I shook my head, indicating I didn’t think I could do it. But once Nicollete had the idea, she would not take no for an answer, and she quickly began to run down all the reasons I could benefit. She’d talk to her father to make sure I was properly compensated. It would be a way to get a lot of people to read my writing. At least all her wedding guests would. Wasn’t that the goal of a writer in the first place? She had a lot of cute friends, and she’d make sure I met every single one of them at the wedding and be introduced as the guy who wrote the beautiful love story. Finally, I conceded, agreeing to think about it. For a week, Nicollete hounded me. Then her father called me into his office before the dinner shift, handing me a check for more than I made in two months and telling me it was a deposit if I would do what Nicollete was asking. That was my first lesson about fathers who want to please their daughters and will do whatever it takes. The push coming from the Dickerson clan was too great and I finally succumbed, agreeing to fulfill Nicollete’s wishes. Mr. Dickerson agreed to cover all costs, on top of paying me for my services, basically setting the blueprint for my future business model.
So, after almost three months, many interviews with family and friends—not part of the initial plan but something I realized was necessary after interviewing Nicollete and Zachary to get third-party perspectives—and one trip to Ireland, I found myself at their wedding with lace-bound copies of “The Whirlwind Romance of Nicollete and Zach” floating around. Nicollete’s friends were all tittering when they found the novella placed at every dinner setting. On the cover was a reproduction of Nicollete and Zach cuddling together at the top of an Allegheny peak while on a hike. The pure novelty of it struck such a chord, especially with Nicollete’s friends, that almost overnight I was able to quit my job as a waiter and start writing full time. It wasn’t exactly the writing I had envisioned, but I had nothing to complain about. Without an argument, I accepted job offers from two of Nicollete’s friends who were recently engaged, and thus went through my first major adulthood change. I learned very quickly—first amazed, then dismayed, and finally just begrudgingly thankful because this fact kept me employed—people not only love to talk about themselves but truly believe that other people will find what they have to say important. All of this because one night, smoking a cigarette behind her parent’s restaurant, Nicollete Dickerson had the brilliant, unique, narcissistic idea of seeing her love story in print. And she wanted me to write it.
But never once, from the moment Nicollete made the fateful suggestion that night many years back, did I think I’d find myself one day flying to New York to interview the daughter of a Mafia don from the Five Families of New York, the most powerful wing of the United States organized crime syndicate known as La Cosa Nostra. Back in early September, on that first flight to New York, I knew I was in over my head. But just how much, I had not the slightest clue. I was about to find out.
5 Early September – New York – 1st Trip
The plane was riding high in the sky somewhere over eastern Pennsylvania with about an hour to go. I stared out the window at the white clouds below. I could see squares of green and tan on the ground, indicating the trade-off between pasture and farming. With less than twenty-four hours to prepare for my departure, I had to scramble to make sure I didn’t forget anything. Sara came home so late and tired she passed out in bed before I could explain to her why I had to leave on such short notice. Anxiety kept me awake most of the night, but at some point I fell into a restless sleep and dreamed Sara and I were on our honeymoon in Hawaii, both so happy that I woke with a start when it ended, disappointed and troubled by the divergence between my dream world and our reality.
My thoughts were interrupted by the pilot’s voice announcing our descent into JFK International airport. My focus shifted from Sara to my task ahead. I was more worried about the Vespucci clan than I wanted to admit. With Luci gone to China for the month, I couldn’t use him as my sounding board, or for protection.
After leaving Vespucci at the diner, I’d gone straight home to find out exactly what I was getting into. Nothing I read put me at ease. Throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, the FBI and the federal government had done a good job of neutralizing the Italian Mafia’s power base in the United States with the use of the customized RICO—short for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization—laws, created in the early 1970s for the specific purpose of prosecuting known Mafia members. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Mafia seemed to be limping along, barely. But then, a few years back, there was a shift. The New York power base quietly re-emerged. New blood had found its way in and up, slowly taking over the straggling ties of the infamous Five Families and reconnecting them to gain influence, power, and finances. The first obvious signs of resurgence, according to the sources I was reading, were the occasional Italian guys with names like Jimmy “the Tank” Romano, Mikey “the Grill” Ciotola, and Nick “Knuckles” Tatone showing up with bullets in the backs of their heads, execution style, on the side of the road, in an alley trashcan, at a highway rest stop. At the same time, it appeared the FBI was having newfound difficulty infiltrating the newly organized Five Families of New York. It seemed the organization as a whole had been baptized anew with the generations-old code of omertà—silence or death.
