Boss of Bosses

by Clare Longrigg

  ‘I can’t hear very well. They seem to have missed a bit’, he said.

  ‘Is there something specific?’ she asked. ‘You’ve got all the papers there.’

  ‘I think you’re missing one of the papers, one that was taken from my house’, said her client.

  After the call the lawyer figured out what Provenzano was referring to. On a newspaper article found in his hideout he had written a single word over Giuffré’s picture: ‘Traitor’. It was a message he wanted to relay to his former friend. When the court reconvened, she asked Giuffré how he would describe his conduct.

  ‘I’d call it betrayal’, she announced. Provenzano’s message was delivered. It had the desired effect on Giuffré.

  ‘He was supposed to stay in Corleone, e basta’, he replied curtly.

  The Agrigento episode showed up some deep cracks within the new, peaceful and prosperous Cosa Nostra and demonstrated how, skilled moderator though he was, and mild-mannered though he seemed, Provenzano was not prepared to see his orders countermanded.

  ‘I don’t want to be the axe man at the moment,’ he had written, as his frustration over the Agrigento situation mounted, ‘but we’ll see how it goes.’

  Giuffré knew the Boss’s true colours, and he wasn’t fooled: ‘It’s all there, in those three little words. He didn’t want to be the axe man for now. He didn’t want to go after these people for the time being, he would wait until the time was right.’

  13

  Letters home

  L

  ETTERS FROM PROVENZANO’S family members, confiscated by the police, revealed a disjointed family life in which his wife and sons maintained the premiss that he was the head of their family and continued to make decisions that mattered. And yet the reality was that ordinary life had to go on, and he was not there to oversee it. The older son, Angelo, was under a lot of pressure and clearly struggling to find his place in the world. Meanwhile Saveria sent letters full of touchingly domestic detail, as though their life were quite normal:

  ‘My life, the holidays are past and I received a short visit on new year’s day everything’s fine here, work is going ahead, Paolo is starting his studies, I will go to Catania on Friday with Angelo, and we’ll see if they can do anything my Love you know five hundred is here, we went to visit, she’s done up her house it’s lovely she invited us for a meal but we had to go to Tina’s and so we couldn’t go this time now angelo’s going to go because my brother wants to talk to him but we don’t know when. My Life I will close with the Holy Blessing that the light of the Lord shine on you and assist you and may give us the strength we need and give us faith.’

  Saveria’s letters followed a rudimentary code (‘five hundred’ is presumably a relative or an associate) and express the same religious fervour as her husband’s, invoking God’s blessing in times of unjust persecution. They allowed a glimpse into the couple’s domestic arrangements and the family’s reduced circumstances. She wrote about the clothes she had found for him, particularly suitable for life on the run and for someone suffering from incontinence, whose clothes would need frequent washing. He was obviously troubled by the cold and was apparently living in Spartan conditions.

  Saveria led a strange, isolated life, sustained by her love of Bernardo. Despite being forced to live apart, the couple still had a passionate relationship. Her letters to her husband began ‘Carissimo amore mio’ (‘My dearest love’) and ended with ‘I love you always’.

  ‘They have a very tender relationship’, said police chief Giuseppe Gualtieri. ‘We’ve got letters between husband and wife that we haven’t made public, because they’re too personal, and they reveal a great love, a great respect for each other.’

  In a letter dated 15 January 2001 she wrote: ‘My life, I have sent you socks and I wanted to send you another pair of those thick ones but I couldn’t find any. You’ll need to wash them by hand in warm water. I’m sending you 2 pairs of knee socks which are good to keep out the cold and you can wash them in cold water . . . you wanted a pair of trousers that you can wear in the snow, I found some with a bib so I got you those, there’s a fleece as well if you want it. . . . My life I’ll sign off with the Holy Blessing that the light of the Lord shine upon you and help you, and give us faith and strength to carry on. My life I send you a big hug and if I’ve forgotten anything, let me know.’

