Guys and Dolls and Other Writings

by Damon Runyon

  He was shown buying linoleum for the kitchen, and superintending the interior decoration of his home on Palm Island, and personally attending to other details the average citizen is glad to turn over to friend wife.

  Moreover Al appears to have been somewhat conservative in big household purchases, considering the amount of plunder he is supposed to have handled.

  He spread out more when buying for his own personal adornment in the way of clothing, and neckties, and night shirts.

  Oscar De Feo, of Marshall Field’s, recalled making over twenty suits for Al and a few topcoats, along with suits for four or five of Al’s friends at a total cost of around $3,600.

  Samuel J. Steinberg, jeweler, who told of the diamond buckles, also said Al stepped into the store one day and bought twenty-two beaded bags at $22.50 apiece.

  During the morning session we furnished Al’s Palm Beach home from top to bottom, besides sending some furnishings out to a Prairie Avenue address, where his mother lives.

  From Henry E. Keller, an elderly man from Miami, we had a clue to Al Capone’s start in life.

  Keller was dock foreman for Al on the Palm Island place, at a salary of $550 per month, and one day, when having lunch with Al, Al asked him where he was born. Keller replied, “In the old Tenth Ward, in New York.”

  “Is that so,” said Al, according to the witness, “why, I came from New York. I got my start as a bartender on Long Island.”

  Al often grinned at the testimony, especially when we got down to his underwear.

  October 13, 1931

  Your Uncle Sam chucked a sort of Chicago pineapple of surprise under Alphonse Capone’s lawyers this afternoon by suddenly announcing these United States of America rested its case against its most conspicuous income tax dodger of the hour.

  “What?” ejaculated Mr. Michael J. Ahern, the urbane Irishman, who has been leading the defense.

  “Huh,” exclaimed Mr. Albert Fink, his bluff and gruff associate.

  Then their chairs rattled in chorus as they pushed them aside to step up to Judge Wilkerson’s bench in the Federal Court.

  Even Al Capone sensed something unusual and leaned forward to listen to the attorneys, his round features set in seriousness, a plump hand rigid before him.

  Messrs. Ahern and Fink admitted their astonishment. You gathered they felt your Uncle Sam had sneaked up on them very suddenly from under cover of a day of dry proceedings all along the line of trying to connect Al Capone up with the gambling profits of the Cicero joints.

  These profits, the government asserts, amounted to $177,500 in 1927 and $24,800 in 1928, a total for the two years of $202,300.

  The startled attorneys argued desperately for the next half hour for a little delay to get their line of defense consolidated, and bring witnesses from New York and other points. But all their conversation did them no good.

  It was 2:20 P.M. when the government lawyers concluded with the direct examination of a handwriting expert named Herbert Walters, only witness of the afternoon, who testified certain endorsements on a cashier’s check bought with the profits of a Cicero gambling house were in the handwriting of Al Capone.

  Indications are the defense will be comparatively brief. Capone’s reputed huge gambling losses may be one line. That some of Al’s lavish expenditures was on borrowed money may be another.

  The government had a short, square-jibbed chap named Bobby Barton walking in and out of the court room every few minutes for identification by different witnesses as the man who handled a large sum of money for Jack Gusick, but Barton was never called to the stand.

  The testimony throughout the trial has depicted Gusick as the money man of the Capone combination. He received the money, and apparently cut it up, too, and one witness testified Gusick told him on no occasion to give anyone else any of the money gathered in at Cicero, “not even Al.”

  Among the things presented by the government which the Capone attorneys say they never heard of before the case opened and against which they have had no time to prepare was the letter from Capone’s income tax expert, Lawrence Mattingly, to C. W. Herrick, local revenue collector, offering to compromise Al’s indebtedness to the government.

  Fred Ries, the man whose testimony is said to have convicted Jack Gusick and Ralph Capone of income tax violations, was today’s principal witness.

