Woe unto you lawyers for ye have taken away the key of knowledge. – Luke, Chapter 11, Verse 52
MELBOURNE, September, 1998. Big Al Guglameno had soon recovered from the loss of face and manpower after the shoot-out. He regrouped with the help of Peter Trimboli, Paul Picassos, Charlie Gangitano, Micky Gall and a heap of other blokes with interesting names mostly of the Italian persuasion, including Jimmy Di Inzabella.
Big Al was now a full-blown Calabrian honoured society lieutenant, overseeing all its heroin operations in Melbourne. So it was interesting to see him sitting in Dan O’Connell’s Hotel in Canning Street, Carlton, talking to Detective Senior Sergeant ‘Big Jim’ Reeves from the armed robbery squad. Not that it would have greatly surprised anybody in the underworld, as the Calabrian mob flaunted its association with the Victoria Police, and various members of the society could often be found in comic conversation with detectives. The lack of Sicilian watchdogs allowed such open displays of dubious conduct. The conversation at Dan O’Connell’s proved that the Sicilians’ instincts were pretty sharp.
“It’s gotta be done, Al” said Big Jim. “And you’re the only one who can pull it off.”
Big Al shook his head.
“The Sicilian hates my guts and I’m sure he knows I’m in with your blokes. He’s never trusted me,” said Al. “It won’t work.”
“He might go along with it if you give him a good enough reason,” said Jim Reeves. “Charlie Ford wants it and Barry Mann and his crew will do it, but you gotta set it up for us, okay?”
“Or what?” said Al Guglameno.
“Or,” hissed Jim Reeves, “you’ll pull a gun on some nice young policewoman one night and she will blow ya Calabrian dog head off. Got it, fat boy?”
Big Al sat in silence.
“When?” he said, after a long and pregnant pause.
“As soon as. Here’s a phone number, ring me when ya got Joey with ya, or when ya gonna meet him next, okay? Just fucking do it.”
“Yeah, she’s sweet,” said Al. “Consider it done.”
As Jim Reeves walked out of the bar Al Guglameno thought “I’ll set Joey up today and tomorrow the fucking cops will get someone to set me up. In the end no-one wins but the fucking undertaker.”
But Al knew he had no way out. The one who wins the game is the one who lives the longest. In the end, survival was all that mattered. He thought about the old saying: “if you wanna be a spider then you gotta live in a web.”
*
BIG Jim Reeves made a quick phone call to his boss, Charlie Ford of the armed robbery squad. The recent Ethical Standards Department investigations and the chief commissioner’s clean up or get out policy had seen some amazing changes. Transfers, demotions, sackings, golden handshakes, “don’t come backs” and promotions. All in order to avoid a Royal Commission, naturally. No-one, least of all the premier and the police minister, wanted to have questions asked that they didn’t already know the answers to. Such things can lead to embarrassment.
A lot of colourful cops vanished into the police equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle. Detective Sergeant Susan Hilton remained in the armed robbery squad, as did Jim Reeves, and promoted to boot. Charlie Ford was promoted and Sandra Emerson was promoted and transferred out of internal investigations and put in charge of Charlie Ford — the commissioner’s idea of putting a softer face on the armed robbery squad.
Seven new boys were transferred out of the special operations group and sent to the armed robbers. Big Barry Mann was promoted into the drug squad. But there was three strange appointments. They brought back three old hands to the armed robbers who had got the arse out to St Kilda, Collingwood and Fitzroy CIB years before for — to put it politely — excessive zeal. They were Dirty Larry Clark, Rocky Bob Porter and Crazy Ray Williams. And, somehow, Herb ‘Hatter’ Hannigan got transferred to the drug squad. He had the nickname because he was as mad as a hatter. He was 47 years of age and still a Detective Senior Constable. He’d shoot his own mother if she didn’t put her hands up fast enough. He’d been booted out of the armed robbery squad back in the early 1980s for “excessive use” of his police issue revolver after discharging it three times in to the air at a Collingwood-Carlton footy match at Victoria Park. That was his third offence. He had shot a bank robber two years previously — once to stop him and five more times to make sure — and another time he took pot shots at the wedding cake, blind drunk, after gate crashing a federal policeman’s wedding.
How Hatter Hannigan had remained in the police force and out of jail was magnificent. The new broom had raised a lot of dust and put a lot of bright new sparks in bright new places. But it had also swept some evil old spiders along with it.
*
THE drug squad had become a pansy boy yuppie joke. All polish, no punch, whereas the old armed robbery squad had been all punch, no polish. It was all just a case of rearranging the deck chairs on a ship that wasn’t sinking. True, it was taking on a little water, but the good ship Victoria Police didn’t sink. It stayed afloat while police forces in other states broke up.
Why? Simple, really. In Melbourne, the police might punch a bullet into you for next to nothing but most of them won’t take your money. They will shoot ya but they won’t rob ya. Corruption is what sinks a police force. Shooting a criminal six times when a stern talking-to would be all he would have got in any other state — that’s not corruption, that’s just the way it works south of the border, down Mexico way.
You can hold a Royal Commission into police corruption, cash and drugs and prostitution, graft, bribery and so on but you can hardly hold a Royal Commission into the combined culture and mentality of an entire police force that sees itself some sort of latter day Texas Ranger outfit.
The cowboy mentality runs as deep in the Victorian police, as it does in the Victorian criminal. Mexico — whoever thought up that nickname for Melbourne and Victoria was spot on. But we digress.
