You Get What You Pay For (The Tony Cassella Mysteries)

by Beinhart, Larry

  It was one of Phil’s money-laundering schemes that first linked Randolph Gunderson, however loosely, to organized crime figures.

  “A panderer of unsupported, unsupportable, and untrue gossip of the foulest sort,” the Attorney General calls him. “It is unfortunate that anyone would take such a flake seriously.”

  The round-faced, merry-eyed subject of all this secondhand analysis laughs with delight at the descriptions. With one exception. “Loreen. It hurts that she says the things she says.”

  Loreen Lenore Bowdoin, the ex-Mrs. Buono, is prone to tears when she describes Philip. “Boys will be boys,” she says, “and my mama, she always says there’s certain things a woman has to put up with. But Philip took everything to excess. That first time we were separated he had that heart-shaped pool built. The things that went on there. Teenage girls! Wearing nothing but oil-base mosquito repellent and little-bitty bits of gold lamé!” Ms. Bowdoin is currently in her third lawsuit against her former husband, this time seeking ownership of the Buono family bank when it is released from federal receivership.

  “I’m actually happier now,” Philip says. “I’ve found my personal savior in Jesus Christ. Not that I am ashamed of what I did in the past. What I did, I did better than anyone else. A man must have pride in his work. ‘By the fruit you shall know the tree.’ One of the reasons that I came forward was that I couldn’t share what I was doing.”

  Philip came to Jesus at 3:48 on a Sunday afternoon. He credits Tom Landry, coach of the Dallas Cowboys, who appeared in a TV commercial explaining that his personal relationship with God was more important than football.

  ______________________________

  Buono was handling skim from a Las Vegas casino, La Puta d’Oro, thirty-two stories high, four and one-quarter acres of slots alone, whose books were always in the red, but it never went out of business. The major hidden owners were (allegedly) the Cleveland mob and the Gonzoni crime family in New York. They were represented, respectively, by Steve Susman and Don Liccavolo.

  Randolph Gunderson’s Sun Group had a controlling interest in Sunview Estates, which in turn was in a limited partnership in a development called Sunrise Park. It was this last that Buono used for the casino money. Gunderson could make a good case that he had nothing to do with the Sunrise Park arrangements and no way of knowing that any of the money was tainted.

  Except that one day he came to dinner. With Buono, Susman, and Liccavolo. At the Golden Phoenix Golf & Country Club. Over after-dinner drinks, Steve or Don put an attaché case on the table. He opened it. It was full of cash. About $700,000, Phil remembered.

  Steve then said to Gunderson, “The boys from New York told us you had the Midas touch. ‘If it’s Gunderson, it’s gold,’ that’s what they say. I’m glad it’s in your hands.”

  Gunderson, Susman, and Liccavolo all denied that the dinner ever took place.

  Phil was not the only federal witness who recognized Gunderson. Sal Minelli tied him to the New Jersey Teamsters, aka the Prozzini crime group. Benito Caputo said he’d seen Gunderson with Santino Scorcese. And of course the FBI had tapes of Santino Scorcese talking about, if not to, Gunderson.

  The known Scorcese-Gunderson connection was with Empire Properties, the other side of Randolph’s holdings.

  Santino owned several junkyards. One of his junkyards, near Piscataway, New Jersey, occupied a portion of what was to become the site of a new industrial park developed by the New Jersey Revival Corporation, in which 28th Street Corporation held a controlling interest.

  Shortly before New Jersey Revival Corporation entered the arena, Scorcese began acquiring his neighbors’ properties. Two things made his purchases easier. One was a series of accidents and fires. The other was an interest-free loan of $300,000 from Empire Properties. Financial records showed the initials “R.G.” beside the approval of the disbursement—that is, it had been approved by Gunderson himself.

