WISEGUY STORIES

Balisterieri; One Hell Of A Nice Guy

By `Goodfella Gerry`

I have heard mixed reports on his tenure as the Milwaukee boss, but I can tell you first hand that Pete Balistrieri at a personal level, was a hell of a nice guy.

I was on a golf vacation at a lake Geneva resort in southern Wisconsin back in 1986. On evening, we took about a two hour drive to a tourist town called Wisconsin Dells to check out what many in the area said was THE best steak house in the Mid-West. The name of the place escapes my memory, but I can tell you that this claim was not quite true. The food was very good; I had better steaks in Chicago as well as KC.

During dinner I was scanning the room and thought a guy sitting at a table in a room off the main dining room looked familiar. The guy was sitting with two other guys and two young women. I asked a waitress if she knew him. She said she knew he came to the place occasionally, but didn`t know his name.

After a few drinks when dinner was over, I figured, What the hell, I took a chance and sent over a round of drinks to his table. I told the waitress, "send a round to Mr Balistrieri`s table and tell him it is from a friend of his."

As she delivered the drinks, I wondered if I had made a mistake. The guys I was with were not connected guys, and I had told them he was a guy I knew as a friend of friends. I didn`t know if he was going to be offended, and to tell you the truth, I still was`nt completely sure it was him.

As the waitress took him the drinks, he look somewhere between surprised and confused, but then looked over at our table, raised his glass to me and gave some sort of greeting that I could not really hear from across the dining room.

About ten minutes later, he got up to leave. On his way out he stopped at out our table. He had a quizzical look on his face, and his companion`s looks were down right suspicious. I stood up, shook his hand and introduced myself along with a vague description of where I was from, how I knew of him, and the fact that I just wanted to show my admiration. He asked some probing questions and sort of looked me up and down as we spoke. I made a passing remark about a non-connected guy who I had always been told knew him, and that really broke the ice. He and his companions pulled up chairs, introductions were made and another round of drinks were ordered, this time on him.

We discussed our mutual friend and how much I had enjoyed Lake Geneva. He gave me a brief history of how The Dells as the locals called the town we were in, evolved from a quiet vacation town, to one of the biggest vacation draws in the Mid West. The only mafia reference that was made in the entire conversation, was when he stated that Capone used to come to Wisconsin Dells to fish and relax, and that he had a home in nearby Baraboo.

All told we talked for about half an hour. Balistrieri impressed me as a guy who didn`t think who the hell he was, and a guy that I would like to have known better.

It was the only close encounter with a Boss I ever had, and something I have never forgotten.

Creative Financing; The "Bust Out"

By `Goodfella Gerry`

The thing about guys who owe lots of money on a shylock loan, or a gambling Debt, is that if you break their legs, or worse yet, whack them, it greatly hinders their ability to pay the vig.
No matter what you may think, collecting that cash is far more important to any bookmaker or shylock (loan shark) then any cheap revenge. Why? Because most of them are paying a vig and or kicking money up themselves. Rule number one, whether you are a half ass connected associate or a made guy is "You gotta earn." So what do you do with a guy who owes you big bucks, but cant pay? One of the most effective and widely used methods has become the "Bust out".

Here is how it usually works. A bookmaker or a Shylock is into the guy he is "with" (Usually a made guy or higher ranking associate) for say, 5 points a week on his weekly income. This guy might have someone who owes him a big debt, but cant collect. Now make no mistake, the guy who is collecting the 5 points a week, knows exactly what he should expect every week, so if this bookie or shylock cant collect from a big debtor, and his payment is short, questions are going to be asked.

A made guy is usually going to initially tell the bookie or shylock " That's your fucking problem, either collect it from him, or it comes from your pocket". If the problem persists however, a smart made guy or high level associate will let his man off the hook, and take the problem on himself. The bust out is a common solution, and goes something like this; Most everyone, even degenerate gamblers, have either credit or liquid assets. If the guy has a business, the bust out is all the sweeter.

