The Heartbreak Lounge (15 page)
Read The Heartbreak Lounge Online
Authors: Wallace Stroby
It seemed like the day had given up. By noon, it was dusk dark and overcast, with the occasional spit of snow. Harry felt sleepy as he drove north, wished he'd had another cup of coffee before leaving the house.
In Newark, he parked in a Kinney lot off Broad Street, walked the block to the federal building. He went through the checkpoint downstairs, showed his driver's license and was given a visitor's card. Saturday afternoon and most of the offices he passed were dark. He rode the elevator up to the ninth floor.
The Strike Force office was at the end of the hall, door ajar. He knocked twice on the glass. A voice inside called, “Come on in.”
He went past empty desks, down a short hall to another office. It was small, two desks pushed together head to head, a table, a filing cabinet and a water cooler. A man in jeans and black sweatshirt was going through desk drawers, putting their contents in a brown banker's box atop the desk. Another box, already full, sat on the table. Harry tapped a knuckle on the door frame.
“Yeah,” the man said, turning to face him. He was a head shorter than Harry, compactly muscular, short black hair. He wore a laminated Department of Justice ID on a cord around his neck.
“You Rane?”
“Yes, thanks for seeing me.”
The man put out his hand.
“Vic Salerno. Ray called yesterday, but I told him today
would be better if this was going to be informal. Fewer people around. Just give me a second here.”
would be better if this was going to be informal. Fewer people around. Just give me a second here.”
He put a bronze fishing trophy in the box, a framed photo of a man and woman on a small boat, smiling at the camera.
“I was sorry to hear about your partner,” Harry said.
Salerno shrugged.
“I knew Sully twenty years, partnered with him for six. Right here in this office. And this is what it all comes down to. Somebody throwing all your shit in a cardboard box. Someone will do it for me someday.”
“Was he ill?”
“I played one-on-one with him just last week, over at Rutgers. He ran my ass all over the court. He'd just turned forty-two. Three years younger than me, but in better shape than I've ever been in my whole life. You know what they sayâin thirty-five percent, or something like that, of heart disease cases, the first symptom is sudden death.”
“I'm sorry. He have kids?”
“Two girls, nine and ten. Divorced, but he and the ex were talking about getting together again.” He gestured at a chair by the filing cabinet. Harry rolled it over, sat down.
“You always think you'll have time,” Salerno said. “To put your affairs in order, get your shit together. Fix things in your life that aren't going well. But you don't always get it. It's like, every day, life goes on. And then one day it just goes on without you.”
He sat down.
“So how is Ray?” he said. “I talk to him occasionally, usually when he needs something. But I haven't seen him in months.”
“He's fine. Doing well. Asked me to say hello.”
“And Edda?”
“She's fine too. Their daughter's at Cornell now.”
“I heard. Smart kid. My son's seventeen. He'll be lucky if he gets into Fairleigh Dickinson. You got kids?”
Harry shook his head.
“Can't blame you. The way the world is now, it's like, why the fuck would you want to? It has its rewards, though.”
“I guess.”
Salerno looked at him for a moment.
“Stop me if I'm out of line,” he said. “But I'm curious.”
“About?”
“You ever catch any fallout over what happened to those two whyos? The ones from Paulie Andelli's crew?”
Harry shook his head.
“You closed a lot of case files when those two went down, you know that? Saved a lot of people a lot of work.”
Harry said nothing.
“Sorry,” Salerno said. “I shouldn't have brought it up.”
“It's okay. I just don't know how to respond.”
“You don't need to. Like I said, I shouldn't have brought it up. So, Ray was pretty cryptic on the phone. Said there were some people you wanted to ask me about, off the record.”
“Joey Alea.”
“That little shitbag? You involved with him?”
“Not really. This has to do with a client of Ray's.”
“And this person is mixed up with Joey Alea?”
“Secondhand. What can you tell me about him?”
“Well, you know who he is, right? I mean, who his uncle is?”
“No.”
“Tony Acuna. Tony and Joey's mother were brother and sister. Joey's fatherâSam Aleaâran a shy operation Down Neck for many years. That was the bone Tony threw him, I guessâI hear Sam was no genius. You know what happened to him, right? Joey's father?”
