New York's "Joe Bananas" meets Milwaukee's "Mad Bomber" Balistrieri

joe bonanno

Article thanks to Mary Zahn and William Janz of the Milwaukee Sentinel and Google News archives. I believe the meeting occurred at Angelo Alioto's home. Angelo was Frank's brother-in-law and the son of John Alioto, who turned over the reigns of the Milwaukee mob to Frank in 1961. Links Provided:

Nov, 5, 1988  One of the top mobsters in America had problems that included Frank P. Balistrieri, and their dispute caused such bad feelings that the two men finally met in Milwaukee to discuss it.

Balistrieri’s attitude was: “I’ll run my town as I see fit.”

In the 1960’s, the sensational difficulties of crime boss Joseph Bonanno were on the front pages of newspapers across the country.

Bonanno, known as ‘Joe Bannanas’, was a rugged-looking, handsome New Yorker who picked up his suntans in Arizona and had an empire that reportedly had interests on several continents.

The government was after Bonanno, and so were other mobsters. Bonanno was reported kidnapped and murdered, but he showed up mysteriously after being gone for 18 months.

He came to Milwaukee in 1964 to talk to Balistrieri about a dispute between members of the two families during the turmoil before his disappearance.

But prior to that meeting, Balistrieri, head of organized crime in Milwaukee, met with a man identified as Pete, a soldier in the Bonanno family.New York’s “Joe Bananas” meets Milwaukee’s “Mad Bomber” Balistrieri

frank balistrieri

Balistrieri was upset with a relative of Pete, a member of the Bonanno family who had been causing Balistrieri problems. The dispute had gone on for nearly two years, which Balistrieri felt was disrespectful to him.

The FBI secretly taped the meeting. The dispute was the first order of business.

Balistrieri: “First, we’ll take up Mr. Bonanno’s matter. Last time we were here, I was called to Chicago and told to do something with Mr. Bonanno.

“Well, I’m both disturbed and disappointed. ... See, I represent the family here, and there’s a certain dissatisfaction with your brother-in-law, and naturally in Milwaukee the family comes first and everybody else is secondary. he could be my own brother, and if he doesn’t go along with the rules, if he doesn’t follow what the family dictates, then I can’t help him either...

    “But your brother-in-law hasn’t respected nobody ever since he has been in Milwaukee. He’s done very well for himself. He has completely disregarded everybody, (and) anybody....pertaining to the family, he has been aloof from. So, naturally, we ... I granted permission to give this man a warning, and Mr Bonanno interceded...

    “And, at that time, I most courteously granted Mr. Bonanno the favor of, er, forgetting what had been started with the understanding that I would be available to Mr. Bonanno at any place to talk again.

    “Because, I mean, I never fight with Tucson, with New York...”

Bonanno had homes in New York and Tucson.

Balistrieri continued: “In your brother-in-law’s case, I think that maybe since he got a clearance, his attitude, er, his demeanor is even worse than it was before. He completely disregarded everybody.

    ‘I’d be here all night telling things that he had done, and I got quite disturbed about it. so I called Mr. DiBella. As a matter of fact, we had two or three conversations with Mr. Dibella.”

[According to the FBI transcript of the meeting, Balistrieri was referring to John DiBella, who was in charge of the Grande Cheese Co. in Fond du lac, WI. Dibella was said to be “a very close friend” of Bonanno.

[Bonanno’s wife, Faye, held 150 shares of stock in Grande Cheese at the time, but there was no indication if the cheese firm was at issue in the dispute.

[In a conversation taped after the meeting with Pete, Balistrieri said “That cheese company in Fond du Lac ... belongs to Milwaukee, and it’s under my jurisdiction.”

[Officials said there was no indication that the current management of Grande Cheese was involved in organized crime.]

Balistrieri continued his talk with Pete: “I’m sure that Mr. Bonanno doesn’t want our family mistreated here in Milwaukee ... First of all, I mean, being a family matter, I’m sure mr. Bonanno has got enough intestinal fortitude to take the message.

“He said that if Mr. Bonanno can’t handle the situation, that either he or his caporegime (a boss) - it’s my understanding that Bill (Bonanno’s son) is his caporegime - would take the matter into consideration and that they would give me some satisfaction.”

