Chapter 4 - VINCENT MORETTI WAS MY UNCLETechnically, great-uncle.
Emotionally, something stranger.
My mother, Anna Moretti Russo, had been Vincent’s youngest sister.
She was eighteen years younger than him.
Their father had two families across one long disastrous marriage.
Vincent grew up in Brooklyn.
Anna spent most of her childhood in Queens after their mother finally left.
By the time I was old enough to understand family stories, Vincent Moretti was no longer described as:
Uncle Vincent.
He was described in lowered voices.
He owned restaurants.
Construction companies.
Waste-management interests.
Real-estate partnerships.
And, according to prosecutors, newspapers, and nearly everyone in New York who cared about organized crime, he led the Moretti crime family.
He had been indicted twice.
Convicted once in his thirties for federal racketeering-related conduct.
Served seven years.
Returned to New York.
Never convicted again.
That did not mean he became innocent.
It meant criminal cases require proof.
My mother wanted none of it.
She left New York after college.
Married my father, Joseph Russo, an accountant in Westchester.
Raised me under the surname Russo.
Vincent came to Christmas three times that I remember.
Always carrying expensive gifts Mom made him return.
When I was sixteen, my father died of a heart attack.
Vincent paid for the funeral.
Mom mailed the money back.
When I was twenty-three, she died after breast cancer.
Vincent came to the hospital.
He and Mom spoke privately.
After she died, he handed me a card with one phone number.
“If you ever need help.”
I almost tore it up.
Instead I kept it.
May you like
Then I spent fourteen years making sure I never used it.
Until Derek broke my arm.
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