“Phil I think we should keep this very quiet until we get home tonight. We’re seventy miles out at sea. If Joe is a killer, this ain’t the place to confront him.” Phil agreed. “Listen, Hank,” He said, “If he offers you any tequila, you don’t drink it, you understand?” I cocked my head like a Labrador puppy. “Phil,” I said softly, “Why would he offer me tequila, and what does that have to do with this killin’ nonsense?” Phil ran his hand under his ball cap and scratched his head. “Big Pussy,” He said. “Now, goddammit Phil!” I yelled at him, “ There you are calling me that again! Just because I’ve never liked tequila doesn’t mean you have to call me names. I hate that word!” Phil squinted his eyes and said “No, Hank. Big Pussy. He was a guy on The Sopranos, remember I told ya? He was a mafia! They shot him on a boat just like this one and dumped him overboard in a bodybag.” “Phil,’ I said, “The Sopranos was a TV show. And what does tequila have to do with it?” “It was a TV show based on facts, it was more like a documentary!” Phil snarled, “And they gave Big Pussy tequila before they shot him.”
Tequila, I thought. Stay away from the Tequila.
As much as I wanted to maintain suspicion of Joe, after we caught us a few more fish, the whole bodybag thing was forgotten. At least for me. Hell, I liked Joe. I liked him a lot and he didn’t seem intent on harming us. In fact all he really seemed to be worried about was making sure we’d all caught some nice fish and had a good time. I mean none of us had to bring anything. No food, no drinks, he never asked us to chip in for fuel for this beautiful boat, and I know them big ol’ Allisons burn up some diesel. No, Joe seemed to really enjoy seeing us having a good time. He was what you’d call gregarious. From what I gather, most all Italians are like that. ‘Cept for the ones in the mob.
Anyway, the more I thought about it the more I was ready to dismiss the entire idea of Phil’s. I couldn’t be sure what was in that bag they threw overboard and I was having too much of a good time to ask my generous host. Maybe Phil was just trying to pin a tail on a myth, as they say. I do know that Phil loves those mob stories. He watched every episode of The Sopranos until he could say all the lines. Same with The Godfather, and Goodfellas and A Bronx Tale, and he’s the only man I know who didn’t laugh at Analyze This. Not even a smile. I thought that movie was hysterical but he sat there stoned faced in the theater. I asked him; “Phil, this movie is funny. How come you ain’t laughin’?” He shot me an icy stare and said; “That’s how they win people over to their side; by makin’ movies where they’s cute and funny. They make you forget they’s killers!” “Who, Phil?’ I asked, “Who you talking about?” “Them Mafias!” He shot back, “They are secretly behind all those movies and TV shows. It’s propaganda for them. They get the average folks to think they ain’t dangerous with shows like that. I read about it on the internet.”
When Phil gets like this I just let him ramble. If you argue, he only goes on longer. So instead of discussing this with him, I just walked over to the transom and started throwing chum. Which made Phil madder by the minute. But I knew he wasn’t about to keep talking about this in front of the other fellas and especially in front of Joe. Phil sat down in the fighting chair when his turn came around again and before long, the scowl was gone from his face. He’d hooked him a Wahoo and after about forty-five minutes he’d boated it. Now, the Wahoo is sort of our official state fish, and “Wahoo-Wa!” is the war cry of the University of Virginia, so old Phil was sittin’ tall in the saddle after he boated that baby. “That’s two for me, boys!” He gloated. “Ya’ll ain’t caught me yet!
“Nobody is going to catch you, either, Phil.” Joe called down from the bridge, “Time to head back, boys. Lines out.
Pack the bait it’s Two PM and we need to be dockside by five.” The fellas were all smiles and they scurried about securing the gear, but underneath it all, you could tell none of us was really ready to leave. We’d really been enjoying ourselves. Even Phil. Despite apparently witnessing Joe and George disposing of evidence and in spite of the fact that he was thoroughly convinced that Joe was really planning on killing one or all of us out here, he’d had himself a natural ball. I had forgotten most of what we’d talked about until we were in the stateroom on the ride back and he reminded me very quietly about what was on that little recorder. Then my mind started racing again. What if Joe is a mobster? I thought to myself. What if that was a body he dumped overboard last night, and what was it in those burlap rolls in his garden?”
