by Linda Scarpa
One day I saw her on the street and I started talking to her.
“Whose car is that at your house? It’s a really nice car,” I said.
“Oh, that’s . . . I forget his name. I don’t know if it’s Nicky.”
Then she said that he was Nicky Black’s son.
“Isn’t he so hot? He lives in my house.”
“Oh, yeah. He’s really good-looking,” I agreed.
I didn’t ask what she was talking about, and I really didn’t care. I was just trying to find out who he was.
When I got home, I told my father.
“Dad, that’s Nicky Black’s son, who did that.”
“How do you know?”
Then I told him the story.
“Well, at least we know who it is.”
I was thinking that he was probably going to kill him because of what he did to me and because he was on the other side. I was also afraid he was going to kill another guy who was with the Orena faction—a guy I liked.
“Well, Dad, listen. There’s this guy that I’m friends with, and he’s not on your side. I don’t want you to hurt him.”
“Who is it?”
“His name is Tommy Cappa, and I don’t want you doing anything to him.”
“I know Tommy Cappa, but why don’t you want me doing anything to him?”
“Because I like him, and I don’t want you doing anything to him. He’s my friend, and I don’t want you to kill him.”
“Linda, if I see him, I’m killing him.”
“Dad, I don’t want you to kill him. There’s other people for you to kill. Can you not get him? Please don’t do anything to him.”
This was the conversation I was having with my father. Tommy was young. He was about my age, maybe a couple years older, so maybe twenty-three or twenty-four. I liked him, and I didn’t want anything to happen to him. My father said he didn’t care who it was. He was killing anyone who was with the Orenas. Still, I begged my father not to hurt this kid.
During one of the days he was out hunting with Larry and Jimmy, he saw Tommy Cappa. He pulled up alongside the guy’s car at a red light. Tommy looked up and saw death right in front of him. My father let him go, though.
When he came home that day, my father told me what had happened.
“Guess who I saw today?”
“Who?”
“I seen Tommy.”
“Dad, tell me you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t touch him. But I want you to do me a favor. When you see him, I want you to tell him—because we looked at each other, eye to eye—I want you to tell him that he’s only alive because of you.”
“Daddy, are you serious? I’m not going to tell him that.”
“No, really, I want you to tell him that if you see him.”
He wasn’t the father I once knew anymore, but he did let the kid live. He let him live, which was shocking, and it was because I asked him.
I did tell Tommy the next time I saw him. He said, “Oh, gee. Thanks.” He didn’t really know what to say.
Then on May 22, 1992, my father, Larry and Jimmy drove to the Brooklyn house of Lorenzo “Larry” Lampasi. They waited until he came out of his house. He opened the gate, got in his car and backed out. When Lampasi got out of the car to go close the gate, my father stuck his rifle out the window and shot him. Jimmy started to drive away, but my father told him to stop because he wasn’t sure if Lampasi was dead. Then they got out and shot him again, to be sure.
Thinking back, I realize the disease was fueling my father. That’s why he was so crazy and was driving the family cars, instead of stealing cars, when he went to shoot people. Would he have done that if he was in the right frame of mind? No, never. My father was a very calculating person. He always planned things, day by day, minute by minute. But none of that was planned. As far as my father was concerned, nothing or nobody was going to stop him—not the cops, not the feds, not the other families. No one was going to stop him—ever.
That was how it was, living with my father during the war.
CHAPTER 13
DO THEY THINK I’M FUCKIN’ SLEEPING?
In March 1992, the Brooklyn district attorney’s office obtained a warrant for my father’s arrest on a gun possession charge after two police officers saw him drop a gun out of his car window.
On March 3, the FBI closed my father as an informant because they believed that he was involved in planning violent criminal activity. Lin DeVecchio, however, adamantly denied that fact. At the beginning of April, Lin started the process to get my father reopened. He was officially reopened on April 22.
During that summer Special Agent Christopher Favo became very suspicious of Lin, thinking he was involved in some kind of misconduct that could disrupt ongoing investigations at that time. So Favo started withholding from Lin any information that had to do with my father.
It was at that time that my father’s lawsuit against Victory Memorial Hospital and his surgeon was settled after a three-week hearing. My brother and I knew he was suing the hospital, but my parents told us it was because the doctor had left scissors or some type of instrument inside my father.
One day I was lying on the couch when the phone rang. It was my father.
“I have to tell you something. There are going to be a lot of reporters coming to the house. They’ll probably be there any second.”
“What’s going on? What’s wrong?”
“I really didn’t tell you the truth about what’s wrong with me. I don’t want you to hear it from the reporters. I want you to hear it from me.”
“Okay. What’s wrong?”
“I have AIDS. I got HIV from the blood transfusion and that’s what the trial was about.”
I was in shock, but I was trying to comfort him. I could hear in his voice how shaken up he was. I wasn’t thinking about my feelings.
