Read Online The Good Rat by Jimmy Breslin - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jimmy Breslin
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along, Casso, and he saw it, and he told Jimmy Hydell, Hold on to that dog and don’t let that dog look to intimidate Angelo. And Angelo started yelling at him again; the dog came at him. And Gaspipe said, I told you, watch that dog, and Jimmy paid him no mind. Gaspipe went into the luncheonette, he got a pistol, put a silencer on it, and shot the dog twice. Casso told Hydell, Now pick up the dog and put him in the trunk of the car and get out of here.
Q. Casso told Jimmy that?
A. Yes.
Like most of what has gone bad in the Mafia, this story also involves John Gotti. I speak of a time in the early eighties when he was still an up-and-comer in the Gambino crime family. His boss was Paul Castellano, who had famously stated that members of his family were forbidden to deal in drugs. The government had bugged Gene Gotti, John’s brother, and caught him in a heroin deal. Castellano heard the tape and decided he had to execute Gene Gotti for the big crime of selling heroin and the almost-as-big crime of not turning over any of the money. To save his brother’s life, and also to make a little room at the top, John Gotti got the idea to move Castellano into a new home. A funeral parlor.
On December 16, 1985, Castellano visited the LaRossa law office to give Christmas greetings. Afterward he left for a meeting at Sparks Restaurant on East Forty-sixth Street in Manhattan. It was only a few yards from Third Avenue, from whose buildings came the start of the rush hour. Johnny “Crash” Casciola, an operating engineer working a construction job some yards from the restaurant, had just shut down his crane for the day. He was singing “Fine and Dandy.” He had a date that night to play his accordion for a fee at an affair in Jersey. He noticed several men in fur hats and raincoats in the river of people. As Castellano’s car pulled in front of the restaurant, the fur hats rushed up and started shooting. Soon Castellano was dead. The driver, too. The fur hats dissolved back into the throng. Johnny Crash also disappeared. He needed no time to think. He moved by instinct.
A car passed by. John Gotti looked out the passenger window at the carnage. The driver was Sammy Gravano.
Two days later, when asked to remember this, Johnny Crash said, “What are you talking about, somebody got shot? I was home.”
Shooting a boss supposedly required Mafia commission sanction. There was no real commission left, but there was Vincent “the Chin” Gigante. He thought, If you kill Castellano, then I, Vincent Gigante, also can be killed. Something had to be done about Gotti, Gigante decided, so he hired Gaspipe Casso to put a bomb in a car parked on a Sunday morning in front of the Veterans and Friends social club on Eighty-sixth Street in Bensonhurst. Never mind that a bomb was also against the Mafia rules that the Chin claimed to uphold. Gotti was inside the club. He left one of his men, Frank DeCicco, in the car. Gotti was supposed to come right out. He tarried. The bomb did not. Mr. DeCicco became dust.
As the Mafia always was slightly relaxed about keeping secrets, a hundred people knew by midafternoon who had set the bomb. One of whom was Gotti. He had to make Casso go away right now. Gotti told Bobby Boriello, Mickey Boy Paradiso, and Eddie Lino to take care of it, and they sent Jimmy Hydell and Robert Bering. To do the work involved in pulling a trigger, they hired a third person, a twenty-six-year-old drug peddler and killer named Nicky Guido. He was heartless and fairly stupid. They hunted Casso in a blue Plymouth Fury that had a siren and a red light on the dashboard to resemble an unmarked police car.
On September 14, 1986, Casso was driving a Lincoln Town Car leased to Progressive Distributors of Staten Island, which was Burton Kaplan’s clothing business. Kaplan had given Casso the car as a token of his high esteem. Casso parked it illegally at a bus stop. Why shouldn’t he? He was Brooklyn royalty, a boss of the Mafia. He was
Q. Casso told Jimmy that?
A. Yes.
Like most of what has gone bad in the Mafia, this story also involves John Gotti. I speak of a time in the early eighties when he was still an up-and-comer in the Gambino crime family. His boss was Paul Castellano, who had famously stated that members of his family were forbidden to deal in drugs. The government had bugged Gene Gotti, John’s brother, and caught him in a heroin deal. Castellano heard the tape and decided he had to execute Gene Gotti for the big crime of selling heroin and the almost-as-big crime of not turning over any of the money. To save his brother’s life, and also to make a little room at the top, John Gotti got the idea to move Castellano into a new home. A funeral parlor.
On December 16, 1985, Castellano visited the LaRossa law office to give Christmas greetings. Afterward he left for a meeting at Sparks Restaurant on East Forty-sixth Street in Manhattan. It was only a few yards from Third Avenue, from whose buildings came the start of the rush hour. Johnny “Crash” Casciola, an operating engineer working a construction job some yards from the restaurant, had just shut down his crane for the day. He was singing “Fine and Dandy.” He had a date that night to play his accordion for a fee at an affair in Jersey. He noticed several men in fur hats and raincoats in the river of people. As Castellano’s car pulled in front of the restaurant, the fur hats rushed up and started shooting. Soon Castellano was dead. The driver, too. The fur hats dissolved back into the throng. Johnny Crash also disappeared. He needed no time to think. He moved by instinct.
A car passed by. John Gotti looked out the passenger window at the carnage. The driver was Sammy Gravano.
Two days later, when asked to remember this, Johnny Crash said, “What are you talking about, somebody got shot? I was home.”
Shooting a boss supposedly required Mafia commission sanction. There was no real commission left, but there was Vincent “the Chin” Gigante. He thought, If you kill Castellano, then I, Vincent Gigante, also can be killed. Something had to be done about Gotti, Gigante decided, so he hired Gaspipe Casso to put a bomb in a car parked on a Sunday morning in front of the Veterans and Friends social club on Eighty-sixth Street in Bensonhurst. Never mind that a bomb was also against the Mafia rules that the Chin claimed to uphold. Gotti was inside the club. He left one of his men, Frank DeCicco, in the car. Gotti was supposed to come right out. He tarried. The bomb did not. Mr. DeCicco became dust.
As the Mafia always was slightly relaxed about keeping secrets, a hundred people knew by midafternoon who had set the bomb. One of whom was Gotti. He had to make Casso go away right now. Gotti told Bobby Boriello, Mickey Boy Paradiso, and Eddie Lino to take care of it, and they sent Jimmy Hydell and Robert Bering. To do the work involved in pulling a trigger, they hired a third person, a twenty-six-year-old drug peddler and killer named Nicky Guido. He was heartless and fairly stupid. They hunted Casso in a blue Plymouth Fury that had a siren and a red light on the dashboard to resemble an unmarked police car.
On September 14, 1986, Casso was driving a Lincoln Town Car leased to Progressive Distributors of Staten Island, which was Burton Kaplan’s clothing business. Kaplan had given Casso the car as a token of his high esteem. Casso parked it illegally at a bus stop. Why shouldn’t he? He was Brooklyn royalty, a boss of the Mafia. He was
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