Last Don Standing by Larry McShane

Author:Larry McShane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

18

RISE OF THE CHICKEN MAN

With Caponigro’s claim to the throne dispatched in a brutal fashion, underboss Testa took over as head of the Philadelphia mob. His reign was ended in less than a year by of one of the most notorious hits in the mob’s long and bloody history. Natale, from the start, never saw Testa as the right man for the lofty position.

“He looked the part—a fearsome countenance, and he had proven his worth as underboss because of his loyalty to Ang,” Natale said. “But his loyalty was not enough to prevent the killing of his boss. When such men are forced by circumstance to take the reins, it is only with good fortune that disasters do not occur.”

Phil Testa had exactly twelve months of good fortune ahead of him. And Nicky Scarfo had a lot to do with it when the Chicken Man’s luck ran out.

Scarfo’s hopes of ever rising under the Bruno regime were nil. The old boss shunted Little Nicky to exile in his own personal Elba of Atlantic City after a series of catastrophes, including the fatal stabbing of a longshoreman over a diner seat at the end of a long, boozy night with Chuckie Merlino. Scarfo became capo of the seagulls and sand.

“The devil,” Natale hisses of the Atlantic City gangster. “Pure evil. Boss only by attrition.”

Natale never liked or trusted Scarfo, and the feeling was mutual. Ralph went to Bruno with a plan to murder Scarfo, a mission he viewed as a surgeon would the removal of a cancerous organ that threatened the entire body.

“Nicky Scarfo hated me,” Natale recalled. “’Cause he knew I wanted to kill him. He did. Angelo Bruno made me swear to him, face-to-face, that I wouldn’t do it. The truth of the matter is he told me, ‘No, you can’t. His two uncles came over here and helped fight in the old war,’ and this and that.

“Why did I want to kill him? Because of what he is. I knew he was in Atlantic City talking to other people. He’s gonna cause a problem.”

In the early seventies the two men had a run-in over control of Local 54, representing the seaside resort’s hotel and restaurant workers. Scarfo had befriended the union’s president, Frank Gerace, and tried to lay claim to the labor boss. Natale, backed by the Chicago–New York–Philadelphia triumvirate, was then merging the Atlantic City local with his own, Local 170.

Why? “One reason,” Natale explained. “To be in complete control if and when gambling came to Atlantic City.”

Scarfo registered a beef over Natale’s intrusion into his business and quickly wound up on the losing end of the debate. Angelo Bruno squashed Scarfo’s bid for control, firmly ruling that Natale was in complete control of the mob’s union interests in Atlantic City. The two unions would eventually become one.

Natale knew that Scarfo was a bitter man with a long memory, and the animosity between the two men lingered. Natale had little use for Scarfo as either a mafioso or a man, as he made clear decades later:

“Nicky Scarfo is a sick, demented man.

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