Donnie Brasco

by Joseph Pistone

  “Thanks for the present,” I say.

  “Drive careful.”

  On the Palisades Parkway near the George Washington Bridge, I stopped at a service area where there were outdoor telephones. I unwrapped the package carefully, taking my time to make sure I didn’t rip anything. Luckily he didn’t have it taped, just tied with the ribbon.

  There were four handguns, each in its own plastic bag: a .22-caliber Burgo six-shot revolver with no serial number; a .45 Colt automatic with a U.S. Army property number; a Ceska Zerojovka-Narodni Podnik automatic whose caliber I estimated at .22 or .32; a .38 Colt Cobra with a two-inch barrel.

  I wrote down all the information on a slip of paper. Then I carefully rewrapped the package, sure to get all the creases just the way they had been. I went to a phone booth and called Case Agent Jerry Loar in New York and read off the information. Then I tore up the slip of paper and threw it in the trash can.

  I got to Lefty’s apartment at about noon. Lefty wasn’t there. “I just want to leave this package for Lefty,” I say to Louise. “He knows what it is.” I put it under the Christmas tree.

  Then I drove to Brooklyn and told Lefty that I had delivered the package.

  “Good,” he says. “I’ll check them out, see which ones I want to keep and which ones to send down to you in Florida.”

  That evening a bunch of us were sitting around bullshitting about mob business. Lefty began expounding upon deals that he had pulled off, and successful businesses that he had invested in, including the King’s Court, where I was his man. Then he started talking about Milwaukee.

  I listened and watched him carefully. He told how he had gotten involved in a vending-machine business with me and how that deal had led to a sitdown between Milwaukee and New York. He said that the New York end of the sitdown had been arranged by Tony “Ducks” Corallo, the boss of the Lucchese family.

  Lefty never mentioned Tony Conte. There was no hint that Lefty or anybody else in the room knew anything about informants or undercover agents involved in the Milwaukee operations. It was as if Tony Conte never existed.

  Sonny’s “Brooklyn problems” kept him from going to King’s Court for New Year’s Eve. I stayed in Brooklyn too. It was important for me to spend as much time with him as I could. I slept at his apartment. We took care of the pigeons together. We hung out at the club and the Motion Lounge, played gin. We went across the street for espresso at the Caffe Capri, a little shop with ornate white grillwork over the front windows and five or six small tables inside. Once in a while we’d go to Manhattan, to Little Italy, maybe take in a crap game on Mott Street.

  It was obvious that I got more respect from the crew now because I was Sonny’s man. I was always with Sonny when I was in New York. Guys in the crew talked more freely around me.

  Sometimes when we were up on the roof with the pigeons, Sonny would lean on the railing and look out over the rooftops of the neighborhood where he had lived all his life. I wondered what he was thinking about.

  He didn’t mention that Tony Mirra was raising a stink over me, insisting that I belonged to him and not to Lefty and demanding a piece of King’s Court. I wasn’t supposed to know about this because this was mob business and I wasn’t a made guy. Lefty told me as a favor. Sonny knew, but he didn’t say a word.

  We walked out of Peter Luger’s Steak House in Brooklyn. Sonny stopped at the door for a minute to talk to someone he knew. I went on to get the car, which we had parked on the street.

  A block away, a guy walked up to me. He came straight up to me and stopped right in front of me. He looked like a normal guy. Then I saw he had a knife. He stood close, like we were going to have an intimate chat, and pressed the tip of the blade against my belly.

  “Gimme your money, slow.”

  I am more afraid of a knife than a gun, if the guy knows how to use the knife. He was welcome to my money.

  Sonny came walking up from behind me and kept right on walking past us, evidently thinking I was talking to somebody I knew and it was none of his business. Suddenly he spun back and delivered a pow erhouse right at the base of the guy’s skull. The guy dropped like a stone and lay there.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here,” Sonny says, “before you get into any more trouble.”

  A week into the new year, I went back to King’s Court to push through plans for the Las Vegas Night and help set up another meeting between Sonny and Trafficante.

