It’s like overnight every guy and their mother wanted to come to Atlantic City and see my uncle for one reason or another. This is in the days leading up to the meeting in New York.
It was me and Lawrence in the office, and we’d see this one and that one, whoever came. My uncle stayed upstairs in his apartment. He didn’t come down to see anyone.
They were all coming to score points, and we knew it.
The day was finally here, it was finally time for the meeting with the Genovese leadership in New York.
The meeting was set for 1:00 p.m. inside Vincent “The Chin” Gigante’s personal headquarters, the Triangle Social Club on Sullivan Street in New York’s Greenwich Village.
Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo and Peter “Pete” Casella would sit before Gigante, his consigliere, Bobby Manna, and his front boss, Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, and learn their respective fates as Gigante, the il capo di tutti capi of the Commission, dictated the future of the Philadelphia–Atlantic City mob.
Me and my uncle are up early, dressed and ready to go. I’m driving him to New York for his meeting with the Chin. In addition to getting him up there on time, I also had to make sure we didn’t pick up any tails.
The night before I told Dutch to take his car and to drive it to the Parkway and get off at the 7-N ramp. Me and my uncle were going to drive to the Parkway and we were going to get off at 7-S. The S is for South and the N is for North. There is a sharp bend where 7-S and 7-N are running parallel to one another. I told Dutch to pull his car over like he was broken down right at the bend, next to the divider.
Me and uncle come around the bend and there’s Dutch, and his car is parked right where I told him and it’s running. We slow down and we pull right up to the divider parallel to his car. Me and my uncle jumped the divider and got in his car and he jumped the divider and got in our car.
The cops who were following us knew we were in the Cadillac and that we were on the Parkway heading south. So they’d radio ahead and another car would pick us up with the surveillance. That was how they did it, but we knew their moves.
So now after the switch with Dutch, me and my uncle are in his car heading north on the Parkway, and Dutch’s in our car heading south on the Parkway. I told him to go all the way to Cape May, which is the end of the Parkway, and turn around and come home. The cops would be following the Caddy and have no idea we weren’t in it. By the time they figured it out, we’d be in New York.
Leonetti’s plan worked. In addition to shaking a law enforcement tail, driving in a “clean” car gave Philip and his uncle an opportunity to talk freely for the nearly two hours it would take them to get to Greenwich Village.
My uncle knew they were gonna make him boss. I said, “You think they’re gonna do to Pete what they did to Tony?”—meaning kill him. And my uncle shrugged his shoulders and said, “If it was up to me, I’d kill Pete, his brother Anthony, his brother-in-law Johnny Cappello, Chickie Narducci, and that fuckin’ Rocco Marinucci. But it ain’t up to me; it’s up to this guy,” and he stroked his chin, which is how we referred to the Chin.
As Scarfo and Leonetti got closer to New York, both men became more anxious, spotting in the distance the site of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers and the Empire State Building as they prepared to enter the city through the Holland Tunnel.
Once we were in the city, my uncle started going over the protocol for the meeting. We were to first go to a restaurant in Little Italy, and then they would send for my uncle. He would go to the meeting and I would stay at the restaurant.
When we got there we went into the restaurant and the first guy we saw was Benny Eggs.
Venero “Benny Eggs” Mangano was one of Chin Gigante’s closest friends and was the reputed underboss of the Genovese crime family.
Benny Eggs said, “Nick, it’s good to see you,” and he gave my uncle a kiss on the cheek. My uncle said, “Ben, I want you to meet my nephew Philip Leonetti, he is a friend of ours,” and Benny shook my hand and gave me a kiss on the cheek and said, “So this is the young man I’ve heard so much about.”He couldn’t have been nicer to us.
He tells us to have a seat and right away they start bringing over food and drinks. He says to my uncle, “Let’s wait awhile for the other guy to get here, and then we’ll get you over there,” meaning the club where the Chin was.
As Scarfo, Leonetti, and Mangano made small talk, at 12:45 p.m. sharp three Genovese soldiers walked into the restaurant and Benny Eggs excused himself from the table.
Now the meeting is scheduled for 1:00. Me and uncle get there at 12:00, and here it’s 12:45 and Pete Casella is nowhere to be found.
