The Process of Elimination: A Crime Writer's Guide To Contract Killing

by Gary Carson

Based on The Autobiography Of A Mafia Killer (2002) and Hit #29 (2003) by "Joey" with David Fisher, Adrenaline Classics Books, Thunder's Mouth Press

Contract murder is a blue-collar occupation. You don't need a PHD to clip a rat for cash, but killing's like any other trade — you better know what you're doing if you want to stay in business.

Various skills are required to "hit somebody in the head," most of them pretty simple. For example, you should know how to steal a car, and you should be familiar with police procedures, gun laws and basic surveillance techniques. You should be able to operate a metal saw, clean a revolver, and hit a skull-sized target three feet away. Stuff like that.

Forget all the nonsense in movies and bestsellers. A hired killer doesn't need a secretary or a sidekick (also known as witnesses), and he — rarely she — doesn't have to be an acrobat, bodybuilder, sniper, mountain climber or a Black Belt in Karate. There's no need, for instance, to be a medical expert trained to use exotic poisons to fake natural causes of death when getting your target drunk and tossing him in front of a truck will work just as well. It's a matter of common sense.

The most important qualification for this kind of work is temperament — no doubt about it. You must have a natural aptitude for murder. You have to be able to pull a trigger in cold blood, something most people cannot do, and you have to be able to treat killing as a paycheck.

A very large paycheck.

NATURAL APTITUDE

"There are three things you need to kill a man: the gun, the bullets and the balls [1]," according to "Joey," a hit man who worked for the mob in New York City back in the Sixties and Seventies — around the time when the Valachi papers came out and the Godfather first hit the big screen.

Joey told his story to writer David Fisher in two classic accounts of organized crime: "The Autobiography Of A Mafia Killer," a general overview of mob street rackets, and "Hit #29: Based On The Killer's Own Account," the detailed story of one of Joey's more complicated hits. Reprinted in 2002 and 2003, both books originally came out in the early Seventies and should be required reading for crime novelists writing about hit men. The Mafia may have changed a lot in the last 40 years [2], but these two books remain the best sources available if you're interested in the way contract killing works in the real world.

But getting back to temperament:

"A lot of people will point a gun at you," Joey says, "but they haven't got the courage to pull the trigger. It's as simple as that. I would give you odds on almost anybody you name that if I put a gun in his hand, he will not pull the trigger. I mean, some people will go ape for one minute and shoot, but there are very few people who are capable of thinking about, planning and then doing it. To carry out an execution with the cold knowledge of what you're doing, you have to believe in nothing but yourself. That I do." [3]

Most people would call Joey a sociopath, but an "antisocial personality disorder" isn't a job requirement for hit men unless you believe that killing is so unusual in human history that it qualifies as some kind of mental aberration. Joey wasn't a monster. He loved eating. He loved playing the horses. He loved his wife and he loved his girlfriend: "Alice-with-the-big-tits." He had a sense of humor and some reviewers called him the "happy hit man," all of which adds up to a disturbing picture for your law-abiding civilian.

"I'm not really that much different from your average bricklayer, bartender or barber," Joey says. "I take out the garbage four nights a week, worry about my wife when she's out alone at night, clean the outside windows every few months and complain about those ridiculously high telephone bills. Believe it or not, I'm a human being." [4]

The truth is that contract murder is just a job. Joey grew up on the streets, a tough Jewish kid running numbers and muscle who moved on to bigger things. He had the right skills for his particular line of work. He had the right temperament, the right background, and he had all the right connections.

PROFESSIONAL CONNECTIONS

Professionals only work for other professionals.

Amateur hit men always get caught — especially when they work for civilians (who are the only ones dumb enough to hire them in the first place). The newspapers are full of stories about amateur hits gone wrong: a jealous housewife pays the local bouncer to waste her cheating husband; a crooked real estate developer hires a couple of drug addicts to zap his tax accountant. A Google search on "contract murder" turns up dozens of stories like this — all variations on a central theme of human greed and stupidity. Civilians don't seem to understand the concept of a "witness" in criminal law. They frequently hire multiple killers who proceed to bungle the job and then turn into multiple witnesses against them in court. And they usually break down and confess.

"Mob guys rarely take outside work because they can't trust civilians," Joey explains. "The police lean on a civilian and he is going to fold. He has never been battered by questions, he has never been mentally assaulted, so he's gonna quit on you. The police are experts, they can turn you up one side and down the other with their questions. And who needs to depend on a civilian?" [5]

Professionals need contacts with organized crime for employment and protection. Joey, for instance, was a loan shark, numbers banker, cigarette smuggler and an occasional bodyguard who worked for Meyer Lansky and Jack Dragna at various points in his career. He was a mob associate who took hits as an independent contractor, meaning that he wasn't a salaried member of a crew required to kill as part of his normal job. A guy like this is not going to take a contract from a woman who wants to kill her lover's wife for insurance. If he does, he's just going to walk away with her money.

