The Butcher (13 page)

W
ith Pitera's bar under surveillance and the DEA aware of his links to the Bonannos, Hunt's boss Ken Feldman saw the potential for a big bust that would get some serious bad guys off the street. This combined with Jim Hunt's impeccable reputation pretty much guaranteed Hunt would get whatever he asked for. One of the first things he requested was a nimble, quick-moving strike force made up of agents from Group 33 to bring down Pitera. His boss gave him the green light and soon he was using rotating shifts divided between sharp, highly experienced agents who would eventually monitor all of Pitera's moves, who was going in and out of the Just Us Bar. The strike force also managed to get warrants to listen in on Pitera's phone conversations. The team of DEA agents, each of whom Hunt had given a nickname, was made up of Tom “El Gordo” Geisel, Eric “Eric the Red” Stangeby, Bruce “Spike” Travers, Mike “Nunzio” Agrifolio, John “Big John” McKenna, Mike “Big Mike” Grabowski, John “Little John” Welch, John “Jethro” Wilson, and Violet Szeleczky. They quickly noticed Frank Gangi show up on the scene. Frank was hard not to notice. At six three, with his long beak of a nose and black fedora, he was easy to spot in the crowd.

Always suspicious and paranoid, Pitera was indeed a hard man to
pin something on. As it turned out, he very rarely talked on the phone, let alone said anything incriminating. He drove many different cars, so, at that point, it would have been exceedingly difficult to install a listening device.

In that Pitera had been born and raised in Gravesend, he knew its streets, avenues, and alleyways, lots, and dead ends like the back of his hand. Pitera, as most made guys, could smell a cop a mile away. He noted the DEA agents, but he didn't know who exactly they were—FBI, NYPD Organized Crime, DEA, or ATF. To continue going about his business, Pitera again took to donning disguises. He was a natural-born actor and could bend and twist his body any which way he wanted to. Like this, he often managed to slip away from his pursuers. On several occasions—while agents were sitting in front of his house, he'd leave the building dressed in his Hasidic disguise, moving slowly, bent over like a pretzel, and they did not know it was him. He also dressed as a woman and, so disguised, would boldly strut out of his house, take a left or right, and soon disappear. At this juncture, Pitera was not under surveillance 24/7, though as the case unfolded, as facts and names and details became known to the government, the DEA would become like white on rice to Tommy Pitera. Because Group 33 was the most active, aggressive of all DEA groups in the entire country, they were all always very busy—were working numerous cases with different ethnic groups at any given time. Cases at different stages of development had to be nurtured; witnesses and snitches, new evidence and new leads, would fall out of the sky and have to be tended to immediately. For Jim Hunt, however, the Pitera case was important.

T
here were four Guvenaro brothers: Vinnie “Mook,” Louie “Bopp,” Frankie, and Arthur. It seemed, for all intents and purposes, that the murder of Arthur Guvenaro was a thing of the past, over and done with. That might very well have been the case had Arthur Guvenaro not had a brother named Louie Bopp. Louie was a tough, street-smart guy who was born and raised on Bath Avenue. As a youth, he had hung out with a group called the Bath Avenue Boys, all stand-up, two-fisted Italian-Americans. Louie Bopp was a naturally gifted athlete. Anything he tried in terms of athletics he did very well. He was a particularly adept street fighter. He had unusually large hands and was amazingly fast and knocked out most of his opponents before they even threw a punch. Coincidentally, sadly, Louie's older brother, Vinnie “Mook” Guvenaro, was murdered by Gambino capo Nino Gaggi with the help of the notorious Roy DeMeo for whistling at Gaggi's sister-in-law on Eighty-sixth Street as she came out of the Hytulip Jewish Deli.

Louie Bopp made his living on the outside of the law. Though he was not a made man, he was most definitely connected. He had been born and raised in the Mafia culture, was a part of it, was thought of well—a rough-and-ready guy who often had a smile on his face.

