Richard Cain, as time passed, was revealed as a cop who was also an Outfit member-a made man who had been not just a bagman but an assassin. Some think he was involved in the Dallas hit, that perhaps he was even one of the shooters, though with his lousy eyesight, I doubt it. Cain was, however, the guy who notified the FBI where and when Oswald’s infamous Mannlicher-Carcano had been purchased in Chicago.
In 1964, Cain was fired from the sheriff’s department for lying to a grand jury in a stolen drugs case, serving six months for perjury, and in 1968 went to prison as an accomplice in a bank robbery. When he got out in 1971, he became Sam Giancana’s right-hand man and chief courier, during Mooney’s Mexico days. Returning to Chicago in ’73, Cain began informing on other Outfit guys to FBI agent Bill Roemer, clearing a path for his own planned takeover.
A few days before Christmas 1973, I caught up with Dick Cain at Rose’s Sandwich Shop on West Grand on the West Side. I was in my sixties now, and he was in his forties, but he looked ten years older. Sitting at a table by himself, he wore a black suit with a conservative tie. Hair longer, some silver in it, even sideburns. Hell, I had them, too.
Rose’s was just a hole-in-the-wall diner, with maybe eight tables and a counter. Jelly Cozzo owned the joint, and Outfit guys were his regular clientele, probably because of his mother’s recipes for spaghetti, ravioli, and lasagna. Jelly, a fairly bad dude in his day, served red wine and Zinfandel, too, though he had no liquor license.
Dick was having some spaghetti. I knew now that his real last name was Scalzitti. But he was also drinking a Coke and had a Dunhill going in an ashtray. Some things never changed. Like the dark-rimmed Buddy Holly glasses.
And the milky left eye.
I sat down. He looked up and frowned-his eyesight really was lousy, plus I looked older-and then he smiled.
“Nate Heller,” he said. “What the hell.”
He put his fork down and extended his hand and we shook. The waitress (there was only one, a little Annette Funicello look-alike who needed her mustache waxed) came and took my order-I had a Coke, too, and she brought it right over.
“My God,” he said, “how long as it been?”
“Since the sixties, anyway. I hear you had a falling-out with Mooney.”
“Naw, everything’s fine there. I just decided to go my own way.”
“Dick, I wanted to warn you about something.”
“Really? What?”
“I still keep my hand in at the A-1. Not completely retired, you know.”
“I didn’t know, but … what’s happening?”
I leaned in confidentially. “One of my guys picked up on a very dangerous rumor. It just can’t be true. It’s crazy.”
“Try me, Nate.”
“Well, it’s a coup. Scheduled for New Year’s Eve. Word is you’ve reached out to various contract guys around the country, and plan to hit every single mob boss in town, here and in Vegas and all over the place. All at the same time. Midnight, to ring in the New Year.”
He laughed. “That does sound screwy. Naw, that’s not me, Nate. You know I’m a stand-up guy.”
“I know you been working with Marshall Caifano. Advising him what houses his burglary crew should hit. But that sounds frankly … small-time to me, Dick. I mean, when I heard this crazy story about an Outfit coup? On some weird level, it made sense. Just the kind of elaborate, Machiavellian kinda shit you might come up with.”
“Naw. No. You heard wrong.”
I finished my Coke, gave him a smile. “Well, I heard this from one of my guys, and I thought I better let you know. Wrong people hear this, you could have a problem.”
He was nodding. “I appreciate it, Nate. I do appreciate it. Old times’ sake, huh?”
“Well, I owe you from way back, Dick. Always like to pay my debts.”
I gave him a wave, paid for the Coke, and headed out to West Grand, where a beater Ford was pulled in at a meter just down the way. I gave the two guys in the car a nice slow nod, and they started pulling on the ski masks. As I cut across the street to where my Jag was parked, I heard the crackle of a walkie-talkie: “He’s in there.”
Over my motor starting up, I could hear screams, and yells from guys ordering patrons around, and then a blast that just had to be both barrels of a shotgun.
The papers didn’t give the details, but a cop pal who had hated Dick Cain, too, reported that indeed both barrels of a shotgun had been fired up under Dick’s chin, tearing away the right side of his face. The downside? That meant an instantaneous death.
I still had the building in Old Town, though several years earlier, I had converted it into three floors of living space. I’d remodeled some, but that’s not the point.
The point is that around nine that evening, I got Tom Ellison’s wife on the phone. We hadn’t talked in a while, and we had a very nice catching-up session. Her kids were grown and fine. She hadn’t remarried, and the sound of her voice was such that I thought I might one of these days drive to Milwaukee and take her out for a nice meal.
For now, though, it was time to wrap up the conversation.
“Nice talking to you, Jean. But the reason I called.”
“Yes, Nate?”
“Remember how I told you, sometimes it takes years to take care of certain matters?”
“… I do.”
“Well, I just wanted you to know, something happened today.”
“Oh?”
“I think Tom would be pleased.”
And I hung up.
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Target Lancer nh-14 Page 26