From time immemorial through the 1960s, it was unheard of for a made man, a member of the Mafia, to rat out his own. But as the FBI began infiltrating the mob using cutting edge technology in conjunction with good old-fashioned street smarts, the sacred code of omertà began to crumble as the RICO-inspired lengthy sentences were handed down. After Joseph Pistone, aka Donnie Brasco—the FBI agent who infiltrated the highest echelon of the Bonanno wing of the Five Families—helped bring that borgata to its knees, the code of silence or death lost its ironclad hold. Over the next two decades, the FBI slowly took apart each Family, all with the begrudging assistance of high-level Mafia players who decided losing their honor and turning government witness was less painful than spending the rest of their lives in prison. But as the first decade of the millennium wound down, the FBI hit a wall.
The reporter named Jim Mosconi was the only member of the intelligentsia I could find who seemed to have a good handle on the current situation of the Mob hierarchy. He was employed by the New York Post, but curiously, none of what he wrote about the Mafia was published in the newspaper. It was all in a blog he’d created about the subject. It appeared that the New York public had gotten bored with the Mafia after the incarceration of John Gotti, the Dapper Don. Post-Gotti, no one colorful enough within the Mob appeared to keep the public interested, and the papers did little to follow the much weakened organization after that. If his blog was any indication, though, Jim Mosconi was fascinated, maybe even obsessed, with the Mafia. His blog included a family tree of the Five Families of New York, starting with the modern creation of the Mafia in the 1930s and leading to the present. Lucchese, Bonanno, Genovese, Colombo, Gambino—all represented the power base of the Mafia in the United States. Prior to meeting Tony Vespucci, I had, at best, a modest knowledge of the Mafia, based mostly on what I’d seen in The Godfather and Goodfellas, so I was not surprised to discover that the Mafia was a violent organization. But the reality was far worse than I had imagined. As I dug deeper, the body count grew at an alarming rate, clearly illustrating to me that the dangerous reputation of the Mafia was based solidly in a blood-and-guts reality.
According to Mosconi, Vespucci became the acting boss of the Genovese family after Vincent “Chin” Gigante died in jail in 2005, leaving a vacuum that many Mafia experts still don’t feel has been filled, contradicting Mosconi’s own assertions. The Genovese Family was considered by many to be the most powerful Mafia family in America, its genesis dating back to the godfather of the modern American Mafia, Charles “Lucky” Luciano. A few other sources named Vespucci as a power player in the New York Mafia scene, but only Mosconi seemed to think Vespucci was a boss. The FBI and the U.S. District Attorney
’s office were silent on the issue. From my standpoint, it didn’t matter what Vespucci’s overall position was in the hierarchy. He was in the mob. That was enough. But it wasn’t. I quickly discovered that the groom-to-be Marco Balducci and his father Giancarlo were well entrenched in La Cosa Nostra as well. As best as I could figure, Giancarlo worked with, or for, Vespucci. I figured it was safe to assume, then, that Marco was a made man as well, a soldier at the least, most likely a capo with his own crew. I couldn’t imagine what he and Vespucci would do to me if they were displeased with my work. I shuddered at the possibilities. The only person whom I knew nothing about was Maggie Vespucci. Given what I’d learned so far about my client’s family, I can’t say I was all that excited to meet her, nor was I expecting much.
