by Joe Corso
“You believed him?”
“Sure. He just heard some wise guy talk with no substance behind it. I could be just a big talker for all he knows, but I think he put you at a good table and sent the drinks over just in case, to let you and me both know that everything’s alright.”
Red nodded in agreement and went back to the table.
“Who was that guy?” Tiffany asked.
“Nobody. I thought I knew the guy but it turned out I was wrong.” But Jimmy the Hat knew differently. He’d find out later who this nobody was.
Chapter Thirteen
The bar was crowded with armed Gallo men. Crazy Joey had entered the bar moments ago and he was on a rampage. Tarzan watched him as he walked the length of the bar demanding names, wanting to know who destroyed his machines. He kept swearing that whoever did it would pay for every stinkin’ machine they smashed, which he estimated to be around fifteen thousand, or he’d kill them all. Maybe he’d kill ‘em all anyway because that’s the way he was feeling. Tarzan hadn’t seen Joey this mad for quite some time. Tarzan stepped out from behind the bar and held his hands out to stop him. He gently grabbed Crazy Joey’s arm and pulled him towards Red’s table.
“Calm down Joey and let’s talk about how we’re gonna make these bastards pay.” Joey liked that, he wanted to find the culprits, and he wanted answers, so he followed him to the table.
“Yeah, let’s talk about how we’re gonna make these bastards pay,” he said with a look in his eye that suggested they’d pay in blood.
Joey’s rage simmered down a bit but he continued, “Hell, I know what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna kill whoever is responsible for this. They had to know whose machines they destroyed. Do they have any idea of what’s gonna’ happen to them when I catch up with them or are they just plain stupid? I’ve never taken shit like this from anybody and I sure as hell ain’t gonna take it from these schmucks!” Joey sat back in his chair. He was like a tea kettle at its boiling point. Tarzan reassured Joey that the guys would be caught. Joey, restraining himself, asked, “Do we have any idea who, who these guys are that wrecked my machines?”
Tarzan measured Joey’s voice and body language carefully and chose his words cautiously, knowing that there was no reasoning with Joey once he slipped into that killing mood of his. And he thought to himself that this was one of those times that he wished he could lock Joey in a cage until they needed him. Wouldn’t it be great if they could open the cage, point him to the problem, much like the K9 dogs they used in the war, and then put him back into the cage, like they did the dogs? It would be nice, he thought, if they could use Joey like that. Tarzan began to lay out the story.
“I have good news for you, Joey. We do know who busted up our machines. Big Red found out a guy from the Bronx, Rodrigo Cordero, is behind this. He’s the one who set this whole thing up. He’s hooked up with a black crowd from Harlem and they figure while we’re at war with the Profaci’s, they’ll move into Queens, take it over, and split the territory right down the middle. Cordero’s the guy who put a hit on Red. He sent a guy to Florida to kill Red and Jimmy the Hat and as far as he knows, they’re dead. The guy he sent down there to do the job called him and told him that they’re dead. What he didn’t know was Red was holdin’ a gun to his head while he was talkin’ to him and then Red whacked the guy. How he knew Red was lamming it to Florida no one knows. One of the guys hangin’ around the bar could have heard some talk and ratted them out. There’s also been a couple of black guys that have come in here a few times and they might have heard somethin’ or maybe it was somebody at the precinct who dropped a dime. Somebody tipped Cordero off and as soon as Red gets back, we’ll go pay him a visit and we’ll find out who talked. He doesn’t know that we know he’s the guy who put the contract on Red. He thinks he’s sittin’ pretty. He has no idea that we’re comin’ after him.”
Joey responded ominously. “Yeah, well, then he’s got another surprise comin’, cause I’ll be there too.”
