A New England mafioso eluded the FBI for sixteen years by posing as a cattle rancher in Idaho.
The Boston Globe
It ain’t easy bein’ on the lam, lemme tell ya. Yer always lookin’ over your shoulder for the G-Men. That’s why I come to Idaho. Lotsa wide open spaces, no corners to hide behind. If somebody’s lookin’ for me, I’m gonna see ’em first.
Boston’s North End
Of course there’s drawbacks to bein’ out here. It’s a two hour drive to Coeur d’Alene to get a freakin’ espresso, three hours to Pocatello to get prosciutto you wouldn’t spit out your mouth.
But I gotta lay low for awhile. They said I was runnin’ a massive criminal enterprise engaged in racketeering. My lawyer–the one I paid in cash, up front with hard-earned laundered money–he gets me out on bail but he tells me it ain’t lookin’ good. They got rats–witnesses who’re gonna say I murdered people. What a load a crap–I got guys who do that for me!
But I figured I better get out while the gettin’ was good so I took a couple hundred thou in gold coins and bought a nice little spread out here. And all of a sudden I’m a cattle rancher.
It’s different from the most profitable lines of business at my old job–murder, loan sharking, illegal gambling. Now, instead of appealing to people’s fear and greed, I gotta somehow motivate a bunch of red angus cattle. Believe me, I never seen one of them walking down Hanover Street.
I got other animals too, but the “front” is the cattle. It don’t seem to me to be too hard to unnerstand how it works. Me, I’m the human, so I’m the boss. Cows? They’re not the humans, so they do what I say–capische? Or else they get whacked, which they’re gonna get anyways, but maybe not so soon.
I don’t want any problems, okay? I want them cows to eat what’s put in front of them and not make no trouble. But one cow in particular–Cassius–I don’t know what’s got into him. He’s got a lean and hungry look. Let me have cows about me that are fat.
I think maybe he’s skimming his feed, which is chock full of nutritious and delicious bovine growth hormones, and maybe sellin’ it out from under me. So I call a mafia summit, like we’d do back on the east coast, just to make sure everybody unnerstands da rules.
The animals come in one by one. There’s Louie “The Pig” Donatelli. Nice guy, but he’s not gonna win no Nobel Prize, you know what I’m sayin’? There’s Carmine “The Duck” Galliano. Lemme tell ya’, you don’t wanna be a June bug when The Duck’s in the barnyard.
And then there’s the Little Red Hen. Geez, I wished I had a million like her. Never complains, cranks out eggs to order–brown or white, you choose! Tryin’ to cut back on cholesterol? She’ll lay one without a yolk. She’s always lookin’ for ways to improve the mundane but essential work of La Cosa Nostra in America’s agricultural sector.
So everybody’s here ‘cept Cassius the Cow, who is summoned last–for dramatic effect. He’s escorted in by Jimmie “The Turkey” Gravano.
“You wanted to see me boss?” Cassius begins meekly. I must say, he wears the mask of innocence quite well.
“I did–please, come in.” I can afford to be avuncular and what not–I’m the freakin’ Don, fer Christ sake. “How’s the family?” I ask, trying to put him at his ease–just in case I gotta whack him.
“Good, good. Elsie’s retired from Borden. Got a good pension so she’s all set. Jr. just won a 4-H ribbon.”
“Family comes first,” I say, nodding with approval. I know it’s a cliche but I live it as part of the Patriarca crime family. “How ’bout you?”
“Me? I’m fine. Trying to get a more exercise, you know, ’cause I’m startin’ to put on a little weight.”
Dis guy must think I just fell offa turnip truck, I see to myself. Time to get serious. “Really? I hadn’t noticed. In fact, it looks to me like yer tryin’ to LOSE weight!” And with that I bring my hand down on the table–hard.
“Me? No way, boss. I eat three squares a day, between meal snacks, a little somethin’ before I hit the hay, too.”
I give him my best steely-eyed gaze. “You must think I’m stupid.”
“No, boss, I . . .”
“Stupid I ain’t. I can see you slimmin’ down, trying to be put out to pasture, avoid the slaughter-house. Well, it ain’t gonna work!”
