The Butcher (5 page)

Busts like those of Lucas and Gigante helped Hunt rise to be second in command of the DEA's office in New York, but there was always more work to do. More dealers to catch, more people who belonged behind bars. For every Frank Lucas who'd been caught, there were a dozen others waiting in the shadows to take his place.

T
hough he had become one of the most talented lawmen in the country, Jim Hunt Sr. always remembered a valuable lesson he'd learned from his father: to not bring his work home to his wife and three kids in Cambria Heights, Queens. James was a family man, and he kept his home life and his work life as separate as possible. Still, he did let his children know about the perils of drugs. He did let them know the difference between right and wrong. He was not overly strict, but he kept a close eye on his two sons, Jim Jr. and Brian. The Hunts also had a daughter, Colleen. She had strawberry-blond hair, was attractive, and people readily warmed to her. She would later become a very popular on-air reporter in the New York metropolitan area. She was tenacious and always seemed to ask the right questions.

There was one time, Jim Hunt Jr. remembers, when he and some friends had gotten very drunk on cheap wine called Boone's Farm. When Jim stumbled in that evening, his father was there. All he did was make sure his son got to bed and stayed put. The following day, however, Jim Sr. bought a whole case of Boone's Farm and put it in the basement. He told his sixteen-year-old son he could go in the basement with his friends and drink all the wine he wanted to, drink until his heart's content. He said, “If you've gotta drink like that, do it at
home. I don't want you drinking and getting drunk on the street like some forgotten bum. You get your friends and you drink here.” He learned a good lesson about drinking excessively.

Like his father, Jim Hunt Jr. excelled at sports. He was a natural-born athlete, particularly well coordinated, had a thin, muscular physique that responded well to all types of sports, including boxing. James Sr. had taught his son the rudiments of fighting early on. He told him where to place his feet, how to throw a left, and how to throw a right with maximum effect. He also, perhaps more importantly, taught him how to avoid a punch by moving his head.

Several times, at a local nightclub Jim hung out at—Dizzy Duncan's in New Jersey—there were fights and brawls. Inevitably, Jim got involved in these altercations and broke them up, pulled combatants apart. Before he knew it, he was offered a job as a bouncer. The money was good, his friends were there, and he had access to girls…lots of girls. What made Jim stand out was that he was always cool under pressure, that his head seemed to rise above the fray. He was particularly good at talking guys out of fighting one another, though if need be, he was just as adept at knocking out people who wouldn't listen to reason. Jim Hunt was about reasoning—not brawling.

As weeks and months went by, still living at home, Jim began to think seriously about a career other than as a bouncer; he couldn't help but think of law enforcement. After all, his grandfather and father, as well as uncles and cousins, were all cops who were highly respected and honored by their friends and colleagues. The more Jim thought about law enforcement, his getting between the bad guys and the innocents, the more the job appealed to him. He thought about what branch of law enforcement he would join, and like his grandfather, cousins, brother, and uncles, he decided on the NYPD. He knew, too, in the NYPD, he would have good health benefits and an excellent pension plan. It was no secret that Jim was particularly bright and knew the ways of the street well. He felt that in due time he'd be giving orders instead of taking them, that he'd make sergeant, lieutenant,
and captain. At that juncture in his life, Jim had no desire to get married or have a family. He saw married life as something that was not, at that point, for him.

Jim Hunt went and spoke to his father and his dad thought Jim's turning to law enforcement was an excellent idea. Jim applied to the New York Police Department, took the physical, and began the six-month course at the New York Police Academy on East Twentieth Street, looking forward to the prospect of serious police work in the great city of New York. To Jim, New York was the heart and soul of the world and he looked forward to protecting society from its degenerates, miscreants, and criminals. On his way to the Academy, as Jim read about different crimes in the newspapers, he was appalled at how women and children were put upon, beaten and battered and raped. This was during the height of the drug epidemic plaguing the United States and street crimes were off the charts.

