Words and Hands

Vincenzo Marsala told investigators how Michele Greco used to talk. The family had sentenced Gigino Pizzuto. Greco, hinting at that sentence, remarked that a man who signs IOUs and doesn’t pay must settle up sooner or later. No name, no word “kill.” You can write the sentence down, but you can’t take it to court. Those who needed to understand understood.

Gambetta, who collected phrases like these, honestly adds that because of all the hinting this world is full of misunderstandings and deceit. The mafiosi complained about it themselves. In a language where nothing can be proved, nothing can be checked either. Whether you read the hint right, you find out later. Sometimes too late.

Half a Sentence

Lefty was once telling Donnie about a TV show. They’d had two informants on it. Some guy had written a book and, as Lefty put it, accidentally leaked the info; “our guys” were hunting for them. And straight away, without a break, Lefty asked how Donnie’s girlfriend was doing.

Pistone writes that he had long since got used to the way Lefty expressed himself, so he decoded the meaning at once. Two witnesses had been exposed, the Mafia was looking for them, and there they were on television, complaining about the government. Lefty said none of that. He handed over scraps and changed the subject.

Scraps are a pass. Whoever understands half a sentence is one of us. Whoever asks you to finish it is an outsider, and maybe wearing a microphone. Every office has its own dialect like this. “Well, the one on the seafront, you know”—and two people know which hotel is meant and why it isn’t said out loud. Learn to understand halves. But remember why people speak in them. A man can always disown half a sentence.

Fifty-Five Per Cent

Someone is bound to tell you that words are seven per cent of communication, tone thirty-eight and body fifty-five. That’s a retelling of Albert Mehrabian’s experiments in the late sixties. He himself explained more than once that the figures apply to a narrow case: when a person is talking about liking someone and the words contradict the tone. Otherwise you’d understand a film in a foreign language ninety-three per cent.

And people are bad at reading lies from the body. In 2006 Charles Bond and Bella DePaulo pulled together more than two hundred experiments. People told lies from truth in fifty-four cases out of a hundred. A coin gives you fifty.

So why watch the hands at all? Hands rarely confess. But they do make moves.

A Hand as a Move

Early in the operation, while he was still with the hijackers, Pistone was talking the ringleader, Becker, out of a risky plan. A sheriff’s car pulled up next to them: two cops had come for a coffee. Becker, Pistone writes, put a friendly hand on his shoulder and started in on how he could smell cops a mile off. And feds even more easily.

Whether this was a test or a slip, Pistone didn’t know. He put his hand on Becker’s shoulder and asked him what he smelled, then. Becker answered: nothing, except two cops in a car. And he accepted Donnie’s arguments.

In the Cecil club, a friend of Tony Mirra’s whom Donnie barely knew patted him down the back almost to the waist as he said hello. Later, by the toilets, he ran his hands down the sides of Donnie’s jacket. He was looking for a microphone. Pistone shoved him away, telling him, more or less, that he’d made a mistake, pal. And walked off without looking back. He never wore a wire into Little Italy anyway: outsiders, he explains, could easily get searched.

Notice that neither of them lied with his hands or confessed. Neither Becker nor Mirra’s friend gave anything away about himself. The hands made a move. You answer a move with a move, not with an explanation. A man without a microphone has nothing to prove. He takes offence and leaves.

Twenty-Five Dollars

At the Hippopotamus, Mirra and Donnie had been drinking free all evening. On the way out Donnie put twenty-five dollars on the bar for the bartender. Mirra jabbed him in the chest with a finger: he was the one who decided things here, Donnie should put the money away. Pistone said fine, whatever Tony said. He admits that swallowing it took a great deal of effort.

The tip spoke for Donnie: I pay my own way. The finger answered: here, I’m the one buying.

We had the same thing, only without fingers. I did the haggling with the hotels over price. The Don came along to shake the manager’s hand. Once I got ahead of myself and shook it myself, in the excitement. A month later that manager came asking for a discount. Not out of malice. After all, he’d made his deal with me, not with the Don. The Don told me afterwards: “The hand is offered by the man who’ll answer for it.”

The Look

Saviano writes about teenagers from Casal di Principe who grew up on gangster films. In Camorra territory, he says, looks are taken seriously: “A sideways glance counts as trespassing on someone else’s turf.” A fight would start because somebody didn’t look away. “You can insult a man more with a look than with words.” There are worlds where a look is an act. You answer for it as you would for a word.

The Bottom Line

Speak so that you can answer for every word. Offer your hand only if you’re the one who’ll answer. Leave half-sentences to people with something to hide.

And when someone talks to you in halves, ask yourself who will disown them later. When someone touches you in a friendly way where there was no friendship, that’s a move, not a feeling. Answer with the same gesture and a calm question. They’re searching you for something that isn’t there? Don’t justify yourself. “You’re mistaken”—and walk away.