See No Evil

by Ron Felber

  No, Elliot didn’t like Rudy Giuliani, he decided then. True, some of his own pals were rough around the edges and of a kind that respected no law outside the underworld, but at least they weren’t hypocrites. They had a code, and for the most part, they lived by it. Men like Rudy, they just couldn’t be trusted.

  Elliot’s eyes probed the ballroom at the Waldorf, filled with music and dancing, until they fixed on a more compelling sight, the table where Dr. Dak; Mount Sinai board member and garment district mogul, Al Rosengarten; and high-society obstetrician, Mort Shapiro, were sitting. But it wasn’t the three men that caught his attention, it was the young woman sitting beside Dr. Shapiro.

  Elliot knew that Mort’s wife had died from cancer two years earlier. So who was this raven-haired beauty with skin as white as alabaster and eyes coal black and piercing as lasers? A girlfriend? She looked to be in her early twenties, he guessed, and that wasn’t like Mort, a straight shooter still getting over his wife’s passing. No, this had to be a daughter, Elliot reasoned, slowly rising from his chair and gliding across the room as if on a cloud.

  “Dr. Litner!” the short, plump Dr. Dak resonated in his deep-voiced, Romanian accent. “I wondered if you’d come by to say hello!”

  Elliot nodded in rote as Al Rosengarten, the most “mobbed up” of anyone he knew outside the Gambino Family’s inner circle, shook his hand heartily, followed by Dr. Shapiro, and finally the girl, his daughter, Hanna.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” he heard himself utter.

  She looked at him warily, not a shy girl, then extended her hand confident, self-assured, and exactly unlike him.

  Who knows? Maybe it was his shyness or self-deprecating humor that Hanna found attractive. Maybe it was his mind, clear and focused, at least when it came to medicine. But one way or the other, they chatted under the watchful gaze of the three men, danced just once, then left the crowded ballroom for a stroll in the cool night air around Park Avenue. Miraculously, Hanna seemed to enjoy being with him! They talked about his work as a surgeon at Mount Sinai, but she seemed most interested, and amused, by Elliot’s stories about Uncle Saul and his laundry business, and Lou with his luncheonette, Steven and he bluffing their way into Yankee Stadium to see the 1961 World Series, their escapades out behind their apartment building in the backies, and almost anything that had to do with growing up dirt poor in the Bronx. It was a background that being raised as the daughter of a prominent physician in a Prospect Park brownstone, alongside the likes of former New York Gov. Hugh Carey, actress Margaux Hemingway, and Russian concert pianist Vladimir Horowitz, absolutely and forever precluded.

  From Elliot’s side, he was all too delighted just to have a girlfriend that somebody hadn’t paid to be with him. But Hanna wasn’t just a girl. She was a stunner! Tall and slim, with fine features, and a magnificent figure accentuated by clothes fashioned by New York’s finest designers. Hanna was not only beautiful, but well educated with an undergraduate degree from Vassar and an N.Y.U. master’s degree in education. More, she was captivating. Enthusiastic about skiing and horses, it was clear she was her father’s daughter, sharing with Elliot her own family exploits, so unlike his, canoeing Hudson Bay in Canada, journeying up the Amazon with her dad to locations no white child had ever seen.

  To him, she was intriguing! Intoxicating! And soon he found himself visiting Hanna and her dad at that Prospect Park brownstone on weekends and as often during the week that his hectic schedule allowed. Together, they attended plays at Lincoln Center where Mort had a box. The same for concerts at Carnegie Hall, after which they’d pass the night talking for hours about art, literature, and their deepest feelings and dreams for the future.

  One topic that Elliot never broached with Hanna, however, was his “other” life: the friends and associates he had, the places he went, or the things that he did. At that time, it seemed vitally important to separate his two existences even from the woman with whom he was falling in love and would, in a matter of months, marry.

  11

  THE BUSINESSMAN GODFATHER

  “You’re looking at my cock, but it’s my leg that’s killing me!”

  It was on October 15, 1976, that Carlo Gambino died in bed at his Long Island summer home at the age of seventy-four, and though Elliot couldn’t fathom it then, this was also the day that the boss of bosses made the greatest mistake of his career. During his twenty-year tenure as capo di tutti capi, Gambino had never become an American citizen, never served a single day in jail, and when confronted with deportation in 1969, quietly agreed to pay a local congressman $1,000 a month for life to see to it that the proceedings went away.

