Calabrese Sr.: But what I’m, what I’m gonna, what I may wanna do is, is what I wanted to tell ya is, is, ah, I make sure you partners with Ronnie someday.
Frank Jr.: Ah …
Calabrese Sr.: But you have to earn that, Frankie. But I tell you now right up front.
Frank Jr.: All right.
Calabrese Sr.: And, ah, he’s a good guy and, ah …
Frank Jr.: We ain’t gonna have to answer to nobody else.
Calabrese Sr.: Nobody else. No fucking body else. No, nobody else. No, we’re not answering to nobody else. Did any, did anybody else fucking supply us? Only one guy …
Frank Jr.: I don’t know where all your friends are right now. I mean …
Calabrese Sr.: And you can bet soon as Joy [Nick] gets out, she’s gonna go try to dirty Ronnie’s ears up. If she hasn’t dirtied his ears up yet.
The session ended on a lighter note as my dad joked about Mom’s reaction when he first joined the Outfit back in the early 1960s.
“I’m not gonna slap myself on the back,” he said to me on the yard, “but when I got around these people in the sixties, okay? That’s when your mother … remember she made the statement when I got around them in the sixties I lived like Dick Tracy.”
The night before I was transferred from Milan to a drug-rehab program at the federal prison in Coleman, Florida, we shared an emotional moment with tears running down my dad’s face. Me, I was ready to cry, but for a different reason. I was deceiving my father. I finished the betrayal of my father by leaving him with the impression that I was won over, and would return to the fold once I was released.
Frank Jr.: Can’t dwell on the old stuff.
Calabrese Sr.: No.
Frank Jr.: Ya gotta talk about the new stuff.
Calabrese Sr.: The thing is, ya got to do, is you gotta get out there and keep yourself out of trouble. That’s the most important thing.… And, ah, then, I will, ah, I will tell you something little by little. There’s no sense now because you’re gonna be gone for another maybe ten or twelve months yet. And, ah …
Frank Jr.: Plus you still think I’m not gonna come back.
Calabrese Sr.: Come back where, Son?
Frank Jr.: Well, you keep telling me, are you gonna come and visit me, are you gonna visit me?
Calabrese Sr.: No. I know you are, Frank. I’m …
Frank Jr.: I feel sometimes ya think I’m not gonna come and visit ya?
Calabrese Sr.: Yeah, I gotta tell ya something. I have no doubts you’re coming back, Son. Ah, I think, ah, what happened in here, is you and I got to understand each other a little bit.
(Long pause)
Frank Jr.: It’ll go by fast. It’s gonna go by fast.
Calabrese Sr.: I ain’t worried about that.
At the end of the final taping session, we hugged and said our good-byes. Then I crossed the yard back to the agents at the SIS office for the last time. Everything between me and him, good or bad, happy or sad, ran through my mind. I wanted to be my dad’s savior. In fact, I ended up being my father’s executioner.
After lights-out, I lay in my bunk and wept quietly, wishing things were different. The strain of dealing with my father had taken a huge toll on me—and it was the last time I would hug, kiss, and touch him.
I transferred out of FCI Milan in June 1999 and flew to Oklahoma City, where I spent two weeks in lockdown. My cellie was a convict from Kansas City serving time on a federal machine-gun rap. He was sedated on meds. From Oklahoma City, I hopped on Con Air to Tampa, where I took a bus to the Federal Correctional Complex in Coleman, Florida. FCC Coleman consisted of four separate institutions, a low-, a medium-, and two high-security facilities, with one of the high-security facilities an all-female camp. For my last six months, I was assigned to the lowest-security facility, located next to a cow pasture. Most of the male inmate population were South American nationals plucked from the notorious cocaine wars.
I lived in a dorm and hung around two other inmates: a murderer from Alabama and a Daytona sailor busted for smuggling Haitian refugees aboard his fishing boat. Compared to the MCC and Milan, the atmosphere at Coleman was more like a camp. With its warm climate and large number of Latin inmates, the primary recreation was baseball.
I wouldn’t be at Coleman long enough to complete the drug-treatment curriculum that would shave eighteen months off of my original fifty-seven-month sentence. I was granted the eighteen-month credit anyway—the only concession I gained by cooperating with the FBI. With another six months off for good behavior I served almost thirty-six months.
