The Butcher

by Philip Carlo

  Apparently, however, Massino’s orders were not heeded—Bonventre was not only not buried deep, but he was placed in fifty-gallon oil drums and left in New Jersey. When Bonventre was found, law enforcement immediately came snooping around Massino’s camp. Plus, it was obvious to everyone in Mafiadom that Massino had ordered this killing. With that, Massino, not surprisingly, decided to kill Gabe Infante. Again, this was typical Mafia protocol. When the boss gives an order, it must be followed to the letter. In their world, in the world of crime, in the fiery netherworld of La Cosa Nostra, death can come from the smallest of infractions. Theirs is a constant life-and-death opera.

  Lie…you’re dead.

  Steal from your boss…you’re dead.

  Covet another made man’s wife…you’re dead.

  Not come when you are called…you’re dead.

  Not give the boss his due…you’re dead.

  Openly deal drugs…you’re dead.

  Practice homosexual activities…you’re dead.

  Break the vow of omertà…you’re dead.

  Don’t bury a body deep enough…you’re dead.

  For Tommy Pitera, the reason for this killing was irrelevant. All that mattered was that Massino wanted this individual dead. Tommy would do it—no questions asked. He would do it well. He would, via this murder, garner the respect of Massino and earn brownie points with him as well.

  Sal Vitale brought Gabe Infante to the warehouse under the guise of going to see a load of marijuana. When Pitera and Kojak joined them, Infante was not frightened because Pitera was a known drug dealer. Because Frankie Lino was Pitera’s immediate boss, he, too, was dispatched to the Queens warehouse. By the time he arrived at the warehouse, however, Gabe Infante was already dead. Pitera had shot him in the head several times with an automatic. Frankie Lino did not like dealing with Pitera. The fact is that he kept Pitera at arm’s length. He didn’t like being around him. He felt he was spooky—ghoulish. He had heard how Pitera adroitly butchered bodies.

  The job done, few words said, Pitera now did what he did best. They loaded Infante up in the trunk of his car and he, Vitale, and Kojak drove to the Arthur Kills Landfill on Staten Island. Here, quickly, Infante was buried. Another notch in his belt, a favor done for Joe Massino, they headed back to Brooklyn, again going over the majestic expanse of the Verrazano Bridge. On Pitera’s right, as he went, he could see Bensonhurst and Gravesend just beyond, the place where his roots were, the place that had spawned him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  THE ART OF WALK-AND-TALKS

  Doggedly, Jim Hunt and Tommy Geisel continued buying drugs from Judy Haimowitz, both heroin and cocaine, slowly building a case against Pitera. The heroin was pure and potent and the agents were able to have the DEA labs test it and determine from where it came. It was high-grade heroin from Turkey, no doubt brought to the United States via Sicily, Montreal, and Brooklyn, New York. The agents constantly tried to get Angelo to arrange to have them meet Pitera.

  “Tell him,” Hunt said, “we want a kilo of heroin. Whatever he can provide.”

  Angelo said, “He’s paranoid. He’s crazy paranoid. He don’t trust nobody. He says to me he don’t do business with anyone he don’t know.” Still, Hunt and Geisel followed Angelo when he went to Pitera to drop off money he, Pitera, had supplied to Angelo, Additionally, government money received by Favara was given to Pitera.

  However, Jim Hunt and Tom Geisel came to believe that the case could go only so far with Angelo’s help alone. It had to be broadened with the help of surveillance, wiretaps, and more informers. Still, both Jim and Tommy grew fond of Angelo and his wife, Ethyl. Life had thrown the Favaras numerous curveballs and they were black-and-blue. Almost as a matter of course, the DEA was compelled to use people like Angelo Favara. Regardless of what his status was in life, in society, they’d make the best out of him. They, everyone in the DEA, had come to know that in order to catch a shifty rat, you needed cheese.

  By the same token, they believed it was only a matter of time before they would nail Pitera to the proverbial cross. They were out for blood. They were not out to make an arrest that could be beat. They already knew that Pitera had access to the best criminal attorneys in New York. Though as days and weeks slipped by, the Pitera task force came to realize that getting the goods on Tommy Pitera would be difficult.

