Part 15 (2/2)
”Oh,” De Cavalcante said, ”a little trouble over there, in New York.”
”New York?”
”Yeah,” De Cavalcante said. Then he told Sferra, ”Close the door. n.o.body's supposed to know.”
After he closed the door, Sferra seemed to have second thoughts about wanting to pry into commission affairs, and he said, ”Sam, if you don't want to tell me you don't have to tell me.” But Sam De Cavalcante wanted to tell him.
”It's about Joe Bonanno's borgata borgata [family],” he said. ”The commission don't like the way he's comporting himself.” [family],” he said. ”The commission don't like the way he's comporting himself.”
”The way he's conducting himself, you mean?”
”Well, he made his son consigliere consigliere,” De Cavalcante explained, ”and it's been reported, the son, that he don't show up. They [the commission] sent for him and he didn't show up. And they want to throw [Joe Bonanno] out of the commission. So-just now they figure that the coolest place is Rhode Island. You know what I mean? It's a pain in the neck. I feel sorry for the guy, you know. He's not a bad guy.”
”How old is he?” Sferra asked.
”Sixty, sixty-two.”
A month later, after De Cavalcante had had unsatisfactory meetings with Bill Bonanno, John Morale, and others, De Cavalcante sat in his office telling one of his subordinates, Frank Majuri, and unknowingly also telling the hidden microphone, how difficult it was to deal with Bill Bonanno, adding that he was more fearful of the younger Bonanno than the elder.
”His son is a bedbug,” De Cavalcante said, continuing, ”I had an appointment...”
”You went to see him?” Majuri cut in.
”Yeah,” De Cavalcante said, adding that he had been accompanied by Joseph Zicarelli, a Bonanno member residing in New Jersey. ”They got one car in front and one in the back. I said, 'What's going on here? Are we being followed?' He [Zicarelli] said, 'No, don't worry.' ” But De Cavalcante realized that while en route to the meeting he was surrounded by Bonanno cars, and that Bill ”made sure like I didn't have n.o.body to set him up.”
Although not speaking personally to the elder Bonanno, De Cavalcante did talk to him by telephone, recalling how indignant Joseph Bonanno was that the commission was interfering in Bonanno's family affairs and was protecting Bonanno's disloyal captain, Gaspar Di Gregorio, from reprisals.
” 'Where do they come off protecting him?' ” Bonanno is supposed to have demanded of De Cavalcante, as De Cavalcante recalled it in his office for Majuri. ” 'This is a Cosa Nostra family!' He's telling me over the telephone. 'The commission told me not to try anything with this guy [Di Gregorio] because the commission is responsible for him!' He [Bonanno] don't care, he thinks n.o.body is responsible, [Di Gregorio] belongs to his his family.... They [the Bonanno organization] took an att.i.tude he was thrown out of their family and that n.o.body should have anything to do with him, and where are they coming off protecting him...” family.... They [the Bonanno organization] took an att.i.tude he was thrown out of their family and that n.o.body should have anything to do with him, and where are they coming off protecting him...”
”Maybe the guy wasn't wrong, right?” Majuri asked De Cavalcante.
”Who?”
”The guy they threw out,” Majuri said, quickly asking what the Bonanno man in New Jersey, Zicarelli, thought about the situation.
”He don't think,” De Cavalcante said, explaining that Joseph Bonanno was Zicarelli's boss. Then De Cavalcante, as if pondering the disastrous consequences that would befall the Mafia if this dispute were not settled, said ”That's all the government would want-a thing like this to happen!”
”It would be all over,” Majuri agreed. ”It wouldn't be like it was with the Gallo boys. This would be an entirely different affair now.”
”It would be,” De Cavalcante said, conjuring up global visions, ”like World War III!”
It was around this period, still a month before Joseph Bonanno's disappearance, that Sam De Cavalcante learned that the commission had lost all patience with Bonanno's independent att.i.tude and had voted to remove him from members.h.i.+p. While the FBI transcripts contain no details on whether the vote was unanimous or even whether all eight of the nine commissioners (excluding Bonanno) partic.i.p.ated in the voting, the FBI listed as commission members in 1964 the following: Stefano Magaddino of Buffalo, Joseph Zerilli of Detroit, Angelo Bruno of Philadelphia, Sam Giancana of Chicago, Joseph Colombo of New York (who reportedly succeeded to the leaders.h.i.+p of the Profaci-Magliocco family), Carlo Gambino of New York, Thomas Lucchese of New York, and the imprisoned Vito Genovese of New York.
