Blood Covenant

by Michael Franzese

  My father, out of prison for a brief time on parole, attended my arraignment in 1985 with my mother, Tina.

  lorizzo's "daisy chain" gas tax scheme brought us unprecedented riches. A federal aerial surveillance photo shows my former estate in Brookville, Long Island.

  I married Cammy and promised that I'd give up my Cosa Nostra empire, accept a prison sentence, and quit the mob. She made me an offer I couldn't refuse. (Lawrence Lesser)

  One of the last photos taken of me as a member of the Colombo crime family. I walked to the altar, said "I do," and vowed to do the impossible-quit the mob. I've never had a moment's regret. (Lawrence Lesser)

  The last picture taken of Cammy's mother Irma before her death from breast cancer in May of 2001.

  Irma shared a special relationship with her daughters, seen here in their last picture taken together in the spring of 2000.

  A recent photo of Michael at home.

  My precious Julia struggling after her premature birth in August 1998. I really turned to God in prayer during her ordeal, and my prayers were answered. She is truly a blessing.

  Michael addresses students at Chino High School in California as part of his "Breaking Out" program for at-risk youth.

  Irma's prayers for her family were answered in the "Agape House of Prayer." In the midst of Disney's Anaheim, Michael and Cammy are pictured with their family, who built the church under the leadership of Pastor Joaquin Garcia.

  Still very much in love after all these years, Michael and Cammy believe having God at the center of their marriage has gotten them through all the difficult times.

  One day, the movie set started humming with the juiciest gossip yet. Cammy's boyfriend, a painter named Eddie Chacon, had appeared unannounced from California. "And he's got a gun!" everyone was saying. The word quickly spread through the production.

  The young man had deduced from the increasingly impersonal tone of Cammy's few letters that something bad was happening in South Florida. Checking with her mother, he had learned why. Crushed, he decided he had to try to win his girlfriend back.

  Eddie located Camille on the set by the bandstand, and she nearly fainted when she saw him.

  "I missed you, Cammy," he said. "I haven't seen you in so long."

  "I've got to rehearse," she said, darting off. "We'll talk later."

  My men had also heard the gossip and were taking it very seriously.

  "You want us to take care of him?" they asked.

  "He's just a kid," I said.

  "They say he's got a gun."

  "I don't think he has a gun. Leave him alone," I ordered.

  Fortunately, I was secure in Cammy's feelings for me. But I was so consumed by my love for her that I don't know what I would have done if I had felt threatened. I might very well have used the life-or-death power I commanded against a perceived rival for Cammy's affections.

  It was just such a potent mixture of passion and power that unnerved me. There had to be a balance. Until then, I had successfully juggled the influence of La Cosa Nostra with the unprecedented amount of money I was making. Now, suddenly, my all-encompassing love for a young Mexican-American girl had upset that critical balance. My emotions were on fire, and I knew that I had to be extremely careful.

  My men obeyed my hands-off order, but they were on the alert later that afternoon when Eddie came walking toward my car.

  "Hi, I'm Eddie, Cammy's friend," he said, extending a hand. I shook it.

  "Really nice meeting you, Michael," he said. Then he promptly turned and left.

  "See, he's just a kid," I repeated, shrugging.

  That evening, Eddie and Cammy met, and as nicely as she could, she explained that their year-long relationship was over.

  "I kind of figured that when I didn't hear from you," he said. "You were never in your room when I called, and you never returned my calls."

  "I'm sorry," she said, offering a weak smile. "I always wanted to see Miami."

  Neither said a word for the longest time.

  "Are you sure, Cammy?" he ventured.

  She nodded.

  "Can we see each other when you come back?" he asked, but she shook her head no.

  "I guess I always figured I wasn't enough for you. You're a good girl, Cammy. You deserve the best. Just be careful. If it doesn't work out, come home and call me. I'll be there," he offered.

  She fought to hold back her tears, and Eddie just stood there for a while longer. The damp air inside the room was infused with grief. Finally, he turned and left.

