“Sal Angeletti and Vincent Tagliagambe,” said Gianni.
“Was this Vincent Tagliagambe the boss of the same Cosa Nostra family you and Vito Giordano later headed?”
“Vincent Tagliagambe is dead four years,” Gianni said. “He was deported nineteen years ago.”
“Was he the boss of a family of the Cosa Nostra before being deported?” Stern repeated.
“Mr. Stern, as I said before, I’m not sure what you mean when you say the Cosa Nostra or the Mafia. If you define what you mean by Cosa Nostra or Mafia, I’ll be able to answer your questions.”
Stern studied Gianni. “The Cosa Nostra,” Stern said slowly, sharply, “is an organization of criminals—a nationwide network of criminals—presided over by a commission to further a national criminal enterprise.”
“Is this national organization and enterprise you’re talking about centrally directed?” Gianni asked. “With a national plan of operation, a central budget? Things like that?”
“I’m not under examination, Mr. Aquilino,” Stern spat out at Gianni.
“I’m only trying to find out what you’re asking me, Mr. Stern. If I don’t understand your question, how can I answer it?”
“Mr. Aquilino, you are obviously not telling the truth before this committee, you are obviously trying to insult this committee with your blatantly false answers.” Stern was red in the face now.
Sandro leaned over to Gianni. “Let him talk. Don’t get angry,” Sandro said.
“What I’m saying is the truth, Mr. Stern. Is what you’re saying the truth?” Gianni’s voice had an edge to it.
Sandro leaned forward. “Don’t get angry, Gianni—he’ll shoot you down.”
“Were you head of the same Mafia family after Tagliagambe was deported and before you were shot at?” Stern continued.
“I still would, respectfully, like to know exactly what you mean by Mafia,” said Gianni.
“Was this Sal Angeletti a capo then, and is he now acting boss of the Mafia family of Vito Giordano?” Stern asked.
“What is a capo?” asked Gianni.
“What do you think it is?” Stern shot back.
Gianni shrugged, studied the desk momentarily, then looked up to Stern ingenuously. “Is it an Italian cop?”
Stern’s eyes widened. He leaned back in his chair, staring down at Gianni. His eyes were hostile.
“Would the reporter read the last full question about Sal Angeletti to the witness,” said Stern.
The reporter read aloud the question.
“Although you still won’t, or perhaps can’t, define it, Mr. Stern,” said Gianni, “if you think the Mafia is a national organization, centrally directed and funded, there isn’t any such thing. And what Sal Angeletti does is his own business. You ask him. If you want to know who I know, if I knew Vito Giordano, ask me.”
“Did you know Vito Giordano?”
“Yes, since I was a kid on Mulberry Street. We used to play stickball together. I hit two sewers, Vito hit three.”
The reporters were laughing now.
Stern was angered by that. “Is Rosario Gangi head of another family in the Mafia?” Stern demanded.
“I know Rosario Gangi too. We first met at dances in South Brooklyn about fifty years ago. I’ve known him since then. However, as I’ve said, Mr. Stern, I know no nationwide organization involved in any national criminal scheme. If you mean something else, please tell me.”
“We’ll have a recess at this time,” said Stern, rising abruptly.
The committee filed off the stage. Stern descended into the audience. Immediately he was swallowed up in a sea of reporters. He cut through them icily, walking directly to the witness table.
“Mr. Luca, this Aquilino—” Stern said menacingly, pointing his finger at Gianni.
“Don’t point your finger at me, Mr. Stern,” Gianni said. “I have respect for you. You should have respect for me.”
Stern lowered his finger, returning to Sandro. “Your witness will be going up for perjury. The story he told us is ridiculous, and is obviously an attempt to get around answering questions in front of this committee by talking nonsense. I’m going to have him up on charges of perjury and contempt before you can even turn around. You hear that?”
Sandro nodded. “I heard you.”
Stern turned toward Gianni. “Mr. Aquilino, your troubles have just begun. I’m going to break you. When these minutes are typed, you’re going to jail.”
