Honor Thy Father Part 10

17.

NOT LONG AFTER HIS ARRIVAL IN TUCSON, JOSEPH Bonanno complained of pains in his chest, neck, and left arm. After consulting a physician, he was sent to St. Joseph's Hospital for treatment of what was diagnosed as a mild heart attack. But word of Bonanno's ailment was received skeptically in New York by agents and the police, who suspected that Bonanno was merely making excuses to avoid appearing before a Brooklyn grand jury investigating the Banana War, and a physician was appointed by the court to examine Bonanno in Tucson. This examination, however, apparently confirmed the illness because Bonanno was not forced to fly to New York. He remained in the hospital for a week, leaving after a switchboard operator reported receiving a call at 5:40 P.M. from a man who refused to give his name but who said, slowly and precisely: "I am calling from Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix. We are going to a.s.sa.s.sinate Mr. Bonanno." Bonanno complained of pains in his chest, neck, and left arm. After consulting a physician, he was sent to St. Joseph's Hospital for treatment of what was diagnosed as a mild heart attack. But word of Bonanno's ailment was received skeptically in New York by agents and the police, who suspected that Bonanno was merely making excuses to avoid appearing before a Brooklyn grand jury investigating the Banana War, and a physician was appointed by the court to examine Bonanno in Tucson. This examination, however, apparently confirmed the illness because Bonanno was not forced to fly to New York. He remained in the hospital for a week, leaving after a switchboard operator reported receiving a call at 5:40 P.M. from a man who refused to give his name but who said, slowly and precisely: "I am calling from Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix. We are going to a.s.sa.s.sinate Mr. Bonanno."

Accompanied by bodyguards, Bonanno was moved slowly by wheelchair on the following morning to an awaiting Cadillac driven by his son Bill, who had left Rosalie and the children in an apartment in San Jose, California. The elder Bonanno's companions also included Peter Magaddino, Peter Notaro, and a few men who were strangers to Tucson, although the police later indentified one of them as a Mafia "muscle man" from New York named Angelo Sparaco, whose last arrest was on charges of a.s.sault with bra.s.s knuckles. Carl Simari was not seen in Tucson and it was a.s.sumed that he was still in New York, where a few dozen Bonanno loyalists were engaged in guerrilla tactics with the Di Gregorio followers led by Paul Sciacca.

Tight security arrangements existed at the elder Bonanno's home on East Elm Street, with guards posted through the day and night behind the high brick wall in the rear of the house and with additional men stationed near the front of the house between bushes and trees and equipped with walkie-talkies so that they could alert the men in the house if anything suspicious happened. Bill Bonanno, who was in charge of security, was concerned not only about the telephone threat but also by some letters that he had recently received, letters that predicted his father's death and his own and seemed to have been written by someone who had an insider's knowledge of the organization. There were references to men who had worked under the late Joseph Notaro in the Bronx, hints about some of Sam Perrone's activities that had not appeared in the press. The letters were not the typical hysterical illiterate notes that self-appointed vigilantes frequently sent to mafiosi whose addresses were published in newspapers, and for this reason Bill took them seriously and arranged for around-the-clock protection of his father's home.

The men slept in s.h.i.+fts through June and July, constantly on the alert for any intrusion, but nothing happened. The monotony, Bill thought, the monotony is maddening, and he was tempted at times to leave again for California; but each time he resisted, fearful that a disaster would strike moments after his departure. Then on Sunday night, July 21, he heard on the radio that two explosions had shattered a shed and damaged four vehicles on the ranch of Peter Licavoli, a part-time Tucson resident who was a Mafia leader in Detroit. Licavoli and the elder Bonanno had been friends for years, and yet after the explosions the newspapers reported the police suspected that trouble might be simmering between some of Licavoli's men and Bonanno's.

This made little sense to anyone in the Bonanno household, but on the following evening, Bill Bonanno decided to stand guard himself at the rear of the house, since this was where his parents' bedrooms were located and since he was considered the most accurate marksmen among the men. After loading his shotgun, he climbed the makes.h.i.+ft stone steps that had been piled against a large tree in the backyard from which he could observe the motor traffic and pedestrians coming and going along Chauncey Lane, which bordered the back of the property.

