Nick The Broker

 Nick the Broker 

By Paul Davis 

Over a second cup of coffee in the kitchen of his grandmother’s South Philadelphia rowhouse, former Cosa Nostra capo and government cooperating witness Salvatore “Salvie Shotgun” Stillitano launched into telling me stories about his life and his late father's life. 

As a writer, I found his stories to be interesting, and my tape recorder was running to capture them. He spoke in a fast clip with a dramatic flair as he told me about his great-grandfather and namesake, Salvatore Stillitano, his grandfather Lorenzo and his father Nunzio.  

While living and traveling with his late father as a teenager, Nick Stillitano regaled his son with stories of their Cosa Nostra tradition of crime.      

According to his father, the elder Salvatore was a “Man of Honor” and boss in the Fortuna clan in the Province of Palermo in Sicily. Life was good for Stillitano and the clan, but the old mafioso was wise enough to know that America was the future for Cosa Nostra, so he sent his second oldest son Lorenzo to South Philadelphia where he had cousins. His oldest son remained with him in Sicily. 

Lorenzo Stillitano grew up in South Philly and had charm and movie star good looks. He was outgoing, engaging and a good earner for the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family.

Lorenzo was a bootlegger and gambler, and with approval from the boss, Angelo Bruno, he used his Sicilian family contacts to foster overseas business. Bruno loaned Lorenzo Stillitano and his overseas connections to the Bonfiglio crime family, cementing Bruno’s relationship with Lupo Bonfiglio.  

Lorenzo’s son Nunzio, known as Nick, was born and raised in South Philadelphia. He followed Lorenzo and became a soldier in The Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family. He dressed conservatively and he was a handsome man in a quiet way with dark wavey hair. He became a gambler, a local fixer and a good earner. Nick Stillitano was good with his fists and a knife, but he was also business-like, level-headed, reserved, organized, and very smart.

Nick Stillitano was a natural leader among his young, hot-tempered and violent cohorts. Angelo Bruno, the then-boss of the Philadelphia and South Jersey crime family, respected Lorenzo and saw Nick’s qualities.  

In those early days Nick Stillitano shined as an organizer and negotiator, but he also still had a reputation of being a ruthless enforcer when he absolutely needed to be one, often using a knife, hence the early nickname “Nick Stiletto.” He later became a boxing manager and promoter and was involved in illegal gambling and numerous money-making schemes. He also used some of his former boxers to do his rough work, such as Anthony “Tony Ball-Peen” Gina.

Gina was Stillitano’s longtime number two. One might not expect that a thin, 5’5 man would be the crew’s chief enforcer, but Gina was a lean and muscular former welterweight boxer who loved to knock out bigger men.

He was called “Tony Ball-Peen” in his boxing days because he was said to hit like a ball-peen hammer, but Gina also used the real thing on a good number of people outside of the ring. 

In the late 1960s Nick Stillitano and Tony Gina went to a South Philly bar to have a couple of drinks. Stillitano frowned when he saw Rocco Stucci, a fighter he once managed and then handed him over to another manager when Angelo Bruno ordered him to do so.

Stucci, an up-and-coming heavyweight, disliked Stillitano. Stucci drank and when he was drunk, he was mean and dirty. From the bar, Stucci began to insult Stillitano, calling him a crook and a faggot. Gina walked over and tried to calm down the drunken boxer, telling him that Stillitano was a made man, but Stucci brushed off Gina, calling him a “washed-up welterweight.”

Nick Stillitano did not respond to Stucci’s insults and got up calmly to leave the bar. Stucci rushed up to Stillitano and hit him in the face with a swift and hard left jab that sent Stillitano crashing into the table and chairs. Gina pulled out a short, leather-bound metal sap and began to slap the bigger boxer across the back of his head as Stucci tried to pull up Stillitano from the floor.

When Stucci got Stillitano to his feet, he felt a pain in his stomach, as Stillitano had pulled out his stiletto knife and plunged the sharp blade into Stucci’s middle. The boxer became enraged, and he tossed Stillitano across the room, all the while receiving numerous blows on his head from Gina’s sap.

Stucci shoved off the men who tried to restrain him and he threw a wild swing at Gina, who slipped the punch and stepped back. Finally, Stucci collapsed to the floor. The owner of the bar rushed Stillitano and Gina into the bar’s kitchen and out the back door before the police and an ambulance arrived.   

 

Angelo Bruno was not happy. Although he respected Nick Stillitano and he admired his late father Lorenzo, Stucci was a mob fighter, and he had made the wiseguys in Philadelphia and New York a lot of money. He called in Stillitano and Gina for a "sitdown" meeting.  

Stillitano and Gina reported to a small bar after it was closed. Bruno sat alone at a table. Bruno motioned for Stillitano and Gina to sit across from him. He said he had heard about the bar altercation from others who were there that night.

“This is not like you, Nick,” Bruno said, shaking his head sadly.

Stillitano apologized and said he was afraid the drunken boxer was going to beat him to death. 

Bruno said that they had Stucci in a private room at a hospital in New Jersey and they put out the story that that the fighter had been hit by a car. The fight he was scheduled for that month had to be postponed.

As for Nick, Bruno said he had to get out of South Philly as reporters and the local cops were asking questions.

Bruno said he arranged for Stillitano to be taken in by Bruno’s capo of the crew in Wildwood, New Jersey. He informed Stillitano that while he operated from the New Jersey shore resort town, he would still report directly to Bruno. And he would continue to promote fights for Bruno and Luigi “Lupo” Bonfiglio, the boss of the Bonfiglio Cosa Nostra organized crime family in New York, and Bruno’s friend on the commission.

The two mob bosses wanted Stillitano to continue to promote boxing matches and arrange crooked fights up and down the east coast, as well as out west. Stillitano was told to give the Wildwood capo a small taste of the profits.    

