Of all the shitty places in Queens, none was shittier than The Virgo Social Club.
Two stories and shaped like a box of store brand crackers, it sat on the corner of Lefferts Blvd and Park Place. The walls were a grimy shade of once-white and the windows were covered with six layers of dirt. Whoever built it tried their best to make it look European, with Bavarian-style windows, wood beams, and a metal signpost, but they wound up making it look fucking stupid instead.
There was an electric OPEN sign in the front window, but it was never on even though guys came and went at all hours. There were always at least one or two nice cars in the back parking lot, and sometimes old Italian men played chess on the sidewalk in front of it. Every day, around 3 pm, a tall, brutal-looking man with graying hair swept back from his forehead, a mustache, and a barrel chest would come out the side door, the one opening onto the sidewalk, and stand around for a while, looking mean as hell. Sometimes, he and another man would take walks down the block and confer in hushed tones. The severe man - Alfonse “Toto” Arello - walked with quick, sharp steps and took violent drags from a cigarette as he conducted his business up and down Lefferts. The young men to whom he gave orders were furtive and uncomfortable, looking constantly around for the FBI agents they knew were watching. Toto didn’t give a shit. He did fifteen years and wasn’t afraid to do another fifteen.
Everyone in the neighborhood knew who Toto was, and they stayed clear of him unless they had a problem they needed solved and literally no one else to help them solve it. No one knew anything for certain, but there were a lot of rumors about Toto and none of them were good. Word on the street said he once choked a guy to death with his bare hands because he made the mistake of scuffing Toto’s ugly ass alligator skin shoe. Another legend said he had a personal cemetery out on Staten Island. They said the Gambino Family, to whom he “allegedly” belonged, was so scared of him that they didn’t even collect their cut of the profits he made. I heard one time that John Gotti was too scared to meet with him and made Sammy the Bull do it that way “If he gets mad, he can kill you instead.”
I know for a fact that the thing about the Gambinos not taking money from him is bullshit because I used to collect it from him.
Another rumor about him - that he was a powerful captain - was also bullshit. He was back in the nineties, but he got caught having an affair with the wife of some guy in his crew, a big no-no in this thing of ours. Rather than whack him out, the family leadership busted him down to a mere soldier and assigned him to Frank “Frankie Fun” Funelli’s crew in Bensonhurst. Having been a capo and gotten a taste of power, Toto didn’t want to give it up, so he bought the Virgo and built up his own crew of wannabes, mob hopefuls, and a few soldiers from other crews. They dealt mainly in loan sharking, robbery, bookmaking, hijacking, and murder - the lowest level mob shit you can imagine.
In the family, it was well known that Toto liked to kill people. Like *really* liked it. Killing people wasn’t just a business to him, it was a passion, a vocation, what he was put on this earth to do. His crew wasn’t much better. All of them killed for fun and profit, and if you looked in their eyes, you’d see something.
They had no souls.
Toto and his guys had a method for disposing of bodies. They’d chop them into little pieces and then dissolve them in vats of acid. Sometimes they’d bury a guy or throw him in the river, but the majority of victims wound up getting turned to liquid and poured down the drain. The Gambinos are tough but even by their standards, Toto and his guys were sick motherfuckers. No one, and I mean no one, liked going to the Virgo. You could feel the darkness as soon as you walked through the door. There were always shadows in the corners and the atmosphere felt heavy. I don’t believe in ghosts but if any place on earth is haunted, it’s the Virgo. That’s where Toto killed all his victims.
Being a soldier, Toto had to kick money up the chain of command. Once a week, he’d hand in an envelope filled with money, some for his captain, Frankie Fun, and some for the boss. Frankie didn’t like going over there - who did? - so he sent me. Frankie’s my uncle and I’m part of his crew, even though I don’t really hang out with them. They spend most of their time plotting petty crimes at a bingo hall Frankie owned in Maspeth. I spend mine dealing drugs. Drugs are a no no in the mafia but Frankie pays me shit for money. Mob guys deal drugs all the time even though it’s against the rules. Frankie isn’t one of them. He has this thing about them. Says they ruin communities. That’s where the money’s at these days. This isn’t the fifties. The mob isn’t as powerful as it used to be and the average guy brings in pennies from traditional mob rackets. And just to get by on that, he’s gotta risk getting pinched. It used to be no one called the cops, now the moment you try a shakedown, you’re in cuffs and nothing’s being done to the asshole who turned you in because it would bring too much heat.