My uncle checks his watch and whispers to me, “I’ll betcha this cocksucker ain’t gonna show,” meaning Pete. I just made a face back at my uncle like, no way, because that was a major no-no. If you got called to a meeting with the boss of the Commission and you didn’t go, the penalty was death, no questions asked.
So now Benny Eggs comes back and says, “I sent one of those fellas back to see what they want to do, if they want to get started, or wait a bit longer for the other guy.”My uncle said, “Doesn’t matter to me, Ben. Whatever you guys want.”
So five minutes later the guy comes back and whispers in Benny Egg’s ear, and he says to me and my uncle, “It may be a little while.”
Now we’re just sitting there eating a little bit, having a couple of drinks, but this isn’t the way it was supposed to be. All the sudden all these thoughts are racing through my mind. Were we getting double-crossed, like Caponigro did? Was I gonna wind up in the back of a car, like Freddie Salerno?Maybe they were gonna take us all out so they could have Atlantic City all to themselves.
My uncle’s sitting there and I can see his antenna is up, but we can’t talk because Benny Eggs is with us and he’s telling stories and making small talk. But I know my uncle is thinking the same thing.
So next thing you know, it’s three o’clock. Now my uncle knows the rules and so do I; we’re not gonna say, “Hey what’s takin’ so long,” or “Is there a problem?” So we’re just sitting there.
What Scarfo and Leonetti did not know was that while Scarfo had his ace in the hole with Bobby Manna from their days together in Yardville State Prison, Pete Casella had made a similar connection with a powerful Genovese captain when the two men were doing time together on federal drug-trafficking charges.
At that very moment, the Genovese captain was pleading Casella’s case to Gigante, Manna, and Salerno, trying to intervene on his behalf by either swaying the Genovese leaders to name Casella the new boss of the Philadelphia–Atlantic City mob or, at a minimum, spare his life in the event Gigante was looking to make an example, like he did with Antonio “Tony Bananas” Caponigro.
The whole time we’re sitting there, the same guy who was running back and forth between Benny Eggs and the Chin keeps coming and going, whispering to Benny each time he does.
All the sudden the door opens and here comes Pete Casella and he has Rocco Marinucci with him. Benny gets up to greet him, and Pete introduces Rocco as a “friend of mine”—which means he’s not Cosa Nostra, he’s not made—and Benny’s colors change and he won’t shake Rocco’s hand.
“You can’t bring him in here,”Benny says to Pete, and one of the Genovese guys barked at Rocco, “Go wait in the car,” and Rocco was out the door. He never looked back.
It was almost four o’clock and Pete didn’t even get a chance to sit down. And the guy who was going back and forth all day reappeared and whispered to Benny, and Benny said, “Okay, gentlemen, they are ready for you,” and my uncle and Pete were being escorted towards the door. Benny said, “Nick, I’m gonna stay here with your nephew and teach him how to play cards,” and we all laughed, everyone except for Pete. Pete looked like he was scared to death.
As Philip Leonetti and Benny Eggs Mangano played cards, Nicodemo Scarfo and Pete Casella were taken to the Triangle Social Club, which was only three blocks away.
The windows on
the nondescript storefront were completely blacked out, and inside there were two chairs, one for Scarfo and one for Casella.
Sitting across from the two Philadelphia mobsters behind a table were the three Genovese leaders. Gigante was seated in the middle in his trademark bathrobe; the stone-faced Manna was to his left, and the dour-looking Salerno to his right, wearing his trademark fedora and puffing on a cigar that remained firmly between his teeth.
According to Scarfo, who later told Leonetti what happened inside the meeting, Gigante wasted no time with pleasantries and started the meeting by speaking directly to Casella in his rapid-fire New York cadence.
“Listen, we know what happened. Don’t lie to us. If you lie to us, we can’t help you. Tell us the names of everyone who was involved in this plot.”
Scarfo told Leonetti that Casella answered the question directly.
“It was me. It was my idea. Me, Chickie Narducci, and Rocco Marinucci, and a kid Rocco knows.”
