Wiseguy: The 25th Anniversary Edition

by Nicholas Pileggi

  Five

  In 1965 Henry Hill was twenty-two, single, and delighted with his life. The days were long, and he enjoyed the continuous action. Hustling and schemes took up every waking hour. They were the currency of all conversation and they fired the day’s excitement. In Henry’s world, to hustle and score was to be alive. And yet Henry never bothered to accumulate money. In fact, as far as Henry could tell, none of the young men his age were saving any of the money they made. Within hours Henry’s financial state would shift dramatically from black to red. Immediately after a score he could find himself with so many inch-thick stacks of new bills that he had to tuck them into his waistband when his pockets were full. A couple of days later he needed cash. The speed with which he and most of his friends were able to dissipate capital was dazzling. Henry simply gave money away. When he went to the bars and supper clubs of Long Beach and the Five Towns and the Rockaways, he overwhelmed the waiters and barmen with cash tips.

  Henry spent his money until the cash in his pockets ran out, and then he would borrow from his pals until his next score paid off. He knew some crooked payday was never more than a week away. There were always at least a dozen dirty deals afoot. Aside from his own indulgences, his expenses were almost nonexistent. He had no dependents. He paid no taxes. He didn’t even have a legitimate Social Security number. He had no insurance premiums to pay. He never paid his bills. He had no bank accounts, no credit cards, no credit ratings, and no checkbooks other than the phony ones he had bought from Tony the Baker. He still kept most of his clothes at his parents’ house, though he rarely slept there. Henry preferred spending his nights at one of the Vario houses, on a sofa at one of the crew’s haunts, or even in a free room at one or another of the airport or Rockaway motels where his pals were managers. He never woke up in pajamas. He was lucky to get his shoes off before passing out every night. Like those of most wiseguys, the events of his days were so spontaneously assembled, so serendipitous, that he never knew where the end of the day would find him. He could spend all of his average eighteen-hour day at the pizzeria or cabstand near Pitkin Avenue, or he could find himself in Connecticut with Paulie on a policy game matter, or in North Carolina with Jimmy on a cigarette run, or in Las Vegas with the crew spending the unexpected score he might have made during his totally unpredictable day.

  There were girls who cost money, and there were girls who didn’t. Neighborhood girls, barmaids, schoolteachers, waitresses, divorcées, office workers, beauticians, stewardesses, nurses, and housewives were always around for a day at the track, a night around the clubs, or a drunken morning in a motel. Some of them liked to dance. Some of them liked to drink. Henry was perfectly happy as a bachelor, taking whatever came up as it came up. His life was utterly unfettered.

  HENRY: I was at the cabstand when Paulie junior came running in. He had been trying to go out with this girl Diane for weeks, and finally she had said okay, but she wouldn’t go out with him unless she could double-date. Junior’s desperate. He needs a backup guy. I’m in the middle of a cigarette deal, I’ve got some stolen sweaters in the back of the car. I’m supposed to meet Tuddy around eleven o’clock that night for some deal, and now Junior needs me as a chaperone. He says he has a date for the two of us at Frankie the Wop’s Villa Capra. The Villa was a big hangout for the crew at the time. When I got there to do Junior a favor I was still in such a hurry to meet Tuddy I couldn’t wait to get away.

  KAREN: I couldn’t stand him. I thought he was really obnoxious. Diane had this thing with Paul, but she and I were both Jewish, and she hadn’t ever been out with an Italian before. She wanted to be cautious. Paul seemed nice, but she wanted their first date to be a double date. Little did she know Paul was married. She made me go along. But my date, who turned out to be Henry, was awful. It was obvious he didn’t want to be there. He just kept fidgeting. He kept rushing everybody. He was ordering the check before we had dessert. When it was time to go home he was pushing me in the car and then pulling me out of the car. It was ridiculous. But Diane and Paul made us promise to meet them again the next Friday night. We agreed. Of course, when Friday night came around Henry stood me up. I had dinner with Diane and Paul that night. We were a trio instead of a double date. Then I made Paul take us looking for him.

