Operation Family Secrets Part 7

"Yes you did. You f.u.c.king took my money."

My father hit me again with the cupped hand to the temple, disorienting me, nearly knocking me down. I had to remain on my feet; otherwise my father might stomp me.

"I know you took it," he whispered furiously, inches from my face. "I got a gun over there in the truck. Confess right now or else I'm going to go get it and shoot you in the f.u.c.king head. You don't understand the predicament you've put me in. It's not my money! It's Angelo's money. How am I going to explain it to him?" understand the predicament you've put me in. It's not my money! It's Angelo's money. How am I going to explain it to him?"

I knew my father was lying. I had to think fast.

"f.u.c.k it!" I screamed. It took him aback. "I spent it all. Make an appointment with Angelo, and I'll go shoot him him in the head." in the head."

My father looked at me like I was crazy. "We can't do that."

"Why not? f.u.c.k him! He isn't right with you. You don't like him anymore. That guy doesn't respect you. I say we kill him. Let's go do it together."

My father let go of my arm. "No. I'll talk to him."

Being busted by my dad for stealing the money was one thing, but what followed, the decree, chilled me to the bone.

"From now on, I own you. The restaurants are mine. Your house is mine. Everything is mine. You will report to me three times a day and do whatever I say until you pay me back my f.u.c.king money."

I couldn't believe it. Everybody was trying to get away from this madman. Now I was his again.

Once my father found out that he'd been robbed, he systematically set out on a mission to recover as much from me as he could. Our father-son relations.h.i.+p became strictly a business arrangement. I was no better off-actually, I was worse off-than one of his deadbeat customers on the street. Financial reparation came in waves as my father tightened the screws. First he took back approximately ninety thousand dollars in cash left in the till, followed by another ninety thousand in drug money that I recovered off the streets. He then credited another hundred thousand to my "account" that he owed from our home-remodeling projects. Add in the boat, the new dump truck, and two snowmobiles, it all belonged to my father now, not to mention my stake in both restaurants. For the coup de grace, he grabbed my white Jeep, replacing it with an old beater that I would drive as a daily reminder of my transgressions.

My father took back the money I had given my brother Nicky to attend college in Florida. Retrieving the money that I had put into the two restaurants became a stickier issue, particularly with Danny Alberga, owner of Bella Luna. Danny had already had serious reservations when he'd agreed to bring me in as an investor in the first place. Danny Alberga, owner of Bella Luna. Danny had already had serious reservations when he'd agreed to bring me in as an investor in the first place.

Alberga told me, "I just want to make sure this money has nothing to do with your father. I don't need the aggravation. If I need money, I'll go to the bank and borrow it like anybody else. I don't want or need your father as a partner."

At the time I bought into Bella Luna, I was partying hard, snorting and throwing money around by taking my friends on trips to Vegas, and laying down three-thousand-dollar roulette bets. The partying stopped once my father lowered the boom. Now the investment that I'd made in Bella Luna came cras.h.i.+ng down. Just after my father discovered his money was stolen, Danny got the phone call. It was my dad.

"You gotta meet me in the morning for breakfast."

"Sure. What's going on?"

"Just meet me in the morning."

Danny recalled a breakfast he'd had with me, my dad, and Johnny Marino at the American Eagle on Grand Avenue the morning after a night of serious drinking. My father had ordered a half a cantaloupe. When the waitress brought the fruit cut in squares rather than intact, he went ballistic.

"Does this look like a f.u.c.king half a cantaloupe to you?"

He angrily wiped the table clean with his arm as plates, food, coffee, and cutlery went cras.h.i.+ng to the floor. Danny and the group left the cafe hungry.

The next morning Danny met my father and me at a coffee shop in Franklin Park. I hung my head low and sat on my hands. Danny sat in the booth facing my father and me.

"We're gonna order breakfast," my father ordered, "and when we get done, we're gonna talk about stuff."

When the waitress came over, my dad and I ordered, while a nervous Danny asked for a cup of coffee.

"What do you wanna talk about?"

"My son put money into your restaurant that didn't belong to him. How much money did he put in there?"

Danny looked over at me, not wanting to throw me under the bus. "What did did you end up giving me, Frankie? I don't remember exactly." you end up giving me, Frankie? I don't remember exactly."

