Boss of Bosses (15 page)

Some of the years in hiding the Provenzano family had apparently lived comfortably in a luxurious Palermo apartment. For a long period Provenzano was living with his family in his private fiefdom of Bagheria. Gino Ilardo, himself a member of a powerful Mafia dynasty, remembered: ‘Provenzano was always very attached to his family and spent the major feast days at home with them, at the beautiful villa where they lived.’ It seems safe to assume the family lived together until their formal parting in 1992, as guests of various well-wishers in western Sicily; since they weren’t being actively sought, they could do as they liked.

They were leading peaceful private lives undisturbed by the police, so what was behind the decision to send them away to live publicly in Corleone? Binnu and Saveria had been together for twenty years, and she was a rock for him, an intelligent, wise companion; losing her was a terrible wrench. The boys were affectionate and bright, Angelo was fair, like his father, respectful and eager to please. Binnu had created space for them at the heart of his existence – while other bosses sacrificed family life to serve the organization day and night, and used their money and power to entertain mistresses, Provenzano’s family life was sacrosanct. It must have taken an immense effort of will to give that up and resign himself to a solitary existence. Binnu was security-conscious: he would have known that from now on meeting up with his companion would be a rare and high-risk event.

Provenzano was a fond family man: he wrote to his old friend and business associate Pino Lipari: ‘Kisses for the children, who must be getting big by now, kisses for the children and their mum and dad, wishing you a world of good.’ When he was not in prison, Lipari took a paternal role in the boys’ life: he gave them advice and sought guidance on their education.

According to the correspondence between Lipari and his old friend, Provenzano sent his sons to live in Corleone because they needed to become legitimate citizens, get identity cards and access to secondary school. Other Mafia bosses have sent their children to college and educated them outside the criminal underworld, to raise them in civil society. Provenzano had discussed this burning issue with some of his closest associates, who were facing the same dilemma. His
friend Pino Lipari had insisted it was the only right thing to do. Provenzano mentions in one letter to a friend his concern about a young man too inexperienced and green for ‘this evil life we lead’. He didn’t think it a safe or nurturing environment for his own young sons.

The boys’ ‘legitimate’ life back in Corleone, however, was not untroubled. Saveria tried to live quietly, lodging with her brother-inlaw until she found an apartment to rent. They moved into a third-floor flat in a modern block set back from the road, with discreet glazed balconies. She was elegant but never showy, drove a Fiat Tipo, not a Mercedes, and left the house infrequently, usually with Angelo, to visit family members or for meetings with her lawyers. Salvatore would call in, driving his eccentric off-road buggy (he didn’t have a licence). She wore her thick curly hair cut short and never went to the hairdressers unless strictly necessary: she washed and dried her hair herself, let it go grey and never spent time on her make-up. There was no room for pampering in Saveria’s life.

In spite of her efforts to blend into the background, the police didn’t forget about her. They frequently raided the flat, trying to surprise Provenzano on a secret visit to his family and putting his wife under intense pressure. They would bang on the door at 5 a.m. and burst in, guns in hand, turning the place over and rousing the children out of bed. The neighbours, who had had no trouble with the family, complained bitterly about the dawn raids. Other relations felt the pressure too: Saveria had no female friends but visited her sister in Cinisi now and again. The police raided her sister’s house as well – turning out kitchen drawers and emptying cupboards on the floor, terrifying the children and wrecking the place.

At nine and sixteen years of age the Provenzano boys were traumatized to find themselves catapulted into the public eye. On their first day at high school in Bisacquino, a short bus ride south of Corleone, reporters staked out the playground to take the first pictures of the Boss’s sons. Some of the journalists sent in hastily handwritten notes via Angelo’s classmates, asking for a couple of words on how he felt about his new school. At lunchtime, when all the children went home, Angelo walked out of the gate into a baying mob of reporters and quickly took refuge back inside the school. Photographers
glimpsed a fair-haired, broad-shouldered lad, bewildered and frightened. Over an hour later the press pack showed no signs of losing interest. Angelo finally walked out with a friend, wearing dark glasses and holding an exercise book up to his face. Besieged by pleas for a photo and a few words, trapped in the schoolyard, finally he faced the photographers and challenged them tearfully to go ahead and take his picture.

