BQ's most dramatic report for the FBI was his last. Diane Giacalone had decided to reveal him, too.

BQ, whose trade in later years was bookmaking, was an unindicted co-conspirator in Giacalone's case; he had turned up on gambling tapes that she intended to play at the trial. Once again, the FBI argued it was unnecessary because BQ turned up innocuously on only a few of the hundreds of gambling tapes at her disposal. Once again, the FBI accused her of trying to force an informer to testify and thus jeopardize his life. And once again, the FBI lost, and Agent Colgan warned BQ.

For nine years, BQ had told Colgan he would get in the wind if exposed. And later that summer he did, leaving his wife and child behind. Until January 1986, when Giacalone got a warrant for BQ's arrest, only Colgan and Mrs. BQ knew where BQ was, but then all contact had to end.

Later, Colgan said BQ was not a "top-echelon" informant-"he never made the big-time" of FBI informant ranks, but he was highly valued. Colgan, who had welcomed BQ into his home during their odd-couple relationship, also said he was "personally and professionally devastated by the actions of the government in this matter."

William Battista, age 53, the old Brownsville-East New York hijacker-bookmaker who never appreciated Gotti's bully ways, hasn't been seen since.

23.

THE LAST STAGE.

Tommy and the other guy will get popped.

-John Gotti, June 13, 1985

IN JUNE, THE FEDERAL FEVER infected Aniello Dellacroce's home in Staten Island. A bug stayed only for that month, but long enough to capture some remarkable talk by the other mob about a sharp upturn in Family tensions and an insinuation that Neil had lost his marbles.

Neil was furious at the man who suggested he was senile-Buddy LaForte, son of Joseph, the Staten Island capo. Neil also was angry at Michael Caiazzo, another captain and Neil's former driver who had appointed Buddy acting capo of his crew without asking his underboss, a friend for 50 years. Caiazzo, before checking into a hospital for an operation, had gone over Neil's head and told the Pope, which infuriated Neil even more.

On June 8, Castellano and Thomas Bilotti stopped at Neil's house to discuss the Caiazzo-LaForte affair.

"You know what I heard [about LaForte]?" Neil began. "That this f.u.c.kin' punk called me senile ... I think I'd kill him ... Paul, if it wasn't for you, I would kill him."

"Watch out for people telling you stories," replied Castellano, who was experienced on the subject. "Sometimes people tell us stories."

Castellano said that Buddy LaForte had denied being disrespectful to Neil, and suggested, gently, that Neil was his own worst evidence. "You know what it is, Neil. You have some good days and you have bad days."

The next day, Gotti and Angelo went to Neil's to review Castellano's newly persistent demands for the heroin tapes; Angelo had been holding on to them since the government, as required, had turned them over to help him prepare for trial. But the Pope was saying he needed them now for his own trials. Both were set to start before Angelo's, which was delayed partly because of a change in prosecution teams; U.S. Attorney Raymond Dearie had taken the case away from the Eastern District Strike Force and turned it over to a special drug unit in his office.

The heroin-tapes talk between Neil and his disciples may be the most evocative Family tape of all. A dying man is heard extolling La Cosa Nostra La Cosa Nostra and seeking a way to avoid bloodshed, but acknowledging that-to save Angelo-it may be necessary to go to "the last stage." and seeking a way to avoid bloodshed, but acknowledging that-to save Angelo-it may be necessary to go to "the last stage."

It began with Gotti and Angelo learning what Neil had decided to do about Caiazzo and LaForte. Little Pete Tambone had been "chased" for six months for dealing drugs, but now Caiazzo was booted out forever for naming LaForte acting capo without Neil's approval. Buddy's penalty was a demotion to soldier in James Failla's crew; in a bow to Neil's anger, the Pope had blessed both moves.

As he would throughout the heroin-tapes talk, Gotti was quick to agree with Neil. He said that since Caiazzo "was the brains" of the Caiazzo crew, he should be dumped.

