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  The plaque read: To John Gotti—a Great Guy.

  13

  JOHNNY BOY GETS HIS BUTTON

  FRESH OFF THE DISABLED LIST, John Gotti reclaimed his position in the Bergin lineup, acting captain of what was still technically Fatico’s crew.

  Carmine Fatico was now 67 years old. Recently, he had been cheered up by a doubleheader sweep—he won both his loan-sharking cases. The first fell apart at trial after, on successive days, two alleged victims refused to tell what they had told a grand jury. One had worn a hidden microphone to a loan conference with Fatico, enabling agents to overhear him, but the meeting was not recorded and thus there was no way to rebut the man—and therefore no case.

  “Justice prevailed, that’s all,” said Carmine as he left a Long Island courtroom with his dismissal.

  Four months later, the second case ended similarly: The main witness said he had lied to the grand jury.

  Carmine still wanted to lay low, however. He had been convicted in a hijacking case with his brother Daniel and the brothers Carneglia, and was awaiting sentencing. Carmine and Daniel had copped pleas, betting they would get probation rather than prison.

  The Great Guy of Green Haven, antsy to climb the Gambino ladder after two years in the can, was hoping they would lose the bet, according to source BQ; Gotti believed he could step up faster if his one-time mentor was out of the way.

  “Source spoke to John … and he is actually hoping that both Faticos get jail time,” Special Agent Patrick F. Colgan wrote after talking to BQ, who said Gene Gotti felt the same way. Jail time for the Fatico brothers would enable “the Gotti brothers to obtain more power and influence.”

  Gotti was especially restless because Angelo and Gene had been made while he was away. But now that he and his new mentor, the powerful Neil Dellacroce, were out of jail and Paul Castellano had opened the membership book that Carlo Gambino had shut, crooked Johnny Boy would finally get straightened out.

  No Gambino man has ever testified about the ceremony in which associates are baptized as soldiers. Members of other Families have. Although some differences are likely, so are similarities.

  “Jimmy the Weasel” Fratianno, a West Coast mobster, recounted his initiation while testifying at a 1980 trial. He described a room full of Family men and a table on which a gun and a sword formed a cross. Then: “They all stood up. We held hands. The boss said something in Italian. It lasted two or three minutes. Then they prick your finger … until blood draws. Then you go around and meet each member of the family. You kiss them on the cheek and you are a member.”

  Fratianno said the membership rules were then listed. “The first thing they tell you [is], you can’t fool around with narcotics. Secondly, you can’t fool with anybody’s wife or their daughters or girlfriends. Third, they never kill an FBI agent or any officers because it creates too much heat.”

  By testifying, Fratianno was violating omerta, the code of noncooperation with the law originating in feudal Sicily. “You can’t never divulge anything about the organization,” he said. “You can’t talk to any officials of any kind. You can’t go to any grand juries and tell the truth. You can’t take depositions … They also tell you, ‘You come in alive and go out dead.’ There is no way out of the organization.”

  Q.: What happens if you violate any of these rules?

  A.: As a rule, they kill you.

  Eight other men were inducted into the Gambino Family the same night as John, according to Peter Mosca, the son of Ralph Mosca, the Queens capo. Many years later, Peter was caught reminiscing about the night while in the company of Carmine Fiore, a Mosca crew member, and Dominick Lofaro, the secret state Task Force informer whose body wire helped agents record the conversation:

  MOSCA: The night I got straightened out, I met Johnny. He was with me. I was right behind him.

  FIORE: They held it up for him. They were waiting for him to come home [from prison].

  LOFARO: They used to make a lot of guys in those days.

  MOSCA: Oh, it was good … coming home that night. Oh, it was marvelous … That night was nine.

  Gotti’s parole terms required that he have a job. Fortunately, the Bergin was located near the Arc Plumbing and Heating Corporation, which was owned by two brothers, old friends of his. In theory, Gotti now became a salesman for Arc, which would provide similarly helpful services for Angelo Ruggiero and his drug-fugitive brother, Salvatore.

