The Montagna side reached out to Desjardins. Within hours of the attempted murder, they asked Giovanni Bertolo’s younger brother Giuseppe to set up a face-to-face talk between Montagna and the Bertolos’ boss as soon as possible. Giuseppe wasn’t sure it was a good idea. It sounded like another attempt to get at Desjardins.
A Sûreté du Québec surveillance team watched as a black BMW X5 pulled into the Tim Hortons at 10005 Louis-H. Lafontaine Boulevard in Montreal at 3:23 p.m. Not long after that, a black-and-grey Ford Flex also appeared at the doughnut shop. Domenico Arcuri Jr. got out of the Beemer and Montagna stepped from the Flex, and they headed inside. Bertolo texted Vittorio Mirarchi to say the face-to-face meeting with the Montagna group was about to begin—without Desjardins.
Police watched from a distance as Montagna led the discussion. Montagna stressed that it wasn’t his group behind the Desjardins murder bid. The real would-be assassins, according to Montagna, were the “family.” Montagna suggested that new Rizzuto leadership had now been established: Vito’s mother, Zia Libertina. As he described it, all power flowed from the octogenarian. If Montagna was telling the truth, this was a development to be feared, not laughed off. Zia Libertina was a Mafia don’s daughter, and she had recently lost both her husband and her eldest grandson to gunmen while her only son rotted in an American prison cell. It sounded absurd, that the acting boss of a New York Mafia family could be afraid of the wrath of a great-grandmother, but Mickey Mouse was clearly nervous.
Montagna described Desjardins as the only ally he could count on in Canada. Montagna’s men would be happy to meet him anywhere. Montagna nervously tapped his hand as he made his pitch. Bertolo thought he could see tears in Arcuri’s eyes.
Montagna pleaded in the doughnut shop for Arcuri to believe he had nothing to gain from Desjardins’s death. As the American told things, now, more than ever, the Desjardins and Montagna sides needed to stick together. Clearly, the New Yorker was rattled. The fact that Desjardins chose not to meet with him spoke volumes: it was easy to conclude that the hunter and the hunted had shifted roles. Montagna seemed almost relieved by the heavy police surveillance.
The meeting over, Montagna climbed back into the Flex and retreated from sight. The attempt at détente with Desjardins hadn’t been a success, but it could have been worse. At least he hadn’t been shot.
Not long after that, the Desjardins side looked for help from a sixt-ynine-year-old man nicknamed Toilet. Jack Simpson’s nickname came from his plumbing business, but his long criminal record was what made him interesting. His life had been on a downward swirl since he was eleven and his father died. He did time in a delinquent boys’ home, and then prison stretches after convictions for counterfeiting in 1962 and 1980. He had escaped prosecution while running a car dealership that served as a front for Rizzuto family car thefts, but was nabbed again for his role in an attempt to smuggle a planeload of three hundred kilograms of cocaine. That netted him a twenty-eight-year prison sentence in California, which was reduced to sixteen years in 2000 after he was transferred to Canada.
Simpson’s wife and mother died while he was behind bars. Now out on full parole, he was living on Île Vaudry, a working-class/commuter neighbourhood on a small island about fifty kilometres north of Montreal. For all his efforts in crime, Simpson was close to broke. He had a job that paid him seven hundred dollars a week and massive debts that required him to file for bankruptcy and obtain a second mortgage on his home.
Desperate, criminally inclined and with no history of violence: Jack Simpson was just the sort of man who might have a chance of getting close to Mickey Mouse.
CHAPTER 28
The hunt for Mickey Mouse
No one answered on September 19, 2011, when Sûreté du Québec detective Simon Beauchemin and sergeant Benoit Dubé knocked at the door of Raynald Desjardins’s unassuming yellow brick home overlooking the Rivière des Prairies in Laval. They left a business card in the mailbox and drove off to the nearby home of Joe Di Maulo, close to a private golf course where Vito had often played in happier times. No one answered there either.
