But these five were key players, and Frank Nitti had summoned them because he had important business to discuss.
“You heard Ness is in town,” Nitti said.
“Fuck Ness,” Accardo said, and there were nods and grunts of agreement, all around.
Ricca, his gaze on the cigarette in his fingers, said, “Guy’s a joke. Got run out of Cleveland on a rail.”
Fischetti, gesturing with a cigarette-in-holder, demurred. “Ness was effective for many years in that town. Just ask Moe Dalitz. He was crimping the style of the Mayfield Road boys right up to the end.”
“But the point,” Ricca said, without looking at Fischetti, or anyone else for that matter, “is Mr. Big Shot has reached the end…Jerkoff gets drunk and slams his car into somebody else’s, and then doesn’t report it? You or me, we’d be in stir for that. Hit and run, pure and simple.”
Humphreys said, “As amusing as the notion of an alcoholic prohibition agent may be, my understanding is Mrs. Ness was driving, and she was injured and he rushed her to the hospital. After checking on the other motorist.”
Now Ricca cast his hard gaze on Humphreys, and to the Hump’s credit, the man did not look away. “Ness resigned in disgrace,” Ricca said. “He’s nothing now. Not a danger to nobody.”
Finally Nitti spoke, softly, reasonably; he had just lighted up a cigar and gestured with it, nonthreateningly. “I disagree, Paul. It’s exactly because Ness had to resign in disgrace that he’s dangerous to us.”
Ricca waved a dismissive hand.
Accardo asked, “Why’s that, Frank?”
Nitti’s eyes darted from face to face. “Does anybody disagree with Hump about Ness’s performance in Cleveland? Just about the best in the country; drove our friends outa there—cleaned up the police force, caused trouble with the unions, with the numbers racket. Gotta hand it to him.”
“He’s a relic, Frank.” Ricca’s gaze, cool now, settled on Nitti… tellingly. “He’s one of them people you hear about that don’t know when their time is up.”
Nitti frowned at the narrow-faced gangster. “You think Ness’s time is up, Paul? He’s a fucking fed again!”
“Yeaaah,” Rica said, sneering. “Makin’ sure our boys in the armed forces know that sex is bad for ’em. A dick policin’ dicks—what a joke.”
“No joke.” Nitti looked around at them, and all eyes and ears were his, with the exception of Ricca’s. “Is there anyone in this room who doesn’t think Al would be sitting where I am, if it wasn’t for Ness?”
“Ness was only one of a dozen,” Ricca said, and slapped the air dismissively.
“A dozen that included Dwight Green, currently governor of our fair state,” Nitti said. “So Ness will have allies. Even a few cops, like Drury. Still, Paul, you’re right—Ness is down. He’s on his damn knees.”
“Blowin’ GIs,” Ricca said.
Everyone smiled at that. But Nitti.
Who said, “No one’s more dangerous than a champ who’s just come up off the canvas, looking for an opening. How does Ness rehabilitate himself, do you think? How does he get his good name back?”
“He doesn’t,” Ricca said quietly.
Nitti continued: “He returns to the site of his first, most famous victory. He looks at the Capone mob. And he knows that if he can bring us down, he’s back on top.”
“Not going to happen,” Ricca said.
“I know it isn’t.” Nitti slapped the table and everyone, even Ricca, jumped a little. “Because as of today, we’re shutting down all prostitution around military installations and defense plants.”
Ricca half-rose. “What the fuck?”
And everyone else at the table seemed stunned.
“Sit, Paul.” Nitti motioned at the air with both hands, cigar in the corner of his mouth. “Sit. I’ll explain…”
“Explain! You know what kinda income that brings in, Frank? Are you nuts?”
“Watch what you say, Paul—I do speak for Al.”
Ricca frowned; smoke curled upward from his cigarette between fingers. “You talked to him about this?”
“Through intermediaries. You know I don’t dare speak on the phone with Al—fucking federal wiretaps. But I’m scheduling a meet for a couple weeks from now, in Miami.”
Ricca, eyes tight, sat forward. “I want to talk to Al.”
“You know that’s impossible.”
