Son of the Mob Read online

  He’s such a fun father. While all the uncles ignore their kids, Dad always finds time for Tommy and me, and our older sister, Mira. He teases us, and cracks great jokes, and we always get tons of presents. There are these fun little rituals, too. Every night before he shuts out the lights in the den, he’ll look up and address the fixture: “And a special good night to you, Agent Numb-Nuts.” Or he’ll call into the garage, “We’re going out to dinner if it’s all right with you, Agent Needledink. Should I bring you a doggie bag?”

  As a kid, I thought it was a riot. It’s only now, years later, that I realize Dad’s talking to real people. FBI agents, to be specific. Our house was—and still is—always bugged.

  I’ll never forget the day it sank in that people are out there listening. Every burp, every trip to the can, and worse—all preserved on tape by federal agents. Home sweet home.

  At least now I understand why Dad flips his lid the day I accidentally open up that suitcase full of bearer bonds.

  “What’s this, Dad? It looks like some kind of money.”

  The father who never so much as smacked my behind clamps a death grip on my mouth with the strength of the jaws of a great white shark.

  “It’s play money, Vince. Like Monopoly.”

  Uncle Cosimo, who’s in charge of the suitcase, cuts our lawn for the next three summers.

  Think what a terrible burden it is for a high-school kid: if you say the wrong thing in the privacy of your own home, you might end up sending your father to prison.

  One day I corner Mom in the laundry room, where the roar of the washer covers our conversation. “I know what Dad does for a living.”

  She nods. “He’s an excellent provider. Thank God, vending machines are a profitable business.”

  “Oh, Mom,” I complain. “Don’t treat me like an idiot. I know he’s in the Mob.”

  She stares at me, shocked. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Come on, Mom. I know you know!”

  I’ve got to give her credit. She never retreats an inch. Either that or my poor mother is so dumb that, ten years ago, she really did believe that Uncle Carmine passed a kidney stone through a bloody hole in his left buttock. It’s a mean thing to say about your mom, but I have to consider heredity. There must be an explanation for Tommy, after all. And Mira majored in media studies, not astrophysics, in community college.

  My mother can serve a sit-down dinner for fifteen guys at four in the morning with ten minutes advance notice. Our basement is full of freezers packed with food just in case the Mormon Tabernacle Choir drops by in the state she prefers all her guests to be in—ravenous. And her cooking is great, if a little heavy. Not just in your stomach. Try carrying it. A Tupperware container of Mom’s lasagna weighs twice as much as anybody else’s.

  That’s not to say that Mom and her meatballs are all meat and no balls. I remember once there was this guy, Angelo, a real young Turk in Uncle Shank’s crew, who had some kind of beef with Tommy. This is right after Tommy quit school to join the business, so he was about my age now, and nowhere near as tough as his current, put-Jimmy-Rat-in-the-trunk self.

  Dad absolutely refuses to intervene on his son’s behalf. “If I mix in, you’ll never command any respect on your own,” he says. But Tommy keeps getting pushed around. A few weeks later, Uncle Shank and his guys are over at the house, and Mom asks Angelo to “help her” in the kitchen. They’re alone in there together, and suddenly there’s the most God-awful scream coming from Angelo. He leaves in a hurry, and we order Chinese food that night—an event so rare that it should come with skywriting and fireworks.

  “I thought we were having chicken potpie,” I say.

  “The potpie,” she tells me, “is totally out of commission.”

  I don’t push it. Totally out of commission is a phrase Mom uses to describe things that are gone, finished, and never to be seen again on this earth. Although, in this case, I do see the potpie again. There it is, in the garbage, dish and all. The crust is broken in a perfect handprint. Coincidentally, Angelo walks around with a bandaged hand for six weeks. First-degree burns.

  The incident is never mentioned at our house, but from that day on I realize that Mom has a titanium backbone to go with her heart of gold. And if food is her medium, it can also be her message. Where family is concerned, nobody messes with Mom, not even her powerful husband.

  Angelo never bugged Tommy again. A few months later, he stopped hanging around Uncle Shank and his crew. They say he moved out west.

