Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • 175

weir 4 i of mow Call for your free copy of Great Moves from Sears inside, outwardly he had to pretend to be someone else. "Here, nobody's looking for anything," he noted. "You're just friends. A regular, normal, human being. That's it" Was this to say that he was versed in being an abnormal or inhuman being someone who takes justice into his own hands or bestows favors for a price? Confronted, he laid down the ground rules quickly.

He said he wouldn't lie to me, but neither would he tell the whole truth. Still wary of my profession and my motives, he fended off half my probing queries firmly but with good humor. If people knew organized crime, "they wouldn't call it organized crime, they'd call it disorganized," he joked. "What the hell is organized? If six people know each other, it's organized?" As for his fugitive years in Connecticut he had lived a quiet, upstanding life. To keep a low profile, he'd had to.

"Ask anyone around here if I ever took a bet, or ever lent them money for interest," he challenged. "If anyone lived cleaner than me, he'd be in an operating room." I smiled politely at this Mr. Nice Guy stance. Just as he wasn't prepared to discuss his guilt, I wasn't ready to consider his innocence. What I couldn't tune out were the notes of decency and wit that echoed throughout When I pushed hard for answers, he gently teased back.

Despite his grim circumstances, he was actually fun to be with. Probingfor the rootof where his life had gone astray, I asked about his youth. "I come from a neighborhood where half the guys end up in jail." Yet he had started out well enough. He was wounded by an intimation he'd once read that his father had been in the mob. "He was the most honest man you'd ever want to meetr A legal stenographer, Carmine Persico Sr.

had worked for prominent men such as John Marshall Harlan before he served on the U.S. Supreme Court Persico also spoke with such fondness of Carmine Jr, it was easy to forget his younger brother, nicknamed "Junior" and "The Snake," was serving 100 years for being a member of The Commission, a national governing board of mob fig-Continued on next page Federal authorities suspected he had chosen our state due to an organized crime network that sustained him with regular subsidies. "'UNDERGROUND RAILROAD' HIDING HOODS ON LAM" squealed The New York Post But Persico denied getting handouts from anyone. His choice of hideout had been much more personal and mundane. "The only thing I knew about Connecticut then was what I saw in a movie, Christmas in Connecticut or something?" He laughed.

An old film buff, he had discovered in our suburbs a cinematic dream come true. "Maybe I met different people here than I met in New York," he said. "I was treated nice. To me, it was a whole different environment from what I knew before. I never would've left" Indeed, he had stayed, trying to drown his fears in a drunken oblivion until U.S.

marshals dragged him away. He acknowledged that what I'd said in my story was true: Getting attached had been a luxury he couldn't afford. Keeping regular company and a daily routine had made him easier to trace. Staying put involved other risks. Knowing who you were could compromise friends.

If you didn't tell and they found out, they'd feel betrayed. "You hate to lie to people, especially when you like them." But telling the truth seemed even less fair. "The best thing to do is don't tell them who you really are. That's what I felt, anyway." I didn't quite buy the selfless stance that he'd been strictly looking out for others' interests. Hadn't there also been an element of "If I told them, would they still be my friends?" "I guess that's part of it, too," he conceded.

"You think of that After I really got to know them, I thought they would accept me because they liked me for myself. They liked me because of me." "Is that a big thing to be liked?" 'To be liked for yourself," he said. Which self was that? A buried, inner core that had more to offer than the favors he had allegedly once doled out? It seemed paradoxical that to be accepted for the person he was lg If? If you're planning a move, or just thinking of moving, now's the time to call and get GREAT MOVES, the magazine designed for movers. It's full of great ideas to help you buy and sell your home, choose a mover, pack up your possessions and settle in to your new neighborhood. Call toll-free: 1-800-645-4000, extension 77 OSmh, Bortoe md Co.

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