“Take Tony with you to Wildwood,” Bruno said.

Stillitano and Gina, pleased not to have been “whacked,” thanked the boss.

As Stillitano and Gina were leaving the bar, Bruno told the two men that the Wildwood crew had a problem, and he wanted them to handle it.  

“Washed up welterweight, am I?” Gina said to Stillitano as they stepped into the street. “I knocked out that big heavyweight bum, didn’t I?” 

Stucci later died from his bar fight injuries.      

 

Late that week, Stillitano and Gina drove to Wildwood and met with the capo, “Johnny Rose,” Rosetti, who was known locally as “Johnny Gavone” as he was a huge fat man, and he ate and dressed like a slob.

Rosetti welcomed Stillitano, as he knew his father and he heard that he was a big earner. But some in his Wildwood crew were resentful. Mob associates in the crew like Thomas “Tommy Tomatoes” Biondo disliked the two South Philly mobsters. Called “Tomatoes” due to his father owning a large tomato farm, he complained about the newcomers to his fellow mob associates.

The problem Bruno spoke of was the first order of business.

Rosetti instructed Stillitano and Gina to take care of Roman Santini, a former associate of Rosetti’s who was on a robbery spree and was knocking over dice and card games run by the Rosetti crew as well as games run by New York mobsters.

Santini, a slim, rat-faced 30-year-old, was a violent killer and a fearless and crazy gunman who killed a New York made guy in one of his robberies. The New Yorkers told Rosetti to take care of “business,” or they would come in and kill Santini themselves.

This was a great loss of face for Rosetti, whose men could not, or would not, take out the killer.

Stillitano and Gina quickly met with a former pal of Romeo Santini and asked the hood to pass on an offer. Stillitano told the friend to tell Santini that he would give the killer an all-expenses paid vacation to Sicily. Stillitano would then set Santini up in Sicily and he would become a Sicilian boss.

Santini’s greed and ego made him accept the offer. Stillitano and Gina flew to Las Vegas, where Santini was living it up with a beautiful blonde and gambling away the money he robbed.

Stillitano and Gina met Santini in a hotel room on the Strip. Santini said he liked the deal and would move to Sicily. Gina got up and said he had to go to the bathroom to take a piss. As Santini was refilling their glasses, Gina came up behind Santini and threw piano wire around the killer's neck. As Santini was being strangled brutally, Stillitano stepped in and stabbed Santini in the heart.

Stillitano then called the telephone number he had been given and asked that someone come get the body and dispose of it.

The murder gained Stillitano and Gina a lot of respect in Philadelphia and New York.

But the local Wildwood crew, who loved Santini, were angry with the two South Philly mobsters.

Stillitano later returned to South Philly and told Bruno that the Santini pal told him that Santini was doing the bidding of Carmine “Big Carmine” Polina, the boss of the New York Gambone Cosa Nostra crime family, and a crime commission member. Known derisively as “The Face” for his large head, nose and ears, the greedy and violent New York boss coveted Bruno’s gambling operations in New Jersey. He was using Santini to cause dissention in the crime families. 

 Bruno told Stillitano to keep the news under his hat.

 

New Jersey is the only state in America that has several different Cosa Nostra families operating there. There were the five New York families, the DeCavalcante New Jersey crime family, and the Philadelphia crime family.  

Due to his diplomatic and business qualities, Bruno made Stillitano the capo of the Wildwood crew when Rosetti died of natural causes. Prior to Stillitano taking over, the crew members under Rosetti had numerous territorial disputes with the New York crime families. Bruno ordered Stillitano to resolve the disputes. 

Stillitano met with the New York and DeCavalcante capos and worked out deals that satisfied everyone, even Carmine Polino, although “The Face” secretly planned to outsmart Stillitano and take over Bruno’s New Jersey operations.

Due to Stillitano’s skills, Bruno, who was a member of the national crime commission, often used Stillitano as a Commission representative with foreign crime organizations, government officials and businessmen. In addition to his boxing matches, “Nick the Broker” Stillitano also organized gambling junkets overseas and looked after Bruno’s overseas interests, as well as those of Lupo Bonfiglio and the other New York members of the national commission.

Stillitano was Bruno's representative of the Philadelphia and New York families’ interests in Las Vegas, the Caribbean, London, Italy, and other places around the world. Those interests included illegal gambling, extortion and murder.

All was well for Nick Stillitano until Angelo Bruno ordered him to travel to Palmero, Sicily and broker a deal between waring Sicilian Cosa Nostra clans over drug trafficking.

Note: You can read the first three chapters via the links below:        

'Salvie Shotgun'

 Salvie Shotgun is Chapter 3 of a crime novel that I’m working on. 

Salvie Shotgun

By Paul Davis

Salvatore Stillitano’s lawyer reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in meeting and interviewing the former Philadelphia Cosa Nostra caporegime. 

I said yes. 

As a newspaper crime reporter and columnist, I’d covered organized crime for many years. As a kid growing up in South Philly in the 1960s, I was aware of the Cosa Nostra culture early on. I lived around the corner from Angelo Bruno, the then-boss of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family. 

I had childhood friends who went from being street corner hoodlums to being mob guys. I hung on the street corners with them and I went to school with them in the 1960s, I hung out with them in South Philly’s mob-owned bars and nightclubs in the 1970s, and as a writer, I’ve interviewed a good number of them since those days. 

Although Salvatore Stillitano and I were roughly the same age and we were two old school South Philly street guys, I had never met him. I knew about him as far back as the 1980s, when he made newspaper headlines and was the lead TV news story due to his becoming a cooperating government witness. 