"I don't think he was the brains," Neil said, "But he was the boss. He's responsible for all the mistakes."

In this, Gotti saw a corollary: "You don't kill a guy just because the guy's a tough guy. It ain't right. You kill the guy that gives the order."

Now, the monitors of the Neil bug got to overhear Angelo make up a story to explain his refusal to turn over transcripts of tapes made by the bugs in his house in 1982.

"If you two never bother with me again ... I ain't givin' them tapes up. I can't. There's good friends of mine on them f.u.c.kin' tapes. If it was some f.u.c.kin' a.s.shole like Buddy, or somebody like that, I'd give it to [Paul] in three seconds flat. There's good guys on them f.u.c.kin' tapes."

"Don't call them good guys whatever you do," said Gotti. "Don't look for them when you're in trouble, the good guys."

"That's right," said Neil.

Angelo announced he intended to meet Castellano and a papal lawyer because "I want them to tell me how these tapes could help them."

"If he shows you how, he's the boss," Gotti said. "While he's the boss, you have to do what he tells you."

Gotti was expressing loyalty to a boss who, according to William Battista, was "considering wiping out a strong portion" of the Gotti crew. But he also was speaking in the presence of the terminally ill underboss, his mentor.

"You don't understand La Cosa Nostra, La Cosa Nostra," Neil said.

"Angelo, what does Cosa Nostra Cosa Nostra mean?" Gotti chimed. mean?" Gotti chimed.

Neil answered first. "Cosa Nostra means that the boss is your boss." means that the boss is your boss."

Angelo said he wasn't going to give up the tapes so that his boss could turn Cosa Nostra Cosa Nostra against him and his friends. "I won't do that," he said. against him and his friends. "I won't do that," he said.

"Forget about it," Neil said.

"I won't do that."

"Forget about it. La Cosa Nostra. La Cosa Nostra. Boss is the boss is the boss." Boss is the boss is the boss."

Neil then accused Angelo of "making up stories" so that he wouldn't have to cough up the tapes, but Angelo denied it.

"What I'm trying to say," Neil said again, "is a boss is a boss is a boss. What does a boss mean in this f.u.c.kin' thing? You might as well make anybody off the street."

Angelo protested that Neil was singing "a different tune" from the last time they talked about the tapes.

"You don't know what the f.u.c.k you're talkin' about," Gotti interposed. "Why don't you keep quiet, and shut the f.u.c.k up?"

During the Tambone crisis, Neil had warned Angelo that he would kill even his own son if he dealt drugs, but his frame of mind was different now. He was going to bat for Angelo. He said he had told Paul he would try to talk sense to Angelo because he "didn't want anybody to get hurt"-but Angelo was making it rough on all of them.

"Now, what do you want me to tell him? 'The guy says, "f.u.c.k you," he don't wanna give you these f.u.c.kin' tapes.'"

Neil recalled trying to take Angelo's side at the start. "I've been tellin' [Paul], 'The guy can't give you the tapes because his family is on there.' I've been trying to make you get away with these tapes, but Jesus Christ Almighty, I can't stop the guy from always bringin' it up. Unless I tell the guy, 'Why don't you go f.u.c.k yourself?' ... Then we know what we gotta do then, we, we go and roll it up and go to war."

In what was a reference to an earlier, untapped comment by Angelo that Paul would order him killed if he knew what was on the tapes, Neil said, "I told you, that's in the last stage. Let's wait. Let's take it easy. That's the last stage. If it has to come to that, it'll come to that."

The boss was a boss was a boss-up to the last stage. Neil was saying, in the end, he would support a strike against Castellano if it meant saving Angelo, who had been very loyal to Neil. "For Christ's sake, I ain't saying you're wrong, [but] don't forget, don't only consider yourself ... a lot of fellows'll get hurt, too. You could get hurt. I could get hurt. [Gotti] could get hurt."

