The hellish heat was tough on everyone in the courtroom except Alphonse, who found it far more comfortable than his nighttime accommodations. Since his arrest and during the trial, Alphonse made his home in a poorly-lit dungeon that reeked of an unholy combo of urine, shit, puke, B.O., and mildew. There had been a jail, always a hellhole, on that spot on Raymond Street since 1836, although the current building was constructed in 1909. It was designed like a West Point fortress, the emphasis so security-conscious that the builders finished construction and realized they forgot to put in the front door. It had to be cut in later. There were maybe places in America where jail time was preferable to prison time—cleaner, safer, more humane, where Aunt Bee brought over a hot supper—but not in Brooklyn in 1951. (The Raymond Street Jail remained in operation until 1963. Don’t try to find Raymond Street on a map. It has long-since had its name changed to Ashland Place. The location is at the current corner of Ashland Place and Willoughby Street. A medical building stands there, and the current jail, called the Brooklyn House of Detention for Men, is on Atlantic Avenue.)
Alphonse’s trial was scheduled to start in the furnace, but to almost everyone’s relief was delayed a month because the medical examiner left on vacation. By the time opening statements were made and the people began calling witnesses to the stand, the heat had broken. That was the summer that the Dodgers seemed assured of winning the National League pennant. During jury selection, the team was cruising toward a championship. By the time the trial began, those dreams were shattered. The New York Giants of Manhattan stole the pennant on the last day of the season in the Polo Grounds behind Bobby Thomson’s “shot heard ’round the world” home run off our beloved pitcher Ralph Branca.
The highlight of Alphonse Persico’s trial was the testimony of the Blue Beetle himself. A courtroom journalist wrote that Alphonse “swallowed hard” when hearing Grillo’s damning testimony. Grillo said the party had started at a tavern, and then into the car.
“Your car?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who was driving?”
“I was.”
“How many were in the car all together?”
“Five. Alphonse Persico and Bove were in the backseat.” Grillo was not asked and did not name the other people in the car.
“And why were you together?”
“We’ d been out drinking, at a joint at Eighth Street and Third Avenue.”
“And you left together?”
“Yes.”
“At what point did you look back into the backseat?”
“After the first shot.”
“And you saw Mr. Persico shooting Mr. Bove?”
“I saw Bove slumped over and Persico pointing a gun at him. Then I saw him shoot him.”
“How many times?”
“Four more times. He emptied his revolver into him.”
“Why didn’t you stop the car?”
“Persico threatened me. He told me I drove where he told me to drive or he’d kill me too.”
“Where did he tell you to drive?”
“To Carroll Street.”
“What if anything happened on Carroll Street?”
“He told me to stop the car so he could throw out the body.”
“And that was what happened?”
“Yes. When the body was out, he closed the door and told me to drive him home.” They were already on the Persicos’ street. He only had to drive a few blocks up the slope to drop them off.
That sort of testimony was difficult to impeach. Alphonse and his counsel Leo Healy could read the writing on the wall. The jury would never deliberate as, on Tuesday, August 7, Allie Boy and Healy took a deal, pleading guilty to second-degree murder.
Judge Sobel asked Alphonse, “You admit firing the shots that killed Bove?”
“Yes.”
“You understand that that calls for a mandatory sentence of twenty years to life?”
Alphonse nodded.
The judge said, “Let the record show Mr. Persico answered in the affirmative.”
Healy addressed the judge briefly, “I would request, your honor, that the sentencing be delayed a month as Mrs. Persico is due to have a child in that time.”
Many in the courtroom were struck by this news. It was one thing to be reckless with your life and play shoot-’em-up cowboys in the streets, but to do it while your wife was pregnant? And it wasn’t even for a piece of the pie. What did Alphonse get out of the killing? Revenge. That was it.
The judge pondered the request for a delay.
“It will take that long to make a probation report anyway,” Judge Sobel replied.
The official sentencing was delayed and Alphonse was led away, the delay buying him an extra thirty days at the Raymond Street Jail—where rats both human and rodent skittered during the inky night.
