One day Jamesy felt that he was being tested by Gotti, who gave him what he said was $5,000 in small bills to exchange at the bank for larger denominations. The teller told Jamesy the wad totaled $5,500, which Jamesy later explained to Gotti, who shrugged and pocketed the money.

Jamesy was occasionally able to witness how Gotti handled himself in problem-solving situations: sitdowns. These ensued after men were "brought up on charges." In these tribunals, Gotti drove to the point in a bulldozer style laced with a smart dark humor that was uniquely his.

Jamesy accompanied Gotti to a Bronx sitdown. The charges involved a visit by members of another Family to the home of the wife of a mobster jailed on a drug charge.

"I wish it was me," Gotti told the Bronx men. "You would never be safe if you stopped and spoke to my wife while I was locked up."

"John, you are here defending a drug pusher."

"If every drug pusher in this room dropped dead, I would be the only one alive."

Typically, Gotti left a warning on the table: "You tell your skipper I said, 'You ever go to a guy's house while he is in jail, I'll kill you.'"

On another occasion, a problem arose when Michael Franzese-the son of a Colombo Family skipper-and another man sought to open a flea market near one run by a man who told them he was affiliated with Gotti.

"f.u.c.k John Gotti," replied Franzese.

Franzese was a modern mobster. Cool, educated, almost a yuppie. He would graduate from promoting flea markets to producing movies-credits include such teenage gang movies as Knights of the City Knights of the City and and Savage Streets Savage Streets-and to stealing millions in a sophisticated gas-tax ripoff that would later stir Gotti's interest. In hardball, however, he didn't play in the same league as Gotti.

"Watch this, I am goin' to take you to school," Gotti told Jamesy shortly before Franzese and his a.s.sociate arrived at the Our Friends Social Club for a sitdown.

Gotti informed Franzese that flea-market rights in the area were taken and he must abandon any claim. "I don't care if you tell your father. I don't care who you go to. You can take it to Yankee Stadium, you can't win this."

As Franzese rose to leave, Gotti told him: "There is a guy running around the city saying 'f.u.c.k John Gotti.' What do we do with a piece of s.h.i.t like that? Should we beat him up? Kill him? He's a dog, right?"

"Yes, anybody who said that wouldn't be a friend, they would be a dog," Franzese replied.

Tails between their legs, Franzese and his a.s.sociate left, two more recipients of Gotti's confident terrorism.

In Jamesy's version, Gotti never tired of displaying a bully swagger when he perceived a slight. Even Mike Coiro, the lawyer who had done such nice work for Gotti, was not exempt from a dressing-down.

Gotti arrived at the club one day ranting that Coiro had shown disrespect for him in a Queens restaurant. Coiro was dining with Jimmy Burke, then under scrutiny as the Svengali of the $6 million Lufthansa airline heist at JFK Airport, and failed to stop by Gotti's table and say h.e.l.lo. In Queens, at the time, Burke's reputation was as bad bad as Gotti's. He was aligned with the Luchese Family capo Paul Vario. as Gotti's. He was aligned with the Luchese Family capo Paul Vario.

Gotti sent for Coiro, who was in too deep with the Bergin to overlook the invitation. As he had done before, Gotti urged Jamesy to pay attention.

"Watch what I am goin' to do," he said. "I might stuff him in the fireplace."

Coiro felt indigestion in the wake of Gotti's screams.

"I found you when you were a fifty dollar ambulance chaser. You are a piece of s.h.i.t. You're supposed to run when you see me. You sit there with Jimmy Burke, don't get up to say h.e.l.lo to me. I'll kill you."

Coiro, a former cop for the city's Waterfront Commission, apologized. In time, Jimmy Burke was convicted for conspiring to fix Boston College basketball games and went to prison. None of the Lufthansa cash was ever found. Much is believed to have gone to the Luchese Family, some to the bosses of other Families. Many suspected hijackers and their accomplices or friends-13 in all-were found. Dead.

From prison, Burke began complaining about "unauthorized" murders of the suspected hijackers. His Luchese captain, Vario, told Gotti about Burke's complaints, according to Source BQ, who added: "John Gotti is the most powerful captain of any Family and does not want to hear any comments from Burke."

Gotti's court was not without irony. One day, two steaming-mad men arrived at the club threatening to kill a young man named Carmine Agnello, for a reason described only as "some beef."

Agnello was an industrious youth just starting out in the auto-salvage business. The young men who wanted to kill him brought the idea to John Carneglia, who they regarded as a mentor.

"Wait, you can't," Carneglia said. "Wait until Johnny gets here."

After Johnny got there and went across the street to Lolita's Cafe for breakfast, Carneglia sought him out. After a few minutes, Carneglia reemerged from Lolita's and told the angry pair, "Go ahead, do it, but don't kill him."

The next time Jamesy saw him, Carmine was as dented and scratched as the cars he salvaged. But alive.

A few years later, Carmine Agnello reentered John Gotti's life. He married Vicki, John's second daughter, a contestant in the Miss New York-USA beauty pageant. She was sponsored by Jamaica Auto Salvage, Carmine's company.