Arthur Guvenaro was Louie's youngest brother. Louie had always watched over Arthur. He knew Arthur was troublesome, that he was using drugs excessively, and he warned his kid brother. But Arthur, like all the brothers, was strong-willed and stubborn, headstrong, tough, and he wouldn't listen to his older—wiser—brother. Inevitably, inexorably, Arthur's freebasing caused problems that resulted in his murder. When Louie Bopp heard about his brother's killing, he was incensed, distraught, and wanted revenge. Revenge in that neighborhood was the norm, as much a part of it as the Eighty-sixth Street elevated train. The fact that Frank Gangi and Billy Bright only received a year after murdering Arthur compounded Louie Bopp's anger and frustration many times over. When Louie Bopp learned that Gangi and Billy Bright were out of jail, he decided to kill them—to take a contract out on their lives. Gangi and Bright had been childhood friends, two rogues cut from the same cloth. Bright had been doing business with Pitera before he went to jail, and now that he was out of jail, their business relationship resumed.

It didn't take long for Gangi and Billy Bright to hear about the contract Louie Bopp had taken out on their lives, and they ran to Tommy Pitera. Pitera was ideally suited to act as an intermediary on behalf of Gangi and Bright. He knew Mafia protocol exceedingly well. He knew its rules and regulations as well as the street on which he was born. Since both Frank Gangi and Billy Bright were working for him now, it was his responsibility to step up for them. Diplomatically, he suggested to Frank that he go to his cousin Ross Gangi, a highly respected Genovese captain, and that he, Pitera, would speak up for Billy Bright.

“This way,” Pitera said, “you'll have two families speaking up for you. Your position will be much stronger.”

Pitera was, of course, absolutely right.

 

A sit-down is a classic way the Mafia developed to iron out problems. It was easy to have beef with anyone over a hundred different things,
grab a gun, and put a bullet in someone's head. Though a bullet to the head certainly ended arguments, finalized all debates, there was a better way to settle disputes, differences of opinions, the divvying up of various multifamily schemes without spilling blood. Unbeknownst to the police and, by extension, the public, the Mafia often had meetings to resolve disputes without rancor, yelling or cursing or pointing of fingers. Again, this was a custom that was brought over from Sicily but refined and perfected by the American La Cosa Nostra.

In a sense, sit-downs had become an art form. The modulation of voice had to be just so; the motions of hands had to be subdued; even the look from the eyes had to be neutral, not filled with fire, hatred. Because the Bonanno crime family was deeply involved in this problem, Anthony Spero, the underboss, a highly respected individual in the family, agreed to “host” the sit-down. He would be the final arbitrator. Whatever he decided would be law—indisputable. The meeting was held in a quiet restaurant in Bensonhurst. The attendees were Louie Bopp, Billy Bright, Frank Gangi, Gangi's cousin Ross, Tommy Pitera, and Anthony Spero.

Louie Bopp was seething with anger. Regardless of how neutral he tried to appear, the anger boiled over and came from his eyes, his every movement, though he was respectful, shook hands and kissed. Louie first laid out his case, said that his brother had been murdered by Gangi and Bright, and he wanted revenge, was entitled to revenge. Conversely, Billy Bright told how Arthur had been stealing from them, that Arthur was an out-of-control drug addict, that he “brought it all on himself.”

Everyone there that day sitting at the table knew exactly what Arthur Guvenaro had been doing: he had been ripping off corner dealers. One day he was rich and driving fancy cars and the next day he was broke because of illogical, bad behavior.

Spero listened calmly to both sides and weighed the options. Gangi and Bright were both earners for the Bonanno family. As if that weren't enough, Gangi had his cousin in his corner, while Bright had
Pitera speaking for him. Spero ruled that the matter was to be forgotten, that no one was going to be killed.

“It's over and done,” he said in little more than a whisper.

And it was over and done. Had Louie Bopp done anything more, tried to get his revenge, killed Gangi and Bright, he would have quickly and summarily been shot to death, no questions asked, no quarter given.

