The story below is another chapter in my crime novel currently in progress.
The story originally appeared in American Crime Magazine.
Frankie Conte Luna
By Paul Davis
For this week’s meeting with former Philadelphia Cosa Nostra capo and government cooperator Salvatore “Salvie Shotgun” Stillitano, I again visited his late grandmother’s row house in South Philly.
For the past several weeks, I used these conversations in my column in the local paper. At some point the plan was to incorporate the newspaper columns into a book.
We sat at his grandmother’s old kitchen table and drank coffee. I placed my small tape recorder on the table and Stillitano started the conversation. He spoke of how the summer of 1978 was a grand time.
I agreed. Stillitano and I were about the same age, so I recalled the summer of 1978 very well. This was a couple of years before I met a beautiful girl who would become the love of my life and my wife, so that summer I was still a wild young man, gambling, drinking, clubbing and chasing girls.
I was a fair poker player back in the late 1970s, but according to the FBI reports that I read, as well as Stillitano’s own recollections, he was a first-class poker player.
And that’s what Stillitano wanted to talk about this week. He recalled playing in a high-stake poker game down the shore, or “downashore,” which is how South Philly people called the South Jersey shore points like Wildwood.
Stillitano’s father, Nunzio “Nick the Broker” Stillitano, was the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family’s Wildwood, New Jersey crew, but he was often traveling around the country promoting major boxing matches and arranging illegal gambling gambits, or he was overseas arranging international gambling trips for high rollers and brokering conflicts for the American Cosa Nostra Commission.
The elder Stillitano left his number two-man Anthony “Tony Ball-Peen” Gina as the street boss. Despite his short and thin stature, Gina, a former boxer, was feared.
The Wildwood crew made most of their money during the summer months when the tourists from Philadelphia, New York and as far away as Canada flocked to the popular shore point and enjoyed the resort’s bars, restaurants, the beach, the ocean, the pools and the boardwalk’s many shops, fast food, and amusements.
One of the crew’s most lucrative actions was a high-stakes card game on the fourth floor of a building that housed condominiums. Gina oversaw the game, but Robert “Bobby” Donelli ran the game, which attached wealthy businessmen and professionals who liked playing power poker alongside real gangsters.
Donelli, who was Nick Stillitano’s best friend growing up in South Philly, was a handsome and charming ladies’ man, a professional gambler, and an associate member of the Philadelphia crime family. Donelli was outgoing whereas Nick Stillitano was reserved, but the capo was much amused by his old friend.
Salvatore Stillitano spoke of one Friday night during the summer of 1978 when he was playing cards at the mob’s high-stakes poker game in Wildwood. In his mid-20s at the time, he was the youngest player at the table, and most agreed that he was probably the best player.
Donelli walked around the table cracking jokes, making comments about the card play and ordering drinks and food from a young associate for his card-playing customers.
Another young associate responded to a knock on the door and he opened it. Frank “Frankie Conte Luna” Azara, a completely bald and obese man in his 50s with a round moon-like face, pushed his way in. Azara, a New York Gambone Cosa Nostra crime family soldier, shouted out, “Deal me in, your South Philly pricks.”
Donelli knew Azara, as he was a frequent customer. Although he operated a variety of criminal enterprises for the Gambone family in Newark, he often traveled down to Atlantic City and Wildwood for gambling action.
Azara was a big earner for Carmine “Big Carmine,” Polina, the boss of the New York Gambone crime family. Polina was a large man and a violent psychopath. He was called “The Face” more often than “Big Carmine” when other gangsters referred to him behind his back. He was called “The Face” due to his large head and large facial features - a big nose, big ears and big mouth, as well as his broad facial expressions of joy and anger.
Azara knew Polina hated Nick Stillitano and coveted his New
Jersey operations, so Azara felt free to come to Wildwood and push his weight
around. As a made man who gave Polina a fat envelope each week, Azara felt like
he was invincible. Azara was a good card player, except when he was drunk, which he
appeared to be this night.
Azara asked Donelli for credit, and he was granted $5,000 in chops. No cash ever appeared on the card table.
Azara given a chair and joined in the game, The other players included the young Stilitano, a cardiologist named Doctor William Fisher, two New Jersey upscale businessmen, and a local gambler. All of them were regular players at the game.
Azara, drunk, drowsy and surly, quickly lost the $5,000 and he ordered Donelli to give him another $5,000 in chips.
He soon lost most of those chips to Salvatore Stillitano in four straight hands. He slammed his losing cards down on the table and cursed Stillitano.
“Hey, Frankie, easy. “That’s Nick’s kid.”
Azara also lost the next hand to Fisher, who sat next to him. “You fuckface motherfucker,” Azara yelled and grabbed the elderly doctor by his shirt. Donelli stepped between them and moved the mob soldier toward the door.
“C’mon, Frankie, how many times have you walked outa here a winner? So you lost tonight. I’ll talk to Nick and we’ll work something out.”
“OK. Let me get my coat.”
Azara took his sport jacket off of the back of his chair and swung around and punched Fisher in the face. The doctor fell to the floor unconscious. Donelli was in shock as Azara walked out the door smiling.
Donelli met with Gina the
next day and told him the story. When Nick Stillitano returned home two days afterwards,
Gina related the incident to him.
“I’ll go and see Mario. He is a lot more reasonable than “the Face.”
The next day Salvatore drove his father to Newark, New Jersey for a meeting with the Gambone underboss Mario Tetti.
The two mob bosses and Salvatore Stillitano sat at a table at the back. Nick Stillitano told his son to tell Tetti what happened at the card game.
Salvatore Stillitano recounted
the incident. Tetti sat speechless.
“I’m not making a beef or asking for a Sitdown,” Nick explained. “I’m not asking you to honor his losses, but I thought you should know what went down.”
“Thanks for coming to me, Nick. I want to know what this clown is even doing in Wildwood when his business is here in Newark. You say he’s a player at your game often. Does he win sometimes?”
“He wins most times.”
“The Face won’t like that.
The elder Stillitano later explained to Gina, Donelli and his son that Tetti called him on a pre-arranged public phone and told him that he went to the Gambone boss and told him what happened.
The Face did not seem too concerned until Tetti told him that that Azara was often a big winner st the game.
“He never once kicked up a piece of his winnings to his capo, me or you,” Tetti told the boss.
The Face’s large face and big ears turned red.
“That cheating fuck!”
Nick Stilltano said no more about it, but Salvatore read in a newspaper later that week that Azara, called “Frankie Conte Luna” by the reporter, had been murdered in Newark.
Witnesses said that Azara was drunk and his two drinking companions walked him out of the bar and into the parking lot. Even with the juke box playing a song, customers in the bar heard two loud bangs. Several customers ran out and saw a fat, bald man lying dead with two bullet holes in his round face.
© 2026 Paul Davis
You can read earlier posted chapters via the links below:
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Rigano Murders'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'From South Philly To Sicily'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Salvie Shotgun'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Nick The Broker'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Upton "Uppercut" Clarke'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Face'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Three Soldiers'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Jadroll'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Up And Coming'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Tony Ball-Peen'
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