As a result of Balistrieri's contacts with members of the Bonanno family concerning the dispute, he told Pete, “I marvel that you come here without any knowledge of what is going on. I am completely disturbed. and I don’t think that this family deserves such treatment.

“Now, I think I was very courteous; I think I was very generous in waiting this time ... and I think that the time is getting short on people’s part.”

Pete thanked Balistrieri for his courtesy. He said that Bonanno had numerous problems recently. pete also apologized for being unable to go into details involving Pete’s brother-in-law and “give you the satisfaction that you deserve.”

Balistrieri: “ Well, I want you to understand this now. I really am disturbed. i think I deserve better treatment than that ... I run my family as I see fit. we made that friendship with you and I.”

Pete: “It was in your father-in-law’s place. I said to you that everything was straightened out and don’t worry ... and we thank you. I told my brother-in-law what I had to tell him. To go in a straight line.

“That’s all the details I can tell you because ... (someone) would say to me, ‘You’re not a caporegime, you’re not a consigliere (counselor), you’re not a boss. Because I’m a soldier, you know that.”

Balistrieri: “Nobody is going to tell me how to run my family. I mean the reason that I might have done something and then a guy could say, “Well, Jesus Christ!” You know what I mean? ... That’s awful dangerous.

“I think it’s not right to send, er, when I make a statement and then they misbehave. Then suppose I would have  taken action?”

Pete: “If I had a title I could take the responsibility. But as I am, I can’t settle anything.”

Balistrieri: “The family comes first Pete ... I mean since he left here the last time he just don’t give a good god damn or nobody. He conducts himself even worse than what he has done before. His attitude hasn’t changed. He’s not bigger than us. We’re not going to permit that. I’m sure Mr. Bonanno doesn’t want that to happen in my town.

“I was willing to go meet him (Bonanno). I was willing to abide my time. I’m sorry now, I did waste this much time. I think it’s a sign of disrespect that when I give a message, that I have no answer. Now I’m sure if there was one of us that wasn’t looking for friendship then I would have taken different action.

“As far as I’m concerned, this is the end ... I run my town as I see fit. That’s it. I don’t mean to be stern. I don’t mean to give any ultimatums. But this thing has been going on too long without any satisfaction. I bent over backwards to be nice, and I think I have been disrespected.”

Pete: “Frank, for me I can’t take this sort of thing up because it’s not up to me, you know what I mean?”

Balistrieri and Pete argued over who was in charge, who was the caporegime, the captain, the “head pants”, as Pete called him.

Balistrieri : “As far as me hanging and waiting for Mr. Joe Bonanno to get ready to talk to me, I don’t think I’m too receptive to that.

Another man in the room said; “I think you should wait for Mr. Bonanno, Frank.”

Balistrieri: “I got troubles. Nobody has more troubles than I have. I feel very disturbed ... I’ll tell you something Pete. Your brother-in-law is in trouble over here!

“These messages aren’t carried out the way they’re supposed to do. I mean, that’s pretty dangerous.”

Pete: “I’m 61 years old. If I’d worry about these dangers I’d go and drown myself. I got my superiors. I can’t go over their heads ... .”

After Pete left the meeting, Balistrieri said that if Bonanno came to talk to him he would refer him to a meeting with Chicago mobsters. however at a later meeting that was also tape recorded, Balistrieri reported that Bonanno had stopped in Milwaukee to see him.

Mentioning that Bonanno was at “Angelo’s house,” Balistrieri said “he made no gesture to talk to me. He just kept on talking and then it got late.

“We went in like a little room and Mr. Bonanno talked for at least 20 minutes, Mr. Bonanno said ‘I never use the word tired, but I’m tired from speaking so long.’

“I said, “You’ve been speaking for 4 hours and now that I wanted to say something, you’re tired” ... I said “I’m not satisfied.”

“‘Well’, he says “I’m tired.I’d like to postpone this thing until another time.’ ... he don’t want to talk about it. I gotta go back to Chicago and tell them what happened, see? When I go back and tell chicago what happened, they don’t like it too much.”

