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CHAPTER 1
ONCE AROUND THE PARK
I was in my sophomore year at Bishop Ford Central Catholic High School in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, New York. I wasn't quite sixteen yet, but I was growing up a little bit too fast. Always dolled up and looking older than I was.
My younger brother, Joey, was a freshman. Every day we were taken back and forth to school by a car service. The same driver — a Spanish guy — picked us up every morning around 7:45. His name was Jose Guzman.
One day Joey was sick and I went to school alone. That day I was wearing a button-up blouse, miniskirt, leggings and high heels — always with the high heels.
When the driver came to pick me up, I opened the door to hop in the backseat like we always did. But the guy said, "Oh, you're alone. Why don't you sit in the front with me?" I figured okay because I was used to him, so I sat in the front.
As he started to drive away from the house — we were living on Avenue J at the time — he said, "You know, if you don't mind, I have to pick somebody else up before I take you to school." So I said sure, as long as I got to school on time. I was a kid; I didn't know what was going on. He said, "Oh, yeah. No problem. It's just going to take a couple of minutes."
He took a left onto Coney Island Avenue and drove for about ten minutes. He got to a traffic circle and then headed into Prospect Park. I had no idea what was happening.
"Who do you have to pick up? You're going in the park?"
"Yeah, don't worry about it. I have to pick somebody up."
He drove to a very secluded area in the park and stopped the car. Obviously, I knew something wasn't right. He started telling me that I was so beautiful, and that he couldn't take his eyes off me, and how much he was attracted to me — all this sexual stuff. I was so scared. I had to figure a way out of there.
"I really have to go to school."
"Yeah, well, you're not going to school right now."
"Listen, if you don't take me to school now, the school's going to call my house. My parents are going to know that I'm not at school."
"Oh, don't worry about that — I'll get you to go school, eventually."
Then he grabbed my hand, and — I'll never forget this — he put it up to his mouth. And he licked the crease between my index finger and my middle finger as if they were my legs.
"That's what I'm going to do to you, baby."
And then as he was doing that, he ripped my shirt open. Then this big guy started coming over toward my side of the car, and I was in a panic.
"Oh, my God. You can't do this. I have to go to school."
I was a kid and I wasn't thinking clearly at first about how to handle what was happening. When he was about to do whatever he was going to do to me, I said, "Listen, my parents are going to know. The school's going to call them. It doesn't have to be like this."
He was kissing my neck. So I tilted my head back and I started to let him do it. Then he started grabbing me and pulling at me. Really getting into it, like he was ready to attack me. God only knew what he was going to do after that. All that was going through my head was that I was going to get killed — raped and then killed.
"It doesn't have to be like this. I'll meet you after school. Pick me up after school."
Then he just stopped.
"What are you going to tell your parents?"
"I'll tell them I'm going over to my friend's house. We'll plan this. You could pick me up every day after school and we'll go somewhere. I'll make up something to tell my parents."
I did everything I could to make him think I was into it as much as he was, so I could get myself out of there.
"Wow. Okay, that's great."
I couldn't believe it. He actually thought that I was okay with it. So he tried to kiss me and touch me. My heart was racing and my stomach was churning. I just wanted to vomit. My whole body was trembling and I could feel the sweat trickling down my back.
"Calm down, everything is going to be okay. We'll have a great time. I'll pick you up after school. Just don't tell anybody. Be sure you don't tell anybody that I took you here."
"No, of course not. I'm not going to tell anybody. I can't wait for you to pick me up. We're going to have a good time. Just get me to school before they notice I'm gone because if I miss my first period, they'll call the house."
"Okay, okay, I'll get you to school. I'll be there — what time do you want me to pick you up?"
"Pick me up at two-thirty."
"Okay, okay."
He drove out of the park. On the way to school, I kept thinking that I got myself out of that — somehow I got myself out of it. He really believed me.
When he dropped me off at my school, he said, "Okay, two-thirty. I'll meet you here."
"Okay, I'll be here at two-thirty."
The minute I got inside the building, I ran to the bathroom. I tried to fixed my blouse and look presentable but I was shaking so bad, I was making it worse. So I just gave up. Then I ran to the pay phone down the hall to call my mother, Linda, who was known as "Big Linda." Everybody called me "Little Linda."
"Mom, pick me up. Now."
"What happened?"
"Pick me up. Now."
"Well, what happened?"
The words stuck in my throat.
"Please, just pick me up. Just pick me up. I'll tell you when you get here."
Then I went back and waited for a while in the bathroom until I figured she'd be outside. I never went into any classrooms.
She got there really fast, even though the school was in the Prospect Park area. I jumped in the car. My face was flushed. My blouse was all untucked; my skirt was wrinkled. I was a mess. As soon as my mother saw me, she knew something bad had happened.
"The guy who drove me to school took me to the park and he tried to have sex with me. He tried to rape me."