*
CHARLIE Ford picked up the phone. “Yeah. G’day, Jim. Yeah, yeah, good.”
Big Jim Reeves was trying to explain something in code over the phone. “Bugger the KGB bullshit, Jim. Did the dago go for it, or what?”
“Yes,” replied Jim Reeves.
“Good,” said Charlie. “Fuck the Sicilians, they wouldn’t tell ya what day it is — but the Calabrians, well ya can’t shut the pricks up. Ha ha.”
He was in full stride now. “Ya can’t win the fucking drug war — and ya can tell Bazza I said this — but ya sure as hell can manage it. We’ll let the Calabrians float as long as they help us. Sink everyone else, okay? Remind Bazza of the immortal words of Graeme Westlock, as long as the dogs keep barking, they can keep breathing. Ha ha. Gravano is off tap because we’ve got fucking Guglameno on tap, that’s all there is to it.”
“How do we play it, boss?” asked Jim Reeves.
“The dago will use the cucumber routine, anyway” said Charlie. “I don’t need to be involved no more. You work it all out with Bazza, okay mate?”
“Okay,” said Jim, and hung up.
The old apple cucumber trick, thought Charlie to himself. Well, that’s something we can thank the old Collingwood crew for. Shiftiest trick ever invented. Roy Reeves, Micky Van Gogh and John McCall they would have made handy coppers.
*
THE apple cucumber relied on the friend of the target unknowingly leading the victim to his death, with the friend totally unaware he was being used as a goat to trap a lion.
Young Jimmy Di Inzabella had always looked up to Aussie Joe Gravano, and as the grandson of old Poppa Di Inzabella, Aussie Joe trusted Jimmy even though Joe knew Jimmy had become a part of Big Al Guglameno’s new crew.
Big Al had spoken to Jimmy in secret, explaining that he wanted to put right all past ill-will between Aussie Joe and himself and wanted Jimmy to invite Joey for a friendly drink at the Terminus Hotel in Abbotsford. Just a friendly drink between young Jimmy and Aussie Joe — but don’t mention that Al would show up a little later, as if by accident. Big Al explained that it would look better that way.
Young Jimmy Di Inzabella thought it was a good idea to smooth over any troubled waters between his new boss and his old mate so he rang Aussie Joe with a friendly and relaxed, casual invitation to join him for a few drinks and a get together at the Terminus.
The pub had once been an underworld Collingwood bloodhouse but had since turned into a rather fashionable gathering place for writers, singers, actors and TV and film people, the arts and academic set.
Melbourne had buzzed with Chinese whispers — with a bit being added on each time the yarn was re-told — about an eventual show down between the Calabrian boss Guglameno and the Sicilian. The Sicilians had handed all day-to-day power, authority and control over Melbourne operations to the Calabrian clans, but as long as Gravano stayed around to watch, Guglameno felt ill at ease. It all had to be sorted and young Jimmy felt he was doing his part in bringing the two men together. Even if it was a sort of sneaky way of doing it, he was sure it would be for the best.
Aussie Joe accepted the invitation from Jimmy and naturally thought the youngster had arranged this friendly drink on the orders of his grandfather, old Poppa Di Inzabella. Aussie Joe guessed the old man was about to move against Guglameno and was sending his grandson to sort out the details. At last, thought Joey, we can rid ourselves of this maggot once and for all. Joey thought for a moment to ring his uncle in Sicily, but decided against it. He couldn’t keep waking the old man up with phone calls every time there was a new move on the chess board.
*
ROME, September 1998. Sitting quietly on the sidewalk in front of the Cafe Trajon in a narrow laneway in the market area the Saietta family of brothers and cousins — Angelo, Bruno, Peppe, Aldo, Hugo, Mario, Carmine and Tito — were drinking red wine, eating plates of crab meat, lobster, anchovies, garlic and onions.
The waiter looked horrified, but dared not argue and went off to pour him a large glass of ice-cold Australian beer. Then Mario yelled out in Italian, “Hey waiter, eight beers please.” The light luncheon was all very peaceful. They were sitting under an umbrella protecting them from the glare of the morning sun. It was a normal mid-morning Roman get-together and all was well. Italian criminals loved to mix up their food and wine. Years in prison did that to men, even if it horrified fine food and wine fanciers.
They lit up fat Dutch cigars and the sidewalk table erupted into clouds of blue smoke as the waiter carried out a long tray of beer in big glasses.
The diners drank a toast. “God bless La Roma Societa Di Morte.” They were, of course, the ones who had extracted a million dollars ransom from Don Aspanu after kidnapping Joey Gravano. They started talking business, about ripping off a tonne of high explosives from the Russians and selling it to the Arabs.
Then Hugo spoke up about something on his mind.
“I’m a bit puzzled by the lack of reaction from Poppa Aspanu. I thought revenge and a blood vendetta for sure.”
Angelo laughed. “The Sicilians have lost it. If it wasn’t for Hollywood, there would be no fucking mafia.”
As the group of men sat and chatted a voluptuous whore walked past their table like a catwalk model, swinging a set of curvaceous hips and magnificent tits that bounced about like melons wrapped in a silk scarf. She was wearing a black clinging, wrap-around dress and black Roman sandals.
About ten feet past the table where the Saietta family was seated she stopped and bent over to inspect her left foot and gave a little whimper, as if she had caught a small stone in her sandal. Her massive bosoms almost fell out of her dress. All this display was aimed in the direction of the Saietta table.
“Holy mamma mia,” said Angelo Saietta.
“Lo zucchero, lo zucchero.” Meaning sugar, sugar.
