Donnie Brasco (54 page)
Authors: Joseph D. Pistone
Tags: #Biographies & Memoirs, #True Crime, #Organized Crime
There was no quick resolution to the sitdowns. I just had to stay cool and wait, for days, weeks.
Lefty came down to Holiday, and Rossi and I were driving him to Miami, where he needed to talk to some people.
“I wanna get rid of all the old men,” he says. “They can’t do us no good. They’re eighty years old. They don’t wanna be bothered. Sonny tells me to call them to come to fucking wakes. Leave these people alone. You can’t retire them. It’s no good. Because they lose their prestige. We’re stuck with them.”
Lefty had been made an acting captain by Sonny, and he was sizing things up in the family. I tried to pump him a little on personnel. “Jerry Chilli’s on the side with Caesar and them, right?”
“Both brothers are on the other side,” he says, meaning both Joe and Jerry Chilli.
“Who’s his skipper, who’s he with?”
“He’s with Sonny Red’s man, Trinny,” he says, indicating rival captains Alphonse “Sonny Red” Indelicato and Dominick “Big Trin” Trinchera. “One’s kicking back to Trinny a G-note a week. The other one is kicking back three grand. That’s why they got power, them two guys. Those brothers are making a ton of money. We ain’t making it because we gotta walk the chalk line. This is what we’re told.”
“Joey Massino still got the coffee trucks?”
“Yeah. Joe Massino’s got good men. They all love me. We grew up together and hung out together. He knows where the strength is.”
“Joey goes to visit Rusty, huh?”
“Oh, yeah, he’s
gotta
go see him. He doesn’t know what’s going on with Mirra. He can’t butt in. When Joe Massino goes up there in a couple of weeks, he’ll tell him.”
gotta
go see him. He doesn’t know what’s going on with Mirra. He can’t butt in. When Joe Massino goes up there in a couple of weeks, he’ll tell him.”
“Well, Sonny’s gonna do the right thing. I don’t think anybody’s gonna fuck over Sonny.”
He ranted for a while about Mirra.
I say, “Well, he’s not gonna go against you one on one, you know that.”
“Ain’t a fucking man in New York City would go up against me one on one, because I would do it cowboy-style, right on South Street, one block walking at each other. How many pistols you want? Two? Let’s walk up against each other. One of us got to fucking die, or both of us die. That’s what I would do. I wouldn’t give a fuck, and don’t forget it. I’ll stay with Sonny and show honor.”
“Well, Rusty knows that.”
“Hey, let me tell you something. We were fighting a war, the Bonnanos. Rusty’s my chauffeur. Because you know what kind of a fucking man I was, and he was the fucking
underboss.
And he had to listen to me while he was driving the car: ‘Rusty, cut over here ... leave my fucking window open.’ He was a good wheelman.”
underboss.
And he had to listen to me while he was driving the car: ‘Rusty, cut over here ... leave my fucking window open.’ He was a good wheelman.”
But Rusty was a tough boss, Lefty went on. During a war Rusty was in Canada, and he called Lefty and ordered him to come up. He didn’t even tell Lefty where he was, just where to go.
“I had four small kids. ‘Go pack a grip,’ he says. So I go pack a grip. Get on the fucking plane. Two pistols. Go to Canada, order a room. He says, ‘I’m gonna meet three guys on that corner. Don’t take your eyes off them. If anything happens to me, go all the way. Cops on the corner, blow them away.’
“Six fucking weeks he’s got me out there. You’re not allowed to make a phone call to your family. Good thing I had an ex-wife then who understood, never asked questions what happened to me or anything like that. Six fucking weeks. Now, I taught my new wife, Louise; ‘Look, anything happens, you don’t see me come in, don’t you yell for anybody—he just didn’t come home, you don’t know nothing.’ I says, ‘You wanna cry, it’s your fucking business. Don’t ask anybody on the corner where I’m at or question my sister. Just say, ’He didn’t come home—this is what my husband told me to say and these are his orders, and that’s it.‘ ”
“Rusty knows what we got down here, right?”