  An arch traditionalist whose philosophies derived from Maranzano’s Sicilian arm of the Honored Society, Don Carlo kept a fanatically low profile, shunning all publicity, eschewing his Massapequa estate to live with his wife in their modest Sheepshead Bay home, but while in his deathbed that day—with John Gotti still in prison—he told his capos that they must choose Paul Castellano, his first cousin and brother-in-law, as their new godfather.

  By tradition, a new boss was chosen in a vote of the capos, most of whom would certainly have selected Neil Dellacroce, the underboss, as Gambino’s successor. But in an act that betrayed everything he had stood for, Gambino decided that day to pay back a favor to the Castellano family. Of course, the capos obeyed their godfather’s deathbed command and elected Big Paulie boss, but without enthusiasm because Castellano was not admired as a caporégime.

  Aloof by nature, everyone connected to the Gambino Family understood that it was Castellano’s ties to Don Carlo that had made him what he was. Believing that people resented him, Big Paulie rarely forged relationships out of his inner circle, but with the old man’s influence became a millionaire selling meat to major supermarket chains and running a substantial wholesale operation called Blue Ribbon Meats. His soldiers, mainly an aging group of loan sharks and bookmakers in Brooklyn, were not nearly so well off, but were still expected to grease Castellano’s palms. In the family, Paul was regarded as shrewd, selfish, and very cheap.

  Soon after, Castellano would show that he understood the shaky ground that he stood upon by refusing to name his own underboss as tradition allowed and giving Dellacroce near autonomy over crews more involved in blue-collar crimes such as John Gotti’s crew of hijackers, loan sharks, and shakedown artists at the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club in Ozone Park. Castellano would focus on the family’s white-collar crews, the ones involved in construction bid rigging, labor union racketeering, and stock market fraud like the crew in Bensonhurst that included mob superstar-in-the-making Sammy Gravano.

  In effect, Carlo’s mistake was compounded by Castellano’s, and a riff as old as the American Mafia itself was being played out within the Gambino Family between the Sicilian traditionalists and the Neapolitan iconoclasts. Paul’s decision to separate the two chains of command would create two families within the Gambino Family—the Castellano branch and the Dellacroce branch—a move that would cost him his life.

  Elliot’s first experience with Castellano came in the winter of 1979 when Frank Silvio asked him to pay Big Paulie a visit to check on some swelling the son was complaining about in his leg. Elliot knew that he suffered from NIDDM, noninsulin-dependent Type II diabetes, so it was no surprise that he’d have circulatory difficulties, but his general physician seemed to think a contrast phlebogram of the leg might be in order, which could require some minor surgery.

  “No problem,” Elliot said, and that evening, he took his Lil’ Red Corvette for a drive through the Battery Tunnel and over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge to Staten Island where Castellano lived in his $3.5-million, seventeen-room mansion on Todt Hill.

  The mansion was built in 1976 when Castellano took over as boss of the richest and most powerful crime family in the United States, and for him, at the time, it must have seemed like a good idea. Recently released from prison on an IRS charge, Neil Dellacroce was back, temporarily placated, and making money. The family
’s various rackets were productive, and even Big Paulie’s legitimate businesses in New York State, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania were thriving. About the only problem he seemed to have then was the onset of diabetes. The illness, not uncommon, was generally found in people older than forty, particularly those that were overweight like Castellano who despite being a soft-spoken, elegant man, stood six feet, three inches tall, with a large imposing head, big meaty features. He weighed more than 300 pounds.

  When Elliot drove up the hill to the mansion, it was dark, but not difficult to see that it was built on the highest land on Staten Island with a view of the Atlantic Ocean and the lights of New York Harbor. The mansion stood surrounded by a park with 120 feet of frontage, secluded from the road by stands of pine trees and an imposing wrought-iron fence built to keep unwelcome visitors out and a pack of vicious Doberman pinschers in. The gates were open when he arrived. He drove up the winding brick road appreciating the splendor of the place. Constructed of large fieldstone and stucco, it was painted white with a curved entrance portico supported by two tall, white columns that resembled the White House.

