?The mob, bottom line, wanted to make money and they had Jimmy Nap involved there with the Frankie Carbos and them and the Eddie Cocos??
?Mario Puzo?s book The Godfather and the movie they made from it did for the organization what silicon does for tits.??Joey the Hitman
I first met Tony Napoli at a meeting of Ring 8, the Veteran Boxers Association of New York, at the Waterfront Crab House in Long Island City. Always on the hunt for new material, I asked a man at the buffet table if anyone had a good story. He pointed to an elderly gent with a head full of gray hair. ?That?s Joe Miceli,? he said. ?He fought Kid Gavilan, Ike Williams, Johnny Bratton and Johnny Saxton in the Garden in the ?50s. You should talk to him.?
?I?ll do that. Anybody else??
?Do you know Tony Napoli??
He pointed to another elderly gent with a head full of gray hair. ?That?s him over there. He used to manage a lotta fighters.? The stranger lowered his voice. ?His father was Jimmy Nap. Tony Nap is a made man.?
Tony Napoli was talking with several men. He was big. He was sturdy. He was gesticulating wildly.
I walked over to Tony Napoli and introduced myself.
He greeted me with a smile and warm handshake. I told him who I was and what I do. I mentioned that I?d recently written a feature on the trainer Tommy Gallagher and asked if he?d agree to an interview. ?One of the Irish boys,? Napoli said. Then he grinned. I gave him my card. He gave me his phone number, which I wrote on a cocktail napkin, and we went our separate ways.
Tony Napoli called me the next day.
?This is Tony Napoli,? he said. ?I read your article on Tommy Gallagher. I like your style. We need to talk. I wanna bring you to the restaurant here in Forest Hills where I live where I?m associated with.?
I told Tony Napoli I would call him next week.
I ran into Tommy Gallagher at Gleason?s Gym two days later. I told him I had met Tony Napoli at Ring 8 and heard he was a made man.
Gallagher made a face.
?He?s not a made man,? he said. ?He?s a boss.?
Tommy leaned in my direction.
?You know his father was Jimmy Nap? Even though they?re on the other side of the tracks, it?s all bullshit. They?re gentlemen. Trust me when I tell you. I go back fifty years with those guys. So they did some bad things. But that was their business. They were gamblers. They were bookies. They were shylocks. That was their gig. But they were good men. Good people. These guys never fucked anybody. You had a dollar coming, you got a dollar. Trust me when I tell you. And the only reason they became violent is because they got fucked by somebody.?
Gallagher?s phone rang. He removed it from his pocket, flipped it open and said, ?Yeah.? I wandered over to one of the rings to watch a sparring session. At the buzzer to end the round, I made my way back to Tommy Gallagher.
?These are people that just happen to be wiseguys,? he said. ?This is the most important thing about Jimmy. The change from what he was, how he had to be with his business, and how he was after he put his business aside and was doing other things. It?s about not a fucking mob guy. It?s about a man who happened to be a mob guy who was doing other things. If he went to a meeting what had nothing to do with the mob, he was another person. There are two sides to each coin. Different personalities. He had the best suits, the best shoes. That?s what they were about. That was important. Why? Who the fuck knows? But that was something they lived by. That was it. Maybe ?cause they probably owned half the shoe companies. But I want you to understand that he was a man. Besides being a fucking mob boss, he was also a man. He was a very sympathetic guy. He cared about fucking people. Of course, if you fucked him in his business, he had to react the way it was to make sure that those things didn?t happen again. And those things are important. Don?t just read what the newspapers said, ?cause that?s all fucking bullshit. They guys writing the story wants to make sure somebody wants to buy ten more newspapers. So they?re gonna dramatize it.
?What Jimmy Nap would do is he would suggest to them that these guys were worthy of main events. He would back the fighters if they needed to eat, their families, whatever it was. The guy was fucking dynamite. He was gold. But he ran his other business, you know, you fuck me I?m going to fuck you back?and that?s the way it should be in life today. But if you allowed yourself to get fucked you got fucked. That?s the deal. I mean he looked out for these guys. He was a fucking gentleman. What he did after in the numbers business and all the other shit he was doing, he had to rule with an iron hand, because all the fucking lowlifes, all the fucking cops were shaking down. They moved guys out of Brooklyn, sent them to Long Island, because they couldn?t make enough money just to pay the fucking cops. You know what I?m saying??
James (Jimmy Nap) Napoli was a capo in the Genovese crime family. He was known for his good taste, impeccable manners, and expensive suits. He was also one of the few mob kingpins to die of natural causes. Jimmy Nap ran what was described as the largest numbers racket in America, allegedly grossing over $150 million a year. A longtime federal agent said he was ?a real gentleman. He didn?t need a movie to show him how to act in public.? A former special prosecutor named Robert Simels, who tried to put James Napoli behind bars in 1977, said he had ties to every major crime family in the nation. ?He was bright, shrewd, well respected and had no enemies,? observed Simels. ?His high-gambling operation insured he could do business with anyone.?
