Double Cross

by Sam Giancana

  Smaller, loosely organized neighborhood gangs like the 42 provided the fresh recruits sorely needed by gang leaders such as Esposito. Profiteering businessmen of the time also took note of street-gang tactics, viewing them as a resourceful means to further their own legitimate enterprises. Thus, it wasn’t uncommon for young gang members to be employed to protect a legitimate company’s interests or influence potential consumers.

  In 1919, Johnny Torrio, who was looking for additional muscle, brought in Five Points gang member Al Capone from New York to help run the Colosimo empire. Capone had witnessed the bootlegging successes of fellow Five Points gang members Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, and Bugsy Siegel, and Torrio hoped that, together, he and Capone could convince Big Jim to shift his operations from prostitution to a more lucrative liquor enterprise.

  Their pleas fell on deaf ears; Big Jim wasn’t interested in amassing greater fortune, and neither man could convince him to move into bootlegging. Frustrated, Torrio ordered his uncle’s execution, and Colosimo was gunned down in May of 1920.

  During the following years, Chicago’s gangs made feeble, halfhearted attempts to work together, but—with so much money to be made—greed, double-dealing, and strong ethnic hatred ultimately won out. An all-out fight for territory ensued.

  Amazingly, during this turbulent period, Diamond Joe Esposito went unchallenged and managed to retain ultimate gangland power. Because he controlled the sugar distribution from Cuba, a license he claimed was granted as a personal favor by President Calvin Coolidge in 1923, Esposito remained in a somewhat neutral position. Since sugar was an ingredient critical to the distillation of alcohol, and Cuba was the major supplier to the United States, Esposito could rise above the day-to-day gangland battles. Not only was he secure in controlling a commodity everyone needed but he was also able to influence gang operations and “legitimate” politics throughout the country.

  By the time fifteen-year-old Mooney started working for Diamond Joe running sugar and alky in 1923, many Black Hand leaders across the country had disappeared, victims of prison or rival-gang slaying. Those like Esposito were a new breed, using bombs called “pineapples” as their chief terrorist tactic.

  Esposito utilized the muscle of the West Side Genna brothers to patrol his illicit moonshining activities in the Patch. The immigrants called them the “Terrible Gennas,” and under the padrone’s direction, they ran alky from the hundreds of stills that bubbled and cooked in as many Italian households. Both murderous and devoutly religious, the Gennas strutted menacingly from flat to flat, carrying a crucifix in one pocket and a gun in the other. There were few coppers patrolling Maxwell Street who were not on their payroll. On the day payoffs were made, over four hundred officers came and went from the Gennas’ Taylor Street alky plant. Should the Gennas discover a still not controlled by them in the Patch, they’d send the coppers over to smash it up and make headlines in the process.

  Business boomed for the Gennas. Each week on Taylor Street, bands of young Sicilian muscle—Mooney now among them—collected over three hundred gallons of the prized liquid from each of the homes. From the Gennas’ operation alone, Esposito collected over a million dollars a year. In exchange for their trouble, the Italians in the Patch were paid handsomely—a half-dollar for each gallon of alky, an average of $150 per still. It was more than they could make in six months of honest menial labor and most were grateful; those who weren’t kept quiet.

  There wasn’t an Italian in Chicago who wouldn’t bow to Esposito; if he required it, he even had their women. Particularly fond of young brides, Esposito was apprised of all upcoming Italian nuptials, demanding to bed the more desirable women on their wedding night, before they were soiled by their husbands. Although many men longed to kill him, Esposito’s lascivious humiliations were never denied during his twenty-year reign.

  By the close of 1924, Diamond Joe Esposito was undeniably the most powerful man in Chicago, perhaps in North America. All of the day’s hoodlums, in one way or another, were in his debt. Men such as Al Capone, Johnny Torrio, Jake Guzik, Paul Ricca, Murray Humphreys, Frank Nitti, Jack McGurn, and Tony Accardo had all either been sponsored from New York through Esposito’s political connections or handpicked for their guts and daring off the streets of Chicago.

  Esposito’s Black Hand touched enterprises far beyond the confines of Chicago’s Patch. The padrone routinely boasted of meeting with Calvin Coolidge and dispensing votes and favors at the President’s request.

