GoodFellas by Nicholas Pileggi

Author:Nicholas Pileggi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 1985-07-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

It always struck Henry as grossly unfair that after a lifetime of major crimes and petty punishments his longest stretch – a ten-year sentence in a federal penitentiary – came about because he got into a barroom brawl with a man whose sister was a typist for the FBI. It was as if he had suddenly hit the Superfecta of bad luck. He had been caught in a barroom brawl, and they had literally made a federal case out of it.

It had started as a lark, a spur-of-the-moment trip to Florida with his pals Jimmy Burke and Casey Rosado, the president of Local 71 of the Waiters and Commissary Workers at Kennedy Airport. Casey wanted company – he was going down to Tampa to see his parents and pick up some gambling money that was owed him. Tommy DeSimone had been scheduled to go, but he had been arrested on a hijacking the night before, and he wasn’t going to get bailed out early enough to make the flight. So Jimmy asked Henry if he wanted to go.

‘Why not? A little vacation. The union had already paid for a first-class round-trip ticket, and the flight would get me away from battling with Karen and Linda for a couple of days. Time out. That’s the way I looked at it. I called Karen from The Suite and told her to pack me a bag. Jimmy and I picked it up on our way to the airport.

‘We got to Tampa late that night and were met by Casey’s cousin in a car. We went straight to Casey’s parents’ house, where there was a lot of hugging and kissing. Finally we left our suitcases there and went to the Colombia Restaurant, in Ybor City, the old Cuban section of town, where Casey and his cousin turned out to be local celebrities. Everybody knew them.

‘We were just going to have a good time. At dinner Casey said that the guy who owed him the money was named John Ciaccio and that he owned the Temple Terrace Lounge, just outside Ybor City. Casey said he had a meeting with the guy later that night. Jimmy said he and I would tag along.

‘When we got to Ciaccio’s place I saw that it was a pretty big, one-story, cement block lounge surrounded by a giant parking lot. There was a liquor store right next to it which was also owned by Ciaccio. I saw that the place was near an intersection. I made a note that if there was trouble we could drive away from the bar real fast and disappear on either of two four-lane highways.

‘Before we went inside, Casey’s cousin came over to me and out of nowhere handed me a huge thirty-eight revolver. It was an antique. It was bound to explode if you tried to use it. I put it in my jacket and forgot about it. Casey and his cousin walked in first. After a minute Jimmy and I walked in. The room was very dark.

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