Mussina also corroborated Denunziatta's story about what happened to Stevie. He used the exact same words:"Stevie's gotta go."
Then he told the jury about a dancer, Gloria, who worked at a fancy strip club Cavello owned in Rockland County, New York. Gloria bragged to one of the other girls that she had squirreled away thirty thousand dollars in cash. Her"I-70 fund," she called it. One day she was going to take her daughter and just drive west, start a new life.
Tommy Mussina told the jury,"When Mr. Cavello heard this he got mad as hell. He thought this chick was stealing from him. So he sent a couple of guys to her apartment. They screwed her, strangled her, and tossed the body in a Dumpster. Luckily the kid was at school."
"They found the money?" Goldenberger asked.
"Yeah." Mussina nodded."Stuffed inside a suitcase in a closet. Thirty grand, just like Gloria had said. They brought it back to Mr. Cavello."
"Why?"
"He wanted it." Mussina shrugged."He laughed, said, ‘What was once Caesar's belongs to Caesar.' I was there."
Vintage Cavello. Coldhearted and unnecessary. Over-the-top cruel.
"So in the end," the prosecutor said, shaking his head sadly,"did the money turn out to be stolen after all?"
"Nah. She saved it up just like she'd said. Mr. Cavello ended up giving it back to the family as a fund for Gloria's kid. He got a good laugh out of that one. It was the girl's own dough."
Chapter 34
AFTER MUSSINA'S TESTIMONY, the jury members filed into the jury room for lunch. No one seemed particularly hungry."You see that asshole sitting there?" Hector shook his head angrily."He barely moves a muscle. Like he's got the world under control. Evenus. "
"Well, he won't have it under control much longer if I have anything to do with it." Rosella crossed herself."God rest his soul.In hell. "
Andie sat down. She glanced at Marc. The writer was just leaning on the windowsill, staring out at lower Manhattan.
"That poor dancer. Some getaway fund, huh? I have a little boy. That could've been me at another time in my life," Andie said.
Marc nodded sympathetically."Whichclub was it you said you danced at?"
"Very funny." Andie scrunched up her face. But at least the joke broke the tension. One by one, people began to smile and sit down. They passed out plates.
"After this is over we should all meet. I know this farm in the Poconos," John O'Flynn said, piling cold cuts onto his bread.
Winston, the mechanic, laughed."Yeah, just watch out for all the large mounds of dirt."
Lorraine let one of her loud, high-pitched giggles go. That set everybody off. It was amazing that after all the grisly testimony they could just kick back and laugh.
" Lorraine," Andie said,"I have a dare for you. We all put ten bucks into a kitty, and the next time the Eyebrow makes one of those ridiculous statements about Cavello being a good citizen, you let rip one of your laughs."
"That would be priceless." O'Flynn cackled."I'm in. I think even Judge Seiderman would get a charge out of it."
Lorraine must've liked the image, because she let another one loose. Shrill and penetrating. Everybody laughed even louder than the first time.
Andie had to admit that over the past week she had gotten close to these people. Maybe it was the nature of what they were doing. Sharing the same room, hearing the same sick, unsettling testimony.
She looked around the room."Listen, it's my kid's birthday tomorrow. I arranged for him to come back with us and spend the night. What do you guys say about soda and cake in my room after dinner?"
"Hey, a party," O'Flynn said, nodding for all of them.
"We'll get party hats and noisemakers!" Rosella exclaimed."Like New Year's Eve. Be a birthday he'll never forget."
"Courtesy of the United States government," Marc said."They owe us something after all this, right? What's the little guy's name?"
"Jarrod." Andie smiled."That's great. Thank you, guys. There's just oneother thing. I kinda promised you'd all bring presents."
Chapter 35
I WATCHED THE JURY file back in for the afternoon session. Minutes later, another star witness was on the stand. He was an ex-mobster named Joseph Zaro, a former union official in the Local 407. The 407 was the contracting union Cavello controlled in New Jersey.
Zaro explained how for years contractors were squeezed for payoffs to get building contracts. How it literally took a hundred thousand dollars in a suitcase dropped at union headquarters if you even wanted workers to show up for the job. Or, if a contractor wanted a mix of union and nonunion labor to save money, that cost you 20 percent of the savings up front.
For years, we knew it was the biggest racket going in New Jersey, and that Cavello was literally skimming millions off the top. We just couldn't catch him.
"How many contracts did you rig for Mr. Cavello?" Joel Goldenberger asked Zaro.
"Dozens. Hundreds?" The witness shrugged."And there were two other guys like me doing the exact same job."
"The exact same job? Meaning extortion?" Joel Goldenberger pressed him.
The witness shrugged again as if it was the most natural thing in the world."Yeah."
"And what would happen," the prosecutor asked,"if the contractor refused to pay?"
"Then they wouldn't get no labor, Mr. Goldenberger."
"And if they still refused to pay? Or if they used outside workers?"
"You meanoutside our union? " the witness asked.
"Yes."
Zaro looked around blankly for a second; then he scratched his head."You understand, we were talking Dominic Cavello here, Mr. Goldenberger. I don't think I ever recall that happening."
A few people around the courtroom laughed.
Goldenberger smiled, too."So this was basically a monopoly? Mr. Cavello over there could dictate terms to the entire construction business?"
"There wasn't a building went up in north Jersey, and parts of New York, that Dominic Cavello didn't get a piece of." The witness laughed out loud.
Even Cavello seemed to curl a smile at that one. As if he was proud of his business acumen. We had him dead to rights. Murder. Union tampering. Fraud. You could read it on every face in the courtroom. You could even read it on Cavello's face, beneath the cold stare that seemed to say,This doesn't bother me at all.
Now the prosecution had one final witness, one who could testify about an even uglier side of Cavello. One who could drive the nail into his coffin for good.
Me.
Chapter 36
I TOOK THE STAND the next afternoon.
"Please state your name." Joel Goldenberger stood up and faced me."And what your association is with this trial."
"Nicholas Pellisante," I said."I'm an SAC in the New York office of the FBI. I'm the head of a unit known as C-10. We oversee organized crime."
"Thank you. And in your role as head of this unit, Agent Pellisante, you are the senior law enforcement agent on the investigation into Dominic Cavello, is that correct?"
"That's correct." I nodded."Other than the assistant director and the director."