Honor Thy Father Part 2

Bill did not have to prove anything to Labruzzo, his mother's brother, a man who had become like his own brother, understanding by instinct. Though they were twenty years apart and had lost touch during Bill's years in Arizona, they shared the knowledge of a similar past and were united on so many personal levels. Bill was intimately familiar with the neighborhood in which Labruzzo grew up, the Brooklyn house in which he lived, the almost exotic Sicilian exiles that were Labruzzo's parents, Bill's grandparents. Labruzzo's father, domineering and proud, was not unlike the elder Bonanno in some ways, and Bill sensed the conflict in Frank Labruzzo and recognized it in himself.

To be born of such foreign fathers and to remain loyal to them throughout one's lifetime, was to bear the burden of being an outsider and being alienated from much of America. Bill thought that the only thing that might have separated Frank Labruzzo and himself from their present circ.u.mstances would have been total rebellion, a complete break with their fathers' past and present, but for the younger Bonanno and Labruzzo this was not possible. They were too close, too involved, were the products of people who believed intensely in family loyalty; and although they themselves were a generation removed from the clannish hills of western Sicily and had both had the benefit of higher education, they were still influenced by certain values of the old country and they sometimes felt like strangers in their native land. They were fractional Americans, not yet totally acceptable nor receptive to the American majority, and Bill believed that they were also different from the sons of most other Italian immigrants-they were less malleable, more deeply defined, more insular.

He remembered how insular Frank Labruzzo's neighborhood in Brooklyn had been. Except for the absence of a mountain, it could have pa.s.sed for a Sicilian village. The dialect and manner of the people were the same, the cooking was the same, the interior of the homes seemed the same. The old women wore black, mourning death on two continents, and the unmarried young women lived under the watchful eyes of their parents, who missed nothing. Bill recalled hearing from his mother and her sisters how strict his grandfather Labruzzo had been during their courting days, not permitting them to wear lipstick or eyebrow pencil or cut their hair in the contemporary fashion or smoke or be outdoors after dark. Charles Labruzzo, who neither spoke nor wrote English despite living in America for thirty-two years, made few concessions to the modern world except for the purchase of an automobile, which he drove without a license.

Charles Labruzzo was born in 1870 in the western Sicilian town of Camporeale, in the hilly interior southeast of Castellammare, into a family of sheepherders and cattle raisers. A strapping broad-shouldered man, he worked as a blacksmith in Camporeale, married a local girl, and sired the first of his twelve children. Then one night, after a violent fight with an uncle who tried to cheat him of his inheritance, he abruptly left Sicily for Tunisia, thinking that he had killed the uncle during an exchange of body blows. Later his wife joined him in Tunisia, continuing to let him believe that he was wanted for murder in Sicily though she was aware of his uncle's recovery; she had had enough of Sicily and knew that by withholding the information she could avoid going back.

After a few years in Tunisia-during that time was born their daughter Fay, Bill's mother-the Labruzzos immigrated to the United States. Industrious and shrewd, Charles Labruzzo prospered in America in the butcher business and in real estate investing. On Jefferson Street in Brooklyn, during the 1920s, he owned a comfortable home with a large backyard in which he kept chickens and a milk-bearing goat; a commercial building leased to a clothing manufacturer; and a four-story tenement in which he rented apartments. His butcher shop was on the ground floor of the tenement and under it was a pipeline through which flowed wine from his home two doors away. He was the envy of several Sicilians in the neighborhood, and his quick temper and touchiness contributed to his unpopularity. The sight of his chasing someone down the street, swearing in Sicilian, was not uncommon, and once after a painter standing on a ladder yelled down an insult, Labruzzo grabbed a shotgun, aimed it at the painter and forced him to jump thirty feet to the sidewalk. The panicked man, after landing without injury, ran for cover.

Labruzzo was often intercepted and calmed down during his angry pursuits by a soft-spoken young man who offered to settle his difficulties, wanting nothing in return except peace and quiet in the neighborhood. The man was Joseph Bonanno. Charles Labruzzo knew the Bonanno name from the old country, and he liked the younger man's style, his self-a.s.surance, and he was delighted later when Bonanno married his daughter-and in 1932 presented him with a grandson, Salvatore Vincent Bonanno, who would be known as Bill.

The child was born during an otherwise miserable year in Labruzzo's life. He had just lost a leg during an operation for diabetes, and he became bitter and depressed, drinking great quant.i.ties of wine and cursing his fate. He banged his crutches angrily against the walls of his room when he wanted one of his daughters to attend to his needs, and his only unintimidated companion during this period was a pet chicken who followed him everywhere and slept on his bed at night, often on his chest. Whenever the Bonannos came to visit and left young Bill for a few days, the old man was pleased.

Bill remembered his grandfather as a heavy white-haired man sitting in the sun in front of the house reciting Sicilian proverbs-ancient truths from a stoical society-and occasionally the old man would send him to a nearby tavern for a container of beer or into a drugstore for a single cigarette, which could be bought for a penny. When his grandfather wished to go up to his room, Bill would tuck his shoulder under the stump of his grandfather's leg, and they would slowly climb each step; although the weight was borne by the crutches, Bill was providing moral support, and he liked the appearance of being needed and being close.

Sometimes when the old man was asleep, the youngest son, Frank, would take Bill for walks, looking after him as he would later in life. Frank Labruzzo was then in his twenties, working at odd jobs during the Depression years, including part-time work as an undertaker in a funeral parlor partly owned by Joseph Bonanno. Bill remembered how horrified his grandmother was when she heard that Frank had become a mortician and how she screamed whenever he entered the house, warning him not to touch anything. Frank would merely shrug in his casual way, not offended by her att.i.tude or embarra.s.sed by his work, which he preferred to working in a butcher shop.

