Scarface and the Untouchable

by Max Allan Collins

  Scalise tried to protect his face with a hand that got its little finger shot off; another bullet took out an eye, another broke his jaw. The other two received similar treatment, and all three sat shivering in their chairs, not from fear but pounding gunfire.

  So goes the story, with variations but chilling similarities.

  The tale reached the ears of police and the press not long after, and appeared in print at least twice within a year. Although details varied, this was the underworld consensus, and—significantly—the narrative as Capone’s Outfit wanted it told.

  Whether or not the baseball bat story is true—and that the Murder Twins and Hop Toad were battered and shot to death after a nice meal is incontestable—it added to Capone’s power by sowing fear throughout the underworld.

  “Those who work with me are afraid of nothing,” Capone told Liberty magazine. “Those who work for me are kept faithful, not so much because of their pay as because they know what might be done with them if they broke faith.”

  Like getting beaten with a baseball bat and riddled with bullets.

  As one gang associate put it, “The word spread out among the boys. It made [Capone] a man to be afraid of. A lot of tough guys who were running a few speaks or going with a wildcat brewery or some other money-maker began getting chills in the spine.”

  Capone crony George Meyer reported the cold-blooded beginnings of the plan.

  “I was in an office and Capone came in with Nitti and Joe Fischetti,” he said.

  They began talking and Meyer got up to go, thinking the big boys wanted privacy. Al told Meyer to stick around.

  “You’re gonna know about it anyway,” he said.

  The banquet was Nitto’s idea, including the touch of making the three conspirators the guests of honor: first, hearty good fellowship, putting the trio at ease, and then the horror and its sweet, terrible irony. Again Nitto had quietly planned one of the high-profile killings behind Capone’s bloodthirsty reputation—the Hymie Weiss hit, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, and now the baseball bat murders.

  Meyer stood guard outside the banquet hall while the murders took place.

  “We frisked everyone going in as usual,” he said, including taking the honored guests’ weapons.

  A fellow Outfit guy told Meyer, “Capone got so worked up they thought he had a heart attack.”

  By literally bloodying his own hands, Capone hadn’t just sent a message about the price of disloyalty. According to one relative, he’d felt the need to personally punish Scalise and Anselmi for targeting his family.

  “They were going to blow up the house on Prairie Avenue on a Sunday,” Ralph Capone told his granddaughter, Deirdre, “when we were all there having dinner. They felt they could pull it off because they were insiders and the bodyguards wouldn’t suspect them. . . . If they had pulled it off, Grandma Capone, Aunt Maffie, your father . . . all of us would have been killed.

  “When Al heard this,” Ralph said, “he went berserk. I have never seen him that mad. He was like a wild man.”

  The murder of the Murder Twins made headlines as far away as New York, where the Times noted that Chicago had now seen forty gang slayings so far this year—“an average of more than one a week.” The paper quoted John Stege’s prediction that the killings would lead to “a serious attempt on the part of the Moran gang, especially the Aiello faction of it, to wipe out the leaders of the Capone gang, including Capone himself.”

  Al knew just how much danger he faced, skipping town right after the murders. With Frank Nitto and Jack Guzik, he’d gone to Atlantic City for a gangster convention hosted by Enoch “Nucky” Johnson himself.

  The freewheeling town on the New Jersey shore offered beaches and boardwalks, restaurants and carnival attractions. Also available were prostitutes, gambling, and booze, the city a major off-loading port for liquor smuggling. Nucky Johnson made it all possible.

  Looking like a banker, Nucky was both political boss and racketeer, and a perfect host for the conference. Law enforcement was just one of many things this fixer among fixers controlled in Atlantic City, guaranteeing no interference from the authorities.

  The peace conference took place in the President Hotel and lasted three days. Capone’s account of the meeting portrayed him as instrumental in restoring “co-operation in the ranks of Chicago’s beer-running syndicates.” In “sumptuous quarters,” men from the various Chicago gangs discussed how to share their notorious city’s liquor business without resorting to so much killing.

