JUNE 5, 1968
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
12:15 A.M.
Juan Romero hears the deafening celebration.
The seventeen-year-old busboy works in the kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel, a legendary local landmark long frequented by Hollywood celebrities. But on this night, it is not a movie star holding center stage. An entirely different sort of famous individual is galvanizing the hotel’s Embassy Ballroom with his words of hope and reconciliation.
His name is Robert Kennedy and he is running for president of the United States.
It is election night for the California presidential primary. The polls closed four hours ago. All evening long, Romero has borne witness to the Kennedy faithful in their white “Kennedy for President” Panama hats nervously awaiting results, then finally cheering with elation as RFK is crowned the winner just before midnight. The room is in a frenzy as Bobby Kennedy addresses the audience in a lengthy and personal victory speech, his supporters on their feet and reporters standing in a large crush on the stage surrounding the candidate.
Kennedy speaks about all that is now dividing America—the newfound realization that the Vietnam War is unwinnable after the disastrous Tet Offensive, the race riots in major cities in the wake of the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, the division between poor and affluent. “We can start to work together. We are a great country,” Kennedy tells the crowd. “A compassionate country. And I intend to make that my basis for running.”
As the crowd cheers Kennedy off the stage, Juan Romero is startled to see the candidate enter the kitchen. The awestruck busboy stretches his arm out as far as he can to get a handshake from this famous man. To Juan’s delight, he feels Bobby Kennedy’s palm and fingers wrap around his own. The handshake is brief but one that Juan Romero will never forget.
Then, in an instant, the deafening sound of gunfire echoes off the kitchen walls. Bobby Kennedy falls backward and sprawls onto the floor, his eyes closed and arms outspread.
Romero, wearing black pants and a white collarless busboy shirt, immediately kneels. He puts his hand under Kennedy’s head to keep it from the cold concrete floor. The senator’s lips are moving, so the busboy places his ear to Kennedy’s mouth to hear what he’s saying. “Is everybody okay?” RFK asks.
“Yes, everybody’s okay,” Romero answers.
The busboy feels a warm stream of Kennedy’s blood flowing through his fingers. From the Embassy Room comes a cry over the same microphone the candidate used just moments ago, asking if there is a doctor in the room.
Juan Romero has a string of rosary beads in his shirt pocket. He wraps them around Kennedy’s right hand. “He would need it more than me,” the busboy later remembers thinking.
“Then they wheeled him away.”1
One year after the murder of Bobby Kennedy, on the other side of America, a member of the Genovese crime family named “Fat Tony” Lauria wonders if his secret gay lifestyle will get him assassinated. Lauria and other members of the Mob have no connection to the changing social morays of America in 1969. Organized crime remains what is has always been: a moneymaking machine, not interested in ideological politics.
Lauria owns a bar catering to homosexuals on Christopher Street in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. This is not unusual in the Mafia, for almost all gay establishments in New York are controlled by the Mob. Fat Tony bought the Stonewall Inn, as it is known, in 1966 for $2,000. His partner is Matty “The Horse” Ianniello, who also owns the Hay Market in Times Square, the Gilded Grape favored by cross-dressers, and the Peppermint Lounge—all gay bars in Manhattan.
The Stonewall Inn was a low-earning straight establishment at the time of Fat Tony’s purchase, but Lauria reopened it as a gay bar. The establishment’s name likely came from a memoir, The Stone Wall, which featured graphic depictions of lesbian love and was published in 1930, the same year the original Stonewall Inn opened as a speakeasy masquerading as a tearoom. “Stonewall” was a code the gay crowd knew well.
Now, on the night of June 27, the Stonewall is packed with its usual mix of drag queens, openly gay men, and homosexuals still “in the closet.” Thick cigarette smoke hangs over the narrow room and a jukebox plays dance music. There are two bars and the walls are painted black. Plywood covers the windows to prevent the prying eyes of the police from seeing inside. The Stonewall is known as a great place to socialize, although some consider it too uptight.
Most important, a bouncer stands at the double doors of the main entrance, not letting anyone inside until they have been scrutinized through a peephole to ensure that they are regular customers or at least have the appearance of being gay. Raids by Lily Law—the New York City Police Department—occur at least once a month and Fat Tony is extremely cautious about letting undercover officers inside his club.
Tony more than lives up to his nickname, once weighing in at 420 pounds. He was married and divorced but now lives with a gay Italian man, though the two have never revealed the true nature of their relationship. Sex with another man is forbidden in the Mafia world, and Fat Tony could take a bullet to the head if his true sexual inclinations are ever discovered.
