Double Cross

by Sam Giancana

  “Why, you dirty motherfucker. I’ll fuckin’ kill you.” Roe reached for Mooney’s lapels, but before he could lay a hand on him, Chuck and Jimmy New York stepped up and stuck their guns in his ribs.

  “Forget about it, Teddy,” Mooney said, never taking his eyes from the woman. He laughed. “You’re over your head.” And, without even looking back, he swaggered out the door into the night.

  On a Saturday night in May of 1946, Mooney put his plan in action by kidnapping Eddie Jones. He and Fat Leonard, along with Needles, Fifi, and Vincent Ioli, abducted the policy king, put him in the basement of Mooney’s still-vacant house in Oak Park, and gave him a choice similar to the one Mooney had given Guzik three years before: Cooperate or die. Jones didn’t have to be convinced. Before his release the following Friday, he came up with $250,000 in unmarked ransom money and agreed to turn over his entire operation. Two weeks later, Jones and his family boarded a train to Mexico and that was the last Mooney saw of the Jones brothers.

  The colored papers called Mooney a “double-crosser,” a convict with a record “as long as your arm.” And small-time colored policy men, among them Teddy Roe, braced themselves for an assault. Roe brazenly suggested to his friends and anyone else who’d listen that before the Italians took over his wheels, he’d die first. Mooney’s only response to that was, “That’s not such a bad idea.”

  No attempt was made to kill Roe that summer. Instead, Mooney used his political ties and police connections to turn the heat up on Roe’s operation, forcing him to shut down his wheels.

  With Roe effectively out of the way, Mooney then turned his attention—an onslaught of intimidations, bombings, and murder—toward the less vocal policy operators. And one by one, the wheels fell under his control. By August, with the exception of Roe’s wheels, Mooney owned the policy rackets “lock, stock, and barrel,” as he put it.

  Following the takeover, Mooney put five soldiers from the old neighborhood, the Manno brothers and Sam Pardy, in charge of policy operations. Although white Italians still referred to it as “numbers,” it remained a game restricted to the colored community; the few whites wishing to play did so through one of the hundreds of bookies scattered throughout Chicago, who in turn called one of the colored policy front men with the bet.

  Chuck watched the unfolding of this new enterprise with rabid interest, curious to find out whether policy, as Mooney had said, could really generate the legendary bushel baskets full of money. He began hearing tales—tall ones, he’d thought at first—of bundles of cash stacked waist-deep in the Mannos’ basement. When Mooney invited him to go for a drive in late November of 1946 to Tom Manno’s to see for himself, he eagerly went along. There he found money stacked from one end of the basement to the other—not waist-deep, but to the ceiling. Six years later, in 1952, three of the Manno brothers and Pardy would plead guilty and be jailed for evading over $2 million in taxes levied against their policy profits.

  Still awestruck by the sight of so much money, Chuck listened during the drive home as Mooney outlined his plans for the future.

  Mooney said that while he’d been getting local operations in line, Tony Accardo had instructed Jake Guzik and Murray Humphreys to work on another angle, the national gambling scene. Chicago was moving into Iowa, Kansas, Indiana, and Michigan. Additionally, they were trying to set up a gambling operation in Dallas, Texas, and put the finishing touches on a takeover of Continental Press, a wire service out of Cleveland that provided national sporting-event results to bookies throughout the country.

  Mooney said Guzik and Humphreys had used Pat Manno along with small-time fixers Paul Jones and Jack Nappi as their emissaries to Texas. They offered the Dallas sheriff, Steve Guthrie, $150,000 for his cooperation during their invasion of the city. “We promised the guy we’d make sure the city stays clean . . . no trouble, no drugs. Just good clean fun . . . floating crap games, bookmakin’, and slot machines.”

  But in early November, just when Manno and Jones thought they had a deal, they discovered the sheriff had bugged their meetings. Guthrie refused the payoff and blew the whistle, resulting in Jones being charged with bribery. It put a crimp in all their plans. “But we got another card to play,” Mooney told Chuck. “I’m sendin’ a Jew friend of Dave Yaras’s and Lenny Patrick’s . . . Jack Ruby.”