  “We all agreed . . . to sign on the dotted line,” the New York Times reported Capone saying, “bury the past and forget warfare in the future, for the general good of all concerned.” Capone implied he’d called the peace summit.

  But the real instigator was New York slot machine czar Frank Costello, who believed organized crime should be run like any other business, with a minimum of violence. Costello represented a rising generation of racketeers who saw the value of nationwide cooperation.

  Borders were already being crossed. Outfit guys like Ralph Capone were operating in Wisconsin, while Capone and Torrio lived part-time in Florida where the Outfit controlled dog and horse racetracks. Expansion without sparking new conflict was a top priority.

  Intentionally or not, the groundwork was being laid for a national crime syndicate—not one big organization, but interlocking ones. Cooperation among mobsters was the future, to Costello and Johnny Torrio, among others—better to make more money expanding markets than waste it on warfare.

  Such conflicts brought down the heat, as the Capone-directed killing of Yale in Brooklyn and the homegrown St. Valentine’s Day Massacre demonstrated. Torrio did not want to see his share of the Outfit’s profits diminished by such stupidity. And by the spring of 1929, Costello had decided Capone must be reined in.

  Costello discussed the matter with Torrio and up-and-coming New York mobster Charles “Lucky” Luciano. Together the trio devised a plan to clip Capone’s wings by giving him what he always claimed to want: peace.

  Invitations went out to Chicago gang figures, with New York mobsters and Unione members such as Torrio, Costello, and Luciano also attending, perhaps as mediators. Bugs Moran, still on the run in France, was absent; but Joe Aiello and other North Siders showed up, along with representatives from the city’s smaller bootleg gangs.

  The ensuing treaty involved the consolidation of all the Chicago gangs into a single syndicate under Torrio’s control. Each boss would keep his territory, but the profits, after expenses, would go into a pool to be divided between the “Big Four”—Capone, Moran, Aiello, and Torrio. The syndicate’s books would be audited monthly.

  Above all, the gangsters agreed to settle disputes peacefully, stipulating an end to killing, disagreements settled by “an executive committee.” Past grievances, and violence, were to be forgotten.

  The Atlantic City agreement did hold, in the short term. For about a year, Chicago’s underworld enjoyed relative peace. Outfit members entered joint business ventures with onetime North Side rivals. Gang leaders talked things out over dinners and poker. But years of warfare, peaking on St. Valentine’s Day, had badly fractured the North Side gang, and its gradual collapse would doom the accord.

  For Capone himself, the agreement meant peace at a serious cost—ceding considerable authority to Torrio and giving up several rackets. Even worse, he had to accept the installation of Joe Aiello as head of Chicago’s Unione Siciliana. Aiello had been the puppet master behind Joe Giunta, masterminding the failed coup that got “Hop Toad” killed along with Scalise and Anselmi. The Atlantic City agreement cut out the middleman, giving Capone’s mortal enemy what he’d always wanted—direct control of the Unione.

  That Capone would give his rivals so much indicated his hold on the Outfit had begun to wane.

  “Capone is not the real leader,” a Chicago businessman, once connected with the gang, told the Herald and Examiner. “Torrio never really let loose his grip.”

  Accor
ding to the Tribune, such major Capone partners as Jack Guzik and Frank Nitto “have made it known that they weren’t at all pleased at the way Scarface was living in Florida while they dug for dollars in Chicago.” Such rumblings had given Capone “the idea of recouping his dwindling fortunes through peace.” Guzik would take a leading role in the operations of the new syndicate.

  Capone appeared to accept the new arrangement gladly. “I want peace and I am willing to live and let live,” he said.

  But according to the Tribune, the “peace conference broke up in a row when ‘Scarface’ refused to ‘retire’ or to come through with a large share of his fortune. He was told by rival gang leaders that if he showed up in New York he would ‘get his head blown off’ and that the minute he appeared in Chicago he would be ‘on the spot.’ ”

  Torrio likely had a heart-to-heart with Al. The killings of the Murder Twins and especially of Unione Siciliana president Joe Giunta would spur “a good many hotheads [to go] after Capone’s scalp,” as crime reporter George Murray wrote. Threats continued to flow from Bugs Moran and his camp, and Joe Aiello reaffirmed his $50,000 open contract on the Big Fellow.