Their next stop was Desjardins’s workplace in an industrial park on the 10000 block of Secant Street in Anjou, Montreal. Desjardins was there when the officers arrived and listened politely as they tried to appeal to his sense of public safety. It was to no one’s benefit to ignite a mob war. The pain caused by the biker war between the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine/Bandidos in the late 1990s and early 2000s was still fresh in everyone’s mind. That conflict ended at least 160 lives, including that of an eleven-year-old boy, which made it easy for politicians to pass much tougher anti-gang legislation. There had been no winners in that war, only survivors.
Desjardins stuck to his line that he was now into construction, not destruction. “I’m a victim of this situation and I’m a peaceful person.” The officers left him a business card before they drove off.
At 1:00 p.m., the officers were at a café in Saint-Léonard, looking for Vittorio Mirarchi. He wasn’t in and they left a business card with a manager.
Their next stop was an office on the 4000 block of Jarry East, Saint-Léonard, where they left a business card for Di Maulo. At 2:20 p.m., they followed a gravel road to Montagna’s red brick home outside Saint-Hubert. Again, no one answered and they left a business card.
At 5:00 p.m., the detectives received a call from Di Maulo’s lawyer, Pierre Morneau. They told him they wanted to speak with Di Maulo informally about the bungled attempt on his brother-in-law Desjardins’s life. Five minutes later, Di Maulo called Detective Beauchemin, saying he and his lawyer would meet with them later in the day. The location of the meeting was undetermined.
At 5:10, the officers were back at Montagna’s house in the country. A white Cadillac Escalade with New York plates was parked in front of the garage, but the woman who answered the door said he wasn’t in. Detective Dubé left his card and a message that he urgently needed to speak with Montagna.
At 6:15 p.m., Morneau called the officers to say that he and his client could meet now at Pizzédélic on Labelle Boulevard in the off-island Montreal suburb of Rosemère. Fifteen minutes later, they arrived and joined Di Maulo and Morneau at a table. The officers pressed Di Maulo to use his influence to lower the tension and keep a war from exploding.
Smiling Joe did his best to shrug it off. “The media is making this story more than what it is,” he told them.
Through all of the drama, Moreno Gallo laid low. The Montreal mob had split into distinct factions, but no one seemed to know where he stood. Perhaps he realized he held the balance of power. Perhaps he thought he could somehow stay neutral and ride out the chaos.
Gallo wasn’t well known to the public, beyond those who bought pastries at his bakeshop, but the millionaire commanded a considerable reputation in the milieu. He was Calabrian, but had once been considered an ally of Vito. Maybe he maintained a low profile because of his own character, or perhaps it was a result of his lifetime parole conditions, after he was convicted of second-degree murder in the slaying of drug dealer Angelo Facchino in 1973.
Gallo was granted parole in 1983, fading into the background until he appeared on Project Colisée wiretaps in the mid-2000s. His voice was intercepted six dozen times in the backroom of the Consenza Social Club, as he mediated tensions between mobsters and between mobsters and the Hells Angels. Now, as tensions mounted, it was natural to wonder if Gallo might step up to provide badly needed support for Vito or join with Montagna or Desjardins and his rebels. Most likely he knew it was suicidal even to suggest mediation to Vito. For the time being, he chose to remain a wild card. If he was to make a move, there was no point in telegraphing his intentions.
By September 21, 2011, Desjardins’s man Closure Colapelle had the uncomfortable feeling that he and his associates were being followed. They were right: the RCMP had set up surveillance on them. Police and Colapelle were both trying to locate Montagna. Since his failed attempt to meet Desjardins in the Tim Horton
s, the New Yorker was reachable in cyberspace but a phantom on the streets.
Colapelle regularly texted Montagna and his crew, and Montagna still pressed him for a face-to-face with Desjardins. Through text messages, Montagna maintained the pretence that he and Desjardins were allies and that they must join forces against Vito’s family. Did Montagna suspect yet that Colapelle was a spy? Were they smart enough to plant false intelligence with him? Perhaps Mickey’s men had already planted a GPS on his vehicle.
Colapelle heard that Montagna and his group would be at a wedding in late September. The temptation was to attack quickly, while the enemy was liquored and relaxed. True to form, Desjardins played it cool when he heard the news and did nothing but joke with his men.
Police seemed everywhere on the streets now. There was a growing sense among the Desjardins camp that they would move in soon. That was logical. A bust would at least postpone gunfire. In the meantime, better to deter violence with a strong police presence.
