17

PRINCE STREET

In the Luchese world, the air of sour suspicion that hung over every order from the fugitive bosses only grew thicker. Chiodo hadn’t yet defected, but the assumption was that he would talk.

A few days after the failed attack, Anthony Calagna, the Teamster leader who had brought the family a fortune in payoffs from its airport extortions, showed up in Little Italy. He had his last package of payoffs to give to Al. He was due to surrender to begin serving a sentence for labor racketeering. He met Al at La Donna Rosa and they walked over to Kenmare Street. His envelope, thicker than usual, contained $25,000.

“Big Anthony had gotten pinched and he was headed to the can. I took $5,000 out and gave it to him. I said, ‘Here, you’re going away. Leave this for your wife.’”

As far as Al was concerned, it was standard mob etiquette. “If a guy’s going away or he’s just coming out, no matter what crew he’s with, if you’re doing good, you’re supposed to help out. You run into him on the street, you take every dime you’ve got in your pocket and give it to him. Wish him luck.”

When Al reported it to Casso, the underboss was furious. “You gave away our money?” he shouted. “You got no right to do that!”

Al felt his blood rise. He usually listened in silence to Casso’s rants. “I was hot as a pistol. I said, ‘Get the fuck outta here. Yeah, I gave him five thousand to give his wife. I got twenty thousand for you. The guy’s going to the can. He didn’t rat on you. He could’ve gone to the can and kept the twenty-five.’”

After Al raised his voice, Casso dropped it. But he could hear him smoldering at the other end of the line.

*   *   *

Money was now a steady source of discontent for the bosses. He had been told in no uncertain terms by both Amuso and Casso that he should pass George Kalaitzis as much money as needed for his investments, both in construction and for the gambling games he ran in the heavily Greek section of Astoria in Queens. “They said George is a good earner. Give him what he needs.” That went especially for Casso’s Mill Basin palace, a steady drain on the family’s finances.

But the bosses did an abrupt about-face in the weeks after the Chiodo debacle. “Patty Testa comes to see me talking about how much I had given George the Greek. He says, ‘Vic doesn’t like people using his money.’”

The comment caught Al by surprise, especially coming from Testa, who usually only relayed information about meetings. “Pat, don’t discuss Vic and money with me,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about that with you.”

But Amuso told him the same thing in a phone conversation. “Give the money to Patty,” he instructed.

Casso also questioned the accounts. He demanded a detailed list of all the money disbursed to Kalaitzis. Al laboriously copied it out by hand. It came to $680,000 since January. More than $230,000 had gone for the Mill Basin house alone.

The underboss demanded a similar balance sheet of expenses and revenue from the family’s construction interests. Most of it was collected by Dom Truscello, who had taken over the Prince Street crew from Joe Beck DiPalermo after the habitual drug dealer was targeted in yet another narcotics case. The construction payments were a complex web of splits with other crime families who shared in the shakedowns.

Gaspipe scrutinized every figure. “Why’d you take a split here?” he asked, citing a $25,000 payoff from a Long Island contractor. A $300 payment that Truscello had kept was also challenged.

Al told him that had been the agreement. “If you want the money, we’ll give it to you,” he said. Casso said that would be a good idea.

Al thought about how things had changed. Before, discussion about the family’s earnings had been the kind of detailed analysis any executive would expect. Now, every question carried a strong undercurrent of distrust.

*   *   *

John D’Arco got married that June. The wedding ceremony took place at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral on Mott Street. Al had been a steady supporter of the church. When the boiler broke, he had donated $25,000 for a new one. He attended the ceremony but stayed in Little Italy as the wedding party drove off for the reception at a deluxe Bronx catering hall, Marina Del Rey, overlooking Long Island Sound.

He didn’t want to take a chance at a parole violation. Even though John had nothing to do with the mob life, members of his own crime family and representatives of the others would be in attendance, making generous wedding gifts. It was a tribute befitting the son of an acting boss.

He had noticed the agents parked on the block near his restaurant. They were hard to miss. One of them drove an olive-green Chevrolet with a maroon stripe. “He was pretty much on me all the time. I couldn’t trust those guys. I figured, what’s the sense of getting violated?” So now he was skipping his own son’s wedding reception.

