Surviving the Mob - Dennis Griffin [40]
“Nicky said, ‘Hey, it’s not about the money. I’d do anything for you, you know that. But you gotta understand. I’ve got thirty or forty guys coming around all the time looking for this and that. When Lenny [DiMaria] and me were coming up, Fat Andy [Anthony Ruggiano, Nicky and Lenny’s crew boss] never bailed us out right away if we got pinched. He let us sit in jail a few days to see if we could get out on our own. You see, in this life, you’ve gotta exhaust every other avenue available to you before you ask for help.’
“Right after saying, ‘It’s not the money; I’d give it to you in a minute,’ he asked me, ‘If I give you five thousand and you end up gettin’ convicted and sent away for ten or fifteen years, how would I get my money back?’
“This was a side of Nicky I’d never seen before. I stood there looking at him and I thought, you dirty motherfucker. I tried not to let him know how hurt I was. I just told him he knew better than me and I understood.
“He said he didn’t want me upset, that I had to look at this from a business perspective. I told him I’d proved my loyalty over and over again. If I had to go out gun in hand to get his money back to him, I’d do it. But I wasn’t going to argue with him about it. He knew best and I was okay with it.
“But it stayed with me for a long time. I think I eventually figured out why Nicky did what he did. I’d been loyal to him, but I never kissed his ass like a lot of them did. And he was pissed off about the Burzo shooting for two reasons. It wasn’t business—it was personal. Because of it, I had to give up the horse room where we were making a killing. And that hurt him in the wallet.
“What he didn’t consider was that the reason I shot Burzo was because I had to prove myself. What the hell good would I be to the Gambino family if I couldn’t handle a problem in my own household? And how would me letting Burzo slide have reflected on Nicky and the crew? It was because of the life that I had to deal with Burzo decisively. I thought then I had no choice but to shoot him. Looking back at it now, I know better. Ralph Burzo didn’t deserve what I did to him. But that’s water over the dam.
“As I walked away from Nicky that day, I’d learned a couple of things. In that life, you never let anyone know what you’re thinking or feeling. And it’s okay to walk away and live to fight another day. But don’t forget. Don’t ever forget.”
THE TRIAL
Andrew was unable to meet Rappaport’s financial demands within the allotted seven days. When his trial started after Labor Day, he and his court-appointed lawyer shared the defense table with his co-defendant Sammy Karkis and his counsel. Andrew’s father, Dina, Anthony Gerbino, Mike Yannotti, and a few more of his friends were also in the courtroom.
However, although they were still living together, by this time Andrew and Dina’s marriage was damaged beyond repair. Andrew blames the deterioration in their relationship on two things: Ralph Burzo and youth.
“I found out over the summer there was a lot more to the thing between Burzo and Dina than the car. I blamed her for not letting me know earlier that he was harassing her. And during the trial I found out a lot more. He’d actually been stalking her—calling on the phone and sending candy and flowers. Her mother knew about it. Her brother knew about it. Everybody knew about it but me. I felt like a real sucker. So I had an attitude toward her and my friends hated her.
“The other thing is that we were so young. We really weren’t much more than kids ourselves and there we were with a baby and all kinds of financial and legal problems. I don’t think we were mature enough to handle it all.
“In the days leading up to the trial, my new lawyer had told me that the prosecution had a very weak case. They had no eyewitnesses and no gun. He couldn’t understand why the case was even going to trial. According to him, the only thing I had to fear was