Business or Blood (25 page)

In the third week of November, Mickey Mouse finally resurfaced. He still wanted to meet with Desjardins, the man he had almost certainly tried to murder just two months earlier. Mickey's paranoia was feeding off itself and he talked again of bringing up guys from New York to bolster their ranks.

For his part, Desjardins continued his effort to make nice, as if he and Montagna were old friends bonded by common enemies. Desjardins warned him that he had just heard that Operation Whale would hit later that month. Perhaps they could meet to talk about it. There had been a leak about the list of names of targets in the raid. Leaks about upcoming police raids were commonplace when the targets were Hells Angels or the mob, with the result that the wanted men were often missing or had cleaned up their environs by the time police arrived. Oddly, Desjardins's reported list of warrants also contained the names of some honest people. He spoke with conviction as he called for a get-together and warned Montagna to be careful. Within a couple of days, Montagna seemed to believe the police operation was all about him.

The hunt for Mickey Mouse appeared to be almost over.

The wife of a Desjardins associate gave birth to a boy on the morning of November 24, 2011—American Thanksgiving Day. The baby came into the world around the time a video camera captured a white Ford F-150 pickup driven by Jack Simpson leaving Île Vaudry and heading north on Celine-Dion Boulevard. Around that same time, Sal Montagna seemed to be alone as his car entered the metro parking lot, his movements recorded by a security camera.

Moments later, Montagna walked into the lobby of the Hôtel Champlain and descended into the subway. It's unlikely he was afraid to meet up with seventy-one-year-old Simpson, who had no record of violence.

An hour later, a neighbour of Simpson's on Île Vaudry heard two shots in quick succession. Next came the sound of shattering glass. A stranger dashed down a slope, away from Simpson's house. The fleeing man slipped and disappeared from sight. Seconds later, he jumped back into view, frantically attempting to cross the narrow Assomption river. There was a splashing sound in the icy waters. Then nothing. Thirty or forty seconds later, another man, with glasses and backcombed salt-and-pepper hair, climbed into a white pickup truck. As a witness called 911, he saw the white four-door Ford F-150 pickup drive out of view on Celine-Dion Boulevard.

Neighbours ventured out to discover the soaked, bloodied body of a man lying face up in the snow on the riverbank. It looked like the same man who had leapt into the river minutes earlier. He had managed to cross the river, leaving blood in the snow on both banks.

At 10:10 a.m., police arrived to see the motionless body of Salvatore Montagna lying on the snowy shore. At 11:34, the acting boss of the Bonanno crime family was pronounced dead at Le Gardeur hospital.

As police analyzed the crime scene, a Montrealer flew to Toronto Island airport and went to a restaurant in Yorkville. There, he sat down with two members of the Commisso crime family. The lunch over, he returned to the airport and immediately flew home to Montreal.

Later that day, some of Desjardins's men finally had time to do something truly pleasant: visit the newborn baby in hospital.

One life had ended and another had just begun.

R
aynald Desjardins couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched. Again. Were those Italians that his wife saw in a navy blue Explorer near his home? What about that suspicious-looking man wearing a cap in a grey Mitsubishi? It was hard to sneak up on Desjardins at home, as the front of his house faced the river, with little room to park, and the back of his home was carved out of stone, with no yard. Still, the failed attack by the hit man on the Sea-Doo reminded the Montreal mobster that there was always room for improvement when it came to home security.

There was talk in Desjardins's circle about how Montagna had met with some relatives of Paolo Violi in Toronto along with “Turkey,” the nickname for Moreno Gallo. They weren't worried about revenge for Montagna's murder, though. Neither the Violis nor Gallo were likely to care enough to avenge his death. Gallo likely had his own security concerns, as police notified him shortly after the murder that they thought his life was also in danger.

Meanwhile, Mirarchi stressed when he thought of the well-being of his son and daughter. If something happened to him, hopefully it wouldn't be at a time when his family was present. The rest he could take.

By midday November 26, 2011, RCMP officers were eyeballing a suburban townhome on Queensbury Drive on the outskirts of Ottawa,
which served as Jack Simpson's hideout. Inside, grey-haired Simpson grew more restless by the hour. Just hanging out in Ottawa's colourless suburbs felt like a near-death experience. Perhaps he could rent a motel room with a weekly rate in Montreal. He could return by bus. Maybe they would give him a phone and another to his girlfriend so they could at least talk.

There had been a seventeen-piece brass band and twenty-three cars laden with flowers for the funeral of Vic (The Egg) Cotroni. At the funeral of the Egg's younger brother, Frank (The Big Guy) Cotroni, a white dove was released for each of the seventy years of his life. Matters of ceremony were far more restrained when it came time to put Salvatore Montagna into the cold ground of a country where he was born but never really accepted.

Just six dozen people showed up on November 27, 2011, for his funeral service at Notre Dame de Pompei church on Sauvé Street East, near Saint-Michel Boulevard. That paled against the hundreds of mourners at the recent funerals of Nicolò and Agostino Cuntrera. There were only female members of the Arcuri family paying their respects. Domenico Arcuri Sr. had introduced Montagna to members of the Montreal underworld, but now he was too fearful for his security to see him off. Just two limousines carried wreaths of flowers for the New Yorker. The most notable arrangement was from Montagna's daughters, which read:
we will never forget you
.

The day after Montagna's funeral, Jack Simpson still couldn't overcome his overpowering sense of restlessness in Ottawa. Crashing down from the adrenalin rush of Montreal's
milieu
to being housebound in the staid nation's capital in the dead of winter was a shock. His boredom ended that day when officers arrived at his door with a warrant for his arrest on parole violation, as he wasn't supposed to leave the province of Quebec without permission. His explanation that he was job hunting didn't impress anyone, and he was ordered to drop to the floor and was handcuffed. On a coffee table, in plain view, was his BlackBerry. There was a bundle of hundred-dollar bills in a bag on his bed, adding up to ten thousand dollars.

