Capone

by Laurence Bergreen

  For four years, Dominic Roberto managed to have it all, a career as an important racketeer and two wives, but his career and his American marriage began to unravel in 1928, when he was indicted for violating the Volstead Act. Shortly after, he “divorced” Rio and went into hiding, only to surface in 1931, when the case against him was dropped. Applying for a passport, he claimed he had never been married, which landed him in trouble with authorities again. His luck had finally run out. He did a stretch in Leavenworth federal penitentiary, where his ex-“wife” faithfully visited him, but if she hoped to win him back, she was to be disappointed, for soon after his release in 1933 he was deported to Italy. On his last night in Chicago, the city where he had made his fortune, he took Rio to dinner and gave her a good-bye present of $1,000; then he sailed for Europe, and she never saw him again, though he continued to be ever present in her thoughts. Disgraced but wealthy, he returned to Sambiase and his Italian wife. Whereupon, Rio notes, “I became the grass widow.”

  • • •

  Such was the background and precarious social status of the three men responsible for directing the Battle of Chicago Heights. Since Capone spent the summer of 1926 among Italians who were nearly all former residents of Chicago Heights, his ties to that community became stronger than ever, and he was determined to annex this area to his empire. And yet, despite its large Calabrian population, the Chicago Heights rackets were controlled by a group of old-fashioned Sicilian gangsters grown complacent with age. Their leader was Tony Sanfilippo; the spelling varies depending on where his name appears—in a newspaper, a police blotter, or a federal file. He was assisted by Joseph Martino. Sanfilippo, who had emigrated to the United States from Palermo, Sicily, had served briefly as an alderman from the Third Ward, been a member of the local draft board during the Great War, and now worked as a druggist; Martino managed a poolroom. However, what these men actually did for a living was to shake down Chicago Heights’ numerous alky-cookers, demanding tribute on pain of death, and there were more than enough shootings in the Heights to lend credence to their threats. In return, the Sicilians promised to provide the still owners with protection, but that meant bribing the police, and the Sicilians preferred to keep all the money they extorted. As a result, the poor alky-cookers of Chicago Heights found themselves subject to both extortion and arrest.

  This was the situation in Chicago Heights when Emery, Roberto, and La Porte arrived. They promised the alky-cookers and Italians of Chicago Heights a better deal: little or no tribute, and guaranteed protection from the police. In exchange, they dealt solely with the Capone organization. Once the battle lines were drawn, the confrontation between the Capone organization and the Sicilians turned lethal. The front page of the local newspaper, the Chicago Heights Star, carried terrifying accounts of the deaths of Sicilians, but no one perceived the method to the madness; no one understood who was ordering the killing of the Sicilian racketeers and why. No one realized that, ultimately, Al Capone, acting through his three lieutenants, was responsible for the rash of mysterious deaths in Chicago Heights.

  Tony Sanfilippo, the local Sicilian boss of the rackets, became their first victim. On April 3, 1924, he was found dead in his car, a Jordan brougham, parked on 17th Street. It was early in the evening, and the lights were on, the motor idling. According to police, Sanfilippo had been “shot four times in the head, the bullets entering from behind. All of them went through the skull. The hair and skin were powder burned, showing that the revolver, a .38, had been held near the head when the shots were fired.” His pockets contained $446 in cash, a check for $1,000, and a loaded .38 revolver. He was forty-six years old and left a wife and three small children: the most respected blackmailer in Chicago Heights. The police could not say precisely why Sanfilippo had been murdered, although the local press speculated that he might have been dealing in drugs, and no one outside the Italian community realized Roberto, La Porte, and Emery had ordered the murder and that Al Capone had sanctioned it.