  Cammy was still weeping softly in her room when the phone rang. It was Eddie calling from the airport.

  "Are you sure you want me to go?" he said, making one lastditch effort at winning back his girlfriend.

  "I'm sure, Eddie," she told him.

  Cammy was still crying when I picked her up for dinner that evening.

  "Don't worry, he'll get over it," I said. "He's young."

  The banishment of Eddie Chacon from her life was a crossroad that bonded Cammy and me even tighter, as she had now cut her ties with the past. We were now emotionally intertwined on a fairy tale level and deeply in love, while in reality we knew very little about each other. She certainly didn't know about me, and I was sure I had much more to learn about her.

  I quickly learned about the Latin temper.

  Michael Markowitz flew in to discuss the joint purchase of a Miami restaurant called Martha's, and we arranged to meet the owners of the bistro after it closed at midnight. We spent three hours with them, eating and then negotiating the purchase. When I returned to the Konover, it was after 4:00 A.M.

  Cammy had been waiting for me, growing more furious with each passing minute, imagining that I was out with another woman. By 2:00 A.M., she had made her airline reservations to leave later that morning, and by 3:00 A.M., she was packed and ready to go. When I returned, I found her door bolted tight, and she refused to listen to any explanation.

  Later that morning, I tried again, and this time she let me in. She sat upright on her bed, clutching a pillow and pouting like an angry child. I tried to explain that I had been working.

  "Working? You don't work at night," she said.

  "I don't have normal business hours," I responded in a classic understatement. "I do things at night. Yes, I work at night."

  I explained that I had to meet with the owners after the restaurant closed so we wouldn't be interrupted, but she wasn't buying it. We argued for a few moments until she dropped her angry facade a little.

  "The only reason I'm still here is that you have all my paychecks in your briefcase," she said. "Otherwise, I'd have been just a memory!"

  "No way, Cam," I said, a chilling edge of seriousness cutting through as I kissed her. "I could never let you go."

  And I meant it.

  93

  I had gone to Florida in part to escape the troubles that were mounting in New York, and Cammy provided that escape in ways I had never imagined. Still, the turbulence in New York refused to give me peace. The joint task force continued to slave away, fueled by Roy Rogers hamburgers, unlimited federal resources, and skilled manpower. But they had become almost too effective. The ambitious scope of their investigation, combined with the vastness of my operations, left them with handfuls of dangling threads to follow.

  Prosecutor Ray Jermyn said, "The biggest problem we encountered was that every time we met, there were ten new crimes to report and dozens of new accomplices to add to our lists. Michael had so much going on-car dealerships, bank loans, money laundering, unions, gas taxes, gas terminals, insurance fraud, counterfeit bonds, loan-shark operations, construction businesses, movies, credit card scams, the Russians, you name it. One week, he'd be in California making a movie, the next week he'd be in Florida getting the key to the city, which really blew us away. Here we are hunting this guy who's a Mafia captain involved in dozens of criminal activities, and the mayor of Miami Beach gives him the key to the city and puts his police force at his disposal. Incredibl
e!"

  In April of 1984, an unrelated incident worked to renew the task force's vigor and link some of the disconnected fragments of its case. My friend Larry lorizzo was tried on past charges relating to Vantage Petroleum and was convicted of grand larceny, tax evasion, and mail and wire fraud. His sentencing was set for June.

  The conviction of a close criminal partner is always a bad omen, especially when the partner is the less desirable target. I was uneasy when lorizzo went down, but I trusted him like a brother. In the ensuing months, he repeatedly told me not to worry; he would find a way out of the mess.

  As the sentencing hearing approached, however, lorizzo's attitude changed.

  "I don't want to go to jail, Michael," he confided to me. "It doesn't make sense. With all my money, why should I be in jail? We've got solid connections in Panama."

