Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family by Nicholas Pileggi Page A

whole garment center. He controlled the airports. Johnny Dio, who ran most of the union shakedowns at Kennedy and LaGuardia, worked for him. He owned the town. He had district leaders. He made judges. His son was appointed to West Point by the East Harlem congressman Vito Marcantonio, and his daughter graduated from Vassar. Later she married Carlo Gambino’s son. Hundreds of million-dollar cloak-and-suiters would drive all the way out to the Azores just because they hoped he might be there so they could kiss his ass. It gave them a chance to nod or say hello. And when these big-money guys saw that I talked to him direct, they would start kissing my ass. They would become real cozy. They’d smile and give me their cards and say if I ever needed anything in ladies’ coats or handbags or toppers or better dresses, all I had to do was call. Then they’d stick me with a brand-new twenty or even a fifty that was folded so sharp it felt like it would make my palms bleed. That’s who Tommy Brown was. Without trying, he could make the city’s greediest rag-trade sharks give money to strangers.

    “We first went to work in the Azores in the middle of May. We had an apartment across the street. For a while we lived in Paulie’s house in Island Park, about fifteen minutes away, but our own place was more fun. The Azores was ours. The place closed at ten o’clock, and there was a swimming pool at night. We had our friends come in and eat and drink for nothing. It was like our own private club. It was my first taste of the good life. I never had so many shrimp cocktails. After work we went from one night spot to another. I got to see how the rich people lived. I saw the Five Towns crowd from Lawrence and Cedarhurst, mostly all of them wealthy businessmen and professional guys who had lots of cash, wives who looked like Monique Van Vooren, and houses the size of hotels spread out along the south shore, with powerboats as big as my own house tied up in their backyards, which was the goddamn Atlantic Ocean.

    “The Azores’ owner of record, the guy who ran the place, was named Tommy Morton. Guys like Morton were front men for the wiseguys, who couldn’t have their names on the liquor licenses. Front men sometimes had some of their own money in these joints and essentially had the wiseguys for silent partners. Morton, for instance, was a friend of Paulie’s. He knew lots of people. He must have fronted for lots of wiseguys. But he also had to pay back a certain amount every week to his partners, and they didn’t care whether business was good or bad. That’s the way it is with a wiseguy partner. He gets his money, no matter what. You got no business? Fuck you, pay me. You had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. The place got hit by lightning and World War Three started in the lounge? Fuck you, pay me.

    “In other words, Tommy Morton only began to see a dollar after he had paid the wiseguys and they’d gotten theirs off the top. That’s one of the reasons why Morton hated Lenny and me so much. First, he didn’t need a couple of wise-ass kids like us ruining his business. He had to pay us two hundred a week apiece, and for that he could have hired a real maitre d’ and bartender. Also, we were stealing him blind. Everything we stole or gave away came out of his pocket. I know that we used to drive him nuts, but he couldn’t do a thing about it.

    “But by the end of the summer we were bored. It was around Labor Day weekend. A tough weekend. We decided to take off. Lenny and I hadn’t seen Lucchese for about a month. Everybody was on vacation except us. But we knew our future was secure. Lucchese had said that he had something for us in the garment center after the summer.

    “Unfortunately, Tommy Morton had this old German chef. If possible, that guy hated us more than Tommy did. He kept feeding us rice and chicken every night as though we were regular employees. He must have sensed or been told how much Morton hated us, so he was