In the press at the time, Salvatore “Salvie Shotgun” Stillitano was called a “Mafia Prince,” as he was a fourth-generation member of Cosa Nostra, his lineage reaching way back to Sicily. He violated his Cosa Nostra vow of Omerta by testifying in federal court against his one-time criminal partners, bosses and underlings. He helped put away several top mobsters from South Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York.  

After serving a brief sentence in a federal prison, Stillitano was placed in the federal witness protection system in the mid-1980s. He, his wife and his infant daughter were shipped off somewhere out west. Back home in Philadelphia, the mob had put out a $200,000 contract on his life. 

So, I was surprised that the lawyer invited me to go to Stillitano’s late grandmother’s home in South Philadelphia and meet him. 

I ventured to the small rowhouse in South Philadelphia to meet Salvatore Stillitano, the famous – or infamous - former Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family caporegime-turned cooperating government witness. 

Stillitano answered the door and shook my hand. He was gray-haired, tall and muscular with a slight beer-belly. He was wearing a blue tracksuit with white sneakers. What stood out immediately to me was that although he lacked his late father’s classical good looks, he had his father’s large, protruding, cold black eyes. 

After we sat down at his late grandmother’s kitchen table and Stillitano poured us both a cup of coffee. I smelled the delectable aroma of a pot of old-fashioned “gravy,” as Italian Americans called red sauce in South Philly. 

I complemented him on the gravy’s smell, and he offered me a plate of rigatoni and meatballs, but I declined, wanting to get on with the initial interview. 

I asked him if he was concerned about being murdered by one of his former criminal associates. 

“Nah,” he replied. “Who’s around from my day that’s willing to try. There’s no money in it anymore.” 

Stillitano told me he wanted me to write his life story. As I was half-Italian on my late mother’s side, and I was born and raised in South Philadelphia, he thought that I would understand his life better than most writers. 

He said that he read my column in the local paper about my meeting his late father in in 1975 in Sicily, and he read my interviews with other former Cosa Nostra figures, including former Philadelphia Cosa Nostra boss Ralph Natale, former Philadelphia Cosa Nostra underboss Philip Leonetti, and former New York Cosa Nostra Columbo captain Michael Franzese. 

I told him that I would like to tell his story first in a series of my columns in the local paper, and later compiling the columns into a book. 

“Sounds good,” he said.     

He told me that he had been given an oral history of Cosa Nostra while living and working with his late father over the years. Thankfully for me and for my readers, he had a fine memory. 

Stillitano told me that his namesake great-grandfather back in Sicily was “in the tradition,” as he referred to Cosa Nostra just as his father had when I spoke to him in Sicily. His grandfather, Lorenzo Stillitano, left Sicily and came to South Philadelphia as a young boy. He was later inducted into the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family. His father, Nunzio Stillitano, once known as “Nick Stiletto,” and later known as “Nick the Broker,” was born and raised in South Philadelphia. Like his father Lorenzo, he too became a Cosa Nostra member in the Philadelphia crime family. 

Salvatore Stillitano said he wanted to tell his story and his father’s story, as he believed the tale had great historical importance. He also lamented the decline of his tradition, and he no longer felt any loyalty to Cosa Nostra. 

I took out my pen and notebook and my tape recorder and placed them on the kitchen table.   

“I was raised in the tradition,” Stillitano said. “Although my father never spoke publicly about our tradition, he had for many years schooled me about his history in Cosa Nostra with the notion that I would in turn tell my future son when his grandson became the fifth generation to become a member of the Cosa Nostra.”   

His father called him Salvatore, named after his Sicilian great-grandfather, but the young guys in South Philly called him “Salvie Shotgun.” 

“Not because of my use of the weapon,” Stillitano said with a smile. “I was called “Salvie Shotgun” back in the day because of my threat to use one. I’ll put a shotgun up his ass, was how I’d answer a threat or an insult.” 

But years later, he confessed, he would in fact use a shotgun to commit a murder and become a “made man” in the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family. And he admitted to using a shotgun several other times in his criminal career. 

He said he was raised principally by his grandmother in the 1950s and the 1960s in South Philadelphia after his mother died when he was a toddler. As a teenager, he spent summers and holidays with his father in Wildwood, New Jersey, where his Cosa Nostra education began. His father wanted his son to go to college and become a legitimate professional of some sort, but his son hated school, and he wanted to join the family tradition. His father relented and then began to train his son. He eventually sponsored him as a member of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family.     

Salvatore Stillitano rose from a soldier under his father to replacing him as the caporegime, or captain, of the Philadelphia crime family’s crew in Wildwood, New Jersey. 

Stillitano told me he was a faithful Cosa Nostra member for many years until the day the FBI came to him and played a wiretapped recording of two older men and former partners of his late father’s. The tape revealed that the two men were planning his murder. 

“I grew up around these old bastards,” Stillitano said. “They were both close to my father, and I thought of them as my uncles. I couldn’t believe these greedy, evil old men wanted me dead.” 

After the FBI special agent left him, Stillitano grabbed his hidden money and moved his wife and baby daughter back to South Philadelphia, where he turned himself into the FBI. For the promise of protection for him and his family, and a reduced sentence for his admitted crimes, he agreed to become a cooperating witness against the two older Cosa Nostra members. 

Over the course of many taped interviews, Stillitano told me his story and his father’s story of their tradition of crime.

© 2025 Paul Davis  

A Look Back At Life Aboard An Aircraft Carrier During The Vietnam War: 'The Compartment Cleaner'

The story below is Chapter 20 of Olongapo, a crime novel I hope to soon publish. 

The Compartment Cleaner 

By Paul Davis 

Back in 1969, I was 16 years old and working full time as a messenger for an office supply company after dropping out of South Philadelphia High School, or Southern, as we called it. 

