Like during his navy days in the steel cage, Nick performed without question. He got the job done. True to his brother"s wishes, he mastered the art of blending in, and for the next thirty years, Nick would operate under the law enforcement radar.
Unlike Uncle Nick"s swift transition from driver to hit man, my ascent into my father"s street crew was a gradual process. When your father asks you to do something, you a.s.sume that what he"s telling you is best for you and the family. He was the master at using people for what they were good at. He was a quick read.
He could sense their strengths and their weaknesses. My uncle"s strength was dependability and commitment. But under pressure, there were times my uncle didn"t think as clearly as my dad would have liked. Dad knew that I thought like he did and that I could handle myself. He could sense their strengths and their weaknesses. My uncle"s strength was dependability and commitment. But under pressure, there were times my uncle didn"t think as clearly as my dad would have liked. Dad knew that I thought like he did and that I could handle myself.
Like my uncle, I was taught the art of blending in through a series of street-smart, day-to-day rules. Very few of the street crews would be as careful and deliberate as my father"s. His rules ranged from the use of common sense to subtle tactics that kept law enforcement confused and at bay. He set the example of his prime rule: Remain low-key.
I was instructed, Never flash a roll of cash in public. Don"t be a hot shot-s.p.a.ccone-and if you are handling or exchanging a large sum of money, conduct the transaction under the table. I learned to talk with my hands in front of my mouth, a habit I still practice. While talking at a phone booth, I made sure my back was to the phone box, with a 180-degree view of the street. I would carry a small .22 five-shot pistol in my pocket that I could toss away should the cops arrive unexpectedly. If I suspected I was being followed, I drove slowly and made a lot of turns with the signal on. If a car pulled up next to me, I was taught to stare back intently. If the driver didn"t look back, he was probably tailing me.
When my father was followed by undercover agents, to throw them off, he would visit places where he wouldn"t normally go. Once he ended up in a Greek restaurant and took a seat at the counter and ordered a meal. He asked to speak with the owner, and when the owner came out, he shook his hand.
"I gotta tell ya, this is the best restaurant I ever ate in, and I thank you very much."
After he left the restaurant, the cops stormed in and grilled the owner.
"We know you were paying him money. What did he say to you?"
"He told me I had good food."
Because of my dad, whenever I leave a hotel room, I keep the lights on, turn up the television, and on my way out of my room, I always say, "See you guys later." lights on, turn up the television, and on my way out of my room, I always say, "See you guys later."
Although he loved and owned a lot of automobiles, my father drove Fords and Chevys instead of Mercedeses, and he expected the same of his a.s.sociates. In his eyes, a top-of-the-line Chevy, Ford, or Buick was preferable to a Mercedes or Cadillac. It was a matter of perception.
His other rules included mixing up the meeting and collection locations on a week-to-week basis, even if the sites were only a block or two apart. Crew members would meet their clients on side streets that contained lots of bushes and trees. They avoided the cliched gangster scenario of two guys loitering on a corner and looking around with their hands in their pockets.
While walking the streets, I would leave my hands outside outside of my pockets. When hooking up with fellow crew members or clients, there were two things you had to have. The first was the cash and the second was the paperwork. The cash was folded into a standard-sized envelope unless it was an extraordinarily large amount. We would walk side by side as we made the exchange. After it was transferred we would shake hands, then give each other a hug. of my pockets. When hooking up with fellow crew members or clients, there were two things you had to have. The first was the cash and the second was the paperwork. The cash was folded into a standard-sized envelope unless it was an extraordinarily large amount. We would walk side by side as we made the exchange. After it was transferred we would shake hands, then give each other a hug.
Juice loan amounts were entered into the books in code. A check mark would be $50, a circle, $10, and a slash, $5. Three check marks, a circle, and a slash would mean a payment of $165 in cash. If a client wanted money, how much? If a client was late, why? I would keep track of the information and pa.s.s it on to my father at weekly sit-downs.
Because it was preferable to work under the cover of darkness, most of my monetary exchanges were done at night. In the summer months, we would meet later, and in the winter months, earlier. A great deal of business was conducted walking outside. Another of my dad"s rules was never to stand in the same spot, in case somebody was nearby with a listening device. After meeting on a corner and taking a short walk, we would separate and go off in opposite directions. If a member of the crew was under surveillance, the FBI would have to decide who was to be followed, since agents commonly worked in pairs. surveillance, the FBI would have to decide who was to be followed, since agents commonly worked in pairs.
Another of his rules was that too much conversation with a customer was fatal. That is what brought feared hit man Frankie Schweihs down. He couldn"t help himself and was recorded bragging at length to p.o.r.n operator William "Red" Wemette, whom he was extorting.
Collecting a street tax at the front counter in the presence of an establishment"s clientele was unacceptable. Payments were collected in a discreet spot with only the princ.i.p.al present. The hug was an important gesture. It would conclude the transaction or collection, and serve to confuse law enforcement by giving the appearance that the huggers were friends. It might tell the "hugger" whether his victim, the "huggee," was wearing a wire or carrying a weapon. My father was concerned about wiretaps, one of the reasons he preferred to talk with the television blasting, or to walk outside where there was a great deal of ambient noise.
