Crime Scene

The woman eyed the man sitting across the table with a cool yet very proper and professional demeanor. She was about to tell the truth behind the story she knew. The man who told it to her was there, part of the plan.

“I knew Sal better than anybody else could,” she began. “A lot of people knew him, but just his outward appearance, what he allowed them to know. With me it was different. In his later years we would sit and talk about his early days, and about the incident you want to know of in particular. All I can do is tell you about the Sal that I knew, and what he told me about that event.”

“But you have to promise not to paint him like a monster. He was far from the creature the press made him to be. Promise me that and I’ll tell you everything...”

The man nodded and lifted the glass of wine in front of him.

“I promise.”

The woman leaned back in her chair and allowed the steady sound of the waves below to carry her back in time, to that day in the courtroom. She was called as a witness at the tender young age of nine. But even then she knew where her loyalties should be. She could hear Sal’s voice beginning his tale…

“Yeah, so I’m sittin’ in this courtroom, right? I ain’t worried though. I been arrested seventeen times and ain’t never been convicted once. I mean that’s a good record y’know? Know why I ain’t ever been convicted? ’Cause I’m smart about things. I don’t involve nobody else in my business, I leave a clean crime scene and I don’t ever do things when I’m angry.”

“This one is tricky though. This one just might get me sent up maybe. I wasn’t so smart on this one but this guy really pissed me off. The stuff this piece of shit was doing was really bad. I didn’t give a shit about whackin’ him at all but the girl was different. I felt bad about her but what am I gonna do huh? I can’t leave no witnesses even if they do promise not to talk. Ha! A promise not to talk. That promise is good until the cops call on you. No, I did the right thing by puttin’ her down too, I just feel bad that I had to do it y’know?”

“That was the way Sal talked,” she continued. “He spoke of that day often, almost as if it were a prelude to the event that would change him forever. It was the first time he spoke with Vinny too. Vinny sat just behind him and listened to everything Sal was telling him, trying to get a feel for him. Sal described that day in detail to me many times.”

She closed her eyes again and began painting the scene, the first of many such scenes. Seemingly filled with chaos, but she knew they were anything but chaotic. Instead, they were calculating and revealing.

All around the accused hitman, the courtroom buzzed. Reporters talked among themselves in hushed tones and would often run out to the phones to send in another tidbit of information. The room itself was staid and formal as courtrooms tend to be. The eight-foot-tall windows let in far less light than one would imagine and the room smelled of cigarettes, pencil lead, and leather. The big desk at the end of the room where the judge sat was vacant now and the bailiffs all looked on, bored with the delay.

At the lower right-hand side of the judge’s desk sat a pretty, young stenographer who blushed profusely as Sal blew her a kiss and winked. It did not stop her from flashing a suggestive smile back in his direction. In her eyes, Sal was the same as any Hollywood celebrity. He was a trophy lay, and she was the kind that thought that if she was exceptionally good, she just might end up married to all that money and fame.

In the back of the room sat three men, who took in the carnival-like atmosphere with a great deal of disdain. Sal glimpsed at them and dismissed them as federal agents and therefor pests. His disrespect for law enforcement of any kind was always evident and something that came quite naturally to him.

“My lawyer keeps givin’ me the thumbs up sign. He’s another piece of shit. No, look at him. That’s a fuckin’ three hundred dollar suit for Christ’s sake! And guess who the fuck is payin’ for it. Yeah, me! His name is Gregory P. Garandi and he handles y’know, my kind almost exclusively. What’s my kind mean? Well, a tough guy, a wise guy…y’know, someone connected.”

“I don’t like to talk about it with strangers but I been connected for a long time now. My old man was connected and my grandfather too back in the old country. He was a big shot there but had to leave so he came to America and went to work for Al Capone. Yeah, the big man himself, Al Capone. Sometime after prohibition ended the old man killed someone and relocated to Philly.”

“He liked it here. He stayed, got married and started his own crew. John Avena was the Don back then and the old man did right by him. He paid his tribute and they let him run his crew. He had everything goin’ here the old man did. Prostitution, gamblin’, loansharkin', and even a good little numbers racket. When my father was old enough, the old man had him runnin’ numbers all over the place y’know? That’s how my father learned how to score and then when I was old enough they both started me the same way.”