Chapter Fourteen
Big Red had an airtight alibi the night Rags was killed and the police knew that so they shifted their focus in their attempt to stop the war between the Gallo’s and the Profaci’s from spreading. Red and Jimmy the Hat had begun their trip home from Florida two days before and had just arrived. Red dropped Jimmy off at his apartment and drove directly to The Starlight Club. He had set up a prearranged meeting with the three Gallo brothers earlier when they pulled into a rest stop in Maryland. He warned them not to talk to anyone until they all find the rat. The Gallo brothers, Tarzan, Trenchie and Yip were at The Starlight Club waiting for Red. Red needed this meet. He needed Yip’s approval regarding Cordero. The Gallo’s didn’t need approval from anyone. No one could stop them from going after Cordero.
The first order of business was to expose the informer. In a logical, chronological order, Red explained in detail the events that had taken place. He started with the night they arrived, his suspicions surrounding the guy reading a paper late at night, alone in an empty hotel lobby, how he discovered that he was being followed by that same person, and the subsequent events that took place up to, and including, his trip to the Everglades with Carlos. Joey liked that part and chimed in.
“And you think alligators might have got him? Man, that’s creative. Good! But I would have just shot him and got it over with. It’s quicker that way.”
Red continued, “But the question is . . . how did he know we were going to Florida when the only guys who knew were Trenchie and Yip?”
Trenchie, who had been quiet until now, spoke up. “You forgot someone, Red.”
“Who? Who’d I forget?”
“The cop. Creighton.”
“Creighton? Yeah, I forgot about him.”
Yip spoke up. “Creighton works for me and he’s proved himself a hundred times over. He would never betray us, but it could be someone at the precinct. I hadn’t thought of that.”
Yip went to the pay phone and called Creighton at home. “We need you at a meeting so come over to The Starlight Club as soon as possible.” Creighton arrived about twenty-five minutes later and was surprised to see the Gallo brothers. They eyed him suspiciously.
“You made good time,” Yip said.
“No traffic this time of night. What’s up?”
Creighton joined the crowd at the table in the back room and listened as Red explained that there was a rat somewhere, “and after discussing it amongst ourselves, we think the rat is someone inside the precinct.” Creighton was stunned because he could see that the Gallo boys, who didn’t trust cops to begin with, thought it might be him. When Creighton was asked to speak, he quickly began to tell his side of the order of events, beginning with Rag’s death.
Nothing escaped Joey. His quick mind calculated variables and potentialities and he began to dissect Creighton’s story as he was telling it, breaking it down into viable sequences. It was when Creighton got to the part of making a call to Red to alert him that he was about to be arrested that Joey stopped him.
“Hold on. Stop right there. You say you were in the locker room. Tell us how the lockers are set up in that room.”
Creighton described the room and the lockers.
Joey asked him, “Who was at the meeting? Tell me all the guys that work in the precinct who were at the meeting. I don’t want to hear the brass’s names, just the guys in the precinct, especially guys at your level.”
Creighton named the men that were at the meeting. “There were four detectives, including himself, and there was the Captain and the Sergeant and Lt. Rocarro I believe was off that day. At least I hadn’t seen him at the meeting.”
Joey thought a moment and said. “That’s six guys not counting Rocarro. Now which one would have been in the locker room when you made the phone call?”
Creighton thought for a moment and it dawned on him. “The locker room should have been empty. All the officers were out on patrol except for the permanent crew whose job is handling clerical duties and we al
ways have two detectives that remain on duty. They would be catching up on paperwork unless they’re called upon to investigate a crime or respond to a complaint. No one would have been in that locker room but me and Lt. Randone and of course Rocarro if he had been working. Randone’s locker is hidden from the phone by two rows of lockers but if he was in the room, he just might have heard what I said. Come to think of it, he worked out of the Bronx before he got his gold badge.”
Joey finally smiled. “Well then, let’s go pay this Randone a visit.”