She flipped out. Went totally crazy. Crying. Screaming at the top of her lungs in the car. Pounding on the steering wheel.
"What? That motherfucker. That motherfucker!"
Yelling. Totally insane. It was the ride home from hell. All I wanted to do was get to the house. The minute she got in the house, she called my father. He told her not to leave the house.
"Fuck you," my mother told him.
She was crazy. She didn't care what anybody said. She ran into the kitchen and grabbed a huge butcher knife. She raced back out to the car and went to the office of the car service. She told the dispatcher there who she was and asked for the address of the guy who took me to school that day. He told her that he didn't have his address. He said he didn't even know his name.
My mother pulled out the knife and put it to the guy's throat. She told him again she wanted the driver's name and address. The next thing she knew, my father and a couple members of his crew showed up. They beat the shit out of the dispatcher until he gave up the driver's information.
When my mother got home, she told me everything was going to be okay. He was never going to come near me again. She said she was going to take me to school from then on.
I went nuts. I started screaming.
"I'm not going to school. I don't want to go to school. He's going to come after me."
"Nobody's going to come after you — relax."
Just then my father came home with his crew. He got all emotional — he was an emotional guy, especially when it came to me.
"Oh, my God. What did he do to you? I want to know what he did to you."
I told him exactly what had happened.
"He's fuckin' dead. This guy is dead."
I was in total shock. I wasn't thinking about what he was saying. I just wanted to be safe in my house. Before I knew it, my father and his crew left. When they came home, my father told me they went after him and gave him a beating.
But for the next few days, what Guzman had done to me — and what he could have done — was weighing on my father's mind. And he wasn't satisfied with just giving Guzman a beating. He was also afraid that Guzman would retaliate and come after me. Who knows what he would have done to me? Especially since I had told him I would never tell anybody about it.
So my father and his crew went back to Guzman's house. They rang the bell. When he opened the door and saw them, he ran. But he didn't get too far. They shot him in the head.
After they killed him, they came back to the house. My father said, "Listen, this guy is an animal. He got what he deserved. He'll never be able to touch you or anybody else."
He tried to rationalize murdering Guzman by telling me that I would have been dead or raped and in a hospital somewhere if I hadn't been able to get myself away from him.
"And God knows if he's done this to other people."
By telling me that I had actually saved other girls from being raped, my father was trying to make me feel better about the fact that they killed this guy. I was just sitting there looking at my father and listening. I was in total shock. Finally, as horrifying as it was, I began to understand.
"Oh, my God. He's dead. The guy is dead. You killed him? Dad, really, you killed him?"
"Yeah, he's dead. You'll never have to worry about him again."
I felt so bad. I was just a kid.
"Dad, did you have to kill him? Did you have to kill him?"
"Linda, if I didn't do this, who knows if he would've tried to hurt you again? Or, if he would've tried to hurt somebody else. We don't know if he's done this before."
It was crazy. He was trying to rationalize to a kid why he had to kill the guy. I didn't want to believe it.
But the next day I read about Guzman's murder in the newspaper and I knew it was true. The article said he had a lot of money on him when he was murdered. When my father read that, he said, "I wish I had known he had all that money on him. I would have made them take the money after they shot him."
I ripped the article out and kept it in my wallet. Every once in a while I'd take it out and look at it. He had kids and I felt so bad and guilty about him getting killed. But what was I supposed to do, not say anything?
Who knew why he tried to rape me? I could only think he didn't know who my father was.
CHAPTER 2
GREGORY SCARPA SR., LOVING FAMILY MAN
My mother met my father in a bar in her Brooklyn neighborhood in the early 1960s when she was just a teenager. She was seventeen when she became his mistress. He was in his mid-thirties — and married. He told her he was involved with the Colombo crime family. Unlike other Mob guys, my father told her about everything — the burglaries, the numbers racket, the murders — everything.
I'll let her tell you about it.
When I grew up in Brooklyn, I lived in an area where there were mostly made guys. All the guys used to go to my grandmother's house — to the back room — and have crap games and take numbers. In fact, my grandmother took the numbers. She used to pick up the numbers at church at six in the morning and give them to me, and I used to hand them to all the guys in the back room.
I was probably eleven or twelve when I was first exposed to these guys. They were all really nice. If you needed anything, they were always there for you. If they were winning in the crap games or something, they would give you money. They were very generous. I knew they were gangsters, but with us, the people they knew, they were just great. I grew up with them, and I thought they were great.
I started dating a made guy from the Gambino crime family, Larry Pistone. We'd go to the Copacabana in Manhattan — I was at the Copa almost every night — and the Latin Quarter club. We were always out for dinner. He gave me money for clothes, to get my hair done, whatever I wanted. But I also saw a bad side of him. One time we had to pick up money from someone. Larry knocked on the door; the guy's wife answered. Then I saw him pull the guy out and hit him. That was the first time I really saw a bad side of one of those guys.
