Last Don Standing Read online

  In an odd quirk, law enforcement summoned Natale as they investigated Hoffa’s death, asking about their afternoon at the Rickshaw. The mob killer was insulted at the insinuation that he was involved: “I said, ‘Don’t even ask that. I would never do that. You know my MO—not with friends.’”

  12

  ROLL OF THE DICE

  Carlo Gambino died on October 15, 1976, without ever seeing his vision for Atlantic City come to fruition or fortune. The old don, before his passing, had turned control of his eponymous family to his brother-in-law Paul Castellano.

  The move made sense to Gambino, whose sons were entrenched in Manhattan’s Garment District. His mob family was considered the strongest and wealthiest on the East Coast, if not the nation.

  To Ralphy, it was a choice fraught with disaster. The selection was driven by Gambino’s greed, keeping everything that he had created in control of his own family, and not his “family.” His personal fortune would be protected, and he believed Castellano would rule using the template of Gambino’s reign as a guide going forward.

  But many in the Gambino rank and file supported the elevation of respected underboss Aniello Dellacroce, creating a schism among the mighty family. The man known as Mr. Neil also had the respect of leaders atop the other four families of the Big Apple.

  “A monumental error in judgment that was to sound the death knell for the family,” Natale observed decades down the road. “He badly misjudged his capos’ reactions, and those of the soldiers on the street.”

  The choice reminded Natale of an old Sicilian proverb: “For without the hammer, the nails would still stand upright.” Castellano was not strong enough to drive the family nails.

  The decision echoed on the streets in Philadelphia, too, where Bruno’s alliance with the late don had long provided him with an unassailable ally—an organized crime ace in the hole. Looking back, Natale sees Castellano’s rise as the beginning of everybody else’s fall.

  “It was the biggest mistake Gambino would ever make in his life,” said Natale. “Paul thought everything was calm in his family. But greed caused all the problems, in his own family and everywhere else. Paul was a legitimate guy, too—he ran a successful company, Blue Ribbon Meats. His two sons were legitimate guys, everything would be in place.

  “It doesn’t work that way. He didn’t know what was in these other guys’ minds. He didn’t read ’em right. To run a Mafia family, you gotta be the top mafioso.”

  Such concerns were not on the table when Castellano and Bruno—two dons doomed to die before their time—met in the hours after New Jersey voters gave their stamp of approval to casino gambling on November 2, 1976. The late-night supper at Valentine’s in Cherry Hill was a time to celebrate a bright future for their two families, to toast the absolute power of La Cosa Nostra.

  As the new Gambino boss, Castellano was there to assure that the decade-old deal between the families was still intact.

  “Paulie, great things happen when you have patience,” Bruno assured him. The Las Vegas of the East was indeed now theirs—along with the family in Chicago—the Docile Don assured his dinner companion. Castellano, trying to mask his euphoria, reached across the table to touch Bruno’s hand in a show of respect.

  Big Paulie recalled the words that Gambino had shared from his sickbed: Angelo Bruno was a trusted partner and an unshakable friend. His word was his bond.

  Castellano told Bruno those feelings were mutual. “Angelo, I will handle everything on my end by myself, with Chicago and the Commission. And I will make sure Ralphy receives all the support needed to finish this move.”

  Not even a threat delivered months later by New Jersey governor Brendan Byrne could dampen the exuberance. “Keep your filthy hands out of Atlantic City,” Byrne warned the mob, already too late, in June 1977. “Keep the hell out of our state.”

  The mob’s vision for the seedy city with its no-account cast of characters was becoming a reality. Best of all for Castellano, New York City’s four other families—the Genovese, Colombo, Lucchese, and Bonanno borgatas—were on the outside looking in. The combined firepower of Philadelphia and the Gambinos would keep poachers from thinking twice about wetting their beaks.

  On the same celebratory night, in a bar two hours north off the New Jersey Turnpike, the first seeds of treachery were taking root despite the triumph at the polls. “Tony Bananas” Caponigro watched the election returns at his bar Down Neck in Newark, a martini sitting in front of him on the mahogany bartop. Alongside sat his brother-in-law, the made man Freddie Salerno. Both were with the Philadelphia family, and Caponigro was Bruno’s consigliere—a trusted adviser.