Jim excelled at the firing range. He became a crack shot. He knew the .38 revolver the police department issued was a tool of his trade, a tool that could save his life, his partner's life…an innocent's life. Every week, he spent extra hours at the pistol range, perfecting his shooting prowess. When, toward the end of the course, Jim was asked where he'd like to be placed, he purposely picked one of the toughest known precincts in all of New York City—the Thirty-fourth Precinct in Washington Heights. Jim was not about to go through the motions. He wanted to be in the epicenter of where crime was happening on a large scale, to be in the action. When he started at the Thirty-fourth Precinct, he was assigned to walk a beat, precisely what he had wanted.

With his fair skin and red hair, Jim Hunt stuck out in Harlem like a carrot in a cabbage patch. He had a pleasant baby face, a warm, beguiling smile, and he quickly made acquaintances and friends with shop owners and residents on his beat. Jim knew good police work was, to a large degree, about having your ear to the ground, both eyes wide open, having informants. He let the word be passed all along his beat
that he would welcome information about crimes and keep the source a secret. Like this, little by little, Jim heard about robberies, assaults, drug deals, murders, and unspeakable sex crimes. He began to shine. As well as being clever, easy to talk to, easy to warm to, Jim Hunt was fearless. Often, he'd make an arrest by himself without a second thought. He had a gun. He knew how to use it well. And he was very good with his hands. Yet if he needed backup, he'd call for it. He knew a good partner was worth his weight in gold.

As much as Jim liked police work at the NYPD, he came to realize that his opportunities for promotion were inherently limited at the NYPD. Jim began thinking of leaving the force for federal law enforcement. He heard through family that there were positions open in the Secret Service. He went to their offices at One World Trade Center, took the exams, and passed with flying colors. Next he had to be interviewed by a senior Secret Service agent. These interviews were to establish if any given individual was adequately qualified to be in the Secret Service; that is, capable of protecting the president and other political luminaries of the United States. A senior agent named Jack Sullivan interviewed him and said, “Jim, I like everything about you. You did great on the test. You're the kind of guy we're looking for, but I don't know if you'll like the job. I don't know if we are what you're looking for.”

This caught Jim off guard. “Why is that?” he asked.

“Jim, what we do is not hands-on. I'm telling you this as a friend, as though you were family—what we do is all about waiting, watching. What I think you're used to, what I think you want, is to be in the action, to be out there making arrests, chasing down bad guys, running over rooftops.”

Jim Hunt smiled. “Well,” he said, “you're right.”

“Well, Jim, that's not what we do,” Jack repeated. Jim Hunt thanked him and the two men soon parted. As Jim made his way down the elevators, his mind went toward the DEA, his father's home turf.

 

Jim Hunt Jr. was soon enrolled in the four-month course given by the Drug Enforcement Administration at Quantico, Virginia. His class trained alongside the new class of the FBI. The DEA and the FBI were sister agencies. Though they were supposed to be working harmoniously, hand in hand, they were often at odds with one another, competing to see who could piss the farthest.

Though Jim was only twenty-six years old, he was serious beyond his years. Jim knew the job was about life and death, but that did not distract or dismay him in the least. He concerned himself with doing the job well. At the DEA Academy at Quantico, there were plaques to commemorate agents killed in the line of duty. These men were thought of as heroes, but to Jim they were heroes and more—they were good, decent family men who had been struck down and killed before their time, for all the wrong reasons. Jim was a natural loner. He had come to rely on himself, his own resources—he was brought up that way. His father had taught him to deal with life's twists and turns with his own two hands; he taught him to think on his feet.

Jim was anxious to get out of the Academy and hit the streets. He had no idea where he'd be assigned, for the DEA had offices in pretty much every major city in the world, but he hoped to be assigned to New York. He still viewed the Big Apple as the heartbeat of the world—its tarnished soul.

