Rossi handed him $200, “a little something for Christmas.”

Lefty wasn’t coming down for Las Vegas Night. He had been sick off and on for a month with flu or colds.

“It’s fucking eight degrees here,” he says over the phone. “Fucking weather don’t wanna break. That’s why I’m scared to come out. I might get sick down there. Or drop dead on the fucking plane.”

Also, Sonny had directed him to go to Miami instead, to consummate a deal for two keys of cocaine.

Two days before the event, Rossi, Shannon, and I picked up Sonny and Carmine at the airport. Sonny handed Rossi a brown paper bag. In it was $10,000 to be used as the “bank” for the Las Vegas Night. “Don’t let this out of your sight,” Sonny says.

Sonny had asked me to take $1,000 out of the shylock money for him. I handed him the ten $100 bills.

“Let’s go to a mall,” he says. “I want to find a card shop.”

“Somebody’s birthday or what?”

“I want to buy a card for Santo.”

We drove to the Gulfview Square Mall in New Port Richey. He picked out a card that had a message about being such good “friends.”

“This is cute,” he says.

Made guys refer to each other as “friends,” the same as saying “members.” Sonny tucked the $1,000 inside the card.

On the day of the Las Vegas Night, Trafficante came to the Tahitian Motor Lodge and went to Sonny‘s room. We had the room bugged. Right away Trafficante said, “We can’t talk in the room.”

Afterward Sonny told us that everything was in order, and the money split for the night would be a third to us, a third to Trafficante, and a third for the guys that they brought up from Miami to work the games.

“He loved the card,” Sonny says.

Everything was set up in the club. I had an antique slot machine in my apartment, and we decided to put it in the club for the night. There wasn’t any money in it. It was just for fun. Captain Donahue had been paid, and he said he would make sure that the cars were all patrolling on the other side of the county.

We had a crew of six to work the games, plus our regular bartender and hostesses. We had a guy on the door. To get in the front door, customers buzzed from outside. The person at the door looked out the peephole to see who it was, make sure it was members or friends. Rossi and Shannon were going to sell chips and handle all the money out of the back storage room. I was going to work the front, collect the chips from the tables, and bring them back.

Rossi wrapped up Sonny’s $10,000 in a box with Christmas paper and hid it in the furnace room, which adjoined the storage room. In there he also hid $2,000 of FBI money in the bottom of a brown paper bag under Christmas tree lights. He had a .22 Derringer Magnum pistol in a wallet holster. He hid that by taping it to the back side of the furnace. He kept his Walther .32 in a briefcase next to him.

The Las Vegas Night started at seven P.M. Sonny and Carmine were there representing New York. Husick and other cohorts were there representing Trafficante. By midnight the action was strong, the room was crowded with maybe a hundred gamblers. They were lining up in the storage room to buy chips. We already had a profit of several thousand dollars, and it was growing.

At one-fifteen A.M., I was in the storage room with the line of people buying chips. The warning buzzer sounded. Immediately I herded the customers out and locked the door behind me, leaving Rossi and Shannon locked in with the money and receipts.

I went to the front door. Nick, the guard, had hit the alarm buzzer. “Donnie, there’s two uniformed cops outside.”

I saw them through the peephole. They were Pasco County Sheriff’s officers; one was a sergeant. “Don’t open the door yet.” I figured there was nothing to worry about since we had paid for protection, but I walked around the room to make sure there was no money on the tables, no cash anywhere, just chips.

Sonny was at our round table with Husick and others. I whispered to him, “There’s two sheriffs guys outside. I’m going to talk to them, see what’s going on.”

I opened the front door. “Hi, Officers, what’s the problem?”

“We had a complaint that there was a disturbance at the club,” the sergeant says.

“No disturbance, no problems at all.”

“Mind if we come in?”

I ushered them in. “Have something to eat? Drink?”

“I got an anonymous telephone call,” the sergeant says, “and the caller stated that he had been gambling here and had lost a lot of money playing blackjack.”

“There’s no gambling here. We’re running a charity event. Everything is chips. Nobody lost any money here.”

He wanted to see the office. I walked him through the lounge.

“You got some pretty big people here,” he says. “Some of the best clientele in Tarpon Springs.”

“Well, people like to contribute to charity and have a good time.”

The other cop came into the office. “I just won money on your slot machine. That’s gambling.”

“What are you talking about?”

He said that he had put a quarter in the machine and won a quarter back. He said that before they came in, he could see through a crack in the doorway that people were playing the slot machine and gambling at the tables.

“Come on, you couldn’t see in here.” The way the club was laid out, you couldn’t see anything from the doorway. “And anybody can see that that’s an antique slot machine.”

“What are you, some fucking smart guy?”

“No. People are having fun and we’re not bothering anybody.” I couldn’t let them push me around in front of Sonny. I couldn’t let it get out of hand, either.

“Why are you bothering us? Why don’t you leave us alone?”

“Who’s the owner of this place?” the sergeant says.

“I don’t know.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m just a customer, here to contribute to charity.”

“Why you doing so much talking? You the spokesman around here?”

“Because I answered the door and let you in and you’re asking me questions. Somebody’s gotta answer your questions.”

“What’s your name?”

“Donnie Brasco.”

“A fucking New York guinea, aren’t you?”

“Well, I am from New York and I am Italian.”

“You guys like to come down here and take over. Let me see some identification.”

“I don’t carry any.”

“What’s your Social Security number?”

“I don’t have one. I don’t work, and if you don’t work, you don’t need a Social Security number.”

“You are maintaining a gambling place here. I’m gonna close the place down. I’m gonna call for a search warrant.”

“I can’t give you permission to use the phone.”

He picked up the phone and dialed.

I hurried out to tell Sonny what was going on.

“Okay,” he says, “get all the people out the back way.”

I and the hostesses got everybody out of the club through the French doors while the two cops were in the office.

Sonny sat by himself at the round table, scowling. “That fucking Rossi. I thought he had the guy paid.”

“He did, Sonny. I was right there when he talked to the guy. I saw him pay him off, and the guy said everything was taken care of.”

“Tell him to get the fuck out here.”

I knocked on the storage-room door and called Tony and Eddie out.

Rossi went over and sat down with Sonny and started to apologize.

“Don’t say a fucking word,” Sonny says. “You fucking embarrassed me in front of everybody. The old man’s people here. People from Miami. You’re just like all the others who say they’re gonna do the right thing, and then they fucking embarrass me. I could fucking choke you, slit your throat.”

Rossi turned angry.

I stopped him. “Tony, you better not say anything. Just let him cool down and I’ll talk to him.” I turned to Sonny. “It’s really not his fault.”

Sonny gave me a hard look. “Donnie, don’t you say a fucking word to defend this fucking guy. It was Tony’s responsibility. If we find out that cop fucked us, we’ll chop him up. I’m going back to Brooklyn. I don’t know what I’m gonna do about the future with this thing. Tony, you better come up with that fucking ten grand I gave you.”