My Crime Fiction: 'Joey Pinto'

 The below short story originally appeared in American Crime Magazine. 

Joey Pinto

 By Paul Davis

I stopped in at a cigar store and lounge in South Philadelphia this past week.

I bought a Cohiba cigar and took a seat among my fellow cigar aficionados. I lit my cigar and took a sip of the coffee I brought with me. There were some young cigar smokers in the shop, but most of the customers were, like me, older men.

A man about my age sat in the chair next to me. He lit his cigar and we exchanged greetings. He said he recognized me from the photo that was published alongside my crime column in the local paper.

Harry Smith, a retired Philadelphia police officer, mentioned names of people he knew and wondered if I knew them as well. South Philly, although heavily populated, often seemed to be like a small town, or, as we often noted, a small world.

One of the names Smith mentioned stood out to me in particular: Joe Pinto.

“Yes,” I said. I know Joey Pinto. We grew up together.”

“He had a heart attack and died, you know.”

I didn’t know.

 

In the mid and late 1960s Pinto, who was two years older than me, lived down the block from me on Iseminger Street, a clean street of neat row homes just east of 13^th Street, between Shunk Street and Oregon Avenue in the mid and late 1960s.

Pinto was about six feet tall with dark curly hair and olive skin. Although he was no athlete and did not play sports with us, he lifted weights in his house, which made him quite muscular.

Pinto had a hard childhood. His mother took off with another man when Pinto was 12 and left him alone with his cold and mean-spirted father. His father, a Philadelphia police officer, mostly ignored his son, and Pinto practically raised himself.

Joey Pinto was part of our crowd, and despite being liked, he was often mocked for his lack of brains, naiveté and his outlandish, unbelievable bragging. I’m sorry to say that I, more than anyone, mocked him and enjoyed the laughter I received for my put-downs.

Pinto usually took the insults in good humor, which was one of the reasons why he was so well-liked.  

I was two or three years younger than the crew, as the teens were my older brother’s friends. I was the baby of the gang, but that did not stop me from being sarcastic. I would have probably been beaten up on occasion had it not been for the tough reputation of my older brother Eddie, but I’m proud to say that I never once threatened to sic my brother on anyone.

Still, the guys knew that I was the kid brother of the leader of the crew. But in truth, Eddie would have cracked me himself if I knew that I was running my mouth with the older guys.

During the summer months we hung on the corner of 13^th and Oregon Avenue outside of JP’s luncheonette, which was across the street from the park. Although we were underage, we stood on the corner and drank beer and smoked pot. Often joining us were groups of young girls who liked to party with us.

In the cold winter months, when the miserable woman who ran the luncheonette tired of us and threw us out, we often ended up in Pinto’s house to escape the cold. Pinto’s father was seldom home, as he was in the bar around the corner when he was not working.

When Pinto would leave us in the living room to use the upstairs bathroom, one of the guys inevitably would bring up the time a few years earlier when Pinto’s mother, a most attractive woman in her 40s, came down the stairs when we were all sitting around the living room. She was clad in a see-through negligee. Her braless breasts swayed under the sheer negligee with each step and her visible brief white panties gave us all pause.

She smiled at us and said hello in a sexy voice, confirming that she enjoyed arousing the young boys. She left the Pinto house for good a year or so later, but like her son, we never forgot her.

One evening when six of us were smoking some good weed, we all got the “munchies.” An hour earlier Pinto’s father had come in carrying several bags of groceries. After he left for the bar, we all went into the kitchen, including Joey Pinto, and we tore into the food from the refrigerator and the cabinets. It was quite a feast.

When some hours later Pinto’s father came home, he found his son and us passed out on the couch and in the living room chairs.

“Jesus Christ,” we heard him holler as he looking into the refrigerator. “What the fuck happened to all of the food I just bought?”

We saw that as our cue and we got up and walked out of the house quickly and quietly, leaving Joey Pinto to deal with his father.        

I recall another evening when we were all a bit drunk and high. I laid into Pinto, our host, calling him as dumb as an ox. Usually, he did not respond to my sarcastic comments, but on this night, he took offense and told me to get out of his house.

“Sure,” I replied. “Step outside with me if you’re brave enough.”

Although I was training as a boxer at the South Philly Boys Club, Pinto was older, taller and more muscular than me.

I opened the door and stepped down on two of the three steps leading to the pavement in front of his house. I then turned around quickly and looked up at Pinto, who was coming out the door and taking off his shirt.

When his shirt was down around his elbows, effectively blocking his arms, I stepped up and hit him with a good overhand right. He stumbled backwards as the other guys came out and stepped between us.

Pinto got up and apologized to me and I apologized to him, and we went back into the house.

A couple of years later Pinto, despite his bravado about becoming a tough cop like his father, had no desire to become a tough soldier. He joined the Marine Reserves knowing that they would probably not be called up to go to Vietnam.

I, on the other hand, enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1970 when I was 17, hoping to go to South Vietnam on a 100-foot coastal Swift boat. But after Boot Camp, I received orders to report to the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk. The carrier set sail for Southeast Asia, and the Kitty Hawk performed combat sorties on “Yankee Station” in the Gulf of Tonkin in the South China Sea off the coast of North Vietnam.

I returned to South Philly in 1972 and discovered that our gang had moved exactly one city block, from the luncheonette on 13^th and Oregan Avene to the Moonlighter Bar on 13^th and Shunk. Although I was only 19 and a half, I was served by the bartender and owner as I was an accepted member of the crew that spent a lot of money in the bar.

Drugs were a growing thing, and sadly, many of the young guys in the neighborhood were taking heroin but were not yet full-blown drug addicts, so they drank in the bar in between their heroin fixes.

Pinto, who did not take drugs, not even pot, was also not much of a drinker and he would sip on one beer for hours.          

One night at the Moonlighter in 1973, one of the guys asked me about my time in the Navy. I began to give him the short version when I was interrupted by Pinto.

“Sailors are pussies,” Pinto said with a laugh. “We Marines are the real warriors in Vietnam.”

“Hell, Joey, what is this “we” shit? Did you see much combat in North Carolina? You joined the Marine Reserves to avoid Vietnam, so don’t play the warrior hero around me.” 

Pinto walked way without a word. 

