Donnie Brasco (29 page)
Authors: Joseph D. Pistone
Tags: #Biographies & Memoirs, #True Crime, #Organized Crime
“Well, I’ll have to send you some bread,” Conte says finally.
“Yeah, but I’m embarrassed because Donnie says you don’t feel too enthused about all this here, how we’re breaking our ass over here.”
“Hey, I never said I wasn’t enthused. Certainly I’m enthused.” “
“Let me tell you something. That’s why I got mad at Donnie. Guy’s a jerk-off. Says you weren’t enthused. I says, ‘Don’t you think he’s gonna meet these people?’ Because when you see these people, forget about it. And you’re gonna sit down with these people with me.”
“I don’t want nothing to happen to me,” Conte says. “I do what you tell me, right?”
“Right. There’s no problem. Where is Donnie now?”
“He’s out.”
“I don’t understand this frigging guy. He’s out. See, the question is, if Donnie wasn’t gonna do nothing out there with you, he shoulda been in with me. Now he could run around with me. But here I’m stranded by myself.” “
“I’ll send you a grand in the morning, Western Union.”
“Make it as early as possible. And tell that guy Donnie not to do nothing but stay by you. I will definitely have to come right out there after I see these people tomorrow. You’re gonna sit down with these people and me. We’re gonna entertain them people, you and I and Donnie. Take them to dinner. We’ll get everything straight. And everything that you listen to, you know from the ground floor in. Everything that’s going on. And we got no problem. You stay by that beep. The first beep you get from New York, I’ll tell you what plane I’m taking and everything.”
The man he was to meet at a motel near Newark Airport was Tony Riela, an aging Bonanno captain with contacts to Chicago. It was Riela that had kissed him on both cheeks at CaSa Bella. The understanding was, Riela would make the calls to Chicago to set up a meeting. The Chicago people would call people in Rockford. And those people would make the introductions to Balistrieri in Milwaukee.
Lefty had a successful meeting in Newark. The day after, he called to announce that he was coming to Milwaukee for the sitdown. It was now July 24. More than a month had gone by so far in arranging for the meet. He gave Conte the flight information and told him to write it all down. “Get me that same room in that same Best Western, right? Them people come from right in that town. I’ll explain everything when I see you. Where’s Donnie?”
Conte hands me the phone.
“He wrote everything down?” Lefty says.
“Yeah, he got it all.”
“Listen to me carefully.”
“I’m listening.”
“Don’t let it go any further.”
“Okay.”
“I got me a sitdown with the two main guys in that town where you are now. I can’t get no names until I get out there. When I get there, I gotta make a phone call back into New York at six o‘clock, tell them where I am, what room number. They call the Chicago guy. He’s gonna come and pick me up. They’re gonna take me away. They’re gonna talk to me. And they’re gonna check this guy out completely.”
“Okay.”
“I hope he’s all right.”
“Yeah, Tony’s all right.”
“I mean, I don’t wanna get him scared by saying that, and I representing him.”
“Right.”
“They wanted to know if he was a local guy. I said, definitely a local guy.”
“Yeah.”
“Now, once they call me, I’ll be on standby there. When I call New York and they call back, it might take a day, might take two hours. In other words, I cannot move away from that room. We’ll have to eat and drink and sleep there. Understand?”
“Yeah, we wait.”
“They’ll send representatives down to pick me up and they’ll take me to go with these people. We all go—me, you, and him. But I go into a separate room with them for the first conversation at the table. I represent the situation. They cause him a table. When everything is all right, then I call him in, I introduce them after the first conversation.”
“Okay.”
“Now, the money he sent me. I went for already five hundred on my phone. My plane I’m taking first-class is two-hundred-thirty something. And we gotta entertain them people after I get through introducing them. And I dropped two-fifty at the Newark Airport, with all them people. Because it took me four hours. But I ain’t worried about that. The most important thing is that the main one comes from that town and everything is beautiful. Not to go further. But they told me, I sit down with them alone. And then they’re gonna check him out. So as long as we got a peace of mind there.”