People didn't always come to Gotti to resolve disputes. Some merely sought advice, or ambience.

Such was the case with the actor Jon Voight, who had just won an Academy Award for Coming Home. Coming Home. Voight had grown up in nearby Yonkers and was then interested in a film about the life of Joe Sullivan, a hit man with Bergin connections. Voight had grown up in nearby Yonkers and was then interested in a film about the life of Joe Sullivan, a hit man with Bergin connections.

Sullivan was the son of a cop and the only man ever to escape from Attica prison. He invited Voight and a producer to Ozone Park to visit with Gotti and as word of a movie star's presence spread, people got excited. Angelo Ruggiero's daughter called the club to ask if she could drop by.

Actors practice their profession when they seek out the real-life equivalents of characters they may portray. James Caan, "Santino" in The G.o.dfather, The G.o.dfather, befriended Colombo Family men while researching his role as the hot-tempered oldest son of "Don Corleone." befriended Colombo Family men while researching his role as the hot-tempered oldest son of "Don Corleone."

John, Gene, Willie Boy, and Jamesy were in the club when Voight and the others came calling. Eventually they retired to the Our Friends.

"We drank all f.u.c.king night," Jamesy later recalled in a phone call from prison. "Voight could drink. I think he started with Scotch, then he went with Remy Martins."

Jon Voight said he may have met John Gotti, but he has no recollection of it. He said Joe Sullivan introduced him to many people, "but I was only interested in Joe Sullivan." He said if he had known Sullivan was a.s.sociating with people involved in crime, he would have advised him not to.

Voight's foray into Queens would eventually be reviewed by FBI agents who questioned him as part of an investigation into whether Sullivan's lawyer, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, had harbored a fugitive. No charges were ever filed.

John Gotti was at ease with Voight. He was a celebrity, too; he had cash, a big car, great clothes, many retainers, and a style that caused heads to swivel when he strode into a room. His fame was earned in another world, an underworld, but it was his world, and it was real.

In some families, when a star eclipses another, trouble lies just over the horizon.

It was true of John and Gene Gotti; Gene had followed John into the Fatico-Dellacroce orbit and proven himself capable in crime. He was similar in many ways; he could be funny, menacing, and forceful, more than his brothers Peter and Richard, but not as much as John. He was both dependent and independent. With a childhood friend, Joey Scopo, a member of the Colombo Family, he had established a separate loan-sharking business, but its base was the Bergin.

Gene resided in the large shadow cast by John. He was the man left in charge; he was Genie. The blood bond was strong, but under pressure it was a spring wound too tight.

"I ain't nothin' over here," Gene once complained to Angelo. "I'm just a f.u.c.king workhorse."

On another boozy night at the Bergin, a dispute between Jamesy and another man over what to play on the jukebox led to an insult, which led to a fight outside. Everyone spilled out onto the sidewalk and tried to break it up. Jamesy described what took place next.

"Genie was like defending me. And Johnny wasn't actually defending anybody. [He was] trying to be a mediator. Genie was drunk. They had words. Johnny knocked Genie out."

Jamesy said he pulled John away from Gene. "I was holding Johnny. I tried to hold him in a headlock. He said, 'Get your hands off of me and that's an order.' I let go."

Jamesy felt responsible for the fisticuffs between John and Gene and apologized.

"It ain't you," Gotti said. "This has been coming a long time, me and my brother."

Later, after everyone had sobered up, John regretted the incident and rebuked Jamesy for starting it. "You can't raise your hands to anybody we hang out with."

"John, there are some things I can't overlook."

"I don't care how serious it is. You are going to get your hands chopped off."

The club had many such rules. Gene explained one to a fortunate soul one day. He and other crew members were at a wake when a clubhouse attendant called the funeral home to report that a school bus from a company headquartered on 101st Avenue had been stolen. Jamesy had been told by Angelo that he, John, and Neil were secret partners in the firm, which transported handicapped students under a city contract.

Peter Gotti, along with Jamesy and two other men, left the wake and returned to the club. The clubhouse attendant told them that whoever took the bus had loaded it with adding machines and typewriters and departed the premises by crashing through a gate. The men, figuring that it would be hard to hide a school bus, decided to look around the neighborhood.

The bus was quickly located lurching along on Rockaway Boulevard; the driver was having trouble operating the stick shift. As soon as the driver veered down a side street, the car full of Bergin men swerved in front and cut him off. Jamesy dragged the driver out and threw him in the car. Peter got in the bus. Both vehicles then returned to the club.

Gene called from the funeral home and Jamesy reported the news. "I got the bus and the guy."

"Hold him. I'll be right there."

The quivering thief was taken to a back room to await his fate. He was approaching meltdown when Gene burst in. But Gene was surprisingly mellow. Perhaps it was the effect of the wake.

"I don't mind [that] you are a thief. I am a thief. I don't mind you stealing, but you can't rob from us. Now go."

