Six Years Inside the Mafias: how I worked my way through college: a true story

by Yari Stern

  “We all have our problems, ma’am, and they always seem more important and more difficult than anyone else’s,” Sam commiserated.

  Yari stood next to the racks of boys’ suits, fumbling with hangers, taken in by his father’s eternal patience. He wanted to be more like his dad, but he just couldn’t see the path from where he was.

  “Don’t . be . givin’ . me . no . lecture . ‘bout . problems,” the customer rebuked, slapping the air after each word with a pair of baby’s stockings. “Ah . be . livin’ . in . hell . while . y’all . be . livin’ . in . heaven.” She picked up her valise-size purse, spun around, dragging the loose socks onto the ground, and walked out of the store.

  “Abi gezunt dos leben ken men zikh ale mol nemen,” Sam called out after the woman.

  “What?” Yari asked. “It’s Yiddish, right?”

  “It means, ‘Stay healthy, so you can kill yourself later.’”

  Sam waited till the front door closed, then bent down on arthritic knees to retrieve the pieces.

  “About my problem, Dad--”

  “I can’t do anything,” Sam said as he stood up.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to have to quit the police department or face an inquiry over the charges Foxx intends to bring against me. You do remember it was your relationship with Sylvan that caused that?”

  “But you can’t quit,” he insisted. “The department’s your life!”

  “I called my friend Dave Malone. He can’t go to bat for me this time. His hands are tied. Frank Rizzo has friends just as powerful as Dave.” Sam moved deliberately from around the counter. “There’s no fixing this one. I’ve already taken a leave of absence until my sick time runs out.”

  “You’ve gotten through worse than that before.” Yari’s voice still reflected remnants of hope.

  “Yes, but it got me to thinking about something you had said, about the system using people, draining them. That’s what they’re doing to me and all the honest people in the department,” Sam acknowledged, like Caesar under the knife of Brutus. “Now there aren’t enough of us left to make a difference anymore.“ He sat down heavily on a stepladder.

  “Don’t ever listen to me. I haven’t made a right move in years!” Yari looked over to a father whom he once saw as eternal and immutable. Now weariness overcame strength; acceptance conquered faith.

  “I can’t even protect myself any longer,” Sam said, “let alone you.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Ardmore, Pa.

  Yari drove back to his home in Ardmore. But his heart and mind were still back at the store and with his father. I hope I learned enough to save us both.

  He parked his T-Bird in the driveway but did not enter the house. He wandered the streets - gravitating toward the ball field where he and Annie had made their grandiose plans. It seemed like a lifetime ago but was, in reality, only two years previous.

  He plopped down on the grass and plucked out a few blades of grass. He lifted them to his nose and drew in the scent. It reminded him of how long it had been since he was just a kid playing baseball in this same park. By the time he stood up it was well past dark. It took him twenty minutes, on heavy legs, to walk the three blocks back to the house.

  “Mr. Stern?” a voice called out just as he got to the top of the steps and the back door.

  “Who wants to know?” Yari turned and arrogantly questioned the two men dressed in expensive suits that hung crudely on tilted shoulders and bunched up over potbellies.

  “We represent Phil Testa. There’s the matter of an outstanding debt of five thousand dollars.”

  “Oh, yeah. I Western Union’d it earlier today.” Yari put the key in the lock and turned the knob. Before he could open the door the two men had bounded up the four steps of the landing and grabbed him by the collar of his coat.

  “We need to take a little ride, wise guy.” The smaller of the two did the talking as they escorted Yari to their Lincoln sitting across the street.

  “Don’t make a sound. Don’t try to run. It’ll get a lot worse if ya do,” the taller thug said as he pushed Yari into the back seat of the sedan, then got in next to him. The other goon hopped in front and drove off.

  “Where we headed?” Yari asked.

  Neither one answered him.

  “You gotta be crazy fuckin’ with me. Do you know who my dad is?” Yari’s voice cracked. “He’s Inspector Sam Stern, head of the Human Relations Division; broke Howard Leary into the department.” Yari looked at the driver through the rear view mirror for the response.