Both Capone and Nitti had homes in Florida; and meetings between them were fairly frequent. But because of law enforcement surveillance, the policy was that nobody visited Capone but Nitti himself.
Ricca was shaking his head, boiling.
Frowning, Fischetti said, “I’m afraid I’m with Paul on this one, Frank. How can we shut something down that’s so lucrative?”
“We won’t shut it down, not entirely. Just the whorehouses—the wide-open brothels. We’ll leave the strip clubs alone…good healthy fun for our boys in the armed forces. And we’ll have understandings with the girls that if they take the boys home, well, we get our cut.”
“Just no houses,” Fischetti said, eyes tight with thought, starting to slowly nod.
“Right. No madams. No joints that can be raided. We’ll also set up call girls, big-ticket lookers; put ’em in hotels, nice ones.”
Ricca still seethed, but the others seemed to be coming around.
“Boys,” Nitti said, and he gestured with both hands, palms up, “we’re businessmen. We’re part of the community.” He motioned toward the awards on the mantelpiece. “Al was beloved—he gave to charity, he set up soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Town loved him. Why?”
Accardo said, “’Cause they was fuckin’ thirsty.”
Everyone but Ricca laughed.
“Exactly right,” Nitti said. “They was fuckin’ thirsty. Nobody thought Al was a bad man for helping the average guy buy a beer after work. We didn’t have a public relations problem till St. Valentine’s Day, and even Al admits that was a mistake. What did we learn? Don’t stir up the heat!”
“People also get hungry,” Ricca said, “for a whore. No difference. Appetites, either way.”
“Big difference,” Nitti said, shaking his head. “If we stay with our wide-open houses, Ness will crucify us in the press. We’ll look like we’re undermining the war effort. Hell, we’re already a bunch of Italians, ain’t we? You wanna be on a wanted poster next to Mussolini?”
“Awwww,” Ricca said, and waved at nothing.
But Fischetti was thinking out loud: “You mean, we need to worry about how we look. To the public. We give ’em gambling, we’re pals, helpin’ ’em unwind. We give GI Joe the syph, we’re a buncha un-American dagos.”
“Now,” Nitti said, pleased, “you’re thinking like a businessman.”
“Sex is good business,” Ricca said coldly.
“It is. So we have the strip clubs, and arcades, on the low end; call girls on the high end. But no brothels. If the public sees us as whoremongers, we’re finished. Ness will make us look like traitors…and himself a hero.”
Ricca turned his dead gaze onto Nitti. “We just invested in that packing plant, and that slaughterhouse. You gonna close that down? Black-market meat, that unpatriotic, too, like fucking a whore?”
“Fucking isn’t unpatriotic, Paul; pimping is. And I’m all for the black-market meat business. It’s bootlegging all over again. People will love us for giving them what they crave. Same with ration stamps, when they start up—counterfeit or stolen.”
Accardo said, “And anyway, it’s the whores that are Ness’s beat, right?”
This got an unintentional laugh, including both Ricca and Nitti.
“That’s right,” Nitti said. “We don’t want to play into that prick’s hands. We made him a star once—we ain’t gonna do it twice.”
Ricca said, “This is immediate, this shutdown? I thought you was gonna wait till you talked with Al.”
“You’re right, Paul. For now, we stay open; but we start plannin’ pulling out…so to s
peak.”
Again, smiles all around.
The discussion of the brothel situation was followed by updates on the Hollywood union case. Ricca reported that the feds were offering Willie Bioff, George Browne, and Nicky Dean reduced sentences if they spilled. So far all three were sitting tight in the federal pen. But everybody at the table was unnerved by the government coming down on them.
“Problem like this makes Ness look like the nothing he is,” Ricca said.
“All the more reason,” Nitti said, “not to give the feds anything else on us.”
With the meeting dismissed, Nitti gave Campagna a look that said, Stick around, while Ricca approached.
“I meant no disrespect,” Ricca said, shaking Nitti’s hand; Ricca’s grasp was like holding a dead fish. “I will honor Al’s wishes on this.”
When Ricca was gone, Campagna said, “Al’s wishes. Not yours.”
“Al is the boss.”
“The boss in Miami. The boss in exile. You run Chicago, Frank.”