“Don’t worry. It’s okay. You’ll get through this. We’ll get through this.”
I didn’t know what to say. I really didn’t know a lot about AIDS back then. I didn’t freak out about it, though. It was more about comforting him, and feeling sorry that he had this disease. I wasn’t thinking about anyone else, or the consequences of living with someone with AIDS. That didn’t come into my head at all at first. My initial reaction was to comfort him and to tell him that it was okay. He would fight it and everything would be all right.
Then, later on, I started thinking about it and reading up on it. I was afraid then. After that, I was worried about my son. Then other things that had happened with my father started to make sense.
After he got sick, my father used to tell me not to use his razor. He said his bathroom was his bathroom. I always used to go into his bathroom and use his razor if I didn’t have one. He never said anything about it before. So even though he told me not to use his razor, I still did.
One day he saw me in his bathroom using his razor and he freaked out.
“I told you not to use my stuff.”
When he shaved, he cut himself all the time and bled a lot. And I was using his razor and not knowing he had AIDS. Why didn’t my parents just tell us the truth? There were always secrets. But the things that should have been secret weren’t.
When my father came home after he made that call to tell me that he had AIDS, he was very emotional. He came over to me and was hugging and kissing me and crying.
“I didn’t want you to feel like you had to be afraid of me,” he said.
“Don’t worry, Dad. I love you.”
I was crying for him, not for me. I just kept thinking that I hoped he wasn’t going to die. I didn’t really care about me as usual. It was always him. I always put him ahead of my feelings. I always tried to protect him.
My father said he didn’t tell us sooner because he didn’t want us to treat him differently. He was afraid we wouldn’t want to touch him or go near him.
I didn’t want him to feel different. He was still the same. He was still my father. I didn’t care that he had
AIDS. We would get through it. I kept telling him he was strong and he was going to fight this disease.
That’s what I told him—but the truth was, after I found out, I was afraid. I tried not to treat him differently, but I felt that he was testing us. When we were growing up, my father would cut fruit at night and we never thought anything of taking something from his fork.
When he was sick, he still did it and wanted us to take the fruit from his fork. I took it because I always put his feelings before mine. It was an unconditional love, but I was afraid.
In August 1992, my father, who was pretty sick by this time, arranged to turn himself in on the gun charge from March. My father called Lin and asked what was going to happen in court. My mother knows what happened.
Lin DeVecchio told Greg not to worry about it. He said, “You’re going to pay a fine and then you’re going to get right back out.” So I went to court with Greg. But when we got there, I saw agents all over the courtroom. So I called Lin.
“What’s going on? Are you sure they’re going to let Greg out? There are agents all over the courtroom.”
“I don’t know what’s going on,” he said. “What do you mean, ‘There are agents all over the courtroom’?”
“This place is filled with agents everywhere. Are they going to rearrest him? Are they arresting him for something else?”
“I have no idea what’s going on.”
My father was rearrested that day in the courtroom for three murders, including the murder of Larry Lampasi. But Lin didn’t know that was going to happen, because the FBI wasn’t telling him anything.
Ultimately my father was so sick from AIDS that he was put on house arrest while he was awaiting trial for the murders. At that time we were living in the two-family on Eighty-Second Street. One of my aunts lived downstairs.
When my father was on house arrest, the tension was high in the house. He was trapped with an ankle bracelet on, which made it extra hard for us. Our once-loving, playful father was now being treated like a caged animal. He was suffering from AIDS and was on so many different medications. Some of them altered his moods, so we had to watch what we said. He would get enraged by our words if we said something wrong.
My mother told me that his doctor said he was suffering from dementia, which was a part of the later stages of AIDS. The doctor said he was dangerous—even to us. He was so bad that his doctor wanted to put him in a hospital. My mother tried to convince him to go, but he said he wanted to be home for the holidays. He was not going to the hospital, and that was it.
I was having a hard time believing what the doctors were saying. One day I went into my father’s bedroom—he was putting on his socks—and I told him what my mother said.
“Well, nobody said that to me. That’s news to me. So, what did they say? Did they say that I’m going crazy?”
“I don’t know, Dad. I don’t know what it means. I don’t think you’re crazy.”
I didn’t think that he was acting crazy at that time. He did want to go out and kill, but he couldn’t. So he was trying to keep his rage to a minimum.
But for my brother, my mother and me, we had to keep things in the house as calm as possible. That was hard, though, because there were two little kids—my son and Joey’s daughter—running around the house and making a mess. It was hard for him to be stuck in the house like that, under those conditions.
The disease was making him crazy and it even affected the way he treated me.
It was a little before Christmas that year and we were decorating the tree, but we couldn’t find the lights. My mother told me to go to the store to get some lights.
“Why do I have to go to the store and get the lights?”
“Just go to the store and get lights. What’s the big deal?”
“Linda, go get the lights,” my father said.