  By the time Gunderson was appointed attorney general, Santino “The Wrecker” Scorcese was in prison on unrelated matters. Fenderman, the special prosecutor, called him to testify. Frank Felacco, Fat Freddy Ventana, and an unnamed driver met with Santino’s son, Arthur. During a conversation in which they allegedly asked the younger Scorcese to influence his father not to testify, they shot Arthur.

  Felacco and Ventana were members of the Lupino family. I had a passing acquaintance with one member of the Lupino family, Michael Pollazzio, aka Mikey Fix. Pollazzio was on favor-trading terms with Vincent Cassella, my father’s older brother.

  The Cleveland group represented by Susman was alleged to have ties to the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund, controlled by Jackie Presser, Successor to Mike Fitzgerald, successor to James Hoffa. Presser, like Gunderson, had been a member of the presidential transition team.

  The aftermath of the Scorcese killing was also in the papers.

  The police started looking for Frank Felacco right away. He had gone to the Bronx in his own car. Carlos Ortiz had written down the license plate. And for Freddy, because when someone says Felacco and a fat guy, it’s Freddy. They found Freddy and put him in a cell on Rikers Island. His cellmate was a federal informant. Another one. The informant was referred to by police spokespersons as Mr. T.

  Freddy knew that Mr. T was a federal informant because Mr. T told him so. Apparently he said that his crime normally carried a seven to fifteen year sentence, but by becoming an informant, he’d gotten it reduced to one year. Freddy thought that was a great deal. Freddy said to Mr. T, “This is what I done,” in detail, and “What kinda deal you think I could make?” Mr. T immediately told all of that to the D.A. The D.A. shared it with the press.

  It seemed like an open-and-shut murder case. And the ultimate pop of the Gunderson balloon.

  Frank Felacco was not arrested. He turned himself in. Accompanied by attorneys, of course.

  Frank claimed that his automobile had been stolen the night before the event, and at the time of the event, he and several cronies, including Fat Freddy, were at home playing pinochle.

  It was not a terribly credible alibi. Except that the tape logs of incoming phone calls to the Long Beach Police Department confirmed that Felacco had reported the theft of his car before the murder.

  Mr. Ventana, after meeting with Mr. Felacco’s attorneys, recanted his conversation, explaining that only someone very stupid would tell such a story to someone that he knew was a federal informant—true enough—unless, of course, he did it as a joke. “You know, kinda like a put-on, it was. I tol’ him all that stuff about Gunderson to make the [expletive deleted] Feds go nuts, you know, this way and that way, about, you know, Gunderson.”

  The government’s key witness, Carlos Ortiz, was an ace on the getaway car and license plate, but not much on a people ID. The testimonies of Inez Rodriguez and Estelle Kalmanowitz were worth even less.

  There was only one real mystery about the whole thing. That Randolph Gunderson—and the administration with which he was associated—had emerged unscathed.

  17.

  Reaganomics

  STRAIGHTMAN CALLED ME AGAIN. As I expected.

  I agreed to meet with him to discuss the matter. Once again, he wanted to background everything with partisan politics.

  A lot of what he said was familiar from the preceding days in the library. Gunderson had sent a general memo that the Justice Department would back up any department that refused to open records under a Freedom of Information Act request. Gunderson’s Justice Department had consistently appeared in court against desegregation, most notoriously in appearing for Bob Jones University, a segregated Baptist college that wanted a tax exemption, but also in school cases in Seattle, Nashville, and East Baton Rouge.

  We are not going to compel children who do not want … an integrated education to have one.

  RANDOLPH GUNDERSON

  The mere finding of some statistical pattern that indicates that once upon a time, in bygone days, there had been injustice is not what we are here to r
emedy. But make no mistake, this government is committed to Civil Rights in any and every case in which there is intent to discriminate and we can find remedies for the direct victims of discrimination.

  RANDOLPH GUNDERSON,

  explaining Justice Department opposition to court-ordered affirmative action in the New Orleans Police Department (Williams v. City of New Orleans [#82-3435 5th Cir.])

  “Your issues are not what the issues are for me,” I said.

