by Smith, Greg
As for complaints, he spent too much time on those. If there was a dispute with another family, he would take it to his skipper. Sometimes Frank would deal with the issue. Sometimes he’d let Robert handle it himself. On this day, Frank showed up at Katrina’s with an issue they both would have to deal with. As always, Frank kept things vague.
He had been at a funeral parlor in Queens for some wiseguy’s wake and Sal Vitale, another captain in the Bonanno crime family and the brother-in-law to Massino the boss, had approached Frank with a problem that needed repair. Frank’s job was to first find a place to eliminate the problem and then find a different place to dispose of the problem. During the entire conversation at the wake, Sal had made a point not to mention the name of the problem. Frank liked to know the names of his problems, so he’d asked around and soon learned from another source the problem’s name—Robert Perrino.
Perrino was married to the daughter of a former Bonanno underboss named Nicky Glasses. He was a superintendent of delivery at the tabloid newspaper, the New York Post. There he ran a lucrative bookmaking operation, kicking back a percentage to the Bonanno crime family. He also had a leadership position in the union representing the drivers who dropped newspapers off every morning across New York City. Organized crime liked unions like this because they existed more or less to provide jobs to gangsters who didn’t actually have to show up and as a weapon to extort payments for the promise of “labor peace.” Newspapers, after all, couldn’t exist if the drivers couldn’t get them to newsstands on time. Perrino was the Bonanno family’s go-to guy at the Post, and now the rumor was there was an active investigation of his activities there.
The issue that turned Perrino into a problem was that he was not considered to be a tough guy. It was felt that if he were indicted, he would right away forget all his friends in the Bonanno crime family and realize that the government was his new friend. Especially, it was believed, he would be a problem for Sal Vitale, the Bonanno capo to whom he reported. And now he was Robert Lino’s problem.
Frank let it be known that Robert would not have to be the shooter. Frank himself had never done such a thing, always relying on others in his employ. He wasn’t interested in making Bobby Lino’s son pull the trigger again. All Robert Lino had to do was find a place to get the job done and then a place to get rid of the aftermath. No heavy lifting. Somebody else had already dreamed up a story to get Perrino where they needed him. Perrino would be told he was meeting with Sal Vitale to let him know about the investigation at the Post and work it out so he could go on an extended vacation to Florida for a while, until things quieted down. That was the story Perrino would be told to get him to whatever spot Robert Lino would pick.
Robert Lino decided it was time to visit with Anthony Basile, a friend of his who owned a social club on the second floor above his sister’s nail salon in a building at 86th Street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. That would be perfect for disposing of the Perrino problem. Robert had another idea for the disposal issue. Jimmy Labate had a beat-up garage in Staten Island where he stored construction equipment. The lot was in a highly residential neighborhood, with three-family homes right next door where they left the Christmas lights on all year. The garage was perfect. Jimmy could be called upon to get things ready by digging a hole in the floor inside the garage. No one would see what was going on in the middle of the night. Jimmy was desperate to ingratiate himself with the leadership of the Bonanno family, so he undoubtedly would be happy to help out.
At Katrina’s, the cousins Lino agreed the plan was perfect.
Robert Lino sat with his childhood pal, Frankie Ambrosino, in a restaurant a few blocks from the Brooklyn social club over the nail salon, near the 20th Street BMT subway stop he’d picked. He was waiting to fulfill the final task related to the resolution of the problem named Robert Perrino. Apparently picking the spots was not good enough. He also had to participate in something called cleanup. Cleanup was usually not a job you wanted to do. Usually there was a big mess, and sometimes you had to make the item in need of disposal more disposable. This could involve the use of saws and knives, and usually took quite a while. Unlike Tommy Karate, a specialist at this who enjoyed it, Robert Lino did not, and so when the pay phone in the restaurant rang and the restaurant owner told him the caller was looking for him, he took the call with some apprehension in his gut. It was a guy he knew called Mikey Bats.