If you ask me, the mob is dead.
But whatever, back to Toto. Once a week, I drive over to the Vigo and pick up Toto’s money. He and his guys are polite since I’m the captain’s nephew, but they give off this creepy vibe that I don’t like, so I never hang around. I knew Toto was sick in the head…but I never knew just how sick until one night last summer.
It was late June and something strange was happening in Queens. A few days before, a lady out jogging on a wooded trail was attacked by “a monster”. She told police it looked like a zombie, like from that TV show. “It was a fuckin’ junkie,” Uncle Frankie said disgustedly. We were sitting at the bar off the main floor of the bingo hall sipping watered down drinks. Frankie was a cheapskate and refused to serve stuff head up. It had to be cut.
A few days after the woman got attacked, a guy walking home late at night was ripped apart by a gang of weirdos. They gouged out his eyes, bit his neck, and pulled out his guts. Real gross shit. The night before, a little kid went missing from a playground, and everyone was bracing for the worst. The cops were looking for five to six hobo-killers and mob guys patrolled their neighborhoods at night to make sure nothing happened.
It was on the heels of this that Joey Greene came in.
A tall, grubby-looking man who always looked homeless, Joey was one of Toto’s non-made associates. He was good at stealing cars, or chopping them, or something. He looked nervous and jumpy. He spotted us and hurried over. “What the fuck do you want?” Uncle Frankie asked, looking him up and down. Technically, Joey was part of Frankie’s crew, but he never came around, spending most of his time at Toto’s.
Sniffing, Joey looked quickly around. “I got something to tell you,” he said in a whisper. “It’s important.”
He looked at me like he wanted me to leave.
I sat where I was.
“What is it?” Frankie asked.
Joey hesitated, then dropped into a stool and poured out his guts. “It wasn’t my idea. I didn’t have anything to do with it. I didn’t even know about it until a few days ago. I swear on my mother’s life, Frankie, I didn’t know.”
Frankie’s eyes narrowed. “What is it?” he asked.
“You know those junkies the cops are looking for? The ones who killed that guy?”
“Yeah.”
Joey licked his lips. “They’re Toto’s guys. I mean…he made them that way.”
Taking a deep breath, Joey stumbled out his story. Toto, he claimed, was crazy, crazier than anyone knew. At some point around 2014, he got really interested in creating “slaves.” “They’ll do what you tell them to do and they won’t rat,” Toto claimed. He and “a couple guys” started cruising around Queens late at night, looking for winos, hookers, and runaways - people who wouldn’t be missed. They kidnapped them, took them to the Virgo, and locked them in a room in the basement. “He starves them and feeds them hallucinogenics and shit,” Joey said. “He’s got ‘em all fucked up. There are six of them and the other day, they got out.”
Frankie looked at him like he was crazy. “I know it’s wild, but you gotta believe me. He’s got us out looking for them right now. He doesn’t want you to know.”
“That’s the most fucking ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Frankie said.
“I swear to God it’s true. He’s parked at the corner of Lawndale and Ridge Street right now with a walkie talkie. Go see for yourself.”
After Joey left, scurrying away like an overly large rodent, Frankie sat back in his chair and looked at me. “You believe that shit?”
I shrugged. “I dunno. Why would he make that up?”
“Drugs,” Frankie said.
“I dunno,” I said.
Frankie chewed his bottom lip in thought. “We better check it out. Just to be sure. If that asshole’s telling the truth, this reflects badly on me.”
Finishing our drinks, we went out into the warm summer night. I got behind the wheel of Frankie’s Audi and drove up the street to where Joey said Frankie was parked. I spotted his Caddy under the spreading branches of a big tree. “There,” Frankie said, seeing it too.
