The Butcher (6 page)

T
he history of the Bonanno crime family goes back several hundred years, beginning in Castellammare del Golfo in Sicily. Back then, the Bonannos were men of “respect,” educated, wealthy landowners—not a ruthless gang of killers and thugs. They were a family that comported itself with their heads high—with pride.

In 1903, Joseph Bonanno emigrated with his family to Brooklyn, New York. A particularly bright, ambitious young man—hardworking and not afraid to take chances—Joseph Bonanno quickly made a go of it in his new country. He was a tall, good-looking, affable individual, though tough when necessary. Through family connections, he met the higher-ups in La Cosa Nostra. The organization was then thought of as a group of Italians who banded together to prosper, to make a living, to benefit their families in what they viewed as a hostile, unwelcoming society. It was no secret that Italians were not allowed in unions, that Italians were thought of as an ignorant, backward people who ate too much spaghetti, drank too much wine, were oversexed and gruff. There was such open animus toward the Italian immigrants that the Statue of Liberty became known as the “Statue of Spaghetti” because steamboats coming from Italy had to pass the statue on their way to Ellis Island. Even the venerable
Herald Tribune
regularly referred to the Statue of Liberty by this slanderous nickname.

Through these connections, Joe Bonanno became involved with Salvatore Maranzano, a seasoned, scheming, extremely tough mafioso. In the young Joe Bonanno, Maranzano saw a particular brilliance, a ready willingness to follow orders, a willingness to do whatever he was told, a willingness to put La Cosa Nostra before all things—no questions asked. He was, Maranzano knew, a rising star with tremendous potential. In 1929, a bloody war broke out between Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano. The conflict, which became known as the Castellammarese War, claimed many lives. Joe Bonanno fought diligently and well on Maranzano's side.

Ultimately, Masseria was murdered with the help of Lucky Luciano and Tommy Lucchese. With the guidance and good business sense of Lucky Luciano and Salvatore Maranzano, the New York Mafia was divided into five families: Mangano, Maranzano, Luciano, Profaci, and Anastasia. Luciano and Maranzano devised a clever plan in which the different crime families would be given different territories and rackets that they would run autonomously, as though successful corporations. The Italians were inspired by men like Henry Ford, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Joe Kennedy who they thought took hold and manipulated circumstances to their advantage.

Luciano, however, was not happy with the way Maranzano had divvied up different rackets and, moving with the lethal speed of a rattlesnake, struck and killed Maranzano. To people in the know, it seemed inevitable that one of these two men would kill the other. There could be only one boss of bosses; there could only be one alpha male in a wolf pack and so Maranzano went down. The fact that Joe Bonanno was able to work well with Luciano after he killed his mentor spoke volumes about him. Bonanno was not about revenge—was not about getting even. Though revenge was surely in his Sicilian blood, he saw the wisdom of peace. He saw the wisdom of looking the other way and forgetting what Luciano had done.

Peace reigned. Everyone prospered.

 

The outlawing of liquor, Prohibition, enabled all the five families to make staggering amounts of money. Joe Bonanno quickly managed to develop a large network of stills and distributors. In a short period of time, Bonanno became a very wealthy man; to him, the selling of alcohol was no big deal. He believed if men wanted to have a drink, they had every right in the world—that was their business. The fact that it was an illegal substance meant little to Joe Bonanno.

Narcotics, cocaine, heroin, and marijuana were outlawed very much like alcohol had been. La Cosa Nostra, initially, saw nothing wrong with supplying society's need for narcotics. For them, it was just an extension of bootleg alcohol. After all, Joe Bonanno was quick to point out, Joe Kennedy—a pillar of the community—was a bootlegger, yet no one pointed a finger at him or called him names or prevented him from becoming an ambassador to England. Indeed, years later, when Joe Bonanno wrote his memoir, he used a picture of Joe Kennedy in the book, likening himself to what Kennedy had been—a bon vivant, a man of the world.

More than any other Mafia group, the Bonanno crime family dealt in drugs, and they did it more openly and defiantly than any other
borgata.
With his deep roots going back to Sicily, Joe Bonanno had little difficulty finding sources for high-grade heroin in nearby Turkey. With the help of Sicilian counterparts and, later, French gangsters out of Corsica and Marseille, Bonanno and his contemporaries discovered clever new ways to bring heroin into the United States.

In 1956, Joe Bonanno traveled to Italy. He had with him his top capos, including Carmine “Lilo” Galante. Bonanno was received in Rome as though he was a highly respected ambassador from the United States. Red carpets were laid out for him. Bonanno and his entourage then traveled to Sicily and there they were embraced as though he were Italian royalty. Dressed to the nines, he posed for the local media as though he were a movie star. He and his entourage stayed at the Grand Hotel et Des Palmes, where they wined and dined like kings. Nothing was too good for them—the best food, wine, grappas, and champagnes.
The black prince of the Mafia himself, preternatural Lucky Luciano, joined Bonanno and company and over a four-day period, working day and night, the logistics of exactly how heroin would be brought to the States were perfected.

