Selling on a Name

In forty years Don Vincenzo never gave a single interview. When people asked why, he’d say: “Only brides and dead men get photographed.” He didn’t advertise the oil either. And yet every cook in the neighbourhood knew him.

The Don’s name was carried by the cooks. A cook moved from one kitchen to another and took his habit of the Don’s oil with him. At the new place he’d tell the owner: “We get our oil from Carmuso.” The owner would ask why. The cook would shrug: “Never let me down.” There was no other advertising.

For a long time I thought this was modesty. Then I understood it was calculation. A name you say yourself is worth nothing. What’s worth something is the name others say for you, when you’re not in the room.

Ask Your Own People

Pistone once tested this on himself. On a beach near Charleston, he and his partner Tony Rossi met a Greek called Flamos. Flamos boasted he could get any drug you liked. All he needed was an advance, fifteen thousand, to fly to Kathmandu for the goods. Donnie laughed at him. Flamos took offence: and who are you, anyway? Donnie told him, as Pistone tells it, to go ask his own trusted people about Donnie from Mulberry Street, Lefty’s friend.

The next day Flamos came running with apologies. He’d asked around among friends in Harlem. They’d explained that Lefty was a highly respected man and that Donnie was close to him. Flamos promptly named the family Donnie was with. Donnie cut him off: no names, that’s not how it’s done, and let’s get down to business. The Kathmandu advance instantly dropped to a third.

Notice what Donnie did. He didn’t say a word about himself. He sent the man to other people’s witnesses, and they said more than he would have said himself. And refusing to hear names put the cherry on top. That’s how a man behaves when he has nothing to prove.

A Borrowed Name

You can also borrow a name. Lefty taught the agent Tony Conte what to say if the local people in Milwaukee came calling: I’ve got protection in New York. Tell them, Lefty said in Pistone’s account, that your boss is a very respected man, known all over New York, all over the country.

And in the same breath Lefty explained what it rests on. Threaten them that I’ll come. Two hours, and I’m there. Show them the beeper, so they can see we’re in touch.

A borrowed name works as long as someone behind it is ready to show up. Without that it’s an empty envelope. It gets opened once.

Saviano describes the extreme case. Neapolitan teenagers from the clan say at the till: “I’m from the Secondigliano System” or “I’m from the System of the Quartieri.” “The magic words allow little mafiosi to take whatever they want,” and the shopkeeper doesn’t dare breathe a word about money. The name has become a means of payment. Only behind it stands not a reputation but a pistol. A name like that lives exactly as long as the fear does.

Witnesses You Grow Yourself

Witnesses can be found. They can also be grown. In his first months Pistone made Carmello’s restaurant his mailbox. He asked Marty the bartender to pass on any messages. And sometimes he’d call the place himself and ask for himself, so Marty would take down a message and hand it over when he saw him. It looked as if everyone was trying to reach Donnie.

Later, walking into other places, he could say he’d been a regular at Carmello’s for months. He wasn’t afraid of being checked. He knew the regulars, if asked, would vouch for him: yes, Don Brasco used to come in, a decent guy, kept his nose out of other people’s business.

This is a con, and I’m telling you about it so you’ll recognise it. Someone tells you a man is “known to everyone”? Ask who everyone is and who put them there.

There’s also a trap with no con in it at all. In 1968 the sociologist Robert Merton noticed that in science, fame sticks to the already famous. Of two identical papers, people remember the one with the big name on it. He called it the Matthew effect, after the line in the Gospel, “unto every one that hath shall be given.” So a big name often tells you how much people have talked about a man. About what he can do, it tells you less.

Your Own Flaw First

Now for something the Don taught me with no science at all. To a new restaurant, he named his limitations first. We don’t deliver on Sundays. The first tin of the season is bitter. If there’s a strike at the port, we’ll be three days late. Only then did he talk about price.

At first the cooks were surprised. Then they believed every word he said. A man who names his own flaw, it seems, has nothing to hide.

Psychologists have tested this. In 1966 Elliot Aronson and his colleagues had students listen to a recording of a quiz. At the end, a brilliant contestant spilled coffee all over himself. He was rated higher than the same brilliant contestant without the coffee. A small blunder made the expert human. But for a mediocre contestant, the same coffee only cost him points. A flaw flatters only someone who’s good without it.

The Bottom Line

A name grows where you aren’t: in other people’s kitchens, in other people’s conversations. Your job is to give people something to pass on. Name your limitations yourself, and first. Don’t pay witnesses. And don’t borrow a name if nobody’s going to show up behind it.

When someone shows you a name, check it yourself, with people you picked, not people you were pointed to. Look at what it rests on: deeds or fear. A name that rests on fear vanishes the day the fear does. A name that rests on deeds outlives even the man who wore it.