  According to Esposito, in the early fall of 1924, when asked once again by Coolidge how he could be repaid for his recent political assistance, he requested a promise that the President not interfere with a Chicago takeover of all union operations—coast to coast. Under the guise of generosity, he also asked that the men he supplied with sugar—Joe Kennedy in Boston, Sam and Harry Bronfman of Canada, Lewis Rosenstiel of Cincinnati, and Joe Reinfeld of New Jersey—receive special protection and all rights to bootlegging.

  Esposito insisted he got exactly what he wanted from Coolidge, and, given the national power he wielded, there wasn’t a soldier in Chicago who doubted him. Just as Esposito had promised, Capone and his boys went after unions totally unimpeded by law enforcement, while Esposito’s sugar customers remained protected. It was a smart move and it made Esposito filthy rich.

  Although Diamond Joe Esposito preferred neutrality, this traditional Italian, ethnic heritage was a tie that couldn’t be broken. He was unswerving in his support of Torrio and Capone, forming an alliance that would prove formidable to the north side O’Banion gang. Together, the Italians had at their disposal an enormous thousand-man multiethnic force that was well structured and organized for any effort.

  The Torrio-Capone gang had a Jew, Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik, as its financial whiz, while Italian Paul Ricca and Welshman Murray Humphreys served as lieutenants. Frank Nitti, William “Klondike” O’Donnell, William “Three-Fingered Jack” White, “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn, and Charles Fischetti were the gang’s chief enforcers.

  Chicago gangs often formed loose alliances to gain dominance and strength over their adversaries. Torrio and Capone could rely on the unswerving support of several. Although always double-dealing, the Genna brothers were at their fellow Italians’ disposal when it came to a dispute with north siders. They had carved out an alky empire in the west and south sides of the city under the sponsorship of Diamond Joe Esposito.

  Ironically, cooperation with the Italian gang leaders was based more on geography than ethnic heritage. The Irish Valley gang, led by Frankie Lake and Terry Druggan, was a solid supporter in the battle against north side domination—as were the Sheldon gang, the Saltis gang, and John “Dingbat” O’Berta’s gang.

  They referred to their principal opponents as “those Irish bastards” under the leadership of Dion O‘Banion. O’Banion held complete control of the north side and used his right-hand man and enforcer, Hymie Weiss, along with George “Bugs” Moran and Vincent “the Schemer” Drucci as his primary weapons. For added strength against Capone and the Italian gangs, O’Banion brought in the south side and West Side O’Donnells.

  It was O’Banion’s superior bootlegging product and his fanatical Catholic aversion to allowing prostitution on the north side that had led to a confrontation with Torrio and Capone. The war that followed resulted in more than a thousand gangland slayings and, in November of 1924, O’Banion’s murder, as well.

  But despite fierce fighting, the gangs, and many of those who worked with them, managed to amass considerable fortunes by the mid-twenties. Smaller operators such as the Genna brothers were netting over $100,000 a month, while men at the top such as Al Capone brought in $5 million a year.

  Such a large sum was evidently not enough for Capone, who Mooney would later say tired of Johnny Torrio’s unwillingness to share the wealth. In any case, with the encouragement of Paul Ricca and Murray Humphreys, Al decided his partner should step aside; with that in mind, he enlisted two of Esposito’s young toughs for
the job—rather than the gang’s own enforcers, who might be unduly loyal to Torrio. One was Mooney, now a coldhearted seventeen-year-old who was becoming well known in the Patch for his abilities both behind the wheel and the barrel of a gun.

  Mooney took his sidekick and friend Leonard “Needles” Gianola along—just as he’d done countless times before—to give Torrio the signal to retire in January of 1925. Although the press conveniently gave credit for the ambush to the north side O’Banion gang, Torrio knew better. He knew who fired the shotgun blasts that nearly gutted him on the spot—and for whom his attackers worked. After a touch-and-go recovery, Torrio took the $40 million he’d accumulated during his brief but profitable reign and got out of town.