Frank Labruzzo never did work for his father; he was attracted instead to the activities of his brother-in-law, Joseph Bonanno. Bonannos' existence seemed glamorous and exciting. He wore fine clothes, drove a new car. He was in touch with the outside world.

On Thursday evening, December 17, Bill Bonanno and Frank Labruzzo paid their weekly visit to the phone booth on Long Island. It was the sixth consecutive Thursday they had gone there. In a week it would be Christmas Eve, and on the way to the booth the two men wondered aloud if the holiday truce would be observed by the various gangs this year as it had been in the past. Under normal circ.u.mstances it would be-all organization members would temporarily forget their differences until after January 1-but since the Bonanno loyalists were technically suspended from the national union, neither Bill nor Frank knew for sure whether the holiday policy would now be followed with regard to their people. They would have to antic.i.p.ate the worst, they decided, and both men a.s.sumed that they would not be spending Christmas with their wives and children.

At 7:55 P.M. they pulled into the parking lot near the diner and parked a few feet away from the booth. It was a cold night, and Bill, turning off the radio, sat waiting in the car with the window partly open. The sky was dark and cloudy, the only reflection came from the big neon sign above the diner. There were three cars parked in front of the diner, and except for a few customers seated at the counter and an elderly couple at a table, it was empty. The food must be terrible, Bill thought, for the diner had never seemed busy during any of his visits, although he conceded the possibility that it had a late trade, maybe truck drivers, which might explain the large parking lot. Many people thought that places patronized by truckers must be serving good food, but Bill believed that the opposite was probably true. He had eaten at hundreds of roadside places during his many motor trips across the country, and most of the time he had observed the truckmen eating chicken soup and salted crackers, and he was willing to bet that most of them suffered from nervous stomachs and hemorrhoids.

He looked at his watch. It was exactly 8:00. He and Labruzzo sat silently as the seconds ticked away. He was about to conclude that it was another uneventful Thursday. Then, the telephone rang.

Bill slammed against the door, bounced out of the car, ran into the booth with such force that it shook. Labruzzo ran after him, pressing against the gla.s.s door that Bill had pulled shut. Bill heard a woman's voice, very formal, sounding far away-it was the operator repeating the number, asking if it corresponded to the telephone number in the booth.

"Yes," Bill replied, feeling his heart pounding, "yes it is."

He heard m.u.f.fled sounds from the other end, then silence for a second, then the sound of coins dropping into the slot, quarters quarters, six or seven quarters gonging-it was long distance.

"h.e.l.lo, Bill?"

It was a male voice, not his father's, a voice he did not recognize.

"Yes, who is this? this?"

"Never mind," the man replied, "just listen to me. Your father's OK. You'll probably be seeing him in a few days."

"How do I know he's OK?" Bill demanded, suddenly aggressive.

"Where the h.e.l.l do you think I got this number from?" The man was now irritated. Bill calmed down.

"Now look," the man continued, "don't make waves! Everything's OK. Just sit back, don't do anything, and don't worry about anything." Everything's OK. Just sit back, don't do anything, and don't worry about anything."

Before Bill could respond, the man hung up.

4.

THE EXCITEMENT, THE ECSTASY, THAT BILL BONANNO felt was overwhelming, and during the drive back to Queens he heard the conversation again and again, and he repeated it to Labruzzo. felt was overwhelming, and during the drive back to Queens he heard the conversation again and again, and he repeated it to Labruzzo. Your father's OK, you'll probably be seeing him in a few days Your father's OK, you'll probably be seeing him in a few days. Bill was so happy that he wanted to go to a bar and have a few drinks in celebration, but both he and Labruzzo agreed that despite the good news they should remain as careful and alert as they had been before. They would follow the advice of the man on the telephone, would sit back and wait; in a few days Joseph Bonanno would reappear to make the next move.

Yet, in the interest of efficiency, Bill thought that some preparation for his father's return was necessary; he felt, for example, that Maloney, his father's attorney, should be informed immediately of this development. Bill reasoned that Maloney would be his father's chief spokesman after the reappearance, an event that would undoubtedly cause a circus of confusion and complex legal maneuvering in the courthouse, and Maloney would have to plan the elder Bonanno's strategy for the interrogation by the federal grand jury. Bill also felt a touch of guilt about Maloney, since Bill had been very suspicious of him after the incident on Park Avenue. The veteran lawyer was forced to appear on five or six occasions since then before the grand jury to defend himself against government implications that he was somehow involved in the kidnaping, and Bill imagined that Maloney's reputation as a lawyer had suffered as a result. On the following day, Bill Bonanno drove to a telephone booth and called Maloney's office.

"Hi, Mr. Maloney, this is Bill Bonanno," he said, cheerfully, picturing the old man jumping out of his chair.

"Hey," Maloney yelled, "where are you? Where's your dad? Where's your dad?"

"Hold on," Bonanno said, "take it easy. Go to a phone outside your office, to one of the booths downstairs, and call me at this number." He gave Maloney the number. Within a few minutes the lawyer called back, and Bonanno recounted all that he had been told the night before.

But Maloney was dissatisfied with the brevity of the details. He wanted more specific information. He wondered on what day the elder Bonanno would appear, where he would be staying, how he could be reached now and through whom. Bill said he did not know anything other than what he had already told, adding that as soon as he knew more he would contact Maloney at once. When Maloney persisted with more questions, Bonanno cut him off. He had to run, he said. He hung up.