O
n February 11, 1987, Pitera managed to lose the DEA, murder on his mind. He had Vincent Kojak Giattino in tow. He was headed to a desolate warehouse out in Queens for the purpose of filling a revenge contract. This was a particularly important killing for Pitera because he had been tapped by Joe Massino himself. Joe Massino was a rotund, particularly tough, though dapper mafioso, a close friend of John Gotti's. The two came up the ranks together. They socialized with each other. They were made from the same mold. Joe's nickname could very well have been Joe “The Gentleman” for he was fastidious about his appearance and was always well groomed. He had a beautiful wife whom he loved very much.

Through guile, brutality, street acumen, and shooting first and accurately, Joe Massino made himself the head of the Bonanno crime family. Philip Rastelli, the acting head of the family, had neither the balls nor the street smarts to go up against him. Whoever challenged Massino's rule was quickly eliminated.

One such person was Cesare Bonventre. He had been present the day Carmine Galante was shot to death. He had participated in the murder. A tall, hulking blond man who wore his hair slicked back and his shirts open, he was a mercurial mafioso who seemed to be
bipolar. One minute he could be sitting there laughing and the next minute he was tearing your throat out. As per Joe Massino's order, Bonanno family members Sal Vitale and Louie “HaHa” Attanasio picked up Bonventre to take him to a meeting with acting Bonanno boss Philip Rastelli. As is the way of made men, treachery virtuosos all, Bonventre was shot numerous times and killed on the way to the meeting. Specific orders had been given to make sure Bonventre was “buried deep.” This task was given to Gabe Infante. Massino did not ever want Bonventre found.

Apparently, however, Massino's orders were not heeded—Bonventre was not only not buried deep, but he was placed in fifty-gallon oil drums and left in New Jersey. When Bonventre was found, law enforcement immediately came snooping around Massino's camp. Plus, it was obvious to everyone in Mafiadom that Massino had ordered this killing. With that, Massino, not surprisingly, decided to kill Gabe Infante. Again, this was typical Mafia protocol. When the boss gives an order, it must be followed to the letter. In their world, in the world of crime, in the fiery netherworld of La Cosa Nostra, death can come from the smallest of infractions. Theirs is a constant life-and-death opera.

For Tommy Pitera, the reason for this killing was irrelevant. All that mattered was that Massino wanted this individual dead. Tommy would do it—no questions asked. He would do it well. He would, via
this murder, garner the respect of Massino and earn brownie points with him as well.

Sal Vitale brought Gabe Infante to the warehouse under the guise of going to see a load of marijuana. When Pitera and Kojak joined them, Infante was not frightened because Pitera was a known drug dealer. Because Frankie Lino was Pitera's immediate boss, he, too, was dispatched to the Queens warehouse. By the time he arrived at the warehouse, however, Gabe Infante was already dead. Pitera had shot him in the head several times with an automatic. Frankie Lino did not like dealing with Pitera. The fact is that he kept Pitera at arm's length. He didn't like being around him. He felt he was spooky—ghoulish. He had heard how Pitera adroitly butchered bodies.

The job done, few words said, Pitera now did what he did best. They loaded Infante up in the trunk of his car and he, Vitale, and Kojak drove to the Arthur Kills Landfill on Staten Island. Here, quickly, Infante was buried. Another notch in his belt, a favor done for Joe Massino, they headed back to Brooklyn, again going over the majestic expanse of the Verrazano Bridge. On Pitera's right, as he went, he could see Bensonhurst and Gravesend just beyond, the place where his roots were, the place that had spawned him.

D
oggedly, Jim Hunt and Tommy Geisel continued buying drugs from Judy Haimowitz, both heroin and cocaine, slowly building a case against Pitera. The heroin was pure and potent and the agents were able to have the DEA labs test it and determine from where it came. It was high-grade heroin from Turkey, no doubt brought to the United States via Sicily, Montreal, and Brooklyn, New York. The agents constantly tried to get Angelo to arrange to have them meet Pitera.

“Tell him,” Hunt said, “we want a kilo of heroin. Whatever he can provide.”

