Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family Read Online Free Page A
Author: Nicholas Pileggi
Tags: United States, Fiction, General, Social Science, Media Tie-In - General, Media Tie-In, Crime, Biography & Autobiography, Mafia, True Crime, Biography, Murder, Criminology, Criminals & Outlaws, Criminals, Case studies, Serial Killers, Autobiography, General & Literary Fiction, organized crime, Movie or Television Tie-In, Movie-TV Tie-In - General, Biography: General, Henry, Criminals - United States, Crime and criminals, Organized crime - United States, Hill, Hill; Henry, Mafia - United States
before the branches came loose and began to fall apart. The trees would collapse even faster once they were weighed down with decorations.
“We were always scheming. Everything was a scheme. Tuddy got me a job unloading deliveries at a high-class Italian food store just so I could toss the store’s most expensive items through the windows of Tuddy’s cabs, which he had parked strategically nearby. It wasn’t that Tuddy or Lenny or Paul needed the stuff-the imported olive oil, prosciutto, or tuna fish. The Varios had more than enough money to buy the store a hundred times over. It was just that stuff that was stolen always tasted better than anything bought. I remember years later, when I was doing pretty well in the stolen credit-card business, Paulie was always asking me for stolen credit cards whenever he and his wife, Phyllis, were going out for the night. Paulie called stolen cards ‘Muldoons,’ and he always said that liquor tastes better on a Muldoon. The fact that a guy like Paul Vario, a capo in the Lucchese crime family, would even consider going out on a social occasion with his wife and run the risk of getting caught using a stolen card might surprise some people. But if you knew wiseguys you would know right away that the best part of the night for Paulie came from the fact that he was getting over on somebody. It wasn’t the music or the floor show or the food--and he loved food-or even that he was going out with Phyllis, who he adored. The real thrill of the night for Paulie, his biggest pleasure, was that he was robbing someone and getting away with it.
“After I was at the cabstand about six months I began helping the Varios with the card and dice games they ran. I would spend the days with Bruno Facciolo assembling the crap game tables, which were just like the ones they have in Vegas. I spent my nights steering the high rollers from various pickup spots in the neighborhood, such as the candy store under the Liberty Avenue el or Al and Evelyn’s delicatessen on Pitkin Avenue, to the apartments and storefronts where we were having games that night. A couple of times we had the games in the basement of my own school, Junior High School 149, on Euclid Avenue. Babe Vario bought the school custodian. I kept an eye out for cops, especially the plainclothesmen from the division or headquarters, who used to shake down the games in those days. I didn’t have to worry too much about the local cops. They were already on the payroll. It got so that I could always make a plainclothesman. They usually had their shirts outside their pants to cover their guns and handcuffs. They used the same dirty black Plymouths all the time. We even had their plate numbers. They had a way of walking through a block or driving a car that just said, ‘Don’t fuck with me, I’m a cop!’ I had radar for them. I knew.
“Those games were fabulous. There were usually between thirty and forty guys playing. We had rich garment-center guys. Businessmen. Restaurant owners. Bookmakers. Union guys. Doctors. Dentists. This was long before it was so easy to fly out to Vegas or drive down to Atlantic City for the night. There was also just about every wiseguy in the city coming to the games. The games themselves were actually run by professionals, but the Varios handled the money. They kept the books and the cashbox. The guys who ran the game got a flat fee or a percentage depending on the deal they cut. The people who ran the games for Paulie were the same kind of professionals who would run games in casinos or carnivals. The card games had professional dealers and the crap games had boxmen and stickmen, just like regular casinos. There were doormen-usually guys from the cabstand-who checked out everyone who got in the game, and there were loan sharks who worked for Paulie who picked up some of the action. Every pot was cut five or six percent for the house, and there was a bartender who kept the drinks coming.
“I used to make
“We were always scheming. Everything was a scheme. Tuddy got me a job unloading deliveries at a high-class Italian food store just so I could toss the store’s most expensive items through the windows of Tuddy’s cabs, which he had parked strategically nearby. It wasn’t that Tuddy or Lenny or Paul needed the stuff-the imported olive oil, prosciutto, or tuna fish. The Varios had more than enough money to buy the store a hundred times over. It was just that stuff that was stolen always tasted better than anything bought. I remember years later, when I was doing pretty well in the stolen credit-card business, Paulie was always asking me for stolen credit cards whenever he and his wife, Phyllis, were going out for the night. Paulie called stolen cards ‘Muldoons,’ and he always said that liquor tastes better on a Muldoon. The fact that a guy like Paul Vario, a capo in the Lucchese crime family, would even consider going out on a social occasion with his wife and run the risk of getting caught using a stolen card might surprise some people. But if you knew wiseguys you would know right away that the best part of the night for Paulie came from the fact that he was getting over on somebody. It wasn’t the music or the floor show or the food--and he loved food-or even that he was going out with Phyllis, who he adored. The real thrill of the night for Paulie, his biggest pleasure, was that he was robbing someone and getting away with it.
“After I was at the cabstand about six months I began helping the Varios with the card and dice games they ran. I would spend the days with Bruno Facciolo assembling the crap game tables, which were just like the ones they have in Vegas. I spent my nights steering the high rollers from various pickup spots in the neighborhood, such as the candy store under the Liberty Avenue el or Al and Evelyn’s delicatessen on Pitkin Avenue, to the apartments and storefronts where we were having games that night. A couple of times we had the games in the basement of my own school, Junior High School 149, on Euclid Avenue. Babe Vario bought the school custodian. I kept an eye out for cops, especially the plainclothesmen from the division or headquarters, who used to shake down the games in those days. I didn’t have to worry too much about the local cops. They were already on the payroll. It got so that I could always make a plainclothesman. They usually had their shirts outside their pants to cover their guns and handcuffs. They used the same dirty black Plymouths all the time. We even had their plate numbers. They had a way of walking through a block or driving a car that just said, ‘Don’t fuck with me, I’m a cop!’ I had radar for them. I knew.
“Those games were fabulous. There were usually between thirty and forty guys playing. We had rich garment-center guys. Businessmen. Restaurant owners. Bookmakers. Union guys. Doctors. Dentists. This was long before it was so easy to fly out to Vegas or drive down to Atlantic City for the night. There was also just about every wiseguy in the city coming to the games. The games themselves were actually run by professionals, but the Varios handled the money. They kept the books and the cashbox. The guys who ran the game got a flat fee or a percentage depending on the deal they cut. The people who ran the games for Paulie were the same kind of professionals who would run games in casinos or carnivals. The card games had professional dealers and the crap games had boxmen and stickmen, just like regular casinos. There were doormen-usually guys from the cabstand-who checked out everyone who got in the game, and there were loan sharks who worked for Paulie who picked up some of the action. Every pot was cut five or six percent for the house, and there was a bartender who kept the drinks coming.
“I used to make