Surviving the Mob - Dennis Griffin [16]
Fifteen or so very pissed off officers took turns beating up the three occupants. If a few citizens hadn’t stopped to see what was going on, it could have been more serious, maybe even deadly. All three ended up bruised and needing stitches.
The charges included possession of weapons, for a blackjack and ball bats in the trunk. The police also found the money Andrew had hidden. They couldn’t charge him with anything for that, but they did report it to the Organized Crime Task Force to put them all on their radar.
“When we went for arraignment the next morning,” Andrew explained, “the judge knew the cops had beaten us during the arrest. We refused to press charges against them, though. The judge made us a deal: If we pled guilty, we’d only have to pay a fine and not do any time. We took it.
“Afterward, we saw some of those same police officers from time to time and there was a mutual respect. That’s the way it was back then.”
VENGEANCE
On a Friday night in late February, Andrew got the news that after six months of pursuit, Todd Alvino was dead. The murderer of Albert Lattanzi was shot to death outside a dance club on Rockaway Parkway and Avenue N in Canarsie. In a bit of irony, this was the same location that had once been home to the Bamboo Lounge, a known hangout for Lucchese family members and associates. It was torched by Lucchese soldier Henry Hill and that scene was reenacted in the 1990 movie Goodfellas.
Andrew was on a date that night, at the Seaview Diner a few blocks from the shooting scene. Someone came in, said a guy was gunned down outside the dance club, and Andrew ran over. The area was roped off and in the middle of it was Alvino’s brown Caddy coupe.
Later that night, Andrew learned that Alvino had a passenger with him when he pulled up in front of the club. The passenger went inside to get some cigarettes, while Alvino waited in the car. That’s when he was killed.
The next day was the regular Saturday meeting at the social club. Anthony and Mike showed up later than everyone else. As soon as Nicky saw Mike, he moved everybody out of the way and said, “There’s my fuckin’ man.” They shook hands and kissed each other on the cheek. Then Nicky, Mike, and Anthony walked away for a private conversation.
“Nicky treated Mike with a whole different level of respect that day,” Andrew remembers. “Like an equal. When I heard about the shooting the previous night, I thought Mike might have been involved in it. But after seeing the way Nicky acted toward him, there was no longer any doubt.
“A couple of days after that, I was talking with Anthony. I told him how happy I was the Alvino thing was over. I just wished I could have been there, because I wanted so bad to avenge Albert. Anthony said, ‘It doesn’t matter. If you’d have been there, it would have got done. It happened we were there and it got done. The important thing is that it got done.’ This was the first actual admission I’d heard that Anthony and Mike had killed Alvino.
“The second came a few weeks later while Mike and I were driving around talking. With Alvino out of the way, we were looking for Evan, the guy who had been fighting with Albert the night Albert was murdered. Mike turned to me, made the sign of a gun with his fingers, and said, ‘We put one down. One down and one to go.’ We searched for Evan for a while. We found out he’d moved to Florida and eventually lost interest.
“Here’s what happened later, though. The cops arrested Albert’s stepfather Sal for Todd Alvino’s murder. Sal wasn’t part of any organized-crime family, but he was a very dangerous man. He was looking for Alvino the same time we were. Sometimes we exchanged information with him about where we thought Todd might be. And sometimes we rode together when we were checking out various locations. So if he was also involved in Todd’s killing, it wouldn’t surprise me. Anyway, Sal was the only one charged. He was convicted and sent to prison. He died behind bars while serving his sentence.
“The other families and crews had been watching to see how we