He returned to the apartment. Labruzzo had arranged for certain men to be there that evening, having already informed them of the news. The pace was quickening, there was activity, antic.i.p.ation, and Bill Bonanno was confident that soon a few things would be resolved, soon he and the other men might get some relief from the wretched routine of hiding. The reappearance of his father should stabilize the organization to a degree and lessen the uncertainty. His father had undoubtedly come to some terms with his captors or he would not be alive; the next hurdle was the government. His father would appear before the grand jury, and Bill and the other men who were sought would probably do the same. They would come out of hiding, would accept their subpoenas, and after consulting with their lawyers, they would present themselves in court. If their answers displeased the judge, they might be sentenced for contempt, but at this juncture they had few alternatives. Their terms could be for a month, a year, or more, but it would not be intolerable so long as some stability was reestablished within the organization and perhaps their status regained in the national brotherhood. Hopefully they would not enter prison as underworld outcasts. Their existence behind bars was much easier when they were known to be members in good standing; they were accorded a respect not only by the other prisoners but also by the prison guards and certain other workers, men for whom favors could be done on the outside. The "man of respect" serving time also knew that during his confinement he need not worry about his wife and children; they were being looked after by organizational representatives, and if they required help they received it.

While Bill Bonanno sat in the living room of the apartment reading the afternoon papers, Labruzzo took a nap, undisturbed by the noise from the television. It was too early for the evening news, and neither man had paid much attention during the last few hours to the series of quiz shows, soap operas, or comedies that monopolized the screen.

Suddenly, there was an interruption of the program-the announcement of a special news bulletin. Bill Bonanno looked up from his newspaper. He expected to hear that war was declared, Russian bombers were on the way. Instead he heard the announcer say Mafia leader Joseph Bonanno, who was kidnaped and believed to have been killed by rival mobsters in October, is alive. Bonanno's attorney, William Power Maloney, made the announcement today. Maloney also said that his client would appear before the federal grand jury investigating organized crime, at 9:00 A.M. on Monday, and... Mafia leader Joseph Bonanno, who was kidnaped and believed to have been killed by rival mobsters in October, is alive. Bonanno's attorney, William Power Maloney, made the announcement today. Maloney also said that his client would appear before the federal grand jury investigating organized crime, at 9:00 A.M. on Monday, and...

Bill Bonanno was stunned. Labruzzo came running in to watch. Bonanno began to swear quietly. Maloney had not only called a press conference but had also identified him as the source of the information. Bonanno buried his head in his hands. He felt heat racing through his body, his sweat rising and seeping through his shirt. He knew he had made a horrible mistake in talking to Maloney in the first place, then in not swearing him to secrecy. Now he did not know what was ahead for his father. He recalled the words of the man on the phone saying don't make waves...don't do anything don't make waves...don't do anything. And, stupidly, he had done it. He had possibly ruined everything, for the announcement would make page one all over the country, would drive the elder Bonanno deeper into hiding, and it would intensify the investigation, activating those agents who had been lulled into thinking that Joseph Bonanno was dead.

The television set displayed a picture of Maloney, then a picture of the Park Avenue apartment house, and suddenly Bill was sick of the whole episode-reaching for a heavy gla.s.s ashtray on a nearby table, he threw it hard at the set, hitting the screen squarely in the center. It exploded like a bomb. Thousands of tiny pieces of gla.s.s sprayed the room, tubes popped, wires curled and burned in varicolored flame, sparks flared in several directions-a remarkable little fireworks show of self-destruction was playing itself out within the 21-inch screen, and Bonanno and Labruzzo watched with fascination until the interior of the set had nearly evaporated into a smoldering hole of jagged edges and fizzling filament.

A week pa.s.sed, nothing happened. Joseph Bonanno did not make the appearance before the grand jury that Maloney had predicted, and the lawyer was summoned to explain in court. The younger Bonanno and the other men remained in hiding. On Thursday evening, Christmas Eve, Labruzzo and the others slipped away to meet with their families at the homes of relatives or friends most remote from police surveillance. Bonanno told Labruzzo that he was meeting Rosalie at the home of one of the Profacis in Brooklyn, but this was not true. He was sure that Rosalie's movements would be carefully watched by agents during the holidays, making it too risky to meet her, and he also felt so miserable that he really preferred being alone.

At 8:00 P.M. he visited the telephone booth in Long Island, expecting it to remain silent, and it did. Not wanting to return to the apartment, he kept driving through Queens. It was snowing, and there were Christmas lights strung on many of the houses that he pa.s.sed. He decided to drive into Manhattan, to take a walk through Times Square, lose himself in the crowd.

Finding a parking s.p.a.ce on a side street east of Broadway, he locked the car, began to walk through the snow and slush. He was glad that he had not forgotten his rubbers but wished he had left his gun in the glove compartment. The gun had become such a natural part of his anatomy in recent months that he was usually unaware of carrying it. But he did not feel like returning to the car now; so he continued to walk with the gun strapped to his chest under his jacket. His blue cashmere overcoat was warm and light, and his gray fedora was slightly forward on his head and pushed down so that it would not blow off in the wind. He had never felt comfortable in hats; as a boy he hated them because they messed up his long wavy hair, a source of great pride, and although his hair was now short he still reacted negatively to hats, tolerating them only as part of a disguise.

He walked uptown under the bright marquees of the Broadway cinemas, past a noisy jazz band in the Metrodome bar. He smelled the hot dogs cooking on Ned.i.c.k's sidewalk grill, felt the distant nearness of a thousand people all around him, watched their faces changing color as they walked under the lights; their tourist faces seemed satisfied, peaceful, unconcerned, so distant from the tiny private province of h.e.l.l that he had inherited. On Fifty-third Street, waiting for a traffic light to change, a mounted policemen galloped within a few feet of him, and he inhaled the familiar aroma of a horse. Then he crossed to the other side of Broadway, walking downtown past Jack Dempsey's and Lindy's, then past the Astor Hotel, where he paused momentarily.