Scarfo said Fat Tony took the cigar out of his mouth and barked, “This motherless fuck, the kid, does he have a name?” and Casella responded, “I don’t know his name,” and then hung his head in shame.
Gigante smacked the table, and Casella looked up at him, and then the don spoke, “You’re finished. You are to retire immediately to Florida. You are forbidden from ever returning to Philadelphia. When you leave here, you get on a plane and you go. If you breathe a word of this to anyone, we will kill you, your brother, and your brother-in-law. Do you understand?”
Casella nodded his head and Gigante gestured for one of the Genovese soldiers to escort him out of the club. As Casella attempted to shake Gigante’s hand, Gigante stared at him with disgust and spit on the floor in his direction, and Casella was whisked away.
With Casella gone, it was just Little Nicky and the three Genovese leaders. Again, Gigante got right to the point.
“Well, Nick, I don’t see no one else here, so I guess that makes you the new boss,” at which point Gigante stood and Scarfo approached the table and kissed Gigante on each cheek, as Manna and Salerno clapped their hands.
Scarfo would also kiss Manna and Salerno in a similar fashion.
Nicodemo Domenic Scarfo was now the undisputed boss of the Philadelphia–Atlantic City mob. He had just turned 52 years old and was strategically aligned with New York’s Genovese crime family and Vincent “The Chin” Gigante, the most powerful mob boss in the nationwide crime syndicate known as La Cosa Nostra, this thing of ours.
The underworld in Philadelphia and Atlantic City would never be the same.
A Whole New Ballgame
THAT NIGHT, WHEN SCARFO AND LEONETTI RETURNED TO GEORGIA AVENUE, THERE WAS A SMALL CONTINGENCY WAITING FOR THEM.
It was Chuckie, Lawrence, Salvie, and Frank Monte. I introduced my uncle to them as their new boss, and everyone was hugging each other and kissing each other on the cheek.
The five of us went down to Angeloni’s for drinks to celebrate. My uncle told us, “We gotta let things settle a bit before we start making changes. We gotta do it right. One step at a time. This is a whole new ballgame.”
Everyone was happy, but it seemed like Salvie was a little out of it. I think he was expecting my uncle to say our first order of business is we’re gonna go kill this one or we’re gonna go kill that one—the guys who had killed his father. But my uncle was saying we’re gonna take things slow and let the smoke clear, which was definitely the right move for the organization.
Nicky Scarfo enjoyed a steady stream of visitors to his Atlantic City headquarters over the next few weeks, as members and associates of the Bruno crime family came to pledge their allegiance to the new boss.
Scarfo would also travel to Philadelphia and meet with the captains left over from the Bruno and Testa regimes to discuss the family’s new hierarchy.
Nicky Scarfo would name his close friend Salvatore “Chuckie” Merlino as his underboss and Testa loyalist Frank Monte to the post of consigliere.
Within a few short months, Scarfo would name four new caporegimes: Joseph “Chickie” Ciancaglini, Salvatore “Salvie” Testa, Lawrence “Yogi” Merlino, and his 28-year-old nephew, Philip “Crazy Phil” Leonetti.
Scarfo kept his old captain, Alfred “Freddie” Iezzi, on board, but the old-timer was already semiretired. Scarfo also kept Bruno-era captains Santo “Big Santo” Idone and Joseph “Joe” Scafidi in place, but “took down” John “Johnny” Cappello, the brother-in-law of the recently deposed Pete Casella.
Scarfo also kept the treacherous Frank “Chickie” Narducci in place for the time being, but Little Nicky had already decided that Narducci’s days were numbered for his involvement in the bombing death of Philip Testa.
Me, Chuckie, and Lawrence were the only ones who knew what Pete Casella had told the Chin about the plot to kill Phil Testa. My uncle was afraid if Salvie knew, or even Frank Monte, that they would kill Chickie Narducci immediately.
My uncle said, “We’re gonna kill him; we’re just not gonna kill him yet.”
As March turned into April, Little Nicky and his new regime were in full swing, and business was good and it was about to get a whole lot better.
