The Butcher (4 page)

However, as Tommy made his way to the gate, there was joy, a quiet rejoicing, in his every step. He was not sure where this trip would lead, but he viewed it as an exciting adventure that would bring him in touch with the best martial artists in the world. He felt blessed. All the bullying, all the barbed, vicious taunts, slaps and punches and kicks he regularly suffered, were now a thing of the past. The plane taxied and took off, and Tommy Pitera was soon high above Jamaica Bay. The sun was setting and it laid a flaming blanket on the wide expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. Tommy Pitera of Gravesend, Brooklyn, was soon speeding toward Japan and his violent destiny at five hundred miles per hour, the dormant, fire-breathing dragon in him slowly awakening.

A
s Tommy Pitera made his way to Japan to learn the finer points of martial arts, DEA agent Jim Hunt was seventeen years old. Though he didn't know it yet, Hunt had being a cop in his blood. Of course, he knew his father and grandfather were both dedicated to law enforcement, but he had no personal connection to their careers, to their morality, their sense of right and wrong—to their dogged adherence to the rule of law.

His grandfather, Joe Hunt, emigrated to America from County Roscommon, Ireland, in 1913. Joe heard that there were jobs that paid well in the mines of Montana. After arriving in New York, traveling with fellow Irishmen, he made his way to Montana by way of trains. The work in the mines was backbreaking and bone twisting, under the worst, most dire of circumstances, but Joe Hunt did not complain. Joe Hunt did what was required of him. He was a genuinely tough man, nearly six feet tall. He had blond hair, blue eyes, and chiseled cheekbones. In his mind, calluses and sweat went hand in hand with making a living, getting somewhere in life.

News of World War I hit Montana like a bomb. Though Joe Hunt hadn't been living in the States long, had only been exposed to backbreaking, menial labor, he felt it was his inherent duty, obligation, to
go fight in the war to end all wars. He traveled via rail back to New York and without hesitation joined the army.

As it happened, Joe Hunt was wounded in hedge grove country in France, both shot and gassed. Because of the gassing, he would have respiratory problems his whole life. He was given several medals and an honorable discharge. He heard, through family and friends, that there were civil servant jobs available in New York—specifically, openings for policemen. This, in a large way, appealed to Joe Hunt, so he found his way back to the cobblestone streets of New York and joined New York's finest.

A large, tough man, Joe was ideally suited to work the rough streets of New York. He readily passed the physical and psychological tests, and he began walking a beat, carrying a club and wearing a shiny, brand-new .38 on his hip. Joe quickly took to the job. He liked putting bad guys behind bars. He felt he was not only protecting society but the weaker members of society—children and women. He felt he was the difference between chaos and order. It was the Roaring Twenties and drinking and living in excess were the norm, making Joe Hunt a very busy man. Despite the realities of the age, Joe dealt with the curveballs life threw without regret, attributes he would instill in his sons. A dedicated family man, Joe returned home after work every day, and the weekends found him with his family. The murders, the violence, the amazing brutality men showed one another, were all left at the door. Joe never brought the job back home, to his wife and children, one of whom was named James.

When Joe Hunt retired, he was a happy, content man. He had found his niche in life and he felt he had served society well. Since he was only fifty-two years old, he opened Joe's Stroll Inn bar on Crescent Street in Queens. The bar was frequented by many in law enforcement and Joe's Stroll Inn prospered. The problems in Joe Hunt's lungs by way of gassing during the war gave him a severe case of emphysema, which ultimately stole his life away.

 

Like his father before him, James Hunt I, known as Jim, was born to be a cop, but as it turned out, he was a natural-born fighter as well; not barroom brawls, not with strangers over supposed or real insults; he was not an argumentative individual who was easily offended. Jim was a boxer, a very tough middleweight. As a boy, he began boxing in the Golden Gloves and knocked out numerous opponents. He was fast and agile and had a wicked left and right, both capable of knocking out an opponent. He was thickly muscled with no fat on his body. If he'd had his choice in life, he would have chosen to be a professional fighter, and he had been moving in that direction. Jim liked the discipline and regimentation of boxing. He liked being the best at what he did, a quality that he would have for the rest of his life. This was an attribute that would make him one of the most successful and famous law enforcement individuals in the annals of American crime history.

Gladly, Jim joined the army and went to war when World War II broke out. He had come to love America, the freedom and equality it readily afforded its citizens. He would gladly lay down his life for America. America's enemies were Jim Hunt's enemies.