  Alex, who is turned to stone in the presence of Dad, Tommy, or any of the uncles, always has plenty to say when we’re alone. “Don’t you ever watch Mafia movies? Do you have any idea the kind of chicks these guys get? I defy you to show me one gangster with an ugly girlfriend.”

  To say Alex has a one-track mind is an insult to one-track minds.

  “You’re practically a Mob prince,” he presses on. “There must be some way to use that to rustle us up a couple of dates!”

  “That is never going to be a part of my life!” I vow. “I’ve had it out with my dad, and he knows exactly how I feel.”

  He looks at me in awe. “Really? What did he say?”

  It was less than a year ago. Dad doesn’t say anything at first, and it isn’t just because of our latest FBI eavesdropper, Agent Bite-Me. We’re in my father’s basement workshop, the one room in our house that’s guaranteed safe. With unfinished concrete walls and floor, there’s virtually nowhere to hide a listening device. It’s Tommy’s job as Dad’s apprentice to sweep the tools and equipment for bugs twice a day. That includes the Universal gym, and the woodworking area. A lot of conferences take place there, and a lot of uncles make their way down the basement stairs.

  He sits me in a rickety, lopsided wooden chair that rocks precariously on the concrete floor. Why do the well-to-do Lucas have such a piece of junk in their upscale home? Because it’s an Anthony Luca handmade special. For years, Dad has been talking about not working so hard, scaling back his day-to-day involvement in the business, stopping to smell the roses, blah, blah, blah. Uncle Sal recently died (actually, I think he had help) and it reminded Dad that life is short.

  So my father took up woodworking to relax him. He threw himself into his new hobby with the intense determination that characterizes everything else he does. And he has to be maybe the lousiest carpenter on the planet.

  But he doesn’t know that. He’s Anthony Luca. Who’s going to tell him? I’ve seen some of the toughest wiseguys in the tristate area oohing and aahing over a napkin holder that would languish on the shelf of the 99-cent shop.

  “So,” he begins, “you’re not interested in the vending-machine business.”

  I start to argue, but decide, What’s the point? We both know what we’re talking about. “Yeah, vending machines,” I say. “It’s a little tough for my tastes.”

  Dad breathes a heavy sigh. He knows I don’t approve of his line of work, but I think he always hoped I’d grow out of it. As if obeying the law is a silly phase some crazy kids experiment with, like smoking cigars or racing motorcycles. “A man has the right to choose his own destiny,” he acknowledges. “So now we know what you don’t want. Tell me what you do want.”

  My mind goes blank. He smiles, as if he’s expecting that. “When I was your age, Vince, we had nothing. So I was the most motivated guy in the world to get out there and do better than my old man. With you it’s different. You’ve got a great deal here—nice house, room service, new car….” I drove a Porsche back then (sixteenth-birthday present) until the cops came and took it away to give back to the guy who really owned it.

  “I’ve got ambition,” I interrupt. “I just haven’t figured out what I’m ambitious about yet.”

  “The law’s a nice career for a kid with the gift of gab,” he suggests. “You can never have too many lawyers.”

  “You’ve got Mel,” I remind him. Mira’s husband. He just started working for Dad.

  My father shrug
s. “Mel’s my son-in-law. You’re blood.”

  “You don’t get it,” I insist. “I don’t want to be involved, period. I don’t want ‘vending machines’ touching my life in any way.”

  He looks amused. “Too late. You think we’d live the way we do if I was in any other business? You’re already in it, Vince. Right down to the clothes you wear, the food you eat, your allowance…” He pauses. “What you say makes sense. If you’re not motivated by what I do, then fine. But you’re seventeen years old now. It’s time to get motivated about something.”

  That’s classic Dad—reasonable, sensible, supportive. People who meet him outside of business find it hard to believe that this classy, soft-spoken gentleman is who he is. It only becomes clear when you see how the uncles tiptoe around him, the fear in people’s faces when they hear his name, the scrambling that goes on when he asks for something. It’s only at those times that I realize the great guy I call Dad is a man who runs a criminal organization that operates by means of violence and intimidation. And I really, truly, honestly want nothing to do with it.