Like most of the bosses, my father forbade members of his crew to deal drugs, which he felt were a magnet for law enforcement. If a drug dealer was caught operating with money from a Calabrese juice loan, the crew could face serious conspiracy charges, which carried stiff prison sentences.
An a.s.sociate of ours once brought in a bunch of new customers at two hundred to seven hundred dollars each per week. Thirty guys on the juice. But when Dad found out that they were dealing or doing drugs, rather than confronting them on the issue, our a.s.sociate ate the money, wiped their debts clean, and sent them on their way with a message: Don"t come around again.
People on juice were either businessmen or blue-collar guys who gambled and had suffered a few bad weeks. But most of the clients were businessmen who made a decent living and needed quick financing. To avoid the difficulty of dealing with a bank and the loan application process, they would come to the Calabrese crew, which would charge twenty-five dollars per thousand per week, or 2.5 percent.
The crew might loan out ten thousand or even twenty thousand, knowing that repayment was more than likely. As a backup, we kept t.i.tles (and keys) to cars and houses. Customers signed promissory notes, which was more the standard. At the height of the juice loan business, the crew had upwards of a million dollars on the street. My dad was reported to be one of the biggest loan sharks in Chicago. And he was.
The Calabrese crew had a simple business model. My father was on the top with final word, followed by Ronnie Jarrett (when he wasn"t locked up). Uncle Nick and I gathered and organized the collections. Later, when the family "went away," Ronnie Jarrett oversaw the crew"s street operations. Approximately fifteen guys-or agents-saw to loan, gambling, and extortion collections. During pro football season and during various playoffs and tournaments, the crew added more agents to collect more action. Bookmaking for college and pro football, long a staple in the gambling world, was highly profitable.
The Calabrese crew compensated the Outfit with a predetermined share and became partners with bookie networks and their subagents, laying claim to guys operating in certain territories in the Chicago area. The Calabrese crew would split the action fifty-fifty with the head of the bookmaking ring, or else the ring could pay a street tax or bankroll their bookmakers with Calabrese juice loans.
By lending money, my father built a network of influential acquaintances-politicians, celebrities, and businessmen-who were only a phone call away. Family members, cousins, aunts, and uncles might stash his money in an account for him under their name. While it was my dad"s money, they"d keep the interest. If he needed the princ.i.p.al back, it was there waiting because n.o.body would consider stealing from him.
If a businessman took out a juice loan of forty thousand to sixty thousand dollars every few weeks and paid it back, that raised a red flag. My father needed to know more about that person. Could he be a future target of opportunity? What amount of money was he making? What was his net worth? What was his Achilles" heel?
If he liked girls, ply him with hookers. If it was gambling, offer him a credit line. The idea was to corrupt the legitimate, and open the door to possible extortion. If he liked girls, ply him with hookers. If it was gambling, offer him a credit line. The idea was to corrupt the legitimate, and open the door to possible extortion.
In addition to juice loans, gambling, and the collection of street taxes, extortion was another of the Chinatown crew"s moneymakers. One example was how the crew extorted the Connie"s Pizza chain by adding Frank Calabrese, Sr., to the company payroll for many years as a "delivery consultant." The owner of Connie"s Pizza, Jimmy Stolfe, was the brother-in-law of my father"s first partner, Larry Stubitsch.
Setting up a successful extortion racket was time-consuming and relied on a crew member"s psychological prowess and the ability to present it as a business proposition. I was instructed to hang out with the sons of debtors who owed my father money, so he could stay on top of their family situation. A typical extortion technique begins by planting fear in the mind of the victim. Unbeknownst to the victim, the crew member plays the dual role of predator and protector. Here"s a typical extortion scheme: Let"s say you and I are hanging out together. I"m going to get close to you and take you out to a few places. I"ll introduce you to the guys who own the restaurants, people whom we might already have the "arm" on. By now I"ve already profiled you and I know that you have a lot of money or that your business is doing well. While we"re out drinking, you"ll confide in me, and I"ll give you some background on myself.
You"ll feel like you know me; then a couple of guys will come around to your business and say, "You have to pay us two hundred thousand dollars, or we"re going to shut you down." Based on the way these guys dress and talk, you know who they are. You"re going to run to me: "I"ve got a problem." I"ll ask you, "What have you been doing? Were you bragging? Have you done anything wrong? Did you get somebody angry? Let me snoop around and see what I can find out. I"ll get back to you." Most people are easy marks. Everybody has secrets and skeletons in his closet, things that are shady.
The entire time I"m working both sides of the scam.