*   *   *

In early July, the bosses called for a meeting. Al got his initial marching orders while answering the pay phone on Glen Cove Road. Casso told him to meet Sal Avellino and Anthony Baratta at seven thirty in the evening at the cannon, the little park by the Verrazano Bridge where Gaspipe had teared up saying good-bye.

He was to get a car that couldn’t be traced. He’d pick up Avellino and Baratta and take them to the parking lot at the golf driving range and batting cages on Flatbush Avenue near the Belt Parkway. Someone would meet them there.

A few hours later, Casso’s personal messenger, George Zappola, showed up to tell him all over again. “I know, Georgie,” he said wearily. “He told me.”

The three men pulled up to the driving range around 8 p.m. It was across from Floyd Bennett Field, where Al had fallen in love with airplanes as a little boy. They didn’t see anyone, so Al drove to the back of the large parking lot. A black Jeep with tinted windows was there with its motor running. Frank Lastorino was behind the wheel, grinning at them. “We left our car and went and got in with Frankie. I sat up front and Sallie Avellino and Baratta got in the back.”

Lastorino drove through the streets for half an hour, making sure they didn’t have a tail. “We went up and down the Belt Parkway, dry-cleaning ourselves. Then he heads over the Verrazano.” In Staten Island, Lastorino stopped on a side street and turned off his lights. Al had no idea where they were. They sat silently on the dark street. A dog began to bark. They drove on.

They paused on another block, waiting to see if any cars stopped behind them. After a few minutes, Lastorino restarted the engine. He drove to a nearby house. It was behind a driveway blocked by an electric gate. The gate slid back as they approached.

Richie the Toupe Pagliarulo opened the door. They walked into a living room. Amuso and Casso were there. They had shaved off their beards. It didn’t make them look any less like hunted men, Al thought. Amuso was glowering. “I says, ‘Hey, it’s good to see you.’ He was just stony like.”

Al sat down on a long sofa, Avellino and Baratta beside him. Amuso and Casso sat facing them, a coffee table in between. Lastorino sat off to the side.

“Vic was scowling. He says right away, ‘There are no more acting positions. Steve Crea is no longer acting consigliere. Dom Truscello is not a captain anymore.”

Al was bewildered. They had made him acting boss just six months earlier. He had handed over every payment, carried out every assignment, no matter how distasteful.

He watched as Casso pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. Al could see he had some kind of list. Pen in hand, he started reading. Instead of an acting boss, underboss, and consigliere, they would now be part of a four-man panel. It would be Al, Baratta, Avellino, and Frank Lastorino. They were to meet every Tuesday to go over business.

Al looked at Amuso. “Vic wouldn’t look at me. He’s looking away.”

Casso had more to say. Al would no longer have responsibility for the airports, he said. That would go to Sal Avellino, who would be assisted by Patty Dellorusso, the former Teamsters leader and a member of Al’s crew. Lastorino would handle the gas tax schemes with the Russians. Baratta, a close friend of Sidney Lieberman, got the garment center.

Baratta seemed to like what he was hearing. He broke in to suggest that maybe it made sense to take Dellorusso out of Al’s crew altogether and put him with Avellino.

Al was fuming. Taking someone from his crew, especially an efficient soldier like Dellorusso, would badly sap his strength. “No way,” he barked. Everyone looked at him. Amuso was still staring into the distance.

Gaspipe eased the moment. “No, he’ll stay with Al,” he said. “He’ll just do the airport with Sallie.”

Casso stood up. There was coffee and food upstairs, he said. Al walked over to Amuso. “Vic, I want to talk to you,” he said.

The boss shook his head. “I got to get someplace,” he said. “I ain’t got time now.” Al stood there. “Vic,” he repeated. “I need to talk.”

Casso was watching them. “Go ahead,” he told Amuso. “Talk to him.”

They went into a bedroom. “Vic, what’s up?” Al began. He was thinking about what Patty Testa had said, how Vic didn’t like people using his money. “Let me tell you something,” he said. “I don’t know what it is, but I never took a dime of your money. Never touched a dime.”

Amuso didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he began talking about the Prince Street crew. “I should never have listened to you about Dom. I should have left Joe Beck there.”

