The Westies: Inside New York's Irish Mob (23 page)

Mickey stood up and played his part, though Jimmy had promised him just hours before it went down that he wasn’t going to kill Rickey that night. When it happened, Mickey reacted on instinct. He grabbed Rickey Tassiello in the kitchen when the kid reached for a knife. That’s when Jimmy shot Rickey three times in the head.

Later, Coonan and Lucich dragged Rickey’s body into the bathroom and dumped it in the tub. Then they cut it up. They stuck the body parts in plastic garbage bags, loaded them into cardboard moving boxes and took them out to Ward’s Island, or “Tony’s island,” as it was known to Coonan & Company.

They arrived around six o’clock in the morning. “I got one for you,” Coonan told Tony, the foreman at the sewage treatment plant.

Tony had this thing about having to see the face. Whenever Coonan brought a body out to be discarded, he would open one of the boxes, unfasten the plastic, and peer inside. This time he held the head aloft and said, “Gee, I know this guy. He’s only a kid.”

Mickey had to laugh, it was so morbid. It reminded him of those goddamned vampire movies he used to watch all the time when he first came back from ’Nam.

Sometimes Featherstone thought of all this violence as a kind of baptism, or maybe a test that Jimmy was giving him. God knows, there were enough times when Mickey had initiated violence on his own. Especially in those years when he came back from the war, he seemed unable to get through the day without an altercation. But in more recent times, most of the violence was initiated by Jimmy, and many times Mickey didn’t know it was going to go down until the moment it happened.

Each time he and Coonan engaged in a violent act that disturbed him—like the beating of some neighborhood person he’d known all his life—Mickey felt Jimmy was watching and judging him. When he made it through yet another episode without bugging out, it brought them closer together. At times, it seemed like there was a concrete ratio at work: the more violent and dangerous the act, the tighter and more interdependent they became afterwards.

Featherstone sometimes felt wired and angry after these episodes, which usually led to more violence. After the Tassiello murder, he’d come home and punched a hole in the wall of his apartment. But in the end, he never allowed himself to feel doubt or even remorse. He just put his trust in Jimmy.

Trusting Jimmy was a big reason he was driving out to Brooklyn now to meet with a group of people he didn’t even like. Or trust.

They arrived at Tommaso’s around 7
P.M.
and parked on a side street. They went inside, sat at a small bar to the left of the entrance, ordered drinks, and waited.

Tommaso’s was a sizable restaurant by Bay Ridge standards, with plenty of greenery, red-checked tablecloths, and a low-key neighborhood ambience. Its most noticeable feature was a huge brass coffee urn that adorned the bar area. Beyond that, it was your typical Italian-American bistro—clean and quiet, with a reputation for an exquisite linguini and clam sauce.

After Coonan and Featherstone had been at the bar for four or five minutes, Roy Demeo approached from the rear of the restaurant dressed in a suit and tie.

“You guys ready?” asked Demeo in his deep, gravelly voice.

Jimmy and Mickey nodded.

“Okay,” said Roy, moving in close and speaking in a near whisper. “Whatever youse do, don’t admit nothin’ about Ruby Stein. Okay? They gonna ask you about Ruby. You say, ‘I don’t know nothin’.’ They gonna ask you about Ruby’s black book. You say, ‘What black book?’ Alright?”

Again they nodded.

“Good. Everything’s gonna be just fine.”

Demeo led Jimmy and Mickey through the restaurant. Near the back, to the right, there was a hallway leading past the restrooms to a door that was kept closed at all times. As they headed towards the door, Featherstone took a quick look around the restaurant. The last thing he saw before they disappeared down the hallway was Alberta and her companion, Dick Maher, seated at a table near the far wall.

When they walked into the back room, Mickey and Jimmy could hardly believe their eyes. There was a huge horseshoe-shaped table arrangement that took up almost the entire room. A quick scan of the table revealed more than a dozen of the most powerful men in
La Cosa Nostra
circa 1978.