  HENRY: I’m walking along the street near the pizzeria when Paul pulls up and Karen comes charging out the car door. It was like a hit. She’s really steamed. She comes running right up to me and yelling that nobody stands her up. “Nobody does that to me!” she’s screaming on the street. I mean, she’s loud. I put up my hands to calm her down. I told her that I didn’t show because I was sure she was going to stand me up. I said I’d make it up to her. I said that I thought Diane and Paul wanted to go out without us. Anyway, by the time she finished screaming, we had made a date. That time I went.

  KAREN: He took me to a Chinese restaurant in the Greenacres shopping mall on Long Island. This time he was really nice. He was an exciting guy. He seemed a lot older than his age, and he seemed to know more than the other boys I’d been out with. When I asked what he did, he said he was a bricklayer, and he even showed me his union card. He said he’d had a job as a manager at the Azores, which I already knew was a very good place in Lido Beach. We had a nice leisurely dinner. Then we got into his car, which was brand new, and we went to some Long Island nightclubs and listened to music. We danced. Everybody knew him. When I walked into these places with Henry everyone came over. He introduced me to everyone. Everybody wanted to be nice to him. And he knew how to handle it all. It was so different from the other boys I went out with. They all seemed like kids. They used to take me to movies, bowling, the kinds of things you do when you’re eighteen and your boyfriend is twenty-two.

  HENRY: Karen turned out to be a lot of fun. She was very lively. She liked going to the places, and she was great-looking. She had violet eyes, just like Elizabeth Taylor—or that’s what everybody said. We started going out to some of the clubs I knew. We’d go to the 52/52 Club, in Long Beach, near Philly Basile’s Rumors Disco. We went to piano bars I knew. Places I had been to with Paulie. Places where I knew the owners and bartenders and managers and they knew me. The first time I went to pick her up at her parents’ house for a night at the Palm Shore Club, I got all dressed up. I wanted to make a good impression. I felt great, but as soon as she opened the door, instead of being happy to see me, she screamed. Her eyes bulged out of her head like a monster movie. I looked around. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Then she pointed at my neck. “Turn it around! Turn it around!” she says, really scared. When I looked down I saw that she was pointing at my medal. I had a gold chain my mother gave me and on it was a tiny gold cross.

  KAREN: He was going to meet my parents. They knew I had been seeing him, and they didn’t like it that he wasn’t Jewish. I told them that he was half Jewish. I told them that his mother was Jewish. They still weren’t happy, but what could they do? So here he comes to meet them for the first time. The bell rings. I’m so excited. My grandmother is there. She was really Orthodox. When she died they brought the Torah to her house. I was already a little nervous. I go to the door and there he is wearing black silk slacks, a white shirt opened down to his belly, and a powder blue sport jacket. But what I see first is this huge gold cross, I mean it was hanging around his neck. It went from his neck to his rib cage. I closed the door to a crack so nobody could see him and told him to turn the cross around so my family wouldn’t see it. When he did, we walked inside, but by then I was in a cold sweat. I mean, they weren’t even crazy about him being just half Jewish. And his family wasn’t too happy either. He had a sister, Elizabeth, who was studying to be a nun, who really didn’t like me. One day when I went to call at his house, she opened the door. Her hair was in curlers. She was kind of stuck-up, and she hadn’t expected me. I never saw anybody so angry.

  HENRY: Once she took me to her parents’ country club. The place had its own nine-hole golf course and tennis courts and swimming pool,
and all those rich people walking around and diving off boards, smashing tennis balls, and swimming lap after lap with rubber caps and goggles. I never saw so many rich people jumping around so much for nothing. And then, as I looked around, I realized that there wasn’t one thing these people were doing that I knew how to do. Nothing. I couldn’t dive. I couldn’t swim. I couldn’t play tennis. I couldn’t play golf. I couldn’t do shit.

  KAREN: I started going out to places with Henry I had never been before. I’m eighteen. I’m really dazzled. We went to the Empire Room to hear Shirley Bassey. We went to the Copa. The kids I knew went there once, maybe, on their prom night. Henry went there all the time. He was known there. He knew everybody. We always sat up close to the stage, and one night Sammy Davis Jr. sent us champagne. On crowded nights, when people were lined up outside and couldn’t get in, the doormen used to let Henry and our party in through the kitchen, which was filled with Chinese cooks, and we’d go upstairs and sit down immediately. There was nothing like it. I didn’t think that there was anything strange in any of this—you know, a twenty-two-year-old with such connections. I didn’t know from anything. I just thought he knew these people.