One day, me and my uncle are having lunch with Saul Kane and Lawrence, and Saul says, “Nick, I got an idea for you—you should start a street tax. The way it works is you tax everybody who is doing anything illegal, and you offer them the protection and support of your family in exchange for them paying the tax. I know it’s been done in Chicago and real big in New York in the ’30s and ’40s. I think you could make a lot of money doing it.”
My uncle’s eyes lit up. He knew that we had the muscle to enforce it. He made a face at me and I made a face back at him, and we both smiled.
From that moment on, the imposition and collection of the street tax became our No. 1 priority and one of our biggest moneymakers.
As Scarfo was setting out to restructure the organization, each made member had to formally come in and sit down with the boss and the underboss and talk about what they had going on.
Guys had to come in and report what they had going on, who was doing what, so that we could figure out what was out there and what we were going to collect, both as tribute and as the street tax.
A lot of guys hadn’t been paying Ange or Phil Testa the right amount in tribute for years, and some guys weren’t paying at all. My uncle told everybody that came in the same thing: “Those days are over. You and your people are gonna pay what you’re supposed to pay, or it’s this,” and he made the sign of the gun.
Scarfo had assembled a group of killers around him and everyone knew it. Despite that, there were those in the underworld who did not heed the new boss’s warning.
Men like Chelsais “Stevie” Bouras, the leader of Philadelphia’s Greek mob.
Bouras had blatantly balked at Scarfo’s demand that he be forced to pay the mob’s new street tax and Scarfo swiftly ordered his murder to send a message to anyone else considering not paying.
My uncle had Long John set it up because he was close to Bouras.
Raymond “Long John” Martorano, the onetime aide de camp to Angelo Bruno who had helped Scarfo murder union boss John McCullough in December 1980, set up a dinner party at a restaurant in Philadelphia and invited Bouras to join him and his wife and several other people for a night out.
Bouras brought his young girlfriend to the restaurant and everyone was having a good time until two men with ski masks entered the restaurant and motioned for Martorano and the others to move as they opened fire on Bouras, killing him with a barrage of bullets, and killing his young date who got caught in the cross fire.
The cold-blooded mob killing of Stevie Bouras sent the rest of the Philadelphia underworld scurrying to pay Scarfo’s street tax, and Scarfo’s crews were bringing in money, hand over fist.
Once we got it going good, we were bringing in $100,000 per month just in street tax money. Don’t forget we still had gambling, loan sharking, and extortion operations,
so on a good month we could bring in a half a million or more in cash.
With Scarfo and Leonetti based in Atlantic City, Salvatore “Chuckie” Merlino and Salvie Testa were running the day-to-day operations of the family in South Philadelphia.
Things were great in the beginning, especially after we killed Stevie Bouras. Everyone was doing their job and we were making a lot of money. Everybody was paying. My uncle was happy and things were good.
But hanging over Scarfo’s head in the summer of 1981 was an imminent prison sentence stemming from his conviction on gun possession charges in connection with the .22 that was found in his bedroom drawer during the police raid following the Falcone killing.
As a convicted felon, Scarfo was facing several years in federal prison and was out on bail pending appeal. His lawyer, Bobby Simone, had told him that the appeal was a long shot, and that in all likelihood he would be in jail within the next twelve months.
The looming jail sentence did not stop Scarfo from ordering the murder of a South Philadelphia drug dealer and loan shark named Johnny Calabrese on October 6, 1981, because like Stevie Bouras, Johnny Calabrese balked at paying the Scarfo mob’s street tax.
We approached Chickie Ciancaglini, who was close with Calabrese, and he set it up. Two guys from his crew, Tommy DelGiorno and Faffy Iannarella, were the shooters, and another guy named Pat Spirito was the getaway driver.
As Chick was walking Calabrese to his car, Tommy and Faffy came out of an alley and blasted him. He died in the street.
The Calabrese hit was the latest in a string of gangland murders that started with the Bruno killing less than 18 months before and garnered both a lot of publicity from the local media and a lot of extra scrutiny from law enforcement.
Three weeks after the Calabrese killing, Little Nicky turned his attention on an aging mob associate named Frank “Frankie Flowers” D’Alfonso.
Mafia Prince: Inside America's Most Violent Crime Family Page 15