  With the departure of Sanfilippo, another Sicilian, Phil Piazza, took over the leadership of the Chicago Heights rackets. Beginning in 1926, the Piazza gang found itself the target of assassination attempts from unseen enemies. On June 2, 1926, while Capone languished in Lansing, Jim Lamberta, a member of the Piazza gang, was shot to death. He had been going from party to party that night in Chicago Heights, accompanied by two women married to other men. One of the women was shot dead, the other seriously wounded, and their involvement with these gangsters became the focus of concern. Again, no one suspected the involvement of Emery, Roberto, and La Porte, let alone Al Capone, in this bizarre incident, but it was generally recognized that the assault had been badly botched. The intended victim, Phil Piazza, the big boss himself, had been present but unharmed by the bullets. About seven weeks later, on July 23, the Chicago Heights Star carried a headline many had expected: “PHILIP PIAZZA IS MURDERED IN MAFIA MANNER. Shot Dead Outside Cafe on Lowe Avenue—Assassins Escape—WAS A POWERFUL BOSS.” Once again, no one could say who had pronounced the death sentence on the Chicago Heights racketeers. “All over Cook County Philip Piazza’s power was well known. . . . He had a very good appearance and had a manner which made him many friends. He was said to be worth $200,000,” noted the Star in a tone of regret more appropriate to the passing of a wealthy mainstay of the community than a gangland execution. Of all the deaths plotted by the Emery faction, this was the most crucial in establishing their dominance in Chicago. With Piazza out of the way, they now moved quickly. Just ten days later, on August 3, the Star headlined: “SHOT GUN SLUG BARRAGE DROPS YOUNG SICILIAN—Murderers Fire from Passing Auto on Fourteenth Street—Murder Unexpected?” The murder was definitely not unexpected, for the victim was another Sicilian, twenty-three-year-old Joe Salva, the nephew of the late Jim Lamberta. Once again, four shots felled him. Once again, no one knew who was responsible for the killing. And once again, Capone’s lieutenants had eliminated another rival for control of the Chicago Heights rackets without being caught, without even incurring suspicion. They were waging the gangland equivalent of guerrilla warfare.

  For all its mounting ferocity, the Battle of Chicago Heights attracted little attention in Chicago itself. Though both cities were in Cook County, the Heights lay an hour-and-a-half drive distant from its larger namesake. Since the victims (with the exception of the two women) were all known to be racketeers, the authorities were notably lax in their efforts to determine who was responsible for the deaths. The coroner’s jury investigating the death of Phil Piazza, for instance, decided that he had been killed by a bullet and left matters at that. No one was charged with the crime, let alone convicted; the Star’s headline concluded: “Murder . . . Fades Into Unsolved Darkness.” Of the old guard, only Joseph Martino was still alive, and the Capone organization would eventually catch up with him as well.

  Within several weeks of his return from Lansing, Al Capone, with the blessing of La Porte, Roberto, and Emery, assumed control of the Chicago Heights rackets, whose gambling dens, stills, and speakeasies became his to enjoy and exploit. Once again, Al Capone had demonstrated that he was the law. He was also the town’s major employer of Italians, for alky-cooking drew on many different skills. There were farmers to supply grapes, grocers to supply sugar needed for fermentation, plumbers to construct and repair stills, and truck drivers to handle deliveries. According to Dominic Candeloro, a historian of the region, “Even grandmothers and favorite aunts got into the act, making a little moonshine for a niece’s wedding or for a little extra money to pay for piano lessons.”

  Triumphant, Jimmy Emery, Dominic Roberto, and Frankie La Porte established their headquarters at the Monroe Hotel, at Seventeenth Street and East End Avenue. Now that the bloodshed was over, Capone visited almost every week, usually on a Sunday, to participate in a traditional Italian picnic with his men. This was an elaborate affair requiring several days’ preparation. On the day of the picnic, the odor of meat sizzling on an open-air grill wafted across the outskir
ts of town. Neither Capone nor any of his men attended Mass, but their wives did, and when it was over everyone including bodyguards and children gathered for the feast. To demonstrate his solidarity with his Chicago Heights comrades, Capone boldly posed for pictures with them all. In one particularly revealing shot, he sits on the grass at the center of his inner circle, seeming to dominate them all with his bulk and expansive manner. He has removed his jacket, and his tie is coming undone. With revealing body language, Capone extends his right arm toward Frankie La Porte, who stares intently at the camera, while Vera Emery, who is Jimmy’s daughter and Capone’s goddaughter, snuggles with her dog between the two racketeers; to their left, Emery himself reclines on the grass, a faint smile playing about his lips. (Vera Emery’s life would not be as secure as it seemed on this sunny afternoon. Years later, her husband’s head would be blown off as he sat in his living room, reading a newspaper: one more reason why racketeers always took care to keep their curtains closed.) Behind the group stands a phalanx of five formidable bodyguards including Louis “Little New York” Campagna and “Fur” Sammons. Another picnic photograph, this one without Capone, reveals an impressive lineup of his “soldiers,” including La Porte, Roberts, and Emery, and in the middle, given pride of place, “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn. There is a sense of finality about this picture, as if these men were soldiers pausing to commemorate their recent victory.