  The funny thing is that, for a Mob boss, my dad is considered the most ethical and trustworthy man alive. He really is Honest Abe Luca—although I don’t know if our sixteenth president would have appreciated the comparison.

  Tommy says the word on the street is if you deal with Anthony Luca, you’ll never get ripped off. Conversely, if you rip off Anthony Luca, you’ll never deal again anywhere. Not in this life.

  The word on the street is very important in that business, especially for a guy like my dad, who isn’t famous at all outside his own circle. He keeps a pretty low profile. Most of the kids at school have no idea that my family is The Family. The only time Dad even made the papers was after the famous gangland assassination of Mario Calabrese in 1993. The cops are sure that my father ordered the hit, but they were never able to pin it on him. They just assumed he did it because, with Calabrese out of the picture, Dad was able to take over as the vending-machine king of New York. Dad won’t say anything about it one way or the other, not even to Tommy, who joined him in the business shortly after that.

  It didn’t take very long for Tommy to develop a reputation just the opposite of my dad’s. Tommy’s loud, crude, and rough, with a temper like a cherry bomb. When the doorbell rings, he’s the last guy you want to see standing there, except maybe Uncle Pampers.

  Tommy has plenty of enthusiasm for his job. Maybe too much, as Jimmy Rat could tell you. So Dad brought over one of his top young guys and made him Tommy’s partner. Keeper would be a better word.

  Ray Francione used to be in charge of loan-sharking on Long Island’s North Shore. If he’s upset about being reassigned as nursemaid to a hothead, it doesn’t show.

  He isn’t one of the uncles. I guess he technically counts as a cousin, although we’re not related. I kind of wish we were. Of all the guys who work for my dad, I like Ray the best. He’s such an awesome person that every now and then I have to stop and remind myself that he’s a criminal.

  When I get arrested because my sixteenth-birthday present turns out to be hot, the uncles think it’s the funniest thing that ever happened. Tommy’s all for letting me spend the night in jail. Wiseguys can’t seem to understand that there’s a whole world out there that has nothing to do with The Life. But not Ray. When the uncles look at me like some exotic species of Gila monster because I’m passing up the chance to work with my father, Ray never judges me.

  Who do you think bails me out and takes me home that awful night? And while Tommy and the uncles act like being hauled away in handcuffs is all in a day’s work, Ray really understands what a terrible experience it is for me.

  Even Dad doesn’t think it’s such a disaster. “Don’t worry, Vince. We’ll get you another car.”

  I lay down the law. No more stolen cars. I’ll buy my own car and pay for it with my own money. They don’t yell at me, exactly. But they look as if I’m suggesting that we barbecue Mom on a rotating spit.

  “But, Vince!” Tommy protests. “Do you have any idea the kind of lousy piece of crap you can afford?”

  “Maybe. But it’ll be mine. And nobody’s going to take it away from me and use words like grand theft auto.”

  Ray sticks up for me, even with Dad there. Not a lot of people have the guts to do that. And a week later, he finds a friend of a friend of a friend, who just so happens to have a nice little Mazda Protegé with only forty thousand miles on it.

  I’m so proud of myself. “I can’t believe I’m getting it for three thousand bucks!”

  “You’re not,” says Ray. “Listen, you didn’t hear it from me, but your father slipped me a few grand to make sure you get something decent.”

  I blow up. Poor Ray. Bad enough he has Tommy to deal with; now Anthony Luca’s other son is going crazy on him.

  But he’s patient. “Take the money. He’s your father. Let him help you out.”

  “I don’t want to touch anything from my father’s business.”

  He looks me squarely in the eye. “Your whole life is paid for by your father’s business. The clothes on your back, the bed you sleep in at night, your mother’s great cooking. Your father’s business is the reason you can afford to stand here and be so high and mighty about your father’s business. So, as we say in your father’s business, forget about it.”

  Obviously, I buy the car.

  My father always has a special smile when he sees my Mazda, even though it looks pretty lame next to the parade of limos and Beamers and Mercedes that are always coming and going at our place. Ray says Dad still disapproves of the way I got it—you know, legitimately.