During the six months I spent inside FCC Coleman, my cooperation with the Bureau was kept top secret. To keep in touch with the Bureau, I placed Mike Hartnett on my “call list” under an assumed name. Only a few key people at the FBI knew I was cooperating. In early November 1999, wearing prison-issued jeans, shirt, and tennis shoes, and carrying a cardboard box with my belongings, I walked out of FCC Coleman with two hundred dollars’ gate money stuffed in my pocket—sixty dollars of which went for a cab ride to the Orlando airport. I had no driver’s license, so when I got to the airport, I walked up to the airline gate and handed over a special prison ID that detailed my release status.
I felt stupid. I had to tie the belt loops together with a shoestring to keep my pants from falling down. After I checked in, I walked into the airport mall to buy a duffel bag for my stuff … and a belt for my jeans, which were two sizes too big. I wasn’t used to walking from one storefront to another without permission. I stood at the edge of the carpet of the luggage store until the girl behind the counter saw me and said, “You know, you can come in.” Standing in line at one of the fast-food restaurants for a coffee and sandwich, I noticed the hurried pace of the outside world while the customer behind me marveled at my patience.
Landing in Chicago, I was met by Kurt, who presented me with a bag of Johnny’s Beef sandwiches from the stand in Elmwood Park. Later we met up with Danny Alberga from Bella Luna, who arrived with pizzas. After Kurt and Danny slipped me a few hundred dollars, I checked into the halfway house on Ashland Avenue, not far from downtown. I wasn’t permitted to leave the premises the first two weeks while attending reentry classes. Once I found a job, I would be required to pay rent. After a couple more weeks, I got my first four-hour Sunday-morning church pass so I could meet Lisa and the kids.
I found reuniting with my family emotionally difficult. I was nervous. Lisa and I were divorced and I knew she was dating other guys. I didn’t know how she felt, but I wanted to see the kids. I hadn’t seen them during the six months I had spent in Florida, nor had I seen them the last few months in Milan when I was doing the recordings.
Lisa was nervous during the ride down to see me. She had such terrible anxiety about my coming home that she had to go on meds. She wondered whether she was done with that chapter of her life. But we still had two little kids, and I think she felt I deserved a second chance. Besides, the kids were asking, “When’s Daddy coming home?”
My first meeting with Lisa was cordial, a polite hug and a kiss on the cheek. Holding a large stuffed toy frog, I stood humbly before my wife and children, straight, off drugs, broke, and unemployed. Who knew where our relationship was going? Nobody, not even Lisa, knew about the Milan taping sessions or my cooperation with the FBI. I couldn’t tell her. It wasn’t that I couldn’t trust her; I just didn’t want to put that burden on her.
I remember one Sunday during a pass when the four of us went out to breakfast. Nonchalantly I pulled a Baggie of white powder out of my pocket, and suddenly shivers went up Lisa’s spine. I realized what the protein powder resembled and immediately apologized.
I was working for Danny at Bella Luna, slowly getting back into things. At first it was weird working at the restaurant. I was slow and not used to the fast pace. Soon I was granted weekend passes. I’d stay with my mother. I had my old room back. It was a strange feeling because my belongings were reduced to a couple of boxes in her garage. The halfway h
ouse would call in the middle of the night to make sure I was there.
During the 1999 Christmas holiday, events started to get heavy. First, Uncle Ed was killed in a bizarre automobile accident. He had been drummed out of HEREUI in 1998 with a promise of immunity against corruption charges. Out for a pizza, he was hit by a drunk who was driving a snow plow. My mom was devastated by the death of her brother. Then on December 23, I received a phone call at Bella Luna from Kurt.
“Did you hear what just happened? Turn on the TV.”
I switched on the television. Ronnie Jarrett had just been shot in front of his house in Bridgeport. There on the TV at Bella Luna was an old mug shot of Ronnie. Underneath it the caption read, “Attempted gangland slaying of Chinatown mobster today.” The news didn’t say if he was alive or dead. I called Mike Hartnett.
“We know about it. If you hear anything, let us know. We’ll talk later. Is everything okay?”