The job did not pay well, but I didn’t care as I was just waiting until I turned 17 so I could then join the Navy. I liked delivering office supplies to the offices in Center City Philadelphia, the city’s business hub. I handed over the office supplies to the receptionists and secretaries, who were mostly young pretty girls. I always stayed there a bit and flirted with the young girls. 

For a girl-crazy young man like me, this was a dream job. The job ended for me when the owner of the company informed me that the messengers took turns cleaning the company’s bathroom. I was a proud kid, and as I was dressed in an expensive Italian knit shirt and dress slacks, I told the owner that I didn’t clean toilets. 

Astonished that a teenager would talk to him in this manner, the owner said, “I don’t know what to say, except finish the day…” 

“I quit right now,” I said, and I walked out the door. “I don’t clean fucking toilets.” 

Well, I later turned 17 and joined the Navy. And guess what my first job was in Boot Camp? Yeah, cleaning toilets. 

During my time in the Navy, I often told other sailors that I joined the Navy because I liked the idea of clean ships. And then I found out I had to clean them.

That old joke always got a laugh. 

When Lorino and I first reported aboard the Kitty Hawk in Bremerton, Washington in 1970 we were lucky to escape pulling a three-month stint as mess cooks, like all the other seamen new to the carrier. We dodged that drudgery, as the petty officer in the ship’s personnel office was from Philadelphia. He said he didn’t want to assign his “homeboys” to the tough and thankless duty of cleaning up the galley around the clock and being ordered about by the cooks who prepared the crew’s meals. 

Instead, he assigned us to three months with Special Services, where manpower was required to install the new shipboard close-circuit TV/Radio cable throughout the length of the ship. The Kitty Hawk was the first warship to have close-circuit TV and radio stations. We also performed a variety of other tasks in Special Services. 

Having attended two firefighting schools, I was also assigned to a Damage Control Team, which was called out to fight fires and other emergencies. A fire aboard an aircraft carrier could turn into a truly deadly affair, as the warship carried massive amounts of bombs, missiles and JP5 jet fuel.    

After I mentioned that I was an aspiring writer to the Special Services Officer, LTJG Parker, a journalism university graduate, he assigned me to write three feature articles for the ship's newspaper, which were my first published pieces. 

At the end of our three month-detail, I was reassigned to the Communications Radio Division and Lorino was reassigned to the Deck Department. It had been a good three months in Special Services for me and having witnessed the tired and miserable mess cooks swabbing decks, wiping down counters and bulkheads, and scrubbing pots and pans, I was thankful that I had “skated” on that cleaning assignment.   

But imagine my disappointment when after I reported to the radio division, I was immediately assigned as the division compartment cleaner. I was informed that I would be the compartment cleaner for a two-month period. I was unhappy, but there was nothing I could do. 

The job, however, turned out to be quite easy. Each day I cleaned the head, which had about a dozen toilets, sinks and shower stalls, and I sweep, swabbed, waxed and buffed the tiled deck with an electric buffer. While the rest of the sailors in the division were working long hours in the message processing center during our sea trials, drills and flight operations off the coast of Southern California prior to the aircraft carrier heading to Southeast Asia, my job took only about two hours in the morning. I also had to sweep the compartment’s deck and empty the ash trays at night after the crew watched the daily movie on our close-circuit TV. I was largely unsupervised, which suited me. 

Despite the relative ease of the job, I was pleased when a chief assigned me to the message processing center as we were heading towards Southeast Asia and the Vietnam War. The chief reassigned a seaman who screwed up in the message center to be the new compartment cleaner. 

My replacement was Donald Harris, a sailor from Seattle, Washington. A short, 25-year-old with reddish-blonde hair and a full curly beard, Harris was adamantly opposed to the Vietnam War. Thrown out of college for his antics in a violent and destructive anti-war protest on campus, he tried to avoid the draft by stating that he was a conscientious objector. When that didn’t work, he joined the Navy, thinking that serving on a destroyer or submarine in Europe was preferable to participating in the Vietnam War. 

He was crushed when he received orders to the USS Kitty Hawk, which he knew would be operating off the coast of Vietnam. Reporting aboard the aircraft carrier, he was assigned to the Communications Radio Division. Even before he unpacked his sea bag, Harris began offering his anti-war opinions to the other sailors in the division. Due to his overwrought and theatrical delivery, no one paid much attention to him. Most of the sailors thought he was a kook. 

“Opinions are like assholes,” one old chief told Harris after one of his anti-war rants. “Everyone has one – and they all stink.” 

Harris was generally tolerated, but he went over the line on one watch when he stood up on his soapbox – in this case a desk in the message center - and yelled out that the carrier’s crew and air wing were conducting an illegal and evil war and killing innocent women and children. 

Commander Olson came out of his small office and ordered one of the chiefs to throw Harris out of the message center. 

Harris was assigned as the compartment cleaner for the rest of his time on the Kitty Hawk. 

One night on Yankee Station in the Tonkin Gulf off the coast of Vietnam in 1971, after one of my "eight on/eight off" watches, I was lying in my rack after the late showing of the daily movie on our shipboard TV station. I couldn’t sleep, so I was reading one of the dozen books I had on the metal shelf in my rack. I was a huge admirer of Ernest Hemingway’s novels, short stories and nonfiction books, and I was trying to read the late, great writer’s posthumous novel, Islands in the Stream. 

But I had to put the book down as I could not concentrate on the novel while Harris was filibustering below. I got out of my rack in a t-shirt and skivvies (shorts), slipped on my flip-flop shower shoes, and sat in a chair by Trent as Harris was sweeping up and pontificating about the Vietnam War. 

Harris was on a roll, bending Trent’s ear and the ear of a seaman named Mike Topher. Trent was a Texan who didn’t say much. He was only sitting out in the berthing compartment as he was smoking a cigarette. He planned to “hit the rack,” as we used to say, after his cigarette. Topher, a 26-year-old black sailor from Detroit, was also a quiet guy who was sitting there in silence drinking a coke and smoking a cigarette. 