  Over the next several years, Arc Plumbing prospered. It won pieces of many substantial city contracts, including construction of the new police station for the 106th Precinct, which served Ozone Park and Howard Beach. Arc Plumbing secured other public jobs at city parks, housing projects, Shea Stadium, and the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadow.

  At one point, the company was barred from doing business with the city for three years. Arc president Anthony Gurino failed to mention, when the company submitted its bid on the construction of a new city jail, that he and his brother Caesar were under indictment for helping Salvatore Ruggerio elude the law. This led to a hearing at which Anthony Gurino was asked what type of sales work Gotti did.

  “What John does is point out locations,” he said.

  A month after John Gotti’s release, Matthew Traynor made another cocaine trip to Florida for Peter Gotti. He was to meet a supplier in a Fort Lauderdale parking lot, but the police had been tipped off. The supplier got away, but Traynor was arrested. He was released in a few days and returned to New York empty-handed.

  Traynor decided to go into banking. At gunpoint, on September 1, he withdrew $25,000 from a bank on Long Island. A few days later in the 101 Bar, Gene demanded a cut because he considered Traynor part of the crew, which was entitled to a tribute—“or you will be hurt or arrested.”

  Traynor handed over $10,000 and flew off to Las Vegas to spend $7,000 more.

  A month later, Traynor was shot during another bank job and arrested. Recovering from his wounds, Traynor, an unmade man trying to help his case, decided to talk. The FBI opened a drug investigation on Peter, Gene, and John Gotti.

  “Traynor advised that he is an ‘errand boy’ and ‘courier’ for John and Peter Gotti who operate in Queens County,” an agent wrote. “Source advised John Gotti … remains in the background insofar as the narcotics … operation is concerned.”

  The FBI closed this investigation 18 months later when Traynor flunked a lie-detector test in connection with another story he had told about a fellow inmate’s plot to murder a police officer. Traynor’s wife had provided corroborating evidence of his trips to Florida, but his polygraph performance discredited him as a witness.

  Sources BQ and Wahoo said John Gotti—leery of violating his parole—was careful not to discredit himself in the months following his release from Green Haven. Though he still lived an underworld life and made illegal money, he made no waves.

  BQ said that Gotti and Willie Boy Johnson ran a gambling operation, which, along with loan-sharking, was providing Gotti with “a small but steady income.” Wahoo said Gotti avoided riskier crimes like hijacking and fencing.

  Gotti instructed his men “not to bring heat on the club,” BQ added. He told them to stop loitering in front of the Bergin and to park their cars elsewhere.

  In February 1978, Gotti’s 81-year-old father-in-law died and his mother-in-law moved to Florida. In November, the mortgage on the Howard Beach house they had bought for him and Victoria was transferred to her, and she legally assumed the monthly payments. Angelo, who had gotten out of Lewisburg a second time, now lived in Howard Beach, too, in a home owned by his wife’s parents. He, too, was supposedly working for Arc Plumbing and he was then the father of four children; the oldest was a boy named John. An occasional babysitter, who also had moved to Howard Beach, was John Joseph Gotti Sr., now retired.

  In between these domestic matters, Carmine Fatico was finally sentenced to five years probation after several delays engineered by Roy Cohn, his lawyer.

  After so much time away fro
m the Bergin, it didn’t matter that Fatico got probation instead of prison, which is what his brother Daniel would get a year later. Gotti had undisputed control, although now and then he would seek the old man’s advice. They would meet secretly in a tailor shop near the Bergin.

  About the same time the Faticos faded away, Source Wahoo’s control agent, Martin J. Boland, was transferred to Tampa and replaced by James M. Abbott. Source Wahoo was wary, but agreed to continue informing “on the condition he never be compromised or told to testify.” A memo explained: “He will not testify under any circumstances and would deny he ever cooperated in the event he was ever surfaced. Source is very sensitive as to his confidential relationship and was given assurances by agents Boland and Abbott.”

