“Richie Cardella?” he asked, in the same loud voice.
“Yeah, Cardella. Poor bastard. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hey, I got to go back and start typing, and Avedon here has some shots to develop.”
Cohen turned away from Reardon but then turned back again. “This was my night off. Jason and I had dinner at the Holiday and then went across the street to police headquarters to see Gerry Quinn. I wanted to find out if there was anything new on that shooting in Olneyville the other day. We were talking when the call came in on this one. Gerry let us ride over here with two of his guys. Now I’ve got to go to work for a few hours. Just my luck.”
“Wait a second, Nate,” Terry hollered. “Richie’s the one still alive …?” It was half statement, half question.
“Yeah. But one of the medics said it looked like he was just hanging on by a thread.”
Reardon watched Cohen and the young cameraman hurry toward Mathewson Street in the direction of the Herald building. He took several deep breaths before going the opposite way. He found Arena where he left him and gave him the news.
“Oh, my fucking Jesus,” Tommy said, bringing the palm of his hand up against his temple. “Why the fuck did we have to pick Chi-Chi’s?”
They talked for a few minutes and agreed to be in touch with each other within a week or so to see how they’d proceed.
“Don’t worry, Terry, if we gotta go past September thirtieth on account of this. I’ll see to it the boys don’t do nothing stupid, not unless they want to get their fucking heads broke.”
61
THE FIORE CAMPAIGN STARTED the day in Wakefield where Doug spoke to a group of local businessmen and women over coffee and Danish pastry at 10:00 a.m. He kept his prepared remarks short so that most of the time could be devoted to questions and answers. He learned early in the game that an audience was usually more accepting of what he told them if it was in response to something they asked.
Later, he attended a noon meeting of the town’s Rotary Club. The restaurant could seat forty people around a series of tables pushed together, end to end, in a narrow, oblong-shaped private room. There he made what they all referred to as “The Speech,” covering all the major points of his candidacy.
Both events went well. Neither, however, offered the right opportunity for Fiore to introduce several of the negatives his team had pieced together on Cardella. None of it was sensational. Still, a few cases from the past that gave the State a black eye would help dampen the popular feeling that Cardella was an outstanding attorney general during his entire time in office. And the sizable fees that Cardella’s law firm had already received in connection with its drafting of prospective casino gaming legislation were a significant issue. It would help Fiore bang home the point that his opponent’s view on that major controversy was already colored, as he would say … “by the color of money, my friends.”
Berman suggested that the new material be introduced that night, in Westerly. Doug was scheduled to address a 25-dollar a plate dinner of mostly blue collar Republicans. The others agreed. They were anxious to see how it would go over in a town that already had one-armed bandits operating around the clock.
Karp and Walsh split the driving that afternoon as their party made its way slowly along Route 1 South from Wakefield. The first stop was in Charlestown where Fiore met with many of the hotel, motel and resort owners from the nearby beach areas. There was standing room only in the lobby of the Starlight Hotel to hear him speak. Later, at Dunns Corners, he gave an interview to the local weekly newspaper. The photographer posed him, holding a triple scoop ice cream cone, on the steps of the town’s general store.
At five o’clock they pulled into the Sea Gull Motel in Westerly. Karp had reserved two rooms they could use to rest in for up to three hours at half the daily corporate rate. Fiore took one of them for himself so he could telephone Susan, his daughter, and talk to her about her first day of high school, using the time left to nap without being disturbed. The others shared the adjoining room. Berman and Karp played pinochle while Walsh sat up in bed, reading a Tom Clancy novel.
At 7:40 they were back in the Lincoln and on the way to the Shelter Harbor Inn for dinner and Fiore’s major speech. Karp turned on the radio just in time for them to hear that Cardella was shot in a Providence bar approximately thirty minutes earlier. According to unconfirmed reports, he was clinging to life at Miriam Hospital. The announcer gave out the few details that were available.
“Jesus Christ,” Walsh said, turning to Berman in the back seat. “What’s that going to do to the election?”