When I sat down, Harris figured he had a live one to debate. Like Harris, I was a voracious reader of books, magazines, newspapers and message traffic. And like Harris, I had a keen interest in the war, although we held differing views of the conflict, much like the people back home. 

At sea aboard the aircraft carrier, we read in the Defense Department’s newspaper, Stars and Stripes and the newspapers we received from home about how the Vietnam War was continuing to divide a deeply contentious public back in the states. Anti-war protests and riots were covered prominently on the newspapers’ front pages. There were also newspaper stories about counter demonstrations from construction workers and others who supported the American involvement in the Vietnam War.    

Harris wanted to be back in the USA in the throes of the anti-war protests and not on a warship actively engaged in the war. Frustrated and angry, he aimed his speech about an illegal and evil war at me. He also stated that we were dropping bombs on an innocent and defenseless country. 

“Well, you know the North Vietnamese invaded South Vietnam, not the other way around,” I said. “And the North is not exactly defenseless. They have one of the largest armies in the world, trained and supplied by the Soviets and the Communist Chinese.” 

I also noted that the North Vietnamese surface to air missiles, called SAMs, which were aimed at our pilots, were state-of-the-art thanks to the Soviets. 

“We’re not just fighting pajama-wearing Viet Cong guerrillas.” I added.   

Harris did not bother to respond to my comments. 

 “I can’t stand to be complicit in this illegal war,” Harris said, his voice rising. “Every time a plane launches from the flight deck, I feel like a baby killer!” 

 “Shut the fuck up!” yelled someone who was trying to sleep. 

“Swabbing the deck and picking up soda pop cans and cigarette butts don’t exactly make you a warrior or a baby killer,” Trent said softly. 

“But I’m here and I’m a part of this massive killing machine.” 

Trent and I looked at each other and shook our heads. 

At that point, seemingly out of nowhere, Topher stood up, grabbed his crotch, and yelled out, “I gots to stick my dick in something!” 

Trent and I laughed at Topher’s vocal expression of sexual frustration. As young men who spent months at sea, we all shared that frustration, even if we didn’t blurt it out like Topher. Harris, who no doubt did not appreciate the change in the course of the conversation, stormed into the head.  

There were some war hawks in the division and there were some doves as well. Some sailors had no view of the war, or they chose not to express their view. The doves believed we should not be involved in the Vietnam conflict, and the hawks believed that the president and the Pentagon should remove the war-fighting limitations and restrictive rules of engagement against the enemy and allow the American military to win the war outright. 

I leaned towards the view that a Kitty Hawk F-4 Phantom jet pilot expressed to me in an Olongapo restaurant. He said that many of his fellow combat pilots believed we should use our massive air power to go all out and defeat the North Vietnamese rather than fight a protracted and limited war to contain the North Vietnamese Communists. 

He said that American politicians and the general public were fast tiring of a prolonged war of attrition, featured live and bloody on TV. 

“We’re losing the opinion war,” the pilot told me. “Even though we’ve won every single battle in Vietnam over company strength.”    

Harris, of course, did not subscribe to this view. He was certainly entitled to his opinion, and he was certainly not alone in his thinking, but he expressed those opinions ad nauseum and in an overdramatic fashion. Harris alienated even those who agreed with his views. 

After we docked at Subic Bay, Harris went alone into Olongapo to, as he put it, “drown his sorrows.” He began drinking at a bar and was soon joined by a hostess. Harris bought drinks for the two of them, but he was depressed and found no joy in the cold beer or the pretty girl next to him. 

Harris asked the girl if she could obtain some “Red Devils” for him, thinking the barbiturates would dull his internal pain and guilt. He handed the girl some money and she got up from the table and sought out one of the band members who took the cash and handed her some pills. She returned to Harris’ table and gave him five capsules. Harris swallowed all five capsules with gulps of beer. 

Quality control was not a strong point in the producing of Red Devils in Olongapo. The capsules were unevenly produced. One could take eight capsules and feel little, or one could take two capsules and die from an overdose. 

Harris’ five Red Devils caused him to collapse as he was trying to leave the bar. He fell on the floor and foamed at the mouth. A Filipino waiter rushed out onto the street and flagged down a Navy Shore Patrol jeep. 

Harris regained consciousness in the Subic Bay hospital. After he recovered, he was put on report for taking drugs and told that if he signed a confession, he would be given a general discharge. The general discharge stated that he was unfit for naval service. Harris saw this as a way out of the war. He signed the confession and was promptly discharged from the U.S. Navy and flown home. 

When we left Subic Bay and headed back to Yankee Station, some other poor slob was assigned as the compartment cleaner. 

© 2025 By Paul Davis 

Note: You can read other chapters from Olongapo via the links below:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Butterfly'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Salvatore Lorino'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: The Old Huk

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: Join The Navy And See Olongapo

Paul Davis On Crime: Boots On The Ground

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The 30-Day Detail'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Cat Street'

Paul Davis On Crime: Chapter 12: On Yankee Station

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Cherry Boy'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Hit'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: Welcome To Japan, Davis-San

 From South Philly To Sicily

 By Paul Davis 

I visited Sicily in 1975, five years before the Rigano murders. 

I was a young, enlisted sailor stationed aboard the USS Saugus, a U.S. Navy harbor tugboat at the American nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch, Scotland. 

I previously served on the USS Kitty Hawk as the aircraft carrier performed combat operations on “Yankee Station” in the South China Sea and the Tonkin Gulf off the coast of North Vietnam during the final years of the Vietnam War. I was separated from the Navy in December of 1971, and after two years of broken service, I went back into the Navy. I was assigned to the tugboat, so I went from serving on one of the largest warships in the world to a 100-foot boat. 

