78. Interview with Catherine D’Amico: Part 11

26 June 2011

– The first thing he did was check into the motel and look for a job. Which, as you can imagine, was almost impossible.

– It’s hard enough getting a job in this economy when you actually exist in the system. But Tony had no social security number he could use, no ID, nothing. He couldn’t even use his real name.

– That’s when he came up with Les Palmer, actually, as a cover. But—it was weird. He always told me to call him Tony, refused to let me call him Les, even in public, which I thought was super-odd at first. And risky.

– He spent the first month or two telling me Tony was just a nickname, which didn’t make any sense. Then, after we’d been together a while, he told me his story and I kind of understood. I still thought it was taking a huge risk, asking me to call him Tony in public. But he’d tell me he loved Boca and how laid back things were around here, that he didn’t need to worry too much and he just wanted me to call him by his real name. He told me that Earl had taken the fall after the plan went awry which, I mean, despite how screwed up it was, brought the heat off Tony enough so he could try and live as close to a normal life as possible.

– Yeah. But I don’t think it actually had anything to do with him thinking things were blowing over. I think the real reason he wanted me to call him by his real name was to hold on to some sense of normalcy.

– Tony never really took to being called Les. Even after things started getting better for him, whenever somebody would call him Les, it would take him a while to recognize it. And he’d always look upset when he did.

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