"He told Jake, 'I want to see $200 a week here,' " Piccarreto said. " ... Jake told him at that point ... 'Steve, I can't give you $200 a week if I haven’t got it.' The old man said, 'I want to see $200 a week — every week.'" (In current dollars, $200 would equal about $1,600.)

Piccarreto, who had traveled with Russo to the Buffalo meeting, said that Russo implied that he would go over Magaddino's head if he continued to insist on the impossible. The message to Magaddino was this: Russo planned to go to "the commission in New York (City)" where the Mafia family leaders met, and that "the hierarchy of the so-called Mafia" would hear of Magaddino's unreasonable demands.

"When Jake challenged him that way, (Magaddino) knew he had a problem with Jake Russo," Piccarreto said. "When we got in the car, I said 'Jake, you made a mistake. You should have never forewarned this guy what we were going to do.' "

When telling of Jake Russo's fate, Piccarreto sometimes pauses as if catching a breath — moments that seem more grief than reflection. There are no tears, yet one cannot help but see a blink of pain, a fissure within the hardened Marine and mobster, when the topic is Russo.

"Greedy old man that (Magaddino) was, he said: 'I don't want to hear anything about your brothers, taking care of your brothers,' " Piccarreto said. That's when Magaddino demanded the $200 weekly, insisting that it could be done even after Russo insisted that it couldn't.

After that meeting, Magaddino sent deputies to Rochester to scope out the gambling activities. "The old man told these guys that he sent from Buffalo, his henchmen, 'Check (Russo) out and see what he's doing.' "

Piccarreto said he's sure there was no evidence that Russo was shafting Magaddino — Russo "never stole a quarter," Piccarreto said — but Magaddino had made up his mind regardless: Russo had dared to challenge him, and would die for it.

On Sept. 11, 1964, Russo got a call to meet Valenti for dinner the next day. He left his house on Sept. 12, telling his wife where he was going. He never returned.

The next day Mary Russo called her husband's good friend, Rene Piccarreto, who had not been at the meeting. But, Piccarreto was sure that Magaddino had gotten just what he wanted: Russo was dead, and Valenti would again be in charge.

Piccarreto later learned more.

"They took him downstairs (at the restaurant). They had a few guys there. They choked him and then they wrapped him up and buried him."

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Magaddino was surrounded by his underlings, and Piccarreto sensed that they now knew the truth: "There was no reason to kill (Russo), outside of he was going to take him down in front of his peers from New York."

Jake Russo's body was never found.