During the Cold War the U.S. Navy base at Holy Loch was the headquarters of Submarine Squadron 14 (COMSUBRON 14). The base, called "Site One," consisted of the USS Canopus, a 644-foot-long ship called a submarine tender, a floating dry dock that could accommodate submarines, and a large barge with a super crane. All were anchored squarely in the middle of the loch.

Submarines ventured to Site One from the sea before and after their patrols and tied up to the anchored submarine tender. The submarines received supplies, maintenance and repairs at the floating Navy base. The base also had several small boats that were tied up to the barge. Two of the boats were 100-foot harbor tugboats, which were the workhorses of the bustling naval base.

The USS Saugus (YTB 780) and the USS Natick (YTB 760) towed ships, barges, submarines and other craft in, out and around the site, as well as put out fires and broke up oil slicks. The tugboats were also sent to sea often to rendezvous with submarines for medivacs, classified missions, and the tugboats performed in exercises with the submerged submarines. During the winter months the tugboat sailed into rough and cold seas, gale force winds and high waves.

Working on the tugboat was hard, physical and dangerous, but we were proud of our service. Working with the rugged and independent crew on the tugboat felt like I was serving in McHale's Navy, one of my favorite TV shows from my youth. 

On my time off, I traveled across the British Isles as well as Ireland, France, Spain and Germany. As I was nearing the end of my enlistment, I took a week’s leave and ventured to Sicily, the island where my mother’s parents had come from. 

I enjoyed Sicily’s wonderful scenery, food and people, and as a student of crime, I was fascinated with Sicily’s darker side. 

I was warned by fellow sailors who had been stationed in Sicily not to fool with Sicilian women, as Sicilian men could be dangerous, but several pretty young girls flirted openly with me. The American dollar went very far in Europe in those days, so I was treated like an American prince. 

I met one beautiful girl who was a waitress in a Palermo café and spoke English well. She introduced herself as Nina. She had lustrous dark hair, lovely light olive skin and a full enticing figure. She returned often to my table, filling my wine glass and smiling at me. 

I asked her to have a drink with me after her shift, and we went to a bar and drank wine together and talked for hours. She said she was interested in America and wanted to immigrant to New York. I told her that I lived in South Philadelphia in the “Little Italy” section, and that I was half-Sicilian. She warmly embraced me. 

The following day we met, and she took me on a bus ride to the beach at Mondello, where we swam in the Mediterranean Sea and ate and drank heartily at a nearby restaurant. 

Lounging on the beach and looking out at the beautiful sea, I told Nina that I would soon be leaving the Navy and returning home to Philadelphia. I told her that I wanted to attend college and major in journalism, as I’ve always wanted to be a writer. 

As I looked out at the beautiful Mediterranean Sea, I asked Nina why she wanted to leave all this for America. 

“There is limited opportunity here for a girl like me,” she replied. “But in America, there is unlimited opportunities.” 

“Well, there are some limits,” I told her. “And there is luck as well.” 

She smiled broadly and leaned over and kissed me. I enjoyed that day at Mondello and as we were leaving, we made plans to meet again the following day in Palermo at her café. 

When I returned to her café, I sat at an outdoor table and waited for her. I saw a small group of serious-looking hard men who were mulling around the café.  

Nina joined me at my table, and she told me in an excited voice that she had informed her father that my mother’s family came from Sicily and that I lived in South Philadelphia. Her father in turn told his Padrone, Don Nunzio Stillitano, who also came from South Philadelphia in America. 

As an aspiring crime writer, I knew very well who Nunzio Stillitano was. Known as “Nick the Broker,” he was a former boxing promoter and gambler, and he was the caporegime, or captain, of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family’s Wildwood, New Jersey crew. 

Despite coming from a relatively small organized crime crew in Wildwood, Stillitano was a powerful and influential criminal. His power and influence came from his national boxing promotions and illegal gambling, and his brokering overseas criminal enterprises as a representative of the American Cosa Nostra Crime Commission. 

Stillitano was involved in world-wide gambling, narcotics and other criminal enterprises. The FBI and the DEA claimed he headed a modern-day “Murder Inc,” group that strictly enforced Cosa Nostra’s criminal enterprises overseas. 

Stillitano became wealthy as he received a percentage of all the gambling and narcotic deals that he brokered. He also made the crime commission’s members wealthy, which made them happy. 

And according to Nina, he was the dapper, lean and gray-haired elderly man who was seated at a table near us. Nina said that Don Nunzio wanted to meet me. 

Nina took me to his table. Stillitano told me and Nina to sit, and he poured us wine from the bottle on his table. We ordered lunch. 

He was a very polite old school gentleman. He appeared to retain just a bit of his old South Philly accent. He told me to call him Nick. 

I took note of his elderly handsome features but what stood out to me was his large, protruding, and cold black eyes that belied his courtly manners and dress. 

I told him I recalled seeing him often at Rocco’s Gym in South Philadelphia when I was a teenager. I was an amateur boxer at the South Philly Boy’s Club along with my friend Tony DeAngelo, whose uncle was Rocco DeAngelo, a former professional boxer who owned and operated the gym on Passyunk Avenue. 

I loved going to the gym and hitting the bags alongside pro fighters. And I enjoyed seeing the famous former and current fighters who came to visit. Stillitano also came into the gym, impeccably dressed in a dark business suit, white shirt, black tie and shined shoes. 

Stillitano was well-known in South Philly as a boxing promoter and a Philadelphia Cosa Nostra member. He was treated like royalty at the gym, although he acted like a businessman rather than a gangster.  

Stillitano laughed at my recollection and said he remembered Rocco and his gym very well. He asked about me and my family. I told him my late mother was a Guardino, and my maternal grandparents came from Palermo. We also talked about South Philly, which he had not seen in some time. 

