Double Cross

by Sam Giancana

  The barbers looked at one another. Carl could tell they were scared to death.

  “Well? Cat got your tongue? What’s it gonna be, assholes? You gonna make waves or vote for the union? . . . Either way, you’re gonna keep your fuckin’ mouths shut and mind your own goddamned business. Or else . . . you won’t be cutting hair anymore. Got that? Capisce?” “Come on, Leonard, can’t you see the bastards are nothin but trouble. They need a lesson in manners . . . gettin cocky in their old age. Maybe they should retire,” sneered Mad Dog.

  “Shut up,” Leonard hissed.

  Carl glanced over at Turk and Mad Dog. As they fingered their bats, he thought that everything he’d heard about them was true; they were excited at the idea of letting the old men have it. Turk put one hand in the pocket of his jacket; there was a gun there and he looked as if he was itching to use it, but Leonard drew his first.

  “Okay, old men, what’s it gonna be?” Leonard said, waving the revolver. “You want us to leave you dead . . . or alive? I’m waitin, but I’m not gonna wait long.”

  Before they could say a word, Mad Dog sent his bat crashing onto the head of the white-haired man, and he crumpled to the floor like an old newspaper. Blood stained his snowy crown and poured down his face, clouding his frightened eyes. He looked up for mercy, but the bat came down again. This time, it hit his leg with a sickening crunching sound and he grabbed it, shrieking in pain. His eyes fluttered and he slumped, unconscious, on the blood-smeared tile.

  “Nice piece of work, Mad Dog . . . you showed him pretty good,” exclaimed Turk. “Give him another one.”

  They laughed and didn’t seem to notice that Carl wasn’t joining in their amusement. His first instinct had been to comfort the poor man. The blood made him sick. He’d been a goddamned fool to think he could ever be a part of Mooney’s gang.

  “You’re killing him,” the other barber screamed, and he began blubbering in broken English. “My friend of fifty years . . . you’re killing him.” He rushed for Mad Dog’s throat but didn’t reach him, catching Turk’s pistol across his temple. He staggered against the desk.

  “Hey, guys, what’re you waitin’ for? Teach the cocksucker a lesson he won’t forget. Kick his ass . . . he’ll remember who to vote for,” Leonard ordered, and stepped back to light a cigar.

  Brandishing brass knuckles, the two jumped on the man. When they broke his fingers—one by one—they cracked and snapped like kernels of corn popping at a fair. He screamed for a while and struggled against the blows that followed, but their youth was too much for him and he fell into a stupor on the floor.

  “Is he dead?” Turk asked, chuckling as he lit a cigarette.

  “No and he’s not gonna be, either,” Leonard said. “We didn’t come here to kill ’em . . . we came here to teach the sons of bitches a fuckin’ lesson. We want ’em to vote, you know, and dead men don’t vote.”

  “Sometimes they do,” said Turk, catching his breath as he smirked at his cohorts. They all laughed until they couldn’t laugh anymore.

  In the midst of the beating, Carl slipped to the front of the barbershop. He decided he’d tell Fat Leonard he thought he heard someone coming. But the truth was he couldn’t stand it anymore; he’d walked straight out the front door of the shop to the curb. After he got a grip on himself, he stood beneath the red and white barber pole, thinking about Tillie and how he’d let her down. He’d lost his chance.

  “So be it,” he said out loud, alone in the shadow of the streetlight. He clenched his fist and wanted to cry at the unfairness of it all. He couldn’t do it, no matter how much money it meant. And he decided then and there that somehow they’d make it—he and Tillie and the children—without Mooney and the Syndicate.

  CHAPTER 7

  Mooney hadn’t said much besides “Later” when Fat Leonard started to tell him about Carl Torsiello and the night before as they pulled up to Louie’s gas station on California and Lexington. Chuck was excited to be included on Mooney’s rounds through his territory that spring; and as usual he stayed out of his brother’s way that day, standing outside the open garage door in the bright sunshine, drinking a cold bottle of Coca-Cola from the cooler.