[Bonanno eventually was removed from the national commission of the Mafia as a result of his independent attitude, according to federal officials. Sam Giancana, who was on the commission, was the mob boss in chicago and Balistrieri’s boss.]

Referring to Bonanno, Balistrieri said, “Under the circumstances he didn’t fool me, nor was I impressed by him. However the respect that you pay a boss and the courtesy, I gave it to him ... .”

“He showed me power, and I showed him respect.”

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1368&dat=19881105&id=zd0VAAAAIBAJ&sjid=oBIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4285,969693 

More of my related mob posts:

"Mr. Fancy Pants" Balistrieri - Tracking Milwaulee's most dangerous mobster
Benjamin "Lefty Guns" Ruggerio-The real story of the "wise guy"
The Beef That Didn't Moo - Wisconsin Ties to the Mob
Tales of the Milwaukee Mob and Two Cigarette Men!
Married to the Daughter of a Milwaukee Mob Boss-Our Pediatrician!
The Milwaukee Queen Bee of Organized Crime
Tale of a Failed Milwaukee Mob Hit!
Lieutenant Uhura (of the Starship "Enterprise") - close encounters with the Chicago and Milwaukee Mob!
Part Two: The Milwaukee Mob and Lieutenant Uhura (Star Trek)
The New York Mob and Iowa Beef - Part 1
The New York Mob and Iowa Beef Processors - Part II
Sally Papia - A life lived on the edge
The Milwakee Mob Hit on Anthony Biernat
The Milwaukee Mob Hit on August Palimisano

My Visit to the Mob Museum in Las Vegas

The Mob Museum in Las Vegas has been open for a few years now and I have been looking forward to go see it some day. Opened in Feb. of 2012 I did a post on it in Aug. of 2013. My wife and I decided to plan a week's vacation in March a few months ago and picked Las Vegas as our destination. She had never been there to see the sights and it's been a long time since I was there.

We drove down to Las Vegas from Salt Lake and my buddy and his wife flew down from Wisconsin to meet us and stay for a week. We got rooms at the downtown Plaza Hotel-Casino and the Mob Museum was located only a couple blocks away. We arrived on a Sunday late afternoon and walked over to tour it on Monday afternoon.

http://mafiahistorymilwaukee.blogspot.com/2013/08/las-vegas-mob-museum.html

The Milwaukee Mob Hit on August S. Palmisano

www.reviewjournal.com

Story thanks to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and it’s historic archives. Links provided:

Palmisano is Still an Enigma 

by Bill Hurley

July 1, 1978  He was a hard working business man, a friend to the poor and a companion to the working man.

But August S. Palmisano, who was killed Friday by the explosion of a bomb under the hood of his car, also was a criminal.

To many, like a bartender at Palmy’s tavern, 348 N. Broadway, owned by Palmisano, he was “a nice man who paid his bills and didn’t cause any trouble.”

To some of the produce workers on Commission Row, where the tavern is located, however, he was a person to be feared, a man whose name meant trouble. When approached by a reporter Friday, several of these workers said they did not want to get involved and quickly walked away.

To police, Palmisano was a person to watch carefully, a man who they suspected had connections with organized crime.

Four years ago, Palmisano’s tavern, then called Richie’s on Broadway, was one of several area locations raided on Super Bowl Sunday. Police confiscated 93 sticks of dynamite, extensive gambling records, firearms and large quantities of cash.

Palmisano pleaded guilty in Federal court to conducting a gambling business. He was placed on two years’ probation.

Police have continued to watch Palmisano closely. Last month it was revealed his telephone was being tapped apparently as part of an FBI investigation. Also tapped was the phone of Frank P. Balistrieri, who, officials have said, had links with organized crime.

Palmisano also was a friend of Vincent J. Maniaci, who narrowly escaped an almost identical attempt on his life last summer.

A bomb placed under the hood of Maniaci’s car was not properly connected and did not explode, according to police.

Maniaci’s brother, August, was not as lucky. He was killed three years ago in what police said was a gangland slaying. He was gunned down while in his car behind his home on N. Newhall St.

