The murder of Nick Jr. got people talking again about Nicolò Rizzuto's private war two generations earlier with Paolo Violi.

Nicolò and Violi had been rivals in the old décina of Vic (The Egg) Cotroni, back when Vic the Egg was the Canadian branch plant manager for the Bonanno family of New York. Nicolò could barely stomach being under Vic Cotroni in the Montreal mob pecking order, and when Cotroni promoted his fellow Calabrian Violi above Rizzuto, Nicolò responded with a haughty grandeur. The prospect of being under two Calabrians was too much to countenance. He didn’t just disobey Violi; he refused even to acknowledge his existence. Tensions were so high between Paolo Violi and Nicolò that Giuseppe Settecasi, head of the Agrigento crime family, travelled to Montreal in 1972 to mediate, with no success.

Later that year, when Violi could stand Nicolò’s insolence no longer, he asked the Bonannos for permission to kill him. The Bonannos initially balked, then relented. Wise to the conversation happening behind his back, Nicolò slipped away to Venezuela, where he could bide his time and extend his contacts.

Like many bitter enemies, Nicolò and Violi had much in common. Violi had also married into power. His father-in-law was Giacomo (Jack) Luppino of Hamilton, an ’Ndrangheta boss and lieutenant of Stefano (The Undertaker) Magaddino of Buffalo. Luppino was said to carry the leathery ear of a rival in his wallet, like a treasure that could never be deposited in a bank. In November 1967, police listened in on Luppino through microphones hidden among his tomato plants and elsewhere around his red brick house on Ottawa Street North in east end Hamilton. They heard him explain how horrible things should be done to a man who was disloyal to his wife. Paolo Violi shared his father-in-law’s rigid sense of morality. That kind of talk was never heard from Vito or his father when police listened in on their conversations, even though Nicolò was of a similar if less punishing mind about marital infidelity.

Police also overheard Luppino talking about a wedding in New York at which he’d crossed paths with his boss, Stefano Magaddino. The highlight of Luppino’s evening came when Magaddino deigned to spend twenty minutes with him.

Magaddino was in an angry mood that evening. He complained that he had also invited Paolo Violi and Vic Cotroni to the wedding, but neither of them showed up. Violi had a credible excuse, as he explained that he was always under police surveillance and he didn’t want to bring that heat to New York. That was a permissible, even courteous response. But Cotroni? Vic the Egg had said only that he was too busy, as he had matters before the court. Such insolence rendered Magaddino livid, or, in the words of Luppino, he “turned mad like a beast.”

Magaddino said Violi and Cotroni had a choice: they could side with his cousin Giuseppe (Joe) Bonanno of New York City or with himself. They couldn’t be loyal to both. Bonanno and Magaddino might be related, but they couldn’t stand each other. Magaddino’s anger peaked as he told Luppino about a November 1966 meeting in Montreal between Bonanno’s son Salvatore (Bill) and Cotroni. Cotroni didn’t bother to tell Magaddino before attending the meeting, which also included half a dozen men from the New York Mafia. Magaddino heard that Bill Bonanno told Cotroni at the meeting that Montreal belonged to his father, Joe Bonanno. Vic the Egg’s response? He just sheepishly listened to Bonanno’s arrogance.

It was bad enough that Bonanno would say something so stupid, but for Cotroni to say nothing in Magaddino’s defence was unacceptable. How could Magaddino remain calm when he heard of such a slur? And why hadn’t Cotroni told him beforehand about the meeting? Had Bonanno and the visiting New Yorkers not been arrested shortly afterwards, Magaddino could have started a small war over the slight. In Don Stefano’s eyes, Montreal was his territory and Cotroni commited nothing less than an act of treason by meeting with the Americans there without his permission. How he came to the conclusion that Quebec was his turf was anyone’s guess, but he considered this to be an absolute truth. And in his mind, he must know anything of significance that happened there. As Luppino recalled his words: “I don’t care what others do, all I want to know is what is done in my house.”

To rectify the damage Cotroni had done, Magaddino wanted Luppino to move to Montreal to assert control on the Buffalo boss’s behalf. However, Luppino preferred life in Hamilton, amidst his tomato plants. Ambitious people had a way of getting shot in Montreal, and Luppino had a good life in the Ontario steel town, with his family, his respect and his tomatoes. As Luppino put his refusal, “Stefano Magaddino is the biggest man in the world, but not even he can lead me by the arm and tell me what to do.”

Nicolò realized that his rival Paolo Violi had connections to more than just Luppino and Magaddino. Violi’s reach also stretched back to the emerging ’Ndrangheta in his native Calabria, including the heroin and cocaine trafficker Saverio (The Playboy) Mammoliti of Castellace di Oppido Mamertina in the province of Reggio Calabria, the ’Ndrangheta heartland. Mammoliti was best known for his role in the 1973 kidnapping of sixteen-year-old John Paul Getty III, bohemian grandson of oil tycoon Jean Paul Getty, the world’s richest man. Even the mobsters must have been startled by the coldness of Getty Sr.’s initial response, when he refused to cough up a cent: “If I pay one penny now, I’ll have fourteen kidnapped grandchildren.” Eventually, the old man grudgingly agreed to a payment. Some of the estimated $2.2 million in ransom money, paid after the youth’s ear was hacked off, was tracked down by police in an investigation that led them to Montreal streets.

Paolo Violi cultivated the image of an old-school boss, the kind of mobster who stayed out of the nasty emerging business of drugs. Word on the street suggested he was actually elbow deep in it. When two American undercover drug agents of Italian descent told Mammoliti in 1973 they wanted to make a major drug deal, they were instructed that if they wanted heroin, they needed to get in touch with “his friend Paolo Violi” in Canada…