It was agreed that Lt. Creighton should have nothing to do with what was about to take place. It was decided that he would be hard at work at the precinct when Randone was picked up. Joey gave the job to Ralph and Gibby but Red told Jimmy the Hat to go with them. Someone needed to drive Randone’s car. Creighton and Randone worked the same schedule. Creighton gave Joey the times he arrived and left the precinct and later, he called Joey to give him Randone’s home address. It was determined that taking Randone when he left his house was safer than doing it when he left the police precinct. The following morning at seven Ralph, Gibby and Jimmy the Hat were all waiting. They reached Randone just as he was about to get into his car, circling him from all sides. Jimmy calmly took the keys from the detective’s hand, and drove off in his car. Ralph and Gibby ordered Randone into their car, gun aimed at his spine. Once inside the car, they placed a hood over his head and relieved him of his gun and handcuffs. Ralph put the detective’s gun into his pocket, far from Randone’s reach, and using the detective’s handcuffs, cuffed his hands behind his back and pushed him to the floor in the backseat, covering him with a blanket.
They arrived at their destination, a warehouse in Brooklyn owned by Joey. When the hood came off, Randone found himself staring into the smiling face of Crazy Joey Gallo. Randone looked around the empty space of the warehouse and noticed the three other men besides Joey. Something is seriously wrong, he thought.
It didn’t take long for Randone to talk. He wasn’t used to rough stuff happening to him. He was usually the one dishing it out - the bully with a badge. He began to sing like a canary. He had been on Cordero’s payroll and he was paid well to pass important information to him. Randone told Joey that it was Lt. Rocarro who was in the locker room and he was the one who heard Creighton on the phone and he passed this information to him. They knew Cordero would pay well for this information figuring to split it. He said that the leader of the black mob was a guy named Bullet Jones - got the name Bullet because his head was shaped like a bullet.
“Jones and Cordero get together once a week at ten am on Thursdays at Cordero’s place above the cleaners - which is payday for Cordero’s crew. The two gang leaders have a dicey relationship. By partnering up, they created a sizable mob, but once they take over Queens, that partnership could come to an end. You can only speculate what would happen then. But for now they’ve agreed it’s in their best interest to band together, so they meet once a week to discuss strategy and formulate plans.”
They weren’t stupid men. You didn’t become the head, the leader, of outfits like this without brains. No, they were smart guys with ambition, but they let their balls get in the way of their brains by taking on the Italians. Planning to steal their territories that they built over the better part of a century was sheer stupidity, but they couldn’t see that because they were blinded by greed.
The Gallo’s didn’t have a part of any of the Queens illegal activities. They operated mainly out of Brooklyn and had some businesses in Manhattan, but they wanted the fifteen thousand dollars owed them for their busted machines. Fifteen thousand dollars was a lot of money. It was more than just money, however. Joey knew that if he let Cordero get away with this, then maybe some of the other gangs might get the crazy notion that they could push him around and if so, that could lead to them moving in on his territories. He had to make an example of Cordero, he had to look strong doing it and it had to be dramatic. The Gallo’s were in a war now and they benefited from an alliance with Yip and Red. If they took down Cordero and Jones, they just might be able to take over their Bronx action, which they hadn’t planned on, but now sounded like a good possibility. Joey’s mind was racing with ideas. Once Jones and Cordero were out of the way, Joey figured he could convince the rest of the gang to join them. A plan was forming in his mind. The more he thought about it the more he liked it.
Meanwhile, Randone talked his head off until he had nothing more to say. When Joey felt he had drained every bit of useful information from him, he told Ralph to take him home, which was a euphemism meaning “get rid of him.” Randone drove his own car, Ralph seated beside with him his gun trained on him and Gibby in the backseat. Jimmy followed them in a second car. Randone was shaking so badly he could hardly steer the car in a straight line. Ralph warned him to keep the car on the road, that he didn’t want to be stopped by a cop. He watched the lieutenant as he directed him through Queens, past Corona, and into Astoria. Ralph pointed to the Triborough Bridge and told him to park under it. Gibby got out of the car while Jimmy pulled up close beside Randone’s car. Ralph took Randone’s gun, safely tucked it into his own jacket pocket, and in one swift move, put the gun close to his head and squeezed the trigger, firing once and killing him instantly. He put the gun into Randone’s right hand and pointed the gun out the window at a tree and squeezed the trigger. Even though they were wearing gloves, they wiped down the inside of the car. Ralph looked around to see if there were any witnesses and hopped into Jimmy’s car. It was just business as usual - business with the boys.