  As these photographic records suggest, Capone was now the city’s leading figure, and he won the loyalty and admiration of the Italians living there with a combination of intimidation and extravagant gestures the likes of which had never been seen in Chicago Heights. He contributed heavily to the local church, Saint Rocco, located at 315 East Twenty-second Street, on Hungry Hill. He rode through the main streets of the little city, throwing silver dollars from the window of his Cadillac. The coins flashed in the sunlight, and as they struck the sidewalk with a satisfying metallic clunk, young boys set upon them and brought them home to their grateful mothers. The carelessly distributed cash filled many hungry mouths and earned consider able loyalty for Capone. Neither Philip Piazza nor any of the other Sicilian blackmailers had done that, or anything like it, and compared to their brutal regimen Capone seemed a benefactor, a Robin Hood, especially to the boys in the Heights. Among them was John Pegoria, who later became a newspaper photographer for the Chicago Sun. Born and raised in Chicago Heights, he went to school with the sons of the owner of a local tavern called the Milano Café, formerly the headquarters of the Piazza gang before Capone wiped them out. “I was in the saloon,” Pegoria recalls of a day in 1926, “and Mr. Capone came in there, and he got a root beer for me. He seemed like a very nice, affable fellow. He never bothered anybody unless you bothered him.” Pegoria later saw him again at a wedding in the Heights. “There was a custom at Italian weddings to have chairs arranged all around the dance floor, and older people would sit on those chairs and watch the others dance while they served cookies, nuts, and so on. When Capone came, he had a handful of money, and he passed out bills to the old ladies who were sitting around.”

  Another Chicago Heights boy, Sam Pontarelli,1 became almost a second son to Capone. “Al came to the Heights two or three times a month, usually on Saturday or Sunday,” he remembers. “He would have dinner, then play cards and dice with the boys. He was the world’s worst gambler. An uncle of mine beat him out of $20,000, and he picked up a whole stack of $100 bills and threw them at Capone, telling him, ‘You’ve got no business playing this game!’ At the horse track, Lincoln Fields, in the Heights, Capone was also a lousy bettor. He placed three bets on each horse, to win, place, and show.” Pontarelli, too, profited from his association with Capone. “When my cousin was baptized, Al gave me a $1,000 bill, and I was just a kid.” By conventional measures, that money would be worth more than ten times as much today. But to the boys who came from poor immigrant families struggling to survive in the Heights, the real value of the dollars that Capone capriciously bestowed on them was incalculable.

  • • •

  Now that it belonged to him, Chicago Heights served as Capone’s principal refuge from Chicago itself, yet few realized he had anything to do with the Heights except for the small circle of Italian colleagues stationed there. The city afforded him a useful hideout, for it was closer than Lansing, Michigan, and populated with loyal, protective Italians who revered Capone and guarded his welfare as if their lives depended on it, which they did. And yet this prize further complicated his life. It was no longer possible for him to quit the rackets, to walk away from gangland—not as long as he lived in Chicago and controlled the Heights. Even if he changed, Chicago would not change. Since the beginning of the year, the beer war had claimed the lives of more than a hundred men, and dozens more had fallen on the streets of Chicago Heights. The greater Chicago region was in a state of siege, an even more violent place now than when he had left, and if he wanted to stay alive, the chaotic situation compelled him to respond in kind. As he knew, his worst enemies were not the police, who could be controlled with bribes, but other gangsters, who were as eager as ever to see him dead.