Inevitably, Jim began boxing in the army. He quickly rose up the ranks and became an army middleweight champion. This was no small feat given that there were nearly one and a half million men in the army—he had tremendous competition. To be a boxing champion in the United States Army back then immediately elevated the boxer to rock-star status, though star status and adulation did not at all interest Jim Hunt. He was a true sportsman, loved boxing, and was in it for the sport and competition. The army was filled with men who not only wanted to fight, but wanted to kill. When there were boxing matches, held in England before the invasion, it was always standing room only. Boxing was, by far, the most popular pastime for fighting men. The stringent competition only furthered Jim's aspirations to box professionally, to make boxing his life's calling. Jim knocked out most everyone he was pitted against.

As it occurred, the reality of war, the reality of fighting an enemy as
consistently tough and resistant and belligerent as the Germans were, struck home during the Battle of the Bulge. This was close, hands-on fighting that took place over a period of some thirty-two days, mostly in the Ardennes forests between Belgium and France. These lush, thick, fertile forests were a terrible place to make war. The American forces were up against highly motivated, deeply entrenched German soldiers whose ferocious fighting acumen took a terrible toll on the American soldiers. There were some eighty thousand Americans killed, maimed, or captured during the campaign; nineteen thousand were confirmed dead. It was on this bloody stage, man killing man, that James Hunt was severely wounded. As he made his way across an open field, he was brought down by machine-gun fire. All around him, men lay dead and dying, their blood being quickly absorbed by the fertile soil. James looked up to the sky and cursed in anger. He didn't want to go down like this, lying there injured, helpless, as his buddies continued toward the enemy. At first, there was no pain. The natural endorphins of the body kicked in. But soon a hot, angry pain bit into his legs and all James could do was grit his teeth and wait for help.

After a long, torturous convalescence in hospitals both in Europe and stateside, James Hunt was confronted with a life-changing reality. Because of the injuries to his legs, his knees, he could no longer box, his doctors told him. This was a hard blow for a man who had been in superb physical condition all his life, who was endowed with the natural athleticism of an Olympian. Yes, with therapy he could walk all right, but running full out was impossible.

With boxing no longer an option, Jim turned toward the only occupation that interested him—law enforcement. When he heard about a new federal agency whose job it was to stop the sale and use of illegal narcotics, his interest was piqued. He saw an opportunity to get in with a meaningful, well-funded federal agency and begin from the bottom up. He saw a way to contribute positively to society. Jim Hunt viewed drugs as the scourge of society. He knew women prostituted not only themselves but their children for drugs. He knew men robbed and
stole and even murdered, without conscience or remorse, for drugs. The name of this new agency was the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN). He joined the FBN, and through diligence, hard work, and a keen, fair sense of what was right and what was wrong, James made a lot of arrests.

As well as being physically superior, James was a particularly bright man, a deep thinker, an intellectual who was a voracious reader. He also had a photographic memory, could remember the names and dates and places of most all his arrests. It was uncanny. He was the sharpest knife in a drawer filled with sharp knives. In the FBN, James Hunt was able to put all these talents to use; he quickly rose up the ranks. He was admired and respected by not only his colleagues but his bosses as well. They saw in Hunt a rare individual who had both street savvy and an abstract, intellectual approach to bringing down bad guys, drug dealers—mafiosi.

Gangsters had learned, during Prohibition, that providing goods and services outlawed by the government could be very lucrative. They began to think of narcotics as they had once thought of illegal alcohol. There was a huge demand for substances that took away pain; for substances that made you feel good; for substances that added lust and fuel to sex. Cocaine became known as an aphrodisiac. Heroin took away all ills, pains, discomforts—failures in life. Men and women, America's youth, were dying all over the country because of drugs.

It didn't take long for organized crime, for the Mafia, to see the great moneymaking potential in illegal narcotics. In that the Mafia was already deeply immersed in all things illegal, it wasn't a far throw for them to not only pick up the ball but carry it and run far. Through the American Mafia's connection with mafiosi in Sicily, contacts were made to get heroin from Turkey to Sicily and, ultimately, to the United States for distribution.

