Free The Valachi Papers by Peter Maas Page A

got to the bridge into Manhattan, I kept going like a wild man, and we lost them. I was only laid up a few days with my arm since the bullet missed the bone and came out the other side. But the bulls traced the car even though we had bent the license plate to hide the number—I still remember it, 719864—and pulled me in.*
    *ln the early 1920s, with few automobiles on the street at night, Valachi rarely used one that was stolen. Somebody his age driving around in a car often would be stopped by the police simply to check the registration papers.
    They kept me in the Bronx County Jail for about six weeks. Then I went to court and pleaded guilty to attempted burglary. When I went to get sentenced, the owner of the store was there. After my name and the charge was called out, he jumped up and started yelling at the judge that he wanted to know where the "attempt" was when he was out $10,000 worth of silk. I must admit that he had something. But you see I was learning about the law, and believe me there was a lot to learn. When you plead guilty, you can plead to a lesser charge. But the owner of the store wouldn't buy this. He said it wasn't fair, and where was his silk? My lawyer, who was Dave Goldstein, told me to answer. So I said, "I threw it in an empty lot."
    With that I was remanded for a couple of weeks while they worked the whole thing out about whether I had to withdraw my plea and stand trial. The decision was that the court could not force a defendant to do this, so now I was up for sentencing. Because I was under twenty-one, the judge could have sentenced me to the Elmira Reformatory for eighteen months. But my lawyer told me to go in front of him with a strut. That way he would figure me for a tough guy and send me to Sing Sing Prison, where I would be out in only nine months.
    This is how it worked. At the reformatory I wouldn't get any time off for good behavior. But my sentence at Sing Sing would be one year and three months to two years and six months. With time off I will only do eleven months and twenty days before I'm up for parole. I will get credit for the time I was in the Bronx County Jail already; if I watch my step, I will be out of Sing Sing in less than nine months.
    When I heard this, I naturally went in front of the judge with a strut. I could see right away that he didn't like the way I was acting. I remember just what he said, "Do you think you're fooling me acting like a tough guy? Well, I'll tell you something. I'm going to send you where you want to go. You know why? Because the sooner you're out, the sooner you'll be in front of me again."
    Well, who cared what he said?
    A few days later Valachi was taken to Sing Sing. At first his strategy to escape a longer sentence in a reformatory seemed a dreadful mistake. He was placed in a tiny, clammy cell with no sanitary facilities other than a bucket. To his relief, however, he learned that he would stay there for only ten days while he was being processed. And even before the ten days were up, he was rather enjoying himself. Taken to a special prison showing of a Broadway musical— The Plantation Review — he recalls, "I had such a great time I couldn't believe that I was at Sing Sing."
    He was then assigned to a construction gang building a new cell-block, delighted to be out of his dungeonlike quarters, and life at Sing Sing passed quickly and uneventfully for him. Better yet, he was released on parole after serving his nine months and returned to New York, where, within days, he was back "crashing" store windows.
    There had been some changes during his absence. His old 107th Street burglary gang had now taken to hanging out on 116th Street "where all the action was." Valachi found the new life there exhilarating, especially at night at the Venezia Restaurant:
     
    Guys were coming there from all over the city. Besides us Italians, there were the Diamond brothers, Legs and his brother Eddie, there were other Jew boys, and Irish guys from down