The guy who owes the money is forced to extend all his lines of credit to the max. He buys items that can easily be sold on the street or through normal mob channels, and the proceeds are used to settle the debt.. Let's say he owes $10,000. He may have to buy on his own credit, as much as Thirty, forty thousand in goods to pay it off, because you want to move whatever he buys quick, so you sell it dirt cheap. Needless to say, there is no intent to pay the vendors for the items that are purchased.

When his credit card or business credit is used up, and he is still not paid up, he is forced to take a second mortgage and turn over the cash, or maybe sell his car or business vehicles, or stage an accident that totals the vehicle, or a theft of the car or truck for the insurance payment. Anything to produce revenue to pay off the debt. There is also usually a "penalty" for having to resort to this means of collection, anywhere from 5 to 20 percent, depending on the debtors willingness to cooperate, and his general standing among the people he owed money to.

For the guy who owed the money, he gets a lawyer and files bankruptcy. Believe it or not, there is almost never inquiries made as to the process that brought the guy to bankruptcy court. In this day and age, bankruptcy has simply become routine, and a guy going chapter seven, on sixty or seventy thousand, is peanuts compared to some of the legit cases that sit on the docket.

The other reason these cases are tough for the feds and authorities to move against, is that the legal ramifications are scetchey at best. There is no law against a guy being foolish with his credit, and unless fraudulent intent, or outright extortion can be proven, which is nearly impossible to do unless the guy rats, there is no crime to be prosecuted.
So at the end of the day, the bookmaker or shylock get paid, his man above him gets his cut, plus a little extra, and the guy who owed the money, though financially ruined, gets out from under with his arms and legs still in tact. Everyone is relatively happy! Any wonder why they are sometimes called, Good Fellas?

It was a matter of seconds, and a the lack of probably 30 IQ points that prevented a dubious bit of Mafia history from taking place in the 1980s. The valentines day massacre, and the murder of Albert Anastasia in the barber shop on 7th Avenue in NY many years earlier would have paled by comparison. A scene from the box-office bomb of a Gangster movie called "State of Grace" depicted the incident, but it seems so ridiculous, one has to wonder how many who saw it could believe it actually happened. Strange as it may seem, it really did.

Seems that the "Westies" , the Irish gang from New York’s Hells kitchen, had whacked a Genovese family associate, and fat Tony Salerno was pissed. The Irish gang were good earners however, and were paying juice to the Genovese family. Jimmy Coonan, the Westies boss and Salerno had been on fairly good terms up to that point. So, rather then lashing out in anger, a sit down was arranged to try to work things out.

Coonan was scared shitless. He was half sure he was walking into a setup hit for sure. He knew if he failed to show up for the sitdown, he was a dead man for sure. He also made up his mind, that if this was a hit, he was not going down alone. So, a plan was forged. Coonan’s brother Jackie, Jimmy McElroy, Billy Beattie, Mickey Featherstone and a half dozen other Westies were to hold up in an empty flat near where the meeting was supposed to take place. They were armed to the hilt and there was a phone in the place. Jimmy Coonan instructed his brother Jackie, that if he did not call the phone in the empty flat within 30 minutes after entering the meeting, they were to storm the place and in Coonan’s words, "Kill everything over 5 feet tall" Now, one must understand, the Westies were not exactly the brightest guys in the world. A few, Jackie Coonan included, were in all probability, clinically "slow", if not retarded.

So, Jimmy Coonan enters the meeting, with his crew ready and waiting around the corner. IT only takes him about 15 minutes to realize that Salerno wants to salvage the business relationship, and no hit was going to happen. He askes if it’s ok to use the phone, and Salerno gets pissed, telling Coonan to "Show some fucking respect" and telling him no one interrupts a sit down to make a phone call..

