Nothing But Money (6 page)

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Authors: Greg B. Smith

BOOK: Nothing But Money
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Jeffrey promised to take care of the Mercedes situation as soon as possible. In the meantime, he had a proposition.
There was this deal in the works that would make them all millionaires. Overnight. Guaran-fucking-teed. Cary would be getting $1,500 a week, a free office at Three Star and a free car thrown in. Jeffrey would just need to borrow Cary and his broker’s license for a little bit. And if Cary had the temerity, he could make a lot of money in a short period of time. Cary said, “That’s interesting.”
Jeffrey went to work.
CHAPTER FIVE
Early 1989
 
Bobby Lino Sr. lay in a hospital bed in Brooklyn. Most of his life he weighed in around 180, 190 pounds. Now he was down to 90 pounds, with shoes. There were tubes and machines that beeped and nurses in and out scribbling on clipboards. An air of festivity was not present. At his bedside were his cousin Frank, and two old friends, Good Looking Sal and Big Louie. They had known each other for years, back from the old neighborhood in Gravesend, Brooklyn. They had lived the life of
la cosa nostra
every day, done pieces of work together, schemed their days away. Oh, the capers! They met all the big names—Tony Ducks, Rusty Rastelli, Big Paulie and even the guy on the cover of
Time
magazine, John Gotti. They strutted down Mulberry Street with a roll of bills and a smile and a slap on the arm for their fellow good fellows. But it wasn’t the same now. It wasn’t
The Godfather
anymore. It wasn’t as much fun.
It all went bad with that business with Donnie Brasco, the FBI agent who’d conned them all. That was bad news for everybody. A lot of guys with families to feed had taken it in the neck on that one. Sure Bobby Senior had walked away from that mess. Donnie Brasco hadn’t touched him. But look at him now. He was Bobby Senior, soldier in the Bonanno organized crime family of New York City, down to ninety pounds, the Big C hanging over his head. All the chemicals and tubes and machines weren’t turning the tide. He was on his way. The current was pulling him downstream toward the big waterfall. True, he had done some very bad things in his life. Now it was time to set the record straight.
First off, Bobby Senior couldn’t have helped any of it. He was born into the life. His mother and father and most of the Lino family had come from Sicily back in the 1920s when the Black Hand—a group of marginally organized criminals that would eventually become the particular version of organized crime called the American Mafia—did certain favors for people in the neighborhood, in exchange for which these people owed them for the rest of their natural born days. Way back in the 1930s it started with Bobby Senior’s uncle, Frank Lino Sr. He’d done a big favor for a guy named Funzi. Funzi would someday become the boss of the Genovese crime family. At the time he was just a powerful man in the world of Brooklyn Sicilians, and if you asked him for help, he would help. In this case, a fellow Sicilian, Frank Ciccone, was facing the possibility of being deported back to the old country after being caught boot-legging. Ciccone needed to make sure his daughter, Louise, was taken care of here in Brooklyn if he needed to leave, so he went to the gangster boss. The gangster boss, being a practical man who knew a victim when he saw one, immediately embraced the Ciccone family as if they were his own. He immediately promised to arrange a nice marriage to a nice boy named Frank Lino. Frank’s father was a friend of the boss, so there was no negotiation about whether Frank and Louise would begin this new life together. The blessed event, arranged by the boss Funzi, went forward, and thus forever linked the Lino family to
la cosa nostra
.
Years later there would be Bobby and Eddie and Frank Junior, all immersed in the life. All believed in the life, and in Brooklyn in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, it was something to aspire to. Bobby had enjoyed it, anyway. He would disappear for months at a time to Italy, arranging heroin purchases. He would sell marijuana, cocaine, whatever the demand required. He tried manufacturing quaaludes for a while but didn’t make any money at it. And of course, he did a piece of work or two.
Lying in the hospital bed with the Big C looming over his head, it could happen that all of a sudden you saw all the people you’d clipped from a different point of view. Getting close to the end of the book had a way of doing that. Things you never spoke of had a way of coming back, even if you couldn’t remember all the names.