Bill remained in the tree for more than an hour; it was a warm night with a bright sky, and the faint noises that he heard were coming from a television set in the living room, where his father and another man were sitting, and from the German shepherd watchdog, Rebel, who paced about in the patio, digging in the dirt, shaking off flies. Bill's mother, who had been ill with a nervous condition for months, was already asleep. Having seen so little of her in recent years, he was appalled on returning to Arizona this summer to discover how quickly she had aged, although it was understandable. In fact, it was remarkable that she had endured as well as she had during the years of uncertainty and solitude, remaining loyal to her husband and sons despite a mult.i.tude of accusations against them, never running away, rarely complaining. Bill thought that his mother had been well prepared for life's difficulties by her stern and demanding father, Charles Labruzzo, a man who seemed to have spent so much of his energy warring with the wind. Once in the early 1930s, Joseph Bonanno brought Labruzzo to an organizational meeting, thinking that he might wish to become affiliated; but on entering a crowded clubroom, and after spotting a man he intensely disliked, Labruzzo shouted an insult and left the room, declaring that any group that tolerated such a creature was unworthy of consideration. Another man would have been shot for such behavior. But not Charles Labruzzo. His alienation was so total that the mafiosi felt no special disrespect.

Shortly after 9:00 P.M., hot and thirsty, Bill climbed down from the tree to go into the house for a drink of water. But before he entered, he heard a car pa.s.sing through Chauncey Lane, and so he waited, his right hand on the doork.n.o.b, his left holding the shotgun. He looked at his watchdog standing at his side, growling softly; then suddenly Rebel's fur bristled, he leaped forward and charged toward the gate, barking, and Bill followed with his shotgun ready-but he quickly stopped as he saw flying through the air a black object that landed heavily in the barbecue pit.

Bill heard a sizzling sound, smelled burning tar. Running up the steps to the high branch of the tree, he saw a man running away from the gate. Bill took aim, fired. The man staggered and fell. But then Bill felt the explosive impact of a bomb knocking him loose from the tree, flinging him to the ground. He had fallen about fifteen feet, but was not hurt, although bits of gla.s.s and parts of the garage roof were cras.h.i.+ng to the ground around him.

As he got to his feet, a second explosion knocked him off balance again, the force of the blast turning him around, tossing him against a lemon tree near the wall. He was stunned, yet conscious of everything around him, hearing the house windows crack, the bricks bouncing and breaking, and he saw a portable grill skidding at great speed across the patio floor, banging into a wall. His father came running out of the house yelling, "Are you OK? Are you OK?"

"Yes," Bill said, finally sitting on the ground, looking at the large hole in the brick wall. The hole was wide enough to drive a truck through, and the rear door of the house and the garage door were knocked loose and splintered. "But I think I hit somebody," Bill said, getting up. "I'd better get out of here quick." The other men and his mother were now all around him, asking him how he felt, wiping off the dirt and dust that covered him. But he insisted that he had probably hit and killed a man and that he had to leave; if the police arrived, he might be held for homicide, might be confined for months. So he ran through the house out the front door, across the gravel yard toward Martin Avenue where there were many large oleander bushes. He hid behind them for a few moments, watching lights turn on in neighboring houses, but he was confident that no one in those houses had seen him leave. He was excited, very tense, but miraculously unharmed by the explosions. He crouched behind the bushes for a few moments, then made his way carefully to Warren Avenue, then Mable Street. He was wearing dark slacks and a black polo s.h.i.+rt, his tree outfit, but he had of course left his shotgun at home, knowing that the men would clean it and hide it.

He ran across Speedway Boulevard and soon entered the central campus grounds of the University of Arizona, which was not far from his home and which he had attended less than fifteen years ago. He knew that at this hour, close to 10:00 P.M., there would be many summer students strolling around the grounds, some couples walking arm in arm, some students returning home from the library.

Soon he was among them, and he stopped running. He could not see anyone clearly in the semidarkness, and n.o.body seemed to be paying any attention to him as he walked along familiar paths, past familiar buildings. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead, breathing more easily as he walked, feeling again some of the peace and security that had been his when he belonged here. The students who now sat talking on the stone steps where he had once sat were as casually dressed as he was at this moment, and it was suddenly strange for him to be back-in a matter of minutes he had been blown out of a tree and had been swept back into the 1950s.

He was also aware that his reason for returning tonight was to be among strangers, to lose himself by moving with people in open s.p.a.ces. A distinguished alumnus returns, he thought, savoring the absurdity, and then he paused briefly as he came to the Student Union Building, where he had once spent the hours between cla.s.ses; and then he walked past the ROTC Building, from which he had led squads of Pers.h.i.+ng riflemen wearing silver helmets and spit-polished boots. In those days, he remembered, he had been conditioned to shoot at Communists in Korea, and he had been able to display his rifle proudly before thousands of people as he and the other cadets marched into the football stadium to hang the flag before the game.

