The Outfit

by Russo, Gus

  On February 11, 1962, Miami agents listened to a bug they had illegally installed in Chicago boss Jackie Cerone’s vacation home in Florida. The G listened in as Cerone conferred with fellow Chicago underbosses Fifi Buccieri and Dave Yaras. In great and violent detail the hoods discussed their past killings, and an attempted execution of rival numbers kingpin “Big Jim” Martin. Among other killings, they discussed the horrific torture murder of William “Action Jackson” Kelly, an Outfit juice collector. Agent Bill Roemer described the killing, which took place at a meat-rendering plant, in gruesome detail: ’They hoisted him a foot off the ground and impaled him on a meat hook through the rectum. . . They took a cattle prod . . . and attached it to his penis. They plugged it in . . . Then they poured water on the cattle prod, increasing the voltage . . . Then they smashed his kneecaps with a hammer . . . they stuck him with ice picks . . . They let him hang there for three days until he expired.’

  As in the execution of Fred Evans, Roemer took credit for being the cause of the Kelly killing, claiming that the killers were trying to obtain a confession that Kelly had squealed to Roemer and his partners. In fact, the actual motive for the crime left many otherwise nonviolent insiders saying, “Kelly had it coming.” According to recent interviews, what happened was that Kelly, a known sexual degenerate, had been trying to collect on a gambling debt from an Outfit-connected burglar named Casey Bonakowski. At the time Kelly came calling, Bonakowski was in prison on theft charges. Kelly therefore decided to collect the debt in the form of sexual favors from Mrs. Bonakowski, who put up a struggle before being raped. As if to put a signature on his depravity, Kelly bit off one of his victim’s nipples and spat it on the floor. When word got back to Casey, he immediately took it up with the bosses, who made Kelly an example for future rapists of their women.

  After the war stories concluded, the conspirators got around to the business at hand, planning the murders of Laborers International Union official Frankie Esposito and First Ward boss John D’Arco, both of whom were on route to the Sunshine State. The long session was highlighted by the following exchanges:

  Yaras: “I wish for Christ’s sake we were hitting him now.”

  Cerone: “Well, if we don’t score by the end of the week . . . then we got to take a broad and invite him here.”

  Yaras: “Leave it to us. As soon as he walks in the fucking door, boom!

  We’ll hit him with a fucking ax or something . . .”

  Buccieri: “Now, if he comes in with D’Arco . . . we could do everybody a favor if this fucking D’Arco went with him.”

  Cerone: “The only thing is, he [D’Arco] weighs three hundred fucking pounds.”

  The conversation continued for several minutes as the gangsters discussed in excruciating detail when and how to use their knives and axes, and whether to rent a boat, so as to deposit the bodies at sea.

  Back in Chicago, the local G-men warned the alleged targets, who were disbelieving, to put it mildly. “That’s all bullshit,” Esposito told one agent who phoned him with the news of the threat. “Those guys wouldn’t hit me, you guys are full of shit. I have no reason to talk to you.” Esposito then hung up on the G. Even Bill Roemer, despite his later use of the tape to portray his prey in the worst possible light, admitted that he understood Esposito’s response. “If I hadn’t heard it myself on the tapes, maybe I would have thought it was all ’bullshit’ too.” According to Jeanne Humphreys, Roemer should have believed Esposito.

  “The entire conversation was a farce, orchestrated by Murray,” Mrs. Humphreys recently recalled. “I was there at D’Arco’s Hollywood Beach house when they rehearsed it. It was scripted. They knew the bug was illegal and they wanted to drive the G crazy.” It is worth noting that neither Esposito nor D’Arco were ever even ambushed, let alone murdered. The Bureau’s transcript of the incriminating conversation was leaked to Life magazine writer Sandy Smith and later used by Chicago agent Bill Roemer in his autobiography to illustrate not only the Outfit’s violent ways, but the Bureau’s great surveillance coup. No one wras ever told about the rape of Casey Bonakowski’s wife.

