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Cutolo's rapid rise in Gang Land bears striking similarities to the tale told by Aladena (Jimmy The Weasel) Fratianno about Frank (Bomp) Bompensiero, a soldier in the Los Angeles family who fell out of favor for "bad mouthing" his Administration. So the bosses made him their  consigliere to lower his guard. Not too long afterward, on Feb. 10, 1977, Bomp was lured to his favorite phone booth and bumped off.

Even before Cutolo's crew fired the first shots of the bloody Colombo war that resulted in 12 dead and assorted mayhem and violence from 1991 to 1993, Cutolo was an outspoken critic of longtime boss Carmine (Junior) Persico. After Cutolo's crew began the violence by blowing away two Persico loyalists, Wild Bill got a hold of official court papers from the feds' historic Commission case. Waving them around, he blasted Persico, who represented himself at trial, as a rat for admitting the existence of the Mafia.

Cutolo survived numerous attempts on his life, and after the war, fended off the feds who had gotten indictments against him and his crew on murder and racketeering charges stemming from the bloodshed.

In late 1993, Cutolo, head of Local 400 of the Production Workers, and six members of his crew were hit with war crimes charges and held without bail in the dormitory-style Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. They   quickly took over their wing, and until the following September, terrorized the inmates as well as the guards. They stole and hoarded food and turned the television room into their private club, hanging up a sign that read: "Italians Only."

"The MDC officials were losing control of the prison and the people who were running the prison (block) were the inmates," assistant U.S. attorney Pam Davis said at a 1994 court hearing.

Cutolo and his crew were acquitted that December.

But Wild Bill's promotion to underboss may have been another Gang Land subterfuge. Cutolo, who would have been 50 yesterday, disappeared more

"It's starting to look more and more like he's gone," said one investigator.

Colombo bosses have a habit of going  on the lam when they find out they're facing charges -- like former bosses Persico (left) and Andrew Russo (right) -- but sources on both sides of the law fear Cutolo has been killed.

Relatives, business associates and law enforcement types who keep tabs on people like Wild Bill, haven't seen him. He missed a sitdown with another gangster and didn't show up three hours later for his crew's regular Wednesday night meeting at his social club in Brooklyn.

The heat has been on for a while. The club was raided last year, and he and his crew are the focus of a federal grand jury in Brooklyn probing extortion allegations. Manhattan federal prosecutors have also targeted Cutolo, and his name has come up in a state probe of financial irregularities at a city municipal workers union.

Cutolo and his crew had sided with insurgents led by acting boss Victor Orena. When he was released from prison in 1994, Cutolo was knocked down to soldier as part of a peace compromise between factions of the weakened crime family. But he never lost his swagger, and eventually regained his captain's rank.

After Russo went down for jury tampering and racketeering this spring,  Persico's son Alphonse (left) was named boss, Joel "Joe Waverly" Cacace consigliere, and Cutolo was named underboss.

Wild Bill, hailed by union officials as caring and by charity organizations as generous, played Santa at a gala Christmas party he threw six months ago for the National Leukemia Research Association, for which he was a major fundraiser.

"It's all about the children. You'll pardon me if I don't say any more than that," Cutolo told reporter Tom Robbins when he asked about the charity's alleged mob ties and probes linking Cutolo to corrupt union activities.

A secretary at Cutolo's union, which represents about 250 blue collar workers, said she hadn't seen Cutolo. "He is usually here on Wednesdays. He didn't show up."

Allen Weinberg, the Leukemia Association's director, said Cutolo hadn't replied to a memo he had faxed him last week. "He usually gets right back to me. He is in his office on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. He was a beautiful guy. I am shocked, just shocked. Could this mean the worst?"

In Gang Land, it sure does.

But that's what Gulino reportedly did, and why  federal prosecutors in Brooklyn will seek to detain Anthony Spero, 70, as a danger to the community while he awaits trial for allegedly ordering Gulino's murder.   

Gulino, whose nickname was Paulie Brass, made his living dealing drugs in Bath Beach, Brooklyn, where guys like him learn mob protocol before they smoke their first joint, let alone sell their first ounce of pot, or first gram of coke.

Gulino was schooled enough to know, when two buddies -- Joseph Calco and Thomas Reynolds -- whacked a "connected" drug dealer in late 1992, that they were in big trouble. He approached the dealer's Luchese family protector and tried to smooth things out, explaining that the killers didn't know their victim was with the Lucheses.

Whether Gulino's intercession helped, or if his requests to Bonanno boss Joe Massino on their behalf made a difference, things were cool on Bath Avenue the following summer. Paulie Brass was dealing marijuana and cocaine for the Lucheses off the corner of Bay 23d St. and Calco and  Reynolds were hanging tough with the Bonannos.

In early July, 1993, however, Gulino made a fatal mistake. He shoved  Bonanno consigliere Anthony Spero during a heated dispute in Spero's Bath Ave. social club, according to FBI debriefings of mob turncoat Frank Gioia Jr.

On July 25, 1993, Gulino was murdered on Spero's orders, according to a six count indictment charging Spero and 13 others with racketeering, dealing drugs on the wholesale and retail level, and four murders:

* Spero and Bonanno soldier Joseph Benanti are charged with taking part in Gulino's murder.
* Calco and Reynolds are charged with killing Neil Mastro, the Luchese protected drug dealer who they didn't know was connected, and Mastro's uncle, on Oct. 18, 1992.
* Calco is also charged with the murder of a suspected informer, Jack Cherin, on Jan 18, 1995.

And while only Spero and Benanti are charged with Gulino's slaying, his murder has a morbid touch of irony, according to the account Gioia gave the FBI. "Calco and Reynolds shot and killed Gulino in his kitchen while his parents were away for the weekend," said Gioia.

Calco, 31, and Reynolds, 29, are jailed on other charges and have not yet been arraigned in the federal case.

Spero appeared briefly in court last week, long enough to wave hello to his daughter and hear lawyer Scott Leemon adjourn his hearing, and say he hoped to work out a house-arrest bail package with the feds for his client.

Federal prosecutor Jim Walden, who along with colleague Christopher Blank, wouldn't discuss any specifics of Gulino's murder, didn't seem interested. He said he believed Spero was a danger to the community and should be detained without bail.

Simon Dedaj, 35, (right) was convicted of second-degree murder in the deaths of bouncer Michael Greco and waiter Jonathan Segal. He faces 50 years to life when he is sentenced next month.

Victor Dedaj, 39, was convicted of first-degree manslaughter in the death of Segal, a waiter who came to the aid of Greco during a wild barroom brawl at the trendy Upper East Side strip joint in 1996. Victor (left) faces 12 1/2- to- 25 years.

Prosecutor Dan McGillycuddy is expected to seek the maximum sentences and Supreme Court Justice Edwin Torres is expected to give him what he wants.

The brothers, whose first trial ended with the jury hung 10-2 for conviction, would have fared much worse if the Gambinos had their  way with them for putting the family's lucrative extortion schemes at Scores under a microscope. Plus, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, unlike the Gambino family and many law enforcement officials,  does not believe in capital punishment.

Key evidence was testimony about the murders by former mob associate William Marshall, evidence that was backed up by Marshall's tape  recorded blow-by-blow description of the slayings to his brother a few hours after the killings.