The hotel seemed unchanged, even the red-coated doorman whistling for a cab seemed familiar. Bill remembered again the wedding reception and remembered, too, how excited and concerned his father was on the following morning when he found out that a piece of Bill's luggage was missing just as the bridal couple's car was being loaded on the sidewalk outside the hotel. Then Frank Labruzzo quickly deduced that the doorman had mistakenly put that suitcase in the limousine that had just pulled away from the curb with Joseph Barbara and some of the men from upstate New York. Bill remembered the sight of Labruzzo running after Barbara's limousine, which had fortunately stopped for a traffic light; Labruzzo rapped on the rear fender, inviting frowns from the men within, but they stopped when they recognized him and graciously returned the suitcase. They had no idea that it contained about $100,000 in gift envelopes.

Bill pa.s.sed the Astor thinking of Rosalie-and, remembering that a Western Union office was two blocks away, he walked to it and sent her a Christmas telegram with flowers. Tired of walking in the slush, he approached a cinema on Forty-second Street and, without looking up to see what was playing, bought a ticket. He spent the next three hours watching a double feature, a slightly risque foreign film followed by a second-rate Western. When he came out at 1:00 A.M., it had stopped snowing but had gotten colder. Broadway was no longer crowded, and the prost.i.tutes and h.o.m.os.e.xual hustlers were more conspicuous.

He got into his car, drove along the West Side Highway toward the Battery Tunnel, pa.s.sing the hulking silhouettes of ocean liners docked along the piers. In Queens he pa.s.sed many houses with parties in progress, with people standing in crowded rooms holding drinks, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g trees, or dancing; his block, which was in a Jewish neighborhood, was relatively quiet. He circled the block twice to be sure he was not being followed. Then, locking his car, he crossed the street ready to reach for his gun at the sound of movement behind the bushes or trees. But everything was silent and still.

Unlocking his apartment door he could hear noise from the television set, a new one that Labruzzo had bought. Bill always left the television on after leaving the apartment, thinking the noise might discourage anyone from breaking in. He watched a late-late show until 4:00 A.M. Then he went to bed. He considered it the worst Christmas Eve of his life.

He woke up on Christmas Day shortly before noon. Hearing the dog's impatient growl, he got out of bed and opened a can of chopped meat. The apartment seemed strangely empty without Labruzzo. He turned on the television set, then peeked through the venetian blinds. It was cloudy, the streets were covered with slush, and the small patches of snow along the sidewalk had already been darkened by polluted air. He started to think about his children, what they were doing at this very moment in East Meadow, but he quickly blocked these thoughts from his mind.

He continued to look out the window at the few people on the street, bundled up in coats and m.u.f.flers and boots, looking drab and unhealthy, and he wished, as he so often did, that he were back in Arizona. And suddenly, he became consumed with a desire to go there. It might seem absurd, but at this moment he did not care. He had been existing in absurdity for several weeks, and a trip to Arizona did not seem in the least irrational, the more he thought about it. There was nothing for him to do in New York during the holidays, no one that he could see, and he still considered Arizona his home. His younger brother would be there, on holiday vacation from Phoenix Junior College, and a few of his father's friends would also be there. He could get some money while there, could also check on the condition of his father's house and various properties.

He decided to go. He went to a telephone booth and called a young man who was available to the organization for odd ch.o.r.es and asked him to help with the driving. Bill spent the rest of Christmas Day in the apartment. He went to bed early and awoke at 4:00 A.M. Accompanied by his dog, Bill picked up the man at a nearby corner and began the 2,600-mile journey to Arizona.

In more than twenty years of shuttling back and forth between New York and Arizona, beginning in 1942 as a ten-year-old student in Tucson, Bill Bonanno had gained an intimate sense of American geography, a familiarity with winding back roads and small bridges and endless towns stretching from the industrial marshes of the northeastern coast to the dusty flatlands of the West. He had developed an ear for regional dialogue, an eye for the folkways of people, a taste for the kitchen specialties of hundreds of roadside restaurants. He knew the varying prices of gasoline, the tolls of tunnels, the graffiti on mountain rocks, the prayers on billboards. He was attuned to the chatter of disc jockeys, the changing rhythms of regional radio. Without consulting a map he could travel through back roads in each state, knowing the best ways to avoid overpopulated centers, rush-hour traffic, icy roads, radar traps.

The state he knew best, of course, was Arizona. He had covered every corner of it by car, horse, or on foot, or in the small airplane that he had learned to fly years ago, a plane owned by one of his father's partners in a cotton farm that was located forty miles north of Tucson. Bill had flown the plane low along the Mexican border between mesas, skimming the tops of cactus plants and Indian reservations, and he had flown westward to the California line, eastward toward El Paso.

He had driven his car up into the White Mountains of northeastern Arizona to go trout fishing, and he had gone deer hunting along the northern Arizona border into Utah. After his marriage to Rosalie in 1956, he returned to Arizona and lived during the next seven years in various parts of the state, beginning in the high regions near the Grand Canyon, in the scenic city of Flagstaff. With an alt.i.tude of nearly 7,000 feet, Flagstaff was a center for winter sports activity. It also was the locale of Northern Arizona University, and shortly after Rosalie and Bill settled in Flagstaff they registered for courses there. The people of Flagstaff were outgoing and hospitable, and almost immediately the Bonannos made friends with other couples, were being invited home to dinner, and were reciprocating. And not long after Bill's first few deposits in the local bank, the word spread through the community of 15,000 that he was a man of means.

He invested in real estate and in a small radio station in the nearby town of Holbrook. He joined the Kiwanis Club, was a leader in the March of Dimes campaign and other charity drives, and in his entire life he had never felt more relaxed and free. He was 260 miles from Tucson, was remote from New York in every way. His calls and visits to his father were becoming less frequent, less expected. The elder Bonanno, leading a relatively easy life of his own at this time, was not very demanding.

