Eye on the Mourners

In the post-Sept. 11 world, al-Qaida has taken La Cosa Nostra's spot as public enemy No. 1 when it comes to organized crime in New York.

But that didn't stop a host of law-enforcement agencies from taking notice of who paid their last respects at John Gotti's wake yesterday in Queens.

The FBI, NYPD and Brooklyn and Queens district attorney's offices all were able to spare investigators yesterday to stake out PapaveroFuneral Home in Maspeth, sources said. A dark van with tinted windows was conspicuously parked across the street with two men inside, one of whom was pointing a camera at the front door.

"We're still actively working organized-crime cases and it's still a major priority of this office - witness the major arrest last week of John's brother Peter Gotti and other Gambino family figures in a racketeering case involving the control of Brooklyn and Staten Island waterfronts," said agent Jim Margolin, spokesman for the FBI's New York office.

Margolin declined to address whether agents are photographing Gotti's wake and funeral proceedings.

A law-enforcement source said that while "people in law enforcement will be out there covering the event and sharing what intelligence is gathered, who knows what value it will be?"

Joseph Coffey, a retired NYPD organized-crime detective who twice locked up Gotti, said the investigators are looking for clues that could tell them who will take Gotti's place.

"The bottom line is more for it to find who is taking over, who gets respect," Coffey said.

Mob watchers say it's a good bet that members of the Genovese family, widely believed to have replaced Gotti's Gambinos as the most powerful crime organization in the country, will boycott his wake and interment, having already sent the message of severed ties by being the only New York City crime family not to have attended son John A. Gotti's wedding in April 1990.

Members of the Bonanno, Columbo and Luchese families likely will send representatives, but mostly, said William Bastone of thesmokinggun.com Web site, who had covered organized crime for the Village Voice, "It will probably be the regular cast of characters from the Gambino family" - figures like Jackie D'Amico, Danny Marino - a reputed Gambino capo said to be in the running to take over the family - and Arnold Squitieri.

But the turnout even among the Gambinos, which is estimated to be down to about 180 members, may not be overwhelming.

Many of Gotti's guys are dead or "in the can," Bastone said. Others may not show up because they don't want to run the risk of getting caught by police cameras and video surveillance.

Still other mobsters recently have gotten out of jail, Bastone notes, and "can't go because they can't be seen commiserating with other hoodlums" because it would violate parole.

That leaves the media and the curious, and Bastone said the public fascination doesn't jibe with the real life Gotti led.

"The public sense of him is really not what reality is," Bastone said. "For someone who has an Italian surname, it's embarrassing for me to see people put flowers down [outside the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club].

"When David Berkowitz croaks, are people going to put flowers down for him? They're both mass murderers."

Staff writer Anthony M. DeStefano contributed to this story.

Field Guide for Mob Mourning

What law-enforcement types watch for among those who show up - or

those who don't - at final rites for La Cosa Nostra members:

Mourners Showing up at the funeral home is considered a key sign of respect among crime family members. The number of members attending indicates the stature of the deceased, with his family and the rest of the mob. Investigators take pictures and make videotapes and record license plates but say they don't use eavesdropping devices unless they have a court order.

No-shows Some mobsters can't show up because they are in prison, like John A. Gotti, son of the late don. But others might not show, as a sign of disrespect. Investigators believe the deceased Dapper Don angered other families by attracting so much heat.

The Kiss Who kisses whom is another key sign. The man getting the most kisses at the funeral home is the one investigators see as the big fish. Police got a key tip onGotti's rise after the 1985 hit on Gambino boss Paul Castellano by the kind of greetings and kisses he got in front of the old Ravenite Social Club on Mulberry Street during a Christmas party days after Castellano was shot.

The Tete-a-Tete Undercover officers try to spy on discreet meetings in quiet

alcoves of the funeral home, cozy confabs that can indicate which bosses

are doing business together.

SOURCE: Present and former law enforcement officials

Related topic galleries: Staten Island (New York City), David Berkowitz, New York City Police Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York, Death and Dying, Maspeth