“Yeah,” said Bruno, “she’s got the biggest set of watermelons I’ve ever seen.”
“Hey,” yelled Peppe. “Signorina, parla Italiano?” Do you speak Italian? Not a real deep question, but it did the trick.
She looked up and flashed a wide smile and said, “Si Signore.”
“My name is Peppe Saietta and these are my brothers and cousins, would you care to join us for a morning drink?” asked Peppe.
Would she ever. As she walked toward them, she said: “My name is Carlotta.”
Tito yelled to the waiter, asked him his name, which was Carlo, and then said: “Okay Carlo, bring Frizzante Bianco Vino (sparkling white wine) for this panna montata madonna.”
Carlotta blushed at being openly referred to as whipped cream — a Roman slang expression for what she was, a beautiful whore.
“Would you like something to eat, Carlotta?” asked Mario as he slipped a folded one-hundred dollar American note down her cleavage.
Carlotta smiled.
“Do you have any cetriolo with besciamella?”
They laughed appreciatively. Carlotta had just asked for cucumber with white sauce.
“My little one, for one hundred American dollars how many cetriolo with besciamella can you eat?” asked Mario lewdly.
Carlotta looked around and counted the men quickly. “Otto,” she said, meaning eight. Then she smiled and put her left hand into Aldo’s lap and squeezed him. Her right hand went into Mario’s lap.
Mario cracked a joke and everybody laughed. It was just another good morning in Rome: eight gangsters and a whore all about to go off for a little harmless Italian romance before lunch …
None of them noticed the man in the long black overcoat about 15 feet away. It was Franco Di Tommaso. As he pulled the old wartime Beretta 9 millimetre machine gun from under coat Carlotta the whore saw him and screamed out something about not having anything to do with the men at the table. She was too late. Repeated blasts from the 30-shot machine gun cut her screams short.
Carlotta and the eight Saiettas fell across the table, each other and the cobblestone laneway in a mish mash of blood, wine and food. At such murderously close range a 9mm slug will pass through one body and into the next. But the killers were taking no chances. Luigi Monza stepped out from nowhere and sent a second spray of machine gun fire. Monza smiled at Carlo the waiter and he and Di Tommaso walked away, got into a waiting Citroen car at the end of the laneway, and away they went.
“What was that girl trying to say?” asked Franco. “It sounded like my name is Carlotta and I don’t know these men,” replied Luigi.
“Poor slut,” said Di Tommaso. “Wrong place, wrong time.”
“Lucky waiter,” said Luigi. “He was two feet behind the girl and not a shot hit him.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it,” said Franco indignantly. “We didn’t come to fucking Rome to kill fucking waiters, you fucking stupido.”
“Sorry, Franco” said Luigi. It was important to display manners at all times. It was just that the late Saietta family had put a hole in theirs by putting the snatch on Joey Gravano. Who, at that very moment, had a fresh problem rising up to meet him …
*
THE Terminus Hotel was a far cry from the way it had been. “Jesus,” said Joey, “they certainly have tarted this old joint up.”
Joey looked around the bar and shook his head. Young Jimmy Di Inzabella cleared his throat to attract Joey back to the land of here and now. “Big Al Guglameno feels a bit sad about the bad blood between you and him Joey” he offered.
“Al Guglameno is a police informer, Jim,” grated Joe. “You know it, and I know it.”
“No-one can prove that, Joey” said Jimmy, a little surprised that his olive branch looked like getting tossed on the floor.
“Yeah, well” said Joey bitterly, “if he’s not a dog then he’ll do till we get one. Ha ha.” Jimmy laughed, too.
“Business is business, Joey” he said.
“What?” replied Joey. “So you approve?”
“No, no, no,” answered Jimmy. “But times are changing. Sometimes we have to shake hands with the devil.”
Aussie Joe sneered at this. “If ya lay down with dogs ya wake up with ya bottom getting sniffed, Jimmy,” he warned. “What’s this shit I hear about a gambling club Al opened. I thought the new Crown Casino, faggot mumbo jumbo politicians and mummy’s boy millionaires from south of the river fucked all the illegal gambling in Melbourne?”
Jimmy laughed and said knowingly, “No video cameras in an illegal club, Joey.”
Jimmy smiled and jumped in again with a message from his sponsor. “The point is, Joey, the bad blood between the Sicilians and Calabrians is no good for any of us. Please, mate.”
“Who sent you?” asked Joey suddenly, and very seriously. “I thought when you asked to see me that your old Padrino arranged it. What’s all this talk of let’s make friends with fucking Guglameno bullshit? Guglameno is a freaking big noce di cocco.” This meant “coconut”, but what it really meant was brown on the outside, white on the inside.
Jimmy was puzzled by Joey’s use of the coconut reference. He knew that Scarchi Sicilians had a slang tongue all of their own but the expression was a new one on him.
Jimmy looked at Joey and said in Italian “What?” Joey smiled slyly.
“La noce di cocco, Jimmy. The coconut is hard outside but soft inside. You see one colour on the outside, but the outside hides the inside?”
“I don’t understand,” replied Jimmy in Italian.
Joey shot him an exasperated look, but explained himself patiently.
“Big Al is not what he pretends to be, Jimmy. Like all spies he shows one side and hides another — just like a coconut. Just remember when dealing with that false pretending dog, Jimmy, to look out. You understand?”