  The vote to approve casino gambling stirred only anger and bitterness in the mob veteran Caponigro. For the first time in decades, control of Atlantic City would actually lead to a cash windfall for the Philadelphia family. And now they would share their good fortune with the Gambinos of New York? The thought ate at Caponigro, who nursed a long-standing grudge against Carlo Gambino.

  Way back when, the ruling Commission declared Newark an “open city”—free for any of the five families or the Philadelphia faction to conduct business. The ruling rankled Caponigro, the lookout man for the two shooters in the October 23, 1935, murder of bootlegger Dutch Schultz at the Palace Chop House in Newark. He expected, as a reward, to operate as the don of the city, running his Jersey fiefdom as an independent.

  “But it was not to be,” Natale recounted. “And he later found out it was Carlo Gambino who persuaded the Commission to ‘open’ the city of Newark.”

  Caponigro, known for his furious temper, felt the bile rise in his throat as he addressed Salerno with increasing bitterness. “All agreements and promises should be buried with Gambino when they put him in the grave,” he snapped. “We owe nothing to that big jerk-off Big Paul, who is a boss only because of his sister’s big ass.”

  Salerno and the other hangers-on were shocked by the crude remark, but he knew that was the least of his concerns with Caponigro. Salerno sipped his martini and considered all the good that had come to him and his friend: Organized crime in Newark was theirs alone, a lucrative mix of gambling, loan-sharking, hijacking goods from the nearby docks and pharmaceutical plants. They kept their stolen stock in a pair of warehouses, like a legitimate retailer. And Freddie was full partner in a jewelry store in Manhattan’s Diamond District. Both were, unlikely as it might once have seemed, now millionaires.

  Life was good. But Freddie Salerno suddenly had a bad feeling. He sat in silence as the venom dripped from his pal’s lips. Salerno had good reason to worry about the thoughts running through Caponigro’s head. Salerno had worked as the getaway driver on several hits attributed to Tony Bananas, a mob killer through and through. Caponigro always insisting on pulling the trigger himself, a move that he saw as simple self-preservation: If one of his men did the “work” and felt the rush of taking a life, Tony Bananas might face a rival for control of Newark.

  “All the years of watching the life light leave the eyes of the men that he executed only increased his paranoia that another shooter would find killing as easy to do as he had,” Natale said. “He was mistaken. Most men must kill because they are ordered to do so. And it was also a requirement for induction into La Cosa Nostra.

  “Many of these men dread the thought of ever again being ordered to take a life, unlike Tony Bananas. This was the power he held over everyone else in his regime.”

  13

  MEETING MR. STANFA

  One warm spring afternoon in South Philly, Natale swung by Snyder Avenue to visit with the boss. Angelo Bruno had sent word through his partner business partner Raymond “Long John” Martorano, who had just moved into a home about ten minutes away from Natale in New Jersey. The new arrangement allowed Bruno to easily reach out for Natale with no direct contact, his preferred way of doing business.

  The trip brought back everything Natale loved about the old neighborhood: blankets, sheets, and bedspreads flapping in the breez
e from the second-story windows of the row houses, the new mothers pushing their newborns in strollers down the narrow streets, the sweet smell of the changing seasons in the air. But summer loomed just three months ahead with its stifling heat and humidity, and the boss’s wife, Sue, had asked for an air conditioner in the kitchen. Bruno never refused his wife and family anything, and this request was quickly granted.

  Natale had never laid eyes on the man installing the unit, a Sicilian immigrant named John Stanfa. Born in a mountain village, Stanfa came to Philadelphia with quite a backstory. A made man on his native island, Stanfa arrived in New York and connected with his relatives in the big city. His nephew John was already a made man in the Gambino family, and his two brothers were major heroin dealers in the South Jersey area.

  John Gambino asked his own uncle, Carlo Gambino, for permission to find Stanfa a new home in Philadelphia. Stanfa could provide an inside look at the Bruno family, working as a mole to keep New York abreast of developments down south. Stanfa signed off on the deal; so did Carlo Gambino.

