Fahrenheit 1600 (Victor Kozol) (14 page)

Wilkes Library

Stegmaier Brewery, Wilkes
Barre

Weckesser Hall, Wilkes
University

Stegmaier Mansion, Wilkes
Barre

Breiseth Hall Wilkes U

St. Mary's Polish Nat'l Church

Chapter 27

Fat Joe

Many think that the crime syndicates in New York
and elsewhere are constantly fighting turf wars. These organizations or
“families” as they are called deal in all types of illegality including drugs,
prostitution, gambling, garbage pickup, commercial laundries, and a whole host
of other activities. The syndicates act much like public corporations, complete
with an established hierarchy and strict rules to be abided by. They do risk
management, recruitment, accounting, and all of the things you would think a
large business does on a daily basis. The big difference is that you won’t find
any detailed or published financial reports as you would with most public
companies. They share another trait with the legit companies.

They sometimes both engage in monopolistic
practices, by carving up the territories into areas of influence. They claim
certain territories where they are strongest and cede other areas where they
don’t have manpower or interest to another syndicate. This has, for years, kept
the interfamily wars down to some small brush fights. Only rarely will there be
serious upheavals of violence between the syndicates.

Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn was one of these
dividing lines between two families. On the north side, Carlo Dellveccio’s
family operated, while on the south side of the street, the Rugocci family was
in charge. No one knows how long this arrangement prevailed, but it had proven
profitable to both families. We all know how keeping discipline in any venture
is an imperfect work in progress, sometimes needing fine tuning.

In one particular four square block area, Joe
Marucci was in charge for the Rugoccis. He is a mid-level operator sometimes
called an ‘earner’ controlling several ‘bag men’ (collectors) and ‘runners’
(money carriers). Joe was not much for running himself, as he was five foot
eight and went over three hundred and fifty pounds. He usually sat wedged in
his chair in an office behind a small pizza restaurant right on Flatbush
Avenue. For whatever reason, Joe’s territory is slow this month. His girls are
not finding the “johns” at night, the betting is down, and even the drugs are
not selling at the rate they normally do. What to do?

Joe sees that across the Avenue there is not much
going on. Maybe the Dellveccio guys are on vacation; maybe they lost men and
can’t man the street anymore. Who knows? All Joe sees is at least a temporary
opportunity to send some of his men and girls one hundred feet across Flatbush
Avenue and start working the streets over there. Joe knows he should clear this
with Marco Rugocci, his boss, but if he says no, then Joe has to report the
weak sales and take the heat for that. So, Joe decides to take the matter into
his own hands. He sends four of his guys over to distribute drugs through the
‘crack heads’ who actually do the street sales. He will see what happens and
then dispatch the girls to solicit for prostitution next.

For about two weeks, Joe’s guys are making sales in
the ‘forbidden’ territory, and there are no repercussions. But on the third
week one of Joe’s ‘soldiers’ is severely beaten in an alley behind Flatbush.
Worse, some of the drug dealing crack heads can no longer be found on their
normal corners.

 Joe now has two choices, he can continue to
keep doing business over there, or he can pull back to his side of the Avenue.
Joe knows that since he didn’t consult with Marco first, he can’t ask him what
to do. Joe decides being a pretty smart guy he is going to keep ‘batting above
his average’. He already knows that his counterpart in the Dellveccio family is
one Carlos Marini.

Joe asked Carlos to meet with him and maybe they can
smooth over some of the ruffled feathers. Carlos responds, “Sure Joe we can
talk about splitting up the turf maybe a little bit differently. Why don’t you
come over for dinner tonight at Cataldi’s on Third Avenue? Just you and me Joe,
that’s how things get done, right, paisano?”

“I’ll be there at 8:00 p.m. tonight Carlos, see you
then.”

Right on time, Joe waddles in and is escorted by
Marco to the rear of Cataldi’s where a private booth is waiting with wine
already poured and the first course of antipasto ready to be served. (It is an
old tradition in the mob to first have dinner with or allow one to finish their
last meal before you take them out). And that is exactly what Marco has
planned.