From there, he’d move to prison. By the time he was released, his kid brother would be a very big man in Brooklyn, and Allie Boy—like Anthony Scarpati before him—had a job waiting for him.
* * *
Some may wonder how the Blue Beetle managed to survive after testifying for Alphonse’s prosecution—and he did, for quite a while. He put Alphonse behind bars. And yet he lived—and not on the downlow either.
Guys that worked in or around horse racing had to fuck-up repeatedly to get whacked. Simple fact: they were worth far more alive than dead. The Beetle was a jockey and in a position to be a fantastic earner.
(Years later, we knew the Beetle. He was partners with our pal Tarzan in a joint on Ninth Street and Third Avenue called The Blue Beetle, the same Tarzan that did the cooking for my pal Mondo and his mom in their club on President Street. Tarzan was Johnny Lusterino, a kid from Hull Street in Bed-Stuy. He’d come up through the gangs as had Carmine and knew the inside of police stations and courtrooms before he turned seventeen. He once did a lengthy prison stint for stealing furs. When I was a kid, the President Street Boys went to Tarzan’s place often. When war broke out, it was Tarzan who came to President Street and cooked while the crew hit the mattresses. He was there to do more than cook though, and always let it be known that he and his gun were available for assignment. In 1972, Tarzan was kidnapped after visiting his mother and never seen again.)
The Beetle was well-liked. He may have testified, but most people understood the tough position he was in. He wasn’t in on the hit on Bove at all. He was an innocent. Why should he do time for that?
Then again, the Beetle’s style irked some guys. He should at least be grateful he was alive and show a little humility. Sometimes, it almost seemed like he was exploiting the fact that he hadn’t been whacked in retaliation. He was always doing something to draw attention to himself, asking for it.
No bullets came—yet—but Grillo ran into a streak of bad luck. In the spring of 1953 he was playing dice on the corner of Garfield and Fifth, home of the Garfield Boys. There was a pile of money right on the sidewalk. A group of grown men gathered tightly around the cutter, who apparently hadn’t greased the flatfoots the way he was supposed to. While one threw dice, another laid odds, faded bettors, and raked in cash. Some of the shooters may have been kneeling but you could tell it wasn’t a prayer meeting. There was tension. The guy who hadn’t paid the Law must’ve known there was the risk of an interruption. Sure enough, two cop cars arrived simultaneously, one on Fifth, one on Garfield, and cops came from all sides. Some ran, some fought. In the resulting melee, Grillo—who, though not large, was a professional athlete—grabbed an officer’s nightstick and broke it over the cop’s head.
In 1955, years after Bove’s murder, the New York Racing Commission banned Grillo from racing in New York State, not because he’d assaulted a police officer, but because he had admitted to driving a car in which one guy shot another. So Grillo went west and rode at Santa Anita in California, where according to historian William J. Mahoney races were fixed so that track regular J. Edgar Hoover could win. Grillo thrived in Southern California.
It took a long ti
me, but Grillo eventually crossed life’s finish line in a violent manner. He’d been living in California for years but returned east to see his brother Frank. His little jockey body was found dead on December 29, 1968, on the floor of the Oceanside Boys Club on Long Island, with four bullet holes in him. Police said it looked like there might have been a card game involved.
On President Street word was that Allie Boy had ordered the hit. The Beetle’s earning days were through, so it was time to pull the plug.
CHAPTER FOUR
Frankie Shots
Some kids graduated from high school and moved into the workplace. Some kids went into the army and were promoted to corporal or sergeant. Carmine Persico graduated from the Garfield Boys into the dangerous but lucrative world of big-boy crime.
