In the Grip of Treachery

In 1987, Mobster Nicholas "The Crow" Caramandi pleaded guilty to murder, racketeering and conspiring with a Philadelphia city councilman (Leland Beloff) to extort $1,000,000 from a real-estate developer. Since then, The Crow has been singing. He has testified in II trials, resulting in more than 52 convictions. Not since Joe Valachi spilled the beans three decades earlier has a "made" member done this much harm to "this thing of ours," La Cosa Nostra.

Caramandi, 56, rose to become the right-hand man and top moneymaker for Philadelphia's Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, arguably the most brutal and violent Mob boss of this era.

Considering Scarfo's short reign, the size and scope of his family's businesses throughout Philadelphia and south New Jersey were staggering. At the time of the don't 1986 indictment, the gang was raking in $25,000,000 to $30,000,000 annually just from illegal gambling (numbers, video poker, sports betting), and millions more from loan-sharking, shakedowns of drug dealers and various labor unions. Even bigger deals were in the making: Scarfo was preparing to control more than $200,000,000 in Philadelphia waterfront-development projects, as well as to infiltrate the union benefits plans of Atlantic City's bartenders and waitresses.

By flipping, Caramandi triggered the fall of Scarfo, the only Mafia chief ever to be convicted of first-degree murder, as well as the virtual destruction of the entire Philadelphia family. Caramandi's actions helped create a rash of double-dealing. Among those he ratted on was Scarfo's nephew Philip "Crazy Phil" Leonetti, who is now a key witness in the current trial of Gambino family boss John Gotti in New York. An account of the Philadelphia Mob, "Blood and Honor," was published last month.

A year ago, Caramandi was released from prison and he now lives far from Philadelphia with a new identity and a death sentence on his head. After meticulous planning, he agreed to meet secretly with me in a hotel room in the South. Extensive follow-up interviews were conducted by telephone, with The Crow calling me from an untraceable phone line. "How ya doin', buddy?" he would always begin, with a deep, gravelly voice that bespoke his shadowy past.

Is today's Mob as glamourous as Hollywood likes to suggest? Well, it has its moments, but the picture that emerges from talks with Caramandi is of a brotherhood of such blackhearted betrayal that it could hold its own against the late Roman Empire. From this snake pit of deceit and treachery that defined the Philadelphia Mob in particular, everybody emerged as a loser--a loser who had deluded himself into believing that he would somehow beat the odds.

The FBI has been cracking down on the Mob during the past decade. Is this the beginning of the end?

The FBI can't get out of their own fucking way. It's such a bureaucracy. This thing of ours, you can't kill it.

[Q] Why not?

[A] It's the second government. We have our own courts, our own sentences for people. We serve needs. People come to us when they can't get justice, or to borrow money that they can't get from the bank. Who the fuck is gonna stop us? It never dies. It's as powerful today as it ever was. It's just more glorified and more out in the open.

[Q] How high in society does the Mob reach?

[A] If politicians, doctors, lawyers, entertainment people all come to us for favors, there's got to be a reason. It's because we're the best. There are no favors we can't do. Take this city councilman guy Beloff [sentenced to ten years for conspiring with the Mob]. Some guy was gonna run against him and he was a little worried. I said, "Don't worry 'bout nothin'. Nicky said we'll kill the motherfucker the day before the election if we have to." He said, "Oh, thank God." He was tickled to death. He was relieved to hear that.

[Q] So why did you squeal?

[A] It's an awful fuckin' thing to get up there and point the finger. I loved some of those guys. It was only supposed to be a couple of them in the beginning, and then the Government made me tell on everyone. The list grew and grew and grew because I was so valuable to them. The fuckin' Government strips you, man. They really get their money's worth.

[Q] What led to your arrest?

[A] The FBI had wired a partner of mine in the construction business for eighteen months. I was doing fifteen things at a time when I got pinched: shakin' down drug dealers, hunting people to kill, taking care of Scarfo's businesses. We were moving into the unions in Atlantic City. I had about two hundred million dollars in construction business from the Philly waterfront coming my way. I had about a hundred fifty guys workin' for me. I didn't want to be a fuckin' rat. I would never have turned, but in jail, I was getting bad vibes about Scarfo.

[Q] What sort of vibes?

[A] This lawyer in the jail library walks over to me and says, "You got a problem." I said, "A problem? What do you mean, a problem?" He said, "It's nothin', nothin'." So I asked this inmate to get his lawyer to find out what this guy meant, and ten days later, he comes back to me and says, "You've got a problem. Scarfo turned on you." And he made the sign of the gun with his finger and said, "This is for you." I figured the niggers in the jail would carry out the order. I was scared to death and I called the FBI and told them to get me the hell out of there.

[Q] Why do you think Scarfo turned on you?

