“Get the fucking money from Tony,” he tells me. “Remind fucking Tony that he’s nothing without us. And listen, Donnie, forget about how it’s not Tony’s fault. You should be looking out for me, not Tony.”

Finally Sonny said he had to have the money and told me to take it out of the shylock money and both of us bring it to New York.

Rossi and I each carried half the money. Sonny and Boobie met us at JFK, and we handed them the $10,000.

“Okay,” Sonny says. “Now, I want you guys to start making connections for coke and heroin—especially the H, because I got the outlets up here. Also, I bought a machine to make Quaaludes, so find some connections for the powder to make them with.”

Eventually the charges against Sonny were dropped. Rossi, however, was supposed to go to trial. We got it put off and put off until the entire operation was over.

One of the regular King’s Court members brought in a doctor friend from Tarpon Springs. The doctor talked to Rossi about having friends in the Mafia. Talk got around to drugs. The doctor said he’d done a lot of dealing and had even been busted for drugs. In fact, he had access right now to $1 million worth of heroin—sixteen kilos—in Wichita, Kansas. He had just come back from Wichita. He said it was confiscated heroin in the possession of an ex-FBI agent. He said he could put together a deal for us. If he had known we were interested, he said, he would have brought a sample back with him.

I told Lefty and Sonny about the approach, and they wanted us to push it, get a sample.

The doctor said he would have a sample brought to Florida. A date was set for delivery.

I joined Lefty in Miami. The plan was that Rossi would get the sample from the doctor and bring it to us in Miami where Lefty had a guy on hand to test it for quality. Sonny was standing by in New York with a potential buyer. Lefty and I took a room in the Deauville to wait for Rossi.

I kept calling Rossi to see if the doctor had shown up. Lefty kept calling Sonny to say the doctor hadn’t shown up yet. We didn’t dare leave the hotel room together for fear that we’d miss the call from Rossi, saying he was on his way. It was like waiting for a sitdown. We ordered up room service, or one of us went across the street to get sandwiches at a deli.

Every couple of hours we made our phone calls. Rossi kept saying he hadn’t heard from the doctor. After three days we gave up. I went back to Holiday, Lefty went back to New York.

We pursued the deal for weeks. The doctor said there was one delay after another in getting the sample to Florida.

“I’m embarrassed with this thing,” Lefty says. “Everybody’s disappointed up here. I’d like to shake him down for just the expense money. It hurted me. You gotta put your foot down. Grab him by the throat. I didn’t say smack him around. Just grab him by the throat.”

The three of us sat down to look at the situation—Rossi, Shannon, and me. Together we represented a lot of years of street experience. Rossi got it first. He says, “This guy’s setting us up. Somebody’s trying to do a number on us with this heroin. This guy ain’t got access to any more heroin than the man in the moon. This is a setup by somebody.”

We agreed. Rossi had it right on the nose. This doctor had been busted for drugs before. Somebody had him in a squeeze and was using him to trap us.

It could have been state or federal cops, or the DEA—the Drug Enforcement Administration. It could have been badguys, maybe amateurs who didn’t know how to finish off the deal. We couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. But somebody had this doctor in their clutches, and it looked like he was scared to go through with it.

Rossi decided to carry it out, lean on the doctor to bring us the sample. Nobody would ever see us touch it.

Rossi called the doctor and said he had twenty-four hours to produce the sample. That night the doctor showed up.

He came into the club at nine P.M. He was very nervous. He took Rossi aside and told him he had tossed the sample into the shrubbery just outside the door.

The doctor had a drink at the bar. After a while Shannon ambled outside. It was pitch dark, which was great, because nobody could see anything. He felt around and found the little bag. He brought it into the office.

The next day we had it tested. It was talcum powder. The doctor swore, in a panic, that he didn’t know, he had just accepted the sample. We believed him. Because if we had been legitimate badguys, for sticking us like this we might have killed him. At least we would have given him a bad beating.

Since we were agents, though, we couldn’t really do anything. “Next time you want to play around with somebody,” Rossi told him, “don’t play around with the big boys.”

We never found out who set him up to set us up. We had enough of a reputation that we were aware of the chances we could be set up. We could be set up by a law-enforcement agency to take a fall, which would have jeopardized the operation. Or we could be set up by badguys jealous of our success or their turf.

An undercover agent going by the name of Charlie Sacco—we called him “Charlie Chains” because he wore so much gold—was uncovering corruption and gambling involving the sheriff of a town near Charleston, South Carolina, and he set up a gambling hall. He brought Rossi into it because some of his clientele were Greeks that Rossi knew from the Greek community of Tarpon Springs and were frequent visitors to King’s Court. Rossi, Shannon, and I made a few trips to the Charleston area to play our roles on behalf of Charlie Chains.

Rossi met a Greek named Flamos, who claimed he was from Harlem and could get us any kind of drugs in any volume we wanted.

“Don’t bullshit me if you can’t produce,” Rossi says, “because the people I deal with in New York City won’t stand for it.”

The guy insisted he had great connections.

I came in as Rossi’s New York man. Charlie had rented a condominium right on the beach at the Beach and Racquet Club in Isle of Palms, where we stayed. He made an appointment for Flamos to come and see me.

Rossi and I are lying on the beach. Flamos comes walking across the sand in street clothes. Rossi introduces me as his friend Donnie from New York. “Tell Donnie what you can get for us.”

Flamos says he can get anything.

“Heroin,” I say.

“I got a direct contact in Katmandu,” he says. “But I need some front money to go to Katmandu, fifteen grand.”

“Do I look like a fucking goofball or what? Katmandu?”

Flamos gets indignant. “I don’t know you. How do I know you’re straight? I’m from New York too. I got some friends up there that are righteous people.”

“If you got the right friends up there, ask them to check out Donnie from Mulberry St. who’s a friend of Lefty’s. If your friends can’t check out Donnie and Lefty from Mulberry Street, then your friends ain’t worth shit.”

Flamos turns to Rossi. “I don’t want to get involved. Your friend’s coming on too strong.”

“Hey,” I say, “you’re coming on that you can come up with anything under the sun, so don’t bullshit me.”

“I’ll come back in two days,” he says.

The next day, Flamos comes back and comes right up to me. “Look, Donnie, I’m sorry if I offended you. I checked with my friends in Harlem, and when I mentioned Donnie and Lefty from Mulberry Street, these guys had nothing but the highest respect for Lefty, and they had heard of you being with him. Geez, Donnie, I didn’t realize you’re with the Bonannos.”

“Hey, let’s not have names here. We don’t mention families. The bottom line is, can you get us the dope?”

“I can get the heroin, Donnie, but I got to go to Katmandu. Forget the fifteen, but I need five grand for traveling expenses.”

“Forget the five and forget Katmandu. What could you bring here tomorrow?”