Westies

by T. J. English

  On top of the anxiety and paranoia that went along with trying to live as an informant within the prison confines, Featherstone was under pressure from the U.S. Attorney’s office to come up with indictable information. Since Sissy was not central to the Westies, the burden was on Mickey to elicit details from his friends on criminal matters other than just the Michael Holly murder. Mickey knew that with people like Kelly, Shannon, and McElroy, to appear too inquisitive would tip his hand. The idea was to ask as few questions as possible, but to ask the right questions.

  One opportunity came on May 16th, three and a half weeks after Mickey agreed to become an informant. The occasion was a meeting with Kevin Kelly and Larry Palermo, a friend of Kelly’s who’d been helping Kevin with his loanshark collections on the West Side. Before they arrived, FBI agents told Mickey they’d planted a transmitting device behind a picture on the wall in the visiting room. When Kelly and Palermo got there, they were seated under the picture.

  The visiting room at Rikers Island was an open space, approximately forty feet long and twenty-five feet wide. There were large tables and chairs along the wall and even larger conference tables in the middle of the room. Two prison guards stood by the door, and at the far end of the room was a glass control booth where surveillance cameras kept a steady watch.

  Mickey was brought into the room and took a seat across a wallside table from Kelly and Palermo. There were maybe fifty or sixty other people in the room, inmates and their visitors passing time.

  Kevin Kelly still had no idea that Mickey believed he’d been deliberately set up to take the rap for the Holly shooting. As far as Kevin knew, Mickey was “doing the right thing”—sitting out the time as long as he was certain his wife would be taken care of.

  “Just so’s I can clear my head,” said Mickey, after he’d arrived and taken a seat across the table from Kelly and Palermo. “What money are you givin’ Sissy?”

  “We’re gonna give Sissy two thousand,” replied Kevin, “beginning of every month. It never stops.”

  “Alright. ’Cause that’s all I’m worried about.”

  “Oh yeah. I told you that. Your wife’s never gonna sell the house … just as long as we’re alive, you know. Long as I’m on the street, me and Kenny.”

  It had been weeks since Kelly last talked with Mickey, so he spent five or ten minutes filling him in on the neighborhood gossip. Billy Bokun was pissing everybody off, said Kevin, because he was stoned all the time and not making his payments to Sissy. And ever since Mickey went away, Kevin said, McElroy had been getting tighter and tighter with Jimmy Coonan.

  “Mac’s his bodyguard now,” sneered Kevin. “Can you believe that shit? He’s with him all the way, know what I mean? He drives him around. I seen him yesterday with a suit.”

  “McElroy!?” asked Mickey skeptically.

  “Yeah,” answered Kevin, laughing. “He was wearing polyester.”

  Since they were on the topic of McElroy, Mickey said he wanted to ask Kevin about an item he’d seen in the paper a few days earlier. It involved the shooting of a Carpenter’s Union official named John O’Connor. In several phone conversations during the days leading up to the shooting, McElroy had alluded to something that “might be good,” which Mickey interpreted to mean some sort of criminal business.

  The O’Connor shooting had all the makings of a Westies hit, and Mickey had immediately suspected there might be some connection between it and his conversations with McElroy.

  Before Mickey could even finish asking about the shooting, Kelly spoke up. “Fucking guy just asked for it.”

  “I swear to my mother,” said Mickey, laughing. “I knew you guys did it. For some reason, I just sensed it, you know? Papers said a Spanish guy, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But, you know what? The description of the shooter fits your description. It’s your height and weight and everything.”

  “Well, that’s what they said on the news; that this guy was a hundred and forty pounds, dark glasses. It said he wore a Band-Aid over his right eye. I’ve got a scar over my right eye.”

  “So who was it for? For Jimmy?”

  “Oh yeah. For the greaseballs. Somethin’ they needed quick.”

  Kevin explained how Coonan and McElroy had attended the funeral of Frankie DeCicco, a Gambino family capo who’d recently been blown to smithereens while sitting in his car on a Brooklyn street. Coonan’s “Italian connection,” Danny Marino, was at the funeral, and mentioned that he’d been given an assignment to shoot O’Connor, a business agent for Carpenters Local 608. Supposedly, O’Connor had run afoul of the Mafia when he trashed a Gambino-run restaurant for using nonunion labor. Marino added that he was having trouble getting the job done.

