IN THE LAND OF THE GIGANTES

By STEVE LOPEZ

They charge not one thin dime for the most gloriously twisted show in New York City, which stars a muttering reputed Mafia don in a wheelchair, his loyal brother the Catholic priest and ex-jailbird, and a pack of rats who talk about whacking nicknamed brethren like it's some kind of citywide croquet tournament. But it's O.K. if you can't get into the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, which sold out when Salvatore ("Sammy the Bull") Gravano came out of hiding and sang baritone last week. The show spills onto the streets of Greenwich Village, where a woman in a sun hat looks up at the high-rise where reputed Mob boss Vincent ("the Chin") Gigante, the Oddfather who roamed the streets in his bathrobe, was her most famous neighbor.

"Is he faking that he's crazy?" she asks, repeating the question that frames the three-week-old murder and racketeering trial. She looks around cautiously and says, "Let me put it this way. Was Eleanor Roosevelt a lesbian? And the Gigante mother was wonderful. I don't know how she could have a son like that. Of course, another son is a priest, and one who died, I think he might have been homosexual." Not quite the holy trinity. But if true, it has to be some kind of trifecta.

It took seven years for federal prosecutors to drag the 69-year-old Gigante into court on charges that he ran the Genovese crime family and had a hand in seven gangland murders, as well as an attempted hit on archrival John Gotti. Throughout those seven years, Gigante's lawyers and family have insisted he is a feeble, addled man going back a quarter of a century, incompetent to put on a pair of pants, let alone mastermind a secret society of schemers, thieves and assassins. But prosecutor George Stamboulidis called it a "shrewd and shameless camouflage," and a detective testified that the slow-footed Gigante developed Olympian quickness when a car bore down on him as he crossed Sixth Avenue one day. The government, however, has offered little hard evidence against Gigante, whom associates referred to with a silent tap on the chin.

"He shouldn't even be here, he's so sick," says his brother Father Louis Gigante. He is part of an entourage that has included a defense-team press agent, marking an embarrassing low point in the history of an organization that never worried about its image; the cross-pollinated offspring of the Chin's wife and the Upper East Side mistress he lives with; and a doctor who carries a medical bag and a look of impending crisis. "Let's check his blood pressure," a family member said gravely during a break. Judge Jack Weinstein has ordered medical personnel to wear something other than white lab coats, and told the shabbily dressed Chin to present himself as something other than a One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest wannabe.

Father Louis, who once did time for refusing to answer grand jury questions about his connection to a reputed gangster named James Napoli, wheels his gaunt, empty-eyed brother into court, kisses him on the forehead, then takes a seat and hugs or kisses family members. There is almost as much kissing as there are nicknames. But once, when there was no seat, Father Louis stormed out of the courtroom and reamed a niece: "Where am I supposed to sit? This is a dumb family."

"Growing up, I knew my father as a truck driver and professional boxer," Salvatore Gigante, 43, says outside the courtroom. "We don't know anything about this other stuff, but we're holding up through the lies." After lunch one day, Salvatore ordered a nice schnapps with his coffee to go. "This is the one joy I have right now, that I take a little zip of Sambuca with my coffee," he said.

Back in the neighborhood, in the little concrete triangle parks where locals gather to rest swollen feet and tell lies, and talk about the days before pink hair and nose rings, residents were split as to whether the Chin is faking his near coma. But they agreed that wearing a bathrobe on the street pushes neither the fashion nor the mental-health envelope in Greenwich Village. There is universal love for Gigante's late mother Yolanda. "She was cooking, cooking, all the time cooking," says a neighbor. "She'd give me a hug and talk in Italian, and I'd just nod. I'm Jewish." Asked for her name, she slowly backs away. "No," she says. "They might kill me."

Nonsense, says a novelist who sits in Da Silvano restaurant every day, same window table, smoking Marlboro Lights. "The federal witness-protection program is welfare for rats," Nick Tosches says, referring to the low-life grunts who have testified, "and if they convict Gigante through these nefarious means, it's a death knell for this neighborhood. You used to be able to leave your doors and windows open around here. For years Gigante has been a benevolent presence, and I'd rather have him as a neighbor than any cop in the Sixth Precinct."

You know him personally, Nick?

Tosches looks out the window with the neighborhood's secrets in his eyes. He takes a drag. "I can't answer that," he says, perfect pitch. Another character in the most gloriously twisted show in New York.