Jimmy nodded, thinking to himself Big Al was wrong if he thought there was any chance of making friends with this Sicilian hard head. Joey was old-time mafia in a young body. Such a man could not see the reason of business or compromise or negotiation. The Carlton attitude was to give a little to get a little, live and let live, all for the common good. For Joey there could be no shades of grey; it was either right or wrong, life or death, black or white.
Jimmy liked Joey but he knew Joey would never see reason. Joey asked for a light. As Jimmy held out a lit match Joey noticed his hand was trembling slightly. Joey took his hand and looked into his friend’s eyes and said in Italian softly, “why?” and Jimmy knew that Joey was starting to wonder just what this strange meeting was all about.
“Okay,” said Joey, “then what is this shit all about, Jimmy? Does this nonsense meeting have a point, and if it has then get to it, okay? And by the way, Jimmy, you don’t speak fucking Italiano too good either. Who taught you to speak Italian — a fucking Frenchman with a hare lip?”
“I don’t know,” said Jimmy. “A bit from my mother, a bit from my father, I pick it up as I go.”
“Yeah, well, it’s been nice, Jimmy. I don’t know what the fuck this has been about but don’t ring me again for another get together drink unless ya got a reason. Sorry, arrivederci,” said Joey, “and tell Al I’m not a fucking totally stupido, okay, Jimmy?”
Jimmy went pale. “And get someone to teach you to talk Italian — it’s fucking embarrassing trying to have a conversation with you,” said Joey as he got up to leave.
Jimmy looked at the clock again and wondered when Big Al would arrive. Wasn’t he meant to bump into them by accident? Jimmy had a sick feeling that Big Al had involved him in some sort of set up, but he still said to Joey, “Don’t go mate. Hang around. What’s the hurry?”
Joey looked at him hard.
“La mela cetriolo, hey Jimmy. La mela cetriolo.”
Jimmy froze. Joey had just said “the apple cucumber.” Joey thought the whole thing was a set up.
“No, no, Joey” replied Jimmy.
“When?” asked Joey in Italian.
“No, no, Joey. I swear it’s not. It’s okay, I swear on my mother,” Jimmy implored.
Joey shot back: “Your mother is dead, because this has got set-up written all over it. Why?” asked Joey.
Jimmy had tears in his eyes. “Big Al asked me to talk to you,” he said.
Joey smiled.
“The devil always sends a trusted friend, Jimmy. I forgive you. It’s not your fault. Ha ha, that Calabrian is smarter than I gave him credit.” And with that Joey walked out of the bar, sad but smiling.
*
BARRY Mann and Hatter Hannigan, the mad cops, stood across the road from the pub. Hatter was softly singing a song he didn’t know all the words to, so he invented his own.
Just then Aussie Joe Gravano stepped out of the pub door onto the footpath. Barry Mann nudged Hatter. “Let’s go” he said.
As Joey walked toward his car he sensed all was not well, but for some reason he wasn’t gripped with any fear, just a quiet sense of fate. What will be will be. Maybe it was just his imagination. As he approached his car he caught sight of two men walking toward him and looked up to see Barry Mann and Hatter Hannigan.
“Hey, Gravano!” yelled Barry Mann.
Joey didn’t need to ask who they were. He also knew as his right hand reached slowly under his coat for his .45 automatic that it was a futile gesture. But still he went for his gun. His brain screamed no and his heart screamed yes. Joey had been pushed too far.
“Don’t do it, son!” yelled Hatter Hannigan as he reached for his revolver at the same time as Barry Mann reached for his. Then the two policemen stepped apart, giving Joey two targets. As Joey raised his gun slowly he said to himself in Italian: “I can’t stop. Why?”
Joey’s gun hand, his mind and his heart were all acting against each other. He saw the two men reach for their guns but he didn’t take aim: he just fired blindly between them, closing his eyes as he did so like a mad zombie. Then he felt his chest and stomach explode and felt himself fall backward. The cops had each punched three shots into Joey’s chest and stomach and as he lay on the footpath he could hear the cries of fright from the crowd around him. He opened his eyes and saw Barry Mann looking down at him.
“Why did he go for his gun, Bazza?” asked Hatter. Mann didn’t reply. He just looked into the eyes of the dying Gravano.
“What’s your name?” whispered Joey.
Mann replied, “Barry Mann. Acting Detective Inspector Barry Mann, Drug Squad.”
Then Joey smiled, laughed and coughed blood.
“What’s funny?” asked Hatter.
Then Joey replied as he died, “I’ve been killed by the man who put the bomp in the bomp de bomp. Ha ha.”
“What’s he on about, Bazza?” asked Hatter.
“Private joke,” said the other detective.
As Joey’s eyes closed he heard Tina’s voice calling him. He looked into the blackness to see a light and he heard her voice again. “Joey, Joey, this way” she called, and he followed the light. Then the words of the old rock and roll song came into his head.
“Who put the bomp in the bomp de bomp de bomp, who put the ring in the ding a ling a ding dong.” What a stupid thing for a man to think about as he died, thought Joey. Then the light came again and he could see Tina, still calling.
And Joey walked toward the light. It was at that moment that the crowd on the footpath saw him take his last breath. He was dead …
*
IN SICILY, it was after midnight. Don Hector Aspanu woke in fright in his bed. He felt the chill of death on the hot Sicilian night.
“Joey,” called the Don, “Joey, is that you?”
A knock came to the Don’s door. It was Benny Benozzo, who was standing guard. “You okay, padrino?” called Benny. Hector Aspanu felt the chill still and thought of Joey, but he called back to Benny: “Fucking clams. I always dream when I eat clams.”
