I Heard You Paint Houses Read online

  John Francis, The Redhead, had a stack of pictures of Crazy Joey Gallo from the New York newspapers. I had never met the man, but now I would know what he looked like. John had a diagram of Umberto’s Clam House, including the corner door, the Mulberry Street door, and the men’s room. The place was owned by a very prominent boss who had his own brother running it. It’s moved since those days, but it’s still in Little Italy.

  Gallo was out on the town for his birthday, and somehow whoever wanted this done had a good idea he was going to end up his night at Umberto’s, and they had a good idea where he was going to be sitting—off to the left when you walk in from the Mulberry Street door. Maybe some people had invited him to end up his night there. It was the only joint open at that time of the early morning anyway.

  The planning was well done, but it required a good shooter with accuracy. Crazy Joey Gallo would be there with his bodyguard and some women relatives, including his new wife and his sister. Shooting Gallo is one thing. Shooting women is another thing. So you needed very good accuracy, because you wouldn’t get closer than about fifteen to twenty feet, and you wouldn’t want to hit any women in his party.

  There was no way you could get any closer than fifteen feet to the man, or the bodyguard would have his piece in his hand. Gallo had to be suspicious somebody was looking for him. He knew he’d stepped on people’s toes and he knew the people he was dealing with. Gallo had to be on his own toes. But he personally wouldn’t be carrying a piece. He was a convicted felon and he would never take that chance. New York had a tough gun law, the Sullivan Law. You wouldn’t expect any of the women to be holding a piece for him in their purse because these women weren’t dates. These were family relatives. There wouldn’t be anybody sitting nonchalant at another table looking out for him, or John Francis would have been told that there was another man that was traveling close in the party that night. That means the only one that most likely had a piece on him was the bodyguard. You’d want to take him out first. You had no reason to mortally wound him, so you’d look to shoot him in the back or the seat of his pants and avoid an artery in the neck or his heart. You just wanted to disable him. You most definitely needed a good shooter with some skill here in this matter. And you had to go in alone or you’d have a Wild West shoot-out. And to go in alone, you couldn’t use just anybody.

  I didn’t look threatening or familiar in any way. I looked like just a broken down truck driver with a cap on coming in to use the bathroom, which was not far from the door. I have very fair skin. I don’t look like a Mafia shooter.

  Another aspect is that you don’t do a hit on a man in front of his family. But the thing is, that’s the way Gallo did it to Colombo. Right there in front of his family; they turned the man into a vegetable. So that’s the way it was going to be for Crazy Joey. He was a fresh kid.

  This was before cell phones, so once we left for the thing everything could change by the time we got there. The place could be crowded or he could have left. But he was out celebrating his birthday, drinking, and getting careless. Fighters, when they’re drinking, their skills get diminished. And from what I understand, Gallo had a lot of heart. He could scrap. No doubt people were buying him drinks to make sure he stayed put. Then, when the people figured we’d be getting there soon, they would have called it a night and slipped out. Meanwhile, he would have champagne and drinks lined up for him to finish and whatever food he had.

  Crazy Joey Gallo had to feel somewhat safe and comfortable in Little Italy. You’re not supposed to do any hits in restaurants in Little Italy because a lot of the people are silent partners in the restaurants, under the table. This particular Italian seafood restaurant was outright owned by very important people and it had just opened. And it’s bad for the tourist business in Little Italy if people think it’s unsafe to go there. Plus tourists might not know how to be good witnesses, and they might not have sense enough to tell the cops that there were eight midgets about three feet tall and they all had masks on.

  Anyway, the people had rules, but they were always a little bit ahead of their own rules. Let’s say they had the power to waive their rules. They would consider doing a hit in a Little Italy restaurant if they had to. And this was very close to after hours, anyway. By law the bars close at four most nights in New York, and this was either after hours or pretty close to it, so there would not be many tourists from Idaho to worry about. Gallo would not have been an easy man to get to at any other time of day, because everywhere he went at a normal hour there could be newspaper photographers nearby on the prowl angling to get a good picture. Maybe that’s why the man went for all that celebrity publicity. It gave him safety. The photographers were better than bodyguards.