Al was stunned to hear Vic accusing him. The move a few months earlier to pull DiPalermo down and replace him with Dom Truscello had been Amuso and Casso’s idea, although Al had supported it. The eighty-four-year-old mobster was wanted in his latest narcotics case. There was no way he could run the crew.

The problem, Al was thinking, had to be the messengers. Testa and Zappola were spinning everything. “Vic, I don’t think you’re getting the right messages. It’s all getting twisted,” he said.

Amuso seemed increasingly uncomfortable. He still hadn’t looked at Al. “I got to go,” he said. He turned and walked out of the bedroom.

In the kitchen, the rest of the family’s officials were dining on cold cuts. Al noticed George Zappola was there. He wondered if he’d been hiding inside the house when they arrived.

“Hello, Al,” Zappola greeted him.

“Yeah, hello,” Al muttered.

As they ate, Casso wondered aloud what Patty Dellorusso’s cut from the airport money should be.

Al said that Anthony Calagna had received 25 percent. “We’ll make it twelve and a half,” said Gaspipe.

Amuso stood up. “We got to get out of here,” he said.

Downstairs, Casso walked over to Al. He nudged him with his elbow. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “We’ll talk to you in a month, a month and a half.”

Al watched them leave. “I was in the street a lot of years. I knew what that month and a half meant.” It was just the beginning, he thought. They were taking things away, one by one. Just like they’d done to Pete Chiodo. Like they’d done to Mike Salerno. And Michael Pappadio.

*   *   *

It started even sooner than he’d expected. A week later, Al was home on a Sunday when he got a page from Patty Testa. He was at Prince and Mott Streets. “I’ll come up and meet you,” Al said.

Testa was standing on the corner when he got there. “I hate to bring you bad news, Al,” Testa said. Al raised his eyebrows, waiting. “They’re transferring Patty over to Bowat,” he said. “You’ve got to tell him.”

“What?” yelled Al. It was something he never did on the street. Testa tried to calm him down. “Look, Al—” he began.

Al wouldn’t listen. He turned and started walking away. Testa followed. “All right,” Al said over his shoulder. “I’ll do it tomorrow. Just get away from me right now.”

Al was sure the bosses were needling him by the move. He had told Amuso what he thought about Baratta when he’d been made acting boss.

Still, he bit the bullet. He arranged to meet Baratta and Dellorusso the following afternoon on First Avenue near Bellevue Hospital. Bowat arrived in a small black sports car. He had Frank Lastorino with him. He probably heard about me popping my cork yesterday, Al thought.

He made a formal introduction. “Pat, this is your new captain,” Al said, gesturing to Baratta. Dellorusso seemed confused.

“Hey, congratulations,” Al added. “Now you’ll be able to wine and dine in all those fancy uptown places this guy goes to.”

Within weeks, the bosses had removed three more crew members from his authority. Pat Masselli, who had worked at the Matamoras dump, was reassigned. Frank Lagano and Anthony “Curly” Russo, whom Al had known for decades, were shifted to Sal Avellino’s crew.

*   *   *

Anthony Baratta was in charge of arranging the panel meetings. He scheduled the first one for the East Harlem apartment where he spent a lot of time. The apartment was on the second floor of a building around the corner from Rao’s, the Mob-beloved restaurant on the corner of Pleasant Avenue. Baratta could be found there almost every night, the first table on the right. He was usually with his friend and partner, Genovese soldier Louis “Louie Dome” Pacella. The two were deeply involved in narcotic deals.

The first session was an expanded group. In addition to the four panel officers, five other Luchese members were present. One of them was Steve Crea, the now-ousted consigliere. He didn’t look happy. Al asked him if he wanted to get together for a cup of coffee.

“You bet,” said Crea.

*   *   *

They met at a diner on West Twenty-Third Street in Manhattan. Seated across from Crea in the booth, Al said out loud for the first time what he’d been thinking for weeks.

“They double-crossed you, and they double-crossed me,” he said. “We didn’t deserve it.”

Crea nodded. They talked for a while about their mutual suspicions. Then Al talked rebellion.

“I’m ready to go to war,” he said. “What do you say? Could you take out Bowat?”

Crea snapped his fingers. “Like that,” he said.

“All right,” said Al. “Put that on hold. We’ll talk about it.” They shook hands and parted.

