Last Rites (3 page)

Of interest, an essential operation at this time was Pinetree Stables in Framingham, Massachusetts. The rambling acres, expensive barns and lushly appointed main house served a hidden purpose. Outwardly, it was a breeding farm for thoroughbred racing horses. Its real purpose, however, was as a secluded, heavily guarded sanctuary for national mob meetings. Plush limousines would arrive every Sunday at the main house to meet with Massachusetts crime boss Joseph Lombardo. Some of the farm's noteworthy visitors included Carlos Marcella of Louisiana, known as the “little man,” and Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno from New York, a representative of Charles “Lucky” Luciano. These are the men who would eventually turn the New England territory over to Patriarca in the years to come.

In the 1950s, Patriarca assumed command of the New England mob. For a quarter of a century, he built his power base with little public exposure and law enforcement scrutiny. During the early 1950s, Las Vegas was just beginning to become the adult Disneyland, and the casino boom was almost completely financed with mob money. Ben “Bugsy” Siegel built the Flamingo hotel and casino; the Thunderbird was financed by Meyer Lansky, although he had small pieces of other casinos as well; the Desert Inn was owned by Moe Dalitz and the Cleveland mob; the Sands was owned by Frank Costello, Joe Adonis and actor George Raft; the Sahara and Riviera were owned by Tony Arcado, Sam Giancana, Nicholas Civella (boss of the Kansas City mob) and Frank Costello; and the Dunes was owned by Frank Costello and Raymond Patriarca. When Caesar's Palace was being built, the top investors were Tony Arcado, Patriarca, Jerry Catena (a top aide of Vito Genovese) and Vicent Alo, a longtime friend of Meyer Lansky. As the mob bosses perfected the practice of skimming millions of dollars from the Las Vegas casinos, investors such as Raymond Patriarca were able to fill their coffers and use skim money to increase their power base over their respective territories. Patriarca's Las Vegas investments made him an extremely wealthy and powerful man.

The head of the Massachusetts State Police once told a legislative committee that Patriarca was so ruthless and devious that he regularly hijacked liquor shipments that he was hired to protect. The ruthlessness of Patriarca extended all the way to his own men. Once Patriarca put up $20,000 for his men to handle a load of stolen cigarettes. The FBI had other plans and seized the load. Patriarca was uninterested in why the shipment had been lost. His sole interest was in getting his money back. The men had to scrounge around and come up with the $20,000 in order to pacify their boss. Patriarca was always a partner in the profits but never in losses. Patriarca was once heard ordering a hit on his own brother on an FBI wiretap. Evidently, his brother had failed to find a bug in his office while he was in charge of mob security. Patriarca eventually called off the hit and welcomed his brother back into the fold.

Then Joseph Barboza, a Patriarca enforcer and hit man turned informer, brought forth a devastating blow to the Patriarca family. Law enforcement was able to convict Patriarca of conspiracy to commit murder, specifically having made man Rocco DiSiglio killed for being a fingerman for a stickup gang that was robbing mob crap games. While serving the six-year prison sentence, Patriarca was able to run his mob from behind bars, much like Vito Genovese, thereby opening the door for freelance racketeers such as Jerry Angiulo to move in and shake down bookies. In 1954, Buccola fled to Sicily and left the family in the care of Raimondo Laredo Salvatore Patriarca. Once the New York Commission approved of Patriarca, he would become the new boss and Buccola would be retired. Patriarca even lent out his top hit man, John “Jackie” Nazarian, to kill Albert Anastasia, aka the Mad Hatter, of Murder Inc. fame.

At 10:10 a.m. on October 25, 1957, two men on Seventh Avenue were obscured by the crowds passing by as they stepped from a sedan and headed into Manhattan's Park Sheraton Hotel. As the men entered the hotel behind a workman, they all walked briskly toward the barbershop of the hotel. The workman paused briefly at the barbershop, pointed a newspaper at the chair where Anastasia was sitting and then disappeared into the hotel. The two men then pulled up handkerchiefs that were tied around their necks and hid their faces. At 10:20 a.m., the barbershop erupted in gunfire. The hit was orchestrated by Tony Strollo, underboss of the Genovese family. He contacted Patriarca because most of the hit men in New York were terrified of Anastasia. The New York families wanted someone who wasn't scared and could complete the job without being detected by Anastasia. Needless to say, Nazarian was successful.

Raymond Patriarca's headquarters on Atwell Avenue in Providence, Rhode Island.
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Patriarca moved the family headquarters from Boston to Providence shortly after taking power. His office on Atwell Street in Providence was an armed camp. This nondescript two-story building was, at least in theory, home to the National Cigarette Service Company and Coin o Matic Distributors. This setup was comparable to other mob strongholds such as Mulberry Street in New York's Little Italy and Prince Street in Boston. If you entered the Atwell Street office, you were greeted by at least two men at the door. They would escort you through a maze of cigarette and pinball machines, and past a repair area to an overhead steel door in the back. Once it was lifted up, you would enter a twelve- by twelve-foot room that served as the nerve center for the New England mob. It was from here that Patriarca ruled like a king on his throne.

From his office, he oversaw gambling, extortion, loan sharking, prostitution and truck hijackings. In the afternoon, he could be seen sitting out front in his beach chair, smoking a cigarette and greeting people as they walked by. Not only did every store owner on Atwell Avenue pay him protection money, but he also collected tribute from every bookie from Maine to New York.

This was the powerful and sinister leader—Raymond Patriarca—who, along with his organization, would become at least partially responsible for the future of Gigi Portalla.