  The occasional game-playing with the G notwithstanding, the situation became so intolerable that Jeanne Humphreys chose to spend the better part of 1962 in Zurich, Switzerland. Every March for years, she and Curly had been ferrying Outfit “pension” money to Virginia Hill, who had been living as an expatriate in the banking capital. According to Jeanne, Gussie Alex had been making the deliveries to Flill for a few years, until he was barred from going to Europe by the Outfit, who feared he was being followed. “I met Virginia in Gstaad,” Jeanne recently said. “Fler mouth was so foul, she made me look like Mother Teresa.” Humphreys says that she smuggled $100,000 per year to Hill, the large-denomination bills hidden in Jeanne’s nylon waistband when transiting customs. In 1962, after she and Curly had toured Africa, Egypt, and Europe and made their delivery to Ms. Hill, it was agreed that Jeanne should take an apartment in downtown Zurich. “My husband stayed for about three months, but had to return to Chicago to run the show,” Jeanne recalls.

  By the summer of 1962, the “Rosselli-Giancana-Sinatra Show” was becoming almost unbearable for the Outfit brain trust. According to the FBI’s bug at Giancana’s Armory Lounge, Giancana spoke with Rosselli about an assignation with still another celebrity, actress Marilyn Monroe. Over the years, numerous sources have stated that both Rosselli and Giancana had known Monroe, who like Judy Campbell had also been on Jack Kennedy’s “nooky list.” Also like Campbell, it appears that Monroe fell hard for the handsome president, who rarely let his emotions spoil a good romp. However, Monroe had recently been told the facts of life by numerous Kennedy aides, and very likely also by Bobby, and now fell into one of her recurrent self-destruct modes. Having no success in calming the actress, the Kennedys tried a different tack. During the last week of July, a distraught Monroe accepted an invitation from Jack Kennedy’s sister Pat to join her and her husband, Peter Lawford, at Frank Sinatra’s Cal-Neva Lodge, where Monroe had previously visited when filming The Misfits in nearby Reno in 1960. Likely unbeknownst to the Kennedys, another occasional consort would be in attendance, whom Monroe had met through either Sinatra or Rosselli, the Lodge’s true owner, Mooney Giancana.

  A number of Giancana’s closest associates assert that Mooney was intent on bedding Monroe, mostly as a swipe at President Kennedy, her other lover. According to Bill Roemer, who heard the Armory Lounge conversation between Giancana and Rosselli (who also knew Monroe), there was little doubt about what had transpired at Cal-Neva’s Bungalow 52. As Roemer later wrote: “What I had gleaned was that Giancana had been at Cal-Neva, the Lake Tahoe resort, with Frank Sinatra and Marilyn the week before she died. There, from what I had been able to put together, she engaged in an orgy. From the conversation I overheard, it appeared she may have had sex with both Sinatra and Giancana on the same trip.”

  Meyer Lansky’s partner and Las Vegas overseer, “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo, recently recalled, “I was there at the Cal-Neva in ’62, when Peter and Frank were there with Monroe. They kept her drugged every night. It was disgusting.” One of Frank Sinatra’s photographers recently stated that a few weeks after the orgy, Sinatra showed him a proof sheet of photos Frank had taken in Monroe’s chalet at the Lodge. The pictures showed a nauseated Monroe on all fours being straddled by Giancana, then kneeling over a toilet, then covered in vomit. At the photographer’s insistence, Sinatra destroyed the proofs in his presence. Afterward, according to one Giancana confidant, Mooney derided both Monroe’s body and her sexual inadequacy to anyone who would listen. But Mooney was satisfied just to have cuckolded the man who had double-crossed him and made him the laughingstock of the Outfit, Jack Kennedy. As the G listened in on the Armory bug, they heard Rosselli wisecrack to Giancana, “You sure get your rocks off fucking the same broad as the brothers, don’t you.”

  Although the Lawfords struggled against the Sinatra-Giancana onslaught at the Lodge, attempting to sober up Monroe, they
had no success. A week later, the troubled Monroe was dead, a likely suicide by the lifelong manic-depressive. Worried that the death would somehow backfire on the Outfit, Humphreys and Accardo demanded more details on Monroe’s controversial drug overdose. Mooney, however, hoped that the truth of Monroe’s death would give him leverage over the dogged Bobby Kennedy. According to Jeanne Humphreys, Rosselli showed up at the Humphreys’ apartment a few months later, toting a thick manila envelope.

