Casino

by Nicholas Pileggi

  2

  “One of these days I’m gonna be the boss of the whole syndicate.”

  TONY “THE ANT” Spilotro grew up in a two-story wooden gray bungalow in an Italian neighborhood just a few blocks from Lefty’s home. Tony and his five brothers—Vincent, Victor, Patrick, Johnny, and Michael—slept in one room in three sets of bunk beds.

  Tony’s father, Patsy, owned Patsy’s Restaurant at the corner of Grand and Ogden Avenues. It was a small place famous for homemade meatballs that attracted customers from all over town, including outfit guys like Tony Accardo, Paul “the Waiter” Ricca, Sam Giancana, Gussie Alex, and Jackie Cerone. Patsy’s parking lot was often used for mob meetings.

  “Tony and I met when we were kids,” said Frank Cullotta, who became part of Spilotro’s crew. “We didn’t like each other. We both had shine boxes, and I would shine shoes on one side of Grand Avenue and Tony would shine shoes on the other side of the street. We had a big argument. He told me I had to stay on my side of the street. I told him he had to stay on his. We started shoving. Nothing really came of it, and he went on his way and I went on mine.”

  Like Tony Spilotro, Frank Cullotta was born on the South Side of Chicago. Cullotta was a thief. He had been one as far back as he could remember. He started boosting stores and apartments when he was twelve, the year his father was killed driving a getaway car in an armed robbery; the circumstances of his father’s death were a badge of honor in the neighborhood.

  “Tony and I were both little short guys, you know,” Cullotta said, “and he was a little shorter than me, so he didn’t scare me at all. But Tony always had a lot of guys hanging around him. He used to have about fifteen guys that used to follow him around. I had about six guys that hung with me.

  “Then one day he was talking to his brother about me and his father heard my last name. He told Tony to find out if I was Joe Cullotta’s kid.

  “My father was an independent bad guy, and a long time ago, Spilotro’s father was getting shaken down by some old greaseball black handers. He went to my father, and my father straightened it out. So when it turned out that I was Joe Cullotta’s son, Tony father’s said that was the end of our feud.

  “The next day, Tony walked up to me and said, ‘I want to talk to you.’ I said I wasn’t running away, and he said, ‘My father and your father were friends, and we’re going to be friends forever.’

  “My father was a wheelman for a gang of crooks. He was considered the best driver in the city; there wasn’t anybody else who could outdrive him. From the stories I heard, he could go in reverse faster than most people could go in forward gear. Anyway, my father died behind the wheel during a car chase. He wasn’t shot or anything. There was a police car chase and he got killed.

  “From the moment we became friends, Tony and I ran the streets. I was in his house as much as my own. Even though Tony’s mother, Antoinette, was a witch, I went to the house anyway. She used to give me dirty looks. I’d come in the house she’d snarl at me, ‘Go sit over there!’ and not even offer me a drink of water. Tony was the toughest kid I knew. He was so tough that his brother Victor used to offer guys five dollars to see if they could beat him up. Usually, Victor got a taker and the guy would try to kick Tony’s ass, but if it looked like Tony was gonna lose, we’d all jump on the kid and break his head.

  “Tony and I stole together. We rode around in hot cars. We hated school. We wound up in a trade school filled with black kids.

  “Nearby there was a Jewish neighborhood with lots of stores, and every day Tony and I and a couple of other kids used to go and rob them and either jump on the streetcar or have a hot car parked nearby. We’d take the stuff to our own neighborhood and sell it.

  “We used to fight with the black kids a lot, and one time, when I wasn’t there, they jumped him. But Tony had a knife and he stabbed one of the black kids. Everybody knew Tony did it, but the kid didn’t press charges.

  “A week later I got into a fight and I got six months in a reform school. My mother visited me in there every time she could. Faithfully.

  “When I got out, Tony was hanging around with a blond kid named Joe Hansen, and I started hanging with Paulie Schiro and Crazy Bob Sporadic, doing armed robberies. One day, Tony saw us getting chased by a police car after we shot three guys in a tavern. He came looking for me. We didn’t kill anybody, just wounded them, but Tony explained that we had to dismantle the guns and throw them into the Des Plaines River.

