I walked in and filled out the forms. The guy asked, “Where did you do any prior banking during the last two years?”

“I haven’t done any banking during the last two years,” I said.

“Then I’m afraid we can’t open an account for you,” he said.

“You’re discriminating against me,” I said.

“What do you mean by that?” he said. I wasn’t black or female or any of the other things usually associated with discrimination, and he gave me a strange look. “That’s our rule,” he said, “for everybody.”

I said, “I just got out of jail. I did six years in the can. Now I’m out and trying to be a good citizen. I’ve paid my debt to society, I got a decent job, I want to open up a bank account and be a decent citizen. I’ve got a thousand dollars with me, and all I want is a checking account. And you’re refusing me an account because I haven’t done any banking lately. I’d like to have your name and position here, because I’m gonna go downtown to City Hall and put in a complaint to the civil-rights authorities that I’m being discriminated against.”

Suddenly he looked intimidated—I think more because he was probably sitting across from an ex-con for the first time in his life than because of potential discrimination problems.

He said, “Well, there are some instances where we can make allowances. I think we can help you out.”

So I had a checking account. Now I needed an apartment.

I wasn’t fussy about where or how I lived, except for two things: I didn’t want to be right in the heart of my target areas, and I wanted the apartment to be in a relatively big building—both of these things for the sake of anonymity. I needed a place where I could come and go without attracting attention.

I scoured the papers and looked for a week. Then I found just what I wanted.

I took a one-bedroom apartment—21—G—in Yorkville Towers at Ninety-first Street and Third Avenue, just a few blocks uptown from the most chic blocks of the city’s Upper East Side.

I liked the location and the fact that it had an underground parking garage, and it was not too expensive for what you got—$491.60 per month. It had a big lobby, twenty-four-hour doorman security, and a valet service for deliveries.

I rented furniture for $90.30 per month. I bought sheets, towels, a shower curtain. From my real home I brought in pots and pans and stocked the cupboards.

I told my wife not to call me at the apartment unless it was an emergency. There was a possibility that badguys might be in the apartment when she called, or that my phone might be tapped by badguys. I didn’t tell her that. I told her I would be using the same name as before—Donald Brasco—and that I would call her and get home as often as possible. I didn’t tell her that I might get involved with the Mafia. Maybe I was being selfish, but to me that was the job.

I was ready to hit the street as Don Brasco, jewel thief and burglar.

4

HITTING THE STREET

We had a list of places where wiseguy-type fences were known to hang out. This was going to be a seven-day-a-week job, going around to these bars and restaurants and clubs. The target places were not necessarily “mob” joints. Sometimes they were—night spots and restaurants owned in whole or in part by the mob. More often they were just places where wiseguys and their associates liked to hang out.

I would cruise these places, mostly in midtown or lower Manhattan, have a drink or dinner, not talking much or making any moves, just showing my face so people would get used to seeing me. Places like the Rainbow Room in the RCA Building in Rockefeller Center, Separate Tables on Third Avenue, Vesuvio Restaurant on Forty-eighth Street in the heart of the theater district, Cecil’s Discotheque on Fifty-fourth Street, the Applause Restaurant on Lexington Avenue.

We didn’t concentrate on places in Little Italy because I would have been too obvious. You don’t just start hanging out in places there without knowing anybody. You’re either a tourist or some kind of trouble. I didn’t try to introduce myself to anybody or get into any conversations for a while. Mob guys or fences I recognized were mixed in with ordinary customers, what wiseguys call “citizens,” people not connected with the mob. After I had been to a place a few times, I might say hello to the bartender if he had begun to recognize me. The important thing was just to be seen and not to push anything; just get noticed, get established that I wasn’t just a one-shot visitor.

I didn’t flash around a lot of money because that tags you either as a cop or a mark. A mark is somebody that looks ripe for getting conned out of his money. And a cop typically might flash money when he was looking to make a buy of something illegal, like tempting somebody to offer swag—stolen goods—in order to make a bust. No street guy is going to throw money all over the place unless he’s trying to attract attention. Then the question is: Why is he trying to attract attention? I didn’t want to attract that kind of attention. So to do it right, you don’t go in and start spending a lot of money or showing off stuff or trying to make conversation, because you don’t know them and they don’t know you.

You take a job like this in very small, careful steps—not just to avoid suspicion but also to leave behind you a clean, credible trail. You never know what part of what you do will become part of your history when people want to check on you. You want to establish right away, everywhere you go, that you don’t have a big mouth, and that you don’t have too big a nose about other people’s business. You have to be patient, because you never know where anything will lead. Basically I wanted to keep my own personality, which was low-key. I felt that the time would come in conversation with somebody what my game was.

One of the first places I frequented was Carmello‘s, a pleasant restaurant at 1638 York Avenue, near Eighty-sixth Street and the East River. It wasn’t far from my new apartment, and I wanted a place where I could stop in for a late dinner or drink near where I lived. This wasn’t one of the primary places we had targeted, but we knew that some wiseguy types hung out there. Our information was that the restaurant was owned by Joey and Carmine Zito, who were members of the Genovese crime family, headed by Fat Tony Salerno.

For weeks I roamed around and hung out at these places. Time dragged. I rarely drink alcohol. I don’t smoke. Before I came on the job as an FBI agent, I once had a job as a bartender, and it was one of my least favorite things, hanging out in a bar all night watching people drink and listening to drinkers talk. During these weeks, in the evening at a bar, I might start off with a Scotch, then I’d switch to club soda for the rest of the night.

Occasionally I saw somebody we had targeted. I recognized them from the pictures I had been shown in preparation. But I never got an opportunity to get into conversation with them. It isn’t wise to say to the bartender, “Who is that over there? Isn’t that so-and-so?” I wanted to get to be known as a guy who didn’t ask too many questions, didn’t appear to be too curious. With the guys we were after, it was tough to break in. A wrong move—even if you’re just on the fringes of things—will turn them off. While I was having a couple of drinks or dinner, I was always interested in what was going on in the place. I was always observing, listening, remembering, while still trying to put across the impression that I was oblivious to who was in there.

All through October and November I hung out, watching, listening, not advancing beyond that. It was boring a lot of the time but not discouraging. I knew it would take time. It is a delicate matter, maneuvering your way in. You don’t just step into an operation like this and start dealing. Associates of wiseguys don’t deal with people they don’t know or who somebody else doesn’t vouch for. So for the first two or three months I had to lay the initial groundwork that would lead to being known and having somebody vouch for me.