  Chuck learned that Jack Ruby was expected to move slowly at first, opening a seedy night spot that the Chicago Syndicate would slowly transform into a jumping strip joint, offering clientele everything from bookmaking to prostitutes. Over time, if all proceeded according to plan, Ruby would bypass the sheriff, find the weak link in the area’s law enforcement—there always was one, Mooney said—and begin the long process of bribery and payoffs.

  According to Mooney, the other opportunity, Continental and its distributor, Midwest News Service, had fared better. Continental’s predecessor, Nation-Wide, was originally owned by Moe Annenberg but was forced out of business when the publishing mogul was found guilty of tax evasion and sent to prison.

  Prior to his downfall, with the backing of both the Chicago and New York crime syndicates, Annenberg had made a fortune from the gambling industry, providing racing forms and wire services to bookies throughout the country. An established wire service, with its thousands of customers, could be extremely profitable. Changing odds, results, and payoff amounts from dozens of horse tracks around the nation were continually reported over a special telephone line, or wire, to a subscribing book joint for a one-hundred-dollar-a-day fee. And without such information, a gambling operation was effectively out of business.

  After Annenberg’s company folded, his longtime employee Jim Ragen seized the moment and opened Continental. Mooney told Chuck that he, Guzik, and Humphreys had believed Ragen’s service could give Chicago the opening they needed to move into every gambling operation in the country. “With Continental under our belt,” he explained, “we could own the whole goddamned gambling business.”

  Earlier in the year, Mooney spearheaded a takeover of Ragen’s company and, with the approval of Accardo, Humphreys, and Guzik, made the guy, as Mooney put it, “an offer he couldn’t refuse.” But surprisingly, Ragen had refused and they’d been forced to take other measures, measures that would ultimately lead to Ragen’s death.

  Figuring to run Ragen out of business and save themselves a bundle in the bargain, the Chicago Syndicate opened up a wire service of its own, Trans-American. The wire service’s attorney, John Boyle, would go on to become the Illinois state’s attorney and chief judge of criminal court. Next, to drum up customers for their new venture, Mooney and Guzik pooled a few tough guys—“Willie Potatoes, Dave Yaras . . . you know the guys,” Mooney said—and sent them out to make “sales calls” on Ragen’s customers. After a rash of threats and bombings, the bookmaking operations quickly moved their business from Continental to Trans-American.

  The other Continental customers, most notably Bugsy Siegel out west, willingly assisted Mooney’s push, moving over to Trans-American in a spirit of cooperation and national brotherhood.

  “But still Ragen controlled Continental . . . until last August,” Mooney stated matter-of-factly. “The guy should have just taken our offer and gotten the hell out of the wire business. But no, he had to be a big shot. So we sent Dave Yaras, Lenny Patrick, and Willie Block out to take care of things. Gussie Alex and Strongy Ferraro ran back-up. Believe it or not, with half an army, they still didn’t do the job right the first time. Shot the guy and what the hell, he ended up in the fuckin’ hospital. So we had to wait and see what was gonna happen . . . but those guys had to make it right, one way or another.”

  Chuck knew about Ragen’s death, how the guy had lain in the hospital for weeks and then suddenly and mysteriously died. “They finally slipped him a few mercury cocktails in the hospital,” Mooney explained.

  Mooney said that thanks to the merger between Continental and Trans-American, the guys from around the country were starting to work together. “We’re givin’ Jack
Dragna out in California fifty grand for his support and Carlos Marcello from New Orleans a piece of the action. Sort of a ‘thank you’ for him smoothin’ our way into Texas; at least now we’ve got a foothold there. Anyhow, it’s only a matter of time before we’ve got all the gambling, everywhere, and when we do . . . I’ll be right there at the top of the heap.”

  Chuck couldn’t help thinking how casually Mooney mingled a man’s murder with his own plans for success. There were times when Chuck felt sorry for some sap, even though the guy might have stepped out of line and had it coming. But not Mooney. Never. Mooney didn’t have a little voice deep inside that whispered judgment on his every action. As Chuck had gotten older, he’d envied that aspect of Mooney all the more; because there was no question in his mind that what stood between him and the big time was that goddamned little voice. The only thing he could say was that he’d gotten better at ignoring it, that most things people thought were wrong—like cheating and stealing and lying to save your skin—didn’t bother him anymore.

