“Donnie, you crazy bastard. If he’s dressed anything like he was last night, he looks like a fucking hoosier. They’ll think he’s a cop or something at Vin cent‘s, and he’ll get himself whacked. Go down and get him out of there.”

That night we went to La Maganette. I introduced Conte to Johnny the bartender. Then Lefty came in. He ignored Conte. Conte was at one side of me; Lefty went to the other side to talk to me.

These preliminaries are all part of the protocol about not talking directly to a new guy from the outside until it is time for proper introductions. Lefty asked me if I had explained to Conte about how things would work if we became partners with him, and I said I had mentioned it.

“Okay, let me talk to him,” Lefty said.

After introductions Lefty says, “Did Donnie tell you about how tough it is to open that business in Milwaukee?”

“Yeah,” Conte says. “But I don’t want to move. Milwaukee’s a nice small town. I feel comfortable there, with my family, friends. And the vending people out there don’t service the machines very well. Eventually I can pull together a couple hundred grand. I think with hard work I could develop a real good business.”

“You’re not connected with anybody out there?”

“I don’t know anybody special. I’m trying to do this on my own.”

“Tony, I’m surprised they let you get this far without muscling in on you. I’m surprised they haven’t killed you already. They’re a crazy bunch, Tony. They can’t be controlled by New York or anyone else. They’re controlled from Chicago. You know Gene Autry, the singing cowboy actor? A few years ago he tried to open a restaurant in Chicago without permission. He was advised against it by the Chicago mob. He did it, anyway. On the night of the opening the Chicago guys came in. They told all the customers and waitresses and bartenders and everybody to leave. They used three bombs and blew up the entire place. Autry went back to the West Coast. Now, Tony, you sure you know what you wanna do?”

Tony looks shocked. “Hey, I don’t want to get involved in any rough stuff. Screw it, Lefty, if somebody’s going to get killed, I’ll just take what I can get from it and get out, just quit my business rather than get into that stuff.”

“Now hold on, hold on. I didn’t say it was impossible. See, you come to me in the nick of time. Don’t be rash. How much money you got invested so far?”

“I got about twenty grand tied up in the business, another thirty grand on hand.”

“If you quit now, how much would you get back out of it?”

“Probably eight to ten grand by selling my truck and machines.”

“So it wouldn’t pay you to quit. See, if I get involved, you’re safe. Understand? Once my name is in there. Now, I want to contact another guy, my boss, and run it down to him. If he’s interested, I’ll come out to Milwaukee and look everything over. Then if I like it and he likes it, he will go to the Old Man about it, who is in prison. If he likes it, we contact the people who have the power in Milwaukee. If they’re interested, there would have to be a sitdown with them. It’s their town. They might say that they don’t want you out there. Then you have to pack up and leave. Or they might like the idea and then go partners with us—you run the business and they’re fifty-fifty partners. Or they could just tell you to get out of town but still give you back your whole twenty-grand investment out of respect to the New York family. Understand?”

“It’s pretty complicated, Lefty. All I know is, I don’t want to take a big loss, but I don’t want to get killed, either. I’ll give it a try if you think you can help me out.”

“Good. You let me worry about all this here. Now, there’s one thing. I need twenty-five hundred up front. I give fifteen hundred of that to my boss, Mike. Then I got travel expenses and all that. Understand?”

“That’s a lot of up-front money for me right now, Lefty, because the business isn’t going.”

“That’s just for good faith. You keep your business and your life, that’s a good investment. You’ll have peace of mind, Tony.”

“Okay. I have to go home to get the money.”

“I’ll have Donnie go back out there with you, look the whole thing over. Because you can’t afford to let much time go by on this here.”

When we’re leaving the bar, Lefty says quietly to me, “Make sure he has what he says, Donnie, and that he does what he says.”

I went out to Milwaukee with Conte. Lefty, as a made guy, would have to have his captain’s permission to check out something in somebody else’s territory. As a connected guy with the Bonanno family, I could go out on Lefty’s permission alone. It’s a very delicate situation when you’re dealing between two families, especially when you’re trying to go into another family’s territory and open a business that that family has a sole lock on. If you don’t do things right, you start a war and get people killed.

The Milwaukee boss might be tempted into a deal like this because he might appreciate having another good man out on the street working for him, and he might like having a good link to New York. There’s always a chance you’ll want a favor done.

Lefty had not mentioned the name of Balistrieri, so we proceeded as if we didn’t know who the power was.

By now Conte had a two-room office at 1531 North Farwell Avenue, a neighborhood of apartment buildings and bars. He had business cards. “THE BEST VENDING CO. Prompt Service is the ‘Best’ Way. Anthony Conte, President.” He took me around to neighborhood bars and restaurants and clubs where Balistrieri had his vending machines. We wanted to be seen together giving the impression that we were doing what we were supposed to be doing, in case Lefty or anybody else checked up or asked questions.

He told the owners how he was starting a new business and wanted to bring in his machines. The owners of the places said they didn’t want to change companies. Some of them said they didn’t want any trouble with the company they already had. Nobody mentioned Balistrieri, but we knew what they were talking about. After a couple of days I called Lefty and told him the situation looked good. I told him that Conte had an office, a truck, a few machines, some good potential outlets.

He said he would get permission from Mike Sabella and come out right away. “Did you send the twenty-five hundred?” Lefty asked. “Because I got to give Mike fifteen hundred before I come.”

To send a soldier into another family’s territory, Sabella had to get permission from Bonanno boss Carmine Galante. Galante was back in prison for parole violation. As a known mobster, Sabella couldn’t be on the visitor’s list. Somebody on the visitor’s list was the courier for information back and forth between Galante and his captains. Word came from Galante that permission was granted for Lefty to visit Milwaukee.

In Milwaukee, we recorded Lefty for the first time. For his Milwaukee operation, code-named Timber, Conte’s car was wired with a Nagra tape recorder. I never had my car wired in New York because of how my dashboard had been taken apart by the Colombo guys in Brooklyn. Recording of conversations by the FBI is not done lightly. When an agent makes a recording, he must turn it in to the FBI and have it logged as an official document. Even if there turns out to be nothing important said, once the recording is made, the cassette must be dated and initialed by the agent. And subsequently, when a case comes to trial, the tape is made accessible to defense attorneys.

On the night of June 21, Tony and I picked up Lefty at Chicago’s O‘Hare Airport and drove him to Milwaukee. Lefty and I checked in at the Best Western Midway Motor Lodge on South Howell Avenue. The next morning the three of us met for breakfast prior to taking a tour of the city so Lefty could assess the town and the possibilities.

“My people are checking this whole thing out,” Lefty told Conte, “who’s who up here and everything. And my boss is gonna be entertaining people in New York now, who he’s sending for.”