Mikey said, “We’re ready” and hung up.
Robert called his cousin, Frank, who was sitting in another restaurant down the street, to let him know it was time. Robert and Frank left their respective restaurants and headed down the street.
The plan was simple: Robert and Frankie would enter the club, wrap Perrino in a rug, then walk the package downstairs and around the corner to a car parked and waiting with the key in the ignition. It was a little tricky because the stairs hit the sidewalk very close to a subway exit, and it would likely be somewhat complicated to explain to passing commuters what precisely was going on if they happened upon two guys carrying a rug in the middle of the night. However, cousin Frank was going to watch the entrance and signal when the coast was clear.
Simple. Choreographed in every way. Someone else would actually pull the trigger, and when the cleanup crew arrived, that guy would already be gone. That way fewer people knew who did what. It was important—no, essential—that things go smoothly, because the cops had discovered the body of a guy named Sammy in the trunk of a car in Queens just six weeks earlier, so the FBI was watching the Bonanno family closely. Failure was not an option. Expectations were high.
Robert and Frankie passed the 20th Street subway exit, the green globe shining in the warm May night. It was a perfect night for people to be out. Large groups could emerge from the mouth of the underground at any minute. The two men walked up the stairs and opened the door of the club.
They practically tripped over the body on the floor. There were a bunch of guys standing around looking at the body. It lay right by the entrance, facing the bar. It was obvious the guy had been shot the minute he’d stepped inside. Blood was oozing from his head. The gun that had been used to shoot him lay next to the body. And there was one more little detail that caught Robert Lino off guard. The guy lying on the floor was still alive. He was breathing and then moaning and twitching.
One of the guys in the room had an ice pick in his hand. He jammed it in the moaning guy’s ear and the guy stopped twitching and breathing. The ice pick guy took the gun and put it in his pocket.
Frank Lino left to watch the subway exit. Robert Lino, Frankie Ambrosino, the ice pick guy and the guy who owned the club, Anthony Basile, went to work. Basile produced a rug, and they all rolled the dead guy’s body inside, trying not to get blood on their clothes. Then Robert Lino and Frankie and the ice pick guy picked up the body and stood by the door. They looked outside and Frank Lino signaled for them to move. They heaved the body all the way down the stairs and past the subway exit and put it in the back of the car waiting around the corner. They slammed the trunk and everyone breathed a little easier. No one had yet emerged from the subway. Robert Lino and Frankie Ambrosino got in the car and turned the key.
Nothing happened.
Chaos ensued. Now they had to open the trunk, drag the guy in the rug out into the open again, haul him out of there right away. Should they pull another car up next to the one that wouldn’t start? Should they just walk the guy in the rug down the middle of the street and hope a bowling team didn’t emerge from the mouth of the subway in time to witness this bizarre tableau? First they decided which of the other stolen cars on the scene would make the best vehicle to transport the guy in the rug. Then they went with option one, pulling that car up next to the dead car and quickly transferring the bulky rolled up rug and all its contents into the trunk of the second car. During the entire frantic procedure, no one stepped out of the subway, proving once again that timing is everything.
Cousin Frank followed in a second car as they drove over
the Verrazano Bridge into Staten Island. They paid the toll and headed toward the property owned by Jimmy Labate. As they entered the neighborhood, the lead car pulled over and Frank Lino followed. Jimmy Labate was waiting at the chain-link gate and waved them inside. They backed the car up to the garage and heaved the body out and onto the garage floor. In the back corner of the garage the concrete floor had been broken up and there was a big hole in the dirt underneath. Jimmy had a fresh batch of concrete ready to go.
Basile left to go back to his club to clean up the mess. The rest of them—Robert, Frankie, the ice pick guy and Jimmy Labate—stuffed the body inside a fifty-five-gallon steel drum and Jimmy poured concrete on top to seal it. They then lowered the container into the big hole in the corner of the garage. Jimmy had already set up a rectangle of wooden planks all around the hole to hold the cement in place. He dumped some dirt on top of the hole, leveled it off, and poured concrete on top of the whole affair. Robert Lino and Frank Ambrosino left as Jimmy began smoothing out the top to make it look like this slab of concrete in the corner of the garage actually belonged there.
