The Sixth Family (27 page)
Authors: Lee Lamothe
“Joe introduced Goldie to them,” Vitale said. “George made a face, Tony made a face. This kid has blond hair, blue eyes—he’s not Italian. Joe says he’s the best driver, good with mirrors, good with walkie-talkies, it was a go.” (Being “good with mirrors” meant he was able to track vehicles behind him as he drove, often detecting when his car was being followed by police.) Goldie was given a walkie-talkie to allow those outside the club to communicate with those inside. Goldie, Big Louie, Sonny Black and five other trusted members of Sonny Black’s crew—including Lefty Ruggiero and John “Boobie” Cerasani—waited at a discreet distance outside the club, watching for police or rival gangsters. They were also to watch for any of the three captains who might escape the trap that awaited them. Goldie was to drive those who were not slated for death away from the club afterward, and the others were ready to swoop in to clean up the anticipated mess.
Well before the scheduled meeting, Vitale drove Massino to the club. He dropped him off in front, drove two blocks farther, parked the car and walked back.
Vitale already knew he had been selected as one of the shooters. When he arrived at the club, Massino introduced him for the first time to the others, all imported from Montreal: allegedly Vito Rizzuto, Emanuele Ragusa and a man known simply as the old-timer. The old-timer had silver-gray hair and was an “elderly gentleman,” Vitale said. He later described him as being between the ages of 65 and 70. It was likely one of Nick Rizzuto’s mob contemporaries sent to oversee Vito’s demeanor under fire. The family had several members who were proficient with a shotgun, such as Domenico Manno, Vito’s uncle, who had been convicted in the Paolo Violi hit a few years earlier—although, then 47 years old, Manno was likely too young to be considered a senior citizen by Vitale, who was 33 at the time.
After the introductions, the men armed themselves with guns already inside the club. They were also given ski masks so the other captains “wouldn’t know who the shooters were,” Vitale said.
“I had a Tommy gun,” he said. “They call it a grease gun, an automatic weapon. Fires multiple rounds.” Vitale did not remember much about the weapons that had been under his care when he was his company’s armorer in the U.S. Army. He examined the gun from the barrel to the stock, fingering its parts. He pushed the safety lock to the off position in the process.
“When I pulled the chamber back it discharged and shot five times into the wall.” The rounds narrowly missed a startled Giovanni Ligammari.
“I was shocked. Everyone was shocked,” Vitale said. “I got everybody’s attention.” Massino did not want Vitale to fire his gun during the ambush unless he absolutely needed to. In such a small space, anyone could be hurt during a frantic shootout.
Vito and Emanuele were designated as the lead shooters, according to Vitale. Vitale and the old-timer were told to guard the exit door.
“No one was supposed to get by me and the old-timer,” Vitale said. “We were told by Joe and George that if Sonny Red did not show up, they were going to call it off. Prior to them arriving, George Sciascia said, ‘If Sonny Red is there, I will put my hand through my hair on the side of my head, that means it’s a go.’”
Massino told them to announce that it was a holdup and to try to get everyone to stand up against the wall. He had hoped the captains could be killed in an orderly, execution-style manner to avoid a messy free-for-all gun battle. They were now ready for the arrival of their prey.
“When we entered the closet,” Vitale said, “we left the door open a smidge to look out. We were in the closet, we all had our weapons loaded. We sat there and waited.”
CHAPTER 19
BROOKLYN, MAY 5, 1981About the time that the hunters had gathered at the site of the third meeting, the intended prey likewise gathered together. Sonny Red had made plans of his own, although not so elaborate as Massino and Sciascia’s.
Sonny Red had called in Frank Lino, a soldier in his son’s crew, for a serious chat. He told Lino that they were heading into a dangerous meeting and, to be cautious, wanted to leave Bruno Indelicato out of it. Sonny Red said that Lino would go to the meeting in Bruno’s stead.
“They thought they might get killed,” Lino said. “They had asked me to go because they thought there would be trouble. I didn’t feel too good [about that], but I went.” It was a strategic move to guard against having all of Sonny Red’s men caught in the same place at the same time. The fact that the one asset to be held in reserve was his own son no doubt made the plan look particularly good to Sonny Red.
If they did not return, the order from Sonny Red to Bruno was clear: “To kill everybody in the Zips, Joe Massino [and] Sonny Black; get them,” Lino said. Sonny Red ordered his men who were not attending the meeting to spread throughout the city that night so they could not all be taken out if the anticipated purge widened.
“They were already at their places. Some were in Staten Island. Some were at Tommy Karate’s in Brooklyn,” Lino said. Sonny Red then had one last order for the men heading with him to the meeting.
“If there is shooting, everybody is on their own, try to get out.”
Sonny Red, Philly Lucky and Big Trinny arrived at the My Way Lounge, Frank Lino’s club, early in the evening, collecting Lino, and then all four set off together. Lino and Big Trinny drove in one car, Philly Lucky and Sonny Red in another. They drove to a diner, where they met up with two neutral captains also invited to the meeting—Joseph “Joe Bayonne” Zicarelli and Nicholas “Nick the Battler” DiStefano. The pair had been invited to avert Sonny Red’s suspicions, although the two old-timers apparently had no idea of the plan. Two members of the Zips joined them at the diner and everyone ditched their own cars at a Nathan’s Famous hot-dog outlet to climb into vehicles being driven by the Zips. They wheeled through the streets of Brooklyn until they reached the social club that was on loan to the Bonannos that night from Salvatore “Sammy Bull” Gravano and Frank DeCico, members of the Gambino Family. Lino was familiar with the club from time spent drinking and gambling there with fellow mobsters.