While De Cavalcante was under no formal obligation to do so, he decided to inform the New Jersey-based Bonanno member, Joseph Zicarelli, of the commission's edict mainly because he liked Zicarelli personally and because he wanted Zicarelli to start thinking quickly about his own interests.
”Joe,” De Cavalcante began, after Zicarelli had entered his office, ”this is strictly between you and I.”
”Yeah?” Zicarelli said.
”If I didn't do this,” De Cavalcante confessed, ”I'd feel like a lousy b.u.m.” Then he said, ”The commission doesn't recognize foe Bonanno as the boss any more.” Zicarelli said nothing, and De Cavalcante continued, ”I don't know what's the matter with this guy, Joe. I done everything possible.”
As Joe Zicarelli continued to be speechless, De Cavalcante said, ”Well, Joe, I'd feel bad if I didn't tell you. Tomorrow I don't want you to say, 'What the h.e.l.l, we're so close and he couldn't tell me!'... They [the commission] can't understand why this guy's ducking them... They respect all your people as friends of ours, but they will not recognize Joe, his son, and Johnny [Morale].”
Zicarelli seemed incredulous, repeating, ”Joe, his son, and and Johnny?” Johnny?”
”Yeah,” De Cavalcante said, ”when they don't recognize a boss...”
”Then all three goes,” Zicarelli finished the sentence.
”The whole three,” said De Cavalcante, but on the brighter side he explained that ”the commission has no intention of hurting anybody, either. That's most important for me to tell you.” But Zicarelli countered that Joseph Bonanno also had no intention of harming anyone, ”as far as I know.”
”Well,” De Cavalcante said, ”he might hurt people in his own outfit to cover up some of his story,” though he emphasized, ”the commission is out to hurt no one-not even Joe Bonanno. But they don't want no one else hurt either.”
”Who?” Zicarelli asked.
”Right in your own outfit,” De Cavalcante said, meaning Gaspar Di Gregorio and anyone choosing to follow Di Gregorio. ”When Joe defies the commission,” Sam De Cavalcante went on, grandly, ”he's defying the whole world.”
It was not a simple matter for Zicarelli to suddenly accept the verdict about his boss; while Zicarelli had never been in a position to observe the Mafia hierarchy intimately, being merely a Bonanno soldier-or, as he described himself to De Cavalcante elsewhere on the FBI tape, ”a lousy little peasant”-Zicarelli was aware that Joseph Bonanno had been a respected don since 1931, had been a member of the nine-man commission for several years, and it seemed odd that Bonanno would almost overnight be found unfit. Zicarelli also, though only a soldier, had been influenced by the independent style with which Bonanno had long presided as a ”family” boss, being fair and personally close to the men but condoning no interference from other dons. From the formative days of the commission in 1931, following Maranzano's murder, Bonanno had defined the commission as a peacekeeping body that should not intrude into the internal affairs of a family, and since no one had challenged his concept for more than thirty years, why anyone was seeking to do so now confused Zicarelli.
When De Cavalcante sought to explain that the commission was justified in protecting Gaspar Di Gregorio and any other family members who had defected because of the elevation of Bill Bonanno, or for other reasons, Zicarelli kept insisting that all this was an internal matter and that Joseph Bonanno was not obliged to answer for his actions to the other dons on the commission. As to De Cavalcante's point about the elder Bonanno's not appearing before the commission or its representatives as requested, Zicarelli noted that Gaspar Di Gregorio had been boycotting meetings of the Bonanno organization, and Zicarelli asked, ”Why didn't Gasparino [Di Gregorio] come in when all the captains a.s.sembled?”
”Well,” De Cavalcante said, ”he probably had his own rights.”
”Where does this make sense, Sam-where can he have his own rights?” Zicarelli asked, citing as an example, ”You're my boss, you say 'Come in.' Where is my right? I don't have no rights!” Then Zicarelli, speculating darkly about Caspar Di Gregorio's reasons for staying away, asked, ”Is he afraid he's gonna get hit? This guy [Di Gregorio] gotta be guilty of something! Why didn't he come?...He was told! From what I understand, he was given all the extensions in the world, that n.o.body meant no harm or nothing. There was just some misunderstanding and they're holding a meeting. The guy's a captain! What kind of example is he?”
”Well,” De Cavalcante said.
”Right or wrong, you go!” Zicarelli said, quickly. ”I guarantee you one thing-this guy here is my boss. Right or wrong, if he calls me-I'm going! If I'm gonna get hit-the h.e.l.l with it! I get hit and that's the end of it. It don't make no sense to me!”
”This guy refuses to go, right?” De Cavalcante asked, seeking to clarify Di Gregorio's position.
”Yeah.”
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