Read Online The Valachi Papers by Peter Maas - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Peter Maas
Ads: Link
threatening the death or mutilation of his children if it was not paid. With the memory of the dreaded Mafia in Sicily or the Neapolitan Camorra still fresh in their minds, distraught parents promptly forked over the cash. Black Hand extortionists became such a problem that in New York City a special police squad, led by Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino, was assigned to hunt them down. Furious that a handful of his own people was tarnishing the name of all Italians, he did his job too well; in 1909, while in Sicily to exchange criminal intelligence with local officials, he was shot in the back and killed.
Joseph Valachi was five years old when Petrosino died. He had been born on September 22, 1904, in Manhattans East Harlem where remnants of a once-large Italian population still can be found. Both of Valachi's parents came from Naples. They had seventeen children, but only six survived; Valachi was the second oldest. His alcoholic father was initially a vegetable pushcart peddler and then a laborer on a garbage scow. Of his childhood Valachi recalls:
My mother's name was Marie Casale. She was about 5 feet 7 and heavyset until she got older, and then she dropped down to about 120 pounds. My father's name was Dominick. I'd say he was about the same height and weighed about 160 pounds, never dressed clean, and had a big mustache. My older brother, Anthony, the last I heard is still in the bughouse.* My kid brother, Johnny, was a drifter, and I couldn't do a thing with him. He was found dead in the street, and the cops claimed it was a hit-and-run accident. I heard that they pulled him in for questioning and worked him over too much. My three sisters all got married, so I won't talk about them.
My father was a hardworking man, but he drank too much and my mother always had a black eye. The neighborhood in East Harlem was pretty rough in those days, and you could hardly walk around without catching a bullet. I remember my father had to pay a dollar a week for "protection," or else his pushcart would be wrecked.
He would make pretty good money selling all kinds of vegetables, but like I said, he would drink it all up. When I was a little boy, I used to help him with the vegetables. One time I was pushing the cart, which only had two wheels in front, and I slipped. To make a long story short, I dumped the tomatoes all over the street, and my father beat the hell out of me. Later, when he went to work at the City of New York garbage dumps at 107th Street and the East River, I worked with him.
We were the poorest family on earth. Anyway that's how it seemed to me. When I was growing up, we lived in different places but always around East 108th Street. One apartment was at 312 East 108th
"State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, Dannemora, New York.
Street. I'll describe it for you. There were three rooms, no hot water, and no bath. The toilet was out in the hall. The only heat was from a stove in the kitchen. We would bring home wood and used coal that we got from the dumps; we stored it in the room me and my brothers slept in. It got so that the whole room would be stocked to the ceiling in the winter, and boy, was it dirty! For sheets my mother used old cement bags that she sewed together, so you can imagine how rough they were.
I dared not think of any girls. I feared that they would want to come into the house. If they did, I think I would have died—from shame, of course. There was one girl I liked who lived across the street. She lived on the top floor, and we were on the ground floor. She could look right into our house when the light was on, and when she told me that she saw me at night before going to bed, I used to get heart failure because I felt guilty about how filthy everything was. Lots of times I left my room in the middle of the night and sneaked into a stable down the block full of wagons. Why would I want to sleep in a wagon instead of my own bed? If you want the truth, it was to get away from all the
Joseph Valachi was five years old when Petrosino died. He had been born on September 22, 1904, in Manhattans East Harlem where remnants of a once-large Italian population still can be found. Both of Valachi's parents came from Naples. They had seventeen children, but only six survived; Valachi was the second oldest. His alcoholic father was initially a vegetable pushcart peddler and then a laborer on a garbage scow. Of his childhood Valachi recalls:
My mother's name was Marie Casale. She was about 5 feet 7 and heavyset until she got older, and then she dropped down to about 120 pounds. My father's name was Dominick. I'd say he was about the same height and weighed about 160 pounds, never dressed clean, and had a big mustache. My older brother, Anthony, the last I heard is still in the bughouse.* My kid brother, Johnny, was a drifter, and I couldn't do a thing with him. He was found dead in the street, and the cops claimed it was a hit-and-run accident. I heard that they pulled him in for questioning and worked him over too much. My three sisters all got married, so I won't talk about them.
My father was a hardworking man, but he drank too much and my mother always had a black eye. The neighborhood in East Harlem was pretty rough in those days, and you could hardly walk around without catching a bullet. I remember my father had to pay a dollar a week for "protection," or else his pushcart would be wrecked.
He would make pretty good money selling all kinds of vegetables, but like I said, he would drink it all up. When I was a little boy, I used to help him with the vegetables. One time I was pushing the cart, which only had two wheels in front, and I slipped. To make a long story short, I dumped the tomatoes all over the street, and my father beat the hell out of me. Later, when he went to work at the City of New York garbage dumps at 107th Street and the East River, I worked with him.
We were the poorest family on earth. Anyway that's how it seemed to me. When I was growing up, we lived in different places but always around East 108th Street. One apartment was at 312 East 108th
"State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, Dannemora, New York.
Street. I'll describe it for you. There were three rooms, no hot water, and no bath. The toilet was out in the hall. The only heat was from a stove in the kitchen. We would bring home wood and used coal that we got from the dumps; we stored it in the room me and my brothers slept in. It got so that the whole room would be stocked to the ceiling in the winter, and boy, was it dirty! For sheets my mother used old cement bags that she sewed together, so you can imagine how rough they were.
I dared not think of any girls. I feared that they would want to come into the house. If they did, I think I would have died—from shame, of course. There was one girl I liked who lived across the street. She lived on the top floor, and we were on the ground floor. She could look right into our house when the light was on, and when she told me that she saw me at night before going to bed, I used to get heart failure because I felt guilty about how filthy everything was. Lots of times I left my room in the middle of the night and sneaked into a stable down the block full of wagons. Why would I want to sleep in a wagon instead of my own bed? If you want the truth, it was to get away from all the
Similar Books