“Let me think about it for a minute,” Berman answered. “I’ve never had anything like this happen to me before.”
After a short silence, Karp spoke. “Don’t you think it would be better to leave out that negative stuff, Cyril?” He looked in the rearview mirror to see if Berman showed any reaction to the question. “Seems to me this would be the worst time to bring it up,” he added.
Berman remained silent. Fiore fielded the question instead. “Why should we drop it, Les? It’s all true, so it shouldn’t matter that he won’t be able to deny it.”
“There’s going to be a lot of sympathy for him out there, Doug, hoping the guy pulls through.” Walsh spoke quietly, as if trying to impart a valuable lesson. “You wouldn’t look good throwing mud at Cardella while everyone else is praying for him.”
“I’m not sure I buy that, Russ,” Fiore challenged. “What about, ‘All’s fair in love and war?’”
“That goes out the window to ‘Don’t kick the bastard when he’s down,’” Walsh replied. His tone of voice this time didn’t conceal the fact that he was becoming irritated with Fiore’s judgment and sentiments. “And I don’t think calling Cardella names right now fits in with your idea of running a clean campaign. The names are okay, but the timing is dirty.”
“I vote with Russ,” Karp said. “But you’d better make up your minds because we’ll be there in five minutes.”
They all waited for Berman to come up with the answer.
“Here’s what we’ll do,” Cyril said finally, looking across the back seat at Fiore as he spoke. “Russ and Lester are absolutely right. You never know how sympathy can affect what people do. I was just thinking about how Nixon pulled it off in ’52. Most people in the country didn’t think much of him, even back then when he was running on the ticket as Eisenhower’s vice president. His reputation was that he’d do anything to win and couldn’t be trusted. Then word got out that some California businessmen had him in their pocket. The press jumped on it and played it up big. They always hated the guy anyway, and this gave them a chance to destroy him politically. That made Eisenhower think out loud about replacing him with someone else.
“But tricky Dicky went on TV and denied the whole thing. Before he was through, he whined about the fact that his wife could only afford to buy an inexpensive coat for herself. He told everyone how much they loved their two little girls and the family dog. The media called it ‘the Checkers speech’ because that was the dog’s name. The point is that he got the little old ladies to cry and people all over to feel sorry for him. That forced Ike to take his finger off the trigger.”
“Too bad,” Walsh interrupted. “It would have saved the country a lot of grief later on.”
“Anyhow,” Berman continued, “we’ve got to avoid doing anything that might build even more pity or sympathy—call it what you want—for Cardella. In other words, Doug, you’ve got to act like you feel just as bad about what happened to him as everyone else.
“What I think is that it would be a big mistake for you to make any more speeches while Cardella’s in this condition. If you do, and you lose the primary, you’ll never know how many people out there voted against you because they figured you took advantage of his not being able to fight back. Richie just became the underdog through no fault of his own, and nobody likes to see an underdog get beat up unfairly.”
Fiore was not pl
eased with Berman’s advice. “Yeah, but if I lose the primary without making any more speeches and don’t let the people know that Richie was far from the world’s greatest attorney general, I’ll never know how many of them voted against me simply because they figure a good AG will make a good governor. It works both ways, Cyril. Am I the only one in this car who understands what 55 to 45 percent means when we’re the 45?” It was difficult for him to stay calm. “You’re saying that we do nothing, just the same as them. We just shift into neutral for the next eight days. Great. The voters think I’m a nice guy, sweet as maple syrup, but how does that get me from 45 to 51 percent? Have you all forgotten that we need that much to win?” Doug’s voice became progressively louder as he spoke.
“I’ll explain it,” Berman answered, maintaining the calm he showed all along. “First, like I said, if you don’t make speeches, you don’t lose the sympathy vote. Second, people aren’t stupid. They know that being governor is a full-time job. You can’t handle it from a bed in the hospital or a rehab center. If Cardella lives through this, it sounds to me like he’s going to be in tough shape for a real, long time.
