On the Coat Tales of a Gambler
Sailor tells his story, as a young man, living in the South and life among gamblers.
Part I
Did you ever hear of a guy named Scarpone Ladrón? He got himself killed long ago in a poker game. He was a good buddy and a real-high roller. In those days, in the fifties and sixties, those guys used to walk around with fifty grand on them. They all carried guns… any game, anytime. They would have a dice game on beds in motels. I was just young and dumb, sort of the driver for Scarpone. He’d take me around to the action, you know any kind of gambling… dice, poker, cock fights, etc. I am talking about the South where I grew up… mostly in Alabama. Lucky, I went west when I did. I could have been killed and maybe lucky that I wasn’t.
Scarpone was a big guy. He wore size twelve shoes and maybe six-three. His given name was John, he went by Johnny. His father was originally from Cuba. One of his running mates, Bennie Palumbo, an Italian guy, gave John Ladrón his nickname “Scarpone” because it “fit him like a boot.” In Italian, Scarpone means boot. Bennie suggested he should have an alias, considering his business. He persuaded Scarpone by telling him that Scarpone sounded big and mean and besides, Johnny was a little boy’s name. Bennie took a risk there. As for Benny, he did not need a nickname.
Bennie was as bent as a dog’s hind leg, and a bit of a burglar he was. He would say, “I sneak in the backdoor, and I take the loot out d’window.” It didn’t make any sense to me. Anyway, Scarpone had a bad scar on his face cut in a knife fight. Most of the guys figured that Scarpone meant scarface and the name stuck. Nevertheless, he did have big feet and was known to wear fancy boots.
Out in the country, east of Robstown, about 15 miles on the 518 Bypass, there was a bar and gambling joint; you could call it a roadhouse. In the basement there were two poker tables. That is where I met Scarpone for the first time. Sometimes I would go there to play a little $2 poker. They had a low limit table and a high limit table. It was on that high limit table that I saw as much as 15K and 20K during the games. Anyway, the guy who owned the place was an old guy probably not quite as old as I am now…but, he had a beautiful wife. She had been a waitress in that bar before he married her.
After being in the navy for a while, about a year or two after I signed up, I went back home for a visit. That joint had been shut down. One night the bar owner’s his wife came in while he was boning a woman on the pool table. She killed them both. Most every one of those gamblers carried pistols, especially the high rollers. I guess she did too. I don’t remember whatever happened to her. It was in the early seventies and that is one story you can check out in the Robstown news.
The poker games, at most of the roadhouses, went on and on, 24/7. Sometimes guys would stop and sleep for three or four hours, after playing straight for one or two days. I usually only played ten to twelve hours at the most. These guys would pop pills to stay awake. I never did that. I never saw any dope sold in those places…whiskey and beer, plenty of that.
All over my town, in the fifties and sixties and before, I guess, there was gambling, hookers and other things going on in the bars. It would be just a regular bar but, in the basement, or in a back room or upstairs perhaps, it would be wide open for gambling. The authorities and cops were paid off in my town, until a new sheriff came in during the seventies and cleaned it all up.
When I was only fourteen years old, I could go into these places with older guys who knew me, back when I was in grade school. Not just any kid could get away with it. I watched these guys move about and they knew me. They trusted me to keep my mouth shut, you know…. I could mind my own business and not ruin a good thing.
Even in those days Scarpone would tip a waitress $100 bucks. I mean with Scarpone, money and women were always plentiful. August 1970, I decided to pick up and leave for the navy. I never had anything to do with those guys again. I never played in the same games with them either; I just watched. I was a very low roller, and everyone seemed okay with that. Once, I saw “Scarpone” win over 30K with dice on a bed in Columbus, Georgia. There was an army camp there. Lots of marks with those young boys.
Out in the country, off of the 518 by-Pass, there was a farmhouse in a field, it was a poker house. There were five rooms in the house. In each of the five rooms there would be games going on. The money I used to see there was more money than I have ever seen in one place in my life. Scarpone would give me a hundred bucks just to tag along with him. Though he never said anything to me, it was understood that I was to watch his back. I was good at keeping a sharp eye if anyone were to act differently.
Scarpone was no stranger to trouble. He owned a scar from a huge cut down one side of his face. There were a couple of different stories about how it happened. One was he got caught cheating in a game. The other version involved a woman. Likely either one could be as true as the other. Scarpone was certainly one to mix it up if it ever got heavy. He had been shot before too and did some shooting himself, killing a couple of guys. I was so stupid in those days to be hanging out with Scarpone and his crowd. Maybe my sense of innocence kept me safe? When I think back on some of the stuff that went on…Geez Louise, I was a lucky s.o.b.!