  Mooney’s work evidently pleased the Capone forces, because just five months later, in May of 1925, they enlisted his skills again, as part of a gang that would remove another obstacle to Big Al’s power. This time, they were six men Mooney knew well: the Genna brothers.

  The first to go was Angelo Genna. Helplessly pinned behind the wheel of his car after a cat-and-mouse chase through Chicago streets, he could do nothing to save himself when his attackers pulled alongside and shotgunned him to death.

  Believing wrongly, as did the police, that Angelo’s death was the work of the north side gang, Mike Genna immediately set out for revenge with two enforcers at his side: Alberto Anselmi and John Scalise. Unknown to Genna, the two had switched their allegiance to Capone. Before Scalise and Anselmi could carry out Capone’s orders to murder Genna, the three were engaged in a gun battle with police and a critically wounded Mike Genna was captured. Anselmi and Scalise fled. Genna was hospitalized and died just hours later. That left “Tony the Gentleman” Genna as Capone’s last real stumbling block. Fearful for his life, Tony Genna made plans to go into hiding and set a meeting with one of the few men he thought he could trust, Giuseppe Nerone. When Genna and Nerone met later in an alley, Mooney and Needles stepped out of the shadows and cut Genna down in a blaze of gunfire.

  Not long after Tony’s death, the three remaining Genna brothers escaped the city with their lives and little else. Years later, after promising they’d stay clear of Syndicate activities, the Gennas would return to Chicago to run a legitimate cheese and olive oil business.

  With Torrio and the Gennas out of the way, Capone filled his time by systematically eliminating any remaining rivals for his empire and by gradually consolidating smaller gangs under his rule.

  Contact with the big gang leaders elevated Mooney’s stature among other 42s to near idolatry. He reveled in it, swaggering down Taylor or Maxwell Street in classy suits, with a revolver in his pocket and a loose girl on his arm. Unfortunately, neither his gangland connections nor his 42 cronies could get him out of a jam with the coppers that September of 1925. At seventeen, he received his first arrest and conviction—for auto theft—and was sentenced to thirty days in the Joliet state pen.

  It was a turning point for Mooney. Sitting in the cell in Joliet gave him time to consider just how far he’d come since those days as a child when he’d been chained and beaten beneath the tree on West Van Buren.

  He’d learned to rely on his own wits and cunning to get by in the world—and up until now they’d served him well. He knew the power of the bullet and the baseball bat. And he knew he was different—different from the other greaseball smartheads, different from men like his ignorant father, different from the other convicts who lined the cell block in Joliet. Those men were hindered by their own stupidity and victimized by emotions such as love and suffering; he’d left those fetters behind long ago. The realization that he could kill, do whatever was necessary to reach his ends without the ponderous moral questions that might plague others, opened his eyes. He counted the days until his release from prison. He would return to Taylor Street and face the only man who’d ever humbled him: his father.

  Antonio had seen Mooney from time to time, had caught him when he was younger sneaking into the house late at night to steal a loaf of bread or, if it was cold outside, looking for a place to sleep—and he’d always beaten him and kicked him out the door. In later years, he’d tried to erase Mo from his mind altogether; he knew what his son had done on the streets of the Patch with hoodlums like the Gennas, Esposito, and Capone—and he wanted no part of it. His business was beginning to prosper; he had a partner and a small store where they sold lemon ice along with the obligatory fruits and vegetables. His wife, Mary, had served him well and he had a new brood of children now. Two boys, Joseph (“Pepe”) and Charles (“Chuck”), had been added to his family, bringing their number to seven—four girls and two boys, plus Lena. The dreams he’d had before coming to the New World were beginning to come to fruition. Then his son walked back into his life.

  It surprised and angered Antonio to see Mooney walk right into the flat so boldly one night. The family was asleep and he’d been sitting at the table nursing a glass of wine when the door opened.

  “You should know better than to come around here,” he yelled in Italian at the thin, sunken-eyed seventeen-year-old who stood staring at him from within the shadows of the doorway.

  Mooney said nothing, but stepped out into the lamplight.

  “What the hell do you want?” Antonio asked. “Come one more step and I’ll beat the hell out of you,” he threatened, shaking his fist. There was something about the way the boy just stared at him that was unnerving, as if he was looking right through him. “Get out,” he yelled again.

