Mixing Business and Pleasure

"When I look out through your windows," crooned Frank Sinatra, "you make me young again, even tho' I'm very old." OF Blue Eyes' rendition of / Write the Songs brought his audience to its feet last week at the Westchester Premier Theater in suburban Tarrytown, N.Y. So did Co-Star Dean Martin's antics.

The twelve-day run was virtually a sellout, but not all eyes were on Frankie and Dean. A few were on the audience, which included top Mafiosi from New York and other parts of the country. Among them were Jimmy ("the Weasel") Fratianno of San Francisco, Mike Rizzitello of Los Angeles, Tony Spilotro of Las Vegas, Russell Bufalino of Scran ton, Pa., and several associates of Philadelphia Boss Angelo Bruno.

What had brought the Mob chiefs together was a series of powwows with New York City Mafia bosses about the new Mob power structure (TIME cover, May 16). TIME has learned that the Western gangsters reported on the progress they have made in expanding their rackets. Bruno's men came to complain about the New Yorkers who are moving into Atlantic City, traditionally Philadelphia Mob territory. And everyone wanted to pay respect to Dons Aniello Dellacroce and Carmine Galante, front runners to succeed Carlo Gambino as the Mafia's next boss of bosses.

The visitors were presumably also concerned about the upsurge in murderous violence within the Mob. En route to New York, Fratianno stopped off to visit Mob friends in Cleveland. That same day, John Nardi, 61, who was feuding with Young Turks in that city, was torn apart by a bomb as he started his car. In addition, there have been the 20 or more Mob-connected murders by hit men armed with silencer-equipped, .22-cal. automatic pistols (TIME, April 18). FBI investigators now believe that there are separate killers deployed by hoodlums in Chicago and by the Genovese family in New York City. Last week the Mafia's high council decided that too many bodies were being left in the streets--bringing the Mob unwanted public attention. A Mafia insider told TIME: "The orders are to plant [bury] them."

Mellowest Tones. Federal authorities think the victims may include Eli Zeccardi, 67, underboss of the Genovese clan, and his top associate, Dominick Dequatro, 55; both have disappeared in the past month. Officials say the disappearances may be connected with the rise in the family of Vincent ("Chin") Gigante, 49. An ex-boxer, Gigante won lasting notoriety as the gunman who unsuccessfully tried to liquidate Mafia "Prime Minister" Frank Costello in 1957. The investigators doubt that Gigante is acting on his own.

On the other hand, police speculate that because Zeccardi's family received demands for payment of $200,000--never made--he was kidnaped by non-Mafia freelancers, and may have died of a heart attack; he suffered from a heart ailment. Whatever the case, the violence has stirred anxieties in Mafia breasts that even Sinatra's mellowest tones could hardly soothe.

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