Bonanno put feared, psychotic street capo Carmine Galante in charge of bringing heroin into the States via Canada. After their trip to Italy, Galante went to Canada and set up a network based in Montreal that enabled the Bonannos to get their hands on all the pure heroin they wanted.

They made a fortune. Let the good times roll. Heroin spread across the country like some insidious disease that showed no mercy, that destroyed everything in its wake. In all walks of society, heroin users became mere shells of who they had been…women and children were sold for the drug; desperate junkies would sell everything that wasn't nailed down. They robbed their own mothers without a second thought or pang of conscience. People were found dead on New York's Park Avenue, as well as in tenements and on tobacco roads throughout the country.

Washington lawmakers could not help but see and know and feel the problems in their district, in every town and city and state. There was a clamor for change. Newspaper editorials from California to New York demanded more stringent laws. The public outcry was such that politicians could not ignore their constituents and much stricter laws governing the importation and sale of heroin were quickly and with little debate enacted.

Initially, the Mafia had thought of heroin as they had thought of alcohol. The Mafia misunderstood the way the law, the courts, Washington, would respond to the selling of heroin. The penalties for selling narcotics were far stiffer than they were for bootlegging. The penalties for selling narcotics were now as harsh as or even harsher than those for murder.

With the change in laws, La Cosa Nostra was forced to reexamine, take a closer look at, the issue. The full Mafia Commission,
comprised of the head of each family, had a meeting to decide whether or not they should deal in drugs as a group. Ultimately, it was decided that they would not deal in drugs because the penalties were so stiff, the punishments so severe, that sooner or later their kind would turn on one another—cannibalize each other, they knew. In theory, this was a wise decision; however, many men in La Cosa Nostra did not adhere to this mandate. Vito Genovese, Carmine Galante, and Vincente the Chin Gigante were all arrested for dealing in heroin and sent away with stiff sentences. Genovese got ten years, Carmine Galante received twenty years, and Vincente the Chin ten years. None of these Mafia superstars ratted anyone out—they stayed stoic and silent and did their time. Even though La Cosa Nostra members faced serious time behind bars and retribution from their contemporaries, they continued to deal drugs. The profit was enormous. It was nearly impossible for them to look the other way, especially when they saw other ethnic groups throughout the tristate area selling drugs and becoming filthy rich.

Too tempting to ignore, selling drugs became something La Cosa Nostra did “off the books.” Any given individual who was made, who was a mafioso, could sell drugs but had to do it covertly, secretly—
off the record.
Captains and consiglieres, underbosses and bosses, all took the money and looked the other way, acting as though they were deaf and dumb and blind.

They saw nothing wrong with what they were doing.

The Bonanno
borgata
was the only family that openly defied the Commission, the other families.

The Bonannos were a large family and had many tough soldiers and war captains—the baddest of the bad. None of the other four families would challenge the Bonannos because they knew it would result in a long, bloody war. It became a kind of laissez-faire situation. The Bonannos sold drugs. Everyone acted as though they weren't. In reality, the Bonannos were doing, more or less, what everyone else in La
Cosa Nostra was doing, just more openly, defiantly…brazenly. The Bonannos—feared, prosperous, and powerful—were always looking for good men.

 

Such was the state of affairs in 1976 when Tommy Pitera boarded a 747 in Tokyo, Japan, and returned to the United States, returned to Brooklyn's Gravesend/Bensonhurst; his home; his roots. Here the Bonannos were deeply entrenched. Here they had social clubs. Here their soldiers, lieutenants, capos, and bosses lived, brought up their children, bonded, married, celebrated holidays, and prospered. Here is where they lived out the American Dream.

I
n the twenty-seven months Pitera had been living in Japan, he had matured considerably beyond his years. This was no longer a frail boy trying to overcome various inferiority complexes. He was now a confident man, opinionated, well read in the history of war; well read in the destruction of human beings. While in Japan, he had not only studied martial arts using fists and feet of fury, but he had mastered all the different accoutrements. Tommy Pitera's hands were now weapons. His feet were weapons. However, more important than anything was his mind-set. He was, he had become, he had molded himself into a killer. He had come to view killing, the martial arts, as a literal art form. There was no room in this art form for conscience, sympathy, or remorse. Consistent with the samurai way of thinking of old, Tommy Pitera had become a remorseless killer of men.

Oddly enough, he showed tremendous deference and respect to women—his mother, his sister, girlfriends. They were all treated well by Pitera. He was no longer shy, quiet, and withdrawn. He no longer blended in with the furniture. Now he looked people directly in the eye and walked with his head high—stoic, hard-jawed, dragon-eyed.

He thought about what exactly he would do in life—how he would make his living. Pitera wanted the good things life had to offer—a
fancy home in a nice neighborhood. He wanted his parents to be proud of his achievements. He wanted his friends to look up to him. With no family connections, trade, or particular business training or acumen under his black belt, Tommy Pitera's prospects were minimal. Again, he thought about teaching martial arts; thought about opening his own school, but this did not excite or interest him beyond an occasional fleeting daydream.