  “So they volunteered!” exclaimed Kelly. “They volunteered their fuckin’ services. Him and Mac. So about ten days ago they come up to me and Kenny, fuckin’ cryin’. And McElroy said, ‘What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?’ So I told them, I says, ‘Don’t be doin’ that, ’cause I ain’t doin’ it no more. This is the last time. Then, uh, me and Kenny set it up.”

  Kelly, whose jet-black hair and dark complexion could easily be mistaken as being of Spanish heritage, explained how he waited outside the offices of Local 608 near 51st Street and Broadway early on the morning of May 7th. Once O’Connor arrived for work, Kelly followed him into the lobby of the building and proceeded to shoot him four times below the waist. O’Connor fell into the elevator, bleeding profusely.

  Kevin chuckled. “He’s a donkey, this guy O’Connor.”

  “He’s hot-headed like?”

  “Yeah, he’s got an Irish brogue. You know, one of them guys?”

  “Right.”

  “He’s got a hot ass now,” interjected Palermo.

  They all broke up laughing.

  “Yeah,” Kevin snorted. “He’s got … he’s got an extra asshole.”

  “Oh, shit,” said Mickey, who was practically bent over laughing.

  “’Cause, you know what happened was, he was supposed to get kneecapped, not murdered, and the bullets ended up high. One went in his ass, you know, the bullets. So Coonan told Danny Marino, he said to Danny, ‘One of the kids got pissed off and shot him in the ass for being an asshole.’ So Marino answers, ‘Wow!’”

  “Yeah?”

  Even as Kevin spoke, Mickey was astounded by the implications of what he was being told. He knew that just five months earlier, while he was in prison awaiting trial for the Holly murder, Paul Castellano, the capo di tutti capi, and his bodyguard, Thomas Bilotti, had been dramatically gunned down outside Sparks, a midtown Manhattan steak house, during the Christmas holidays. Castellano’s murder had set off a series of reprisal killings—including the car bombing of Frankie DeCicco. Once the dust had settled, the new leader of the powerful Gambino family was believed to be John Gotti, a previously unheralded capo from Howard Beach, Queens.

  Mickey knew that Coonan’s buddy, Danny Marino, was tight with Gotti, which could mean only one thing. Now that Castellano was out of the picture, Coonan was already sucking up to the new Godfather. He’d volunteered to do this shooting for Marino knowing it would put him in good standing with Gotti.

  “Let me get this straight,” said Mickey, trying to make sure Kevin stated it as clearly as possible on tape. “What I don’t understand, right? Is Danny Marino with Gotti or …”

  “Danny Marino’s with Gotti.”

  “He is with him?”

  “Danny Marino’s with Gotti.”

  “See, I wasn’t sure.”

  “Right. Yeah, he’s with him now. He even mentioned that to me.”

  Later that night Mickey sat in his cell in C Block and ran it over and over in his mind. He’d had no contact with any FBI agents since his conversation with Kevin Kelly that afternoon. But he could imagine them sitting in a room somewhere, listening over headphones as Kevin bragged about the shooting he’d done for Marino and Gotti. He knew that ever since the Castellano killing the feds had h
ad a hard-on for Gotti, whose sartorial splendor and flamboyant style hearkened back to an earlier era of gangsterism.

  Just a few days earlier, one of the FBI agents handling Featherstone’s case had given him a stern lecture about not having gathered any useful information.

  Well, thought Mickey, if this don’t satisfy the pointy-headed bastards, nothing will.

  At least once every day, and sometimes three, four, or five times in a twenty-four-hour period, Mickey and Sissy spoke on the phone. Working with the platoon of lawyers and agents assigned to Mickey’s case, they had a pretty good idea what was needed to get his conviction overturned. Each week, Sissy pored over transcripts with their attorney, John Kaley, and with Assistant D.A. Jeffrey Schlanger, who would be instrumental if the Holly verdict were to be reversed.

  So far, what they had gathered from Kevin Kelly and Kenny Shannon was strong. What they needed to tie it all together was a confession from the person who’d actually pulled the trigger that day.