The whole time it"s me. I"ll report back and say, "Look, I don"t know what you did, but somebody is p.i.s.sed off. They want money, but because you"re a friend of mine, I can get it knocked down to a hundred thousand, and if you pay me two hundred a month, n.o.body will bother you again. These are rough guys. You make the call. I don"t care what you decide. You asked me to help you, so I"m just telling you."
It wasn"t long before I picked up the tricks of the collecting trade from my father and uncle: raising your voice a notch or two for emphasis, or getting in somebody"s face. They felt that if you hurt your debtor, you damaged his ability to pay. They also believed that it wasn"t necessary to hurt someone unless you were ordered to do so by a boss. If you"re going to hurt a customer, how are you going to gain access to his money? The rule was: People deserve a chance as long as they"re trying to pay. Sometimes all it takes is an adjustment of the terms, in my dad"s favor, of course. For instance, pay only ten dollars a week and essentially make the loan two thousand dollars instead of one thousand. Make sure you don"t miss a week or else the princ.i.p.al is going to go up an extra thousand.
And that was my father"s genius, coming off as scary but reasonable. Today, the banks and the credit card companies have adopted a similar method. It"s called the "minimum payment."
I remember the Sunday morning in the fall of 1983 when my father and Uncle Nick were going to get made. I was washing the car in the driveway and they were both standing there with suits on. I rarely saw them wear suits, but I do remember my dad saying, "We"re in now. We"re part of the group and we"re going for dinner. It"s like a ceremony."
Street crews have made millions of dollars for the Outfit. They are the lifeblood of the syndicate. Although the dominant mob crews are named for key areas around Chicago, they do not necessarily operate by strict geographic boundaries. The key Outfit crews-Elmwood Park, Melrose Park, Rush Street, Chinatown/26th Street (the Calabrese domain), Cicero, Chicago Heights, and Grand Avenue-handled their rackets, which included juice loans, gambling, vice, protection, street tax, extortion, stolen goods, and chop shops.
There were many fearsome gangsters working alongside my father who were part of the 26th Street/Chinatown crew. They included South Side lieutenant Johnny "Apes" Monteleone, hit man disguised as union organizer John Fecarotta, Jimmy LaPietra (the Hook"s younger brother), street soldier Frank Santucci, and dreaded hit man and collector Ronnie Jarrett. When Chinatown capo Angelo LaPietra received an order from the bosses, Joseph "Joey Doves" Aiuppa and West Side underboss James "Turk" Torello, that somebody needed to be killed, he had an impressive array of talent to draw from.
After the murder of juice collector Michael "Hambone" Albergo, the Calabrese street crew went from loan sharking and extortion to murder incorporated. Starting in the 1970s, the Calabrese brothers became blood-in-blood-out members of LaPietra and Aiuppa"s elite hit squad fraternity. The other favorite hit team was Butchie Petrocelli"s Wild Bunch. With fastidious planning and stalking skills, and aided by loyal henchmen like Johnny "Apes" Monteleone, John "Big Stoop" Fecarotta, Ronnie Jarrett, Frankie Furio, and four-hundred-pound thug Frank "Gumba" Saladino, my father"s crew became Angelo"s favorite go-to guys. As far as Angelo was concerned, the more low-key a hitter was, the better, and the Hook relished that neither my dad nor my uncle dressed the part or talked trash like Fecarotta and Petrocelli did. While both Dad and Nick were ambitious and organized, they weren"t climbing over the backs of their underbosses for a rapid rise. Petrocelli was audacious and publicly claimed that one day he he would lead the Outfit. He was marked for death because he had been would lead the Outfit. He was marked for death because he had been skimming from collections and extorting victims without approval. Petrocelli also violated Outfit protocol by hosting hooker parties at the Amba.s.sador East Hotel and becoming too visible. skimming from collections and extorting victims without approval. Petrocelli also violated Outfit protocol by hosting hooker parties at the Amba.s.sador East Hotel and becoming too visible.
In June 1976, Paul Haggerty, a twenty-seven-year-old thief, was suspected of robbing a Chicago suburban jewelry store that was tied to the Outfit. After Turk Torello and Angelo met with my father regarding the situation, a plan was put into motion. My dad warned Uncle Nick that the two of them would be busy for a while. They staked out the South Loop halfway house on Indiana Avenue where Haggerty lived after his stretch in the penitentiary. He and my uncle monitored Haggerty"s routine. They watched his habits, where he worked, what buses he took, and where he hung out. Then the Calabrese crew made their move. Gumba Saladino grabbed Haggerty outside his halfway house, threw a few punches, and stuffed him into the backseat of a Ford Mustang with Ronnie Jarrett at the wheel. They brought the stunned Haggerty to Jarrett"s mother-in-law"s garage in Bridgeport.
After a particularly rough session, Uncle Nick was a.s.signed to keep watch on Haggerty while Jarrett and my father returned with Angelo and Turk, who asked Haggerty a few questions. When my father and Jarrett left again with Angelo and Turk, Uncle Nick was put back in charge of Haggerty, who was handcuffed, with his eyes and mouth taped. My uncle brought Haggerty water and helped him to the bathroom.