He continued on, seeing the Agriculture Building, where he had taken courses in agricultural engineering to prepare himself to run the family cotton farm that the government now controlled; and he also saw the tri-Delt sorority house, where he had dated a girl whose name he could not remember.

Then slowly but determinedly, he made his way to the Standard Oil Gas Station on University Street, where he knew there was a telephone booth, and there he called a man who would soon pick him up.

Bill hid for nearly a week, reading the newspapers and listening to the radio, but there was nothing about the death or injury of the bomber. Even if the police were deliberately keeping this fact secret, the Bonanno men had sources in hospitals who would probably have overheard talk of a death from shotgun wounds; but so far there were only discussions about the bombings. And while no one in the Bonanno house had any idea who was behind the destruction, the police seemed certain that the Banana War had extended to Tucson. The Tucson Daily Citizen Daily Citizen, which in the past had published editorials urging Bonanno and his friends to leave town, was indignant over the bombs in its latest editorial.

Has gangland warfare come to Tucson?We join all the decent residents of this area in hoping that it has not. But the blasts which rocked Pete Licavoli's Grace Ranch and Joe Bonanno's patio on successive nights this week make us wonder.Sheriffs officers hinted that at least the Grace Ranch explosions may be related to infighting among gang leaders.Licavoli, a Detroit leader of the Mafia, is a part-time Tucson resident who has legitimate business interests here and in Phoenix. His record reveals several arrests in the Detroit area and a two-year sentence to federal prison.Tucson's biggest underworld figure is Joe Bonanno, whose patio was bombed Monday night. Last spring he brought several bodyguards to Tucson to protect him and his son Bill from a rival faction headed by Paul Sciacca, his former lieutenant.In so doing he may have moved the Mafia war to Tucson from New York, where several of his followers were gunned down last winter.There may be no connection between the bombings and fighting within the Mafia. One wonders, though, whether Tucson is not beginning to reap the bitter harvest which may follow having notorious underworld figures as part-time Tucsonians.

A little more than two weeks after the publication of the editorial, there were two explosions in the rear of Peter Notaro's home, splintering a patio gate and breaking two windows, but no one was injured. Neighbors told the police that two men had fled from the scene in a blue or green getaway car shortly before 10:15 P.M., but it was then too dark to see them clearly. When Notaro returned home, finding his wife and daughter frightened but unharmed, he a.s.sured the police that he had no idea who might be directing the bombings, although the police and local politicians continued to attribute the damage to a gangland war.

Tucson's mayor, James R. Corbett, Jr., announced publicly that he would be "happy if underworld figures chose to live elsewhere." The Democratic congressman, Morris K. Udall, appealed to J. Edgar Hoover to send more FBI agents to Tucson to deal with the Mafia, and Hoover promised that he would cooperate in every way possible. Former Senator Barry Goldwater, in a speech delivered to members of the Pima County Republican Club, criticized the Lyndon Johnson administration in general, and Attorney General Ramsey Clark in particular, for failing to deal adequately with organized crime in America, and Goldwater demanded that the "reign of the princes of the Cosa Nostra must end."

In September 1968 there were four more bombings in Tucson: one was at an automobile company said to be patronized by hoodlums; a second was at a women's wig salon that employed Mrs. Charles Battaglia; a third was at the home of a man a.s.sociated with a mob-connected vending machine distributor; a fourth was at the home of an individual who had been one of Joseph Bonanno's character witnesses in Bonanno's citizens.h.i.+p case in 1954.

By October, as the anti-Mafia campaign continued and a citizen's crime commission was formed, it was estimated that at least one fourth of Tucson's 250,000 residents had heard at least one blast. Among the many speeches by politicians expressing alarm, only one man publicly doubted that the Mafia was involved in the bombings: he was G. Alfred McGinnis, a Republican candidate for Congress from the Second District, who postulated that youths might be responsible, using the situation for the bizarre kick of playing cops and robbers. McGinnis explained that he had lived in New York and Chicago during periods of Mafia warfare, "and I can tell you this-those guys are pros and when they bomb a home or a neighborhood, it does not result in a few broken windows or a damaged patio."

