The Butcher (16 page)

K
illing Phyllis Burdi did not bring Pitera much solace. He had loved Celeste more than he had loved anyone in his entire life. They were soul mates. He had shared things with her he had never told anyone. She had gotten to know him deep inside and she loved what she had seen and come to know. The two of them were very much alike. If ever there was a female gangster, it was Celeste LiPari. Pitera wished he could kill Phyllis over and over again.

Be that as it may, it didn't take long for word to slowly spread throughout Bensonhurst and Gravesend and Coney Island and Dyker Heights—Mafiadom—that Tommy Pitera was burying people, killing them at will, chopping them up, and burying them as though he had been issued a permit by Lucifer himself. At first, these things were said in guarded whispers. Now they were part of normal conversation in that world. His reputation as a killer grew to monumental proportions. The people he worked for, his bosses Anthony Spero and Frankie Lino, the upper echelon of the Bonanno family, had also heard what was happening but they did nothing to rein him in. It was also no secret that he had killed Phyllis Burdi. They knew exactly the kind of woman she had been. They knew that she'd been warned to stay away from Celeste many times over. As far as all of them were concerned, she was where she belonged.

Yet the murder of Phyllis, the concept of a mafioso having his own burial ground, his own Boot Hill, as it were, was unsettling. It was unsettling to civilians as well as to people in the life—that world.

M
ore than ever, the DEA was working the Pitera case. Little by little they heard things through the grapevine that they had set up all throughout Brooklyn. They now had both the Just Us and the Cypress Bar and Grill bugged as well as a nightclub Pitera owned called Overstreets. They knew Pitera personally spent little time in the Cypress, but still they hoped to garner something they could use against him. He had bought Overstreets with the proceeds from his drug-dealing enterprises, showing good business acumen. Overstreets was a hot discotheque on the second floor of a building on Eighty-sixth Street and Fourth Avenue. Cash in hand, young people lined up there every night to party. It was popular, a moneymaker. Drugs were also sold at the club. By now the government also had listening devices in Pitera's car and in his associates' cars. The government had come to know, however, that Pitera was wily in the extreme. When he said something incriminating in any of the cars, he always had, as a matter of course, either static on the radio or the radio was so loud his words were lost. Rather than be disappointed, the task force was more motivated—more driven. They felt he was challenging them, daring them.

When they had him under surveillance and he met with different members of the Bonanno crime family, they constantly saw him cover
ing his mouth as he talked. Mind you, this was in the street, with cars and cabs and buses passing by, but still there was Tommy Pitera concerned about surveillance, concerned about being bugged, concerned about having his words pulled out of thin air. There was equipment that could do that but not on the scale that Pitera seemed to think possible. The more the DEA watched him, the surer they became of everything they'd heard about him.

Conversely, Pitera sensed the presence of the cops. In that there were approximately nine people from Group 33 observing him, it didn't take long for a street-savvy mafioso like Pitera to know which way the wind was blowing. He didn't, however, know specifically what branch of law enforcement was sniffing around, but he knew he was being observed, watched, and scrutinized. They could have been NYPD Organized Crime, the FBI, or the DEA, he knew. Whoever they were really didn't matter to him—they all wanted one thing and that was to put him away, to garner large headlines in the papers. That's what they were after—press, not justice, he believed. Whenever there was a Mafia bust, it was always front-page news, the leadoff story on all the news channels. The government waved around mafiosi as though they were flags. It helped bolster their careers, everyone knew, and it helped bolster their budgets when it came time to divvy up money in Washington. They were, Pitera believed, selfish and self-serving, dictatorial and one-sided. It was not about the rule of law, Pitera believed, it was about headlines; it was about hanging the scalps of mafiosi out in the light of day for all to see and know and smell.

Contrary to what Pitera believed, for Jim Hunt and Tommy Geisel, it was all about the rule of law. It was about protecting society from career criminals; it was about getting killers off the streets; it was about keeping chaos at bay and the streets safe.

Back to basics—Jim and Tommy continued to cop cocaine and heroin from Angelo Favara. Angelo sometimes bought the coke from Judy Haimowitz and sometimes bought the drugs directly from Pitera. Thus, little by little, as though putting together a complicated puzzle,
they were building a case against Judy Haimowitz—and against Pitera. The government knew that Judy would readily turn when confronted with serious jail time. However, she was not the kind of witness who could make or break the case against Pitera. They needed substantially more. Pitera had never been there when they'd bought drugs from Judy or Angelo nor had he personally sold the agents drugs.