  In a final memo, which successfully requested that Wahoo be reimbursed for gambling losses at the Bergin, Agent Boland said: “Source has been very well accepted by individuals at the club.”

  Gotti continued to content himself with gambling and loan-sharking. “Until such time he is sure [that] the parole officers are not going to be bothering him, he will continue to earn money in this slower fashion,” Agent Colgan noted after another BQ contact.

  Source BQ, however, added an interesting footnote. He said drug-fugitive Salvatore Ruggiero, though he never risked being caught by coming to the Bergin, was in “occasional contact” with Gotti and with Angelo.

  BQ would develop a different perspective than Wahoo on John Gotti and drugs. He would come to believe that Gotti was a major drug investor, whereas Wahoo, who was closer to him, would say he was not. BQ’s suspicions first surfaced early in 1979, after Gotti told crew members not to deal drugs—an order that would be frequently and robustly violated. BQ told the FBI that the ban did “not mean that Gotti himself is not involved in a large-scale way … investing money, in cocaine and other high-value drugs.”

  Most Crime Capital cops still regarded Neil Dellacroce as the Gambino boss and, in June 1978, the Manhattan D.A.’s detective squad opened an investigation of him. The investigation centered on his Ravenite Social Club, located on Mulberry Street in Little Italy—an island of narrow streets and tenements virtually surrounded by another ethnic neighborhood, Chinatown. Mulberry was Main Street; a few blocks south of the club, tourists clogged cafés named after Amalfi Coast villages like Positano and Sorrento.

  Dellacroce was no tourist. He was born and raised in Little Italy. Though he now had a home on Staten Island, he also maintained an apartment near the Ravenite; on 124 consecutive days of surveillance in 1979, the D.A.’s detective saw him at the club on all but 5 days.

  The detectives had been rediscovering a familiar problem conducting surveillance in Little Italy. It was noted in an affidavit seeking approval to bug the Ravenite, inside and out:

  “The denizens of that area are very alert to the presence of strangers and strange vehicles,” Detective Joseph Borelli said. “The fact [that] even law-abiding inhabitants of that area will report the presence of strangers to the organized crime figures who frequent it is legend in the NYPD.”

  Detectives tried to eavesdrop while hiding in trunks of cars parked outside the club, but dropped the tactic after someone opened a fire hydrant and flooded the street. When they got permission to break into the club and install bugs, they met a large German shepherd named Duke.

  On two occasions, Detective John Gurnee tried to neutralize Duke by feeding him meatballs spiked with tranquilizers. The first time, Duke still kept charging the door and Gurnee retreated. The next time, more powerful meatballs made Duke a puppy and Gurnee made it inside. Then a half-dozen men with baseball bats appeared outside the club and Gurnee fled through a rear exit—as several police cars filled the street.

  One of the batsmen was Mickey Cirelli, the 76-year-old caretaker of the Ravenite who lived on an upper floor. A few days later, John Gotti, according to Detective Victor Ruggiero, was overheard telling Cirelli that the next time he discovered cops breaking in, he should shoot them and say they were burglars. Detectives saw Gotti at the Ravenite 35 times during the same 124-day period.

  The detectives successfully planted bugs outside the Ravenite, hoping to overhear conversations on Mulberry Street, where it was obvious that club members and their visitors discussed business. The outdoor bugs, however, were soon discovered and destroyed.

  The detectives next installed a parabolic microphone and video camera in an apartment overlooking the Ravenite, but not too long afterward Neil’s son Buddy and another man placed a ladder against the building, climbed up, and confirmed their suspicions. Other men threatened to set the building afire.

  Despite the obstacles, the district attorney’s detectives did hear and see enough to warrant a grand jury investigation into loan-sharking and gambling. Neil, John, Angelo, and others were subpoenaed to testify, but the investigation went nowhere—not then, at least.

  The recipients of subpoenas discussed among themselves who would plead the Fifth Amendment and refuse to testify, and who would answer questions and shadowbox with the grand jury. Dellacroce and Gotti sparred, and one day outside the grand jury room a police detective complimented Gotti on his elegant suit, now practically a trademark.