One of the guys he remembered was Bobby C. He didn’t really know the guy too well and somebody else did most of the work. It was explained that Bobby C owed everybody in Brooklyn money, and everybody in Brooklyn believed Bobby C was about to turn into a government rat. There were no documents or anything to prove this, just strong belief. Strong belief was usually good enough. When Bobby Senior was told to do it, he did it. Simple as that. He was also quite aware that if he didn’t do as he was told, they would clip him and he would be the guy who winds up in Tommy Karate’s bathtub. That’s what happened with Bobby C, rest his soul. There was this two-family house on Bay 50th Street in Brooklyn; Bobby Senior couldn’t ever remember the address. It was one of Tommy Karate’s houses. Tommy had shot Bobby C while Bobby watched, and then they both dragged Bobby C’s body to the bathtub, where Tommy went to work. In a way, it was pretty low-key. He didn’t have to pull the trigger, and he didn’t even have to do any of that business with the saws and knives in the bathtub. He just had to be around and lug first the guy and then the bags with the guy inside to a lonely spot in Staten Island, and then speak no more of Bobby C.
There was a reasonable explanation for what had to be done about Bobby C. This was also true about the other piece of work, the business with Sonny Black. Although in that case, it had almost been a disaster.
Sonny was a well-known man’s man, a respected guy who many believed could one day wind up as boss. Everybody loved the guy, but everybody knew he had to go. Although it is true that in the civilized world, ignorance is not a sin, in Brooklyn, ignorance is a good way to get clipped. Ignorance was certainly the reason Sonny Black had to go. He had vouched for this knock-around guy named Donnie Brasco, even putting him on a list to get made. That would have been fine except for the fact that Donnie wasn’t really Donnie. He was really Joe the FBI agent. And he’d been hanging around with Sonny Black and the rest of them for a very long time. Things were discussed. Conversations took place. Who knew that not every rat agent hired by the FBI looked like he came from Nebraska and hadn’t laughed at a joke in years? This guy Donnie/Joe talked the talk, walked the walk, knew the game inside and out. Plus he was apparently very good at taking notes and sometimes even tape-recording. Sonny Black had been the one to embrace this guy, assuring everybody that Donnie was a stand-up guy who could be trusted. Sonny had confided in him, even asked him to do a piece of work. When Bobby Senior got the word that he’d be involved in clipping somebody and he realized Sonny Black might be the target, he understood why completely. You couldn’t be a captain and open up the door to the federal government like that.
For Bobby Senior, the Sonny Black job was different. This time Bobby Senior had been forced to really pull his weight. Bobby had been around for a long time but never pulled the trigger. He would lure the guy to the meeting, or roll the guy in the rug, or dig the hole in the frozen ground of the fence company back lot. With Sonny Black, Bobby Senior had to do a little more.
The day of the job it was summer of 1981. It was not long after the FBI agents showed up at Sonny’s bar and showed him a photo of this guy Donnie and asked, “Do you know this guy? He’s an FBI agent. We just thought you’d like to know.” There were a lot of meetings after that little interlude. Bobby’s cousin Eddie approached Bobby and his other cousin Frank. The Lino family gathering got right down to business. Eddie inquired about finding a location for a murder. He didn’t say who. Eddie said that Frank had been recommended for the job by a gangster in the Gambino family, which always had an interest in Bonanno family business. To Frank, this talk of setting up a meeting was probably bad news for Frank. Frank was always convinced that he was going to be the guy clipped. To Bobby, there was no back and forth. It was simple. They say do it, you do it. And there were certain pluses to these things. Being recommended for a murder could offer him some stability or even a promotion. Bobby and Frank said they’d find a convenient place right away.
A house in Staten Island was procured. It was like any other house, where people ate breakfast and watched TV sitcoms and fought and loved and lived. It was right next to another house and another house and was the kind of place you’d drive by and not think twice about. It was perfect for this kind of work. Twice the house was visited to make sure the layout was just right. There was a basement. This would be where the actual deed got done. Sonny would be lured to the house and walked downstairs, and would never again see the blue sky above, his final moments spent in a basement in Staten Island. The Lino cousins even acquired a body bag from the owner of a funeral home who didn’t really want to know why they needed it. They set up tables and chairs in the basement to make it look like a meeting was going to take place. It was like choreographing a Broadway show, only with a different type of ending. Maybe more like Shakespeare. Everybody had a part to play, and if one guy screwed up, the reviews would be brutal. For Bobby Senior, who’d never actually pulled the trigger before, screwing up was a real possibility.
