If I type “organized crime,” you’re likely to think of monolithic, omnipotent organizations composed of brilliant, ruthless, and unstoppable villains. For several decades, Mario Puzo’s book—and the subsequent Francis Ford Coppola movie—The Godfather has been the blueprint for this archetype.
Peter Maas’ biography of Joe Valachi was published the year before Puzo’s highly stylized work of historical fiction. The Valachi Papers is neither epic nor stylized. It is prison-food real. Maas’ brutal biography has also been all-but ignored in favor of neo-Romans with great dialogue and sharp suits. Part of it is the factual part which doesn’t lend itself to stirring drama. The other part is Terrance Young’s forgettable movie.
Contrary to what Hollywood tells you, La Cosa Nostra is not the only game in town.
Sure, the Italians are best represented in American popular culture, (why we’re primarily focusing on them) but make no mistake just about every nationality has it’s organized crime faction. In Russia it’s the Bratva, the Yakuza in Japan, and the Triads in China. That leaves hundreds if not thousands in the southern hemisphere I have no knowledge of. There are different traditions, mores, and rules but certain occupational truths: they are far from all-powerful, they are seldom the best/brightest, and the term “organization” is really loose.
The expectation
In his massively influential crime novels, Donald Westlake wrote a vivid world of interconnected bad men with their own language and messaging system. His Outfit is a corporation of suit-and-tie-wearing criminals who show up to offices and live in a luxury hotel, just waiting for crime to occur so they can slice their piece off the top.
I dearly LOVE those novels but, yeah, no. I come from that side of the tracks and there is no complex relay system for messages and “jobs” in search of high-functioning psychopaths who take down scores. Nor are the organized crime members lounging around by the pool waiting for the cops to drop by for a pick up.
The dirty low-down
Most “capers” are organized over beers in some dive bar, or at the domino table outside of a car-detail shop. Ironically enough, many crime enterprises are born of jailhouse talk. I'll leave it to you to decide if it's the guys inside the cells or the jailers who are doing the organizing.
Either way, these guys are not the best and brightest. Maybe one-in-a-thousand criminals can read and comprehend on a highschool level. Higher-order thinking is typically severely impaired as well.
To paraphrase John Sandford, most gangsters are just guys sitting around a TV and talking opportunties for shakedowns or theft. Most are not especially good at violence nor is it the priority. The guy who knew how to rig the numbers racket, (Otto "Abbadabba" Berman) was WAY more valuable to mob-boss, Dutch Schultz than Bo Weinberg, the Dutchman’s deadliest killer.
So, why are they so feared? Well, there is some organization.
Henry Hill, (Goodfellas) knew a guy who owned a cabstand in his neighborhood. That guy, Paul Vario, was a capo in the Lucchese crime family. When 11-year-old Henry went looking for a job, Vario put him to work selling stolen cigarettes. Pro-tip, (white) kids under 18 seldom pull jail sentences for non-violent crime. So, if you got a truck load of stolen merchandise to unload in a back alley, who better than a kid who you scare the hell out of and who knows that you know where he lives?
That’s (sorta) how most guys ended up in the life. Thieves and borrowers, merchants and gamblers, assassins and addicts—they all have a need and La Cosa Nostra, or the Dixie Mob, or La Eme (the Mexican mob) fill that need. Things hum right along as long as everyone follows the rules.
The old man who made book, (took bets on sporting events) and lent money in my old man’s shop was 70. He weighed about four bills and couldn’t see his shoes, let alone tie his shoes. Obviously, the fat man wasn’t rolling around in the dirt with city bus drivers and mechanics for not paying what they owed. No, the fat man knew guys who couldn’t spell “job” who were always willing to do shady sh—tuff for a C-note.
“Honest work? Let me tell you something about honest work. Whenever someone says they got honest work, what they got is a shit job.” Charlie, The Pope of Greenwich Village
If it comes to a visit from one of those guys, you’re screwed. You won’t know what they look like and you won’t see them coming. After they introduce themselves with some fives and tens, you’ll come up with something (if not money, then bus parts from the shop where you work or tools, or while you drive your bus, you’ll make deliveries for one of the fat man’s friends). Maybe you'll beat up someone else for some breathing room on your debt. If you can’t or won’t come across with something, you will suffer repeated bone breakage.
