“Be careful, Cyclops,” said O’Rourke. “This is very serious stuff. If you write anything, do not mention Hanssen.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll find yourself in front of grand jury—or even worse!”
“They can’t frighten me,” said Reilly.
“Yes, they can,” said O’Rourke. “Costello is a player in this, but I don’t know what kind of a player.”
“So what do you want me to do?” asked Reilly.
The monsignor and O’Rourke looked at each other. Burke cleared his throat and spoke first, almost in a whisper. “Father Costello, I happen to know, is the pope’s bagman in this country. He is trying to affect the outcome of elections this year with money.”
“I’m shocked,” said Reilly, and O’Rourke cracked a smile.
“He’s giving money to my opponents,” said O’Rourke. “So I’d like to embarrass him.”
“He’s putting the arm on the Cardinal,” said Burke, his voice in such a tight whisper that it could cut like a razor, “and I’d like to see him removed permanently.”
“So you want me to write something?”
“Like you don’t want to write something?” teased O’Rourke.
“Fuck him,” said Reilly. “We’ll see what kind of juice he has.” For a second he was quiet. “Putting the arm on the Cardinal?”
“Big time,” said Burke.
“Who can help me?” asked Reilly.
O’Rourke pointed across the table at Black.
“There’s something else you should know, Cyclops,” said Black.
“Yeah?”
“There was another man of the cloth at that meeting with Hanssen, Costello, and the nuncio.”
“Like who?” said Reilly.
“Like New York City Councilman Menachem Mandelstam.”
Reilly pounded his fist on the table so hard that the sound echoed up and down the empty room. The waitress checked to see if anything was wrong. “Well, gentlemen,” said Reilly in a subdued voice, “we got the cocksuckers.”
“Because of Rabbi Menachem Mandelstam?” asked Burke.
“No Hands Mandelstam!” corrected Reilly, and a devious smile spread across his face.
Monsignor Burke looked at O’Rourke and said, “What’s the connection?”
“The connection, I think,” said O’Rourke, “is that it’s the beginning of the end for the Reverend Dr. Costello.”
“Madonna-Sue Fopiano learned the political trade working for Manny Mandelstam,” said Reilly, shedding some light on the connection between Mandelstam and the Fopianos. “When Vito got elected to Congress and moved to D.C., he left Manny to show Madonna-Sue the ropes. Mandelstam is a piece of work. Always loved having his picture taken with Meir Kahane or Ariel Sharon. He loves those Jewish Nazis.”
“Where’d that ‘No Hands’ stuff come from?” asked O’Rourke.
Reilly started laughing. “I was a kid reporter about twenty-five years ago when all those massage parlors were opening in Times Square. The cops were going to bust them, so we went along with them for a story. We burst into this place on 42nd Street, go in the back room, and there’s this black chick standing next to this guy who looks like a Hassidic rabbi.”
“She blowing him?” suddenly asked the monsignor and six eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“No,” said Reilly, smiling at his cousin with new respect, “that’s the thing. He won’t let her touch him. Won’t touch himself either! Got his hands clasped in the air and he shoots without touching himself.”
“No hands!” said O’Rourke, laughing.
“That’s it. ‘Why, Councilman Mandelstam,’ says this big mick police captain, ‘I’m shocked by the behavior of a man of the cloth such as you!’ And I see it’s Mandelstam who’s always saying the most terrible things about the schwartze, and he’s there with this black chick.”
“Shit,” said O’Rourke.
“Well,” continued Reilly, “the photographer gets a real good picture of the good rabbi and the black hooker, and Mandelstam falls off the massage table and lands on the floor. His yarmulke floats after him like a parachute, lands on his hard-on. Another picture. He’s desperate. He doesn’t know what to do. So the Irish captain winks at me. ‘Maybe we should just overlook this, Cyclops,’ says he. ‘A man of the cloth and a New York city councilman to boot!’ I look at Mandelstam, and he says, ‘It’s not a sin—no hands!’”
“You’re shitting us,” said O’Rourke.
“God’s honest truth. I let him ride. He’s been in my pocket ever since.”
“Holy shit,” said O’Rourke. “So, he’s your GOP mole.”
“I told him I’d snap him in half if he doesn’t come through,” said Reilly. “Cheap bastard, too. The cop goes to arrest the hooker, and she says, ‘For what? I never touched the motherfucker. Comes in here three times a week, pulls out his weenie, waves his arms, and comes on himself. Tips me with a stiff one dollar bill.’”
“What does it all mean?” asked Burke.
“It means we know how Costello, Hanssen, and Mandelstam are connected,” said O’Rourke. “And because we know Mandelstam is involved we know that the Fopianos and Swift are connected. This is dangerous stuff. We’ll have to be very careful.”
39.
New York Daily News, May 24, 2000
Eye on New York By Cyclops Reilly
OOPS, IT’S OPUS DEI
Get a load of this.
What if I told you that I knew people who liked to get their buttocks beaten as a way to get closer to God?
What if I told you these guys were really into wearing haircloth shirts so it could rub their skin until it was raw?
What if I told you I know guys—and a few ladies too—who like to take instruments of mortification and flog themselves on the back until they bled?
