In the new book “Little Vic and the Great Mafia War,” former New York Daily News reporter Larry McShane delves into the 1990s gangland war that pitted infamous mobster Victor “Little Vic” Orena against Carmine “The Snake” Persico for control of the Colombo crime family, triggering one of the the bloodiest episodes in New York City history.It was a perfect Long Island evening, with the temperature in the mid-70s and the promise of another sweet suburban summer lying in the months ahead.Little Vic Orena walked into the warm night air on June 20, 1991, after sharing dinner with a friend inside Stella’s Restaurant, a popular spot among the local mafiosi.
He climbed inside his two-door Mercedes convertible and started the engine. A set of rosary beads hung from his rear view mirror, a gift from his deeply religious wife’s pilgrimage to the tiny village of Medjugorje in Bosnia and Herzegovina — a site where true believers first reported witnessing visions of the Virgin Mary a decade earlier.The sky above was clear, but the rising storm inside the Colombo crime family was once again poised to unleash a tsunami of trouble across its perpetually-divided membership.
Orena lit a cigarette with his solid gold lighter and popped his soundtrack from Broadway’s “The Phantom of the Opera” into the car’s tape player before heading out. As the mob veteran stopped at a red light near his two-story family home in Cedarhurst, Long Island, he turned his head to the right .