“Honest, boss. I ain’t tryin’ to lose weight.”
I look around the room at the other animals. “Honest, he says,” I says. Everybody looks confused at first ’cause I got so many says’s in there, but pretty soon they figure it out.
“Honest–that’s a good one!” says the Turkey. “Heh-heh.”
“Yeah!” the Pig squeals. “In a pig’s . . .”
“Quiet the both of youse,” I says, then turn to Cassius. “What’s your game?”
He looks down at his hooves, then up at me. “It’s that bGH stuff you feed us.”
“You don’t like hormones?” I ask incredulous. “Jose Canseco would kill to get that three times a day.”
“Nah, he prefers goats,” the Turkey says.
“This ain’t no summer camp,” I says to Cassius. “You don’t get to order off no menu.”
“I just don’t like it,” he says.
“He just don’t like it,” I say to the other animals, mocking him.
“Heh,” says The Duck.
“Heh,” says The Pig.
“Well, what would you prefer?” I says to him sarcastical.
He looks at me all innocent-like, like he don’t want no special treatment, just what he’s entitled to. “Well–corn.”
“Corn?” I ask. “I can’t believe my ears. Don’t you know nuttin’?”
He looks around the room and sees blank stares on the faces of the others.
“What’s wrong with corn?” he asks finally. “Corn-fed beef is . . .”
“Corn is commonly used as feed grain in the diet of cattle everywhere in the United States . . .”
“Yeah,” Cassius says. “So why don’t . . .”
“You didn’t let me finish. Except in northern-tier states.”
He’s crestfallen at his stupid mistake. I wait for a second for him to pick up his crest–I don’t wanna humiliate him, just crush him like a bug to watch the juice run out. “Couldn’t we . . . grow our own corn?” he whimpers after a while.
“Grow our own corn. Brilliant idea,” I says. “We tried that once. And you know what happened?”
“What?”
I turn to the Little Red Hen. “You wanna tell him, or should I?”
“Go ahead, boss.” That’s “Little”–as her friends call her–for you; self-effacing, deferential.
“Okay.” I take a puff on my cigar and begin. “Once upon a time there was a Little Red Hen, see?” He nods, and I continue. “And she finds a grain of corn. And she goes to Piggly Wiggly here, and she says ‘Would you help me plant this corn?’ And whadda ya think Piggly says?”
“I dunno.”
“He says ‘I’m too busy–ask somebody else.’ So she plants it herself. Then she needs to water the corn, so she goes to Ducky Wucky here and says ‘Would you help me water the corn?’ And Ducky Wucky says no, I got somethin’ I gotta do. So the Little Red Hen waters the corn all by herself.”
Cassius seems to be gettin’ it, but I ain’t gonna cut short my narrative flow just because he’s comin’ around. I continue.
“Then it’s time to harvest the corn, and the Little Red Hen asks Turkey Lurkey here for a little help, you know? Like there’s gotta be one of youse sons of bitches willing to do a little work every now and then. But nooooo–Turkey Lurkey blows her off, says he’s goin’ to the track. So once again, the Little Red Hen harvests the corn all . . . by . . . herself.”
Cassius is silent, and I don’t think it’s ’cause he took a vow of omerta. “You know what’s next?” I ask him. Tryin’ to see if he’s a wiseguy or sumpin’.
“No, boss, go ahead. The story is really a gripping one.”
“Whadda you–tryin’ out to write dust cover blurbs?”
“I was just sayin’ . . .”
“Never mind what you was sayin’. So now the Little Red Hen has planted the corn, watered the corn and harvested the corn, and she makes some nice cornbread, okay. And who shows up but Piggly Wiggly, and Ducky Wucky, and Turkey Lurkey, and they all say ‘Boy, that sure smells good. Can we have some?’ And you know what the Little Red Hen says?”
“No, what?”
“She says ‘You didn’t help plant the corn, you didn’t help water the corn, and you didn’t help harvest the corn. SO YOU AIN’T GETTIN’ NO FUCKIN’ CORN!”