The Mafia Encyclopedia (19 page)

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Authors: Carl Sifakis

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Page 46
into the Mafia for other reasons than being a stone killer. (It would be impossible for every made guy to have killed for such exalted status. Since the establishment of the modern American Mafia under Lucky Luciano, there have been, among all the crime families in the country, thousands of made menfar more than the total number of killings attributed to the mob, and there were many stone killers who carried out 10, 20, 30 or more hits by themselves.) A man, for example, can make it as a wise guy because he is a "producer"that is, one who makes big bucks for the organization through some special expertise. A crime family would not dream of risking a real moneymaker committing murders.
Early in his career Sammy "the Bull" Gravano exhibited no brilliant potential and, so, was required to make his bones to demonstrate his qualifications. To such hoodlums killing is to be regarded as a badge of honor. Sammy shot a man sitting in front of him in a car. Although two companions with him panicked afterward, unable to take the tension, the Bull felt differently. As Gravano relates in
Underboss
, the book on his career: "I felt a surge of power. I realized that I had taken a human life, that I had the power over life and death. I was a predator. I was an animal. I was Cosa Nostra."
Wise guys have an earnest desire to train hit men. "Donnie Brasco"undercover FBI agent Joe Pistonerelated having been asked by Lefty Ruggiero, a top Bonanno hit man, it he'd ever killed anyone, explaining that it would be necessary for him to be made. Brasco lied that he had killed a few guys over arguments. Lefty was not impressed. Those kind of killings, he said, "don't count."
A contract killing, he explained, was much different because you don't have the luxury of genuinely being enraged with the victim. A contract killing was done without feelings, with no concern about the victim one way or the other. A lot of guys, Brasco was informed, think they can handle that but then freeze up. Then Ruggiero made a magnanimous promise to his protégé: "Next time I get a contract, I'll take you with me, show you how to do it."
Ruggiero apparently did a few "pieces of work" after that but had no time to invite Brasco along. Finally, without any schooling, Brasco was assigned a contract, and the FBI was forced to end his six-year undercover operation, since a federal agent could not be permitted to take part in a homicide.
Donnie did not get to sample the fruits of such murderous endeavors as did Sammy the Bull. After his first successful murder, Gravano went before high-ranking Carmine "Junior" Persico, soon to be made head of the Colombo family. Persico wanted to know how the hit had been carried out. He was very pleased and impressed. Later a Persico underling informed the Bull that it had been "a good piece of work" and that "Junior loves you. He's real proud of you."
Mafia hits are not always as anonymous as popularly believed. In this case the Colombo-controlled area of Brooklyn knew that a crew of the family had handled some work and that Sammy was now the crew's workhorse. It became known that the family intended to have Sammy made when the Mafia books were opened for new members. That entitled him to new respect. Previously the Bull had been just another tough. Going to a club or disco the Bull had always stood in line like anyone else. Now it was different. When bouncers spotted him, he was pulled out of line and ushered inside by the proprietor. Other patrons were bounced from a prized table and Sammy was accommodated with everything on the house.
FBI-er Brasco got no such perks.
Bonventre, Cesare (19561984): Zip, or young Sicilian mafioso
Of all the Zips, or young Sicilian mafiosi, brought into the United States by the likes of Carlo Gambino and Carmine Galante, no one was more hated or feared than Cesare Bonventre, who killed his way up to underboss of the Zips and their faction within the Colombo family. Many American mobsters viewed the Zips as imported "crazies," who were not to be trusted, Cesare least of all. Nonetheless, the Zips became the key factors in the so-called Pizza Connection, importing millions of dollars of heroin into the country.
The Colombo family boss Galante, recently released from prison, ran the operation. He wanted total control of the heroin trade in America and ultimately meant to take over all five of the New York families. For that he needed the Zips and the unquestioning loyalty of the swaggering Cesare Bonventre, at 28 one of the youngest of the weird bunch. Galante felt he could trust the Zips; he was making them rich and powerful. What more could they want?
Trusting no one else in the Mafia, Galante kept only a small group of Zips around him, with Cesare always at his side. He used the Zips for all kinds of murderous work and for handling junk deals. Then in 1979 three masked gunmen shot Galante to death in a Brooklyn restaurant. With him at the time as "bodyguards" were Cesare and his cousin Baldo Amato. Both fled after the shooting. It was clear the assassins had no interest in shooting them.