“Joe, I think we’re a little short of help right
now, so maybe we can give you the first couple of blocks in from Flatbush right
now. After all we can’t have your men getting into jams like they did last week
by being where they shouldn’t have been.” Sure Joe says, “I knew you could
agree on letting us have a couple of blocks for now; who knows when you need a
favor yourself someday? Enjoy.

“Bon appetite.”

With Cannoli and cappuccino served last, Marco says,
“Joe let’s go out to my car and we’ll drive the area you had in mind. After we
agree on the streets we can shake on it.”

Joe is ecstatic; he never knew that negotiating
between the families could be so easy

“My Lincoln is behind the kitchen, let’s go out this
way.”

When Joe and Marco get out into the dark alleyway,
he is jumped by three of Marco’s boys, knocked unconscious and thrown in the
back of a waiting van. A familiar ritual is repeated with the van driving to
the docks and an abandoned warehouse at the end of one of the piers. When they
get inside it takes four guys to remove Joe from the van and dump him into a
chair.

Splashing him with a bucket of cold water to revive
him, Marco says “Did you think we just got off the banana boat Joe? You think
you can just move into someone’s territory because you want it? Well Joe,
unfortunately it doesn’t work that way, and I’m afraid you flunked your first
and last test in management negotiating,” roars Marco.

Joe is flushed, shaking, and profusely sweating.
“Okay Marco, I was wrong, I’ll pull my guys off and we’ll go back to business
as usual on our own sides of the street tomorrow.”

“No Joe, that’s not how this is going to end.” With
that Marco pulls out a suppressed 9 mm Glock 19 and puts three shots through Joe’s
heart. Next, the call goes out to Vinnie to bring his van, but Marco tells him,
“Make sure you ate your Wheaties today.” After much struggling Joe barely fits
into the pouch, but the zipper is overstressed and jams trying to close it.
Four men struggle with the handles on the pouch as they muscle it into Vinnie’s
van for the trip to Duryea. Except for Joe’s weight, it all seemed routine at
the time. No one knew that Joe, inadvertently through his overeating, would
wreck a scheme that took almost a year to set-up.

Chapter 28

Fat Joe the Fifth Case for Victor

A week after the family dinner at the Schmidt’s,
Vic and Karen are dining out on a crisp and cool Friday night in Old Forge at Verna’s;
another one of the many fine restaurants in this town of eateries.

Karen tells Vic, “You know Auntie Sophie wants my
parents to do a full investigation of you; you must have really made some
impression on her when you were at college.”

With that a chill goes down Vic’s spine, an
investigation, even if they are not serious, sets off alarm bells throughout
his brain.

“Why would they do that Karen? I’m just a small town
funeral director trying to make a living like everyone else. Look, I admit I
was pretty crazy in college. Your Aunt and I used to mix it up regularly over
the weekend parties in my apartment. But it was just the old “sowing your wild
oats thing.” There was nothing sinister or criminal, just a bunch of college
kids for the first time away from home letting off steam. That’s not who I am
now, we all mature and leave that lifestyle behind. At least I sure did.”

“Don’t be so defensive Vic, I know what college was
like. I just didn’t have it as easy as you because I had to live at home and commute
every day to classes. But you know the older generation will never look the
other way when they see the type of carrying on that students do. It’s okay
with me Vic, I didn’t even know you back then. You don’t have to justify your
actions from ten years ago, just what you do now.”

But for the first time Victor’s outburst about his
past leaves Karen feeling a bit uneasy,
Does Vic protest too much?

Her mind then turns to the great unknown about Vic.
Where does he get all of the money he seems to never run short of? Is it an
inheritance; is his funeral business actually better than it seems to Karen?
Who is Vic’s secret financial angel? Karen dated more than a couple of guys in
her time, and none ever had the endless resources of Vic. There was always that
time the guy was short and she would go ‘Dutch treat’. But never with Vic.

All of these thoughts were cut short when Vic’s cell
phone rang. Vic, to not disturb the other diners and make sure he was out of
earshot of Karen, walks over to the lounge to answer it. Karen thinking that it
was a death call (it really was that) became all excited.

Vic says, “Karen we have to finish up here and leave
I have business to attend to.”

