Coppola emerged as a major organized-crime operative in North Jersey after his release in 1983 from state prison, where he had done time for extortion and labor racketeering. His name has surfaced in a number of investigations and was mentioned in one conversation, secretly recorded by the FBI, in which New York mob leader Salvatore Profaci discussed the Genovese family's hold on a lucrative trash-hauling business in the Philadelphia area.

More important, Coppola is said to be a close associate of Tino Fiumara, a Genovese crime family leader released from prison in 1994 who is believed to be reestablishing his once iron-fisted control over mob racketeering enterprises around the Port of Newark.

Fiumara and Coppola came up together in the underworld, according to Newark mob turncoat George Fresolone, who became an informant for the New Jersey State Police and who is now living under an assumed name in another part of the country.

``Coppola wouldn't do anything without Fiumara,'' said Fresolone, who moved in some of the same underworld circles as Coppola before turning witness five years ago. ``When Tino said, `Jump,' Mike asked, `How high?' ''

Solving the Lardiere murder nearly 20 years after the fact would be a major accomplishment for New Jersey mob investigators. But even more important, they say, is the pressure a potential murder conviction might bring to bear on a suspect such as Coppola.

His knowledge of the inner workings of the Genovese organization, one of the few families in which authorities have been unable to develop cooperating informants, would be invaluable. His relationship to Fiumara makes him even more attractive.