"I guess only Batman and Robin can save me now," Haggerty told Nick.
By the time my dad and Jarrett returned with a car they had stolen from a nearby movie theater parking lot, Haggerty"s time had run out. As Nick and Ronnie held Haggerty down, my father slipped a rope around his neck and strangled him to death. As was Michael Albergo"s fate, he slit Haggerty"s throat, making certain he was gone. On June 24, 1976, a week after Haggerty"s disappearance, the stolen auto was discovered with the jewel thief"s body stuffed in the trunk. His murder would not be solved anytime soon.
Angelo LaPietra"s dark sense of humor (as well as his admiration for my father) surfaced during the 1977 hit on gangster Sam Annerino. Annerino was suspected of being an informant, and his demise was a.s.signed to two hit teams, Butch Petrocelli"s Wild Bunch and a group that consisted of my father, my uncle, Ronnie Jarrett, and Gumba Saladino. Shorty LaMantia"s job was to lure Annerino to a predetermined spot, which happened to be an empty building that would later become the Old Neighborhood Italian American Club on 26th Street. When Shorty wasn"t able to get Sam to the site, he showed up with Angelo LaPietra. Once Shorty and Angelo walked through the door, one of the hit crew grabbed Shorty by the neck. Shorty turned milk white, thinking for my father) surfaced during the 1977 hit on gangster Sam Annerino. Annerino was suspected of being an informant, and his demise was a.s.signed to two hit teams, Butch Petrocelli"s Wild Bunch and a group that consisted of my father, my uncle, Ronnie Jarrett, and Gumba Saladino. Shorty LaMantia"s job was to lure Annerino to a predetermined spot, which happened to be an empty building that would later become the Old Neighborhood Italian American Club on 26th Street. When Shorty wasn"t able to get Sam to the site, he showed up with Angelo LaPietra. Once Shorty and Angelo walked through the door, one of the hit crew grabbed Shorty by the neck. Shorty turned milk white, thinking he he was the one slated to be b.u.mped off. But Angelo laughed, and a.s.sured him that everything was okay, they were just "practicing" on him. was the one slated to be b.u.mped off. But Angelo laughed, and a.s.sured him that everything was okay, they were just "practicing" on him.
But pointing to my father"s lineup, Angelo remarked to Shorty, "Take a look at these guys and remember; these are real men."
After a few hours spent waiting for Sam to arrive, my dad"s crew gave up and retired to Ronnie"s mother-in-law"s house on South Lowe to await their next order. A short while later, my father received a message: Sam Annerino had been shotgunned by three masked gunmen, Butch"s boys, on the corner of 106th and Cicero Avenue, in front of Mirabelli"s Furniture in the suburb of Oak Lawn in broad daylight. The town motto of Oak Lawn was "Be Prudent, Be Safe." Annerino was neither.
On the Sat.u.r.day night before Christmas of 1977, a highly skilled crew of jewel thieves threw a tarpaulin over the alley side of Levinson"s Jewelers on North Clark Street. Using an acetylene torch, they cut through the bars on a second-floor bathroom window and broke open five vaults. The crew worked all day Sunday and into the early hours of Monday, leaving behind in the alley a foot of water used to cool the torches. They walked away with over a million-dollar haul of jewels, furs, and cash, but they neglected the largest safe, which held the coveted seventy-carat Idol"s Eye diamond.
After contacting the police, Levinson made a phone call to Tony "Big Tuna" Accardo. The following day, over lunch at Chez Paul with Accardo, Levinson asked for help. The Levinsons and the Accardos were close family friends, so close that when the Levinsons" son was born, Tony presented the child with a T-shirt emblazoned with the moniker "Little Tuna" on the front. Paul with Accardo, Levinson asked for help. The Levinsons and the Accardos were close family friends, so close that when the Levinsons" son was born, Tony presented the child with a T-shirt emblazoned with the moniker "Little Tuna" on the front.
It was clear that the only guy who had the capability for a heist of this magnitude was John Mendell, an alarm expert and electronics whiz. The FBI and mob insiders knew that he had the expertise and chutzpah to pull off such a caper. Accardo, after checking with his underbosses and Tony "the Ant" Spilotro, came to the same conclusion. The Levinson heist had Johnny Mendell"s fingerprints all over it.
Accardo sent word that the Levinson job was not Outfit-sanctioned and wouldn"t be tolerated and that the score was to be returned to him personally. A panicked Mendell went on the lam to consider his next move, stashing the loot in the rafters of his business. When Mendell and his crew complied with Accardo"s demand by returning the merchandise, there was discontent among the group of burglars that they had nothing to show for their work. Deluding himself that he had "power in numbers," Mendell and his gang planned a sequel far more daring than the original heist.