“Oh, yeah. He knows everything. That’s the trouble. They all know it.”
“Donnie, listen to me carefully,” Lefty says. It was Saturday night, April 11, and I had placed my regular call. “The car. Your friend’s car. Meet me in Fort Lauderdale tomorrow.”
“Why, what’s the matter?”
“Why don’t you just listen? Because I can cancel you out right now. I want you to come in alone. I don’t know what name I’m going under. I’m gonna come in with some people. Could you get that car?”
That was Rossi’s four-door Lincoln. “I guess so, why?”
“Donnie, don’t say, ‘I guess so, why?’ Just say yes and you meet me in Lauderdale.”
“Of course I can get it.”
“I could use Spaghetti. But my friend and I want you. I’m trying to get in touch with Nick, because we cannot go in cold. I gotta go into that hotel for one day, and then we’ll take it from there. Okay?”
“All right.” Nick was the manager at the Deauville Hotel, Lefty’s friend.
“That’s all, pal. I’ll explain everything. My friend requested you. You’re coming in with us. I got work to do. If you don’t like the idea, if you back out, fine, no problem. You go on back home. But I want to put you in on this, serious. Because we spoke about something, you and I, right?”
“I know what you’re talking about.”
“I got plane tickets, ten o‘clock. Delta flight 1051, first-class, from Kennedy. We’ll be there twelve-thirty tomorrow afternoon. You start coming in six hours before time. Drive in from Tampa with your big car. You pick us up at the airport. Don’t get there two hours before time. I don’t want you seen there. You time yourself, stay away from the airport until time, you follow me?”
“Yeah.”
“We just get in the car and we’re gone. Now, you satisfied? Because I tell you, if you wanna back away from it, no problem, you go back and there’s nothing said. I told you, two guys requested you, him and I. I’m taking full responsibility. He asked me if I wanted you. Okay?”
“All right.”
Years earlier, Lefty had promised that when the time was right, he’d take me along. Now I was being taken on a hit.
From various conversations over the last couple of weeks I had pieced together just how the feuding Bonanno family factions lined up, just how ominous the friction was between them. Aligned with Rusty Rastelli were Sally Farrugia, consiglieri Steve Cannone, captains Sonny Black and Joe Massino. Against Rusty were captains Caesar Bonventre, Philip “Philly Lucky” Giaccone, Dominick “Big Trin” Trinchera, and Alphonse “Sonny Red” Indelicato and his son, Anthony Bruno Indelicato.
Sonny, as usual, had been discreet about everything. And especially since the sitdowns about me were still going on, he wasn’t telling me anything. As close as we were, he was putting the family first, going by the rules. I probably would have been told more if I had been in New York. But everybody was being careful on the telephone. Lefty had been hinting at how everything was coming to a head, and had let me know that Sonny was the key to all the power, especially now that he had an alliance with Santo Trafficante. The opposing captains feared Sonny’s expanding power.
I faced two major problems. One was that as an agent, I couldn’t actually participate in a hit—in fact, it was our duty to prevent the hit if possible—yet as a badguy I couldn’t turn down the invitation without losing credibility.
The other problem was that I wasn’t at my apartment in Holiday, Florida. I wasn’t anywhere near Florida. I was home. I hadn’t been home for over a month. Over the years I had missed most of my children’s important days. On this weekend my youngest daughter was being confirmed. Everything was quiet on the job for the moment, so I snuck home for the weekend. This was Saturday night. The confirmation was tomorrow, Sunday. So was the hit in Florida.
First things first. I had to go on the hit. Technically, since I wasn’t a made guy, I could refuse and it wouldn’t be held against me. Realistically, though, it would undercut the credibility I had been working to establish since 1976. If I didn’t go, they would carry out the hit, anyway. I didn’t know who the target was. I figured it was one of the wiseguys in the opposition faction, probably one of the four captains, but I didn’t know who, so there was nobody the FBI could warn. And I didn’t know where or when. They might go right out on the hit, or they might hang around and case the situation, wait for a good opportunity. At least if I was along, maybe I could find out who the target was enough ahead of time so I could tip off our guys so they could snatch him off the street.