After Jim had finished his classwork, his wish was granted when he was assigned to New York. He immediately began working out of the DEA's office at 555 West Fifty-seventh Street, just off Eleventh Avenue. It was a large white office building with a car dealership on the ground floor, innocuous. The DEA occupied just three floors in the mostly commercial office building, but from these three floors, they were fighting a multitude of battles in the war on drugs. Here, strategies were put together; here, groups were assigned to fight on different fronts.

Jim Hunt took to the DEA like a duck to water. When he first arrived, he was assigned to Group 33. Composed of handpicked, seri
ous, seasoned DEA agents, Group 33 had seen and done it all—it was the place to be. They were on the front lines, in the trenches, in the war on drugs, the best of the best that the DEA had. These were dedicated, highly motivated men and women who believed in their hearts that drugs were the undoing of society—an evil tantamount to the plague. Of all the different groups in all the different DEA offices in all the world, Group 33 was by far the most successful. They moved at two hundred miles an hour. Ran on octane fuel. They had a single purpose in mind, and they had become particularly good at carrying it out.

It was no secret who Jim's father was and Jim was greeted warmly. At this juncture, his father was literally a hero in the DEA, a legend within the agency. Jim had some big shoes to fill, but that never entered his mind. He was not the kind of man who would compete with his own father. He would do his best and let the chips fall where they may. Jim Hunt was particularly suited, however, to be in the DEA. He was street-smart, quick-witted, personable, and genuinely tough. He was also a consummate actor.

One of Jim Hunt's first cases was an outgrowth of the infamous Pizza Connection case. The original case involved hundreds of players, all of whom were mafiosi, the majority of them hailing from Sicily. From the years 1975 to 1984, the Sicilians cleverly, diabolically, brought some $1.6 billion worth of heroin into the United States. Always shrewd, always audacious and deadly, taking advantage of whatever situation presented itself, they began selling heroin across the length and breadth of the United States. Many of the players, coincidentally, owned pizza places; thus the operation became known as the Pizza Connection case. One of the busiest locations was Al Dentes Pizza in Forest Hills, Queens. Here you could get a slice or a Sicilian piece of pizza, veal parmigiana and meatball heroes, calzones and zeppolis, and amazingly pure Turkish heroin.

Through the ingenious, clever use of wiretaps, surveillance, infiltration, and informants, the DEA, with the help of local police jurisdic
tions and the FBI, put together a monumental, airtight case that would end up with eighteen out of the twenty-two defendants convicted. These were no small, would-be mafiosi. There were major players involved, cunning Mafia superstars, including family heads Gaetano Badalamenti and Domenico Lo Galbo. One of the reasons the prosecutors managed to get so many convictions was that they turned the boss of bosses, the Caruso of the Mafia—Tommaso Buscetta. He was, by far, the most important mafioso to ever become an informer. He knew more about the intimate workings of the Mafia than most five bosses put together. Having someone of his stature and importance, with the amount of knowledge regarding the inner workings of the Mafia, was a groundbreaking event; it would teach prosecutors a very good lesson. They came to know that if they could manage to get the heads and bosses of any given family to talk, they (the prosecutors) could bring down the whole house of cards.

The case that grew from this, the Pizza II case, opened Jim's eyes to the workings of the Mafia and how dedicated and diabolical his adversaries were. He came away from it with a sense of satisfaction; that he had accomplished something important. Had the heroin the DEA intercepted made it to the street, thousands of lives would have been marginalized, squandered, lost. Little did Jim Hunt know that he would soon be up against an adversary, a monster of the night, far more evil than any of the mafiosi associated with the Pizza Connection case. There were dark skies, thunder, and lightning just over the horizon swiftly moving toward Jim Hunt.

