by Philip Carlo
“Hey,” he called to them before turning to Vinnie and Manny. “There’s my nephew Tom and his pal Jim. Good guys, really good guys. Come on, let’s go down and have a drink with them.” Before Vinnie and Manny knew it, they were being shepherded downstairs by Ellin and were by the pool having drinks.
Between Jim, Tom, and George Ellin, Manny didn’t have a chance. It would be just a matter of time. But the game had to be played out until the last inning, at which point the DEA would hit a home run. At the pool they drank, cracked jokes; talked about women and sports, how nice the hotel was…ogling women around the pool.
Later that night they had dinner together. Of course, they took Manny and Vinny to the finest restaurant in the area. Manny drank so much he got sick. The following morning they talked about going fishing, but Manny had a horrific hangover. Still, he wanted to take a look at their boat. He was very impressed by it. He reluctantly agreed to go fishing. This boat was certainly not cut out for fishing, but it would be a way for the agents to get Manny to drop his guard further, for them to become closer to him. There were fishing poles, bait, and lures, and in fact, they did catch fish that day. George Ellin offhandedly mentioned that they used this boat not for fishing, but they used it to transport marijuana from the outer islands to the Florida and Carolina coasts.
Manny was, again, impressed. Jim, Tom, and George Ellin were so convincing that he bought what they were laying down hook, line, and sinker. Later that night, at dinner, the conversation turned toward marijuana. Manny said he needed a taste. They told him that would be no problem, that they understood. The following day, Manny and Vinnie headed back to New York. The trap was baited and set.
Back in New York, Vinnie continued to buy heroin from Manny as Manny sent queries to his counterparts throughout the country about marijuana. He was now assuring his colleagues that he could get everybody all the high-grade grass they wanted. Tom, Jim, and George wound up again meeting with Manny and DeMarco in New York. This time Manny wined and dined them in a restaurant in Little Italy and ultimately he said that he’d like Paulo to check out the grass. The agents had been expecting this; they were waiting for it. They, the Italians, were taking the bait.
Several days later, Paulo in fact came down to Tampa, Florida, and was met by Jim and Tom and taken to the secret stash house. However, before they took him there, they blindfolded him, to which he readily agreed.
“I understand,” he said. “No problem.”
Inside the warehouse, on a quiet, industrial street, which reeked with the sweet, pungent odor of sensimilla, Paulo’s eyes grew wide at the sight of so much high-grade marijuana in one place. He was impressed; it was hard not to be. The screw was tightening. They talked about samples being delivered to New York. Jim readily agreed that they would give him all the samples he needed. “Whatever you need, no problem,” Jim said. They shook hands, hugged and kissed, as is the Italian way. Paulo was again blindfolded and soon was on his way back to New York, where he assured Manny that these guys were on the “up-and-up.”
It was now time for the government agents to get a sample to New York. Jim spoke to his boss Ken Feldman, who petitioned the upper echelons of the DEA to give Jim permission, because of an ongoing investigation, to bring fifty pounds of the marijuana, a bale of it, up to New York. Two first-class seats were arranged for Jim and the fifty-pound bale on a commercial airline. With the necessary papers in hand, Jim approached the plane carrying the grass, asked for the captain, and told him what was up. The captain looked at the papers and welcomed him and the marijuana aboard. Jim placed the bale in the seat next to him. So it wouldn’t be bouncing all over, he strapped it in, and then strapped himself in. Passengers’ eyes widened at the sight of him sitting there next to this huge bale of high-grade marijuana. People seemed to notice it because of the smell; it filled the first-class cabin. The plane landed without a mishap. Tommy Geisel met him at the airport, and soon Sicilians and Calabrians were smoking and sampling the marijuana. It was the best pot available and everybody wanted some.
Everything was going smoothly. Jim and Tommy had their sights on a bull’s-eye. Then, out of nowhere, there was a conference call in Miami between the FBI and the higher-ups in the DEA and it was decided that they were going to rush the closure of the case, shut the operation down in two weeks. Manny Adamita was far too important; they were afraid he’d get away. They felt that at this juncture, if he did disappear, it wouldn’t bode well for anyone. They already had plenty on him and they wanted him brought down now.
