Last Don Standing Page 5

  “They went in there and said they ran all the girl dancers and started shaking the owners down,” Natale said. “So Carlo Gambino, he’s paying Ang—you’re supposed to take care of these things. Gambino wants to know what’s going on.”

  Bruno reached out to his legitimate business partner, “Long John” Martorano, who grabbed a pal and headed down to Market Street.

  “You know what they tell him? ‘Go fuck yourself. The girls belong to us. We don’t give a fuck who sent you. We gotta get some money out of this.’ They sent another guy, they told him, ‘Get the fuck away from us,’” Natale remembered. “Now Ang tells Long John, ‘Get the Chinaman.’”

  That was Bruno’s nickname for Natale. “He said, ‘Your face, I couldn’t tell if you were happy or unhappy or whatever,’” Natale recalled with a chuckle. “And I called him the Chief. Nobody else was allowed to do that.”

  Bruno’s directions were simple—the bikers were making him look bad with his friend in New York. Take care of it.

  Natale couldn’t resist the chance to tweak the Chief. “I said, ‘Didn’t you already send those other guys up there?’ He knew I liked to give it to him every once in a while. I always told him the same thing: ‘Give me two weeks and it will be done. What do you want me to say, two days? Two weeks.’ And somebody was found shot in a car, shot or whatever. The bikers, they moved out—completely.”

  A delighted DiB invited Natale to Little Italy for the annual Feast of San Gennaro, a mob-run street party. The Gambino capo offered to cover all expenses. Natale, never a fan of the New York families, tried unsuccessfully to stay home.

  “Ang knew how I felt about these New Yorkers, they’re never around for you. Plus it cost you four hundred dollars to park in New York, even then!” Natale recalled. “They all think that driving a green car is bad luck, and I drove a green Buick.”

  But he soon found himself in a darkened Little Italy restaurant, shaking hands with the grateful Mr. DiBernardo. They ate and drank a bit, and then DiB invited Natale for a walk through the neighborhood. It was time to put away the cannoli and talk turkey.

  “He says, ‘You know my principal business. Would you like to get into that? I could set you up. You don’t need anything—I’ve got the studios, I’ve got everything,’” recalled Natale, who had never even been inside a peep-show booth. “I was doing so good at that time, I said I appreciated it, but I did what I did for you know who. And I’d do it again if he asked. I never mentioned [Bruno’s] name in my lifetime. He says, ‘If you ever change your mind, you let me know.’”

  DiB later made headlines when his name surfaced in the 1984 presidential race, with allegations that he rented space from vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro’s husband. Two years later, DiB was murdered on orders from Gambino family boss John Gotti.

  The Philly peep-show operation was, in the grand scheme of the Mafia, small potatoes. Bruno and Gambino, it turned out, had much bigger fish to fry in Atlantic City.

  8

  WHERE THE SAND IS TURNIN’ TO GOLD

  By the 1960s, once-proud Atlantic City was reeling: The easy money was long gone, the boardwalk was seedy, the future was as bleak as a December sky over the waves crashing on the Atlantic shoreline. The truth was undeniable: the seaside resort was now little more than Bayonne with a beach.

  But the city had long provided a haven for the mob, going back to the days of bootlegging and the stewardship of Enoch “Nucky” Johnson—a visionary whose exploits became fodder for the HBO show Boardwalk Empire. To Mafia men with the same foresight, rumors of legalized gambling in Atlantic City sounded like thousands of cash registers ringing.

  Few could see the future more clearly than Carlo Gambino, the head of the nation’s most powerful mob family, the New York borgata that bore his name. He presciently conjured dollar signs among the desolation.

  In 1966, Bruno was called to the Ferrara Bakery and Café, a pasticceria in Little Italy, to discuss the future with his friend and Mafia mentor Gambino. The scent of anise and lemon floated in the air as the two men of substance and power sat amid the regulars ordering their cappuccinos and Italian pastries. The pair shared espresso and a plate of biscotti.

  Two octogenarian men sitting nearby recognized Gambino. They discreetly took off their caps and lowered their eyes in recognition. Gambino offered a gracious smile in response before getting down to business.