I was working as a Defense Department civilian at the Defense Personnel Support Center, known locally as the “Quartermaster,” in 1980 when I met a beautiful woman at work. We dated and then married in 1982.

After I married, I stopped hanging at the bars with the old crew, but in 1983 Bobby Franco stopped me on the street and told me about a reunion of the old gang at a bar around the corner from my house. I was interested. Franco said his wife and some of the other wives were also coming, so I should bring my wife.

He also suggested that I tell my older brother Eddie about the reunion, as several of the “old head,” the older guys from our corner, like “Little Ant-ny,” whom my brother had been good friends with, would be there. I called my brother, but he was not interested.

I was, and I brought my young wife with me. The first guy to greet me and my wife in the bar was Joey Pinto. I introduced him to Dolores, my beautiful wife. He smiled and called her “Mrs. Paulie.” Then everyone started calling her Mrs. Paulie.

My wife got a kick out of the guys calling me “Paulie.” In South Philly, most of us were known by the diminutive of our first name. I never introduced myself as Paulie, but that was how I was known in the old crowd.

It was a fun evening. About 20 of the old gang came to the bar. As I sat at a table drinking with my wife, Pinto came over and sat with us. I asked him where his wife was. He said he was separated. I offered my condolences.

“My wife is a cop,” Pinto said. I heard he failed the police test several times until he finally passed the written test but then failed the psychological test. I found it interesting that he married a police officer.

“My wife beat me with her club, but I told her that I wasn’t gonna take it anymore, so she left me.”

I did not know how to respond. Neither did my wife. 

I was thinking that I could not imagine that happening to me, but if it did, I don’t believe I would tell anyone, least of all a woman I just met.

Thankfully, an old friend and his wife came over to say hello, and Pinto got up and went to the bar.

My next encounter with Joey Pinto occurred about ten years later in the early 1990s. While continuing to work for the Defense Department during the day, I was working part-time for the local paper covering crime at night and on weekends. The editor assigned me to cover a town watch group that had just started.

I met the leader of the neighborhood town watch. His name was Earl Butt, and I soon discovered why he was called “Butthead.”

Butt was about 5’10 with wavey reddish-brown hair and he wore thick glasses. He was a pretentious idiot. He was an insurance agent with dreams of becoming a politician.          

He said he was going to run for Congress because he was dedicated to South Philly.

I tried hard not to laugh at the way he described his role in keeping the neighborhood safe. He claimed the police were ineffective, but his town watch kept criminals away.

I wrote in my notebook, “clown watch.”

Most of the members of the town watch I met that night were good, earnest people, but one member was even more of a pretentious idiot than Butthead.

That would be Joey Pinto.

As I was speaking to Butthead, a bright light blinded me as Pinto jumped the curb on a bicycle. He turned off the spotlight and greeted me.

“Paulie, are you joining the town watch?”

I told him I was covering the watch for the newspaper. Pinto told Butthead that he grew up with me and we were good friends.

I smiled and looked at the huge, mounted lamp on his bicycle. Butthead lost interest in the conversation as we were not talking about him, so he walked away. (I later learned that he was so dedicated to South Philly that soon after our encounter he moved to New Jersey.)

Although Pinto failed in his quest to become a police officer, it appeared he threw himself wholeheartedly into the town watch. He said he used his lamp to illuminate the dark streets that he patrolled at night.

Pinto shook my hand and rode off, switching on a lamp one might associate more with a prison guard tower rather than a bicycle.

I was left on the sidewalk with a town watch member who seemed normal. Bill Bruno was a short, balding man in his 40s. He said he was part of the town watch because he wanted to do his part in keeping the neighborhood where his wife and children lived as safe as possible.

“Do you know Joey Pinto?” he asked.

“Yeah, we grew up together.”

“Um…”

“Yeah, I know,” I said, reading his mind. “Joey is a bit of a goofball.” 

“He’s nuts. Did you see that light on his bike? Last week he saw a group of young guys smoking marijuana on a corner, and he rode up to them with that spotlight glaring in their eyes.”

“That sounds like Joey.”

“They pulled him off his bike and beat the crap out of him.”   

I decided to focus my newspaper piece on Bruno and I quoted him extensively, although not about Pinto’s run-in with some angry corner boys. To be fair, I also mentioned Butts and Pinto briefly in the piece.

My last encounter with Joey Pinto occurred about a month later as I waited on a corner for the traffic light to turn green.

A truck passed me and then pulled over. Pinto jumped out of the truck and walked over to me. He pumped my hand with a firm shake and thanked me for mentioning him in my newspaper piece.

“I’m working at a wholesale warehouse,” he said. “I drive the delivery truck four days a week and I work in the warehouse four days a week.”

“That’s eight days a week.”

“Ah…”

“That’s OK. I understand.”

 

I took a draw from my Cohiba and said it was a shame he died.

“He was a goof, but a likeable guy,” I said.  

“I worked with Pinto in the 1^st District for a while,” Harry Smith said. “And he was called much worse things than goof.” 

“You mean Joey finally became a cop? Good for him. That was his life-long dream." 

“Yeah, he retired after a traffic injury. He was lucky that he wasn’t prosecuted for driving recklessly. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but he was an idiot.”

“But likeable.”

“Yeah,” Smith admitted. “One could not help but like the fool.” 

© 2026 By Paul Davis  

Note: You can read my other crime fiction stories via the link below:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction Stories 

My Crime Fiction: 'Conti's Tit-For-Tat'

Below is my crime fiction story Conti’s Tit-For-Tat.

The short story originally appeared in American Crime Magazine.

Conti’ s Tit-For-Tat

By Paul Davis

I received a call from Jerry Rollins, a security executive for a major defense contractor in the Philadelphia area.

Rollins had come a long way from the young man who once worked for me at the Defense Department procurement center in South Philadelphia, known locally as the “Quartermaster.” 

I enlisted in the U.S. Navy when I was 17 in 1970, and I began working at the Quartermaster as a civilian clerk after serving two years on an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War.

By the 1990s I had become the civilian administrative officer of a tenant Defense Department command at the Quartermaster that oversaw defense contractors in the tri-state area. These contractors, from mom & pop shops to major corporations, provided the military with such diverse items as cruise missiles to pea coats to orange juice. 