The organization's important for both sides in the contract. The killer needs financial assistance and legal help if he's caught, and his employers need a guarantee that he will keep his mouth shut. It's a matter of risk management — another reason to only work for "legitimate people."

"There is a guarantee in the contract covering the unlikely situation that I'm caught," Joey says. "I will not talk. Not a word. Not a sound. Not a peep. In order to ensure that, the party with whom I've made my deal must pay all legal fees, support my family the entire time I'm in jail, and have something waiting for me the day I get out." [6]

That's the theory, anyway. These agreements are sometimes broken under pressure — with predictable results.

The police are skilled at flipping crooks charged with multiple felonies and prosecutors have been known to give vicious killers lenient treatment in their hunt for bigger headlines. Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, for instance, ratted out his boss, John Gotti, in a plea bargain on dozens of murders and assorted mayhem. The Mafia of Joey's time no longer exists, brought down in part by treachery and the collapse of a code of honor which was probably just a myth to begin with. The fact that Joey agreed to be interviewed for these books, breaking the code of silence, is another sign of the decay of mob tradition that supposedly began in the Seventies. Working for The Outfit may be less risky than working for some greedy civilian, but you're still talking about verbal contracts between professional criminals who "only believe in themselves" — not the most reliable of business partners. Capture, betrayal and revenge come with the territory.

So don't get caught.

HOW NOT TO GET CAUGHT

Contract murder isn't rocket science (though it could be seen as a form of brain surgery), but a professional killer still needs more intelligence than the average thug on the street — which isn't saying much. Police work may not require an advanced degree in astrophysics, but the cops still manage to lock up plenty of bumbling killers every year and they usually don't have to strain their brains to do it. If you want to survive as a hired gun, you need to understand how the police work in the real world. Forget Sherlock Holmes, CSI and committing the "perfect crime." In the real world, most killings are solved in three basic ways:

(1) It's obvious who did it. For example, a man blasts his wife in a fit of drunken rage and then passes out on the couch with the gun in his hand.

(2) An informer tells the cops who did it.

(3) The killer leaves his fingerprints all over the crime scene, forgets his driver's license, gets caught with the gun, uses his own car for transportation, takes out an insurance policy on the victim in his own name, shoots somebody in front of a dozen witnesses, etc., etc.

Stupidity, informers, eyewitnesses, physical evidence. That's about it. Beautiful forensic technicians who solve murders by analyzing fibers with an electron microscope may exist in the real world, but most killers are caught because they signed their names all over the body or fell asleep in the getaway car. As for the cops — their job's a matter of animal control. Your best bet is to avoid killing civilians.

"The average New York City detective is underpaid and overworked," Joey says. "He has more murders on his hands than he can handle and he's going to get the same paycheck every week whether he solves them or not. So he's going to be selective in choosing the cases he actually puts time on. Honest-citizen murders are going to get the bulk of his time. Chances are a gangland rubout will not be high on his list of selections. It's really a who-gives-a-damn case. There's little glory and lots of hassles involved. Besides, even if there was enough manpower, there is still a shortage of thinking. There are not many Colombos or Ironsides on the NYPD. Without an informant, an eyewitness or a gun, their chances of figuring out what the case is all about are almost nonexistent. Therefore, once I leave the scene of a crime I'm usually pretty safe." [7]

Professional hit men, like serial killers, rarely have any connection to their victims, which almost guarantees they will escape detection in the absence of eyewitnesses and physical evidence. They work alone as much as possible and pay meticulous attention to detail. The general rule: three can keep a secret if two are dead. Joey never planned alibis in advance, for example, because they involved other people.

"Before I make a hit I go into every possible detail, every potential difficulty. I plan even the easiest job down to the final minute. I take notes and I make alternate plans. I work at my job the way a matador or a dynamite truck driver works at his. Very carefully." [8]

Mistakes still happen, though — yet another reason to only work for professionals.

"I've been seen pulling the trigger," Joey says. "I've been seen in the areas where my bodies were found. These things happen, they're almost unavoidable if you work regularly. But I've never been convicted of anything because I was always ready for the possibility that something could happen. I've always played completely by the rules. I've always made sure I was working for legitimate people who would back me when I needed them. And they did." [9]

It's one thing to testify against an amateur locked away in jail, but ratting out an organization is a completely different matter. Gangsters can "reach out" and civilians are vulnerable. They can be bribed, threatened or burned if necessary and their families make easy targets. As a result, they usually don't present much of a problem to a hit man with connections.

"The witnesses who saw me weren't sure they saw me," Joey explains, "and the people who said I was in the area decided maybe I wasn't. I like to say that the people I work for made sure that these so-called witnesses told the truth. First we decided what the truth is, then they told it." [10]

There are always exceptions, though — stubborn cases and good-citizen types who just want to do their civic duty. The best way to avoid headaches with witnesses is to make sure there aren't any in the first place, which is mostly a matter of careful planning. Pay attention to details. Choose your time and place carefully, work alone, destroy the murder weapon, and your chances of capture go down to near zero. Of course, if some innocent bystander does see you pull the trigger, you might have to clip them as well, but you won't get paid for it because wasting civilians isn't part of your contract.