Robert Lino had never actually met Robert Perrino. Robert did not know his wife and children, had never discussed the Knicks with the guy, had no idea whether Perrino would, in the end, turn into a rat or remain a stand-up guy. At this moment, it didn’t really matter. Robert was part of Perrino’s end, and also knew the precise location in the city of New York of Perrino’s final resting place. Perrino would now be with Robert Lino forever, along with Louis Tuzzio and Gabe Infanti.
Robert Lino sat in yet another restaurant, this one in midtown Manhattan, waiting for Jimmy Labate. By now, Robert was making good money in a number of ventures and didn’t need this aggravation. He was a floor manager at a strip club called Wiggles in Queens where cash flowed like rain in Seattle. He was overseeing the bookmaking operation for the Bonanno group’s boss, Massino, whom he never referred to by name but instead tugged on his left ear to let everybody know without really knowing who he was discussing. He had a driver, Angelo, who accompanied him everywhere and opened the door for him when he pulled up to the curb. Mostly things were going good for Robert, with a few exceptions. Jimmy Labate was one of those exceptions.
Today in the restaurant Robert from Avenue U once again found himself addressing a Jimmy Labate situation. Lino sat across the table from a contractor who had a dispute with Jimmy. He was sure that Jimmy was in the wrong, as he was so often, but he had to hear the story from both sides. Of course, it didn’t help matters that Jimmy was supposedly “with” him and that he was also late for the meeting.
Being a soldier in an organized crime family was sometimes like being the principal of an unruly high school. Today’s Jimmy Labate dispute centered on Jimmy Labate’s interpretation of certain rules that Jimmy insisted existed. Jimmy was always looking to get paid, so he decided to put some of his guys in no-show jobs on a hotel renovation in Manhattan. One day he decided to show up at the hotel and make his position clear. He pulled up in his Lincoln with four guys and strutted in, ordering the contractor to put all four guys on the payroll or there’d be problems. The four guys started knocking things over, making a big mess. The contractor said okay, okay, I can’t afford four guys but I’ll take two. That seemed reasonable. Most guys would think it was reasonable. Even Jimmy—who was only reasonable on occasion—agreed. The two guys went on the payroll, and that was that.
Only it wasn’t. Instead, Jimmy showed up a few days later with the other two guys and said you have to put them on anyway. The contractor was furious, so he decided to go straight over Jimmy’s head and take his situation to Robert Lino. Everyone told him Robert was reasonable and fair, which was why the contractor now sat across the table in the restaurant in Midtown, waiting for Jimmy Labate.
This was not the first time Robert had had problems with Jimmy. His cousin Frank, who was also his skipper, was always complaining about Jimmy. A few weeks after the bit of business with Perrino from the Post and the car not starting and all, Jimmy had shown up at a bar and announced to Frank that he’d put his role in helping bury Perrino on record with Johnny G, a Gambino family soldier who mistreated him but with whom Jimmy hoped to make a name for himself in organized crime. Jimmy was trying to impress Johnny G, but the true effect of this little bit of sycophancy was to let the Gambino family know all about the Bonanno family’s business. The way Frank saw it, what happened to Perrino from the Post was nobody’s business. Frank had come to believe that Jimmy Labate was a loudmouth and stupid, a combination that works fine for Department of Motor Vehicles employees but is not good for gangsters.
Such were the problems Robert Lino was always dealing with. Anybody who was put with him was there for a reason. Usually the reason was money. The guy had a healthy sports book or shylock operation. The guy had his hooks into a union. The guy owned a strip club or a nightclub or any business that involved lots of cash. The guy had something to offer. Robert, in return, let them use his name and the power of the Bonanno crime family if disputes arose with other Mafia families or any other form of criminal fraternal organization. That was his end. Also he had to show up and settle the dispute.