The rest of the ride in became my own personal little storm inside. My feelings for Joe against my longtime friendship with Phil and the loyalty I had for him. Phil is a good man and I put up with his suspicions and his overworked imagination because deep down he is a good friend. So I didn’t quite know where I stood on this as the boat pulled back to the dock. The other guys were packing up and walking out onto the dock and I pulled Phil aside. Usually I just go along with him to keep the peace, but tonight I was a little more direct. “Phil…”I said, “You keep this between you and me until we get more evidence.” “Evidence?” Phil groused, “I give you a ton of it already and you want more?” But this time I was concrete in my resolve. “Phil, you’re my friend, but if your suspicions are even half true, we have to be very careful and get even more evidence. You go around accusing a fella of being in the mob and you’ll ruin his life. Now I don’t care what you think, but I don’t want that on my conscience. So we keep this quiet for now. Am I clear?”
I don’t know if I have ever been so direct with Phil before, and I think it took him by surprise. “Ye…yes Hank. I see your point” He said softly, like a defeated little boy. “We’ll give that tape another good listen and look at those pictures again before we move on this.” “Now you’re making sense, Phil” I said. “C’mon, let’s get home.
15
Two-Flush
Tony
And The
Loan Shark
So one evening in September of our second year here, I get a call from Mario Sebastianelli from back home. Mario was the guy we put in charge of the neighborhood fund I set up with proceeds from the buyout. He was an accountant, and a lay-minister at St. Monica’s church so we figured he was the most experienced, and the most trustworthy. It’s worked well for all these years now.
But there was this one time…
Mario called me sometime that third year we were in Virginia. He always sounds very business-like to begin with but this time he sounded just a little edgy. He was never a guy to beat around the bush, which I always liked about him. “Joe,” he began, “I have…we have, a bit of a problem up here.” Now it was not like Mario to ever call me with a need and I knew immediately he was referring to something in the neighborhood, because if he needed anything for himself he could have simply gone to the committee that oversees the fund.
We’d set up a committee of key people within the Little Italy community, who would decide by secret ballot, whether someone would get the financial help they asked for. Most of the time, the committee would do the buying, instead of just handing out cash. When Mrs. Begnetti was short a thousand bucks for a new boiler, they paid the plumber. When Dominic Stubini was trying to open a new hoagie shop on Shunk Street, the committee paid his lease for a year, directly to the landlord. Seldom did they just write a check to a recipient. Oh they did sometimes, like at Christmas, when a single mom didn’t have money for gifts for her kids, or the time Juliana Minetti was light on the cost of her daughter’s wedding. Jules husband Lou had been a Philly cop and was killed by a drunk driver on his way home from working his second job doing security at the Tower Theatre. That time, an envelope stuffed with cash just “mysteriously” appeared on her kitchen table while she was at work. “Giving you a boost” is what we
Italians call it.
The rest of the time, the committee functioned pretty much like a non-profit organization. If you had a need, you submitted a letter. Then you had a sit-down at a monthly dinner at St. Monica’s parish hall. You never appear
ed in a suit, before some board like the Inquisition. These were friends helping each other, not First National Bank. The need was discussed and you got your answer that same night. No waiting, no sweating bullets, and nobody else knew about it. Mario invested the money in some very secure mutual funds and he was actually making interest for us faster than gifts were being paid out. The fund was a great success and it bought a ton of goodwill for Waste International in the years after we left.
But that phone call was the one and only time there was ever any problem as far as the operations of the thing. Normally it was simple. We never loaned. Everything was a gift. If you ever got in a position to repay, then we’d take it and invest it and it would be there for the next family in need. But repayment was never expected or required. Except this time. This time, when we finally decided to help, we demanded repayment. We even went so far as to attach a lien to the guy’s house because his reputation wasn’t good and we needed to be assured we could recoup in case he welched on us.
I was in my garage one Thursday afternoon with my sons Peter and Jack (whom most of the time I called “Giacomo” which is the Italian derivative of the English “Jack”) I was doing a tune-up on Angie’s Escalade and it’s the kind of thing a dad should teach his sons to do as well. Peter and Jack were my two oldest boys. David would have been there too except he had a science report due the next day and he and Angie were in the house going through his pictures to document the project. He had started a few string bean seeds on a wet paper towel in a Dixie cup as phase one of the project. He and Angie had snapped a picture each morning as the seed germinated and they were editing it into a time lapse movie. The next step would be to transfer the seeds into a small terrarium and actually –with a little help from dad- start a micro garden.