Inevitably, Tommy Pitera came to a crossroads. One road led to the dry, mundane destiny his father had reached; the other road, red with blood, led to power and riches, respect and adulation. Born and raised in Gravesend, Tommy Pitera was known and readily accepted by the mafiosi who saturated the neighborhood. The respect and trappings mafiosi had as a matter of course were things Pitera wanted. How could he not? The straight life was not for him. A nine-to-five gig, for him, was anathema. The thought of taking the subway to work every day was…nauseating. Naturally enough, given who he'd become, what he was about, the fire-breathing dragon within, he began hanging out in mob bars, social clubs, and restaurants in Gravesend and Bensonhurst and there rubbed shoulders on a regular basis with Mafia soldiers, lieutenants, captains, underbosses, and even bosses. They warmed to him—he warmed to them. It was no secret that he was a martial arts expert and soon Tommy Pitera became known as “Tommy Karate.”

Mafiosi have an amazing penchant for giving one another nicknames. Some of these names were amusing: Sally Socks, Vinnie the Nose, Vincente the Chin Gigante, Anthony Gaspipe Casso, Vinnie Beans, Sammy the Bull, Vinnie Gorgeous, Anthony Bruno Whack Whack, Carmine the Snake, the Mad Hatter, Kid Blast Gallo, Crazy Joe Gallo, Lilo Gigante, Sonny Red Indelicato, and on and on. These names were also a good way to hide the true identity of any given mafioso; they confused the cops; they confused the FBI. But among themselves, they all knew who they were.

In order to become a made man in any of the New York crime families, you must take an oath, on a saint, swearing allegiance to the
crime family above all other things—even one's own family, parents, wives, children. There is also a knife and a gun on the table at which the oath is made. In addition to the made men, there is an outer core of men known as associates who actively work with the Mafia. Associates are protected by the family they are involved with; they are, in a sense, surrogate members of the family. If any given
associate
does particularly well, exhibits loyalty, dedication, willingness to follow orders blindly, that associate could very well be nominated to become a full-fledged made man.

One of the made men that Tommy Karate Pitera began hanging out with was a deadly, erratic, psychotic killer—one Anthony Bruno Indelicato. It would be Indelicato who would open the door into La Cosa Nostra for Tommy Pitera. Bruno was one of the premiere killers in the Bonanno family. He killed so readily, with such aplomb and such ease, that he actually became known as “Whack Whack.” Bruno was tall and thin and muscular, had a dark complexion and a large beguiling smile that seemed to stretch from ear to ear. Women were readily drawn to him. Contrary to Bruno's good looks, he began balding prematurely—when he was in his mid-twenties—and had difficulty coping with the loss of his hair. This stone-cold killer, who shot, stabbed, and beat people to death, was more concerned with his hair loss than with the terrible destruction he wrought upon his many victims. He had an abundance of vanity, but no conscience…morality. Hair, for him, represented masculinity and virility. In fact, he was so preoccupied with his hair loss, so put out by it, that his constant complaints to fellow mafiosi drove them nuts. Bruno was one of the first people in the New York tristate area to get a hair transplant, but it didn't work. As well as having developed an inferiority complex regarding his hair, regarding his appearance, Bruno was a dedicated cokehead. This was a very dangerous thing for a
made man
to be.

The Mafia, as a whole, viewed drug users as unreliable, potential trouble, weak links in a carefully put-together, very strong chain. Bruno came from a family with close Mafia ties. His father, Sonny
Red Indelicato, was a respected capo in the Bonanno family, while his uncle, Joseph, was also a capo in the Bonanno family. As a result, people looked out for Bruno and constantly warned him to stay away from drugs. He kept promising he would; he dutifully went to rehab. Upon release from rehab, he was as handsome as a movie star and as charming as a seasoned car salesman. However, Bruno would go back to his old ways—snorting and smoking cocaine while acting completely out of control.

Bruno's drug use did not deter Pitera from pursuing a friendship with this erratic killer. Bruno and Pitera were tight and fond of each other. Together they made for a volatile mixture. One could readily liken it to mixing arsenic and cyanide. Bruno and Tommy were cultural contemporaries, both of them blindly dedicated to the rules and laws and mandates of La Cosa Nostra, not society.

Fuck society!

Fuck its rules and regulations. These two lived by a different beat, rhythm, they heard only in their heads.

With Bruno's assistance, blessings, and encouragement, Pitera became a Bonanno associate. Pitera was eager to please, and others in the family quickly took a shine to him. He had all the right moves, comported himself perfectly, said all the right things.

With Bruno's support, Tommy Pitera earned his bones (committed a murder) and killed for the Bonanno family. Dismemberment, the taking apart of bodies for easier disposal, was one of Bruno's specialties. Inspired by Bruno, fused with the innate knowledge that Pitera had of bodies—of taking them apart, of where to cut and where to saw and where to separate trunk from limb—victims of the Bonanno crime family were soon being cut into six pieces and buried in desolate places around Brooklyn.