Harry shook his head.
“He got nabbed by the Feds on extortion charges, must have been in seventy-two, seventy-three. He cut a deal, agreed to testify against Tony and his people. Supposedly they'd already made a place for him in the WitSec programâstate, not federal. This is all before my time, of course.”
“What happened?”
“Pretty much what you'd imagine. Every skipper Tony had
on his crew was going batshit, waiting for the ax to fall. There was a lot of pressure on him to do something. He didn't want to, brother-in-law and all, but he had no choice. Supposedly the word came from the Commission itself, via Carlo Gambino. So Sam disappears, and a couple years later they're digging up a chicken farm down in Jackson Township that a friend of Tony's used to own and what do they find? Joey had to be a kid when all this was going on, though. I mean, we're going back more than thirty years here.”
on his crew was going batshit, waiting for the ax to fall. There was a lot of pressure on him to do something. He didn't want to, brother-in-law and all, but he had no choice. Supposedly the word came from the Commission itself, via Carlo Gambino. So Sam disappears, and a couple years later they're digging up a chicken farm down in Jackson Township that a friend of Tony's used to own and what do they find? Joey had to be a kid when all this was going on, though. I mean, we're going back more than thirty years here.”
“I understand. So what happened to Joey after that?”
“Well, here's the funny thing. And again this is just what I've been told. Tony took him under his wing, but he was dead set against Joey getting involved in the Life. I mean, he went out of his way for the kid. Even sent him to collegeâMontclair State. The family never wanted for anything.”
“Guilt?”
“Maybe. But maybe something more than that. Tony's an interesting guy. How much do you know about him?”
“Not much. I know he's semiretired.”
“Yeah, pretty much. Tony's a legend, you know? But he always kept a low profile. And when the young Turks started coming to powerâGotti over in New York, Scarfo down in Phillyâand people started to get whacked all over the place, Tony took a dim view of it. He thought it would be the ruin of Their Thing. And he was right. It was the beginning of the end for most of them. Look at where they all are now. The Scarpettis are away on long federal jolts, Paulie Andelli's got so many indictments on him he can barely afford to pay his lawyers. Gotti died in prison and Little Nicky probably isn't far behind him. But Tony's still out there. I've met him a few times. And you know the weird thing? I like him.”
“How's that?”
“Well, he's a product of his environment, you know? He, the Scarpettis, Andelli, they all grew up in the North Ward, in Newark. Not too far from here, actually. And most of them were Calabrese, just like my family. From the
Mezzogiorno
. Their families were poor there, they came across the ocean looking for opportunity and they ended up poor here
too. My grandfather was a tailor, had a shop down on Sheffield Street. He knew of all those people. And back in the thirties, it wasn't so much an Italian thing. It was mostly Jews running the showâLongy Zwillman, people like that. Dutch Schultz came to Newark after Dewey chased him out of New York. Schultz got clipped about a half mile from here, on Park Street. Used to be the Palace Chop House back then. Now it's a bagel shop, fittingly enough. Sorry. You're not really interested in all this, are you?”
Mezzogiorno
. Their families were poor there, they came across the ocean looking for opportunity and they ended up poor here
too. My grandfather was a tailor, had a shop down on Sheffield Street. He knew of all those people. And back in the thirties, it wasn't so much an Italian thing. It was mostly Jews running the showâLongy Zwillman, people like that. Dutch Schultz came to Newark after Dewey chased him out of New York. Schultz got clipped about a half mile from here, on Park Street. Used to be the Palace Chop House back then. Now it's a bagel shop, fittingly enough. Sorry. You're not really interested in all this, are you?”
“That's okay.”
“Personally, I'm fascinated by this shit. I consider myself a student of it. Sully used to say there was a great book to be written about the New Jersey mob someday.”
“Maybe you should write it.”
“You kidding? I type up a 10â14 report, I have a headache before I'm done.”
“So you like Acuna?”