On a cold January morning in 1978, Michael Volpe opened the door to 1407 Ashland in River Forest. Volpe, Tony Accardo"s personal caretaker, would periodically check on the house to make certain everything was in order while the Accardos wintered in Palm Springs, California. With his first glimpse, Volpe knew that this was not the immaculate and fastidious Accardo residence he was used to. As Volpe gazed into the mirrored foyer, he could see something was amiss. Drawers were overturned. Furniture was askew. A pair of pants lay in the middle of the floor, with pockets turned inside out. As it turned out, Mendell and fellow burglar Steven Garcia had struck again. The other members of the gang were too frightened to take on "the Boss."
Volpe, a stately Italian immigrant in his late seventies with white hair and a slim build who spoke in broken English, knew enough not to call the cops. Instead, he dialed his employer in Palm Springs. The next morning, a livid Accardo boarded a flight back to Chicago to deal with this shocking intrusion. Palm Springs. The next morning, a livid Accardo boarded a flight back to Chicago to deal with this shocking intrusion.
No one burglarized the Boss and lived to tell the tale. At the time, the Outfit had many sources within the Chicago Police Department to help track down the perpetrators. William Hanhardt, for one, was the mobbed-up former Chief of Detectives for the CPD and after retirement a convicted jewel thief himself. He alone could provide the Outfit with enough information to round up the usual suspects.
The first suspect to "go missing" was Bernard Ryan, thirty-four, found with four bullets lodged in the back of his head. With a police scanner at his side, used to monitor street action, Ryan was a well-established jewel thief and convicted burglar. Next was Steven Garcia, stabbed with an ice pick numerous times, his throat slit ear to ear.
My father, Uncle Nick, Gumba, and Jarrett were a.s.signed to grab Mendell. Jarrett, an experienced burglar himself, located Mendell and brought him in. It was a cla.s.sic lure-your-friend-to-his-murder scenario. Jarrett had previously worked with Mendell and wanted to show him the fruits of a recent heist stored in his mother-in-law"s garage-the same place where Haggerty was killed. It was a trap. There was no score, only my father, Uncle Nick, and Gumba lying in wait. On January 16, 1978, Mendell was severely beaten by Saladino and strangled by my dad, and his throat was slit by Nick. Afterward, his body was unceremoniously dumped into the trunk of his car.
The Outfit wanted to send a message from Accardo that no one was exempt; all the partic.i.p.ants were to be killed. The Outfit"s revenge campaign continued. Vincent Moretti and the innocent Donald Renno were rounded up. Moretti was suspected of being part of Mendell"s crew and was known for stealing and fencing items without giving the mob its cut. Moretti, like Hanhardt, was a CPD cop gone bad.
Moretti and Renno were ambushed by two Chinatown crews after John Fecarotta lured them to Cicero on January 31, 1978, on the pretext of arranging a meeting for a deal to manufacture pizza boxes. Fecarotta was joined by Outfit hit man Tony Borsellino, Johnny "Apes" Monteleone, and Butch Petrocelli, who shared a hand in executing Renno, while Jarrett, Gumba, my father, and Uncle Nick allegedly took care of Moretti. This time it was my uncle who applied the rope around Moretti"s neck while the four-hundred-pound Gumba joined in by mercilessly bouncing up and down on him. My father called the murder the "Strangers in the Night" killing because Sinatra"s song was playing in the background. boxes. Fecarotta was joined by Outfit hit man Tony Borsellino, Johnny "Apes" Monteleone, and Butch Petrocelli, who shared a hand in executing Renno, while Jarrett, Gumba, my father, and Uncle Nick allegedly took care of Moretti. This time it was my uncle who applied the rope around Moretti"s neck while the four-hundred-pound Gumba joined in by mercilessly bouncing up and down on him. My father called the murder the "Strangers in the Night" killing because Sinatra"s song was playing in the background.
Both Moretti"s and Renno"s bodies were found in the backseat of a parked car in Cicero with multiple stab wounds to the head and neck, a clear message that they had been tortured. Renno had nothing to do with the burglary but had the misfortune of being Moretti"s friend. They were together when Moretti was grabbed. A coroner"s autopsy indicated that Moretti had been stomped on and worked over. His face was unrecognizable. His ribs were broken and his kidneys were ruptured.
In February of 1978, John Mendell"s body turned up on the South Side on a subzero day in an Oldsmobile sporting numerous parking tickets flapping in the Chicago breeze. Police opened the trunk and found him frozen stiff, icicles caking his eyes and mouth. His throat had been slit and a rope was wrapped around his neck. Mendell wore only a brown sweater and his underwear. His hands and feet were tied behind his back.
The entire Levinson"s Jewelers affair was proof positive not only that the Outfit enjoyed free rein over Chicago to conduct its business, but that its style of vengeance had gone over the top. The hits ordered by the Boss had every burglar in town on the run. Bobby "the Beak" Siegel, a six-foot-two, 220-pound convicted murderer and jewel thief who claimed to be related to Bugsy Siegel, became concerned that he was next on the hit list. He went to his lawyer and asked for a polygraph test to show the bosses he wasn"t involved in the Accardo break-in. The test saved his life. He was later also able to testify against the mobsters because of the test.