  Angelo’s difficulties were not only existential but also practical in nature: he wrote to his father complaining of money worries. ‘You asked me about the launderette, papà, for the moment we’re just about managing to cover our outgoings, but only just, and some months we have to balance the books using money out of our own pockets.’

  Investigators who had long suspected that the launderette in Corleone was a front for a money-laundering operation tried to decipher any hidden code. But what these letters revealed was the strain under which Angelo, now twenty-six, was living. As the elder son of a Mafia boss, raised outside Cosa Nostra but denied the freedom to operate as a normal citizen, Angelo had been trying to sort out his prospects. It was proving difficult, as his father’s advisers had warned, to get a business off the ground, and he was trying to circumvent the anti-Mafia laws. His close relationship to the Mafia boss, which would have guaranteed him success in any illegal venture, ruined his chances in the straight world.

  And although his father was still around, he was not actually there, and Angelo needed to assert his identity as the man of the household. He wanted to invest in property and had found some land (albeit of poor quality) for sale. He and his father had evidently had a disagreement about this before, and Angelo, with some trepidation, had decided to go ahead. It was a rare moment of rebellion. As in other letters, Angelo uses a numerical code to conceal names.

  ‘I’ve been a bit disobedient, just before Christmas I met the interested party 512151522 191212154 and we left it that after the holidays we would meet to talk it through. I don’t want to have to justify myself, but if I don’t start looking after our needs, you might as well stop me having access to our family funds. This is incredibly serious for me, I’m looking at my reflection and I’m worse off than when we last met and I can’t bear it much longer so I’m asking you, if I can’t manage this by myself I beg you at least to help me not to do any damage because maybe there’s some truth in the proverb, you can’t put a square peg in a round hole. That said, I would like your view on something I’ve done on my own initiative.

  ‘You remember that bit of land I spoke to you about at Scorciavacche which you advised me against as you said the land was no good. Well I kept track of the deal and they’ve just let me know that the owner will sell all 38 hectares for 400ml. Of course I know I haven’t got the money and that the land isn’t particularly good, but I know there are people who have done deals over similar plots of land for more money, so I’ve asked around to find out how to go ahead, and I’ve been told I could do it if I had a political contact . . . also through Agenda 2000 [the European Union funding initative].

  ‘This is where my doubts start, as I could go to the person I spoke to you about, since he has done this before and he could make it happen – that’s one route. In the meantime, I’ve told uncle Paolo [Palazzolo] about it, and he’s got a possible contact.

  ‘I’ve never been able to do anything that was my own idea before now.’

  This last, politely assertive but plaintive sentence gives an idea of how difficult Angelo’s position is: he needs to assert his individuality, prove his worth to his father the Mafia boss, but without using the Mafia’s clout – in fact, handicapped by his infamous surname. The anti-Mafia law makes it difficult for him to obtain finance, and he can’t put his name to the transaction.

  The unfortunate Angelo’s efforts to earn some respect in his father’s eyes and get a business venture of his own off the ground were stymied once again when his tremulous letter to his father fell into police hands. There would be no chance of a deal after that.

  His younger brother, Fran
cesco Paolo, now aged eighteen, wrote to his father about how he had been contacted by a young woman who claimed that, in a dream, she had received a message for him from the Madonna. The whole family was in a ferment over this personal contact from the Virgin. Knowing Provenzano’s tendency to use the same religious phrases in his letters, cryptologists searched for a hidden meaning. Angelo wrote soon afterwards, to report their disappointment that the young woman had not shown up to a meeting. The brothers’ letters displayed varying degrees of curiosity and scepticism about this holy message. Eventually they suspected a set-up.

  ‘I wanted to find out more about this business. I mean, is there anyone here in town who would hold a grudge against us?’ asks Angelo, with startling ingenuousness. This episode shows how vulnerable the family was, hidden away from the world but exposed to anyone who wanted to exploit their weaknesses. Judging by Angelo’s tone, his father’s letters were full of reproach. He apologized for the slow delivery of his messages and for troubling his father with his investment worries.

