Donnie Brasco

by Joseph Pistone

  Rossi says, “I gotta be totally up-front here. Up in New York he might say, ‘We’re totally overloaded here, let it go for a week, a month.’ I have no way of knowing. What I’m trying to say, I guess, is I can’t tell you how fast all this will be put together. You understand that I’m only like the fucking go-between.”

  “On this other shit,” Tom says, casually taking a small plastic bag of white powder out of his jacket pocket, “it’s good stuff. You don’t know what you’re looking at.” He put the bag back in his pocket. “I don’t think you know that much about the product.”

  “No, I don‘t,” Rossi says. “You don’t have to tell me that.”

  “You don’t use it, you don’t know it,” Tom says.

  “What’s the price on that?” Rossi asks.

  “Right there?” Tom pulls out the sample again and lays it on the desk. “This is two-twenty-five.”

  “What percentage is that?”

  “I’d give it an eighty.”

  “We’ve had a ninety-two,” Rossi says.

  “How was it tested?”

  “How the fuck do I know? All I’m telling you is that the guy gave it to another guy, had it tested, comes back and says, ‘Tony, it’s ninety-two percent.’ I said,

  ‘Is that good?’ He said, ‘That’s terrific.’ “

  “You give me five minutes with your buyer, he’ll buy our shit, because I do have the best stuff in town.”

  “You don’t need to have no time with my buyer,” Rossi says. “I just hand it to him. Your problem is when we tell you what we want and you get it, and then we come to you and it might not be the right thing.”

  “If he likes that,” Tom says, waving the sample, “that will tell you what he’s gonna get.”

  “What about ‘ludes?”

  “It depends. If you want five hundred thousand, I got ‘ludes.”

  “What they call those, ‘lemons’?”

  “It depends. They’re all homemade now. Usually your lemon has Valium in it. You want quantity like that, we’re talking about thirty-five cents apiece. I can give your man anything he wants. Only positive request involved in this is C.O.D. I’m talking about for a start. Once it’s established, I don’t give a shit.”

  “What I don’t want,” Rossi says, “is jacking around.”

  I come into the office along with Eddie Shannon. Rossi says, “Donnie’s my partner from New York. Eddie’s the action guy around here. You meet Donnie before?”

  “No,” say both Pete and Tom.

  “Down at Joe Pete’s one night,” I say. “You guys were both drunk.”

  They squirm around, embarrassed.

  “They brought us a sample, Donnie,” Rossi says. “They said they could supply us with whatever we needed—everything with the exception of the horse, which is what we’re looking for.”

  “No,” Tom says, “don’t say without it. We got it. But it’s ... we gotta find out ...”

  “Fucking coke is nothing up there,” I say. “Forget about it. You can’t give coke away up there. Everybody is using the horse up there. When you gonna know about the H?”

  “I don’t think I want to,” Tom says. “Down there, there’s too many deaths. I been in battles down there. It’s ridiculous. It’s a pain in the ass. Now, if you want, I can take you down there and let you jump on the bandwagon.”

  “If we got an introduction,” I say, “we can make it worth your while to introduce one of our guys in New York to somebody down there.”

  “Have to find that out,” Tom says.

  “I’d have to think about that real hard,” says his dad.

  “What about prices on the coke? Where’s it from?”

  Tom takes out the sample again. “Fifty-five, sixty. Either Colombia or here.”

  “Fifty-five grand?” Rossi says.

  “To sixty,” Pete says.

  “What we give you, the sample,” Tom says, putting the sample on the desk for Rossi, “that’s what you’re gonna get.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I say.

  They left the sample with us. The next day the cocaine sample was tested at the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office lab. It was less than fifteen percent pure.

  The day after that, we got the father and son back in the office. Jo-Jo knew these guys, so we had him in there with us. He was pretty uncomfortable.

  I say, “I don’t know if you think you’re fucking with some jerk-offs or what. But that sample of coke ain’t even fucking fifteen percent. It’s bullshit. It’s been stepped on nineteen fucking times.”