  HENRY: We were going out every night. Karen had a job working as a dental assistant during the day, but every night we were together. I mean we were really close. I was having a great time with her. I think I loved the idea that she was not from the neighborhood. That she was used to fine things. That she was a very classy girl. We started going to weddings. Some of the Vario kids were getting married at the time, and that sort of threw us together even more closely. In my upbringing, if you took a girl to a wedding it was important. Soon we started to sneak away for weekends on our own. Karen used to tell her parents she was going to Fire Island with some girlfriends, and her parents would drop her at the Valley Stream station. Then I’d pick her up.

  KAREN: As soon as I started going steady with Henry, this guy across the street named Steve started coming around. I had known him for years and I never thought anything about him. Then late one afternoon, right after I had come home from work, the guy was near my house and asked if I’d help him pick up something nearby. I don’t remember what it was or where we were supposed to go. It was like he needed help on an errand. It wasn’t important. He was the guy across the street. I told my mother where we were going. Mostly I wanted to go with him because I liked his car. He had a Corvette. He was very nice, as usual, until we got near Belmont racetrack, about three miles from home. Then he pulled the car over. He started putting his arm around me. I was amazed. I also got angry. I told him to stop. He refused. He said I had grown up. The usual garbage. I got the heel of my hand and I smacked it hard across his face. He was surprised. I hit him again. He got really angry. He started the car up and pulled out onto Hempstead Turnpike. Then he jammed on the brakes, and I almost went through the windshield. He leaned over and opened the door and shoved me out and drove away. I got hit with a spray of gravel and dirt. It was terrible. It must have been about six-thirty, seven o’clock at night. I was terrified. It was the guy who had been bad, but I was ashamed. I was afraid to call home. I knew my mother would be upset. She would start the third degree right there on the phone while I’m still pulling gravel out of my hair. I couldn’t stand being yelled at. So instead I called Henry. I told him what had happened and where I was. He came and got me in minutes and he drove me home.

  HENRY: I went crazy. I wanted to kill the guy. All the way driving her home Karen is telling me what happened, and I’m getting hotter and hotter. The minute we got to her house she ran inside. I looked across the street. I see the Corvette parked out front. The house was full of miserable rich fucks. There were three brothers. All three of them had Corvettes. I had a hot .22-caliber short-eye automatic. I got a box of shells out of the glove compartment. Looking at the fuck’s car, I started to load. I was so mad I was ready to shoot the guy and worry about it later. I walked across the street and rang the bell. No answer. I rang again. Nothing. I had the gun in my pants pocket. Now I walked around the driveway toward the backyard. Steve and his brothers were sitting there. Steve started to come toward me. He must have thought we were going to talk. Man-to-man bullshit. The minute he was in my reach I grabbed him by the hair with my right hand and pulled his face down nice and low. At the same time I took the gun out of my left pocket and I started to smack him across the face. He screamed, “He’s got a gun! He’s got a gun!” I can feel his face go. I shoved the gun inside his mouth and moved it around like a dinner gong. The brothers are so scared they can’t move. Fucks. I swear I would have shot them if they came toward me. Somebody from inside the house said they called the cops. Before the cops arrived I gave Steve a few more belts. I think that when he yelled about the gun it stopped me from killing him. I gave him another couple of smacks in the head and left him crying in the driveway. He had pissed all over himself.

  I went back across the street to Karen. She was standing at the side door. I gave her the gun and told her to hide it. She put it in the milk box. Then I pulled my car around the block and tossed the box of shells underneath. When I walked back to Karen’s house there were fourteen Nassau County police cars outside. The cops were looking for a gun. I said I didn’t have a gun. I said the guy was crazy. The cops searched me and my car from top to bottom. No gun. Then they escorted me out of Nassau County to the Brooklyn line. When we pulled away from the curb, I was afraid they would spot the shells, but they didn’t.