[A] He was a very vicious, very paranoid guy. He would turn on members all the time for no reason. You never knew where you stood. He was the kind of guy who would call meetings, get us all together for dinner and order double maragaritas for everyone. They're deadly. Scarfo would use them to open people up, make them talk, see what was on their minds. You get a guy loosened up, his true inner feelings come out. You know, all the hard-ons come out. And Scarfo knew how to play guys that way. And he knew how to control his own booze. He'd drink Scotch and water and he'd keep cutting it. So you'd be bombed and he'd still be drinking. He could stay with you for ten, fifteen hours and not get drunk. That was his secret.

[Q] Where did you fit into the family hierarchy?

[A] Until I went direct with Scarfo [became a right-hand man], me and my partner, Charlie White [Charles Iannece, now serving 40 years], had to report to two capos. They were two vicious motherfuckers. One was Faffy [Francis Iannarella, Jr., now serving life plus 45 years]. The other guy was Tommy [Thomas Del Giorno]. Tommy's in the witness-protection program. He's a stool pigeon, too. These two birds, I watched them destroy so many people. They were very tricky and cunning.

[A] Faffy was the snake in the background, the instigator, but he never showed his hand. He's the guy who went to Scarfo and beefed on the guy who had sponsored him, and that was Chuckie [Salvatore Merlino], the underboss. Tommy used to try to draw me into punching Chuckie on different occasions, and had I done that, I would have been dead.

[Q] What did they gain by the back stabbing?

[A] What they were trying to do was hurt people within so that they could move up, which they did. Then Faffy beefed on Tommy, who was his best friend, for his drunkenness and for getting into arguments with people. So they took Tommy down, and then Faffy had the run of the city.

[Q] Did a lot of the bullshit stop when you became Scarfo's right-hand man?

[A] Eventually, me and Charlie got to be direct with Scarfo, so there were no capos we had to report to. Being direct is better than being a capo. A capo has headaches, worrying all the time about soldiers' coming to you every ten minutes with problems, where I just go to the boss and have a free hand in everything. I was sick and tired of capos. They tried to kill me four times trying to set me up. Now, when you're with the boss, everyone's scared of you, because you have the boss's ear and nobody knows what you're sayin' to him.

[Q] It sounds like you had to worry more about your own members than other Mob families or even the Feds.

[A] Whew, the treachery in this thing of ours! Without rats, the FBI couldn't do anything. You know, Nicky Whip [Nicholas Milano] once said to me, "We have the whole fuckin' world against us. Why do we have to fight one another?" Nicky Whip is now doin' life for murder. His brother, Gino [Eugene Milano], testified against him.

[Q] You said before that Tommy and Faffy, your capos, tried to get people killed. How?

[A] One time, Tommy sent a guy into the neighborhood to buy oil to make meth [P2P for methamphetamine]. This guy says to me, "I hear there's oil around." I said, "I don't have no oil." See, you could be killed if you deal drugs in the Mob. The next day, Tommy comes around and says, "Somebody says you got oil." So I said, "Let me tell you something. Before I would sell oil, I'd jump off a fuckin' bridge." So Tommy says, "Well, I just want to say that if you are, buddy, I'll help and protect you." See, he's tryin' to trap me. I'll never forget the night Scarfo gave the order to kill Salvie [Salvatore Testa]. He was twenty-eight, at twenty-five the youngest capo of any Mob family in the country and a great kid. Tommy comes around to the clubhouse and says, "Boy, I gotta tell you what happened. Faffy really buried [betrayed] Salvie last night. And I helped. Ha, ha, ha, ha." He made the sign of the gun and said, "Salvie's got to go" and then asked me if I had any ideas. I said, "I have a few ideas."

[Q] Why did Salvie have to die?

[A] He had committed himself to marrying the underboss' daughter and had backed out at the last moment.

[Q] You've got to be joking.

[A] No joke. It was the ultimate insult. But there was no good reason for killing him. I feel a lot of remorse about Salvie. We stalked him for eighteen months. I made seventeen attempts to kill him. I couldn't get close enough to him. His antennas were up and he knew he was in trouble.

[Q] You guys always seem to run for the hills when you're marked. Why didn't he?

[A] Well, he wasn't that type of guy. This fucking kid was a real man. He didn't want to believe that Nicky would sell him down the river. As much as he knew the game, he didn't know it that well. We finally killed him in a store and dumped the body on a road in New Jersey. And then, for months afterward, I used to wake up in the middle of the night screaming. I would wake up crying and sobbing.

[Q] What did you see in those nightmares?