‘A Friendly Person’

Irving Goldman, vice president of Morris Goldman, Inc., 223 E. St. Paul Ave., said Vincent Maniaci used to spend a lot of time with Palmisano at Palmisano’s bar.

Godman’s produce firm is owner of the building that houses Palmy’s tavern and is located across the street from it.

“(Vincent) Maniaci was around here a lot before he went to jail,” Goldman said. “They used to go out together to other spots, too. They used to be chums.” Maniaci was jailed in 1975 for loan extortion.

Goldman and other acquaintances of Palmisano, said however, that Palmisano was a friendly person and a good businessman. “To me he was a nice fellow, that’s all I know”, Goldman said. “He always paid (his rent).”

Worked Out of Tavern

Palmisano operated his own produce service from his tavern. Goldman said he often arrived at 5 a.m. to buy from local dealers and then organize deliveries. Some days, he would stay until the  tavern closed early the next day.

“He’d sleep there in the days sometimes,” Goldman said. “He never used to sleep too much. He had too many things. In fact, sometimes he didn’t have any (sleep).”

Palmisano had several helpers to load the truck and a driver to make the deliveries, which were to small restaurants, grocery stores and nightclubs. Goldman said that Palmisano did most of his business in Madison, Eagle, Genesee, North Prairie and Mequon.

Palmisano had no warehouse or office for the produce service. The food was bought in the morning, stacked in crates on the sidewalk outside the  tavern and loaded on the street. He kept the trucks parked on E. St. Paul Ave. Goldman said Palmisano did much of his book work on a table in the bar.

A man who drives trucks for Palmisano said of his boss, “He was good to bums, paupers, rich men and poor men. He would take a bum off the street and feed him. There ain't no one that could say anything bad about him.”

One unemployed man who was outside the tavern Friday said Palmisano once lent him money when he needed it.

The tavern is patronized primarily by produce workers along Commission Row during the day. At night, it attracts a variety of customers that keep it a relatively successful business, acquaintances said.

A small tavern with two pinball machines and a pool table, it draws considerable business from persons leaving Summerfest late at night, they said.

Behind the bar are two pictures of Palmisano, one superimposed over a drawing of Commission Row.

Palmisano, 49, had an apartment at Juneau Village Garden Apartments, 1319 N. Jackson St., and a home at 5358 N. Kent Blvd., Whitefish Bay. The explosion occurred in an underground garage at Juneau Village apartments.

Palmisano was the father of four children, the youngest of whom is 14.

Friday morning, the bar door was open and nearly all the bar stools were occupied. Few customers were talking about the murder despite the presence of reporters and the fact that detectives were questioning the bartenders.

By early afternoon, the door was closed and a sign had been placed on it. It read: “Sorry, the tavern is closed today. My father died this morning.” It was signed John Palmisano.

Mob Killing Tied to Mob Rivalry 

by (reporter(s) not credited by the Journal Sentinel)

July 1, 1978  August S. Palmisano, who was killed in his car Friday by a powerful bomb blast, apparently was the victim of a rivalry between organized crime factions in Milwaukee, police sources said Friday.

“There was some speculation that maybe somebody thought he was going to talk.” one highly placed police official said. Another source said the killing was part of a long standing feud between criminal factions in the city.

Police described Palmisano, 49, a convicted gambler, as a ‘Substantial figure in organized crime in Milwaukee.”

He was killed shortly before 9 a.m. Friday when a bomb exploded in his car in the underground garage in the Juneau Village apartments, 1319 N. Jackson St. Palmisano’s brother, Ted, said he knew of no motive for the bombing. “It’s a bad situation, that’s all,” he said.

Palmisano was found burned almost beyond recognition behind the the driver’s seat of his 1977 white Mercury.

Police said the bomb apparently was placed under the hood on the driver’s side of the car. The force of the explosion pushed the front seat of the auto into the back seat, according to police.

“It was one heck of a bang,” said Michael Thiel, 22, who lives on the first floor of the complex. “The blast actually knocked pictures off the walls,” he said.

Robert Martin, a second floor resident of the apartment building, said the explosion felt like an earthquake. A third floor resident said the explosion rocked the building.

