“What’re you gonna do now, tough guy?” 

Those were the words hanging in the air 30 years ago after rookie Genovese soldier Michael (Mikey Cigars) Coppola (right) allegedly pulled the trigger of his silencer-equipped .22 pistol once, then again, and nothing happened as the gun misfired twice.

That’s when the intended victim, mobster John (Johnny Cokes) Lardiere, uttered his mocking retort, as he moved towards his would-be killer. 

It was a classic line – one that has lived in Gang Land lore for decades since the Easter Sunday, 1977 showdown between the two gangsters on Route 22 in Bridgewater, NJ. Unfortunately for Lardiere, Coppola had a deadly non-verbal answer. He quickly retrieved a trusty .38 caliber revolver from an ankle holster and fired five shots into Johnny Cokes, (left) killing him instantly, according to court records. 

Eleven years ago, when New Jersey state prosecutors first raised the issue of Johnny Cokes’ demise with Coppola, he also had a non-verbal response. He went on the lam and 

disappeared into the underworld – until he was nabbed last week.

Now, as Mikey Cigars awaits trial for Lardiere’s murder in Somerset County Court, he’s got other problems as well: Sources say the FBI and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have also zeroed in on him as a suspect in the murder of Genovese mobster Lawrence Ricci, (left) who was killed in October, 2005 while he was on trial in Brooklyn for labor racketeering. 

And, sources said, Coppola’s suspected role in the execution of Ricci is what led to his arrest Friday evening by state and federal agents on Manhattan’s West Side, not far from an apartment where he had been staying and where authorities later seized about $15,000. As Gang Land reported last week, the feds suspect that powerful Genovese capo Tino Fiumara, (right) a longtime close associate of Mikey Cigars, authorized the Ricci rubout.

Information about Coppola’s whereabouts, sources said, came from a court-ordered wiretap that enabled the feds to determine that Mikey Cigars, who disappeared in August 1996 when he feared he would be charged with Lardiere’s murder, just might be in the area of Broadway and West 74^th street on Friday evening. 

It’s not easy looking for a fugitive whose mug hasn’t been seen in 11 years. But when an eagle-eyed rookie FBI agent on his first such assignment saw a short,

unassuming guy walk into a health food store, he perked up. “Hey, that could be the guy,” he said.

A “more seasoned” member of the stake-out team, an NYPD detective, was dispatched inside to eyeball the suspect, and when he exited he gave his state and federal colleagues the high sign: It was him.

A few minutes later, when Coppola (left) was confronted on the street, he gave a New Jersey investigator a phony name, sources said. But when the investigator frowned and said, “C’mon Mike, we got you,” the gangster grudgingly conceded his identity and surrendered peacefully. He was not armed, and no weapons were found at the apartment he was using, sources said.

On April 10, 1977, after he allegedly killed Johnny Cokes, Mikey Cigars threw down the two guns he was carrying – the murder weapon (right) and the silencer-equipped .22 (left) – and tossed the ankle holster and a cap he was wearing nearby. They were recovered by police, and stored away until cops got their first tip on the identity of the killer.

That came 19 years later from turncoat Luchese soldier Thomas Ricciardi in discussions with numerous law enforcement officials, including detective Paul

Smith, a now retired supervisor for the New Jersey Organized Crime and Racketeering Bureau.

Ricciardi recalled that Coppola had related his role in Johnny Cokes’ murder to him and another Luchese soldier, Michael Taccetta, (left) at a Newark bar in 1983 and that all three had laughed about Mikey Cigars’s effective response to the dead man’s mocking taunt.

When Smith dusted off the evidence, and the FBI extracted a DNA sample from hair on the discarded cap, (right) the New Jersey Attorney General’s office subpoenaed a DNA sample from Coppola, who disappeared rather than show up for a scheduled hearing on the matter on August 13, 1996.

At his arraignment Tuesday, Coppola, 60, was ordered held on $1 million cash bail.

From knowledgeable sources, Gang Land has determined that Coppola was spared an easy jab on his arrest last week. No one asked Mikey Cigars the obvious question: “What are you going to do now, tough guy?”

The father and son both cried like babies at the old man’s sentencing last week. But when it was over they both had big smiles on their faces as the woman in their life and dozens of federal agents and prosecutors gathered around them at a veritable love fest in Brooklyn Federal Court.

The occasion was the sentencing of Michael (Cookie) D’Urso, a turncoat Genovese crime family associate who wore a wire for three years and helped the feds convict more than 70 mobsters and associates, including the family’s late boss, Vincent (Chin) Gigante, and two acting bosses, Liborio (Barney) Bellomo (above) and Ernest Muscarella. (right)

D’Urso, 37, burst into tears when Judge Sterling Johnson rewarded him with a sentence of five years probation and a mandatory fine of $200 for his role in the murder of a young mob associate 11 years ago.

D’Urso’s son, about two and a half, cried and shouted, “I want my daddy,” as he heard his father telling Judge Johnson that he was “sorry and ashamed” for the

crimes that he committed and the pain he had caused his victims.

“I have nothing but bad memories of that life,” said D’Urso, who miraculously survived an execution attempt when he was shot in the head at point blank range at a card game at a mob social club in 1994, and returned to his life of crime for four more years before he turned on the mob. 

In 1996, he supplied the murder weapon and drove a getaway car for the execution slaying of John Borrelli by notorious Colombo mobster Vito Guzzo, who is now serving a 36 year sentence for several murders, including the Borrelli slaying.

D’Urso’s testimony led to federal murder convictions – that were later overturned – of two mob associates allegedly behind his shooting, Carmelo (Carmine Pizza) Polito (left) and Mario (The Baker) Fortunato. (right)  

D’Urso is scheduled to testify against them in state court later this year. First, however, New York’s Court of Appeals must decide that a retrial would not violate double jeopardy provisions of state law.