Jim and Tom were not happy about this. He knew this decision was politically motivated—that the FBI wanted to get it over with more quickly. Jim and Tom felt that Manny would be able to bring them still bigger, more dangerous fish if they’d just give it some time, if they just let it play out.
Be that as it may, the order was irreversible, and both the FBI and DEA mechanized as swiftly as they could to bring down as many bad guys as possible. There were numerous wiretaps up because of Vinnie DeMarco bringing Manny Adamita to Jim and Tom’s attention, and the potential for a substantial number of arrests was great if they played their cards right. They were ready to pounce, all coiled muscle.
It was decided they should get as much bang for their buck as possible and Jim passed word to Manny via Vinnie that Jim and Tommy wanted to buy a kilo of heroin. At this point, Manny was so at ease with Tom and Jim that he readily came to meet them carrying the kilo of nearly pure heroin. Jim and Tom had checked into a fancy suite at the Parker Meridien Hotel in midtown Manhattan. Manny was all hugs and kisses. He kept kissing them over and over again, as is the Sicilian way, told them it was great that they had met, that it was great to have friends you could trust, that the world was a rotten place, and that they could all make money without worry. He kissed them again and again, often using the word paesan.
“So,” Tom said after a drink and far too many kisses, “do you have a package for us?”
“Sure, sure, yeah, I do. I got it in the car.”
“Well, you want to bring it up?”
“Sure, yeah,” Manny said, and left to go get the package from the car, having no idea that he was about to walk into a lion’s den. Agents followed him to his car and watched him get a package from his trunk then reenter the hotel, get on the elevator, and make his way to Jim and Tom’s room, where he knocked on the door.
Jim opened the door and Manny walked in.
“Like I promised!” Manny said.
Jim opened the package to make sure it was heroin and then came the moment when reality hit Manny Adamita like a lightning bolt. Jim Hunt turned to him, suddenly dour, and said, “Manny, we’re DEA agents. You’re under arrest,” stern and strong and deadly serious.
Manny went from his original ruddy, dark color to chalk white. Inside, his stomach twisted into a knot. His hands trembled.
“You’re…kidding,” he barely managed to say in a weak voice.
“No…we aren’t kidding,” Tom replied.
Over the next several days, two hundred men were arrested both here in the United States and across the globe—all because Vinnie DeMarco agreed to help Jim Hunt and Tommy Geisel.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
STREET MONKEY
Because of the excellent work of Vinnie DeMarco in helping with the arrests of Manny Adamita, Paulo Rizzuto, and a trainload of drug dealers stateside and abroad, he was allowed to plead guilty and received probation…got a sweetheart deal. Vinnie had become very fond of Jim Hunt and Tom Geisel. He thought of them more as trusted friends and confidants than as cops. Therefore, it wasn’t surprising that several months later, when a friend of DeMarco’s needed help, he reached out to Jim and Tommy and asked for a meeting—only this time it involved one of the most infamous murderers La Cosa Nostra ever produced, opening a door into a Mafia cemetery the likes of which the world had never known.
Jim and Tom arranged to meet Vinnie in a luncheonette in Brooklyn. Vinnie told them a friend of his was in “real bad” tro
uble. “I wouldn’t come to you guys, bother you with this, but he’s a good kid,” said DeMarco. “He’s gotten into something bad over his head. He’s gotten involved in…with a real bad dude. He’s scared shitless. He owes him money for some drugs. This guy not only kills people for the Bonannos, but he kills for other families as well. He enjoys killing. He cuts them up. He’s known as Whack-o.”
They looked at each other. There was a heavy silence. What DeMarco was saying, both Jim and Tommy felt, had the ring of truth—there was a fear and apprehension about his face and in his eyes, in his every gesture. They had come to know him well through working on the Pizza Two case. What Vinnie was trying to do here was use Jim and Tommy to protect his friend, Angelo Favara, not only from “Whack-o” but from Angelo himself.
“How can we help?” Jim asked.
