The Strength of the Wolf (77 page)

“For three years I'd been at the Court House Squad without acquiring any new informers. Then I was assigned to Feldman's Group and was given a new partner, Pete Scrocca, ‘the blond Italian.' Scrocca came from Morris Avenue in the Bronx and had that Bronx wiseguy humor – you know, always making cracks, but you didn't know what he really meant? He said something wise to Lenny Schrier once, and Lenny set him straight. After that, Belk wanted him gone. Belk sends Fluhr to me, and Fluhr says, ‘Get rid of Scrocca.'

“In those days, when the boss wanted someone out, the senior partner got the job. It was easy: you say he writes bad reports, or doesn't show up on time. But I liked Scrocca, so I protected him, and we ended up being partners for two years.

“Anyway, by the summer of 1965 I needed a break. I hadn't taken a day off since I'd started, so I decided to take my family on a vacation. The travel agent makes reservations at the Colonial in Miami Beach. We fly down in August and rent a car at the airport, but when we get to the Colonial, we find out that the reservations had failed. We end up in a fleabag motel, the last place on the strip. The kids are crying, my wife's complaining, I gotta find another place.

“The next day I'm checking out the Thunderbird Motel. I'm having a drink at the bar and I meet a guy, Emmett Costello. He owns a big truck stop and he's there with his lawyer and some Teamsters from Chicago. He's buying all the ladies drinks and cartons of cigarettes, and he invites me to sit down at his table. I recognize one of the guys sitting with him. I know
the guy from New York. But I'm a federal narcotic agent, and I can't show them anything. So I sit down.

“The guy I recognize had a gorgeous Irish girlfriend, a stripper named Autumn Leaves. We were trying to get her to work for us when I was in Group Three. We went up to her apartment in Riverdale, and Patty Biase took her cabaret card. But she was tough and wouldn't fold. And while we're there she gets a call. I'm on the extension and I hear the guy say, ‘Tell them to get the fuck out!' He slams the phone down and comes over. He pounds on the door, and when he comes in, he starts screaming at us.” Frank is somewhat awed. “The guy's Guido Penosi. He's a made guy from the Bronx. He's a friend of Frank Dioguardia and Trafficante, and that's why he's in Florida at the same time I am, in August 1965. He's there to bid on the French connection shipment that goes to Dioguardia in the Nebbia case.
¹

“You have to understand,” Selvaggi stresses, “that Guido Penosi was not my friend. His brother-in-law, Tony Castaldi, was a defendant in the Rinaldo case, and we put Penosi in the case as an unindicted co-conspirator. So there was that, along with the incident with his girlfriend. But there's no way I could refuse to face him over drinks at the table.

“At the time, my informant, Sal Rinaldo, is the main witness in a huge conspiracy case against dozens of traffickers. There's a million-dollar contract on his life, and I've got him living in my house in Valhalla, painting the rooms. I'm secretly taking him to various locations to testify against violators in Italy, upstate New York, and Canada. The prosecutors want to take some of the pressure off him, so they ask me to talk to everyone I know, to see if anyone wants to cut a deal – which is why I think it's okay to talk with Penosi, even if someone is watching. And someone is. I know, because I see them sitting in a line of cars parked bumper to bumper on Collins Avenue. They're taking pictures of everyone, so I go out and show them my badge. Then I get the plate number off Penosi's Cadillac and give it to a Miami agent.

“So what? So they know.

“When I get back from vacation, Dolce is gone. He'd quit. But there's a rumor floating around about what happened down in Miami. Then Tendy calls me and says, ‘Come to the office. Somebody's got a beef on you.' They think I flew down to Florida with the mob and was picked up by the mob at the airport. There's a rumor that I used Penosi's car when I was there. They think he paid my motel bill. $690.” Selvaggi shakes his head in disbelief. “I offered to go down and drag him back, but the US Attorney said, ‘Don't do it.'

“Now I'm getting hot, and Lenny Schrier says, ‘You need to cool down.' That's when he sends me to Georgia with Frankie Black, and we arrest the warrant officer, and make the ninety-five-kilogram case in Columbus. By the time I get back to New York, it's January 1966. Fluhr gives me a note that says, ‘See Belk.' I go to his office. Greenfeld's there, and he shows me a photograph of me and Penosi. They've been checking it out for five months! The guy I gave the plate number to, an agent from California, had only been in Miami for a few days and he didn't remember.” Frank scowls. “And why did Hundley at Organized Crime sit on it for six months? Did they want to see what would happen in Georgia? Things were happening so fast, I couldn't put it together at the time.”