I telephoned Tony Napoli, Jimmy Nap?s son, and left a message on his machine.
He called me later that day.
?This is Tony Napoli.?
I told him I wanted to meet him at the restaurant in Forest Hills where he lives and was associated with. Instead, he suggested we meet on Sunday at the Waterfront Crab House where we first met, and where former featherweight champion Juan Laporte was having his wedding.
?I?ll be there between 3:00 and 5:00,? he said and hung up the phone.
I arrived at the Crab House and dawdled in the sun while smoking a cigarette. The guy parking cars asked me if I was there to see Tony Napoli. When I said yes he brought me inside the bar/restaurant. The bartender asked if I was there to see Tony Napoli. When I said yes he told me drinks were on the house. When the ma?tre?d saw me sitting at the bar, he asked if I was there to see Tony Napoli. I said yes and he told me follow him.
I walked upstairs the second floor banquet room and saw Tony Napoli talking with three men I remembered from Ring 8. I thought it rude to interrupt, so was studying the flower arrangements when someone approached.
?Are you here to see Tony Napoli??
I nodded.
He walked over to Tony Napoli and tapped him on the shoulder.
Tony Napoli turned slowly, glacially, and walked in my direction. He was frowning.
?I see you?re one of those people who?s only on time when you?re doing time,? he said.
I glanced nervously at my watch.
?I?m just kidding,? he said. ?I?m just kidding.?
Tony Napoli took me by the hand?literally, that?s no figure of speech?and we walked hand-in-hand to a table.
?Have a seat,? he said.
I wasn?t sure if that was an invitation or an instruction.
?Are you sure?? I asked. ?I wasn?t invited to the wedding.?
Tony Napoli waved it off as that was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard.
We sat down. At the other end of the table, Emile Griffith was talking with Arthur Mercante Sr.
?Here,? said Tony Napoli, handing me a glass. ?Have some champagne.?
?No thanks. I?m not much of a drinker.?
?Good,? he said.
?If I have a drink a couple times a year it?s a lot.?
?That?s better. I started drinking every day, day and night, after my father passed away. Before I was a casual drinker. It was never beer. It was always like what I call as a professional drinker. Martinis. Manhattans. Never with the scotch or anything, unless it was mixed with martini or the gin or mixed with the vermouth. Later on then I became a Dewar?s on the rocks type drinker. When I was an alcoholic, I would sleep for 17 to 20 hours, then go out and drink for 72 hours, and come back and sleep from 17 to 20 hours. I was just a drunken dressed up BUM. My wife tells me I was a happy alcoholic. But she wasn?t there when I had to pay damages in the local tavern.?
Tony Napoli said, ?Let?s go downstairs. That way we can talk in private.?
Tony Napoli led the way downstairs. He chose a table in the center of the empty room. He ordered surf and turf. I did the same. He ordered a side of onion rings. I showed my independence, what remained of my independence, by ordering fries.
We also drank water and lots of coffee.
?I don?t know what I?m eating,? Tony Napoli said during the meal, ?but evidently they camouflaged it with a lotta sauce.?
I asked Tony Napoli when he started boxing.
?I started as an amateur at the CYO, Catholic Youth Organization, at a place called the Trinity Club on Montague Street in Brooklyn. I represented the CYO when I was 14 years old. Then I went on to the PAL, those kind of amateur bouts you got a watch, win or lose, in the dressing room after the fight. Then I went and did amateur boxing all year round?not just getting a watch. I fought in amateur smokers at Prospect Park Arena, Ridgewood Grove. My father encouraged us to go to the gym to learn how to defend ourselves, but not to actually turn pro. He said, ?It?s okay if you wanna go to the gym and spar with other fighters, but don?t let me hear that you want to earn a living doing that, because you?re management, you are not competition for someone in an arena, when people are screaming and yelling. They?ll tear you apart. In the gym, do your sparring.
?So I started making a living as a sparring partner. I sparred with Bob Foster, Roland LaStarza, Carmine Fiore, Paddy DeMarco, Carlos Ortiz, Floyd Patterson, Georgie Small and Joey Maxim. Rather than worry about training and getting in a fight in an arena, I did a lotta barnstorming. A lotta the fights were in barns. They used to call me Tony Route 66. The farmers would want me to fight their guys tonight. There were no weight classes, so I would dance around for a round or two and then they would be exhausted, then I started hitting and knocked them out. Out of 21 fights, maybe 17 were wins, but no official wins in any book, because the area I was fighting in, the referee could have been the guy who owned the farmhouse. Sometimes I didn?t get paid. The farmers were betting on the side and they would come up on me with shotguns and run me out.?