"Over sixty thousand."

Danny and I locked eyes. Sixty grand? Alberga was into my father for sixty grand? I had just thrown my best friend to the wolves.

"That money belonged to his grandmother," said my father, but Danny knew the score. Nothing was ever the old man's. Drive up in a fancy car, it was never his, belonged to a friend. Now it's Grandma's money.

"The long and short of it is," my father said, leaning in, "this money has to be returned." Alberga was left with few alternatives. Mess with a gangster. Throw me, his best friend, to the lions. Or pay the loan back. Three weeks later, after finalizing a bank loan, Danny, like a true friend, arranged another sit-down with my father.

"All right, Frank, I got the loan. Who should I make the check out to?"

My father shook his head. "No, no, no, no, no, no. What goes out as cash comes in as cash."

With the loan amount sitting in the bank, Danny had to cash checks over time around town to pay my father his money. This meant that Dad was going to become a fixture around Danny's restaurant. He would arrive every Friday like clockwork, during the restaurant's busiest time. My father's presence created a distraction and made it difficult to work. One Friday evening, surrounded by customers and frantic waiters and waitresses, my father did one-handed push-ups in the middle of the floor. Another night while Danny was in and out of the restaurant delivering pizzas, my father was planted at a front table gazing out the window.

"You doin' anything wrong here, Danny boy?"

Alberga was no fool. He knew what my father was getting at.

"Look, Frank, I have thirty-eight dollars in my pocket. I'm delivering pizzas. I've been here since nine thirty this morning. If hard work is a crime, arrest me now."

"It's just that there's a truck across the street in that vacant lot with tinted windows, its back end facing us. They're watching the place."

"Frank," Danny maintained, "I'm clean. Nothing's going on. You should talk to your son."

One of the pretty waitresses, Janice from Atlanta, teased my father. "Do you know Ferlin Husky, the country singer? You look just like Ferlin Husky."

As my father sat and joked with a couple of his friends having dinner, he told her, "Ferlin Husky? I can sing you some Ferlin Husky songs." And he did.

Danny knew my father's reputation as a killer, and warnings by both Kurt and me only heightened Danny's concern. He had to get my dad paid off as soon as possible and was trapped until he managed to gradually siphon the rest of the sixty thousand dollars to him. My father was showing up regularly, bringing in friends and demanding special service and pizza deliveries to his lawyer's office.

Finally Danny was down to the final five thousand balance. During a busy Friday evening my father walked in, and Danny handed him five grand in twenties rolled up in a tight wad, just as a waitress walked by. My father angrily pulled him aside.

"Don't you ever f.u.c.king hand me my money in front of people again! From now on we go into the bathroom." My father examined the bankroll and shook his head. "Can't you give it to me in hundreds?"

After the final payment, my father brought up the subject of interest on the loan. Danny had had enough. Stas.h.i.+ng a pistol in his pants just in case, he motioned my father back into his office.

"Let's stop right there," Alberga explained. "This was never a loan. I went to the bank and borrowed the money. You got your cash. If there's anybody who owes you money, it's your son. As far as I'm concerned, I've given you back his investment. This is what's owed and that's it."

Back under my father's thumb, I was the walking dead. I wanted to run away from it all. I was numb; I didn't care about anything. I toted a gun everywhere I went. Living in constant fear of my father, I antic.i.p.ated the worst. I would park blocks away from my house to give the appearance I wasn't home. anything. I toted a gun everywhere I went. Living in constant fear of my father, I antic.i.p.ated the worst. I would park blocks away from my house to give the appearance I wasn't home.

One night I was walking home, drinking a can of beer. I saw this big guy, a neighbor, working on his car with the garage door open. I finished my beer and threw the can on his lawn. "Hey," he said to me, "ain't you gonna pick up that beer can?"

I turned around and slowly pulled the gun out of my pocket, knowing the rule: If I pulled it all the way out, I had to use it. As I moved toward him, he froze and got scared. "f.u.c.k you," I said, and I turned and walked away. Then I caught myself. "What am I doing?" I walked back over, and he was looking at me with his eyes wide open. "I'm sorry, sir, for throwing the beer can. I'm sorry for yelling at you, and I'll pick it up." I couldn't believe what was going through my head. I wasn't thinking clearly.