[A] I'd see his body lying on the highway for hours and hours, with his arms and legs stickin' out. He had shorts on that day and we covered him with a blanket. That was awful. I went and bought a blanket at a JC Penney store, but it wasn't big enough. It took all night to clean the fucking store where we killed him. We had a clean-up crew go in there after. Then we had a clean-up crew just to clean the truck out. There was so much blood. It was just an awful fucking thing.

[Q] It's unusual to hear a hit man express such sentiment.

[A] I think about him all the time. I was very close to this fella. I really, really got to like him. And he liked me. The guy was something special to me. I never was close to a guy like I was to him, in all my life.

[Q] Was he like a son?

[A] Sort of. He was young, but he was so sharp and mature in so many ways. I really miss him. He was all you could expect in this business, and more. He was a tough kid. His father had been killed a long time ago, blown up on his porch with a bomb made of finishing nails.

[Q] What was it like once you got back to Philadelphia after you killed Salvie?

[A] Well, there was a big fucking dinner at a fancy restaurant. We walked in and Scarfo asked if everything went OK. I said, "Everything went OK. It should be on the news any minute now." Charlie, my partner, had blood on his shirt. [Laughs] He didn't even change his shirt.

[Q] You also wound up killing your mentor, Pasquale "Pat the Cat" Spirito. Why?

[A] He had talked treason and that's what got him killed. Me and Pat were in a corner luncheonette drinking coffee for nearly four hours, and I'm talking him into believin' I would die for him. He had bad vibes. He said, "I trust you so much I would give my life for you." I looked him right in the eyes and said, "So would I, Pat. I love you. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. We've been through so much together." I'm lying like a motherfucker. He's tryin' to smoke me out and I'm just strokin' him. Meanwhile, it's already set up to kill him the next day.

[Q] How did you do it?

[A] We told him that we got word that Sonny [Mario] Riccobene, who we were all trying to kill, would be at a certain restaurant. So Pat calls me six fuckin' times. "Do we have to go?" he asks. "Why nine o'clock? Why this? Why that?" Anyway, it's all set up. Pat's driving. We go to Charlie's house, toot the horn. He comes out and puts the gun on the floor in the back. The plan is that we drive a few blocks and Charlie says he forgot his money. This was all psychology. We're just blowin' smoke. I say, "What do you need?" He says two hundred dollars and I hand it to him. We go to Eleventh Street and we tell Pat to pull over so we can give the two hundred dollars to some guy. Pat pulls over. Bang! That quick. The noise was so fuckin' loud. Bang His head shakes. I jump out and the car is rolling because it's still in gear. Big Charlie, who weighs two hundred pounds, can't get out of the back seat until we smash into a parked car. We run to a driver waiting for us, then go a few blocks and throw the gun into the street. In this business, you have to have a place to get washed, along with a change of clothes. We use vinegar on the hands and fingernails to get out the powder burns and bloodstains.

[Q] What next?

[A] I went around the corner to a neighborhood bar. Ordered a Scotch and water. Stood there waiting for the eleven-o'clock news. When it came on, I was cryin' about how they killed my best friend. I made sure I had witnesses who said I was in the bar all night.

[Q] Did you have trouble sleeping after that?

[A] No, we were just glad it was over. But now I feel bad about the guy. Nobody's life is worth taking. Today I feel bad about some of those unnecessary killings. You don't realize how precious a life is until you're in that position where you're gonna get killed and you'll do anything to survive. And look what I did. I went on that stand twenty fucking times and it killed me. It wasn't easy. I went through hell at the beginning. My head was all fucked up. I couldn't cope with the disgrace of it.

[Q] Before your arrest, did you ever feel that you were about to get killed yourself?

[A] Before I was made, when I was just a proposed member, we had been asked to kill Sonny Riccobene. We were stalking him for about a year. One day, Pat the Cat came around to this Italian restaurant and said that Salvie [Testa], the capo, wanted to see me. I said, "What the fuck does he want to see me for?" He said, "I don't know, he wants to see you." I said, "Why me?" He says, "Well, he wants you to take him to that house where Sonny's girlfriend lives to have a look at it." I said, "So he wants Charlie, my partner, to go, too?" He says, "No, he just wants you." So my antennas go up. It had taken us so long to kill Sonny, and I figured Pat the Cat was setting me up, blaming me for it. Now I'm scared to death. Why do I have to go? I start to argue with him. The paranoia's coming out. I give Charlie a look and I'm tryin' to catch a vibe from him. See, you can't trust nobody, because it's usually your best friends who are gonna be the ones to kill you.

[Q] So did you go and meet Salvie?