  “Yeah? We love cops,” the driver said with feigned sincerity, then shifted the mirror to his partner. “We have one for breakfast every day.” Then, in unison, they broke out in laughter.

  The man seated next to Yari patted his hand. “Hey, kid, remember me?” he asked, smiling broadly

  “No, should I?”

  “The night you came in the club to see Phil?”

  “And…?”

  “You called me retarded.”

  “It’s just an expression.”

  “Oh, that supposed to make it okay?”

  “I was trying to be a wise guy so I would fit it.”

  “Ya hear that, Mike?”

  “Yeah, Tony. I heard.”

  “He wants to fit in! Maybe he’s a clairvoyant. See, kid, I followed your advice and bought a dictionary!”

  “I didn’t--.”

  “Shut the fuck up, you punk,” Tony sneered.

  * * *

  The ride continued down the Vine Street Expressway and over the Walt Whitman Bridge into New Jersey. They passed less and less traffic as the night, and liberation, slipped away. It was almost eleven o’clock when the car pulled off the two-lane, paved White Horse Pike and turned north - toward the Pine Lands area of South Jersey - on a thin dirt road. Yari was agonizingly aware that it was a notorious dumping ground for ex-associates that needed to rest undisturbed.

  “This is it.” The driver stopped the car in a clearing of trees. When the door opened, the sound of crickets overwhelmed Yari, seeming to emanate from every direction.

  “Let’s go,” the thug next to Yari said as he kicked him out of the car.

  Yari rolled onto the twigs and leaves, then jumped to his feet and glanced around for a place to run. There was only pitch-blackness. Beyond the darkness he knew was swamp comprised of poorly buried corpses, mildewing leaves, and rotting tree fruit.

  The driver went behind the back of the car and opened the trunk. “Here, kid, this is for you,” the guy said as he threw a well-worn shovel at Yari.

  “What am I supposed to do with it?” Yari asked, catching the spade with one hand.

  “Start digging,” the driver demanded. He lit up a cigarette and sat down on a moss-covered rock.

  The muscle, who remained standing, clutched at his tie as if it was a hangman’s noose, never taking an eye off his quarry.

  Yari presented his “Sure, I’ll play along face” and walked over to where the driver had pointed. He couldn’t believe it wasn’t just a stunt to scare him, and that they would soon drop him off at his home back in Ardmore where he could still grab most of a night’s sleep. After all, no one had tried to fuck with the Stern family for a long time.

  Forty-five minutes later, “That’s good, right there.” The boss pitched his cigarette into the rectangular hole and started screwing a silencer onto the end of a thirty-eight caliber revolver. “Stand a little closer, kid. That way we won’t have ta get our clothes dirty draggin’ ya in.” The guy spoke like a homeowner directing his gardener as to where the plants should go.

  “Don’t you think we played this game long enough?” Yari asked.

  Neither man blinked.

  He tried to smile, but the message, and a new reality, was sinking in as fast as the marshy soil under his boots. So now I’m mulch for the trees; my bones, play things for dogs to root out one at a time, chewed up and then pissed on; my dead, sunken eyes snacks for vultures.
“Look, I know the same people you know. They can vouch for me.” Yari choked with emotion; his eyes started to water.

  “Who the fuck do you know that we give a shit about?” the top-man challenged.

  “Sylvan Skolnick, Ed Dein, Jack Trotter--”

  “You know Sylvan?” the boss asked with renewed respect.

  “I do business with him all the time.” Yari embellished on the only scrap he had going for him. “We’re working together on a big deal right now.”

  The head honcho winked his assistant over, then whispered in his ear. The muscle got in the car and drove off.

  Yari tried to ingratiate himself with the hood guarding him by relating some of his past adventures with Ed, Jack and Sylvan. The wise guy told him to shut the fuck up, so he sat in silence, the stark completeness of his imprisonment magnified by the ease with which creatures skittered around him

  Sometime later, car headlights broke the early morning darkness. When the driver got out to talk with his boss, his expression was as flat as it had been before he left.

