Honor Thy Father (15 page)

Bill returned the greeting and moved on, following in line up to the second floor, to the captain’s office, where cell assignments were announced. Bill was given a cell in the maximum-security section. He was escorted to it by a guard who was formal but not abrupt and who, after Bill had entered the cell, closed the steel door gently. The cell was more heavily fortified with steel than the others he had seen, and it was located in an isolated corner near a staircase. It was small, damp, and depressing, with a bunk in one corner and a toilet and tiny sink in the other. The cell next to it was unoccupied. The place was intensely quiet.

He stood for a few moments, but his feet without socks felt clammy in his shoes. He sat on the edge of the bunk. It was cold and he thought of covering himself with the bunk blanket but decided for no particular reason that he had better wait. It was probably 8:00
P.M.
He had not eaten since lunch and was hungry. Now he heard voices echoing in distant corridors along with the clanging metallic sounds of heavy doors opening and closing. He sat for what seemed like an hour thinking about where he was, almost doubting it, and wondering how Rosalie had taken the news that he was in jail. When he left the house in East Meadow in the morning, it was assumed that he would return by evening, a routine he had followed since he had begun appearing in court two months ago. Neither he nor Krieger had ever anticipated that he would be sent to jail without being able to post bond and to remain free pending appeal. Bill knew now that he could remain in prison until the expiration date of the grand jury in April 1966, more than a year away, unless he agreed to answer the questions about the phone calls. Although Krieger planned to file papers immediately with the United States Circuit Court of Appeals asking that bail be set, Bill was not optimistic. He felt that the government intended to press him hard now, and he expected no favors from the court.

After hearing the sound of approaching footsteps, Bill saw a guard peeking into his cell holding up a few magazines, newspapers, and a chocolate candy bar.

“Bill,” he said, “Harold would like you to have these.”

Bill did not reply. Harold? He was confused but did not want to show it. He also did not want to indicate that he knew who Harold was.

“Harold,” the guard went on, “you know—the one you saw when you came in.”

Bill recalled seeing one effeminate creature among the medical orderlies who had smiled at him, and he remembered the other uniformed prisoners, too, including the gregarious one in the corner cell who had seemed familiar. Then he suddenly remembered that this man
was
named Harold—Harold (Kayo) Konigsberg, the so-called king of the loan sharks. Bill had met him briefly a few years ago in New Jersey, and he also remembered reading in newspapers about Konigsberg as a privileged inmate in a Jersey prison in which guards were accused of allowing women into the cells for brief sexual interludes. Bill was amused and impressed that Konigsberg apparently still knew how to make the best of things behind bars, but he did not reveal any sign of recognition to the guard. He thanked him and accepted the magazines, newspapers, and candy, and he was relieved when the guard walked away.

Bill was now extremely suspicious of the special treatment he was receiving, and he certainly had no intention of eating the candy, although he craved it. If his father’s enemies wished to dispose of him in jail there was no easier method than poison. For all he knew, Konigsberg and the others who had been friendly, including the guards, might be involved in a contract with the commission. He remembered reading once how Gaspare Pisciotta, the alleged betrayor and assassin of Giuliano, died of poison in a Palermo jail in spite of the extraordinary precautions Pisciotta had taken. Pisciotta’s mother was permitted to bring him food, Pisciotta was allowed to make his own coffee in jail, and he also fed bits of everything to his pet sparrow before consuming it himself. Then one day Pisciotta complained to a prison doctor of chest trouble; vitamin concentrate was prescribed, and Pisciotta added a teaspoon of it to his coffee. Two minutes later he was on the ground writhing in pain, and within a half hour Pisciotta was dead.

Bill put the candy aside and sat reading the newspapers. There was no mention of him in these editions, the grand jury ceasing to be news at this point, although he was sure there would be a story in tomorrow’s editions about his imprisonment. Perhaps word of his refusal to talk would make points with his father’s captors, would perhaps contribute to his father’s well-being. Bill was anxious to see what effect, if any, his going to jail would have on the outside. If nothing positive resulted after a month or two, if he saw no reason for remaining behind bars and thought he could be more useful back in circulation, despite having to spend most of each weekday in court, he could inform the warden that he wanted to resume testifying before the grand jury. Judge Tenney had guaranteed his immediate release under these conditions.