  The family boss made a phone call to Bruno, looking to secure a welcoming haven for the new immigrant. Bruno, as customary among the Mafia’s dons, welcomed the friend of his friend with open arms.

  Stanfa launched a small construction company, financed by Bruno. The Philly boss went a step beyond, instructing all in his family to use Stanfa if they needed any work done.

  Natale, after a light and polite knock, was greeted by Sue Bruno. “Is the chief in?” Natale inquired.

  “He is.” She smiled. “And why are you here so early?”

  Natale smiled right back. “When Caesar calls, I come.” Sue steered him toward the kitchen and the air-conditioner project. She raised her eyebrows in mock appreciation of the effort, but Natale knew she was flattered that her husband put her concerns first on this fine day. The two men were speaking in Sicilian when Natale found them.

  Even before they met, Natale bore a natural distrust toward the Zip—a derogatory term used by the American-born mobsters for their Sicilian-born counterparts. Stanfa was two steps up a ladder as Natale eyed him carefully. The two men were about the same age and the same diminutive size. The ever-suspicious Natale waited to see what else he would learn about the man in his boss’s home.

  “This is John Stanfa,” said Bruno as the man came down the ladder and toward Natale. “He’s good friends with the Gambinos.”

  Stanfa extended his hand in greeting. Natale, giving the hand an extratight squeeze, stared in the Sicilian’s eyes. After years of judging men of all stripes under all kinds of circumstances, Natale didn’t like what he saw. He decided Stanfa was an ass-kisser, eager to please on the surface, but dangerous at the core. Natale kept his opinion to himself, instead offering a compliment on the new air conditioner.

  Stanfa soon ingratiated himself with Bruno and the rest of the Philadelphia family—particularly consigliere Caponigro and trusted capo Frank Sindone. Underboss Testa was among the few put off by Stanfa’s obsequious behavior and servile façade.

  The Chicken Man proved more astute than his boss, as Stanfa’s true loyalty remained with his cousins in New York. Their unbreakable bonds were forged in the heat of their mountainous Mediterranean home, and a trip across the ocean did nothing to break them. They would instead shatter the family at the other end of the New Jersey Turnpike.

  14

  SOMETHING’S BURNING

  Natale was now in his forties, his mob reputation burnished by his work and his future bright, when a legitimate guy—a lawyer, no less—approached him about providing a loan for a South Jersey furniture business somewhat bizarrely named Mr. Living Room. The owner would buy his product at a discount below the Mason-Dixon Line, ship it north, and slap an inflated price tag on every piece.

  Natale had the money: By now, he was leasing and running a restaurant inside the Holiday Inn opposite the track. The spot on Route 70 had become a hub of mob business and a clubhouse for the Natale crew, and he held court there most every day.

  “Friends of Mr. Bruno—and anybody who was with me—they made a living there,” he explained. “You ever play pitching quarters? This is us, inside the restaurant. We’re not betting enough across the street! So in between, we pitch quarters for twenty dollars a game. It was fun. It was like kids hanging out in the neighborhood.”

  But Natale still jumped at the chance to collect easy cash from the furniture salesman. It was a can’t-miss operation—until Natale’s future in Atlantic City and elsewhere went up in flames.

  “The attorney came to me—nice guy, nice family,” Natale recounts of his ill-fated investment. “He says, ‘By the way, the owner could use a couple hundred thousand to buy some furniture, cheap.” I said, ‘Yeah, okay. How is he, good with the payments? Would you stand for him if he missed?’ He said, ‘Sure I would.’ Okay, good. A couple hundred thousand dollars cash.”

  A meeting between Ralphy and the owner was arranged; Mr. Living Room turned out to be a guy named Sam. The men shook hands, and Natale explained the particulars of their business arrangement: “This is serious here. Make your payments.”

  Inevitably, Sam did not. “This, that, the weather, this thing,” recalled Natale. The mafioso had a solution to their problem: arson. “I had a crew—the Hatchet, Ronnie Turchi. Forget about it—it would be hard to find out it was arson. I said, ‘Do you have insurance? Let me see the insurance policy.’”