“Yeah, there’s no problem with Tony.”
“Good enough.”
Lefty flew out. We went to our room at the Midway Motor Lodge. Lefty called New York and told them what room he was in. New York was to call the Chicago-Rockford people and tell them what room Lefty was in. Then somebody would call and say they were on the way to pick us up. We just had to sit and wait for the phone call.
Lefty had said we might end up waiting any amount of time, even days. That’s what happened. We couldn’t leave the hotel. Conte came to hang around with us during the day. We had a first-floor room. We sat around the indoor pool. We played cards. We shot the breeze. We ate breakfast, lunch, dinner. At night we hung around the lounge and listened to the band.
Lefty briefed Conte on the upcoming sitdown. Conte now belonged to the Bonannos, so the Milwaukee boss couldn’t steal him or the vending plans. The options the Milwaukee boss had were: yes, you can stay and do what you want; yes, you can stay and I’m your partner; or no, I don’t want you here. The Bonannos had to abide by his decision.
“I tell them that you’re out of Baltimore, you’re here three years. I know you from Baltimore. You’re going into a pinball business. You’re buying a route. You won’t disrespect nobody. I’m involved in it, my money. You’re like our representative out here. We don’t want no problems. Because we can handle our own problems. You open the doors for us, we appreciate it, and if you got somebody’s relative that wants to come in with us, most likely they will. That’s all. Like Mike, my man, says, ‘Short and sweet.’ ”
“I just tell them that some of it’s your money and some of it’s my money?”
“You don’t tell him anything. You don’t do no talking. ”
“I meant if they ask.”
“No, they don’t ask you nothing. They can’t ask you. They have no right to ask you. They take my word for everything I say to them. Because I’m not asking them to put nothing up.”
“I’ll be glad when this is over,” Conte says.
“Sure, you’ll have peace of mind.”
One day went by. Two days. Just sitting and waiting. I thought, What the hell am I doing here? My wife is home trying to cope with recovering while I’m sitting around a damn motel twiddling my thumbs. Finally on the third day I said, “Left, I’m not sitting around here any more waiting for this phone call. We might be waiting another week. I gotta get back and see my girl. She’s not doing too good.”
“What are you talking about?” he snaps. “We gotta wait for this here. I thought you said your girl was working.” “
“She was, but she had a relapse. I’ll just shoot out there for a day or so, then shoot right back here.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, Donnie? This is the most important thing we got right here. We got a sitdown coming up. You’re putting your girl before what we got here.”
“Hey, Left, I gotta. She’s got nobody out there, she’s in bad shape. Just a day or two, I’ll come right back.” “
“Unbelievable, you put her first. That’s the trouble with you, Donnie. You fucking take off anytime you feel like it. She ain’t gonna die. What are you worrying about?”
That really ticked me off. I flew home.
The next day they got the call.
Three guys came to pick them up: Joe Zito, the old man from Rockford who was the main contact, and two guys named Charlie and Phil. They had Conte and Lefty follow them downtown to a dinner theater named Center Stage, which was owned by Frank Balistrieri. There they were introduced to Frank’s brother, Peter, and Steve DiSalvo, who was Frank’s right-hand man. Then to drive to the sitdown, Conte suggested that the Rockford guys ride with him and Lefty. They followed Peter and Steve to Snug’s Restaurant, in the Shorecrest Hotel on North Prospect. These, too, were Frank’s places.
At Snug’s they had the sitdown with Frank Balistrieri, the boss of Milwaukee; his brother, Peter; Steve DiSalvo; and the three Rockford guys.
Lefty gave them the rundown before calling Conte in. When Lefty introduced Conte, Frank Balistrieri started to laugh.
