Donnie Brasco

by Joseph Pistone

  “Okay.”

  “I hope he’s all right.”

  “Yeah, Tony’s all right.”

  “I mean, I don’t wanna get him scared by saying that, and I representing him.”

  “Right.”

  “They wanted to know if he was a local guy. I said, definitely a local guy.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Now, once they call me, I’ll be on standby there. When I call New York and they call back, it might take a day, might take two hours. In other words, I cannot move away from that room. We’ll have to eat and drink and sleep there. Understand?”

  “Yeah, we wait.”

  “They’ll send representatives down to pick me up and they’ll take me to go with these people. We all go—me, you, and him. But I go into a separate room with them for the first conversation at the table. I represent the situation. They cause him a table. When everything is all right, then I call him in, I introduce them after the first conversation.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, the money he sent me. I went for already five hundred on my phone. My plane I’m taking first-class is two-hundred-thirty something. And we gotta entertain them people after I get through introducing them. And I dropped two-fifty at the Newark Airport, with all them people. Because it took me four hours. But I ain’t worried about that. The most important thing is that the main one comes from that town and everything is beautiful. Not to go further. But they told me, I sit down with them alone. And then they’re gonna check him out. So as long as we got a peace of mind there.”

  “Yeah, there’s no problem with Tony.”

  “Good enough.”

  Lefty flew out. We went to our room at the Midway Motor Lodge. Lefty called New York and told them what room he was in. New York was to call the Chicago-Rockford people and tell them what room Lefty was in. Then somebody would call and say they were on the way to pick us up. We just had to sit and wait for the phone call.

  Lefty had said we might end up waiting any amount of time, even days. That’s what happened. We couldn’t leave the hotel. Conte came to hang around with us during the day. We had a first-floor room. We sat around the indoor pool. We played cards. We shot the breeze. We ate breakfast, lunch, dinner. At night we hung around the lounge and listened to the band.

  Lefty briefed Conte on the upcoming sitdown. Conte now belonged to the Bonannos, so the Milwaukee boss couldn’t steal him or the vending plans. The options the Milwaukee boss had were: yes, you can stay and do what you want; yes, you can stay and I’m your partner; or no, I don’t want you here. The Bonannos had to abide by his decision.

  “I tell them that you’re out of Baltimore, you’re here three years. I know you from Baltimore. You’re going into a pinball business. You’re buying a route. You won’t disrespect nobody. I’m involved in it, my money. You’re like our representative out here. We don’t want no problems. Because we can handle our own problems. You open the doors for us, we appreciate it, and if you got somebody’s relative that wants to come in with us, most likely they will. That’s all. Like Mike, my man, says, ‘Short and sweet.’ ”

  “I just tell them that some of it’s your money and some of it’s my money?”

  “You don’t tell him anything. You don’t do no talking. ”

  “I meant if they ask.”

  “No, they don’t ask you nothing. They can’t ask you. They have no right to ask you. They take my word for everything I say to them. Because I’m not asking them to put nothing up.”

  “I’ll be glad when this is over,” Conte says.

  “Sure, you’ll have peace of mind.”

  One day went by. Two days. Just sitting and waiting. I thought, What the hell am I doing here? My wife is home trying to cope with recovering while I’m sitting around a damn motel twiddling my thumbs. Finally on the third day I said, “Left, I’m not sitting around here any more waiting for this phone call. We might be waiting another week. I gotta get back and see my girl. She’s not doing too good.”

  “What are you talking about?” he snaps. “We gotta wait for this here. I thought you said your girl was working.” “

  “She was, but she had a relapse. I’ll just shoot out there for a day or so, then shoot right back here.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about, Donnie? This is the most important thing we got right here. We got a sitdown coming up. You’re putting your girl before what we got here.”

  “Hey, Left, I gotta. She’s got nobody out there, she’s in bad shape. Just a day or two, I’ll come right back.” “

  “Unbelievable, you put her first. That’s the trouble with you, Donnie. You fucking take off anytime you feel like it. She ain’t gonna die. What are you worrying about?”