Inside both mob and law enforcement circles there was little doubt that Bonventre was in on the hit. The other crime families in New York and elsewhere had
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grown so frightened of Galante that they decided he had to die. They followed an old Mafia custom of involving some of the victim's closest associates in the plot. Cesare Bonventre fit the bill perfectly. He probably didn't even consider it an act of betrayal. He could see how the odds had suddenly swung against his mentor. Farewell, Carmine.
As a reward Cesare became a capo within the Bonanno family, honored if hardly trusted.
Cesare's own downfall was a bare five years off. The Pizza Connection plot, funneling heroin deals through pizza parlors all over Brooklyn and elsewhere, was unraveling. Higher-ups probably blamed Bonventre for at least part of the chaos. And if Cesare had betrayed Galante, might he not also betray them to the authorities?
As arrests were made in the pizza case, Bonventre and Amato disappeared. Amato later turned up alive and was convicted with many others. Cesare Bonventre was not so fortunate. His body was found hacked in two and stuffed into two glue drums in a warehouse in New Jersey. The body had been located through a tip from an unidentified source who knew where the drums were stored pending shipment to the Midwest. It took weeks to identify the corroded and decomposed remains as Cesare. The task was accomplished using dental records and a gaudy gold chain the victim always wore around his neck and bragged was "indestructible."
No arrests ever resulted even though an informant stated that one of the killers was one Cosmo Aiello, who also turned up dead about five weeks after the discovery of Bonventre's body.
Perhaps Bonventre's murder had been ordered by his Zip superior, Sal Catalano, but there were other suspects. Certain forces in Philadelphia hated Cesare for having cheated them with diluted heroin. And there was an endless number of Bonventre's associates who had long chaffed under his rough treatment.
Cesare made a very popular corpse.
See also:
Catalano, Salvatore "Saca"; Catalano, Salvatore "Toto"; Zips
.
Book, Putting Up a: Bringing a Mafia member up on mob charges
Far more threatening to a mafioso than facing legal charges is having a "book" put up against him within his own crime family. This generally involves serious charges, and a guilty verdict allows for no appeal, with death virtually the only possible sentence.
The accused man is summoned to a meeting, often said at first to be planned in a private room at a restaurant or diner. This allays his fears since it is unlikely that he would face any immediate danger there. However, on arriving at the supposed trial scene, he finds no judges present and is then taken by other mafiosi to a new place for the book, usually the basement of a private house. The accused is told the shift was made to avoid any possible law enforcement bugs, but the setting is now far more grim and tension soars.
If the verdict is guilty, the accused is led away never again to be seen alive.
The most common reasons for a book involve a dispute about money or the use of violence, or even the mere threat of violence. Striking a crime family member automatically calls for the death sentence. Usually the best the accused can do is deny the charges and hope it is just one man's word against another's.
One exception was the defiant defense made by Sammy "the Bull" Gravano against charges brought by Louis DiBono. The pair had been running a construction seam gouging the federal government in housing rehabilitation works. The dispute arose when DiBono started stiffing Gravano. The Bull, in his usual violent manner, exploded in a confrontation with DiBono in the latter's Long Island office. The Bull raged, "I guarantee you, if you rob me, you won't enjoy the money. I'll kill."
Against the advice of mob friends, the Bull did not simply deny making threats. Instead he freely admitted doing so and told his judges, headed by family boss Paul Castellano, "This fat scumbag was robbing me. He was robbing the family." He outlined all the ways DiBono was doctoring the financial paperwork. Then he snarled, "Let me kill him. I'll shoot him fucking dead right here and now. He'll never walk away from this table."
Such a performance had never before occurred during the "majesty" of a mob "trial." The Bull wanted to commit murder before all the Gambino family's leaders. Castellano erupted, saying that Gravano was going too far and that maybe he should be executed right on the spot.
It didn't happen. Underboss Neil Dellacroce intervened, pointing out that the Bull could have avoided any serious problem with a simple denial. Certainly this was what the judges had expected. Dellacroce said he believed Gravano and called DiBono "a disgrace to our life."
Castellano opted to calm things. Gravano and DiBono had to end their business relationship. They would shake hands and the matter would be dropped. The Bull promised to do nothing to harm DiBono. When Castellano put the same terms up to DiBono, Sammy did not give him a chance to reply: "Paul, I don't think there's any worry about him hurting me."