  But the congressman wanted to recite his list of social justice issues. Reagan had cut or was trying to cut Social Security, the Legal Services Corporation, milk for schoolchildren, food stamps, Meals on Wheels, low-income housing, education for the handicapped, the minimum wage, environment controls, parks.

  The one thing he said that struck a chord, in spite of myself, was that union busting was high on their list. According to Straightman, the PATCO strike was a setup. The air traffic controllers had been led on by the administration so that Reagan would have a union to bust. My father, very much an idealist, had been a union organizer. He had been driven out of his own union by the mob in collusion with the government.

  “My decision,” I said, “is going to be based on money.”

  “You’re willing to do it,” he said eagerly.

  “My price,” I said, “is one hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Anthony.” He sighed. “I want you to get what you deserve. But I know what you can be had for. It’s more like two-fifty a day.”

  “It’s gone up,” I snapped. “Blame it on Reaganomics.”

  “A hundred thousand for four months or less is quite a lot.”

  “What’s four months got to do with it?”

  “It all comes down to one day,” he said. “One day. November 6. They walk into the booth, close the curtain, and pull the lever. We need the indictment early enough for it to grow into an issue. The minimum would be thirty days. But my target day is Labor Day. September third, 1984.”

  “The special prosecutor, he had all the time he wanted and a million bucks. Now you’re quibbling about a hundred grand. Forget it,” I said, and stood up. “So here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna walk on out of here and mail you a bill for two days of jerking me around.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  “Maybe we can come to some kind of terms.”

  “Are you really up for this, John? Forgetting about my fee, start thinking about the expenses. The expenses are going to be huge.”

  “We’re committed,” he said. “What it takes is what it takes.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “I can’t tell you that. For their sake and mine.”

  “And I don’t work for people I don’t know who they are.”

  “How can I explain this? … If you think of the money as coming out of the same place as the Democratic National Committee’s television budget, that would give you a good idea of where the money’s coming from. From contributors.”

  “Then my hundred thousand is cheap.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “When you’re right, you’re right. If you expose Gunderson, and if that swings the election, I’ll meet your price.”

  “Swing the election? Forget it,” I said. “You’re gonna run Mondale—”

  “That’s not settled yet.”

  “—which is like the Midwest reruns of Jimmy Carter.”

  “It could well be someone else,” he said.

  “Who? Jesse Jackson? Gary Hart? You’re going to beat Reagan with a Negro? Or a yuppie? You hire me to nail Randolph Gunderson. Period. What that does to the election, I don’t know. It’s way beyond my control.”

  “Let’s be reasonable,” he said. “Let me try to formulate this so it’s good for both of us. We’re talking about four months. Sixteen weeks. That’s twelve thousand five a month. That’s fifty thousand dollars.”

  We fenced back and forth about it. “A minimum of fifty guaranteed,” I said. “Let’s say I nail him in one day. Or even in one month. Then I’m motivated not to tell you, to sit on it so I make more money.”

  He finally agreed to that. Then I said, “The bonus is one hundred thousand.”

  “Wait a minute … ”

  “You want me to gamble for it. Then it’s double.”

  He sighed.

  “It’s take-it-or-leave-it time,” I said.

  He frowned. Then he nodded. “I think we have an agreement in principle.” He even manufactured a smile—a rueful one—and held out his hand to shake.

  I didn’t take it. “In principle is one thing. Let’s nail the details. I want the bonus in escrow. With instruction that it be turned over to me when I present information that makes Gunderson indictable. And,” I said, “I want it in a Swiss bank.”

  “Why in a Swiss bank?”

  “Because,” I said, telling the truth, “it has style.”

  “To be turned over when he is indicted,” Straightman said. “So long as it’s before Labor Day.”

  “Come on. October tenth. After I do my job, some D.A. is going to have to prepare a case. Then take it before a grand jury. Then they have to return the indictment. Besides, nobody gets serious about the election until the first debates.”

  “Yes they do,” he said.