Although I routinely parked my car blocks from home, one evening, in a hurry, I slipped, leaving my car in the driveway. At about ten o'clock, the doorbell rang. Peering out the upstairs window, I saw my father's white Bronco. Telling Lisa to stay with the kids, I walked past a window to get to my bedroom, where I kept my 9 mm Beretta. I needed to be more safe than sorry, not knowing if my dad would try to force his way into the house. I lay low as he rang the doorbell repeatedly, then walked back to his car. In the past, I would have jumped out the back window and run. Watching from the darkness, I could see the fury in my father's steps. Hiding from my father had worked before, but as the saying goes, I could run but I couldn't hide. My father drove away.

To steer clear of my father, I immersed myself in work at the restaurant (a public place where my father couldn't attack me). Arriving early and leaving late, I hunkered down as my father turned up the heat. He would show up each day to bark out orders and keep tabs on me. He got angry when he found out that I had given my mother a job at La Luce.

I put her in the restaurant in the daytime, and she loved it. But my father made her quit so he could collect the money I was paying her. He was checking on me and would call at all hours.

One day my ma told him I was out running errands. That night he called me at home. One day my ma told him I was out running errands. That night he called me at home.

"What's going on, Son? How's the restaurant doing? Why don't you come and meet me so's we can talk?"

The tone of voice that I heard was that of the loving father. After being paid back some, maybe he'd gotten over my stealing his money.

As I pulled up to my father's car, my dad motioned me over. "Park your car and take a ride with me."

I got into my father's car and we drove until he parked a few blocks away from one of the work garages in Elmwood Park. As my father and I walked into the work garage gangway, a feeling of dread ran through me.

Oh my G.o.d, is he setting me up? That can't be. He's the good dad now.

As I opened the door of the garage and walked in first, my father turned the lights on and slammed the door behind him.

Suddenly I saw the Thousand-Yard Stare. Holy s.h.i.+t, I'm dead. My father grabbed me by the throat.

"You motherf.u.c.ker, you lied to me. Where were you? After you took my money, you still don't listen to me. I seen you that f.u.c.king night, standing in the hallway of your house not answering the door. n.o.body does that to me!"

He reached for a gun, a .38 snub-nosed revolver, encased in a black dress sock. (The crew kept guns in thin socks to eliminate fingerprints.) With one hand he grabbed my s.h.i.+rt and pulled me toward him, and with the other he stuck the gun in my face against my cheek.

"This is only getting worse. I'd rather have you dead than disobey me."

I asked myself, How am I going to get out of this? He's going to kill me. I started crying and begged him to please help me, saying that I was a bad person.

"You're right, you are are a bad person," was my father's response. As I tried to hug my father, once again, to his pleasure, I became the wallowing subservient son. a bad person," was my father's response. As I tried to hug my father, once again, to his pleasure, I became the wallowing subservient son.

At least he didn't shoot me. On the ride back, he punched me in the face. I was numb; I couldn't defend myself. They just kept on coming, punch after punch, to the point where I welcomed the pain. I was thinking that at any moment he would change his mind, pull over the truck, and kill me. But he didn't. Once I walked away, I knew that from that day forward I could never trust my father again.

July 1995. As a result of the FBI's investigation into Matt Russo and M&R Auto and Detail, on the day the statute of limitations was due to expire (on the final infraction), the grand jury handed down a RICO indictment against members of the Calabrese crew. RICO is a federal law that provides for extended penalties for acts performed by an ongoing criminal enterprise. The RICO's "predicate acts" committed by the Calabrese "organization" included high-interest juice loans, extortion in the form of street taxes on businesses, and illegal gambling.

Looking back, it was weird getting arrested. The phone rang at 6:00 a.m. It was Agent Kevin Blair speaking in a calm, low voice, informing me, "This is the FBI and we have the house surrounded."

Blair's call took me by surprise. Keeping the grand jury indictments sealed allows the FBI and other law enforcement agencies time to serve warrants and make arrests before a suspect can flee the jurisdiction. The question remained, What was I being busted for?

