Last Don Standing

by Larry McShane

  The new boss, Phil “Chicken Man” Testa, cut off the cash flow shortly after assuming the throne. Natale became even more enraged, with his anger extending to Testa’s newly appointed underboss Scarfo. He felt the resurrected Atlantic City mobster’s influence already seeping poison into the family.

  Natale, by now transferred to the federal prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, finally sent a message back to Philadelphia’s new mob leaders, expressing his disgust at the decision to leave his family flat. Testa and Scarfo summoned Martorano to deliver their response. He met with Lucia, and Long John nervously repeated the message word for word: “Tell your husband that we can reach him anywhere. Even in Lewisburg.”

  The next day, Lucia and daughter Carmen made the three-hour drive from Philadelphia to the prison. Just as Martorano had, she recounted the twelve-word threat. She knew even before Ralph opened his mouth exactly what her husband would say.

  “Lucia, call Long John and tell him to meet you tomorrow morning in front of the ShopRite”—just a short walk from their home in Pennsauken. “And tell Long John to bring this message back to Phil Testa and Nicky Scarfo. Tell them to do what they have to do, because when I come home, I am going to see the both of them.” Natale then looked directly in his wife’s face before finishing. “When you’re finished telling that scum what I said, turn around and walk away, and never, never meet with anyone again.”

  Natale’s only bit of comfort came from a single thought: revenge is a dish best served cold. He had fifteen years left behind bars, and the thought marinated into an obsession. A plan was already coalescing in his mind, where it would stay for another decade. Natale laid out his plan to Philip “Rusty” Rastelli, the imprisoned head of the Bonanno family, as they walked through the prison yard.

  “Philly Rastelli was a real man. He asked to see me the first morning I was there,” Natale recounted. “I never met him on the street. He said, ‘Hi, Ralphy—I’m Phil Rastelli.’ We shook hands through the bars. I was the only guy he would walk with in that yard. Then we get into it a little bit, and he said, ‘Is it true? You’re just starting this bit?’

  “I said, ‘I can’t lie to you, ’cause you’re like the men who broke me in. When I go back, when I get back there, I’m taking back what was mine, because they took what was mine. And they took what belonged to Ang, and they didn’t give nothing to my wife. All due respect to you, because I know who you are. I don’t give a fuck who says no. I’m gonna do it.’”

  Natale believed nothing short of his own death would stop him from turning those words into reality.

  Ralph felt that he knew exactly why the Chicken Man, along with his new consigliere, Scarfo, abruptly ended the promised payments to Lucia.

  “Why would he fuck with me?” Natale asked rhetorically. “He figured I was gonna get buried. I’m dead. Knowing me, knowing my temper, he thinks I’m never gonna see him again. He thought he was safe.”

  The killing of Bruno unleashed a cascade of bloodshed, as if someone had pulled his finger from the dike of festering jealously and greed that had built during Bruno’s long reign atop the family. Among the first to die were the minor-league Machiavellis behind the Bruno hit, their fates determined immediately by the mob’s ruling Commission: everyone must die.

  The death sentences were meant both as retribution for the killing of one of their own and a harsh reminder to one and all that the unsanctioned murder of a boss violated one of the Mafia’s most sacrosanct laws. Even if the murder was done with a wink and nod of approval from within.

  The Genovese family, when the Commission met to discuss the Bruno murder, immediately volunteered to exact vengeance for the hit. It was a brilliant move—the very family that cleverly put the whole mess in motion would now clean things up, insuring that Caponigro would never get a chance to tell the story of his meeting with Tieri or plead his case with one of the other four bosses. Tony Bananas remained clueless about his fate, unaware that he had unwittingly signed his own death warrant by pulling the shotgun trigger on that Philadelphia night.

  Three weeks later, Tieri sent word to Caponigro that he was wanted in New York City. A call was made to a designated pay phone in Newark, just a few blocks from Tony Bananas’ bar, with the summons. Caponigro had anticipated the invitation from the day that his plot to kill Bruno began. The crowning of a new king was at hand. His right-hand man, Freddie Salerno, had answered the ringing phone.