Finally, Desjardins sent out word in a text that he would meet with Montagna. Before that meeting, however, Desjardins planned to attend to family matters. The wedding of his daughter Vanessa was scheduled for October 1, 2011, at the Le Mirage golf club in Terrebonne, owned by singing megastar Celine Dion and her manager/husband René Angélil. It would likely be monitored by the RCMP, so there was little chance the Montagna group would attack them there.
When the wedding day arrived, the Mounties made no effort to be discreet. They made notes on who was in attendance, capturing many on camera and video also, including Colapelle, Di Maulo, Jack Simpson, Felice Racaniello, Giuseppe Bertolo, Calogero Milioto, Tony Volpato, Desjardins’s bodyguard Jonathan (Kid) Mignacca and Desjardins’s nephew Hugo Desjardins. Colapelle gave a wedding envelope of $5,000, followed by Di Maulo at $2,000, Simpson $800 and Mignacca $500.
The Desjardins camp worried too that Montagna must be planning to do something about Colapelle. Montagna’s group must suspect something by now. Colapelle refused to slow down. Retreating wasn’t an option and it also wasn’t his nature. His men began tailing Larry Lo Presti, hoping he would lead them to Montagna. Colapelle was hearing plenty, even if he hadn’t yet located the Bonanno boss. By mid-October, Colapelle heard of a meeting involving an old Toronto Italian and the Montagna group. There were also more rumours of an imminent police operation. Who would be the target of the operation remained a mystery.
Rumblings from New York suggested more trouble for Montagna. The Gambinos had just suffered a big hit with early morning raids on a major sports betting ring, and the feeling was that the Bonannos were next on the police to-do list. In Montreal, there was also word that Montagna had pissed off a serious biker, although details on that were sketchy.
Colapelle could feel he was closing in on Montagna. He heard that the New Yorker was now living on the South Shore with his mistress, and frequented two restaurants in the area. Insiders in the Desjardins camp gave him yet another nickname: Lugie, as in phlegm. Colapelle still had people watching Larry Lo Presti. Sooner or later, he had to lead them to Montagna.
Lo Presti, who had dreamed of growing up to be like his father, got his wish on October 24, 2011. He was smoking a cigarette on a condominium balcony on De la Côte-Vertu Boulevard. in Montreal’s Saint-Laurent borough, when someone pulled the trigger on him. At the time of his death, there was talk that Montagna had plans to “do” him, meaning to make him a full Bonanno family member.
Apparently, the junior Lo Presti wasn’t killed by anyone in the Desjardins group, as they appeared clueless as to the cause of the murder. Word from them was that the Lo Presti job was the work of black street gang members. Whatever the case, his assassins remained unidentified, like those who had killed his father.
On October 25, Mirarchi was in downtown Toronto with another man, meeting in the upscale Yorkville area with a violent Albanian immigrant who was seen as an emerging crime boss, as well as a representative of the Commisso crime family and a couple of others. The next morning in Montreal, police visited Desjardins’s office to talk about Lo Presti’s murder, but he wasn’t there. Police finally hooked up with him later in the day, when he was accompanied by his lawyer. Police again appealed to Desjardins to use his influence to avoid another all-out gang war.
Colapelle noted that Montagna didn’t want any of his men to go to Lo Presti’s funeral, as it was to be held out of the Rizzutos’ Loreto funeral home. Anyone who showed up would be “dealt with.” Colapelle was starting to think that Montagna was losing it. If any more proof was needed that he was nuts, this was it. Colapelle heard that the American had delusions of grandeur—ruling Montreal and then Toronto and then planting his flag on the tiny tropical island of St. Martin. It was his deportation fantasy, the way others might have retirement plans.
For their part, the Desjardins side sought out military-grade automatic weapons: AK-47s, .223s, AR-15s. An underworld gun supplier let it be known that they could get high-end Heckler & Koch, Walther, SIG Sauer and Beretta firearms bulk for $3,500 each.
And the hunt for Mickey Mouse continued.
