The Missing Masciandaro

I am trying to find a man called Alfonzo Masciandaro. Mr Masciandaro is deaf in one ear because he was shot in the head when he was fighting in the Korean War. The Chinese-fired bullet hit him in the head and he lost his hearing, but some came back. Then Mr Masciandaro became an elevator inspector. One night, when he was high up in a building looking at lift machinery, Masciandaro lost his footing and fell, breaking his ribs on a beam. The night caretaker found him and carried him all the way down, the caretaker was 72.

Alfonzo Masciandaro is 75 or 76. He went to jail for three years because he was a corrupt. In 1996, when 45 other elevator inspectors were suspended from their jobs for taking bribes, they all pleaded guilty. Not Masciandaro. He went to trial, and he went to prison for longer than anybody else.

Alfonzo has taken his name out of the phonebook, so has his wife, who I believe is called Phyllis. But there are only 10 or so other Masciandaro’s in New York State, so last night I called them, one by one.

Masciandaro’s, let me tell you if you didn’t already know, are good people, with the possible exception of Alfonzo, but even that’s up for grabs. In writing this story I have had to call many people at their homes, out of the proverbial, normally at around 6 or 7 in the evening. Many dismiss me as a salesman, “Hello,” I say, English accent front and centre, “No thank you” they say, sharply, and hang up. I normally ring back and squeeze out, “I’m not trying to sell anything,” sometimes that gives me another thirty seconds, though one woman the other day just sounded even more determined to get rid of me, “NO THANK YOU!” She fairly bawled.

The Masciandaro’s will not do this to you. “I hope you can help me,” was my opening line this time around, and it got me in the door every time. “I am looking for a man called Alfonzo Masciandaro,” I said. And they replied, nearly all very perkily, “You got a Masciandaro, but not Alfonzo” or some such. Then they normally asked me who I was and who he was, showing an interest in the name, before offering the Masciandaro’s they do know, “Well I know Victor, did you talk to Victor? And then there’s Chiara, and did you talk to my father? He’s in Yonkers.” I did, I spoke to Joseph Jr's father, Joseph Sr. Intriguingly, one of the Masciandaro’s used to be a detective in the city, and had seen Alfonzo's signature on an elevator inspection certificate and had “always wondered about that guy…” He suggested I try and find Alfonzo’s probation officer, a good tip. Joseph Sr., the father of Joseph Jr., with little prompting told me about his first day at Fordham University, when they read out the names of the rooms and room-mates. “They said the name Ron Masciandaro and I thought they must have made a mistake, it’s not a common name, so I went up, and there was another guy, another Masciandaro.” I spoke to Ron as well.

So all the Masciandaro’s were charming, and many of them knew each other, and knew about each other. But apart from the oblique memory of Alfonzo’s signature on an inspection card, there was nothing to get me closer to the lost sheep, the missing Masciandaro.