Donnie Brasco by Joseph D. Pistone

a big lobby, twenty-four-hour doorman security, and a valet service for deliveries.
    I rented furniture for $90.30 per month. I bought sheets, towels, a shower curtain. From my real home I brought in pots and pans and stocked the cupboards.
    I told my wife not to call me at the apartment unless it was an emergency. There was a possibility that badguys might be in the apartment when she called, or that my phone might be tapped by badguys. I didn’t tell her that. I told her I would be using the same name as before—Donald Brasco—and that I would call her and get home as often as possible. I didn’t tell her that I might get involved with the Mafia. Maybe I was being selfish, but to me that was the job.
    I was ready to hit the street as Don Brasco, jewel thief and burglar.

4
     
    HITTING THE STREET
     

     
    We had a list of places where wiseguy-type fences were known to hang out. This was going to be a seven-day-a-week job, going around to these bars and restaurants and clubs. The target places were not necessarily “mob” joints. Sometimes they were—night spots and restaurants owned in whole or in part by the mob. More often they were just places where wiseguys and their associates liked to hang out.
    I would cruise these places, mostly in midtown or lower Manhattan, have a drink or dinner, not talking much or making any moves, just showing my face so people would get used to seeing me. Places like the Rainbow Room in the RCA Building in Rockefeller Center, Separate Tables on Third Avenue, Vesuvio Restaurant on Forty-eighth Street in the heart of the theater district, Cecil’s Discotheque on Fifty-fourth Street, the Applause Restaurant on Lexington Avenue.
    We didn’t concentrate on places in Little Italy because I would have been too obvious. You don’t just start hanging out in places there without knowing anybody. You’re either a tourist or some kind of trouble. I didn’t try to introduce myself to anybody or get into any conversations for a while. Mob guys or fences I recognized were mixed in with ordinary customers, what wiseguys call “citizens,” people not connected with the mob. After I had been to a place a few times, I might say hello to the bartender if he had begun to recognize me. The important thing was just to be seen and not to push anything; just get noticed, get established that I wasn’t just a one-shot visitor.
    I didn’t flash around a lot of money because that tags you either as a cop or a mark. A mark is somebody that looks ripe for getting conned out of his money. And a cop typically might flash money when he was looking to make a buy of something illegal, like tempting somebody to offer swag—stolen goods—in order to make a bust. No street guy is going to throw money all over the place unless he’s trying to attract attention. Then the question is: Why is he trying to attract attention? I didn’t want to attract that kind of attention. So to do it right, you don’t go in and start spending a lot of money or showing off stuff or trying to make conversation, because you don’t know them and they don’t know you.
    You take a job like this in very small, careful steps—not just to avoid suspicion but also to leave behind you a clean, credible trail. You never know what part of what you do will become part of your history when people want to check on you. You want to establish right away, everywhere you go, that you don’t have a big mouth, and that you don’t have too big a nose about other people’s business. You have to be patient, because you never know where anything will lead. Basically I wanted to keep my own personality, which was low-key. I felt that the time would come in conversation with somebody what my game was.
    One of the first places I frequented was Carmello‘s, a pleasant restaurant at 1638 York Avenue, near Eighty-sixth Street and the East River. It wasn’t far from my new apartment, and I wanted a place where I could stop in for a late dinner or drink