  Each morning, when Mooney came to the gas station to conduct business, the owner and his wife thanked him profusely. “It’s an honor, Mooney; just make yourself at home. The place is all yours . . . for as long as you like,” they’d say, and then skedaddle, hastily leaving a customer’s car waiting on the grease racks. Once the duo left, Mooney lit a cigar—he didn’t smoke cigarettes much anymore—and got down to business.

  It was easy to tell when the word had gotten out that Mooney was at Louie’s—because, one by one, neighborhood men from all walks of life, from low-life greaseballs to bankers and coppers, started to show up, waiting for a word with him. And it could go on like that until noon. Then, they’d sit around awhile before heading for Claudio’s Bakery and Mooney’s afternoon appointments.

  Chuck sat down against the wall of the building and watched admiringly as his brother worked his magic. There was a big heavyset man in a suit, who looked like a businessman, asking for Mooney’s backing to open up a bar. A disheveled guy in old dungarees waited on the sidelines, pacing back and forth smoking one Lucky Strike after the other; rumor had it he owed the Syndicate money and couldn’t pay. Across the garage, two old fellows with shiny bald heads huddled in the corner. Chuck had seen them there before; they ran card games and book joints.

  There were the usual down-and-outers, too, looking for a job at one union or another; three of them stood outside near the door, talking about how many mouths they had to feed. “And another baby on the way,” one lamented.

  A few new pock-faced recruits, whom Fifi had swept off the streets, were lined up against the wall behind the grease racks, tough-guy sneers permanently frozen on their faces as they waited to flex their muscle and prove their worth.

  It always fascinated Chuck how people groveled and pawed their way in to talk with Mooney. They shuffled like shines on a plantation, eyes to the floor. His brother could’ve been the Pope the way they fawned and whined. To hear grown men ask permission to buy a house or a car amazed him. They begged and poured out their life histories when they needed a job. Cajoled and smiled and said, “Yes, sir, yes, sir,” when they wanted to open a business—legitimate or otherwise. More often than not, they didn’t come to ask for money; they came for his permission or advice. Or they brought him money in neat long envelopes and left without saying a word.

  Something about the way Mooney made the entire Giancana family—including Antonio—come around with their tongues hanging out, whether they needed money or, in his sisters’ case, Mooney’s approval to go somewhere, rubbed Chuck the wrong way. Mooney treated them just like all the other common dagos who came off the street; and Chuck resented that. Until he’d started coming along with Mooney to Louie’s and Claudio’s Bakery and actually witnessed what went on, he wouldn’t have believed it: Other people got the same treatment the Giancana family had gotten all their lives. His only consolation was that many got worse; at least Mooney hadn’t killed any of his family.

  More than once. Chuck had seen Mooney give one of his lieutenants a certain look after a guy had shown up with some sob story about not being able to pay a debt. And he started to put two and two together when shortly thereafter the newspapers would report that a man’s body, twisted up like a busted tire, had turned up in a ditch. It didn’t surprise him. Nothing Mooney did surprised him anymore.

  Maybe it was Joliet; Mooney had become more reserved, quiet, since he’d come back. Before he’d left, not much moved his brother that Chuck could recall, but now nothing touched him; he was unreachable. Maybe he’d worn a mask so long that he’d become the mask. It was as if there wasn’t a real person named Mooney sitting in Louie’s gas station. Mooney had flesh and blood like everybody else, but he was a counterfeit person somehow. People who knew him—even Ange—didn’t recognize that. Maybe they just couldn’t bel
ieve it—or didn’t want to.

  Now, when he saw Mooney give one of his men that look, Chuck knew what it meant and he also knew it didn’t mean a thing to Mooney one way or the other. Other people thought he had feelings like they did. That was their weakness. And Mooney’s greatest strength.

  The businessman got up and left, scurrying down the sidewalk. And the nervous guy sat down.

  “I don’t have it yet, Mooney: I will though. My pa, he’s gonna help me come up with the money. I gotta stay away from joints with card games. I promise I’ll have it next week.”

  “You’ve said that before, Rico. . . . We want it today. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Today. Capisce?”

  The man started to cry, sobbing and sniffling and puffing on his cigarette. He was shaking like a leaf. “I don’t know where I can get it, Mooney. There isn’t anyplace. Please give me another week. I’ll have it then. I will, just like I said.”