In court Bill could tell the jury all about the phone calls, explaining the coinbox system his father had devised, relating the call from the stranger, the substance of his own call to Maloney—things he now considered too risky to discuss. If his father was still missing months from now he might decide that he had nothing to lose by talking. The whole telephone episode, after all, revealed nothing about his father’s whereabouts or the men who took him there. The government thought the calls were significant, but Bill knew they were not—in any case his decision about discussing them was something he could consider in the months ahead. Meanwhile he would remain in jail. He thought that jail was perhaps not such a bad place for him at this time. It offered him the luxury of not hiding, not running; he could relax for a while and think about his future. The only thing he had to worry about in jail was staying alive.

Bill Bonanno heard hissing sounds through the bars and looked up. He saw a skinny, nervous dark-eyed prisoner motioning toward him.

“You got any clothes?” the man asked in a whisper.

Bill shook his head, saying he had only the robe that he wore.

“Let me see what I can do,” the prisoner said, adding that his name was Joe and that he was a friend of one of the Bonanno organization’s bookmakers on the Lower East Side. Joe then disappeared quietly up the steps to the third floor.

Within a half hour, Joe returned carrying a freshly laundered T-shirt and pair of shorts, a blue denim shirt and trousers, and a pair of woolen socks. After Bill thanked him, Joe again disappeared upstairs.

Although the trousers and shirt were small, Bill managed to squeeze into them. His was curious not only about Joe but about the whole way of life in prison. There was obviously a small society and specal pecking order within this thick-walled world and he wanted to learn more about it, but he had to be careful, he reminded himself. He began to feel warmer and more comfortable in the clothes. Later he wrapped himself in the blanket and went easily to sleep.

A guard banging on the bars woke him up early the next morning. While other prisoners were escorted to a mess hall, he was confined to his cell where a breakfast tray was soon shoved through a slot in the door. It consisted of oatmeal, toast, and coffee. After he finished, he stood waiting, thinking that soon he would be led out for a shower and shave. He waited for a few hours but no one came. He had noticed that his toilet did not flush, the sink did not work, and he planned to mention this to the guard, but then he decided he had better wait until he understood more about the place before making complaints.

Most of the afternoon passed before a guard appeared. Under his arm the guard carried a folded sheet of paper, and, peeking into the cell, he said to Bill, almost confidentially, “Look, this is not a very good cell. I don’t think you’re too comfortable here. Why don’t you fill out this sheet—its called a ‘cop-out sheet’—and tell the warden you’d like something better…”

Bill looked at the guard, astonished. But the guard seemed sincere. Bill took the sheet, thanked him, and returned to his bunk, not even reading the paper. If he signed it he was sure it would somehow be used as evidence against him, would mark him as a chronic complainer on his first full day in jail, might even justify some special punishment they had in store for him. If he got out of this cell, he might be given something worse, if that were possible, might be placed in some special room designed to break him down or otherwise subject him to incriminating temptations. His imagination raced with dire possibilities. He waited until the guard had turned away and was gone, then he placed the “cop-out sheet” on a ledge next to the newspapers and the unopened candy bar.

The dinner tray that night contained food barely edible, although he admitted to himself that nothing would seem palatable while he was in his current state of mind. Later Joe reappeared outside the cell holding three hard-boiled eggs in a paper napkin. He handed them quickly to Bill, explaining that they had been smuggled from the commissary, then he was gone. Bill was sorry he had taken the eggs. If he ate them, he might die; if he did not, he might get caught with them by a guard and be charged with smuggling, or at least have to explain where he got them. Quickly he crushed the eggs into tiny pieces which he deposited into the toilet. He waited, but the guard did not come. He suspected that Joe might be a prison spy, having heard that such men are commonly found in jails, lessening their own term as they reported on fellow inmates. Bill also thought it possible that his cell was bugged, that some hidden camera might be focused on him, but he was almost accustomed to that feeling, and it did not bother him.