“Not if Ricca gets his way…My office, Louie.”
They walked down the hall and into the office through the reception area; though his secretary was still at her desk, Nitti’s waiting room was otherwise empty. At one time the chairs lining the walls would have been filled with crooked politicians and shady businessmen, waiting for a few precious minutes of Nitti’s time; but Nitti conducted his business in a more discreet fashion, now—either one-on-one, at the Bismarck suite, or working through intermediaries.
The spacious wood-paneled office, lavishly appointed, might have been a La Salle Street broker’s. Another portrait of Capone (in hat and coat with cigar) hung over another fireplace. Nitti settled in behind a desk no larger than a Lincoln Continental. Behind him was a window with a view onto the South Side of Chicago, long the Capone empire; the swivel chair in which he sat had been Al’s as well, a gift from the Chicago Heights boys, its back bullet-proofed.
Campagna, comfortable with his chief, fetched from an icebox a bottle of milk and poured Nitti a chilled glass (ulcers) and then got himself a bourbon on the rocks from the liquor cart. The loyal, lumpy-faced little killer settled into the leather-padded visitor’s chair across from Nitti, who had his feet up on the desk, rocked back in the swivel chair, sipping his milk thoughtfully.
“How big a problem,” Nitti asked, “do we have with Ricca?”
“Big,” Campagna said.
“Who can I trust?”
“Probably everybody but Ricca.”
“Who for sure?”
“…Me.”
“You know, the Waiter’s been lining himself up with those hothead kids from the Patch. This Giancana, Mooney they call him? He’s got a screw loose.”
“He ain’t the only one. DeStefano makes Mooney look normal. Mad Sam, they call him.”
Nitti sipped his milk. “Isn’t DeStefano a solid juice man?”
“Yeah, the best. Who ain’t gonna pay up a guy that’d feed ya your nuts, parboiled?”
Nitti nodded; this was a good point. “All these wild youngsters, Ricca’s got ’em in his pocket. Couple are on my staff.” He frowned. “Louie, can we trust these bodyguards?”
“Far as it goes. Frank, always comes down to, these guys kill people for money. Allegiance ain’t what it used to be.”
Nitti shook his head. “And in these times, we should have that. We should pull together. Tell you the truth—my preference is, we stay out of the black market. I think it is unpatriotic. But I couldn’t go that far. Didn’t dare.”
Campagna nodded. “Good call, Frank. Nixing the whore houses was drastic enough.”
Nitti sighed. He took his feet off the desk and leaned on his elbows. “What I’d give for a reliable goddamn bodyguard.”
“You got me, Frank.”
“You’re too valuable for flunky work, Louie. I wouldn’t insult you.”
“It’d be an honor.”
“Louie…I wish I had a hundred of you.”
“My ma says, when they made me? Broke the mold.”
“Your ma is right, Louie.”
Campagna looked at his watch. “Listen, in about half an hour, that kid’s comin’ around. That war hero?”
Nitti straightened. “Well, I look forward to that. Congressional Medal of Honor. And he’s Sicilian! Now somebody like him, that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”
Campagna shrugged. “Hey, well…his old man says he wants to work for us.”
“That’s this fella…Pasquale Satariano?”
“Right. In DeKalb. He was our guy with the farmers. Sweet old Mustache Pete kinda goombah. He makes a gravy worth drivin’ out there for.”
“I couldn’t do that, could I?”
“Drive out there?”
“Involve somebody like that, in our thing?”
“The war hero kid?” Campagna shrugged. “I dunno. Up to you. Up to him. Why don’t you ask him?”
And that’s what Nitti did, but not at first.
Stiff and polite in a dark brown suit with a brown-and-yellow tie, the young man sat where earlier Campagna had. Campagna was standing over by the fireplace now. Nitti offered the boy a drink, and he requested a Coke; said he didn’t drink liquor. Nitti liked that, considered heavy drinking among his people bad for business.
It also made him feel comfortable and unselfconscious, having a glass of milk in front of the kid.
“You honor us,” Nitti said, and saluted him with the glass of milk. “You honor Sicilians like us. You honor Americans like us. God bless you, Michael Satariano. And God bless America.”
