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Lucky: No. How much?
Ray: He wants $1,000 for Long Branch and $1,000 for Asbury.
Si: For each town?
Ray: Yeah. Each town. And for the whole county he wants to make a different price.
Lucky: Tell him — Si: Do you want to hear the rest of the story? June, July, August and September he wants double.
Ray: Here's what I figure. Let's move all the offices into Long Branch and we'll just pay him for Long Branch.
Lucky: That's a good idea.
In another conversation, De Carlo boasted of Newark's suitability for gambling without police interference: "We got Bailey [Police Captain Walter Bailey] and we got the other guy. What else do you need? The cops ain't gonna bother no card game. Bailey told them to stay out of there ... At least in Newark we got Spina [Police Director Dominick Spina] and we got Bailey.
Defense Against Prosecution
Another time, De Carlo gave instructions for doing business in Middlesex County: "Now you got to get ahold of all them prosecutor's men. I think there's about five. You give them about $100 a month ... It will cost you for the prosecutor's office and all the staff there about $2,000 tops . . . Every one of them's gotta be paid. We had that county before. We paid every one of them. Any one of them can dump the apple cart. We had [Democratic Leader David] Wilentz; we paid Wilentz. We paid all the rest. . ."
The FBI tapes revealed that De Carlo had as many ulcerous problems in running his mob as any businessman would have. At one point, he complained about a planned Mafia wedding reception. De Carlo ordered the racketeers to stay at their own tables and not go around shaking hands. FBI agents, he feared, would recognize the "main guys" among the hoods because everyone else would approach them. De Carlo grumbled that soon the word would be out: "Don't go to weddings. Send an envelope."
Fringe Benefits
Crime also paid off in little extras for the mob. After a shipment of shoes was hijacked, De Carlo was recorded asking a man named Bitterbee for some boy's shoes:
Bitterbee: Ray, I gave you the 9-½s.
Ray: Yeah, but they were supposed to be 9s. Black ones—he don't want brown ones, the kid.
Bitterbee: Well, give me the brown ones back.
Ray: No, he's going to wear them when he gets bigger. Right now kids don't like brown ones. Get me about four pairs of black.
Greener Grass
Nevertheless, De Carlo and his cronies continually complained about greener pastures elsewhere in the Mafia. One discussion of the Chicago mob is an example:
Louis: And look at the territory they got...
Swat: Everybody in Chicago gets a thousand a week. Everything goes in the pot. Everybody has got their own Cadillac. Everybody has got their own home. Everybody has got their own assignment . . .
Louis: They got the oldtimers on pension. They give them something every month.
De Carlo: And they got the law laid down to be perfect gentlemen at all times.