  “He said, ‘You guys can’t do this; you’re gonna get killed. You’re better off robbing banks.’ And he starts to tell us about how he’s been robbing bank messengers. He’d have one guy outside the bank and one guy inside. The guy inside would stand on line and he would spot the people who were taking out lots of cash and bringing it back to their businesses to cash checks for customers or whatever. There was usually between three thousand and twelve thousand in a bag.

  “The man outside would watch everyone who left the bank and he’d remember which way they went. Then we’d follow them until we got their route down, because you knew they were gonna do it over and over again. The next time, we’re waiting for them. We’re seventeen, eighteen years old and we’re making twenty-five thousand a month apiece. We were doing really good. We were doing so good we decided to go out and buy new cars. I remember when I pulled up and parked a brand-new Cadillac in front of the Mark Seven Tavern where we all hung out.

  “Tony walks out. He looks at the car parked there. He says, ‘I bet you money I know whose car this is.’ Nobody says anything. He asks if it’s mine and I said, ‘Yeah, it sure is.’

  “‘Well,’ he says, ‘you can’t own these cars. They’re gonna get mad at us.’ Now I know he’s talking about the outfit guys.

  “I showed Tony my bankroll. ‘Look at this money, Tony,’ I say. ‘We’re stealing and we can’t enjoy it and buy what the fuck we want to with it?’

  “He said, ‘Yeah, but they don’t understand. They want us to keep on driving Fords and Chevys.’

  “That didn’t make any sense to me. If you’re stealing and taking the risks, you might as well enjoy it, but Tony didn’t just want to be a thief like all of us anymore. He wanted to be a racketeer.

  “Within a couple of years, Tony starts hanging with a guy by the name Vinnie ‘the Saint’ Inserro, who was even shorter than Tony. He was about five one, but he was the guy who introduced Tony to all the outfit guys like Turk [Jimmy Torello], Chuckie [Charles Nicoletti], Milwaukee Phil [Philip Alderisio], Potatoes [William Daddano], Joe the Clown [Joseph Lombardo], and Joe Doves [Joseph Aiuppa], who later became the outfit’s top boss.

  “As these guys got bigger, Tony stayed close. He did whatever they wanted. ‘Brahma,’ he said to me one day—he used to call me Brahma because I was built like a bull—‘Brahma,’ he said, ‘one of these days I’m gonna be the boss of the whole syndicate.’

  “I never cared that much. I was more interested in money. Enjoying myself. But Tony was waiting for an opportunity to make his bones, and that came right around here. There were two sharp stickup men we knew named Billy McCarthy and Jimmy Miraglia. I did some work with them. They had been hanging around an outfit lounge on Mannheim Road, getting loaded and getting into arguments with Philly and Ronnie Scalvo.

  “Anyway, one night Billy McCarthy went drinking there again and wound up getting into another beef with the Scalvos, and a week later Jimmy Miraglia goes into the place and gets into a worse beef with the Scalvos in front of his wife.

  “The next time I see McCarthy and Miraglia they tell me they’re going to kill the Scalvos. I said they were nuts. If the outfit ever heard they killed the Scalvos without an okay, they’d be dead.

  “The next morning, it was on my way home, about seven thirty in the morning. I’m listening to the radio when a newscast came on and said two men and a lady were gunned down in Elmwood Park, gangland style, early in the morning. And it gave their names.

  “I knew this was a disaster. First, McCarthy and Mirag
lia didn’t have an okay for the hit. Second, it’s definitely out of the question to kill anyone in Elmwood Park. So far, they’re two for two. I started to get worried about myself, because everybody knew I had been doing business with the two guys.

  “That day Spilotro calls and says he wanted to meet with me. I met him in the bowling alley. He was all business. I could tell he was on an assignment from the boys. I knew this was where he was gonna prove himself, and I didn’t want to be his proof.

  “I had two guns with me just to be sure. Two thirty-eight snubs. I was scared and ready for trouble. When Tony came in he told me that I had no problems, but I had to call McCarthy at home and tell him to meet me that night. I was supposed to tell McCarthy that I had a great score lined up.