  Genovese boss Chin Gigante was sending a car for Caponigro and Salerno, arriving at 1:00 p.m., to bring the men into the city. The Chin himself would be waiting, along with Tieri. The voice at the other end was abrupt, providing only the bare-bones details. Without waiting for a reply, the man abruptly hung up.

  Salerno was offended by the rudeness of the call, making him wonder if the coronation was actually something else. He kept his concerns to himself, convinced that it was nothing more than mob-induced paranoia, and began his walk back to the bar and his boss.

  Caponigro waited impatiently for Salerno’s return, checking the time on his pricey Piaget watch. The excitement rose within him, as it had each day since the killing, that today was the day Caponigro had waited for his entire life. At 11:30 a.m., Salerno found his boss standing in the doorway of the bar awaiting Salerno’s return, the door’s handle in his hand as he looked up the Newark street.

  From thirty feet away, Salerno flashed a smile and a thumbs-up to Caponigro—now with a look of childlike delight on his weathered face. “Tony, it will be today,” the herald announced in an excited voice that belied his concerns about what exactly this day would hold.

  But Salerno’s worries were entirely his own. Caponigro, blinded by visions of his imminent ascension, thought only about the car coming from New York to pick them up. It couldn’t arrive soon enough to suit him. The ensuing ride was all that separated him from the seat atop the Philadelphia Mafia.

  Forgotten was the old mob maxim: you cannot kill a boss unless the entire Commission gives its approval—the key word being entire. Caponigro, hearing what he wanted to hear, went forward only on the say-so of the clever Tieri. What was done could not be undone, and the pricey sedan dispatched by the Chin headed west from Greenwich Village toward Newark.

  The car arrived five minutes early, with the Chin’s trusted bodyguard Vinnie DeMaio dispatched as the Genovese family emissary. Caponigro bounded from the club toward the car, with Salerno respectfully walking a few steps behind. Both were dressed to the nines, two real men of La Cosa Nostra going in style. DeMaio led them to the waiting car.

  The passengers expected to head toward Gigante’s grubby Greenwich Village clubhouse. But DeMaio explained their destination was instead a Brooklyn waterfront warehouse owned by the family. The Bruno murder had turned up the heat in New York as well as in Philadelphia, he explained. The Chin’s Triangle club was now under constant FBI surveillance, and the arrival of anyone connected to the Philly family would immediately stamp them as suspects in the execution. Caponigro nodded his assent at the change in plans.

  The Manhattan skyline loomed in the distance as the ride continued in silence. They arrived in Brooklyn within an hour, pulling in front of a gray waterfront building with a stark metal gate. The entrance was flanked by two large thugs. One pressed a red button, and the door slowly cranked open for the car to pull inside. The sedan topped about twenty feet away from a group of men whose faces were indistinguishable in the dim warehouse light. DeMaio and the driver exited, stepping aside into the shadows. As the voice of Tieri echoed through the dank building, the reality of the situation suddenly hit Caponigro—this was the end, not the beginning.

  “Tony, come over here,” Tieri beckoned. “Vincent is in the rear office. We’ll go together.”

  As Natale heard the tale, Caponigro turned and apologized to his old friend Salerno for putting him in the middle of this disaster. “If I have to go, I couldn’t go with a better man,” Salerno replied.

  Caponigro’s body was found on April 18, 1980, in the
South Bronx. The treacherous capo’s corpse bore mute testimony to the gauntlet of violence that comprised his last moments of life: He was beaten. Strangled. Stabbed. Shot. The corpse, stuffed inside a mortuary body bag, showed signs of torture. There was one other discovery: $300 in $20 bills were found stuffed in his mouth and up his ass.

  Salerno’s body, in a similarly gruesome state, was found the same day about four miles away with the same cash deposit. He’d taken three bullets behind the right ear, and one more behind the left. Most of the bones in his face were broken, and rope burns were on his neck, wrists, and ankles.

  The message was clear: these two men were killed by their own greed.

