“Got it. Goodnight. Sleep well. If I get this done sooner than I think, I’ll give you a call. Okay?”
I could see the stress lines across Sara’s face. Those only appeared when she had a lot on her mind. Her blond hair was pulled back in a tight bun, giving her face a more severe look than she usually had.
“Can we talk in the morning before you go to work?”
“If I have time, yes. I have to go.”
“Good luck getting it done. Don’t stay too late at work. I love you.”
“Me too. Sleep well.”
Click. That was that. I stared at the blank computer screen, closing the Skype program and powering the computer off. I stared at the twinkling Manhattan night, wondering how many other couples out there in the city were having similar problems. I decided going to bed would be the best choice. I knew there was little chance Sara would call me later. I went to the bathroom, washed my face, brushed my teeth, stripped down to my boxers, went back into the main room, and climbed into bed. I lay down, but sleep felt far off. I went back through the evening’s events. Dinner had gone far better than I expected, Vespucci’s family much more likable than I thought they would be. I began to think maybe this would be a lot easier than I had envisioned. The only wild card I could clearly identify was Marco Balducci. During my interview with Maggie and him, he’d been friendly enough, but the sight of him in the living room window just before I left for the evening gave me pause. I had an appointment to meet him at 9:30 a.m. the next morning at his factory in Brooklyn. I would be alone. I felt a chill run through my body. Instinctively, I pulled the covers up a little higher.
But Marco was not my first appointment of the morning. I’d set something up earlier with a man I hoped would give me some insight into the Vespucci family that I was sure the Vespucci family would not give willingly.
I fell into a fitful sleep, but just before the void of unconsciousness swept over me, Maggie’s warm, smiling face appeared, a twinkle in her eye. The sound of rushing wind filled my ears, Maggie’s image knocked aside by Marco’s grimace. I woke with a start, sitting straight up in bed.
Sleep was not going to come easy on this trip.
6 Early September – New York – 1st Trip
I found myself sitting in a nondescript coffee shop near the corner of 4th and 11th, about a ten-minute walk from the hotel. I had arrived fifteen minutes before the scheduled 8:00 a.m. appointment. I ordered a cup of coffee, took a seat near the front window and waited, watching the foot traffic, mostly students, roll in and out of the shop. I was one of only a few patrons sitting at the six tables in the small establishment. In the back corner, a wiry, dark-haired man in his mid-forties, with sunken cheeks and pale skin, sat alone, like me. Every time I looked in his direction, I caught him staring at me. When I realized that he wasn’t accidentally making eye contact with me, I got up and walked to the back.
“There a reason you’re staring at me?”
“Jon Fixx.”
It wasn’t a question. Suddenly I felt foolish, realizing this must be Jim Mosconi, though why he’d sat there for so long without saying anything I couldn’t fathom.
“That’s right. You must be Jim Mosconi,” I said.
He nodded.
“What do you want from me?” He got right to the point.
Doing my best to match his all-business tone, I sat down across from him, spilling my coffee across the table as I did so. He shot back from the table like a man on fire, avoiding the spilled coffee. He was wired.
“Sorry!” Grabbing several napkins from the dispenser, I mopped up the mess. I reached behind me, dumping the napkins in a nearby trashcan and returning my attention to Mosconi. He slowly pulled his chair back to the table.
I said, “I’ve always been interested in the Mafia, and I’ve read everything I can get my hands on about the history of the criminal syndicate in the United States. Recently, you seem to be the only reporter who has a good handle on the current status of the Mafia in the U.S. Since I was coming to New York for vacation, I was hoping to pick your brain on the subject.”
I fell silent, not sure where to go from there. Mosconi stared at me, waiting, his look bordering on contempt.
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
He shoved his chair away from the table and stood up to leave. I immediately reached out to grab his wrist, my aggressive action surprising both him and me. At my touch, he yanked his arm away.
“Where are you going?”
Mosconi almost hissed at me. “If you’re going to lie to a reporter, given what you do for a living, you better work on your poker face. I’m sure you know when your clients are lying.”
I sat dumbfounded.
He asked, “Who’s getting married?”
Mosconi was no dummy. Or maybe I was just too much of one. His question threw me for a loop, but I started running calculations, realizing that he must have researched me as well. I hadn’t used a pseudonym. I needed to work on my spy skills. “You have to understand, everything we discuss is strictly off record. You can’t use any of it in future articles. Deal?”
Mosconi nodded. “I know why you’re here.”
“You do?”
“The marriage of Maggie Vespucci and Marco Balducci. Right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Was he guessing, or did he know for a fact? By that point, I wasn’t sure it mattered.
Calmer, Mosconi returned to his seat. “Did you think I wasn’t going to do my homework on you?” He paused, scanning the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop. “Does he know you’re talking to me?”
“Who?”
“Who do you think? Tony Vespucci.”
“I don’t think so.” I was sure Vespucci would not be happy I was talking to a reporter. I felt sweat drip down the back of my neck.
“I recommend you keep it that way. I’ll keep anything we discuss out of print as long as you keep our meeting confidential. Otherwise, this will be the only time we meet.”