Our command oversaw the many contractors, providing and ensuring contract administration, quality assurance, production scheduling, engineering and other programs for the military buying commands. 

As the admin officer, I wore several “hats” for the command, including security officer, safety officer, fire marshal, facility manager, and public affairs officer. I managed a good number of support programs for the command’s military and civilian employees. I also served as an investigating officer involving security breaches, crimes and Inspector General cases of fraud, waste and abuse. And I performed security and safety speeches, briefings and seminars.    

Rollins was one of my assistants, and he was a quick learner and a good worker. I was proud to see him move up the ladder before I retired from the Defense Department and went from being a part-time writer to becoming a full-time writer. 

Rollins told me over the phone that he wanted me to meet a security co-worker of his from the defense contractor plant. I agreed and met Rollins and a man Named Joseph Conti at a bar in South Philly.

Conti was a stocky man in his early 50s with short white hair. Rollins said that Conti had a story that the readers of my crime column in the local paper might be interested in. Conti was ready to tell his story as the Statute of Limitations had kicked in.  

Conti began by saying that he had been in the U.S. Army and served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was thinking of reenlisting when his sister Rose called him and told him tearfully that her husband, Bill Atkins, had been beaten severely and was in the hospital. 

“I was not surprised,” Conti said after taking a sip from his beer. “Bill was a degenerate gambler, and he was always in trouble. I wish my sister would take her daughter, my niece, and leave the creep, but you know how it is. I was close with my sister, so I took my discharge and headed home to South Philly.”

By the time Conti made it home, his sister was terrified as a brick had been tossed through the living room window of her rowhouse.

Conti picked up the brick and read the attached note. “Tell your husband that I want my money. Mike Grant.”

“Who signs a threatening note? Who is Mike Grant?”

“He’s the mob bookmaker that Bill bets with at the Oregon Lounge. Bill owes him a lot of money.”

Conti reassured his sister that he would clear things up and all would be well. He then went to a hardware store to buy materials to repair the broken window.

That night the brick went through the large window adorned with gold lettering that read the “Oregon Lounge.”

A note was attached to the brick that read “Tit-for-Tat.”

The owner of the bar, Michael Grant, AKA “Mikie Mutt,” a short, muscle-bound man with dark, curly hair, read the note slowly. 

Grant once tried to explain his multiethnicity of German, English and French to a friend, who replied, “So you’re a mutt.” Thereafter, Grant was known as Mikie Mutt.

Grant asked Louis “Louie Jap” Rosetti, “What’s this about a chick’s tit and a tattoo?”

“The note is not about tits and tattoos,” Rosetti replied. “It’s about a retaliation in kind. You do one thing to a guy, and the guy does something similar to you. Tit-for-tat. You broke Atkin’s window. He broke yours.”

Rosetti, known as Louie the Jap as he looked more Oriental than Italian, smiled at the note and at his boss’s stupidity.

Grant was not scared off. He and Rosetti drove to Atkin’s house. Grant banged on the door, but no one answered. He put his shoulder to the door to break it down, but he could not. Grant then kicked at the door’s handle and lock and again failed. In the movies, breaking down a door looked easy, but Grant was having trouble. He finally, after several kicks, busted the door open.

Grant saw Rose Atkins standing in the kitchen with a butcher knife in her hand and her young daughter behind her.

“Where’s your deadbeat husband?”

“Get the fuck out of my house, you asshole,”

“I’m gonna find your husband and get my money.”

Grant walked out the door. Rose called her brother who was working out at a local gym and she told him what happened.

Conti stopped at a hardware store and bought material to repair the door. He repaired the door and tried to calm down his sister.

 

That night a makeshift explosive device blew in the front door of the Oregon Lounge. The heavy wood door flew across the bar, smashing tables and chairs. The bomb's blast blew apart liquor bottles on the shelf.       

The next day Grant and Rosetti assessed the damage. Grant cursed and Rosetti said, “Tit for tat. You broke in his door; he broke in your door.”

“Atkins ain’t got the balls for this.” Grant said.

“I’ll ask around.”

Rosetti returned to the Oregon Lounge a few hours later. He told Grant that Atkin’s brother-in-law, a soldier, was home.

“He’s got the balls to do this,” Rosetti said. “I heard he hangs around Rocco’s gym.”

“Let’s go.”

Rosetti entered the gym and saw boxers sparing in the ring and others hitting heavy bags and speed bags. He recognized Conti from the description he was given. He walked up to Conti who was hitting a heavy bag.

“Hey, Joe Conti? Mikie Mutt wants to see you outside.”

Without a word, Conti dropped his gloves on a bench, wiped his face with a small towel, and followed Rosetti outside.

“So youse Billy Atkins’ brother-in-law? A tough guy, huh? But this ain’t the fuckin’ army. This is fuckin’ South Philly.”

Conti stood on the sidewalk and said nothing.

Grant took off his shirt, showing his heavily muscled torso.

“I sees you at a boxing gym. I’m a boxer. You want to go a few rounds wit me?”

"OK,” Conti replied. “But I should tell you that I was a boxer in the Army, and I was 20-2 and 2.”

Grant moved in and swung a wide hook at Conti. Conti slipped the blow easily. Grant then threw an uppercut that also missed its mark. Conti countered with a right cross that dropped Grant to the cement sidewalk.

Conti looked at Rosetti, thinking that he would step in, but the lean hoodlum just laughed at his friend on the sidewalk.

Conti leaned over as Grant struggled to get to his knees.

“Do you know what a 20-2 and 2 record is? Do you know what the 20 stands for? It’s wins, you idiot. Do you think I would brag about 20 losses? I heard about you. Sparing with guys who work for you don’t make you a boxer. You sure ain’t no fighter, pal.”

Conti walked back into the gym and Rosetti picked up Grant and placed him in the car.

Later that week Atkins’s car was spotted outside of a poolroom where the gambler was betting money he didn’t have on a pool game. Grant and Rosetti drove to the poolroom to confront Atkins.

Atkins saw Grant from the pool hall’s window, and he ran out the back door. Grant was mad when he didn’t see Atkins in the pool hall and he stormed out. Looking at Atkin’s car, he took a baseball bat out of his car’s trunk and smashed Atkin’s car windows.

That night, a makeshift explosive device was placed on Grant’s beloved Cadillac, which was parked in the driveway of his Packer Park home in South Philly.