The hit on Jarrett broke a four-year drought of Outfit murders. Suddenly this changed the dynamic on the streets. For Maseth, the killing of Ronnie Jarrett was one of the first setbacks for Operation Family Secrets. I spoke to Mike about the incident.
Coincidentally, on December 23, Maseth had decided to do a quick check on Jarrett. Because of heavy traffic, he took an alternate route to Jarrett’s Lowe Street residence. Approaching the house, Mike encountered something completely unexpected—a bleeding Jarrett lying in the street with half a dozen bullets in the face, chest, and arm. His son Ronnie junior recounted hearing firecrackers while sleeping late. Jarrett’s wife ran outside screaming, too frightened to approach her fallen husband lying by his car. After rushing off the front porch Ronnie junior knelt at his father’s side. Mike had missed Jarrett’s killers by a matter of minutes, if not seconds.
Careful not to be made, Mike pulled alongside the crime scene and called in the shooting. He looped around to see if anybody suspicious was nearby. As Mike got out of his car to see Jarrett whispering to his son, a yellow Ryder rental truck pulled into an alley blocks away. Two men jumped out, splashed gasoline inside and out, and set the truck ablaze. Once the fireball shot up in the air, the men jumped into a black Lincoln and sped away.
Mike’s thoughts flashed to me and the case. Who ordered the hit, and was it related to my uncle or me? The FBI knew the Outfit was watching Uncle Nick inside prison, while the Outfit knew the FBI was watching Jarrett. If Ronnie was fair game, the Outfit had to know that I could hurt them. I was concerned: if the Outfit had whacked Ronnie, could they kill any other member of the Calabrese crew?
A few minutes after I saw Ronnie on television, the phone rang again. It was my dad. Hearing his voice wasn’t a complete surprise. We had been in frequent contact since my release, him calling the restaurant and having his associates check on me.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Didn’t you hear what happened?”
Knowing the prison phone line was being recorded, I broke the news vaguely. “You know my brother Nicky’s friends, Ronnie and Tony? Their father just got gunned down in front of his house this morning. They aren’t saying if he pulled through or not.”
I could tell by the silence on the other end that the news had taken him by surprise. Based on his reaction, I was convinced that he’d had no hand in Ronnie’s shooting. He did know that Jarrett had been whistled in by Toots Caruso and Jimmy DiForti for a sit-down with Johnny Apes.
At the time of the shooting, Jarrett was running both my father’s operations and his own rogue drug dealing. While Jarrett had a fearsome reputation as a go-to killer for the Outfit, he was only half Italian and therefore not a made guy, which irritated my father. Someone as smart and seasoned as Ronnie knew better than to ignore an order to “come in,” especially from the bosses. By my estimation, Dad would have been the only person Ronnie would have listened to, overriding the order to come in. Perhaps my father overestimated his standing with Johnny Apes by giving Jarrett such bad advice as to duck the meeting.
Jarrett clung to life for another month at Cook County Hospital before succumbing to his gunshot wounds. He died on January 25, 2000, effectively derailing any FBI plan to have me return undercover to infiltrate my father’s Chinatown crew. Jarrett’s death also changed my dad’s plans to have me resume street operations while “earning my stripes” with Ronnie.
I had been home only a month or so before Ronnie got killed. If the FBI’s plans were to get me back inside the crew, we didn’t talk about it. I think they wanted to take it slowly. While I understood how insidious the Outfit was to families like mine, had Ronnie not been killed, I doubt I would have worked with them to put him away. Ronnie wasn’t my primary concern, nor was crushing the Outfit.
Organized crime affects people and whole families, and guys like my father were parasites. I chose my battles on a more personal level. I was no cop, just one guy who had seen and heard enough.
To this day, Jarrett’s case remains unsolved. Speculation flew. Some surmised that his death wasn’t the work of the Outfit, but was outside and drug-related. Some said that the Outfit hired a pair of bikers to murder Jarrett. During a taped visit, Dad revealed to me that once Jimmy Marcello was transferred to Milan, he admitted to him that it wasn’t only Ronnie’s refusal to sit down that got him killed. The hit was sanctioned by the Outfit, perhaps by Johnny Apes, and had more to do with the drug dealing. The bosses feared that if Jarrett was arrested on drug charges, he would face a long prison sentence and become a liability if he flipped. I responded to my father’s revelation with concern and questions.