  “I didn’t want to make the call, because I knew McCarthy was in trouble, but Tony assured me there was no trouble. He wanted information on the situation with the Scalvos. That’s all. He just wanted to talk to McCarthy for about a half hour.

  “I didn’t tell him what McCarthy and Miraglia had threatened to do, and since he didn’t ask to talk to Miraglia, I hoped maybe the outfit guys weren’t sure who did it as yet.

  “I called and Billy’s wife answered. She said, ‘Hi, Frankie,’ and she got Billy. I told him to meet me at the Chicken House, which was located in Melrose Park, another outfit suburb. I told him I wanted to show him a very good score I found.

  “He said okay, and all the while I was on the phone, Tony stood right alongside of me. I wondered whether Tony was staying that close because he wanted to see if I’d tip McCarthy off that he would be waiting.

  “Tony never let me out of his sight. About eight thirty, we started to drive over to the Chicken House in my car, but we stopped at another restaurant on the way. We didn’t go into the place; Tony just had me pull around in the back of the parking lot, and there was a guy sitting in a dark blue Ford waiting for us.

  “The guy in the car waiting for us was Vinnie Inserro. The Saint himself. We pulled up to his car and Tony walked over. They talked a minute and then Tony came back and told me to wait in the car with the Saint.

  “Then Tony jumped into my car and drove away. I sat with the Saint for about forty minutes. All the while I sat in the car with him I kept one hand on my gun. The car we’re sitting in was definitely a work car, and the Saint and I said absolutely nothing to each other the whole time.

  “Tony rolled up about forty minutes later in my car. He walked over to where we were sitting and told the Saint he had to drive him back to the Chicken House to pick up Billy McCarthy’s car. Tony also told Saint everything went fine. When they drove off I got in my car and drove home.

  “The next day my phone rang. It was Billy’s wife. She asked me if I had seen Billy last night. I told her no and asked why. She said it wasn’t usual for Billy to stay out all night without calling her, but Billy had used her father’s car last night and he never pulled a shot like that on her father.

  “I told her I’d check around to see if I could find him. I really started to worry. I figured for sure I was next. I made sure I always carried a gun. Three nights after Billy disappeared I ran into Jimmy Miraglia at the Colony House restaurant. He was with his wife.

  “I pulled him on the side to talk. I asked him if he had seen Billy in the last three days. He said no, and I said if I were him I would leave town in a hurry. He laughed and said, ‘Why? I have nothing to hide from or run from.’

  “Two days later, Jimmy Miraglia disappeared. Eleven days later both of their bodies showed up in Jimmy’s car trunk.

  “About a week after the bodies popped up, Tony called. He was excited. He wanted to talk.

  “He told me how he grabbed Billy McCarthy at the Chicken House the night I was waiting in the car with Saint. He had parked my car in front of the place so when Billy got there he thought I’d be inside. Instead, he sees Tony.

  “Billy asked Tony where I was, and Tony said he was waiting for me, too, and that he had seen my car parked outside. So they just bullshitted a little bit and when they got tired of waiting for me, they both walked out the door.

  “Right as they walked out the door, Billy spotted Chuckie Nicoletti and Milwaukee Phil Alderisio right next to him. Tony grabbed Billy and they all threw him into the car. Billy had to know right then that it was up. Chuckie and Phil were known guys. They were fifteen, twenty years older than Tony. When they grab you you’re gone.

  “They knew Billy had a gun on him, and they took it off him right away. Then they held him down on the car floor as they took off.

  “That’s when Tony came back with my car and we swapped. He jumped in the car with Saint and drove off and I got in my car and took off.

  “Tony said that the Saint first dropped him at a workshop where they had shanghaied Billy. Then Saint dumped Billy’s car.

  “Tony said they didn’t kill Billy right away because they didn’t know who was with him when the Scalvos were murdered. He said they had to torture Billy for a long time before he would give up who was with him. They had to beat him. Kick him. Even put an ice pick through his balls, but Billy never gave them nothing. Tony said he never saw anybody as tough as Billy McCarthy.

  “Finally, Tony said he dragged Billy over to a workbench and put his head in a vise, and he started screwing it tighter and tighter.