The explosion destroyed the Cadillac and blew in windows from Grant’s house as well as the windows of several of his neighbors.

“Tit-for-tat,” Rosetti said, shaking his head in disbelief.

 

Enough was enough. The police were investigating the bombings and the illegal gambling and loan sharking business at the Oregon Lounge stopped due to the police attention.

Angelo Abatangelo, known as the “Ange the Abbot” due to his last name’s Italian origin and the bald spot on the back of his head, called for a “sitdown." He ordered the two mob associates, Grant and Rosetti, to report to a closed restaurant on Broad Street.

The portly South Philly Cosa Nostro capo also sent word to Conti for him to appear.

Conti was let into the restaurant, and he walked back to the table where Abatangelo, Grant and Rosetti sat. A bodyguard patted Conti down and found that Conti was unarmed. Conti sat down.

Without introductions, as they were not needed, Abatangelo said to Conti and Grant, “This stupid shit ends now.”

"And you, Joe Conti, where do you get the nerve to be setting off bombs in South Philly like we was in Iraq? I asked about you. You was a street kid hoodlum before you joined the army after 9/11. You should know better than to draw attention to us with exploding bombs like we was the fuckin’ Taliban.”

Conti said nothing.

“His brother-in-law owes us money!” Grant shouted.

Abatangelo gave Grant a disapproving look and Grant shut up.

“He owes you money. You owe me money.” Abatangelo said to Grant. Looking back at Conti, “I give you credit for coming today. Smart move, but tell me why I don’t just put a bullet in your fuckin’ army hard head?”

The phone rang and the capo’s man answered it. He spoke for a moment and hung up. He walked over to the capo and whispered in his ear.

“My guy tells me that someone is standing outside of my house with a grin on his face. Your guy?”

“Yes, my buddy.”

“And I guess your buddy has a bomb?”

“Yeah, but he won’t detonate it if I return home unharmed.”

“I see. But there is the matter of the money your brother-in-law owes. This nitwit here should have cut him off and made sure no other bookmaker took his bets. Instead, he lets him run up a tab no one can pay back and then uses violence. Dumb. Fuckin’ dumb”

Conti motioned that he wanted to reach into his jacket pocket. The capo nodded.

Conti pulled out two thick stacks of bills.

“Here’s $10,000. I’ll somehow get the rest for you later on.”

“Where did you get the money?”

“A bank loan.”

“You ain’t got a job. What bank would loan you money?”

“I got a job. I start next week.”

“Doing what?

“Police officer.”

The capo laughed. “We’ll take the ten large and write off the rest.”

“But Ange!” Grant yelled.

“Shut up, you nitwit.” 

“Conti, you tell your brother-in-law to move to Mexico if he wants to place a bet in the future.”

“I will. Thank you.”

   

I laughed at the story that ended well.

But Conti said the story didn’t end there. He worked as a Philadelphia Police officer for several years and then became a deputy U. S. Marshal, tracking down fugitives across the country.

Abatangelo flipped when he was about to receive a stiff prison sentence. He testified against his criminal associates, including Mike Grant, and then entered the Federal Witness Protection Program. A prize government witness, Abatangelo asked to be protected by a deputy U.S. Marshal he knew – Conti. And Conti was reassigned to Abatangelo’s protection detail.

Abatangelo later died of natural causes and Conti retired from the Marshals Service and got a job at a defense contractor’s plant.

“And Mikie Mutt is still in federal prison,” Conti said with a laugh.

© 2026 Paul Davis 

Note: You can read my other crime fiction short stories via the link below:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction Stories  

On This Date 56 Years Ago, I Enlisted In The U.S. Navy

On this date 56 years ago, I enlisted in the United States Navy.

I was 17 years old.

On February 9, 1970, I raised my hand and swore an oath to the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia, PA. 

I boarded a train to Chicago and then took a bus to the Naval Recruit Training Center at Great Lakes, Illinois.

You can read a fictional account of my time in Boot Camp via the link below:

Paul Davis On Crime: Boots On The Ground

My Crime Fiction: 'Villotti'

Below is my crime fiction short story Villotti.  

The story originally appeared in American Crime Magazine. 

Villotti

By Paul Davis

 Joseph Villotti was called “Crazy Joe” back in the late-1960s in South Philadelphia for a very good reason. He was criminally insane.

 Joe Villotti was insanely sadistic. He was insanely manipulative. He was insanely violent.

Villotti was 6’2”, lean and muscular with a rough face and dark brown hair. He had a raspy voice and a madman’s laugh. He reminded me of a somewhat thinner version of the actor Marlon Brando in the film On the Waterfront. (See above photo of Brando).

In South Philadelphia back in the late-1960s Crazy Joe Vilotti was legendary. Everyone in South Philly at the time had a Villotti story. I had several, including one story that I recently recounted. I wrote of the time that I witnessed Villotti murder a hoodlum in 1968 in a dispute over drugs.    

I also recall when I was walking down Oregon Avenue in South Philly when I was 15 in 1968. Villotti, who was 19 at the time, pulled his car to the curb and offered me a ride.

“Thanks, Joe, but I like to walk and my house is only two blocks away.”

Villotti, well known for not taking no for an answer, yelled, “Get in, for fuck’s sake. I’ll drive you.”

I got in the car. Villotti swung out onto Oregon Avenue and sped past a red light and headed west. I heard the police sirens behind us and then I saw two police cars swing across the four-lane avenue and block Villotti’s car.

Two additional police cars came up behind Villotti and blocked him from backing up. A plainclothes detective rushed up on the driver’s side and stuck a .38 snub nose revolver in Villotti’s face.

“Keep your hands on the fucking wheel, Joe,” the detective said. “Don’t fucking make a move.”

I was struck by the familiarity of the detective addressing Villotti by his first name.

A second detective opened my passenger side door and pointed his firearm at me.

“No, no,” Villotti said to the detective. “He’s just a kid I picked up.”

The detective looked hard at me and then said, “Get lost, kid.”

I got out of the car as Villotti was yanked out of the car and handcuffed. I walked away as fast as I could.

Back at JP’s luncheonette on 13^th and Oregon, I told everyone the story. There were several theories about why Villotti would stop and pick me up while he was being chased by the police. One was he picked me up thinking that having a passenger might throw the police off from identifying his car. Another theory was that Villotti was plain nuts.