  John Francis dropped me at Umberto’s Clam House on the corner of Mulberry Street and Hester Street in Little Italy. The way something like this worked is John would drop me off. While I went to the bathroom the Redhead would circle around the block, and I’d come out just when he was back. If I wasn’t there he’d wait a couple of minutes, but if I didn’t come out I’d be on my own. If he ever turned on me, all that John could ever say about the matter is that he dropped me off to go to the bathroom. The Redhead wouldn’t see whatever went on inside. He only knew up to a point.

  Sometimes you actually would go to the bathroom first as long as you didn’t have to pass the person to get there. It gives you a chance to make sure nobody’s tailing you. It gives you a chance to look the thing over. It gives you a chance to make sure there’s nobody in the bathroom you have to be concerned about. It also gives you a chance to go to the bathroom. You don’t want to have to take a leak if you’re trying to outrun a couple of cop cars.

  But in a thing like this with witnesses right there at the table, you might take a chance on nobody being in the bathroom. You might want to be able to count on the witnesses at the table not seeing anything if it went fast enough without a lot of procrastination. You might just head in the direction of the bathroom and if things looked right you might just go to work. The bartender and the waitresses in a place like this would already know enough not to see anything or they wouldn’t be working for these owners. At this hour, the tourists from Idaho would all be in bed.

  Anyway, all John could say was that I was going to the bathroom. If you’re taking care of a matter outdoors, right on the street, your driver has to be parked right there waiting for you, and he can see what it is. Sometimes you need him to be standing out there right on the sidewalk to dispose of the piece or to scare the witnesses, but indoors, like inside doing a house, you want to work alone. That way, at the worst, you can always claim self-defense. My whole time with the people, I never trusted anybody enough that I would take care of a matter with another person in the room. A driver only knows as much as he knows, and that’s good for everybody, including the driver himself. A guy’s facing the electric chair and he’s liable to break down and weaken. If you do it yourself you can only rat on yourself.

  There were some alleged mob figures hanging out on the corner whose job it was to greet Crazy Joey and his party when they arrived. It would make Joey less suspicious if somebody walked in the door. When they saw our headlights they dispersed. Their part was done. None of these Little Italy people or Crazy Joey and his people had ever seen me before. When we came to New York, Russell and I would be uptown at Vesuvio’s or at Monte’s in Brooklyn with the Genovese people.

  I walked in the Mulberry Street door. I went straight ahead toward the bar, and I kept my back to the Mulberry Street side of the room where Gallo was. I turned and ended up facing the table with the people. I was a bit startled to see a little girl with the people, but sometimes you saw that in the fighting overseas. A split second after I turned to face the table, Crazy Joey Gallo’s driver got shot from behind. The women and the little girl dove under the table. Crazy Joey swung around out of his chair and headed down toward the corner door to the shooter’s right. Could be he was trying to draw fire away from the table, or could be he
was just trying to save himself, but most likely he was trying to do both. It was easy to cut him off by going straight down the bar to the door and getting right behind him. He made it through Umberto’s corner door to the outside. Crazy Joey got shot about three times outside of the restaurant not far from the corner door. Could be he had his piece in his car and he was going for the car. He had no chance of making it. Crazy Joey Gallo went to Australia on his birthday on a bloody city sidewalk.

  The stories that are out there say that there were three shooters, but I’m not saying that. Maybe the bodyguard added two shooters to make himself look better. Maybe there were a lot of stray shots being fired from the two guns that made it seem like there was more than one shooter. I’m not putting anybody else in the thing but me.

  The important thing is that John Francis was right there and he never panicked. He had his experience with the Irish mob in London. John Francis had no job or anything. He lived by his wits. And he had them.

  John headed back to Yonkers the very long way, after first making sure there was no tail and after changing cars. Quite naturally, the next thing he did was toss the pieces in the river at a spot he knew about. There’s a spot like that in the Schuylkill River in Philly; if they ever send divers in they’ll be able to arm a small country.

