A Mafioso Cases The

-:Saturday Review 20 January 1973 The :Society A MAFIOSO CASES THE •■• The Mafia is big business. In fact, its anything else but numbers-racket odds two industries these days. There's the or loanshark records didn't interest me. one I was in. That one makes billions Today, though, I have nothing to do of dollars each year through stock but read, because I'm not out hustling thefts, loansharking, gambling, drug anymore. I'm an informer, something I traffic, and other rackets. And then always hated. But the mob stole my there's the other Mafia industry—the money, tried to kill my wife and one one that writes about what we do and of my kids, so I talked. Now that I'm puts it in bestsellers and on movie living in seclusion, I have time to think screens for the public to lap up. The about all the things I did and read the funny part is that while the Mafia picks stuff that's being written. I can't get the public's pocket, the public is beat- over what I see on the newsstands these ing down doors to read about how it's days. being stolen blind. Right now I think If you want to know the truth, I there are more books on the Mafia float- think the American public are sadists ing around than Joe Namath signature at heart. I remember sitting in a movie- footballs. Everyone's making money on house in Virginia watching The God- the mob. father. The audience was actually It's funny. All my adult life, since I cheering at times. That shocked me. was thirteen, I've been around Mafia You'd think that Don Corleone was the people. My grandfather was a Mafia Lone Ranger and the other mob were BY VINCENT TERESA don, a crime boss in Boston in the old the bad guys. Everytime a bad guy days. My friends were all street thieves did something to hurt Corleone and his or big Mafia people. When I was in the "Right now I think men, the people would shout: "That mob, stealing millions, I never thought lousel Get the bum!" I couldn't believe about the public's interest in what my there are more books it. Didn't they understand that all the friends and I were doing. I only have mobsters in the movie were vicious? a ninth-grade education, so reading on the Mafia floating Just because Don Corleone didn't want to sell dope, or because his son Mike Vincent Teresa, the highest-ranking Ma- around than had an Irish girlfriend, that didn't make fia figure ever to turn state's evidence, them any better than the other guys. now lives under federal protection and Joe Namath signature They were still dumping stiffs around uses an assumed name. His autobiogra- footballs. Everyone's the corner like everybody else. They phy, My Life in the Mafia, which he were still making their money off gam- wrote with the collaboration of Thomas making money bling and loansharkini and extortion. C. Renner, will be published by Double- But the public doesn t want to know. day early in March. on the mob." They like seeing blood and guts, cheer- 23 ing for good guys and booing bad guys. show you a sucker I can beat. I don't secret business is over. It's secret to the Look at prizefighting in this country, care what anybody says-90 per cent extent that mobsters want to stay on or the phony wrestling matches. Mil- of the public are dying to be Sicilians, the street. If you talk, of course, you're lions go to see them and watch them to lead that kind of life. Even the Na- going to get hurt. Why? Because, if on television. They shout their lungs politanos are dying to be Sicilians. All you talk, I'll go to the can, that's why. out while a guy bites another guy's most people know is that a Mafia man Not that you're giving away any big ear off or pounds his head on the Hoer. wears a $350 silk suit, $150 Italian secrets about blood rites and that kind They sit there thinking: "O-o-o-o, would shoes, a Borsalino hat, a silk shirt, of thing. I love to do that to that guy." So when drives around in a big Lincoln or Cad- The only time those rites are still someone else does it, it's just like they illac, and always has a good-looking used is when a man of pure Sicilian were sitting there doing it themselves. girl in a mink on his arm. blood is being made a don. But that It's the same way when people read The trouble is that the fellow that isn't the way you become an ordinarZ about the Mafia. They love to read that wants to be a Mafioso doesn't realize member—what we call a "made man Joe the Boss got shot in the head or that the guy he saw all dressed up ten —of an organization today. Nowadays that Tony the Nut got stabbed in the minutes ago may be going around the a mob member sponsors another guy— chest. Let's face it: most mob guys corner to get two bullets in the head just like you're trying to get into a wouldn't read this stuff or look at it from some snake who hates him, or country club. It's a business. The spon- in a movie. They know what the mob that at three in the morning his door- sor goes to his associates and says, is like. They got to go to bed each bell rings, and when he goes to open "Look, I got a good man here that we night wondering if they'll wake up the the door the building blows up under- want to have with us; his capabilities next morning, and when they do, neath him or police are there to pull are this, that, and the other thing. I'll they're too busy hustling money to him out and tailor him for stripes for vouch for him." As soon as be vouches worry about what someone's writing. the rest of his life. People don't think for the applicant he puts his head on They don't like to see things written of that. All they think about is the ro- the block, too. The new guy's taken into because that makes them too visible, mance and excitement. a room with the top men, asked a few brings heat on them, and they haven't The funny thing is that Mafia people questions, told what's expected of him. time to waste reading about what sometimes get caught up in the Holly- Then there's a vote. But if they weren't they're doing. wood image of mobsters—at least years going to vote him in, he wouldn't be I read The Godfather a few years ago, ago they did. I remember that Jerry there in the first place to see who else while I was waiting to be sentenced Angiulo, who's now head of the Boston was present. You can only come out in the Baltimore County jail. You have mob, used to come on like George Raft. of that room two ways—a made man to read something else besides the He'd wear a silk smoking jacket with or feet first. I guess that's the main Bible in solitary. Don't misunderstand an ascot tied around his neck and patent difference between getting into the me, I enjoyed it. But if I was out on leather shoes. Here's this bum I grew mob and joining a countub.ry club. the street, I wouldn't have paid any up with, and all of a sudden he I know old Joe Valachi talked about attention to it. Believe me, I know started calling me "the kid." Sinatra secret blood rites before a U.S. Senate what a godfather is. I don't have to used to impress a lot of mob guys, committee and in the book by Peter read about one. The guys who read too. Once Ralphie Chong saw Sinatra Maas, The Valachl Papers, but that the book in the can were the under- wear those long, pointy collars in some sort of thing went out in the Thirties. lings—the street hoods. They would movie, and the next day he went to a I knew Joe, and he lived in the past. always tell each other lines like, "I'll tailor and had two dozen shirts made All he had were his memories. make you an offer you can't refuse"— with those same collars. Don't get me wrong. The Valachi and then laugh like they were hearing As a kid, my own movie idol was Papers was accurate, but to me the it for the first time. Sydney Greenstreet. He always im- book was just a rehash of the story Joe It's the same in the legit world. The pressed me because he had a lot of told at the hearings. And it wasn't Joe people that read these books are the nerve, he was smart, and he had class. talking in the book—not the way he little guys who work their tails off for I was never impressed by tough guys— talked to me at La Tuna Prison in El $100 or $200 a week.

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