  That really ticked me off. I flew home.

  The next day they got the call.

  Three guys came to pick them up: Joe Zito, the old man from Rockford who was the main contact, and two guys named Charlie and Phil. They had Conte and Lefty follow them downtown to a dinner theater named Center Stage, which was owned by Frank Balistrieri. There they were introduced to Frank’s brother, Peter, and Steve DiSalvo, who was Frank’s right-hand man. Then to drive to the sitdown, Conte suggested that the Rockford guys ride with him and Lefty. They followed Peter and Steve to Snug’s Restaurant, in the Shorecrest Hotel on North Prospect. These, too, were Frank’s places.

  At Snug’s they had the sitdown with Frank Balistrieri, the boss of Milwaukee; his brother, Peter; Steve DiSalvo; and the three Rockford guys.

  Lefty gave them the rundown before calling Conte in. When Lefty introduced Conte, Frank Balistrieri started to laugh.

  Conte called me to tell me about it. It seems that Balistrieri didn’t know Conte was hooked up with New York, didn’t associate him with Lefty and the sitdown. He had Conte and me stalked out because we were trying to start a vending-machine company and move into Frank’s town. He had two guys watching the office during the time we were waiting with Lefty at the motel.

  “Frank Balistrieri pointed at me,” Conte said, “and he said, ‘We was gonna hit you. We thought you was the G.’ ”

  “G” is the government. His first thought had been that Conte was an agent. Because if he and the guy he was with—me—had been tough guys trying to muscle in on his territory, Frank would have heard of us somewhere. Whatever we were, he had guys out right then looking for us. Those two guys had been watching the office waiting for us to come back during the time we were fortunately waiting with Lefty at the motel. So Balistrieri laughed when he was introduced to Conte and said he better call his guys off.

  “When he said he had been planning to have me hit,” Conte told me, “I got so nervous that I was afraid to light a cigarette because I didn’t want these guys to see my hand shake. I still didn’t know if I was out of the woods. Man, we could have been dead.”

  He said “we” because if they hit him and I was with him at the time, naturally they would have hit me too.

  “First thing I’m gonna do,” Conte said, “is put a remote starter in my Cadillac.”

  After the sitdown, Conte and Lefty took Joe Zito and his two pals back to the Center Stage where their car was. Conte had maneuvered them into riding to and from the sitdown in his car because it was wired.

  Lefty says, “It was a real pleasure meeting you people. Like I said, one day next week we’ll spend the whole day together with you over there.”

  “And don’t forget when you come back home, call Tony,” one of them says. “Tony said he wanted this thing right. He was so anxious, he’s been calling to see if it’s all right.”

  That Tony was Tony Riela in Newark.

  “He’s on top of the situation,” Lefty says. “Same thing what we do in New York. If anybody comes in or wants something done, we don’t rest until it’s done. That’s the way it’s supposed to work. Frank gave me satisfaction, didn’t he?”

  “Definitely.” “

  “Forget about it.”

  “What’s your first name agai
n?”

  “Tony.” “

  “And your last name?”

  “Conte.” _

  “Conte?”

  “C-0-N-T-E.”

  “Oh, Italiano. Frank was checking you out.”

  “Don’t laugh,” Lefty says. “They were looking for you.” “

  “Every move you made,” the guy says, “they knew already, every move. The machines, how you paid for them, they knew.”

  “A few months, they grab you.”

  They laugh. Conte says, “I don’t think it was too funny.” “

  “I said few months. Maybe a week, maybe two weeks, you know. You got plenty time on his hands to grab you.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Lefty says. “In this business we always have plenty of time.”

  “Ah, Benny and you know each other, Tony?”

  “Yeah, sure,” says Lefty, who is sometimes called Benny. “If I didn’t know him, would I bring him in?”

  “Tony, you born out east?”

  “Yeah. Baltimore.”

  “Baltimore.” “

  After they dropped the trio off, Conte headed his car toward Lefty’s motel.

  Lefty lets out a sigh. “Oh, was you in trouble. You were gone. They were gonna bury you. Oooh. Good thing I made this trip. Wow.”