  The estate, truly an awesome sight, told Elliot something about Castellano. This was a Mafia godfather who commanded 3,000 soldiers; was Commission chairman of the five New York families; and a prominent legitimate businessman working with corporate executives on the order of Ira Waldbaum of Waldbaum’s supermarkets and Frank Perdue of Perdue Farms chickens. More than a mob boss or stereotype tough guy like Capone or Dellacroce, Paul Castellano saw himself as a modern-day feudal lord, and that was the way he lived, wielding influence enough to shut down the ports of Brooklyn or halt construction of a Manhattan skyscraper with a phone call, while holding life-or-death power over his men, the people he did business with, and others who might not even know his name.

  Elliot parked his car, then walked up the white-brick steps, past the columns, to the double-door entrance. He rang the bell, and oddly, it was not a servant as one might expect, but Castellano’s wife, the sister-in-law of Carlo Gambino, Nina Manno Castellano, who answered.

  An attractive, imposing woman in her early sixties, she seemed amazingly controlled and dignified as she spoke. “Dr. Litner?”

  He nodded.

  “Please come in,” she said in probably the sweetest, most refined voice he’d ever heard.

  Elliot entered the thirty-foot-long foyer, decorated with large gilt-framed mirrors that led to a sweeping spiral staircase that rose to the second floor.

  “Paul’s in the back,” she said with a trace of irony as he followed her into an immense kitchen with three huge freezers, a long tiled counter, and a dining-nook table that could seat twelve people.

  Passing through the kitchen, they walked through a set of sliding glass doors and stepped into a walled-in area in back of the house that resembled a small park complete with tennis courts, bocce courts, and an Olympic-sized swimming pool. There, dressed in a scarlet satin bathrobe over blue silk pajamas and wearing black velvet slippers, stood the godfather, poolside, smoking a cigar, lovingly watching a dark young woman of thirty as she laughed and frolicked nude in the water in front of the three of them.

  “Dr. Litner is here to see you,” Nina Castellano said gently.

  Big Paulie turned, his expression suddenly sour. “You can leave now, dear,” he said dismissively to his wife, looking Elliot up and down as he puffed on his cigar. “You’re a Jew, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Why are all you Jews doctors?” he asked, walking toward one of the reclining chairs that surrounded the pool. “Why not a paisan like Silvio? He comes from Palermo like me and Carlo. Now that it looks like I need an operation, they get rid of the guineas and send in the kikes, is that it? What the fuck.” He spread his huge frame over the recliner, undoing his satin robe and pulling off pajamas. “I deal with a lot of Jews in business. When it comes to lawyers and doctors, there’s nobody better. Besides, I hear you’re a good guy.”

  “Th-thank you, sir,” Elliot answered with a stutter that emerged whenever he got nervous.

  Castellano gazed out onto the pool where the girl beamed back at him, striking suggestive poses for their amusement. “She’s my maid from Colombia. I call her my ‘little clown’ because she makes me laugh and can suck the chrome off a Cadillac bumper.”

  He waved to her as she made her way to the side of the pool where she propped herself up staring at Elliot, breasts pert and gleaming in the sunlight, with a wide-eyed expression like that of a small child. “Is you going to examine him?”

  “Yes,” Elliot answered, stunned to see that Paul Castellano lay before him, legs spread, penis exposed, watching his young Colombian girlfriend with a glee that seemed almost adolescent. More, though Elliot was no expert, it was apparent to him that along with a swollen left leg and severe varicose veins, Big Paulie had recently undergone surgery to have a penile implant.

  “You’re looking at my cock, but it’s my leg that’s goddamned killing me!”

  “Yes, let’s have a look,” Elliot answered getting down to business as he examined the painfully swollen limb. “Has this ever happened before?”

  Castellano shook his head in the negative. “Never,” he grimaced as Elliot pressed the flat of his hand against his ankle, mapped with varicose veins.

  “It’s not only your diabetes. You see, veins have valves, every few inches, that open in only one direction—toward the heart—to prevent the backflow of blood. This design reduces the work of the circulatory system, but also makes the valves subject to damage if there is too much back pressure against the valves in the veins. That’s what you have here. Pressure that’s causing the pain and swelling.”