My plane hit the runway. I was in New York. I took a deep breath as we taxied toward the airport. Though Vespucci was Mafia, I was here to write his daughter’s love story for her impending marriage. I had a job to do, and I knew how to do it because I’d done it so many times before. I just had to stay focused and not let my underlying fears interfere with my judgment. I powered on my phone as the plane pulled up to the chute for us to disembark. I hit the “S” button for Sara’s quick dial, hearing her voice almost immediately. Straight to voicemail. I looked at my watch. It was 2:30 p.m. in Los Angeles, so she was probably in a meeting. I left her a message, telling her I’d arrived safely and would call later to say goodnight. I grabbed my bag from the overhead, slung the strap over my shoulder, and followed the passengers in front of me off the plane into the frenetic energy of the JFK International Airport and New York City. I never traveled with more than one small carry-on for clothes and my computer bag, so I didn’t have luggage to wait for or allow the airline to lose. I tracked with the other exiting passengers into Terminal 3, walking toward the diminishing light of a New York evening.
At curbside, I stepped to the closest taxi. A hip-looking black guy with long dreads and arms crossed leaned against the passenger side door. Reggae drums emanated from inside his cab. He looked at me, not saying a word.
“Greenwich Village?” I asked.
He nodded, coolly pushing up off the car, taking my bags out of my hands all in one fluid motion. He opened the trunk, my items disappearing inside. I climbed into the back passenger side door, settling in for the long ride ahead of me. Peter Tosh spoke to me from the back speakers, a remake of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” at a considerably slower pace than Berry’s original version. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a piece of paper with the address of my destination.
As the car pulled away, I said, “I’m heading to, uh . . . 25 Waverly Place. In Manhattan.”
The driver hit the gas and the taxi jumped off the curb into the crowded traffic exiting the airport. I tensed for a moment as he swerved past a Lincoln Town Car, only to wedge us between two passenger buses. I looked at my driver’s name under the mirror and was about to tell Jamal I wasn’t in any rush but he beat me to it.
“Relax, mon. I’ll get ya dere safe.”
Jamal glanced back at me in the rearview mirror. His dark eyes reflected calm and cool as he cleared the buses. I decided I had enough to think about, so I settled back into my seat, watching the New York cityscape pass me by. Before leaving Los Angeles, I’d had a brief conversation on the phone with Maggie, introducing myself to her and explaining what my itinerary would be. I asked her to make a list of people I could set up interviews with immediately after landing. I didn’t want to spend any more time in New York than absolutely necessary. Maggie volunteered to be my first interview, so I told her I’d come straight from the airport to meet her in Greenwich Village.
The taxi wound its way onto the expressway. In the distance, I could see the Manhattan skyline. I was surprised my first interview would be there because I had assumed Brooklyn was the New York stronghold of the Italians. Though Manhattan had the history of Little Italy, those years were long gone. I had no idea what to expect from Maggie, but from the moment Vespucci mentioned his daughter while we sat in the diner, I envisioned Marisa Tomei from My Cousin Vinny: short skirt mid-thigh, tight blouse with bosom flowing, big hair, a gum-smacking smart-ass, solid Brooklyn accent. But the Maggie I spoke to on the phone was sans accent, polite but curt. She gave me the address and the suite number, saying we could talk more when I got there.
As Jamal and I closed in on Manhattan, the buildings looked like they were stacked one on top of the other. Coming from Los Angeles, I had a hard time reconciling New York and Los Angeles, two of the most populous cities in the country. Downtown L.A. seemed like a tiny island of tall buildings in comparison with New York. Here, it was many taller buildings squeezed together, owning the space both horizontally and vertically. I rolled down my window, wanting to inhale the smell and sounds of the city. Having lived in Los Angeles for several years, I knew that L.A. didn’t have the palpable energy of New York. Downtown Los Angeles was like a side note to the rest of the city, a far cry from the heart and soul that Manhattan was for New York. In fact, Los Angeles didn’t have a center. It was more like a huge sprawl of small cities bleeding into one another. I had never before considered how different the two metropolises were, but as we closed in on Greenwich Village, I noted that Los Angeles and New York were antithetical to each other, opposite in both layout and structure.
Jamal slowed in the traffic, and pulled up to 25 Waverly Place. I looked out the window at a building with the title Rufus D. Smith Hall. I glanced up and down the street. I turned to Jamal. “Is this New York University?”