They encouraged Angelo Favara to arrange a large buy with Pitera, but Pitera had come to view Angelo as trouble. He kept Angelo at bay, at arm's length; he didn't trust him. When Pitera looked at him, he saw a weasel or, worse still, a rat. Nevertheless, the DEA agents encouraged Angelo to talk to Tommy about arranging a big buy, if not from Tommy, from any of the people who worked for Tommy. If Angelo managed, as he did, ultimately, to cop drugs from people who worked for Pitera, conspiracy laws would kick in and they'd have Pitera by the proverbial balls. Any angle they, the DEA, could exploit, they would. If Jim Hunt had learned anything over the years, if Jim Hunt had garnered any insights from being the son of the revered
Jim Hurt,
it was to work as many venues, leads, and opportunities as possible, not to discount anything. The more hot pokers you had in the fire, the better.

One of the people who worked for Pitera was Andrew Miciotta. Andrew was an intricate part of the drug-dealing constellation that Pitera had created. Jim Hunt and Tommy Geisel managed to, initially, buy heroin from Andrew via Angelo. Eventually, Andrew, a short, stocky, balding man, agreed to meet with the two agents and sell them heroin directly. They were not interested in Andrew, as such—they wanted his boss. They wanted Pitera.

For Jim Hunt, bringing down Pitera was not about press or promotion or a feather in his cap. He genuinely hated bad guys—especially drug-dealing mafiosi.

He felt Pitera was contributing to the downfall of the community in which he lived; he felt that all the Piteras of the world were about chaos and disorder and the breaking of the rules and regulations that governed a well-run, civilized society. The fact that Pitera was defi
nitely connected to the Bonanno crime family amplified their efforts one hundredfold. This was not some renegade tough guy willing to take chances and sell drugs. This was a member of an organized-mechanized, international underground society that would rape and pillage, steal and rob, suck the lifeblood from everything it got its hands on. This was a fire-breathing dragon and Jim Hunt was intent upon lopping its head off.

T
ommy Pitera was open to doing business with any ethnic group that could help him prosper. He knew that to have only one source of product was not good. He readily dealt with Russian mafiosi and Israeli gangs. The Israelis in particular were tough, extremely well-trained men—all of them had been in the Israeli military—and they were remorseless killers. Pound for pound they were, by far, the toughest of all the gangs in New York City. They took what the Israeli armed forces had taught them about killing and used it on the street. They were like a paramilitary group. They knew how to use explosives, all types of firearms, poisons, etc. They had an overt arrogance about them, as though they felt they were better than anyone else, as though they were above the laws of the United States, as though they had an absolute right to break the law, to sell drugs, to steal and kill whenever they wished.

Pitera and Frank Gangi had done a lot of business with the Israelis—in particular with Moussa Aliyan, who'd long been a member of an Israeli gang in good standing. But all that changed on New Year's Eve 1987. What occurred exactly to bring their wrath down upon Moussa's head has never been established. Suffice it to say, on this particular blistery cold night, when Moussa arrived home after
partying at the nearby Nirvana Club, he was met not only by the cold winds whipping off the Hudson River but by a fuselage of bullets fired by guns in the hands of his former gang members, led by one Johnny Attias. He went down and died on the street in front of his apartment building. It was as though this was some kind of payback for what happened to Phyllis Burdi in his home, a supernatural retribution…revenge had occurred.

Some five hours after Moussa's body was picked up and taken to the morgue by the New York City Medical Examiner's Office at Thirtieth Street and First Avenue, his body was on an autopsy table. He, like Phyllis, was soon cut up into pieces. Later, when Frank Gangi found out about Moussa's murder, he was certain that Pitera had something to do with it. When Gangi asked Pitera about this, he vehemently denied it.

J
oey Balzano was a very good-looking Italian-American with black hair and blue eyes. People in Bensonhurst often compared him to John Travolta. He had big white teeth and an ingratiating, sexy smile that warmed pretty much any woman with whom he came into contact. He was a ladies' man, not so much because he put tremendous effort into courting women, into bedding them, but because he was so naturally attractive that women courted
him.

He was also a member of the constellation of characters that rotated around Pitera. Unlike most of the characters in Pitera's circle, Joey was not dour or introverted. He was extremely outgoing. His regular girlfriend was Renee Lombardozzi. She was the stepdaughter of Carmine Lombardozzi. Carmine was an old-school mafioso. He was one of the attendees of the famous Apalachin Conference in 1957. Many in the know liken Carmine to Meyer Lansky—that is to say, he was brilliant with numbers. He single-handedly ran all the Gambinos' shylocking operations and their multifaceted, insidious infiltration of Wall Street. Carmine could very well have been a professor of economics at a prestigious college. Renee was brought up in the world of La Cosa Nostra. She knew the walk and the talk. She was an intricate part of its culture. As the stepdaughter of Carmine Lombardozzi, she attended all
the Mafia weddings, Mafia birthday parties, Mafia deaths, and celebrations. Renee was streetwise.