Selvaggi lights a cigarette. “Just last year I met an FBI guy in Florida. I knew him in New York during the Rinaldo case, and he'd been with the Strike Force in Miami in 1965. Belk said that ‘an outside agency' had provided the photograph of me and Penosi, so this FBI guy does some checking and tells me it was ‘the Whiz Kids,' meaning Wachenhut.
*
And I start wondering how come everyone else's reservation went through; how come Penosi just happened to be there.

“You know,” Selvaggi says quietly, “I used to be Charlie's chauffeur when he came to town. One time he had me take him to the CIA pad where he met a CIA agent, an Irish guy with graying black hair, well dressed and tough-looking, like Frankie Waters, but taller. I'm listening in the other room and I hear the guy ask Charlie if he knows anybody in the mob that can kill Castro. Charlie looks at him, then turns to me and says, ‘Ask him.' ”

Frank suggested, “Somebody like Guido Penosi.” But he qualified his suggestion by asking, “What are you going to give him in return? He's not going to do it for patriotism.”

“Now it's 1966,” he continues, “and guys are jumping to BDAC. It was easy to go over. Charlie Mac goes over, Russ Dower, and Jack Brady too. They wanted me to go, but I couldn't do it, because I'm finally making cases again with Richard Lawrence.”

Selvaggi takes a drag on his cigarette. “Richard Lawrence is a Black guy who'd been a deserter in the Second World War. He'd killed a guy in a crap game and done ten years to the day. I got him from his parole officer, and he went to work for me bringing [undercover Agent] Jack Peterson
around. Lawrence made about twenty cases, including one that leads to Leon Aikens, the biggest dealer in Harlem at the time, up on 110th Street. Joe Bendenelli is another. Pure heroin, weight to the T.

“One day Lawrence says, ‘I'll get you into Joey Beck's brother.' Joey Beck is Joe DiPalermo. His brother was short and fat and was always playing cards at the union hall. Lawrence knew him from Attica.

“So Lawrence orders a kilo from Joe Beck's brother, and Scrocca takes him down to the Lower East Side in a cab. I'm covering the meet. We've already got one buy, then a faction from the SIU starts knocking off our cases. When Scrocca and me go to arrest Beck's brother, Vinnie Albano's in the hall. That's SIU Detective Vinnie Albano, who was later killed by the mob. Well, it's a federal case, but he's ‘Just nosing around.'

“Then Sal Giovino's protégé, Mike Antonelli, comes down from Buffalo and starts working with [SIU detectives] Burmudez and Watson. First they grab Lawrence, then they knock off Wilbur Johnson, another one of my informants.”
²

Selvaggi is steaming. “The one rule is, ‘Never hit another agent's informer.' But Belk does nothing. Yellow sheets
†
are showing up on the street, five cases in a row get blown, and Belk suspects the worst.

“After Dolce left, we all rejoiced. Then the desk smellers come in, and we're audited by the IRS. Two IRS guys start picking up our informers and everyone's laying low. I get a lead to Rocco Sancinella, and he tells me about a guy who's bringing in dope from Rangoon in a boat. There were leads to Allie Romano, who had the French connection behind Dioguardia in Georgia. But we'd all stopped taking chances by then, because of Andy's Rangers.

“Meanwhile the Rinaldo case is climaxing and I've got to testify.” The trial had begun in Italy in February 1967. Seven defendants were tried in Italy, several others were fugitives, and some were in jail in the United States. “When it comes time to try the people here,” Selvaggi continues, “the Italians insist on trying the case on Italian soil, at the Italian Embassy in New York. I'm told that the Italian judge wants to see me first, and that the head of the Carabinieri wants to make sure I'm presentable. Tony Consoli's the interpreter, and the first thing General Oliva asks me is, ‘What's your rank?' ”
³

Selvaggi lowers his eyelids. “I meet the judge at the CIA pad on Sutton Place. Big deal. He's with his girlfriend.