I pulled in behind and we both got out. We walked up to the open driver side window. Toto, a cigarette clenched between his thin lips, was sitting behind the wheel, a walkie talkie wedged between his legs. “What the fuck are you doing?” Frankie demanded.
“I’m sitting here,” Toto said simply. “Why?”
Frankie ignored him. “Why are you sitting here? You afraid someone’s gonna take your spot?”
I didn’t know Toto well enough to say whether or not he was regularly at a loss for words, but he struck me as the kind of guy who always knew what to say. Right now, he floundered, like a boy trying to come up with a convincing lie to explain away the broken vase he knocked over. “I’m just -”
“What’s this I hear about you turning people into fucking zombies?”
Toto missed a beat. “Zombies? I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. Who said that?”
“A little birdy says you got people locked up in your basement,” Frankie said. Like me, he was starting to realize that Joey was telling the truth. There was a look in Toto’s eyes. Fear maybe. “Then you let it out and now they’re running amok.”
“That’s crazy,” Toto said, “I wouldn’t do somethin’ like that. You serious?”
Just then, the walkie talkie crackled to lie. “I got one,” a voice said. “I’m at the corner of Grove and Herbert. Jesus Christ, he’s eating somebody.”
Toto visibly gulped and Frankie’s face hardened. “So it’s true.”
The former capo tried to come up with a response but Frankie cut him off by opening the back door and getting in. “Let’s go.”
I got in next to him, and wordlessly, Toto started the engine and pulled away from the curb. We took a series of darkened side streets crammed with houses, parked cars, and fire hydrants, then turned onto Herbert. A hill sloped up to a park on our right, and dense trees pressed in from the right. Just as we pulled up to the corner, a loping thing darted through the headlights. Toto slammed on the brakes, jolting us. A moment later, Danny Carfora, all 300 pounds of him, stumbled into the street and sank to one knee. We got out and rushed over. The fat man’s face was slashed to ribbons and blood gushed down the front of his shirt. “Jesus fuck,” Frankie muttered.
Toto pulled a gun out of his waistband and ran after the thing while Frankie and I helped Danny to the car. “I’m okay, I’m okay,” the fat man said. He sat with his legs outside the door and caught his breath.
“What the fuck was that thing?”
Danny didn’t reply.
“I said what is it?”
Haltingly, Danny told us pretty much the same story Joey had. And like Joey, he knew nothing about it until the other day because of course he didn’t. A few minutes later, Toto came back out of breath. “I lost him.”
“You stupid motherfucker,” Frankie said.
And all of us - Toto especially - knew that Toto was in trouble.
***
At midnight, teams of Gambino soldiers fanned out across Queens and neighboring Brooklyn equipped with guns and walkie talkies. Frankie set up a command center at the bingo hall and directed operations from there on behalf of the boss, who had ordered the operation. “Find ‘em and get ‘em off the street,” the boss said simply.
I drove up and down residential streets with a soldier named Billy the Mobster. Yes, that was his nickname. And yes, we stopped trying a long time ago. Billy sat in the passenger seat with a hand held spotlight and a 9mm in his lap. He swept the light back and forth in search of the creatures. “I don’t see anything,” he said.
My mind went back to the brief glimpse I’d caught of the creature running through the headlights and a shiver went down my spine. I didn’t get a very good look at it, but it was twisted, stooped, and barely human.
Guys chattered on the radios, speaking in code. No one had seen anything.
Yet.
I was just about to turn a corner when Billy cried out, “There!”
I hit the brake and looked to my left just as something disappeared around the side of a house. Billy threw open his door and jumped out, and I followed. Behind the house, in darkness, we saw something ahead of us, a gray, ghastly face in hovering in the shadows, its eyes vacant and dead, its mouth open and drooling. It scuttered toward us and we both fell back. It emerged from the darkness, making grunts of hunger or excitement. It was gaunt and sunken, dressed only in the tattered remains of a pair of jeans. Its fingers were long, boney, and hooked into talons, nails long, yellow, and cracked. Its smell was rank, wild, enough to turn your stomach, and the noise it made as it smacked its lips made me shiver. “I’m the President,” it said in a low, hissing whisper.