  It was patently obvious that everyone around Pitera was deathly afraid of him. It was very hard to find somebody willing to cooperate with bringing him down. Using the tapped phones and Angelo, they searched for a weak link, an Achilles’ heel, some place they could exploit. Normally everyone has an Achilles’ heel, but they came to realize that Pitera was unusual—exceptional. They noticed, too, that people around him seemed to disappear. There’d be a guy at the Just Us Bar on a regular basis and then suddenly he’d be gone.

  The Mother Cabrini Educational Center was located at 246 Avenue U. This was the “social club” for the all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing Bonanno capo Frank Lino. The club, as all of La Cosa Nostra’s social clubs, was on the ground floor, its windows covered in thick curtains, and inside there were card tables along with the ubiquitous espresso maker. The walls were adorned with photos of Frank Sinatra, Caruso, Dean Martin, and Joe DiMaggio. It was somewhat ironic that Lino would name a meeting place for the Bonanno crime family after Mother Cabrini. It showed that he had not only a sense of humor but audacity. Inevitably, the mob guys noticed the agents watching them from different vans and cars, but they did not give a flying fuck. This was an intricate part of their world and no one was going to disturb the solidarity that the club afforded them. Often, the DEA agents watched Pitera enter the club, come out a little while later with another mafioso, and go for a “walk-and-talk.”

  Walk-and-talks were a uniquely clever invention of La Cosa Nostra. They had become so wary and paranoid of FBI monitors, taps, eavesdropping, that the only way they felt safe to talk to one another was to walk the streets in no particular direction, going left, right, stopping and turning around, figuring the FBI couldn’t record their conversations. They, the New York Mafia, created walk-and-talks and took them to such a degree of finesse that they became, in a sense, an art form. In that those who had the most to lose were the higher-ups—the most paranoid were the capos and bosses—it was they who most often went on these sojourns. They’d walk, usually two people, sometimes three, shoulder to shoulder, in stride, whispering as they went, trying to look natural—like they belonged. Often, one or both of them at the same time would cup their hands around their mouths as they spoke for fear of high-powered audio recording equipment.

  The DEA agents’ long-lensed, motorized Nikon cameras took pictures as Tommy Pitera went on walk-and-talks with a host of Bonanno people like Frankie Lino and Anthony Spero. To the government, this was a revelation. It proved that they were on the right trail. It was no secret to any of them exactly who Anthony Spero was. On other days, they photographed Pitera walking with Frankie Lino. The Mother Cabrini Educational Center acted like a sweet beehive and all the different mafiosi from Brooklyn made their way there sooner or later. The DEA noted Eddie Lino come and go. They noted Gene Gotti—John Gotti’s younger brother—come and go. They noted Anthony Gaspipe Casso arrive, go inside, and then leave.

  With the long-distance lens and the determination and talent of DEA photographers, little went unnoticed or unrecorded. They noted that day and night, Tommy Pitera most often wore black like he was in mourning. At any given moment he could go to a funeral and fit right in. With that pale skin of his and those ice-blue eyes, he was a sight to behold walking up and down Avenue U with various mafiosi. Of all the mafiosi, it was obvious to the DEA that Pitera was the most paranoid—wary of being recorded. He always had his hand over his mouth, as if he were taking the last bites of a Nathan’s hot dog from nearby Coney Island.

  They, the DEA, also trailed Pitera to Anthony Spero’s club on Bath Avenue at Bay Sixteenth Street. It was called West End. Spero had large flocks of
pigeons up on the roof and often his pigeons could be seen flying large circles over Bath Avenue. Here, too, Spero and Pitera would go for walks around the block, talking quietly, surreptitiously, as they made their way up and down quiet, tree-lined streets. These blocks were lined with one- and two-story homes. Italian-Americans lived in many of these homes. A lot of the front yards were adorned with statues of saints and the Virgin Mary.

  In the year or so since Gangi had hooked up with Pitera, he had come to know intimately the remorseless killer Tommy Pitera truly was. Everyone in the Just Us, indeed throughout the underworld, was always talking about this person he killed and that person he killed and what a badass killer he was. Gangi, too, heard that he not only murdered people but he cut them up—butchered them with amazing acumen. At face value, Frank didn’t think this particularly bad or ghoulish—he saw it more as part and parcel of what had to be done, a necessary part of the job. However, as time went by and he actually saw for himself what Pitera was capable of, he came to know that Pitera was a living, breathing monster, that he killed the way a werewolf would kill, that he killed the way a highly trained ninja warrior would kill.