Part II
Scarpone had married four times, all beautiful young women before he was forty-five. The youngest of the wives was only twenty-one. Not sure of any others or if he was ever divorced. It wasn’t much longer after he married the last wife when he got himself killed. I think Scarpone was about forty-eight when he was taken out. I wasn’t around for that story. He was a lot older than me. When I moved on… I lost contact with all of that. I am told that most of those guys were either killed or got so much prison time. That’s the way it was, and I’m sure that it is true.
When I met Scarpone he was on his fourth wife, a real beauty and twenty-three at the time. She was runner-up Miss South Carolina or something once. She was twenty-one when he married her. He told me that he gave her one of his $100 tips and she went out with him that night. He said that she’d be just like all the others (wives). Once she’s got a bunch of his money saved up, she would disappear, just like the other two.
Scarpone was not faithful to that young wife either and he said he knew she cheated on him when he was out of town. He always used much stronger words to describe things too, more than I am using. One thing for sure, Scarpone always dressed nicely. He always wore a sport coat and “gator boots.” (alligator) In his right coat pocket, always, was a snub 38 revolver. He said he could easily shoot someone while at the poker table. He told me that is how he killed those two guys.
Once we went to a cockfight in Georgia. It was a huge barn-like building, real big. It was against the law, but they had been doing it there for over a hundred years, I was told. Of course, the cops were paid off. Over ten days I saw a lot of dough there. I tell you the truth, and there were people there from all over the world. Many were from the orient. That was in early 1970 before I left for the navy. I ran into one of those guys from the orient at the Atlanta airport about a year or so later. I had met him at that cockfight. I was not a gambler. I did not have the stakes like those high rollers had. I was just along for the ride and having a lark. I was green. There were places to stay, you know, rooms to rent. We were there for several days. This place was wide open gambling, everything. Scarpone preferred to play dice over all the other ways to gamble. He was good with the dice, and I don’t mean fair.
Funny to remember how those guys were with their money, girls, and buddies. Those guys were tight. I remember a guy told Scarpone that he was busted-broke. Scarpone just handed him 5K and said, “Pay me back when you get on your feet.” About half the guys I rubbed shoulders with had real jobs too. But most of the others just gambled. Some played pool for money but most of the pros I knew played poker for a living. A few were also burglars. A lot of them had done time in the joint. Scarpone had done time too.
Scarpone was caught cheating in a poker game. He killed the two guys that tried to kill him for cheating. He said it took all the money that he had to pay for a good lawyer to get him off light. Listen, some of the stories that I am telling you are stories that Scarpone told to me. You know, things that happened before I met him. But the way he told them to me… I believed that they happened. He had that kind of cold look that just went right through you. I’d shake my head agreeing with what he had just told me.
Part III
Scarpone looked after me. He would always buy me a prostitute when we were out of town. The girls were always around the action. By that, I mean the money. It was like a magnet for them and a vacation to me. At first, I was still working as a city fireman. But often I would get a three-day weekend and four-day weekend. Sometimes I’d call in sick so I could take time off to travel with the boys.
I knew that I was going to the navy soon, so, six months before my enlistment, I quit my job and that is when I really did a lot of traveling with Scarpone. It was never just me and him on these trips. There would always be one or two other gamblers in the car with us. It was just like a tight insider’s club. You got the call for a game, and you went. Otherwise, you could be left out. With these guys it was scarier to be on the outs than in on the game.
Scarpone had an ego for sure and he was into cars. Every two or three years, he would buy himself a new Lincoln. He had one “Caddie” as I remember, early on, before I met him. Now, as I said, a lot of things he told me happened before I met him. But the big cars fit with his big image.
Sorry to get carried away there… But those were some fun days for me, real exciting times… and I was so dumb to be there in the middle of it all. But it would always come and go with us, fast and furious. All our expenses paid, and I will give up a hundred bucks if this ain’t true. That was my introduction into gambling… all against the law.
It wasn’t until 1971, I was thirty years old before I ever gambled legally and that was in Vegas…but those earlier days were some fun times. Those guys were plumb crazy. I knew it even then, but still I went along for the ride. They would fix dice so they could win, mark cards, and anything else to get away with cheating, and hoping not to get caught. And since most of them carried guns, they knew that they were playing with fire. Still, to so many guys like Scarpone, it was just a game.
See you, Sailor
Author’s note: During a phone call, I asked Sailor what type of boat he was on. First, he laughed, then he told me no boat, he was supposed to go on a boat. However, about a month before reporting, the navy gave him the same rank that he had when he left the marines. Plus, the fact that he was considered “old,” they gave him an instructor’s job. He reported to Illinois, Great Lake Instructor’s School. Sailor said he completed 16 years of service with the navy and four years of service with the marines.
On The Coat Tales of a Gambler continues with Episode 3 –
Cheat’em and Chisel’em