None of Bonanno's men or Licavoli's offered any comment on McGinnis's theory, although they did know at this time that the bombing missions were being directed not by mafiosi or thrill-seeking youths but rather by a private agency of some sort whose personnel included a dark-haired woman. It was Bill Bonanno who discovered this toward the end of the summer after one of his men, equipped with a walkie-talkie and hiding behind a bush one night, saw a slow-moving car with its lights offheading up East Elm Street. On receiving the warning, Bill ran out of the house with his shotgun, crouched in the shadows, and waited as a cream-colored 1967 Chevrolet sedan came closer. The car almost slowed to a stop in front of the Bonanno home, and, after the window opened on the pa.s.senger's side, Bill saw the woman toss out a package that rolled under one of the cars that was parked at the curb.

Because it was a woman, Bill did not shoot; but he did get a look at the car's license number and a quick glimpse of the woman and man as they drove away. He waited, flat against the ground, expecting the package to explode at any second. When it did not, he jumped to his feet and dashed into the house. He waited with the other men for several minutes, but it still did not go off.

Later one of the neighbors on East Elm Street saw the package, picked it up, and, without looking inside to examine its contents, brought it to the Bonanno's front door and presented it to Mrs. Bonanno. She accepted it with thanks, saying that she had probably dropped it out of her shopping bag as she returned from the market earlier. Inside, bound with tape, were six sticks of dynamite. The fuse, apparently lit in great haste, had burned out too early to cause detonation. One of the men disposed of the dynamite outside the house, and no report was made to the police.

But on the following day, after checking the license number with a Bonanno source in the motor vehicle bureau in Phoenix, it was determined that license number JBW-110 registered a 1967 Chevrolet sedan owned by the Deluxe Importing Company of 5001 North 40th Street in Phoenix. Bill sent his brother, Joseph, to Phoenix to learn what he could about the company, but his brother returned late that afternoon from the 260-mile round trip complaining that there was no such address in Phoenix. All that he could find in the approximate area was a vacant lot.

This was when Bill began to suspect that a private agency was behind the bombings; and he became even more strongly convinced of this a week later when Peter Notaro called to say that, while having a beer at Gus & Andy's Bar, he overheard two strangers knowledgeably discussing the bombings, and he noticed that the car they were driving was a cream-colored 1967 Chevrolet. However, the license number was JBW-109, one number lower than the one Bill had seen.

After checking this number with the source in Phoenix, Bill was told that it, too, was registered to the Deluxe Importing Company, but the address was given as 4008 North 48th Street. Bill again sent his brother to Phoenix to see what was at that address, and when Joseph returned he reported that the only thing he saw near the address was Camelback Mountain.

Still later, Bill learned from his friend in the license bureau that there were a series of license numbers registered to the Deluxe Importing Company, and Bill no longer had any doubts that he was facing formidable opposition. He suspected that the Deluxe Importing Company was a front for the CIA or FBI. But both he and his father agreed that they should do nothing with the information at this time; they should remain calm, alert, and try not to overreact, although that was admittedly difficult under the circ.u.mstances.

A few weeks before, in late September, Bill, apprehensive and suspicious, had pointed a gun at a man who sat in a car parked outside Peter Notaro's home. The man was a policeman in an unmarked car. Bill was arrested. Freed on $300 bond, Bill returned home, furious at what he regarded as police hara.s.sment; and then a week later he was arrested again, this time for speeding. Bill emphatically denied the charge, telling the policeman that he had been driving cautiously because he was aware that the policeman had been following him for several miles. But when the case came up in city court in late November, Bill Bonanno was found guilty by Magistrate Hyman Copins, who fined him $ 15 and said that Bonanno had been so intent on being "tailed" that he had failed to pay attention to the traffic signs and to a second police vehicle that was following him and clocking his speed.

Bill's problems with the law became exceedingly worse in December when he learned that he was being charged in a federal indictment with having stolen Don A. Torrillo's Diners' Club card to finance the trip that Bill had made to the West during the previous February with his uncle Di Pasquale and Peter Notaro. The indictment accused Bill Bonanno and Notaro of conspiracy, perjury, and fifty counts of mail fraud. The multiple charges of mail fraud had been compiled because each charge slip bearing Torrillo's name, forged by Bonanno or Notaro, traveled by mail between the locale of the business transaction and the Diners' Club office that paid the bills. A government spokesman was quoted in the newspapers as saying that if Bonanno were found guilty of each count, he could get up to 220 years in prison and fines of $65,000; and Notaro could receive 215 years and fines of $63,000. The late Sam Perrone, who had obtained the card from Don Torrillo and had a.s.surred Bill that Torrillo had willingly agreed to its use, was cited in the indictment as a coconspirator.