  It took six months to track down Sindone ally John “Johnny Keys” Simone, a cousin of Bruno’s whose specific role in the hit is as unclear as the penalty for his part was obvious. The mobster—in hiding since the murder—was lured to his death by the promise that his penalty would be an exile from Philadelphia to his vacation home in sunny Florida. The hit was done by the Gambino family, with Simone’s body found in a wooded area of Staten Island. He had two last requests: Simone wanted to be killed by a made man. And he wanted his shoes taken off—Simone had once promised his wife that he would die barefoot. Both requests were honored by future Gambino family underboss Sammy “the Bull” Gravano.

  This left only Sindone, who had bolted from Philadelphia for his beachfront condo in California to weather the upcoming storm in the sunshine. He was armed with a bogus ID and some credit cards issued under an alias in case his West Coast stay lasted longer than anticipated. Sindone’s whereabouts were known to just one man, his protégé Joseph “Chickie” Ciancaglini. The strapping mob enforcer handled collections for Sindone, but he was now listening to the new boss: Philip Testa. The last plotter proved the most elusive of the targets, even as the hunt for the traitor began within a week of the killing.

  Testa, on the advice of his new consigliere, Scarfo, called Ciancaglini to a meeting where the two new family executives planned to squeeze Sindone’s pal for information. Ciancaglini knew what was what, and they didn’t have to squeeze too hard.

  Ciancaglini was taking phone calls from Sindone every other day at a gas station pay phone. The fugitive mafioso was looking for absolution from Testa and was willing to surrender all of the family’s loan-sharking business in return for a pass.

  Ciancaglini considered his options. Most important, he worried that his ties to Sindone might lead the new regime to suspect his complicity in the killing. The thought rattled in his head as Ciancaglini drove to meet with Testa and Scarfo within a week of the murder. The get-together was set for a South Philly row house belonging to Frank Monte, who ran the family’s numbers operation. Nobody lived in the house, which was used as a drop for the day’s business.

  Ciancaglini knocked with some apprehension before Monte opened the door and led him inside. The forty-five-foot walk from the entrance to the kitchen was the longest of Ciancaglini’s life. Scarfo stood for a handshake to welcome their guest, as Natale later heard the tale.

  “I’m glad you came so quickly,” said Scarfo. “I told Phil that you wouldn’t hesitate.”

  Ciancaglini extended one hand toward Little Nicky. In the other, he held Sindone’s lone bargaining chip: two small leatherbound composition books filled with all the details of his now-doomed friend’s street money. Testa pulled out a chair for Ciancaglini to take a seat and offered their visitor something to eat. An array of cold cuts, Sicilian bread, and Jersey tomatoes sat on the table before them.

  Ciancaglini didn’t have much of an appetite. “Phil,” he quickly declared, “I had nothing to do with what happened to Ang, on my mother’s soul.”

  Testa offered his hand and a smile, enough to convince Ciancaglini that he would leave the row house on his own two feet rather than inside a rolled-up carpet. “We know,” Testa finally replied. “Nicky already sent word to New York that you’re in the clear—and that you will help us bring in this motherfucker Sindone for what he allowed those other two motherfuckers to do.”

  The whole thing had a certain irony. Sindone had agreed to set up the man who’d facilitated his rise through the family. And now Ciancaglini, whose position in the family was the result of his friendship with Sindone, would give up his own benefactor. He turned over the two books—and as a bonus revealed where Sindone stashed his petty cash, which was hardly petty at all.

  “This is the true mantra of La Cosa Nostra,” Natale observed ruefully years later, after all his mob illusions were reduced to dust.

  When the gas station phone rang the next day, the plan was set in motion. The plotters bided their time until their target was finally swayed, convinced it was safe to come home. Sindone’s body, stuffed inside two green plastic trash bags, was found dumped behind a South Philadelphia billiard parlor and supermarket on October 30, 1980. He was shot three times in the head.

  While the mob meted out its retribution for the Bruno murder, one of the murderous cabal was already in the wind: John Stanfa. The Sicilian knew his role in the killing was fairly common knowledge. What few others knew was that his uncle John Gambino knew in advance of the mob hit, filled in by Stanfa the mole after Caponigro approached Bruno’s driver. Both were in danger of facing the same sentence as the other connivers.