“The voters have a week or so to come to grips with that, and I think they will. They’ll understand that Richie’s not going to be in any position to handle the job until who knows when, if at all. They won’t want to put him under any pressure to start getting it done because that would hurt his recovery. Some of his support will go to you for that reason. Some of it will sit home and not vote at all. Right now, I think that’s the only way you’ll win this primary.”
Fiore didn’t let on whether he concurred with Berman’s conclusions or not. His gut told him that the voters needed his continued guidance on the issues, especially the obligation to reject State-sponsored casinos on a moral basis for the benefit of Rhode Island’s poorest citizens and to keep them from undermining his economic agenda. His silence now, he felt, would undercut the momentum he had going with the people. Fiore recognized, however, that Berman, Walsh and Karp were in total disagreement with him and that Sandy Tarantino would know it. If he insisted on making a speech, he’d put himself in the position of being criticized by Sandy for not following Berman’s instructions. That left him no choice but to listen to the rest of Berman’s plan. “So what do I do tonight?” he asked.
Berman had already thought it through. “When we get there, I’ll call Providence and try to get all the facts I can. I’m sure most of these folks won’t know much about what happened. You’ll give them whatever details we’ve got and then announce that you’ve decided not to make any more speeches before the primary. Tell them that it wouldn’t be fair to Cardella and you’re certain your supporters wouldn’t want you to do it under these circumstances. Be quiet for a while but let them see you’re not through. Then say that above all you couldn’t find it in your heart to keep campaigning while he’s fighting for his life.”
Berman took a long pause himself at that point. “I’ll bet there’ll be heavy applause when you finish, probably a standing ovation. Let it go for ten or fifteen seconds, then motion for everyone to be quiet. As soon as they are, tell them you want to have a minute of silence so they can all pray for Cardella. When the time’s up, just say ‘Thank you’ and go sit down. If he has any savvy, the MC will tell the audience that everyone has to have great respect for the decision you’ve made. After he thanks them all for coming, you make your way out of the room slowly. Shake all the hands you want, but no big smiles. Look serious, like you’re at a funeral. That should get us home tonight at least an hour earlier than we planned.”
“I go along with you a hundred percent, Cyril,” Walsh said. “It’s a great plan. Follow his advice, Doug.”
Fiore’s mind was made up. He wouldn’t let Sandy blame a loss in the primary on his ignoring Berman’s counsel. “I’ll do it,” he said, “but I hope you’re right. What a goddam time for this to happen.”
Berman didn’t answer. He was thinking that it probably was the best thing that could have happened for his client. He realized that Fiore was now less reluctant to abandon his “clean campaign” pledge in what was becoming an overriding quest to win the election, and that it was up to him to monitor Doug closely the rest of the way. He wondered whether he should tell Sandy Tarantino how he felt when he heard from him.
62
THE HEADLINE OF TUESDAY morning’s Herald read, “GAMBLER SLAIN, CARDELLA NEAR DEATH IN BAR SHOOTING.” The story took up a large section of the front page and continued inside on page six. Nate Cohen’s column was full of accounts and descriptions from different people in the bar at the time of the incident. The basic facts, as summarized, were these:
Rico (Richie) Cardella entered the establishment, a place he frequented once or twice a week, at about ten minutes before seven o’clock in the evening. He told the proprietor, Felipe Gonsalez, age 51, who goes under the name of Chi-Chi, that he was expecting a couple of friends shortly and wanted a booth when they arrived. Cardella sat down at the bar and ordered a light beer. About half an hour later, Gonsalez and several patrons heard Al Niro, age 41, shout to Cardella from the back of the establishment that he had a telephone call.
Niro was a bookie who took bets only on football games. He occupied the same booth five nights a week, Thursday through Monday, from about six to nine o’clock. On Thursday and Friday nights, most of his incoming action was for the Saturday college games. The professional contests played on Sunday kept him busy with gamblers on Saturday night. He spent the other two nights handling whatever business there was for the Monday night NFL games.