Coonan spends the next 15 minutes squirming and trying any way he can to get the meeting over with so he can all off his crew, but 30 miutes goes by, and he is still inside the place, with Salerno chewing off his ear about respect, rules, etc. Back at the flat, Jackie sees that time and is ready to rock and roll. 30 minutes had gone by and no call from his brother. It was time to move in. What exactly happened next is the subject of some disagreement. Some say Featherstone, out of confusion, others say Beattie out of a desire to confuse Jackie, and the lack of desire to murder half of the second largest mafia family in the country, spoke up; We were supposed to wait for a call Jackie, remember? No answered Jackie, we were supposed to move in if we DIDN’T get a call….weren’t we? And so the discussion went, with each of the gang expressing their recollection of Jimmy’s instructions. Finally after about ten minutes of this blither, Jackie put his foot down. "We move in NOW"! He would say.

By now Jimmy Coonan was frantic. He was glad that they had not come and started shooting up the place, but where the hell were they, and would they burst in any second? Finally Salerno stood up to end the meeting, and began to walk Coonan to the door. Coonan rushed ahead to get out the door first, only to see his entire crew half way across the street. As the story goes, Salerno burst out laughing, realizing in a second what Connan had planned in the event of his demise. "I hope you never plan on starting a war with me Jimmy" Salerno supposedly said. "because I’ll crush you like an ant." A bold threat by Salerno, but the fact was, he came moments away from being the victim of what would have been the most infamous hit in mob history. They say there were as many as 30 other people in the place, mostly genovese guys and associates, and the Westies had the instructions, the fire power, and the depraved indifference for human life to kill every one of them.

Luckily for Salerno, Jackie Coonan was an Idiot. And didn’t have the brains to carry out the simplest of instructions, without total confusion. It was the Italians, not the Irish, who had the lucky charm that day.

A lot of Mob guys hide in the shadows, some are seldom seen out side the social clubs or mob hangouts. A few however, outside their Mob life, were just "regular guys" with regular jobs, hobbies and lives. Here are a few examples;

Former Cleveland Family Boss John "Peanuts" Trenalone owned a Toyota dealership in Browerd County Florida, and in the Winter months, would sometimes work the showroom and the lot right along side his salesman. Ever see Trenalone’s mug? Yikes! You gotta ask; "Would YOU buy a car from this guy"?

Buffalo Family Capo Joe Falcone, who accompanied Boss Steve Maggadino to Appalachian, was a Baseball card and sports memorabilia collector, and in the 70s, actually set up booths and worked at card shows with his son and nephews

As late as the early 90s reputed Rochester family soldier Reigo Marterano was the assistant manager of a sporting goods store in Upstate NY.

Former New Orleans Boss Carlos Marcello, while working his way up the mob ladder, tended bar at a strip club off of Bourbon Street. Later on, he bought the place.

Have your car break down in Chicago, and reputed North side Chicago mobster Joe Pascucci might well be the guy driving the tow truck that comes to give you a tow. He owns the place and can still be found in the garage or out in the truck most days of the week. When the work is done, I wouldn’t write a bad check if I were you.

Before he went off to Vegas on his legendary adventures with Lefty Rosenthal, Tony "the ant" Spilotro ran a sandwich shop in the Chicago burbs. He loved the place, and would roll up his sleeves and work the counter or make sandwiches at lunchtime. If you ordered mustered and got mayo, I would eat it anyway.

Irish free lance leg breaker and hit man John Joseph "mad dog" Sullivan was once the maintenance supervisor at a 5000 seat hockey and sports arena in New York State.

Detroit made guy Carl DeStafino before his conviction on drug trafficking, was the commissioner of a Pop Warner kids football league in Traverse City

A few examples that must remain nameless for the time being;

A Colombo family guy who runs a small gift/electronics store on 7th Ave in NY.

A Buffalo family made guy who D Js at weddings , and his Uncle, also a made guy, who is a wedding/lounge singer.

And a 80+ year old "Retired" Genovese family guy, now living in Syracuse NY, who makes balloon animals dressed as a clown for kids parties..

So ya see, it’s not all booze, broads, blood and money!

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