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There are a lot of people down in South Philadelphia looking for Frankie the Fixer.
And not all of them are suspected wiseguys arrested in the organized-crime case in which he is a witness.
A plumber by trade, The Fixer was also a gambler and a wannabe underworld tough guy.
Now he's the latest in a long line of mobsters and mob associates who have cut deals with investigators, strapped on body wires, and testified before grand juries.
A key informant in a Delaware County investigation, "Operation Delco Nostra," the burly 44-year-old hasn't been seen around the neighborhood in a month.
Most believe he's in protective custody, beyond the reach of bookmakers, loansharks, and angry customers who want their plumbing work done.
"People are coming in here all the time asking for him," said Joe DeSimone, one of the owners of Grumpy's Tavern in the 1500 block of South Ninth Street, where The Fixer - real name Frank DiGiacomo - used to hang out.
"Either he owes them money or they gave him a down payment on a job and he ran out on them."
The story of Frankie the Fixer is a contemporary chapter in the saga of the Philadelphia mob, which has proved again and again to be one of the most dysfunctional crime families in America.
According to authorities in the pending criminal case, DiGiacomo was a sometime enforcer who leaned on gambling customers when they were late with their payments.
That he had problems keeping up with his own loans and gambling debts adds a bit of underworld irony to the tale.
Late last year, when he was a target of an investigation, DiGiacomo began cooperating with state police.
He recorded dozens of conversations, including one in which his reputed boss, Louis "Bent Finger Lou" Monacello, plotted to kill a ranking South Philadelphia mob figure, and another in which Monacello and a lawyer coached him on how to lie to a grand jury.
DiGiacomo, who in the 1990s hung at a Passyunk Avenue coffee shop/clubhouse run by mob boss Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino, reported to Monacello, a South Philadelphia mob associate, authorities say.
Monacello, in turn, answers to jailed mob leader George Borgesi, a close Merlino ally.
Those connections make investigators more than a little interested in a flap between Monacello and Marty Angelina, a "made" member of the organization and the mobster Monacello allegedly threatened to kill.
DiGiacomo has provided most of the details, including some tape recordings.
First, authorities allege, Monacello said he wanted Angelina dead, but later decided he just wanted him "beaten so badly that he would have to be hospitalized."
Not surprisingly, the allegations and recorded comments have created criminal problems for Bent Finger Lou.
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