He asked me what I planned to do when I got out of the Navy, and I told him that I wanted to become a writer. 

“Newspaper guy or book writer?” he asked. 

“Both, I hope,” I replied. 

“Like Hemingway?” 

“Well, yes. Hemingway was one of my favorite writers, and many other writers I admire also worked as newspaper reporters before they wrote novels.”                          

 “I met Hemingway in Cuba. Good guy. I knew many newspaper guys from the old days, but a man in my tradition,” he told me that day in Sicily, “does not speak about himself publicly.” 

We talked about Cuba, Hemingway and South Philly for about an hour, and I was taken aback that he spoke openly about himself and his criminal life – up to a point - often using the euphemism “in my tradition.” 

The tradition being the Cosa Nostra way of life. 

After eating, Nina stood up and I followed suit. I shook hands with Stillitano, and he wished me luck in my future endeavors. I thanked him, but I refrained from wishing him further success in the crime and murder business. He kissed Nina on her cheek, and he walked away from of the café slowly, the serious-looking men following in his wake. 

I would go on to spend two more wonderful days with Nina before I headed back to Scotland. 

I returned home to Philadelphia in 1976. Since then, I have often thought about Sicily, about Nina, and about my meeting with Nunzio Stillitano. I thought it portended the future that I, an aspiring crime writer, met one of the biggest criminals in the world many years before I became a published writer. 

And now, so many years later, having achieved my dream of becoming a newspaper crime reporter and columnist, I was on my way to interview Salvatore Stillitano, Nunzio Stillitano’s son. 

Salvatore Stillitano, a fourth-generation Cosa Nostra member, was known by mobsters, cops and reporters as a “Mafia Prince.” 

'The Rigano Murders'

 The Rigano Murders 

By Paul Davis

Rigano’s was crowded on that Friday evening in January of 1980.

People were lined up three deep at the nightclub’s long bar as they waited to buy drinks from the busy bartenders. Many others danced wildly and happily to club music on the large, square dance floor under a glitter ball that flashed roving light beams down upon them.

The well-dressed crowd was mixed, but many of the patrons were young people in their 20s from nearby South Philadelphia. They crossed the Walt Whitman bridge from South Philadelphia and drove to the upscale neighborhood in Cherry Hill, New Jersey to visit the trendy nightclub. Among the South Philadelphia patrons were a dozen or so of the younger members of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family.    

The young criminals from South Philadelphia were more than welcome at Rigano’s, as they were flashy big spenders and the two owners were themselves members of Cosa Nostra, although they were connected to the New York Bonfiglio crime family by way of Sicily.

The two owners and operators of the nightclub were Ciro and Angelo Rigano. The two brothers hailed from Palermo, Sicily. The 26 and 25-year-old stocky brothers with curly black hair looked like twins. They left Sicily to make their reputation and fortune in America. Their entry into America was sponsored by their father’s cousin, Luigi “Lupo” Bonfiglio, the boss of the New York Bonfiglio Cosa Nostra organized crime family.

The Rigano brothers’ popular and successful nightclub was not their primary source of income. The two brothers made the bulk of their money selling heroin, using the nightclub as their base. Their dealers spread across the region.

To operate in the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family’s territory, Bonfiglio had to approach Angelo Bruno, his longtime friend and fellow Cosa Nostra National Crime Commission member, and ask him for permission for his second cousins to set up a nightclub and heroin operation in the Philly mob’s territory. Of course, Bonfiglio offered Bruno a percentage of the drug sales. Bruno agreed.

Bruno and Bonfiglio were partners in several criminal ventures, from organizing overseas high-end gambling junkets to promoting and “fixing” national boxing matches. Bruno and Bonfiglio also voted together whenever an issue came to a head at the National Cosa Nostra Crime Commission.   

Known as a businessman and racketeer rather than a violent gangster, Bruno was a friend to politicians, cops, entertainers and his South Philadelphia neighbors. He made most of his money from illegal gambling, loansharking and controlling unions. Although in his more than two decades as the Philly boss, he had men killed and many more beaten over serious issues, he much preferred to negotiate and exert influence over others rather than commit violence.

In one situation in 1969, a heroin addict named Michael “Blackie” Russo was holding up mob-run card games. Russo was called Blackie due to his raven-black long hair and scraggily black beard, and he was recognized easily by the poker players when he waved a long-barreled revolver at them and demanded they place the money on the table, and their wallets, watches and rings into a pillow sack.

When the series of robberies were reported to Bruno, his underlings asked the mob boss for the authority to murder the drug addict. Bruno gave Russo a pass, as the addict was a nephew to a made member.

“Lean on him,” Bruno ordered. “Tell him to go rob liquor stores.”

But despite a “good talking to” by his uncle, Russo went on to hold up another game. Bruno’s underlings, including Russo’s uncle, called for Russo to be “whacked,” but Bruno ordered that Russo be given “a good beating.”

When Russo recovered from the beating, he needed money for his drugs, so he went out and robbed another card game. Only then did Bruno reluctantly order that Russo be murdered.          

Bruno was born Angelo Annaloro in Sicily in 1910. His conciliatory reputation began in 1959 when the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra boss Joseph Ida fled the United States to avoid narcotic charges. Antonio “Mr. Miggs” Pollina succeeded Ida as the crime family boss.

Concerned about Bruno as a rival, Pollino ordered an underling to murder him. Instead, the underling informed Bruno of the murder plot. Bruno went to the Commission in New York to redress his grievance. The Commission sided with Bruno and authorized him to murder Pollino and become head of the Philadelphia crime family.

Instead, Bruno spared Pollino’s life and told him to retire from Cosa Nostra and move away from Philadelphia. Bruno then became the Philadelphia boss.