  “Murray had no problem letting me read the first few pages - he rarely hid things from me,” Jeanne remembers. “I only looked at three or four pages of the stash, which was about an inch thick. It started off with the medical report on Monroe’s death. The way I understood it, Mooney and the other guys were very curious about her death. It was a topic of conversation.” Jeanne Humphreys also heard whispers that “the boys thought maybe the Kennedys had hit her.”

  The practical effect of Rosselli’s and Giancana’s escalating high jinks was that the two fell even further out of favor with their Chicago bosses. And no matter how many times they were scolded by their superiors, the wayward playboys continued down their errant paths. In the fall of 1962, Mooney was ready to extract his pound of flesh from Frank Sinatra, the man who had sold him the bill of goods regarding the Kennedy “deal.” Throughout 1962, Mooney had overseen a massive remodeling of his Villa Venice Restaurant, and according to some of his cronies, the entire undertaking was aimed at making a onetime killing, with Sinatra’s Rat Pack as bait. According to Sinatra’s daughter, Nancy, “The shows were Dad’s way of paying back Giancana for the help he provided to the Kennedys.”

  Giancana’s plan involved setting up a gambling operation on the grounds of the Villa, which, in order to attract Illinois’ high rollers, had to first be rescued from its dilapidated state. Mooney’s daughter Antoinette wrote of the result of Mooney’s efforts: “[Guests] climbed into restaurant gondolas that were steered back and forth along a river by appropriately costumed gondola rowers, complete with music from the Old Country - all on the house, part of the ambiance. The seating capacity had been increased to eight hundred. The interior renovation was absolutely exquisite . . . the food was perfection and the table dinnerware was the finest that could be found in the Chicago area.”7

  But the most important addition to the compound was “The Quonset Hut,” a gambling venue two blocks away, which could also be reached by shuttle bus for the more pampered guests. Starting on November 26, and for the better part of a month, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Eddie Fisher, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Jimmy Durante appeared for free at the Villa Venice. During the soid-out run, there were lavish parties and receptions in Mooney’s suite while the suckers wrere being ferried to the Quonset Hut to be relieved of their money at the craps, blackjack, and roulette tables.

  Both the local press and the G, with its bugs, took a great interest in the proceedings at the Villa. The Chicago Daily News reported, “During the last twenty days . . . a heavy toll has been levied at the Hut on the Villa patrons. Individual losses of as much as $25,000 have been reported.” The Chicago Tribune added, “The betting den began full-blast operations when Sinatra and his group opened at the Villa Venice . . . A host of gangsters were on hand for Sinatra’s first night. Among them were Willie (Potatoes) Daddano, Marshall Caifano, Jimmy (the Monk) Allegretti, and Felix (Milwaukee Phi!) Alderisio. Sinatra’s gangland fans from other cities appeared too. The Florida contingent was led by Joe Fischetti, from Miami. A delegation of Wisconsin gangsters, including Jim DeGeorge, occupied a ringside table.”

  When the dust settled in December, Giancana (with the G listening) counted his profit, which exceeded $3 million. Hoping to learn more, the Bureau made discreet contact with some of the Villa’s performers. With great candor, Sammy Davis, Jr. told them, “I can’t talk about it. Baby, I got one eye, and that eye sees a lot of things that my brain says I shouldn’t talk about. Because my brain says that if I do, my one eye might not be seeing anything after a while.”

  A few weeks after the monthlong party, Mooney abandoned the Villa, which curiously burned to the ground soon thereafter. Mooney Giancana would need every penny of his take from the Villa operation, as the new year would bring increasing pressures, both from the unyielding Bobby Kennedy and his own disgusted Chicago masters.

  1. Among those ID’d were Gambino, Columbo, Profaci, Marcello, Alo, Buffalino, Bompensiero, Genovese, Patriarca, Lansky, Costello, Trafficante, Marcello, and Dalitz. As a final reminder that this was an effort to outdo the recent Bonanno-Profaci wedding in New York, the only mobster not invited was Bonanno, who was an outcast even in New York.

  2. The agents were Harold Sell, Bill Roemer, Vince Inserra, Johnny Bassett, and Ralph Hill.

  3. Regarding the Fontainebleau, Frank Sinatra’s 1,275-page FBI file notes that Giancana associate Joe Fischetti “was deeply involved in this hotel” and arranged for Sinatra to perform there “without charge.”

  4. Even Nevada’s lieutenant governor, Cliff Jones, found he was being watched when, in 1965, he found a microphone and phone-line-powered transmitter hidden in his office.