T
ommy Pitera loved Japan. He especially liked how polite the people were to one another, their thoughtful approach to food and art—particularly their mind-set regarding martial arts. Here was a society, a culture, a way of life, that had been founded on the samurai, the ultimate machismo culture. Though the samurai were long gone and forgotten, their way of life was still very much a part of modern Japanese thinking. In a very real sense, the Japanese's success in business, their world domination of business, had to do with the samurai approach to life, to work. The Japanese thought of themselves as a superior people; they thought of themselves as smarter, wiser, and more resilient. Through the consistent application of intellectual pursuits, higher education, and the samurai way of thinking, they believed they could conquer the world.

The world, as such, got a foul-bitter taste of the samurai, warlike thinking when the Japanese attacked China's Manchurian province in 1931. We witnessed a barbarism on an unprecedented scale, unspeakable torture and rape and murder the norm. Arrogantly, in broad daylight, in squares all over Manchuria, shaking, quivering Chinese were beheaded. This was not done in secret, forgotten places or prisons. It was done defiantly, openly, for all the world to see and know. Chinese women were systematically turned into prostitutes to satisfy
the Japanese soldiers' cravings for sex. However, there was no quid pro quo. The women received nothing but brutal rape after brutal rape after brutal rape. The Japanese soldiers felt they had an inherent right, that they were samurai and they could take and do whatever they wanted with whomever they pleased. It became a known fact that the Japanese soldiers turned their libidos on the young; the raping of prepubescent girls and boys, the sodomizing of them, was the norm, brutally real.

The great expatriate writer Pearl S. Buck documented in her unforgettable novel
Dragon Seed
the destruction of a Chinese family at the hands of Japanese soldiers, and how a seven-year-old boy in the family was repeatedly raped by a group of soldiers. This young boy grew up to be a fierce partisan fighter.

There was no rule of law. No country interceded, stepped in, and tried to stop the daily brutality. Year after year it went on, fueled by the twisted interpretation of the samurai way of thinking. In 1937, Japan attacked China on a full scale—all-out war. Unchecked, unchallenged, now the Japanese conquered the whole of China, a huge country with an enormous population. The Japanese gleefully raped and stole and pilfered as they went. They were like a plague of locusts that left nothing alive in its wake. All was dead.

The Japanese began to believe that they were—
invincible.
That they were above the laws of men. This, fused with the samurai belief system, made a very dangerous foe. They were without conscience, remorseless, took great pride in their brutality, in their indifference to life.

When, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, they did so truly believing that they could, surely would, beat America at war. Again, because of the samurai way of thinking, they believed that the Americans were soft, that they would not fight, that they would quickly give up and Japan would control North America. The Japanese obviously underestimated not only America's resources but America's willingness to fight. In reality, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, they awakened a “sleeping giant” they awakened a
fighting machine the likes of which the world had never known. As the two countries fought horrific battles all over the South Pacific, it became obvious that because of the samurai code, the Japanese would never give up, that they would fight to the death. An outgrowth of the samurai culture was the kamikazes—fighter pilots who gladly steered their planes into enemies' ships. They were able to do devastating damage to Americans. The damage did not come about so much because of the bomb-laden planes the Japanese flew as because of the mind-set of the kamikaze pilots, who gleefully gave up their lives. Fighting an enemy only too happy to die was a difficult adversary. In Washington, it was decided that the only way to end the war would be to drop atomic bombs, for it was commonly believed, understood, that the Japanese would never give up unless they absolutely had to.

The warlike mind-set, the obsession the Japanese had, would not allow them to give up. Thus, Americans dropped two atomic bombs, one on Nagasaki and one on Hiroshima, quite literally blowing the samurai belief system into oblivion. Faced with this overwhelming, devastating power, the Japanese finally surrendered—unconditionally.

After World War II, a new way of thinking swept over Japan. The Japanese became a society of pacifists. They had no army; they wanted no army. They became a world power again not through military prowess but through financial genius. However, the samurai culture again reared its head. Now it was applied more toward business rather than war. For many Japanese, it was still something to be revered and proud of. The direction of this belief system now took a new path; it became more part of individuals' and corporations' mantra rather than an army's. Martial arts schools opened and flourished across Japan. Japanese martial artists became world famous, held in high esteem and thought of as rock stars.

