Smalltime by Russell Shorto

Author:Russell Shorto
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2020-12-28T00:00:00+00:00

IT WAS ABOUT this time, when the organization was at its swaggering height, that Russ faced the biggest crisis of his career, if you don’t count the self-generated ones. His boss and brother-in-law, Joe, had a falling-out with his boss, LaRocca. I got two different accounts of what caused the rift. One story was that Shangri-La was losing money; LaRocca blamed Joe and told him he wanted his investment back. Joe paid him, but considered himself mistreated—they had been business partners in the venture, which meant both ought to rise or fall on the investment. The other story I was told was that LaRocca had said something disparaging about Joe having adopted children. Which doesn’t make sense on the face of it because apparently LaRocca himself had an adopted son.

The two men had been close since their days in post-Prohibition Philly. They had houses practically next to each other in Pompano Beach. Their wives were good friends. But now the rift between them threatened the operation in Johnstown. There was always pressure from guys in Pittsburgh trying to take over the local rackets: it was LaRocca who kept them in check. And the boys in New Kensington and Greensburg, who also turned in to LaRocca, would try muscling in on Johnstown as well whenever anyone’s guard was down. Pippy diFalco, for one, seems to have caved in to their pressure, sometimes working with New Kensington and turning in to them rather than to Joe.

Suddenly everything was on the line. LaRocca sent a man to Johnstown and told Joe to make a place for him. Sam Fashion was from Altoona; his arrival in town meant that LaRocca didn’t trust Joe anymore. “He was sent here to keep an eye on Little Joe,” Mike Gulino told me. Joe was in a quandary because LaRocca wanted him to give Sam the sports book, which was Russ’s territory. It was a bad time for Joe to stand up to the Pittsburgh boss. LaRocca was at this moment increasing his own power. He was pushing westward, moving to take over Youngstown, Ohio. And he’d become close with the Gambinos in New York.

Mike told me Russ was the one who saved Joe. “Russ found out,” Mike said, “and he said, ‘Joe, don’t worry, I’ll make it work.’ ” He gave Sam the sports book, but kept a watch on things. After a while, Russ saw they were actually losing money on sports. “Russ says to Joe, ‘Sam Fashion don’t know shit from Shinola,’ ” Mike said. “But Russ come up with another idea. He knew Sam was a real good cook. ‘Why don’t we put him in charge of Shangri-La?’ ”

So that’s what they did, and Sam Fashion went for it. Maybe he was relieved. Joe had bought out LaRocca’s share of the supper club; he now offered it to Sam. Sam was indeed a very good cook.† Business picked up after he became the chef.

Most of the old boys I talked to seemed to have

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