  In addition to registering his companies in Panama and hiding his money there, lorizzo owned a large estate in the Central American country. One of the reasons we had chosen Panama in the first place was because the country did not have an extradition treaty with the United States. We had been paying millions to an acne-scarred Panamanian general named Manuel Noriega in return for banking connections, personal security, and other services.

  "I'm not going to stick around for the sentencing," he announced. "I can run the operation from Panama. I've got it all set up."

  "That's insane, Larry," I advised. "Once you run, you become a fugitive, and that's a whole new ball game. You should stay and fight for bail. Your lawyer says you have a good shot at beating the charges on appeal. I'd stick around."

  But lorizzo didn't want to listen, and I didn't insist.

  "I'm set to leave the night before the hearing," he said.

  In June, the day before the hearing, lorizzo showed up at my home in Delray Beach. Frankie Cestaro, Louie Fenza, and assorted other associates were there, too. lorizzo had everything worked out. He was taking the Learjet with Wife II. The "girlfriend" wife had apparently been designated as official fugitive wife. The pilot had prepared a phony itinerary that had them hopping around various Caribbean islands, including Port-auPrince, Haiti, to muddy the trail. Cestaro provided lorizzo with a phony passport under the name Salvatore Carlino, and lorizzo gave him $5,000 for his troubles.

  That evening, we shared an emotional farewell dinner at lorizzo's nearby mansion in Boca Raton. I invited Cammy to go along. The multimillion-dollar oceanfront home was the largest she had ever entered. Touring the house, she spotted one of Iorizzo's belts hanging over a chair. She couldn't believe its length. It looked more like a bullwhip than a belt.

  At the end of the evening, lorizzo and I embraced and offered warm good-byes. Not only had we made millions together, but I had also grown to consider him to be one of my closest friends. But when I walked out the door of his home that night, it marked the last time I would see him as a free man-or as a friend.

  94

  Iorizzo's plan of running Galion Holdings out of Panama worked for the next two months, but he was not a smart fugitive. He called the United States every day, leaving himself open to phone traces. He flew around the world "as if he had a license to be a fugitive," one associate put it. He began setting up an operation to steal gasoline-tax money in Austria, and he tried to entice me to join him in the foreign operation. "The tax on gas in Europe is $2 a gallon. Can you imagine the money we could make?" he said, giddy with excitement.

  "I'm not committing any crimes in Austria," I said. "For all I know, they probably shoot thieves there. If I would get in trouble abroad, do you think Uncle Sam would help me? He'd probably say `Keep him. Shoot him. We don't want him.'"

  Iorizzo's arrogance as a fugitive seemed to be limitless. He scheduled his daughter's wedding in Austria and made arrangements to charter a jetliner to carry three hundred guests there from New York. A flood of wedding invitations announced the gala.

  That was the last straw. In October, the feds negotiated an agreement with the double-dealing Noriega to flush out lorizzo, and a team of Noriega's soldiers swept in and dragged lorizzo from his fortress. He was tossed into a stone dungeon with no bed, and there he languished for three days-until the FBI "rescued" him.

  lorizzo was flown to Miami and stashed in a wretched prison overflowing with crazed Latin drug dealers and a swarm of additional Cuban and Central and South American psychos and criminals. Within weeks of the arrest, word was out that lorizzo had cracked and was going to turn.

  A relative of lorizzo personally delivered a disturbing message to me.

  "Larry's always considered you his ticket out if he got into trouble," the man explained. "He has a file on you six inches thick. He's kept every clipping that appeared in the newspapers and kept records of every illegal transaction you and he ever made. Watch yourself. This could be big trouble."

  I refused to believe these suggestions, because Larry lorizzo and I had been so close, but as more information filtered back from Miami, the unthinkable began to look more and more thinkable. Prison is a hard place for a four-hundred-fifty-pound man. lorizzo couldn't sleep on the narrow prison beds, the food was killing him, and his fellow inmates were torturing him. There were reports that the guards had stripped him and forced him to walk down the corridors as the inmates jeered.