Don Hector still felt the chill then his left arm felt numb with pins and needles, and his heart felt like the devil was squeezing it. He called to Benny in Italian.
“I’m sick Benny, call the doctor. Help, help.”
Then, silence.
*
THE Don was dreaming. It was a long, complicated dream about him and his long lost love, Jayne Mansfield, back in the 1960s. He stirred. He could see a light above him and he rose up toward it and felt himself floating. Then he opened his eyes. He saw the faces of Bobby and Benny Benozzo and Franco Di Tommaso, Luigi Monza, young Carmine Baldassare and another man in a white coat, who looked like a doctor.
“Dottore?” asked the Don, and the doctor nodded and said “Si, Don Aspanu.”
“You save me, Dottore?” asked the Don.
“No,” said the doctor. “Your men did. They got you to hospital in time.
“Thank you,” said Hector to his men. “Where is Joey?”
Luigi Monza spoke. “We got a phone call from Melbourne an hour ago. Joey is dead.”
Don Hector nodded.
“I thought so, you know I felt him go. Where is Jayne Mansfield?”
The doctor spoke. “Jayne Mansfield? Don Aspanu, she has been dead for a long time, many years now.”
“Ahh,” replied the Don, “then it was all just a dream, a true dream, a sad dream but still just a dream. But Joey, that was not a dream.”
“No,” answered Luigi. “Joey is dead, I’m sorry, Don Hector” he said.
The Don nodded.
“I’m sorry also, Luigi. I’m sorry. And Jayne Mansfield isn’t here?” he asked again.
His men shook their heads and looked at each other, puzzled by the old man’s strange behaviour.
“Everyone is dead,” said the Don.
“But you are alive,” said the doctor, smiling.
“Not for long,” answered Don Hector. “Not for long. Go now, all of you. Let me sleep and leave me to my dreams. Please go now. Get out, all of you.”
*
SICILY, 1973. Overlooking the waterfront of the fishing village of Catania stood the grand white marble villa of Catania’s leading citizen, Don Pietro Baldassare, head of the Baldassare clan and a comrade in arms of Don Hector Aspanu.
Don Pietro was a man who had fathered many children to many women, but the apple of his eye was his youngest daughter, Clara. Unlike his other children, who all looked like something out of a Sicilian horror movie, Clara had her late mother’s looks. In fact, she had been named after her dear-departed mother, Clara Massaria, the daughter of the old time New York Moustache Pete mafia boss Giuseppe “Joe the Boss” Massaria, who at one time controlled the biggest of the old-style Mafia families in New York.
Don Pietro’s love for his wife and his youngest daughter was the reason he named his grand villa La Casa Di Clara.
Young Clara Baldassare was 16 years old and quite extraordinary in the physical beauty department. Her silky, jet-black hair fell down to her waist. She had a deep olive complexion but because her grandmother, Joe the Boss Massaria’s wife, was from Northern Italy and had blonde hair and blue eyes, little Clara had inherited big green eyes. They gave her a mischievous look that fascinated any and every man who looked into them. Add the beautiful face to a teenage body that would tempt a priest, a set of hips and an arse that would arouse several regiments of the Greek Army, and well-developed tits that made small Sicilian boys think of milk whenever she walked by.
Clara was a virgin, but passion burned inside her. She loved the attention she received from fishermen on the Catania waterfront and when her father went to Palermo on business she would don a specially imported black bikini from Paris, a little pair of black leather beach sandals and a black silk wraparound. From the outside she looked very respectable, until she undid the dress to reveal what was beneath.
Clara would wander down to the docks and make girlish chit chat with the Gamberetti and Gamberoni fishermen who fished the Strait of Messina separating Sicily from mainland Italy. The Gamberetti were shrimp fishermen; the Gamberoni fished for prawns. The fishermen were Clara’s audience and she loved to play to them with a little teasing. She would swing herself about when she walked and was a source of sexual fascination for the fishermen and she knew it. While every man in the village knew her father and feared and respect him, and so treated her like the mother Mary, the fishermen had pirate blood and were a braver lot. They would call to Clara “Buon Giorno, Signoria Clara” or “Buon Giorno, Signoria Baldassare”.
Some would yell “How are you, Clara” and she would stop and chat.
“What do you have for me today?” Clara would ask — meaning fish, shrimp and prawns — and they would invite her onto the boats to check the day’s catch. It was on one of these invitations a year previously, at the tender age of 15, that Clara was introduced to a way of having all the men she wanted and still remain intact so she could come to her husband still technically a virgin on her wedding night. The result was that Clara had in a year sucked the dicks of nearly all the fishermen in the Port of Catania and, after what was at first a painful introduction to the Greek trick, as the fishermen called it, she had been regularly bashed in the buttocks by most of them. She was to the fishermen their little virgin putana — their virgin whore.
Every walk down to the wharf for Clara in the morning sunlight would not see her walk home again till the sun was setting. With the help of a goodly amount of strong Giallo grappa to drink, and fishermen to help her drink it, she would suck till her jaw ached. Then, using virgin olive oil as lubrication, they would take turns giving it to young Clara from behind.
Afterwards, Clara would lie in a hot soapy perfumed bath to get the smell of fish and fishermen off her. She knew that her conduct was dangerous, and that her sluttish activities on the waterfront were no secret, but she guessed that no-one would dare repeat such foul gossip to her father. If they did, his blind rage could mean the death of every fisherman in Catania. If Clara was anyone else’s daughter she would be stoned in the streets or taken by the fishermen and sold to a brothel in Malta or Spain, Corsica or North Africa. But this angel-faced mafia Don’s daughter would remain a Sicilian princess in spite of the fact she was a sick, twisted slave to sexual depravity.
