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He gave the same little chant, this time about Nunzi doing anything, and he gave Nunzi a whack on the shoulder.
    Now all the Teamsters were hitting each other, and sometimes the punches were good enough to knock a guy off balance.
    Tony Pro looked up at me and figured why I was there. He came over and said, “What paper are you wit’?”
    I told him. He said, “What happened to the guy was here?”
    “He took off.”
    “They leave you to the fuckin’ wolves.”
    “They got no wolves here. Just union men.”
    It was just a remark, but you could tell by Tony’s face that it settled things. He had one eye drooping and the other full of evil.
    “You think that was right?” he said.
    “What?”
    “To put my girlfriend’s name in the newspaper so my wife could see it?”
    “I wasn’t even here. I didn’t know any girl. I never did anything.”
    “It hurt my wife. I got kids. Do you think they should of done something like that, put a woman’s name in the story?”
    “I guess.”
    “My lawyer says I got a good suitcase against your paper.”
    I knew the lawyer, Henry Singer from Brooklyn. He was so sure a Teamsters trial in Newark was an open bazaar that he began his defense by remarking to the judge, “I can fix your teeth.”
    Meanwhile, the one who did make a bazaar of it was Robert Kennedy, then the attorney general of the United States. He was almost crazy in those days. During the case he was on the phone asking the judge, Robert Shaw, to read him the charge to the jury. Shaw’s clerk had written it. Kennedy listened, then snarled to Shaw, “Why don’t you just apologize to Provenzano?!” Shaw revised the charge to call for everything short of execution. He entered the courtroom with his normal pint bottle of whiskey buried in his robe pocket and an intention to stay out of trouble with this young mad dog Kennedy.
    The jury convicted Tony Pro, and now, on sentencing morn, the whole group left the hallway and went into the big courtroom. I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. He sat withan arm draped over the back of his bench, and his ring hand dangled so that each twitch of his fingers caught the sunlight crashing through the high windows and made the diamond flash with the strength of a small spotlight. In the row behind Tony Pro, hands gripped the back of the bench, openly bidding for the ring if marshals came and lifted Tony into the detention pens.
    The judge, severe-faced on this day, gave a short statement about extortion being an animal crime. He then gave Tony fifteen years, and that is a lot of time. The hands behind Tony itched. But the judge let him and his ring remain out on bail pending appeal.
    It was the first thing I saw when I walked into the 20 Green Street bar an hour later. Tony Pro was at the bar with a drink in his hand, and when I came through the door, the light streamed in and found his ring finger.
    “I got a suitcase against your paper,” he said.
    “So sue,” I said.
    I wrote about it all, including the ring. At the newspaper this was regarded as exceptional. Reporters had written about tough guys before, but not about their jewelry. There was sudden new respect for me. I knew exactly how to take it. I announced I was great. Big JB Number One. It happened that you needed no extra ability to do such a story. It was all there, like an order in a store being placed on the counter in front of you. A moron can pick it up and go home. Just write down what they do and say. But I declared that it took tremendous courage and talent to do the story.I had to contend with murderers! Why shouldn’t I boast? I wasn’t out of some Harvard or Princeton that gets people jobs on their school name. I attended John Adams High School, Ozone Park, Queens, the full five years. Was I nervous about the mobsters? You want to be afraid of something, be afraid of being broke. I remember that John O’Hara wrote me a letter. I made sure everyone was looking when I threw it on the floor. “I don’t