by Tony Bertot
Staring at his sister, he nodded. “Yes, you need to make a call,” he answered.
When Two Is Better Than One
May 29, 1984 (San Francisco)
There was a cool breeze coming off San Francisco Bay as Shannon Murphy and her daughter, Jamie, walked on the beach, heading in a southwest direction. They shared fond moments of the last twenty years with each other. Jamie, now twenty-two, had just returned from attending Harvard Business School. Her mother had been diagnosed with cancer, and Jamie returned to help her through these trying times.
“It’s not serious, Jamie. So don’t start making plans to sell my house or trade in my collectibles,” she told her daughter, laughing.
“Mom, stop it. Don’t say those things. Anyway, there is no money in your worthless collectibles, and as far as the house is concerned I have two buyers standing by. Believe me, I checked before coming out,” she responded. Shannon stared at her daughter, and then they both burst out laughing as Jamie gave her mother a hug. “Mom, you are going to outlive us all, or I will be very upset with you,” Jamie added.
As they walked along the beach, a strange feeling came over Shannon as she stared at a stranger now fast approaching them. He looked so familiar, and yet she knew she didn’t know him. As he came closer, their eyes met, and she felt a chill run down her spine. It was a déjà vu moment. She stared after him and so did Jamie.
“What’s the matter, Mom?” asked Jamie.
“I don’t know. I think I know that man,” she responded.
Nick continued his jogging for another two miles, ending up at the Golden Gate Bridge southeast parking lot where he jumped into a Jeep Cherokee and drove to his ocean-side home in Daly City.
In the last twenty years, Nick had traveled out of the country twelve times. All of his ventures had proven successful. As a result, he had earned quite a reputation, and could now be selective in the jobs he took on. Along with his success, however, came a deepening concern that over the years he might have slipped up somewhere along the lines, and that someone might be closing in on him.
Nick would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night to sneak a peek out his window to assure himself no one was watching. Once in a while, he would get up and actually go out jogging simply to make sure there were no cars in the neighborhood that didn’t belong there. He made it a point to know everyone who lived within a half mile radius of his house, and his photographic memory made this task a lot easier. Nick never turned down an invitation to a barbecue or neighborhood gathering, as it was his way of meeting his neighbors, though he himself had never hosted a party at his own house. He seldom engaged in any lengthy conversations and abruptly interrupted most by excusing himself to get some punch, or to use the restroom.
Nick had an uncanny ability to size people up by what he saw in their eyes and in the mannerisms they expressed upon meeting him. People on the other hand, felt uneasy around Nick. Though he was a handsome man, no one ever saw him smile, and his eyes could bring a chill to the warmest of people. Rumor was that he had lost his wife and children in an accident, and that he was drained of all emotion. Well, that was the rumor anyway. However, no one knew who started it.
After showering, Nick sat in front of the TV and made his morning calls. Over the years, all of the numbers had been changed. San Francisco was dropped from his list as it was too close to home. He now had numbers in New York, Chicago, Florida, Los Angeles, DC, as well as numbers in England, Sicily, and Italy. Though he had bank accounts in most of these locations, they were all under different names. ATMs made it easy for Nick to draw from anywhere in the United States or abroad. Additionally, Nick always disguised himself before using any ATM, never used the same machine twice in a row, and always used them at odd times when very few people were on the streets.
When he finished checking all of the numbers, he was surprised to see that there were two US numbers that were disconnected; one in Chicago and the other New York. Must be a sale going on, he thought to himself, laughing.
Within fifteen minutes, he was on his way to Middletown, California, approximately ninety-four miles from Daly City. He had called ahead to the Twin Pine Casino and Hotel for available rooms.
Upon checking into the hotel, he went straight up to his room, made two calls, and left the room within half an hour. The calls, which would automatically be charged to his room, afforded him the luxury of not having to physically check out the next day. Two hours later, he was back home planning his trip to Chicago and New York.