THE CONTRACT

Every hit begins with a contract. A verbal contract between two people. Not three. Not four. Two.

The reasoning's obvious. If I ask you to kill somebody, it's your word against mine in court, but if more than two people are involved, there are suddenly a lot of accomplices turning against each other if something goes wrong. They're called "corroborating witnesses" by eager prosecutors who specialize in flipping crooks with coercive plea bargains.

Forget the movies. Contracts aren't handed out by committees of shadowy conspirators sitting around a conference table. Meetings like this are always one-on-one and conducted in person: contract offers don't arrive by email, for instance. These precautions may seem trivial and obvious, but writers get them wrong all the time and the prisons are full of criminal masterminds who hired multiple hit men over the phone and then wrote it all down in their diaries.

"A contract is always a verbal agreement," according to Joey, "but these contracts are as strong as any written agreement in the world. You don't have to sign a paper, you're guaranteeing it with your life." [11]

In other words, don't bungle the job and don't take off with the money. To quote Nixon: "That would be wrong."

There's no fixed price for a hit, but an independent contractor can live pretty well on three or four bodies a year. Payment varies depending on the target, the difficulty of the job, the risk involved, and so on. In his autobiography, Joey says that the price "usually averages anywhere between $10,000 and $25,000, and could go higher." Joe Valachi, the notorious mob informant living on an Army base under Federal protection, had a contract on his head worth $250,000, but nobody took the job. In Hit #29, set in the late Sixties, Joey says "the going rate for heavyweight work" was $20,000 and "the only time the price varies is when somebody big is going to be done." The numbers are probably similar today — in inflated dollars.

"The money is paid in advance," Joey says. "The full amount. After the contract is out, the man who put it out can rescind it, but none of his money will be returned. Once I take your money, I'm going to make the hit — unless you tell me you've changed your mind. That's fine, but you pay the full amount for that privilege." [12]

An independent contractor can turn a job down if he doesn't like it for some reason: perhaps he knows the victim or his friends; perhaps he doesn't want to work so soon after his last hit — one of Joey's rules that he broke with Hit #29. The killer rarely knows what the victim did to get whacked — that's not relevant — but there's usually a good reason.

"There are many reasons an individual is killed," Joey says. "He may be a stool pigeon, he may be too greedy, the man he is working for might suspect he is taking too much, the man he is working for might think he is too ambitious, he might be blown away because he has not lived up to an agreement he made, the job might be planned by an underling trying to take over from a boss, the target could be a mob member who has become a junkie and is therefore unreliable, it might be part of a gang war and it could even be payment for an attempted double cross. There is always a good reason and it always involves doing something you shouldn't be doing as a member of organized crime." [13]

Whatever the reason, once you've accepted the contract, it's time to put your money in the bank (if you can declare it as income from a legitimate source) and start planning the job.

THE PLANNING STAGE

There are two basic kinds of hits.

Public murders, where you blast somebody in the middle of a crowd, can be spectacular and are sometimes designed to send a message, but they usually take place because there's no other way to get at the target. Planting a bomb in a car and wiring it to the ignition is a popular method in Hollywood, but it's unreliable, draws a lot of heat, and requires a knowledge of explosives and detonators, not to mention access to the materials [14]. It's usually easier to use a gun. Bars and restaurants, classic killing grounds, should always be cased in advance: Check the general layout, the hours of peak business, the location of exits, the type of customers, and so on. Use your common sense. Don't pull a hit on someone else's territory without getting their permission. Make sure the place isn't a hangout for off-duty cops or SWAT teams relaxing after a hard day at the office.

"Private" hits, on the other hand, go down quietly, in isolation, after a period of surveillance and maneuvering which can sometimes get very involved. The hit man studies his target, follows him for days or weeks, decides on a location and then takes care of business in the privacy of a parked car or in the back room of a warehouse or on a deserted street in the middle of the night. The killer's main job is to find a suitable location. He takes notes. He may have an extensive dossier on the victim compiled by his employers. Needless to say, all of these documents should be destroyed before the day of the hit.

In some cases, the hit man plans the job himself and carries it out alone — the ideal situation because it reduces the number of accomplices and potential witnesses to a minimum. In other cases, the victim has been set up by his employers, who may give the killer logistical support like backup and transportation, especially if he's been brought in from another city — the classic "outside gun." The planning required varies from job to job, but the general procedures are usually the same:

"There are three basic ways to plan a hit," Joey says. "The hit man will be given his intended's routine or he'll study the man and pick up his routine himself, or the party will be brought to him at a pre-selected spot. I like to do as much as possible myself. I like being in total control and I'll spend as much time as necessary making sure everything is exactly the way I want it." [15]

Hit #29 actually describes two killings: number 28 and number 29 in Joey's 38-hit career. Number 28 was a public hit, number 29 "private." Both took place in 1968 in New York City and could be described as textbook examples of traditional contract murders.