  Later on, I heard some Italian guy took credit for the whack they put on Gallo. That’s okay by me. Maybe the guy wanted to be a celebrity. Probably the guy turned rat or something. The rats always load up their résumés so the government treats them with more respect. The government loves a rat that gives them a chance to solve the big ones, even if the rat was just a low-life drug dealer who wouldn’t know a big one from his left nut.

  Now before The Redhead died of cancer it was told to me by a good source that he implicated me in fourteen hits that he claimed I did with him while he was the driver, including Crazy Joey Gallo. It was in the eighties when he was dying and I was in jail at the time. I don’t know for sure; maybe John was stand-up. But if John did talk when he was delirious I don’t mind that. John was dying of cancer and he was in a lot of pain and full of medication, and he didn’t want to die in jail. The Redhead was in no mental state to testify to the truth against anybody. John was good people. I don’t blame a man who wants to make his peace.

  Russell trusted John and me both with important errands like the fresh kid. The other bosses would never want a hit like that linked to their families. That’s how gang wars start. The New York families were ultra-Italian. The Commision knew that Russell had a very liberal attitude about non-Italians. Two old-time Irish guys with a lot of combat experience was a benefit Russell was able to provide for important matters like Gallo. The Commission always gave Russell anything really big. Besides, Russell was close to Colombo and supported the Italian American Civil Rights League.

  It was during that time that Jimmy was doing his politics on the sidelines. He became very big in prison reform. He was sincere about it, but it also gave him a lot of opportunities to do his campaigning. One time Jimmy used Charlie Allen for something during a prison-reform fundraiser. It was a drop.

  Charlie Allen got out of Lewisburg after Jimmy did and Jimmy asked me to take care of him. I already knew Allen slightly from downtown. I first met him when I was out of office after the DeGeorge thing. I was driving a truck for Crown Zellerbach. Allen had done an armed robbery and he needed to get out of Philadelphia. I drove him up to Scranton in my truck and dropped him off with Dave Osticco. Dave had been with Russ for many years. Dave kept Allen in a safe house until the heat got so bad for Allen back in Philly that he decided to turn himself in. If I’m not mistaken that armed robbery is the one he went to Lewisburg on. After Jimmy asked me to help him out I used Allen to drive me places. My status was now at the point where I had a driver and people did things for me and showed me respect in certain ways.

  The one thing Charlie Allen really did do that he testified about at my trials was to make a delivery to John Mitchell from Jimmy Hoffa for CREEP. Jimmy was still keeping all the lines of communication open to Nixon. Jimmy was at a prison-reform fundraiser in Washington. His parole officer allowed Jimmy to travel to Washington for something like that. Jimmy would invite people he wanted to do business with to these affairs. Jimmy would also invite people he had been to school with who could talk about prison life. Jimmy made sure I had Charlie Allen there with Allen’s partner, Frank Del Piano, at this particular affair in Washington. Jimmy had Alan Cohen, a political mover from Philadelphia, there, and Jimmy and Alan gave Charlie Allen $40,000 in cash to give to Mitchell for the Nixon campaign. Later on it came out that Mitchell only handed over $17,000 of that cash contribution to the CREEP. Mitchell palmed $23,000. Like I said, he knew his business, that man.

  Three or four years later the feds got Charlie Allen to talk to them. In one of his very early conversations with them he told the FBI the truth about this incident. This conversation with the FBI was about a year before he agreed to wear a wire to trap me. In the beginning he probably didn’t realize they wanted him to go way overboard against me on the Hoffa disappearance. At least in the beginning he was sticking up for me on the Hoffa case, not that somebody way down the chain like him would have known anything about my business anyway. I had been taking pretty good care of Charlie Allen from the time he got out until the day I caught him wearing a wire in 1979.”