  He drew the line at taking a guy out, though; he didn’t want any part of murder. He knew it went on—hell, most of the guys he knew were killers—but he sure as hell didn’t want to be personally involved himself. Sometimes he wasn’t sure whether he was a failure or a saint—or neither. All he was sure of was that being a saint wouldn’t get him where he wanted to go.

  Throughout the remainder of 1946, when Mooney wasn’t out of town on business, he sped up and down the side streets of Chicago putting together one deal after another.

  He told Chuck that Ricca and the guys would be out “real soon,” but what that meant in terms of Mooney’s position in the Syndicate hierarchy was uncertain. Mooney, for his part, was highly confident that his record of the past three years, while the old guard had been in prison, was solid enough to ensure a place at the top.

  “Paul knows I can make everybody a lot of money . . . that’s all that matters. I’ve proven I’ve got the balls to run things with the numbers and gambling. It’s only a matter of time . . . I’m gonna be boss soon, Chuck. You hear me . . . boss.”

  According to Mooney, the early release of Chicago’s most notorious mobsters could be credited to Murray Humphreys, who’d been traveling back and forth to Washington, D.C., to work out a deal. There he’d talked to Attorney General Tom Clark about getting his assistance.

  “Ricca even promised Clark a seat on the fuckin’ Supreme Court if he helped get him out,” Mooney said, and then, noticing the look on Chuck’s face, added with a chuckle, “Chuck, what did I tell you before? Did you think I was bullshittin’ you? We always own the President; it doesn’t matter what the guy’s name is . . . we own him. We own the White House.”

  Just as Mooney had predicted, Ricca and his cronies were indeed released early the next year amid public outcry. Among those in the underworld, it was claimed that Hollywood unions, still under Chicago’s control, had created costly work stoppages, vandalism, and other aggravations in an effort to pressure studio moguls into coming to Ricca’s aid. The tactics proved effective; according to Mooney, a personal gift of $5 million from all the major studios was made to President Truman. In exchange, Attorney General Clark granted the mobsters’ parole and, as reward, was appointed by Truman to the Supreme Court.

  Additionally, Truman was promised Syndicate financial backing and the efforts of the Chicago political machine for the upcoming 1948 presidential campaign and election.

  As 1946 wound down, Mooney continued to increase his holdings. He opened two more clubs, the Archer Club and the 430 Club, and a company called Windy City with his longtime associate Congressman Jimmy Adducci. Windy City was supposedly intended to set up softball leagues, but Mooney said it was just another front for book joints and a place for him to report legitimate income on his tax returns. Meanwhile, Mooney’s wife and daughters strolled Michigan Avenue in postwar designer dresses, furs, and jewels and planned lavish Christmas parties.

  In December 1946, Lucky Luciano, still wielding tremendous influence among bosses of the underworld since his release from prison and subsequent deportation to Italy, called a meeting of the “Commission”—the name given the national consortium of syndicates from around the country. Mooney’s attendance in Havana at this meeting, which brought together the nation’s thirty-six biggest gang leaders, further signaled his acceptance into the fold and was an acknowledgment of his rank in the Chicago hierarchy.

  He came back from Cuba with a renewed zeal for his upward climb—“Damn, that Lansky’s a fuckin’ genius”—and a suitcase bulging with Havana cigars. He insisted Chuck watch the news over the coming months for a “surprise” out west. “A big guy is gonna be taken out,” he said mysteriously.

  By June of 1947, Mooney would be crowing, if only privately. “What did I tell ya? Somebody big? Did you hear about Bugsy Siegel out in Beverly Hills? He screwed up and it got him two of Chicago’s slugs to the head.”

  “What the hell did he do?” Chuck asked.

  “Shit, he could’ve had it made. . . . Lansky sent him out to Vegas five years ago to set up clubs. He started the Flamingo and right away started skimmin’. And not penny-ante shit, either . . . millions. Not only that, but he refused to give back his part of Trans-American. Siegel was a fuckin’ cowboy who got too big for his own good. We voted to get him out of the way down in Havana after he had the balls to defy Lansky and the whole goddamned Commission on top of it.”