[A] I had to. I met Salvie and he says we're gonna take a ride to see this house. I said, "Well, I might not remember where it's at." He says, "Nah, you'll remember, let's just take a ride. Maybe it'll come back to you." There's a guy with him, another proposed member, wearing a jacket. I figure there's a gun under it. Salvie says to me, "We'll take your car." There are four doors, so I go for the back door. And he says, "No, sit in the front." Holy Christ! So now I'm ready to break. I'm ready to run. I figured this was it. But if I ran, where the fuck was I going, anyway? So I put it in my head that this is the end. I get in the car. Nobody's saying much. And we drive to this house, outside Philly, for an hour and a half. I was sweating bullets. Any move that I caught I was going to dive out the door. (continued on page 104)Grip of Treachery(continued from page 96) My whole life ran in front of me as we drove. But it was a legitimate trip and in that case, I was worried for nothin'.

[Q] Why were you trying to kill Sonny Riccobene?

[A] The guy we were really after was his stepbrother, Harry. We had told Sonny, "Look, you want to get on the right side with us, set your brother up. We'll take care of you and make sure that nice things happen to you." Instead, Sonny turned around and told his brother. So we were goin' to kill him, too.

[Q] How could you expect him to finger his own brother?

[A] Well, it was said that he was such a blackhearted bastard that he might have gone for it. He wound up testifying against his own brother, anyway, in a trial. Now he's in the witness-protection program.

[Q] You gave plenty of beatings to people in your time. Does it physically feel good to do that to another person?

[A] Yeah, sometimes you get joy out of that. There's pleasure, you know. There's satisfaction. I mean, it wasn't that you'd punch a guy and knock him out and that was it. I mean, we'd hurt them. I mean, literally hit them with fuckin' anything you could hit 'em with, kick 'em, cut 'em. Guys lost eyes and ears. See, once you start, you can't stop. You're all psyched up, the adrenaline. You want to kill them. You don't give a fuck if you kill 'em or not. We never had to worry about witnesses, because who was going to be a witness against us?

[Q] What about the families of members who get wiped out? Aren't they ever willing to come forward?

[A] Never. One time, a friend stabbed a guy, Ralph, who was with me on my step. So I bring him into the house, three o'clock in the fucking morning. My friend had put a big kitchen knife right down in Ralph's shoulder blade. Ralph's dying. He's sittin' at the table, sayin' he's gonna go home and get a gun to kill him. I say, "Ralph, you can't do it, he's a friend of mine, you gotta forget it." All of a sudden, my feet are wet. I look down and see all this blood, and then I see the blood shoot up to the ceiling, a nine-foot ceiling. He's bleeding to death! I get him to a hospital and he's being given his last rites by the priest. I go to see his wife and tell her, "Look, whatever happens, you got to say that two niggers tried to rob him and stabbed him and ran away." Now she knows who did it. But she understood that she had to say nothing.

[Q] Did you ever slam people around for the hell of it? Just to throw your weight around?

[A] Some guys do that. Every night, there was a fight somewhere. Say a guy is sitting in a chair in a joint and there's no place to sit. "Get the fuck up," and just chase the guy off the chair. The younger kids would bust up joints and the next day, we'd have to go over and explain it. I was a little too old for that bullshit myself. All I had to do was tell these kids, go into this joint and wreck it and that was it.

[Q] Would you hurt a person who was not in the Mob just for being rude to you?

[A] If some guy got fresh, sure, we'd knock the shit out of him. We were on a street corner once in Philly, it was a real hot summer day and we had the fire hydrant open. Some kid, about twenty, speeds up in a car, turns real fast and splashes me. "Hey, you motherfucker!" I yelled. He speeds up and then parks on the pavement. "Oh, so the cocksucker lives there." So now six of us go running toward the house, bust the fucking door down, drag the kid out and start banging him around. Now, the mother is upstairs fucking--this is a funny story--she's upstairs fucking her boyfriend. The boyfriend comes out of the house to find out what happened and--bing, bing, bing, bing--my friends half killed him. Just left him in the street. The kid, they already buried him. Now the mother comes out screaming and they are gonna hit her.

[Q] It's not wise to have a bad attitude around you wiseguys.

[A] I went with a partner to see this drug dealer one time. I said, "You gotta pay, kid." He said, "No, I don't pay gangsters." I said, "You got a bad fucking attitude." Now, I'm thinking, For a fucking guy to think like this, he's got a gun, this kid. I said, "You motherfucker, you got a gun, ain't you?" As soon as I said that, he went for it and we bopped him. We dragged him into a clothing store and left him for dead. We hit him with sticks, kicked him and busted his face with the gun. He didn't have a chance. We left the kid in a pool of blood. They called an ambulance and nobody in the store, which was wrecked, said anything. We kept the gun. Another time, a bouncer busted the nose of my partner Charlie's kid. I had had an incident with this bouncer once before, so we went to Scarfo and said, "We want to hurt this guy with some baseball bats." Scarfo said, "Fuck them baseball bats. Go get a .25, small caliber, and shoot him. If he dies, he dies. We're too old for bats."