Bill was depressed but not surprised by the news. When his lawyers had been unable to reach Torrillo after Perrone's murder and when Bill had learned that Torrillo was conferring with detectives, Bill sensed that his legal position was precarious. All in all, 1968 had been a very bad year. He had lost his Arizona tax case and owed the government about $60,000; he had almost no chance of regaining his Arizona property or his home in East Meadow; he was involved in a war in New York, bombings in Arizona, and was facing a federal case in which the newspapers claimed he could get 220 years. It was so preposterous it was laughable, except it was not very funny to him.

Among other developments in 1968 was the report from New York that Frank Mari, Di Gregorio's triggerman, the man who had allegedly led the fusillade on Troutman Street and had accomplished the murder of Sam Perrone, had suddenly vanished in mid-September with his bodyguard and another man, and now all three were presumed to be dead.

PART THREE.

THE FAMILY.

18.

THE RED RANCH-STYLE HOUSE THAT ROSALIE BONANNO rented in San Jose was not unlike the one that she had left in East Meadow, but her new neighbors in California seemed to be more friendly and open-minded, not the type that would ostracize her and the children because of the notoriety attached to the Bonanno name. At first she suspected that they did not a.s.sociate her with the name in the headlines; but then, shortly after she had settled in San Jose, the local newspapers reported, prominently, that Bill Bonanno, who with his wife and children was renting a house at 1419 Lamore Drive, had been charged with stealing and illegally using a Diners' Club card, and was believed to be engaged in gangland activities in the East and West. Rosalie was initially worried by the publicity, fearing that the short-term lease on the house might now be canceled, that her children's new friends might turn on them, and that the teen-age girl who lived a few doors away, and had been babysitting, might be prohibited by her parents from returning. rented in San Jose was not unlike the one that she had left in East Meadow, but her new neighbors in California seemed to be more friendly and open-minded, not the type that would ostracize her and the children because of the notoriety attached to the Bonanno name. At first she suspected that they did not a.s.sociate her with the name in the headlines; but then, shortly after she had settled in San Jose, the local newspapers reported, prominently, that Bill Bonanno, who with his wife and children was renting a house at 1419 Lamore Drive, had been charged with stealing and illegally using a Diners' Club card, and was believed to be engaged in gangland activities in the East and West. Rosalie was initially worried by the publicity, fearing that the short-term lease on the house might now be canceled, that her children's new friends might turn on them, and that the teen-age girl who lived a few doors away, and had been babysitting, might be prohibited by her parents from returning.

But none of these things happened, and it was not because the people in San Jose were unaware of who she was; in fact on the evening after the newspaper articles had appeared, Rosalie attended a cla.s.s in computer programming that she had just joined, and the students asked her questions about it, displaying not disapproval, as she would have expected, but curiosity and friends.h.i.+p toward her. She was surprised and pleased.

She enjoyed the computer cla.s.s, which she was attending on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, not only because she had long felt the need to get out of the house and meet new people, but because she was now finally preparing herself for a career. If her husband was to be convicted on the credit card case, a case that would surely come to trial within the year, she might have to help support herself and the children after Bill had gone to jail. Computer programmers were in demand in the San Jose area, a busy center of modern corporations-IBM, Ford, General Electric's atomic power department, Lockheed's Polaris missile project, and several other companies with defense contracts and ties to the Pentagon. It was an ultranew, almost futuristic community that had been built over what had once been a Spanish pueblo, later a dried-fruit-packing center at the foot of the San Francisco peninsula; but now it was populated by electronics technicians, nuclear physicists, engineers, aircraft workers; and at night, as Rosalie drove along the highway between San Jose and San Francisco, she could see large gla.s.s-walled factories with bright lights glowing in rooms without people, and she could imagine the soft clicking sounds of busy computers.

The wide highways that she used were newly paved and without the cracks and potholes that had characterized the roads in New York; the commuter traffic in the late afternoon seemed to consist entirely of new cars, and the ranch-style houses that lined the quiet streets back from the highways were freshly painted and equipped with the latest modern gadgets, fixtures, and appliances. Rosalie wanted to own such a house, and recently she had visited sample houses in a new development and had been awed by the freshness and glow of everything she had seen-the polished bra.s.s doork.n.o.bs, the aluminum sash windows, the sliding gla.s.s doors to the patio and pool, the elegant modern furniture with colorful cus.h.i.+ons that had filled her with a sense of opulence and comfort. She had also been amazed, while walking from house to house along the sample block, that no guards were standing by to prevent visitors from damaging or stealing the transportable furniture, the silverware, china, and delicately shaped wine gla.s.ses that she had seen on a dining room table set for a dinner party of eight-she remembered leaning over and picking up one of the gla.s.ses, half expecting it to be attached by wire or otherwise linked to the table; but it was not. The linen napkins, the bra.s.s ashtrays, the pans and pots in the kitchen also were free to be handled, as were the lamps on the tables in the living room and everything else in the house. This would not have been the case in New York, she knew, recalling a visit she had made years ago to a sample house in Long Island and discovering that the lamps were bolted to the floors, that every movable object was somehow secured to the floors or tables, and that the rugs and furnis.h.i.+ngs were covered with transparent plastic.