These Italians developed amazingly ingenious ways to bring heroin into the States, disguising it in cans of olive oil, crucifixes, and tall religious statues. They turned pure heroin into molds of candied
fruit, painted and colored and sculpted perfectly. Suddenly the United States government was facing a heroin epidemic coming out of not only Sicily but all of Italy. In 1956, the Mafia realized that Canada would be an ideal place through which to get heroin into the country. There were thousands of miles of unpoliced border, desolate forests, slow-moving rivers.

As the Mafia's tactics for narcotics trafficking evolved and became more sophisticated, James Hunt found himself at the epicenter of the war on drugs. He made arrests of major men in the Mafia, personally putting the cuffs on Carmine Galante, a very dangerous war captain in the Bonanno family, a bona fide psychopath, and Big John Ormento, a Lucchese family capo and one of the biggest heroin traffickers of all time. Along with his partner, Frank Waters, Jim arrested the head of the Genovese family, Vito Genovese. Genovese, a tall, gaunt, dead-eyed man with high cheekbones and a wrinkled, hard face, was fond of a particular steak restaurant in Germantown, on East Eighty-sixth Street. He often ate at this restaurant. James Hunt and Frank Waters managed to have a Puerto Rican informer by the name of Nelson Cantaloupes convince a Genovese captain that he was on the up-and-up, one of them, cut from the same cloth. In turn, the captain brought Cantaloupes to meet Genovese at the restaurant. Genovese gave Cantaloupes his blessing to sell drugs, as Frank Waters and James Hunt sat at the bar watching them, the restaurant crowded. The two government men blended in as well as the bottles behind the bar. With this observation, Genovese was arrested and sentenced to ten years hard time, though his heart gave out before his time was up and he died in prison, forlorn and forgotten—a very angry man.

As a part of this same case, Hunt and Waters also arrested an up-and-coming Mafia star, a former boxer named Vincente “The Chin” Gigante, who, in years to come, would be made the infamous head of the Genovese family.

Early in his career, James Hunt hooked up with a partner. His name was Arthur Mendelson, a quiet, unassuming man but as tough as
rusted barbed wire. Together, Hunt and Mendelson were an extremely effective combination. Both World War II veterans who had been wounded in battle, the pair became known as “Death and Destruction” throughout the agency. James Hunt was also known as “Jim Hurt,” for when perps tangled with Hunt, defied him, got tough with him, they were, inevitably, hurt. Jim's reputation grew by leaps and bounds. He became one of the most respected and revered men in the history of the FBN, which by that point had been renamed the BNDD (Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs). As the battle to keep illegal drugs out of the country, out of the hands of the weak and needy, out of the hands of the addicts intensified, the BNDD was expanded by Richard Nixon in 1973 and renamed yet again: the Drug Enforcement Administration, better known as the DEA. The DEA was well funded, focused, and had the support of both parties. Any politician who wasn't supportive of the war on drugs would be committing political suicide. Both liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans lined up behind and supported the DEA.

Here, for the first time, was an agency whose sole purpose was stopping the importation of drugs, the sale of drugs, the distribution of drugs. This was no easy task, and the amounts of money at stake were colossal. For the most part, the men and women of the DEA were straight shooters, but the temptation to steal was great. There would be, sometimes, millions of dollars in crates and paper bags there for the taking. There, too, would be hundreds of pounds of cocaine, heroin, tons of marijuana, all tempting agents who had mortgages, often struggling to pay the bills, feed their families. However, compared to police departments in large cities across the country and other federal agencies, the DEA garnered a very good reputation.

It was their job to extinguish the firestorm of drug abuse that had spread across the country over the last several years. It was no longer a disenfranchised group of society that delved into drugs—musicians, blacks, those on the down-and-out. Now drugs were becoming popular, indeed fashionable. As the appeal of drugs increased, so did the
demand for them. Bold men with bold plans, unafraid of the punishment, unafraid of being arrested, saw the opportunity to get rich and went for it.

One of the more notorious of these individuals was one Frank “Superfly” Lucas, a large, strapping black man from the South, by far the most successful, dangerous drug dealer in New York—indeed, in America. He was cagey and surrounded himself with killers and good attorneys. He also killed anyone he thought might be an informer before they ever had a chance to talk. He managed to develop a trusted relationship with the Gambino crime family. They supplied him with all the heroin he could sell. The Gambinos, in turn, secured the heroin from the Bonanno crime family. In January of 1975, Frank Lucas finally went down. James Hunt helped orchestrate and put together the extensive investigation against Lucas and was there the blistering cold night Lucas was arrested at his home in Teaneck, New Jersey.