On the following day the guard returned with another “cop-out sheet.” Again Bill took it but did not sign it, and the same thing happened on the third day. There was no exchange of words or emotions between them, it was all impersonal, automatic—the guard shoved the form through the bars, Bill took it, said thank you, then placed it on the ledge with the other unsigned forms. But he was becoming increasingly uncomfortable now without having had a shower or a shave since his arrival, and he could not escape the odor of his own excrement and the smell of the eggs.

During the next morning, his fourth day in the cell, he was escorted to an outside bathroom and told to shave—his lawyer, Krieger, was waiting to speak to him in the warden’s outer office. Krieger had come to say that the legal papers were filed with the court of appeals but that the process would be slow. Krieger noticed that Bill seemed rumpled, unkempt, and he was shocked to hear that Bill had not been permitted to shower in four days and that the toilet was not functioning. Krieger wanted to report this immediately to Judge Tenney, but Bill begged him not to, saying it would only cause more trouble for him in jail. If Krieger insisted on doing something, Bill suggested that he might drop a hint to the warden but that under no circumstances was Krieger to convey the impression that Bill was complaining.

Three days later a guard came for Bill, led him out of the maximum-security cell and escorted him through a long corridor into a large cell in which there were a dozen or more bunks on each side and a number of prisoners standing around and talking. The place was brighter and obviously less restrictive; in the parlance of prison life, Bill Bonanno was now “in population.” Harold Konigsberg and Joe were not there but he recognized a few faces from the first day, and after the guard had gone the men introduced themselves and a few seemed very intelligent. At dinner time Bill accompanied them in line to the mess hall, sitting at one of the long tables and noticing that there were spoons and forks on the tables, but no knives. He also noticed that the salt and pepper was sprinkled on tiny pieces of paper in front of each plate; one prisoner explained to Bill that there had once been salt and pepper shakers but that all had been stolen.

When the prisoners were not eating or sleeping, they were kept busy at various tasks; and as Bill had suspected, the prison was in many ways run by the inmates. The chefs were prisoners, as were the bankers, plumbers, launderers, carpenters. The blue denim uniforms worn by the men—Bill had finally received clothes that fit him properly—were made by female prisoners in a women’s penitentiary. The library was staffed by prisoners, whose taste was dominated by escape literature—science fiction, mysteries, but sex novels were prohibited. Prisoners also were in charge of the movie projector—on evenings when films were allowed. Bill was often bored by the films that could be shown—light comedy, Doris Day, Lassie, Tarzan; no gangster films, no violent Westerns, nothing sexually suggestive. The magazines included
The Reader’s Digest
, trade publications dealing with automobiles and sports, comic books but not
Playboy
. It was apparently prison policy to try to curb masturbation by denying access to photographs of naked women, but Bill noticed that several advertisements evidently featuring young women had been torn out of the available magazines, possibly by guards, most likely by inmates. Homosexuals were obvious around the prison, but they tended to keep to themselves, being available if desired outside their circle although fearing the brutality that often accompanied the risk.

Bill’s first job, that of a painter in a crew assigned to wainscot the walls of several rooms and corridors, permitted him to move widely through the maze of prison life and to observe and overhear much of what was said and done. Although the guards were always nearby—sitting in the visitors’ room, standing with carbines on the rooftop enclosure when prisoners were permitted outdoors—Bill realized that the prisoners were nonetheless able, through skill and imagination, through begging, borrowing, stealing, and bartering, to achieve a degree of independence and to obtain certain commodities that were officially forbidden. For example, while it was against regulations to drink coffee in the cells or to drink whiskey anywhere in prison, certain inmates managed to do both by fashioning their own heating apparatus for instant coffee and by making their own whiskey from ingredients they smuggled in from the kitchen.