Angelo said, “He's paranoid. He's crazy paranoid. He don't trust nobody. He says to me he don't do business with anyone he don't know.” Still, Hunt and Geisel followed Angelo when he went to Pitera to drop off money he, Pitera, had supplied to Angelo, Additionally, government money received by Favara was given to Pitera.

However, Jim Hunt and Tom Geisel came to believe that the case could go only so far with Angelo's help alone. It had to be broadened with the help of surveillance, wiretaps, and more informers. Still, both Jim and Tommy grew fond of Angelo and his wife, Ethyl. Life had thrown the Favaras numerous curveballs and they were black-and-blue. Almost as a matter of course, the DEA was compelled to use people like Angelo Favara. Regardless of what his status was in life, in society, they'd make
the best out of him. They, everyone in the DEA, had come to know that in order to catch a shifty rat, you needed cheese.

By the same token, they believed it was only a matter of time before they would nail Pitera to the proverbial cross. They were out for blood. They were not out to make an arrest that could be beat. They already knew that Pitera had access to the best criminal attorneys in New York. Though as days and weeks slipped by, the Pitera task force came to realize that getting the goods on Tommy Pitera would be difficult.

It was patently obvious that everyone around Pitera was deathly afraid of him. It was very hard to find somebody willing to cooperate with bringing him down. Using the tapped phones and Angelo, they searched for a weak link, an Achilles' heel, some place they could exploit. Normally everyone has an Achilles' heel, but they came to realize that Pitera was unusual—exceptional. They noticed, too, that people around him seemed to disappear. There'd be a guy at the Just Us Bar on a regular basis and then suddenly he'd be gone.

The Mother Cabrini Educational Center was located at 246 Avenue U. This was the “social club” for the all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing Bonanno capo Frank Lino. The club, as all of La Cosa Nostra's social clubs, was on the ground floor, its windows covered in thick curtains, and inside there were card tables along with the ubiquitous espresso maker. The walls were adorned with photos of Frank Sinatra, Caruso, Dean Martin, and Joe DiMaggio. It was somewhat ironic that Lino would name a meeting place for the Bonanno crime family after Mother Cabrini. It showed that he had not only a sense of humor but audacity. Inevitably, the mob guys noticed the agents watching them from different vans and cars, but they did not give a flying fuck. This was an intricate part of their world and no one was going to disturb the solidarity that the club afforded them. Often, the DEA agents watched Pitera enter the club, come out a little while later with another mafioso, and go for a “walk-and-talk.”

Walk-and-talks were a uniquely clever invention of La Cosa Nostra. They had become so wary and paranoid of FBI monitors, taps, eaves
dropping, that the only way they felt safe to talk to one another was to walk the streets in no particular direction, going left, right, stopping and turning around, figuring the FBI couldn't record their conversations. They, the New York Mafia, created walk-and-talks and took them to such a degree of finesse that they became, in a sense, an art form. In that those who had the most to lose were the higher-ups—the most paranoid were the capos and bosses—it was they who most often went on these sojourns. They'd walk, usually two people, sometimes three, shoulder to shoulder, in stride, whispering as they went, trying to look natural—like they belonged. Often, one or both of them at the same time would cup their hands around their mouths as they spoke for fear of high-powered audio recording equipment.

The DEA agents' long-lensed, motorized Nikon cameras took pictures as Tommy Pitera went on walk-and-talks with a host of Bonanno people like Frankie Lino and Anthony Spero. To the government, this was a revelation. It proved that they were on the right trail. It was no secret to any of them exactly who Anthony Spero was. On other days, they photographed Pitera walking with Frankie Lino. The Mother Cabrini Educational Center acted like a sweet beehive and all the different mafiosi from Brooklyn made their way there sooner or later. The DEA noted Eddie Lino come and go. They noted Gene Gotti—John Gotti's younger brother—come and go. They noted Anthony Gaspipe Casso arrive, go inside, and then leave.