“Agreed.” I looked straight at Mosconi.
“Why are you so concerned about the Mafia?”
“It’s important to know everything I possibly can about my clients,” I answered.
“Is Tony Vespucci your client?”
“He’s paying me.”
“But you’re not writing about him, right? Your story is about his daughter and her fiancé and their romance.”
“That’s correct.”
“Once you write their love story, then you’ll be done. After that, you have no further obligation. Is that correct?”
“More or less.”
“Then I recommend, Jon Fixx, you do your job and not worry about anything else. Don’t dig any deeper than you need to get your job done and leave it at that.”
“This advice coming from an investigative journalist?”
Mosconi stared at me for several moments, considering. Finally, “What do you know about the Mafia?”
I shrugged. “Not much more than what I’ve read recently. I’ve seen the Godfather movies, Goodfellas, you know, the standard fare.”
“That’s it?”
I nodded.
Mosconi leaned forward. “I grew up in Brooklyn. My older brother hung out with made guys. He helped run numbers when he was in his teens. He had ten years on me, so I didn’t see much of it. He was shot and killed when he was twenty-two, working for a mob guy. My interest in the Mafia is personal. The violence and killing you see in those movies doesn’t come anywhere close to the reality. Made guys kill for a living. They steal, extort, torture, and take all in the name of La Cosa Nostra. This is real life. You understand me?”
I nodded. I wasn’t feeling so good about my upcoming appointment with Marco. “Look, I contacted you because you seem to be the only reporter who has any handle on the status of the Mafia right now.
Going back to the ‘80s and ‘90s, I was able to find a lot of articles on the subject but very little in the last decade. You’re the only person I could find who can give me an idea of who I’m working for. That’s all I want.”
Mosconi considered my words, interlacing his fingers together and placing his palms on the table. “How much do you know about the history of the Mafia in the United States?”
“The basics. I know the history of the Five Families, I can even name them: Genovese, Bonanno, Gambino, Lucchese, and Colombo. I don’t have many holes there, at least not up to the millennium. But since that time, I’ve been able to find very little of anything useful.”
“You’ve done your homework. The RICO laws almost obliterated the strength of the Mafia. Starting with Giuliani when he was a federal D.A., the government dismantled the leadership of every family. You probably know most of this,” Mosconi said, impressed with my understanding, as limited as it was. He continued. “Staring at long prison sentences across the board, almost all of La Cosa Nostra royalty were struck with what I aptly named the Canary Syndrome. The strength of the Mafia’s code of omertà lost all hold on the individual. As each of these mob bosses and their underlings stared at the possibility of life sentences, they started singing like canaries.” Mosconi smiled at his own ingenuity. “By the late ‘90s, it appeared they were on their last legs. Then 9/11 happened. State and federal money and time got redirected toward fighting the new enemy—Muslim fundamentalism—so over the last decade the Mafia has been slowly, and carefully, rebuilding.”
I acknowledged I’d heard and understood all he’d said, and then I waited for him to continue. But he fell silent, staring out the window. Something had caught his eye. Suddenly, he leaned forward, quietly asking me, “Were you followed here?”
The question threw me by his sudden change in demeanor. “No. I don’t think so,” I said. “Why would I be followed? Who would follow me?”
I felt Mosconi’s eyes bore through my head. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me, has Vespucci confided in you? Given you any reason to think he’s in the mob?”
“Of course not.”
“And you’re sure he hired you only to write his daughter’s love story?”
“Why else would he hire me? That’s what I do for a living. Before last week, I didn’t even know who Vespucci was.”
Silent for several moments, Mosconi kept looking through the front windows of the coffee shop, noting the passersby. Satisfied, he turned back to me. “Look, I know you want information on your employer. The best advice I can give you is to do your job, learn as little as you have to about Tony Vespucci, Giancarlo Balducci, and his son Marco Balducci, and then go back to Los Angeles.“
“How am I supposed to do that?” I asked, questioning Mosconi’s advice. “Marco is marrying Vespucci’s daughter. I have to interview him. In fact, I’m meeting him this morning.”
“You heard what I said. I’ve got to go. Good luck with your project.” Mosconi stood up to go, but I blocked his path.
“Wait a minute. You haven’t told me anything about Tony Vespucci. That’s the reason I called you.”
“Fine, I’ll give it to you in short order. But I’m warning you, Jon Fixx. The more you know about Tony Vespucci, the less you’re going to want to know.” Mosconi sat back down.
“I got it.”
Mosconi glanced at the front window and then turned back to me, launching into a short history lesson. “You know Joey Massino?”
“Name sounds familiar.”
“He became the boss of the Bonanno borgata officially in 1991. The Bonanno clan were like pariahs for a while within the Five Families because of the whole Donnie Brasco affair.”
“I’m familiar with that. An FBI agent infiltrated their inner ranks.”