THE PUBLIC HIT

"Hit number 28 was a public execution. It took place in a crowded, noisy Italian restaurant in Brooklyn. The restaurant was my only opportunity because the intended knew he had been placed in the bull's eye and had holed himself up pretty good. His employers, and mine as well, resolved that problem by inviting him out to dinner and then telling me to make him the main course. I never actually found out what it was that he had done wrong, although I later heard a rumor that he had just been caught with his hand in the numbers take once too often." [16]

Public hits are pretty basic. In this case, the target arrived first, sat down at a table, ordered dinner and was eating while he waited for his employers to arrive.

"He never saw me coming," Joey says. "I walked up right behind him and blasted him three times in the back of the head and neck, blowing parts of his brain into his veal marinara, and causing blood to run into the spaghetti sauce, ruining it completely." [17]

Public hits sound risky, but they're safer than you might think. The trick is to stay calm and use a loud gun in order to scare all the witnesses, who usually dive for cover at the first shot. It can't hurt to alter your appearance with a hat or sunglasses, but you don't need to be a master of disguise and it's not really necessary unless there are surveillance cameras around.

In Joey's words: "Scared witnesses have a way of confusing details, and I had just created a restaurant full of scared witnesses. If the police tried to put together a composite drawing from the descriptions of this crowd, they would have ended up searching for the Loch Ness monster." [18]

After the shooting, make your way quickly but calmly to the nearest exit and drive away in the stolen car you parked legally outside. You could also take public transportation if traffic's bad at that time of day, but be prepared for unexpected delays which can cause trouble if you're still carrying the murder weapon. Joey, for instance, was once trapped on the subway right after a hit when his train ran over a bum on the tracks. If your gun is absolutely untraceable, you can probably leave it behind. In most cases, however, you'll take the gun with you and destroy it after getting away from the scene.

Get away. Ditch the car. Destroy the gun.

Those are your priorities.

HIT #29

Hit 28 went off without a hitch: no cops, a paragraph in the New York Daily News, and $20,000 cash. As a result, Joey got overconfident.

"I knew I should have waited before taking another job. But 28 had been such a breeze and 29 originally came from a man I regard as a friend. And then there were those horses that took just a few seconds more than I thought they would to get from start to finish. I wasn't in debt, but I wasn't rolling in money either, so I took the contract on number 29." [19]

1. The Target

The target this time was a numbers controller named Joe Squillante who had been setting up other controllers to get robbed. Squillante had worked for the "Fat Man," boss of one of the New York families, since the Fifties and had been a trusted employee until he piled up over a quarter of a million dollars in gambling debts. In order to solve his financial problems, Squillante hired a couple of street punks named Manny and Allie to rob other controllers and runners — a dangerous and stupid act of desperation. After the first two or three heists, it was obvious that the robberies were an inside job. The Fat Man put tails on his own controllers, caught the punks red-handed, then persuaded them to identify their silent partner.

"The heavies brought them up to the funeral home and escorted them down into the basement. From there the button men took over. The conversation covered the usual subjects: world affairs, politics, the United Nations. At first Manny and Allie were reluctant to enter the discussion with their own opinions, but they were soon persuaded that the organization did indeed care about their ideas on these subjects." [20]

The Fat Man verified their information. After that, it was just a matter of time for Joe Squillante.

2. The Meeting

"I get contacted to do work in many different ways," Joey says. "This particular message came to me on a bright, cool Thursday afternoon, while I was in the midst of some real-estate speculation. At the center of my speculation was an age-old question: How long would it take a certain three-year-old to cover some prime New York State race-track real estate?" [21]

Meetings to discuss contracts aren't set up over the phone. In this case, the meeting was arranged through a series of messengers acting as cut-outs. First, a man Joey knew from the old days approached him at the track and told him that a trusted friend of his, a button man named Petey, wanted to have a talk. This first man didn't know what it was about; his only job was to pass a message. The next night, Joey met Petey under a bridge in a "quiet, dark and lonely" spot at one in the morning, and Petey had another message:

"Sunday night be at the Half Moon. When you walk in the door you'll recognize somebody you know. You go there, you talk to him, see what you want to do." [22]

This elaborate series of contacts was designed to insulate the Fat Man from the conspiracy to commit murder. Each messenger acted as a buffer. Petey, for instance, knew what Joey did for a living and guessed that the meeting was about a contract, but he didn't know the details and he didn't know who Joey was supposed to meet. As it turned out, Joey found a capo, Jackie Sweetlips, waiting for him at the Half Moon, a restaurant in the Bronx. Sweetlips offered Joey the contract, paid him up front, and gave him all the details about his target, the crooked numbers controller Joe Squillante. If something went wrong, Sweetlips was the only link connecting Joey to the Fat Man.

