Dinner With The ‘Three Capos’
By Bayside Eddie
The three men were murdered in one fell swoop in May of 1981. I was 13 at that time. A year or two before they met their demise, they had had dinner with me and my family at my grandparent’s home at my grandfather’s invitation. Unfortunately, because I was so damn young when it happened, I have only a few vague memories of the evening—an historical evening, in my opinion.
I asked my parents, and they don’t remember exactly when the dinner occurred, nor do they remember many details. My grandparents, in whose Queens, New York, condo the dinner took place, have since died—my grandfather 10 years ago, my grandmother about a year ago, each at ripe old ages. I love them both dearly and will never get over their deaths.
I may not remember much of that specific dinner, the one the three Bonanno capos attended before their murder at the hands of Joe Massino and Sonny Black Napolitano and Phil Rusty Rastelli, but I can imagine it. My grandmother would have cooked her sauce as she did every Sunday, like any self-respecting Italian Grandmother with a hungry family to feed would do. There would have been giant bowls of ensalada and pasta, served first, followed by the arrival of huge oval platters of every kind of meat you could imagine—beef, pork, chicken—soaked in sauce, the meat so tender (and tasty) it would fall off the bone. An endless supply of thick tomato sauce, baskets of chunks of seeded Italian bread, pecorino romano shredded cheese and ricotta cheese would have been on hand as well, all par for the course.
We would all be seated at the custom-made, long-ass table that took up the entire dining room of my grandparents’ condo. (My grandfather was somewhat wealthy at the time—wealthy enough to have had the duplex condo professionally decorated. Too bad he blew it all.) The comfortable, padded, long-backed chairs made sitting through the hours-long meal extremely easy, even after you finally dropped your cloth napkin on top of your sauce-smeared plate and were so full you felt like your stomach would burst (a rather tasteless analogy, I must admit, considering what is coming in the next couple of paragraphs).
Then coffee and dessert. I won’t delve into that. I have trouble writing about food—I tend to get carried away and lose the thread of what I am trying to say in favor of, say, the rich cream seemingly floating out of a cannolli shell – but I digress.
My grandfather would have been sitting at the head of the table. I, his daughter’s first born, was treated like a prince and usually sat at his right hand, though that night I have a feeling a Mafia captain was in my usual seat. I might have even been hurt by that, I don’t remember. To me, my grandfather was God: He had such a powerful presence, he could drown out an entire roomful of people (which he often did at family functions, to the chagrin of many). Whenever we gathered together he would hug me so tight, squeeze our faces together, his sometimes-bristling cheeks would tickle my face. When I was really young, he’d hold me aloft and take me in his car to the local candy story and buy any candy I wanted. (He was a business owner at the time; uneducated, like most men born where and when he was, in Brooklyn, he made some pretty bad decisions, which led to him losing the business, or rather having to sell it at bottom dollar to some guy named Floyd. I always remembered that name. Floyd. And it is not with fondness.)
Looking back, I wish I was older because I’d have surreptitiously taken notes so I’d be able to provide a fuller, more colorful portrait of that night. Instead I remember a heavyset man, who resembled a somewhat heavier version of my grandfather. That would have been Dominick “Big Trin” Trinchera. When they shot him, his stomach supposedly split open and pasta came flying out—that’s what happens when you whack someone after eating a big meal. The stealthy Bonannos should have arranged a pre-dinner meeting; clean-up might have been easier.
I remember a thin, good looking man with sharply parted black hair: Phil “Lucky” Giaccone, whose nickname carried an irony so very unfortunate for the man himself. I am not sure, but I believe my grandfather had a separate relationship with Phil; perhaps he knew Giaccone better than the other two, because over the years, before Giaccone’s body was found, my grandfather would sometimes mention with a deep sigh how his friend “Philly” had disappeared and no one knew what had happened to him. I know Giaccone was punched in the face by Massino himself before the execution in that basement from hell; Phil was once Massino’s capo, I have read.