With his easy-going public demeaner, pencil moustache, white hair, jeff cap and big glasses, Bruno appeared to be everyone’s kindly grandfather. But in private, he ruled his crime family with an iron hand. But as the 1980s began, many in his crime family came to resent him for his greed and his old school Cosa Nostra ways. 

Allowing the Rigano brothers to sell heroin in Cherry Hill, New Jersey infuriated Bruno’s captains, soldiers and associates, as he forbade them to sell narcotics. It was bad enough that despite Bruno’s edict on narcotics, he turned a blind eye as the biggest methamphetamine dealer in Philadelphia operated openly in Bruno’s South Philly neighborhood as well as across the city.

The mobsters also knew that Bruno received a weekly fat envelope full of cash from the “meth” dealer. Now, Bruno was receiving another fat envelope from the Sicilian heroin dealers. And he was not sharing any of that tribute drug money with anyone under him.

The Philadelphia Cosa Nostra troops under Bruno were not happy.

Ricardo “Ricky” Amato, a tall, thin man in his 50s with a pinched face, was an unhappy caporegime in the Philadelphia crime family. He was unhappy that Angelo Bruno restricted his ability to earn a living by not allowing him to venture into narcotic trafficking. He was especially unhappy that Bruno did not share his drug money from those who were exceptions to his rule.

Not that he needed the money. Amato was caught on an FBI wiretap telling his fellow caporegimes that he had more money than he could possibly spend in his lifetime. Amato made a fortune overseeing illegal gambling, loansharking and theft from legitimate businesses in South Philadelphia. But he hated the boss for not sharing his drug tributes with his captains.

“It’s the principal, not the money,” Amato told his fellow mobsters. But of course, he wanted the money as well.

Although Amato’s parents came over from Sicily, he hated Sicilians. He said they were greedy and notorious cheap skates. He called them “Zips” and “greaseballs,” and he hated that Bruno dealt with them.

Amato was also unhappy at the way Bruno had made Atlantic City an “open city” like Las Vegas when New Jersey legalized casino gambling in the seaside resort town in 1978. Bruno retained a hold on several unions in Atlantic City, so the Philadelphia crime family made a fortune as the casinos began to operate. But his decision to call Atlantic City an open city allowed other Cosa Nostra crime families to operate in a city that was firmly in the Philadelphia crime family’s territory.

“He’s allowing these New York wiseguys and other crooks to pick our pockets in Atlantic city,” Amato told the gathering of Philadelphia caporegimes in his South Philly home in the Packer Park area. “And we can’t sell narcotics, but he allows these fuckin’ Sicilian “Zips” to set up shop in our backyard.

“It’s a fuckin’ insult.”     

The other angry captains nodded in agreement. Richard Amato, the capo’s son, overheard the conversation as he emptied ashtrays and refilled the captains’ glasses with Sambuco, Scotch and wine. Some thought it ridiculous, but the son was called “Little Ricky,” even though the 25-year-old was hefty and even taller than his father.

Little Ricky was ambitious, and he waited desperately to become “made,” and he dreamed of being inducted formally into the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family. He saw himself as a future boss of the crime family.

After the other captains left Amato’s house, the father sat his son down and explained what must be done, and how Little Ricky must do it.         

On that busy Friday night at Rigano’s, Little Ricky Amato was one of the many customers at the bar. He was accompanied by Joseph “Fireplug” Caruso, a short and stocky young man who was Amato’s best friend. Amato swallowed his Scotch in a gulp and Caruso lifted his bottle of beer and gulped down half of it. Amato slammed his glass on the bar, looked at Caruso and began to walk towards the men’s room. Caruso smacked his bottle down on the bar and the shorter man followed Amato.

Amato and Caruso lingered at the sinks, washing their hands until they were the only ones in the men’s room. Amato then pulled a ski mask out from his sport jacket and placed the mask over his head. As Caruso was also placing his ski mask on his head, Amato pulled out his 9mm Colt and theatrically jacked a round in the chamber, like they do in the movies. Caruso pulled out his 38. Smith & Weston.

“Let’s do this, Joe,” Amato said.

The two young mobsters rushed out of the men’s room and moved swiftly through the crowd towards a back table where the Rigano brothers were holding court with two young girls and a criminal associate named Billy Yates.

The Rigano brothers were so engrossed with drinking and laughing with the girls and Yates that they failed to see the two-masked gunmen moving towards their table.      

Amato and Caruso began shooting as they neared the table and Ciro Rigano and Yates died instantly from the hail of bullets. The girls screamed and ducked under the table as Angelo Rigano was up and attempting to run from the table. Amato ran up quickly behind the fleeing Sicilian and shot him in the upper back and the back of his head. Rigano fell and slid across the dance floor.

Most of the crowd at the nightclub were running and screaming from the numerous shots while many others had dropped to the floor. No one attempted to stop the two masked gunmen from running out of the nightclub. The two fleeing gunmen fired at a man in the parking lot as they jumped into their car. Amato rolled down his window and fired off two shots in the air to scare off anyone looking to stop them from driving away. 

      

The sensational murders at Rigano’s made headlines in all of the Philadelphia area newspapers and was the lead story on the TV news broadcasts. The Rigano murders also led to the murder of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family boss on March 21, 1980.  

After having dinner at a South Philly restaurant, Angelo Bruno was driven home by Sicilian John Stanfa. As Bruno sat in the passenger seat of the car in front of his South Philadelphia row home, someone came up to his window with a shotgun and blasted the 69-year-old mob boss. He died instantly. 

A macabre photo of the late mobster, his head back and his mouth agape, ran on the front page of the Philadelphia newspapers and other newspapers across the country.  

The brutal murder of Angelo Bruno led to further murders and an internecine mob war that stretched from South Philly to Sicily.  

© 2025 Paul Davis