Tony Napoli was comfortable talking about himself, extremely comfortable. He was also used to having people hang on his every word. At that moment I was one of those people. I also began stuffing myself with bread and water.
?I traveled with the Midway Carnival, out of Memphis, supposedly in 1961 the largest carnival in the world,? he said. ?I traveled in the boxcars with the so-called freaks, the midgets, the bearded women, the Siamese twins with two heads. They were fat Siamese twins. They were sisters. But they were comical and humorous and they loved their life. And they feel as though they weren?t freaks. They were entertainers. Because they didn?t just stand there and let people look at them. They sang and entertained.?
It sounded like the Midway Carnival had a little something for everyone.
?I was defending the misfits because I felt myself, look at me, I?m a misfit, even though I have two arms, two legs, a head, and I think when I?m boxing. That?s how I made my living for over three and a half years. Traveling in boxcars, hitchhiking, traveling with carnivals and whatnot. Pulling broom corn, picking cotton at 75 cents an hour. Working as a bouncer at some of those barns out west, too, because I was able to use my hands. I had to work as a bouncer to keep my job as a bartender. How I?m still alive, I don?t know. Every joint I worked in was a bucket of blood.?
Returning to the subject of boxing Tony Napoli said, ?I feel as though a good percentage of fighters, even if you didn?t pay them, they want to fight anyway. That?s their game. That?s the sport. They want to fight even if they didn?t get paid. So it?s not big money. It?s just that you want to fight. And you want an audience. You don?t wanna fight a guy alone on a side street. You wanna fight him and hear the cheers and the excitement. It?s like a romance, believe it or not, to hear the applause. You don?t have to be a drug addict to get high. When you got hit you got numb and didn?t feel the next punch that?s coming. If you got knocked out, you didn?t know until you got up, because you were always flying.?
I asked Tony Napoli about his father.
?He was financial adviser to Jack Dempsey. He also a man that always wanted to get a license to be a promoter and he was always turned down. He always wanted to go in the corner with the fighters that were in the gym, but he had to get other managers to train and handle that fighter. Because of his particular criminal record. That?s known. He could not get a license. Today, Don King and them get all kinds of licenses with all their activities. But he wanted to stay in the fight game. He helped so many fighters out. If they couldn?t pay the rent before they got to the main event, from the goodness of his heart, he shared his wealth, whatever that wealth was. My father always called himself financial adviser of all the fighters we was directly or indirectly associated with him.?
Tony Napoli was drinking coffee like it was going out of style.
?When I was born, I was born into fighters that were in the newspapers. Champs. Jack Dempsey. Joe Louis. Later on in life, Joe Louis was my sidekick at Caesars Palace when he was a casino host. And he died there too. Because there?s certain people who were called people that were supposed to be so-called mob people. It was a group of people with a government within themselves, because they came from Hell?s Kitchen?most of them came from the New York area?to put something together. Most of them were fighters themselves, amateur fighters, and they loved the fight game and they didn?t have much talent, but they appreciated a fighter with talent and would want to help that fighter. And they did. They carried a lot of fighters financially. So now what happens is this here delusion that came about and the foundation where the seed came from: Oh, they?re mob guys. You can?t get a fight without seeing them.?
Tony Napoli glanced at my tape recorder.
?The word organized crime used to disturb me. I know people that are considered organized crime people that will immediately tell the FBI, ?That?s a compliment, because I?ve been so disorganized all my life.? Because he took a $2 bet on a street corner he?s organized? They consider that a compliment. I consider that a compliment. There was no real definition of organized crime anyway, but the make was put on them by the federal government, because they didn?t know what else to call them. I could never get a manager?s license in boxing. I could never get a trainer?s license. Because of my affiliation and my background in the world I come out of. Or say the lifestyle. I can?t say the lifestyle. I gotta say the world I came out of, because the lifestyle doesn?t mean I live that lifestyle.
?The foundation of boxing are the people who are not here today, who were accused of being mob people, because they hung around the gyms with fedoras on?which I still say today, I wear mine?with a cigar in their mouth. In those days you could smoke a cigar in the gym while the guy?s working out. That is the foundation. They didn?t pay any income tax according to the government. They were alleged to be this and that. But a lotta people they helped. There?s always a bad apple with everybody, but don?t condemn everyone.