  Capone had returned to Chicago intending to attain respectability at any cost. He had already skillfully rebutted the charge of murdering McSwiggin. Now he faced a far more difficult challenge: to return the rackets to the stability of Johnny Torrio’s era, when men sat down to settle their disputes at the table rather than murdering one another on the streets of Chicago. If Capone could meet this goal, he would be able to achieve his goal and retire from the rackets, perhaps as soon as the end of the year. He envisioned spending Christmas at home on Prairie Avenue with his wife and child, a wealthy former bootlegger. But he was temperamentally ill-suited to this daydream, too gregarious to spend the rest of his days sitting in dark back rooms, wheeling and dealing, overseeing payoffs, and pulling strings. He needed to be in the limelight himself, making the speeches, pressing the flesh, seizing the initiative.

  On August 10, he dispatched one of his gunmen, Louis Barko, to harass two of his three principal rivals, “Hymie” Weiss and “Schemer” Drucci, who had prospered in Chicago during the months Capone had hidden in Lansing. Barko caught up with his prey shortly after nine o’clock in the morning as the men were on their way to a meeting with Morris Eller, a ward boss with ties to the city’s Sanitation Department, and John Sbarbaro, the gangland undertaker who doubled as an assistant state’s attorney. Drucci was carrying $13,200 to be used as payoff money. As they approached the Standard Oil Building, where the meeting was to occur, Barko and three other men drew their pistols and launched their assault.

  Bullets flew. Pedestrians on their way to work scattered. A police car arrived. More bullets. Weiss ran into the building, and Drucci tried to escape by jumping onto the running board of a moving automobile. The police apprehended both Drucci and Barko, took them down to the station house, and grilled them. Since this was Chicago, the potentially deadly shootout metamorphosed into a farce. The suspects, who were well known to the police, supplied bogus names and addresses to the befuddled chief of detectives, William “Shoes” Schoemaker. True to the gangsters’ code of honor, Drucci insisted that he had never before seen the man who had fired on him. On second thought, Drucci admitted, maybe he had seen him, but in any event, there hadn’t been a shootout, just a few stray bullets, and he had no idea why they had been fired. Perhaps the other fellow was after Drucci’s money. Yes, Drucci insisted, he had been the unfortunate victim of a routine holdup. He didn’t know anything about gangs, and neither did the other fellow. “Shoes” rubbed his jaw in dismay, and the men were set free.

  Through Barko, Capone had sent a message to Drucci and Weiss that he was back in town, as ferocious as ever, and they conveyed their reply in spectacular fashion. Six weeks later, on September 20, Capone was eating lunch at the Hawthorne Inn with Frankie Rio, one of the bodyguards suspected of killing McSwiggin. They sat, according to custom, with their backs against the wall, at the end of a line of fifte
en white, tile-covered tables, at the rear of the restaurant. It was a lovely fall afternoon, the trees beginning to show their fall colors, a sense of excitement in the crisp air, for this was the day of the fall meet at the Hawthorne Race Track. From across the length and breadth of the land bootleggers had sent their best horses to Capone’s monument to the sporting life, and their massed silks made a brilliant display. Capone was looking forward to spending the afternoon at the track, occupying his seat of honor, presiding over the festivities. That would come a little later, at 2:30 P.M. The hands of the clock over the cash register seemed to pause forever at 1:15 P.M. Passing the time, Al lifted a coffee cup to his lips, but before the liquid reached his mouth, he suddenly plunked the coffee cup down on the saucer. He had heard something out of the ordinary, something deadly.

  Everything happened at once: sixty patrons shrieking, Capone sliding under the table, Rio waving his gun and standing, his gaze riveted on the double doors leading from the restaurant to the street. The sound grew louder, until it became recognizable as the lethal drumming of machine-gun fire approaching along the broad expanse of Twenty-second Street from the west. The waiters fled the restaurant, and the other patrons—gangsters, businessmen dawdling over lunch, mothers with their children—screamed, and those with the most presence of mind joined Capone on the floor, beneath the tables. Then the sound, which had been growing louder, abruptly disappeared. The car from which the bullets had been fired sped up and disappeared. Silence reigned. Strangely enough, nothing had been broken, despite the unmistakable chatter of machine-gun bullets.