxed manner. “Did you kill him?”

  “Me? Nooooo! Pippy was all right. We tolerated each other.”

  “Did … do you have any ideas about what happened to him?”

  “I remember exactly how it happened.”

  “What? You were there?”

  “Sure. He came into the cigar store, flashing money—two pocketfuls of hundreds. They had pool games for money. Christ, there was like two thousand bucks on the table. There was an after-hours club next door. Later I was up there and he was up there. I saw him being a big deal. He liked to be a big deal. There were these three guys up there. I don’t know who they were but I know they were from Greensburg. There was a lot of trouble with guys from Greensburg trying to get into Johnstown. Little Joe had to keep them out. Pippy interfered—got into their territory. That’s why he got killed.”

  “And you think the guys from Greensburg did it?”

  “Or Little Joe.”

  “What?”

  “Pippy went back and forth. He would work for Little Joe, but then go work for the guys in Pittsburgh. And that’s against the rules. I don’t know who killed him. But Little Joe could have had somebody come in and do it.”

  “Why wouldn’t Little Joe get you to do it?”

  “Me? I didn’t want to get involved in killing. I was too good-natured! I was mean … but I was good-natured.”

  There was a little hiccup in his eyes. I thought a memory had surfaced, that the incongruity of “mean” and “good-natured” might have shaken something loose. He looked at me closely. I waited.

  “What’d you say your name was?”

  Acknowledgments

  I WOULD NEVER have written this book without Frank Filia, who prodded me at just the right time and in just the right way. Then, once I was receptive to the idea, he took me by the hand and led me into a wondrous and alien world. A thousand thanks to you, Frank.

  I also want to pay homage to Mike Gulino. Through years of interviews, Mike was vivacious, pugnacious, and gloriously open. He was a hell of a guy. I miss him.

  Of course I have to acknowledge my parents, Tony and Rita Shorto. Over and over again they opened themselves up, explored hard places, willingly gave of themselves, knowing that it would be for public consumption but believing that that was right. As my dad said many times, “You’re only as sick as your secrets.” They have always been my touchstones.

  Other members of my extended family also obliged me, i
n many cases sharing things that I know were difficult for them. I am very grateful, and I know this book is greatly improved by their willingness to mine the past. Thank you Minnie Bermosk, Anna Marie Bortoli, Marcia Guzzi, Mick Muto, Joseph Regino, Ron and Cindy Shorto, Frank Trio, Eugene and Carol Trio, Guy Yasika, and everyone else who chimed in with recollections and perspectives.

  Not surprisingly, some people in my family were not happy about this project. I understood their misgivings, and I only hope that they will find some good comes of it for them. And if not, well, I’m sorry.

  I am also very grateful to all the other people who sat down for interviews, who searched their memories and shared their rich and full lives with me. Thank you to, among others, Caram Abood, Connie Bonk, Chooch Boscola, John Buser, Sam Di Francesco, Tony Gerglie, Bill Glosser, Barry Harrington, Jack Heinlein, Alexis Kozak, Debbie Levi, Bob Meagher, Don Mishler, Frank Pagano, George Raptosh, Joe Rovida, David Rudel, Joe Russell, Rich Sapolich, Rip Slomanson, Ron Stephenson, Tony Trigona, and Bill Wilson.

  Many people helped me with information in one way or another. A special thank-you to Joe Ruggeri and Mario Italiano, my San Pier Niceto informants; Chip Minemyer, editor of the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, and David Sutor, reporter at same; Craig Foust, former chief of police for the city of Johnstown; Sgt. Charles Jeffers of the Johnstown Police Department; and Richard Burkert, president of the Johnstown Area Heritage Association. Julie Pitrone Williamson gave me invaluable genealogical assistance. Jeanine Mazak-Kahne, associate professor of history at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, shared with me her deep knowledge of the western Pennsylvania mob. The late Randy Whittle, Johnstown’s historian, shared insights as well as some of his collection. Barry Rudel and Donald Bonk helped arrange interviews and provided perspective. Sylvia Williams helped me to sort it all out.

  Thank you to my readers, who improved the manuscript with their suggestions and corrections: Markus Alkire, Anna Marie Bortoli, Gina Dominique, Baird Hersey, Max Levinson, Dennis Maika, Michael Martin, Tim Paulson, Anna Shorto, Rita Shorto, David Strome, Eva and Scott Trout, and Pamela Twigg.

  Anne Edelstein, my agent and friend, has been with me since the beginning and brought an entirely new level of empathy and care to this book, which was enlivened by her work on her own family story. My daughter Eva Shorto transcribed interviews, organized documents, and read and critiqued the manuscript. Her eye for story, structure, character, and language elevated the whole project. My other daughter, Anna Shorto, and my stepson, Reinier Koch, also transcribed interviews. Pamela, my wife, put up with all the usual stuff and helped me puzzle and think and feel my way through the material.

  The people at W. W. Norton have been wonderful to work with. Julia Reidhead, my editor, was somehow able to detach herself from running the whole company whenever I asked for attention. She devoted herself to the manuscript with wit, style, compassion, and great insight. She truly helped make it what it is. Thanks also to Laura Goldin and Jessica Friedman, to Bee Holekamp and Don Rifkin, and to Rachelle Mandik for copyediting with grace and intelligence.

  A final thank-you to Joe Barbera, George LiCastro, Joe LaRocca, Don Verbano, and Butch Verbano: the Panera guys, who lived the stuff of Smalltime and whose stories set my imagination afire.