Of course, killing people who owe money does not induce them to pay you. Murder is typically a last option. But it is an option.
Threats and violence works especially well with folks from the same city, borough, ward, or neighborhood. If all you’ve ever known is your town and your tribe, moving to East-Jesus, Kentucky is scary. If you don’t know the rules, if you don’t have connections, you won’t do well. Most people want to stay close to friends and family, even if that means falling prey to the predators.
That’s part of the basis behind WITSEC (the witness relocation and protection program administered by Federal Marshals). The upstanding citizens who stumble into criminal activity—say, an accountant who uncovers criminal activity in the books he keeps—needs less from WITSEC. Those folks often fade into obscurity. Their do-right lives are their protection. Allen Glick, (fictionalized as Phillip Green in Casino) testified against 15 members of the Chicago Outfit, The Kansas City Mob, and The Milwaukee Mob. Already forced out of the casinos he thought to be legitimate businesses, Glick moved to California and started a real estate firm. No relocation, no name change.
"And if you don't have my money I'll crack your ducking head wide open... Then, just about the time I'm getting out of jail, hopefully, you'll be coming out of your coma and I'll split your ducking head open again. Because I'm stupid and I give a duck about jail." Nicky Santoro, Casino
Who needs WITSEC? The criminal morons who couldn’t walk a straight line to a pot of gold. Instead of fading into obscurity they gravitate right back to crime.
Henry Hill was arrested twice for smuggling and dealing drugs before he was booted out of the witness protection program. Even then, a reasonably competent private investigator, or debt collector could’ve located him but the Luccheses allowed him to die, in destitution if only because the damage was done and killing him would put them at risk for further prosecution.
By contrast Anthony “Tony the Ant” Spilotro (referenced in Casino) was still a working soldier in the Chicago Outfit when a car bomb attempt on Frank Rosenthal’s life made the national news. Spilotro was never linked to the bombing attempt but he was linked to Rosenthal (by decades of association as well as a feud over Rosenthal’s wife). He was also implicated in near-constant graft and “off the book” killings. Most damning, his antics earned dedicated FBI attention. The Outfit ordered Spilotro’s death and that, as they say, was that.
“Money never sleeps.” Gordon Gekko, Wall Street
The Outfit’s involvement in Las Vegas was the organization’s high-water mark. They piped in shady money and pulled out nice, clean paper. But street hoods stay greedy and they never grow beyond their street tricks.
Paul Castellano took steps to disassociate murder from Gambino crime family business practices. The purported inspiration for Michael Corleone, Castellano prohibited his family from the drug trade. He also expanded the Gambino family from street-level crime to white-collar business. But he still relied on the street soldiers.
For every Paul Castellano there are six knuckleheads who want to be on the front page of the New York Post wearing their shiny suits. Castellano forgot that the unfed dog will bite. Castellano was gunned down outside of Sparks Chophouse on orders from John Gotti, a lieutenant that Castellano planned to demote.
The Chicago Outfit lost Vegas over bag men who talked too much and monsters who settled every grievance with a gun. Gotti ran the Gambino family into the dirt and was himself in prison within ten years of Castellano's death.
Now, the Outfit and the Gambinos are second-and-third-tier gangs. The Russian, Vietnamese, and myriad latino gangs, hungry, vicious, and ambitious have supplanted the Italians. They all suffer from a failure to recognize that what gets you there cannot keep you there.
As much mileage as Hollywood has gotten out of all-powerful mobsters, a good writer could do some fantastic things with the gangs who can’t shoot straight. If you’re writing bad men, do a little true-crime research. You’ll be surprised where your imagination will take you.
The image above is a promotional poster for the motion picture, Goodfellas and is the property of Warner Brothers Entertainment. It is used here for educational and informational purposes only as covered by the Fair Use Doctrine.
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