CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Dantzler sat at the head of the table in the War Room, a half-dozen crumpled yellow pages torn from a legal pad spread out in front of him. Laurie and Eric sat to his left, Milt to his right. Captain Bird leaned against the wall at the far end of the room.
They all waited patiently as Dantzler searched through the pages, which he had numbered, getting them in order. Satisfied with his arrangement, he looked around the room, took a deep breath, and began reading.
“Johnny Richards was born Gianni Rinetti in Palermo, Sicily, in nineteen fifty-eight, the son of Enzio and Gabriella Rinetti. Enzio, a physician, died of a heart attack at age thirty-five, leaving twenty-year-old Gaby to take care of their infant son. Beautiful and highly ambitious, Gaby longed to leave Italy and move to Brooklyn, where many of her family members were living. She wanted the good life for her and her son. Gaby’s desire was for him to have the same opportunities her relatives had. To experience the most appealing of all enticements-the Great American Dream.
“Obviously, she needed money in order to cross the big pond,” he continued. “To achieve her goal meant reaching out to one of her relatives in America, which she did. An uncle.”
Dantzler paused, then said, “Carlo Gambino.”
“Holy shit,” Milt said. “The Carlo Gambino? Head of the Gambino Crime Family?”
“He was more than simply head of the family, Milt,” Dantzler pointed out. “He was Capo Di Tutti Capi, boss of all bosses. Head of The Commission. Which, as everyone knows, is made up of the heads of New York’s five crime families.”
“Lucky Luciano was the genius who created The Commission back in the thirties,” Milt pointed out. “He’s the guy who put the ‘organized’ in organized crime.”
“Man, this is straight out of The Godfather,” Eric noted. “The only thing missing is the damn theme music. So… how does Johnny Richards, or Gianni whatever, fit into this?”
“Don Carlo loved Gianni like one of his own children,” Dantzler read from his notes. “He doted on the boy, lavished him with expensive gifts, clothes, and toys. Nothing was too good or too costly for little Gianni. Not surprisingly, Gianni, as he grew older, was fiercely loyal to the old man. And as we all know, in Mafia-land, loyalty and respect mean more than anything.
“At some point, Carlo, recognizing Gianni possessed exceptional skills and intelligence, began to view the kid as a potential successor. He undertook the process of grooming the boy for the top spot, introducing him to the heads of other families, letting him sit in on meetings, pointing out potential rivals or threats, giving him Cosa Nostra history lessons… that sort of stuff.”
Dantzler opened a bottle of water and took a long drink before continuing. “No one knows for sure when or under what circumstances Rinetti made his first hit, but the guess is he was around fourteen or fifteen. What is known for sure is that within the next three or four years he became Gambino’s top trigger man. If the old man needed a rival eliminated, the job was given to Gianni. Also, Gambino began to loan Gianni out to other families-for a hefty fee, of course.”
“Paid assassin,” Laurie said. “What a nice way to spend your teenage years.”
“Ah, come on, Laurie,” Milt said, chuckling. “We want our young people to show initiative, to earn a few bucks along the way. So he murdered people rather than cut grass or deliver newspapers. That doesn’t make him a bad person.”
“Shut up, Milt,” Laurie snapped. She looked at Dantzler. “Continue, please.”
“One of Gianni’s most celebrated hits occurred in nineteen seventy-four,” Dantzler said. “The victim was Carmine ‘Mimi’ Scalino, a feared and respected soldier in the Colombo Family. Scalino was notorious for being loud, arrogant, and obnoxious when he got drunk, which he was when he spotted Gambino at a popular Italian restaurant. Scalino approached Gambino and began to insult him in front of others. Gianni made a move to retaliate, but Gambino, calm and dignified as always, stopped him, never uttering that first word. Despite being embarrassed and disrespected in public, Gambino quietly walked out of the restaurant. I’m sure you can guess where this tale is headed. Not long after the incident, Scalino’s bullet-riddled body was found at Otto’s Social Club in Brooklyn encased in the cement floor. It was common knowledge that Gianni made Scalino pay for disrespecting Gambino.
“In June, nineteen seventy-six, Gianni married Maggie Costello,” Dantzler said. “She was a cousin to Frank Costello, another Luciano protégé, and one of Gambino’s oldest pals. But according to Jeff Walker, my Justice Department source, Maggie was absolutely clean, wanting nothing whatsoever to do with Mob life. To her, there was nothing glamorous or exciting about it, regardless of how the movies and novels portrayed it. She had seen too many friends and family members either sent to prison or die an early, violent death, neither of which was an outcome she wanted for her husband. She pleaded with Gianni to walk away from the business, and although he was deeply in love with her, he wasn’t about to abandon Don Carlo.
“Circumstances changed when Gambino died in October, nineteen seventy-six. All of a sudden, stability was gone, replaced by jealousy and in-fighting. Before his death, Gambino chose his cousin, Paul ‘Big Paulie’ Castellano, as his successor, a decision that didn’t sit well with the family’s other underboss, Neil Dellacroce. The Dellacroce followers included familiar names like John Gotti and Salvatore ‘Sammy the Bull’ Gravano, tough street-wise thugs who viewed Castellano as soft and prissy. They didn’t think ‘Big Paulie’ had earned the right to be Boss of Bosses. He had neither their support nor their respect. As a result, his days were numbered almost from the beginning of his reign as Don. A few years later, after Dellacroce had died, Castellano was gunned down in front of a New York steak house.”
“Yeah, I remember that,” Milt said. “Sparks Steak House, if I recall correctly. Gotti gave the order, then he and Sammy ‘the Bull’ sat in a car a block or so away and watched it happen.”
Dantzler continued, “With his benefactor dead, and knowing too many power-hungry rivals stood between him and the top spot, Gianni heeded his wife’s pleas and left the Gambino family. What he didn’t do, though, was stop killing. For the next three years, he was essentially a gun for hire. He is thought to have done wet work for crime families in Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and New Orleans. And that’s a conservative guess. In truth, there were likely many others the Justice Department can’t confirm.”
“Okay, okay, Jack, enough with Richards’s past history,” Bird said, still leaning against the wall. “We all know the guy was a Mob hit man. Fast forward to how he got to Lexington.”
Dantzler nodded, said, “Sometime late in nineteen seventy-eight an Organized Crime Unit brought Gianni in for the purpose of letting him hear a taped conversation between two West Coast crime bosses. On the tape, one of the bosses commented that a half-million dollar hit had been put out on Gianni and his wife. The reason for the hit is unclear, but Walker suspects it was because Gianni whacked a target the bosses hadn’t singled out for elimination. Now, in the world of organized crime, wives and family members are considered off-limits. That’s a crucial part of the code. Appalled by this serious breach of ethics, Gianni quickly agreed to testify against both bosses in exchange for being placed in the Witness Protection Program. The Feds, naturally, were only too happy to make the deal. However, when they began to push Gianni for information relating to the Gambino Crime Family, he balked. He had only marginal respect for Castellano, and no respect at all for Gotti, who Gianni knew would eventually muscle his way to the top spot. But there was no way in hell he was ever going to rat against his old family, no matter how much the Feds upped the ante. So, after giving information against the two West Coast bosses, he told the Feds to shove the Witness Protection Program up their ass, moved to Lexington with his beloved Maggie, changed his name and facial looks, bought the tavern, and lived happily ever after.”