CHAPTER 29
Mickey’s bad day
It was as if Montagna was getting crazier by the day. He seemed frantic as he tried to reassure his loose coalition that he wasn’t behind the hit on Larry Lo Presti. How could anyone suspect such a thing? He had respected Larry’s late father and would not touch his son. Also, Closure reported to Desjardins that Montagna was talking about a mysterious person lurking in Montreal called “36.” Montagna was spreading word that “36” worked with the “family.” Montagna was still pushing the idea hard that it was Vito’s group—now along with “36”—who had tried to kill Desjardins.
While lots of noise was coming from the Montagna side in early November, it was still proving hard to divine exactly where the man himself was.
Desjardins didn’t like going out at night now because he didn’t carry weapons, which would be a breach of his parole conditions. If police caught him carrying a firearm, he would be back in prison to serve out the remaining five years of his drug-smuggling sentence.
The Québécois mobster heard a rumour that Moreno Gallo would have been very nervous to know was circulating. Word was that Gallo had given “files” to Montagna. If true, then Desjardins could be sure that Gallo was firmly in the American’s camp. “Files” referred to the records kept by major organized crime sports books, and Gallo had run Platinum for Vito. A gambler’s “file” was made up of significant financial records, such as mortgages and banking information. It also included the names and addresses of a gambler’s parents and other close relatives. This information would be carefully studied before the operators of a sports book determined how much, if any, credit he could be granted. The information also let the sports book operators know where to go calling if a gambler couldn’t make good on debts. That degree of financial diligence could be overlooked if the prospective gambler was related to someone of interest, such as a professional athlete. In those cases, it was better for the gambler to run up a major debt, so that the book’s operators could suggest to the athlete that all would be forgiven in exchange for the fixing of a game or the provision of inside information on a team. If Gallo had indeed turned over files to Montagna, then not only did Desjardins know what side the millionaire baker had taken, it also meant a major betrayal of Vito, punishable by death.
In the third week of November, Mickey Mouse finally resurfaced. He still wanted to meet with Desjardins, the man he had almost certainly tried to murder just two months earlier. Mickey’s paranoia was feeding off itself and he talked again of bringing up guys from New York to bolster their ranks.
For his part, Desjardins continued his effort to make nice, as if he and Montagna were old friends bonded by common enemies. Desjardins warned him that he had just heard that Operation Whale would hit later that month. Perhaps they could meet to talk about it. There had been a leak about the list of names of targets in the raid. Leaks about upcoming police r
aids were commonplace when the targets were Hells Angels or the mob, with the result that the wanted men were often missing or had cleaned up their environs by the time police arrived. Oddly, Desjardins’s reported list of warrants also contained the names of some honest people. He spoke with conviction as he called for a get-together and warned Montagna to be careful. Within a couple of days, Montagna seemed to believe the police operation was all about him.
The hunt for Mickey Mouse appeared to be almost over.
The wife of a Desjardins associate gave birth to a boy on the morning of November 24, 2011—American Thanksgiving Day. The baby came into the world around the time a video camera captured a white Ford F-150 pickup driven by Jack Simpson leaving Île Vaudry and heading north on Celine-Dion Boulevard. Around that same time, Sal Montagna seemed to be alone as his car entered the metro parking lot, his movements recorded by a security camera.
Moments later, Montagna walked into the lobby of the Hôtel Champlain and descended into the subway. It’s unlikely he was afraid to meet up with seventy-one-year-old Simpson, who had no record of violence.
An hour later, a neighbour of Simpson’s on Île Vaudry heard two shots in quick succession. Next came the sound of shattering glass. A stranger dashed down a slope, away from Simpson’s house. The fleeing man slipped and disappeared from sight. Seconds later, he jumped back into view, frantically attempting to cross the narrow Assomption river. There was a splashing sound in the icy waters. Then nothing. Thirty or forty seconds later, another man, with glasses and backcombed salt-and-pepper hair, climbed into a white pickup truck. As a witness called 911, he saw the white four-door Ford F-150 pickup drive out of view on Celine-Dion Boulevard.
Neighbours ventured out to discover the soaked, bloodied body of a man lying face up in the snow on the riverbank. It looked like the same man who had leapt into the river minutes earlier. He had managed to cross the river, leaving blood in the snow on both banks.
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