So it was my two oldest boys, Milledge, Lowery, and Tommy Fallone. Tommy had been working on his own home now for about six months. We had formed the partnership we discussed and had flipped two nice little houses out by Perrymont Avenue and bought two tri-plexes for rentals over by the school. Tommy had a new box truck and about twenty thousand dollars’ worth of tools and the house he bought had a nice detached garage where he was setting up a sweet workshop. He took one night off each week to come over, eat dinner with us, and hang with my family.
The kids had taken to calling him “Uncle Tommy,” which Tommy relished. He figured that by this point, it was useless to think about having kids of his own. I told him not to give up just yet. He’d been on a few dates but mostly, Tommy threw himself into the business we’d began together and was determined to be a success. And he was doing a great job of it so far.
Anyway, my phone rings and I see in the caller ID it’s Mario Sebastianelli. I mentioned it to Tommy as I answered. “Yo Mario! Come’ Stai?” Mario is a really sweet guy. He’s quiet and to the point, but he has a huge, loving heart. He’s a natural as a lay minister at St. Monica’s. He was in the final year of his study for the priesthood and he met his sister’s college roommate at a Christmas party and that was it. He was smitten. It took a few months to deal with the mutual guilt they felt about him leaving the priesthood, but thirty years and six kids later, their service to the church is about as effective as it would have been had he stayed.
So it’s Mario on the phone and he’s got a prickly situation on his hands. It seems that one of the locals was asking for a loan and not for the most noble of purposes. Mario explained; “Joey, It’s Tony Leonetti; he wants to borrow twenty thousand dollars.” I almost choked on my Coca-Cola. “Two-Flush Tony Leonetti wants to borrow twenty large?” Tommy was standing next to me and he spit out his beer. Without even hearing the story, Tommy is waving his arms in a very exaggerated “X” and silently mouthing the word “NO!” over and over again. I winked at Tommy and smiled. “Okay Mario, what’s his story this time?” I asked.
Now, you’ll need to know about Tony Leonetti. “TwoFlush Tony” is a massive, squatty, annoying guy. He has so much hair on his body that he looks like those “Wolf-Boys” who do a high-wire act down in Mexico. The ones you’ve seen on the cover is the National Enquirer. He has asthma because he is so fat, so he wheezes. He drives big, flashy, black, Lincoln Town Cars and his gut is so big that he has to have the tilt-steering all the way up, like the steering wheel on a semi, because he can’t get that belly behind it otherwise.
He has a huge gambling problem and it’s gotten him into some serious trouble over the years down at Atlantic City. He has owed some very important people some very large sums of money. There were times when he was so broke that he would come to the shop begging for a few days’ work on the trucks. My dad, big-hearted man that he is, always tried to oblige him. The problem is that Tony weighs well over four hundred fifty pounds. He eats in a day what you and I eat in a weekend. There are side effects from being so huge and eating so much. He’s had the reputation as a world-class toilet clogger since he was like, nine years old.
That’s where he got his name from. “Two-Flush Tony” Leonetti. It’s gross, I know. But it’s better than what his old man used to call him. When Tony was a boy, his father, who was a pretty gruff guy, called him “Shit-Stick, the King of Uranus.”
The story was that Tony’s girth produced so much, umm, byproduct, that his parents kept a stick in the bathroom so he could break it up before he flushed, and it took two flushes to get it all down. This was a big embarrassment for his father because he was a plumber by trade. He’s a plumber and his son can’t stop clogging the toilets. It was so bad he had to keep a stick in the bathroom at school, too.
His old man was not the nicest guy, and Tony’s older brother was a star athlete and I think the old man just plain didn’t like Tony, so he embarrassed him every chance he could. Including calling him “Shit Stick” in front of his friends, and referring to the stick as his scepter. Since none of us could get by calling him that in front of our parents, Skip started calling him “Two-Flush Tony” and it stuck. We’d go into the Wawa and Skip would see Tony and he’d say “Yo! Give Two-Flush Tony, a pound of Bologna!”