Sal always said that no other business could boast the same family traditions as organized crime. Fathers groomed their sons to follow them at an early age. When Sal was only five years old, his grandfather was already explaining how to use an icepick and why it was important to soak the shotgun pellets in garlic before you loaded the shells. Bankers could never say that ninety-nine percent of their sons became bankers. No, wiseguys and cops were the only groups that could claim that, and even the cops couldn’t keep up with the wiseguys!

The man sitting with the woman kept jotting down notes on the fresh new legal pad she had provided him. He had arrived with just a small notebook, but she knew that Sal’s story would take much more than that.

“Hustles here hustles there…pretty soon I was makin' my own scores too. Little things y’know, like sellin’ smokes at school when I went, even a little loansharkin’ too. I took bets on the games and money lendin’ just went right along with that. Even had my own crew back then. I had Big Bobby Gianco and his brother Humpy. We called him Humpy cause the guy would bang anything that had a skirt. He didn’t care how ugly or fat they were, he was bangin’ them if he could.”

“Then there was Tommy Mizz. We called him that ‘cause he was a miserable son of a bitch and Sal Provolone, the baker’s son. His real name was Provenzano and his father could bake shit that would make you cry. The five of us had a nice racket goin’ at school and even had a couple teachers on the payroll. Then one day the cops show up and they grab Mizz and he has all the fuckin’ bet slips in his pocket. What a fuckin idiot!”

While the woman continued painting her picture, as masterful as a Rembrandt or a Picasso, she remembered a fourth man entering the room and speaking briefly to the other three. His arms were animate, and several times he pointed behind him in Sal’s general direction. The scene didn’t go unnoticed by Sal either. In fact, even though Sal appeared to be a loudmouth rambling “chooch” as he would be so quick to call others, he rarely missed anything happening around him. When the three men stood and the one in the middle shot Sal a look of contempt, the mobster noticed that too.

He quickly pointed the man out to his lawyer who looked at the man and back to Sal shaking his head no. The man was well dressed, maybe too well dressed for a federal agent as Sal had thought at first. They filed out of the door but before he left he gave one more look to the mobster who now followed him with keen eyes. The smirk on the man’s face seemed to speak volumes to Sal.

If it worried him, it certainly didn’t show on his face when he continued his story. He always said it was best to keep your face neutral so nobody knew what you were thinking.

“Turns out the cops was watchin’ us for about three months and the only one they had was Mizz but the little bitch ratted us all out. That’s when I learned that partners was trouble. And where I learned to read people. The way people are speaks loud if ya know how to hear it. Like Mizz was just what his name said right? A miserable bastid. That kinda person don’t give a fuck who he drags down with him and that’s just what he did…dragged us all down with him. Spent a year in Juvey Hall and that’s the last time I ever looked through bars.”

“So y’know, I don’t got no partners now. I mean who needs the aggravation y’know? If I do somethin’ and the cops get wise I know I ain’t gonna tell them I did it. They gotta prove I did it and with nobody to rat me out, then that just leaves bein’ caught red-handed. That’s how you make it through life with no convictions. You gotta excuse me now. The jury is comin’ back in and I gotta look like I’m sorry and repentful.”

Sal was a consummate smartass most of the time. He knew when and to whom he should show respect and apparently being in that courtroom wasn’t one of those times. The bailiff called the all rise that told the people in the room the judge was on his way back in. He was an older man, probably close to seventy. His hair had gone past grey and into white now and his tall lanky frame was starting to bend. He sat down, lit a cigarette and motioned for the jury to come back. He never once looked in Sal’s direction. Gregory P. Garandi allowed a broad smile that highlighted his gold tooth. The twelve people filed from a door on the opposite side of the one the judge had entered.

There were nine men and three women and they all kept their heads down as they filed past the prosecutor’s table. Sal smiled and relaxed back into his chair. Fifteen minutes later the mobster stood in the back of the courtroom accepting handshakes from people as if he had just won a primary or an acting award. I would venture to say that this verdict was indeed like an acting award in some ways. Once outside the five other wiseguys who attended the trial to make sure Sal did things the way they were supposed to be done clapped him on the back and ushered him to his car and a night of celebrating.

“I didn’t see him on a daily basis for some years after that,” the woman said. “He would stop by and visit me at least once a month, but everything I’m about to tell you now is what he told me just a few years before he died. His memory was sharp still and he didn’t spare any details with me. I hope you’re not squeamish because I intend to tell you his part in the story the same way. I’ll leave nothing to the imagination.”