The people that Rosalie had seen in this computerized community in California, those she had observed in shopping centers or at the McDonald Hamburger and Kentucky Fried Chicken stands that she visited with the children on Sat.u.r.day afternoons, also seemed to radiate a special freshness and health; they smiled often, displaying good teeth, and there was never a whiff of garlic on their breath. Rosalie had finally arrived in a portion of America that seemed right out of the television commercials-it was Reynolds-wrapped, polished with Johnson Wax, filmed in Kodacolor; it all seemed tidy and tradition free. And although no one seemed very rich or ambitious, they gave the appearance of contentment as they lived peacefully in their new houses, greeted their new neighbors, and drove their new cars each morning to work in industries that were geared for the preservation of big business, the conquest of outer s.p.a.ce, and the logistics of international war. It was a rather odd place for Rosalie to be awaiting her husband's return from the feudal world of his father.

Bill left Arizona after the bombings had subsided and returned to San Jose in time for Christmas, 1968; and he remained there through the next few months. It rained during most of February, but the California experience continued to please Rosalie, and for the first time in many years she saw her husband drive a car without bodyguards, a sure sign of change.

He seemed moody and restless, however, and he had a calendar of court appearances confronting him in 1969, meaning that he had to remain close to home in antic.i.p.ation of his attorney's call notifying him of the time and place. Since the courts in New York and Arizona never gave Bill much advance warning and since he was usually given a maximum of forty-eight hours in which to get there if he did not wish to forfeit bail, he was kept constantly on edge and could never make plans.

Among other things, he would have to stand trial in Arizona for having pointed a gun at the police officer who was parked outside Notaro's house, and he would probably also be summoned to testify about the bombings when and if the investigators ever discovered who was responsible. So far he was displeased with the progress made in the bombing inquiry; the FBI's customary vigilance in prosecuting crime seemed a bit slow in this instance, since the agency had possibly discovered what he already knew-the Mafia was not involved. But aside from the fact that he had traced the license plates to the mysterious Deluxe Importing Company and had seen the woman toss the dynamite in front of his father's house, Bill had been unable to learn anything more about the Arizona bombings in the last two months.

In New York, Bill was due to make further appearances before the grand jury that was still delving into the Troutman Street shootings, the Banana War, and organized crime in general; and he also knew that sooner or later he would have to go to trial on the credit card case, a subject that he preferred not to think about. From his daily reading of The New York Times The New York Times, which he purchased at a newsstand not far from his sister's home in Atherton, and from the clippings that someone in New York mailed him occasionally from The Daily News The Daily News and and Newsday Newsday, he could see that the editorial writers were still depicting the Mafia as the main corruptor of society, that the federal government was appropriating large sums of money for the fight on organized crime, and that the smalltime mafiosi were struggling as usual, shooting at one another in the street and attempting to scratch out a living.

The FBI announced the arrest of three alleged Bonanno soldiers in connection with the armed hijacking of two trailer trucks loaded with $120,000 worth of cigarettes and other merchandise, and a later search of the suspects' homes uncovered a high explosive bomb and 2,000 rounds of ammunition for rifles, pistols, and shotguns. The death from natural causes of seventy-seven-year-old Matteo Di Gregorio, brother of the ailing Gaspar Di Gregorio, was also given wide coverage in the press, and among the 800 mourners in Lindenhurst, Long Island, were several plainclothesmen and agents who claimed to recognize more than twenty major Mafia figures. The most prominent among them was Carlo Gambino, whose family of more than 700 members was now said to be the largest in New York and in the nation; and the police also spotted men they believed to be affiliated with the Colombo family, the Stefano Magaddino family, and-Bill was not surprised to read--John Morale.

The latest casualty in the continuing Banana War was identified as one of Di Gregorio's men-Thomas Zummo, twenty-nine, who the police said died in a blaze of gunfire on February 6, at about 5:00 A.M. as he entered the lobby of his girl friend's apartment house in Queens. His friend, a model, notified the police moments after she heard the shooting, but Zummo apparently died instantly, having been hit by four bullets with five others stuck in the lobby walls. A week later, Bill read that Vito Genovese, seventy-one, had just died of a heart ailment at the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri.