Later that evening, a tragic suicide made local news headlines, describing the New York City Police, highly decorated, veteran detective who committed suicide using his own weapon to end his life. Gunpowder residue in his hands proved it was self-inflicted. Discussions ensued regarding the pressures of the job and it was suggested that the men and women of the NYPD be tested periodically for psychiatric stress evaluation to prevent copycats.
Chapter Fifteen
At the same moment Crazy Joe was questioning Randone, Trenchie walked through the front door to his restaurant and was greeted by a pert young lady who asked him if it was just one for lunch.
“I’m not here for lunch,” he said. “I’d like to speak to the manager.”
The hostess reached for a button on the intercom, pressed it, and asked “Richard” to come to the front desk. A tall man who looked to be in his mid thirties walked over to her by the greeter’s station where they exchanged a few words. The young lady nodded toward Trenchie and indicated that he’d like to speak to a manager. The man smiled at Trenchie and asked how he could help him. Trenchie told him that he’d like to speak to him privately for a moment. Richard decided against taking him all the way to the back to his office. He opted for a closer area, one of the vacant stations where orders were usually placed. Richard was accustomed to customers complaining, so he readied himself for yet another situation that he must diffuse.
“I’m Trenchie and I own the place. I wanted come to see for myself how the restaurant was doin’, and from what I can see, it looks like you have everything under control.” Richard was taken off guard a bit by the sudden visit. It would have been nice, he thought, to have a little advance notice.
“Big Red told me a little about you and I finally get to meet you,” he said. “As you can see, everything is running smoothly. We operate in the black and Red’s accountant does the books so he makes sure everything is as it should be. Come on, let me show you around and when we’re finished, if you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them.”
Richard had a sincereish, easygoing attitude which relaxed Trenchie. Trenchie followed his manager as he was led him to the bar, through a tour of the kitchen, into the bathrooms (which were spotless), through a cellar, which was clean and nicely stocked and finally, the office which was an oxymoronic neat mess, which Trenchie felt was as it should be. Richard pulled out a ledger and showed Trenchie the names and addresses of the employees
and a tally of the daily receipts. Finally, he produced a ledger with the cost of goods and the profits derived from same. Trenchie was no fool but he was impressed all the same. The kid was doing a good job and it looked as though he wouldn’t have to be here very often, which pleased him, but he’d return often enough to keep everybody on their toes. Richard then opened the payroll ledger, took out an envelope from the front cover, and handed it to Trenchie. Trenchie opened it and found inside four one thousand dollar checks. Richard leaned slightly forward in his chair and explained, “When I was told you were coming home, right at a month ago, I put you on the books at a thousand dollars a week. I thought that should be enough, but if you need more, let me know and I’ll adjust the payroll accordingly.”
“Can this place afford this much money?” Trenchie asked.
“Our restaurant is in an affluent neighborhood so money isn’t a problem. I buy the finest meats and vegetables, we don’t skimp on our food and our bottom line proves me right. So to answer your question, yes we can afford it.”
“And how much money do you make a week, Richard?”
“I make five hundred dollars a week plus I get an end of the year Christmas bonus.”
Five hundred dollars a week in 1961 was a lot of money when the average income was fifty seven hundred dollars a year or approximately one hundred and fourteen dollars a week.
Trenchie put his arm on Richards shoulder. “Richie, both Red and Yip told me that you’re an honest guy and that you’re doing a good job here. I want you to keep doing what you’ve been doing. I’m not gonna interfere in your work. If you have any problems, you come and see me and I’ll make them go away. But don’t ever fuck me because you’ll live to regret it. Do me wrong and I’ll put one right there,” pressing his finger into the center of Richard’s forehead, “but do me right and you’ll make a lot of money,” pressing his finger into the palm of Richard’s hand, “understand?” Richard was sweating. He hadn’t intended for their conversation to veer this direction.