As usual, he called David Spencer, letting him know he would be out of town. Before leaving, he checked through the apartment, ensuring a pristine atmosphere awaited his return.
A Blast from the Past
June 12, 1984 (Chicago)
As downtown Chicago officers Gerard Simpson and David Cassidy were finishing up their two to midnight shifts, getting ready to return to the Twenty-First Precinct, a call of a possible break in on East Sixteenth Street at South Michigan Avenue came over the police radio. Just a few minutes away, they took the call and rushed to the scene, shutting off their sirens a few blocks away.
As they quietly cruised down the street, they noticed a blue van parked near the back entrance of one of the warehouses that lined South Michigan. Both officers had more than eight years of experience, having been together for six of them. This experience paid off as they continued on South Michigan as if they hadn’t noticed the blue van. Once out of sight, they radioed in for backup, advising all units to come in quietly. Within twenty minutes, police officers were situated on both ends of Sixteenth Street along South Michigan and South Indiana avenues.
To catch the occupant by surprise, they had a plainclothes officer walk up Sixteenth Street pretending to be drunk and approach the van from the back, while a male and a female undercover officer drove in an unmarked car toward the van from the front. As soon as the car went past the front of the van, the drunk reached the driver’s side window, distracting the occupant long enough for the female officer to jump out of the car and approach from the passenger’s side with her gun drawn.
“Freeze!” was all the driver heard. Within minutes, both the driver and the van were quickly removed from the scene.
Quietly, most of the cruisers were positioned toward the entrance of the warehouse while the rest covered the back. Twenty minutes had passed when, finally, four suspects carrying boxes walked out into an armada of police officers.
“Get your hands up!” echoed a police mike.
The fourth man drew a gun and fired, grazing one of the police officers, which resulted in a barrage of returned gunfire. Another of the suspect’s quick thinking saved his life as he hit the ground immediately when the gunfire started, shouting, “I give up, I give up!”
Two of the individuals died as a result of the return fire while the other two faced grand larceny, resisting arrest, carrying a concealed weapon, and firing at police. With each facing over twenty years to life in prison, one of the suspects asked to speak to whoever was in charge, claiming he had something to trade for a lighter sentence.
Captain Armando Chavez stood five foot seven and weighed around one hundred seventy five pounds. He had eighteen years experience as the captain of this precinct and, as a result, had little patience for what he referred to as street garbage. “Okay, asshole, you better have something good; or I am going to make sure you never see the light of day for wasting my time. Do you understand?” he asked the suspect.
“Man, why you got to be like that? I ain’t hurt no one. You got no cause.” The suspect went on.
“Okay, we are done here,” the captain responded as he got up to leave.
“Oh . . . okay, okay . . . I know who killed the Black Aces,” the suspect blurted out.
“What? Who the fuck are the Black Aces? They some gang or something, and why should I give a shit about them?” the captain responded, looking at the other detective in the room to see if anyone knew what he was talking about. All shrugged their
shoulders. No one knew what he was talking about.
“My . . . my name is Kenny Roberts. I used to be known as Lefty, and I was a member of the Black Aces out of New York,” he blurted out. He could see in their faces that no one knew what he was talking about. “Some guy drove us to New Jersey in a van, shot up the van, and then dumped us into the Hudson River,” he went on. “I . . . I . . . was lucky. I managed not to get shot and swim out . . . but . . . but . . . the other guys didn’t make it.
“This fuckin’ guy . . . he set us up . . . Told us he was sent by the Costellino family to save us from doing time for shooting some bitch related to a cop. He . . . he killed Blackie and then tried to kill us by shooting up the van,” Lefty finished.
There was silence in the room as everyone stared at Lefty with new interest.
A Gruesome Discovery
June 13, 1984
Captain O’Malley sat frozen as Captain Chavez recounted what he had been told by Lefty. It was a good fifteen minutes before O’Malley was able to compose himself and start barking orders to his men.