  For somebody as hot as Capone then was, Torrio advised, prison was “the safest place in the world.” Hell, Johnny’s own jailhouse stay had been a much-needed vacation.

  Al saw the sense in his mentor’s advice. Anselmi and Scalise were trusted employees—if they’d turned against him, who might betray him next? And of course the ganglord was facing contempt-of-court charges in the Heights business. A cool-off visit to stir might delay legal actions, and maybe allow his lawyers to work out a deal.

  The Capone women were told the idea of a sojourn behind bars was Al’s, and believed the plan had been in place before the Atlantic City trip. But Capone did not call Mae in Miami until the last moment, describing the proposed jail time as an effort to keep him safe. Almost certainly, he didn’t expect to be gone long, but he would soon discover that the near-total influence he enjoyed in Chicago did not extend to other cities.

  Or perhaps his trusted mentor had intentionally given him bad advice. After trying to rein Capone in at Atlantic City, maybe Torrio felt more was needed to protect the organization. Getting Capone out of the way, if only for a while, might have been Torrio’s next attempt to bridle his notorious protégé for the sake of his own bottom line.

  Capone and his bodyguard Frank Rio supposedly had car trouble near Camden, New Jersey, on their post-conference ride back to Chicago. After catching a local train into Philadelphia, they got 9:05 P.M. reservations on the Pennsylvania Railroad, but had some time to kill. They went to a detective-versus-gangster movie, Voice of the City, where two plainclothes detectives spotted the famous real-life gangster.

  “You’re ‘Scarface’ Capone,” one said, grabbing Capone by the arm.

  “My name’s Al Brown,” Capone replied. “Call me ‘Capone’ if you want to. Who are you?”

  The detectives displayed their badges and Capone promptly handed over a .38 pistol. So did Rio.

  Those looking on would never guess both officers already knew Al Capone personally. They’d been to his Florida home, where their host gifted them Sharkey-Stribling fight tickets. The obviously prearranged arrest, however, had undoubtedly involved paying the detectives off with more than ringside seats.

  In Illinois, where a weapons charge required a warrant, Capone and his pistol-packing retinue were never arrested for carrying. The Philadelphia police, currently facing a grand jury investigation into departmental corruption, could pride themselves on one-upping their Chicago brothers in blue. Capone praised their professionalism when he met the city’s public safety director, Lemuel B. Schofield.

  Schofield reported having a “most interesting talk on racketeering in the United States with Capone,” who was “a serious man” speaking “quietly and in a gentlemanly manner.”

  Al’s attitude was in sharp contrast to his bodyguard, Rio, who was snarling like a movie tough guy: “Give me a mouthpiece and I’ll talk.”

  Capone lifted a manicured hand and said, “Listen, boy—you are my friend and have been a faithful bodyguard, but I’ll do the talking.”

  The prisoner told Director Schofield about the peace conference in Atlantic City. Fearing this arrest meant he wouldn’t be home for a while, he wanted “the boys” back home to know about it.

  “I’ve been trying to get out of the racket for two years,” Capone said, “but I couldn’t do it. Once in, you’re always in. . . . You fear death and worse than death; you fear the parasites of the game, the rats who would run to the police if you didn’t constantly satisfy them with money.”

  Schofield asked Capone what it felt like, knowing death waited around every corner.

  “I’ve been in the racket long enough,” Capone said, “to realize that a man in my game must take the breaks, the fortunes of war. Three of my friends [Scalise, Anselmi, and Giunta] were killed in Chicago last week. That certainly doesn’t get you peace of mind.”

  Presumably Capone said this with a straight face.

  At the arraignment on May 17, the courtroom was packed not only with spectators but armed detectives. Indictments were read, the defendants declining to plead. The judge gave Capone and Rio thirty minutes to meet with their attorneys. At noon, court was reconvened and the attorneys approached the bench, conferring for fifteen minutes with the judge. Capone joked with spectators, who asked about his massive diamond ring; he told them it was eleven and a half carats.

