Taping the Mafia

Sam: "Jack, what happened to Pickles two weeks after he broke away from me?"

Jack: "He got killed."

Marty: "The guy in Elizabeth, huh?"

Sam: "Yeah, he was away two weeks. I told him that was what was going to happen to him. So when people don't want to listen . . ."

Marty: "He tried to be a big man?"

The dialogue sounds like a Grade-B gangster movie on late-night television, but the script is from life. It is a chillingly real conversation that took place among three Mafia hoodlums in their hangout. The subject of the session: methods of dispatching associates to a better world. This and other candid peeps at organized crime became available last week when a 2,000-page transcript of FBI tape recordings was filed in Federal District Court in Newark, N.J. The tapes were presented by the district attorney in connection with extortion-conspiracy charges against Simone Rizzo ("Sam the Plumber") De-Cavalcante, a New Jersey Mafia leader. The FBI had bugged four mob hangouts in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, including the office of DeCavalcante's Kenilworth, N.J., plumbing-supply firm.

The transcript referred to eight murders. These facts, however, cannot be used to prosecute anyone because such bugging and wiretapping was illegal at the time. Subsequent legislation legalizing eavesdropping under certain circumstances is not retroactive.

Protecting People. Much of the recorded conversation centered on the fine points of murder, and it was clear that, in the underworld, neatness counts. The 1951 gunning down of Willie Moretti in a Cliffside Park, N.J., restaurant was distasteful to Angelo DeCarlo, who had a better idea: "Now like you got four or five guys in the room. You know they're going to kill you. They say, 'Tony Boy wants to shoot you in the head and leave you in the street, or would you rather take this [a fatal drug], we put you behind your wheel, we don't have to embarrass your family.' That's what they should have done to Willie. Sure, that man never should have been disgraced like that." Added DeCavalcante: "It leaves a bad taste. We're out to protect people." At times, the mob seems to have a conscience.

Mobsters were overheard deploring the 1962 hand-grenade slaying of "Cadillac Charlie" Cavallaro in Youngstown, Ohio, because the blast also killed the victim's eleven-year-old son.

Another time, DeCarlo told of the stylish dispatching of a cooperative victim named Itchie: "I said, 'You gotta go, why not let me hit you right in the heart and you won't feel a thing?' He said, Tm innocent, Ray, but if you've got to do it . . .' So I hit him in the heart and it went right through him." Some victims were less cooperative, such as the one many years ago described by Anthony Boiardo, son of Ruggiero ("the Boot") Boiardo: "The Boot hit him with a hammer. The guy goes down and he comes up. So I got a crowbar this big, Ray. Eight shots in the head. What do you think he finally did to me? He spit at me."

Meatball. Efficient disposal of bodies was also a subject of great interest on the tapes. In one 1964 conversation, DeCavalcante and two other men discussed the various types of devices available. One suggested, in the manner of Ian Fleming's Goldfinger, a machine that smashes up old automobiles. DeCavalcante said that he was looking for one that pulverized garbage. Also mentioned was a gadget capable of turningDEG a human body into a "meatball."

Besides murder, there were heady whiffs of political corruption. The tapes indicated a familiarity between mobsters and New Jersey public officials. In one conversation, which the FBI said took place shortly before the 1964 election, DeCavalcante promised Democrat Thomas Dunn unlimited support in Dunn's campaign for mayor of Elizabeth, N.J. DeCavalcante then asked: "Do you think we could get any city work?" Dunn (laughing): "Well, maybe." When the tapes were released, Mayor Dunn denied that the mobster had any influence over his administration and said that he had not been aware of DeCavalcante's mob connections when he accepted a $100 campaign contribution.

The tapes also show Mafia Chieftain Joseph Zicarelli bragging of interceding with "my friend the Congressman," Cornelius Gallagher. Gallagher denied involvement with Zicarelli and said that the mobster was merely "name dropping." Last year Gallagher was accused by LIFE Magazine of interceding with police on Zicarelli's behalf. The Democratic Congressman denied that charge and was re-elected last fall.

Cops and Robbers. The mobsters also traded advice about corrupting police and businessmen. DeCavalcante: "You know, Tony, 30 or 35 years ago, if a [obscenity] was even seen talking to a cop they looked to hit him the next day. They figured he must be doing business with the cop." DeCarlo: "Today, if you don't meet them and pay them, you can't operate." Another time, Gaetano ("Corky") Vastola explained how to set up a dummy union: "When I sit down with the boss [management], I tell him how much it's gonna cost him in welfare, hospitalization and all that. I make a package out of it. [I say] it's gonna cost $100,000 a year. Let's cut it in half and forget about it. I show him how much I'm gonna save [him] by walking away."

But even the Cosa Nostra hoods have worries. In 1965, DeCavalcante forbade the killing of a Negro construction worker who assaulted a Marioso's son with a shovel during a fight. The Negro was a Black Muslim, and DeCavalcante feared a Muslim-Mafia war. Hoods also become disenchanted. Discussing one doublecross in 1964, DeCavalcante complained to an underling, Frank Mamri: "Sometimes, Frank, the more things you see, the more disillusioned you become. You know, honesty, honorability --all those things."

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