Mafia Prince: Inside America's Most Violent Crime Family (14 page)

             
On the night that Ange got killed, I was at Caesars with the Blade. We had just finished eating dinner and we were downstairs in the lobby getting ready to leave. As we were leaving, we bumped into Sal Avena, who was Ange’s longtime lawyer.

             
So Sal is making small talk with me about the Falcone case when all the sudden some guy he was with comes running up to him
and says, “Oh, my God, they killed Ange. It’s on TV. They shot him outside his home. He’s dead.”

             
Now Sal Avena is going nuts. He’s saying, “Oh, my God, oh, my God.” Me and the Blade tried to calm him down, but he was very upset. He and Ange were very close.

             
So me and the Blade leave Caesars and we are walking back to Georgia Avenue, which is a few blocks away. Now, as we are walking home, a black cat runs in front of us and the Blade goes nuts—he’s very superstitious. He tells me, “First, Ange gets killed, and now this,” meaning the cat. He says, “Come on, Philip, we gotta walk a different way to undo the bad luck from the cat.” There was no arguing with him—he was dead serious. Here’s this guy who is a stone-cold killer and he’s spooked by this stupid black cat.

             
So we walk a few blocks out of our way until the Blade thinks we have undone the curse and we make it to Georgia Avenue. I go right up to my uncle’s apartment and I ask him if he heard the big news. He was sitting on the couch reading a newspaper with his reading glasses on.

             
He put the paper down, took off his glasses, and motioned for me to follow him outside.

             
When we got outside he said, “What’s the big news? What’s going on?” So I tell him, “Ange is dead. He got shot outside his home.”

             
My uncle made a face like he was he was both happy and surprised, and we went into the Scarf, Inc. office and watched what was going on, on TV. It was live on TV, all the Philly stations were carrying it.

             
A little while later Lawrence comes to the office and says he spoke to Chuckie, who was in South Philadelphia, and that everyone down there is going nuts trying to figure out what happened.

             
Chuckie also sent word that Phil Testa was sending Salvie down first thing in the morning with a message for my uncle.

             
Now, at the time, we couldn’t leave Atlantic County because of our bail and Phil Testa couldn’t come to New Jersey because the same SCI that had sent my uncle to Yardville wanted to give him a subpoena to testify. If he had gotten served he wouldn’t have testified and he woulda wound up sitting in jail like my uncle and Ange when they went to Yardville.

             
So everything was being done through messengers.

             
First thing in the morning, like clockwork here comes Salvie. It’s like seven-thirty in the morning and he’s by himself. Me, him and my uncle take a walk up Georgia Avenue towards Atlantic. There was a little coffee shop there that we used to go to called the Cup and Saucer.

             
While we’re walking, Salvie says to my uncle, “My dad needs you to go to New York and find out what’s going on. Nobody knows nothin’. No one knows who did it and no one knows who’s in charge. It’s chaos out there.”

             
My uncle says, “I’ll see what I can do, but we can’t leave Atlantic City because of our bail restrictions, and these cocksuckers watch us all day. They don’t let up.”

             
As we’re eating our breakfast, my uncle pulls me aside and tells me to call Harold Garber and to have him meet us on Georgia Avenue. So I excuse myself and I call Harold and give him the message and he says he’ll be there in 20 minutes.

             
As we’re walking back, my uncle says to Salvie, “Tell your father he’s in charge, he’s the underboss. That’s the way it works in this thing, in
La Cosa Nostra,
and don’t let nobody tell him any different.” My uncle says, “You make sure you guys are careful, watch out for this,” and he shapes his finger like a gun, “because this plot may not be over.” He says, “Give me a few days and I’ll find out what is going on from my friends in New York.”

             
Salvie says good-bye and he drives off as Harold is pulling up.

             
My uncle says to Harold, “I need to go to North Jersey tomorrow I need you to make it happen.” Harold says, “Nick, you can’t go to North Jersey; you can’t leave Atlantic County—you know that.” My uncle cuts him off and says, “Find a way, Harold, work your magic, but I need to be in North Jersey tomorrow.”

             
So later that day Harold calls and he tells my uncle he’s all set. He can go to Newark and meet with the lawyer the next day at 1:00 p.m.

             
Harold had a lawyer friend in Newark and this guy gave Harold the okay to let my uncle use his office for the meeting.

             
Now my uncle wants to get word to Bobby Manna that he wants to meet him, but my uncle didn’t use telephones and neither did Bobby Manna. Normally we’d get word to Bobby using Blackie Napoli, but my uncle didn’t want any of the North Jersey guys to know that he was coming up there, and even though my uncle and Blackie were tight, Blackie was Caponigro’s right-hand man.