  Ries was the cashier of the Radio and Subway gambling houses in Cicero in 1927 and had charge of all the finances. He identified a cashier’s check for $2,500 made payable to J. C. Dunbar, which he cashed and turned over to Bobby Barton. Ries said he was J. C. Dunbar.

  He said that as cashier he bought cashier’s checks with the profits of the establishment, which he gave to Bobby Barton, who in turn gave them to Jack Gusick. He said he bought over $150,000 worth of checks in 1927. By profits he meant any surplus over the bankroll of $10,000.

  There was a long discussion by the attorneys and the Court when Grossman offered the cashier’s checks in evidence and Ahern objected.

  The jury was sent from the room and Grossman questioned the witness further to show the Court he was going to connect Al up with the checks. Finally Judge Wilkerson decided to admit the checks.

  Johnny Torrio, predecessor of Capone as Chicago’s gang lord, and now living on Long Island, was not called upon to testify, although he was subpoenaed. The contempt case against Phil D’Andrea, Al’s bodyguard, who has been in the coop since Saturday morning when he was grabbed with a pistol on his pudgy person, was postponed until Friday.

  October 14, 1931

  Your correspondent cheerfully yields the palm he has borne with such distinction for lo these many years as the world’s worst horse player to Mr. Alphonse Capone.

  Yes sir, and ma’am, Al wins in a common gallop, if we are to believe the testimony brought up in his support today.

  Up to closing time this afternoon Al had lost upwards of $217,000 of all that wrong money that your Uncle Sam has been trying to show went into the Capone pockets from gambling operations in Cicero, and what-not, and the end is not yet.

  A string of bookmakers testified to clipping Al for his potatoes on the races. He was a high player, betting from $1,000 to $5,000 on a race, according to the testimony, and he must have picked out more lizards, beetles, armadillos, crocodiles, anteaters, polecats, penguins and polar bears than your correspondent on one of his best days.

  Al never seemed to win. At least every bookmaker that went to the post today testified to knocking him in for anywhere from $15,000 to $25,000. There were several other bookies in the paddock outside the court room when court adjourned.

  Apparently Al didn’t believe all horse players must die broke. He was belting away at ’em through 1924 down to 1927.

  At the rate the bookies are going now, Al will not have any more of that $266,000 income that your Uncle Sam charges to him by the time court is over tomorrow.

  Milton Held, a betting commissioner, testified Al lost between $8,000 and $10,000 at the Hawthorne track in 1924 and about $12,000 in the fall of 1925.

  Oscar Gutter, a dark-complexioned little man with a low voice who also described himself as a betting commissioner, said Capone lost about $60,000 in 1927 on bets he handled.

  Both Held and Gutter admitted on cross-examination that they had been summoned within the past few days to Capone’s headquarters at the Lexington Hotel, where they conferred with Al and his lawyers.

  Held said Capone would bet anywhere from $200 to $500 on a horse. Gutter told of bets from $1,000 to $3,000. Once Al bet $6,000 on a nag. He always paid off his losings in cash, either personally or through a “secretary.”

  The bookmakers say when they paid Capone off on rare occasions when he won they sent checks in the name of “Andy Doyle.”

  Then came a burly, fat-faced, black-haired chap who described himself as Peter Penovich, Jr. His name has often entered into the case as one of the partners and managers of a Cicero gambling house.

  He said he had been subpoenaed by the
government. Had appeared before the Federal Grand Jury and had been at the Federal Court House nearly every day for months. He was never called as a witness in this case by your Uncle Sam.

  Penovich said he originally had twenty-five per cent of the Cicero place and later his “bit” was cut down to five per cent. Ralph Capone had told him he was to be chopped.

  He said Ralph Capone had told him Frankie Pope was the boss of the place.

  Ralph Capone is Al’s older brother, and stands convicted of income tax violations along with Jack Gusick.

  George Leidermann testified he was a café owner and is now a bookmaker. He said he had a book in 1924 with three other partners and that he often booked to Capone. Al would bet from $500 to $1,000 and would sometimes be betting on two or three horses to a race. Sometimes he would make as many as twenty bets a day. He figured Al lost $14,000 or $15,000 with him in 1924. In 1925 he beat Al for $10,000.