 

Villotti was a member of the Dalton Street and Oregon Avenue street corner gang back then. The teenage street corner gang, known as the “D&O,” was a notorious and troublesome group, well known to the police and other street corner gangs in South Philadelphia.

The street corner crowd at 13^th and Oregon Avenue was not a large or tough group like the D&O and other notorious South Philly street corner gangs, although we had a handful of very tough guys like my older brother Eddie and the Sarcone brothers, Chickie and Stevie. We were known more as a party corner as we always had a crew of local pretty girls who hung out with us.

JP’s luncheonette was located on the corner of 13^th and Oregon Avenue, and we drank coffee and soda and ate cheesesteaks and hoagies in the five booths and at the counter.

We were three block west of the D&O gang’s hangout at George’s Luncheonette. We were friendly with the D&O teenagers as we all went to school together and we freely mixed at the teenage dances.

Villotti began hanging out with us more and more in 1968 as he had worn out his welcome at the D&O. He had a beef with Billy Russo, aka “Samson,” as the teenager was a big, tough guy. Russo was also, by all accounts, a nice guy. Russo objected to Villotti picking on a skinny guy and he confronted Villotti. The two big guys squared off in the Thomas Junior High schoolyard. Russo hit Villotti so hard that Villotti went down. Other D&O guys broke up the fight.

Later, as Russo left his house and walked towards Oregon Avenue, Villotti was waiting with a baseball bat. Villotti repeatedly cracked Russo with the bat and Russo fell to his knees in pain. Villotti continued to strike Russo until several men pulled him away.

Russo was hospitalized with several broken bones and a concussion. Most of the D&O teenagers took Russo’s side as he was a popular guy, but no one confronted Villotti. But Villotti sensed he needed a break from the D&O gang, so he began to hang out with us.

Lucky us.

Villotti was sadistic and a bully with a warped sense of humor. Thankfully, he never picked on me as he was afraid of my older brother Eddie.

Although Villotti was “bat shit” crazy, he was sane enough to know that he could not beat my brother, and Villotti knew that Eddie was a lot tougher than Samson Russo.  

Villotti came to spend more time with us after his beating of Russo and his involvement in a romantic triangle. A teenage girl named Jennifer broke up with a D&O guy named Butchie and she began seeing Eddie Dano. Eddie Dano was a good-looking young guy, and girls liked him, but he was a fool for love.

He would date a girl, quickly fall in love with her, and he would go into debt buying the girl an expensive ring. Inevitability, the new girl would grow tired of Dano’s rapt attention and she would drop him. We called Dano “Captain Cute,” and we called his big tan Buick the “Cutemobile,” a take on Batman’s “Batmobile.”

Butchie complained to Villotti about Dano “stealing” his girl. Villotti talked a group of D&O guys into going up to 13^th and Oregon and beating the shit out of this guy “Eddie.” There were three guys named Eddie on 13^th and Oregon Avenue. There was Eddie Dano, Eddie Pellegrini, and my older brother, Eddie Davis.  

My brother Eddie was three and a half years older than me, the average age of the 13th and Oregon Ave crowd. At 15, I was the baby of the crowd. Eddie had stopped hanging with us on the corner in 1968, as he had graduated to hanging out with our “old heads,” the previous generation of guys who were then in their mid-20s and went clubbing throughout the city. My brother was also seeing a girl named Frannie whom he would later marry.

One of the D&O guys held a grudge against my brother from a few years prior when we all went to the South Philly Boys Club. At 6’3,” lean with an athletic built, with long, strong arms and legs, Eddie was a star basketball player. He was also a genuine tough guy, but he was no bully. In fact, he was the champion of the bullied, as he often came to their defense. He never bullied anyone but me, his little brother.

While during a basketball game at the Boys Club, Jason “Jay” Gianni and his older brother Mark doubled-teamed an opposing player and beat him to the court’s floor. My brother stepped in, pulled the Gianni brothers off the guy and he offered to fight both of the brothers at the same time. The Ginanni brothers walked away.

And now Jay Gianni saw a way to get back at my brother, believing the Eddie that Villotti wanted to have beaten up was my brother.

That night Eddie Dano was warned that the D&O guys were coming for him. So he downed several barbiturates, stating, “When they beat the shit outta me, I won’t feel a thing.”   

I stood out on the corner leaning on my brother’s parked car. I was amused by Dano, who had trouble standing. Also on the corner was “Mikey Head” Tabone.

I saw Jay Gianni and four guys walking up Oregon Avenue. One of the guys in the group was my good friend Alex Agnello, whom I’ve known since junior high school. He walked up to me and said hello.

Gianni and the others seemed to ignore Dano, who leaned against the wall. Just then, my brother Eddie appeared on the corner of Iseminger Street, and he turned and was heading towards his car.

“There he is!” Gianni shouted as he and three others ran towards my brother. I grabbed Alex by his jacket, and he grabbed me as we grappled against my brother’s car.

My brother saw Gianni and the others run towards him and he put up his hands and punched Gianni in the face, knocking the hoodlum to the concrete. The other three hoodlums started to swing at my brother and he hit back, knocking each one down with a single punch. The fight was quickly over and Gianni rose from the payment, bloody and bruised, saying in a shaky voice, “We’re going to get, you son of a bitch!”

“Come and get me now,” my brother replied as the other hoodlums rose with black eyes and bloody noses.

Gianni repeated the threat as he and the others walked away quickly and headed back to Dalton Street. Alex and I let each other go and he too headed back to Dalton Street.

Tabone, who had run into the luncheonette when the fighting started, now came out.

“I went in to get a butcher knife,” Tabone explained as he tried to catch his breath.

My brother just shook his head in disbelief.

I explained quickly to my brother that the D&O guys were after Eddie Dano and not him. My brother just shook his head and drove away.

The next morning, I sat in JP’s drinking a cup of coffee before heading to the South Philadelphia High School, known locally as “Southern.” I was telling my good friend Chickie Sarcone about the fight when my brother walked in. He stopped in before going to work for the Electric Company as he wanted to see Chickie. Sarcone, like my brother, was a genuine tough guy who was respected by the D&O.