Niro made himself a regular in the bar and grille in late July when the professional exhibition season started. He always had a drink up front at the bar before leaving for the night, and asked Gonsalez to call a taxi for him when he was ready to go. Niro often told others he befriended there that business was good and that he liked operating on his own. He suspected that his activity didn’t please the professionals on Federal Hill, but figured they had enough work to keep them busy without getting overly concerned about him.
Just after Cardella got up to take his phone call, Gonsalez got a quick glimpse of a white male who just then entered the establishment. He was about thirty years old, slim, and no more than five feet, ten inches tall. The individual walked past the bar area toward the rear of the building at a quick pace. His right hand was moving around his head and face, making it difficult for Gonsalez to see his features when he glanced in that direction for a moment. The proprietor’s immediate thought was that the individual seemed to be in a hurry to get to the men’s room in back.
Other patrons sitting in the booths along the way were equally at a loss to describe the killer in much detail. They agreed that he moved past them quickly and used his hand and arm to hide his face, although not in an obvious manner. All concurred that he was wearing a black polo shirt with gray slacks and had on an unzippered tri-colored (black/blue/green) windbreaker.
Raymond McHugh, age 47, was sitting in the booth ahead of Niro’s. He came in a half hour earlier with his wife, Elizabeth, who was in the ladies room when the shooting took place. McHugh was facing the front of the bar and looked up from his newspaper for an instant as the killer hurried by. A second later he heard the words, “We warned you,” spoken behind him. That was followed by two muffled sounds. He looked around in time to see the assailant point his gun at Cardella and fire a single shot. Cardella started to reach for his chest, but then fell to the floor. McHugh threw himself down on his seat. Seconds passed before he heard some of the customers shouting and running toward the rear of the building. When he looked up again, the killer was gone and the door in back was closing.
Mary Bennett, a City Hall employee who did some shopping in town after work, was at Chi-Chi’s for dinner. She heard some noise in the rear from her booth and saw Cardella fall down. She hesitated momentarily, thinking he might be drunk, and watched as the killer pushed open the rear door of the establishment and ran out. As she beg
an to get up from her seat, several male patrons ran past her toward Cardella. She followed and saw Niro slumped down in the booth, blood running over his face.
One of the men, Bok Lee, age 28, stopped briefly to look at Cardella before exiting the rear door. He saw a dark colored automobile moving very fast down the alley, toward Weybosset Street. Lee did not wait to see which way it turned when it got there. He dialed 911 from the telephone Cardella was using and informed the police of what just occurred. Gonsalez was in the act of calling the police on another 911 line at the same time.
Police cruisers and several ambulances arrived at Chi-Chi’s within minutes of being notified. Niro was examined and pronounced dead at the scene. Paramedics worked on Cardella about ten minutes, attempting to stanch the flow of blood and giving him oxygen before rushing him to Miriam Hospital. The emergency room there was alerted to his imminent arrival. As of midnight, doctors at the hospital would say only that Cardella’s condition was extremely grave, and he was still in the intensive care unit. As yet, no one has described the extent of the injuries inflicted on him by the gunshot.
Cohen’s column raised the strong probability that Niro was slain as a result of his bookmaking activities. “Everyone knows that the Tarantino family has a stranglehold on gambling in Providence and most of Rhode Island,” it read. “It remains for the police to find out whether or not the order for Niro’s murder came from Federal Hill.”
Cohen indicated that everyone in Chi-Chi’s at the time was being questioned to see if they could come up with a more complete description of the assailant. His final comments referred to “Cardella’s bad luck in having been called to the telephone just before the executioner passed through the bar, intent on ending Niro’s life.”
63
FIVE DAYS LATER, ON the last Sunday before the primaries, the Herald endorsed Bruce Singer as the Democratic nominee for governor. The editorial listed the accomplishments to which June Bates could point with pride during her years in the House. It also commented favorably on the continuing trend that was seeing more women attempt to move into the highest positions of leadership throughout the country. But it gave seven different reasons for supporting Singer’s candidacy, including his years of experience as lieutenant governor.
My Honorable Brother Page 32