Usually this was an arrangement that worked out in Robert’s favor. Take, for instance, the situation with another guy who reported to Robert: Jeffrey Pokross. Here was an earner. He had been running car lease schemes for years and had not once visited the inside of a jail cell, but had consistently kicked up significant amounts of money to Robert Lino and the Bonanno crime family. In recent weeks, Jeffrey Pokross had encountered a problem with a Gambino associate named Billy. Billy was a large guy, probably six foot four. Jeffrey was a small guy who was good with numbers and quietly robbing people blind but wouldn’t know how to give somebody a beating if his life depended on it. Billy had been involved with one of Jeffrey’s insurance scams, where the driver, in this case Billy, pretended to have a car accident. Jeffrey’s friend, another Bonanno associate named Patty Muscles, would use his auto body shop as a cover to generate fake bills, and the insurance companies would pay out. Jeffrey, Billy and Patty Muscles all split the amount evenly. Only Billy had decided Jeffrey had stolen some of his share. Billy didn’t have any real proof of this, just the fact that he was huge and Jeffrey was not. He called Jeffrey on the phone and screamed that he was going to kill him and his children’s children if he didn’t cough up some cash. Jeffrey hung up and called Robert Lino. Robert told him to let Billy know that if he had a problem, he should call Robert from Avenue U. Jeffrey did as he was told, and that was the last time Billy bothered him.
In return Jeffrey got Robert a car and sent him a nice fat envelope at Christmas. That was the way it should be: make a phone call, get a car. Then Pokross said he might be able to get Robert a salary. This guy Pokross claimed to have a stockbroker’s license and was going to start up a brokerage house that almost sounded legitimate. He was going to call it DMN Capital, and he’d rented out an office a few blocks from Wall Street. Pokross let it be known that he felt the stock market was about to go through the roof, and he wanted Robert from Avenue U to be part of that.
Robert didn’t really understand how it all worked, but he could tell it was easy money. It wasn’t hijacking trucks or collecting shylock loans or chasing down degenerate gamblers for the vig. With this crowd it was highly unlikely there would be a need for a beat-down, and the amount of money this Pokross was promising was fantastic for doing practically nothing. Pokross had told him he would only be needed if other mob families figured out what was going on down on Wall Street; then Robert would step in and smooth the way.
It all seemed simple enough, although Robert was well aware there was a specific rule in la cosa nostra forbidding involvement in the stock market. That rule, of course, was like most rules in the world of gangsters—it was nonsense. The glory days of la cosa nostra were finished. The FBI was cracking down on all the traditional money sources: the garbage carters, the fish market, the unions. Wall Street was simp
ly a new opportunity, and if you missed out you were nothing but a fool. For a guy with a sixth-grade education who had trouble signing his name, this kind of arrangement sounded pretty good.
It was never this easy with Jimmy Labate, who had finally entered the restaurant and sat down next to Robert. He stared at the contractor like he would like nothing better than to pour a pot of boiling coffee on the guy’s lap.
The contractor explained the situation. He didn’t want to put anyone on the payroll, but out of respect to Robert Lino of Avenue U, he allowed for two guys. He made it clear he couldn’t afford four guys on the payroll, and Jimmy had agreed that two guys—not four—would suffice. Robert asked Jimmy if it was true that he’d agreed to two guys, not four. Jimmy admitted that it was true.
Robert slapped Jimmy in the face.
“You shook hands with this man and then reneged on the deal?”
Robert made it clear how this would work. Jimmy, who was also making a salary at Jeffrey Pokross’s Wall Street operation, DMN, would now deliver a portion of his salary every week to the contractor until the guy was compensated. It was a win-win situation for Robert Lino. The contractor was now his best friend, and Jimmy would learn a lesson about restraint. Maybe. Sometimes being a soldier in an organized crime family was a big pain in the ass.
Mid 1995