“I’ve had troubles before. I can take them again, Mr. Stern.”
12:30 P.M.
Gianni entered the garage. He was alone and tired, and he knew he had made an enemy who was, even now, planning to destroy him. And Gianni also knew that Stern and the F.B.I. could, if they wanted to, even frame him. But now he had to try to help Sal.
“Hiya, Gianni,” said Angie the Kid.
“Hello, Kid.”
Frankie the Pig was in the office eating peppers and eggs. A bottle of beer was on the desk. Gus was sitting by.
“Hello, Gianni,” said Frankie the Pig. He cleared his things off the desk, so Gianni could take his place. He told him the news—that Big Diamond’s boys had found the chocolate bunny and her boyfriend.
“How do they know he’s the right one?” asked Gianni.
They told him and he nodded. “It’s a good lead, anyway. It may be the right guy—and it may be nothing at all.”
The others looked to Frankie the Pig.
“I sent Tony up there to grab the guy,” said Frankie. “That way we’ll know for sure, and we’ll find out where the others are too.”
Gianni studied Frankie the Pig. Before the boys had asked him to help, two nights ago, Gianni hadn’t thought much about Frankie the Pig running across that lobby twelve years ago. Once in a while, after it first happened, he would wake up in the night, and he would see that face, twisted in bloodlust. But Frankie the Pig was older now, and the face was paunchy, had lost its youthful strength. It was no longer so fearsome.
“I don’t think that was the right move,” Gianni said flatly.
Frankie the Pig glanced around at the others, then back to Gianni. “Why not? If we’ve got the right guy, we can grab the rest of them too.”
“I’m not sure we won’t be better off if he’s the wrong guy,” said Gianni.
“What does that mean?”
“It means, simply, that if he’s the right guy, and his friends find out we’ve got him, Sal’s dead.”
The others studied Frankie the Pig.
“I sent Tony and Lloyd and another colored guy. They’re smart boys—they’ll do it right,” said Frankie.
“That’s trusting to luck and I don’t like that,” said Gianni. “I make my own luck. When you hit, you should hit like lightning. Lightning only hits once, but if you figure it right, that’s all you need.”
As he spoke, Gianni was watching Frankie the Pig. Gianni was right on the line, he no longer had anything to lose—not with Frankie the Pig, not with anyone.
“I trust Tony,” said Frankie.
“You better be able to,” said Gianni.
“You want me to send somebody else up after them?”
Gianni shook his head. “I don’t want you to do anything, Frankie.”
The others were silent, looking from Gianni to Frankie the Pig.
“It’s too late to worry about it now,” said Gianni. “Besides, we have more important things to do.”
“Like what?” said Frankie the Pig.
“We have to figure how to make sure they let Sal go alive after we pay the money,” answered Gianni. “They’re talking about getting the money—but how do we get our man back alive after that? I’m not leaving anything to luck, boys. We’ve got to prepare our lightning bolt now.”
“Make them bring Sal with them, and exchange them,” Gus suggested.
“They won’t come that close,” said Gianni. “They won’t have Sal anywhere near us, and they won’t come near us themselves. They’d be afraid tha
t we’d grab Sal, and then kill them.”
“Well, if we don’t get close enough to see him, how can we know Sal’s alive?” asked Bobby Matteawan.
“That’s what we’ve got to figure out now,” said Gianni. “We’ve got to find some way.”
“How about—naw,” said Angie the Kid.
“What is it, Angie?” said Gianni. “Every idea is good right now.”
“I was thinking what if they brought him up on the Brooklyn Bridge or something like that, then we could watch him from below, maybe with binoculars? I’ve got a pair of binoculars. But, I guess that’s not so good,” Angie said diffidently.
“It’s not bad, Angie,” Gianni said. “The only thing is that they’d be with him. They could still kill him anyway before we got to him.”
Angie looked at Gianni gratefully.
“We have to figure a way, then,” said Frankie the Pig, “to be able to see him, and not have them with him?”