  “The politicians, maybe, but not the voters.”

  “Try to make the Labor Day date.”

  “I will,” I said. A wonderful thought came to me. Possibly the greatest I’ve ever had. “The only thing left is that you should know that we’re marking up expenses thirty-five percent these days.”

  “Don’t kid a kidder,” he said, “and don’t press your luck. I’ve had bills from you. You don’t mark up expenses.”

  “Didn’t, John, didn’t. Our accountants really got on our ass about that. It costs us twelve to fifteen percent to process expenses, bookkeeping, overhead, audits, interest paid and interest lost. So you take that, and also nobody should be handling money for free.”

  “You’re pushing it, Tony.”

  “For you, John, thirty percent.”

  “Twenty. Period. Nonnegotiable. And you’ll make out like a bandit on that.”

  So I would. “All right,” I said grudgingly. “But no bullshit, no nit-picking. I’m straight with expenses, and a lot of this stuff, there won’t be no receipts.”

  We shook hands.

  Gerry Yaskowitz drew up the agreement within the week. He suggested two addenda. One was that I be employed by an attorney for Straightman so that I would be protected, however slightly, by extension of the attorney-client privilege. Straightman passed a dollar across the table and named Yaskowitz his legal representative in this matter. That was fine all around. The second was that in the event of my death, the bonus be paid to the beneficiary of my choice. The congressman countered with a suggestion that he would pay the additional premiums required to increase my life insurance by that amount. That was sensible. Wayne would remain the beneficiary, with Glenda as trustee.

  The Swiss account was opened with a $100,000 deposit. That’s a lot of money. In New York you can buy one room of your average condo with it.

  18.

  Game Plan

  I WAS SO THRILLED with my newfound prosperity that I even attended a tenants’ meeting with Glenda.

  She was pleased. “I can’t believe you’re actually coming. I thought you’d avoid it forever.” We kissed and rubbed our hips against each other.

  “Got a good, good piece of business in,” I told her. “Lot of money, and four months’ work, guaranteed.”

  “What is it?”

  “Complicated. It’s really convoluted. I’ll tell you later.” We walked into the meeting with our arms around each other’s waists.

  We discovered that Wirtman had refinanced the building just before he filed the conversion plan. In effect, he was selling the building twice. Once to the bank, then to us. Leaving us to pay off the bank, at 18 percent rather than the 9 percent the old mortgage had been. In addition,
we were buying a building that was 90 percent mortgaged instead of 30 percent. It was going to take an extra ten years to pay it off. It was going to cost us, Glenda and I personally, an additional $136 a month just to service the debt. All of which confirmed my worst suspicions.

  “I don’t understand your attitude about this,” she said. Her lust to own was undiminished. “Why do you have an attitude about this?”

  “If we have a choice between renting and owning, we should be aware that there is a price for owning. Is it worth—”

  “You love to talk about costs and numbers, as if you’re ever so rational,” she said. “That’s one of your macho things, pretending everything you do is rational. But you should see the look on your face whenever the subject comes up.”

  “Whatever the look on my face, it doesn’t change the numbers.”

  “Is it the money? That you think we can’t afford it?”

  “Well, actually … ”

  “If that’s what it is, maybe it’s time to look at some other things objectively.”

  “Actually, at the moment, we can afford it. I wish it were six months from now. I would have a better idea if it was going to stay that way.”

  “Anthony, you’re exceptionally bright. We all know that.” In good-girl school, they teach them to always say something positive before they offer criticism. The result is that whenever she says something nice, I cringe at what’s to follow. “Why do you choose to live this way? Not knowing from month to month, from day to day, how much money you’re going to have?”

  “I just got the highest-paying job I’ve ever had,” I said.

  “I just think you should … you should take a look at yourself. You did well in law school. You’ve said it yourself, you’re a better lawyer than most of the lawyers you work for. You know you could go back. Or finish at night. You’ve made yourself less than you’re capable of.”