“By May 1967, it's all coming home. The three main witnesses are Sal Rinaldo, Matteo Palmieri, and Vito Agueci. I'm the only agent who's going to testify. I've got Rinaldo at my house, and I've got Palmieri stashed in a motel nearby. Agueci's in prison. In late May, I'm called to testify. Al Krieger's the defense attorney. He asks me, ‘Who was your informant in the case? Who gave you Rinaldo?'
⁴

“ ‘Shorty Holmes,' I say. Holmes was one of Valachi's customers, and Valachi turned him over to Rinaldo. Well, Holmes is dead, and he can't deny it.

“Then in early June I'm called back. Krieger asks me, ‘Was there a wiretap?'

“The case hung on that point, and Krieger thought he had my ass, because if the information was the fruit of an FBN wiretap, the federal case is gone.

“Well, the truth is that there was a wiretap, but it was a police wiretap.

“So Krieger asks me, ‘Why were you there that day?' I tell him that the cops overheard Palmieri telling Rinaldo that something ‘big' was coming in. He gave the details about where and when the ship was coming in. The cops told us, and that gave us the right.

“Meanwhile, Andrew has me slated for the sacrificial altar.” Selvaggi heaves a heavy sigh. “When Andrew was working for Charlie, he was nice to me. He was Charlie's pilot fish back then, doing all of Charlie's paperwork. Then he started calling it ‘My Bureau,' and that's when the calls start coming in. An agent calls and says, ‘We're choosing up sides.' Then they start asking, ‘How much money did you steal when you were on the Gambling Squad?' I'm riding around with Rinaldo, whose got a milliondollar price tag on his head. The Gambino family is going to shoot me up in the Bronx. It was getting crazy,” Selvaggi says in dismay, snuffing out his cigarette. “The bottle was my only friend.”

He looks away for a moment. “Finally an anonymous letter comes to the office, naming twenty-seven agents who are corrupt. We didn't know it as fact, but from the language you could tell it was written by an Italian from the Bronx. Meanwhile Feldman's on the block, so I asked for a transfer to the fugitive squad. Two weeks later Belk says, ‘You're being transferred to San Francisco.' But my wife was pregnant with our fourth kid, and she didn't want to go.

“At that point I didn't know what to do anymore, so in August I quit. They threw a farewell party for me at Toot Shores, and some of the Assistant
US Attorneys were there. John Bartels [who became the first head of the DEA in July 1963] was there, and Rudy Giuliani [later mayor of New York], and Tendy. But no Belk, no Fluhr, no Matouzzi – Matouzzi, my friend, who had nineteen years on the job, and whose head was on the block too.

“After I quit I took a job with the sheriff's office in Westchester. But I'm not a federal agent anymore, and I've got enemies. Patty DeLuca hated my guts. DeLuca worked for Benny DeMartino in bookmaking, not drugs, but he loaned his car to Johnny Montera, who delivered half a kilogram of heroin to an agent. When Lenny Schrier arrested Montera, he put DeLuca in the case because Montera was in his car. Later on I arrested DeLuca. And when he gets out of jail, he's seeking revenge.

“One night after work, I go to Tony Amandola's place, the Chateau Pelham, where Scrocca got married. Nick Panella's there with some other agents. DeLuca walks in and starts yelling out remarks. I'm not an agent anymore, but no one else is saying anything!” Selvaggi makes a gesture. “Well, I'm the same man, with or without the badge. So I tell him, ‘You're out of order. You're throwing rocks at the jailhouse.'

“I had to retaliate,” he says, “but when I leave the place, DeLuca and three other guys are in the parking lot. They shove me around. Next time I go back to the Chateau Pelham, Amandola tells me I'm not welcome anymore. This is a guy whose son I went to high school with!

“Next I lose the job at the sheriff's office. Andrew has [FBN general counsel] Don Miller call them up, and that's that. So I took a job teaching business administration at New Rochelle High School. But the phone calls are still coming in, so my wife and I decided to sell our house, and I took a job collecting money for an insurance company in Florida. Eventually we used our savings to set up a delicatessen, and I spent the next ten years slicing baloney.

“Picture that,” Frank Selvaggi says sardonically. “Me, slicing baloney.”