Police said Palmisano’s car registration listed a Whitefish Bay address 5358 N. Kent Blvd. However, Al Sunn, manager of the Juneau Village garden Apartments said Palmisano had lived in a third floor apartment there for several years. Palmisano’s son, John, lives in a first floor apartment in the same building.

Neighbors of the Whitefish Bay address, where Palmisano’s wife, Jean, and two of the couple's four children live, said Palmisano kept late hours but occasionally was seen at the Whitefish Bay home.

One neighbor said in the last two years she had only seen Palmisano four or five times, usually coming home from work, or letting out the family dog.

Palmisano was one of nine persons whose phones were wiretapped in May by the US government as part o a federal investigation of illegal gambling. The probe is part of a nationwide investigation involving organized crime, gambling, loan sharking and interstate transportation of stolen property, according to government sources.

Palmisano was convicted along with two other men in 1963 on federal charges of gambling the required $50 occupational gambling tax stamp. He was fined $1000.

In 1975 Palmisano pleaded guilty to federal charges of conducting an illegal gambling business and was fined $500 and placed on two years probation. At that time, he also was charged with unlawfully storing 93 sticks of dynamite in the basement of his tavern at 346 N. Broadway, which was then named Ritchie’s on Broadway. It is now called Palmy’s tavern. The dynamite charge was dismissed when Palmisano pleaded guilty on the gambling charge.

Police sources said that Palmisano had been the subject of various investigations in connection with prostitution, receiving stolen property, extortion and commercial gambling.

According to records in City Hall, Palmisano owned one-third interest in Palmy Corp., which owned Richie’s on Broadway, until June, 1976, when he transferred his ownership to his son, John A., 24.

While Palmisano owned the tavern, from 1973 until 1976, he was cited several times for license violations, including keeping the tavern open beyond closing hours.

Detective Lt. Thomas Perlewitz said Palmisano was reportedly last seen by his son, John, at Palmy’s tavern approximately 2:30 a.m. Friday.

First Battalion Fire Chief Thomas Konicke said when firemen arrived at the apartment building Friday morning, the garage was filled with smoke. Firemen pried open the garage door and found the car in the center of the block long garage.

Police said they were still investigating to determine what type of explosive was used. They also did not know if the bomb was rigged to explode when the car was started.

Police said the garage is a locked building which can be opened only by a key. Officials had no information on how the bomb got placed in the car. Konicke said about 20 other cars in the garage were damaged by the blast, but no one else was injured.

A second minor fire occurred at the garage Friday night as a result of the earlier bombing, Fire Department officials said. Firemen were called about 7 p.m. to extinguish a fire in a car that had been parked next to the Palmisano auto.

Lt. Gale LeFebvre said the gasoline tank of the car next to Palmisano’s apparently was ruptured by the explosion and some gasoline leaked onto the floor. he said the fire may have been ignited by a discarded cigarette. The fire burned part of the tire on the car.

Smoke in the garage after the morning explosion prevented firemen from finding Palmisaro’s body until about 15 minute after they arrived. The interior of the car was on fire and the sprinkler system in the garage was on when firemen arrived, Konicke said.

The sprinkler system was damaged in the blast, as were electrical conduits in the ceiling. A concrete block partition near the car buckled from the force of the blast and parts of the car motor were strewn about the garage, officials said.

“It almost severed the front of the car,” Konicke said of the explosion. “It was a very, very forceful explosion.”

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1368&dat=19780701&id=JdQVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7xEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5566,42016

Sally Papia - A life lived on the edge

Bill Janz was a long lime writer for the Milwaukee Sentinel and Journal Sentinel who retired in 2000. Having spent many years as an investigative journalist, he wrote the following shortly after Papia's death from an auto accident in 2005. Article from the Milwaukee Journal Seninel archives with links provided:
By BILL JANZ (Milw Journal-Sentinel)

Posted: Jan. 13, 2005
Sally Papia loved being the show.
Despite her openness, Papia took secrets with her.
Papia's life revolved around restaurants, mobsters. She also loved being the mystery, the long-ago woman in black, engaged to a mobster, or dating a cop or a banker or a lawyer. Now the show is over, and her death left a mystery that probably won't be solved.

