AFTER THE DON: A DONNYBROOK?

The Boss of All Bosses was dead, three ruthless racketeers were plotting to replace him, and platoons of hard-eyed "greenies" were waiting for orders to shoot.

The sod had hardly been tamped down on the grave of Mafia King Carlo Gambino last week when a motel near New York's J.F.K. Airport was the scene of an extraordinary meeting. Packed into the basement room 100 strong were the capos (captains), consiglieres (counselors), under bosses and bosses of the five New York Mafia clans that Gambino had ruled directly. Attending, too, were some honored guests from afar; for it was the patient Don Carlo who had maintained order among the 26 families of the national Mafia combine. His word was taken as final judgment on their affairs and squabbles. The problem: how to divide his unprecedented power.

The meeting was quiet, and the conferees moved with diplomatic caution. Well they might; for according to federal officials, there are only three serious contenders for what Don Carlo left behind, and all have frightening reputations. The unholy trio:

> Carmine Galente, 66, nicknamed "Lillo" and "the Cigar." Since getting out of Lewisburg federal penitentiary in 1974, after serving a 15-year sentence for drug trafficking, Galente has controlled the remnants of the Joseph Bonanno family in New York. Says one Mafia source: "Lillo would shoot you in church during high Mass." Galente, it is said, had no respect for Gambino because the latter "never broke an egg in his life." Unverified Mob talk last week went so far as to suggest that Galente ordered his spies within the Gambino family to persuade the capo di tutti capi to take a swine-flu shot, knowing that a frail individual with a heart ailment and hardening of the arteries might succumb. According to federal sources, Gambino did get his flu shot shortly before his death.

Galente is believed to have assisted another New York mobster, Anthony ("Tony Ducks") Corallo to regain control of one New York family by helping Corallo arrange the murder last month of its chief, Andimo Pappadio. Now, according to a Mafia insider, Galente will stop at nothing to take power: "If everybody don't get in line, there's gonna be a lot of heads rolling. Lillo's gonna wipe up the streets with a few people that didn't bow down to him when he come out of the joint [prison] or didn't bow down to him when he was in the joint, even worse."

> Joe Bonanno, 71, Galente's former boss, has managed to retain some of his New York influence. Bonanno. who now lives in Tucson. Ariz., claimed at the meeting that he was there just to help. Few observers believe his intent was so benign. More probably, he wants to retake control of his old New York family--which his fellow mobsters pushed him out of twelve years ago, when he began to infringe on their turfs --and then grab Gambino's crown. Bonanno's forte is treachery--and innovation. He is credited with inventing the split-level coffin. Instead of leaving his victims for police to find, he would have them taken to a Brooklyn funeral home and put in the lower compartment of a coffin. On top would be someone who died of natural causes. The pair went to the grave together. At one time or another Bonanno has plotted to kill at least four Mafia chiefs, including Gambino, who finally got rid of Bonanno by agreeing to give him the California rackets if he would leave New York.

> Aniello Dellacroce (translation: "Little Lamb of the Cross"), 62, who was Gambino's longtime underboss. A legend even among Mafia assassins, Dellacroce relishes doing his own dirty work. Says one federal official: "He likes to peer into a victim's face, like some kind of dark angel, at the moment of death." Dellacroce is a master of disguises. Known throughout the Mob as "Mr. O'Neill," he often donned priest's garb on his troubleshooting assignments for Gambino, earning his other name, "Father O'Neill." Dellacroce's men --undisguised--were at the motel meeting. They said nothing. They didn't have to.

Whoever takes over as Boss of All Bosses, dramatic departures from Gambino's style are certain. Gambino preferred peaceful solutions. He limited membership in the Mafia, ostensibly to lessen the risk that informants might join the families but actually to keep down the numbers he had to oversee. Gambino's would-be successors believe in expanding membership--in part to strengthen their own forces and provide themselves with point men for any future Mafia shootouts. For the past three years, they have brought into the country, via Montreal, a number of young, hardened, reliable Sicilian gangsters called "greenhorns," or "greenies." Finally, Gambino opposed Mob involvement in the narcotics trade, but gangsters like Galente, despite his 15-year drug rap, favor it.

State and federal law-enforcement authorities are prepared for the possibility of a bloody internal struggle within the coming months. With the two top Mafia jobs open--the national leader, and the head of the five New York families--the three personalities vying for them, and the "greenies" alerted, the calm displayed in the motel basement is unlikely to continue.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.