And so it was that behind the back of the great and feared Don Pietro Baldassare his teenage daughter was known to the fishermen as the Bambino Polio of Catania (the little chicken of Catania). They called her little chicken because she loved the cock so much. But as the old Sicilian proverb goes, the grave is the only place to keep a secret in Sicily, so when the outrageous rumour about Clara’s outrageous behaviour reached the ears of Don Hector Aspanu, he had a problem indeed.
After all, little Clara was his god daughter. She called him Uncle Hector, and wild yarns about her being shagged in the arse by every fisherman in the eastern ports of Sicily unsettled him, because it would be only a matter of time before his dear friend Pietro came to hear of it — and then what would happen? They would have to import fish from the mainland, for a start, because the Baldassare clan would kill every fisherman in Sicily.
Don Hector pondered the problem, but not for long. He knew that every Sicilian problem solved with either a wedding or a funeral, and this was no different. Clara was not far off 17, and it was high time she was married, but it couldn’t be to a man from Catania or even a native Sicilian as stories about the brides love for the taste of cucumber and white sauce would soon reach the ears of her husband. And what of his dear friend Don Pietro? He wouldn’t allow just anyone to have his pride and joy baby daughter. The only answer was to get baby Clara out of Sicily, properly married off to a wealthy Sicilian living in mainland Italy. Or even further away, thought Don Hector. Maybe France, Spain, America … or Australia.
Yes, thought the Don slyly, Australia was a nation of rat bags, hillbillies, Irish gunmen, English convicts, scoundrels, and yuppy bum bandits. The Don thought of it as the last outpost, a desert fit for cowboys and psychopaths. And it was a long, long way from Sicily. So it was just the place for his knob-polishing, slackarsed little tart of a god daughter. She could marry a wealthy Sicilian in Australia and drop dead, for all Don Hector cared. The main thing was the protection of the Baldassare family name. Maybe marriage and a funeral, he thought. Yes, that was it. Marry the whore off, then get her and her husband whacked. The Don was quite pleased with himself. If there was one thing he loved more than a good wedding, it was a good funeral, and with Clara Baldassare he could plan both.
*
DON Pietro Baldassare was surprised but secretly pleased when his dear and most trusted friend Don Hector Aspanu came to visit him with the offer for his daughter’s hand in marriage from a young Sicilian businessman living in Australia. Not only was the young man in question a millionaire at the tender age of 27, he was a member of the clan. Aniello Massaria was his name — an Australian-born Sicilian and a recognised member of the Alderisio clan which was under the wing of the Aspanu clan and therefore the Baldassares.
Don Pietro listened in silence as Don Hector put the offer to him and agreed to meet the young man in question. It would depend on Clara’s yes or no. Don Pietro would not force his child into a loveless marriage, but Hector Aspanu was as good a matchmaker as he was a funeral director. He had selected Aniello Massaria with great care, taking into consideration the wishes of his friend Pietro for a good match, and the secret lusts of the prospective bride.
Aniello Massaria was a freak among sawn-off Sicilians, being well over six feet tall, handsome and strong as a young bull. He had inherited money from his family and had extensive interests in the Melbourne fishing and market garden industries. Through his interest in fishing he imported heroin from the Philippines, and in his market gardens he grew massive crops of marijuana. He also had close links with the Calabrian Onorata Societa and the Naples Camorra. He lived by the code of silence, known by many and varied names. There is the one sure thing in the criminal world, be it in Italy or outer Mongolia. The rules change to suit the game daily. In the game Don Hector Aspanu was playing, he knew a wedding would unite two or three families — but that a funeral would bond them in blood forever. Providing, of course, he could place the blame for the deaths of Clara Baldassare and Aniello Massaria at the feet of others, he could direct revenge from the guns and knives of the Baldassare, Massaria and Alderisio clans toward an area of interest that would profit Don Hector Aspanu himself.
On the chess board of the criminal world, to bring your friends closer to you then you must give them an enemy you can both fight … even if you have to create that enemy yourself.
*
MELBOURNE, 1974. It was a hot summer and young Joey Gravano was enjoying himself with his Thomastown-born Sicilian mates in the hotels and illegal brothels of Fitzroy street and Grey Street, St Kilda.
It was an exciting time. The Melbourne sharpie wars had been raging since 1969, not to mention the painters and the dockers shootings. The Dagos were losing every fight they tried on with the Aussie gangs, but among their ranks they were dominating the fledgling heroin market. They already controlled the marijuana market with the help of Aussie Bob Trimbole and his Calabrian hillbilly, dope-growing farmers. And they were gaining ground in the illegal gambling and prostitution rackets. But they couldn’t win a round when it came to street battles and shootouts with the established Aussie criminal order. The Melbourne gunmen, toecutters, headhunters and standover men would just swoop in and take what they wanted, when they wanted.
Joey Gravano was one of the few Italians who saw that a war for control with the Aussie gangs was futile, and that the true power would be in taking silent control of the drug supply, rather than distribution. If the Italians and Chinese shared drug importing, the Aussies and the rest of the insane, blood-crazed rabble could kill each other for ever more in the endless wars fought over distribution.
