contracts including a new police station for the 106th Precinct, Shea Stadium, and the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows.
Soon after Gotti’s release from prison, Castellano reluctantly “opened the books,” closed by the ever-cautious Carlo Gambino for fear of inducting a police informer, and initiated Gotti and eight other associates into the family as made men. While Gotti accepted the distinction, it would not temper the disdain he bore for the new godfather. In time, the charismatic John Gotti’s power would totally eclipse Paul Castellano’s, as the Neapolitan and Sicilian branches of the Gambino Family clashed in a death struggle that would leave only one of the two men standing.
What neither Castellano, nor Gotti, nor Elliot could knowwas that an FBI informer had already been introduced into Gotti’s Bergin crew. His name was Wilfred “Willie Boy” Johnson.
12
L OVE AND B ULLETS
“You know what FBI stands for, don’t you? ‘Forever Born Ignorant. ’ They just don’t understand people like us, Elliot, and probably never will. ”
A fter a six-month courtship, Elliot was ecstatic to find himself marrying, Hanna Shapiro on August 27, 1978. The ceremony, a mixture of modern Jewish and Orthodox customs , was held at the Beth Elohim synagogue in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, complete with the ritual signing of the Ketubah, or marriage contract, and the tradition of the groom veiling the bride, called the bedikah, which means inspection.
In keeping with tradition, the family of the bride was on one side of the synagogue and the family of the groom on the other. In attendance on Hanna’s side was her father, Mort, standing alongside his sister, Marissa Cohen, and her husband , multimillionaire real estate developer, Herbert Cohen; Mort’s physician friends, Dr. Simon Dak, Frank and Dorothy Silvio, and Marc Weiner, doctor-professor of clinical surgery at Columbia University, not to mention politicians like Charles Schumer, former New York Gov. Hugh Carey, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer.
For better or worse, Elliot’s side of the synagogue waslooking a little tattered by comparison. Of course, there was his mother, Etta, decked out in a pink, cotton dress, looking happy, but so tragically alone without his father, Abe, who’d died some years earlier; his brother, Steven, veteran of those unforgettable Cowboys and Indians escapades out in the backies, along with his wife, Deborah, and their seven-year-old son, Andrew; and friends from the old neighborhood, Mr. and Mrs. Micelli, to whom he owed so much; Nick, or course; Joey Fischetti; Sal DiGregorio, now married with three kids; and even Officer Kahler, the cop who patrolled Anthony Avenue and Tremont Street, now retired, standing on crutches suffering from chronic ischemia, an insufficiency of blood flow to the legs.
Despite all of those that were there, Elliot could almost see along with his father, uncles Saul and Lou, those tough and funny Russian Jews who’d trekked to the Bronx from Vinograd to find a safe haven for their families and set up their luncheonettes, laundry, and dry-cleaning shops to support them. He missed their sentimentality. He missed their laughter and stories. But that was life, and though there were no celebrities on their side of the aisle, they had their own history and lives that had been lived to the fullest.
At the end of the ceremony, in keeping with a tradition derived from the Talmud, Elliot stepped on a glass with his shoe and smashed it before the congregation. Then, with the ceremony completed, his new wife, Hanna and he left the synagogue, along with Mort and Etta, for a gala reception attended by 350 guests with entertainment provided by singer Lainie Kazan and comedian Jackie Mason.
Over time, as Elliot came to know Hanna more with each day, he saw in her an aspect that to him would prove both a blessing and a problem. Fiercely loyal, she was also fiercely independent and quite
Soon after Gotti’s release from prison, Castellano reluctantly “opened the books,” closed by the ever-cautious Carlo Gambino for fear of inducting a police informer, and initiated Gotti and eight other associates into the family as made men. While Gotti accepted the distinction, it would not temper the disdain he bore for the new godfather. In time, the charismatic John Gotti’s power would totally eclipse Paul Castellano’s, as the Neapolitan and Sicilian branches of the Gambino Family clashed in a death struggle that would leave only one of the two men standing.
What neither Castellano, nor Gotti, nor Elliot could knowwas that an FBI informer had already been introduced into Gotti’s Bergin crew. His name was Wilfred “Willie Boy” Johnson.
12
L OVE AND B ULLETS
“You know what FBI stands for, don’t you? ‘Forever Born Ignorant. ’ They just don’t understand people like us, Elliot, and probably never will. ”
A fter a six-month courtship, Elliot was ecstatic to find himself marrying, Hanna Shapiro on August 27, 1978. The ceremony, a mixture of modern Jewish and Orthodox customs , was held at the Beth Elohim synagogue in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, complete with the ritual signing of the Ketubah, or marriage contract, and the tradition of the groom veiling the bride, called the bedikah, which means inspection.
In keeping with tradition, the family of the bride was on one side of the synagogue and the family of the groom on the other. In attendance on Hanna’s side was her father, Mort, standing alongside his sister, Marissa Cohen, and her husband , multimillionaire real estate developer, Herbert Cohen; Mort’s physician friends, Dr. Simon Dak, Frank and Dorothy Silvio, and Marc Weiner, doctor-professor of clinical surgery at Columbia University, not to mention politicians like Charles Schumer, former New York Gov. Hugh Carey, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer.
For better or worse, Elliot’s side of the synagogue waslooking a little tattered by comparison. Of course, there was his mother, Etta, decked out in a pink, cotton dress, looking happy, but so tragically alone without his father, Abe, who’d died some years earlier; his brother, Steven, veteran of those unforgettable Cowboys and Indians escapades out in the backies, along with his wife, Deborah, and their seven-year-old son, Andrew; and friends from the old neighborhood, Mr. and Mrs. Micelli, to whom he owed so much; Nick, or course; Joey Fischetti; Sal DiGregorio, now married with three kids; and even Officer Kahler, the cop who patrolled Anthony Avenue and Tremont Street, now retired, standing on crutches suffering from chronic ischemia, an insufficiency of blood flow to the legs.
Despite all of those that were there, Elliot could almost see along with his father, uncles Saul and Lou, those tough and funny Russian Jews who’d trekked to the Bronx from Vinograd to find a safe haven for their families and set up their luncheonettes, laundry, and dry-cleaning shops to support them. He missed their sentimentality. He missed their laughter and stories. But that was life, and though there were no celebrities on their side of the aisle, they had their own history and lives that had been lived to the fullest.
At the end of the ceremony, in keeping with a tradition derived from the Talmud, Elliot stepped on a glass with his shoe and smashed it before the congregation. Then, with the ceremony completed, his new wife, Hanna and he left the synagogue, along with Mort and Etta, for a gala reception attended by 350 guests with entertainment provided by singer Lainie Kazan and comedian Jackie Mason.
Over time, as Elliot came to know Hanna more with each day, he saw in her an aspect that to him would prove both a blessing and a problem. Fiercely loyal, she was also fiercely independent and quite
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