When Jim Hunt and Tommy Geisel finished with Angelo, they discussed what they heard on their way back home. They believed they were onto something. Both Jim and Tommy, however, were naturally skeptical. Often street people embellished and exaggerated to such a degree that they were living in a fantasyland. But there was something about what this Angelo character said about Pitera that not only had the ring of truth but had an innate sense of dread, a sense of foreboding about it. Whether or not that was all in his own head or was reality, they’d soon find out.
The following day, Jim and Tommy reported to DEA headquarters on Fifty-seventh Street. They repeated what they had learned to their boss Ken Feldman and their colleagues in Group 33. Everyone agreed it was certainly worth pursuing and pursuing in a large, serious way. They ran a search for Pitera’s file and checked his record. Interestingly, he had no police record, but they found out he was a highly trained black belt in karate who had studied martial arts in Japan for some two and a half years. He was also known to hang out with members of the Bonanno crime family.
When Tommy and Jim next went to meet Angelo in Brooklyn’s Gravesend, they were not alone. They had backup with them. Excited by the prospect, by the potential enormity of this case, they made their way to Brooklyn via its Belt Parkway. They went under the grand expanse of the Verrazano Bridge, the Narrows Straits on their right, Bensonhurst on their left. They got off at the Cropsey Avenue/Coney Island exit, took a left, and made their way into Gravesend. There were two vehicles: the one that Tommy and Jim were in and a van with four other agents. They were each heavily armed. Never knowing what they would face, they were on guard. Even if a small part of what Angelo said about Pitera was true, this could very well turn into a dangerous situation. They all realized you never knew what you were walking into. What seemed like an innocuous situation could turn deadly at a moment’s notice.
More than anything else, Pitera’s association with the Bonannos caught and held their interest in a huge way. This could very well be the chink in the armor of the Bonanno family that they, the DEA, had been looking for; this might very well bring down the whole family if they could get the goods on Pitera; if they could turn Pitera and make him spill the beans…tell all he knew. It stood to reason that if Bonanno underlings were selling drugs, everyone in the family from the boss on down not only knew about it but had given their blessings, their advice, their protection. In other words, it was not two or ten or several dozen members of the Bonanno crime family hustling drugs. What was happening here, the reality of what was going on, was that the whole family was a well-lubricated machine whose by-product was a huge amount of heroin and cocaine. Jim and Tom well knew that the pipeline that Carmine Galante had constructed at the behest of Joseph Bonanno in the 1950s was still running.
They met Angelo in the basement of his house on West Eighth Street. It was unkempt, dirty—a mess. It didn’t take long for Judy Haimowitz to show up. She was short and overweight and had a full head of hair that went every which way at once. Angelo introduced her to the agents. She was nervous. It was immediately apparent to Jim and Tom that she was not a professional, hardcore dealer as such, that, more than likely, she was somebody who got caught up in drugs because of her abuse of drugs, the world of drugs…the milieu of drug abuse. Without speaking to one another, Jim and Tom knew that their job would be to relax her and set her up, use her to get bigger fish. They sat down. Pleasantries were exchanged.
“I’ve got the stuff,” Judy offered before going to her pocketbook. She riffled through her bag, and as she fumbled for the heroin, a gun suddenly fell out of her pocketbook. The gun hit the ground. It was a .25 automatic. Tommy and Jim and Angelo looked at one another. This was more comical than dangerous, the agents thought.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Judy said before picking up the auto and putting it back in her bag.
“Don’t worry,” Angelo put in. “She’s good people. Frank Gangi is her boyfriend. Real stand-up guy.”
Glad the gun was away, they all laughed somewhat nervously. Judy handed the heroin to Jim. He looked at it with great intensity, as though he was an expert geologist studying an uncut diamond.
“Looks real good,” he said. Judy Haimowitz was paid. Though she was a small player in a life-and-death game, because of Agents Hunt and Geisel, she would, ultimately, play a significant role in the story of Tommy Pitera.
They now discussed Jim and Tommy meeting Pitera; it was Pitera they wanted. Angelo explained to them that Pitera was paranoid, suspicious, very wary of meeting strangers. He was very fond of saying—Angelo said—“If I don’t know the cunt they came out of, I don’t want to know them.” Still, Angelo said, he’d do what he could to set up a meeting between Pitera and Jim and Tom.
The deed done, Jim and Tommy made for the sidewalk, walking along a driveway that separated Angelo’s place from the house next door. It was quiet, the night clear, stars shining in the black sky. The smell of Italian cooking, tomato sauce and basil and garlic, wafted seductively through the air. As they reached the sidewalk, they ran into a tall, dark-haired, attractive woman.
“Is Judy inside?” she asked the agents.
“Yeah, she is,” Jim said.
She thanked them, smiled, and walked toward the house. She had, Jim was sure, a Canadian accent.
One way or another, Jim and Tom thought, they would manage to get the goods on Pitera—if possible, get him holding drugs. At that point, they had no idea just how cagey and cunning, treacherous Pitera was. They headed back to DEA headquarters, where they handed in the dope they had bought, which would be tested for content and purity. As it happened, it was particularly good heroin, with a 20 percent cut on it.
They already had Judy Haimowitz. She had sold them both drugs. They had each seen her carrying a gun. However, rather than bust her now, they would diligently and slowly work her.
The game was afoot.
Later that evening, Judy Haimowitz went to the Just Us Bar, where she found Frank Gangi. Gangi was a tall, thin, muscular man with particularly broad shoulders. His hair was thick and jet-black. Judy told him about the sale and the two guys from the Bronx she met. She then told Gangi that Angelo had used his name, said his name to these two guys—that he, Gangi, was a stand-up guy.
This was bad form, Gangi knew. You don’t go throwing around people’s names. He immediately called Angelo and told him to come to the bar. When Angelo arrived there, Gangi berated him for using his name and suddenly gave him a hard smack across the face.
“Don’t ever fucking use my fucking name, you understand, you little fuck?”
Angelo was not only hurt by the slap but angered and incensed and embarrassed. He was soon heard telling people that he was going to go get a bat and break Frank Gangi’s head open. Angelo Favara was all about bluster and hot air; he was not a tough guy. He was a drug abuser who got caught up in the world of drugs. They, Jim and Tom, would use him, make him a stepping-stone.