“I want to come along,” she says. “I can lift my end
of the stretcher; I’ll be your assistant in the removal of the body.”

Normally if this were just that a ‘death call’,
Victor would not have minded taking Karen along. After all there is no law
against having unlicensed staff assisting funeral directors in their duties.
But, this was not a normal call and Vic was not about to have Vinnie from New
York ever come into contact with Karen. She was too quick on the uptake not to
realize that this operation Vic was going on was no normal death call pick-up
in a small town or for that matter any funeral director. Vic had to think of
something quickly, something he rarely had to do lately.

There was this time at Wilkes University, where he
inadvertently invited two different girls to come to his apartment on the same
night and party. He knew these girls weren’t into ‘tricycling’, so he had to
feign an illness with one, by throwing up in the cafeteria right in front of
her. Oh well, not classy, but she got the message and stayed away. But, poetic
justice came into play and the other girl didn’t show up either. However, this
was far more serious than two acquaintances overpopulating his apartment.

Flash back to present. “Look Karen, That was
Geissinger Hospital, Mrs. Smerkosky just died, but I can’t get her body until
tomorrow after the autopsy. There really isn’t anyone to pick up tonight, but I
might have to talk to her family later on.”

“You mean after 10:00 p.m. you are going out to see
them?”

“Oh yes, we funeral directors give our families that
kind of personalized service.”

“OKay, but count me in for next time.” (If only she
knew how long it was between death calls in Vic’s business.)

“Sure, but you can still stay with me at my place
tonight.”

“I’m on for that.”

Whew, there is one problem with having a steady relationship
with someone, they are around a lot. Sometimes they are around just too much.
But then Vic thought of the brighter side of cuddling up with this nubile young
nurse tonight after his ‘little duty’ was done, it all seemed worthwhile. The
second call came while Vic was at his place watching TV with Karen. He knows
that the ‘shipment’ is within fifteen minutes of his garage again.

“It’s time for me to go over and see the family.”
says Vic as he heads out the door.

Vic arrived at the garage, and shortly thereafter
the black van arrived and pulled into the darkened space. Vic hits the close
button for the overhead door. It again went as planned, the garage swallowed up
the van and its contents away from all prying eyes. Tonight something is
different; three guys get out of the van, Vinnie and two strangers. It seems
that this ‘shipment’ is much heavier than before and would be too much for Vic
and Vinnie to muscle into the retort. With two guys in the van at one end and
Vic and Vinnie outside trying to take the head end, they slowly slide Fat Joe
out of the van. Then with a crash, the pouch hits the floor. Once more all four
guys grab the handles on the side of the pouch and collectively let out a large
grunt lifting the body into the retort.

“What did this guy eat, bricks? He must go over
three hundred pounds.”

No one answers Vic as the now sweaty crew climbs
back into the van while Vinnie hands Vic his envelope. Then they depart for New
York.

A body of this size could take over two hours to
incinerate and Vic has other plans for the evening. He was determined to not
get into bed with Karen already asleep. He tried that once before, she never
woke up and he had to go to sleep frustrated. That was not going to happen
tonight.

Vic pushes the buttons to start the retort. This
will kick in a program which will ramp up the heat until 1,600 degrees is
reached and then maintain that temperature for a set period, and finally go
into cool down mode. Vic has to wait to call his ‘fire stop’ code in until
later as they know he can’t cremate and dispose of the body that quickly. He
hangs around a few minutes to make sure everything is alright then heads back
in his Suburban for the funeral home. On his way out he notices an odd jet
engine sound coming from the three foot in diameter six foot high galvanized
pipe extending through the roof that is the hot air duct that finally releases
the purified gases generated in the furnace to the atmosphere.

Vic says to himself, “Boy machine, you got a job on
your hands tonight.”

Vic has timed it right; Karen has just gone to bed.
With her being away on night shift for the last week, both were in a mood to
begin where they last left off with the serious business of love making. After
a protracted period of phenomenal sex, both he and Karen drift off to sleep.