“Well, as far as it goes, you know? Met him four, maybe five times. Always a gentlemen. You know, for fifty years people like me have been trying to put him away and not one of us ever succeeded. He beat every case ever built against him. And he had no taste for violence. I mean, when someone had to go, they had to go, and I don't think Tony ever had a problem pushing the button on them, but in general he'd go to it only as a last resort. And that's one of the reasons he flourished the way he did, quite frankly. Guy ran the port hereâcontrolled almost everything that went in and out of itâfrom the sixties on and no one ever touched him. It's when bodies start turning up that the heat comes down, state and federal. So Tony avoided all that.
“And you know, he was what he was. But he's got three kidsâtwo daughters and a sonâand who knows how many grandchildren. His kids never even had a whiff of the Life. The son's a doctor in Millburn. Tony's thing was he always wanted something better for his kids. He felt the same way about Joey too, you know? Why it didn't take, who knows?”
“Joey worked for him?”
Salerno shook his head.
“No, never. Tony wouldn't have it. So instead, Joey started hanging out with other wiseguys, running errands. College boy, you know, totally out of his league. But trading on his uncle's name. I think they humored him, threw him some bones here and there. No one took him seriously. Plus, nobody ever forgot his father was a rat.”
“Was he ever made?”
“In his dreams. He ran a few places, probably still does. Turned out to be a pretty good businessman, from what I remember. Owned some strip clubs, a porn shop, that type of thing. Rumor was he was in the video business, financed some skin flicks. And he dabbled in other things tooâmeth, I'm sure. Coke when it was big. He came across our radar a few times, but that's it. Last time we were looking at him it was in connection with a shitload of Ecstasy tabs that ended up at Rutgers. Nailed the kids that were distributing it, but couldn't work our way up the ladder, so the case stalled out.”
“His uncle doesn't mind he's involved in all this?”
“At this point, who knows? Maybe he's given up. The old guard tolerate the kid because of his connections, I think, which they might not do for someone else. They let him run his business. Joey's strictly small-time anyway, so why bother? And frankly, we've hit the OC guys so hard the last few years that their whole infrastructure's falling apart. It'll never be the way it used to be. Those days are over.”
“You sound confident.”
“LCN these daysâtraditional LCNâis like the Soviet Union. Geographically, it's still there, but the structure's collapsed. Despite the name, it was never very organized, you know? And it's even less organized now. Yeah, the Commission still sits and passes judgment when it needs to, but there's no one watching the shop all the time. So there's a lot of loose cannons out there as well.”
“So Alea's an up-and-comer?”
“Barely. I mean, this guy isn't exactly going to the top of the class anytime soon. Those old-timersâAcuna and those boys, that whole generationâthey had balls, you know? Say
what you want about them as human beingsâand some barely fit the termâthey didn't get where they were by running scared of anybody. Tony and his right-hand man, Frankie Santelli, they been together since the forties. They fought their way up and took their beatings along the way. That's what makes them leaders. That's what draws people to them. Alea? Dope and pussy, that's all he's got going for him. Yeah, you can always attract people with that, keep them hanging around, telling you how great you are. But respect? Loyalty? That's something else entirely.”
what you want about them as human beingsâand some barely fit the termâthey didn't get where they were by running scared of anybody. Tony and his right-hand man, Frankie Santelli, they been together since the forties. They fought their way up and took their beatings along the way. That's what makes them leaders. That's what draws people to them. Alea? Dope and pussy, that's all he's got going for him. Yeah, you can always attract people with that, keep them hanging around, telling you how great you are. But respect? Loyalty? That's something else entirely.”
“You know of a guy named Johnny Harrow?”
“Heard of him. Why?”
“He work for Alea?”
“He did, at least. But last I heard, he took a fall for Joey, ended up with a jolt in Florida.”
“He's out.”
“That what this is about?”
“More or less.”
Salerno sat back, interested.
“Go on.”
“Someone's worried about his being back up here. They're concerned about his being a possible threat.”
“Business or personal?”
“Personal.”
“Well, this Harrow guy, if I remember right, was Joey's heavy hitter, or as close to one as he came. Popped some people for him, maybe. From what I heard, Joey had a difficult time keeping him on a leash, was maybe even a little scared of him himself. But muscle's muscle. You need it if you want respect, so it will always have value. You think Harrow's back in the mix?”
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