In Tucson, where he listed his occupation as that of a retired cotton broker, Joseph Bonanno went unchallenged. The limited publicity he had received during the Kefauver days was now forgotten, and he was considered socially acceptable by nearly everyone in town. He lived in a comfortable, unostentatious home on East Elm Street, where he often entertained politicians, priests, and business investors who sought his financial support. He was often seen walking through the business district wearing Western clothes, smiling easily, and being pleasant with everyone he met. His wife partic.i.p.ated in civic activities and charities, and she usually attended Ma.s.s each morning. Joseph Bonanno was traveling out of state less often, his interests in New York, Wisconsin, and elsewhere were adequately handled by partners or subordinates, and in October 1957 he found time for a short vacation in Sicily, where he revisited old friends and relatives in Castellammare.

But shortly after his return to the United States, an event happened that suddenly changed the life style and image of both Bonanno and his son, an event that within hours of its public disclosure would destroy the tranquillity and social acceptance that the Bonannos had enjoyed, replacing it with rejection and national notoriety. It happened on November 14, 1957, in the upstate New York village of Apalachin, with a police raid on a gathering of nearly seventy "delegates" to a Mafia "summit meeting" held in the home of Joseph Barbara. The purpose of the session, according to the later a.n.a.lysis of crime experts, was to discuss pressing problems in the underworld-the tendency of some members to become involved in narcotics despite the opposition of the dons (who opposed it partly on moral grounds, partly from fear of long imprisonment, and also because they wanted nothing to do with the erratic Cuban and Puerto Rican gangsters and undisciplined youths who were running so much of the operation); the unresolved issues following the murder of Albert Anastasia, who had persistently intruded upon the Carribbean gambling enterprises that were in the Florida Mafia's domain; the practice of certain dons to initiate more members into their "families" despite a national policy opposed to new membership in the interest of maintaining balance between the individual organizations. There were other subjects under discussion, too, but the whole session came to an abrupt end when it was discovered that the police were observing Barbara's home. Several of the men ran out to their cars and drove quickly down the road toward the highway but were intercepted by the police roadblock. Other men dashed into the woods, ripping their clothes on tree branches and vines, and many managed to escape. But most of them were caught, and while no guns were found, a search of their pockets uncovered almost $300,000 in cash. The men's explanation that they had visited Barbara's home because they had heard he was ill and wished to cheer him up was jocularly reported in the press, and although the conviction of twenty-one of the men was later reversed by the court of appeals, it did generate months of highly publicized trials and editorial comment that exposed and embarra.s.sed the men. It also a.s.sisted the federal agencies in their efforts to obtain more funds from Congress for combating organized crime and more cooperation from the courts with regard to the use of wiretapping and bugging.

Among those named by the police as having visited Barbara were Joseph Profaci, Joseph Magliocco, and Joseph Bonanno. Rosalie was at home alone in Flagstaff when word of the raid was announced; Bill had gone off for a weekend of deer hunting near Utah, and the news was two days' old when he returned to his anxious wife waiting in seclusion. She had received numerous calls from relatives during the weekend, including several cryptic messages from the elder Bonanno, who had somehow slipped past the state police in New York and was now waiting impatiently in Tucson, unknown to local authorities, for Bill's arrival.

When Bill reached Tucson that evening, he discovered his father at home sitting in the brick-walled patio sipping brandy, a benign expression on his face. As Bill got closer, his father stood, kissed him gently on both cheeks. Then the elder Bonanno shook his head slowly and began to laugh. The whole idea of the meeting was so stupid, so carelessly arranged, he said, that it was comical, hilarious. The sight of grown men running frantically in all directions from the barbecue pit as the police closed in was a scene out of burlesque. But, he continued, the consequences of the gathering would not be so funny. There would be the endless public hearings, the herd of photographers charging through the corridors each day, the rhetoric of judges and investigators, the call for reform by politicians, the legal fees and theatrics of lawyers, the defamation of the defendants, who served as society's scapegoats-this spectacle, he said, he wanted to avoid at all cost. And so he planned to leave Tucson for an undisclosed spot in California, and he would keep on the move, one step ahead of the subpoena servers if possible, until the public clamor had subsided and he knew what was ahead.

Bill could sense without having to be told what this meant for him. He would have to look after his father's interests during his absence. He would have to look after his mother and the homes and property in Arizona and would also take a more active role in his father's affairs outside the state. He would do this because he had to and because, in a strange way, he wanted to. It was an interesting discovery, his awareness that he wanted to do it, wanted to become deeply involved in what he knew was precarious. It meant giving up the life in Flagstaff, the respectable conventional life that most Americans led and that he thought he could lead, wanted to lead. But now he was not so sure, doubting that he truly belonged even though he gave the appearance of belonging. He probably did not belong anywhere except at his father's side or in his father's shadow because, in spite of his education, he was not really qualified to do anything important in the so-called legitimate world.

He had not studied hard in school, had not concentrated on any one subject, had not pa.s.sed the courses necessary for a degree. His attention span had been too short, his ego had perhaps been too large, his father's existence perhaps too distracting for him to progress normally through the educational system-he did not know or care. He did not know to what degree the system had failed him, or he it. He did not know which of his failings were attributable to his background and which to his inability or desire to rise above that background.

If he did not have his father's resources to fall back on, he might be better off, or worse off, depending on one's point of view. He was confident that he could earn a living on his own, although he suspected that in the legitimate world he was at a tremendous disadvantage. With his name, with his incomplete education, he would probably have to start off at the bottom without influential family friends pulling him upward. He would be restricted to menial tasks in an office, which would bore him, or he would work as a traveling salesman or would punch a time clock in a factory. Or perhaps with his pilot's experience he could become a crop duster, but the money was not all that good and the work was probably as dangerous as any in his father's world-crop dusters had to fly so slowly and so low that when their planes stalled, which was often, they usually hit the ground before regaining power.