  The two men huddled for a moment. “OK, kid,” the chief said, “ya got a temporary reprieve. Sylvan says to bring you to his place. It seems he wants you worse than we do. He’s gonna make good your markers. If it don’t work out, we’ll be back representin’ Sylvan, and we’ll find ya again, easy.”

  The three got back in the car and headed west.

  “Drop me by my place,” Yari said, turning from one man to the next. “I’ve got the dough stashed in my closet. That way I can bring it with me to Sylvan and straighten it out right there.”

  Neither wise guy seemed to recognize he was alive.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  Cherry Hill, NJ

  “Well, look who’s here? I knew you’d come back, even if ya needed a little help.”

  Sylvan smiled broadly at Yari then turned to the delivery service. “Thanks fellas. Here’s my marker and a little somethin’ for both of ya.” Sylvan slipped the men the paper, along with a fist full of rolled up bills.

  The two left by backing out the door.

  Professional courtesy, Yari figured.

  “Come sit down, kid. We’ve got lots to talk about.” Sylvan patted the soft, green cushion next to him, then picked up a manila folder lying prominently in the center on the sofa. “This is your big chance to square things.” His demeanor was eerily kind. Stroking the thick envelope, Sylvan continued, “This guy’s making life very difficult for me and a lot of my friends. Here’s a file of information on him.” Cherry Hill Fats reached out and handed it to Yari.

  “What do you want out of him?”

  “I don’t want anything out of him. I want you to put something in him!” Sylvan laughed at his own play on words.

  Herman and Jack joined in, but with less enthusiasm.

  “Like?”

  “Like lead or steel. Kill him. Is that clear enough?” Sylvan brushed his silk robe as if shifting the guilt off himself.

  Yari leafed through the pages. “Hey, I’ve seen this guy at city hall. He’s a state senator!” He then pushed the file back at Sylvan. “Why don’t you just pay him off?”

  “It ain’t that simple anymore. Those blood-suckin’ vampires want more dough all the time. It’s to the point where it almost pays to be legit.” Sylvan flinched from his own realization. “Besides, this guy’s untouchable as far as we’re concerned.”

  Yari used the pause to make his decision. “I told you, I’m done doing your dirty work.” He had, for the first time, seen a weakness. Now it was clear: the reign of The Cherry Hill Fats Mob was nearing an end. Killing a state senator was an insane act of desperation, a hand clutching at the last clump of grass on a steep, eroding cliff. “And don’t try to threaten me with burning down my grandmother’s store.”

  “Maybe I can’t burn the store down but I know a guy who will. He’s dying of cancer and wants to leave his wife enough to travel the world. He’ll torch the place, then I’ll waste him like I promised. He kills your people, I kill him, and that enables him to keep his promise. It’s perfect, don’t ya think?”

  “Let me see that file again,” Yari said, stalling for time and a chance to figure an out. “This doesn’t say where he lives, or what his schedule is.”

  “It’s the best we could come up with. He doesn’t give interviews.”

  “Jack’s the pro. Why not give the important jobs to him?”

  “This is one we need to farm out,” Sylvan retorted as he looked over to give reassurance to Jack.

  “I know what’s going through your mind, punk,” Jack said. “But there’s nowhere to run. You do him or I do you and everyone you’ve ever known.”

  “I’ll take care of this piece of business but that ends it between you and me, Sylvan,” Yari said as he got up and walked to the door.

  “Before ya go kid,” Sylvan said picking up a small, neatly wrapped package off the coffee table, “take this.” He handed it to Yari

  “What is it?” Yari asked, taking the package like it contained tarantulas.

  “If you can’t get close enough to this guy, put this under his car. There’s a remote detonator in there. Just make sure you’ve got line of sight.”

  “A bomb?” Yari asked.

  “TNT. Enough to sink the Bismark.”

  Jack and Herman laughed at that.

  If I kill anybody, it’ll be someone who really deserves it.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Ridge Ave. Phila. Pa.

  Yari sat serenely on a stool waiting for everyone to arrive. He had driven back to Stern’s Specialty Shop to say good-bye, but not a conventional departure. No, he was too serious, too inventive for that.

