Hostile Witness Part 4

Moore: Every d.a.m.n councilman gets a take out of the water going a certain way. That's why it still looks like the Bronx down there. What you need is a champion. What you need is a Joe Frazier.

Ruffing: Okay. I see that. That's who I need then, what I'm looking for.

Moore: Take Fontelli. Part of the waterfront's in his district, so he thinks the whole d.a.m.n river's his p.i.s.spot.

Ruffing: I don't want Fontelli, you know. I've heard things.

Moore: They're all true. What have you heard?

Ruffing: He's, you know. What I heard. Connected.

Moore: Of course he is, Mikey. You know who he's married to.

Ruffing: I don't want them.

Moore: Of course not. Of course not. In for an inch and they're s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g your sister. Now I like your place, you know that. I'm in there almost every week, you know that.

Ruffing: And you don't stint on the Dom, either.

[laughter]

Moore: f.u.c.k no, you're either cla.s.s or you're s.h.i.t. Now I could help with this. We could help each other, Mikey.

Ruffing: Okay, yeah.

Moore: But the kind of influence you're talking about here, well, you know.

Ruffing: Of course. That's, uh, a.s.sumed.

Moore: But I'll be your Joe Frazier.

Ruffing: What exactly are we talking about here?

Moore: I'll send my man Concannon over to discuss arrangements.

Ruffing: Give me an idea.

Moore: He'll call you. You'll deal with him on everything.

Ruffing: Sure, then.

Moore: This is going to work out for everybody, Mikey. For everybody. Trust me. This project's going to take off like a rocket ship.

It was these tapes and certain subsequent events that were the basis for the government's case against Moore and Concannon. Ruffing's waterfront development plan was budgeted at $140 million, and Moore wanted a full 1 percent to propose and ensure pa.s.sage of the enabling legislation in City Council. The government's theory was that Moore and Concannon were shaking down Ruffing for the million point four and that when Ruffing stopped paying after the first half mil they turned violent, first beating the h.e.l.l out of Bissonette, the club's minority owner who had convinced Ruffing to stop the payments, and then burning down the club. Moore and Concannon had been indicted for violations of the Hobbs Act, RICO, the federal conspiracy laws, and there was plenty of evidence to back it all up. Ruffing would testify at the trial to an arrangement that had gone very bad, and there were reams of records, which I had not yet been able to examine, that purported to follow the trail of money from Ruffing to Concannon to Moore's political action committee, Citizens for a United Philadelphia, or CUP, as well as physical evidence relating to the a.s.sault. But most significant of all were Moore's own words, captured with startling clarity on the ferric oxide of the tapes.

Moore: I don't understand the problem.

Ruffing: We're going a different way is all.

Moore: But we had a deal. A deal, Mikey.

Ruffing: I'm not happy about it but I don't got no f.u.c.king choice. Bissonette found out about us.

Moore: And I should care about that. He hit two-twenty lifetime, Mikey, two-twenty. We can walk all over him.

Ruffing: There are things about him I didn't... I got a new investor with a new plan.

Moore: Don't do this, Mikey. You back out now, your project's dead. Dead.

Ruffing: My new investor don't think so.

Moore: It's that cookie baker, isn't it?

Ruffing: Shut up. You were taking too much anyway, you know? You were being greedy.

Moore: So that's it, is it, Mikey? I'm sending my man Concannon down.