The Art of Making Money - Jason Kersten [43]
Along with Mikey, Art’s most trusted associate was Giorgi Mu nizzi, a Bridgeport native who’d grown up just four blocks from Art, but in terms of advantages, they may as well have been miles apart. Giorgi was Bridgeport royalty, the grandson of one of the Outfit’s most powerful and legendary bosses. “Out of respect for other family members, I won’t say my granddad’s name,” declares Giorgi, “but everyone knows who he was. I mean, he was the boss. People would tremble when they saw him, that’s how mean he was.” One hundred percent Sicilian, with dark skin, curly black hair, and a laid-back air, Giorgi had grown up surrounded by men who feared and served his family, but he never joined the organization and insists he was never pressured to—he didn’t have to, because he already enjoyed all the privileges of being associated by lineage. “It was crazy,” Giorgi says of his status. “My whole life, people have come up to me and given me money. For nothing. For being somebody’s grandson. It’s bizarre, but I’d have to be stupid not to appreciate that.”
Art had witnessed the power of Giorgi’s family firsthand at the age of thirteen, when he unwittingly stole a Cadillac belonging to Giorgi’s dad and was quickly arrested. Giorgi accompanied his dad down to the station, where he saw Art, who was three years younger than him, sitting in handcuffs and locking eyes with him. Giorgi knew Art from the neighborhood as a tough little kid from the projects who had it rough. He told his dad that Art was okay, and the cops released Art right then. After that, Giorgi was the only kid who wasn’t an SD who was allowed to walk through the projects by himself. He was also one of the few people close to Art who had known da Vinci, thanks to a bookmaking operation he later ran out of Ed’s Snack Shop. “He was a genius,” Giorgi says of Pete. “I didn’t realize it until Art showed me what he learned, but I always sensed that about him. And it didn’t surprise me that Art was the one he picked to teach.”
All these connections made Giorgi a natural confidant for Art, who was quickly amazed by the Mafia prince’s gift as an acquisition specialist. With his connections to the Outfit, his hands were on the pulse of what was coming in off the trucks and trains, and if he heard about something he thought Art could use—computers, ink, paper stock—he’d set it aside and deliver it to Art factory-fresh.
Once a batch was ready for delivery, Art usually called Tony Puntillo, a garrulous cabdriver he’d known since his teenage years. A wiry Italian who loved nothing more than trash-talking, Tony was Art’s wheelman. Whenever Art needed to move money and material, or avoid tails, he’d call Tony on his beeper and leave him a number between 1 and 15. Each number represented a different location in the city, and unless he was stuck in traffic Tony would pull up within half an hour, ready to turn his cab into a race car or bury it in a sea of other yellow taxis if needed. “Art used to make five-dollar bills just for me,” Tony remembers. “It’s no secret that I like to talk, I like people. But if you’ve just come in from out of town or from a bar and you’re in my cab, you won’t know what hit you. I’ll be talking your ear off so much that you won’t notice that I’ve given you two of Art’s fives back as change. If you’re an asshole, I’ll give you four.”
Along with providing security at drop-offs, Big Bill helped with production, running errands for ink and other supplies that constantly seemed to be tapping out. And of course Mikey remained Art’s primary dealmaker and counselor. Even if Art arranged a deal himself, he’d usually consult Mikey for a second opinion. “Half the time I was teaching him things,” Mikey recalls. “Where was the deal? Is it in a public place? If it is, you show up an hour early, park in a dark spot, and watch so if somebody is planning to fuck you, there’s a good chance you’ll see it coming.”
Like da Vinci, Art was willing to teach his friends the secrets of how he made