I called Case Agent Jim Kinne in Tampa. He agreed that the only thing we could do is put a surveillance team on me from the time I got to Miami. When I hook up with Lefty and his crew, if I can find out soon enough who they’re going to hit, maybe I can get to a phone. Or if I can’t find out right away, the surveillance team can tail us until the last possible minute, until I signal or something, and they can stop us on a traffic violation or some bullshit charge. They could say they recognize us as mob guys, ask us what we’re all doing down there together—apply a routine hassling that happens to these guys all the time. That way they probably wouldn’t suspect a tip-off, yet it might be enough of a disruption to cause them to call off the hit.
Kinne would hurry to set up the surveillance. I would catch the first flight to Miami. It was a very dicey situation. The surveillance team could get spotted or lose us. Everybody with Lefty would be given a gun, and I could be designated the triggerman. What if the surveillance team is out of it and we’re headed for the hit and I’m the hitter—what the hell will I do? I didn’t know of any precedents for this situation.
But long before, when I had imagined the possibility of this kind of situation, I had made a personal decision to cover it: Whatever the rules, if the target is a badguy and it’s him or me, he goes.
I called Rossi and laid out the situation. I would fly into Miami. He would drive the big car to Miami for me, then he would fly back to Tampa.
Now I had to tell my family that I would miss my daughter’s confirmation. We were going to have a houseful of relatives and friends. Relatives were flying in from all over. Not even my wife knew how deeply I was involved now in the turmoil within the Bonanno family.
First I told my wife. I said I got a phone call and I had to return to Florida immediately. I wasn’t going to give her details, because I didn’t want her to worry any more than she already did. But she had overheard me talking to Agent Kinne, and so she knew that the mob wanted me to kill somebody.
I told her that it was a very important thing I was involved in and that I had to go because somebody’s life might be at stake, and we were required to prevent a killing if we could. A lot of people were depending on me for this operation—it was the old story. Beyond that, all I could tell her was not to worry. I was never very good at talking about a thing like that at a time like that.
She was furious and scared. She yelled at me and cried. She hated the Bureau. How could I be put in this position? Who was going to be there to protect me? Why did I have to go, why not somebody else? Why not somebody who didn’t have a wife and children? She was shaking.
This was the lowest point since her accident.
My youngest daughter was now fourteen. I sat down with her and told her I couldn’t be at her confirmation because something had come up with my job and I had an obligation to do it and there was nothing I could do about it. She cried and said, “Daddy, I don’t want you to go because this is a special day for me.”
But then she said she was mad that I would leave her on a special day but that at least she had her grandfather there to stand in for her.
I had to leave for the airport right away. I really had no choice.
I flew to Miami and picked up the car from Rossi. I drove to the Fort Lauderdale Airport, arriving five minutes before the scheduled arrival of Lefty’s flight. Lefty’s flight came, people filed off. No Lefty, no nobody.
I called Sonny in Brooklyn. “What’s going on, Sonny? Nobody’s here.”
“We called it off.”
“What do you mean, called it off?”
“Look, call the other guy, he’ll explain it to you.”
“Where’s he?”
“He’s home, Donnie.”
I drove back to my apartment in Holiday. I needed the six hours to burn off my rage. My daughter’s confirmation had gone on without me, and the hit hadn’t gone on at all.
Then I called Lefty. He told me that he had gone to the airport and called back to Sonny as he was supposed to, and Sonny said it was canceled. “It was too late to call you,” he says, “because you were already on the way from Tampa.”
The hit was going to be on Philly Lucky. They called it off because he was down there by himself, and they decided they wanted to get three captains together, that it wasn’t smart to hit them one at a time.
“I’m sorry, pal,” Lefty says.
“That’s all right. What the hell, you couldn’t get in touch with me. Things like that happen.”
“I know. That’s it.”
“Well, if it would have went, it would have been good, right?”
“I can’t talk about it.”
“I’m just saying—”
“No, I can’t talk about that. If they’d have left it up to me, you know ...”
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