  Excerpt from an official FBI report, known as a 302, produced by the government in Frank Sheeran’s trials pursuant to Federal Court Rules. (Allen’s mistake as to the approximate year he made his delivery of the money to Mitchell is deleted from the excerpt and was cleared up in a subsequent 302 dated November 4, 1977):

  HOFFEX

  On September 22, 1977, PH 5125-OC [Charlie Allen] advised SA [Special Agent] HENRY O. HANDY, JR. and SA THOMAS L. VAN DERSLICE as follows:

  When asked the last time he saw AL COHEN, source responded, ”when he gave me a suitcase full of money to give to JOHN MITCHELL.” Source remembers attending a testimonial dinner in Washington, D.C. at a ”very big beautiful hotel” right in Washington, D.C. The purpose of this dinner was to raise funds for prison reform which was of great interest to JIMMY HOFFA. HOFFA was in attendance at this dinner…. During this dinner FRANK DEL PIANO, also known as TONTO, and source were approached by HOFFA and AL COHEN. HOFFA told source to ”take this money to John Mitchell.” At this point Cohen handed a suitcase to source who described it as a black satchel approximately two feet long and one foot wide. Source did not look inside because “you don’t do that to Jimmy.” He remembers, however, that the bag was very heavy. Upon receiving the satchel, source and DEL PIANO left the hotel and had entered a waiting limousine without knowing where they were going. The car took them to a “big beautiful house” outside of Washington and source was met at the door by John Mitchell. Source addressed MITCHELL and stated “JIMMY sent me.” MITCHELL took the satchel, said “thank you” and closed the door. Source re-entered the limousine and returned to the hotel.

  “Of all the different jobs and things I did in my time, looking back my favorite part was being president of Local 326. When I was incarcerated the local made me Honorary President for Life. They didn’t have to like me, but they did respect me and they respected the job I did for them. I got them their own charter through Jimmy. Before that they were run by Philadelphia. In 1979 I got them a new building that is their headquarters to this day. I took care of them day to day on their grievances and the enforcement of their contracts. We had over 3,000 members when I went to jail. Today it’s more like 1,000.

  Our old office before 1979 was at 109 East Front Street, a rundown neighborhood by the railroad station. That whole area is improved now. Toward the end of 1972 I got a visit at that old building from a very prominent lawyer I knew who was very big in the Democratic Party. He wanted to talk to me about the upcoming 1972 race for the United States Senate.

  Earlier in the year the incumbent United States Senator Caleb Boggs had stopped by and asked me
to allow him to speak to the membership. I told Boggs that he was too much against labor. He denied that he was against labor. He was a Republican and he said that since the Teamsters were supporting Nixon for reelection, he ought to be given a shot to speak to the rank and file. Boggs had been the governor and a congressman before he became senator. I don’t think he ever lost an election. Everybody liked him. He was a very personable man with a good reputation, but as far as I could tell he was for the corporations in Delaware. I took it to the executive board and we decided not to invite him.

  When his opponent Joe Biden asked if he could speak to the membership I took it to the executive board and got their feelings about it and nobody opposed it, so I said sure. Biden was on the County Council and he was a Democrat and the County Council had some very good people on it for labor. Joe Biden was a young kid compared to Boggs. He came and gave his spiel and he turned out to be a very good talker. He gave a really good pro-labor speech to the rank and file at that membership meeting. He took questions from the floor and handled himself like somebody many years older. He said his door would always be open to the Teamsters.

  So when this prominent lawyer I knew stopped by my office a little before Election Day I was already in Biden’s corner. The lawyer had another guy with him who worked inside the Morning News and the Evening Journal. They were two papers that were put out by the same company. They were basically the same paper and they were the only daily newspapers in Wilmington.

  Wilmington is in the very northern part of the state and was more liberal than the southern part. Delaware, being a very small state, had maybe 600,000 people back then. Over half of them lived in the northern county and the rest in the two southern counties. The Mason-Dixon line runs right through Delaware. For years they had segregated schools in the two southern counties. They had some out-and-out segregation in the north too but mostly the north had customs that were more like a northern city like Philadelphia. At that time—and maybe even today—nearly every newspaper buyer in the state read the Wilmington newspaper.