Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship (13 page)

By his estimate, the
San Miguel
’s cargo was worth at least five hundred million dollars. Given the ship’s history, he thought it might eclipse even the famous
Atocha
discovered by Mel Fisher off Key West
in 1985. Most intriguing of all, he believed the ship sank near Samaná Bay, in waters leased by Bowden. As far as he knew, Bowden had never searched in earnest for her.

Thumbing through the file on the
San Miguel
brought back memories for Mattera. The last time he’d been here, he’d believed nothing could pull him away from his dream of finding a lost galleon. Now, he put the papers back in order and replaced them on the shelf. There were still answers in this file on the
San Miguel
, he could feel it, but his archivist friend had arrived, and he had a great pirate to go find.

Mattera pored over more binders and folders. By afternoon, it had become clear to him that he was not going to find any Spanish mention of Bannister’s ship. Still, he read through every document, looking for any timely reference to pirate ships. He found a few, but none that could be linked to the
Golden Fleece.
By day’s end, he was exhausted, and he still had a train to catch for Madrid that evening.

On his way out, he stopped by the archivist’s desk, where he reached into his bag and gave her a small tissue-wrapped gift. It was a ceramic tile, about ten inches square, painted with Salvador Dalí’s
Figure at a Window.
It showed a young woman gazing out over the bay of a Spanish seaside town. Mattera had always loved the painting because the girl seemed hopeful, like she knew something beautiful was coming, even if she couldn’t see what it was at the moment. Mattera felt that way inside libraries and archives. He’d always been able to depend on these places, to find stories that moved him, to rescue him from a dangerous life. Waving good-bye to his friend, he worried for himself. Before Bannister, he’d believed there was nothing he couldn’t see if only he found the right window. Now it seemed he was running out of light.

CHAPTER NINE

JOHN MATTERA

Waiting for Jacques Cousteau

E
veryone kissed in John Mattera’s family. His father kissed his three sons when they visited him in his butcher shop. His mother, Ann, kissed the kids when they came home on the bus from Holy Rosary Catholic Grammar School. John’s two younger brothers kissed him when he lent them his baseball glove. Once, after an insurance man made a cold call at the house, John kissed him good-bye.

That was the way in the South Beach neighborhood on the east shore of Staten Island, a community of Italian and Irish families, and in the late 1960s, one of the safest places in New York. Ladies could walk home at midnight by themselves. Home owners left their front doors unlocked. The South Beach area was home to some of the highest-ranking figures in the Gambino crime family, the most powerful mafia family in the country. Gambino boss Paul Castellano lived two miles from John; underboss Aniello Dellacroce’s house was just down the street.

These men, and their world, seemed as natural a part of the landscape
to John as the cement ball field at the American Legion post or the sand flats on Mills Avenue. In line at the supermarket, he heard ladies talk about loyalty; riding the school bus, he heard kids discussing respect. Men with nice haircuts and new cars met for breakfast at local diners, even in the late afternoon.

John’s father, John Sr., worked more than seventy hours a week at Matty’s Quality Meats, the butcher shop he owned on Hylan Boulevard, but he would still play catch every day with John and his brothers in the backyard. John loved the stories of his father’s childhood, especially those about fighting his way through the Prospect Park section of Brooklyn. As the only Italian in the neighborhood, he’d learned to use his fists and wits to survive. “Me and you together back then?” John’s dad would say to him. “No one could have beat us.”

After grade school one day, John and some friends threw a smoke bomb into a local coffee shop. Cutting through the neighborhood, John was on the verge of a perfect getaway when a dark blue Lincoln Continental cut him off. Glaring at him from the driver’s seat was Tommy Bilotti, a captain in the Gambino family with a reputation for being the toughest guy in a very tough neighborhood.

“Come here!” Bilotti ordered.

John walked up to the window, panting.

“Did you do that at the restaurant?”

“Yeah.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know.”

Bilotti glared at John. Even at age eight, John had heard stories about what Bilotti did to people who did bad things.

“You Matty’s son?”

“Yeah.”

“Then get the fuck outta here. Go.”

John ran, faster than he could ever remember moving, but even as the wind blew in his face and his feet flew above the ground, he understood that the bad guys who lived nearby had power and could do
things the police or even his father couldn’t, and that they cared about respect; he knew that for sure because he wouldn’t still be running if Tommy Bilotti didn’t respect his dad.