Just as the body count was subsiding, Michael Volpe, Accardo"s caretaker, was called before a grand jury. Speculation was rife that before Carl Walsh, Accardo"s attorney, could arrive, Volpe told more than he should have. Five days later, the seventy-five-year-old inexplicably vanished, never to be seen again. that before Carl Walsh, Accardo"s attorney, could arrive, Volpe told more than he should have. Five days later, the seventy-five-year-old inexplicably vanished, never to be seen again.
The Calabrese crew had become an Outfit secret weapon. While my father carried out his orders, he felt that Accardo had taken the Levinson heist a little too personal. Leaving a trail of corpses in parked cars around town created a firestorm, and the press had a field day with screaming headlines about tortured bodies. Such was my father"s concern, and it was warranted. Guys like him didn"t need the heat.
But the Calabrese crew didn"t refrain from imposing their own treachery on any customer who crossed them. Before the Levinson murders, on March 15, 1977, the smelly, decomposed body of Henry Cosentino, a two-bit hood, was found in a police auto impound, his head resting on a box of hamburger patties in an abandoned car on West Division Street. According to testimony, Cosentino was killed as a result of a juice loan gone horribly wrong. After Cosentino"s brother took out a loan from Gumba and my father, an argument ensued, during which Henry shot Gumba in the leg. My father and Jarrett grabbed Cosentino and, in trademark fashion, strangled him and slashed his throat.
Uncle Nick was not present for the Cosentino slaying. He was out on a date, which didn"t stop his older brother from berating him later for failing to show up for the a.s.signment.
Throughout the 1970s, criminals operating in Chicago, be they burglars, bookmakers, or thieves, paid a "street tax" to the most ominous quartet of Outfit strongmen: Tony Borsellino, Harry Aleman, Jerry Scarpelli, and Butch Petrocelli. In return for his tribute, a bookmaker would get a phoned warning to clear out his office to avoid an upcoming police raid. The information came directly from corrupt cops throughout most of the police districts that the Outfit had on its payroll. Guys like Petrocelli, Borsellino, Scarpelli, and Aleman survived off their ability to intimidate.
My father had particular disdain for Petrocelli, whom he dismissed as a blowhard and bully. On the other hand, Dad showed enormous respect for Tony "Bors," whom he saw as a stand-up guy. "Tough Tony" reportedly whacked thirteen guys for the mob. Butch and Tony were continually at odds. Butch had more clout with the upper ranks, and he bent the ear of Rocky Infelise, boss of the West Side crew, that Borsellino was not to be trusted and that he was cooperating with law enforcement. There was no indication that Borsellino was a snitch. After discrepancies arose over the amount of money the Wild Bunch was supposed to turn in to the Outfit, with Butch stealing the cash, the blame was placed on Tough Tony. guy. "Tough Tony" reportedly whacked thirteen guys for the mob. Butch and Tony were continually at odds. Butch had more clout with the upper ranks, and he bent the ear of Rocky Infelise, boss of the West Side crew, that Borsellino was not to be trusted and that he was cooperating with law enforcement. There was no indication that Borsellino was a snitch. After discrepancies arose over the amount of money the Wild Bunch was supposed to turn in to the Outfit, with Butch stealing the cash, the blame was placed on Tough Tony.
Borsellino approached my dad, wanting to jump crews and come work for him in Chinatown. They spoke about Tony"s problems with Butch, and how Petrocelli was holding back money and spreading rumors. Dad was sympathetic to Borsellino"s situation. He welcomed having Tony as a member of his crew. At the same time, he couldn"t risk rocking the boat by bringing him on without an okay. It was decided that he would speak to Angelo on Tony"s behalf.
My father sat with Angelo to explain that Tony was being railroaded by Butch and that the hit should be stopped. But the Hook was in no mood for mercy and wouldn"t intervene. According to Angelo, the only way my father could save his friend would be to step in and take his place. Not long after their sit-down, Borsellino was found in a Frankfort, Illinois, farm field with five bullet holes in the back of his head.
By the end of 1980, Butchie Petrocelli"s act was getting tiresome to the Outfit hierarchy. He was suspected of skimming his collection money while shaking down street thieves and robbers without Outfit clearance. Worse, Petrocelli crossed the line by coming on to the wives of Outfit members who were away in prison. As his flamboyant behavior on the street drew more heat, the shoe dropped when Angelo discovered that a hundred thousand dollars of the cash Butch had raised one Christmas at a Gold Coast hotel to benefit his imprisoned friend Harry Aleman"s family had ended up in Butch"s pocket. LaPietra and Joe Ferriola, the boss of the Cicero crew (and Aleman"s uncle), bristled at the thought of Petrocelli charging each guest a thousand bucks and dipping into the proceeds. thought of Petrocelli charging each guest a thousand bucks and dipping into the proceeds.