  “Get a grip on yourself, man. Pull yourself together. It’s all right.” There was a cool evenness to his tone. “Go home now; we’ll talk again soon . . . when you’re in better shape.” Mooney turned to Needles. Chuck expected his brother to give Needles his special look, the one that said the guy would be lucky to make it until sundown. But he didn’t. He smiled instead, a peculiar sympathy in his eyes, and said, “Take him home, Needles.”

  The man stood up and dried his eyes. “Thank you, Mr. Mooney,” he cried out, joy in his voice.

  Chuck watched, mystified, as Needles put his arm around the guy and led him to the car. No one, not even Mooney’s closest associates, could predict his brother’s reactions. But undeniably, just as easily as Mooney could order a man’s death, he could also grant him life. He was that powerful.

  Later that day, after the continuous stream of visitors had diminished to a trickle, Chuck joined his brother, Needles, Fifi, and Fat Leonard for a cigarette and a lukewarm cup of oily black coffee. He felt privileged that they let him sit there while discussing the morning’s efforts.

  “Now, tell me about Torsiello,” Mooney demanded.

  Leonard explained that the problems with the barber’s union were taken care of, but added that Carl had gotten cold feet.

  When Fat Leonard finished, Mooney displayed an uncharacteristic sympathy, “Too bad, Carl’s a tough son of a bitch . . . he would’ve made a goddamned good soldier . . . maybe even a lieutenant some day.”

  His reaction surprised Chuck, because such behavior was typically branded as “cowardly” by his brother and, from what he’d seen over the past months, swiftly punished. But here was Mooney letting it go like it was nothing.

  As if reading Chuck’s mind, Mooney continued: “You guys got along fine without him . . . right? And he stayed outta your way. So, just forget about it,” Mooney said, leaning back and putting his feet up on the table. “Some guys just don’t have what it takes to go up the ladder. Carl’s no chump, he just doesn’t have the stomach for that line of work. He’s not a bad guy. We’ll leave him alone . . . help him and his wife, Tillie, if we can. And if a different kind of opportunity comes along, maybe I’ll give him another try. But he won’t get another chance like this one.”

  Chuck knew exactly what his brother meant by that and it was the one thing that worried him about his own future. Not many guys made it to the top in the Syndicate without earning it, without breaking a few legs and killing their way up; he couldn’t think of one. That’s how Mooney got where he was. There didn’t seem much getting around that. And Chuck didn’t know what he would do if Mooney ever sent him along with one of his executioners to put a guy away.

  Years before, Chuck had romanticized it all—as if it were something out of a movie—but little by little he’d realized this was for keeps and deep down he’d started wondering whether he could do it. Maybe he was more like Carl; maybe he didn’t have the guts for it. He hoped Mooney wouldn’t demand that kind of proof of loyalty from him, his own brother. Only time would tell. But he was getting older—he was fifteen—and Mooney had already built a well-deserved reputation in the Patch by the time he was twelve. Chuck didn’t see how he could ever match that—not if he had to murder his way there.

  Paul Ricca didn’t have to brief Mooney on the Syndicate’s answer to the end of Prohibition. He was well aware that they’d found more than one lucrative angle, and he was becoming increasingly involved in the workings of each.

  Aside from the growing union rackets, the Syndicate still cooked the alky—only now they sold it to licensed distributors. Distributors, typically well-known bootleggers turned legitimate entrepreneurs, were always hungry for a better profit. Rebottled and passed off as a quality brand or import, booze costing five dollars a barrel to distill in a backwoods barn could bring the Syndicate—and a corrupt distributor—thousands in profit. Much of Joe Kennedy’s so-called fancy scotch was, in fact, not so fancy after all, but rebottled still alcohol. “One hand washes the other,” Paul Ricca told Mooney. “And right now, one of those hands is empty. . . . All the distributors want cheap booze . . . and to give it to ’em, we need more stills and more alky.”

  In response, early in the summer of 1937, Mooney sent a soldier, Guido Gentile, to find some property out in the country. “Way, way out, Guido,” Mooney had told his scout. “This is gonna be a big operation and we don’t want any fuckin’ agents nosin’ around our business, screwin’ things up.”