  Leidermann admitted he now is running a gambling house under the direction of George “Bugs” Moran, seven of whose followers were massacred St. Valentine’s Day in 1929.

  Sam Rothschild, who said he was in the cigar business, with bookmaking on the side, said Capone had made perhaps ten bets with his books. These bets were all up in the thousands. He didn’t recall Capone ever won.

  A bald-headed chap named Samuel Gitelson testified he recorded bets for his brother, Ike, a bookmaker, and that Al had lost about $25,000 to the book.

  Edward G. Robinson, the movie actor who has given movie characterizations that some believe are Al Capone to the life, was present in the court room peering at Al.

  October 16, 1931

  That Al Capone is the victim of a wicked plot, conceived in Washington and partly hatched in Miami, was the substance of an utterance by Michael J. Ahern, as he addressed those twelve tired good men and true in Judge Wilkerson’s court this afternoon.

  Ahern was making the closing address on behalf of Al, whose trial on a charge of beating your Uncle Sam out of his income tax is nearing a close, and ought to be handed over to the jury about noon tomorrow.

  Ahern went clear back to the Punic wars and the time of Cato, the censor, whose cry was “Carthage must be destroyed,” and said there are a lot of Catos around nowadays, especially around Washington, whose cry is “Capone must be destroyed.”

  Several years ago when Al first lit in Miami he was summoned before what Mr. Ahern spoke of as a “Spanish Inquisition” of officials and citizens of Miami, and interrogated closely as to his purpose there.

  A stenographer took down the testimony at that time, during which Al is said to have admitted he was a gambler, and all this was introduced into the present case.

  Ahern insinuated the inquiry was prompted from Washington just before an election and gave it as an idea the thing was the beginning of a plot to undo Al Capone.

  Quite a gale of oratory zipped around the corridors of the old Federal Building before the day was done, what with Ahern’s remarks, a lengthy outburst by his associate, Albert Fink, and a long lingual drive by Samuel G. Clawson, of your Uncle Sam’s team of lawyers.

  What Ahern and Fink said, when you boiled it down to a nubbin, was that your Uncle Sam hasn’t proved all those things said about Al Capone in the indictments, and that he is entitled to his liberty forthwith.

  What Clawson said, reduced to a mere hatful, is that Al had a lot of income and didn’t pay tax on said income, and therefore ought to be put in the cooler.

  Ahern, who began the closing defense argument at 2:30, said the government had attempted to prove its case by circumstantial evidence. He declared the government was seeking on meager evidence to convict the defendant because his name is Al Capone, “a sort of a mythical Robin Hood.”

  It was his opinion, Ahern said, that the government might better have diverted the money it has spent proving Al’s profligacy to establish free soup kitchens.

  October 17, 1931

  Those twelve good men and true have gone into a big huddle on Al Capone.

  Judge Wilkerson of the Federal Court handed the now famous case over to them with a batch of instructions, which struck the listeners as very fair to Al, at 2:41 this afternoon.

  Your Uncle Sam claims Al owes him $215,000 tax on an income of over $1,000,000 derived from illegalities such as Cicero gambling, and one thing and another, in the years 1924 to 1929 inclusive, and wants to clap him in the Leavenworth Penitentiary for anywhere from one to thirty-two years.

  Al’s claim is that Uncle Sam didn’t prove the income alleged, although of course, he entered a plea of guilty last July to the very charges for which he has just been tried, under an arrangement with representatives of your Uncle Sam by which he was to take a jolt of two years and a half in prison.

  It was Judge Wilkerson’s declaration on hearing of this agreement, “You can’t bargain with the Federal Court,” that brought on the long trial. It closed with the solemn marching out of the twelve good men and true this afternoon.

  Capone was certainly all sharpened up this morning. He has been gradually returning to his old sartorial glory the last few days, and he fairly bloomed today.