  Pete and Tom start stammering. “Y-you think we’d pull a shot like that, Don? You think we’d do that?”

  “You told us it was eighty percent,” Rossi says.

  “Just overnight the thought came to me,” Tom says. “It was something I grabbed that night. That’s why I kept it in my pocket. No way I’m gonna do that intentionally. What I’d love to do—really, I’d love to do this, because if what you’re saying is true ...”

  “It’s not if what we’re saying is true,” Rossi says, “it is true. Why would we tell you different? We’re hoping it’s ninety percent.”

  “Then somebody’s gonna fall,” Tom says. “This guy’s never done that. I been with the guy five years, and this is the first time, believe me. I’m serious.”

  “It’s not a question of the money,” Rossi says. “It’s a question of the honorability.”

  “Goddamn, man.” Tom shakes his head while his father paces around, shaking his head too.

  “Whoever gave it to you is putting you in a fucking box,” Rossi says.

  “Donnie, don’t get us wrong,” Pete says, “that we think you’re jacking us off or something like that.”

  They are getting real edgy. Pete says, “What we wanna do is drop it. Just give the sample back.”

  I get up and walk over to Pete. Jo-Jo is squirming in a chair right behind me.

  “Just forget it,” Pete says. “I’ll buy you a drink. Now.” He jabs his finger at Rossi. “Now!”

  “What’s ‘now’?” Rossi says.

  “Give it back!” He throws up his hands. “All right, don’t give us the sample. Done. I’m really getting pissed off.”

  “You can get pissed off all you want,” I say. “But don’t get the fucking attitude, pal, that we’re trying to fuck you with a bullshit sample. Understand what I’m saying?”

  I hear Jo-Jo’s small voice behind me: “Donnie ... Donnie ...” He’s trying to tug my sleeve. He’s afraid somebody is going to get killed. I put my finger on Pete’s chest. “How can we be fucking you when we got the sample from you? Because if I take the sample from you and I want to move it, I want good stuff, right?”

  Pete backs off fast. “You ain’t got good stuff there.”

  “That’s what my man says.”

  “Well, no deal, no money, no nothing. Hey, we’re friends.”

  “That’s right. Because he’s with me. He’s not with anybody else.”

  “Of course, he’s with you all the way. Your word is your man’s word.”

  “So don’t come into this fucking joint saying that we’re trying to fuck you guys.”

  “Can I come in the joint and have a drink?”

  Tom is still shaking his head. “In my heart, I can tell you, this is the first time.”

  “Hey, this business isn’t fucking in your heart,” I say. “This business is in your pocket. In your head. Not what’s in your heart.”

  “What I mean by heart is my head. First of all, ain’t nobody gonna charge you for no sample.”

  Rossi laughs. “Charge us for a sample? We get fucking samples of that shit every day.”

  At that I walk out. Tom and Pete whine behind me, “Donnie! Donnie! Come back, Donnie!”

  We planned our second Las Vegas Night for December 13. Trafficante was going to supply a crew to run the games. When the time came, his people weren’t available, so we postponed the gambling event to January.

  Rossi and I
went to New York to spend the few days before Christmas with Sonny and the crew. On December 17, he had the big Christmas party at the Motion Lounge. Each captain gives a Christmas party for his crew. Charley the bartender did all the cooking—pasta and sausage and peppers and meatballs. All the guys that belonged to Sonny’s crew came. We just ate and drank and told war stories and had a good time. Rossi and I each gave Sonny $200 as our presents.

  Sonny was anxious to get back to Florida to meet with “the Old Man down there to really firm things up.” He said Carmine was going to put up money for an addition on the back of King’s Court, a dance floor and a swimming pool. The main thing now, he said, was to get the Las Vegas Night set up. “Now we’re going to start making money.”

  But for the next few weeks he had to stay in New York. “There’s some problems I’m having in Brooklyn.” The Miami cocaine deal had not come through yet, but he had bought a hundred pounds of marijuana out on Long Island, and Nicky Santora had picked it up in a rented U-Haul truck and taken it to Tony Boots’s garage for temporary storage.

