Joseph Valachi was a gangster who worked for various crime bosses in the Mafia during the mid-20th Century. He handled mostly low-level criminal activity such as numbers rackets and gambling.
Valachi was eventually arrested for dealing heroin, along with his crime boss at the time, Vito Genovese. At one point during a argument in the cell they shared with four other mobsters, Genovese grabbed Valachi and kissed him on the cheek.
That action, in Mafia terms, is called “the kiss of death,” and indicates that a contract has been established for the death of the person kissed. I don’t know if the symbolism is deliberate, but it harkens back the image of Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane, identifying Jesus to the Temple guards by kissing him.
Valachi realized he was marked for death by anyone who wanted to collect the money for killing him. The contract on Valachi was $100,000 — quite a lot of money in the early 1960s.
Valachi had known about 50 millionaires in his mob family before going to prison. At a time when the average yearly salary was $8,000, minimum wage was $1 an hour, gasoline was 32 cents per gallon, and a new house cost $15,000, the country didn’t have that many millionaires. Having 50 in your close circle of acquaintances said a lot.
The money and connections no longer were of any use to Valachi. He realized he was about to be killed by his own boss. He had to find a way out of his predicament. He had himself put in solitary confinement, but nearly starved because he refused to eat, since he thought his food might be poisoned. When released from solitary confinement, he killed another prisoner, mistaking him for one of the contract killers out to get him.
Eventually Valachi decided on a way to forestall the inevitable. He contacted the FBI and traded what he had for protection. He testified before Congress in 1963 about the actions of his crime family, especially Vito Genovese. He explained the procedures for induction into the Cosa Nostra, “this thing of ours,” which is the real term for the Mafia. He ripped open the veil of secrecy that until then had hidden the existence of the Mafia from the eyes of law enforcement agencies.
His shrewdness in using what he had to gain his own safety let him outlive Vito Genovese in prison and finally die of natural causes in 1971.
This murdering hoodlum used all his available resources wisely to protect his physical life, and he showed more determination in his effort than we Christians show in our focus on our spiritual salvation.