  “Jesus, you’re really on the inside now,” Chuck complimented.

  “Well, let’s just say I had inside information,” Mooney said, smiling, and then added, “and the contract to do the job on Siegel.”

  Chuck was particularly intrigued by Mooney’s “inside information” on the California scene and the celebrity inroads made by his brother on behalf of Ricca and Roselli.

  “Hollywood is just full of guys waiting to be used, Chuck. All anybody out there cares about is whether they’re gonna be a star or not. We help ’em along and we own ’em. That’s how simple it is. And the broads, Chuck . . . beautiful and dumb. Shit, don’t ever be star-struck by all that movie baloney . . . they’re all worthless bums and whores. Hollywood is the only place I’ve ever been, besides Washington, D.C., where everybody—men and women—are just beggin’ for you to use’em.”

  After the first of the new year, Mooney and Ange again made their winter home in Miami. Mooney often left Ange in the company of her women friends and relatives while he chartered boats to Cuba for a “few days fishing with the boys” or flew off to Chicago and other parts unknown. To Chuck, their marriage seemed happier, more settled, than it had been in years.

  Mooney continued to travel that spring. But back at home in Chicago, while he busied himself opening another wire service, the Montrose Association, he relied on Chuck to escort his wife and daughters from their Oak Park home—now freshly decorated with expensive antiques and art—to posh restaurants and shops or such faraway places as New York City for a shopping spree at Saks.

  Out with Ange, Chuck saw the world open up before them. The Giancana name was magical; stars in nightclubs nodded and smiled in their direction. Clerks in the finest department stores swooned with delight at the privilege of waiting on them. And out on his own, it seemed anything his heart desired—from front-row seats at the Graziano-Zale title boxing match to curvaceous show girls—could be his. All because he was Mooney’s brother.

  But for the rest of the Giancanas, things were hardly so rosy. Mooney was still firmly convinced that what his family possessed was only thanks to him. And they were equally convinced. In 1947, he continued to wield an iron grip over the lives of his father, brothers, and sisters and sternly dictated their futures. And yet with Chuck, he privately scorned their emotional and financial dependence. “They always have their hands out,” he remarked with disgust.

  But Chuck thought theirs was a condition Mooney had nurtured—had virtually demanded—as proof of their devotion and respect. They continued to grovel on Moone
y’s doorstep, waiting for him to toss them a bone. And they were thankful for that. Chuck found it a pitiful sight to watch his father scurry across town to get an envelope from Mooney. Antonio now sat before his eldest son each month and waited obediently while Mooney counted out a few hundred dollars from a drawer containing tens of thousands.

  Antonio’s children had gotten on with their own lives, albeit in Mooney’s shadow. Vicki had married a factory worker in 1945; Pepe had taken a neighborhood girl as his bride and now hustled at a book joint with the rest of Mooney’s soldiers. Antoinette, still unmarried and living at home at thirty-five, made belts and Paris garters at a factory. Josie, also at home and unmarried, worked at Ange’s brother’s company, Central Envelope. Catherine’s children, the cousins, effectively had dropped out of sight.

  If any of the family members resented Mooney’s success, it wasn’t evident. Rather, they each in their own way basked in the celebrity of the Giancana name; it gave them stature in the neighborhood. For Pepe, who, unlike Chuck, never achieved the role of confidant with his infamous brother, being a Giancana nevertheless meant the security of a good job. The sisters found it opened doors, if only briefly, to better treatment from their peers; the butcher, knowing their infamous relative, gave them the better cuts of meat; the baker, the freshest loaves.

  However, other people remotely connected to the Giancana name also tried to cash in on its benefits—or attempted to gain entry, using whatever means necessary, into what they saw as the lucrative and intriguing underworld. Shortly before Christmas of 1947, a naïve yet ambitious punk, somewhat rashly placed a phone call to Mooney’s home with just such a scheme. He told Ange that, as the son of one of Giancana’s godparents, he believed Mooney should set him up in a book joint on Grand Avenue. Upon learning that Mooney was out, the punk said he’d wait at the Walgreen on Austin and Roosevelt for Mooney’s call and reply.