Review: The Old Guard is Gone (A Review of The Last Hitman By Robin Yocum)

By Hugh Blanton

 

Aging mob bosses, entrenched in their ways, are often seen as an encumbrance by the Young Turks trying to work their way up the chain of command and "do things better." It happens time and again—an aging boss is assassinated, a Young Turk takes his place, and implements his new "policies." The murders become public spectacles with photographs of the newly dead boss lying on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant he was just getting ready to dine in (the reporter that photographed Paul Castellano angled his shot to show the sock with the hole in it), or lying in the floor of a barbershop after being shot while his face was still covered by a hot towel (the barber chair Albert Anastasia was shot in is now in a Las Vegas museum). But what happens to the dead boss's loyal associates? Do they get whacked too, or are they allowed to keep working within the organization? Robin Yocum's latest novel goes into just that.

 

The Last Hitman is the newest book from Robin Yocum. Sixty-nine year old Angelo Cipriani has been a hit man for the Fortunato crime family for decades, in fact for nearly all his adult life. After Big Tommy Fortunato dies, his son Little Tommy takes over the family business. Little Tommy allows Cipriani (who he calls Uncle Ange because he's known him since he was a tot) to stay on, but gives him so little work he's nearly destitute and forced to move into a ratty, cheap apartment. His days mostly consist of watching game shows and strolling to a local diner for lunch, where he has a school-boy like crush on the waitress, Carolyn. Back in Big Tommy's day, the Fortunatos stuck with traditional type mob business—loan sharking, gambling, prostitution. Under the new leadership of Little Tommy they are branching out into drugs, including heroin, fentanyl, and the like. Uncle Ange tells Little Tommy that the old man never would have approved of dealing drugs, but Little Tommy's making money hand over fist and ignores the old hit man. "Little Tommy thought I'd lost my fastball, so he put me on the shelf," Angelo says.

 

The Fortunatos are based in Steubenville, Ohio, the same place that very famous Italian Dino Crocetti came from. If the name doesn't ring a bell, you probably know him better as the crooner Dean Martin. There are two other crime families operating nearby, the Gemellis in Youngstown and the Santoros in Pittsburgh. The territorial borders had been loosely mapped out during Prohibition in the 20's, but they are still disputed from time to time. Angelo, and his partner Carlo, had taken out a lot of bodies in past wars. Carlo, along with the rest of the old guard, is now long dead and with Little Tommy assuming the reigns of the family Angelo says, "I was the only one left to deal with Little Tommy and his cast of yes-men and hangers-on, and they all looked at me like I was a dinosaur. I would still get the occasional phone call when Little Tommy had a job that he didn’t want to entrust to guys who smelled like dope and combed their hair with their fingers. But those calls had become less and less frequent." Little Tommy's new dope business, and the shit-ton of money he's making, attracts the attention of the FBI. Also attracting the attention of the G-men is Angelo—lying around in his apartment all day and becoming destitute. They think they might be able to flip him and testify against the new boss. An agent slips Angelo his card as Angelo's eating lunch at his favorite diner.

 

The mob has a romanticized reputation—the vows they take to never betray each other, their poor circumstances that "force" them into a life of crime against their will, the rules they set up for themselves to keep harmony within the organization (like screwing another family member's wife is strictly forbidden). It's all complete bullshit, of course. They are always testifying against each other in court to save their own asses, murdering each other, banging each other's wives. There's supposedly nothing lower than a rat in mob life, but when Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, underboss to John Gotti in the Gambino crime family, testified against his boss in 19991, it showed there's no honor among thieves and none of them has any compunction against becoming a "rat." Gravano is still in fact alive today; living a public life giving his opinions in media interviews on everything from Donald Trump to P. Diddy. He doesn't appear to be the least bit concerned about any retaliation for putting John Gotti away all those years ago.

 

Angelo leaves the diner with the FBI agent's card (it identifies him as Special Agent Lawrence G. Ross of the Pittsburgh field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation), and drops it down a sewer grate on his way home. No matter the changes that Little Tommy is affecting with the family, Angelo won't consider turning state's evidence. Angelo had even promised Big Tommy on his deathbed that he would watch out for, and take care of, Little Tommy. But Special Agent Ross is persistent. When Ross informs Angelo that the circumstances of Big Tommy's death are not what he thinks they are, Angelo has a decision to make. Is Ross telling the truth, or is Ross just making something up to enrage him and get him to flip?

 

"My brief association with Ross had my stomach feeling like I’d chewed up a Pepsi bottle for breakfast. The potential for something to go badly wrong was great. I didn’t believe for a minute that Ross wasn’t telling everyone in his office—bragging, actually—that he’d gotten a potential flip in the Fortunato organization. That kind of information is dangerous on the street, and I knew those numbskulls at the FBI ran their mouths. Pretty soon, word would get back to the compound and Little Tommy."

 

Whether or not Angelo decides to flip, he's likely already a marked man.

 

Yocum said that The Last Hitman was inspired by his short story "The Last Hit" which was published in the July 2019 issue of The Strand Magazine. Yocum's 2016 novel, A Brilliant Death, was a finalist for the Edgar Award. The International Association of Crime Writers, North America named his novel The Sacrifice of Lester Yates a finalist for the 2021 Dashiell Hammett Award. In the 1980s Yocum was a crime reporter for the Columbus Dispatch where he won several statewide Associated Press awards. He's even written a couple of true-crime books, Insured for Murder (along with Catherine Candisky in 1993) and Dead Before Deadline...and Other Tales from the Police Beat (1994). In a 2022 interview with James Breiner he said, "In journalism, you're always writing about other people's accomplishments, and I wanted to write something that was uniquely mine. My imagination, my words. It was difficult. The first couple of stories were pretty awful, and if I ever find them, I'll shred them because I wouldn't want anyone to find them after I die." Yocum's come a long way since then.

Hugh Blanton's latest book is Kentucky Outlaw. He can be reached on X @HughBlanton5