Genovese, who had begun a fifteen-year sentence in 1960 for narcotics smuggling, would have been eligible for parole in March 1970. He had been transferred to the medical center from the federal prison at Leavenworth two weeks ago, and there was now considerable speculation in the press as to Genovese's successor, the three most likely candidates being Jerry Catena, sixty-seven, the alleged acting boss during Genovese's imprisonment; Michele Miranda, seventy-two, the family's consiglieri; consiglieri; and Thomas Eboli, fifty-eight, a onetime prizefight manager who in 1952, after his fighter Rocky Costellani had been ruled knocked out, had jumped into the ring and hit the referee. This triumvirate was said to be directing the Genovese family at present, but there was a fourth contender who might seize control, according to a Mafia expert named Ralph Salerno, a former New York City policeman and currently a consultant to the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. This fourth individual, whom Salerno described as "young and ambitious," was Salvatore (Bill) Bonanno. and Thomas Eboli, fifty-eight, a onetime prizefight manager who in 1952, after his fighter Rocky Costellani had been ruled knocked out, had jumped into the ring and hit the referee. This triumvirate was said to be directing the Genovese family at present, but there was a fourth contender who might seize control, according to a Mafia expert named Ralph Salerno, a former New York City policeman and currently a consultant to the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. This fourth individual, whom Salerno described as "young and ambitious," was Salvatore (Bill) Bonanno.

Reading this in the San Jose Mercury Mercury, which had gotten it from the New York wire services, Bill was almost flattered but at the same time irritated: he knew that Salerno's naivete could cause him additional trouble once he arrived in New York. He knew, as Salerno should have known, that he had absolutely no influence with Genovese's men; and, indeed, Bill had reason to wonder at this time if he had any influence with his own own men. Nevertheless, Salerno's statement might be believed by a few of Genovese's unhappy triggermen in New York-in this current state of confusion in the underworld, men. Nevertheless, Salerno's statement might be believed by a few of Genovese's unhappy triggermen in New York-in this current state of confusion in the underworld, anything anything might seem plausible; and the last thing that Bill wanted to do was to arouse more envy and resentment among the men in the street. might seem plausible; and the last thing that Bill wanted to do was to arouse more envy and resentment among the men in the street.

Still he could not help but be affected by the status accorded him by the Mafia expert Salerno; it was something that Bill might even be able to trade on in this secret society where status, power, and the illusion of power were intertwined, flaunted, fought over. During the last year Bill had become sensitive to newspaper reports emphasizing the deterioration of the Bonanno organization and his own decline, and it had occurred to him recently that in the past two years he had not been asked by any relative or friend to serve as their children's G.o.dfather. This meant nothing and everything to him, for it symbolized the esteem in which he had once been held by other people, deservedly or undeservedly, and was no longer. And yet he knew that in this s.h.i.+fting, unstable little society of which he was a part, his status could rise overnight, could change on the basis of such public comments by men like Ralph Salerno.

Already Bill had sensed the influence of Salerno's words on the men who visited the house earlier in the day to say h.e.l.lo and to ask if there was anything that they could do for him. These men had known the elder Bonanno and had been helpful to Rosalie after she had moved to San Jose with the children, but they had not stopped by in several weeks. Now they had returned, interrupting his breakfast on this Sat.u.r.day with their good cheer and supplicant manner and the affection they showed the children in the living room. As they waited for Bill to finish breakfast, they sat watching the children playing with plastic airplanes and rockets, and Bill heard his daughter Felippa telling them that when she became older she was going to work as an airline stewardess. Tory, Bill's six-year-old son, announced to the men that he planned to become an astronaut-or a dentist.

"A dentist?" one of the men repeated.

"Yes," said Tory. "My uncle Greg's a dentist, and he knows a lot."

"Well, your father knows a lot too," the man said.

"Yes," Tory agreed, "but he doesn't know the square root of ten."

"Yes he does," said Charles, the eldest son, as Felippa quickly agreed.

"Well," Tory said, "he isn't a dentist."

"What is your father then?" the man asked. In the breakfast room, Bill stopped eating, listened carefully.

"He's a driver," Tory said.

"A driver? driver?"

"Yes, he drives a car."

"He does more than that," the man said, egging Tory on.