  I met with lorizzo's son, Larry Jr., at the Howard Johnson's on the Jericho Turnpike and assured him that I was doing everything in my power to help with his father's case. As I delicately questioned the twenty-year-old, I sensed that the stories about his father's rough prison stay were true.

  Shortly before lorizzo was scheduled to be transported to New York, an associate paid me a visit.

  "Larry's been driving me crazy with his calls," he said. "He has a plan, and he begged me to present it to you."

  The way he reported it, lorizzo figured that there would be two U. S. marshals escorting him to the Eastern District courthouse at the corner of Cadman Plaza East and Tillary Street in Brooklyn. His plan was for me to have a car waiting there when he arrived. I was to dispatch a hit squad to kill the marshals on the steps of the courthouse and free lorrizo. If I refused to go along with this plan, then it was understood that he had no alternative but to roll over on me.

  The consequences of either choice could be severe. lorizzo's testimony could put me in prison for a long time. But murdering two U. S. marshals was not an acceptable alternative.

  "Is he out of his mind?" I said. "The guy must be cracking up.

  This scheme was the last contact I had with my former partner and friend. Word was that lorizzo was singing his lungs out, and I was the lyric.

  Cammy knew nothing about any of this, and I didn't want her to. She was my salve, my pressure release. When I was with her, it seemed like New York had never existed, and the stress lifted from my neck and shoulders. Cammy was a portal to another world, and now I just wanted to enter that world and never come back.

  95

  Near the end of the filming, I sent Cammy home to Los Angeles for a short visit. Back in her home and back to reality, the glow of Florida began wearing off. Distancing herself from the romance that had intoxicated her, she could see that what had happened in Fort Lauderdale was wrong-morally and religiously-and her mood alternated between elation and remorse.

  She wondered about my children. If I was rarely home, as I'd said, they must miss me terribly. And if things between us did work out, she might be taking me from them permanently. They surely would blame her for the loss of their father.

  She also hadn't acted like much of a Christian in Florida, and she was now ashamed of herself. She had been swept away by a married man and allowed her religious and moral beliefs to be trampled in the process. She hadn't lost them entirely, but she had suppressed them for the time being so that she could enjoy an affair that flew in the face of everything she believed and stood for.

  She had rationalized it all by telling herself that it was a special love and that God not only approved of it, but He had actually sent her to me becau
se He wanted us together. But was this really God's will? Or was it just her way of glossing over the truth?

  She fell to her knees by her bed, and tears streamed down her cheeks as she prayed.

  "Dear God, what should I do? I love Michael so much, but I don't want to offend You. I believe You brought us together, but I know what I'm doing is wrong. Please, tell me what to do."

  Insecurity tormented her as well. I clearly wanted her, but why return to me just to get hurt in the end? The taunts from the other dancers still stung..."not serious," "happens all the time," "love ends when the movie ends," and the worst one of all, the word she hated most, "mistress."

  I didn't give her much time to let these dark thoughts fester, calling every few hours we were apart.

  "I love you," I said, "and I don't ever want to be without you."

  The words sounded wonderful to her, and the attention I was showing her was comforting. Still, she was afraid and unsure. When just fourteen, she had made the vow never to marry a man who had been married before. Of all her father's twenty-two brothers and sisters, only one was divorced. And Cammy Garcia was convinced that this was the way marriage should be.

  She had also vowed never to marry a man with children, so I failed on both counts.

  "I'm doing exactly what I said I'd never, ever do," she sighed to herself.

  She fished around in a small suitcase and removed an envelope. Inside were eight checks for $500 each. In typical poor-girl fashion, she had saved all her paychecks while in Miami, cashing only her per diem checks to get her through the week. Looking at the check on top, she examined the swirled signature of the person who authorized them-Michael Franzese.

  Then it wasn't a fantasy. Everything I had ever said to her had come true. Every promise I had made to her had been kept. She felt in that moment that she simply must trust me and keep believing that things would work out.