Her daughter, Candy, 51, drove their speeding car into a tree and was
killed on an icy road in Waukesha County. Sally, a widely known
restaurant operator, died later of injuries suffered in the crash. Her
funeral was Thursday night.

Sally and Candy had a love-hate relationship, "as much hate as there
was love," said Franklyn M. Gimbel, a community leader, noted defense
attorney and friend of Sally's.

He called Candy "erratic" and said that "we'll never know if a big
fight was going on in the car" just before the crash. He wondered if
Candy might have driven the car off the road while arguing with her
mother.

***
Sally could be charming or volatile. She could be warm or boisterous.
She could be loving or vengeful. She could be smart or naive. She not
only could be, but was, a mess of contrasts.

She was a lovable scamp, who could be more outrageous than a
firecracker in a convent.

One time she lighted a match and held it up, an implied threat that she
was going to burn down the restaurant of a man who owed her money. Yet
she was extremely generous and gave money to every organization ever
invented. And when a homeless man wandered into her classy restaurant,
she seated him at a table and fed him.

She was friends with many public figures, including judges, one of whom
brought her his homemade chili, in a jar. Yet more than 30 years ago,
before Sally left on a trip to Las Vegas, local mobsters gave her
$25,000 in a box that looked like a birthday present. She took the box
as carry-on luggage on the plane, and a courier picked it up at a
casino; it was money laundering, probably, but she said she didn't
know.

When local mob boss Frank Balistrieri's sons - Joseph and John - were
petitioning to get out of prison during the 1980s, she hoped they'd be
sent straight to hell. She sounded as if she hated them. Yet, at the
time of her death, she was managing the Savoy Room, in a building owned
by Joseph Balistrieri.

Contrasts.
For many years, every Christmas she sent plants to some state and
federal judges who ate in her restaurant, including the judge who sent
her to prison in the 1970s. But she also knew - very well - mobsters in
Chicago and pleaded with them to save an employee from being murdered,
she said.

"Chicago was the boss, and Chicago loved me," she told me in December
1986. "They respected me.

"Fifi (Buccieri) and (Tony) Accardo, they loved me. I fixed them
special dishes," she said, referring to top Chicago mobsters. "I fixed
Frank (Buccieri) special dishes, too."

She was engaged, in the 1970s, to Frank Buccieri, a Chicago hoodlum and
brother of the notorious Fifi, who was recorded laughing about a fat
man squirming on a hook on a wall. The terrifying transcript was the
preface to "The Exorcist."

Sally and Frank never married. He abused her, she said, including
bruising her face after I interviewed Sally and wrote my first story
about her. I expressed sympathy, but she said Buccieri was her problem,
not mine.

Maybe because she took the bruises and didn't blame me, we became
friends; she always knew I was a journalist - one who appreciated her
energy, her food, and her sporadic outlandishness, but not some of the
things she did, and I'd write about them. It was a fine line, but we
walked it.

Occasionally, when we talked in her old office at Sally's Steak House,
in the Knickerbocker Hotel, or on the telephone, she'd say something
similar to what she told me in October 1988:

"If you don't want to come to a young person's funeral, don't say
anything," she said, always referring to herself as young. For her, the
second worst thing about death was that her secret age, 70-something,
would be published. But not by me.

As a courts reporter, I met Sally in the early 1970s, when I was a
friend of several friends of hers, and still am. She told me about her
wild ride on an expressway, when a member of another local restaurant
family shot at her from another car. "The goofy Italian," as she called
him, was beaten and chased out of town, lucky to keep his life.

Truth, and a little extra
The following came from notes I took during many conversations with
Sally, whose truth occasionally had its attachments. She didn't lie,
friends said, but sometimes she exaggerated her own role in a good
story that didn't need any help.

Many of my notes are from the 1980s and early 1990s, when she was being
pressured by the government to stay out of prison by telling what she
knew about criminal figures.

She was having fun, but she was having fury, too: "I went with a
gangster, I don't care. I've been known as a Mafia sweetheart, I don't
care." But the government shouldn't expect her to get herself out of
trouble by getting someone else into trouble.