J
OHN
’
S PARENTS PAID GOOD MONEY
for him to attend Catholic school, but by second grade it was clear John wasn’t making the most of his opportunity. Yet, on many days after school when his friends went to shoot baskets or trade baseball cards, John rode his green Schwinn Pea Picker to the two-room South Beach branch of the New York Public Library, where he immersed himself in history books, especially those on the Revolutionary War. He loved the idea of the underdog rising up against the king—what guts that took!—and even though kids teased him for spending time that way, he forgave them because they didn’t know the stories hiding inside that tiny building.

One night, John’s father sat him down in front of the television, poured a bowl of Wise potato chips, and showed him a new program. It featured mini-submarines, scuba divers, exotic fish, a giant boat, seaplanes, foreign accents, underwater dirigibles, faraway lands, helicopters, dashing music, and a great white shark—and that was all in the first two minutes. This was
The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.
From that day forward, John never missed an episode, planning not just his days but his months around the new ones. Cousteau’s world, and his journey around the globe on the ship
Calypso
, were a leap into history, danger, daring, mystery, and new worlds all at once.

Most kids who loved Cousteau wished they could be on an adventure like that. What John wished for, more than anything, was to be on an adventure like that with his father. But even at age eight, he worried about whether his dad would ever get that kind of chance. John Sr. worked six and a half days a week, twelve or thirteen hours a day. It gave John and his brothers a good life, but what kind of life did it give his dad?

In fourth grade, John’s class took a trip to Fort Wadsworth, a former
military installation in the shadow of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. According to the tour guide, the place had figured in the Revolutionary War, which was all John needed to hear. Wherever he looked, he saw the ghosts of patriot soldiers, cleaning their muskets and pushing tobacco into their pipes, poised to defy the king. John hung on the guide’s every word, but what he really wanted to know was how such a place could be here, just six blocks from his house.

After school, John and his friends rode their bikes back to Fort Wadsworth, where they climbed and explored, and imagined firing at enemies until the night had turned black and America had prevailed. And this is how John’s life went for the next four or five years—enduring school, hitting the library or Fort Wadsworth, waiting for Jacques Cousteau.

A
T THIRTEEN
, J
OHN TOOK
a job at a local florist’s shop to supplement the money he made from working at the butcher shop his dad owned. Kids teased him about the flowers. He wondered why it wasn’t in him to use his fists to silence bullies, like his father had.

On the playground one day, several seventh graders, including Albert, the biggest kid in the school, started taunting John about carnations. He wanted to tell them that working at a florist’s shop showed good character. Instead, he said, “I’m going to fight every one you. After altar boy practice Saturday morning. At the top of the hill.” His legs shook so badly he could hardly walk home.

Saturday morning, John’s father drove him to the fight. At the bottom of the hill, he put a hand on his son’s shoulder.

“You don’t have to go.”

John got out of the car and walked up the hill.

Albert was waiting, along with several henchmen.

“You ready?” John asked.

“Yeah.”

And John swung, with fists that reached back to his father’s childhood
in Prospect Park, with arms that had lifted legs of veal since grade school, with the spirit of the soldiers at Fort Wadsworth and the determination of the crew of the
Calypso
, and he hit Albert square in the jaw, knocking him down. Then he walked back down the hill and got into his father’s car. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

“I won,” he told his dad.

A
NN
M
ATTERA HAD GROWN
up poor, and eating away from home had been a luxury for her as a girl, so it was with pleasure that she took her sons to Skippy’s hot dog truck whenever it parked nearby. It was there that John spotted a sign on a shop advertising scuba diving lessons.

“Go in and see what they say,” Ann said.

John wolfed down the hot dog, wiped ketchup-onion sauce from his mouth, and ran to the shop. Inside, he smelled the neoprene of new wet suits and saw framed photos of divers. A man of about thirty looked up from the counter.

“What’s up, Big-time?” he asked.

“I want to learn how to do scuba diving.”

The man looked John up and down, especially his Catholic school uniform.

“How old are you?”

“Fourteen.”

He handed John an application, then provided the lowdown. His name was Floyd Van Name, and he owned the place, Diver’s Cove. Scuba lessons cost forty dollars, no refunds. They lasted sixteen weeks. Scuba was not for the timid, at least not the way Diver’s Cove did it, no refunds. He’d need a physical. His parents would have to sign the forms—don’t even think about signing yourself. “I don’t care if you do wear a suit and tie, I’ll know.”

John nodded, started walking toward the door, then turned back.

“You like Jacques Cousteau?” he asked Van Name.

“What do you think?”

