Apparently it’s impossible to write a book about the Mafia without writing a romance. “The Godfather” is at least as romantic as “Parsifal” and Lucky Luciano’s alleged confessions more so. Even a couple of calloused FBI agents who have spent endless boring months eavesdropping on the table talk of the latest godfather, Paul Castellano, find their eyes misting over when they come to arrest him: “There was a greatness about Paul Castellano.. It was something in his bearing, some aura of pained wisdom earned through the acceptance of large responsibility. He may not have been a good man. but he had shrunk from nothing, he’d seen it all, he’d taken monstrous vows and stuck to them.” You can hear organ chords swelling in the background.
Why not? This book was meant to be entertaining and it is, irresistibly so. Until a few weeks ago, when the scandal attending its publication obliged them to resign, the authors were FBI agents. In 1983 they managed to hide a microphone in the Staten Island mansion of Paul Castellano, head of the Gambino crime family and therefore the Mafia’s boss of bosses. It was the single biggest coup ever brought off in the FBI’s sometimes dilatory war against organized crime.
Castellano became the godfather in 1976, the same year (as the bug revealed) that he became sexually impotent. Unlike his flashy predecessors, he kept a low profile - most people didn’t know his name until he was shot down in mid-Manhattan in 1985–and he nursed illusions of legitimacy. In his old age, he was no longer a hands-on boss; he imagined that he had somehow “graduated” from “the smells and rumblings of the street” to become “part of the legitimate capitalist establishment.” He was, perhaps, now worthy of respect. A fatal delusion: by distancing himself he allowed lieutenants like John Gotti to recruit teams loyal only to themselves.
Joe O’Brien and Andy Kurnis got on Castellano’s case in 1981. What develops when the majesty of the law meets the majesty of the Mafia? Mutual respect. Castellano cancels a contract on an FBI agent and the FBI promises not to frame Castellano. But with the unwitting help of one of Castellano’s pals, the agents determine precisely where the godfather holds his conferences. In the dark of night the microphone is planted. The agents, squatting in an apartment across the street, hear him talk: “Anytime I can remember that we knocked guys out, it cost us. It’s like there’s a tax on it.” Discussing traitors to the cause, Castellano delivers a line worthy of Yogi Berra: “Are they gonna be a permanent liability? If it’s permanent, it can’t stay permanent for long.”
The tapes that resulted from the FBI’s mike were in large part the cause of Castellano’s execution. He shouldn’t have been so indiscreet in his denigrations of his fellow mafiosi. He shouldn’t have taken his Colombian maid as his mistress - not in his own home - thus forcing his wife to leave.
The story that these FBI agents tell is not only informative, it’s high comedy. For that, they have to thank their ghostwriter, Laurence Shames, who isn’t even acknowledged on the title page. Shames has cast their story in the hard-boiled style of the old Black Mask magazine. At times he writes like Raymond Chandler: “The roof alarm exploded into a wail as abrupt and piercing as a blast of air on the root of a tooth.” Again, describing a thug: “He was basically a pit bull with shoes on.”
The FBI has worked itself into a lather over this book: the authors have revealed matters - Castellano’s sex life, the details of implanting the microphone - that should have been buried. The FBI is right, but the book is marvelous. The agents decided to take the money and run. And we as readers can rejoice: oh, no, they shouldn’t have done it, but aren’t we glad they did.
