Donnie Brasco (31 page)

BOOK: Donnie Brasco

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Frank Balistrieri, alone, drove us to his house in his black Cadillac. Lefty gave me a look—he couldn’t believe a boss would go anywhere alone, let alone drive himself.

On the way Frank told us, “I’ve got a good crew, but they’re older, kind of set in their ways. I could use some younger guys that I could trust to take over a couple of my clubs and other businesses. Younger guys would be able to relate to the ways of today’s business world.”

“If you need anything done,” Lefty pipes up, “Donnie and Tony can do it. You can trust them. They’re good with people. They’re at your disposal, Frank, if you need them.”

It was only about a ten-minute drive to his lakefront Colonial-style home. The people from the night before were joined by Frank’s brother, Peter. Peter was a little taller, less intense than his brother, the boss. “I wouldn’t be in his position for all the tea in China,” he said. “I couldn’t take the heat.”

We were introduced to Frank’s wife. She and another lady did the cooking and serving.

Frank sat at the head of the table, Lefty at his right hand. The women didn’t sit with us, just served. It was a fine five-course dinner with veal as the main course. Bottles of Château Lafitte wine were continuously replenished on the table. Later came Louis XIII brandy.

Frank talked about the old days. At one time he owned seven clubs in downtown Milwaukee and promoted boxing matches, many of which were setups, fixed. He said that when he travels nowadays, he flies by private jet and does not move in or out of major airports, and that he always travels under an alias—currently “Lenny Frank.”

The mood got warm and relaxed. But Conte and I had to maintain concentration and composure, choose our words and actions carefully so as not to offend. This was a boss’s house.

On the next evening, Sunday, there was to be a big “Icebreaker” banquet to kick off the Italian Golf Tournament, a charity event. He said he had not attended for several years because he was enemies with the guy who once headed the committee, Louis Fazio. “But now he’s dead,” Frank said. “Five times thirty-eight.” He laughed, but it was no joke. Thirty-eight, as in caliber. So he planned to attend this banquet as a surprise and “have some fun.” He invited us to come along as his guests.

His brother Peter said, “I owe some aggravation to some people too. I wouldn’t mind throwing a scare into some of them.”

Lefty smiled. “A little violence never hurt anybody,” he said.

Our group arrived late at the Grand Ballroom of the Marc Plaza Hotel for the Icebreaker Banquet.

When we appeared in the door, the maître d’ and the chairman of the banquet committee came running over, full of apologies to Frank that there was no table ready for him—they had not known that he was coming.

There were no empty tables, and everybody had started eating their fruit cocktails. Waiters started scurrying around. People were already looking at us and whispering. Obviously they knew who Frank Balistrieri was. There was a table right in front of the stage where they would have the ceremonies. The maître d’ told these people they would have to move to accommodate us. Nobody complained. A new table was set up for us. Then they brought us in and sat us down. Waiters were all over us, two or three catering to our table alone.

After the meal a steady stream of people came over and paid homage. “Frank, you’re looking good.... Nice to see you here, Frank....” I had never seen anything like this. It was unreal.

Frank played his power to the hilt. “This is Leftie and Donnie, my good friends from New York. This is Tony, my good friend from Baltimore....” He would introduce these people to us, then immediately ignore them and resume talking to us, leaving them standing there with the color draining from their faces.

Carmen Basilio, the former boxer and one of the guests of honor, and Johnny Desmond, who sang at the event, came over to be introduced.

After the ceremonies were over, Frank said, “Let’s go over to the snitch’s place.”

That was the Peppercorn, a lounge and restaurant in the downtown Athletic Club. The Peppercorn was operated by a guy Frank said he hated “because he’s a snitch.”

The place was jammed, mostly with people who had come over from the banquet. We stayed in the bar. More people came over to pay their respects to Frank.

Frank and Steve DiSalvo started telling us about stool pigeons.

“There’s so many fucking stool pigeons,” Steve says, “that you can’t kill them all. You need Castro’s army to kill all the stool pigeons in Milwaukee. Around here, how you can tell the stoolies is, they all have remote starters in their cars.”

Conte had recently put a remote-control starter in his car.

Frank said he couldn’t understand how people could turn against their own. “No witness ever lived to testify against me.”

Steve says to me, “I been trying to get Frank, instead of running his own book, to charge all the other bookies in town $1,000 a week just to operate. Because it’s a pain in the ass with so many stoolies, a headache. Let them run their book, charge them, and leave your own guys out of it. You can’t get anybody good to run the book anymore.”

Frank said that the guy who ran his day-to-day gambling operation the previous year didn’t tend to business. “I don’t want to have to look over somebody’s shoulder all the time. I need somebody I can trust.”

“Donnie can do it,” Lefty jumps in. “He worked with me in my bookmaking operation, he can handle it, he knows what he’s doing.”

Frank looks at me. “You interested?”

“Sure I’m interested.”

Frank grabs Lefty’s arm. “Let’s talk.” They go away to a small table.

As a connected guy but not a made guy, I could be loaned out from one family to another. Lefty would get a cut of whatever I did, and he knew how big this guy’s bookmaking business was.

Not only would I be handling the bookmaking for the mob boss of Milwaukee, but I had the chance to get inside the skimming operation in Las Vegas. At casinos controlled by the mob, money is skimmed right off the top as the mob’s share. Balistrieri had the responsibility of collecting that skim money and distributing it to the other mob families involved around the country.

It was a sensational opening for me. But I couldn’t do it. I knew that instantly. The largest part of Frank’s bookmaking operation was football. The football season lasts about twenty weeks. During that season the

These surveillance photos were taken outside the Toyland Social Club in New York, the headquarters of Bonanno family underboss Nicky Marangello and a key meeting place for top members of the Bonanno crew.

bookmaking operation goes on seven days a week. We were now entering August, and football season was about to start.

Special agent Joseph Pistone, operating undercover as jewel thief “Donnie Brasco,” is shown in New York’s Little Italy in 1977. Agent Pistone’s operation was so secret that even the FBI surveillance team thought “Donnie Brasco” was an associate of the Bonanno family. As Agent Pistone infiltrated higher levels of La Costra Nostra, surveillance teams became part of his operation to document evidence against the Mafia and to protect his life. Many of the photographs on these pages are FBI surveillance shots taken without his knowledge.

Underboss Nicky Marangello, who went by nicknames “Nicky Cigars,” “Nicky Glasses,” or “Little Nicky,” controlled the numbers and other gambling operations for the Bonanno family.

Capo Mike Sabella (left) with one of his top soldiers and hitmen, Benjamin “Lefty Guns” Ruggiero. Ruggiero became “Donnie Brasco‘s” Mafia partner.

Tony Mirra (right), one of the most feared of all Bonanno soldiers, talks with Marangello. Mirra eventually became jealous of “Donnie Brasco‘s” rising influence, and wanted him dead.