  But maybe that’s what he likes about it—that his younger son did something he disapproves of.

  CHAPTER THREE

  WHEN ALEX STARTS nagging for something, it’s usually a good idea to just suck it up and do what he wants. You’ll save yourself a lot of grief. Because eventually, you’re going to end up doing it anyway, just to shut him up.

  That’s why we go out for football that September—not for the competition or the glory, not for the exercise, not for the love of the game, but because “Chicks can’t resist shoulder pads.”

  Of all the cockamamie schemes in pursuit of Alex’s Holy Grail, this is by far the cockamamiest.

  Football tryouts are like marines training. Why countless hours of jumping jacks are required to prepare for a game that takes place in five-second bursts of activity, I’ll never know. But when the dust clears after three rounds of cuts, we’re still there. I manage to win a spot as the fourth-string halfback. And skinny Alex turns out to be a pretty fair kicker. We’re proud shoulder-pad-wearing members of the Jefferson Jaguars.

  “I hear those football parties are wild!” cheers Alex.

  Either there are no football parties, or bench-warmers aren’t invited. Our social lives still consist of each other.

  Practice lasts a hundred hours a day. We have double workouts until our first game—an hour in the morning, just to get the blood pumping, and a ninety-minute marathon after school.

  “Hang in there,” Alex promises. “The rewards’ll come. I know it. I can taste it.”

  “All I taste is sweat,” I say sourly. “We’re up at the crack of dawn; we don’t get home till dinner, which is a two-hour stuffing festival at my house. Then I’ve got homework to worry about. Every girl in Nassau County could be after my aching bod, and I wouldn’t have time to do anything about it.”

  Alex shrugs. “The other guys manage it.”

  “The other guys are signed up for Basket Weaving 101. We’ve got real courses, SATs to get ready for. That New Media class—I took it because I thought it was watching television. It’s all about the Internet! We’re going to have to design Web sites!”

  “Yeah, I’m a little worried about that one too,” Alex agrees. “Have you seen what a bunch of dweebs are in there? Girls could get the wrong idea about us.”

  “We’ll wear our shoulder pads,” I say sarc
astically. “That’ll fool them.”

  Our home opener is on Saturday. It’s Alex’s first chance to check out the cheerleaders, so he misses the whole warm-up and gets benched by Coach Bronski. With me being on the bench anyway, we sit together, watching other guys living the quintessential American high-school experience. Boy, going out for football has really changed our lives.

  Our opponents are the Lions from Central High in Valley Stream. Neither team is very good, and it shows. The game is a huge yawn, destined to go into halftime at 0–0. I mean, even the cheerleaders are pretty listless. I see newspapers opened up in the stands. It’s pathetic.

  Coach Bronski is trying everything to get a little offense going. Eventually, he scrapes the bottom of the barrel, because I get a tap on one of the shoulder pads that make me so irresistible to women.

  It’s a run off the right tackle, and the second I touch the ball, I know the play is going nowhere. My blockers haven’t cleared me an inch of space. All I can do is run into a bunch of fat behinds, theirs and ours. So there I am, surrounded by five defenders, and I brace myself for the big hit. It doesn’t come. Maybe they don’t realize I’ve got the ball. I push through and still nobody lays a hand on me. Finally, someone grabs the back of my jersey and gives a gentle pull. It’s not much of a tackle, but I trip anyway, and down I go. I gain eight yards, which is the biggest offensive play by either team all day.

  Coach leaves me in. I take a little pass. When I catch it, there’s a linebacker right there to hammer me. The face looks kind of familiar, but I can’t place it. And when I turn back again, he’s gone! I start downfield. I don’t know where the other team went, but they’re sure not in front of me. Every inch of my forty-yard scamper to pay dirt, I’m expecting to get viciously hauled down from behind. It never happens.

  Suddenly, our comatose fans are going nuts. The cheerleaders are craning their necks, trying to read the name on my shirt so they can come up with a cheer for me. Somebody obviously needs glasses, because the cheer comes out, “Here we go, Lucy! Here we go!” Stomp! Stomp!