Hey, most people would say, “Whoa! That’s kinky stuff—and I’m not into that.”
Yeah, I think the Marquis de Sade invented a name for it—Sadomasochism.
Some people get off that way. Hey, me? Whatever floats your boat pal, just so long as you don’t bother anyone else.
But these folks don’t do these weird things—so they say—to get a sexual kick. They do it for the love of God.
I ain’t lying.
They belong to an extreme right-wing organization of the Catholic Church called Opus Dei. Opus Dei is Latin for “the Work of God.” They think of themselves as being elite. Kind of like the marines of the Church.
There are a lot of rumors swirling around New York and Washington, D.C. right now and they involve an Opus Dei priest named John Costello. When last seen, he was going into the papal nunciate in Washington for a meeting. Also seen entering the building was New York’s own councilman extraordinaire from Crown Heights, Rabbi Menachem Mandelstam. There were other guys going into the nunciate also, but that’s a story for another time.
Father Costello has also spent a lot of time in New York lately. He’s been staying at the Cardinal’s residence on Madison Avenue, behind St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Rumor has it that he has been advising Declan Cardinal Sweeney on Vatican Politics 101—how to get anti-abortion candidates, like Jackie Swift, elected to Congress with the blessing of Holy Mother Church.
My sources tell me that Costello, who is not even an American citizen, was the man behind bringing the Reverend Chester Cockburn to New York so he could deny he was a sodomite. I’m also told that he insisted that Cardinal Sweeney appear on the Bourne in the Morn radio program, which turned into another disaster for the Cardinal.
Now, Cardinal Sweeney and I don’t always see eye to eye. In fact, we never see eye to eye. But the Cardinal is a good and decent man. The Archdiocese of New York, under his intimate direction, ministers to the sick, runs orphanages, has one of the best independent school systems in the nation—and they let everybody in because they don’t care if you’re a Catholic or not. Cardinal Sweeney is a direct descendent of Archbishop Dagger John Hughes, who was instrumental in set
ting up these Catholic institutions to minister the Irish who came to America during the potato famine.
I want to know what the Reverend Dr. John Costello, who is not an American citizen, is doing in the United States of America trying to interfere in the election this November that is going to take place in New York’s 7th Congressional District between Wolfe Tone O’Rourke and Jackie Swift?
And here’s the kicker. I want to know what Councilman Mandelstam was doing at the papal nuncio’s house in Washington, D.C. He went in with nothing and was seen leaving with a shopping bag, bulging at the sides.
I called Mandelstam for a comment today—we’re old friends going back to the early 1970s when we first met in Times Square, of all places—but he didn’t return my call.
Geez, Manny. Give me a ring. Maybe we can talk about old times.
40.
Séan Pius Burke entered the Cardinal’s study and stood before the Cardinal, who had the Daily News opened to Cyclops Reilly’s column on Opus Dei. “What does it mean?” he asked Burke as he looked up.
“It means, I think, that you won’t be seeing the Reverend Dr. Costello anymore.”
“Why would Reilly do this for me? Does he want anything?”
“He wants nothing but a good story,” replied Burke. “He did it because I asked him to do it. So did Wolfe Tone O’Rourke.”
“O’Rourke,” said the Cardinal, “that heathen.”
“That ‘heathen’ donates over six figures a year to the Archdiocese of New York,” said Monsignor Burke, his voice rising. “What this archdiocese needs, I would say, are more ‘heathens’ like O’Rourke.”
“Six figures,” said the Cardinal. “You must be joking.”
“Do you consider St. Bernard’s School down on West 13th Street in the Village a joke?”
“No, of course not. It is one of our oldest parishes.”
“Well, O’Rourke is the benefactor that keeps that school open.”
“I didn’t know,” said the Cardinal softly.
“He wanted no publicity,” said Burke. “I probably shouldn’t have told you that.”
“What does he get out of it?” asked the Cardinal.
“Nothing,” said Burke. “O’Rourke has been very fortunate, financially, in his life, and this is his way of repaying the Church for his education at St. Bernard’s. He is a true philanthropist.”
“Hmmm,” mused the Cardinal. “Maybe I should meet with this O’Rourke, if that’s possible.”
“I’ll see what I can arrange,” said Monsignor Burke. “How about Cyclops Reilly?”
“I think,” said the Cardinal with some amusement, “that I can work only on one Irish devil at a time.”
41.
Everyone had their eye on the door of the city council minority leader, Menachem Mandelstam. Reporters stood down the hall and waited to see who would show up this morning. They could tell something was up when Swift himself arrived at the unearthly hour of 9 a.m. Peggy Brogan was with him, looking mildly ruffled, her long blonde hair stuffed inside an oversized cap. The watch continued as everyone waited for Menachem Mandelstam and Vito Fopiano. And they weren’t disappointed. Mandelstam and Fopiano showed up together. Both had their chins cemented to their chests, looking like a couple of mobsters doing a perp walk.
“Vito, Manny. Any comment on Cyclops’ column this morning? What’s your connection to Costello? Did any money change hands?” There wasn’t even a “no comment” from the two of them as they sought the shelter of Mandelstam’s office.