  “I told you I was scared,” Conte says.

  “Yeah, you had it right. They were laying for you. That cocksucker gave you up, that jukebox guy. That motherfucker.” “

  “The day we talked to that vending company.”

  “Yeah. They thought you were a fucking agent. They were gonna fucking bury you in a minute. They had guys on you. Okay, let me tell you this deal now. I gotta come back out here next week. We’re gonna merge with them. We’re gonna go far, big. He says to me, ‘Lefty, you’re my guy.’ He’s gonna call New York. Now you’re gonna work with them. You got a green light. You got a partner that’s gonna come up with the money. How much you wanna go—forty cash?—he puts up forty cash too. Because he don’t want no problem with my people. He puts a guy with you with books and everything. I’m your partner. He wants to take me around and introduce me to his men. You come around with me. Don’t ask no fucking questions. You’re just a working man and that’s it. And you’ll make a ton of fucking money.”

  They rode in silence for some moments.

  “They had your fucking joint spotted,” Lefty says. “Good thing I was out here or they fucking break up our business.”

  “Yeah. You remember about two days ago, I had the feeling you saved my life?”

  “That’s right, I did. The guy says, ‘Who the fuck is he to come into my town? I own this town,’ he says.”

  “Can you imagine what would’ve happened if I tried this on my own?” Conte says.

  “Yeah. They were looking for you now. They didn’t know I represented you. In other words, if you hung in your store, they box you in and that’s it.”

  “The way he looked at me when he first met me. He said, ‘I been looking for you.’ ”

  “He was hot. Now you got a big thing. That’s a boss, you know. Not many people like you ever get to meet a boss. In New York you can’t sit down with a boss. Forget about it. But now you’re gonna have one of the biggest operations in the country. Jesus Christ can’t touch you, because I represent you.”

  “But if I knew in the beginning what I know now,” Conte says, “I wouldn’t have even done it.”

  Lefty was grousing all the time because I wasn’t in Milwaukee. The fact is, I took my wife on a vacation. She couldn’t fly, because of her lung. Her eyes were still sore. Her arm was still in a cast for her shattered wrist. Otherwise she was coming along well. We drove nine hours to get to this particular beach where we could lie in the sand for a few days. I was on the phone with Lefty and Conte for several hours every day. She said it wasn’t very companionable of me to go away and be on the phone all the time when we were together on our first vacation in years.

  I was gone only ten days, but Lefty was frustrated by my lack of concentration on the Milwaukee scene. He thought I was in California. Conte’s story had been to tell him I had lined up a score. The last time I had lined up a big score as an excuse for being away, I had disappointed Lefty with a few hundred dollars instead of several thousand. I told him I had been cheated on my end of the score.

  “It’s a ridiculous thing what you’re doing out there,” Lefty says. “The other guy tells me you got some other score or something out there. Forget about it. They’re making a fool out of you. You said you didn’t make enough the last one, you got cheated. Forget about it, cancel it out, because you’re in on the ground floor over here. What are you laughing about? There must be something wrong, pal. I think your girl has got you fucked up. That’s the trouble with you, Donnie. All right, take your girl with you. What the hell, I don’t care.”

  “No, I’m laughing at him, at Tony. He was telling me about when he walked into it at the sitdown, you know, and the guy said ...”

  “All right, listen, don’t worry about that. Everything’s taken care of.”

  “If I run into that guy, Left, I don’t wanna have them start blasting somebody.”

  “No, no, you’re like Allstate, pal. It’s all straightened out. He’s well satisfied. Everything’s beautiful out there.” “

  Frank Balistrieri’s lawyers, who were his sons Joe and John, would be drawing up papers for the partnership, Lefty said. The partnership would not include the Balistrieri name. Somebody else’s name would be put on the papers. Balistrieri would be a hidden partner. Tony Conte would be his beard, putting machines in, buying up routes and maybe other businesses as well. Their split would be fifty-fifty with Conte. Lefty would get his end out of Conte’s split.