The importance of Gravano's effrontery had more lasting repercussions that went beyond its impact on
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DiBono who was later killed for other infractions. When John Gotti heard of Gravano's defiance, he was already thinking about taking down Castellano, and he decided he wanted Gravano on his side in that war.
Bootlegging
Bootlegging was as essential to organized crime and the Mafia as the chicken is to the egg. And it virtually saved the great criminal gangs that were collapsing in America just prior to and during World War I. Bootlegging became the great source of income that turned around the relationship between criminals and the establishment. Whereas previously criminals were bought and controlled by the politicians, bootlegging made the criminals so rich that they bought the politicians in wholesale lots.
With the end of Prohibition, bootlegging declined but hardly disappeared from the American scene. High liquor taxes saw to that. As a result, bootlegging continued to be a major criminal pastime and the Mafia is deeply involved. Among the crime families in recent years known to have a considerable investment in bootlegging are the Buffalo group; the Erie-Pittston, Pennsylvania, family under Russell Bufalino; and especially the Philadelphia Bruno family. For years, this last group ran in Reading, Pennsylvania, the biggest illegal still since Prohibition and blithely had it tied into the city water supply.
Prohibition had brought to the larger cities powerful bootlegging gangs that fought bloody wars for control of the huge racket. Much of the liquor was smuggled across the border from Mexico or Canada or slipped in by fast boat. Many of the gangs found it necessary to produce their own alcohol to guarantee their supplies; they set up illegal distilleries and breweriesactivities that could hardly have been operated without police and political cooperation. In Chicago alone it was estimated that more than 1,000 men died as a result of the bootleg wars. Similar wars produced similar death tolls in such cities as Detroit, New York and Philadelphia. Some of the most brutal battles occurred in Williamson County, Illinois, the site where on November 12, 1926, a farmhouse belonging to a prominent family of bootleggers was bombed from an airplane by another bootlegging group. Although the attack was unsuccessful, it was the first and only time real bombs were dropped from a plane in the United States in an effort to destroy human life and property.
In 1930 a federal grand jury uncovered the largest liquor operation of the era. Thirty-one corporations and 158 individuals were cited in Chicago, New York, Cleveland, Philadelphia, St. Paul, Detroit, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and North Bergen, New Jersey, for having diverted more than 7 million gallons of alcohol in seven years.
Some experts say as much as 20 percent of all alcohol consumed in this country is still illicit moonshine; they base their estimates on the government's open admission that it finds no more than one-third to one-half of all illegal stills (a figure many believe is far too high). The mobs have many ways of bringing their booze to market; they can dispense it through the clubs and bars they own or sell it through the distributorships they control. Control of the waterfront is said to offer the opportunity to substitute their booze for highpriced imports.
See also:
Hams; Prohibition; Rum Row
.
Boss of Bosses: Mythical Mafia leader
Capo di tutti capi
, Boss of All the Bosses. The last man to claim the title for himself was Salvatore Maranzano in 1931. He was dead less than five months later. It seems organized crime in America, and the American Mafia, is too diverse, too greedy, too provincial, too ill-organized to follow one man.
That hardly matters to the press, which has, through the years, continued to bestow the boss of bosses crown, sometimes one publication in conflict with another. There was a period in the late 1970s when some insisted the crown belonged to Carmine Galante of the old Bonanno family while others said the mantle should fall to Frank ''Funzi" Tieri, the head of the old Luciano-Genovese family.
The first to claim the title of boss of bosses was Joe Masseria, who in the 1920s was the foremost Mafia leader in New York City. Masseria didn't kid around. A pudgy, squat murderous man, he simply started calling himself Joe the Bossand blasted those who disagreed. That, however, hardly settled that. According to Masseria, all the other gangsters of the eraLuciano, Rothstein, Dwyer, Lansky, Costello, Adonis, Capone, Schultz, Diamond, Genovese, Anastasia, Profaci, Gagliano and a latecomer named Maranzanohad to acknowledge his supremacy. Yet he got a war with some and treachery from within by others, supposedly loyal underlings like Luciano, who actually was busy plotting his downfall.
The great Mafia conflict called the Castellammarese War of 19301931 ended in victory for Maranzano following Luciano's assassination of Masseria. Maranzano had plans to be an American boss of bosses and, while it is common for crime scholars to deride the idea of a boss of bosses ruling over the American Mafia from Sicily, it is rather well established that it was attempted. Maranzano was sent to America by the foremost Mafia

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