FRANKIE “SHOTS” ABBATEMARCO was born on the Fourth of July in 1899 and grew up in Red Hook, where as a kid he was fingerprinted so often there should’ve been permanent ink stains on his fingertips. Frankie Shots was first arrested as an adult in 1921, when he faced narcotics, grand larceny, and gambling charges. He skated on most of it, did two years for the drugs. Now he was a fifty-year-old man and ran rackets for the Profaci family, the guy in charge on President Street, the boss of the bank, where the Gallo brothers—Larry, Albert (a.k.a. Kid Blast), and Crazy Joey—were the big up and comers. Frankie Shots knew who Carmine Persico was, of course. Everyone did—and Frankie Shots was always on the lookout for new blood to join his crew, kids who could be trusted with good heads on their shoulders. Leader of the Garfield Boys, pretty good resumé. Frankie Shots had Carmine called in for a job interview.
Abbatemarco took bets and had the skills that made for a good bookie. He could add and subtract large numbers in his head. He had an excellent memory, and calculating odds and payoffs came easy to him. It was what he did. During his first interview with the kid, he saw some of these same skills in Carmine—and knew the teenager was destined for greatness. Frankie appreciated both Carmine’s smarts and his balls. Carmine was cool under pressure, and had no time for remorse.
Frankie Shots almost immediately put Carmine in charge of important operations—robberies, running numbers, and collecting debts (which sometimes included sending brutal messages). In addition to having a quick head for calculating, Carmine also demonstrated a certain zeal when it came to violence that turned him into Frankie Shots’ go-to for dishing out hurt. Most goons were huge and physically intimidating. Carmine intimidated with that smirk, which he wore invariably even as he used a loaded-up nightstick to break kneecaps, ankles, and the occasional head.
It was while working on Frankie Shots’ crew that Carmine became close with the Gallos—not Albert so much, but Joey and Larry and Carmine were blood-brothers, running numbers, collecting debts, hurting people, and going out together on scores.
During this time Carmine was arrested more than a dozen times—numbers, craps, loans, burglary, assault—but had the full backing of the Profaci family legal team. He spent a night on Raymond Street every now and again, but the bail money was always there and the charges, whatever they were, eventually dropped.
There were a couple of factors in play here. For one thing, it seems clear that Carmine had a “get out of jail free card,” like in Monopoly, most likely indicating that Joseph Profaci had Law and Order in his hip pocket. But there was something else going on. Carmine had a reputation despite his tender years of being a very dangerous fellow, Brooklyn’s own Babyface Nelson. People were reluctant to testify against him. He came to court with well-connected lawyers, guys who had an in with the legal rigmarole, a system that generally had a great respect for Mr. Profaci and therefore his associates. Despite his many arrests, two of them associated with murder, in the 1950s, Carmine never spent more than fourteen days in a row in jail, that for the Bove murder as cops searched for Allie Boy.
* * *
During Carmine’s early years with Frankie Shots, their arch-enemy was not someone from a different gang, but Kings County District Attorney Miles F. McDonald. With a degree from Fordham Law in the Bronx, McDonald had been with the D.A.’s office since 1940, and the boss since 1945. McDonald fought corruption wherever he saw it—and understood that there was funny business on both sides of the street. His racket-busters not only went after hoodlums, they went after crooked cops and politicians as well. McDonald’s investigations had led to the resignations of a New York City mayor and police chief.
In March 1952, the D.A.’s attentions turned to South Brooklyn and raided Frankie Shots’ $2.5 million policy ring, his numbers racket. Carmine, now eighteen, was hauled in along with nine others, including Frankie himself and his son Abby. The arrests were based on wiretap recordings and “some sheets” that indicated numbers were being run.
The men were arraigned before Judge Samuel S. Leibowitz, the same judge who had presided over the Prospect Park murder case. The ring operated in Bed-Stuy, East Flatbush, and South Brooklyn. It was, the D.A. bragged, the largest such ring ever busted.
And so again Carmine found himself in a courtroom. This time though he didn’t have to sit in the gallery and crane his neck to see what the lawyers were doing. This time there was a seat reserved for him right up front.
Frankie Shots’ son, Anthony Abbatemarco, thirty years old, was called in the indictment the ring’s number-two man. The D.A. told reporters that Anthony—called Abby by his friends including my dad—was arrested with $2,500 on him. Judge Leibowitz described the roll as “big enough to choke an elephant.” Abby had recently purchased a new Lincoln although he lacked a visible means of support.