But all this reasoning was not the major factor in Bill Bonanno's decision to commit himself to his father. The main reason was that he loved his father, was part of him, and could not, would not, disa.s.sociate himself from him during this difficult period. This was a time when he was needed. It was the first time in his life that his father really needed him, and Bill found this both flattering and challenging. Also, he did not feel that his father's activities, or the activities of any of the men at Apalachin, were of a grave criminal nature. Most of the men were primarily involved in gambling which, although illegal, was part of human nature. The numbers racket, off-track betting, prost.i.tution, and their other illegal endeavors would go on whether or not there was a Mafia. The mafiosi were really servants in a hypocritical society, they were the middlemen who provided those illegal commodities of pleasure and escape that the public demanded and the law forbade.

If people would obey the law, there would be no Mafia. If the police could resist graft, if the judges and politicians were incorruptible, there would be no Mafia because the Mafia could not exist without the cooperation of the others. Before there was a Mafia in the United States catering to the crime market, thriving first as bootleggers during Prohibition, there were other ethnic gangs supplying illegal demands and gradually buying their own way out of slums. When the Mafia dies out in a generation or two, by which time the grandsons of mafiosi will have learned the art of tax dodging and legal subterfuge in large American corporations, the key jobs in organized crime, which is a kind of lower-caste civil service, will be occupied by Latin American gangsters or blacks, the element that has already gained control of the lowest rung in the criminal pecking order, the narcotics trade.

But all the sociological speculating by Bill Bonanno in 1957 did not improve his situation-he was a member of a generation caught in the middle; he had followed his father's course, and now, after Apalachin, he felt as trapped as any of the men cited by the police. Nevertheless he accepted his fate, and after his father left for California, he disposed of the house in Flagstaff and returned with Rosalie to Tucson.

As he had antic.i.p.ated, the life there was suddenly difficult, not only for himself but also for his wife, his mother, and anyone else who chose to remain friendly. The Tucson newspapers, following the trend of the national press after Apalachin, expanded its coverage of organized crime, focusing particular attention on the Bonannos, and began a campaign to get them out of town. Bill Bonanno's presence in Tucson and his appearances at the local airport before or after trips to New York were watched by the FBI and reported in the newspapers. The tax agents began to investigate his income from the wholesale grocery business he owned in Tucson and also from the property that he held in his own name or in partnership with his father or other men. The Catholic parish to which the Bonannos had made large contributions in the past asked Bill if it could buy back the mausoleum he had bought near a statue of Christ in the Holy Hope Cemetery; angrily, Bill agreed, refusing repayment.

His mother continued to attend Ma.s.s, but she went only to the early morning service in order to minimize the embarra.s.sment to herself and other parishioners who might wish to avoid her. Rosalie despised Tucson, and she became resentful toward Bill because of his insistence on remaining there. She had no friends, and, except for visits to her mother-in-law, there were few places that she could go and feel at ease. In her own home Rosalie had to be careful of her conversation on the telephone, could not speak freely in front of the cleaning lady who came occasionally. She could not open charge accounts in stores, because her record of spending might be used against her husband by tax investigators; she had to pay cash for everything, making it more difficult to return purchases if she wished and requiring that she constantly go to Bill for money.

She was also disillusioned by the direction her marriage had taken. She thought that when she moved West after the wedding that she was escaping forever the routine of secrecy that encircled her elders in Brooklyn. But now she could see how naive she had been, and she felt cheated, deceived. With Bill traveling so often, she became increasingly lonely and even envious of the strong bond that existed between her husband and his father. Then in October 1958 she sank deeper into depression and despair when her first child, a daughter, died shortly after birth.

When she could not become pregnant again during the next year Rosalie began to doubt her capability for bearing other children, and Bill decided they should adopt one. He felt, however, that he could not apply to a regular agency, not with the publicity he was receiving and with his reluctance to respond to the extensive questioning; so, without consulting Rosalie, he contacted various men he knew in California and Arizona and asked that they call him if they should hear of the availability of a child. Soon he was told that a young woman in Phoenix, who had left her home in Virginia, was about to have a child that she wished to place with a family that would cherish and support him. Bill arranged for her to enter the University of Colorado Medical Center at Denver; there, within a week, her infant son was born, with green eyes and of Scotch-Irish ancestry, and Bill returned with him to Tucson, exhilarated and proud, arriving home at night after Rosalie had gone to bed. He woke her up and, without a word of explanation, he placed the baby by her side.

They named him Charles, honoring Bill's grandfather Charles Labruzzo, and although Rosalie would soon become pregnant with a son and would have two more children during the following two years, she would always be in certain ways closer to Charles than to the others. But in spite of the presence of children, which relieved her of much of her loneliness and feeling of unfulfillment, her relationship with Bill remained in a state of tension during their time in Tucson. She felt incapable of escaping this small town which alienated her and she missed her mother and relatives in Brooklyn. She could not understand Bill's attachment to a town that seemed to reject and disown him. What she did not know was that not everyone in Tucson had turned on Bill. There were a few of his friends who, undeterred by the publicity after Apalachin, continued to treat him with courtesy and did not shun his companionship. There was also a blonde hostess in a Tucson c.o.c.ktail lounge who was attracted to Bill, and she had a blithe carefree att.i.tude that he particularly welcomed now, a pleasant contrast to the dispiriting atmosphere that prevailed at home with Rosalie.

She was in her midtwenties, was tall and graceful. She was born in Germany, had met and married an American soldier there, but was now divorced. Not long after she began dating Bill, the manager of the lounge told her that the FBI was investigating her, and she was warned that if she did not break up with Bill she would lose her job. She lost her job, found another one, and continued to see Bill. She also brought him to her Tucson apartment to meet her two young sons, who soon accepted him as part of the family and called him Daddy.

Bill was infatuated with her. She was undemanding yet seemed totally involved with him. She was resigned to his marriage and, unlike Rosalie, she was not embarra.s.sed by the publicity that a.s.sociated him with the underworld. If anything she was intrigued by it, was fascinated by Bill's description of his father and the other men. She confided in Bill, telling him about her marriage and her parents in Germany, how their town was destroyed by bombing raids and they lived in damp cellars, how her father was taken prisoner by the Allies and was later reported dead. After the war, after her mother had married again and was widowed again, her father reappeared one day in front of the house, walking slowly up the path carrying a cane, wearing a long white beard, and his daughter thought that he was Jesus.