I had been dating Larry for about a year and a half. One night when I wasn't going out with Larry, a friend of mine called and asked if I wanted to go to this new bar that had just opened at Seventy-Second Street and Thirteenth Avenue in Brooklyn called the Flamingo Lounge.
We went to the club and some of my father's friends were there. We were having a few drinks at the bar. At one point I turned around, and in walked this very handsome man with a big smile on his face. I didn't know at the time but he was Greg Scarpa.
He came over to the bar, took his jacket off — he was dressed real sharp — and looked at me. He knew one of my father's friends and asked him to introduce us. I thought, Wow, but I still didn't realize that he was a gangster yet. I just knew he was really unique.
After we were introduced, he stood next to me, bought me a drink and started talking to me.
"You know, you have the most beautiful black eyes. They're like olives, black olives. Do you work?"
I told him I had just gotten a job on Wall Street.
"Well, you know what I would love to do, Linda? I would love to air-condition that train that you ride on, and just do everything for you."
"Oh, Greg, that's a new one."
I had never heard that line before. That night, I knew there was something there. I could see it in him, too, because he came right over to be introduced to me. I was charmed by him, but I didn't even know he was a gangster. The smile on his face — it was just a beautiful smile.
As we were talking, I said to him, "Come on. Do you dance?"
"Of course, I dance."
"Well, come on, let's dance."
So he took my hand and led me onto the dance floor. When it was time for me to leave, he asked for my number. But I was dating Larry at the time, so I told Greg I needed time to break up with Larry.
"Well, you know what, Greg? I'll call you."
"Oh, you want to call me? You'll wait a week or two."
"No. I promise you, I will call you."
So he gave me his number. A few days went by and I still hadn't called him. But I did go out with Larry and we continued going to the Copacabana. We were ready to leave one night when Larry's wife pulled up in front of the Copa. I didn't want any trouble so I got in a cab and went to the Flamingo Lounge, where Greg was.
I told Greg what had just happened and he wanted to know what I was doing with Larry. As we were talking, I heard a horn beeping outside the club. We were sitting by the window at the bar and I looked out and saw Larry. He knew I used to go to the Flamingo.
Greg and I went outside. Larry said, "Linda, get in the car." I told him no.
"She's coming with me," Greg said. Now I still didn't realize that Greg was a gangster, but I knew Larry was a gangster.
"Well, Greg, maybe I should go."
"No, get in the car," Greg said. His car was parked right in front.
I got in Greg's car and Larry pulled right up next to us.
"Linda, get in the car, come on."
I told Greg I should probably just go with Larry. Then, all of a sudden, I see Greg bending down under his seat.
"No, don't do that, Greg. He's a gangster."
Meanwhile, so was Greg.
"Let me just go with him. I'll talk to him and I'll tell him that it's over."
I got out of Greg's car, and I went with Larry. I told Larry that I didn't want to see him anymore, especially after what had happened with his wife. I said I didn't want to be bothered. Then I told him to take me home. He was apologizing like crazy, but I told him just to take me home.
A day or two later I went to the Flamingo and Greg was in the bar. He told me what had been happening.
"I have a sit-down."
"What do you mean you have a 'sit-down'?"
He told me it was a sit-down with Joe Colombo, Larry Pistone and somebody from the Gambino family that Larry was with. It was over me. At that point I knew Greg was a gangster in the Colombo family. So he went to this sit-down, and they were arguing back and forth.
Joe Colombo finally asked, "What does Linda want?"
Greg said, "She wants to be with me, and I want to be with her."
Greg came out the winner. Larry wasn't supposed to go near me anymore. I was Greg's, and that was it. And that was how it ended with Larry, and I started seeing Greg.
After that I was with Greg every day, and every night. He used to send beautiful fruit baskets to my house every day. I lived with my father, and my father loved it. But he didn't know I was seeing a gangster. He wanted to know who was sending the fruit baskets. I told him it was this really nice guy named George I had just met.
That went on for a week or two. And then, all of a sudden, Greg started sending flowers instead. My father wanted to know why he was sending flowers. He told me to tell him to send the fruit baskets again.
Greg bought me a car. He bought me a little dog, a French poodle. I told Greg I was going to give the dog to my father to keep him company. He said whatever I wanted to do was fine. It was all about me — whatever made me happy is what he did.
As we got closer, he told me all about himself and his family. He was born in Brooklyn in 1928. He was the second of five kids born to Italian immigrants. He had one brother, Sal, and three sisters, Marie, Vincenza and Theresa, who wasn't well. His mother, Mary, used to take care of her.
At one point Theresa was in the hospital. One day while she was there, the family brought her food. They left her alone for a few minutes while she was eating. She choked on the food and died.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Mafia Hit Man's Daughter"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Linda Ann Schiro and Linda Rosencrance.
Excerpted by permission of KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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