Confessions of a Jerry Capeci Junkie

The deal went down like this, as it does every Thursday morning.

Before leaving my apartment, I checked to make sure I had a quarter. I always do the deal with a quarter. Things go faster that way, you know?

I hit Hope Street and scurried south, toward the Springdale train station. I knew exactly where to go, and my supplier was waiting inside with a fresh batch of the best stuff. My hungry hands grabbed what I wanted. Looking around, I slid the quarter toward her on a glass counter. In return, she said the mysterious words she always says, in her mysterious Filipino accent, "Have a nice day."

The tension rose as I walked quickly to the Springdale station, as I had to wait to get on the train and be seated before I could finally get my fix. But my patience earned its reward, for a few minutes later my Thursday could properly begin.

Because for mission2moscow, Thursday is always JERRY CAPECI DAY in New York.

My quarter supported the only newspaper I actually buy daily, the New York Sun, started three years ago as an free-thinking alternative to the Times, Post, News, and Newsday. I can pass the other dailies, but I am hooked on the Sun and would pay twice the price for it.

A huge attraction for me: The Thursday "Gang Land" column by veteran crime reporter Capeci, ex-Daily News. The column is compulsively readable, as Capeci expertly navigates the labyrinth of mobsters, cops, prosecutors, defense lawyers and the supporting cast, at times, of their families. Everybody talks to Capeci, even if "no comment" is the main official comment. Members of the mob-defense bar, however, usually chime in with some pithy thoughts on the outrages being perpetrated on their honorable clients. Lawyers like Bruce Cutler and Gerald Shargel appear in Gang Land as often as the Rockettes dance at Radio City.

I decided to write about Capeci after reading his Dec. 1 column, "20 Years Later, a Mob Hit Reverberates." I count it among his best, combining the instincts of a wired-in reporter with the long view of a historian. The column dealt with the Dec. 16, 1985 execution of Mafia boss Paul Castellano and aide Thomas Billotti.

Capeci wrote, "Twenty years ago this month, four men in tall, Russian-style fur hats pulled weapons from under their coats on a busy Midtown street at the height of the Christmas shopping season and gunned down America's most powerful gangster."

"The spectacular December 16, 1985, slaying of Mafia boss Paul Castellano and one of his henchmen riveted the city for weeks. An entire generation of New Yorkers is unlikely to forget the grisly photographs of the slain mobster lying sprawled on a sidewalk, surrounded by police, in front of Sparks Steak House on East 46th Street. . . the fallout from that gangland-style slaying still reverberates through the city's courts."

I lived in Astoria, Queens, when John Gotti orchestrated the crime; years later my office at 757 Third Avenue was located just three blocks from the Sparks restaurant, outside of which the murders occurred. The Castellano hit is part of my New York experience.

Capeci masterfully traced the deadly ripples of the shooting, including the upcoming trial of the so-called "Mafia Cops," Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, who allegedly executed one of the shooters, Edward Lino, in 1990. Capeci writes, meditating on the remorseless grinding of Mafia and American justice, "All told there were 10 men allegedly assembled along East 46th, between Second and Third avenues that December evening. All are dead or incarcerated--all, that is, except for capo Vincent Artuso, a designated shooter who never pegged any shots at Castellano, his assigned target."

The complete column, including photos not found in the Sun, can be found on Capeci's website, www.ganglandnews.com, which is highly informative if a little antique in its design and navigation.

Capeci is but one reason why I like the Sun. The news coverage, its arts pages, and its pull-no-punches editorials all appeal to me. I even read sports columnist Tim Marchman, which is saying a lot. Columnist Daniel Pipes provides essential thinking on the War on Terror.

Thursday also features a fitting bookend to Capeci. Way in the back, near the crossword puzzle, the Sun runs the Clinton- and elite-besotted ramblings of Tina Brown, ex-Vanity Fair, ex-New Yorker, ex-Talk, and now "Topic A with Tina Brown," on CNBC (my suggestion for Tina's next editorial venture is here). Brown never met a power player she didn't adore; I'm surprised she's not doing play-by-play on the Saddam Hussein trial, comparing Saddam's presence to the sexual heat her ovular antennae registered (and which she wrote about) whenever Bill Clinton entered a room.

But don't take my word for it; the Sun posts the entire text of her columns. Here's a bit from today's sob over the decline of broadcast evening news programs, "News Delivery Via the Electronic Petri Dish." Brown writes that "the anchors who command real loyalty and enthusiasm are no longer the stentorian network newsreaders but the excitable cable table pounders," as if Dan Rather & Co. had a constitutional lock on the public's attention.

Lunch with Jerry and Tina -- for a quarter, I get that every Thursday.