"He watches television and he drives," Tory said with finality, as the men laughed. Bill was also amused, but not entirely. He thought it very coincidental that the subject of his occupation should be discussed by his children at a time when he, too, had been giving considerable thought as to how he would or could explain his life to them. Sooner or later, particularly if he went to jail for a long term, he would attempt to explain himself to his children, which was something that his own father had never done with him. Bill recalled that he had been in his teens before he had understood why his father had been treated with such formality and respect. Before he understood this Bill had thought of his father as merely a successful businessman, the owner of a cheese factory in Wisconsin, a laundry in New York, a dairy farm upstate, land in Arizona. Would it have made any difference if he had known the "truth" about his father earlier than he did? Bill doubted it. He had been magnetized by his father, would have followed him through h.e.l.l, and when he finally had perceived the full range of his father's power he had been even more impressed and proud. But Bill did not expect to be that persuasive with his own children-he would never be the towering figure to them that his father had been to him; times had changed, the dynasty was disintegrating, the insularity of Italian family life would most likely not survive the third generation, which was probably a good thing for his children. Bill remembered how angry he had become the other night when, while Rosalie was in computer cla.s.s, he had returned home to be told by the baby-sitter that the children had behaved badly; and he had immediately announced that they would be punished-no toys or television watching for two days. But later, after they had gone to sleep, he wondered what right he really had to tell them anything. He thought that perhaps the less they listened to him, the better off" they would be. He was not sure that he really believed this, but the thought had occurred to him, briefly, an infrequent acknowledgment of disquieting self-doubt; and now again, as he overheard the conversation in the living room, he wondered about his children and was curious to know their thoughts about him, what they suspected, what they knew, what they would admit to knowing.

Later in the day, after the men had left and while Rosalie was shopping, Bill decided to find out. Opening the patio door, he called to his eleven-year-old son Charles, who was building a new rabbit cage out of orange crates and chicken wire. Charles was constantly improving his skills as a carpenter and maintenance man; he was the one who fixed the flat tires on the bicycles, tightened the loose wheels of Felippa's toy baby carriage, mowed the lawn and uprooted the weeds. With the Blue Chip trading stamps that he received from his mother and his aunt Catherine, he was saving toward an electric lawnmower, planning to earn extra money by tending to neighbors' lawns. Although Charles was a year older than his cla.s.smates in the fourth grade, having been left back once in Long Island, he seemed neither embarra.s.sed nor contrite when he brought home his latest unimpressive report card for Rosalie to sign. He possessed almost no compet.i.tive spirit as a student, caring mainly about things for which he would not be tested or graded. He was interested in animals, birds, and the insects that he was endlessly catching. He was always polite and patient; and though he was the adopted child and was aware of it, he was the one who seemed most at home in the Bonanno household.

When he heard his father calling him, Charles did not frown or fret as his brothers might have done; he came immediately, followed his father into the television room and remained standing as his father closed the door. Tall and thin, with green eyes and a lighter complexion than his brothers, Charles's gentle good looks were not marred by the fact that his upper left eyelid drooped slightly, a congenital defect that did not impair his vision and that a doctor said could easily be corrected with minor surgery when the boy was older.

Bill sat down in a black Barcalounger against the wall, looked at Charles, whom he called Chuckie, and asked: "Chuckie, do you know what I do for a living?"

"No," the boy said, seeming slightly confused but not upset.

"Does your teacher ever ask you what I do for a living?"

"No," said Charles.

"Do you ever wonder yourself?"

"No," Charles said, casually.

"You don't give a darn, do you?" Bill asked, lightly.

Charles paused, then said, "Well, in New York you used to work in a hardware store."

"A hardware hardware store!" Bill repeated. store!" Bill repeated.

"Well, didn't you?"

"Don't you mean a warehouse? warehouse?" Bill asked.

"Oh, yes, that's what I mean, a warehouse."

"Suppose one of your teachers or someone you know at Cub Scouts asks, 'What does your father do all day?' What would you answer?"

"I'd say that he sits around and watches TV."

Bill smiled. Then he asked, "Do you remember Uncle Hank?" referring to the late Sam (Hank) Perrone.

Charles nodded, and Bill asked, "What did he do for a living?"

"I forget."

"You're not a very cooperative witness," Bill said, raising an eyebrow in mock disapproval. Then Bill continued, "Suppose your scoutmaster asks you a direct question, Chuckie, wanting to know what I do-what would you tell him?"

"I wouldn't tell him anything."

"Why?"

"Because I don't know what you do."

"Why don't you know?"

"You never told me."