With the long-distance lens and the determination and talent of DEA photographers, little went unnoticed or unrecorded. They noted that day and night, Tommy Pitera most often wore black like he was in mourning. At any given moment he could go to a funeral and fit right in. With that pale skin of his and those ice-blue eyes, he was a sight to behold walking up and down Avenue U with various mafiosi. Of all the mafiosi, it was obvious to the DEA that Pitera was the most paranoid—wary of being recorded. He always had his hand over his mouth, as if he were taking the last bites of a Nathan's hot dog from nearby Coney Island.

They, the DEA, also trailed Pitera to Anthony Spero's club on Bath
Avenue at Bay Sixteenth Street. It was called West End. Spero had large flocks of pigeons up on the roof and often his pigeons could be seen flying large circles over Bath Avenue. Here, too, Spero and Pitera would go for walks around the block, talking quietly, surreptitiously, as they made their way up and down quiet, tree-lined streets. These blocks were lined with one- and two-story homes. Italian-Americans lived in many of these homes. A lot of the front yards were adorned with statues of saints and the Virgin Mary.

 

In the year or so since Gangi had hooked up with Pitera, he had come to know intimately the remorseless killer Tommy Pitera truly was. Everyone in the Just Us, indeed throughout the underworld, was always talking about this person he killed and that person he killed and what a badass killer he was. Gangi, too, heard that he not only murdered people but he cut them up—butchered them with amazing acumen. At face value, Frank didn't think this particularly bad or ghoulish—he saw it more as part and parcel of what had to be done, a necessary part of the job. However, as time went by and he actually saw for himself what Pitera was capable of, he came to know that Pitera was a living, breathing monster, that he killed the way a werewolf would kill, that he killed the way a highly trained ninja warrior would kill.

Murder, for Pitera, was as easy as combing his thinning black hair.

By now, the summer of 1987 was just around the corner. One evening in early June, Gangi got up from a nap, showered, dressed, and went to the Just Us. Now Gangi was making money. He was always on the prowl, always looking for women. He considered himself quite the ladies' man. Females liked Gangi. One of the many women he dated was Phyllis Burdi. Phyllis was the woman who hung out with Celeste LiPari, Pitera's girlfriend. She was the woman who Pitera thought was supplying Celeste with drugs.

Gangi knew that Celeste was a heavy drug user. Often she was at the Just Us when Pitera wasn't around going to and from the ladies'
room, back and forth like the Energizer Bunny. He well knew that Pitera really did not want her using drugs, but far be it from him to tell tales about anyone. He himself was a big drug user. He'd snort cocaine and snort cocaine, get all wired up, and drink half a bottle of whiskey to come down. Like this, quite stoned, he'd get in his car and drive about as though he were sober. Several times he had to pay off Brooklyn cops who pulled him over for drunk driving when his car weaved all over the road. One time he hit a stop sign on Cropsey Avenue and Bay Thirty-fourth Street. He had to pay five hundred dollars to get away with that one. The combination of excessive coke use and excessive alcohol consumption destined Gangi for trouble—big trouble.

When he was really stoned, for the most part, Gangi stayed away from the Just Us and people in the life. What he would do is find a girl and take her home; he always had all the coke anybody could want and he'd party, with the girl and the coke, drinking heavily. Sometimes Frank Gangi woke up with such a headache he thought he'd been shot. It seemed, deep inside, he was trying to numb himself. It seemed as though he had some great pain that he couldn't deal with when sober. What he was doing was not partying. What he was doing was killing himself, little by little digging his own grave. For these reasons, his family, knowing of his drinking and drugging problems, kept him at arm's length. They didn't trust him. They viewed him as what he was: an out-of-control addict, volatile and untrustworthy.

Since Tommy Pitera used drugs very sparingly, drank lightly, Gangi was rarely stoned around him. For Gangi, it wasn't a matter of getting high or buzzed. He would readily drink a bottle of Jack Daniel's and snort an eighth of coke in one evening. He knew if Pitera saw him that way, their days together would be numbered. Not only that, but Gangi had come to believe that if Pitera thought Gangi was a liability, he'd kill him; he'd kill him as easily as passing gas.

On this night, as Gangi took a left and entered the Just Us Bar, he ran smack into Pitera. Pitera said, “C'mon. Take a ride with me, Frankie.”