The day of the Sonny Black piece of work, Frank Lino got assigned the task of driving Sonny to the house in Staten Island. Sonny Black was a capable guy who knew he’d screwed up with the Donnie Brasco business, but they’d convinced him to attend this important meeting by assuring him that the mistake with Donnie Brasco was everyone’s, not just his. To reassure him about attending the meeting, they had one of the top bosses of the Bonanno group, the consigliere of the family, a guy they called Stevie Beef, come along for the ride. If Sonny thought he was going to a high-level meeting, he would go. Everybody knew that bosses were never around when somebody got clipped. If a boss was there, Sonny Black was safe. Stevie Beef was the cover story. At least that was the thinking as Frank Lino showed up at a hotel in Brooklyn to pick up Sonny Black and Stevie Beef and drive them to the house with the tables and the chairs in the basement.
On that day Frank Lino drove a certain route to the house in Staten Island so he could pass by an intersection where a van was parked. Inside the van were Joseph Massino and another Bonanno gangster. Massino was the captain who had arranged the entire hit, and when Frank and Sonny and Stevie passed by, Massino saw that Sonny was on his way to another place. He followed in his van. This was gangster choreography.
At the house, Bobby Lino waited in the basement with gun in hand. He and another guy, Ronnie, were supposed to be the shooters. Standing in a basement waiting to use a gun on a guy you’d known for years was no easy task. They waited and waited, until finally they heard talking at the top of the stairs.
The door opened and Frank Lino emerged first, followed by Sonny Black and then the boss, Stevie Beef. As they began descending the staircase, somebody—Bobby Senior couldn’t see who—pulled the boss back onto the landing and slammed the basement door shut.
Frank Lino grabbed Sonny Black by the shoulder and shoved him down the stairs. As he came rolling down, Bobby stepped up. This was his moment, the moment he’d been chosen for, a moment that would surely follow him around for the rest of his life. Bobby Senior aimed and fired. His first shot hit Sonny, but Sonny was still quite alive. Bobby fired again. This time, his gun jammed.
“Hit me again,” Sonny said. “Make it good.”
The other guy with a gun, Ronnie, stepped up and fired twice. Sonny Black lay still on the basement floor.
Frank Lino reached into the dead man’s pants pocket to remove his car keys as proof. The keys were taken upstairs to show to Massino, while the rest of the crew went to work on Sonny Black. Bobby Lino had done his part, so this time he didn’t have to stick around while they sawed off Sonny’s hands so he couldn’t be identified.
And that was the end of Sonny Black. Bobby Senior had, more or less, done what he was supposed to do, more or less. If the other guy hadn’t been there, it might have been a different story. Bobby Senior had to know this. If Sonny had somehow escaped or some other horrific scenario had unfolded, Bobby Senior could have found himself in a different basement with tables and chairs. But it had all worked out. Months later Sonny Black would surface in a Staten Island swamp. The night of the murder there was supposed to be a hole already dug, waiting for Sonny Black, but the crew that showed up with Sonny Black couldn’t find it in the dark. Instead, they dug a makeshift shallow grave, and all it took was one good rain for Sonny Black to resurface for all the world to see. There was a certain lack of dignity in all of this, but Sonny had chosen the life he’d led and died in a way he’d probably expected.
This would not be the way for Bobby Senior. He wouldn’t be surfacing in any swamp in Staten Island without his hands. Instead he would die slowly from cancer. He was a physical wreck, trapped in a hospital bed, lingering. Natural causes were headed his way. There was little left for him. But as he lay there in a bed used by strangers, dying, his cousin Frank and pals Good Looking Sal and Big Louie at his bedside, he did have one last dying wish to impart.
“Frank,” Bobby Senior said to his cousin. “Make sure Robert gets made.”

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