  Antonio “Boots” Tomasulo—who always wore work boots—had a place across the street from the Motion Lounge called Capri Car Service, at 421 Graham Avenue. I never saw any car-service business go on there. It was just a cluttered place where Boots carried on activities on behalf of Sonny. He was Sonny’s partner in the numbers business, did all the collecting. Sonny often used the phones in there.

  Sonny said he had a carbine and several handguns stashed away and that he might give me some of them to take down to Florida in case his crew needed them. Nicky Santora said that he had two .38 pistols wrapped in cloth that he had put in a sink drain at the Motion Lounge before he went to jail. They were still there, but he hadn’t checked them. “I hope they’re not all fucked up with water,” he says. “I wrapped them pretty good in oil.”

  After the first of the year Sonny said he was moving out of the Withers social club. We would be meeting at the Motion Lounge.

  Rossi went back to Florida to run King’s Court, and I stayed to hang around with Sonny.

  I stayed at his apartment, learned more about the pigeons, had many conversations. His estranged wife was causing him problems of some sort. He was concerned about his kids. I would spend a couple of hours a day hanging out over in Manhattan on Madison Street, at the Holiday Bar with Lefty. At night I’d go bouncing with Sonny.

  Nicky Santora ran a string of go-go joints out on Long Island. One night Sonny and I had been out bouncing, and we came back to the Motion Lounge at about two A.M. Nicky and a few guys and some of the girls from his joints were partying in the back room.

  “You can take your pick,” Nicky says to us. “There’s one that gives a great blow job.”

  We look the girls over while they’re partying it up.

  “I’ll take the one that gives good head,” Sonny says.

  I have to come up with a good quick line here, because Sonny will take the girl upstairs, and I’m staying with him, so I would be expected to take a girl upstairs too. “I’m gonna have to beg off, bro. You go ahead. But I don’t know these broads, they hang around with bikers out there at the joint, and you know how dirty they are. There’s this herpes thing around, and I don’t wanna risk no herpes.”

  “Jesus, Donnie, maybe you got a point. Nicky, those broads hang out with bikers. Get them outa here right away, hurry up.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Those fucking broads are gonna give us all herpals.”

  “Herpals?”

  “Yeah. Don’t touch nothing.”

  Nicky complained to Sonny that a guy named Curly was moving in on Nicky’s go-go joints. “We had a sitdown on it yesterday,” Nicky says, “and the decision was that I keep my twelve joints and the other guy that belongs to Curly keeps his ten. Now, this other guy went to one of my joints and threatened one of my girls that she had to kick back money to him in order to dance at my joint.”

  “Have Lefty set up an appointment for Monday between me and Curly,” Sonny says, “and I’ll straighten it out.”

  One night Sonny and Boobie and I were at Crisci’s Restaurant, not far from the club, at 593 Lorimer Street. It was a favorite place of ours. They loved Sonny. Sonny and anybody with him was treated royally. We wouldn’t even use menus. We’d order whatever we wanted and they’d make it.

  We had a couple drinks at the bar before going to our table.

  “I’m pleased with how you’re conducting yourself down there,” Sonny says, “what you’re doing, the book, the shylocking. You’re independent, don’t have to be told what to do. You’re not always coming and asking me for money like a lot of the guys.”

  “Thanks, bro.”

  “The books are gonna open up for membership at the end of the year. I can propose five guys, which I got already. Boobie is number one. Then I’m obligated with four other guys that are relatives of family members. But the next time the books open up, maybe next year, you’re gonna be the first guy that I propose.”

  “Hey, Sonny, I really appreciate that. I’m honored. I’m glad you think of me that way.”

  “You got any drug arrests?”

  “No.”

  “Good. The big thing now is drugs, and the cops are always hounding you if you got drug arrests. Keep doing what you’re doing, and you’re the next name I put in.”

  “I’m really glad. That’s what I was looking for, Sonny.”

  That was the truth. Obviously, no agent had ever become a made guy undercover in the Mafia. What I could accomplish as a made guy was unbelievable.

  “Now,” Sonny goes on, “have you checked Tony out completely? You can vouch for him?”