In 1961, Bill Bonanno conceded to himself that Tucson was too small a place in which to live under present circ.u.mstances; so he moved to Phoenix, finding a home for Rosalie and their two sons on the east side of town and a home for his girl friend and her two sons on the west side of town. He supplied each woman with a 1961 Falcon, and he divided his free evenings between the two places. Although he continued to oversee the businesses in Tucson and traveled often to New York, he also became actively engaged in managing a Phoenix supper club that he partly owned. The club was called Romulus, and he employed his girl friend as an a.s.sistant manager. When the Phoenix police began to park outside the Romulus each night questioning the customers on their way out, sometimes testing their alcoholic consumption, Bill's business quickly declined. He filed a $100,000 lawsuit against the Phoenix police contending that his const.i.tutional rights were being violated, but the suit was dismissed. The decision angered him and he was determined in a desperate way to fight those who wanted to drive him out of town. Yet the strain of the life he was leading, his getting little sleep and supporting two households and traveling constantly, began to take its toll. One day, mixing up bank accounts, he bounced a $1,930 check; though he made rest.i.tution, he was taken to court, received newspaper publicity, and was placed on probation for three years. Later he was charged with income tax evasion, the government agents claiming that he owed more than $60,000 in back taxes for the years 195919601961. Then his girl friend informed him that she had received a telephone call from one of Rosalie's brothers in New York, pleading with her to leave Bill, offering her money and an airplane ticket back to Germany. She refused, but she and Bill were becoming a bit uneasy. One night a few weeks later, Bill called her home and heard her say, "Your wife is here."

He slammed down the phone, drove quickly to the house. He discovered Rosalie and the other woman seated quietly across from one another in the living room with their children nearby. Rosalie shouted as he walked in, demanding that he immediately choose between them, but he ignored her. He led her firmly out to the car and drove her and the children home without discussing the subject. Later he confessed to Rosalie that he was emotionally involved with the other woman, although he did not admit that she was pregnant with his child and was insisting on having it. Bill was incapable at this time of choosing between the women-his whole life was in such a turbulent state that he needed them both, one complemented the other. Each gave him something the other did not; he respected and loved Rosalie, he said, but the other woman made him feel alive, free, confident. All his life he had done what was expected of him; now he had finally done as he pleased-his affair represented his first blatantly rebellious act against the Sicilian family strictures that had shaped him and sometimes sickened him. When Rosalie proposed that they separate, he said firmly that he would not let her go.

The next day he was again with his girl friend, although he noticed a change in her att.i.tude. She had been more upset by the encounter with Rosalie than he had imagined she would be, and now she agreed with Rosalie that it would be better for all of them, including the children, if he made a choice-either leave Rosalie or leave her. But Bill continued to procrastinate. A week later, on arriving at her home, he was told by a baby-sitter that she had gone out for the evening. Abruptly discharging the baby-sitter, Bill waited for her return. He shut the lights in the living room and sat in the dark facing the door.

Shortly before midnight, hearing a car stop, he saw her with another man. Then she walked alone up the path. When she flipped on the light switch she saw Bill glaring at her. She was wearing a black off-the-shoulder evening dress, his favorite, a dress he had recently bought her before a weekend trip they had taken to Las Vegas. Seeing that dress now seemed to drive him berserk. He grabbed the dress by the top, ripped it off, and began to tear it into several pieces. As she screamed he charged into her bedroom closet and began to rip other dresses. When she fought to stop him, he hit her, knocking her across the room. After the floor was littered with shredded clothing, he left.

Still, the couple continued to see one another. They both lacked whatever it took to end the relationship, even though both agreed that it must stop. Bill in particular recognized the potential danger in continuing; he had heard that word of his affair had gone beyond the Profaci family and had been mentioned by some important figures in the underworld. Although the Profaci organization was not as powerful as it once was, it was still part of the national network, and Rosalie had relatives who had married into formidable families around the nation. Two of her cousins, daughters of Joseph Profaci, had married into the Zerilli and Tocco families of Detroit, and the Profacis were also kin to a family in California. While infidelity was no more uncommon in the underworld than anywhere else, great effort was always taken to protect a wife from embarra.s.sment, and Bill's behavior was considered scandalous. His father appeared one night and appealed to his sense of family honor. "Don't be the first to dirty our name," Joseph Bonanno said. "Our name has been clean so long, for so many generations, don't be the first..."

But even his father's visit did not immediately influence him, and Bill was surprised by his own resistance, his independence, wondering if it was not a good sign. Then Rosalie was again pregnant; and after the birth of a son, their third, in March 1963, she took an overdose of sleeping pills and was ill for several days. When a doctor described it as possibly a suicide attempt, it made newspaper headlines, and when Bill returned home he was surprised to be greeted at the front door by his sister Catherine, who had flown in from San Mateo, and he was even more surprised when she told him that his mother-in-law was in the bedroom with Rosalie.

"She is sleeping," Mrs. Profaci said as Bill walked in, feeling very much the intruder in his own bedroom. He stood silently for a moment. Mrs. Profaci sat next to the bed. A large woman with dark hair, an angelic face, and a kindly disposition under normal circ.u.mstances, she was at this moment cold and distant. He removed his jacket, loosened his tie. He turned toward the closet for something more comfortable to wear, wondering if his mother-in-law would leave the room long enough for him to change. He slipped out of his shoes, took off his shirt. Mrs. Profaci did not move. Then he began to unzip his trousers. Mrs. Profaci abruptly stood and left. "I'll be out in a minute," he called after her. "We'll have coffee."