Tony was one of the guys who never shook his nickname either. They were still calling him “Two-Flush” when I moved down here to Virginia. Tony gets embarrassed and tries telling people who don’t know any better that it’s his nickname because he is such a great poker player. But one look at the guy and you know why they call him that. I heard he actually broke a toilet at Harrah’s Casino in Chester last year.
Anyway, Mario started telling me about Tony needing money because he owes a lot of dough down in AC. My gut reaction is that he also owes some bookies. Because owing on a tab you got comped in a casino is not a matter of life and death. Owing the private bookies down there…that’s another story. Tony is apparently into some recognizable names, and for a lot of money. Almost twenty grand, and with the vig these people add, it’s growing every week.
My initial reaction was to turn him down flat. “Mario,” I said, “The money isn’t there for that purpose. I worked hard in my family business and not so guys like Two-Flush Tony Leonetti could borrow from this thing of ours to pay off the local Gambino guys.” Mario agreed entirely, but then his big, almost-a-priest heart would kick in and he went to bat for old Two-Flush. “Joey,” he reasoned, “He’s got kids, and a house. If he doesn’t pay soon you know what those guys will do to him. He has a good job. Maybe we can get him some help and get him to stop.” I thought about it some. Then I asked Mario; “Tony has had collection issues in the past. He isn’t a good payer. Why should I trust him this time?” Mario rattled off a list of Tony’s qualities. He had to repeat himself to make the list sound impressive, because Tony doesn’t have that many. And I’m a guy who sees the best in almost everyone. “Joey,” Mario said, “I’d be willing to personally guarantee it.” Now I knew Mario could cover it if he had to. He might not have that kind of cash on him but he could pull it together in a jam.
I told Mario I would think about it and call him in the morning. I hung up and took a swig from my
Coke. Tommy asked me what was going on. I gave him the rundown, and I had to fill-in the details for Milledge and Lowery, including how Tony got his nickname. This, in turn, made my sons both giggle like mad and start running around saying “Two-Flush Tony.” So I hashed it out there in the garage. I didn’t tell Hank and Phil about the community fund. I didn’t want to come off as pretentious. I just said that Mario handles some financial affairs for me and that Tony wanted to borrow money. I figured they’d never meet the man so what do I care if I tell them about his gambling issues?
After about thirty minutes, I decided I’d go through with the deal but with some conditions. I called Mario back. “Mario…”I began, “I talked it over with Tommy, and some other fellas. I think I might go ahead with this, but there are some conditions involved. First, despite our usual policy, this will be a loan. He is going to repay and with vig. He’s not going to work it off by doing jobs around the neighborhood. No more of that. He will repay in cash, with interest. You set the vig aside and return it to him once he’s paid off, but you do NOT tell him about that.” “Mario agreed, “How much vig, Joe?” he asked. “We don’t want to take his head off, how about one percent a month? That sounds fair, right?” Mario agreed with that as well. “Two more items Mario,” I continued, “One; you attach a lien on his house. If he welches, you at least have protection. And two…you tell Tony I want him to sit down with my Old Man and talk about this loan face to face. I want Pop to look him in the eye before we loan him twenty large.” Mario agreed with this as well. “Okay Joe. I’ll see him tomorrow, and I’ll pass this along. I think he’ll go for it.” I laughed at this, “Of course he’ll go for it. If he doesn’t pay those guys, they’ll give him his own deep-sea diver suit. Those guys don’t play.” I said my goodbyes and hung up. Milledge and Lowery were staring at me sort of wide mouthed. Milledge asked me, “You do that a lot, Joe…loan money?” Lowery elbowed him so hard I thought I heard ribs cracking. “Hank!” he hissed. But I didn’t mind. “Yeah sometimes,” I answered, still not wanting to let them know about the fund. “If there’s a need.” Tommy piped in; “Two Flush want’s to borrow money, huh? What, he owes the mob again?” I smiled at Tommy. “Yeah. He apparently got himself into a few big time poker games that are overseen by the Bengiviengo Family. Now he’s into them for twenty large and they charge him about three points a week. He’s so afraid that he won’t even go home at night anymore for fear they’ll blow up his car right in front of his kids. Mario wants us to basically buy Tony’s debt from them and let him repay the fund with interest.”
The Legend of Joey Trucks: The Accidental Mobster Page 28