  “Sure—you know, much as I can. He’s a top guy, a good earner.”

  “If he’s still working with you and earning, Donnie, I’ll put his name in too. You guys deserve it.”

  We went to our table. We were eating escarole and beans and Italian bread. I had to take a chance and bring up again the matter of Lefty bleeding Rossi. Rossi and I had discussed it. We were still spending too much government money on Lefty’s entertainment and travel. Since Sonny’s last directive that we cut back on Lefty and report any problems to him, things had not improved. I was increasingly worried that Sonny himself would notice the expenses and blame me for not following his orders.

  I wanted Sonny to know that I was keeping on top of things. And after all, I, too, was supposed to be enjoying all this money we were glomming from Rossi.

  “Nothing for nothing,” I say, “and I really feel uncomfortable bringing the subject up again. But Tony’s getting very pissed off about spending so much on Lefty, and he’s complaining to me about it all the time.”

  “What the fuck you want me to do, Donnie?”

  By his tone I figured I’d blown this one. “Sonny, I just want you to be aware in case Rossi decides to pull out—we lose paydays with the club and his connections.”

  Sonny picked away at his salad. “You got two choices, Donnie. Either you handle it with Lefty or I’ll handle it with Lefty. And if I handle it with Lefty and he gets smart about it, I’ll chop his fucking legs off. You tell me what you want to do.”

  “Of course I want to handle it with Lefty, because I’m with him. I don’t want anything to happen to him.

  I don’t want to create any beef between you and

  Lefty or me and Lefty. Let’s just leave it at this table, and it doesn’t go any further, just so you’re aware.“

  “Okay,” he says, “it stays here. But if there’s any more trouble, I will handle it.”

  16

  THE RAID

  As they had for the past couple of years, my wife and daughters flew in to spend the Christmas holidays with our relatives in New Jersey.

  Early in the evening I went by to wish Lefty and Louise a Merry Christmas. They had their little Christmas tree on the table. I gave Lefty two shirts. He gave me a gift certificate for $100 from Leighton‘s, a men’s clothing store on Broadwa
y. He signed it; “Donny—To a good friend—Lefty.”

  Then I went over to Brooklyn and hung out at the Motion Lounge for a little while. Sonny took me into the kitchen and showed me two boxed stereo systems. He said Carmine had bought fifty of them from a truck driver. He had cut the serial numbers off the boxes. “These are for you and Tony,” he says, “for Christmas for your apartments in Florida.”

  Then I excused myself to go spend the rest of Christmas Eve “with my girl over in Jersey.”

  On Christmas morning everybody met at the club. I had coffee with the crew and hung around until about three or four in the afternoon, then went to Jersey for Christmas dinner with my family.

  Two days after Christmas, I was sitting with Lefty and Sonny in the back room of the Motion Lounge.

  “Tomorrow morning,” Lefty says, “we want you to take a ride to Monticello. Go to the Monticello Diner. I’ll give you a number to call. Ask for Al. He’ll come down and meet you. He has some guns for us.”

  Monticello is a two-hour drive northwest of the city, near the Catskill Mountains. I had been to the racetrack there a few times.

  It was as cold as a bastard. The drive was miserable because there was snow and ice on the roads. I got to the Miss Monticello Diner by ten A.M. There was a pay phone inside. I called the number Lefty had given me and talked to Al. “This is Donnie from New York. I’ll be sitting at the counter. I’m six feet tall with dark hair, and I’ll be wearing a brown leather jacket.”

  A few minutes later the guy came in. “Donnie? Al.”

  Al was heavy, about 5’9” and 200 pounds, wore glasses. He sat down for a cup of coffee. He said that he was from New York but had lived in Monticello for the past five years. We chatted about the weather.

  “I gotta get going back,” I say.

  “Come on out, I’ll give you your Christmas presents.”

  We went out to the parking lot. He was driving a Lincoln. I memorized the license number for my report. He opened the trunk and took out a package the size and shape of a shoe box, wrapped in Christmas paper with a red ribbon on it.