As Neil finished, Gotti gave his own lecture, lambasting Angelo for speaking out of school about the Commission to an unmade man like Edward Lino. "You're not supposed to speak to every f.u.c.kin' guy [who is] not a friend. About a Commission meeting! You ain't the only guy that done it, but you ain't supposed to do it. Right is right."

Joseph LaForte, father of the offending soldier, and James Failla, the soldier's new captain, also dropped by Neil's house that same day, June 9. At the time, Gotti was not there, but Angelo was.

Angelo reminded LaForte of "three" killings "we did" for "you, you know, for the thing." He reminded him of the time "Willie Boy and the kid [Cardinali] put the guy [the Staten Island bodega owner] in the hospital." The remembrances were for the purpose of asking LaForte what his son Buddy had done for the thing lately.

"Nothing," the father said before making a comment about the beating Cardinali and others gave Antonio Collado, who was suspected of intruding on a LaForte numbers operation.

"No, forget about that one," Angelo said, "I'm talking about McBratney [the man Gotti and Angelo killed]."

"[Buddy] had nothing to do with it," LaForte said.

"Definitely not, I was there. It was a suicide mission."

"I didn't even know the guy."

"I didn't know the guy either. When I walked in the bar, I met him."

When Failla entered Neil's parlor, he expressed surprise that Caiazzo had been thrown out of the Family completely.

"Jimmy, I've been carrying him for fifty years," said Neil. "Mother-f.u.c.kin' lice c.o.c.ksucker that he is."

"Your mind is good. You seen it straight."

Back by the Nice N EZ Auto School, Gotti was overheard talking about mail he had received from Italy. He paraphrased an apparent fan letter this way: "[It's] good to see a young guy, a young healthy guy there now, instead of those old f.u.c.ks."

The seventy-year-old Paul Castellano and John Gotti sat down together on June 12-three weeks after William Battista said Gotti and others learned Castellano was contemplating killing them. The fact of this meeting indicated Castellano had a.s.sured everyone it wasn't true, or that the "sensitive street information" reported by Battista had originated on 101st Avenue.

Castellano now a.s.sumed he was headed to jail, not because of the stolen-car case or even the Commission case. He thought he had a chance to beat both; but he thought he was a loser on a case that hadn't even been filed yet-the Gambino hierarchy case. As required after the fact, the government had recently notified him that his home was bugged in 1983.

"I musta said so many things," he told Gotti. "That's the way it goes."

Certain of going to prison and Neil's death, Castellano met with Gotti to discuss a "peaceful transition." Despite a streak of independence, Neil, as long as the Family within a Family got its share of the bounty, had been a loyal underboss, the kind Thomas Bilotti could be for Thomas Gambino. Castellano was less sure of Gotti, but knew he must be appeased, and so he proposed that Gambino, Bilotti, and Gotti have operating control of the Family while he remained the behind-the-bars boss.

With Paul still the boss, and with two Thomases in the frame, Gotti thought the picture at the top was looking too busy. Consigliere Consigliere Joe N. Gallo, age 73, another "old f.u.c.k" who was, Gotti had said, an "a.s.shole weak c.o.c.ksucker," would not have any real influence, no matter what happened. Joe N. Gallo, age 73, another "old f.u.c.k" who was, Gotti had said, an "a.s.shole weak c.o.c.ksucker," would not have any real influence, no matter what happened.

A day after his sitdown with the Pope, Gotti reviewed it for a crony. He suspected Castellano was patronizing him and was angry that Paul had "disregarded Neil" in formulating his plans. Gotti saw the demise of the other mob.

"He told me again last night, he said, 'Well, I'm gonna try to make a peaceful transition [and] switch the Family over to two [or] three guys.' [But] we ain't gonna get nothin'."

According to Gotti, Castellano said, "You come with me, Tommy, and the other guy." Gotti said he replied that Gambino and Bilotti didn't want to share power. And then Gotti told the crony what would happen if Paul was patronizing him and he was cut out of the picture when Paul went to jail: "You know what we're gonna do then. Tommy and the other guy will get popped."