  Murder, for Pitera, was as easy as combing his thinning black hair.

  By now, the summer of 1987 was just around the corner. One evening in early June, Gangi got up from a nap, showered, dressed, and went to the Just Us. Now Gangi was making money. He was always on the prowl, always looking for women. He considered himself quite the ladies’ man. Females liked Gangi. One of the many women he dated was Phyllis Burdi. Phyllis was the woman who hung out with Celeste LiPari, Pitera’s girlfriend. She was the woman who Pitera thought was supplying Celeste with drugs.

  Gangi knew that Celeste was a heavy drug user. Often she was at the Just Us when Pitera wasn’t around going to and from the ladies’ room, back and forth like the Energizer Bunny. He well knew that Pitera really did not want her using drugs, but far be it from him to tell tales about anyone. He himself was a big drug user. He’d snort cocaine and snort cocaine, get all wired up, and drink half a bottle of whiskey to come down. Like this, quite stoned, he’d get in his car and drive about as though he were sober. Several times he had to pay off Brooklyn cops who pulled him over for drunk driving when his car weaved all over the road. One time he hit a stop sign on Cropsey Avenue and Bay Thirty-fourth Street. He had to pay five hundred dollars to get away with that one. The combination of excessive coke use and excessive alcohol consumption destined Gangi for trouble—big trouble.

  When he was really stoned, for the most part, Gangi stayed away from the Just Us and people in the life. What he would do is find a girl and take her home; he always had all the coke anybody could want and he’d party, with the girl and the coke, drinking heavily. Sometimes Frank Gangi woke up with such a headache he thought he’d been shot. It seemed, deep inside, he was trying to numb himself. It seemed as though he had some great pain that he couldn’t deal with when sober. What he was doing was not partying. What he was doing was killing himself, little by little digging his own grave. For these reasons, his family, knowing of his drinking and drugging problems, kept him at arm’s length. They didn’t trust him. They viewed him as what he was: an out-of-control addict, volatile and untrustworthy.

  Since Tommy Pitera used drugs very sparingly, drank lightly, Gangi was rarely stoned around him. For Gangi, it wasn’t a matter of getting high or buzzed. He would readily drink a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and snort an eighth of coke in one evening. He knew if Pitera saw him that way, their days together would be numbered. Not only that, but Gangi had come to believe that if Pitera thought Gangi was a liability, he’d kill him; he’d kill him as easily as passing gas.

  On this night, as Gangi took a left and entered the Just Us Bar, he ran smack into Pitera. Pitera said, “C’mon. Take a ride with me, Frankie.”

  “Sure,” Gangi said, having no idea what was about to happen.

  They went outside and got in the car. Pitera did his usual thing, made a U-turn, went a couple blocks, made another U-turn, drove into a shopping center, and went in a big circle to make sure they weren’t being followed. Pitera was a hard man to tail. He knew the moves. He had carefully studied surveillance. He had carefully studied exactly what cops do to follow people, and he readily managed to slip away from the government. He knew these streets far better than any of the DEA agents.

  As was Pitera’s habit, strategy, he turned on the radio. He purposely tuned in to an AM frequency with loud static. He turned the volume up high enough so that the sound became hurtful to the ears. He leaned toward Gangi and whispered.

  “This way no one can listen.”

  “What’s up?”

  “We gotta go kill Talal.”

  “You want me to do it?” Gangi asked, seeing an opportunity to get close to Pitera, to prove himself. Gangi didn’t want to kill anybody, but he wanted to impress Pitera. He felt the closer he got to Pitera, the more Pitera trusted him, the more money he’d make.

  “No, no, I’ll take care of it. We’re going over to Richie David’s house. He’s got a briefcase for us. You’ll go in and get it.”

  “Okay,” Frank said, the static bothering him, stirring up his hangover from the night before. Pitera kept looking in the rearview mirror as he drove, making sure they were alone.