  Provenzano, preoccupied as ever with health matters, had to be updated about his wife’s medical appointments. Angelo had gone with his mother to visit a doctor in Catania about her constant headaches: she was suffering from sinusitis, which was aggravating her painful condition. He asked permission to contact 1012234151512. 14819647415218. ‘As for the other doctor I asked your permission to contact, I found him in the phone book, I’m glad to say he is still practising and I’ll make an appointment as soon as I can.’

  Saveria has had problems with her health: surgery to unblock her intestine went wrong, and she had to undergo a second operation, by the specialist Giuseppe Guttadauro, a close associate of her husband. According to Nino Giuffré, the reparatory operation was so successful that the doctor won Provenzano’s gratitude for life. When the doctor’s enemies (Giuffré included) were plotting to get rid of him, the Boss ordered them not to touch him.

  It seems strange that Angelo would need his father’s permission to see a particular doctor, but there is a studied reverence in the son’s tone. Was Provenzano excessively cautious and controlling, or was this another hidden message? Investigators worked on the numerical code and cracked it without too much trouble (A was 4, B was 5, C was 6 and so on). The doctor Angelo wanted permission to consult was Giovanni Mercadante, a Forza Italia politician and nephew of the senior Mafia strategist Tommaso Cannella. Investigators had been circling Mercadante for years, but this was the first time he had been explicitly linked to Provenzano. The family letters began to look less innocent and domestic.

  Bernardo’s sons were not the only ones struggling to negotiate with the absent family member. All was not well between Binnu and his brothers. A letter from Salvatore referred to an ongoing family feud over an inheritance. This quarrel had been rumbling on for years, in spite of Bernardo’s talents as a mediator. Salvatore’s querulous letter did not stint on emotional blackmail:

  ‘My brother, I don’t want to quarrel with anyone, I am just hurt that because of something said out of turn or misunderstood, there’s a great drama blowing up, because I really believe we both want the same thing, or anyway to settle this issue between us, but we have a different way of figuring out how to get there, with the result that we can’t understand each other; I am not saying this because I want to quarrel with you, I repeat – I don’t, it’s just that when you try to explain what you want, I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, I’m referring in general to our correspondence, and I hate to talk like this, but it’s the truth and you might as well hear it.

  ‘I will close wishing you the grace of God, may He watch over you and protect you wherever you are, we send you our dear and affectionate greetings and kisses with all best wishes for the new year, may it bring you joy and peace, a brotherly hug from your affectionate brother.’

  Such avowals of fraternal love bely the irritable tone of the rest: Binnu’s family was clearly under undue and unwelcome pressure, and – Saveria excepted – didn’t mind him knowing their grievances. Saveria’s letters are mild, fond and cheery, maintaining a housewifely tone that must have required heroic efforts to achieve.

  The Provenzano family kept a low profile in Corleone. They wrote to the absent father and made arrangements for him where they could, trying to take care of his failing health and his security while avoiding the attentions of law enforcement. When they were forced to talk to the police, for a minor traffic violation or a parking offence, they were unfailingly polite and well mannered. They had very few people around them: their cousin Carmelo Gariffo was in and out of prison and offered little in the way of support. Saveria was almost never seen around town: Angelo would drive her to the shops, and she would stay in the car while he went inside. He drove her to Cinisi to visit relatives, but otherwise, like so many housewives in small towns in rural Sicily, she ventured out only very rarely. Most of the time she stayed indoors, preparing meals, polishing ornaments or writing letters.

  Less than a year after Saveria and the boys took up residence in Corleone, the Riina family had come back to town. The two families could not have been more different.

  After her husband’s arrest, Ninetta Bagarella, deposed as first lady of Cosa Nostra, hurriedly left the villa in central Palermo the family had occupied for the last few years of their comfortable life as privileged fugitives. She and the four children, aged thirteen to nineteen, were collected by one of Riina’s men, who packed them and everything they could carry into the back of his car and dropped them at the railway station. There they got a taxi home to Corleone – a winding little road over the mountains, a long, uncomfortable hour’s journey crammed into a stranger’s car. The taxi dropped them outside the family house in via Scorsone, a narrow street in the old part of town. After twenty-three years living as a fugitive, under an assumed name, Ninetta Bagarella was home.