  Someone called out, “Worth about $50,000, isn’t it?”

  “You made a good guess!” Capone cheerfully replied.

  At the bench, Capone’s counsel said the defendants would plead guilty.

  “All right,” the judge said. “Each of the prisoners is sentenced to one year’s imprisonment.”

  Hearing he’d received the maximum term for his offense, Capone no longer seemed so cheerful. He’d clearly expected a shorter sentence—most offenders paid a fine; none got more than ninety days—but no one had secured the judge’s cooperation.

  “Al figured on taking a rap,” one Outfit associate remarked, “and he took a kayo.”

  Capone accepted his defeat philosophically, telling a guard as they left the courtroom, “It’s the breaks, kid. It’s the breaks.”

  The ganglord removed the diamond ring and handed it off to his attorney, with orders to give it to Ralph. This perhaps indicated Ralph would be in charge of the Outfit, although Nitto and Torrio bore the real power.

  Capone was taken to Moyamensing Prison, where he figured to do his time, but within a day was transferred to Holmesburg Prison, a county facility near the Delaware River in northeast Philadelphia. Built in 1896, its cellblocks planned for six hundred prisoners but home to almost three times that, Holmesburg was notoriously inhospitable. Lighting sneaked in through tiny, filthy skylights, the concrete-over-brick-walled cells freezing in winter and roasting in summer. Shortly before Capone’s arrival, prisoners had rioted over the execrable food and sadistic guards.

  Frank Nitto visited almost immediately. Frustrated by the long sentence, Capone instructed the Enforcer to get their lawyers working on a way out. But the Outfit’s offer of a $50,000 fee to any lawyer who could arrange Capone’s freedom got nowhere. Nor did a bribe of the same amount move the Philadelphia district attorney. Capone found another use for his money by contributing $1,000 to a local children’s hospital.

  “I’ve got a kid myself,” Capone said, “and I’m always interested in helping out other kids. Only, I make the one provision that my contribution be sent in anonymous. Otherwise people will think I’m making a grandstand play and they wouldn’t understand it.”

  Capone’s words, and the details of his donation, inevitably found their way into the Philadelphia newspapers, but they failed to win him any reduction of sentence.

  In early June, Capone was allowed an interview with a reporter. With his hair sheared off, and wearing a white cotton shirt and baggy blue-gray pa
nts, the gangster cut “a sinister figure.”

  Capone, clearly disliking prison life, claimed he hadn’t chosen to live in a cell. “The stories that I was running away from anybody are all wrong,” he said. But he refused to say much more, because “the less I say for publication the quicker the public will forget me.

  “You see,” the talkative gangster added, “I want to get out of here. If the public is constantly reminded that I am still in jail it will be that much worse for me.”

  Some observers began to doubt whether Capone had truly arranged for his own arrest, since he obviously wanted out now. But another convict offered his own explanation to a reporter from the Philadelphia Public Ledger.

  “Jail,” he said, “seems a heap different . . . when you’re on the outside looking in from what it seems on the inside looking out. Maybe Capone decided he would just as soon take them chances on his life being free than living this here life. I would.”

  Still, Capone found some enjoyment in Holmesburg. The Philadelphia Record reported he and Frankie Rio joined the prison baseball team. Capone became their “ ‘star’ pitcher,” though the Record said nothing about his skill with a bat.

  Capone’s time at Holmesburg ended early on the morning of August 8. Prison officials spirited him away while the other inmates ate breakfast, under such secrecy that not even their superiors knew he’d gone. By the time they found out, Capone was already ensconced in Eastern State Penitentiary, a century-old prison just north of downtown Philadelphia.

  Officially, Capone had been transferred to relieve the overcrowding at Holmesburg. But the New York Times reported a more pressing need to get him out quickly. Other prisoners had grown so jealous of Capone’s regular parade of visitors that “an atmosphere of unrest and uneasiness” soon filled the prison. When “the threats and murmurings” grew sufficiently serious, Capone was sent to Eastern State.