“Where’d you get all the money, Anthony?” the D.A. asked.
“I get a monthly pension check from the government,” Abby replied.
“That it?”
“Uh, I shoot crap once in a while.”
Anthony’s dad had a similar method of explaining his income. He said he had no business, and made a living just “maneuvering around, making bets, winning and losing.”
Frankie and some of the older members of the crew were held on upward of $100,000 bail. When it was Carmine Persico’s turn to be arraigned, Judge Liebowicz softened as he looked down upon what appeared to be a harmless rapscallion.
The judge remarked, “Why, he’s just a kid.”
But Assistant District Attorney Julius Helfand advised Judge Liebowicz not to take Carmine lightly, that despite his tender years he had many arrests under his belt, twice in connection with homicides. Authorities had never been able to place Carmine’s finger on the trigger, so to speak, but bad things tended to happen in Carmine’s vicinity.
Taking that into consideration, the judge ordered Carmine held on $10,000 bail.
Also arrested in the raid were Joey and Larry Gallo, twenty-three and twenty-four years old at the time. Indictments described them as “collectors” for the ring. They lived on East Fourth St. in the Kensington section of Brooklyn, but they had their headquarters on President Street in Red Hook. Larry was found to be in possession of two port patrol badges entitling him to admission to the piers, and twenty brand new suits of clothes estimated to be worth $75 apiece. The suits were established to have been the proceeds of a recent warehouse burglary in Manhattan.
Carmine walked on the deal, as usual, but during the summer of 1952 the Abbatemarcos, father and son, pleaded guilty to the policy charges. Frank got a year at Riker’s, Anthony nine months.
* * *
As the tumultuous Junior worked his way through young adulthood, his life expectancy seemed pretty short. Nonetheless, Carmine was becoming a young family man. He met a gorgeous brunette named Joyce Smaldone, married her in a church wedding, and in 1954 they had their first child, named Alphonse Theodore in honor of Carmine’s brothers. A daughter, and two more sons followed. The boys were Lawrence (born 1955) and Michael (1957).
Carmine was now fully into adulthood, yet the world of teen violence he left behind continued to make headlines in Brooklyn. Within days of Carmine and Joyce’s wedding,
two Park Slope teenagers shocked the borough by kicking to death a man who had criticized their manners.
* * *
When the Gallos went on TV in 1958 to testify before a Senate rackets committee they earned instant fame. Joey in particular gained superstar status, wearing sunglasses and chewing gum as he was questioned by camera-hog politicians. The committee said the Gallos were “heirs to Murder, Inc.” Every time you put a coin in a machine in NYC—jukebox, cigarettes, Laundromat—the Gallos got a piece. Kings of the hill in Red Hook on President Street, last block before you hit the piers. That was where my dad was, and that’s where I grew up.
It seems like a cliché now, describing the way things were in Red Hook when I was a kid. There were no more organ-grinder monkeys, but it remained a unique universe.
The neighborhood was a living thing back then. There were multiple pool halls where a kid could hang out and learn the ropes from the older hoods as they shot eight ball, bakeries that gave the entire neighborhood a heavenly smell, pizza joints, and fancier restaurants where they put a tablecloth on the tables and every meal started with bread and oil. There were bars for the young hoods and bars for the old men with the busted blood vessels in their noses, and everyone in between. Jimmy Rosseli or Frank Sinatra was always on the jukebox or someone’s record player. And everyone yelled. We didn’t need cell phones—or even telephones of any kind. If a mom wanted her kid she threw open the window and called out for him. If he wasn’t within earshot, the chances were good that the message would be relayed.
One of the social clubs on the President Street block was run by Armando “Mondo” Illiano and his mom. Mondo was a dwarf, a little man with a great big heart. When Joey Gallo decided to use a real mountain lion to terrify gentlemen who were tardy in their loan payments or otherwise in need of disciplinary action, he kept the big cat in a cage in the basement of Mondo’s social club. He would take the already scared shitless men down the rickety steps and show them the lion. It always worked.
Carmine the Snake Page 5