Joey knew that in supply was real power. Why argue over a glass of water with fools if you controlled the tap? Some Italians who couldn’t see this insisted on getting into insane pissing competitions with mad men over street dealing. As far as Joey was concerned, they could all jump into their graves with his blessing. The Sicilians would remain friendly and smile at every one. “Me no speak a da English, me no want a da trouble” they’d say, and with the help of the Chinese they would quietly keep their hands on the tap. They had their ways of dealing with problems. An example of how they did was when Joey took the call from his Uncle Hector in Sicily to attend to the little business of Aniello Massaria and his lovely young wife, Clara.
The whole conversation was Sicilian Scarchi code, which relied on fish names, animal names, the names of drinks, vegetables, fruits, meats and seafood, months of the year, days of the week, colours and numbers.
To someone in the know, one word could mean a whole sentence. The Sicilian tactic of killing a friend in secret then blaming it on an enemy in order to rally the clans in the name of the common good was known in Scarchi as the swordfish, or La Pescespada. If the body of the victim was never to be found it was La Tonno, the tuna. The Chinese triads were known as La Riso, the rice. A fire, or death by fire, was La Pane Tostato, the Toast.
For the situation to remain as before, meaning that orders previously given should remain unchanged, then it was La Menu a prezzo fisso — the set menu. A coward was La Coniglio (the rabbit) and a person to be killed was La Anatra (the duck). If a bribe was needed they spoke of butter. If a friend was a bit mad and was to be watched he was noodles. Sunday was the day of death. A bad idea was black, and a good one was white. If you had the answer to a problem and could solve it, you had the key. If you were given the Don’s nod to proceed you were given a stamp. To be sent a newspaper was to be sent coded written instructions. In old Sicily Jews had to paint their houses blue, so a Jew was La Azzurro, a double killing was a postcard. To give someone soap was to kid them along with smiles and nice lies before they were killed. The only time Interpol broke the Sicilian Scarchi code was when they kept talking over the phone about marijuana and naturally referred to it as La Verde (the green) so they changed it to La Cavolo (the cabbage).
This time, Hector Aspanu wanted Joey to do the Swordfish. Joey knew that the politics behind the order was none of his business. He knew only that obeying orders would elevate him overnight in the ranks of his clan. So if the old man back in Sicily wanted the Swordfish, the Swordfish it would be.
*
ANIELLO and Clara Massaria lived on a farm in far western Victoria. They had 1500 acres with 200 of them on the South Australian side of the state border. For Clara, it was a long way from Sicily, but Aniello was built like a Greek God, with the face of a Roman prince, and the dick of a Welsh pony. As was his right as a Sicilian husband, he gave Clara a good beating with his belt on the night of their wedding in Catania. This was because she made the mistake of questioning him when he ordered her to hand over the wedding purse so he could count the cash.
“That’s my money,” said Clara. She was beaten till she screamed for mercy, then Aniello pulled out his wedding gift and took her virginity with a violence that made her scream in pain. Aniello was delighted to find the sheets red with virgin blood.
However, when Aniello got his young bride back to Australia and, having drunk a little too much one night, forgot his manners and ordered her to go down, he began to suspect he’d been sold a used car. One that had copped a few bananas in the diff, at that. He suspected this because Clara, having also partaken of a little too much vino, forgot to say “Oh no, my husband, you’ll have to show me how.” Instead, she promptly proceeded to give him the hottest, deep throat blow job he had ever had in his life. This resulted in the jealous Sicilian accusing her of being an experienced vacuumer in the fly department and, after another savage beating, she confessed and told all. With the result that he beat her near to death and made her sleep in the chicken shed, chained to the wall like a howling dog.
Aniello Massaria was insane with rage. That old Sicilian pirate Aspanu had sold him some little whore who had swallowed more swords than a circus performer. Naturally Aniello would have to kill her, but it must look like an accident, or suicide, lest her father and old Aspanu kill him. Aniello thought furiously how this Sicilian marriage had been pushed on him with far too many smiles, and now he knew why. Now all Sicily was having a good laugh at him. Soon, thought Aniello, when the whore with the arse like a Greek bucket returns to Sicily in a coffin, the laughter would turn to tears …
*
All of which explains why, when Joey Gravano made the long night drive over to the property he got there just in time to receive the sad news of the death of young Clara Massaria. The result, it was said, of a tragic accident while she was trying to climb through a barbed wire fence, carrying a loaded shotgun.
As Joey drove along in the hope of finding some small country town with a phone box that worked, the local news on the car radio informed him that a market gardener, Mr Aniello Massaria, had been arrested by Victorian police for the murder of his wife, Clara. By the time Joey found a phone box both the Victorian and South Australian police had located a marijuana crop on the Massaria farm valued at two million dollars and were arguing over who should make the arrest. It seemed that while Mrs Massaria was shot on the South Australian side of the property, the marijuana crop had fifty acres either side of the border.
When Joey rang Sicily and informed his uncle of this interesting turn of events, he was told to forget it and get out of there. Massaria had spilled his guts to police in return for a manslaughter charge instead of a murder blue, and police were arresting Italians in both states.
Within 24 hours there were calls for a royal commission into mafia involvement in the marijuana industry. Aussie Bob Trimbole’s name was mentioned along with about anyone whose name ended in a vowel. Suddenly the newspapers were screaming about an honoured society. Every dago dirt farmer who grew a little dope between his tomatoes had suddenly become part of the mafia. So much for the code of silence.
When he rang Joey a week after the news the Don didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Well, Joey” he said, “Pietro’s baby Clara is a virgin again. Death can do that even to a whore — but this swordfish has just stabbed us all in the arse.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Joey.
