The restaurant’s strolling guitarist came by our table. Louise requested the theme from The Godfather. The guy sang it in Italian and then in English.

“This restaurant just reopened a few days ago from remodeling,” Lefty says. “See all that marble? He went for six hundred grand. All from Italy. You know what he had shipped in with the shipments of marble? Junk, heroin.”

Lefty wanted to go up to Château Madrid and catch the floor show. He told Conte that Mike should get $1,000 for his recent efforts. “Mike’ll make out a tab, and give him your American Express.”

Since Mike had to pay taxes on that, Lefty said to add on taxes and tip so that Mike would be able to keep $1,000.

As we were leaving, Mike pulled me and Lefty aside.

“You still vouching for this guy, Donnie?” Mike asks.

“Yeah, Mike, as much as I did before.”

“Okay, I’m holding you responsible.”

Lefty says, “Now, he’s gotta go back and pick up that money? You fly back with him. And then you don’t leave his side. You go with him to pick up the money, and then you come back in here with him and that money.”

“Okay, Lefty, that’s what I’ll do.”

We headed uptown on the FDR Drive. Lefty pointed out some of the sights to Conte and Sherry.

“Right over there,” Lefty says, pointing to the East River, “that’s where we dump the bodies. One time some wiseguys dumped two bodies in there. Couple cops from the Seventh Precinct happened to see the bodies dumped. They didn’t want to be bothered with it. So they took their little boat out and dragged the bodies down the river to the next precinct so they wouldn’t have to investigate the case.”

The next morning Conte and I went down to see Lefty. Lefty presented Conte with an itemized bill for all services to date, totaling $31,500—$17,500 of which was for Nicky Marangello, the underboss.

“Nicky was very strong for us at the sitdown with the bosses,” Lefty says. “And listen. I’m asking Mike for permission to take youse, one at a time, out on a contract job with me so you’ll have the experience, and you can get on the list for being made wiseguys.”

On the flight to Milwaukee, Conte and I assessed the whole situation. The bosses had had this big sitdown and decided after all that Conte was free to run his business in Milwaukee and share with Lefty. What did the FBI need a vending-machine business for? We had accomplished all we needed with that. All told in this operation, we had laid out about $50,000. That included gifts for Balistrieri, and “loans” and cuts from “scores” to Lefty and other wiseguys. For about the salary of one agent, we had enough violations we believed to bring down the Balistrieri crime family. But we didn’t need to spend any more. And if we spent any more time in Milwaukee, there was a good chance that Balistrieri would consider us thorns in his side and have us whacked. We were in agreement. It was time to close up Operation Timber.

Now was the time for Conte to take off—just as if he had grabbed the money from the score and wasn’t going to share it. And I would try to fade the heat off me.

We checked into the Marriott Inn. The next morning, February 7, Conte and I were supposed to drive to Chicago together to pick up his end of the score, then fly straight back to New York with the money. We set it up with the case agent for Conte to disappear. That morning he left; his job in Milwaukee was over.

Later, over the telephone, I told Lefty that we had changed our plans. At about nine A.M., I said, we had packed the car with our clothes and everything, ready to leave, and then he got a call from the guy he was supposed to meet—“the guy with the jewelry,” as we put it in code. The guy said Conte couldn’t bring anybody with him, he had to come alone or he would not get his end. So I said, Conte had gone alone. But his plan was to come right back and pick me up. Now it was late afternoon. He hadn’t showed, I hadn’t heard from him. I was afraid something went wrong.

“Maybe they killed him,” Lefty says.

“Hey, please, Left.”

“Listen, you stay put. Don’t go out to eat or nothing.”

“Lefty, where the hell am I gonna go? It’s snowing like a bastard here. Cold as hell. I got forty bucks in my pocket. I got the clothes on my back. Everything else went with him in the car. He took the plane tickets for the flight back to New York. I’m stranded here.”

“He seem worried about anything?”

“He was in a great mood. He said he was glad we had the meeting with Mike and that we could go. ahead with the business. He was glad that you’re not pissed at him anymore.”

“I’m blowing my top here. You weren’t supposed to leave his side. That’s why you’re there. Call me in an hour.”

I called an hour later.

“Nothing, Left. You think he got pinched?”

“I don’t think he got pinched. Maybe it’s his heart, he’s in the hospital. Who knows? If you would’ve been concentrating on what you’re supposed to do, this wouldn‘t’ve happened. When you come back, you have to go into five years’ probation over here with these guys. They’ll make you come down every day, every night. You make one mistake, you get chased out.”

“All right.”

“All right nothing. You gotta listen. You stay put. Now you’re stuck there, no clothes. Good thing you can order food in the room. He knows all this. He’s gotta come back. That guy called me up again fifteen minutes ago.”

“Mike?”

“He says, ‘What do you mean you don’t know what’s going on?’ I says, ‘Well, he got tied up out there.’ You put me in fucking mean positions with these guys.”

“Maybe he was scared.”

“Why should he be scared?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t even know how to talk to people, feel people out. I mean, you don’t know nothing. I’ll tell you one thing. There ain’t a punk in the street that hangs out with a wiseguy could get away with what you two guys done. Forget about it. Youse won’t last five minutes in the city of New York. Because you got different ways of thinking. And nothing bothers you. What are you laughing at?”

“I’m not laughing. I’m coughing. I got a cold. It’s freezing here.”

“Don’t go to sleep, because every hour on the hour we’re gonna call.”

An hour later I say, “I think this guy got clipped.”

“What makes you say a thing like that?”

“The guy’s all happy about going and everything, got all my clothes in the car. It takes four hours to drive down there and back. It’s not like him. He would’ve called.”

“I don’t believe he’s got clipped. Now don’t start getting me crazy. I say he got hung up in Chicago.”

All night long it goes on. The next morning I say, “Lefty, listen. I just got a phone call. Guy says, ‘Is Tony there?’ I say he stepped out for a minute. Guy says, ‘I’m a friend of his. I was supposed to meet him yesterday in Chicago and he never showed up, and I wondered if you know where he is.’ Probably the jeweler guy. He never got to him.”

“Then you listen to the radio over there. Go downstairs and buy the papers. Because nothing happened to this guy. Because it’d be a big splash out there. They publicize everything. Ain’t you got a television? Leave the news on all the time.”

“But he’s in Chicago, right? This is Milwaukee. That’s a hundred miles away.”

“So Milwaukee ain’t got news? Anything goes on in Chicago, Milwaukee gets.”

“Maybe the law doesn’t know about it.”

“Let me tell you something. That’s Tony checking on if you’re still there. He put a guy on the phone.”

“Why would he be checking?”

“I don’t know what’s in the back of his head.”

An hour later I tell Lefty, “The guy called back. He said, ‘Don’t wait around for your friend because he’s not coming back.’ ”

“Why would he say that?”

“How the hell do I know? I’m just sitting here answering the phone. It’s twenty-four hours already.”

“He’s not coming back,” Lefty says. “Because this is Tony in Chicago making that call! Getting his friend to do that. But not even have the decency to say your clothes are at the airport or something, right?”