  KAREN: He came over to the side door. I could see he was hurrying. He said, “Hide it.” He had something cupped in the palm of his hand. I took it and looked down. It was a gun. It was small, heavy, and gray. I couldn’t believe it. It felt so cold. It was a thrill just to hold it. Everything was so wild I began to feel high. I didn’t want to bring the gun into my house, because my mother had eyes all over. She would have found it. So I put it in the milk box right outside the door. In a few minutes Henry comes walking back. The police were waiting. They had spoken to Steve and other people across the street first. It was the biggest thing anyone had ever seen on our block. I was really excited. I loved that Henry had done all this for me. It made me feel important. And then, when the cops asked him if he had a gun, he was so calm. He just said that the guy across the street was crazy. The cops had already heard about what the guy did to me, and Henry was so insistent that he didn’t have a gun that when they went back to the guy he began to say that maybe it was a “metallic object.” Finally the cops said they would escort Henry out of the neighborhood to make sure there was no more trouble.

  HENRY: By this time I’m getting tired of all this sneaking around. Three months I’m going out with Karen every day, and I can’t go to her house when her grandmother’s there, and her mother keeps telling us we’re not meant for each other. My parents are doing the same kind of stuff. It was like we were alone against everybody. Then that business with the guy across the street happened, and I decided we ought to elope. If we were married, then everybody would have to deal with us. Finally, after a couple of false starts, we decided to drive down to Maryland and get married. Just do it. We needed a witness, so I got Lenny to come along. When we got to Maryland we started talking to some kids in a car next to ours waiting at a traffic light. They said there was a three-day wait in Maryland but that you could get married right away in North Carolina. So we went to Walden, North Carolina, instead. We got our physicals and blood tests and then we went right to the justice of the peace. By now our witness, Lenny, has passed out, sleeping in the backseat of the car, so the wife of the justice of the peace was our witness.

  KAREN: Henry and I got back and told my parents. First they were stunned, but within half an hour they seemed to come around. We had done it; there was nothing they could do. They were not the kind of people to kick their children out of the house. And I wasn’t the kind of young bride who knew what to do. I couldn’t boil an egg. We were both kids. They suggested that we stay with them. My parents fixed the upstairs pa
rt of the house for us, and we started living at home. It would never have dawned on Henry to get a place of our own. In fact, he liked living in my house. He enjoyed my family. He liked my mother’s cooking. He joked with her. He was very warm to her. I could see that he really enjoyed being a part of the family. And slowly my mother and father got to like him. They had three daughters, and now, in a funny way, they had finally gotten their son. He was very sincere about the religious problem and said that he would convert. He began taking religious instructions. He went to work every day. We all thought he was a bricklayer. He had a union card and everything. What did we know? It never occurred to me that it was strange that he had such nice smooth hands for a construction worker. By August, Henry had done so well with the religious instructions that we had a nice Jewish wedding. Even my grandmother was almost happy.

  Six

  It took a while before Karen figured out exactly what line of work her husband was in. She knew he was a knock-around guy. She knew that he could be tough. She had once watched him take on three men, who turned out to be football players from New Jersey, with a tire iron outside Jackie Kannon’s Rat Fink Room in Manhattan. She knew that some of his friends had been to prison. And she knew that he sometimes carried a gun. But back in the early 1960s, before Mario Puzo’s Godfather codified the lifestyle, before Joseph Valachi decided to sing, and before Senator John McClellan’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations listed the names and photographs of over five thousand organized-crime members, wiseguys were still a relatively unknown phenomenon to those outside their tiny world. Certainly Karen Freid Hill, from Lawrence, Long Island, had no reason to believe that she would wind up in the middle of a grade-B movie. All she knew was that her husband’s main income came from his job as a bricklayer and low-level union official. There were mornings when she had even dropped him off at various jobs and watched him disappear into the construction site. He brought home $135 a week. They were paying off a bedroom suite at so much a week. He had a new car. But she also knew he had hit the number for a couple of thousand dollars just before they were married. His friends all had jobs. They were construction workers and truck drivers; they owned small restaurants, worked in the garment center or at the airport.