  In the few times Sissy had spoken with Billy Bokun since Mickey’s conviction, he’d been stoned out of his mind. Bokun had become convinced that Kelly and Shannon were going to kill him, and his conversations with Sissy were filled with anger and paranoia. One time, on 9th Avenue, he told Sissy flat out, “They set your husband up and now they’re tryin’ to set me up too!”

  On the afternoon of May 18th, Sissy made arrangements to meet with Billy Bokun at the 9th Avenue International Food Festival, one of the city’s largest street fairs, running down the middle of 9th Avenue from West 34th Street all the way up to West 57th.

  By the time Sissy spotted Bokun on the corner of 51st Street and 9th Avenue, it was already late afternoon. The sun had dipped low in the sky, and the shadows from the old Hell’s Kitchen tenement buildings stretched across the avenue. But there were still thousands of people milling about, shoulder to shoulder, and the smoky aroma of burning grills and fresh-cooked foods was as pungent as it had been all day.

  “Billy! Billy!” shouted Sissy as Bokun, a beer in one hand, approached through the crowd. She made sure her purse, which contained the recorder, was hanging in front of her body.

  “What’s up?” said Billy, leaning on a mailbox on the corner of 51st Street in front of a Spanish bodega.

  “Alright,” answered Sissy. “I just feel funny. Like, I asked the guys, ‘Have you seen Billy around?’ They said, ‘Every once in a while, like, I’ll bump into him.’ It’s like, we look at each other, you know, you could at least say hello.”

  “Yeah, I … you know, hey, Sis. Well …”

  “It’s ridiculous. I mean, I feel stupid.”

  “No … I feel, uh, I feel the same way.”

  Sissy and Billy Bokun had known each other since they were young kids. Both were born on 9th Avenue, just blocks from where they now stood. Billy had been best friends with Sissy’s brother Danny before Danny got busted for assault and sent away to prison. It pained Sissy to see Billy in such a desperate state. It pained her even more to have to lure him into a conversation she hoped would vindicate her husband, and maybe, at the same time, put Bokun away for the rest of his life.

  “I’m gonna be honest with you,” said Billy. “I had one beer. This is my first beer. I’m not drunk, and I’m not high or nothin.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m straight. I just got outta bed a little while ago. I mean, let me be honest with you, I’m goin’ for broke with this, you know, this appeals lawyer for your husband. I’m ready to sell my car. ’Cause I have no money. I’m not working. Everybody’s fuckin’ makin’ money but me. Okay? And I’m not sayin’ a fuckin’ word. I ain’t gonna say nothin’. Listen, I’m not doin’ nothin’ no more. I mean, I’m not gettin’ into horses, killing nobody else. I’m straight.”

  “Well, Mickey still feels like, ‘Why did Billy turn around and say Kenny told him to wear a mustache?’”

  “He did. He said, ‘Wear your wig. Pencil in your mustache and shave it off afterwards.’”

  “See, now, they never brought up the mustache. Kevin says you didn’t wear a mustache.”

  “I had a mustache. But it was so light and so thin I had to pencil it in. It was an eyeliner mustache.”

  “That’s what’s messin’ Mickey up. Mickey’s goin’, ‘Why the fuck?’ ’Cause I said to Mickey, ‘I don’t doubt Billy.’ I said, ‘Billy says to this day they told him to wear a mustache. I don’t doubt that.…’”

  “Oh, Sissy, I did a job on myself. I did a job that you wouldn’t believe. They couldn’t identify me. They still can’t identify me!”

  “Yeah.”

  “I mean, if eyewitnesses couldn’t, you know, I did one hell of a job. If I say so myself.”

  “Were you high, though, that day?”

  “No, I was straight.”

  “I mean, at ten to twelve in the afternoon, go shoot somebody?”

  “No, I was straight.”

  “Yeah? Did Michael Holly ever see you comin’ towards him?”

  “Uh, I was in the car. He didn’t see nothin’. I jumped out. Boom! I just shot him. One-two-three-four-five. Back in the car. Ten seconds, no more.”

  “There was one black guy that day. A construction guy.”

  “Well, I aimed the gun at him. Yeah, I was gonna shoot everybody dead. Okay? But, the only reason I didn’t was I had no bullets.… Like, I didn’t, well, I’m not ashamed of what I did. I think what I did is absolutely right.”

