Free The Good Rat by Jimmy Breslin Page B

with some Mafia dimwit whose arrest makes the news, they facetrue work for their country: antiterrorism detail in a wet alley in Amman, Jordan, or a tent on a snowy mountain in Afghanistan.
     
    “What do you want?” Red Hot said. He is on First Avenue in Manhattan, in front of the DeRobertis pastry shop.
    “We just want to talk to you,” one of the two FBI agents said.
    “You’ll have to wait here until I get a lawyer,” Red Hot said.
    “We just wanted you to take a ride with us down to the office.”
    “The answer is no,” Red Hot said.
    “We just want to get fresh fingerprints. We haven’t taken yours in a while.”
    “That’s because I was in jail. And nothing happened to the prints you have. What are you trying to say, they faded? They wore out?”
    His friend Frankie Biff advised from the sideline, “Red Hot, if you go with them, you won’t come back. They’ll make up a case in the car.”
    When the agents left, Red Hot said in a tired voice, “They’ll be back. They’re going to make up something and lock me up. Don’t even worry about it.”
    Some nights later Red Hot was walking into DeRobertis when he dropped dead on the sidewalk.
    “He ruined the agents’ schedules,” Frankie Biff said. “They were going to put him away for sure without a case.”

CHAPTER 9
    Q: After you gave Casso the packet of information, what did Casso tell you he did?
A: He had a bunch of people out, other Mafia guys, out looking to catch the people who were mentioned in the report, and specifically Jimmy Hydell.
Q: Did Casso indicate to you what he had intended to do to the people who had shot him?
A: He intended to kill them.
Q: Did Casso mention anything to you about people who might have approved of the attempt on his life?
A: Well, it was important for him to try and get a hold of Jimmy Hydell alive so that Jimmy would tell him who ordered the hit on him. Nobody goes and shoots a made Mafia member without an approval from up above them.
Q: And you said that Casso wanted to question Hydell himself. Did he tell you that?
A: Yes.
Q: At that time did you know whether anyone besides Casso was looking for Jimmy Hydell?
A: The Gambinos. They had ordered the hit on Casso, and they wanted to kill Jimmy Hydell themselves in order to end it, to silence it, where it came from.
Q: And did there come a time that Casso asked you if you could get your cop friends and get Jimmy Hydell and look to arrest him and turn him over to Casso?
A: Yes.
Q: Did Casso mention any reason why he wanted that to be done by Santora’s cousin and Santora’s cousin’s partner?
A: No way Hydell would ever get in a car with the Gambinos or the Luccheses. He knew either side was looking to kill him. But Eppolito and Caracappa could attempt to arrest Jimmy Hydell, and he would go with them willingly, and then Casso would get him alive.
Q: Did you and Casso discuss a price for kidnapping Jimmy Hydell?
A: He says, What do you think they would take? And I told him the figure I had given them before, and he said, Well, give them more, tell them I’ll give them thirty-five thousand. I called Frankie Santora’s house, told his wife or his daughter that I was looking to speak to Frankie and I had a beeper number and told him to beep me.
    The figure of $35,000 mentioned here was what Casso and Kaplan had paid the cops for the first murder they did, that of Jeweler Number Two, Israel Greenwald. The money is so small for a kidnap-murder that it should be paid in a candy store. The two cops didn’t earn enough from their treachery and betrayal and murder to live any better than honest plumbers.
Q: Did you have a meeting with Mr. Santora?
A: Yes, I did. I asked him if his cousin—him and his cousin, the detective, and his cousin’s partner would take the contract to kill Mr. Hydell. No, definitely not to kill him. To kidnap him. They wanted him alive by all means. I told Frankie thirty-five thousand.
Q: Mr. Kaplan, did there come a time where you provided a