Oddly, I don’t remember the third guy, who would have been Sonny "Red" Indelicato. (Forget the Pacino/Depp Brasco film, with its cinematically engineered Sonny Red/Sonny Black rivalry. The problems between the three capos and the rest of the family were more complex than what was portrayed in that film).
The general, albeit vague, consensus: It was a good meal with plenty of laughter. The three capos were not threatening. Why would they be? Mobsters, after all, are human beings; they put their pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us do. One thing my parents did remember was that they were extremely respectful to all of us. My parents knew these men were involved in the Mafia, either at the dinner or after it, but, as I said, they have no specific memories, no anecdotes to tell me, other than it was a nice dinner—no cursing, just a bunch of well dressed men chain smoking cigarettes, along with my grandfather, who was the unfiltered Camel type. It was a typical Sunday dinner composed of family and friends.
We didn’t of course know about the power play going on in the Bonanno family about that time. It followed the Commission-sanctioned hit of Carmine Galante. The feud was for control of the family. Rastelli, who had the support of the other families, and his lieutenants, came out on top.
When I was reminded of this meal a few years ago by my grandmother when all the stuff about Joe Massino was on the news, and they found the remains of Big Trin and Phil Lucky, I transformed into a question machine: We had dinner with the three capos? What were they like? Why were they over for dinner? Was Grandpa involved with them?
From what she could recall they wanted my grandfather to do a “favor” for them. My grandfather, as I said, was a small-business owner and never a criminal, and had never been arrested, even though he was born in a time and place were Mafiosi were produced as if via an assembly line. He owned and operated a fleet of limos. His drivers would pick people up all over the place and drive them wherever they wanted to go. As a huge chunk of his business was tied into the airports—JFK and LaGuardia—my grandmother said it had something to do with my grandfather’s airport contacts … and garbage delivery. (What else? Really – what else?)
I do know the deal never panned out. I also know that once you enter their world, you are forever “in bed” with them. I would think that the failure of my grandfather to fulfill whatever his obligations were would have meant bad things for him, but nothing happened. While my grandfather wasn’t in the Mafia he had “friends.” This may have had something to do with his limo service. I know some of his regular customers had “Gambino” for their last name. Or maybe the three Capos were wiped out before they could punish him? Did Joe Massino, indirectly, save my Grandfather’s life? Or was it because my grandfather and Phil were good friends? Or because the Capos, all family men, couldn’t hurt a man who had invited them into his home for Sunday gravy with his family? Or maybe they just had other things on their mind, like a potentially approaching inter-family war. I can only speculate.
That’s it. Just a little story about how close my family and I came to Mafia infamy. We had dinner with it.
And I still remember the last thing my grandmother said about that night.
“Sonny, I felt so sorry for him. His son had bad trouble with drugs.” She was 91 when she told me that. I knew Sonny’s son Bruno had a Coke habit from books I have read over the years. But my grandmother knew it because she had dinner with a man some 30 years ago and he had told her about it and she felt a compassion for him and his problems that transcended decades. I call that a caring heart.
Comments
3 Responses to “Dinner With The ‘Three Capos’”
James Gurrieri says:
March 25, 2010 at 12:35 pm
I think that’s a great story. I like the fact that you still speak of these men with respect. The medias out look and the real person are two VERY different things. They are regular people, and two different people. One is the business man, and one was the family man. These people grew up in a different time. This was the only way some of these men could feed there family. I myself dont agree with everything thats been done in the past, but then again… One bad apple can ruin the bunch. Gave all of them a bad name. Alot of these men helped out in their neighborhoods, helped make important decisions, help squash beefs. Much more positive then negitive. i cant speak for now days. But like i said, “Great story!” Keep them coming!
Richard Cancemi says:
July 1, 2010 at 2:51 am
I knew Philly Giaccone very well. We were altar boys together and “blood Brothers” as teens in a gang. Eventually he went his route and I went mine but we always stayed in touch and close friends. I write a bit about him in my book: “kid Richie.” He was a gentleman and a good man in his own way. He was very generous to Father Vetro who was Our Altar boy priest!
Hewas a true friend.
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