3. Complications

Number 29 turned into one of Joey's more complicated hits for a number of different reasons. For instance, the capo who had hired him, Jackie Sweetlips, hated his guts and had once threatened to kill him. And the target, Joe Squillante, didn't act like a man with a guilty conscience. During the weeks that Joey followed him, Squillante never did anything to suggest that he was nervous, which he should have been in his situation. He never took any precautions and Joey never saw him place a bet — strange behavior for a man who was supposed to be a degenerate gambler ripping off the mob.

Joey knew Squillante from the old neighborhood. They had grown up together, but they were never close friends, at least not close enough to keep Joey from blowing his head off. In one of the disturbing coincidences that kept popping up while Joey was planning the hit, he and his wife ran into Squillante and his wife during a shopping trip at Macy's. Like husbands everywhere, the hit man and his future victim made small talk while their wives looked at dresses and when the conversation came around to mutual business interests, Squillante shocked Joey by saying that he never played the horses. He couldn't afford to gamble.

"I started going over the situation in my head," Joey says. "What it came down to was that I had been hired by a man who hated me, supposedly to do a job on an individual I knew, for doing what he says he isn't. There is only one conclusion I can reach: If Squillante isn't lying then maybe he isn't the one set up for the kill.

"Maybe I am." [23]

Now Joey had to watch his own back while planning the Squillante hit — a delicate situation. The issue of his target's guilt or innocence finally became so urgent that Joey hired a "phone mechanic" to tap Squillante's apartment, but you'll have to read the book to find out what happened.

4. Surveillance

Number 29 required weeks of tedious surveillance. Squillante, a numbers controller, moved around all day, collecting from his runners, and Joey's main problem, besides trying to figure out if he was the real target, boiled down to finding a good spot to make the kill.

Sweetlips had already given Joey a complete dossier on his mark which included everything from Squillante's license-plate number and daily stops to his girlfriend's address and his various "haunts and habits." Joey had to get up early each morning to catch Squillante leaving for work and he had to tail him for hours in city traffic, studying his routine.

"The point of following somebody is never to let them out of your sight," Joey says, "but to stay out of their sight as much as possible. There are only a few ways of doing this — for example, you always drive to the rear right of the man you're trailing. That way he won't constantly see you in his rear-view mirror. And, most importantly, you never, never stay with your man for too long at one time. If you do, he is eventually going to pick you up." [24]

The tools required for mobile surveillance are pretty basic and depend on things like current weather conditions and whether your car has a clock. This kind of work often involves sitting for hours in a parked car and you can't run the engine because you might run out of gas, which means you can't use the heater, air-conditioner or radio while you're sitting around. Likewise, it's not a good idea to drink a lot of coffee while waiting for your target to leave his house because he might drive away while you're taking a leak behind a bush. Again, it's a matter of common sense. Packing for a tail job is like planning a campout.

After 28 hits, Joey had a lot of experience in tailing people. Working surveillance on the Squillante job, he took "maps of the Bronx and Manhattan, two pens, a notepad, a portable radio, a wristwatch and an army blanket." He took the maps because he wanted to note "one-way streets, traffic lights, construction obstructions, stop signs and blocks closed because of children at play." The notepad was for making notes about possible locations. He took the blanket to keep warm and the radio to listen to when he couldn't run the engine. He needed a wristwatch because the clock in his car didn't work.

Surveillance is a dull job that requires patience and attention to details. For example, a traffic ticket that places you near the target's house the week before the hit can be a matter of life and death.

So keep to the speed limit.

5. The Location

This kind of hit requires privacy. You need to study your target's routine and find a way to get him alone in a safe location. Bad neighborhoods are good for this type of work. Dark streets, parking lots, deserted warehouses and tenements full of people who don't trust the cops make good killing grounds, but your choice is usually determined by your target's habits.

"Although nighttime is usually preferable, it's not always possible," Joey says. "If a man makes a habit of spending his nights in front of the television set you can forget about it. No one is going to sit in front of his house until he gets the urge to wander out and then take a random shot at him. You're not if you have a brain in your cranium. So you study every possibility." [25]

Numbers controllers are busy people. Day after day, Squillante drove around the city, collecting money from his runners at bars and factories and beauty parlors and coffee shops. Joey followed him, one eye on the rear-view. He considered each location in turn, rejecting some because of bad traffic conditions, others because they were too public. One "social club" looked promising until he remembered that the owner was a made guy who probably wouldn't appreciate a hit on his doorstep. That kind of thing is bad for business.

After several days of this, Joey finally settled on a location, a slum area where Squillante made one of his daily pickups:

"The place that looked the very best at first glance was Hunts Point. Hunts Point is actually the world's largest sewer. At one time it had been a major industrial area and, although it was still busy, a lot of business moved out when the junkies, pimps and hookers moved in. Hunts Point had a lot going for it: There are wide open areas, there is noise, and there are enough people around doing strange things that nobody looks to butt into anybody else's business. With a silencer, if I could catch him by himself, Hunts Point could be the place." [26]

Now it was time to get the gun.

6. Weapons

Joey always used a gun.