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Gennaro “Jerry” Angiulo was born in 1919, the son of Sicilian immigrants who operated a small grocery store in the North End of Boston. During his early years, the North End was an overcrowded ghetto that was teeming with Italian and Sicilian immigrants who were all seeking a better life in the United States. The streets of the North End were narrow cobblestone and the tenement houses were small and congested, housing apothecaries, grocers and saloons. By the time the Angiulos were living in the North End, it was known to be Boston's most densely populated slum. The small waterfront neighborhood can trace its origins back to the earliest days of British settlement, prior to the Revolutionary War. As the original occupants of the North End grew in prosperity, they moved out of the North End. Most of the Protestant families fled to Beacon Hill, and Irish immigrants began moving into the neighborhood. Against the clamor of the teeming life in the streets was the stench of rotting food and wastes that were intermittently carted away by a neglectful sanitation department. Money lending and furniture stores were occupying what once had been prime commercial property. For a while, both Irish and Italian immigrants began to settle in the North End, but eventually the Irish moved out, creating their own enclave in the South End of Boston.

In some neighborhoods, the numbers game or policy flourished. Since the late 1800s, it had been particularly successful among the black neighborhoods. It was an illegal lottery run by small racketeers and, later, by crime syndicates. In the early days, bettors purchased a number, hoping that it would match a winning number to be drawn later in the day, usually from a bowl in an attic or garage. The disadvantage to this system was that it was easily rigged. To convince bettors that the game was on the level, it was linked to published horse-racing results at Suffolk Downs. This was called the handle, and it was very successful in the New England area. Newly arriving immigrants religiously played the numbers in an attempt to get rich quick in their new home.

Gennaro Angiulo, the numbers man of Boston.
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During the 1920s, there weren't many opportunities for the newly arriving Italian immigrants. Although the Angiulo family had it a little better than most families living in the overcrowded squalor that was the North End, Jerry was looking for an easier way to earn a living. He was raised with five brothers and sisters on Prince Street, where he later set up his underworld headquarters. As a young man, he worked with his siblings in the small grocery store that their parents ran. During World War II, Jerry joined the United States Navy and served in the Pacific Theater of Operations as a landing craft operator with the U.S. Marines. After the war, Jerry returned to the North End and worked as a low-level bookmaker. By the early 1950s, organized crime in Boston was floundering. Phil Buccola had ceased all bookmaking activities due to the Kefauver hearings; this left the door open for bookmakers to freelance their operations without mob protection.

Angiulo, seeing an opportunity to advance his position and increase the size of his bankroll, acted quickly. He would send his henchmen to a list of local bookies to intimidate them into paying Angiulo tribute. The henchmen would go to the bars where the bookies operated and take the betting slips. The next day, the men would return to the bookies after the Suffolk Downs parimutuel numbers had been published in the newspaper. The men would then inform the bookmakers that they had hit the parimutuel with them, and then produce the bookies' own slips as proof.

Boston bookies quickly paid tribute to Angiulo on a weekly basis, due to the fact that they no longer were under the umbrella of mob protection. By paying weekly tribute, the bookies were ensuring that they would not be intimidated by Angiulo's henchmen again. Knowing that once Patriarca took control of the New England mob his position of authority may be in jeopardy, Angiulo had to act quickly. He decided to ingratiate himself to Raymond Patriarca and his organization, since he did not have the muscle or manpower to go head to head against the New England crime organization. Angiulo took $50,000 down to Rhode Island and offered it to Patriarca as a gift. Patriarca was so touched by the gesture that he offered Angiulo a position within the organization. Angiulo now had the full force and blessing of the New England mob behind him. He was also one of the few members of the mob who became a made member without committing a murder. Angiulo knew that you didn't advance in this business by working on your own. Learning comes from the experience and teaching from those farther down the road than you are.

Angiulo was truly a numbers man. He had an uncanny ability to manipulate numbers, which made the New England mob the most profitable family in the mafia. The diminutive Angiulo stood at only five feet, seven inches, yet he was intimidating to deal with. He demanded respect but was not a typical gangster. He was a businessman and attempted to settle quarrels by making money rather than ordering murders. Violence was used by him as a last resort.

On Friday, September 16, 1960, the Boston Police Racket Squad brought two North End brothers into Boston Municipal Court and charged them with assault and battery. The two brothers were Donato Angiulo, thirty-seven years old, of Prince Street, and Frank Angiulo, thirty-nine years old, of Friend Street. The two men were the brothers of Jerry Angiulo. The police raiding party went to the Central Parlor Frame Company, where the Angiulos took bets on telephones, only to find out that someone had cut off the lines. They called a telephone lineman, who traced the lines to an apartment nearby. The raiding party then hastened to the Beacon Hill home of Municipal Court judge Elijah Adlow to get an emergency search warrant. When they arrived back at the apartment, Boston detective Arthur McNamara was bombarded by three telephones that were hurled at him by a man escaping from a window on Prince Street. McNamara gave pursuit and eventually caught Donato Angiulo. At the same time, another officer was punched in the face by Frank Angiulo as he was attempting to gain entrance into the building. Deputy Superintendent John Slattery described the crowd of residents outside the apartment as “extremely hostile.” As the raiding party reached the doorway to the apartment building, they were greeted by a snarling German shepherd dog. The dog's master was finally persuaded by the police to call the dog off. Meanwhile, someone in the crowd pulled two fire alarms. This act caused the street to become congested with fire apparatus, stalled vehicles and approximately one thousand residents shouting profanity. The raiding party was finally able to break through several plywood-reinforced doors to reach the apartment. Once inside, they found an empty room with a stove, upon which there were burning slips of paper, causing the room to fill with smoke. They were able to confiscate some telephones, two long tables surrounded by chairs and two air conditioners. The police eventually brought forth complaints against the owner of the Central Parlor Frame Company, a Revere man.