“Hey, Manny,” Abe Stein called out as Vito pulled the door closed, “did you forget your shopping bag?”
“Fucking press,” said Mandelstam when he was inside the safety of the office.
There were no formalities. “Where’s the money?” asked Fopiano.
“In the safe at my district office in Crown Heights,” replied Mandelstam.
“Jesus H. Christ,” replied Fopiano. “Get it out of that fucking office.”
“But where?” asked Mandelstam.
“I don’t care where,” said Vito, “just somewhere away from here. If the Feds go looking—”
“You’re toast,” interrupted Brogan.
“Toast,” Fopiano repeated.
“How much?” asked Swift.
“One hundred thousand in unmarked twenty-dollar bills,” replied Mandelstam.
“Good Jesus,” said Brogan.
Fopiano grabbed Mandelstam by the arm. “Go,” he commanded. “Get out of here and get rid of that money.” Vito practically pushed Mandelstam out the minority leader’s door, into the arms of the waiting press corp. “Jesus Christ” was all Fopiano could muster for Brogan and Swift as the press surrounded Manny like wolves that hadn’t eaten for a week.
“What do we do now?” asked Brogan.
“Keep our mouths shut, stay out of sight, and hope this blows over,” replied Vito.
Jackie Swift looked at his hands and saw they were shaking. So did Brogan. Swift smiled at Brogan, and she was relieved by his brave front. But there was only one thought going through Swift’s nervous mind at the moment: He needed a Fish-pack.
42.
It ended quietly. O’Rourke got a call from his friend at the Justice Department, who told him that the papal nuncio had decided to cooperate with the FBI investigation into Robert Hanssen and had turned over the Reverend Dr. Costello to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, who in turn took him to Reagan National Airport and saw to it that he made his Air Canada flight to Toronto, with a connection to Niagara Falls.
McGuire arranged a conference call between Monsignor Burke, Cyclops Reilly and Clarence Black. “It’s over,” said O’Rourke into the speakerphone. “Costello is on his way back to Canada.”
“It’s not over,” replied Reilly with vehemence. “What about that shopping bag full of money that Mendelstam ran off with?”
“Let it drop,” said O’Rourke. “We accomplished what we wanted to accomplish.”
“I’m not going to let it drop,” insisted Reilly.
“Benedict,” said the monsignor, pulling rank, “it’s over.”
“No, it’s not,” said Cyclops as he slammed the receiver into its holder and got the attention of the entire city room at the New York Daily News.
43.
New York Daily News, May 30, 2000
Eye on New York by Cyclops Reilly
I AM YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE
I am your worst nightmare
Yesterday, I got home and there was a message on the answering machine. It said, “If you know what’s good for you and your [relative] you’ll take your nose out of other people’s business. Have a nice life. You know, short and sweet.”
Well, let me tell you something, whoever this sleazebag is. I am Irish and the worst thing you can tell an Irishman is don’t do something. If you wanted the Irish to stop drinking you’d just say “drink as much as you want, it’s on the house.” The ensuing sobriety would be such that AA would be out of business.
My relative in question and I grew up together. He is a very important person in this city and by targeting him they are targeting an even more important person.
In a recent column I wrote about how this money-grubbing Opus Dei priest, one grandly named the Reverend Dr. John Costello, was running around New York City with a briefcase full of money. Last seen, he was at the papal nunciate in Washington, D.C. stuffing councilman Menachem Mandelstam’s big brown shopping bag with said money.
I asked my old pal, Manny, to give me a ring, but, so far, he hasn’t. Manny and I go back a long way. Funny, when I heard that threatening message on my phone machine I thought immediately of Manny. It wasn’t Manny, but the guy I hired to find out who called me, said the call was from Florida. And I know Manny has a lot of friends in Miami Beach.
Last I heard about the Reverend Dr. Costello he was put on an Air Canada flight by the FBI. I assume that he won’t be coming back for a while.
Since I’ve been warned I guess now i
t’s my turn to do the warning. If anything happens to my relative, or the man he works for, I’ll be calling on you, Manny Mandelstam. And I’ll be calling on some of your important friends on Staten Island. You know who I’m talking about. Yeah, I’ll be calling. And it won’t be to say hello.
44.
Monsignor Burke led O’Rourke to the Cardinal’s study and knocked. “Yes,” said the Cardinal as Burke opened the door and allowed O’Rourke to pass into the room before him. The Cardinal stood there, impeccable in black suit and Roman collar, glaring at O’Rourke while he fingered the gold crucifix that hung from around his neck.
“Eminence,” said Burke, “Wolfe Tone O’Rourke.”
O’Rourke walked across the room and without warning or embarrassment fell to his knees in front of the Cardinal, his head bowed, and waited. The Cardinal was surprised. He stood over O’Rourke, who did not move, then slowly extended his hand.
O’Rourke kissed his ring, then stood and shook the hand the ring was attached to. “Your Eminence,” he said, “it is an honor to meet you.”
“Thank you,” said the Cardinal, not sure that this was the same wild man he had seen on television. “Would you like some coffee?”
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