"I'm a traditionalist," he says. "I like using a gun. I feel comfortable with it. I doubt if I would ever use anything else because I don't like to get too close to my man. I'm not looking to be sophisticated, I'm looking to do a job and not get caught, and so I never get closer than two or three feet." [27]

Some hit men like to get close. They use knives, hatchets or ice picks, weapons which require a more bloody temperament. Some like to strangle their victims or garrote them. Others use blowtorches, hang their victims on meat hooks or feed them into ovens feet first.

"I don't go in for anything like that," Joey says. "I don't want to spend that much time with my targets. I don't want to watch them suffer. That's not my job. Of course, some people have different tastes." [28]

Drowning was popular for a while and Joey knew of a hit man who used "alcohol and a truck" to fake an accidental death. The victim, forced at gunpoint to drink a lot of whiskey like Cary Grant in "North By Northwest," was pushed in front of a truck on the highway. These methods work, but they take time. Cement overshoes, for instance, require mixing the cement and waiting for it to dry, a process that could take hours. Guns, on the other hand, are fast and practical. They have two basic requirements: (1) they have to work when you need them, and (2) they must be untraceable, i.e. stolen. Forget the Hollywood hit man who keeps an arsenal hidden behind a secret panel in the wall. Guns used in contract murders are only used once and then disposed of immediately.

"Getting a gun in New York City is about as difficult as finding a hooker in Las Vegas," Joey says. "I can go anywhere in New York and get myself a gun within 24 hours. The only difficulty is making sure you get a perfectly clean weapon, one which cannot be traced back to you, or traced back to the individual you got it from in the first place." [29]

Joey bought the gun he used for the Squillante hit from a longshoreman who stole his merchandise from shipments at the docks. The gun cost $75, the silencer $200. This was in 1968, before the flood of Saturday Night Specials hit the city. Joey describes the gun as a .38 revolver, but silencers usually don't work that well on revolvers because their open cylinders allow gas and noise to escape.

As a general rule, revolvers are more reliable than semi-automatic handguns, which tend to jam at the wrong moment, but it's easier to squeeze off multiple shots with a semi-automatic pistol than with a double-action revolver. The caliber used depends on the job: You want a loud, high-caliber weapon for a public hit and a smaller gun for discrete killings. A .22 semi-automatic is considered the professional's gun because it's quiet and light, but most .22's are designed for target practice and shooting varmints, so even a head shot may not be fatal. Emptying your clip into the victim usually solves that problem, but a mid-range caliber like Joey's .38 is more reliable.

Silencers are useful on some jobs, but they're expensive, hard to find on the black market without the right connections, and their possession and manufacture is strictly controlled. It's possible to make your own disposable silencers, but this requires specialized knowledge and access to the necessary material and tools. Gun barrels generally have to be machined to fit a silencer, so it's a good idea to buy matched sets from a single source.

"There are people who will try to charge you as much as $600 for a silencer," Joey says, referring to 1968 prices. "And in fact, you may never use it. A silencer cuts the sound of a gun discharging from BAM to bim. In some places, hit number 28 for example, you don't want to use it at all. You want to attract attention. But at this point I didn't know where I was going to do Squillante." [30]

The gun should be cleaned, then tested at a secure location before you use it on a job. Practicing at a public range like Lee Harvey Oswald isn't recommended unless you want to go down in the history books. Joey used a soundproofed basement at a friend's house in Yonkers to test-fire his piece, showing once again the importance of contacts. You want to test the gun's dependability and find out how accurate it is at the expected range with different types of ammunition. For instance, if you're planning to blast your target inside a parked car, you'll only be a foot or two away when you pull the trigger. The standard test here is to fire several rounds into a sheet of quarter-inch plywood and then check the penetration and fragmentation of the bullets. Plywood approximates the strength of the human skull.

"...when I dig the remains of the bullets out of the wood I can pretty well predict what is going to happen to the bullet in Squillante's body," Joey explains. "I wanted to make sure that there would be no fragments which could be traced back to this gun. If the police can't match gun and bullets, it makes it much more difficult for them to put a case together." [31]

Hollow points work well, but if you have a choice of different rounds, you should use these tests to figure out what kind of ammunition to use.

"As a rule, ball ammunition will come out whole, flat ammunition will come out pretty well flattened and wide, like a piece of squashed dough, and the hollow-point ammunition will splatter because it spreads as it goes into the wood. The piece of wood I'm really interested in is the plywood because that has a resistance that most resembles the human head. The plywood has been shattered into pieces." [32]

Note the attention to forensic details. Guns and ammunition should be purchased through reliable sources and professional killers must be familiar with local gun laws. Some jurisdictions require ID to purchase bullets, for instance. Others may require bullet registration — serial numbers branded on each bullet which allow them to be traced back to their point of purchase. It doesn't do much good to buy a stolen gun if you sign your name for the bullets at the local Walmart.