There was seventy-year-old Carmine Lombardozzi, known as the financial wizard of the Gambino family. There was Joe N. Gallo, the family’s aging
consigliere
, or advisor, going back to the days of Carlo Gambino. There was Anniello Dellacroce, who, at the age of sixty-eight, was second in power only to Paul Castellano. There was Anthony “Nino” Gaggi, another aging Gambino underboss. There was seventy-eight-year-old Funzi Tieri, a representative of Fat Tony Salerno’s Genovese family.

And finally, at the head of the table, wearing wirerimmed glasses, with thinning gray hair and a quiet, grandfatherly manner, was Paul Castellano, arguably the most powerful criminal in the United States of America.

Jimmy Coonan, whose blond hair was a marked contrast to the dark Sicilian and Neapolitan Italians who filled the room, presented Castellano with a box of Cuban cigars as a gesture of goodwill. Castellano smiled and passed the box around the table for all to see. Then Coonan and Featherstone were formally introduced to each and every person at the table.

Once the two Irish kids were seated, the meal commenced. From a door leading directly into the kitchen a steady stream of salads, pastas, and seafood appeared and disappeared. At first, there was only small talk. Nino Gaggi sat next to Featherstone. He wore black-tinted glasses and wanted to talk to Mickey about Vietnam. He had a nephew who’d been in the Green Berets, and he wanted to know how Mickey had gone about getting 100% disability pay. He was greatly impressed by that. After Mickey told him, he was convinced that Featherstone and his nephew should meet.

Suddenly, without any sign or warning, Funzi Tieri, Fat Tony’s delegate, leaned over and whispered something in Paul Castellano’s ear. Then Castellano cleared his throat and the room became silent.

“Jimmy,” began the Godfather, who then hesitated and asked, “You don’t mind if I call you Jimmy?”

“Of course not.”

Castellano smiled politely, then began to speak in a polished monotone that belied his Brooklyn roots. After a brief rundown on why the death of Ruby Stein was of such concern to all of them, he asked point-blank, “Jimmy, did you or any of your people have anything to do with this terrible thing, this murder of our good friend, Ruby Stein?”

“No,” replied Coonan, without missing a beat. “We didn’t have nothin’ to do with that.”

“Are you sure?” asked Castellano.

“Yes, sir, without a doubt.”

Castellano then asked if Jimmy knew anything about Ruby Stein’s black book.

“I don’t even know what youse are talkin’ about,” was Jimmy’s reply.

“Well,” continued Castellano, “that book has millions of dollars’ worth of loans in it, shylock loans. There are people here who need that book.”

“Wish I could help you, Mr. Castellano. But I don’t know nothin’ about Ruby’s death or no black book.”

Then Funzi Tieri spoke up in a heavy Italian accent. “But did not you and your people get
denaro, molto denaro
off this Ruby Stein?”

“Money?” asked Jimmy. “Sure. But far as I know those loans were paid back in full, every one of ’em.”

There were a few more questions from the table on the Ruby Stein matter. Jimmy held his ground, adding that he liked Ruby and used to work for him and had no idea who might have done “this terrible thing.” After everyone had their say, Castellano spoke again.

“Alright Jimmy, this is our position. From now on, you boys are going to be with us. Which means you got to stop acting like cowboys, like wild men. If anybody is to be removed, you have to clear it with my people.
Capisch
? Everything goes through Nino or Roy. You’ll have our permission to use the family name in your business dealings on the West Side. But whatever moneys you make, you will cut us in ten percent. Except, of course, for the shylocking. That you’ll work out with Roy.”

At this point, Jimmy spoke up. He told Castellano that lately they’d been taking a bath on the numbers business and would need time to build it back up.

“That’s okay,” replied Big Paulie in his formal tones. “We won’t have any problems over money, of this I’m sure. But you and your boys have got to end this wild behavior. From now on, every killing must be authorized.”

After that, everyone resumed eating and the mood lightened. “
Mangia, figlio;
eat up, eat up,” said seventysix-year-old Nino Gaggi when he saw that Featherstone still had food on his plate.

March 22, 1966–Little Bobby Lagville after an early morning rendezvous with Jimmy Coonan

Owney “The Killer” Madden (left) leaves Sing Sing prison circa 1931. (Daily News Photos)

Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll, Madden nemesis, with his customary toothy grin. (Daily News Photos)

Jimmy Coonan

Mickey Featherstone