"I'll never be a stool pigeon," she said.

'I'm so afraid'
In early 1989, a car owned by Maximillion J. Adonnis, a felon and
former maitre d' for Sally, was shot up when he wasn't in it. She
tipped me off: "Max's car looks like Swiss cheese."

Adonnis had served nearly two years in prison for imprisoning a man
suspected of burglarizing Sally's home during the 1970s. Adonnis and
another employee of Sally's beat up the suspect, who suffered a broken
jaw. The employee put a bullet into the floor next to the man.

A large man with a larger personality, Adonnis was a glad-hander, and
customers liked him, although "Max could never walk a straight line,"
Sally said, and she wasn't referring to his balance.

After Adonnis' car was riddled, Adonnis was murdered. Sally told me
that Adonis had called her the night before he was shot to death and
wanted to meet with her. She was too busy to see him, she said.

Shaken, she couldn't decide if the murder involved drugs or - because
of Adonnis' call to her - "someone wants to put me away forever," she
said. "They could have had two of us at the same time and blamed me for
being mixed up with cocaine."

During early April 1989, I called her at home and asked again about
Adonnis' call: "Maybe he just wanted to tell me what he was going
through," she said. Later, she said: "I'm so afraid. I know so much,
they're afraid I'm going to talk."

Keeping secrets
She never told me what she knew, except for what I've quoted here. But
she occasionally would worry about her life span.

In October 1986, I was with her when she received a note, and she
laughed and said, "I'm lucky it wasn't a dead fish."

Talking about appearing before a grand jury, she asked me, probably
with those dark eyebrows of hers at attention, "What was that I took,
the 6th Amendment?"

Sally could mix things up, whether it was words or lettuce.

"Hone-y-y-y-y-y-y," she'd begin sentences, as if the word had 6 y's.
She could charm a smile out of a terminal pessimist.

Twenty-five years ago, we got locked up together while she showed me
her new liquor room. A man she disliked appeared in the doorway and
Sally shouted, "I'm busy," and slammed the door in his face; the door
locked automatically and could only be opened outside. An employee,
referred to as "The Enforcer" in a court case, heard Sally's shouts -
you could probably have heard them on Lake Michigan - and unlocked the
door.

Dressed stunningly, she'd work the crowd in her restaurant, leaving red
imprints of her lips on the faces of pet customers - she kissed them
when they arrived and she kissed them when she left. My wife always
knew when I'd visited Sally.

Her personality was as bold as her handwriting. She used a large
alphabet. Her signature always looked like a headline.

After being arrested in the 1970s for threatening a former employee who
owed her money, she wrote a statement for me and her signature was an
inch high: "As a successful business operator there would be no reason
for me to resort to street fighting tactics to solve small problems
like the debt of a former employee."

Whether Sally was 40-something or 70-something, she had one admonition
for me when I wrote about her: "Would you please say that I look
younger and more beautiful?"

'I changed their diapers'
During the 1980s, Frank Balistrieri and his sons, Joseph and John,
served time in federal prisons for extortion. On Dec. 14, 1986, Sally
called me at home and said that the federal prosecutor "is trying to
use me as a pawn (to get more on the Balistrieris)."

"When I went to jail" in the 1970s, "they (the Balistrieris) didn't do
anything for me."

Referring to the sons, Sally said, "I baby-sat for them when they were
growing up." More than once, she said loudly, "I changed their
diapers." Laughing, I told her once that I was interested in
investigating the Balistrieris, but not their diapers.

"They had silver spoons in their mouths when my family never had a
spoon," she said. "You touch their hands, they're like silk. Even the
girls, their nails are a mile long."

She'd been working since she was a child, and she hated wealth without
sweat.

Sally expressed disgust when I wrote about Joseph and, while detailing
his problems, described him as intelligent and a brilliant writer who
loved opera. She said I didn't know him the way she did.

She was furious when the brothers asked for a sentence reduction from
Federal Judge Terrence T. Evans, now on the 7th Circuit Court of
Appeals.

"I hope to God, Judge Evans - bless him for the wisdom he's had so far
- I hope he doesn't do anything," Sally said. "They'll come out like
King Kongs."