Guns have serial numbers, but filing them off is pointless because the police have methods for "raising" the number from the metal. Chisels or grinders may work, but you run the risk of weakening the gun to the point where it could explode when fired. The safest practice is to buy the gun and bullets from a reliable fence and make sure they can't be traced back to the person you bought them from.

7. Transportation

Never use your own car for a hit, regardless of the circumstances. Even if you're just planning to drive downtown, park on the street and walk to a meeting with your target, you should always steal a car to use for the job. If this is impossible and you can't use public transportation, you should at the very least steal a set of license plates to switch with your own tags and it would probably be a good idea to repaint your car when the job is over. Make no mistake: Details like this can mean life or death for a hit man.

Stealing cars today can be a tricky business with all the factory alarms, glass sensors, kill switches, ignition interrupts and GPS tracking systems people use to protect their vehicles. The trick is to look for older models in decent running condition with enough gas in the tank to get you clear of the area. Joey, for instance, would abandon a stolen car if it didn't have enough gas to drive out of the neighborhood in which it was stolen. There was always the chance that someone would recognize the car if he pulled into a local gas station. You don't need anything fancy, just a reliable set of wheels to be used once and then abandoned on the street.

"All I need is an automobile that will get me where I want to and get me away as fast as necessary," Joey says. "I don't bother with phony plates and registration because, unless you're going to keep a stolen car more than three or four days, you have nothing to worry about. It takes that long for the coppers to get the plate numbers on their hot sheets. I had absolutely no intention of keeping the car that long; I was going to steal it Friday night, use it Saturday night when I burned Squillante, and then abandon it. I wasn't even going to drive it during daylight hours. So, could I go wrong? No way." [33]

These days, hot cars probably hit the police wires almost as soon as they're reported, so it's a good idea to steal your car at the last possible moment. The car should be checked out thoroughly for mechanical problems and things like broken taillights or malfunctioning turn signals that could attract attention. Getting pulled over by a traffic cop for a minor infraction is the last thing you need while driving to a hit, but a traffic stop after the job could cause a lot more grief than just a charge on Grand Theft Auto, especially if you're still carrying the murder weapon. So check the car thoroughly and abandon it if something's wrong. There are plenty of other cars on the streets.

Leave the car in a safe location like a parking garage. On the day of the hit, you'll drive your own car to the parking garage, then switch cars and drive to the job. After it's all over, drive back to get your own vehicle and abandon the stolen car.

THE EXECUTION

Joey committed 38 hits during his career.

"Very few of the 38 ever knew what was about to hit them," he says. "I was the last thing they ever saw. I never said a word to any of them. What am I going to say? A lot of times you'll get ready to hit a man and he'll realize briefly what's happening and make the sign of the cross, or he'll start screaming, 'No!' But before he can get too much of anything out it's usually all over." [34]

Number 29 went down on schedule, but Joey had to improvise at the last minute due to complications with Jackie Sweetlips, his employer, and Joe Squillante, his target. Joey met Squillante at Hunts Point, the intended location for the hit, at 11 p.m. on a Saturday night, but they ended up driving in Squillante's car to the parking lot of a restaurant in Queens. The reason why is well worth reading.

"I was watching everything," Joey says. "The exhilaration was growing. It is almost sexual, like one huge orgasm. Just growing and growing until it all lets loose. Within me I know I am playing judge, jury, executioner and God. I felt like I was 15 feet off the ground and I was doing my best to contain it, to control it, to keep my senses sharp and alert. But it is difficult. In a situation like this you are aware that, for one individual, you are heaven and hell, you are the ultimate." [35]

The action phase is the most dangerous part of the job. All the surveillance and planning, the careful maneuvering and attention to detail, lead to a scene like this one in Squillante's parked car:

"I kept the gun inside my jacket until he had stopped the car, put it in park, turned the engine off, turned the lights off, and then turned to face me. Then I took it out and pointed it right at him. He saw the gun and froze. I mean froze solid.

"Panic strikes people in different ways. Some individuals immediately understand the situation, realize the hopelessness, and accept it as the final irony. Others start to scream. Some try but nothing comes out. From Squillante, I got fear. In the one split second before I started to pump bullets into his head he crunched his body up, leaned hard against the door, and stuck both his hands out towards me as if in an effort to ward off the bullets. He knew. At the last second he knew.

"'So long Joe,' I said in that brief moment." [36]

THE AFTERMATH

Make sure your target's dead. If you panic and he survives for some reason, you're going to have some big problems in the near future. Your employer won't be very happy with your performance, for one thing, and your target probably has friends who know other hit men. He might even go to the cops.

Stay calm. Leave the scene as quickly as possible, but do it quietly and keep to the speed limit. Abandon the hot car if you used one, then destroy the gun. Those are your priorities. Witnesses at this stage are considered very bad news. If a little kid riding by on a scooter sees you pull the trigger or a nun gets a good look at you at the wrong moment, you'll have to make some fast decisions. A professional like Joey wouldn't hesitate to blast a civilian if he had no choice, but he wouldn't feel very good about doing it. These situations have a way of spiraling out of control.