“Well, it’s a touchy situation. I don’t want to see the kid get killed. See…see the problem is—the kid wants to take out the guy before he strikes. He wants to hire a killer. What I’m saying is the kid needs help. He’s looking for…well, to be honest with you, he wants to kill this killer before the killer kills him, ha ha. I know it sounds nuts, but it’s what’s happening,” he said.
“Does he have money?” Jim asked.
“I don’t think so much.”
“Who’s this guy? Who’s this killer you’re talking about?”
“Tommy Pitera,” Vinnie said. “He’s got a bar over on Avenue S and he’s big into drugs. He’s with the Bonannos.”
“Is he made?” Tommy asked.
“I’m pretty sure he is,” DeMarco said, his voice taking on a serious tone like that of a doctor bringing bad news.
This was interesting to the two agents. An observant onlooker would have seen a hint of excitement in both their eyes. Jim Hunt asked, “What’s your friend’s name?”
“Angelo Favara.”
Jim and Tom were thinking this might lead to something big. They knew for a fact that the Bonannos were heavy into drugs; they knew for a fact that the Bonannos were responsible for more heroin and cocaine being brought into the United States than all of the other families put together. They were the go-to guys for drugs. The fact that DeMarco said this Pitera guy was with the Bonannos was what further piqued both Jim and Tommy’s interest. Maybe, Jim reasoned, the door could slowly be opening on another very large case. Even after the French Connection case and after the Pizza Connection case, Jim knew damn well that the Italians were still bringing huge amounts of drugs into the country, that the Italians were beginning to work with other ethnic groups—particularly Colombians. The Colombians, he also knew, had raised the level of their business acumen to such a high degree that the Italians saw them as viable business partners, not out-of-control cowboys like the Dominicans, the Mexicans.
Vinnie now, for the first time, sheepishly confessed to Jim and Tom that he had told Angelo that they were hit men, that they had killed a witness in a murder case against his son. Some months earlier, Vinnie’s son had been in jail for murder and was released because a witness backed out of testifying. Vinnie—wanting to keep Angelo Favara out of trouble, wanting to protect him from himself—had lied to Angelo and told him Tom and Jim had killed a witness against his son in the murder rap.
“Okay,” Jim told Vinnie, “set up a meet.” Looking forward to where this would lead, though wary and on guard.
Rota’s was on East Tremont and Castle Hill Avenue in Parkchester, the Bronx. It was a nondescript bar with a thirsty blue-collar/middle-class clientele. The lights were low. There was a mirror behind the bar.
When Jim and Tommy arrived, they were in disguise, dressed in faded jeans, beat-up boots, their hair long and raggedy. They sported beards. These two had an uncanny ability to alter their appearance. They spotted Angelo Favara at the bar. He was in his late thirties, slovenly, ill kempt, pale with dark circles under his eyes. He had messy black hair. He was five seven. He was what Jim called a “street monkey.” Drinks were ordered. Tommy and Jim had beers. Angelo drank hard alcohol. Angelo was tense and uptight. He was a worried man. His eyes moved back and forth like two small, nervous fish. During Jim’s professional career, he had met dozens of men like this. They had the world on their shoulders, were about to make a life change, were about to put their lives in the hands of others. There was no doubt in his mind that Angelo Favara was a scared man. After making some small talk, Angelo got right down to it. He had a lot on his mind and was anxious to express it.
“You guys come highly recommended. I trust DeMarco. He knows what he’s talking about. I got myself in bad trouble. I’m the first to admit I’ve made mistakes. There’s this guy in Brooklyn named Tommy Karate. He’s a killer. I mean a stone-cold killer. He enjoys killing people. For him, it’s not a job, it’s a pleasure. Everybody in Brooklyn knows it. He not only kills people but he cuts them up.”
Here, Angelo looked at Tom and Jim’s reaction. He saw nothing. He waited for a response.
“And what do you want from us?” Tom asked.
“I don’t want to die. I want this guy dead; I want him killed. I’ll pay, I can pay.”
Chuckling, Jim leaned forward as though he was afraid of being recorded and said, “Look, we don’t know you and you don’t know us. We are very good at what we do. We are professionals. We don’t come cheap. You got money to pay us?”