The former Rockaway Boy was supremely confident during these pivotal times in Family history. At the Bergin annex, he told a soldier: "I know what's goin' on. See, you don't ... you're oblivious ... guys like you, your brother, and other soldiers, G.o.d bless ya, [but] you're oblivious to what's goin' on, but I ain't ... Me, I'll always be all right."

Gotti also was supremely active, as he complained: "I got appointments and favors coming out of the a.s.shole. I can't keep up with them."

One appointment he couldn't keep up with was an unusual pretrial hearing held at Neil's house-because Neil was too ill to travel. Judge Nickerson brought his court to him on June 25, so two legal issues-involving potential conflicts of interest among lawyers in the case-could be resolved by having Neil waive any later objections.

The first issue did not involve Gotti, so it did not matter that he and Bruce Cutler were late. Court was convened-the FBI had silenced the bug in Neil's house for the day-in Neil's bedroom. The underboss, clad in white embroidered pajamas, sat propped up on a king-size bed.

Nickerson explained how the potential conflict might affect Neil, and did he still wish to waive an objection?

"Your Honor, I have been sick and I have had three angina attacks and whatever my lawyer, whatever my lawyer does, is okay with me. I don't understand the law ... I don't understand the points of it."

The partic.i.p.ants recessed to Neil's living room to await Gotti and Cutler; they chatted while a Viennese waltz played softly in the background, according to the only reporter present, Philip Russo of the Staten Island Advance. Staten Island Advance.

"Have you seen Prizzi's Honor? Prizzi's Honor?" Nickerson asked Diane Giacalone. "... [T]hat had some funny scenes."

Giacalone, surprised by the judge's mention of a sardonic movie about mob a.s.sa.s.sins, merely nodded.

"Gotti," Russo later wrote, "a big man clad in a dark brown suit with matching brown shirt open down the first three b.u.t.tons, arrived after a short delay." Then, Gotti, Cutler, and the others all filed back into Neil's bedroom.

Once again, they heard a dying man wish them whatever they wanted.

Twenty years after entering Neil Dellacroce's world, Gotti was in command of it. Neil would survive another five months, time enough for the man acting in his stead to grow accustomed to his place.

One of Gotti's first challenges was solving a problem between a dead loan shark and a blind bookmaker. The family of the loan shark, who died of natural causes, felt it was ent.i.tled to a share of the gambling operations he had built up. Gotti called in the blind bookmaker, who worked for the loan shark, and said he should "do the right thing" and pay the man's family $1,000 a week, to be divided equally among his former wives and children.

"[He's] the best [bookie] in the country," Gotti said after the blind man left. "He takes $250,000 [in bets] a night."

As always, Gotti seemed as p.r.o.ne to violence as to diplomacy on some problems. Late in July, the state Task Force bug overheard him urging ill will on a pizza shop operator.

"Why didn't you give him a beatin' then?" Gotti asked a crew member.

"Well, 'cause uh ... "

"I told ya. Forget this other s.h.i.t. Give him a f.u.c.kin' beatin'."

"Well the, uh, I was waiting to hear from you."

"I told you yesterday ... what are you, Chinese? Hit 'im. This guy's n.o.body, and if he's somebody, I don't give a f.u.c.k."

And so it went that summer and early fall. Gotti farmed out a $20,000 shylock collection to a New Jersey soldier who needed a payday; he a.s.sured a contractor he would help him collect a job payment; he told a garment-district trucker: "If they're embarra.s.sing you now, I promise you they'll apologize tomorrow and you'll get the matter settled."

Gotti was riding high-at one point, he was even winning at the track. And when he won, he didn't appreciate it when his winnings were miscalculated, as he demonstrated when he called a runner for a Manhattan bookmaker and asked about his "figure" for the week.