  “Why you did it is, you feel …”

  “I feel ’cause he whacked my brother. He was responsible for John. Otherwise I wouldn’t have done it. Okay? I’m not a go-shooter. I’m not a cowboy. I’m just what I am, right? I’m a workin’ guy.”

  Sissy knew she had enough to hang Billy already, but she let him go on. Billy seemed to need to talk, to reassure Sissy that he had nothing to do with Mickey taking the fall.

  “Far as I’m concerned,” continued Billy, “I do believe the cops framed your husband. Somebody told them from jump street who did it. They say, ‘Well, no way we can get Bokun. We can probably frame Featherstone.’ The way I’m looking at it now …”

  “Right.”

  “They framed your husband. Okay? Your husband added to the frame by going to Erie, which was a mental mistake. Okay? Going to check.”

  “But remember when you said, ‘Kevin fuckin’ set me up. And he didn’t only set me up, he set Mickey up along with me.’ Remember?”

  “Right. I said that after the fact. After I spoke to your husband, after me and Mickey decided that it was true.… The only thing I can say is, what I was told is everything was taken care of. Everybody had their place and their alibis. He could’ve hid hisself, you know? He could’ve put hisself at the dentist or anything.”

  “But he said that they called him that morning to use the car. Kenny, or somebody, called to use his Tempo that he was leasing.”

  “But that was the fucking plan! See, the plan was … alls I was supposed to do was go over to that corner, you know, and go and shoot the guy. And I didn’t know nothin’ else about the plan.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s what I was supposed to do. And I did what I was supposed to do. And now I get all the repercussions! See, the reason I’m by myself is, I don’t know, I’m not the type of guy who can walk around and shoot everybody. I can shoot anyone for my brother, but I can’t just go out and whack everybody. It’s my personality. I mean, that’s my big fault. I guess it’s my loyalty to everybody, you know. I’m so loyal, ’cause I can’t help it.”

  The sun had begun to set, and the booths along 9th Avenue were finally being taken apart. As the crowds thinned out, a soft breeze sent debris and dust flying about. Sissy told Billy she had to get going and pick up her children from her mother’s apartment on 56th Street.

  “I hope your husband gets out,” said Billy, his voice straining with emotion. “’Cause, you know, I sit here …”

  “He’ll be alright.”

  “I sit here and,
more than anybody, it bothers me.”

  “Alright, Billy. Take care.”

  Sissy watched Billy head south on 9th Avenue. When he was a safe distance away, she peeked inside her purse to make sure the recorder was on. It was.

  She didn’t know whether to be elated or depressed. In all likelihood, this would be the last time she would see Billy Bokun for a long, long while. And the next time would probably be in court.

  On the afternoon of September 5th, Francis Thomas Featherstone was brought before the same judge, Alvin Schlessinger, in the same courtroom where just five months earlier he’d been convicted for the murder of Michael Holly.

  John Kaley had just put forth a motion to have his client’s conviction vacated. Joining Kaley in that motion was Assistant D.A. Jeffrey Schlanger, the same prosecutor who secured Mickey’s conviction.

  Schlanger had been promoted to the Rackets Bureau following his widely heralded prosecution of Featherstone. He admitted being “skeptical” upon first hearing Mickey’s assertion that he was not the shooter in the Holly killing. But after listening to the taped conversations with Kelly, Shannon, and Bokun, he’d changed his mind.

  “On too many occasions to cite,” he said, reading from a prepared text, “the New York County D.A.’s office has gone to extreme and extraordinary lengths to investigate claims of innocence by people either charged or convicted of crimes which they claimed they did not do. Usually those claims do not hold water. However, on those rare occasions when they do, our obligation to see that justice is carried out is clear: that conviction must be set aside.…

  “When all the evidence in this particular case is taken together, the People are now convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that it was William Bokun and not Francis Featherstone who shot and killed Michael Holly on April 25, 1985.”

  Judge Schlessinger listened dutifully to Schlanger’s statement, but for all intents and purposes his decision had already been made. Since the beginning of Mickey’s and Sissy’s cooperation, the judge had been kept abreast of the investigation. He’d been informed of the Featherstones’ ongoing debriefings with the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s office, and the Manhattan D.A. He’d pored over the transcripts from Mickey and Sissy’s undercover conversations with Kelly, Shannon, and Bokun. And he’d gone over the legal precedents for the highly unusual ruling he was now being asked to make.