  “Are you hungry, tatela?” Bub asked as she emerged out of the hall leading from her second floor apartment. Gunshots, cries of help from battered wives and girlfriends, the scraping of pick-axes in the middle of the night by people trying to break into the building, nothing that Yari knew could sway Bub to leave her beloved dry-goods emporium. It was the only thing left after her husband had abandoned her and the family, and the children had gone on their own. She had pushed them all away, emotionally if not physically: husband Joe, daughters Toby and Reba, and son Morris, all except Sam, who saw only the good.

  “Huh?” he responded as he returned from his personal reflections. “Oh yeah, Bub, I’m starving. I can’t remember when I ate last.”

  “I’ve got latkes with powered sugar! How does that sound, boytshika?”

  Then, in retreat, he moaned, “Forget it. Don’t waste food on a dead man.” With hollow eyes and grating expression he continued, “I don’t even deserve the air I’m breathing.”

  “Don’t talk that way. It’s not for you to decide.” Bub reached as high as she could to stroke Yari’s face. “You’ve been given life. Now your obligation is to do all you can to make it better for yourself and everyone you touch.”

  “Do me a favor, give this letter to my dad after I leave today.”

  Bub looked up to catch Yari’s gaze. “Before, I’m always telling, but now I’m listening. What’s wrong? What are you going to do?”

  “I’ve got a plan to save a lot of people. It’s just going to take a little sacrifice.”

  He walked out of the kitchen, stopped by the telephone, and dialed with a shaky finger. “Senator Alan Street, please.” After several transfers, “Mr. Street?” Confirmation led him to quickly follow, “I’ve got some information concerning Cherry Hill Fats, and his plans to take you out.”

  “Really?” the voice responded, thick with sarcasm.

  “Hey, he never misses. You’d better go deep underground.”

  “Thanks for the tip, but he’s small potatoes compared to the fish I’ve already reeled in.”

  “Well I hope you get him. He got me, and lots of my friends.”

  “I can help. Tell me how you’re involved.”

  “I’m already dead. Forget about me.” Yari hung up but remained seated on his stool.

  An hou
r later, the family station wagon pulled up as Yari set some boxes outside, next to the fire hydrant. “Hi, Carl. Hi, Dad.” Yari spoke inertly. “Dad, can I talk to you for a minute?”

  “Sure, Yari,” Sam replied, then turned to his eldest son. “Carl, grab the cartons in the back of the wagon and take them in for me.”

  “Can we take a walk? There’s too many distractions in the store.”

  His father nodded and followed Yari down The Ridge, toward Fairmount Avenue. Sam could not hide the obvious pain he endured in his knees even while moving haltingly.

  Yari tucked his hands deep into a thin windbreaker, while Sam buttoned his overcoat in response to a rising wind and dearth of sunlight.

  “Mi . . Mi . . Mista Stern, can ya use some of these?” a tall, young man, dressed in flashy clothes, polluted by wrinkles and rankness, whispered from his place of business, the dirt-infested recessed entrance of an abandoned building. ”They be da real thing.”

  His hands and mouth moved rapidly but not in sync; distortion borne of drugs and lies, Yari concluded.

  Sam glanced over to the box of costume jewelry with Wanamaker tags hanging from each piece.

  Yari pulled his father away. “See what’s happened to our family?” he implored. “Even with education and common sense we’ve caved in to the morals of the people around us.”

  Sam nodded in agreement as he kicked a piece of trash, blown by the wind, back into its place.

  Yari, sensing that time and opportunity were running out, quickly continued. “I’ve always heard Bub say, ‘If shit were worth money, fools would be born without assholes’. I never knew what that meant until recently.”

  “And what do you think now?”

  “Everyone embodies ignorance to someone else, and so they’re fit to be taken advantage of. But it can’t be okay to use other people just because they think differently, act differently or look differently. How can anyone set themselves up to say, ‘You don’t deserve to have it and so it’s only right for me take it?’ Don’t they realize someone else is just around the corner waiting to do the same to them?”