“That’s right,” said Gianni. “I don’t know if we can do it.”
“How about the subway, or the ferry,” suggested Gus. “You know, they put him on one side and we wait on the other—they couldn’t get at him then.”
“How do we know they’ll put him on after they’re paid? And if they put him on before, why would we pay? Remember,” said Gianni, “we have to figure out something they’ll accept. And if we suggest anything that even smells like a trap, they’ll tell us to stuff it.”
“That makes it tough,” said Bobby Matteawan. “Whatever we suggest is going to sound like a trap. I mean, how can we tell them where to bring Sal without it being a trap? They’ll figure we know where it is and we’ll have the place set up.”
“Exactly,” said Gianni. “They have to be secure, and we have to be secure, and they have to feel that we can’t set them up. Otherwise, they won’t go along with it.”
“How the hell can you arrange something, and not know what it is?” asked Frankie.
Gianni rubbed his chin, and his hand slipped up along his face to his temple. “I’m going to think about it awhile,” he said, rising. “First I’m going to catch about two hours sleep. I’ve been up all night. Then, we’ll work something out. At least we’ll try. Come on, Joey. Give me a ride.”
“You’re not going to Pawling, are you?” asked Frankie the Pig.
“No,” said Gianni as he left.
7:45 P.M.
Again Gianni was seated at the desk in the garage. The telephone was right before him. He was rested; his nap had been a little longer than expected, but he felt much better. Now, showered and shaved, he looked straight ahead, thoughtful and anxious to get at it.
He lit another cigarette, doodling as he sat. The time was moving slowly toward the moment when his plan had to be sprung. Frankie the Pig came in and sat down next to him. Gianni did not speak. Frankie looked at his watch. “Five more minutes,” he said.
“Right,” said Gianni without turning.
The other men started coming in; they wanted to be where it was all going to happen.
“What about that plan to get Sal back safe?” asked Gus.
“You’ll hear it first hand in a couple of minutes, Gus,” said Gianni. “I’d rather go through it only once.”
“Where the hell is Tony?” asked Joey. “We haven’t heard from him since he went up there this morning.”
Frankie the Pig said nothing.
“Maybe the niggers got him instead of the other way,” said Bobby Matteawan.
The others fell silent now, watching Gianni, checking their watches. Gianni’s mind was racing, probing his plan for defects.
8:00 P.M.
The phone rang.
“Hello,” Gianni said.
“This is the time to start going,” said Bull’s deep voice on the other end. “You guys ready on your end?”
“We’re ready to move,” said Gianni. “Before you say anything about any plan of yours, I’ve got one of my own.”
“You want to talk to your man. I know,” said Bull. “I’ve got him right here.”
“It’s more than that,” said Gianni. “I want to be sure he’s still alive when the money is turned over.”
“He’ll be alive, man. Why should we kill him if you pay the money?”
“I’ve got a plan that’ll help us both—you and me,” said Gianni.
Gianni’s men were leaning forward as they listened.
“Man, I’m not about to be sucked into some trap.”
“It’s no trap,” Gianni said. “I think it covers you, and gives me a little more of an edge than you gave the guy you threw on our doorstep.”
“Let’s hear it,” said Bull.
“You’ll have to rent two cars with telephones,” said Gianni.
“What? You kidding me, man?”
“No,” said Gianni.
“Where am I going to get two cars with telephones, even if I wanted to?”
“Look it up in the phone book. You see, that’s the beautiful part of it: you pick it yourself—I don’t know where, I don’t even want to know. I’m not trying to trap you. I just want some insurance.”
“Yeah. What we supposed to do with the two cars?”
“You’ll have some of your men in one car. Put Sal in the other car.”
“By himself? You crazy, man. Why would you pay if we let him go first?”
“You won’t let him go. You’ll be right on top of him—your car right behind his. How can he get away?”
“Go ahead. It sounds too complicated already.”