“How come nobody reached out to you before killing Ronnie, your first lieutenant? Aren’t you worried for yours and Uncle Nick’s safety? Is Jimmy okay with me collecting money for you on the street? Is he going to send somebody after me?”
While he assured me that everything was “still a go,” I remained skeptical about my safety. Was my dad losing status with the bosses? Mike warned me to remain on guard.
Ronnie Jarrett’s death only accelerated my father’s plan to win me over and put me back on the street. While visiting Grandma Sophie’s duplex, my stepmother, Diane, handed me a folded note tightly wrapped in cellophane tape.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
I would receive five coded messages from Dad smuggled out of FCI Milan. The first one read:
Smile, have Sadsack till [tell] NFy to meet Smile by the Church near Smile. At night. He will have to see Smile on Thous 10 Truck Louds [loads] per week. Curly same thing. Have Joe OL the guy who sells goods to rests [restaurants]. Get him or you. SONO will have Joe see smile. Smile can till [tell] Joe what day he would like to see Curly! The Farther [father] by the [way] will be happy if Smile will do this for him. All so have Smile go and see Cop-Ten ware he wonts to pick up food for the Priest every month. Father will like this. Ask Sadsack how much food he got from him, When he was going there. You keep 10 box’s of spam ham for your self every month [one thousand dollars]. Do this right away, if you can’t, see them anyway to see what they have to say. Then I will have some one come to see you and you can make him meet them whit [with] you. I would like to see you do it. Think [thank] you I love you very much, give kids kiss for me. P.S. hope to see you soon.
While my dad was an extremely poor speller and writer, the depth of his criminal cunning can be seen through the intentional gibberish.
The translation: Frank senior wants Frankie to be his eyes and ears on the street. Find out what’s going on and report back. Smile is Frankie. Sono (or Sano) is his reference to himself. Sadsack is Kurt. Cop (or Cap) is Captain D, Donald DiFazio, who ran Connie’s Pizza, a small local pizza chain my father had the arm on, collecting $500 a month in street tax. Curly is Ralph Peluso, who was paying Dad $1,000 per week. NFy is short for Neffie or Nephew, his code for Michael Talarico, Angelo LaPietra’s nephew. Talarico put another $1,000-a-week street tax into Dad’s pocket.
By my calculation, my father was pulling in $110,000 a
nnually on these three accounts. Who knew what else he had going?
My father had everything worked out. His plan was to assign me these three customers: Captain D of Connie’s Pizza, Mike Talarico, and Ralph Peluso. According to the note, I was to keep $1,000 a month for myself, a pittance considering that he was grossing at least $10,000 a month while sitting in prison. Another $700 a month was to go to “Skins,” the code name for my mother.
The contents of the note didn’t shock me as much as they revolted me. I was free again, and my father was willing to risk my freedom and Kurt’s by pulling us back into the same activities that had got us locked up—for a mere $1,000 a month.
After Ronnie was shot, who was next in line? Uncle Nick inside prison? Kurt? If word got out about my cooperation with the FBI, my life wouldn’t be worth a plugged nickel on the street. Was anybody really safe from my father or the Outfit? To get a better grip on my situation, I tried thinking like my dad.
After Ronnie was shot, I figured Dad needed to regroup quickly. If he could get me back working the streets, he’d have eyes and ears he could trust on the street plus a nice little stash waiting for him once he got out.
I now had a new dilemma: how to juggle three secret lives.
Before prison, I had led a dual life with my family and my father. Now I was living a triple existence. First, I was starting over at age forty, living the straight life in an effort to win my family back. Second, I had my father believing that he had won me back and I now worked for him again. Third, I had to continue working with the FBI until my mission was complete.
When I left the halfway house in February 2000, I had two goals. First, finish the fight against my father, even if it meant working undercover for the government. Second, rebuild my life by winning back Lisa and the kids.
Operation Family Secrets: How a Mobster's Son and the FBI Brought Down Chicago's Murderous Crime Family Page 20