“Make sure no one bothers my brother,” he said to Chickie.

“No one will.”

“Thanks.”

That night Villotti and a big fat guy came into JP’s. Thankfully, Dano wasn’t there, as he would have had a heart attack. Villotti sat at the counter and ordered a cup of coffee. A minute or two later, my brother stopped in to buy a pack of cigarettes.

Villotti jumped up and explained to my brother that the previous night had been a misunderstanding and that he was sorry. He said he told Gianni and the other D&O guys that Eddie Davis was not to be bothered anymore.

My brother shrugged as he placed coins in the cigarette machine and extracted his pack of cigarettes.

“It’s all over,” my brother said.

Villotti laughed. “Yeah, it’s over. I heard you knocked down Jay and his boys all by yourself. Good for you.”

Villotti put out his hand to shake, and my brother shook his hand, and then walked out the door.

 

But it was not quite over for Villotti.

The next day after school I went to the Oregon Diner with Eddie Dano and Harry “Bud” Keitel, also known as “Bud the Dud.”

After we ate our cheeseburgers and French fries, we got into Dano’s big Buick and started to pull out of the diner’s parking lot. It was a warm day, so we had all of the car windows down. Suddenly, Villotti rushed up to the driver’s window and punched Dano in the face. Another guy appeared on the passenger side and punched Keitel in the face. A third guy opened the back door, and he was about to strike me with a tire iron when Villotti grabbed the tire iron and said, “No, he’s a good kid. I know his brother.”

Villotti and his friends walked off. Dano slumped over and held his broken nose. Keitel held a handkerchief to his bloody teeth. After a few minutes, Dano was able to drive and we headed back to 13^th and Oregon Avenue. No one spoke of what happened.   

Afterwards, Villotti acted like nothing had happened and he began to hang out with us, especially since my brother no longer came around. Villotti was abusive, cheated at cards, stole, and borrowed money from the guys and never paid them back. No one even asked Villotti to pay them back. They were usually glad that he was picking on a new victim. For those who were immune to Villotti’s bullying, like Chickie Sarcone and I, Villotti was a funny guy.         

Later that summer, as we were driving in Bud’s car on the way to Belmar Lake in South Jersey, Villotti saw a hippie hitchhiker on the side of the road. He ordered Bud to stop the car, pull over, and pick up the hippie. Bud was confused, but he pulled over.

Villotti opened the car door and the hippie with long, stringy blonde hair and a big, goofy grin, bent over and began to climb into the back seat, face first. Sitting next to Villotti in the back seat, I saw Villotti hit the grinning hippie square in the face and the hippie’s head reared back and his body followed, collapsing on the side of the road.

“Go, go, go!” Villotti ordered Bud and Bud sped off.

Looking back, this was a cruel and heartless act, and I felt bad for the hitchhiker. But at the time, we all felt this was a spontaneous and outrageous act, and we roared with laughter.

Villotti had that effect on us.  

Villotti was arrested for attempted murder, and he was sentenced to prison in 1973. A heroin addict, he contracted AIDS in prison, and he died there in 1975.

Even after all these years, whenever two old school South Philly corner boys get together, they will invariably tell Villotti stories.

This was mine.

© 2026 Paul Davis             

 Note: You can read my previous story about Joe Villotti, The Seventh Street Shooting, via the link below:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Seventh Street Shooting'

And you can also read my other crime fiction short stories via the link below:  

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction Stories 

My Crime Fiction: 'The Seventh Street Shooting'

Below is my crime fiction short story The Seventh Street Shooting. 

The story originally appeared in American Crime Magazine.

The Seventh Street Shooting

By Paul Davis

After a late evening dinner with my wife, I headed upstairs and took a shower.

I shaved under my neatly trimmed short beard and brushed my teeth. I applied a roll-on deodorant under my arms and splashed a bit of aftershave on my neck. I walked into my bedroom and began to dress. I slipped on a pair of dark gray slacks, a black leather belt, black socks, black Italian leather loafer shoes and a powder blue dress shirt, sans tie.

I placed my reading glasses in my shirt's pocket, and I placed my gold wedding band on my finger, and I slipped on my Rolex Submariner watch with the black leather band on my left wrist. I placed a gold chain over my head, and it fell to my chest under my shirt. The gold chain held the original U.S. Navy dog tag that was issued to me way back in February of 1970 when I entered Navy Boot Camp. The gold chain also held a small, finely carved and detailed Scuba diver.

My beautiful wife, who bought me the Rolex Submariner watch just prior to our wedding, also bought me the gold Scuba diver to commemorate her first Scuba diving experience with me in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

I placed my key ring with my house and car keys and my other Navy dog tag into my left pants pocket, and my cellphone and a pocketknife with a short but sharp blade into my right pants pocket. I slipped a clip-on holster with my .38 hammerless Ruger revolver to my belt on my left side. If need be, I could cross-draw the gun with my right hand.

I put on my black sports jacket and placed my slim, black leather long notebook/wallet into my jacket’s left breast pocket. I placed my mini-tape recorder into my jacket’s right breast pocket.

I was showered, shaved, well-dressed, and armed. I was on my way to meet a murderer.

I was meeting Robert “Bobby Buddha” Regalbuto at a neighborhood bar in South Philly. Regalbuto read my crime column in the local paper and emailed me using the email address I listed below the newspaper column. He wrote that he remembered me from school and the old neighborhood, and he wanted to offer me a story for my column.

I remembered Regalbuto as well. I recall that he was a violent and half-crazed hoodlum who became a drug addict and was sent to prison for murder in the 1970s.

As I stood at the bar and sipped a vodka on the rocks, I watched the front door. Mark Terranova, my good friend and a retired Philadelphia police detective, sipped his beer at the other end of the bar. Like me, he was armed. I had mentioned to Mark that I was meeting Regalbuto in a bar, and he insisted on backing me up from a short distance. 

When Regalbuto walked in the bar I recognized him immediately, although he was older, grayer and much thinner than the last time I saw him. He walked up to me and shook my hand. He said that I had changed, but he recognized me from my photo that accompanied my column.   

Regalbuto was a member of the Dalton Street and Oregon Avenue street corner gang back in the late 1960s. The teenage gang, known as the “D&O,” was a notorious and troublesome group, well known to the police and other street corner gangs in South Philadelphia.