“Well, um,” Angelo began, unsure of himself. “No, I don’t have the money right now, but I’ll get it.”
“How much do you owe him?” Jim asked.
“Oh, about eight thousand.”
“That’s not much,” Jim said.
“No, it’s not, but when you don’t have it, it’s a lot.”
“Well, what do you want from us?” Jim said bluntly.
Angelo said, “Well, I thought because of your relationship with Vinnie, you might do this for free.”
Both Jim and Tommy laughed at Angelo’s audacity. He obviously wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, they both knew. That was irrelevant. What was relevant was that he could bring them to something bigger.
“Why don’t you work it off? It’s not that much. Get some stuff from him, off it, do it a couple of times, and you’ll be free of him,” Jim said.
Angelo looked at them. “The problem with that is it’s easier said than done. I get the coke and I end up doing it and then I end up owing them more money. I swear I have every intention of giving him what’s due, but then one thing happens and another thing happens…I lost a child, I don’t know why I’m talking about this now, but I lost the child because of SIDS. It’s a hard thing to get over, but when I do coke, I don’t feel anything. I feel numb.”
This, of course, was the age-old problem of drug abusers—they could not control what they did and how much they did it. An addict put not only his or her life on the line but also the lives of his or her children, spouses, parents, and on and on. It was for these reasons that for the most part, the DEA stayed away from addicts. Here, now, what Jim and Tom were looking at was a drug-using lowlife who had gotten himself in trouble and was trying to weasel his way out of it.
Jim said, “We’re always looking for something good, good dope. If this guy has good stuff, we’ll take some off his hands. We’ll buy it directly from you.”
“Really?” Angelo said, brightening up.
“Sure. We’ll take all you can get.”
“Okay,” he said. “I can do that. No problem.”
As Angelo talked, they drank. He finished his drink and had another. The more alcohol he consumed, the looser he became with his mouth. He kept going back to Pitera. He kept talking about what a dangerous, bad, stone-cold killer he was. Nearly every other word out of his mouth was killer. He described him as a martial arts expert who loved to murder people.
“He’s pale like a vampire,” he said.
Ultimately, arrangements were made for Jim and Tommy to meet with Angelo in Brooklyn. They would meet a woman named Judy Haimowitz, who, according to Angelo, was one of Pitera’s deale
rs.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE VAMPIRE OF AVENUE S
When Jim Hunt and Tommy Geisel finished with Angelo, they discussed what they heard on their way back home. They believed they were onto something. Both Jim and Tommy, however, were naturally skeptical. Often street people embellished and exaggerated to such a degree that they were living in a fantasyland. But there was something about what this Angelo character said about Pitera that not only had the ring of truth but had an innate sense of dread, a sense of foreboding about it. Whether or not that was all in his own head or was reality, they’d soon find out.
The following day, Jim and Tommy reported to DEA headquarters on Fifty-seventh Street. They repeated what they had learned to their boss Ken Feldman and their colleagues in Group 33. Everyone agreed it was certainly worth pursuing and pursuing in a large, serious way. They ran a search for Pitera’s file and checked his record. Interestingly, he had no police record, but they found out he was a highly trained black belt in karate who had studied martial arts in Japan for some two and a half years. He was also known to hang out with members of the Bonanno crime family.
When Tommy and Jim next went to meet Angelo in Brooklyn’s Gravesend, they were not alone. They had backup with them. Excited by the prospect, by the potential enormity of this case, they made their way to Brooklyn via its Belt Parkway. They went under the grand expanse of the Verrazano Bridge, the Narrows Straits on their right, Bensonhurst on their left. They got off at the Cropsey Avenue/Coney Island exit, took a left, and made their way into Gravesend. There were two vehicles: the one that Tommy and Jim were in and a van with four other agents. They were each heavily armed. Never knowing what they would face, they were on guard. Even if a small part of what Angelo said about Pitera was true, this could very well turn into a dangerous situation. They all realized you never knew what you were walking into. What seemed like an innocuous situation could turn deadly at a moment’s notice.