Most of the time, the body can be left at the scene. Occasionally, though, your employer doesn't want the stiff to be discovered for one reason or another, which means you have to transport it to another location, bury it, burn it, drop it in the ocean or chop it up and spread the parts around. The disposal business can be messy and very tricky, since bodies have a way of floating back to the surface or turning up years later in the middle of new construction. Some crews in New York operated their own chop shops which usually consisted of a bath tub in an old building and a collection of garbage bags and rusty saws. Others buried their bodies under work sites due for a new sidewalk or concrete floor. The possibilities are endless, but in Hit #29, Joey left Squillante behind the wheel of his car in a parking lot in Queens. Squillante was a numbers controller, not Jimmy Hoffa.

One you get away, your prime objective is to dispose of the gun, and the silencer if you used one. No gun, no ballistics. Most amateurs tend to screw this up if they manage to make it so far.

"There are some people who do not pay too much attention to getting rid of the piece they work with," Joey explains. "They heave it in the woods or throw it in the water or hide it behind their underwear in their top drawer. In the trade we have a word to describe people who do things like that: convicts. Guns have a way of coming back to haunt you." [37]

The gun must be destroyed beyond the possibility of any kind of ballistic analysis and then disposed of in such a way that it will never be found. In order to do this, you need access to power tools, preferably in a machine shop owned by someone who will keep their mouth shut — another important connection. The procedure for getting rid of the gun is very simple, but requires a certain amount of manual skill.

After hit 29, Joey caught a midnight ferry to Staten Island and tossed the silencer in the river. Then he drove to the South Bronx, where a friend owned a machine shop and let Joey hold one key for situations like this. It was a small shop, "spooky quiet," and it made him nervous.

"The only light I put on in the place was the florescent lamp he had over his workbench. From the outside no one could tell it wasn't an interior light left on all night to scare away burglars." [38]

He disassembled the gun, then smashed the firing pin with a hammer to eliminate the possibility of a ballistic match with any of the bullets in Squillante's head. Then he cut the barrel off at the base and cut the barrel lengthwise into four different pieces with an electrical hack saw.

After he was finished, he spent an hour or so driving around the Bronx, tossing pieces of the gun into different sewers, wiping each section clean before throwing it away.

"This all sounds like a lot of trouble and it is," Joey explains. "But after making a hit, especially with all the problems that this one had, you are all keyed up and you really need something to do to keep busy. Some men are able to go out and eat dinner, some guys get laid. Me? I take my time getting rid of the weapon. Then, if it can be arranged, I go out for dinner and get laid." [39]

###

Copyright © 2006 Gary Carson

ENDNOTES

1. "Joey" with David Fisher, "The Autobiography Of A Mafia Killer," 2002, Adrenaline Classics Books, Thunder's Mouth Press: p. 48

2. Hit hard by Federal prosecutions, internal treachery and the rise of hyper-violent gangs such as the Hell's Angels and South American cartels, the traditional Mafia has almost ceased to exist in many cities.

3. "Autobiography," p. 48

4. "Autobiography," p. 47

5. "Autobiography," p. 51

6. "Autobiography," p. 53

7. "Joey" with David Fisher, "Hit #29: Based On The Killer's Own Account," 2003, Adrenaline Classics Books, Thunder's Mouth Press: p. 209

7. "Hit #29," p. 34

9. "Hit #29," p. 34

10. "Hit #29," p. 34

11. "Autobiography," p. 53

12. "Autobiography," p. 53

13. "Autobiography," p. 50

14. For an excellent description of a contract killer who was an expert at using explosives, see "Hell's Angels: Three Can Keep A Secret If Two Are Dead," Yves Lavigne, Carol Publishing Corporation; Carol Publ edition (September 1, 1989)

15. "Autobiography," p. 54

16. "Hit #29," p. 1

17. "Hit #29," p. 2

18. "Hit #29," p. 2

19. "Hit #29," p. 3

20. "Hit #29," p. 11

21. "Hit #29," p. 17

22. "Hit #29," p. 22

23. "Hit #29," p. 59

24. "Hit #29," p. 45

25. "Hit #29," p. 49

26. "Hit #29," p. 50

27. "Autobiography," p. 59

28. "Hit #29," p. 59

29. "Hit #29," p. 51

30. "Hit #29," p. 53

31. "Hit #29," p. 121

32. "Hit #29," p. 121

33. "Hit #29," p. 155

34. "Autobiography," p. 59

35. "Hit #29," p. 179

36. "Hit #29," p. 199

37. "Hit #29," p. 201

38. "Hit #29," p. 205

39. "Hit #29," p. 206

GARY CARSON is a California refugee working as an IT monkey for the corporate regime in Reno, Nevada. Lizard Flicks is his first novel. His short story 'Dog Breath' appeared in the Fall 2003 issue of Hardluck Stories. He is working on a second novel, Collision Course, and planning a series of hardboiled crime thrillers set in the Roman Empire.

Read an extract from Gary's novel, Lizard Flicks