Just as Vic is going into a sounder sleep he is
awakened by the shrill sound of fire engine sirens in the distance. Not to
worry, he thinks the only thing over there is “my garage.” Victor suddenly
remembers in one of the Chicago classes on operating retorts where he was
half-dozing off, there was a special emphasis on treating severely obese bodies
that weigh over three hundred pounds.

What can happen said the instructor is that there is
too much fatty tissue. Instead of burning at a controlled rate, the fat erupts
in a tremendous inferno overflowing the tray lip the body is resting in. The
excess burning liquid fat is carried by the fans up the flue and into the
exhaust pipe on the roof. From here the burning fat overflows and starts the
roof on fire. If not caught in time, the entire building could be destroyed.
(At least the deceased gets his wish and is cremated Vic thought.) The
instructor remarks, there have been more than a couple of crematories burned to
the ground by an out of control, hard to extinguish fat fire. The proper
procedure was for the operator to stay by the retort and manually start and
stop the burner so that the fire burns slowly and doesn’t do the above. The key
warning, don’t leave the retort alone. “Yikes, I did this.”

Victor’s entire life flashes in front of him as he
races to the garage.

“Oh God, how do I explain this?”

Vic thinks the simple way out is to call it an
accident. The scenario of an empty retort starting itself by reason of a faulty
connection or error in the computer circuit boards is the way he has to spin
it. So far so good. Vic could pass a lie detector test on the fact it was an
accident. But, if they ever ascertained that someone was in the retort, who was
it in there when it went out of control? As the operator, he was not only
supposed to know, but have a cremation permit from the state.

Vic had no Department of Vital Statistics papers for
that body. He didn’t know who was in there or have a permit; this is not good.
Let’s see an anonymous fat person from out of state started a fire in a
crematory he wasn’t authorized to be in. This is pretty damning for the
owner-operator thought Vic.

The only good news so far is that Vic knows the
fireman who tell him that with all of this heat there can be no investigation
until later in the day or even after that. Vic knows, he would be a lot safer
if he could somehow get the remains of that body out of the retort chamber,
before any investigator looks in there. Then Vic would have a chance to make
his theory of a malfunction causing the machine to overheat believable.
Anything is better than finding a body in the main chamber of the retort.

Vic now has a splitting headache from the heat of
the fire and mental exhaustion thinking about the jam he has gotten himself
into. Even though the firemen turned off the natural gas and electricity to the
garage, the flames still are licking fifty feet into the night sky. The fire
has a mind of its own and keeps on burning. Fortunately, no one lived in that
block and there wouldn’t be any casualties from Vic’s mistake. If that
happened, it would be called criminal negligence, Vic recalled from his old
funeral law classes. This is what it is called when you are careless or
negligent and others are injured and killed. Vic after first sweating is now
shivering in the cold night air.

He tells his old friend Chief Willis, he has no idea
how it started and was home sleeping when he heard the sirens. At least that
part was true. The chief told him it will take all night to put the fire out,
and after that it will be so hot that no one will be able to get near it for
several hours, if not a day’ to investigate. Victor hoped so.

Daybreak came, after watching the fire most of the
night except for one break when he went home to tell Karen, Vic was more
anxious than ever to know what was in the retort. How much was left of the
body, could there be enough to be identified? These were questions Vic had to
know the answers to, and soon. The building, while still smoldering and
emitting some smoke into the air, was now a five foot high pile of rubble. You
could make out the burned out hulks of the two old funeral cars in the corner,
and the large steel framework of the retort still stood in the middle of the
floor. Since the firebrick that lined the chambers of the retort were still
intact you could not see inside the chamber holding the body. Vic mused, how to
find out what lies inside the mystery chamber? Chief Willis’s main concern was
that no person was working, staying in, or walking by the building at the time.
Vic assured the chief that no one was inside at the time of the fire. (At least
no one who was alive, but the chief didn’t ask that question.)

The chief would have known that all funeral and
embalming operations were handled across town at the funeral home, but what
about that new crematory? The chief didn’t think to ask and Vic stayed mum on
the subject. There were going to be some serious questions to answer for in the
not too distant future. There would be a fire marshal, who will ask about the
crematory, and then there was New York. What to tell Sam about this? How will
the organization react to mistakes by their associates? Vic will just have to
roll with these punches as they come.