Michael toasted Nitti back, with the glass of Coke, and then said, “You were a great friend to my father.”
“Your father, Pasquale, he was valuable to us. We still consider him one of us. I understand you’d like a job.”
The boy sat forward, his expression earnest. “I would. You see, I lost an eye in combat, so I can’t serve anymore. And, frankly, after a year in the Philippines, going back to work at my father’s spaghetti house…well, it seems a little dull. Tossing pizza dough.”
“Noble profession. Don’t knock it, son.”
“I respect my father. And I think someday I’d like to be in that business…roughly speaking.”
“Roughly, how?”
The boy shrugged. “A bigger restaurant, even a chain. Nightclub… or clubs. Not just a hole-in-the-wall in a little college town.”
“You’re ambitious.”
“I’d like to be somebody, sure. That’s the American dream; it’s what we’re fighting for…Just look at what you’ve accomplished, Mr. Nitti.”
“Nothing, compared to you, son.”
“I’m young, Mr. Nitti. I crave work that’s challenging. That might even have a little…excitement to it.”
Nitti studied the kid. Michael Satariano had such a sweet, almost angelic face, though the dark eyes were unfathomable. This young man had killed over a hundred Japs. That was more kills than all the Mooneys and Mad Sams put together.
Then something flashed through Frank Nitti’s mind; something jarring—this kid reminded him of someone. Years ago, another killer had sat across from him at this desk and offered his services: O’Sullivan, the Angel of Death. How Nitti wished he’d taken the man up on his offer, that he’d stood aside and allowed O’Sullivan to kill the Looneys.
In that case, O’Sullivan would have come to work for Nitti; would have been Frank Nitti’s loyal enforcer. A smart man, tough but not ruthless, and the bravest son of a bitch who’d ever walked the earth. How Nitti wished O’Sullivan were alive and at his right arm now, an ally as reliable as Campagna and ten times as valuable.
And here was another young killer, a Sicilian boy from the sticks with a vague resemblance to that long-dead Irish hitman. Funny—Nitti had the strange feeling he was getting a second chance…
“If you came to work for me,” Nitti said, “the law you would answer to would be our law. Al Capone’s law.”
“Mr. Nitti, I know all abou
t killing the enemy. Just point the way.”
Nitti almost laughed. This sweet kid…and yet he knew from the newspapers what this young man was capable of.
“Can you drive, with one eye?” Nitti asked.
“With one eye and two arms and two feet, sure.”
“I could use a bodyguard. A loyal man who would die for me. Who would, as you say, kill for me.”
“I’m that man, Mr. Nitti.”
Nitti glanced at Campagna, who shrugged; but Louie was smiling. He, like Nitti, was amused and impressed.
“Do you have a place to stay?” Nitti asked.
“No. I came up from DeKalb. I can’t really commute, with gas rationing coming. Anyway, I’d prefer to live in town.”
“We’ll put you up at the Seneca Hotel. Lot of our people live there.”
Nitti rose. Extended his hand across the expanse of the desk.
The Enforcer and the war hero shook, after which the latter found five hundred-dollar bills left behind by the former.
“Anything else you need?” Nitti asked.
“Not that I can think of,” Michael said. “Oh!…A shoulder holster would be nice.”
FOUR
The “Calumet” of Calumet City, Illinois, derived from the French word for the peace pipe once used by the Indians in these parts, long since displaced by the white people they’d bargained with. Finding something interesting to smoke in wide-open Calumet City these days would likely not be a chore. You could turn up just about anything illegal and entertaining, in this residential outgrowth of Hammond, Indiana, a (mostly) quiet hamlet of twelve thousand souls.
Quiet was how Michael Satariano, at the wheel of a ’39 Ford Deluxe coupe, found the forty-minute drive from the Loop. Tooling down Torrence Avenue about dusk, he’d had a pleasant of intermittent conversation with his companion, Louie Campagna, passing on one side of the road swimmers and boaters on Lake Calumet, and on the other side a geometric gray expanse of industry, steel mills, oil refineries, chemical works, and fertilizer factories, all disgorging dirty clouds steadily into the sky.
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