*   *   *

Things changed quickly. On Sunday, July 28, FBI agents arrested Vic Amuso in a shopping mall on the outskirts of Scranton, Pennsylvania. It was not far from the house where Al had visited him the year before. Amuso had just finished speaking on a pay phone. The FBI said the arrest followed an anonymous tip. The bureau noted that photographs of Amuso were aired in March by the television show America’s Most Wanted.

When Al heard the news, he wondered about the anonymous tip. But he moved quickly to see how he could help.

He drove with Dolores out to Howard Beach to see Vic’s wife, Barbara. The two women knew each other. Before he became a fugitive, Al and Dolores had attended parties at the house. “I knew the place was under surveillance so I didn’t want to go up there.” He handed Dolores an envelope with $30,000 in it. Barbara Amuso answered the door. Dolores just said hello and gave her the package. The wife seemed to be expecting it.

After Amuso was brought up from Pennsylvania to New York, Al met with the boss’s lawyer, Martin Geduldig.

The attorney was at the restaurant, taking his son out to dinner before he began college. Al asked him if they could step outside to talk.

Out on the street, Al told the lawyer they had to try and get Amuso out on bail. Geduldig, a veteran criminal defense attorney who grew up on the Lower East Side near Knickerbocker Village, shook his head.

“You’re not going to get him out,” the lawyer told him as they strolled. “He was on the lam.”

Al asked if Vic had any message for him. Geduldig shook his head again. “No,” he said. That can’t be right, Al thought. “No, nothing,” Geduldig repeated when Al pressed him.

Al then expressed his fears. “You know, he wants to hurt me,” Al told him. The lawyer was surprised. Gangland figures didn’t usually talk that way. He noticed how jittery Al was acting. “Al, nobody said anything to me,” he said. “I don’t think he wants to hurt you. He didn’t give me any messages.”

*   *   *

The government had a message for him, however. A few nights after Amuso’s arrest, Al heard someone call his name as he walked through the Little Italy streets.

“Hey, Al, how you doing, buddy?” Al wheeled around. He was instinctively friendly, even though he didn’t place the face.

“Hey,” he responded. “How you doing, kid?” He looked closer. The man was solidly built. Then he realized where he’d seen him before. It was the agent with the olive Chevy.

“I just wanted to thank you for the information you called in,” said the agent in a loud voice. “It was very helpful. We caught Vic Amuso in Scranton, you know.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Al yelled.

“My name’s Steve Byrne,” he said. “I’m with the bureau.”

Al looked around. It was a warm summer evening. The streets were crowded. Windows were open.

Al pointed his finger at the agent. “I’m gonna make a complaint against you!” he yelled. “You’re trying to get me killed. You want everyone to think I’m a rat.”

A member of the squad of FBI agents that had arrested Amuso, Byrne grinned. He had wanted to shake the tree a little. See what fell out. It was mission accomplished. Al stormed away down the street.

*   *   *

The message from Casso at the next panel meeting was that they should all keep doing what they were doing.

The meeting was at one of Baratta’s favored restaurants, Sandro’s on the Upper East Side near York Avenue. They went over the list of outstanding chores. After they were finished eating, they went to a nearby hotel where Baratta had arranged a room. There, they talked about one of the outstanding matters that Casso had urged them to accomplish, killing the architect, Anthony Fava.

Baratta and Avellino said they didn’t even know him. Frank Lastorino volunteered to handle the contract.

“Frank said he had some documents with Fava’s numbers and address on them. But the next day he says he can’t find them.” Lastorino had also changed his mind. He asked Al if he could take care of it. Al agreed to do so. But this time, he had no intention of carrying through.

*   *   *

His estrangement continued. “It was a whisper campaign. They were saying, ‘Be careful with Al.’ In other words, don’t trust him.”

Even his close friends were keeping him at arm’s length. One was Dominic Truscello, the new captain of the Prince Street crew. “Dom used to call every night. He’d come over, we’d go out for a cup of coffee and talk.”

They’d walk along South Street near the offices of the New York Post. “It was dark down there, we didn’t have to worry about getting spotted. We talked about business, went over the construction rackets.”

On his way back from Brooklyn one afternoon, he ran into Truscello in Little Italy. “Dom, what happened?” said Al. “You don’t come around much anymore.”