“That’s all there is to it,” said Gianni. “This way, Sal can telephone me here, and tell me he’s in a car by himself. I’ll tell my men to pay off. Your pickup man is in the car with the other phone. When he calls and tells you he’s got the money, you let Sal drive away.”
“Why do I want to go through all that trouble?” asked Bull.
“Because you want me to pay you the money. Even if you kill Sal, what is that worth to you? This is eighty-five thousand we’re talking about. Eighty-five cash. That buys a lot of things. What do you want, the extra hundred bucks it costs for the cars? I’ll send an extra hundred.”
“It’s not that, man. Don’t be smart. Who needs it? I tell you it’s no—you don’t pay, I kill this old man.”
“And then what will you have for all this? Nothing.”
“But it’s not as simple as that, man,” said Bull. “I’m not going to tell you right now where to make the payoff. I’m not going to get trapped by nobody.”
“I don’t want to trap you. I’ve figured it out so nobody’s trapping anybody. You get the cars wherever you want, drive anywhere you want, one car behind the other. How can you be trapped that way?” asked Gianni.
“Let me get this. We drive anywhere?”
“Right. Sal is in your hands, but not in your car. And we don’t know where. We don’t want to know. All I want to do is get my man back safe. He can drive home by himself when you drive away.”
“I’m only going to give you the first stop now, so we can see if you’re fucking around. When you get there, we’ll call and tell you where to leave the money,” said Bull. “How we going to do that with all this cat and mouse stuff?”
“That’s easy,” said Gianni. “Just be sure that your payoff place is near a phone. This way one of your men in the payoff car can be on the phone with you. When the others get the dough, they tell him and he tells you. You let Sal drive away. It’s clean and simple. And we’re not trying to trap you.”
“Hold it,” said Bull; “let’s see: we got two cars with phones. Your old man gets in one. We get in another.”
“Right,” said Gianni.
“And we drive wherever we want—him up ahead, us behind?”
“Right.”
“And then your old man calls you on the car phone and tells you he’s in there by himself?”
“Right. Now he stays on the phone with me. After you tell my boys where to drop the money, they call me. I tell them it�
�s okay to pay, because the old man’s on the phone with me. And you get your money.”
“And when our payoff man says he’s got the money, we let your old man go.”
“That’s the whole thing. It’s not so complicated,” said Gianni.
“Yeah, man—and then right away you trace the cars and get to us. That’s some big fly in the ointment.”
“Are you telling me you can’t rent the cars under some phony name? Why, you can steal them for all I care. How can we be fairer than that? You do what you want, where you want. All I want to know is that our man is alone, and you let him go.”
“I guess we can do that. It’ll take some time to get the cars,” said Bull.
“How long?”
“Maybe a couple of hours. But remember, man, any funny business and your old man gets it from ear to ear.”
“I know you mean it. That’s why I worked it this way—you have control.”
“Okay. It’s 8:15 now. At 10:15 have one of your guys at the Woodhaven Lanes—that bowling alley in Queens. There ain’t much traffic there, and it ain’t got nothing around it, so we can see if you’re trying to fuck around. Be there. Someone’ll phone and tell you where to go and where to leave the money. They’ll page Larry Fields. Have your guy answer to that name. And remember, man, don’t think we’re kidding.”
The phone clicked. Gianni listened to the dead air for a moment.
“How can you be sure they’ll let Sal go, even then?” asked Frankie the Pig.
“We can’t be 100 percent sure, but at least he’s got a running start. Sal was always a good wheel man. And remember, you don’t want to fall in the cops’ hands. The cops heard all this. They may stake the place out and follow you to the payoff. So shake them if they try it.”
“Don’t even worry about it,” said Bobby Matteawan.
8:25 P.M.
Lieutenant Schmidt was on the phone. Feigin was standing next to him. Quinn had remained at the listening post in case anything else came in meanwhile.
“That’s right, Woodhaven Lanes,” Schmidt said into the phone. “Now get somebody over to the telephone company office and get a tap on all phones in that place. Make sure you get the public phones as well as the office phones.” He listened to the voice on the other end.
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