  Lefty was irate because I was reporting things to Sonny before I told him. I had told Sonny that we lost $2,400 on the book. Any loss for us was a loss for Lefty too.

  “You didn’t call me this morning,” he says over the phone. “You were supposed to call me last night. You can’t pick up a phone?”

  “I missed you, then I called the club. Didn’t he tell you I called?”

  “The man never told me nothing. He’s playing games with me. He knows I’m feuding with him because I don’t like what’s going on. I’m hurting, I’ll tell you. I’m feuding and fighting with everybody because I can’t get along with these people. I can’t pay my bills. ”

  “I called Boots’s joint and asked for you, and you weren’t there so he put Sonny on.”

  “How come he didn’t tell me a goddamn thing? Let me tell you something. You’re losing a lot of prestige because I’ll tell you why. I’ve been scheming all day about there’s something wrong. I hope you bail out next week, because we’re not gonna owe a dime because whatever we owe next week, everybody is chipping in. This year is a different ball game or I’ll send my own men down there.”

  “Why you getting mad at me? What’s going on up there?”

  “That don’t concern you, Donnie. You’re nobody as far as what we’re talking about, him and I. You’re on the outside. At least I give you the satisfaction of me telling you I’m arguing with him. You don’t make no phone calls, what I gotta put a stop with you. I think it’s gonna come to a head, and we’re gonna break up with him and youse all belong to me.”

  “That’s all right, I don’t care.”

  “I gotta know where I’m at, that’s all I’m telling you. Lot of people invest a lot of money out there. I ain’t like him. Throw a broad at him and he’s happy.”

  Lefty never really went out chasing women. Sonny did a little more chasing, a fact that gnawed at Lefty.

  “You know me when I go out of town with you,” Lefty says. “I don’t bother nobody, and I act the part of a man. Broads don’t bother me. How the fuck could you invite your own sweetheart that you live with, then next day want to bring a cunt in? Boobie says, ‘You bringing your wife down?’ I says, ‘Hey, Boobie, don’t ever classify my wife with Sonny Black’s girls. My wife’s got too much class. I bring my wife when you bring your wives. Judy would understand, she’s a good kid. But a tramp? The guy’s sick, he’s definitely sick.”

  While he was talking, the recording system on my phone was malfunctioning. I was afraid he would pick it up, so I brought it up first. “You hear this static?”

  “Forget about the static.”

  “It’s hard for me to hear.”

  “We’re not talking about static! Let me explain something to you. When you had the problems with Mr. Mirra, he gave you up and he threw it in my lap. You know what hurted me, a slap in the face? I was there New Year‘s, wished Sonny and everybody luck. Mirra calls him up. And he takes the phone call. But listen, I’m not a phony. As long as I’m around, you’re around. We don’t accept no girls, shit like that.”

  “Why didn’t he tell you I called?”

  “He didn’t tell me nothing because he thinks he’s King Farouk. The whole world is disgusted with him.”

  “Hey, if we get stuck, he’s gotta come up with the money.”

  “He has to come up with it. But that ain’t the idea.

  He didn’t tell me a goddamn thing. I says, ‘You better stop bothering people.’ That’s all I told him, and I walked away from him. I said, ‘Nobody understands you anymore.’ I’ll straight
en this whole thing out. It’s all bullshit. Let’s stop this fucking nonsense. That’s all

  I can tell you. Say hello to Tony.“

  I finally managed to get hold of Trafficante’s man, Husick, and set the date for the Las Vegas Night: January 17.

  Rossi, Shannon, and I met with Captain Donahue in the office at King’s Court. Rossi told him that we had scheduled another Las Vegas Night and that important people would be there from both New York and Florida, so he wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be any problems. Donahue assured us he would take care of everything.

  Rossi handed him $200, “a little something for Christmas.”

  Lefty wasn’t coming down for Las Vegas Night. He had been sick off and on for a month with flu or colds.

