April 16, 1984
Cesare Bonventre was a “Zip”, one of those native Sicilians brought over to America by Carmine “Lilo” Galante. In fact Bonventre was one of the bodyguards who’d been sitting with Galante on that hot day in June when his boss was splattered all over the sticky back patio of Joe and Mary’s restaurant in Brooklyn. Bonventre, along with Baldassare Amato, should have been looking out for Galante that day, even taking a bullet for the mob boss. Galante trusted his Zips when he wouldn’t trust anybody else. The truth is, though, there’s ample evidence to suggest that both Amato and Bonventre were in on the hit. Galante should have known—in the Mafia, there can be no trust.
The Zips probably got their name because of the fast way they spoke the Sicilian dialect, so fast that the American mafioso could hardly understand them—the words just zipped by. The term was not meant as a compliment. The North American mob did not like the Zips; they were too violent, too secretive and not trustworthy. The antipathy was mutual.
Cesare Bonventre was a high earner in the drug trade. No doubt learning a lot from Galante, he was heavily involved in heroin trafficking. A scheme called the Pizza Connection smuggled drugs into North America on a billion-dollar, international scale. Once the narcotics reached the United States, they would be passed through various pizza parlours, where the stuff could be distributed and money could be laundered—hence the name Pizza Connection.
By 1984, the FBI had begun to catch on to the Pizza Connection and were issuing indictments like Halloween candy. By this time, Bonventre also had other problems. He had drawn the ire of Bonanno family acting boss Joseph Massino, who viewed him as a threat. With two strikes against him—a possible pending trial and Massino—Bonventre could not be long for this world.
It happened on April 16, 1983. Bonventre had been picked up by Salvatore Vitale and Louis Attanasio for a meeting that was to take place at a glue factory, which boded ill. Once the group pulled up to the factory Attanasio unloaded two bullets into Bonventre’s head. It’s said that Bonventre was almost 6ft 9in in height (though this may be an exaggeration), and his nickname was “The Tall Guy”. Two bullets were not enough to fell him, and he made a grab for the steering wheel. When the car careened to a stop, Bonventre tried to drag himself across the factory floor in a bid for safety.
But the game was up, of course. Attanasio stood coolly over Bonventre’s struggling form and finished him off with two more shots to the head.