The Nation: The Mafia Afloat

To escape Government snoopers hounding them, the Mafia have discovered a new hiding place: the high seas. Like their piratical forebears, they have found a refuge where bullets and bugs are not easily lodged. As one Mafioso told another (in a bugged telephone conversation): "We can talk on the water because it ain't possible to bug a boat."

Not very easily anyway. So reveling in their new-found security, brine-bitten capos can be seen piloting sleek craft off Long Island, putting proudly into port in Brooklyn and The Bronx. Though they favor yachts, one captains a converted Coast Guard cutter, while another is suspected of navigating a lobster boat—long after the lobster season has ended. Not every mobster can afford to "suffer a sea change into something rich and strange." The less affluent Gallo brothers, still recovering from the decimation of their gang, have to be content to splash around in a swimming pool they have built in Brooklyn, where there is always the danger of running into a water bug or two.