“Ya brother, dat it is.”
I paid him and then stepped onto the street and grabbed my bags from the open trunk. I could hear the fading sounds of Bob Marley as the taxi disappeared into the early evening traffic. I turned and stared at the building before me. Hitching my bags up over my shoulder, I pulled the note out of my right hand pocket: suite 324. I stuffed it back into my pocket and stepped through the double-door entryway on my way to my first interview for the Vespucci-Balducci wedding. A couple of undergraduate students passed me in the lobby, an air of freedom surrounding their every movement. I couldn’t remember ever feeling that way at any time in my life, not even in college. Maybe one day I would know what it meant to flow from day to day without a feeling of impending doom. From somewhere behind me, I heard a chant, “Sara! Sara! Sara!”
Startled, I turned around to see who was behind me, scaring a young woman entering the building. Embarrassed, I stepped aside and let her pass, mumbling an apology. I told myself Sara was not the problem here—I was. Sara was being Sara, distant and aloof right now, and Jon was being Jon, or Jon was being me, depending on who was talking. I was the one who couldn’t give Sara the room she needed to work out her issues, thereby forcing her to focus her energy on me rather than on herself. If I could only learn how to give her the space she needed, our relationship would be better. Probably. I pulled out my cell phone and quick-dialed Sara’s number, hoping she would pick up, but it went straight to voicemail again.
“Hi. I just wanted to call and tell you how much I love you. I know we’ve been fighting a lot lately, but I promise when I get back to L.A. I’ll make it up to you.” I paused a moment, at a loss, then “I love you. I’ll call later.”
I hung up, realizing a bit too late I had done exactly the opposite of what I had just berated myself for doing. Frustrated, I put the phone in my pocket and walked through the large foyer, passing NYU paraphernalia hanging on the walls. The hallway smell carried me back to my college days with the musty scent of old buildings, books, and academia. Coming out of the foyer into a large hallway, I spotted the elevator. I stepped inside and pressed the number three button. As the door closed, I heard heels sounding off the marble floor, a voice echoing in the hallway over the clicking noise.
“Could you hold the elevator, please.”
Just as I caught a glimpse of a long skirt and black blouse, the door closed. I h
eard curse words coming at me from beyond the elevator doors. I pressed the “door open” button. An irritated frown changed to a friendly smile on the face of the woman before me who was carrying a stack of stuffed folders in her left arm.
“Thank you so much. This elevator is so damn slow. I didn’t want to wait for it.”
I smiled back in the goofy way I always did when near a beautiful woman. “I just pushed the button. The elevator did all the work.”
“But the important thing is you pushed the button.”
I nodded, now at a loss for words as the elevator door closed, shrinking the size of our world considerably. I gave her a sideways glance. I couldn’t place her, but I could swear I’d seen her before. “Are you a professor here?”
“Assistant professor.” She opened the top folder in her hand, focused on a paper inside it.
“In what field?”
“Postmodern anthropology.”
”Is that like Van Gogh drawing cave men?”
She laughed at my joke.
I took the opportunity to get a closer look. Dark, brown eyes well set, small nose, beautiful pale skin, high cheekbones, full lips. The déjà vu cleared. I’d never met her before, but I did know her. Sort of. Realizing who she was—or, more accurately, who she resembled—I froze.
During my childhood, I spent most of my time with my nose in a book, but my love for reading didn’t do me any favors in my social life, mainly because I found my books far more interesting than my peers. Maybe as compensation for my lack of social interaction, or just because I was an odd child, I developed the unusual habit of befriending the heroes and heroines in the books I read. When I was done reading, often before bed, I would spend a lot of mental energy describing the appearance, facial features, hair color, physical shape, and human tics of the main players featured in whatever book I was currently reading. I went into great detail with my visualization so that as I read, my characters’ images would come fully alive in my mind. My ability to create a life-like mental image of these characters grew with age, and it had the strange side effect of lulling me into feeling that these literary characters were an essential part of my life.
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