  Stanfa reached out to his fellow Zips in New York for a helping hand. Gambino faced a dilemma: he could either kill Stanfa or save his Sicilian kin’s ass. He opted for the latter. Stanfa was spirited south to a job in a Maryland pizzeria, his reward for taking down a don now nothing more that kneading dough and working an oven. It took nine months, but the authorities tracked Stanfa down in December—after John Gambino placed an anonymous call to the feds. When asked by FBI agents why he went to New York after the Bruno hit, Stanfa replied in broken English, “To get a cup of coffee. It’s a free country, isn’t it?”

  He was tried and convicted of perjury for lying to a grand jury about his meetings with Sindone and Caponigro. Stanfa was sentenced to six years of federal time, which undoubtedly saved his life. He was now beyond the reach of the mob hierarchy and his own uncle who might embrace a Sicilian-style change of heart toward the backstabbing Stanfa.

  The Bruno assassination shook the long-stable family to its core, sending the once rock-solid organization into a long spiral of treachery, incompetence, betrayal, murder, prosecution, and paranoia. Bodies were soon piling up on the South Philly streets and beyond—twenty-four in five years by one count—as four bosses followed Bruno into “the Chair” over the next fifteen years. None could reverse the family’s plummeting fortunes, and all wound up dead or behind bars.

  18

  RISE OF THE CHICKEN MAN

  With Caponigro’s claim to the throne dispatched in a brutal fashion, underboss Testa took over as head of the Philadelphia mob. His reign was ended in less than a year by of one of the most notorious hits in the mob’s long and bloody history. Natale, from the start, never saw Testa as the right man for the lofty position.

  “He looked the part—a fearsome countenance, and he had proven his worth as underboss because of his loyalty to Ang,” Natale said. “But his loyalty was not enough to prevent the killing of his boss. When such men are forced by circumstance to take the reins, it is only with good fortune that disasters do not occur.”

  Phil Testa had exactly twelve months of good fortune ahead of him. And Nicky Scarfo had a lot to do with it when the Chicken Man’s luck ran out.

  Scarfo’s hopes of ever rising under the Bruno regime were nil. The old boss shunted Little Nicky to exile in his own personal Elba of Atlantic City after a series of catastrophes, including the fatal stabbing of a longshoreman over a diner seat at the end of a long, boozy night with Chuckie Merlino. Scarfo became capo of the seagulls and sand.

  “The devil,” Natale hisses of the Atlantic City gangster. “Pure evil. Boss only by attrition.”

  Natale never liked or trusted Scarfo, and the feeling was mutual. Ralph went to Bruno wit
h a plan to murder Scarfo, a mission he viewed as a surgeon would the removal of a cancerous organ that threatened the entire body.

  “Nicky Scarfo hated me,” Natale recalled. “’Cause he knew I wanted to kill him. He did. Angelo Bruno made me swear to him, face-to-face, that I wouldn’t do it. The truth of the matter is he told me, ‘No, you can’t. His two uncles came over here and helped fight in the old war,’ and this and that.

  “Why did I want to kill him? Because of what he is. I knew he was in Atlantic City talking to other people. He’s gonna cause a problem.”

  In the early seventies the two men had a run-in over control of Local 54, representing the seaside resort’s hotel and restaurant workers. Scarfo had befriended the union’s president, Frank Gerace, and tried to lay claim to the labor boss. Natale, backed by the Chicago–New York–Philadelphia triumvirate, was then merging the Atlantic City local with his own, Local 170.

  Why? “One reason,” Natale explained. “To be in complete control if and when gambling came to Atlantic City.”

  Scarfo registered a beef over Natale’s intrusion into his business and quickly wound up on the losing end of the debate. Angelo Bruno squashed Scarfo’s bid for control, firmly ruling that Natale was in complete control of the mob’s union interests in Atlantic City. The two unions would eventually become one.

  Natale knew that Scarfo was a bitter man with a long memory, and the animosity between the two men lingered. Natale had little use for Scarfo as either a mafioso or a man, as he made clear decades later:

  “Nicky Scarfo is a sick, demented man. I’m sorry I listened to Ang, but he made me swear—it was a personal thing. He said it would kill the uncles. I told him, ‘Go to Sicily for a couple weeks, go take a trip. Just leave it to me.’ And he said, ‘You can’t do that.’”