?Knowing these guys while they were fighters?not often, but while they were fighters?and when they can?t fight anymore, it?s over with. Not that they can?t. He can still fight. I can still fight. Probably one shot and that?s it. But anyway, what happened with those fighters that there?s no disability for them when they finish? That there?s no hospitalization plan for them? Do you know where it was? Those wiseguys. They got them union jobs when they retired. That was there security. That was a great percentage of them. My father probably one of the major believers in that: ?Listen, that kid, we won money on him when we bet. He entertained us. He did a great job. Well now he?s finished we?re gonna put him to work. We?ll put him at the waterfront, yeah, but he?s not going to have a hard job loading and counting bananas. He?s going to have a clerical type job and he?s going to have a union pension.? That?s the security that they don?t have today that they had then. And they were the ones who went in the dressing room: ?That?s it. It?s over with, kid.??
We were almost done eating.
?What happens to the offspring of a kingpin? He does the same thing the father did trying to help people, but in a different category. My father was his own thing. He was an original. He was his own creator of himself, his personality, his demeanor, his everything. He had a reputation for being able to evaluate people, who to trust and who not to trust. My father never considered himself a wiseguy. The FBI gave him that name. He considered himself a goodwill ambassador to all the families. Nobody could ever own him. He brought in revenue. He showed them how to make a living with gambling. He was an independent?and still was able to live in the streets. That?s what he put together and I carried on.
?The mob, bottom line, wanted to make money and they had Jimmy Nap involved there with the Frankie Carbos and them and the Eddie Cocos. But Jimmy Nap had to see them and tell them what was going on. The old man used to say, ?As long as the fighter is the fighter, let?s not talk to the fighters. Let?s just talk to the judges and referees and not even the managers or anything.? That was handled with some kind of finesse to not degrade the fighters, to talk to a fighter and say ?listen, we don?t want you producing too much tonight? or something. In other words, let the fighters fight. ?As long as you can go the distance and take a punch, there?s a chance you can win this fight.? Why? Leave it up to the viewer with a question mark.?
Tony Napoli was telling me more than I expected or wanted to hear. He looked every inch a mobster. And he acted accordingly.
?There?s a song Glen Covington wrote in my father?s mansion for him, that Jimmy West the black piano player played?he that always had a white piano, like Nat King Cole?a song called Wise Guy.?
Then Tony Napoli leaned back in his chair and started singing.
Born on the East Side of New York Fought like hell for every dime But grew up to be one helluva guy. Had a little trouble. Did a little time. And they call him wise guy. Wise guy. How the hell did you get by?
You played the game. It?s always the same. While most of your mothers Are crying in shame. Wise guy. Wise guy. when trouble comes Somehow you get by.
Sometimes you gotta sit in shame With a number for your name. Wise guy. Wise guy. How the hell you gonna get by?
You helped a lotta people Do anything that you can Even those bums who hate you They gotta admit you?re a stand-up man. Wise guy. You?re a wise guy. When it?s all over, you gotta get by.
But every now and then somebody?s gonna sit in shame With that number for a name. When you?re young your decide your fate And admit you have to take the blame. Wise guy. There?s just a few left like you.
Tony Napoli said, ?I?ll give you a copy of that.?
We finished our meal and stepped outside for a smoke.
?I think my daughters think I lost street credibility because I don?t drink no more,? Napoli said, ?so they married cops. But at least they?re Italians. One of them is a sergeant in the NYPD and the other is a representative for the PBA. I once asked how his living with my daughter in my house affected his career. He told me, ?It probably helps.??
My host told the parking attendant to call me a car, which gave us a few extra minutes. Tony Napoli had something more to share.
?I know you?re interested in the violence,? he said, and told me about a college boy who made the mistake of ?sexually assaulting, fondling? his daughter. The fondler didn?t know who her dad was at the time, but he was about to find out.
?I decided I?m gonna take care of this bastard myself. I castrated him in the classroom at Queensborough College with a knife in front of eyewitnesses, threw it on the floor and walked out of there.?
The story seemed so outrageous, I wondered if it was true. But why would anyone make up a story like that?
?They charged me with six counts. Attempted murder. Possession of a gun, a blackjack.?
?Did you have a gun and a blackjack?
?Nah, the kids were all confused in the classroom. I only had a knife. All I know is I cut his rear end, I cut his nipples, and I cut his testicles, wherever he harmed my daughter. When I punched him on his chest, the blade cut his nipples. When I turned him over and punched him on the rear end, he got cut again?because those are the spots my daughter had bruises on. I believe he had one testicle left when it was all over with.
?The kids who saw what I did only said bad things about the guy I did it to. I guess their parents told them who I was. When the judge told me I was being charged with attempted murder, I told her, ?If I wanted him murdered, he?d be murdered. I just wanted to make sure that he never spawned any more monsters like himself.??
The car arrived, we shook hands, and agreed to stay in touch.