[Q] What would, say, an upscale civilian do if he wanted someone's face broken? How does someone find the Mob?

[A] It's everywhere you go, but if you're not looking for it, you're not gonna see it. We don't go out there and wave fucking flags, you know. Someone you know could know someone who's an associate of the Mob. He might say, "Look, I got a friend with a problem. Can I get some help?" And the associate will go and talk to a soldier. I'm sure if you asked hard enough, you'd come up with somebody. If it came to me, maybe I'd want to talk to you about your problem. Then I'd tell your friend to tell you we'd take care of it. We'd do the favor. I probably wouldn't directly tell you anything.

[Q] What's it gonna cost me?

[A] Nothing. We don't get paid to do things. That's greed. Maybe you'll send me a case of whiskey or champagne. Or maybe you'll owe me a favor. By that time, I would know all about you. Somebody might come and see you someday.

[Q] What if I'm too scared to return the favor? Do I end up in cement?

[A] That's just Hollywood bullshit. I wouldn't put you under any kind of pressure. We don't do things like that to legitimate people. It would be a nothing favor, you understand? It wouldn't be a heavy-duty favor. Say you were in the rug business and you could give me a cheaper price, or you could give somebody I know a job.

[Q] You mean you might beat the living shit out of someone I hate and all you might want in return would be a discount on some carpeting?

[A] Yeah, if it presents itself. Maybe you'll never return the favor. There's no obligation.

[Q] Tell us how you grew in this business.

[A] I left school when I was fifteen and went to work to help support a younger brother, to help my mother out. I got married early, had two boys and left them when they were three, four years old. I hung around on the corner with older guys, neighborhood toughs. I stole, I flimflammed, sold drugs. I did everything you could possibly think of in the way of crime. I was always angling. My nickname was The Crow--a shrewd bird. I made a career out of selling people things I didn't have, because greed blinds so many. You know, you can't cheat an honest man. And the better quality of dishonest people you deal with--people like doctors, lawyers, professionals--they're easier to rob, because they're greedy and they don't have the street mentality to spot a (continued on page 162)Grip of Treachery(continued from page 104) rip-off. The more intelligence people have, the more their ego comes into play, where they figure they can't be robbed.

[Q] But how did you justify taking property that was not yours?

[A] I didn't give a fuck. I had to make a living and this was the best way I knew how. I couldn't see any other way. I enjoyed doing what I was doing because I was good at it. I was a specialist. I tried not to rob poor people. That would bother me. I would always try to take from the rich, figuring that this ain't going to hurt them, anyway. I've always said that the rich didn't get there doing the right thing. There's always something illegal they've done along the line if you dig deep enough. I once robbed a rich guy. A gorgeous home, worth several million at least. We found jewelry, but it was all costume shit. The guy who I was fencing this stuff to wouldn't give me a hundred dollars for it. But the next day, it's in the newspaper that fifty thousand dollars in gems was taken. Now my partners are beefing with me, thinking I'm holding out on them. This guy was the thief. He was scamming the insurance company. Look how greedy he was. I actually did him a favor.

[Q] You say you didn't take from the poor, yet the Mafia cheats the working class by stealing from their union pension and benefits plans.

[A] I'm dealing with the higher-up guys in the unions. How could I think along those lines? Besides, money is the name of the game. There's corruption all over. And there's nobody more corrupt than we are. We don't have fuckin' morals. We got bylaws that we live by and that's it.

[Q] Where were your parents while you were forming these beliefs and attitudes?

[A] My father had to leave town because he owed loan sharks money, so I didn't see him for twenty years. He was a numbers writer all his life, loved to shoot craps. My mother was quiet and minded her business. Just a typical Italian woman. All she cared about was her home. I always tried to stay clear of her, never give her any heartaches. My mother worries now that I'll get killed.

[Q] When you watched gangster movies as a kid, did you root for the bad guys?

[A] The gangsters, always the gangsters. Dillinger. James Cagney. They were the heroes. But Bogey was my favorite role model. Sometimes I watch Casablanca once a week. It's my favorite movie. All I ever wanted to be was a crook.

[Q] How about giving us your list of the best Mob films ever made?

[A] Well, I haven't seen GoodFellas yet. Let's see, I'd say Godfather I and II. Then--what's that one with Edward G. Robinson?--Little Caesar. That was great. Also White Heat. The Roaring Twenties was good, too. That's about the best five. The Valachi Papers was a great movie, on target with everything. On the Waterfront was another good one, too. I thought Godfather III stunk.

[Q] Hollywood tries to imitate life, but, in the case of the Mob, do gangsters ever look to the movies for cues on how they should behave?