On December 30, Petrocelli was whistled in to meet with LaPietra at a Cicero social club. A block from their social club meeting spot, he was grabbed and dragged into a storefront office as Frankie Furio and Johnny Apes waited outside in their cars. Evidence at trial concluded that Uncle Nick, along with Frank Santucci and Jimmy LaPietra, held Petrocelli down while my father gave him the Calabrese necktie.
According to my uncle, Petrocelli"s body was thrown into the backseat of Butch"s red four-door 1977 Ford LTD and abandoned by my dad and Furio in an alleyway. When the pair returned, Jerry Scarpelli, who had accompanied Butch, now needed to search the car to retrieve his keys.
After my father, my uncle, and Scarpelli returned, LaPietra ordered Nick and my dad to go back a third third time, this time to burn the body and the LTD. After emptying two large cans of Zippo lighter fluid, my uncle tossed a lit book of matches into the car. Butch"s car windows were blackened, but the automobile didn"t properly incinerate. Nick forgot to crack a window open to oxygenate the fire. His failure to understand a basic tenet of physics led to some concern that Butch had survived. (He hadn"t.) time, this time to burn the body and the LTD. After emptying two large cans of Zippo lighter fluid, my uncle tossed a lit book of matches into the car. Butch"s car windows were blackened, but the automobile didn"t properly incinerate. Nick forgot to crack a window open to oxygenate the fire. His failure to understand a basic tenet of physics led to some concern that Butch had survived. (He hadn"t.) Petrocelli"s car was ditched just before a heavy snowfall. Three months later, in March of 1981, Petrocelli"s vehicle was found, his body thawed after the winter snows had melted.
Some families eat to live. The Calabrese family lived to eat. Eating was an event and a daily celebration. My father loved food, restaurants, and cooking so much that eating could supersede business and his fervent love of money. There were rules attached: Do not talk business at the dinner table or in the car or in the house unless it was in his office with the television on. Information was doled out on a need-to-know basis. As a clever precaution, if Dad told a story, he"d tell a slightly different version to each person. If something got back to him, he would know who in his family or crew was the leak. person. If something got back to him, he would know who in his family or crew was the leak.
Dad loved to eat in the neighborhood restaurants and ma-and-pa joints (sitting facing the front door). His taste for food spanned the globe. When his family visited San Francisco, he scoured Chinatown, asking not where the tourists ate, but where the Chinese locals dined. Our family wound up eating a great Chinese meal in a small place, the only non-Asians in the dining room. In Chicago, he loved the lamb dishes in one of his favorite haunts in Greektown.
One day I came home from school to find five dead lambs, heads and all, hanging from hooks in the garage. "Your father is having Uncle Ang over to barbecue the lambs in the yard this weekend," my mother said.
Uncle Ang had a reputation for cooking the best lamb dishes. When asked if he ate the heads, he replied, "That"s the best part, especially the eyes."
Once I graduated from high school, my father landed me a job with the city. After working the summer of my senior year on the curb and gutter crew, I graduated to the sewers as a full-time city employee. While I attended junior college for a few cla.s.ses, I worked for the Department of Sewers.
When I was working curbs and gutters, there were two crews. One was the finishing crew, whose work included putting in new sidewalks and curbs. The guys from Chinatown and Taylor Street were a.s.signed to that crew, where Dad had the most pull. We"d ride in big dump trucks into the worst neighborhoods, the projects. For the Department of Sewers, I started out as a laborer and worked my way up to crew foreman. Our responsibilities included cleaning, maintaining, and "rodding" the city sewers. Our city crew would hand-clean sewers and turn on hydrants to flush them out. n.o.body works too hard for the city, but I got into it. The work ethic I was taught was when you did something, you took pride, whether it was laying sidewalk, cleaning sewers, or collecting money.
I spent much of 1978 and 1979 working on a "hand crew."
Workdays weren"t too hard until I was transferred to the airport, where I worked on a vector, a large truck that sucked the dirt and leaves out of the sewers, starting at six o"clock in the morning. An old-timer Italian took a liking to me and brought me onto his crew, where I learned about operating heavy equipment. This old-timer was formerly a bookie for the Outfit who went legit. Workdays weren"t too hard until I was transferred to the airport, where I worked on a vector, a large truck that sucked the dirt and leaves out of the sewers, starting at six o"clock in the morning. An old-timer Italian took a liking to me and brought me onto his crew, where I learned about operating heavy equipment. This old-timer was formerly a bookie for the Outfit who went legit.
Dating back to his days as a no-show, my dad was a legend with the city crews, as were the bookies and gangsters who pulled strings to "work" a city job. But I rarely used my status as Frank senior"s son to become a no-show or skip work.
A lot of the bookies and gangsters who worked for the city were ghost payrollers. But I figured I didn"t want to sit in a chair all day and watch other people work. I was on a crew with a black guy and an old Italian and became the subforeman who handled the paperwork.
