Mob Star by Gene Mustain Read Free Book Online

Family branches had become jittery.
    “Everybody’s running scared, John,” one of Gotti’s crew members had said to him.
    “Well, fuck them, we ain’t.”
    “I’m telling you what it is.”
    “I ain’t running scared. I run scared … when I bet three games and lose the three games. Then I run scared.”
    After the Sparks hits, a few reporters tried to talk to Gotti, but he demurred. He also declined, through his attorney, to submit voluntarily to an interview with FBI agents, because he knew “nothing about the murders.”
    Gotti also declined to attend the wake of Castellano, who had declined to attend the wake of Aniello Dellacroce two weeks earlier—a miscalculation compounded by appointing Bilotti underboss.
    In fact, all except blood family boycotted Castellano’s wake, which was held in the same funeral parlor as Carlo Gambino’s, located in Brooklyn, in a peculiarly named section of the Pope’s childhood borough: Gravesend.

2
    THE NICE N EZ BUG
    F OR A MURDER SUSPECT, John Gotti was a bold man in the days following the Pope’s timely demise.
    He was more irritated than worried that once again NYPD detectives and FBI agents shadowed him as he moved around the dense, tense city in a chauffeured car. The chauffeur was a necessary luxury; like the rest of him, Gotti’s foot was aggressive. His motor vehicle rap sheet included several speeding beefs and a drunk-driving conviction, for which his license had been suspended.
    He was not widely known in the lawful world, although he had been identified as the “new Godfather” of the “Gambino gang” in some premature newspaper handicapping in March, after Castellano’s second racketeering indictment. He was widely known in the unlawful world, where Johnny, Johnny Boy, or John all described the same explosive force, John Gotti.
    As Neil Dellacroce’s health faded away, Gotti had assumed more responsibility for the Family’s “other mob,” which controlled a large gambling network. This was turning the proverbial distillery over to an alcoholic; Gotti was an astounding gambler—losses of $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 a weekend on horse racing and sports contests were common. He once won $225,000 on the Brooklyn number—an underworld lottery—and lost it in two nights of shooting craps.
    Gotti’s crew included three of his six brothers and men he’d known since his teenage street-gang days. “We’re the fucking toughest guys in the fucking world,” he proclaimed in a voice as coarse as a gravel pit, as he berated someone who owed him money.
    Some members of his crew were afraid of him, only partly because of stories he told about himself. One of these—about a fight with someone he later learned was a cop—revealed a man who took delight in humiliating a beaten man.
    After describing how he had broken the unidentified officer’s legs, ankles, and jaw, Gotti said “I told him, ‘You want to play anymore? You want to play, you cocksucker?’ I open his mouth with my finger and put the gun in. ‘You want to play anymore?’ He can’t talk, he’s crying like a baby.”
    Like Castellano, Gotti also was under federal indictment. His trial was only four months away; he faced 40 years of imprisonment if convicted. He was out on bail, a time to lay low—unless you were Johnny Boy.
     
     
    The detectives and agents following Gotti were investigating a double murder and keeping watch for rumors of war. The murder of a Family boss was always cleared with the other New York bosses. Had the tradition held? Would there be revenge? Who would seek it?
    The day after Sparks, they knew where to look for answers.
    Gotti and many other captains had offices in what they euphemistically called social clubs. Legitimate social clubs, where friends meet to play cards or pass time, are common in many New York neighborhoods, but the Families adapted them to other purposes.
    In Manhattan, the surveillants saw Gotti and Frank DeCicco at the Ravenite Social Club, an