[A] Not really. The movies got their stuff from us, we didn't get it from them. You do get some phony guys who want to act like Don Corleone. Sonny Riccobene used to do that with the coat over his shoulders and always walking around with five, six guys. I used to borrow money from him and he would serve espresso with the sambuca and the cookies. The old Italians would do this. Sonny was trying to play Don Corleone and he wasn't even a made guy. We can see right through those people. Guys like that don't last.

[Q] Is everyone vulnerable to being scammed?

[A] If I see a guy's honest, I don't fuck with him. You've got to find the larceny in the person, the greed. In my early years, I used to sell gold. I'd buy a fifteen-pound spool of brass wire and get it gold-plated. Then I'd buy a small piece of real eighteen-karat-gold wire and have my jeweler fuse it onto both ends. Now I go into a jewelry store and get the jeweler interested in this, tell him it just came out of the mill. I tell him it's fourteen karat. He clips a piece off the end, examines it and sees it's eighteen karat. So he thinks I'm stupid. At the time, gold's selling for four hundred dollars an ounce. I tell him, "Give me ten thousand dollars for the roll." Then I'll keep talking to him, don't give him any time to speak. I sold countless spools of brass. It wasn't me who was robbing them. It was their own greed that was robbing them.

[Q] Any advice to young people considering a life in the Mob?

[A] Well, I wish them the best of luck, because as glorifying as it looks, and as glorifying as it is, it's a tough fuckin' road, brother. If you project any greed in this business, that's it, you're dead. And power, greed, jealousy, they all work in conjunction with one another. But in my heart, I still think the Mob is a great thing, if you're dealing with the right people. But you don't pick them, they pick you. In the state of Pennsylvania, you got close to fifteen million people, and they picked about sixty. You have a better chance of getting into West Point. I mean, I seen guys proposed who are tough killers and they won't take 'em in. The way it works is, we could go to the capos or to Nicky and say, "Look, I got a solid fella here, we know his family and we could mold this guy. He could become an asset to the family." And you're responsible for the guy you propose. If he turns out to be a rat, you're dead. That's why it's very tough to get in.

[Q] But where's the big payoff? Everybody seems to wind up in jail or six feet under. Mobsters rarely live like millionaires, even when they have the money.

[A] Some do and some don't. Some of them stay low-key. You know, a lot of these guys are greaseballs. They're from the old school. Give them a fucking dish of spaghetti and a bottle of wine and they're satisfied. We were living high. Jesus Christ, look at Scarfo. Boats, houses in Florida, fancy restaurants every night, fancy clothes and cars. Thousand-dollar suits. I used to have all my suits tailor made. My shoes used to cost five hundred dollars. I still got some. I don't wear them. I got no use for them anymore.

[Q] How much money did you raise for the family during the Eighties?

[A] I probably brought Scarfo five million dollars and pocketed another million and a half dollars for myself. I'd always have about five or ten thousand dollars in my pocket, no problem, especially after 1985.

[Q] Did you squirrel any of it away, open a savings account or something?

[A] No, you can't go to banks. And we were afraid of safe-deposit boxes, because the FBI could check them. You know, they were following us twenty-four hours a day. And we couldn't buy stocks or real estate, because the Feds or the IRS would step in and ask, "Where the fuck did you get this money?" Cash is the thing. We'd stash our cash.

[Q] So what would you do with the money?

[A] Spend it. Gamble. I'm a gambler. I'd go to a casino and blow fifty thousand dollars in a weekend. I could lose that in an hour sometimes. I'd bet five thousand dollars a card in baccarat. If I lost, I wouldn't lose any sleep, I wouldn't commit suicide, because I knew I'd be making more the next day.

[Q] Did you blow everything in the casinos?

[A] Overall, I must have lost three to five million dollars over the past thirty years.

[Q] Didn't you try to save a dime of it?

[A] This was just pin money to us. See, the real money was coming. We were on our way to being cash millionaires. But I did save about seventy thousand dollars for lawyer money. I had a guy holding it. Scarfo had pounded it into our heads to keep some money because lawyers are expensive. But Charlie, my partner, took that money after I was arrested.

[Q] Where would you take your vacations? Paris? Venice?

[A] No, we went to Fort Lauderdale with our wives.

[Q] Did you have any desire to see the world?

[A] Nah, not really. We hadn't gotten to that stage of our lives yet. You don't see none of these guys going to places like that. Florida was our place to go. I hate to fly. I do it, but I'm scared. I'm scared to death of flying. I think of all the rottenness I've done in my life when I'm on a fucking plane. All the evil.

[Q] So global deal making was obviously not in the cards for you. What was everyday life like in the Mob?