  The policy was for $1 million. A plan was set in motion. Natale immediately declared that he wanted to double the $200,000 loan for his troubles, unless he decided that taking half of the million-dollar payout was more appropriate for the aggravation. The only bump in the road, as far as Natale could see, was the guard dog left in the store every night.

  “I told him, ‘We’re gonna set this place on fire. Make sure the dog ain’t in the building that night, ’cause if the dog’s inside, I’m gonna be angry,’” Natale recalled. The dog was spared, and Mr. Living Room was torched. Everything looked good until an insurance adjuster came to interview Sam—who caved under questioning.

  “This guy comes up, for some reason there’s an argument,” Natale recalled of the conversation that caused his downfall. “Sam says, ‘I think there’s been an arson. And I’ve been doing things with [the arsonists] for a long time. To the insurance guy! And that was the end of that.

  “That’s how we all got indicted. What do I know? He was making money off the arson. I could have rammed my head into a wall. I got twelve years on that, but I was out on bail.”

  Which gave Natale a chance to visit sunny Florida. On the whole, to paraphrase W. C. Fields, he was far better off in Philadelphia: good weather and bad luck awaited.

  The arson bust, while in no way a blessing, was hardly the curse that Natale initially feared. The murders of McGreal and Feeney remained unsolved. An arson charge was a comparatively minor blip on Natale’s crooked highway. The initial gut punch of the possible twelve-year sentence waned as new business prospects cropped up.

  “It was a shock, twelve years—son of a bitch!” he said. “I got jammed up. What was I gonna do? It wasn’t a big deal, not to me, because I thought they knew some of the things that would put me away for the rest of my life. At that time, I woulda done five, six years. By the time I get into shape, I’ll be home.”

  Natale was out on bail pending his appeal when another lucrative opportunity knocked in the person of his old nemesis Charlie Allen, accompanied by one of Ralphy’s cousins—Raymond Bernard, the son of his beloved aunt Dolly. Bernard was married with kids and had a penchant for gambling—and losing.

  “A printer by trade,” Natale says now. “And a gambler and conniver by choice.”

  The proposal was a moneymaking drug deal for half a million quaaludes and ten kilos of cocaine.

  “I, being the bighearted man that I am—it’s my cousin, right?” he said. “Money was easy with me. I’m making it, doing a thousand things. Raymond says, ‘Please, Ralphy.’ And my aunt—she wa
s always good to me.”

  It sounded promising, but Natale was blinded by the cash and in the dark about his partners. Allen was now in his third year working as a confidential informant for the Philadelphia office of the FBI. He had agreed one year earlier to become a federal witness after his arrest for running a meth lab with Bernard in Swampoodle. Bernard flipped, too, with both men promised a walk if they cooperated in a sting targeting Natale.

  “They get a little house in the Irish neighborhood,” Natale related. “Of course, they’re trying to make meth—it blows up. It’s very volatile, that stuff. They fucking get caught. The cops say, ‘Charlie, you don’t have to worry.’ They set him up because they thought, ‘We gotta get Ralphy off the streets because of Atlantic City, we don’t want him there.’

  “Charlie was a rat to begin with. I heard when he came home from Lewisburg, he went to the FBI and said, ‘I need money. I’ll be a confidential informant.’ An agent told me that! And that’s the end of that.”

  Allen handled the introductions of all parties involved. His partners were Drug Enforcement Administration undercovers. Negotiations were done on a forty-two-foot yacht moored in sunny Florida. Natale was aboard when the bust came down at 6:00 a.m. on February 8, 1979; he walked off the luxury boat and into a pair of handcuffs.

  “Where was I gonna be?” he asks now with a sly grin. “A seedy motel?”

  But there was no denying how sharply the DEA sting, arranged by a blood relative and a mob associate from his hometown, stung Natale.

  “They set me up!” he said, still irate forty years later. “I felt sorry for them. They got caught up in something. I felt pity for them. I went down to Florida, I’m on the boat: ‘Don’t worry, the money’s there.’ Boom! The next thing I know, I’m locked up. Forget about it. It was crazy. It really was.”