  The topic was the decrepit shorefront city under control of the Philadelphia family. Word had reached Gambino, through Wall Street–connected lawyers working for his sons Thomas and Joseph, that a quiet but steady drumbeat had started for casino gambling in Atlantic City. There was no timetable, but Gambino—though no Boy Scout—was always prepared.

  The wheels were set in motion to insure the Mafia would land on the ground floor of the new casinos rising on the boardwalk. With Bruno on board, Gambino broached the idea of bringing in the Chicago family—the Outfit, as it was known, the mob birthed in blood by Al Capone. The family was experienced in the ways of unions and legalized gambling from decades entrenched in Las Vegas.

  It was Gambino, not Bruno, who suggested Natale could be of service in the mob’s new enterprise. Gambino spoke in a whisper, leaning forward so the conversation would remain between the two of them: “Angelo, a few years ago you had a young man meet with me at my son’s office at the trucking company. I think his name was Natale. You made a comment about this young man that I put here”—pointing to his head—“for such a time as now. Am I mistaken?”

  Bruno smiled at the mention of his young friend—and the encyclopedic memory of his older one. “Yes, Carlo. You don’t forget too much, do you?”

  Gambino broached Natale’s name for a position in Local 170 of the bartenders’ union, giving the mob a legitimate foothold when the new Atlantic City opened for business. Gambino said the two East Coast bosses needed to send an emissary to the Windy City, where the mighty Tony Accardo ruled and ran the mob-controlled unions. His nickname, Joe Batters, came from a penchant for applying a Louisville Slugger on the heads of those who ran afoul of his rule.

  “This young man of yours,” Gambino said in measured tones, “might be the one.”

  Bruno was immediately aware of the enormity of this discussion: three families, working together, to make a fortune from casinos that did not now exist even on some architect’s drawing board. Yet he unhesitatingly jumped in with both feet.

  “Ralphy has my complete trust,” he answered firmly. “His loyalty shall be shared by you and me when we send him to our friends in Chicago as our man.”

  Gambino agreed, and so it was—over coffee, in a restaurant on Grand Street—that the mob began carving up Atlantic City before the first foundation was poured. The decision, though it would bear bitter fruit for both families in the ensuing decades, seemed a stroke of genius on this day. Gambino would handle the arrangements with Chicago.

  Natale recalled how Bruno broke the news to him: “Ang told me that Gambino—he remembered me, he was a wise old man—he remembered that Ang told him, ‘This guy would kill for me, without question and without causing a furor.’ And Gambino said, ‘Don’t you think we should send him to Chicago?’

  “Then we met: me, Angelo Bruno, and Carlo Gambino, before I went to Chicago. We made a pact: This is till the day we die. The three of us. And they sent word to Chicago: It’s not just Ang. It’s Bruno and Gambino that I represent. Nobody ever got that part. How do they think I got there? Because I’m handsome?

  “I’m not bad looking. But six feet tall, I’m not.”

  The promotion came with an unexpected bonus: Natale would become a made man. He had rejected the offer before, but this time it was made directly by Gambino and Bruno.

  “Skinny Razor had asked me if I wanted to get made,” Natale recounted. “I told him, ‘You’re gonna get me killed! Don’t do that!’ Because I really didn’t like a lot of skippers in the family. I knew I would get in trouble because their word is the rule. And Skinny told m
e, ‘Ang knows who you are, and what you are.’ That was good enough for me.

  “I had the best of everything because I was a part of it but I didn’t have to answer to anybody. That wasn’t for me—‘Oh, skipper, here I am.’ You know what I’m saying? I wasn’t gonna do it if they put me under somebody besides Skinny Razor, and he had a small crew.”

  But this time, it was the proverbial offer that Natale couldn’t refuse—membership as a made man by direct invitation from his boss and the most powerful mafioso in the United States. The highly unusual ceremony, attended by just the three men, was held in a Gambino-controlled building inside Manhattan’s Garment District.

  “Ang and Carlo got together, and they told me, ‘Don’t tell anybody about this,’” Natale remembered of that day. “We pricked our fingers and put our blood together. Carlo Gambino told me, ‘You belong to me now, and you belong to Ang.’ Of course, I was honored.”