  “One thing, Donnie,” Lefty says. “Tony’s gotta get rid of that guy Steve that works for him. Frank said that. He said no outsiders can be involved, not even as a hired hand. And I can’t vouch for this guy, and you can’t vouch for this guy, and so only Tony can vouch for this guy, and that ain’t good enough. Tony can just give him a week’s pay and tell him to look for another job.” “

  So agent “Steve Greca” had to leave the operation.

  On that basis, the marriage was formed between the Balistrieri family and the Bonanno family in New York. This was a coup for us, the FBI agents. We were now into two Mafia families. And we were actually in partnership with a boss.

  “Now, what’s on your mind about coming into Milwaukee?” Lefty asks.

  “Well, what are you gonna do?”

  “I gotta come out there, but I’m short. I dropped $500 at the airport today, I went over there. Diner’s Club turned Louise down for a credit card. I got hit with a subpoena today. The agents grabbed me 3:10 this afternoon outside the club. Grand jury for the little guy, my man Nicky. For the fifteenth of August.”

  Nicky was Nicky Marangello, the Bonanno underboss.

  “What the hell they doing with him?” I ask.

  “Nothing. They got nothing on the guy. Ain’t got nothing to do with me. I’m not under investigation. I’ll take the Fifth and be in and out. Forget about that. Donnie, listen to me. You’re not up-to-date. See, it’s so ticklish now. Don’t be insulted when I tell you I gotta ease you in. When I go back out there, I’m gonna introduce you as my representative for when I’m not there, and I’m gonna say you’re my blood. These people are heavyweights out there. And the guy out there, he’s under the impression that you don’t wanna come in.”

  “Tony? Oh, no, I’ll be there.”

  “We’re gonna set you up with a bar and grill out there. And get an apartment near the office.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now listen. You gotta give me a number where I can reach you.”

  “I ain’t got one.”

  “Listen, pal, don’t tell me you ain’t got one. You’re laying up someplace. I don’t understand you. You live in a hotel? You sleep in subways?”

  “I’m at her house, but she’s got no phone. She was
n’t paying her bills, so they disconnected it.”

  “My schedule is not like yours, Donnie. Because I gotta account for myself. You make me laugh.”

  11

  FRANK BALISTRIERI

  I rejoined Conte. We worked the vending business just enough to make it look real. We ordered a few machines and placed them in four or five bars and restaurants. We spent most of our time pushing the investigation.

  Our case was that by forcing Conte into a secret partnership in order to do business in Milwaukee, and by forcing other businessmen out, Balistrieri was committing extortion and creating a monopoly and interfering with interstate commerce.

  We wanted to see what else we could get on him. ,We had information, for example, that he had a big bookmaking operation, that he was involved in skimming the take at the Las Vegas casinos, that he was involved with illegal union activities. There was always a chance you could clear up some murder cases. Things like that.

  Lefty flew in for a Friday night meeting with Balistrieri to “ease me in.” The three of us drove to Snug‘s, Frank’s large, busy restaurant.

  Lefty’s instructions were: Let Balistrieri initiate conversation. This is a social function, so don’t discuss business. Frank might not want the others to know that he’s in business with us. Only answer his questions. Don’t get inquisitive about anything.

  “Donnie,” Lefty says, “do me one favor. I love you. I’d rather do five years than lose your friendship. Do everything right over here because you can name your own ticket, believe me.”

  Tony and I went to the bar to await being summoned. Lefty was taken directly to Balistrieri’s table, near the large front window, where there was a lot of fuss made over him and the usual kissing of cheeks.

  After an hour we were escorted to the table by the maître d‘. Frank Balistrieri, in his early sixties, was short and pudgy, with a jowly face and black, slicked-back hair. He was immaculately dressed in a dark blue suit, like an old-time Mafia guy out of the movies.

  Tony had already met him at the sitdown. Lefty introduced me. “Frank, this is Donnie. He’s with me, and he’s with Mike.” Frank introduced those around the table. Among the half dozen was his right-hand man, Steven DiSalvo, short, hard-looking, with just a monk‘s-fringe of hair around the ears.