Joey Balzano and Renee Lombardozzi lived in a nice one-bedroom apartment at Cropsey Avenue and Bay Fiftieth Street. The apartment had a terrace and was furnished well. There was an expensive Japanese silk partition that divided the living room. There was also a nice view of the Gravesend Bay from their terrace. Beyond the Gravesend Bay could be seen the horizon of Coney Island—the Parachute and the Wonder Wheel seeming to grow out of the ground.

Although Joey Balzano was gifted by nature with good looks, he was also cursed by nature, for he was a bona fide drug addict. Whatever successes his looks and charms would have gotten him went up in a puff of smoke as readily as crack from a freebase pipe. Joey was addicted to “the pipe.” When freebasing, he—like all freebase heads—would go through an astronomical amount of cocaine in a twenty-four-hour period. When Joey first started working for Pitera, he moved large quantities of drugs without problem or mishap. He was a moneymaker. All that inevitably changed when instead of giving Pitera money due on drugs taken, he gave excuses. He didn't give the right amounts. He was short.

Pitera had no patience for people who did not keep their word; slackers. He warned Joey.

“You've gotta give me what's due when it's due, not when it's convenient for you,” he said.

“Of course, sure, I understand. No problem,” Joey said. “I just…I fronted a bunch of people and they're stalling me.”

“Stalling you?” Pitera repeated. “Stop them from stalling and get the money,” his blue-gray eyes menacing and reptilian.

Frank Gangi had met Joey Balzano through Pitera. He immediately took a liking to him. Joey, Gangi would later say, was a very easy guy to like. Apparently, Gangi liked Joey so much that he fronted him more drugs than he should have. Without Pitera knowing it, Gangi had fronted
him a quarter pound of cocaine, cocaine that was quickly cooked up in Joey and Renee's house and smoked. Easy come, easy go.

Not surprisingly to Gangi, Pitera began bad-mouthing Joey. He said he didn't trust him; he said he was an out-of-control cokehead.

“Don't front him anymore. Until he gets caught up, no more!” Pitera said.

“Okay,” Gangi said, seeing the wisdom in Pitera's words.

Three days later, Pitera called Gangi and told him to meet him at the bar. That's what Pitera's phone conversations were all about; meet me here, meet me there. When Gangi arrived at the bar, Pitera was there.

“This fucking Joey…I hear he's telling people about burying bodies. I hear he's talking about people being cut up and buried. Has he gotten straight with you?”

“No,” Gangi replied.

“Like I've been saying, I don't trust this guy. He's gotta go,” Pitera said, looking for Gangi's reaction.

Pitera—to a degree—was a good judge of human nature. He well knew that Gangi and Joey were friends. This, in Pitera's mind, was another way to test Gangi—test his loyalty, his moxie.

“Whatever you think is right,” Gangi said.

Since Gangi had seen Pitera kill Phyllis, cut her up, cut her head off, get naked and into the tub with her, he'd viewed Pitera in a far different way. He came to think of him as an insidious creature from another planet—a monster from another dimension. He knew well that if Pitera was talking about killing Joey Balzano, Joey's days were numbered. Not only had Gangi not forgotten the murder of Phyllis Burdi, but he had not been the same person since the killing. He was drinking excessively. He was using far more cocaine than he should. He was smoking four to five packs of cigarettes a day. Now his voice was rough and scratchy. When he laughed, he'd inevitably break into a coughing fit, his eyes tearing, his face bunching up.

Unlike Pitera, Gangi was not about to kill someone over money. That evening, Gangi went to visit Joey at his home on Bay Fiftieth.
They talked, in whispers, about the money Joey owed Gangi and, more importantly, Pitera.

“Joey, Tommy is a real, real serious guy. You can't fuck with him in any way. He has no sense of humor.”

“Can you fix it?” Joey said. “I just need a little time. I can get caught up.”

“Joey,” Gangi said, “it's not a matter of getting caught up. He heard you've been saying things about people getting buried. His mind's made up.”

“You can't fix it?” Joey asked, hopeful, his eyes wide, pleading.

“Look, Joey, listen to me—I'm not that close to him. No one is that close to him. I think the person who was the closest to him was Celeste. Take my advice, as a friend—get out of town. Go make a life somewhere else.”

“Where?” Joey asked. “Where am I going to go?”

“Wherever you go, you'll live. If you stay here, you're dead,” Gangi whispered.

All this Gangi had said in a very low voice, not wanting Renee to know. One way or another, he didn't trust Renee. He felt that if something happened to Joey, sooner or later, she'd turn on him. Joey now looked at Gangi beseechingly.

“I don't know what to do…tell me what to do. Tell me the best way to deal with him.”

Gangi heard Renee move about behind the partition. Rather than say anything with her in close earshot, he wet his finger, leaned over, and wrote on the black lacquer table,
LEAVE.

