Another Life_ A Memoir of Other People - Michael Korda [243]
His generation of “godfathers” mostly kept to themselves and discussed business in Sicilian whenever possible. In his heyday, Bonanno, with his conservative, respectable, well-tailored business suits and far-flung business interests, had seemed the most assimilated of the dons, and indeed he had irritated members of The Commission by urging them to invest in legitimate American businesses. Bonanno’s ambition seemed to be to succeed as an American businessman, out in the open, with a smile and a courteous handshake for everyone and an A-I credit rating. He owned a controlling interest in two garment-center coat companies, a funeral home, and a cheese company in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.
Bonanno took me on a tour of his home, accompanied by his dog, “Greasy” Bonanno, an elderly Doberman. Here was the brick barbecue pit, which had been badly damaged when somebody—“Clowns!” Bonanno said contemptuously—threw dynamite over the fence; here the “secret room,” concealed behind a wall in the bedroom, where Bonanno could take refuge in an emergency; here the cork-lined basement office from which the FBI had taken his private papers and his arsenal when they raided the house; here the picture window through which the FBI had tried to film him from an unmarked van, so that lip-readers could try to transcribe his conversations with friends. That unmarked van, it appeared, was a more or less permanent presence on the street. Even Bonanno’s garbage was the object of their scrutiny. *The house was decorated in a homey, comfortable style, with plush velour furniture, lots of tourist-quality Sicilian wood carvings of donkeys and children, and a collection of porcelain birds. There was a big brick fireplace in the living room and much dark, heavy, formal furniture, which looked as if it had originated in the East—or perhaps even Sicily—and been shipped out to Tucson.
Bonanno showed us with pride framed photographs of his late wife, Faye, a ceramic tile with the Bonanno family crest, paintings of his birthplace in Sicily (a matter of some consequence, given the Sicilian habit of carrying ancient feuds from the old country to the new world, so that most of his trusted companions—and not a few of his most dangerous enemies—were from the same village as he), the Christmas cards he received from Dr. and Mrs. Billy Graham, and a huge framed photograph of his son Bill’s wedding to Rosalie Profaci, the Mafia equivalent of a royal wedding, for Profaci was the head of his own Mafia family, one of New York’s Five Families and an ally of Bonanno’s—the wedding had attracted nearly three thousand guests and featured a wedding cake that towered over the bride and groom, and a guest list that included a congressman, a judge, several clergymen, and a newspaper publisher.
These, Bonanno said, his eyes turning damp, had been the good old days, before everything turned sour. First there had been Apalachin, and the accusation that Bonanno, who had advised against a “national meeting” of The Commission, had been present, when in fact he wasn’t there at all, and had merely lent his driver’s license to somebody else who presented it to the state police when they broke up the meeting. Then there had been the troubles with his cousin Stefano Maggadino, boss of his own crime family in Buffalo, New York, who may have masterminded the kidnapping of Joe Bonanno from the streets of New York, and possibly an attempt to kill Bill.