  “I got it from a hijacked load,” Gotti teased. “Solve that case.”

  Dellacroce had more than a Manhattan grand jury to worry about. In Florida, he had been indicted by a federal grand jury for ordering the murder of a loan shark. The contract allegedly was carried out by Anthony Plate, another loan shark accused—in the same case—of loan-sharking for Dellacroce in the Miami area. The indictment stated that Plate, on behalf of Dellacroce, had jumped onto the desk of a Florida auto dealer and spit in his face, which he threatened to “bite chunks” out of unless the businessman made good on a loan.

  One day at the Bergin, Daniel Fatico, about to finally go to prison for three years for hijacking, gave this view of the Florida case to Willie Boy Johnson:

  “If Neil would go to trial without this guy [Plate], he could beat the case, but he’s going to sit next to him and the jury is going to find them both guilty.”

  In June or July 1979, a Bergin crony—who later became a government witness—was at the Ravenite with Neil, John, Angelo, Willie Boy, and Tony Roach. He said they had just returned from a trip, he didn’t know where, but all were newly tanned. He said Angelo suggested that they should call Plate in for a strategy session on Neil’s case and everyone laughed at the idea.

  In August, the FBI reported that Anthony Plate had left the Tropicana Hotel in Miami Beach and disappeared. He was not seen again. The following spring, the government witness was at the Bergin when someone from the Ravenite called with a message.

  “Neil got a hung jury. It’s like a win.”

  During the summer Plate vanished, the Crime Capital underwent another fatal quake whose epicenter was the Ravenite Social Club.

  Carmine Galante, the wild man of the Bonanno Family, was tamed by two shotgun blasts as he lunched on the patio of Joe and Mary’s Italian-American Restaurant in Brooklyn. A Galante bodyguard also was killed, but the assassins botched the job and also shot two bystanders; one, the restaurant owner, was fatally wounded. His son, however, survived a bullet in the back as he dialed for help.

  Galante had been out of prison for only a few months, but had unnerved the other Family leaders with his ambitious talk.

  “With five heavies at the top, something like this was bound to happen,” a detective said as Galante, a Medicaid card tucked into a trouser pocket, was carried out in a green bag.

  Unfortunately for Dellacroce and his son Buddy, the cops watching the Ravenite had picked up fragments of conversation about an upcoming hit. The camera across the street had recorded four suspected plotters arriving at the club after the murders, which now became part of the Ravenite grand jury investigation.

  Source BQ gave a report on the hit to Special Agent Patrick Colgan. The Bergin men knew in advance, but were not involved, and Gotti had left for Florida by car early the s
ame day.

  “Source stated John Gotti was driving and not flying because Gotti has a dreadful fear of flying,” Colgan wrote. “Source also stated Gotti has a fear of boats, and once nearly killed an associate for going too fast.”

  After Gotti returned, and the grand jury stepped up its investigation, BQ said the Gotti brothers and Angelo discussed what to do if they came to suspect crew members who had “gone bad.” They decided they would kill them, BQ said.

  In time, six Gambinos, including Buddy Dellacroce, and two Galante capos were indicted for refusing to testify before a grand jury. Buddy would do a year in jail. Neil would battle the grand jury to a draw, but in 1985, in a federal conspiracy case, he was accused of ordering the hit to install Galante subordinates at the top of the Bonanno Family.

  Intense press coverage made the public aware that the Gambino Family was the Crime Capital’s most powerful mob. Neil Dellacroce was called its boss. The public still knew little about the real boss, Paul Constantino Castellano, and nothing about a new happily made man, John Gotti.

  14

  THE MAYOR OF 101ST AVENUE

  Q.: Do you know whether people who frequented the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club had certain obligations to John Gotti?

  A.: Of course.

  Q.: What were they?

  A.: A hundred percent.

  THE BERGIN HUNT AND FISH CLUB was now a part of the Ozone Park fabric and John Gotti was the mayor of 101st Avenue.