  He wore a grass-green pinchback suit, reminiscent of Florida. He had on heliotrope socks and tan shoes. Al has meticulously refrained from jewelry during the trial, save for a thin, diamond-studded platinum watch chain.

  The judge is rather a thick-set man, of medium height, with a thick shock of iron-gray hair. He told the jury:

  “You are the sole judges of the facts of the case. The jury has nothing to do with the question of punishment. That rests with the Court.

  “This is a criminal case and I shall give you some general rules applicable to criminal cases. The indictment is not to be considered evidence of the guilt. The defendant is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. He is entitled to the benefit of that presumption.”

  Judge Wilkerson explained the meaning of a reasonable doubt. If the jurors had a reasonable doubt it was their duty to acquit the defendant. If they believed the evidence proved him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt they should return a verdict accordingly.

  In order to convict on circumstantial evidence the jury must be satisfied that the circumstances alleged are true.

  Wilkerson told the jury to take up each count and return an opinion on each. He said it was not necessary for the government to show the exact amount of income alleged. The Court explained at length the meaning of income under the law. He quoted the provisions of the income tax law at length.

  He said the jury might consider the evidence of the way the defendant had lived and the evidence of the money transmitted to him in determining if Capone had a taxable net income. He added:

  “The expenditure of money alone isn’t sufficient evidence of taxable income; the possession of money alone isn’t sufficient evidence of taxable income. But the expenditure and possession of money may be considered in arriving at a conclusion as to whether the income existed.

  “The charges of willful attempt to evade the tax couldn’t be sustained unless there were some facts to show the attempt. The jury must first be convinced that the taxable net income of $5,000 existed. The mere failure to file an income tax return doesn’t of itself prove an attempt to evade the tax but such failure must be considered with its relations to other actions.”

  The statement of a duly authorized agent may be considered against a principal, said Judge Wilkerson, dealing with the famous Mattingly letter to the revenue collector admitting Al had had an income of $266,000 for the years charged.

  If the jury found that the statement of Mattingly were within the authority of the defendant, he continued, it might be considered in determining the guilt or innocence of the defendant. If they felt Mattingly had exceeded the scope of his authorization, then they should disregard the letter, he said.

  On the subject of the corpus delicti or body of the crime, the court said that might be established by the circumstantial evidence. It is not incumbe
nt on a defendant to testify in his own behalf, the judge said.

  “This case will determine whether any man is above the law.”

  So said George E. Q. Johnson, United States attorney, in the final argument on behalf of your Uncle Sam this morning.

  “Gentlemen, the United States Government has no more important laws to enforce than the revenue laws. Thousands upon thousands of persons go to work daily and all of them who earn more than $1,500 a year must pay income tax.

  “If the time ever comes when it has to go out and force the collection of taxes, the Army and the Navy will disband, courts will be swept aside, civilization will revert to the jungle days when every man was for himself.”

  Pointing at Capone, Johnson demanded:

  “Who is he, this man? Is he a mythical modern Robin Hood, as defense counsel has described him?

  “The Robin Hood of history robbed the rich to give to the poor. Did Capone buy thousands of dollars of diamond belt buckles for the unemployed? Did the $6,500 worth of meat go to the unemployed? No, his purchases went to his mansion on Palm Island. Did he buy $27 shirts for the men who sleep under Wacker Drive? No, not he.”

  Johnson traced the early history of Capone, starting with the time when the defendant was a bartender at Coney Island. Then he said he was next heard of at Jim Colosimo’s restaurant in Chicago. All the time, he said, the defendant was becoming more affluent. Johnson went on:

  “Then we come to 1924, when this gambling establishment in Cicero was shown to have a profit of $300,000.”

  “Even if we take the defense statement that he had only an eight per cent share, his profits would have been $24,000. Let me remind you that the record shows profits of $215,000 in 1925.

  “Then we come to 1926.

  “Pete Penovich had a little gambling place of his own, which he gave up because of Capone’s mob. In the parlance of the gentry, he was ‘muscled’ out. His successor, Mondi, was also muscled out, and after this there was no competition in the gambling business in Cicero.”