Then it sprang at us with shocking speed. Arms out, mouth working, it grabbed me around the neck and opened its maw like a snake. Terror burst inside of me and I let out a cry of revulsion. I stumbled back, but kept my footing. I cocked my fist back and beat the thing in the face while Billy tried to pull it off me. Blood, snot, and slobber coated my hand but I kept pounding, lost in panic.
Finally, Billy pried it off and flung it away. It fell over a patio chair and got back to its feet. Billy raised the gun but before he could fire, the thing ran off. “Shit,” Billy hissed. Then: “C’mon!”
Back in the car, Billy radioed in while I shook and tried to reign in my racing heart. Frankie directed us to a nearby shopping center and told us to keep watch. Elsewhere, I found out later, one of our guys spotted one of the things hobbling down the street, hit the gas, and ran it over. He stopped and a couple of guys pulled it into the car. In Brooklyn, one bit one of our guys on the arm, and a few miles away, a Columbo pitching in to help out was killed when two of them rushed him in a park and ate his neck.
Billy and I sat in the parking lot for most of the night. At some point, I drifted off, and when I came to, Billy was gone. I sat up straight, worked out the kinks in my neck, and looked around. Where was he?
I opened the door and got out.
That’s when I heard it.
A soft, blood freezing moan. I swallowed and walked around the back of the car, Billy was stretched out dead, eyes open and tongue poking out of his mouth. Four of the things were kneeling over him, pulling out his guts and playing with them.My gorge rose and I gagged. The things looked up at me and one gave a sick, yellow tooth smile. “You want his balls, mister?” it asked.
Breaking, I ran back around the car and jumped in, slamming the door. In an instant, the things were all around me, pounding on the windows and trying to get in. I fumbled with the key and accidentally pulled it out of the ignition in my terror. The things rocked the car back and forth, hissing, spitting, laughing, and bleeding. I screamed into the radio for help just as the car rolled. Idk how they did it, they were supposed to be starving, but they did. I hit the ceiling and the walkie talkie skidded away.
In what felt like hours but couldn’t have been more than two minutes, I heard the squeal of tires, and headlights washed over the car. The things bolted, and I crawled out as a team of wiseguys ran by, giving chase. They managed to catch one of the things and hustled it back to the car. I wound up sitting next to it on the drive back to the bingo hall. Its hands were tied but it snapped its teeth at me, pissed and shit itself, and said a bunch of creepy shit about babies and ghosts.
When the sun rose, there were still four of the things loose in Queens. At the bingo hall, we tied the one we caught to a chair and gave it water. By noon, it had come back to earth and was a person again. She - it was a woman - told us it had been kidnapped by “some guy.” We showed her a picture of Toto and she instantly picked him out.
This was bad.
In Cosa nostra, there’s some shit you don’t do because it brings too much heat. Kidnapping, torturing, and experimenting on random civilians is one of those things. Those people could identify Toto. Once the cops found out about it, they’d bust him and come down hard on all of us to get even.
This was bad.
But it got worse. Around noon, one of the things stumbled into a police station, having come down from its days long high, and told the cops everything. We knew it was only a matter of time before Toto was linked to it all.
That day, Toto was summoned to a sitdown with Frankie and the family leadership. Toto had been around forever, he knew what was coming. To his credit, he came anyway. The sitdown was held in the basement of a house in Queens. Two guys led him down the stairs, and when they got to the bottom, the room was empty.
They strangled him. Two days later, Toto Arello’s body was found in the trunk of his Caddy, which had been abandoned at a gas station cast in the shadoew of the Brooklyn Bridge. A week later, they fished Joey Greene out of the East River, while Danny Carfora was found hanging from a meathook in an abandoned warehouse. Three other bodies turned up, one shot and dumped in a vacant lot, one bludgeoned in its bed, and the last slumped behind the wheel of its car. A few guys in Toto’s crew got away but none have ever turned up again. I don’t think the kidnappings were ever officially tied to Toto or not. I got busted for drugs a few weeks after all this went down and I’ve been on Rikers Island ever since.
Sometimes I dream about those things even today, and though I might be paranoid, I swear there’s at least one still out there.
Hungry.
Waiting.
Alive.