[A] Well, I used to get up, go round the corner. We had a clubhouse where ten, fifteen made guys and associates would hang out. We'd conduct a lot of business from there. At lunchtime, we'd send out for food--you know, steak sandwiches or cold cuts or hot dogs--and whoever came in would eat it, forty to fifty guys. We'd play cards, gin rummy or hearts, during the day and conduct business. At night, we'd go out somewhere, or to a casino on the weekends and gamble. A lot of partying, lots of broads, a lot of fun. This is when you're not looking to kill somebody. For two fucking years, I didn't see my bed for weeks at a time. I'd sleep in a car, stalking people, finding a way to kill them. There were thirty-five people killed in five years in Philly--wide open, cowboy style. This town was on fire. People were petrified. Ours was the most vicious, violent outfit since Capone.

[Q] What was your life in the Mob like for your ex-wife? Did it cause strains in the marriage?

[A] Well, she grew up in a Mob environment. It's a tough fuckin' life for a woman. But she knew the good life. When she walked out the door in the rain, twenty umbrellas would open up. All the respect she got from neighbors, from merchants, from waiters. She got top treatment. I bought my wife a ten-thousand-dollar bracelet once and got her a hot mink. It was worth fifteen thousand dollars and I got it for two thousand dollars. She knew that I belonged to the Mob, but she didn't know details.

[Q] She didn't ask you for those details or try to encourage you to lead a straight life?

[A] No. She couldn't say anything. I mean, that was my way of life and that was it. Wives are showpieces, for Christ's sake. You just tell 'em, Listen, I ain't gonna be home for a week, and they don't say nothing. You don't tell your wife nothing. They just know. They see the stress on you. They see the respect that you get from people. And they know it doesn't come because you're a nice guy.

[Q] Did everyone have girlfriends, as well?

[A] Mostly everybody fucked around on the side. Nothing that we were gonna leave our wives for. But broads just die for you. They love gangsters. I mean, we got the money, the cars, we're in the best places, the casinos, and we got the publicity. I mean, Jesus Christ, girls fight over you. We used to get fan mail from girls wanting to meet us. All kinds of broads--married ones, young ones, waitresses, executives. I had three or four I used to fool with. Sometimes I might have had seven or eight. That was enough. You know, how much could you get laid? They were available for when I wanted them and that was it. Daytime fucks, housewives.

[Q] Any particularly memorable girlfriends?

[A] When I came out of jail in the Seventies, a public defender introduced me to this Jewish girl. She had money, lived in a good section of the city and loved to be around gangsters. She was the most vicious broad I ever met. I get to know her and she's selling pills. She had an old doctor that she used to blow and he used to give her a lot of prescriptions for Quaaludes. And she would cash them and sell the 'Ludes for a dollar apiece. She was grabbing, like, two thousand dollars a week just from Quaaludes. And she's taking me out and giving me money. So I start to meet her girlfriends and they start telling me stories about her.

[Q] Were you sleeping with her girlfriends, too?

[A] Yeah, I fucked every girlfriend she had. And then I get her to confess to me one night that she killed her parents. Her mother was a champion bridge player and had a lot of stock and bond investments. So she started giving the mother arsenic a little bit at a time and killed her. It took her maybe two months.

[Q] You've got to be kidding.

[A] It's true. She had the body cremated. Then she starts to give her father low doses of arsenic and kills him. And she got all the money, a few million. And her girlfriends confirmed the story. This blackhearted motherfucker. So I devised a plan. I get this public defender to get me names of two FBI agents. Then I tell her that these two agents went to a friend of mine and want to investigate her. She's scared to death. So I tell her I got somebody who can reach them, but it's gonna cost her a hundred thousand dollars. She gave me ten thousand dollars a week for ten weeks.

[Q] You call her blackhearted? What about you?

[A] I was blackhearted. But she was the most vicious girl I ever met. I mean, she killed her mother and father. How fucking more vicious can you get? This was the only way I could get the money out of her other than marry her. I didn't trust her. I'd watch myself if I ate with her.

[Q] Sex with her must have been relaxing.

[A] All I used to do was make her blow me. She used to love to do that. She once blew me for an hour and a half while I was driving a car through Philadelphia.

[Q] Describe the day that you got made, or initiated into the Mob.

[A] It was a Sunday. The day before, the underboss had come over to my house and told me that tomorrow was my day. I was driven to this million-dollar house in Philadelphia, with a big swimming pool and a big table laid out with food--shrimp, steaks, meatballs, peppers, olives, spaghetti--and about forty chairs. I was on cloud nine. Scarfo is at the head of this long table and says, "Nick, do you know why you're here?" I said, "No." You're supposed to say no.

[Q] What if you say yes?

[A] You just don't. So next, he says, "We want you to be one of us. Now, look around this table and tell me if there is anyone you have bad feelings with." I look around and say no.