“I need two volunteers to go to Chicago and bring back a big piece of garbage,” he shouted out. Next he called Agent John Connolly, advising him about the incidents that happened over twenty years ago involving the Costellino family. What Captain O’Malley did not remember was that the woman who had been killed by the drive by was the mother of Tyler Santiago. His attention was on the fact that they were going to find some bodies off the shore of New Jersey and perhaps solve the mystery of what happened to the Black Aces.
Within the hour, after receiving a call from Chicago, Connolly and O’Malley were sharing a ride to New Jersey. They were met with scores of police officers and agents from the bureau. There were already several divers in the water combing the Hudson River close to where they suspected the van would be.
The divers moved cautiously through the murky water as they went deeper and deeper. Moving slowly, they found shoes, hubcaps, and other obstacles dumped over the years. All of a sudden, one of the divers spotted something big in the water. Pointing, he directed the other divers to the location. They all swam toward what appeared to be a vehicle; it was the van. One of the divers peered into a window, discovering the skeletal remains of one unlucky punk. Ditto for the back of the van where the cargo contained remnants of a death scene and just punishment for the innocent life of a young mother. This was their tomb, he thought to himself.
Attaching a buoy to the van with a line attached to a balloon, they released the balloon, allowing it to float to the surface, marking the van’s location. A crane was brought in to hoist it ashore. Once on shore, they approached it with caution as if the victims would jump out and gouge everyone.
Upon opening the back of the van, several officers puked at the smell and sight of the cadavers. The mangled remains were protruding from the back of the van with outstretched hands, pleading to be saved.
The site was sealed off as scores of curious onlookers and forensic investigators from both the FBI and New Jersey crime labs ascended the area. The initial report released a few days later indicated that there were seventeen bodies in all. There was a body in the front seat, which appeared to have a gunshot to the head. Eight died due to drowning while the rest from gunshot wounds. Except for the passenger in the front seat, the rest were piled up against the back of the van.
Lefty had been brought to New York to be questioned by both the FBI and the local police. During questioning, O’Malley remembered that it was Tyler’s mom who had been killed by the Black Aces. He wanted to rush to the phone and call Tyler, but then realized that there was no way to contact him at this time. It would not have been a good idea as it might jeopardize the safety of his men and the success of the mission.
Of interest was that the bullet extracted from the passenger in the front seat was fired from the same gun that killed the only witness to the drive-by shooting some twenty years ago. Further, was that the witness known as Uncle Ted was really Theodore Enzinola, and the gentleman killed at the scene, known as Fat Man, turned out to be Joseph Bolano. Both were members of an old crime syndicate from Chicago known as the Giovanna family. Rumor was that there was a contract on both of these men and that it had been carried out.
“So what the hell were these two doing in the middle of Manhattan on that day? Did the Costellino family contract the Black Aces to make a hit on them?” These questions tugged at both Captain O’Malley and Agent Connolly.
Agent Connolly immediately ordered four of his men to open up all the files on these cases and begin an investigation on all ties to any of the crime families, past or present, and any other information they could dig up.
Felicia Gets a Call
May 29, 1984
Around 4:00 p.m. a call from Nick Costello was received. The instructions were, as always, simple. “Go to your bedroom, and under the nightstand on the left side of the bed, you will find an envelope with instructions,” directed Nick and immediately hung up.
Felicia almost immediately became upset. How in the world did he get this into the house without our knowing? The motherfucker scares me, she thought, clenching her fists.“Fabio! Fabio, come here!” she shouted.
Fabio ran up the stairs, extracting his shoulder gun, thinking his sister was in danger. “What! What’s the matter?” he shouted back as he burst into her room.
“Look where that fuckin’ Nick Costello left the envelope with the instructions!” she said, pointing to the nightstand, which had now been moved, exposing the manila envelope.
“So what? You are making too much of this,” Fabio responded.