Mrs. Profaci and Catherine remained for days, both wanting to help. But Bill felt the tension every moment, particularly between him and his mother-in-law. She clearly resented his treatment of her daughter, and every time he walked into the bedroom she seemed to bristle; she was like a mother lion protecting her cub. Even though Catherine was critical of her brother, she felt that Rosalie should also share in the blame. She remembered at the convent her impressions of Rosalie as a spoiled and sheltered young girl, and she remembered her reservations about Rosalie before the marriage, thinking that Rosalie lacked the strength to help her brother through the inevitably difficult life-and she recalled how angry the elder Bonanno had become when she expressed this opinion. But Catherine was certain that her brother would not have sought the companionship of another woman during the last two years if Rosalie had fulfilled her role as a wife, and when this viewpoint was subtly conveyed at various times during conversations at dinner Mrs. Profaci was not pleased.

At one point Mrs. Profaci became so upset during an exchange with Bill that she left the table in tears and ran to Rosalie in the bedroom, locking the door behind her. Bill quickly followed, banging on the door. Rosalie woke up screaming, her mother cried out, and Catherine tried to pull Bill away from the door. When he yelled at her, Catherine answered sharply, "Don't talk to me me that way! I'm not your wife, I'm not your mother..." that way! I'm not your wife, I'm not your mother..."

She continued to pull against him, a tall girl very much in control of her emotions, and when she noticed her brother's anger rising and thought that he might slap her, she said, "Go ahead, do it! I dare you."

Bill felt his sister's breath upon him, heard the wailing and weeping from the bedroom, felt suffocated by the encircling closeness, and in a fit of exasperation he clenched his fist and smashed it through the wall. The house seemed to shake, blood gushed from his knuckles, pain jolted through him. He felt piercing, throbbing sensations and chills, he thought he was close to madness. His whole life seemed to be crumbling with the falling plaster, and he was disgusted with everyone around him, hated them, thought he could kill them, and understood for the first time crimes of pa.s.sion. Most murders were committed by relatives or friends of the victim, and he remembered all the headlines he had read in tabloids, MAN KILLS WIFE, CHILDREN, SELF, and now he understood why.

He bent in pain, clutching his wounded hand that would be scarred for life, felt Catherine's arms around him leading him toward a chair. She kissed him on the cheek and held him close as he lowered his head and tears came into his eyes. The room was still, there were no sounds from the bedroom. Catherine sat next to her brother in silence, closer than she had ever felt before. She knew his misery and thought about her father's part in all this. Her father had ruined him, she believed. Bill did not belong in that world, was not hard enough, cold enough, although he tried to be; he was by nature easygoing, she thought, a kind and giving man who wanted to be loved, desperately needed love. He was more like his mother or his uncle Frank; he was by nature a Labruzzo. His father had made him into a Bonanno, and now Catherine wondered and worried about what would happen to him.

Two days later, emotionally spent, Bill consented to his mother-in-law's fervent request that Rosalie return to Brooklyn and recuperate under her care. Bill would join Rosalie later. Their being apart for a while might be helpful to him as well, allowing him time to think things over and perhaps arrive at a decision. He knew that his days with two women were over, and he was relieved.

He drove them to the airport-Rosalie, Mrs. Profaci, and the three children, Charles, five, Joseph, two, and the baby Salvatore, two months. After they had gone, he returned home and spent the rest of the day and evening by himself. He welcomed the quietude, not having to speak or listen to anyone. His right hand was bandaged and painful but not broken. Within himself he felt empty, queasy, filled with remorse for Rosalie.

On the following evening he had dinner with his girl friend, and she also was distracted by a feeling of guilt and hopelessness. She sensed that Bill would never leave his wife, nor would his wife leave him, because neither was fully in control of their lives-other people had a hand in every move, and she believed that the only sensible thing to do was to return with her children to Germany. She could account for her third child, Bill's child, by explaining to her relatives in Europe that she had married again but that her husband had died-she could use the surname of a bookmaker friend of Bill's, a bachelor they both had liked and who had recently died in Tucson. And so she made up her mind, she would return to Germany, and when she suggested this to Bill he did not discourage her.

A week later, in early June, Bill called New York and told Rosalie that he wanted to see her. She did not sound enthusiastic, but he found comfort in the fact that Rosalie had not sounded enthusiastic about anything in years. He left for New York and stayed at Frank Labruzzo's home. The next day he asked two of his aunts in Brooklyn to go to the Profaci home to get Rosalie and the children; he did not know what sort of reception he might get from her family, and he thought this way might be easier on his mother-in-law and himself. But later his aunts called to say that Rosalie refused to come.

The next morning Bill and Frank Labruzzo, armed with guns, drove to the Profaci home. Both men realized that the situation was almost farcical, almost like an opera-an impa.s.sioned husband battles his in-laws to reclaim his wife. It was absurd and anarchronistic, but it was also real, and Bill did not know how else to deal with a situation that was potentially dangerous. For all he knew, half the Profaci organzation might be waiting for him, eager to avenge the insult he had brought upon Rosalie and her family, and even Labruzzo had recommended that they be armed.

Pulling up in front of Mrs. Profaci's home, which was next to the home of Rosalie's late uncle Joseph Profaci, Bill looked along the sidewalk for signs of waiting men or for parked cars that he might recognize. Then he walked up the stone steps and rang the bell.

The door opened slowly, and Bill saw Rosalie's older brother, a man in his thirties, sitting in the living room. He also saw Mrs. Profaci walking quickly toward him, heard whispering in the background, but before he had a chance to look around, Mrs. Profaci grabbed him by the lapels, began to shake him and warn that her daughter was not going with him. When Bill demanded to know where Rosalie was, he was told that she was not there. Mrs. Profaci's eyes were moist, her face red with emotion, and she continued to clutch his lapels and pound his chest and repeat that Rosalie would not be going with him.