The story below is another chapter in my progressing crime novel.
The
story originally appeared in American Crime Magazine
You can read the earlier 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'
Jadrool
By Paul Davis
“Joey Acker, a New York Gambone organized crime family associate, asked Jimmy Conti if he liked spy movies,” Salvatore Stillitano told me as we sat in his late grandmother’s kitchen in her old South Philly rowhome.
“Jimmy said yeah, James Bond and stuff and Acker explained to Jimmy that real spies were quiet and silently observed and then reported to the good guys.
Acker, a slim man with a hawk nose, was a gambler and friend of Conti’s mother. When he heard that Jimmy Conti was working at a Philly mob hangout in Wildwood, New Jersey, Acker told his Gambone captain, and the captain told Acker to use the dumb kid to get information on what the Philly mobsters in Wildwood were doing.
“Jimmy was a nice guy but dimwitted. He believed Acker. But hey, Jimmy really was a jadrool," Stillitano said.
Being half Italian on my late mother’s side and having grown up in an Italian American neighborhood in South Philadelphia, I knew what a jadroll was.
A jadrool was Italian for a cucumber, but in South Philly, the name was also an insult. In South Philly, a jadroll was a bum or an idiot.
Salvatore Stillitano, a former caporegime in the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family who became a cooperating government witness against his former mobsters in the 1980s, continued to tell me about his life and his late father’s life in Cosa Nostra.
I published our previous interview sessions in my crime column in the local paper.
Jimmy
Conti was a skinny, likable young man with wispy dark hair who lived with his elderly mother and worked at Butch’s
bar in Wildwood, New Jersey. Owned and operated by Michael “Butch” Romano, a
former professional heavyweight boxer known as “Butch the Butcher,” and a made member
of the Philly Cosa Nostra crime family.
Romano liked the dopey kid and gave him a job as a dish watcher, janitor and gofer. Romano didn’t pay Conti much, but Conti would have worked there without pay, just so he could hang around the hoodlums who hung out there.
The bar, known for its roast beef, roast pork and meatball sandwiches, was always crowded during the summer months at the popular seaside resort town.
The bar was also the headquarters of Anthony “Tony Ball-Peen” Gina, a Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family soldier. Although he was a thin 5’5 man, Gina was feared. He was bad tempered and violent. Gina, a former professional boxer, was the number two man under Nunzio “Nick the Broker” Stillitano, the caporegime (captain) of Wildwood and the surrounding area.
Nick Stillitano was often on the road, promoting prize fights and illegal gambling across the U.S., or overseas managing gambling junkets for high rolling gamblers for Philly Cosa Nostra boss Angello Bruno.
Gina was Stillitano’s street boss, overseeing illegal gambling, loansharking, extortion and the infiltration of local unions. He was also the acting captain when Stillitnao was out of town.
The Wildwood Cosa Nosta soldiers and criminal associates made most of their money during the summer months when people flocked to the Wildwood boardwalk and the beaches.
In the summer or 1972, a young Salvatore Stillitano, known as “Salvie Shotgun,” "South Philly Sal," and Nick’s kid,” sat with Gina at his table in Butch’s. Gina, his father’s best friend, was like an uncle to Salvatore.
After Gina collected an envelope from one of his associates, he called over Conti.
“Hey, boy! C’mere.” Gina yelled out.
Conti approached sheepishly to Gina’s table where the volatile mobster sat with Stillitano.
“Get me a roast pork sandwich,” Gina ordered. “Do you think you can handle that complicated order?”
Stillitano and the mobsters at the bar laughed.
A minute later Conti rushed out of the back kitchen and laid a roast beef sandwich on the table.
“I said I wanted a roast pork, ya fuckin’ jadrool!”
“I’ll eat it, Tony,” Stillitano said.
“Now go get me a roast pork sandwich!”
Butch Romano who peered out of the kitchen door when he heard Gina hollering, quickly brought out a roast pork sandwich for Gina.
“Thanks, Butch. Why do you keep this fuckin’ jadrool around?
Romano shrugged.
From that day on, everyone referred to Conti as the jadrool.
Conti
liked taking the bus to a roadside diner outside of Wildwood. There he met Acker
for lunch or dinner. Acker treated Conti with the kind of respect no one else
did.
Conti also liked playing the spy. He listened to the Philly family wiseguys talk business and gossip and he then slipped into the bar’s small men's room and sat on a toilet in a stall and wrote down what he thought his friend Acker wanted to know.
But during one meeting at the diner, a local crook named Micky Slaughter saw the jadroll with a Gambone gambler.
Slaughter had often visited Butch’s and slipped Gina an envelope filled with money he was kicking up to the Stillitano crew. He had seen the kid there and heard the guys call him a jadrool.
The Irish thief and extortionist asked one of the mob guys what a jadrool was and the insulting name was explained to him.
Slaughter drove to Wildwood and parked near Butch’s. He was thankful that Gina was there along with Salvie Shotgun. He sat at Gina’s table and whispered that he saw Conti meeting with Acker at the diner.
Gina motioned Romano over and told him to close the bar early. Romano cleared out his regular customers along with Slaughter, leaving only him, Gina and Stillitano.
Romano said that the kid spying on them made sense as the Gambone mobsters always seemed to be one step ahead of them, and the Gambone’s probably passed on tips to the New Jersey State Police. The state troopers then disrupted their criminal operations and made arrests.
“But the kid is a jadroll. Can he really be passing on information,” Gina asked.
“Yeah, the kid is jadroll,” Romano said. “But I’ve seen him take notes when I wanted items from the store, and he always got the orders right.”
“Call the jadroll in, and then do what’s right.”
“Yeah,” Romano replied.
Romano went to the phone and called Conti’s mother’s apartment. Conti answered. Romano said he needed him to come to bar.
A half-hour later, Conti knocked on the bar door. Romano unlocked the door and let Conti in.
Conti never saw Romano swing a left hook that dropped him to the floor. Romano picked Conti up by his shirt and went through the dazed kid’s pockets. Romano found a slim notebook and swiftly went through some of the pages. He then handed the notebook to Gina.
“You rat son of a bitch,” Gina exclaimed as he read Conti’s notes. “You fuckin’ jadroll!”
Romano took Conti by one arm and Stillitano grabbed the other arm and they pushed him into the men’s room. Conti began to plead, but Romano pulled out his .38 revolver from his pocket and shot Conti twice in the head.
Conti died instantly and slid down the wall.
When Romano and Stillitano came out of the men’s room, they looked at Gina.
“Never trust a jadroll,” Gina said.
© 2026 Paul Davis
Note: You can read my other crime fiction stories via the link below:
