In
1962, I first saw Teddy Licavoli in a pizzeria where we both knew the owner in
Grosse Point, Michigan, one of the most exclusive neighbourhoods in the US,
home of the big shots of the auto industry like the Fords and the Dodges, and
gangsters like the Zerillis and Licavolis, who lived on Mafia Row. Teddy’s dad,
Peter Licavoli, was a mob boss they arrested for murder seven times, only to be
released every time. His wealth came from gambling, liquor-smuggling and
boot-legging operations.
With thick dark hair sprouting
from a low brow, parted at one side and greased back, Teddy was my age. His
eyes, big and brown, had a hustler’s gaze. He’d been to Grosse Point High, and military
school in Florida while his dad was in the joint for tax evasion. There was a
big difference in his lifestyle and mine, but we attracted. He was looking to
get a little thug in him, and I was looking to hang out with the big boys. In
order to hang out, I had to have a little something-something to offer, a
little charisma, a craziness, a ballsiness, so they’d think, I can use this guy for something. Working
in the suit department at a men’s clothes store, I was dressed sharp and I had
a 1956 Chevy convertible outside next to Teddy’s new Corvette.
So I got talking to
Teddy, and we clicked. We went to a restaurant. Everyone knew who he was. We
didn’t have to pay for a thing. They were like, “I’ve got this. How’s your
father? Give him my regards.” Which was good for my ego and prestige. After
that, we hung out at a pool hall with about fifty others from all over, some
big-shot gangsters’ kids, and blue-collar motherfuckers like me. Teddy said he
was going to Arizona. He asked if I’d pick up his twelve-year-old brother, and
take him to a saxophone lesson at their house in Grosse Point. Before long, I
was driving down to their house twice a week.
I wasn’t doing anything
other than driving the Licavoli kid to sax lessons when Aldo Apichello, a friend
I’d made through the Licavolis, said to me, “Let’s go to LA and live.” Aldo was
a smart good-looking kid, real dark and wiry, with thick hair. His brothers
were hooked up with the Licavolis in the numbers racket, the Italian lottery,
an illicit form of betting that allowed people to pick three numbers that won
if they matched numbers drawn the next day. Due to the small size of the bets,
it was popular in blue-collar neighbourhoods.
“Fuck it! Let’s go!” I
said.
We packed his 1958 Plymouth
Fury convertible, said our goodbyes – “See you later. We’re going to LA!” – and
took off. We cruised along Route 66 with the top down, two young guys pumped up
on adventure. Before Las Cruces in the New Mexico desert, we hit a strip of
road past Roswell, and saw a sign: NEXT
TOWN 100 MILES.
“Let’s make it in a
fucking hour!” Aldo yelled.
“Let’s go!”
We set our watch timers,
and Aldo punched the gas. The Fury blazed down the little two-lane road, no
freeway, no lights, hemmed in by sand dunes. We were doing it, going 110 mph.
The Fury was wide open. We made it, but fried the engine up. Coughing from the
stink of burnt oil and rubber, we pulled in at White Sands, where the dunes
looked like snow.
In Las Cruces, a
mechanic said it would take a week to get the parts to fix the Fury. We checked
into the Lorna Hotel. In a glass case, the old register had the signatures of Billy
the Kid and the lawman who’d shot and killed him, Pat Garrett. The hotel even had
the cell where Garrett had locked up Billy the Kid. There were no room keys.
The bathroom and bathtub were down the hall.
“Fuck waiting around
here for a week. The Licavolis have got a ranch in Tucson,” Aldo said.
Across a vast desert
with the odd shrub and cactus, we took a Greyhound bus to Tucson. On the way,
we called Mike Licavoli – Teddy’s older brother, a bit bigger than Teddy, but
with the same dark hair and complexion – who picked us up. Going to the Triple
H Ranch, Mike drove through the University of Arizona, all tall campus
buildings, palm trees and well-watered grass. The sun was shining and college
girls were smiling at us. Can you imagine the impression that had on me coming
from dark and smoky Detroit to cleanliness and fresh air? I fell in love with
Arizona right away.
The ranch building was
spread across the desert with cactuses here and horses there. Papago Indian
maids with lustrous black hair were cleaning rooms and cooking. Snowbirds – old
wealthy guests from out of state – were staying there, paying monthly.
An old-time Jewish gangster
managed the ranch. When he took his top off, he revealed a pastiche of bullet
holes and scars on his back from shootouts during his days in the Mayfield Road
Mob, based out of Cleveland’s Little Italy. Most of the people running the
ranch were from Ohio, including ten goombahs from Youngstown. With them, we
went to the Grace Ranch every day while living at the Triple H. The Grace Ranch
was thick with mobsters on the lam, walking around with no necks, their noses
all on the sides of their faces, their wives with them, and their Cadillacs.
Only twenty-one, I was more
than impressed. It was like taking a kid off a baseball sandlot, and putting
him in the Yankee locker room with his favourite players. While waiting for the
Fury to be fixed, I was swimming and eating well every day. The dining room at
the Triple H had twenty tables and wood walls with knotty-pine panelling and
southwestern motifs. The Papago Indian maids served us. Mike Licavoli, Aldo and
I always ate there. There was no bill, but we had to eat what they fixed for
the day, bunkhouse style.
One night when we were
all drunk, Mike took us out on the town. Stopped at a red light on Speedway
Boulevard in an old station wagon, Mike got into a yelling match with some
guys. We pulled in at the Flamingo Hotel, got out, and started fighting the
guys. I grabbed a FOR SALE sign from
the back of the station wagon, and started swinging it and hitting the motherfuckers.
All at once the guys took off, but cops arrived in plain clothes. They showed
us their badges: liquor-control agents. They knew who Mike was and were
laughing. After asking us what we were doing and all that shit, they let us go.
During the fight Mike had noticed that I was a thumper. He liked that.
When it was time for me
to leave Tucson, I told Mike, “I’d like to come back out here to live and work
with you.”
“Let me clear it with
the old man first,” he said, referring to his mob-boss father.