  Despite their shared history, Ninetta the schoolteacher and Saveria the seamstress did not meet for coffee and chats about the old days on the run. Ninetta engaged with the press, fought rhetorical battles with prosecutors and followed her husband’s legal processes assiduously. Every court appearance he made, every time he angrily rejected accusations of involvement with Cosa Nostra or accused magistrates of communist activism, his wife was there in the public gallery – a formidable figure in sun-glasses. Saveria doesn’t go to court, according to her lawyers, because she’s just not interested in drama. She never speaks to reporters. Her husband is known as the Phantom of Corleone because, although his presence was suspected, he was never found; but she is the real phantom – a shadowy figure haunting the town, guarding her silence. The only recent photo of her has been the subject of a legal injunction.

  According to insiders, the presence of the two women and their children in Corleone was proof that their husbands, once brothers in arms, were now enemies. According to supergrass Tommaso Buscetta, Provenzano had a deal with Riina, under which their family members would be protected on their home ground.

  Saveria dresses simply, and never gets her hair done: she only visits the hairdressers on rare occasions, to have her greying curls cut short.

  When Riina’s men cleared out his villa in Palermo after the arrest, they found a whole room full of furs, and a safe containing jewellery. Ninetta may have started out as a schoolteacher, but she has evidently acquired a taste for the finer things in life. Saveria and Angelo had opened a launderette, The Splendor, on the outskirts of town, which barely covered its costs.

  Giovanni and Salvo Riina opened a business selling agricultural equipment on the main road into town. In a place where Alfa-Romeos and tractors are parked side by side, it blended in perfectly. The company was also a cover for the Riina boys’ movements: they had clients in Palermo, Trapani and all over the rest of the island, whom they had frequent reason to visit. It took a few years for the authorities to close the business on the grounds of extortion, money-laundering and Mafia association.

  Maria Concetta Riina was elected class r
epresentative at Corleone High School, which caused a huge row. Were the children in Corleone’s classrooms obeying the old Mafia hierarchy? One magistrate implored the children of mafiosi to renounce their fathers, to state on record that they rejected organized crime. Maria Concetta wrote an impassioned riposte, defending filial bonds and daughterly devotion. Angelo and Paolo Provenzano kept their heads down, studied hard and learned to loathe their father’s world. Nobody ever voted them class rep.

  When her son Giovanni was arrested in June 1996 for Mafia association and suspicion of murder, La Bagarella issued an emotional plea for his release. Her letter to the press was a beautifully calculated example of the Mafia’s appropriation of religious language for public relations purposes, reasoning that whatever he had done, the boy was redeemed by his mother’s love: ‘I have decided to open my heart, the heart of a mother overflowing with grief at the arrest of my son . . . In the eyes of the world, my children were born guilty. We have brought up our children making enormous sacrifices, overcoming tremendous difficulties, giving them every possible love and support. We have raised them to respect the family and love their neighbour . . . The motto of the Riina household is “Respect everyone and everything”.’29

  The wife of the boss of San Giuseppe Iato, Bernardo Brusca, kept a low profile while her husband was boss of the local clan. But when her sons were arrested in 1996, she came out with a firebrand speech in their defence. Giovanni was Totò Riina’s hit man, known as ‘lo scan-nacristiani’, the strangler of Christians (i.e., men of honour). At the time of his arrest he had killed, by his own admission, more than 150 people but fewer than 200 – he couldn’t remember an exact figure. As far as his mother was concerned, he was innocent, because she had brought him up in the Church. His arrest was an aberration, a matter of spiritual blindness. Signora Brusca told journalists: ‘If the Holy Spirit will enlighten our minds, and the judges’ minds, my sons will not be convicted.’