  A Note on Sources

  This book tells a story that is rooted in the many smaller stories that its participants told me. Its core is a series of interviews—several hundred hours’ worth, with dozens of people, conducted over a period of more than seven years. But what was I to do with this material, which often included rumor, secondhand reflection, and memories subject to the effects of time? I write both history and journalism; the two professions share a common approach to sources, whether the information comes from old pieces of paper in archives or elderly people in nursing homes. For items that are relatively small or noncontroversial—what color somebody’s Cadillac was, say—a single source suffices. For anything more problematic, standard practice is to seek two independent sources. Regarding the notion that my grandfather regularly carried a gun, for example, while his children never witnessed him doing so, two people, both of whom knew him intimately at different times in his life, told me, independently of each other and without my prompting, that this was the case. That was good enough for me to state it as fact.

  Naturally, in a book such as this, many assertions or claims fall into a grayer area. The whole matter of who killed Pippy diFalco came at me in a vast cloud of gossip, speculation, and hearsay, anchored by a certain amount of journalism and police work. Some people gave me details about the night Pippy went missing that were not included in the official record, but I could not corroborate their information. If I thought such single-sourced details were worth including—whether they concerned Pippy’s murder or anything else—I made sure to indicate as well the less-than-certain foundation on which they rested.

  As a writer of narrative history, I was determined both to weave the smaller family story I tell in these pages into a wider historical context and to double-check assertions that people made from recollection against the written record. In other words, if this book was to be largely a memoir, I nevertheless wanted it to fall as well into the category of history, and to be undergirded by a base of documentation. I obtained or corroborated many personal details by means of census records, birth and death certificates, funeral registers, family photos, ship manifests, naturalization papers, tax returns, gambling slips, IOU’s, and the like. Here, arranged by subject matter, are other sources I consulted, both to corroborate (or question) stories and to provide context.

  Italian History

  Finley, M. I. A History of Modern Sicily. 3 volumes. London: Chatto & Windus, 1968.

  Lewis, Norman. The Honoured Society: The Sicilian Mafia Observed. London: Eland, 1984.

  Micale, Antonino. “San Pier Niceto: Avvenimenti e personaggi.” Unpublished manuscript.

  Moe, Nelson. The View from Vesuvius: Italian Culture and the Southern Question. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.

  Ruggeri, G. San Pier Niceto nel 1714. Palermo: Associazione Mediterranea, 2015.

  Washington, Booker T. The Man Farthest Down: A Record of Observation and Study in Europe. Garden City: Doubleday, 1912.

  With the help of Joe Ruggeri and Mario Italiano, I also made use of records in the town hall of San Pier Niceto, Sicily.

  Mafia, the Numbers, Prohibition, and Italian American History

  Abadansky, Howard. Organized Crime, 9th edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage, 2010.

  Andrews, Kenneth, and Charles Sequin. “Group Threat and Policy Change: The Spatial Dynamics of Prohibition Politics, 1890–1919.” American Journal of Sociology 121, no. 2, September 2015.

  Boissoneault, Lorraine. “A 1957 Meeting Forced the FBI to Recognize the Mafia—and Changed the Justice System Forever.” Smithsonian, November 14, 2017.

  Bonano, Joseph. A Man of Honor: The Autobiography of Joseph Bonano. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983.

  Bologna Boneno, Roselyn. “From Migrant to Millionaire: The Story of the Italian-American in New Orleans, 1880–1910.” Doctoral dissertation, Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College, 1986.

  Burbank, Jeff. “Robert F. Kennedy’s Crusade Against the Mob.” The Mob Museum. http://themobmuseum.org/blog/robert-f-kennedys-crusade-mob/.

  Finkel, Ken. “John Avena and South Philadelphia’s Bloody Angle.” The Philly History Blog. https://www.phillyhistory.org/blog/index.php/2014/03/john-avena-and-south-philadelphias-bloody-angle/.

  Kennedy, Robert F. “Statement by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Government Operations Committee.” United States Department of Justice, September 25, 1963.

  Laurino, Maria. The Italian Americans: A History. New York: W. W. Norton, 2014.

  Luconi, Stefano. “Italian Americans and Machine Politics: A Case-Study Reassessment from the Bottom Up.” Italian Americana 15, no. 2, Summer 1997. />
  ———, “Machine Politics and the Consolidation of the Roosevelt Majority: The Case of Italian-Americans in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.” Journal of American Ethnic History 15, no. 2, Winter 1996.

  Maurer, David W. The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man. New York: Anchor, 1940.

  Pegram, Thomas. One Hundred Percent American: The Rebirth and Decline of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011.

  Pitkin, Thomas Monroe, and Francesco Cordasco. The Black Hand: A Chapter in Ethnic Crime. Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams & Co., 1977.

  Sanchez, Tanya Marie. “The Feminine Side of Bootlegging.” Louisiana History 41, No. 4, Autumn, 2000.

  Saverino, Joan L. “ ‘Domani Ci Zappa’: Italian Immigration and Ethnicity in Pennsylvania.” Pennsylvania Folklife 45, Autumn 1995.

  Schiess, Michael. “The Mob, the Mayor, and Pinball.” What It Means to Be American (blog), October 4, 2016, https://www.whatitmeans tobeamerican.org/artifacts/the-mob-the-mayor-and-pinball/.

  Turkus, Burton B., and Sid Feder. Murder, Inc.: The Story of the Syndicate. New York: Da Capo, 1951.

  Veronesi, Gene P. Italian-Americans & Their Communities of Cleveland. Cleveland Memory, Cleveland State University Library, http://www.clevelandmemory.org/italians/index.html.

  von Lampe, Klaus. Organized Crime: Analyzing Illegal Activities, Criminal Structures, and Extra-Legal Governance. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 2016.

  Wasserman, Ira M. “Prohibition and Ethnocultural Conflict: The Missouri Prohibition Referendum of 1918.” Social Science Quarterly 70, no. 4, December 1989.