  “So you have to amputate my leg?” Big Paulie asked bluntly.

  “No, we need to run what’s called a contrast phlebogram. It’s a simple procedure where a dye is injected into a vein then x-rayed to see how the veins are working. It can be done on an outpatient basis. Chances are this can be treated with medication or something as simple as exercise and periodic leg elevation.”

  “So he going to be okay?” the godfather’s maid asked hopefully.

  “No doubt,” Elliot answered, without even the hint of a stutter now that they were talking medicine.

  “Oh, that wonderful!” she proclaimed, rising out of the water, walking over to him, wet and still naked, as she pressed her lips against his cheek and hugged him.

  “Good news, Doc,” said Big Paulie, puffing his cigar as Gloria Olarte, his live-in mistress, escorted Elliot back toward the mansion au naturel. “I’ll see you at the hospital, tomorrow, first thing.”

  The next morning, Castellano arrived at the hospital, along with future underboss Tommy Bilotti, driving a factory-new Buick Roadmaster convertible. After some routine tests, it was decided that a change in diet and taking an aspirin daily was all that was needed to prevent future difficulties. But, diabetes and a swollen leg were not the godfather’s only problems. By July 1977 with Gotti released from Green Haven prison, after serving time for the McBratney murder, the crown that had been so firmly planted on the head of Carlo Gambino seemed not so snug a fit for Big Paulie. Castellano’s strategy to separate the street-crime soldiers under Dellacroce from the corporate soldiers under him worked, but not to his advantage, as he alienated himself further by refusing to fraternize with either Dellacroce’s Ravenite Social Club gang in Manhattan or Gotti’s Bergin Hunt and Fish Club crew in Ozone Park.

  In the eyes of the outside world, Paul Castellano was a successful businessman who’d overcome poverty to become a solid member of society. He dressed well and carried himself with authority. His sons, Joseph, Paul Jr., and daughter Connie attended the finest schools in New York. His wife, Nina, appeared the model wife and mother. But, in truth, there were many sides to Castellano who, not unlike Elliot, had his feet firmly planted in two worlds.

  Born in Brooklyn in June 1915, his parents had emigrated from Sicily to New York where his father, Giuseppe,
was a butcher and small-time racketeer controlling gambling operations in Bensonhurst. Castellano dropped out of school in the eighth grade to pursue a life in crime, running numbers for local gambling operations. He was arrested on an armed robbery charge in 1934, and proved his mettle by taking the rap alone despite the fact that there were two other accomplices.

  During the 1940s, Castellano consolidated his position within the Brooklyn mob by marrying Nina Manno, a childhood sweetheart who also happened to be the sister-in-law of Carlo Gambino, who additionally, was married to Castellano’s sister, Katherine. Paul, a reticent man, lacked Carlo’s understanding of human nature and the more subtle aspects of crime family leadership. Nevertheless, leaning on Gambino’s influence, he gravitated to Mafia stardom, not through the violent tactics used by the Neapolitan genus of the mob run by men like Capone, but through persuasion, influence, and business acumen as members of the Honored Society were taught in Sicily using the more sophisticated methods of Maranzano, Bonanno, and Gambino.

  One example of Castellano’s brand of corporate crime was the garment business in Manhattan where Tommy Gambino owned most of the trucks and manufacturing firms operating in midtown, where most of the wardrobe of America’s women was designed and produced. Joe N. Gallo, Carlo’s consigliere, was a major force in the Greater Blouse, Skirt and Undergarment Association, a trade group that negotiated contracts with the district’s 800 employees. By controlling the association and the trucking companies, the families controlled the price of clothing and the lives of thousands of workers.

  The jewel in Castellano’s white-collar empire, however, was the construction business where not a single load of concrete was poured for any contract worth more than $2 million without the consent of the Commission. The point man was a member of the Columbo Family who happened to be Ralph Scopo, president of the Local District Council of the Cement and Concrete Workers’ Union. Given Big Paulie’s blessing, select concrete-pouring contractors were allowed to be part of what was known as the “Concrete Club.” Each of the five New York families controlled one or more of these companies. The only way construction firms could avoid union problems or sudden cutoffs in concrete deliveries was through an understanding with the Commission: union peace in return for a kickback of 2 percent on every contract more than $2 million.