‘Some gentlemen you are. So you’ve got me.
Bravi
.’

They snapped away for a few minutes, then he walked out of the gate and fled for home.

After he had gone, the photographers’ triumphant scoop was overshadowed by shame that they could treat a child that way. After some discussion, pity for the boy outweighed the value of the photos, and they all agreed it would be wrong to publish them. The pictures – which show a tall, blond, open-faced boy in a red polo shirt battling to compose his emotions – have never appeared in any newspaper. (Such journalistic scruples did not last, however. When Paolo later graduated, in 2005, the ceremony was invaded by journalists, who outnumbered guests of the students.)

It quickly became apparent that Provenzano’s boys were not violent thugs; they had no apparent need to prove their criminal pedigree. The shocking truth of it was that Francesco Paolo and his older brother, Angelo, were good students, quiet and conscientious. Teachers observed they kept themselves to themselves.

Angelo eventually got a surveyor’s diploma at the Di Vincenti Institute, near Bisacquino, and signed up for an engineering degree at Palermo University – near enough to commute from home. It was his father’s wish that he should get a degree (Provenzano had left school at seven and fervently wished better for his son), but Angelo didn’t finish the course. He was needed at home to look after his mother and manage the family’s affairs.

He abandoned his ambitions to be a surveyor, although his father tried to convince him that continuing his studies would be the best course, and it became a source of conflict between them. Binnu had discussed with his old friend Lipari the merits of study versus work: Lipari, a white-collar financial manager for the Mafia, was
convinced that Angelo would need a decent degree, since it was going to be pretty difficult for him to set up in business. He wrote to Provenzano:

I don’t need to tell you this, but it would be useful if the boy put a bit of effort into finishing his studies, even if it involves some sacrifice. Having a degree will be more use to him than inheriting a fortune, and he’ll be able to take a different approach to life. You know any commercial or business enterprise will always be subject to extreme scrutiny, and he’ll need serious capital.

There are tax concessions for new businesses, and you can get financing from the state. In the main, the laws are set up for people who need this kind of help, and in my opinion your son is not in quite the same position, so it would be better for him to concentrate on his studies – that will give him a much better chance of making something of himself, using his intelligence and his talents.
¹⁷

The son of a Mafia boss enjoys tremendous privileges: through his father’s contacts he can exploit connections in academia, business or politics. Being forced to make his way in the straight world presents far greater challenges.

Provenzano, like many a good bourgeois Sicilian son of a peasant farmer, tried to get his sons work in an insurance company and urged his friend Nino Giuffré, also the father of two boys, to do the same. Giuffré recalls: ‘He said we owed it to our sons to give them a legitimate future.’

Unfortunately the firm in question began to attract investigators’ interest and media inquiries, and eventually, with all the negative publicity, went into receivership. Angelo got a job in insurance, but when his bosses realized they risked getting bad PR just for employing the son of the fugitive boss, they did not renew his contract.

Saveria and the boys moved to a villa on the edge of Corleone, just round the corner from Binnu’s favourite nephew, Carmelo Gariffo (unfortunately, he was in prison for much of this time and thus unavailable to keep her company). It was a big place for three, built with money allegedly sent by Provenzano’s brother Simone out of his German wages. Discreetly positioned, the villa overlooked the fields below the town. A high fence in front obscured the curious gaze of
passing journalists or of visitors to the local restaurant, the Leon d’Oro. The villa was large but not particularly showy; a long feature window, sandblasted glass with heavy black frames, gave it a modern ecclesiastical look. The shutters were kept closed.