“Sure,” Gangi said, having no idea what was about to happen.

They went outside and got in the car. Pitera did his usual thing, made a U-turn, went a couple blocks, made another U-turn, drove into a shopping center, and went in a big circle to make sure they weren't being followed. Pitera was a hard man to tail. He knew the moves. He had carefully studied surveillance. He had carefully studied exactly what cops do to follow people, and he readily managed to slip away from the government. He knew these streets far better than any of the DEA agents.

As was Pitera's habit, strategy, he turned on the radio. He purposely tuned in to an AM frequency with loud static. He turned the volume up high enough so that the sound became hurtful to the ears. He leaned toward Gangi and whispered.

“This way no one can listen.”

“What's up?”

“We gotta go kill Talal.”

“You want me to do it?” Gangi asked, seeing an opportunity to get close to Pitera, to prove himself. Gangi didn't want to kill anybody, but he wanted to impress Pitera. He felt the closer he got to Pitera, the more Pitera trusted him, the more money he'd make.

“No, no, I'll take care of it. We're going over to Richie David's house. He's got a briefcase for us. You'll go in and get it.”

“Okay,” Frank said, the static bothering him, stirring up his hangover from the night before. Pitera kept looking in the rearview mirror as he drove, making sure they were alone.

They made their way to Richie David's house. Richie was expecting them. When Gangi got to the door, Richie handed him a briefcase. Gangi, with his long, stilted gait, walked back to the car and got in. Pitera opened the case. There were guns inside. He took out an automatic, cocked it, and put a bullet in the chamber. He then carefully screwed a custom-fitted silencer on the front of the gun. It was obvious that he knew guns exceedingly well. Seeing him handle a gun was like seeing a doctor handle a stethoscope. The gun was part of Pitera's stock and trade and he had made it his business to make
any gun he held, any weapon he held, a natural extension of his body. He put the gun back in the briefcase and closed it. He placed the case on the backseat. Pitera put the car in gear and they started out. He made his way to Coney Island Avenue and they took a right. The victim, Talal Siksik, was being held at his apartment, number 1A, at 2807 Kings Highway and East Twenty-eighth Street. The mark was dying because Tommy had been told by one of his crew that he was an informer. Pitera hated rats with an obsessive fervor.

They had some difficulty parking. Kings Highway was a shopping mecca for all Brooklynites and finding a parking spot was a pain in the ass. When they finally parked, Pitera stuck the 9mm auto in the small of his back and they made their way to Siksik's home. When the door opened, they found Shlomo Mendelsohn, also known as Sammy, and Billy Bright there.

Talal Siksik was handcuffed. His mouth was taped shut. It was obvious he was scared beyond words, petrified to the core of his being, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw Tommy. It was obvious, too, that he had been severely beaten. Tommy was angry about him being not only beaten but tortured. He yelled at Shlomo and Billy. Billy sheepishly said it was a misunderstanding.

It was now that Pitera showed his true colors. Drawing the gun from his waistband, he quickly walked over to the distraught Siksik, raised the gun, and shot him in the head twice, just above the ear. Frank Gangi was shocked by the quiet, lethal ferocity of Pitera's attack. He had never seen anybody kill with such ease, aplomb. It was like watching a professional fighter in his prime effortlessly knock out a man with a left hook. Pitera was sure of himself, confident. Every step he took was filled with resolve and purpose. It was obvious that to Pitera, killing a human being meant nothing. On the one hand, Gangi had to admire how lethal and deadly he was. On the other hand, he was appalled by how indifferently Pitera claimed the life of Talal Siksik.

Gangi hadn't seen anything yet.

It would get far worse.

Pitera turned to Gangi and said, in his high-pitched voice, “Help me get him in the tub.” Both Pitera and Gangi were strong men and carrying Talal to the tub was easy. For the most part, Talal had stopped bleeding. They placed him in the tub face down. Pitera now produced the kind of hacksaw used for autopsies. He took it and turned to Gangi.