[Q] That's funny, considering all the back stabbing.

[A] I was on too much of a high to even think about it. So he makes a speech about how much I've done for the family and then says that I have the freedom to leave now and that I'll always be their friend. There would be no hard feelings if I didn't want to join. I said, "No, I want to be one of you."

[Q] What if you had asked whether you could sleep on it and get back to them?

[A] Dead. Right on the spot. I wouldn't have made the door. I probably would have been strangled to death. Once you've been proposed, there's no turning back.

[Q] What happened next?

[A] Scarfo points to a gun and a knife on a table and asks if I'd use these for any of these friends around the table. Then he lights a small piece of tissue paper in my hand while I say, "May I burn like the saints in hell if I ever betray any of my friends." He also pricks my trigger finger. Then you go around the table and kiss everyone. Then we have a feast and then you're told the rules. In the days that follow, you go around and meet the guys who weren't at the ceremony. Then word just seems to spread everywhere you go. And everywhere you go, the respect that you receive from nonmembers is enormous.

[Q] What kind of rules are you told about?

[A] Well, the family doesn't fool with kidnaping, counterfeit money or bonds. You can shake down or rob drug dealers, but you can't protect them, lend them money or deal drugs yourself. No fooling with a member's wife. You can't even look at another guy's wife. That's automatic death. Even hitting another member is automatic death. He can ask for your life. You're supposed to report once a week to your capo, unless there's a good excuse. You can't go out of town without telling him. You always have to touch base. You're also told that silence is the code and this thing comes first. It comes before your mother, your father, your sister, your brother.

[Q] But "this thing" doesn't come before your own life, does it?

[A] Right. Self-preservation is the only thing.

[Q] Looking back at the entire ritual of being made, does it seem like a total crock of shit?

[A] You would have been a hell of a gangster.

[Q] What do you mean by that?

[A] You're a vicious fucking guy.

[Q] What are you talking about? Did I offend you?

[A] No, you didn't offend me. But you fear nothing. And you fuck with the unknown, which many people won't do. You don't give a fuck. You're tough. To ask, "What the fuck is this ritual?"

[A] You're diggin' deep. Most people are afraid to talk to us. Most people wouldn't even dare to ask us about the making ceremony. It takes a lot of balls to bring it up. Even members won't discuss it. I don't think it's a crock of shit. It's a strong, deep and very meaningful ceremony. Here we are, forty guys, we're all killers, and we're all one. The ceremony's gorgeous. It's just beautiful. It's a sacred thing. You pray together, we all hold hands. It's just like getting Communion, for Christ's sake. It's better than that. In my heart, I still think it's a great thing. And I would do it all again if I had to start over. You know, there was nothing we couldn't do, nothing we couldn't penetrate. You've got friends, you belong to something that is so strong and so powerful. If there's a heaven, this is heaven on earth.

[Q] Are most Mobsters religious?

[A] We're tormented inside by the evil we do. We know we have to pay, somehow, someday. But we belong to this thing and that comes first. We believe in it and we have our own laws that we follow.

[Q] But what does God mean to Nick Caramandi?

[A] I don't have any answers when it comes to God. I go to church and I try to find Him, but I just can't seem to reach Him. Every day that goes by, I think about how I'm gonna be saved, but I just don't know. How can I say I'm sorry when in my heart I know I'm not sorry? I have no idea what to say to Him. I really don't. What the fuck can I say? I broke all the commandments. Could I say "Forgive me" when my heart tells me I would do it again? And again and again and again and again? I know that Christ died for our sins and we can mend our ways. But what the fuck can I mend if I still have it in me? What, am I gonna be a good boy now? Because I have to? I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry, so how can I ask God for forgiveness? He reads the heart, He don't read the lips.

[Q] Does that mean an eternity in hell?

[A] I guess it does. Unless I find a way. But up to now, I can't find a way.

[Q] What if there is no God? Then you're off the hook, right?

[A] Well, if there's no God, I'm off the hook. But there's got to be one. I feel there is one.

We have our own courts, our own sentences. We serve needs. People come to us when they can't get justice, or to borrow money that they can't get from the bank.... If politicians, doctors, lawyers, entertainment people all come to us for favors, there's got to be a reason. It's because we're the best. There are no favors we can't do."

I was sick and tired of capos. They tried to kill me four times trying to set me up. Now, when you're with the boss, everyone's scared of you, because you have the boss's ear and nobody knows what you're sayin' to him. The treachery in this thing of ours! Nicky once said, 'We have the whole fuckin' world against us. Why do we have to fight one another?'"

"'Go get a .25, small caliber, and shoot him. If he dies, he dies. We're too old for baseball bats.'"

"There's nobody more corrupt than we are. We don't have morals. We got bylaws we live by and that's it."