“Simple,” said the Don. “Tell the boys to start growing their dope in New South Wales. Ha ha.”
*
SICILY, 1998. Don Hector Aspanu had just told his men the story of Clara and Aniello Massaria, and how Massaria had vanished to Canada after doing a secret deal with a Royal Commission.
The old man hung his head and shook it as if, even in retelling the story, he still couldn’t believe it.
“So we never got him?” asked Bobby Benozzo, surprised.
“No,” answered the Don. “We think he opened a pizzeria in Canada and got involved with the De Carlo family. We send some boys over and shot the wrong man. The pizzas stunk too. The whole thing was a fucking nightmare.”
The group was sitting in the shade under the giant lemon tree in the courtyard of the Don’s villa in Montelepre. He was very old and wanted only to sit and drink grappa. The bodyguards sat with him, and around the courtyard stood a handful of silent, hard-faced Sicilian gypsies carrying loaded rifles. Palermo was in uproar as the Delle Torre clan and Baldassare clan had gone to war with each other over control of the Aspanu clan.
Don Hector had ordered that his favourite grandson, Little Hector, be taken to safety in the hills with his gypsy friends.
The Don had ordered the death of his remaining sons and grandsons, using the squabble between the Delle Torre and Baldassare clans over the family empire as a smother to kill off Aspanu family members he considered surplus to requirements. He knew they would never be able to run the clan properly. They were spoilt, greedy yuppies and he was ashamed of them. That is why the old Don had loved Joey so much. Joey was the only one who could have run the family.
“You know who I blame for the down fall of La Mafia?” he asked suddenly.
“No” asked Franco. “Who?”
The men smiled, sensing one of the Don’s jokes.
“Mario fucking Puzo and Giorgio fucking Armani, that’s who. Between the two of them every Italian criminal in the world is now more interested in what they fucking wear than who they kill, and real life Mafia guys are now trying to imitate Hollywood. The whole thing is too much for me.”
One of the stony-faced gypsies walked up and whispered in the Don’s ear. The old man nodded and laughed. He raised his glass and said “E nomine patre et file espiritus santos. My sons are all dead.” The men looked at each other. The old man sitting with them in the shade drinking grappa and making comedy about seagulls and push bikes, Mario Puzo and Giorgio Armani, was one of the few Mafia dons left on earth who could order the death of his own children so control of his clan not fall into their hands. This was the action of a Caesar. Were they witnessing the death of the last true Sicilian? All Don Hectors men knew that when the Don died they would either all die with him if they didn’t attack in the name of the Don’s hand-picked grandson and continue to defend the Aspanu clan until the boy came of age to take control. The men were determined to march forward carrying the corpse of the old Don on their shoulders.
“So,” said the Don thickly, “what do we know about the cocksuckers who shot Joey?”
Luigi Monza replied to this question.
“It was the two Victorian policemen, Padrino. Drug squad. A couple of mad Irish. A detective called Herbert Hannigan and his boss, an Inspector Barry Mann.”
“Who did you say?” asked the Don.
“Hannigan,” replied Monza.
“No, no, the other one” asked the Don.
“Mann,” replied Monza. “Barry Mann.”
The Don started to laugh. “What’s funny?” asked Franco.
“Bomp de bomp,” laughed the Don. “Poor Joey got killed by the man who put the bomp in the bomp de bomp in the bomp de bomp. Ha ha.”
The men looked at each other, puzzled by this mumbo jumbo, but not wanting to say so. They hadn’t spent time in America like him. “The old song,” said the Don, still they men didn’t get the comedy.
“Ahh, forget it,” snarled the Don. He was caught in a cultural wasteland. “More grappa.” His glass was promptly filled.
As he reached for his glass his hand shook, he gave a faint groan and his hand fell limply to his side.
The gypsies stood in silence and the men sitting with the Don looked at each other, then at the old man, too frightened to speak.
Monza spoke first. “Padrino, Padrino” he said, but the old man didn’t hear the call. “Don Hector,” said Franco, but the Don didn’t reply. The Benozzo brothers had tears in their eyes. Monza reached out to touch his Don. Franco said, “Don’t wake him.”
Benny Benozzo said sadly. “No, Franco, no-one can wake him now. La Padrino is no more. La morte, la morte.”
*
THE bell of the Montelepre church rang out and in reply men fired guns into the air. Don Hector Aspanu was dead but not forgotten. His clan and the mafia army he had controlled for half a century rose up and, as the coffin was carried through the streets of Montelepre, gunmen were sent to all parts of Sicily to kill the last of the old man’s enemies. Don Aspanu would not die alone.
As Franco Di Tommaso, Luigi Monza and Benny and Bobby Benozzo stood by the grave of their Padrino surrounded by 700 men of the fourteen separate families that made up the clan Aspanu, Monza asked Di Tommaso “What now Franco, what now?”
Di Tommaso replied: “The Don once told me when we were talking about Joey and his silly chess games that a war may take a hundred years to fight, and in that hundred years there can be a thousand battles. And for every battle we win, we might lose two. But for every man we lose we take two of theirs, for every man who dies leaves a son, a grandson, a nephew, a brother, an uncle or a friend who will pick up the dead man’s weapon.
“We win today, lose tomorrow. The point is, win or lose, we are the one enemy that simply will not go away. They can defeat us for a hundred years, but if we don’t go away then we win. Kill one generation and the next takes its place.
“You see, an enemy who will never surrender is an enemy who will never be defeated. And, as the Don said, in the end that is the Sicilian Defence.”