  5. For more on Bobby and the use of the underworld in the Castro operations, see Russo, Live by the Sword, and Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot.

  6. Jeanne says that the confused byplay actually went on longer, although she cannot recall all the details four decades later. Once back at the Biscayne home, Jeanne could not restrain herself and brought up the hilarious non sequitur that had just occurred at the Fontainebleau. But just as with the election, Curly found nothing funny about the charade. “Forget about Mongoose,” he told his wife. ’It’s another crazy scheme of Johnny’s.’

  7. Old-time Chicagoans are quick to point out that not many availed themselves of the gondola rides since the Des Plaines River, on which the boats traveled, was linked to an open sewer line, the effect of which removed much of the romance from the boating experience.

  Part Six

  The Party’s Over

  19.

  The Outfit in Decline

  Upheaval was the rule in 1963, with pressures both personal and professional mounting with each successive day. The intensified scrutiny even forced Joe Accardo into doing the unthinkable, selling his palatial mansion in favor of a more modest eighteen-room rancher he had built at 1407 North Ashland, also in River Forest. Although Accardo’s ever-lowering public profile gave him an oasis of sorts, the others Humphreys, Giancana, and Rosselli especially - began to whither under the strain. Most of the bosses sought refuge in constant travel, hoping to elude their government pursuers.

  “It’s a bad situation with the G on us,” Humphreys said into the hidden mike at Celano’s. “I stay around a week, and then go away for a week or so, that way they lose track of me. Then they get puzzled. I haven’t been home for weeks.” However, when the hoods moved about the Chicago environs, their lives were miserable. The local FBI’s report on the game of cat and mouse is informative: “The hoodlums take the most elaborate precautions to prevent themselves from being placed under surveillance. These involve frequent changing of automobiles, the use of various types of public conveyances, including taxicabs, the devious and circuitous routes followed to reach a particular point and the confrontation of individuals whom they believe to be following them.”

  Humphreys’ FBI file shows that J. Edgar Hoover himself ordered his agents to escalate their surveillance of Humphreys, who went to extraordinary lengths to elude them. In addition to keeping his loaded .38 in his jacket pocket, Humphreys gave his associates intricate codes for calling him, using a prearranged number of rings and hang-ups before answering, and a Morse code of sorts for knocking on his apartment door. At his Key Biscayne home, Humphreys had the height raised on the retaining wall that encircled his property (the G responded with helicopter flyovers).

  On the streets of Chicago, Curly walked in zigzags, hoping to throw off the G. Given that one of Curly’s many business triumphs was the local dry-cleaning concession, it was i
ronic that the G-men referred to Curly’s evasive tactics as “dry cleaning.” In one of their summary reports, the local feds wrote: “Humphreys located in vicinity of [King Arthur’s] Pub. He dry cleaned and walked approximately fifteen blocks, entering and exiting buildings, drug stores, etc. [for twenty five minutes when] he entered restaurant.” In another report, an agent described how Humphreys “left his Marine Drive residence and walked two blocks south . . . where he hailed a cab. It was again noted that during this two-block walk, Humphreys was constantly turning around and walking backwards and otherwise taking great pains to determine if he is being surveilled.”

  FBI agent John Bassett recently spoke of his personal travails in tailing Humphreys. Bassett remembered Curly’s penchant for ducking into a large department store such as Marshall Field’s, where he would immediately head for the first-floor cosmetics section, utilizing its myriad mirrors to observe his observers. The FBI also listened in as Humphreys proudly read aloud from a purloined Chicago Police Intelligence Unit report, which stated that the local cops, at least, “had no success whatsoever in surveilling him.” Welsh historian Royston Webb aptly concluded, “No one knew the ’dry cleaning’ business better than Hump.”1

  Even with the choke hold applied by his adversary, Humphreys was not without the occasional victory. In April 1963, Curly’s never identified FBI spy came through with a document that Humphreys shared with his fellows at Celano’s. As the eavesdroppers listened in shock, Curly read from a highly confidential Bureau memo that held the names on Bobby Kennedy’s target list, which included not only the Celano’s crowd, but their allies in Las Vegas. Humphreys discovered that the G had even ID’d the new courier the Outfit had brought in to replace the exiled Virginia Hill, Ida Devine.2