Ironically, at the time of her death, Sally was managing a restaurant
in a building owned by one of the brothers.

She was "enlisted" by the Balistrieris to manage the Savoy Room, friend
Gimbel said. She was bored, and running a restaurant "energized her,"
he said. But in the last six months, she had talked often about
leaving, he said.

Gimbel never met anyone with so much charisma, "a stand-alone person,"
he said, "who was the candle in the middle of a dark room."

After sentences were reduced for Joseph and John, Sally said loudly,
"All BS, of course. It's BS. It shocks me, it shocks me, it shocks me,
that a judge would be so naive."

I was in her office one day in 1989, facing her across a bunch of
bananas on her desk, as she threw a fit about "the boys." Over and
over, she slapped the table with packets of sugar, angrily, nearly
histrionic, over the coming release of the Balistrieri brothers.

"Four or five years ago," she said, a member of Frank Balistrieri's
group was slapped in the face by a local businessman. The man who was
slapped informed Frank Balistrieri, she said.

"They took his whole company away from him (the man who did the
slapping)," she said. "And 96 stitches were taken across his face.
Today, the last I heard, (he) is a big, fat, sloppy bartender in
Nevada."

Sally knew, firsthand, what happened to people who bothered Frank
Balistrieri.

She named a widely known man in the Italian-American community. She
called him "a bookie and a gofer. Frank (Balistrieri) doesn't want to
do things, he has him do it."

But, she said, doing things for Frank made the man feel he was more
important than he was. He even mimicked Frank, holding his hand in his
pocket, the way Frank did, she said. Sally was along, she said, when
several of Frank's friends took the gofer to Chicago, knocked him
around, and decided to impress upon him his status in Frank's outfit.

"They peed all over him," she said.

When the government involved her family, she would have liked to have
hit the federal prosecutor with a cast-iron pot: During a telephone
call to me on Sept. 17, 1987, Sally, very upset, said, "The goddamn
government subpoenaed my 82-year-old mother. My mother never went to
school, never left the house. She doesn't even read."

On April 5, 1988, she said that a former employee was granted immunity
by the grand jury investigating payoffs to a union: "He has to do the
right thing," she said.

But Sally's former employee didn't say what she hoped he'd say, and
eventually Sally was convicted and imprisoned for less than a year for
paying a union not to organize.

Referring to the former employee, Sally said, on Jan. 10, 1990: "I
saved his life twice. I went to Chicago twice and asked special
permission (that he not be killed). Frank (Balistrieri) wanted him
dead. He could have been in the gutter, like Maxie (Adonnis)" if she
hadn't interceded, she said.

She called him "The Judas." And promptly renamed her dog, who was named
after the employee.

"Pimping all the time, he's still pimping," she said. "For businessmen
every day."

Sally said that the late Federal Judge John Reynolds, who sentenced her
to her first prison term, "wished me luck" before she went to prison.
Reynolds ate at Sally's Steak House, as did many judges and baseball
players. However, E. Michael McCann, Milwaukee County district
attorney, did not permit his assistants to eat Italian - at least not
there.

When an appeals court turned down her appeal, she said, on Aug. 13,
1990, "At least John and Joey know I'm not a stool pigeon."

Mother and daughter
Sally and Candy were estranged numerous times, and there were court
battles. Occasionally, over the years, Sally complained to friends
about "physical encounters" with Candy. Way back in 1988, Sally told me
that Candy was "sick, really sick."

Candy called me several times in the late '80s and early '90s and
criticized her mother unmercifully.

"She's got such a big mouth," said Candy, one of her more restrained
comments.

In late November 2004, Candy got herself into trouble again. An officer
of the Waukesha County Sheriff's Department went to Candy's home to
retrieve a credit card of Sally's. Candy, sliced up the card and was
cited for disorderly conduct, according to records. The citation was
filed a couple of days before the car crash.

The last time I spoke with Sally was on Thanksgiving, when she called
me at home and wished me, and my family, a happy holiday.

Many years ago, when I complimented Sally on her black outfit, she
said, "I love black, but don't bury me in it."
She should have been buried under Bartolotta fireworks.

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