I wondered if it was the stuff I was doing with my father or if it was about my selling cocaine. Was it the FBI and and the DEA? If it was about the drugs, I had a big problem because my dad didn't know I was dealing and using. If it was about my father's stuff, well, at least I wasn't getting the rest of the crew in trouble by attracting the FBI. the DEA? If it was about the drugs, I had a big problem because my dad didn't know I was dealing and using. If it was about my father's stuff, well, at least I wasn't getting the rest of the crew in trouble by attracting the FBI.

With the house surrounded, both the FBI and I wanted the apprehension process to be as simple and painless as possible. I managed to stay calm. Blair's instructions were succinct. Come downstairs and accept the arrest warrant. I was cooperative and cautioned Blair that once I came down the stairs he was going to see me open a closet door and turn the alarm off on the front security gate. No gunfire. No resistance. As I calmly opened the front door, the agents refrained from storming the house. Lisa, dressed in her nightgown, was frightened and upset but maintained her composure. (According to FBI agents, it's the spouses who can be the most abusive during a mob arrest.) While everyone kept their cool, Blair and the agents asked me if I needed to put on any clothes. Did I need to brush my teeth? Did I have any firearms in the house? After informing the officers about a skeet shooting shotgun and the Beretta 9 mm pistol in the bedroom, I led the agents upstairs, and asked, "Can you do me a big favor? Both of my children are sleeping in their bedrooms. Can we please be quiet? They're little kids. I don't want them startled."

Accompanied by two agents, I entered my bedroom and surrendered the two firearms. An agent stood outside the bathroom while I dressed and brushed my teeth. Once I finished I turned to the agent. while I dressed and brushed my teeth. Once I finished I turned to the agent.

"What's the arrest for?"

"Old stuff...RICO violations."

I felt a wave of relief. No mention of any recent drug dealing. Once downstairs I grabbed a sweats.h.i.+rt while a distraught Lisa stood at the front door.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Call my father and tell him-"

"No," interjected an agent. "We've got your father."

"All right, then call Kurt and-"

The agent shook his head. "We've got your brother, too."

"You know what, Lisa? Why don't you just wait for me to call?"

I didn't bother bringing up Uncle Nick. An early riser, he had already stepped out for his morning coffee. His wife, Noreen, let in the agents, and they searched Nick's three-flat from top to bottom, including the crawl s.p.a.ces. He later turned himself in on advice of counsel.

As the agents walked me outside, they placed me in cuffs before putting me in the backseat of the car. Toward the end of the twenty-five-minute drive downtown to the federal building, I chuckled as we pa.s.sed another government sedan with my dad sitting in the backseat. I gave him a nod. We hadn't spoken in months.

Before taking the crew members to the marshal's lockup, they put me in a holding cell. What followed was a parade of family and crew being led in by agents. Next to arrive was my dad. Although we were estranged, I wanted him to know that I was concerned about him. We exchanged pleasantries. I asked how he was feeling. Was he okay?

This was another time when I thought our relations.h.i.+p could change. Maybe this arrest will mellow my father and wake him up. He'll see his sons standing up for him, while at the same time he'll have our backs. We'll stand together and get through this. He probably feels G.o.d-awful and responsible that Kurt and I are mixed up in this.

Next Kurt was escorted into the holding cell. He was tossed, his hair and clothes disheveled.

"What happened to you?" I asked.

"Didn't they drag you out of the house?" Kurt asked.

Kurt turned to Dad and asked him the same question.

"No," we replied in unison, shrugging.

"They let me change, brush my teeth, and get ready. Why?" I said.

"You let them into the house?" Kurt asked.

"That's what you do when they hand you a warrant for your arrest."

Kurt turned to our father. "Did you let them into the house?"

"Yeah."

Kurt looked perplexed. "Didn't you tell us to not let anybody into the house?"

When the FBI came to Kurt's front door, he refused to let them in. His wife was in her nightgown, screaming from the window, "Get the h.e.l.l out of here. Leave my husband alone. He's got nuthin' to do with nuthin'."

Once Kurt opened the front door, he was b.u.m-rushed by the agents and dragged into the middle of the street, placed on his stomach, and handcuffed.