Conte called me to tell me about it. It seems that Balistrieri didn’t know Conte was hooked up with New York, didn’t associate him with Lefty and the sitdown. He had Conte and me stalked out because we were trying to start a vending-machine company and move into Frank’s town. He had two guys watching the office during the time we were waiting with Lefty at the motel.
“Frank Balistrieri pointed at me,” Conte said, “and he said, ‘We was gonna hit you. We thought you was the G.’ ”
“G” is the government. His first thought had been that Conte was an agent. Because if he and the guy he was with—me—had been tough guys trying to muscle in on his territory, Frank would have heard of us somewhere. Whatever we were, he had guys out right then looking for us. Those two guys had been watching the office waiting for us to come back during the time we were fortunately waiting with Lefty at the motel. So Balistrieri laughed when he was introduced to Conte and said he better call his guys off.
“When he said he had been planning to have me hit,” Conte told me, “I got so nervous that I was afraid to light a cigarette because I didn’t want these guys to see my hand shake. I still didn’t know if I was out of the woods. Man, we could have been dead.”
He said “we” because if they hit him and I was with him at the time, naturally they would have hit me too.
“First thing I’m gonna do,” Conte said, “is put a remote starter in my Cadillac.”
After the sitdown, Conte and Lefty took Joe Zito and his two pals back to the Center Stage where their car was. Conte had maneuvered them into riding to and from the sitdown in his car because it was wired.
Lefty says, “It was a real pleasure meeting you people. Like I said, one day next week we’ll spend the whole day together with you over there.”
“And don’t forget when you come back home, call Tony,” one of them says. “Tony said he wanted this thing right. He was so anxious, he’s been calling to see if it’s all right.”
That Tony was Tony Riela in Newark.
“He’s on top of the situation,” Lefty says. “Same thing what we do in New York. If anybody comes in or wants something done, we don’t rest until it’s done. That’s the way it’s supposed to work. Frank gave me satisfaction, didn’t he?”
“Definitely.” “
“Forget about it.”
“What’s your first name again?”
“Tony.” “
“And your last name?”
“Conte.” _
“Conte?”
“C-0-N-T-E.”
“Oh, Italiano. Frank was checking you out.”
“Don’t laugh,” Lefty says. “They were looking for you.” “
“Every move you made,” the guy says, “they knew already, every move. The machines, how you paid for them, they knew.”
“A few months, they grab you.”
They laugh. Conte says, “I don’t think it was too funny.” “
“I said few months. Maybe a week, maybe two weeks, you know. You got plenty time on his hands to grab you.”
“Oh, yeah,” Lefty says. “In this business we always have plenty of time.”
“Ah, Benny and you know each other, Tony?”
“Yeah, sure,” says Lefty, who is sometimes called Benny. “If I didn’t know him, would I bring him in?”
“Tony, you born out east?”
“Yeah. Baltimore.”
“Baltimore.” “
After they dropped the trio off, Conte headed his car toward Lefty’s motel.
Lefty lets out a sigh. “Oh, was you in trouble. You were gone. They were gonna bury you. Oooh. Good thing I made this trip. Wow.”
“I told you I was scared,” Conte says.
“Yeah, you had it right. They were laying for you. That cocksucker gave you up, that jukebox guy. That motherfucker.” “
“The day we talked to that vending company.”
“Yeah. They thought you were a fucking agent. They were gonna fucking bury you in a minute. They had guys on you. Okay, let me tell you this deal now. I gotta come back out here next week. We’re gonna merge with them. We’re gonna go far, big. He says to me, ‘Lefty, you’re my guy.’ He’s gonna call New York. Now you’re gonna work with them. You got a green light. You got a partner that’s gonna come up with the money. How much you wanna go—forty cash?—he puts up forty cash too. Because he don’t want no problem with my people. He puts a guy with you with books and everything. I’m your partner. He wants to take me around and introduce me to his men. You come around with me. Don’t ask no fucking questions. You’re just a working man and that’s it. And you’ll make a ton of fucking money.”
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