Once I joined the city crew, I learned how to operate the Orange Peel Grapple, a special crane with a bucket that went into the catch basins, fetched the dirt and leaves, and deposited the stuff into a truck. You pulled the lever, the arm moved. You let the lever go, the arm stopped. I was intrigued by it. I got good at it. Plus, I could make twice the money running equipment emptying out the catch basins on the curbs. We"d work all over town.
Running the Orange Peel was a skill that would later come in handy while working with the crew.
I rode the political waves working for the city. Depending on who won the Chicago mayoral seat, I"d watch workers come and go as the city jobs changed hands based on who was allied with whom politically. One time a new guy who didn"t know how to run the Orange Peel was breaking car and store windows while the rest of the crew workers ducked for cover, getting nothing done. I was the one who sat in the cab for him and worked the machine while he collected his paycheck.
Throughout my time working for the city, my father controlled all of my finances. Twice a month, I would dutifully hand over my paycheck to him and he would dole out a small portion back to me for pocket money.
When I worked at Armand"s making pizza as a kid, I didn"t have my own bank account. I"d bring my check to him and he would urge me to save my money. Out of the forty or fifty dollars, I"d get ten or fifteen. Here I was in my early twenties, handing over my checks while he deposited them into accounts under my name. That"s how he controlled my brother and me. When I made twenty-six thousand dollars a year, twice a month he"d ask me how much out of an eight-hundred-dollar check I needed. Then he"d bust my b.a.l.l.s: "What do you need two hundred dollars for?" He"d put the rest in the bank and enter the amount on a balance sheet. He never stole the money. It was about control. At the same time, he was laundering his own money while paying me in cash.
Like a lot of city workers, I did weekend jobs on the side, mostly sidewalks and driveways, to supplement my income, which was how I made pocket money without my dad knowing it. While working for the city, I had a lot of friends who were doing well fighting on the boxing circuit. There was a park in a nearby black neighborhood filled with Italian boxers. I began sparring with my friends, and in 1979 I entered in the Golden Gloves.
When I first started boxing, I couldn"t tell my dad. Finally I had to let him know because my friends and I began making names for ourselves as fighters. A few of my friends ended up being ranked. When I came home one night from a fight, I showed him the trophy I had won, and he went nuts. I told him I just wanted to try it. It was odd that he would get upset, since he boxed amateur for a while and went undefeated. He was critical even though he had done the same things.
"No son of mine is gonna be no f.u.c.kin" boxer."
In 1980, I fought my Golden Gloves championship fight at the International Amphitheater in the old Chicago stockyards, in front of eight thousand spectators. Televised on WGN, it was the one fight he attended. He asked that I dedicate the fight to his dying father, who would be watching the bout from his hospital bed. Rated as the underdog, I won the fight by unanimous decision.
He was proud of me because I walked through the tournament and beat all my opponents. Like him, I was undefeated. At the time things were good. I was making money working for the city. I had a job and a girlfriend. But my heart wasn"t into boxing. I didn"t want to fight for a career. I did it mainly because I liked the jackets you received when you won. Yet, when I won the jacket I never wore it, because I thought it would look like I was bragging and calling attention to myself. time things were good. I was making money working for the city. I had a job and a girlfriend. But my heart wasn"t into boxing. I didn"t want to fight for a career. I did it mainly because I liked the jackets you received when you won. Yet, when I won the jacket I never wore it, because I thought it would look like I was bragging and calling attention to myself.
While working with the city, I was at my father"s beck and call. I"d take off early some days from my city job to make time for my father"s a.s.signments-like a trip to Melrose Park as Uncle Nick"s backup, when, under Joey Aiuppa"s orders, Nick had to slap a guy around for selling fireworks without permission and not paying a street tax.
On Sat.u.r.days I"d go to Philly Tolomeo"s apartment, while my father would go over the bookkeeping and have me sit next to him and watch. He"d have me check the figures or recount the money. It was very subtle. At no point did he ask me, or say that he wanted me to start working with him full-time. He would tell me that Philly was a moneymaker but a f.u.c.kup, and that we needed to get the money from him every week.
After I spent more time on the streets with the crew, my responsibilities expanded. There was this guy we knew, a friend, who operated a parking garage. My father found out he was selling drugs. He was working with us as a bookie, but he made the mistake of asking my uncle if he was interested in getting into the cocaine business. It was the 1980s. Everybody was doing it. He was a nice guy who was just being honest with my uncle. A lot of guys were selling, including Tony and Michael Spilotro.
My father wanted to send him a message. So we put a box together. He showed me how to mix kerosene with just the right amount of gasoline, putting it in gallon milk jugs. Then we drove out to the guy"s garage, stuffed the jugs in a box with a lot of paper, lit a flare, and put the box up against the garage. That was the warning we sent out. At the time, the Chicago Outfit was adamantly opposed to drugs. When a guy"s garage gets burned down, he knows something isn"t right, that somebody knows he"s doing something wrong. He got the message to stop.
In addition to working for the city, I hit the local nightclub scene, developing an interest in running my own joint.