He (Joey Massino) also explained the rationale behind another mob rubout: Disrespect. While he was on the lam in 1984 – ducking trial for the murders of three capos in 1981 – Massino said he learned from Rastelli’s brother and his own brother-in-law Salvatore Vitale, who was then a capo, that Rastelli was planning to whack Cesare Bonventre, a member of the family’s Sicilian faction who had extorted about $600,000 from a drug dealer who was close to Rastelli.
When Bonventre was called on the carpet about it by Rastelli, not only did he deny the allegation, “he got insulted” by the inquiry and “got up and walked away,’ without so much as a polite good bye to his already steaming Mafia boss.
“You can’t do that with bosses,” said Massino. “That’s why he died.”
Makes you think. Makes you think about the people in your life. And when I think, I think of Neil. If he were here now what would he say? He would say "John what's it about? What's life about... if you dont go through it as a man's man?". He'd say "Suck it up, take the fall do the time. That made you what you are. That makes you what you are. How long have we been around this thing of ours? This Cosa Nostra? 120 years. What's it about? It's about the rules, perimeters. You take the beating for a friend, you don't run, you don't lay down, you don't betray who you are. What you are.
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