  They made their way to Richie David’s house. Richie was expecting them. When Gangi got to the door, Richie handed him a briefcase. Gangi, with his long, stilted gait, walked back to the car and got in. Pitera opened the case. There were guns inside. He took out an automatic, cocked it, and put a bullet in the chamber. He then carefully screwed a custom-fitted silencer on the front of the gun. It was obvious that he knew guns exceedingly well. Seeing him handle a gun was like seeing a doctor handle a stethoscope. The gun was part of Pitera’s stock and trade and he had made it his business to make any gun he held, any weapon he held, a natural extension of his body. He put the gun back in the briefcase and closed it. He placed the case on the backseat. Pitera put the car in gear and they started out. He made his way to Coney Island Avenue and they took a right. The victim, Talal Siksik, was being held at his apartment, number 1A, at 2807 Kings Highway and East Twenty-eighth Street. The mark was dying because Tommy had been told by one of his crew that he was an informer. Pitera hated rats with an obsessive fervor.

  They had some difficulty parking. Kings Highway was a shopping mecca for all Brooklynites and finding a parking spot was a pain in the ass. When they finally parked, Pitera stuck the 9mm auto in the small of his back and they made their way to Siksik’s home. When the door opened, they found Shlomo Mendelsohn, also known as Sammy, and Billy Bright there.

  Talal Siksik was handcuffed. His mouth was taped shut. It was obvious he was scared beyond words, petrified to the core of his being, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw Tommy. It was obvious, too, that he had been severely beaten. Tommy was angry about him being not only beaten but tortured. He yelled at Shlomo and Billy. Billy sheepishly said it was a misunderstanding.

  It was now that Pitera showed his true colors. Drawing the gun from his waistband, he quickly walked over to the distraught Siksik, raised the gun, and shot him in the head twice, just above the ear. Frank Gangi was shocked by the quiet, lethal ferocity of Pitera’s attack. He had never seen anybody kill with such ease, aplomb. It was like watching a professional fighter in his prime effortlessly knock out a man with a left hook. Pitera was sure of himself, confident. Every step he took was filled with resolve and purpose. It was obvious that to Pitera, killing a human being meant nothing. On the one hand, Gangi had to admire how lethal and deadly he was. On the other hand, he was appalled by how indifferently Pitera claimed the life of Talal Siksik.

  Gangi hadn’t seen anything yet.

  It would get far worse.

  Pitera turned to Gangi and said, in his high-pitched voice, “Help me get him in the tub.” Both Pitera and Gangi were strong men and carrying Talal to the tub was easy. For the most part, Talal had stopp
ed bleeding. They placed him in the tub face down. Pitera now produced the kind of hacksaw used for autopsies. He took it and turned to Gangi.

  “I want you to get undressed, get in the tub with him, and cut him into six pieces.”

  Gangi felt like he’d been hit by a bat. Never in his life had he done such a thing. Never in his life had he even thought of such a thing. This was, he thought, right out of a fucking horror movie. He looked to Billy Bright. Billy remained mute, emotionless—stonelike. Billy knew he had to accept what was happening, that if he wanted to work with Pitera, he could show no emotion one way or the other.

  “Go ahead,” Tommy prodded Frank, offering up the hacksaw.

  “I can’t; I don’t do that; if I knew you would ask me to do that, I—I—I—”

  “You what?” Pitera said.

  Gangi just stared at him and shook his head. It was obvious to Pitera that hell would have to freeze over before Gangi would get naked and cut up Talal. Pitera was asking him to do this, encouraging him to do it, because he wanted to test him, see what he was made of. If, Pitera reasoned, Gangi cut the body up as he ordered, he could be trusted. He was one of them, cut from the same bloodstained cloth. Now, rather than debate the pros and cons of Gangi’s actions, Pitera did what he did best: he took the bull by the horns and took care of business. He walked to the bathroom, got undressed, neatly folding his clothes as he did so. Then, without a second thought, he got in the tub with the body. He now turned on the water so it ran in a steady flow, though not too strong. He did this so the blood would be immediately washed away, washed down the drain. Gangi watched this through the door. He didn’t quite believe his eyes.

  Without hesitation or inhibition, Pitera proceeded to remove Talal’s head, arms, and legs. He did this with the expertise of a professional butcher. When the body was in six pieces, Shlomo brought the trunk into the bathroom and Tommy calmly proceeded to put what was left of Talal inside. The trunk was closed. With that, Pitera turned up the force of the water, washing down the remnants of the blood. He then took a long, careful shower, got out of the bathtub, and casually began to dry himself. He now turned the water hot and let it clean the last of the blood.