A
FTER A SUMMER OF
scuba lessons, arranging flowers, and boning out legs of veal, John began classes at St. Peter’s Boys High School on Staten Island. His teachers were sharp and the resources excellent, but John’s thinking was mostly underwater. At every chance, he took the bus to Diver’s Cove, asking questions of veteran divers and handling equipment he’d have to work double shifts to afford. His checkout dive came on an old wooden shipwreck in Spring Lake, New Jersey. Down deep, he pried loose a glass bottle that looked to be more than one hundred years old.

“What wreck is this?” he asked Van Name after surfacing.

“It’s called the Spring Lake wreck.”

“How did they know it was going to wreck in Spring Lake?”

“No, that’s just what we call it. It’s been here forever. No one knows its real name.”

At school, teachers continued to pile on homework, but John was at work on a bigger problem. Using microfiche, periodical guides, and finally an old
Collier’s
magazine, he pieced together a solution, which he wrote on an index card and took to the dive shop.

“You know that wreck in Spring Lake?” he asked Van Name.

“What about it?”

“It was an old merchant ship. Sunk in 1853. Her name is the
Western World.
”

S
OPHOMORE YEAR BEGAN WITH
fists flying. Seniors on the baseball and wrestling teams had heard about John’s reputation for toughness and decided to relieve him of it. John pounded each of them. By Christmas, he had been suspended three times for fighting.

One person who noticed was a freshman named John Bilotti. He and John had always liked each other, but this was the first time they’d attended the same school. It was John Bilotti’s father, Tommy, who
had cut off John’s escape route after he’d thrown a smoke bomb in the coffee shop. Tommy Bilotti had enjoyed a big rise in the ranks of the Gambinos since then, and was now one of the most feared gangsters in all of New York.

One day, John and John Bilotti got to talking. There were kids at school who needed money—for cars, girls, concert tickets. Each of the boys had saved cash from working; there was no reason they couldn’t lend it to classmates. They could charge the going rate in South Beach: four points a week, with the principal due after twenty-six weeks.

They started by lending a few bucks—fifty here, one hundred there—and that went well so they branched out. If their old men found out there would be trouble—neither father wanted his son earning money that way. But by now, customers were coming to them.

After a few months, John was earning hundreds a week. By the end of sophomore year, John and his friend were collecting on tens of thousands of dollars in loans, and it was a sweet business. They didn’t have to break legs or make threats. People just paid them back.

But the business really took off after John got his driver’s license. Able to reach more clients, he and John Bilotti began to lend out tens of thousands of dollars. They didn’t believe they were hurting anyone. And they were good at it.

Brimming with confidence, the two friends began investing in legitimate businesses, and even purchased an after-hours club they were too young by law to enter themselves. By seventeen, John was making more money than the principal of his school. Still, he never missed a shift at his dad’s butcher shop.

John used some of that money to sign up for weekend dive charters to dangerous shipwrecks in New York and New Jersey waters. Though he could drive himself, he always asked his father to take him. It was fun to share the adventure—to be on the way to important places together. Driving home from the docks, John’s father pressed him for details. He wanted to know everything that had happened underwater; often, John Sr. knew more about the history of the wreck
or the details of her sinking than anyone on the charter. John loved that about his father, but it made him ache for his dad, too. “Take diving lessons and go with me to the wrecks,” he’d say, and his dad would always answer, “Oh, man, I’d love to, pal. When I get the time, I will.” But John knew better—his father had a family to support, and Matty’s Quality Meats couldn’t run without Matty, so the best John could do was to keep telling his father the stories, and to leave in all the details.

While John was putting money on the streets, his classmates were choosing colleges. He’d thought about it, too, but was disappointed by his transcript: all average, except for history, for which he’d received As. But John knew that people didn’t go to college on history alone.

After graduation, he bought a white 1971 Ford Mustang Boss 351, his dream car. One morning, he used it to take his father to breakfast at their favorite luncheonette, Jean and Tony’s. After the meal the Mustang wouldn’t start. John asked his dad to give the car a push so he could start it with the clutch. When John got rolling, he looked in the rearview mirror to see his dad bent over, huffing and puffing.

Ann took her husband to doctors and they arrived at a diagnosis: lung cancer. John was floored by the news. Though he smoked three packs a day, John’s dad was only forty-six and had always been strong and fit. John had no doubt his father would beat it.

They went back to the butcher shop, the two of them, every day. For a few months, his dad seemed fine, and that made sense to John, he’d seen cancer up close, in chucks of beef that looked normal until you opened them up and saw huge yellow sacs inside, and in those cases you just wrapped the meat back up, called the guy who delivered it, and sent it back.