It was into this modern take on the samurai culture, into this world, that Tommy Pitera entered when he landed in Japan. What drew Pitera to this place, to this mind-set and culture, was the steely, stoic, warlike approach to life the samurai not only lived but embraced with all
their being. In a sense, the samurai warrior was a mirror reflection of old-school mafiosi—respect, honor, bravery were all intricately woven between these two Spartan, warrior-like mentalities. Pitera thought little about what the Japanese did to the Chinese in World War II. What drew him to Japan, what drew him to the samurai way of life, was the Japan of old, the Japan where men lived and died by the sword. He was here to study martial arts. He was here to make the world of the samurai warrior his. He would become a samurai warrior; he would be fearless and remorseless and unbeatable. Invincible. The killer in Tommy Pitera had flown halfway around the world to find a comfortable place to develop, grow, learn. Here, the dragon would find nourishment and sustenance—become a dangerous creature of the night.

Wide-eyed and innocent, though with war on his mind, Pitera showed up at the martial arts school in Tokyo, Japan. He studied under Japan's revered sensei, Hiroshi Masumi. Every day Tommy showed up at class and worked out with a fervor and dedication that was religious. Seven days a week, he fought with his hands, his feet, and various Japanese weapons: tonfa, nunchucks, b
s, and katanas. His muscles, which had been toned already from his years of training, became rock hard. His facial features changed, too. His cheekbones became higher. The teenage fat melted off his face; his face became more angular and defined. His stick-straight black hair grew even longer and contrasted with his blue-gray eyes, making him an unsettling sight.

Though his effeminate voice stayed with him, here, however, nobody made fun of him. Here, Pitera was respected and thought of as a champion athlete, fighter. Pitera ate mostly fish and rice and seaweed and there was little fat on his body. For entertainment he read voraciously, books about war, martial arts—how to kill. He read about where to stab and slash and cut for the maximum effect. He studied killing people the way a dedicated student involved in physics studies numbers. He became obsessed with not only winning every fight he fought but winning decisively, irreversibly—killing his enemies.

For the first time in his life, it seemed like he had discovered a
place in the world where he fit in. When it was time to go, he wasn't ready to leave and instead went to work in a chopsticks factory to help underwrite his stay and make ends meet. His mother and her sister Angelina Bugowski came over to visit him. They were both impressed by the change in his physical appearance, how he had matured, how much he had grown, and how much he thought of the Japanese culture and people, his grounded sensibility. Now when Pitera fought in tournaments, he always won. Even his sensei shied away from him in fights. When he hit people, he broke bones, traumatized flesh and muscle and sinew; he left his opponents covered in black-and-blues—contusions.

Like all championship fighters, Pitera inevitably began to think of himself as invincible. He no longer walked, he strutted, head high, shoulders back, his chest out…defiant. Now it was he who looked down on people; now he was an alpha male, a predator, a burgeoning dragon.

Tommy Pitera became so absorbed in his life in martial arts, in the culture of Japan, that the days went by unusually fast. In no time, the young man had been there some twenty-seven months. He had learned everything he could, developed himself into a fighting machine. His muscles were much like those of a Thoroughbred horse; it looked as though steel cables were alive under his flesh.

Still, he was not sure what he wanted to do with his life. Could he make a living at martial arts? Perhaps he could open a martial arts school, though he was not the type that had either the patience or inclination to teach. He was, by nature, self-centered and was not apt to teach what he had learned through hard work, blood, and sweat.

Tommy Pitera knew it was time to go home, time for him to return to Brooklyn. Even he, back then, there in Japan, had no idea he would end up one of the most feared assassins the Mafia had ever known—a capo in the Bonanno crime family, a killer who would take a place of honor—infamy—in the Mafia's infamous hall of fame.