“Okay, Dad. I’ll get the lights.” By the time I got back from the store, the tree was all decorated with ornaments and lights. I was pissed.
“What the fuck? You made me go to the store, and the fucking tree is decorated? What are you, fucking nuts?”
I always spoke that way and my father never cared before. That time he looked at me like he was ready to kill me. My father’s friend, Louie, was at the house fixing our fish tank. My father had a fish tank put in the house because he found it relaxing to watch the fish.
My father charged at me with a closed fist and pounded my head. I was in shock—not just because it hurt, but because I thought he really was losing it. My father had never laid a hand on me before—ever. I was scared because he looked like he was crazed. I ran behind Louie, but he said not to put him in the middle of it—he was afraid he was going to get hit.
I screamed for my mother and she came running into the room.
“This girl, she better learn how to fucking talk,” he said.
My father was reprimanding me. I was in my twenties and he was trying to teach me a lesson—a lesson he should have given me when I was fifteen.
I was really angry at him. I didn’t talk to him for a couple weeks. I was afraid of the fact that he had lost control. It was scary to know that the doctors were right—he was dangerous even to us.
Right around this time my father asked me to help him make a videotape for Gregory Junior to see when he got out of jail. My father thought Gregory was going to be out after he served his twenty-year sentence for racketeering and extortion handed down in 1988.
My father knew he wasn’t going to make it until Gregory got out of jail. He said he wanted Gregory to have a video message from him when he came home. He wanted to tell Gregory how he felt about him and that he was sorry for everything that had happened. My father wanted to be sure that Gregory had this video to watch, because his son wasn’t going to have him alive. My father wanted Gregory to have a piece of him when he was released.
I told him we could make the video whenever he wanted to do it. But it wasn’t long before everything came crashing down around us and we were never able to get it done.
As it turned out, Gregory never got out of jail. After another trial in 1998 for racketeering and murder—he was acquitted of murder—Gregory was sentenced to another forty years to life. I wished I had been able to do the video for my father, but in the end, Gregory probably wouldn’t have been able to see it, anyway.
When it became public that my father had AIDS and that he didn’t have long to live, people started taking advantage of him and our family.
For as long as I can remember, my father had this huge three-carat pinky ring. He said he had it appraised and it was worth $75,000. It was a perfect, flawless, clear diamond, with absolutely no hint of color. It was in a black onyx setting. I always used to stare at this ring—it was so big that it would blind you. When I told him how beautiful it was, he would try to teach me how to tell the difference between a good diamond and a bad diamond.
Before he was dying, he told my mother that he was going to make an engagement ring for her. My parents never officially got married and my mother always wanted to marry him. They were planning on getting married, but it didn’t happen. He never had the chance to get divorced.
When he was sick, he took it to a guy he knew in the diamond exchange in Manhattan to have a ring made for my mother. When he came home, he told my mother he left it with his jeweler friend and he was going to pick it up in two days. My mother couldn’t believe he left it there, but she couldn’t say anything to him because he would get angry.
When he brought the ring home to show us, I knew immediately that something was wrong.
“Dad, this isn’t the same diamond.”
“What are you talking about? That’s the same diamond. I brought it to my friend.”
“Dad, this isn’t the same diamond. I’m telling you, this diamond has color.”
“What? Are you an expert now?”
“Yeah, I’m an expert on your diamond because I know I’ve stared at it long enough.”
My father got really an
gry. He told me I saw the color because now it was in a yellow gold setting and it was reflecting the gold. I thought maybe he was right. He told my mother that if anything ever happened and we needed money, she should take the ring back to his friend to sell it and he’d give her the $75,000.
There came a point where we needed the money and my mother had to bring the ring to my father’s friend. He offered my mother $10,000. I screamed that he told my father it was worth $75,000. He tried to make up some story. I went ballistic in the middle of the diamond exchange. He called security to escort me out. I knew he took advantage of my father because he was sick and not thinking rationally.
Even the guys in his own crew were taking advantage of my father when it came to money or whatever they could get from him. Once his disease started progressing, and my brother was on his own, the guys out in the streets started to do things to him that they never would have done if my father was in his prime and in good health.
One day my brother told my father that two guys in his crew, “Mr. X” and “Mr. Y,” were chasing him. They had guns and they were going to kill him. My father didn’t believe what Joey was saying.
“What? Are you crazy? They would never do that. They’re with me. They would never chase you. What are you taking? You’re paranoid.”
My brother was really pissed.
“You’re in on it. If you don’t believe me, then . . .”
My brother was accusing my father of knowing about it because my father wasn’t believing him. My mother asked me what kind of drugs my brother was on. I told her I didn’t really know, but I knew he was doing something.
So my brother went upstairs and locked himself in his room—we were both separated from our spouses and living at home. Joey married young and had a kid right away. I went upstairs to talk to him.
“Joe, what’s going on?”
“They were chasing me. They want to kill me. Daddy’s in on it. I know it.”