Truscello mumbled an excuse. “I’ve been coming in late,” he said.

Al said they should get together later, head over to South Street. Truscello said he’d rather not go down there.

“Why?” Al asked. “What’s wrong with South Street?”

“You know,” answered Truscello. “Maybe it’s hot down there.”

Al didn’t buy it. He doesn’t want to be seen with me, he thought.

The same thing happened with Jimmy Ida, the Genovese family leader he’d been close with for years. “We used to meet two or three times a week, working things out between the two families. Jimmy was really running things for the crew.”

The meetings were usually in the middle of the night, the favored time for the Genovese clan. The timetable came from Vincent Gigante, who kept out of sight during the day, confining meetings to the wee hours. His own members called him Dracula for his nocturnal habits.

“I’d wait up till two or three in the morning sometimes to meet with Jimmy. It was always the same thing. ‘Vince’ needed him.”

But Ida also seemed to have lost Al’s number.

Driving through the Little Italy streets one night with Joe Fiore, Al spotted Ida standing on a Broome Street corner, deep in conversation with another Genovese member named Nicky Frustace, known as “Nicky the Blond.”

At the same time, Al spotted Ken McCabe, the ubiquitous investigator who had taken a beating outside the funeral for Paul Vario’s son Lenny. McCabe was sitting at the curb in his white Chrysler carefully watching the Genovese members. Al directed Fiore to pull into a small parking lot in front of Ida, blocking McCabe’s view. Al leaned out the window, motioning Ida over to the car.

“McCabe’s on the corner,” he whispered. “You’re getting clocked.” Ida looked over in alarm to where the agent sat watching him. “Come on, jump in,” said Al. “We’ll get out of here.”

Al told Fiore to head to the Moondance Diner near Grand Street and Sixth Avenue, an all-night spot that Al often used for meetings. In the diner, he and Ida settled at one table. Fiore and Frustace sat a distance away at another.

“What’s up?” said Al. “I haven’t seen you around.”

Ida seemed ill at ease. “I’m glad I ran into you, Al,” he said. “Don’t tell anybody, but I’m going away for vacation for like three weeks.”

It struck Al as an odd thing to say, especially since he hadn’t seen Ida in weeks. “All right, Jimmy,” he said. “I won’t tell anybody. But not for nothing, I got to be in touch. Something important comes up, who do we get in touch with?”

It wasn’t a tough question, even for the notoriously suspicious Genovese family. Al had already been formally introduced to the family’s acting administration, including Barney Bellomo, a young college-educated member from the Bronx who was serving as acting boss, and Michael Generoso, the acting underboss known as “Mickey Dimino.” Ida was acting consigliere. “So, I’m thinking, the easy answer is ‘See Mickey Dimino,’ or something like that.”

But Ida said nothing. He sat staring at Al for more than a minute as if he didn’t know what to tell him.

“I’m sitting there and it’s getting stupid. I’m waiting for an answer and he’s just staring at me and I’m looking at him. And I’m thinking, So this is it. Something’s going to happen to me in three weeks. Jimmy knows. He doesn’t want to say anything because the word is out that I’m no good. He’s thinking maybe I’m wired. And he was just spotted with me so he’s likely to get asked. They’d pick him up for questioning.”

Al finally let the tongue-tied consigliere off the hook. “You want me to get in touch with Mickey?” asked Al. Ida still said nothing. But he bobbed his head forward in an awkward nod of agreement.

There wasn’t much more to talk about. Outside on the street, Al asked Ida if he wanted a ride back to the neighborhood. “No,” he said, “I’ll walk.” Al watched his old friend and Frustace walk away.

*   *   *

Right after Labor Day, Pete Chiodo, still weak and undergoing rehabilitation, made his courtroom debut in the Windows trial. He was the final government witness. The trial was moved from Brooklyn to the White Plains federal courthouse to make the trip less arduous for him.

He was the first sworn member of the Luchese family to publicly break his vow of omerta. His right arm trembled and his voice was shaky at times. At one point, he complained he felt dizzy and asked the judge for a break. But he held up pretty well during three days on the stand testifying against the nine defendants, including leaders of the Genovese, Colombo, and Gambino families. There was every reason to expect he’d be in better shape when Vic Amuso’s trial rolled around in the spring.