“That’s right. For a while, the Bonannos were on the outs with the other Families. Then Massino took over in 1991. And by ’95, with the other major bosses taken down by RICO convictions, Massino had put the Bonannos back on top, even renaming the borgata after himself. At that time, he was the strongest boss around, and what made him different from the others who’d come before him was how careful he was. The FBI could never get him on tape, nothing on surveillance. In fact, they couldn’t get anything directly linking him to a crime. Unlike his predecessors, he never frequented clubs, he passed orders through only one underling, and he often had his meetings on frequent trips outside the United States. The only reason the FBI was able to bust him was because the Canary Syndrome hit some of his crew in the late ’90s, and then things started falling apart.”
“What does this have to do with Tony Vespucci?”
“Vespucci makes Massino look like an amateur. Vespucci is barely on the FBI’s radar, even though I believe he is the new boss of the Bonanno-Massino clan. He’s got legitimate businesses pulling heavy income, and he uses these businesses as a convincing front.”
“How do you know all this??”
”I’ve been studying mobsters since I was a little kid. Developing sources since I was twelve.”
“Did you grow up near the Vespuccis? Did you know Maggie Vespucci when she was a kid? Marco?”
“No. But I kept my contacts in the old hood. That’s how I know.”
Mosconi stood up. “I have to go. Piece of advice, kid. Tony Vespucci is a master chess player, genius smart, had a reputation for his skills in the old neighborhood when he was growing up. His moves are calculated and always intentional. You’re just a pawn. Don’t step out of your role. Just do what you’re being asked and nothing more. A pawn is the weakest piece on the board, so it’s the easiest to get rid of.” He stepped around my chair and headed for the front door but suddenly stopped and turned back to me. “Honestly, Jon, Tony Vespucci is not the guy to be afraid of. Marco Balducci, on the other hand, he’s the one you should worry about.”
After dropping that warning in my lap, Mosconi turned and was out the door before I could stop him. I sat in my chair, stunned. I was looking for answers, but now I was more confused than before. At the moment, though, I was focused on Mosconi’s parting shot about Marco. What did he mean? From the corner of my eye, I caught the clock on the wall above the cash register, realizing it was close to 9:00 a.m. I was supposed to meet Marco at his factory in Brooklyn in thirty minutes. I dropped a couple of bucks on the table to cover the coffee and tip and hustled out of the shop onto the busy Manhattan streets.
I flagged a taxi, hopped in, and gave the driver the address Marco had given me the night before. Stuffing the piece of paper with the address back in my pocket, I leaned against the back seat, trying to clear my mind. As the taxi crawled through Manhattan toward Brooklyn, I mulled over the meeting with Mosconi. I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling his words had left me with. He’d been jumpy from the start. Why would he think I’d been followed? And by whom? Even more troubling was his warning about Marco. Why should I be more worried about Marco than Vespucci?
Round and round the questions swirled in my head for the next thirty minutes as the taxi wound its way through the busy streets. Before I could come up with any good answers, I was already at my destination, an industrial section of Brooklyn. As the taxi drove away, I was standing before a drab, two-story factory that took up a large city block. Two wide chain-link gates leading to an expansive front parking area appeared to be the only way in. At either end of the chain-link fence, a large, twelve-foot cement wall topped with barbed wire encircled the factory. Cameras were perched at the top of each corner of the gates, one peering directly down on me, the other pointing inward, toward the courtyard. If anything, this security seemed like overkill, especially considering the factory was only a foundry. I’m not sure what anybody could steal from a foundry. But what did I know?
I stood before the gates trying to figure out how to get in. Looking up, I felt the invisible eyes behind the camera
staring down on me. I glanced up the street in one direction, then in the other. Nothing. It was deserted. Across the street sat a large, three-story warehouse, the windows dark. I couldn’t see any activity. Turning back to the front gates, I finally spotted a small call box on the wall. I stepped over to it and hit the button. After a few seconds, I heard a buzz. Tentatively, I pushed on the gate door and slowly stepped inside the courtyard cum parking lot, staring across the hundred feet of cement to the factory entrance. I could faintly hear the crack and sputter of moving machinery. I assumed I’d hear more action and noise from a foundry. Blackened Victorian windows, evenly placed across the front of the building, didn’t look all that welcoming. Cars lined the sidewall of the lot. I crossed to the front door, but it was locked. I knocked, waiting, looking over my shoulder at the gate through which I’d come, realizing it was shut.
“Follow me.”
I jumped sideways. Turning back, I saw Marco standing in the doorway staring at me.
“You seem nervous, Jon. I find that people on edge are usually hiding something.”
I was embarrassed by my reaction and realized he was baiting me. Rather than answer directly, I deflected, laughing, “Right, right. Sorry. I just drank too much coffee this morning. Always puts my nerves on edge.”
Marco’s face flatlined, my answer not what he was looking for. Without a word, he turned his back to me and stepped inside the factory. I followed him into the dimly lit recesses of metal production. As I crossed the threshold, I realized the two-story structure wasn’t what it appeared to be from the outside. The main room was actually two stories high, but the upper level consisted of catwalks zigzagging throughout the massive space, apparently used to service the many large machines spread across the factory floor. The movement of the machines and the many men tending them, wearing variations of overalls, hard hats, and plastic safety glasses, caught my eye. As if an afterthought, Marco stopped in the middle of the room, turned, and tossed me a pair of plastic goggles. His own pair rested on his neck.
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