  “He said while Phil and Chuckie watched, he kept tightening the vise until Billy’s head began to squish together and one of his eyes popped out. Tony said that’s when Billy gave up Jimmy Miraglia’s name.

  “Tony really sounded like he was very proud of what he accomplished that night. It seems as though it was the first time he had ever killed anyone. It was like he made his bones. That’s the way it appeared to me at the time. Like he was recognized now that he participated in a mob hit. I remember he was really impressed with Chuckie Nicoletti.

  “‘Boy, this is a heartless guy,’ Tony said about Chuckie. ‘This guy was eating pasta when Billy’s eye popped out.’”

  3

  “Practically a papal request.”

  LEFTY HAD NOTHING to do with the violent end of the outfit’s business. He grew up knowing most of the same bosses as Spilotro; he just provided them with a different service. He provided them with the very likely possibility of winning bets.

  According to the Feds, Fiore “Fifi” Buccieri, the outfit’s boss of the West Side, was one of the men who profited the most from Lefty’s early handicapping talents. He was a scholarly-looking man with a stocky build, eyeglasses, and a partial upper dental plate. He started his criminal career as a juvenile delinquent, and at the age of nineteen he was already a top enforcer for Al Capone. His arrests dated back to 1925, and he had been charged with extortion, bribery, larceny, and murder. His only conviction came on a burglary charge that was reduced to petty larceny.

  Lefty had known the solemn-looking street boss most of his life. Lawmen suspect that Lefty’s family knew Buccieri since the mob boss and Lefty’s father were in the same close-knit fruit and vegetable supply business. By 1950, when Lefty was twenty, he was already spotted traveling around the city with Buccieri. At the end of a day at the track, Buccieri would often invite Lefty to drive around with him for a few hours, according to the Feds. “Lefty knew who Buccieri was,” retired FBI agent Bill Roemer said, “and that kind of an invitation was practically a papal request.”

  Usually, young bookmakers and handicappers were kept far away from the men who controlled the outfit, but according to the FBI, the Chicago police, and the Chicago Crime Commission, Rosenthal occupied a unique place with the outfit’s bosses.

  “Lefty would be seen moving all around town with some of the top guys,” Roemer recalled. “He’d go for coffee with them. He’d go places outfit guys didn’t usually take outsiders. We had information that he went to many of their homes and their farms in Wisconsin and on Lake Geneva. He knew everybody, but he was especially close to two guys who later became bosses—Turk Torello and Joey Aiuppa. And Fifi Buccieri pr
obably would have become a top boss, too, except he died of cancer first.”

  As a result of his friendship with up and coming outfit bosses, Rosenthal always had unusual access to the outfit’s top echelon. Since he was Jewish and could never be a member of the organization, he did not have to abide by many of the traditional rules of protocol that restricted aspiring members like his pal Tony Spilotro or even made men. Lefty did not have to get permission to talk to Buccieri, or Turk, or anyone else in the outfit’s top echelon. According to the Feds, Lefty acquired this unique position because he made them money. First, he was a great handicapper, and second, he was able to provide the kind of inside betting information denied even mob bosses.

  “Lefty was in a position to hear about doped horses, fixed fights, crooked referees, and just about every gambling scam you could dream up, and he always knew just the people to share that information with,” Roemer said. “Later, the bosses began using him whenever they found that their own bookmaking or numbers operations were not making as much as they had been making in the past. We had very good information that the outfit’s top guys would often call Lefty in whenever there was a question about their gambling operations. He was like the bosses’ troubleshooter. He could question people, even made men.

  “Running an illegal gambling franchise is not as easy as you might think. The people who work for the bosses are constantly trying to rip them off. We are dealing with very greedy and very crooked people. The mob guys are always trying to steal from each other. Even when they know somebody’s going to wind up in the trunk of a car if they get caught, they still try and steal a few bucks here and there.

  “Hanging around outfit guys was the way Lefty grew up. He didn’t really know anything else. To him it was all very normal.” Lefty may not have been a part of the outfit’s violence machine, but it was never very far away.

  “While Rosenthal likes to pretend all he did was make bets and maybe take a little book, you can’t be as close to these outfit guys without getting bloody,” Roemer said.