  “It’s fucking eight degrees here,” he says over the phone. “Fucking weather don’t wanna break. That’s why I’m scared to come out. I might get sick down there. Or drop dead on the fucking plane.”

  Also, Sonny had directed him to go to Miami instead, to consummate a deal for two keys of cocaine.

  Two days before the event, Rossi, Shannon, and I picked up Sonny and Carmine at the airport. Sonny handed Rossi a brown paper bag. In it was $10,000 to be used as the “bank” for the Las Vegas Night. “Don’t let this out of your sight,” Sonny says.

  Sonny had asked me to take $1,000 out of the shylock money for him. I handed him the ten $100 bills.

  “Let’s go to a mall,” he says. “I want to find a card shop.”

  “Somebody’s birthday or what?”

  “I want to buy a card for Santo.”

  We drove to the Gulfview Square Mall in New Port Richey. He picked out a card that had a message about being such good “friends.”

  “This is cute,” he says.

  Made guys refer to each other as “friends,” the same as saying “members.” Sonny tucked the $1,000 inside the card.

  On the day of the Las Vegas Night, Trafficante came to the Tahitian Motor Lodge and went to Sonny‘s room. We had the room bugged. Right away Trafficante said, “We can’t talk in the room.”

  Afterward Sonny told us that everything was in order, and the money split for the night would be a third to us, a third to Trafficante, and a third for the guys that they brought up from Miami to work the games.

  “He loved the card,” Sonny says.

  Everything was set up in the club. I had an antique slot machine in my apartment, and we decided to put it in the club for the night. There wasn’t any money in it. It was just for fun. Captain Donahue had been paid, and he said he would make sure that the cars were all patrolling on the other side of the county.

  We had a crew of six to work the games, plus our regular bartender and hostesses. We had a guy on the door. To get in the front door, customers buzzed from outside. The person at the door looked out the peephole to see who it was, make sure it was members or friends. Rossi and Shannon were going to sell chips and handle all the money out of the back storage room. I was going to work the front, collect the chips from the tables, and bring them back.

  Rossi wrapped up Sonny’s $10,000 in a box with Christmas paper and hid it in the furnace room, which adjoined the storage room. In there he also hid $2,000 of FBI money in the bottom of a brown paper bag under Christmas tree lights. He had a .22 Derringer Magnum pistol in a wallet holster. He hid that by taping it to the back side of the furnace. He kept his Walther .32 in a briefcase next to him.

  The Las Vegas Night started at seven P.M. Sonny and Carmine were there representing New York. Husick and other cohorts were there representing Trafficante. By midnight the action was strong, the room was crowded with maybe a hundred gamblers. They were lining up in the storage room to buy chips. We already had a profit of several thousand dollars, and it was growing.

  At one-fifteen A.M., I was in the storage room with the line of people buying chips. The warning buzzer sounded. Immediately I herded the customers out and locked the door behind me, leaving Rossi and Shannon locked in with the money and receipts.

  I went to the front door. Nick, the guard, had hit the alarm buzzer. “Donnie, there’s two uniformed cops outside.”

  I saw them through the peephole. They were Pasco County Sheriff’s officers; one was a sergeant. “Don’t open the door yet.” I figured there was nothing to worry about since we had paid for protection, but I walked around the room to make sure there was no money on the tables, no cash anywhere, just chips.

  Sonny was at our round table with Husick and others. I whispered to him, “There’s two sheriffs guys outside. I’m going to talk to them, see what’s going on.”

  I opened the front door. “Hi, Officers, what’s the problem?”

  “We had a complaint that there was a disturbance at the club,” the sergeant says.

  “No disturbance, no problems at all.”

  “Mind if we come in?”

  I ushered them in. “Have something to eat? Drink?”

  “I got an anonymous telephone call,” the sergeant says, “and the caller stated that he had been gambling here and had lost a lot of money playing blackjack.”

  “There’s no gambling here. We’re running a charity event. Everything is chips. Nobody lost any money here.”