  For Natale, it was the unexpected pinnacle of his life in organized crime: “I left there feeling like I was untouchable. I felt like I could do anything for my wife and family that I ever wanted to do. I felt almost invincible.”

  But the newly made man had work to do. Within weeks, Natale was winging west to meet with Ed Miller, the president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union. The occasion was a convention called in the city where Accardo reigned supreme.

  “Carlo Gambino always believed in acting swiftly,” Natale explained. He arrived, as instructed, at the Sherman Hotel in downtown Chicago and waited in his room for a phone call. When it came, union official Phil Valli—who was tied both to Chicago and to Milwaukee boss Frank “Mr. Big” Balistrieri—was down in the lobby. Valli said he was coming upstairs. Natale hung up and waited. A soft knock came, and Natale—more out of habit than anything else—peered through the peephole. He opened the door, and Ralph Natale’s future walked into the room.

  The two men shook hands and exchanged pleasantries before heading downstairs to meet with Miller at the hotel bar. Natale was dressed more like an English banker than a mob killer: dark blue pinstripe suit, solid burgundy tie over a white-on-white shirt, a pair of highly polished Allen Edmonds shoes on his feet.

  “You look like you’re supposed to look,” Valli declared after sizing up the five-foot-six Natale.

  The Sherman’s cocktail lounge featured a huge horseshoe-shaped bar, flanked by tables filled with conventioneers. Valli steered Natale through the crowd to the spot at the bar where Miller held court, surrounded by his own retinue of sycophants hanging on his every word. Natale approached slowly, waiting for an invitation from Miller in a show of respect for the union head. Natale would only speak once spoken to.

  “Who am I to walk up when he’s talking to one of the vice presidents?” Natale said of his respectful reticence. “You should never approach a man of power, or a dangerous man, quickly. I learned that young.”

  Miller, once a union leg-breaker, had worked his way up through the ranks to his current lofty position. As Natale hung back, Valli and Miller spoke. Valli finally gestured for Natale to join them.

  “I am Ed Miller,” the man declared in a whiskey rasp. “I know who you are.” The introduction was followed by a smile and a firm handshake that spoke volumes to Natale about the man, who was four decades his senior. Decades later, he recalled looking into Miller’s eyes: “They had seen it all. He was the real deal.” Natale knew immediately he was in the presence of a kindred spirit.

  Miller asked if Natale wanted a drink. “I’ll have what you’re drinking, Mr. Miller,” he replied respectfully. “It has a great aroma.”

  Miller summoned the barkeep: “Dutch, give everyone fresh drinks. And give me and my young friend here a couple of Bushmills straight up, with water chasers, so we can converse intelligently.” The two raised their glasses in a toast before any business began.

  “I felt a comfort drinking with Miller, like I had known him forever,” Natale said. “I knew that I and this old cowboy from Kansas City would talk, and everything would be as the three old men”—Gambino, Accardo, and Bruno—“would want it to be.”

  The next day, Natale was appointed as a special international union organizer, with powers to negotiate contracts everywhere and anywhere. The mob stars had aligned, and the future of Atlantic City—for better or worse—was a done deal for the three crime families. All they had to do now was wait. And wait they did, patiently, for a full decade.

  In November 1974, the voters of New Jersey rejected a referendum to legalize gambling in the dilapidated shore resort. Two years later, by a slim measure, the vote went the other way. Atlantic City’s first casino, Resorts International, opened its doors on May 26, 1978.

  In the interim, Natale became head of Local 170 in the late sixties, earning a modest $18,500 a year plus another $1,500 for his work with the international. Despite the five-figure on-the-books salary, he owned a $45,000 four-bedroom home in Pennsauken, New Jersey, and a second home in Palm Springs, California. Natale also boasted a $100,000 condo that he considered an investment. His reach soon included virtually all the union locals on the East Coast.

  “I liked it right away,” he said of the union job. “We took that union over in New Jersey. I told them, ‘Who’s your lawyer? How much does he charge you? He was on a retainer of one thousand dollars a month, plus whatever he does he’s charging us extra. I said, ‘Gimme all the contracts. We’re done with him. Now call him on the phone.’ I told him, ‘We can’t afford you.’ And then I made my own contracts up, just following what he did. What am I, a moron?”