Fear seeped into the Desjardins group until it was all-consuming. Would police come calling for them next? Could there be a rat in their group? They heard on November 30, 2011, of the arrest of someone in their circle nicknamed “Moe.” Moe was close to Simpson. Was there a connection between the two arrests? Next came word that someone had been shot, but the identity of the victim was unclear.

With the new boss of the Bonanno crime family lying dead in a cold Canadian grave, the silence from the organization's power base spoke volumes. Montagna had boasted of the dozens of New York mobsters who would rally to his side. Racked by informers and arrests, the onceproud Bonanno family was in no position to mete out vengeance or even to divine what had just happened north of the border.

Montagna's assassination left plenty of mobsters in Montreal nervously wondering: what happens to Montagna's allies now that he's dead? Antonio (Tony Suzuki) Pietrantonio got his answer when a gunman opened fire on him on December 13, 2011, outside a Jarry Street East grill, just south of the Métropolitain expressway. Pietrantonio survived, despite serious injuries. The would-be assassin's getaway car was found blocks away, near the corner of Jacques-Casault and Joseph-Quintal streets. As Tony Suzuki recovered, there would be plenty of time for his would-be killers to reload.

Within hours, Sergeant Benoit Dubé and Detective Sergeant Martin Robert of the Sûreté du Québec drove back to Desjardins's Laval home in an attempt to talk about the failed hit on Tony Suzuki. Police asked if he had received any threats and Desjardins replied that all was well and he didn't need a thing.

That afternoon, the detectives drove out to Tony Suzuki's home on pine-tree-lined Des Ancêtres Street in Sainte-Adèle, to discuss the attempt on his life. They didn't get closer to him than his outdoor intercom. They asked if he had received any threats. He replied that all was going well and he too didn't need a thing.

Jonathan Mignacca had been free on bail since November 16, 2011, but his conditions included one against him going into Laval, except for
court appearances or to see his lawyer. He specifically was not allowed to associate with Raynald Desjardins. That wasn't much good if he was supposed to be the mobster's bodyguard. On December 28, 2011, an old blue four-door Volkswagen sat parked in front of Desjardins's Laval home. It might be nothing. In happy times, gangsters cruise the streets in Escalades and BMWs. When they're trying to sneak about, they turn to Fusions and Volkswagens.

Jack Simpson was already behind bars in Kingston Penitentiary on December 20, 2011, when he was charged with first-degree murder for the death of Salvatore Montagna. Also that day, the Sûreté du Québec arrested Vittorio Mirarchi and seized his BlackBerry. Calogero Milioto was also charged that day with the murder of Montagna and possession of firearms. His BlackBerry Curve was seized from a coat pocket.

The SQ executed a search warrant in the Anjou apartment of twenty-seven-year-old Felice (Pony) Racaniello, where they found the construction worker's chrome and black BlackBerry 9300 in a kitchen wine rack. A BlackBerry model 9800 was found in a pocket of Racaniello's coat and it was confiscated as well.

The SQ arrested and charged Desjardins without incident at his office at 10310 Secant Street, and seized a BlackBerry and an iPad. Mirarchi, who up to this point had enjoyed a low public profile and had no criminal record, was hit with the same first-degree-murder charge as his mentor. Forty-year-old Calogero Milioto and fifty-nine-year-old Pietro Magistrale were arrested on weapons charges as police unearthed a small arsenal of rifles and handguns.

In total, some two hundred officers from the SQ, the RCMP and the municipal forces of Montreal, Longueuil and Laval executed sixteen search warrants on December 20, scooping up pistols, bulletproof vests, large sums of money and several more BlackBerrys. The Desjardins crew could only hope their devices' message security was as good as the company's reputation.

Desjardins stopped and looked towards the waiting news
cameras as he stepped out of the prisoners' van. Officers on the rooftop with military-level rifles scanned the assembled journalists as he waved to someone in the group. In some quarters, the native-born Quebecker was now considered to be Quebec's most important organized crime player, and he looked every inch the part. He appeared confident and solid, like someone who felt in control, even if he was getting out of a police van in shackles to face a murder beef. It was much like the V-for-victory pose Mom Boucher of the Hells Angels had struck for press cameras after he had been initially acquitted on two murder charges. If the media had to take their photos and video, Vito's former sidekick wasn't going to blink in front of the cameras.

M
oreno Gallo liked to describe himself as a family man and a Little Italy baker who gave back to the community. That was accurate as far as it went, but hardly a complete description. The Canada Border Services Agency was less charitable, calling him someone with an “active implication in organized crime.” Authorities also noted that he was vulnerable for deportation. Gallo had lived in Canada since 1954, when he arrived from Calabria at age nine to join his father. He had never bothered to take out citizenship, and that came back to bite him hard in the winter of 2012, when he was a sixty-six-year-old man.

For a time, the wealthy baker protested his innocence through lawyers and fought the deportation to Italy. “I was nine when I arrived in Canada,” he told court through his lawyer. “I have no recollection of Italy.” He suddenly reversed course in late January 2012, agreeing to leave of his own accord. He sold his $1.2-million home in Laval, on the shore of the Rivière des Prairies, apparently deciding that life outside Canada was preferable to a possible burial in Montreal. “He understood that if he had stayed here, he would have been vulnerable,” his lawyer, Stephen Fineberg, told reporters. “He chose to live in total freedom overseas.” Gallo might once have been considered a mediator in the underworld, but these were tough times for peacemakers. The
underworld was split into Vito's friends and Vito's enemies, with no safe ground in between.