In 1994 Angelo opened a launderette, the Splendor, in the same street. It was a good choice of business: nice clean work offering minimal and civil contact with the local community. Humble too: it was important for Provenzano’s family not to display any of the wealth accumulated over a long career of illegal activities. Since so much care had been taken to conceal it, better to live on charity from their uncle, who had established himself successfully abroad. Investigators tried unsuccessfully to discover whether the capital used to open the launderette came from the profits of crime or whether the family were laundering anything more lucrative than trousers.

Provenzano’s friend Lipari was unimpressed with the family’s choice of business. In a conversation with a retired local teacher he insisted opening the launderette was a mistake. While police investigators listened in, Lipari said, ‘It’s shameful, it’s undignified for the Boss’s wife to be washing underpants for the Corleonesi. What sort of work is this for a family in their position?’ He repeated his view that Angelo would have done better to stay at university instead of lowering himself to this sort of activity.

Provenzano’s boys struggled with their legacy, both within the family and outside it. In their position it seemed all roads were closed to them. Mafiosi regard civilians as non-persons, according to one
pentito
, inferior in every way and unworthy of consideration. The interests of a made member are paramount in every case. In such a discriminatory set-up, why would a high-ranking mafioso decide to keep his sons out of the organization?

Ask the wife, investigators say. As the one responsible for instilling Mafia culture in the young and raising them to understand and accept the code of honour, she holds a powerful veto over the children’s future. Police listening to her private conversations gathered that Saveria made the decisions that affected the family. How the sons were brought up must have been largely her decision. Bernardo is smart, but Saveria no less so; she is described as spectacularly
intelligent – a woman with the strength to raise her sons outside the organization.

Saveria Palazzolo, upright and taciturn, had always distanced herself and her sons from the Mafia life. She and her husband had protected their privacy, insisting on family time while other men of honour ate and celebrated major festivals and major crimes together. By raising her boys as civilians, Saveria tried to keep them clear of what their father called ‘this evil life we lead’. It can’t have been an easy decision. They would never be offered the respect their father enjoyed. She had to raise them to value a different kind of respect. They would need to observe the rule of law. (Indeed, when Angelo’s Fiat 500 was stolen in Palermo, he reported the crime to the police – which shows what a different world he lived in from his father – and his father’s friends. When Riina’s son, by contrast, got an upset stomach from eating too many arancine, greasy fried rice balls, he plotted to murder the barman who had sold them to him.)

Bernardo Provenzano had been a criminal since he was seventeen. He had made the leap from peasant culture to exalted circles of business and politics – but he was still a career criminal. Saveria clearly loved her man and has stuck by him. But this life is not for her sons. Without making the dramatic choice that some turncoats have chosen in order to remove their children from the culture and lifestyle of organized crime (enjoying state protection, making a clean break), she has done all she can to keep them out of it.

Lipari counselled his friends to raise his sons outside the organization but failed to follow his own advice. When he was arrested for Mafia association, he drew his family into the business to help him. His son Arturo became a messenger, visiting him in prison, taking messages and receiving instructions, carrying out his orders with filial zeal. His wife took home his dirty laundry and cut the little folded notes out from the hem of his trousers for Arturo to copy out and deliver. His daughter Cinzia trained as a lawyer and, although it may not have been his original intention, when he needed her help, she became his representative.

Provenzano’s choice of a legitimate path for his sons is remarkable, because the Mafia boss traditionally fulfils his duty by passing on the
culture and power accumulated in Cosa Nostra to his heirs. Giovanni Brusca, serial killer and proud father of little Davide, revealed that Mafia bosses are obsessed with their inheritance. The mafioso, as Brusca described him, has one ambition: to pass his power and wealth on to his sons. If he can’t do that, his whole career has been wasted. He explained the confidence with which he and his associates mapped out their sons’ futures: ‘We never thought we would lose. We thought we were invincible. We never realized we were running down a blind alley. Do you see why it is significant that Provenzano, a fugitive for forty years, has kept his sons in school all this time?’