“Don’t you understand? He was in our house. He placed the envelope under this nightstand! Doesn’t that bother you?” she shouted back at him.
“I guess it does, but what do you want me to do about it?” he fired back at her. “What can we do?”
“I guess there is nothing we can do. Not now!” she answered. Felicia stared after Fabio as he exited the room, then at the envelope. She bent down and retrieved the envelope, then sat on the bed. The instructions gave locations on where to leave the information. In this particular case, she would have to actually put the judge’s name in full with the additional information that he had gone undercover. They could not allow the dirty judge to discover he had a conscience, one that the Costellino family owned and intended to keep.
For over twenty years, Felicia was in control. She had always been on top of any situation, seeing it through to its solution. But Nick scared her. She didn’t own him, and this scared her more than anything else.
She sat there and began to understand that the price of keeping the family together would be to relinquish control to someone she did not trust. Even the split-second control could cost too much. She needed Nick, and this made her physically ill.
Fabio stopped at the bottom of the stairs after leaving Felicia’s room. He too was worried about Nick Costello, worried that someday the assassin might come after them. But he also knew that for now there wasn’t too much he could do. When the time came, he would sit down with his sister and develop a plan; to eliminate Nick Costello.
In Protective Custody
June 7, 1984
At 7:00 p.m., Tyler stopped by his apartment, stuffed some clothes into a duffle bag, then drove to pick up Eric in Queens. Eric said good-bye to his dog, Fudge, and gave his sister a hug of love and reassurance. Fudge ran over to Tyler who played with him for a bit. Tyler then kissed Lucille on the forehead. She relaxed, knowing Tyler would always be at Eric’s back. “You take care of him, Tyler,” shouted Lucille as they both waved good-bye to her.
“You can count on it, little sister,” responded Tyler.
Tyler now headed back into Manhattan by way of the Triborough Bridge. Driving across 125th Street and turning left on Claremont Avenue heading south, Tyler went two blocks past his intended destination, turned right, and parked in a one-hour standing zone. Both he and Eric then walked to the back entrance of Riverside Churc
h. As they entered the church, they found a few people scattered about the pews. Tyler anointed himself with holy water, making the sign of the cross, and sat in one of the last pews. Eric, mimicking Tyler, did the same; however, he moved up to the front of the pews and sat down. After a few minutes, Eric saw the priest go into the confession box. Eric got up and went in. “Father, please forgive me for I have sinned,” Eric said to the partition between him and the priest.
“What sin have you committed, my son?” responded the priest.
“I have taken the name of the Lord in vain,” Eric said.
There was a short silence as the priest hesitantly asked, “Why come to me with this sin?”
“I was told you are the forgiver of all sins,” Eric replied. With that said, the priest advised Eric to perform seven Hail Mary’s from the upstairs balcony. He stepped out of the confessional box and walked up the aisle, kneeled and made the sign of the cross as he left the inner entrance to the church. Tyler watched him leave, looking around to see if anyone else was watching him. Tyler got up and, kneeling at the other end of the pew, made the sign of the cross before leaving through a side entrance.
Eric walked up to the balcony area where there were three people sitting; an elderly white man, a white woman, and a black man. All three looked up at Eric as he approached. Both the woman and the black man reached inside of their jackets as Eric approached.
“Easy does it,” Eric said.
“Keep them holstered,” said Tyler as he approached from the other side behind them.
“Jesus,” said Sam as he realized he was caught off guard.
“No, Tyler Santiago is the name.”
“I’m Eric Thomas,” Eric said, putting out his hand.
“I’m Samual Williams, and this is my partner, Sheila Cooper,” Sam responded, shaking Eric’s hand.
Sam and Sheila had been babysitting the judge now for almost three weeks, moving from safe house to safe house, not staying more than a couple of days. Both had severed all contact with friends and family, except for an occasional call to John Connolly to get updates. They had virtually disappeared.