“I used to frequentize it,” Lino said. The knowledge would save his life. Sonny Red and his men were not carrying guns as they headed into the meeting. It is one of the arcane rules of the Mafia that a member cannot bring a gun to an administrative meeting; it is largely why such arranged meetings have been known to turn into planned assassinations. Not everyone plays by the same rules.
The club where the captains were gathering was a modest two-story brick building virtually indiscernible from its neighbors. A low wrought-iron fence separated the club’s property from the next. As they arrived, the gangsters rang the doorbell at the locked door. This was nothing unusual, as most of the mob’s private social clubs, after-hours bars and gambling joints kept tight control on public access.
“When the doorbell rang, we looked through the crack at who entered,” Sal Vitale said. Sonny Red and the others walked inside and saw that other Bonanno captains were already there.
“When we first walked in, we walked downstairs and there was a room. Looked like a storage room,” Lino said. “There was Joe Massino. There was George from Canada, Anthony Giordano, another couple of Italian guys, I don’t know their names, and, you know, and us guys.” Giordano greeted Sonny Red and his entourage at the door.
“We’re getting everything ready upstairs,” Giordano told them. “Give me a few minutes.”
Inside the closet, Vito, Vitale and their colleagues watched closely and waited. In the main room, the group was unsettled.
“Sonny Red was holding onto Joe’s arm,” Lino said. “Like a friend, like two friends, you hold an arm.” Rather than a sign of friendship, Sonny Red likely thought the closer he stuck to Massino, the less likely he was to be hit by a bullet.
“They were talking in the back. Philly Lucky was in the back talking to Joe Bayonne and these two Italian guys. I was talking to George from Canada, Big Trinny and Nick the Battler,” Lino said. Sciascia firmly placed his left arm around Lino, who was an unexpected guest at the gathering. Sciascia tried to make it appear like a friendly gesture, but Lino, nervous from the start, did not seem to appreciate it. Then Sciascia deliberately lifted his other arm and slowly ran his fingers through his silver hair.
“Vito led the way,” Vitale said. “I was last. Vito entered the room with Emanuele while me and the old-timer guarded the exit door.”
“My job was to say ‘It’s a holdup’ when I went in the room, ‘so everybody stand still,’” Vito Rizzuto later confided. Vito insists he did not pull the trigger of the gun he admits he was holding. “The other people came in and they started shooting the other guys,” he said. Vitale disagrees.
“I seen Vito shoot. I don’t know who he hit,” Vitale said. Everyone who was in that room, however, likely agrees on Vitale’s assessment of what happened next.
“All hell broke loose.” Sonny Red and his men were braced for violence but, unarmed, there was little they could do.
“When they came in with the shotguns, Big Trinny charged them. He made a loud noise. They shot him. He died right there,” Lino said. “I knocked George down. I don’t know, you know, I jumped over Trinny. While I was jumping over him, I see Philly Lucky in the back, ready to get killed, and I see Joe hit Sonny Red with an object, I don’t know what it was.
“I was jumping, you know, over Trinny, to get out,” Lino said. “I’m jumping over a body—the guy is six-six, 400 pounds.” Lino’s chance for escape was a sign of Vitale’s hesitation.
“I froze for five seconds,” Vitale said. “By the time me and the elderly gentleman gets to the door, Frank Lino came flying past us. He was running. And kept running.” Meanwhile, Sonny Red had been struck in the back with a bullet that had cut clean through his body and a second time in his side. Injured but alive, he scrambled toward the door. Sciascia saw that their prime target was not yet dead and moved toward him.
“I seen George reach in the back, pull out a gun and shoot him on the left side of the head,” Vitale said. “By that time, it was all over.” Outside the club, Lino did not run into the Bonanno soldiers who were supposed to be watching for just such an eventuality. He spent little time weighing his options.
“I got out the door and I ran,” he said. “I made a left. I went up 68
th
Street, jumped over a few fences, went into these people’s home. I knocked at their door, elderly people; the man was in a wheelchair. I told him I’m not there to hurt him, if I could use their phone. They were nice, let me use their phone.
th
Street, jumped over a few fences, went into these people’s home. I knocked at their door, elderly people; the man was in a wheelchair. I told him I’m not there to hurt him, if I could use their phone. They were nice, let me use their phone.
“First I called the My Way Lounge. Then I called my house,” Lino said. At his club, he spoke with a bartender, then to his brother and a few of his regulars, looking for a quick ride out of the area. “I just told them if they could get somebody to pick me up at this location. Then when I hung up, I called up my house and my son Frankie answered. I told him the same thing. He happened to get there first.”
Meanwhile, the remaining captains had also been anxious to leave the scene of the shootings, but Vitale and the old-timer waved their guns to keep them at bay until Vitale got the signal from outside the club. The plotters did not want a panicked crowd spilling out on to the street, drawing attention and, perhaps, calls to the police.
“I wouldn’t let them exit. I was calling ‘Goldie’ in the walkie-talkie, ‘Goldie, where are you?’ He came around the [street] corner [in the van]; when I knew he was outside, I let the individuals out of the club,” Vitale said. The other captains were then hustled into Goldie’s van and whisked away. Vito, Emanuele and their Sicilian colleagues, however, seemed to have suddenly and mysteriously vanished.
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