  Mooney smiled a distant smile and wordlessly edged closer.

  “Well, what do you want, then? What? Tell me now and then just get out.”

  Mooney took another step and, without raising his voice, said evenly, “What I want is what you took away.”

  A look of puzzlement crossed Antonio’s face and then was quickly replaced with red-faced rage. He got up from his chair and stood to face the boy, now taller than he, before replying. “And what is that? I have nothing of yours. . . . You don’t belong here.”

  Mooney came right up to his father’s face and looked him in the eye. Finally, the boy began to laugh, an odd high-pitched cackle. “It’s over old man,” he said softly, and turned his back to walk across the room. Nonchalantly, as if he’d lived there all his life, he leaned against the sink and began to light a cigarette. Through the glare of the orange-sulfured flame, he glanced up and said, “You can’t push me around anymore, old man. And you can’t hurt me. . . . It’s over.” He blew out the match.

  The words left Antonio momentarily speechless. “Why . . . you . . . you little bastard,” he cried at last. “You lousy little son of a bitch . . . you might scare old women . . . but it won’t work here. Not with me. . . . Now get the hell out of my house before I kick your ass out.”

  Mooney took a long, deep drag and exhaled before he uttered a barely audible reply. “No,” he said, and dropped the cigarette in the sink. It hissed in the momentary silence.

  “Why, I’ll kill you,” Antonio screamed, and he lunged across the room.

  He was no match for his son; with one quick gesture, Mooney rammed Antonio against the wall and reached into the sink, his hand emerging with a large butcher knife.

  Placing its cold steel edge against Antonio’s throat, he whispered, “Listen and listen good. Don’t ever touch me again or I’ll cut you open like a slaughterhouse pig. You hear me, old man? I’ll kill you. From now on, you’ll do as I say, capisce? I’ll come here when I want and I’ll go when I want. From now on, things will be different. . . . You’ll do what I say. And never forget that I let you live tonight. I could’ve slit your throat . . . but I didn’t. Remember that. Because if you ever forget it . . . I promise I’ll kill you.” He loosened his grip.

  “You’d kill your own father?”

  Mooney laughed as he dropped the knife into the sink with a clatter. “Don’t try me,” he said over his shoulder as he swaggered out the door.

  No one in the family knew what had come over Antonio, but when Mooney came t
o the Giancana household on Sunday, it was with a new air of authority; Antonio seemed to welcome him with open arms. Nor did he speak up when Mooney defiantly took his father’s own place at the head of the table. It looked as if Mooney was home for good.

  From then on, if he felt like it, he stopped by his father’s house for a nap or a good meal or simply to keep the kids in line; he quickly usurped Antonio’s role as father and household disciplinarian. But largely, his days and nights were filled with crazy 42 stunts and robberies; his brief stay in Joliet had done little to dampen his enthusiasm for the outrageous.

  Unlike the older Capone men whom Mooney needed to impress, the 42 smartheads were his friends and he could let his hair down with them. When he wasn’t on a job for Esposito running sugar shipments and alky or breaking a few union or political legs for Capone under Murray Humphreys’s direction, he was hanging out at Bonfiglio’s Pool Hall with other 42s. His expertise at wheeling had also begun to pay off; he now frequently chauffeured Machine Gun Jack McGurn, the flashy Capone enforcer.

  Though 1925 had been, in many respects, a good year for Mooney, it turned out to be a very bad year for his fellow gang members. Newspapers began a feverish attempt to paint the 42s as a blight upon the land and sprang on the smallest incident for their headlines. Even nonmembers received publicity if they were young, Italian, and lived in the Patch. Carl Torsiello’s brawl with a neighborhood bully and one-night stay in jail became a “42 gang war with felony conviction” when the press made its splashy reports.

  In reaction to public outcry, the coppers turned up the heat. First, there were the raids on 42 warehouses filled to overflowing with stolen goods; next, a two-mile car chase in March, led by Pete Nicastro and another 42, with the police cars screaming in hot pursuit, their bullets flying. Then two days after curbing Nicastro and throwing him in jail, seventeen other gang members were arrested for attempted robbery.