John Gotti was always explaining the rules to Jamesy. About guns, Gotti said "It's nice to have them close by, but don't carry them." Except for the few hidden at the Bergin, the crew stashed most of its guns in members' homes.

A don't-hang-out-with-kidnappers rule was adopted after Gotti learned that Jamesy had socialized at a disco with three men Gotti believed were kidnappers.

"I already killed a kidnapper," Gotti said, "and I don't want you around them."

Johnny told Jamesy that the only reason he pleaded guilty in the McBratney case was that Angelo was not going to get a plea offer unless he accepted the same deal. Angelo, who was identified by two witnesses, told Jamesy that he and his gumbah gumbah should have gone into Snoope's Bar with bags over their faces. should have gone into Snoope's Bar with bags over their faces.

Jamesy saw Paul Castellano once. He remembered Gotti had said this about the Pope: "Paul's the boss, but we're with Neil. Paul has nothing to do with us."

The encounter took place at a Manhattan restaurant when Jamesy spotted Castellano dining with Neil Dellacroce and a few other Family men. Jamesy had been pulling a few robberies lately. Neil waved him over.

"How are you doing?" Neil asked.

"All right."

"What are you doing?"

"Robbing."

At that, Castellano looked up. "Good boy," he said.

Jamesy was never admitted to the Bergin's inner circle. He did learn, however, that once you belonged to the circle, you belonged to Gotti.

Jamesy was present when a crew member asked Gotti about the possibility of a "release" so that he might a.s.sociate with another crew.

Gotti flashed a disbelieving smile and joked that Jamesy was the chairman of his "release department," which was never open. Gotti then faced the crew member; his smile had left as fast as it came.

"You don't get released from my crew. You have lived with John Gotti and you will die with John Gotti."

15.

BOY ON A MINIBIKE.

HOWARD BEACH WAS A safe place to raise children. It had none of the problems-poverty, drugs, crime, poor schools-that lay to waste so many other New York City children.

The Gotti home near the corner of Eighty-fifth Street and 160th Avenue was on a quiet block, as close to the Atlantic Ocean as the man of the house had been years before as a twelve-year-old boy in Brooklyn. His solidly middle-cla.s.s neighbors lived in well-kept homes along wide, tree-lined streets patrolled by a civic a.s.sociation to which Victoria Gotti contributed money.

The Gotti family included five children now, two girls and three boys. The girls and one boy had entered their teenage years. The middle son, twelve-year-old Frank, was about to. He was a promising student who enjoyed sports. He and a son of Crazy Sally Polisi were on a junior-football team called the Redskins.

On March 18, 1980, Frank borrowed a friend's motorized minibike and went for a spin. He explored a trail next to the Belt Parkway, an expressway on the northern border of Howard Beach that isolated it between Ozone Park and the ocean. Near where Eighty-seventh Street dead-ended at a fence along the parkway, Frank turned south toward 157th Avenue; he was about six blocks from home.

It was late in the day. John Favara, the driver of a car westbound on 157th Avenue, was confronted by a low white sun. Favara, age 51, a service manager for a furniture manufacturer, lived with his wife and two adopted children on Eighty-sixth Street, directly behind the Gotti family on Eighty-fifth Street. His son Scott was good friends with the oldest Gotti son, John.

Favara was coming home from work. On 157th Avenue, near Eighty-seventh, a house was under renovation. A dumpster had been placed in the street to collect the debris. It was on Favara's right. Favara did not notice the boy on the minibike dash into the street from the other side of the dumpster, and his car stuck and killed Frank Gotti.

The sudden horror and violence of the boy's death left a gaping hole in the Gotti family heart. They fell into a deep, black depression, which no doubt was similar to the one that would soon visit the Favara household.

The grief felt by Victoria, whose life was mainly her children, was especially acute and tinged by a bitter rage for the presumed recklessness of Favara. For a long time, she dressed only in black. In her living room, a photograph of Frank was draped in black and hung over a setting of candles and flowers. A Queens detective who saw it called it a shrine.

In a few months, when Frank would have turned 13, Victoria, in what became an annual rite, placed two in memoriams in the New York Daily News. New York Daily News. The first was from Frank's sisters and brothers: The first was from Frank's sisters and brothers: Frankie Boy. Happy Birthday in Heaven, we miss you so.

Love, Angel, Vicki, Johnny Boy and Peter Boy.

The second came from his parents: Frankie Boy. We love you always & long to be with you.

Love & Kisses, Mom & Dad.

Hundreds of people came to the wake to say good-bye to Frank Gotti. John Favara did not because he was advised by a priest and friends that his presence might be upsetting. Frankie Boy was buried in St. John's Cemetery in Central Queens.

FBI agents, who had begun shadowing Gotti-whose parole had not expired-and the Bergin crew a few months before, did not surveil the wake or the funeral. Out of respect.

"Losing a son is the worst thing that can happen to a man," said one agent, who recalled that a fellow agent in Queens had lost a son three years earlier. "Gotti probably doesn't believe it, but out of respect we didn't [conduct surveillance]. I don't think anyone did."