Arizona Daily Star from Tucson, Arizona • Page 102

Page Four Section Tucson, Sunday, August 14, 1983 The Arizona Daily Star Joe Bonanno: 'Either you trust me or you don't' 5 "i i 7 1 he fully understood them," Bonanno said. "Lalli is manipulating the press for reasons which are not clear to me." Duiiannu saia ne nas already spent too much time responding to charges from someone whose story changes with the facts tmn In inn fwntnl t- 1IC 13 Willi UUICU Willi. As for the amount Lalli was paid, Donau would not reveal it. But, he said, including a i. coupie oi inousana ior expenses, it was more than sin nnn Lalli said his work on the book was in- tanco anA ovViailctino on1 utliM i time miar he retreatea to tne calm and security of his home.

He said that he now lives the life of a recluse, taking things slowly and easily and, in many ways, just letting the dust settle. But the episode has left a mark. Lalli said he is shaken by the dissolution of the rela-1 tionship and hurt in a personal way, beyond the financial aspect. And there is the more tangible hardship of a pregnant wife and broken plans for havinp pnrllioh mnnpv frrwn the hnnlr tn livp for a year. Now, he may have to leave Tucson, his home and his parents' home, to find a job.

Nevertheless, Lalli calls the experience rewarding, if excruciating. He is proud of the book. He is proud that he pulled off the wsn a lung uaiiauve, W1U1 lis many textures and layers. "A Man of Honor" is definitely not an expose, Lalli said, because Bonanno only goes to a certain point in the narrative and then stops. "He didn't tell me anything about who murdered whom." Lalli said.

"That is mentioned right in the introduction. But that does not mean the book has no value." The book has been criticized for portraying a romantic picture of Bonanno's world, but, Lalli said, his job was to portray Bonanno as he sees himself, and in that sense, the book is on target, a success. But that does not override the disappointment: "My experience with Joe Bonanno is a private lesson and it is valuable to me. But it is behind me. Now I want it to go away.

We could have had a lovely friendship, if he just acted the way he presents himself, rather than in a disturbed manner. "If God were writing the script for this, it would be perfect, don't you think? That I would see deep in his soul and that he would be both gracious and cruel, charming and pompous, intelligent and self-centered. It makes sense. How else could he survive in his world if he weren't all those things? "I just wish he would go away. I don't mean to prison, I wouldn't wish that on anybody.

I want him to live to be 100. 1 want him to live with his conscience. The only thing I can do now is deny him the pleasure of my company." only choice he had was whether to do the project in the first place. He said he had no choice when it came to money but to take what was presented to him. "This is part of the reason I don't like him anymore he presented me a shabby deal.

you can see I am not rich." The deal involved two contracts. The first one was signed in October 1981. In it, Lalli agreed, for a flat fee that he declined reveal, to "hold a series of conversations with Joseph Bonanno, Sr. concerning the latter's writings, notes, memorandum and ideas and will type the material in the form a manuscript." It was understood at that time that the finished manuscript might never be published. But Lalli said he and Bonanno had a personal understanding that there would be another contract.

The second one was signed the week before Christmas 1982, after the book had been written, the editorial revisions made, and the product sold to Simon and Schuster. This contract also paid Lalli a flat fee, an undisclosed amount seven times more than the first contract. But until the contract was presented to him, Lalli did not know what the fee would be. He said when he saw the amount on the contract, he broke out in a sweat. "I couldn't believe it," Lalli said.

"I thought maybe he intends to do something additional, make a gift to me or something. I didn't expect to get rich, but I never thought would be that low. He knew we were poor. He knew my wife was pregnant. I mean, it's not like he needed the money." In retrospect, Lalli said, if he had been a 17-year-old flipping burgers at a McDonald's for that year and a half, he would have made more money.

At an hourly rate, he figured he worked for less than minimum wage. Lalli did not mention the existence of the first contract until presented with the information. But he said he did not bring it up because his dispute is not with the contracts. He said he understood exactly what he was signing that both contracts called for flat fees, that he knew what the amounts were when he signed, and that he would not share any additional money the book generated, such as a paperback sale and possible movie rights, serialization and subsidiary sales. His complaint stems from the way Bonanno treated him at the end.

"To this day he never has even had the decency to tell me what kind of advance the publisher paid for the book," Lalli said. He recalled that one of Bonanno's most often-used expressions during their collaboration was, 'Either you trust me or you don't." Lalli trusted. He worked prior to signing the second contract, knowing that Bonanno alone would decide what the compensation would be, because he thought Bonanno would present him with a fair deal. "Any sane person, knowing the total amount I was paid, would have expected more," Lalli said. The relationship changed after the signing of the second contract because Lalli felt let down, his trust gone.

And Bonanno changed at that time as well. Lalli theorizes that Bonanno's affection for him vanished when he saw a different Lalli, one with a mind of his own, who would not be led b'indly, who did not think Bonanno was the center of the earth. Again through his attorney, Alfred "Skip" Donau, Bonanno said there abso lutely was not a personal understanding that there would be a second contract, but Bonanno had one written, even though under no legal oblifeajon to do so, out of generosity. Nor did Bonanno have any legal obligation to put Lalli's name on the book, but that he intended to have it put there from the very start. Bonanno also told Donau that he thinks Lalli's disenchantment is the result of pressure by his wife and others to get a lot more money for the book than he bargained for.

"This is just a cheap-shot publicity stunt from a person who had a written agreement and is not honoring the terms, even though Continued from Page IK "But that wasn't happening with this man. How is that possible? That is what I wanted to leam from him. He was strong and he even had a sense of humor about his life and his enemies and that turned me on." Bonanno made it clear from the outset that the book was not going to be by Lalli about Bonanno. Rather, it would be by Bon-1 anno through Lalli. The old man's control over the product was absolute.

It was his property and he lorded over it in a possessive manner, Lalli said. At one point, to speed up the editing process, Lalli offered to meet with the book's editors in New York. But Lalli said Bonanno would not let him go because he did not want him to be alone with the editors. This was a disappointment to LallT. He wanted the opportunity to meet and mingle in New York with other writers and editors and literary agents.

''I never got a chance to do any of that. I was in isolation," he said. Then came the confrontation. Last fall, after the book had been written, a photo editor from Simon and Schuster came to Tucson to pick up some pictures. Lalli was driving the man back to the airport.

The two were talking about the book. The man looked at Lalli and said: "Oh, so you wrote the book?" Lalli was stunned. At that moment, he realized that Bonanno had not told the publisher to include his name on the book. "This shocked me," Lalli said. "He had given me his word as a man of honor that my name would be on the book.

I thought, 'What the hell is going on, Bonanno, I trusted Lalli called Sirron and Schuster and checked with an editor there. He got the same answer: No one knew his name was supposed to be on the book. The confrontation occurred when Lalli brought the issue to Bonanno and asked for an explanation. Lalli said the old man blew his top and "acted like a 2-year-old," angry that he should be questioned. It was a misunderstanding, Bonanno said.

Lalli prefers not to discuss the details of the argument. But his name did end up on the front cover of the book. Looking back, Lalli guesses Bonanno intended to have it put there all along, but he wanted to show how big he was, as if all bounty flowed from him because it was his life. Or that Bonanno used the confrontation over the name as a power move to control other aspects of the financial package. But Lalli said that is supposition on his part.

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