I knew Regalbuto as we both attended Thomas Junior High School together in the mid-1960s, although he was more than two years older than me. We had several friends in common as I was good friends with several D&O gang members.

Regalbuto thanked me for meeting me and suggested we take an empty table at the back of the bar. He ordered a Ginger Ale from the bartender, explaining to me that he no longer drank, took drugs or smoked. We sat at the table and Regalbuto began to tell me his story.

Regalbuto said he moved away from South Philadelphia some years ago after he was released from prison. He had served 10 years for shooting and killing a man in a quarrel while both of them were high on heroin. He was guilty of second-degree murder, he acknowledged, and he served his time. He told me that he rekindled his Catholic religion while in prison. And although many years had passed, he now felt compelled to confess to the police about another murder he committed back in 1968.

Regalbuto spoke of the Seventh Street shooting that saw two men murdered and several others wounded.

 

I recall vividly the 1968 murders on Seventh Street in South Philly. I was there.

I’ve seen more than my share of violence. Growing up in South Philly in the 1960s, I saw a young soldier fresh from basic training shoot and murder his romantic rival in a hallway in the South Philadelphia High School. I also witnessed a drive-by shooting that murdered two young men on a corner on Broad Street.

And later, as a newspaper crime reporter and columnist, I’ve been on the scene almost immediately after several murders. I recall drinking in a bar when we heard a car crash. We rushed out of the bar and saw a car that had crashed into a home on Oregon Avenue. The driver was slumped over the steering wheel, two bullets in his head, the latest victim in an internecine mob war in South Philly. And later, while out for a morning walk, I heard police and ambulance sirens close by, so I hurried over to a scene where a notorious mob guy had just been shot to death on his doorstep.

A few years later, while out on a ride-along with a Philadelphia police sergeant, he was called to the apartment of a waitress who had been shot and killed. The young woman had been shot through her mouth, we learned, while playing a sex game with her boyfriend.

But the Seventh Street shootings were the first murders I ever witnessed.  

 

I was 15 years old going on 16 in 1968. I was a half of hoodlum hanging on the corner of 13^th Street and Oregon Avenue, three block west of the D&O gang’s hangout at George’s Luncheonette. We were friendly with the D&O teenagers as we all went to school together and we freely mixed at the teenage dances.

Two of the wildest D&O hoodlums liked to come to 13^th and Oregan and hang out in our luncheonette, JP’s. Joseph “Crazy Joe” Villotti was “scary crazy,” as one of the 13^th and Oregon Avenue teenagers described him.

Villotti was tall, lean and muscular with a rough face and dark brown hair. He had a raspy voice and an insane laugh. He reminded me of a thinner version of the actor Marlon Brando in the film On the Waterfront.

The teenagers at both the D&O corner and 13^th and Oregan feared being the focus of Villotti’s attention. Villotti was sadistic and a bully with a warped sense of humor. He would shake down the focus of his attention, taking their money or car, and he would also force the teenager to accompany him on some crazy errand.

Thankfully, he never picked on me as he was afraid of my older brother Eddie. My brother, who stopped hanging with us on 13^th and Oregon Avenue and graduated to hanging out with our “old heads,” the previous generation who were then in their mid-20s and went clubbing throughout the city. Eddie, a genuine tough guy, was no bully and he often defended those who were bullied.

Although Villotti was “bat shit” crazy, he was sane enough to know that he could not beat my brother, and a loss to Eddie would hurt his fearsome reputation.

When Villotti visited JP’s, he was often accompanied by another wild man, a big and heavy teenager named Robert Regalbuto, known as “Bobby Buddha.”

He was given the nickname by a teenager who one day saw Regalbuto’s huge bare belly over baggy swim trunks at the Bellmawr Lake, a man-made lake surrounded by sandy beaches that was a popular South Jersey resort for South Philly teenagers back in the 1960s.

Having earlier seen a photo in school of the statue of Buddha with a huge stomach, the teenager began to call Regalbuto “Bobby Buddha,” and the nickname stuck.

When Villotti and Regalbuto walked into JP’s, many of the guys stiffened. As I was protected by my brother’s reputation, I found the two bruisers to be amusing, although I felt bad for the guys they bullied and abused.

One warm evening, as we stood on the corner outside of JP’s, Villotti pulled up in a car with Regalbuto and other D&O hoodlums. Two other cars loaded with D&O gang members pulled up behind Villotti’s car.    

Villotti urged us to get into a car and follow them to Seventh and Edwin Streets, where they were going to “fuck up some black guys.” Villotti explained that the black guys had “jumped” a white guy and put him in the hospital.  

One of the D&O guys opened up his car trunk and handed out baseball bats and pipes to our guys. Michael “Mikey Head” Tabone took a bat, as did Anthony “Big Man” Manfredi. Harry “Bud the Dud” Keitel took a five-inch pipe. I didn’t take a weapon as I was the youngest kid there, and I had no intention of fighting. As an aspiring crime writer, I got into the car and drove to Seventh Street as I wanted to watch the fight.

When the four cars screeched to a halt on Seventh Street, we piled out of the cars, bats and pipes in hand. Several black guys came out of the candy store. In the lead was a big and tough-looking guy. I also saw several black guys come out of a bar from across the street as well as other boys and men from row homes on Edwin Street.

The big, tough looking guy asked Villotti, “What the fuck, Joe?”

Obviously, the hoodlum knew Villotti. Villotti responded by pulling out a .45 automatic and shooting the man in the chest. Regalbuto pulled out a .38 revolver and shot another black guy.

Pandemonium ensued. The white and black guys clashed on the street, swinging fists, bats and other weapons. Tabone, not the bravest of guys, left his car running on the corner and took off running up Edwin Street. Not too brave myself at the time, I followed Tabone. About halfway up Edwin Street, a large elderly black woman stood in her doorway, called me a “white motherfucker,” and threw a large, cast-iron frying skillet at me.

The skillet hit me on the right side of my forehead. I fell to my knees and prayed – “Dear God, please don’t let me pass out.”

Thankfully, I didn’t pass out, and I was able to get up and run for two more blocks. Then I walked several more blocks back to 13^th and Oregon Avenue.

Tabone beat me home. He was telling the other teenagers on the corner about the street fight and how gunshots rang out. He also spoke of beating up a couple of black guys, which was of course a lie.