  He wanted to see the office. I walked him through the lounge.

  “You got some pretty big people here,” he says. “Some of the best clientele in Tarpon Springs.”

  “Well, people like to contribute to charity and have a good time.”

  The other cop came into the office. “I just won money on your slot machine. That’s gambling.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He said that he had put a quarter in the machine and won a quarter back. He said that before they came in, he could see through a crack in the doorway that people were playing the slot machine and gambling at the tables.

  “Come on, you couldn’t see in here.” The way the club was laid out, you couldn’t see anything from the doorway. “And anybody can see that that’s an antique slot machine.”

  “What are you, some fucking smart guy?”

  “No. People are having fun and we’re not bothering anybody.” I couldn’t let them push me around in front of Sonny. I couldn’t let it get out of hand, either.

  “Why are you bothering us? Why don’t you leave us alone?”

  “Who’s the owner of this place?” the sergeant says.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m just a customer, here to contribute to charity.”

  “Why you doing so much talking? You the spokesman around here?”

  “Because I answered the door and let you in and you’re asking me questions. Somebody’s gotta answer your questions.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Donnie Brasco.”

  “A fucking New York guinea, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I am from New York and I am Italian.”

  “You guys like to come down here and take over. Let me see some identification.”

  “I don’t carry any.”

  “What’s your Social Security number?”

  “I don’t have one. I don’t work, and if you don’t work, you don’t need a Social Security number.”

  “You are maintaining a gambling place here. I’m gonna close the place down. I’m gonna call for a search warrant.”

  “I can’t give you permission to use the phone.”

  He picked up the phone and dialed.

  I hurried out to tell Sonny what was going on.

  “Okay,” he says, “get all the people out the back way.”

  I and the hostesses got everybody out of the club through the French doors while the two cops were in the office.

  Sonny sat by himself at the round table, scowling. “That fucking Rossi. I thought he had the guy paid.”

  “He did, Sonny. I was right there when he talked to the guy. I saw him pay him off, and the guy said everything was taken care of.”

  “Tell hi
m to get the fuck out here.”

  I knocked on the storage-room door and called Tony and Eddie out.

  Rossi went over and sat down with Sonny and started to apologize.

  “Don’t say a fucking word,” Sonny says. “You fucking embarrassed me in front of everybody. The old man’s people here. People from Miami. You’re just like all the others who say they’re gonna do the right thing, and then they fucking embarrass me. I could fucking choke you, slit your throat.”

  Rossi turned angry.

  I stopped him. “Tony, you better not say anything. Just let him cool down and I’ll talk to him.” I turned to Sonny. “It’s really not his fault.”

  Sonny gave me a hard look. “Donnie, don’t you say a fucking word to defend this fucking guy. It was Tony’s responsibility. If we find out that cop fucked us, we’ll chop him up. I’m going back to Brooklyn. I don’t know what I’m gonna do about the future with this thing. Tony, you better come up with that fucking ten grand I gave you.”

  The sergeant came out. “Where’d everybody go?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I guess they figured it was time to go home.”

  “Either of you other guys got I.D.’s? How come none of you guineas carry I.D.’s?”

  The other cop stopped Shannon at the front door. Reinforcements arrived, more cops. It was now a full-fledged raid.

  “All right,” the sergeant says, “you three are going to jail.”

  “What are you talking about?” Rossi says.

  “Failure to show identification.”

  “This is private property.”

  “Another New York smart guy. Handcuff them,” he says to another cop.

  “Maybe our I.D.’s are over in my apartment,” I say, “because all three of us were there this afternoon, and maybe we left them there.”

  They led Rossi, Shannon, and me out in handcuffs and drove us over to the apartments and walked us upstairs to my place. We were stalling and breaking balls. We were supposed to be badguys, so we were playing it like we were badguys. Plus, these cops deserved it. Rossi and Shannon sat on the couch while I went into my bedroom and looked around. “Well, mine isn’t here, and I don’t see theirs, either.”