Yet while the Mob forbids homosexual relations among their own, they are more than happy to profit from the gay lifestyle. The Mafia’s involvement in prostitution is not limited to women. “Keep your zipper open and your mouth shut” is a saying often used among male prostitutes controlled by organized crime.
It is establishments like the Stonewall Inn that provide the Mob a lucrative source of income. However, it is a tricky business. Homosexuality is not against the law, but serving alcohol to openly gay customers is said to be a violation of the State Liquor Authority’s ban on “disorderly houses,” and the SLA refuses to license such establishments.
To the Mafia, this presents a unique business opportunity. Instead of seeking a legal permit to sell alcohol, a “private bottle club” is formed. All patrons are “members” and must sign in—most often using an alias. Fat Tony takes full advantage of his clientele. Because there is no running water behind the bar, glasses are dumped into a sink after each use and simply wiped clean before reuse, sometimes leading to hepatitis. Everything in the house, from the cigarette machine to jukebox, goes to the Mob. And the bottled liquor is watered down, then resold at exorbitant prices.
Like the rest of the Mafia, Tony Lauria never had any use for Bobby Kennedy or Martin Luther King, the civil rights advocates slain within two months of each other in 1968. Kennedy was an avowed opponent bent on bringing down the Mob, and the racial equality preached by MLK is totally rejected by La Cosa Nostra. In fact, the Mob is so racist that many of its social clubs have a strict “no blacks” policy.2 And while the Vietnam War may impassion others—for and against—the conflict represents just another way of making money for organized crime. An estimated 15 to 30 percent of American soldiers fighting in the war actively use illegal narcotics. The Mafia is only too happy to continue providing them drugs upon their return home.
Things do not end well for Fat Tony Lauria. His lifestyle eventually leaks out. Lauria’s father, also a Mob boss, disowns him. Eventually, Tony simply disappears.
A message has been sent.
The assassination of Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles once again opens the door to a growing number of conspiracy theories, much like what happened after the murder of JFK in 1963. Some of these involve organized crime. Mob leaders like Santo Trafficante and Carlos Marcello become the subject of scrutiny. But it is in New York that Mob turbulence reaches an all-time high.
Shortly after the assassination of President Kennedy, Joseph Bonanno, leader of the crime family bearing his name, attempts a total takeover of the five families. But when this ambition is discovered, the nationwide coalition of organized crime known as the Commission takes action, declaring all-out war on Bonanno. Mob underbosses Gaspar DiGregorio and Paul Sciacca are promoted to replace him.
Joe Bonanno fights back. The deaths pile up, one by one.
Carlo Simari, a Bonanno soldier, is gunned down outside his home in Brooklyn. Another soldier, Joe Badalamonte, is shot to death in Brooklyn, as well. Vince “Jimmy Lefty” Cassese and Vince “Vinnie Carroll” Garofalo are gunned down in front of a bakery. Bonanno’s bodyguard, Salvatore “Big Hank” Perrone, is shot dead while purchasing cigarettes at a candy store.
But it is not just Joe Bonanno’s loyalists who die. At the 1967 Cypress Gardens Massacre, three DiGregorio-Sciacca family capos are machine-gunned to death in a Queens restaurant. Other soldiers from that family are also murdered.
The bloody gang war lasts six years. It becomes so intense that Joe Bonanno flees to Arizona. But that does not stop the fighting. It is only after a series of bombings in Tucson targeting the crime boss that he officially steps aside in November 1968. He has led the family since 1931. At the time, Bonanno was the Commission’s youngest-ever boss. He was in charge when J. Edgar Hoover’s attention was focused on names like John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Bonnie and Clyde rather than the Mafia. He has been in power long enough to have played a role in every major underworld event since then: Havana, Apalachin, and Bobby Kennedy’s Senate hearings. Joe Bonanno has seen it all but is now forcibly retired.
The beginning of the 1970s marks a dramatic time for organized crime. The Bonanno wars have just ended. The disarray and uncertainty that marred the conflict have led to a destabilization of the Commission—a breakdown of its authority.
Soon, the code of silence, omertà, will be overlooked by some high-ranking Mafia criminals, even though the death penalty for talking is still in effect. As traditional Mob power changes, so does behavior.
However, one thing does not change. Talking about organized crime in public can get you killed.