I too lied, explaining the huge lump on my forehead. I told the guys that I was hit by a baseball bat.

“The neighborhood, the newspapers and the TV all said this was a racial thing,” Regalbuto explained as we sat in the bar. “Yeah, race relations were not good back then, but the shooting had nothing to do with race. Me and Joe made a drug deal with Martin King, known as “The King,” a black heroin dealer who hung out at a candy store at Seventh and Edwin Streets.

“We bought heroin on credit from King as we were steady customers of his. We were supposed to sell the dope and then pay King. But Joe and me were stone cold heroin addicts then, and we shot up more dope than we sold.”

Regalbuto said that Joe had the crazy idea of instead of paying King what we owed him, we should just kill him.

“Joe also had the idea of making the murder of King look like a race war between the Italians and the blacks.”          

Regalbuto said Villotti murdered King and he murdered King’s number two, a hoodlum named Billy Jones.

“Villotti was a cold-hearted psychopath,” Regalbuto said. “He often spoke of the murders with great relish and showed no regret. I’m different.”

Villotti died of AIDS some years prior in prison, while Regalbuto said he renewed his faith in Jesus Christ while serving his sentence. He confessed his murder to a priest and now he planned to turn himself into the police the following morning.

There was no statute of limitations on first degree murder.

 

I wrote about the Seventh Street shooting in my next newspaper column. I included my own involvement.

This was the first time, publicly or privately, that I admitted to being beaned with a cast-iron skillet by an elderly woman and not hit in the head with a baseball bat by a gang member.  

© 2025 Paul Davis 

Note: You can read my other crime fiction short stories via the link below:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction Stories

My Crime Fiction: 'Black Horse Pike'

 The below short story originally appeared in American Crime Magazine.

Black Horse Pike  

By Paul Davis

The bartender in a small dark roadside bar on the Black Horse Pike in South Jersey introduced himself to us as Bob as he served my friend Tony Rocco a beer and a vodka on the rocks for me. 

Tony told the bartender that I was a writer and he was a photographer as we were offered menus. We ordered meatball sandwiches along with our drinks, and Bob said he was glad we were drinking, as he had been a bartender for forty years and he didn't trust a man who didn't drink.

“No problem here,” Tony told him. 

Coming from South Philadelphia, we were taking the Black Horse Pike to Atlantic City, which was the old way before they built the New Jersey Expressway. The Black Horse Pike was the road to "downashore," as we called it when we were teenagers in the 1960s. We took the Black Horse Pike as Tony wanted to make a stop at the home of one of his relatives.

We were on our way to Atlantic City to cover the trial of a South Philly mob guy later that week. The notorious mobster had been arrested by the Atlantic City Police at a diner as he was pounding away on a gambler who was behind on his payments. 

As the local newspaper's crime columnist, I was going to Atlantic City to cover the trial and Tony, one the local paper’s photographers, accompanied me.  

We ordered a second round of drinks and Bob again told us of his mistrust of non-drinkers.

“You’re a writer," Bob said. "You want to hear a story while you're waiting for your food to come out?”

“Sure,” I replied.

“Well, about fifty years ago a thin man with glasses, a meek-looking guy, kinda shy, came in and sat at one of those tables. Ole Joe, the old bartender then, left the bar and went over to the table to take the man's order. The shy man hardly looked up as he ordered a cheeseburger in a low, hesitant voice.

“The bar was nearly empty except for the shy man and a group of six local boys. Young tough guys and bad boys, you might call ‘em.”

“Want a beer or something to drink with your cheeseburger?” Ole Joe asked the shy man.  
“No,” the shy man said softly. “Just a glass of water.”

“Mister,” Ole Joe said, “This is a bar, you know.” 

“Your sign outside reads Bar and Grill. I’ll just use the grill part if you don't mind.”

“OK,” Ole Joe said. 

The group of young men heard the exchange between the shy man and Ole Joe and they laughed loudly.  

One of them yelled out. “Get him a soda pop,” Another yelled out, “Get him a glass of milk.”

The shy man ignored the insults and taunts.

After the shy man had finished his cheeseburger in silence, he got up from the table and went to the bar. He asked the bartender how much he owed him for the cheeseburger.

“Well, Ole Joe told him $30 dollars.” 

“Why so much?” the shy man asked Ole Joe.

“The boys over there said you was picking up their tab too,” Ole Joe said. 

The shy man turned slowly towards the group of small-town toughs and then turned back to the bartender. “I never agreed to that,” he said softly. 

“Listen,” Ole Joe said quietly, leaning in, “Mister, it might be better to just pay.” 

The shy man told Ole Joe to call the police.

“They won’t get here in time, and I don't want to see you get hurt or my place smashed up, so just pay up, OK.” 

“Do what I said,” the shy man in a soft, calm voice.

“The local boys were all drunk and having fun and they sure was brave in a group of six,” Bob said. “Dummy Number One and Dummy Number Two got up from the table and approached the shy man at the bar. 

"Hey,” Dummy Number One said to the shy man. “Why ain’t you paying for our beers and food?” 

“Pay your own bill,” the shy man said softly without turning to face the two young men.

“Now Ole Joe was in the army in World War II, and he thought he saw everything,” Bob explained. “But when Dummy Number One grabbed the shy man's jacket, Ole Joe saw a blur of arms and as swift as you can imagine, Dummy Number One was on the floor screaming about his broken arm.” 

Bob said the shy man also dropped Dummy Number Two to the floor as the rest of the pack charged him. 

“It was all so quick that most of the bad boys didn't know what hit them,” Bob said. “But they was all on the floor with broken bones or just plain knocked out." 

The shy man then said to Ole Joe, “Didn't I tell you to call the police? 

“Yes, sir,” Ole Joe said as he picked up the phone. 

“Well, it turns out that the man was shy, but not meek. He was some kind of soldier who was in Vietnam, and he sure knew how to fight close up and all.” 

“It goes to show you,” Tony said. “Don't judge a book by its cover.” 

“Yeah,” Bob the bartender replied. “And don't trust a man who don't drink."

Tony and I laughed. 

"I ought to know,” Bob said. 

“How so?” I asked.

“I was Dummy Number Four.”

© 2020 Paul Davis