 

A few days later, Gangi called Joey and said that Tommy was willing to talk. Joey was pleased to hear this, but he was wary—on guard. By the same token, he was hopeful that with Gangi's help, he could regain his honor. Still, when he left the house, he told Renee, “If I don't come back, Frankie and Tommy killed me.”

When Joey got outside, he only had to wait a few minutes before Gangi pulled up in one of Pitera's many cars. Gangi had given Joey every chance to leave, save himself. What was happening now was his own doing. They drove over to the Just Us to pick up Pitera. Gangi knew that Pitera's intentions were not good. He knew, too, that Pitera had come to view Joey as a slacker and a rat…a liability. Whatever was going to happen, Gangi could do nothing to stop it one way or another. His association with Pitera had put him in a position in which he had to tow the line, he had to listen to Pitera or he was dead. It was that simple. Yes, he had uncles in high places, but nobody could help him with Pitera. They were dealing drugs, which was a no-no. Gangi was not made, and Pitera was. What Gangi had in his head was to make enough money and to take off, start another life in another place, maybe Florida or California, somewhere warm.

When they pulled up in front of the Just Us, Pitera saw them through the window and came outside. Respectfully, Joey got out of the car and offered the front seat to Pitera.

“No, you take it. I'll get in the back,” Pitera said, sliding onto the leather seats.

Gangi had no idea how this would happen. He did have an ice pick with him in the inside pocket of his jacket, as Pitera had ordered. Being from the street, knowing they might be observed by the police, Gangi took U-turns, left and rights, more U-turns, and parked in a parking lot to make sure they weren't being followed. Joey, being a drug dealer, understood the moves. Often he himself had done such things. Tommy talked about a good restaurant, the Top of the Sixes, said that there were a lot of girls there. When they were out with Joey, he was what they called a “cunt magnet.” This, however, was all a ruse…a way to relax Joey, get him to drop his guard. There would be no fancy dinner at Top of the Sixes this evening.

They next headed to the Green Lantern Bar on New Utrecht Avenue and Seventy-first Street. Pitera said he had to pick something up. He got out of the car, went inside the bar, and came out a few
minutes later. He had met Richie David inside and gotten a gun from him. Now, back in the car, he said to Gangi, “Go to the corner and take a left.”

Pitera knew what he would do and where he would do it; he had mapped it all out in his head. It was a dance of death, the steps of which he knew well. Without warning, he raised the handgun, put it to the back of Joey Balzano's head, and pulled the trigger twice. The gun was fitted with a silencer and the noise was minimal. The damage done to Joey Balzano, however, was not minimal. The bullets had ripped through his hair, skin, and skull with ease and made gray pudding out of his brain. This wasn't enough for Pitera. He took out a six-inch hunting knife, razor sharp and shiny, and drew it quickly across Joey Balzano's throat. He cut not only the throat but both the carotid arteries. Pitera now told Gangi to stick him with the ice pick, wanting to make Gangi part of the murder. Obeying, Gangi took out the ice pick and rammed it into Joey's chest, though at this point it was a lifeless one, containing a heart that had stopped beating.

The job done, Joey Balzano dead, Pitera directed Gangi to drive to an abandoned alleyway close to New Utrecht Avenue. As they arrived there, the B train came barreling down the elevated tracks. It made a lot of noise and sparks fell from the two-story-high tracks. They dragged Joey from the car and placed him on the ground. Joey Balzano was fond of nice jewelry and diamonds and they took his Rolex watch and gold chain. He had a huge diamond pinkie ring on. Try as they might, they couldn't pull the ring off. Tommy used his hunting knife to cut the finger off, grab the ring, and put it in his pocket.

Gangi, unsettled by the whole event, unsettled by leaving the body there like that, kept saying, “We gotta go! We gotta go!” Pitera remained as cold as ice. A more appropriate nickname for Tommy Pitera, rather than Tommy Karate, would have been Ice Man.

They got in the car and pulled away. This, the taking of victim's jewelry, was an interesting, telling phenomenon. It is classically what conventional serial killers do—take belongings and body parts from
their victims, a phenomenon known as totems. Whenever Pitera had the opportunity, he took victims' jewelry; later, a treasure trove of jewelry would be found in his safe. Normally, a mafioso would never take the belongings of a victim. This directly ties the murder to the person holding the victim's belongings. It is a good way to link the murder with the killer. It is obvious that Tommy Pitera knew this, yet he still took their jewelry. Those in the know say Pitera took the jewelry not for its monetary worth but to prove his…prowess—to prove that he killed when and where and how he wanted to, his omnipotence. Yet, it was tangible evidence that could hold up in any court anywhere in the world. Somehow, it seemed that Pitera was thinking with a warped aspect of his ego rather than with the street sense that he was so well endowed with.