  Ralph and Lucia enjoyed the perks of his new gig. In contrast to the future Genovese family boss Vincent “the Chin” Gigante, who spent most of his life without leaving the crowded Greenwich Village streets where he was born and raised, Natale traveled far and wide on the union’s dime: Miami, Belle Harbor, Florida, San Francisco, Hawaii … Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill once popped in for a drink at the Palm Springs house. Natale loved the horses, and he would take Lucia to the venerable Saratoga racetrack in the summer to watch the races and the people.

  “I did union work in Boston, Detroit, Milwaukee, California—anyplace I had to go and take care of business,” he explained. “I was welcomed everywhere, by the bosses and capos. It was a great thing.”

  The Natales traveled to a Teamsters convention in Honolulu, where they checked into a nice Sheraton hotel. Natale was given a ceremonial position at the event so he could pocket a few extra bucks each day. He then headed to the host hotel, a Hilton overlooking the sparkling blue waters of the Pacific Ocean, to check in with union boss Ed Hanley as Lucia did some island shopping, Hanley was outraged that the Natales weren’t staying in the Hilton.

  “I said it was just too crowded, I couldn’t get a room over there,” Ralph said. “He told one of his stooges, call up the Sheraton, go over there and pick everything up, and bring it over here. Now.”

  Problem solved. Life was good, and getting better all the time.

  Before long Natale had a face-to-face meeting with the nation’s most powerful union boss, Teamsters president James Riddle Hoffa. The get-together was arranged by Anthony Provenzano, known to one and all as Tony Pro—and to a select few as a capo in the Genovese family. Provenzano ran the powerful Teamsters Local 560, based in Union City, New Jersey, and was part of Hoffa’s inner circle.

  “Tony asked me, ‘Would you like to meet him?’” Natale recalled. “Just take a plane to Detroit. We’ll set it up.”

  Hoffa and Natale became fast friends, sharing a mutual admiration that transcended their profitable business relationship. They shared a similar view of life, a good sense of humor, and a particular bluntness in conversation.

  “A man’s man,” Natale recalled. “He didn’t have anything else besides the union. I always said he didn’t drink, he didn’t chase women. He was complete power—controlled all the transit, from coast to coast. I respected him so much as a man.”

  Once Natale reache
d the Motor City, he received a call with details about the time and place for their initial encounter.

  “I didn’t know Detroit, so they had to tell me where to go,” he said. “I walked in, and he looked so good—Jimmy Hoffa, with some of his men. He was a real man, a smart man, a wise man. We shook hands, and of course I waited for him to speak first. What he said was simple: ‘You wouldn’t be here unless you were the man I was told you are. And I’m told you know what to do, and how to do it.’”

  Natale didn’t need an interpreter and replied, “I’m here for you. If you think you can’t depend on me, then I shouldn’t go back to Philadelphia.”

  His reply carried an unspoken message: “What I was saying was, ‘If you can’t trust me, you should kill me.’ He knew what I meant. And he said, ‘Okay, now you can have anything you need—credit cards, money, whatever.’ From then on, I was there whenever he needed me, for whatever he needed me for.”

  The first order of business was a problem with a union local in Ralph’s hometown.

  “I always have problems in Philadelphia,” Hoffa said. “Would you mind if I ask my friends here and your friend over there, if I have little problems, can I send for you and explain something to do?”

  The friends involved were the Detroit mob and Bruno—“he never mentioned names, Jimmy,” Natale recalled. “I said, ‘Why not—if my friend says okay. He’s my chief.’ And Jimmy depended on me, and I liked that. I never said how much, who, why, where? He’d give me a nice envelope, and I never got less than fifty thousand dollars—and that was a lot of money at that time.”

  Things went on from there: “We laughed and we talked. He told me, ‘Anything you want, you feel free to come straight to me. And if there’s something really important, I’ll come to see you in New Jersey.’ I mentioned the names of a few of my ‘good friends,’ and he told me, ‘I already called them. You have the recommendation of Tony Pro.’”

  Natale recalled one of his first assignments from Hoffa: “Somebody had a problem in the brewery down in Philadelphia, Schmidt’s. They were looking to buy this and that there, and Ang of course said, ‘Ralphy, handle this. Do what you have to do over there.’”