             
So my uncle has Lawrence call Chuckie and tell him that my uncle needs to see him right away in Atlantic City. An hour later, here comes Chuckie.

             
My uncle tells him, “I need you to go to New York and get word to Bobby Manna that I need a sit-down with him tomorrow.” And he gives Chuckie the address to the lawyer’s office in Newark, and on the paper it says 1:00 p.m.

             
Now Chuckie doesn’t know these guys in New York like we do, but Bobby knew Chuckie and that he was with my uncle. So Chuckie leaves Atlantic City and goes to New York, to Greenwich Village, where my uncle told him to go.

             
I think it was a bakery. Chuckie leaves the message with the guy at the bakery and turns around and drives back to Atlantic City. He never sees Bobby, but this is how it was done.

             
So me, my uncle, Chuckie and Lawrence go for an early dinner at Angeloni’s. This is the day after Ange is killed. All this happens within a few hours—the meeting with Salvie, Chuckie going to New York—and we start hearing bits and pieces about what happened. We knew that John Stanfa was the driver, and my uncle tells us at dinner, “I think the guy in North Jersey,” meaning Caponigro, “and the Barracuda,” meaning Sindone, “have something to do with this, and if I’m right, they have a few more
names on their list,” meaning Phil Testa, Chickie Narducci, and maybe even my uncle.

             
My uncle says, “Tomorrow when I meet with Bobby I’ll find out exactly what’s going on.”

             
Chuckie says, “Nick, you want me to ride up with you? I mean, Christ, you could be walking into an ambush.”

             
My uncle said, “Nothing’s gonna happen to me. Bobby is with us. I’ll be fine.”

             
The next day my uncle is up early and he is showered and shaved and he is wearing a suit and heads up to Newark by himself. We had a black Cadillac at the time and that’s the car that he drove. The night before I parked it a few blocks away so that he could sneak away on foot and get in the car without being picked up by any surveillance.

             
Now I’m in the Scarf, Inc. office all day and it seems like everyone and their brother are stopping in. Lawrence was there, the Blade was there, Chuckie and his son came down. Harold came by. Saul Kane was hanging around. Everyone was anxious, worried about my uncle going up there alone and also anxious at what Bobby Manna was going to tell him.

             
So around 4:00 p.m. the office phone rings; my cousin Chris answers it and hands it to me and says, “It’s my dad.”

             
I get on and he’s talking to me in code. He says, “I’m gonna lie down and get some rest, call and wake me in about two hours,” which meant he would be back in Atlantic City in two hours. Then he said, “I’m starting to feel a lot better, ever since I saw the doctor,” which meant everything went well with Bobby Manna. Then he said, “If I’m feeling better, I want to have dinner with my friend tonight. Set it up.” I knew by that he meant he wanted to have dinner with Phil Testa. Everything was always in code with my uncle; he constantly talked in circles. Sometimes Chuckie or the Blade would say, “You’re losing me, Nick,” which always made me laugh, but I was able to follow everything he was saying. I know what he was going to say before he said it, that’s how well I knew him.

             
So I hang up and I clear the office out. I tell Chuckie that we need to get word to Salvie in Philadelphia and tell him that my uncle wants to see him and his father for dinner in Atlantic City. Chuckie says, “No problem.”

             
So around six-thirty, seven, my uncle pulls up and maybe 20 minutes later here comes Salvie. He had already dropped his father off at the restaurant to avoid us all being seen.

             
We went to Scannicchio’s and Vince sat us in the back and made sure that no one was seated around us, where we were was very private, secluded.

             
It was me, my uncle, Chuckie, Lawrence, Salvie, and Phil Testa.

             
My uncle starts off by saying, “It was North Jersey, Tony Bananas and his crew. Tony’s making a play to take over the family and the Barracuda is with him.”

             
Phil Testa just shook his head, said something in Italian and slammed his fist into the table and then said, “Okay, Nick, so what happens next?”

             
My uncle said, “Let New York get to the bottom of this plot and figure out what they’re gonna do about it, but in the meantime you step up. You were the underboss and you become the acting boss, and we sit back and wait for New York.”

             
Phil Testa proposed a toast to Ange’s memory, and we all toasted, and then my uncle proposed a toast to the future, and we all toasted to that as well.

             
While we were eating, Phil Testa said, “If I get straightened out with this thing,” meaning if New York made him the boss, “you guys are all gonna get made,”meaning me, Chuckie, Salvie, and Lawrence.

             
And then we toasted to that.