  Gentile set out to find a barn and cooperative farmer in an appropriately godforsaken place. He did—in Garden Prairie, Illinois,

  Gentile had a long wish list—a steady supply of grain and cookers as well as vehicles for transfer of the moonshine. Once Gentile got the operation in place, Mooney sent nine soldiers from the Patch to feed the stills. By January of 1938, they were producing enough alky to supply connections along the East Coast to Boston, north to Milwaukee and Detroit, and across to Cleveland. After giving Ricca and the guys their cut, the operation supplied Mooney with more money than he’d had in his entire life.

  Throughout the summer, Chuck spent more and more time at Mooney’s side or at his house, soaking up whatever he could of his brother’s business savvy. After Ange had given birth in April to a surprisingly healthy baby girl named Bonnie, Mooney had become more willing than ever to take Chuck along. Whether or not there was a connection, Chuck didn’t know, but for his part, he thoroughly enjoyed watching his brother in action.

  It seemed Mooney conducted business everywhere he went. It wasn’t always formal as it was at the garage or bakery. Most times, it wasn’t formal at all. Chuck would be sitting at Mooney’s house, eating dinner with his brother, Ange, and his two nieces, and the phone would ring. Ange usually answered; Mooney had her screen his calls, and if it was somebody he wanted to talk to, he’d take the call in the other room. He’d set a time and place to meet later, usually that night. It might be on a street corner, in a parking lot, or just in the front seat of the car. A real office was something nobody longed for. The Syndicate guys reveled in the secrecy, liked slipping around corners and whispering orders, planning their next move.

  It made Ange more comfortable when Mooney took Chuck with him; her jealous outbursts became less frequent. Chuck decided that she believed her husband would never have a romantic encounter when his younger brother was standing by—which couldn’t have been further from the truth. After a few hours of meetings, Mooney liked to stop by one of the high-class whorehouses to unwind, suggesting to Chuck that he take advantage of the opportunity. “It’s free,” he’d say as they parked the car. “Other assholes gotta pay up to a hundred dollars to screw these girls . . . but not a Giancana. Anything you want, Chuck . . . you hear what I’m sayin’? Anything. It’s yours, Chuck . . . anything you want and all you want. Free and clear.”

  The Italians they saw on Mooney’s rounds were men Chuck came to know well. At the Bella Napoli, Paul Ricca let him stay at the table with Louis Campagna, Johnny Roselli, Tony Accardo, and Murray Humphreys, and Chuck felt honored to be included—even if all
they talked about was how tasty the cannoli were. Chuck couldn’t tell whether Mooney was grooming him for the day he’d join the Syndicate—he was afraid to ask—or if, by always taking him along, he was simply placating Ange.

  Through Mooney, Chuck also met men from outside the neighborhood—guys like Jake Guzik, whom Mooney worked for. Guzik was a Jew who’d earned the nickname Greasy Thumb because of his knack at thumbing through stacks of bills. Mooney told Chuck that it was Guzik, along with Ricca, Sam “Golfbag” Hunt, Murray Humphreys, and Nitti, who held the Syndicate together after Capone had gotten pinched by the IRS.

  But what really impressed Chuck about the man wasn’t his business acumen, but his friendly manner and generosity; every time they went to Guzik’s hangout—St. Huberts Old English Grill and Chop House—they’d leave with three or four old suits to take home to Antonio. Thanks to Guzik, their father had started looking like a regular Romeo.

  Chuck enjoyed sitting at the table with Guzik, too. He was warm and talkative and, Chuck thought, different from the other men around Mooney. Jake Guzik just didn’t have the eyes of a killer. Sitting at his table was like being at a happy-go-lucky payoff window; everybody from police captains and politicians to judges came and went all night. Between his wine and lamb chops, Guzik managed to make them all leave smiling, envelopes stuffed with cash in hand.

  By August of 1938, Chuck was finding it old hat for men like Murray Humphreys to climb into the front seat next to his brother for a little talk while he sat quietly in the back. The men discussed things such as payoffs and labor disputes for what seemed like hours. After a few months, he saw a pattern to the visits; Mooney made his rounds at night just as he did during the day. But usually the night’s events were far more interesting.