Double Cross

by Sam Giancana

  He was, for the first time in his life, on top of the world. The only thing he didn’t have was a wife, which was the one thing Mooney, with increasing frequency, was quick to mention. “You’re twenty-five, Chuck . . . you got money in your pocket . . . what you need now is a good Italian girl, a house in the suburbs, and some screamin’ kids,” he’d say, laughing.

  Given Mooney’s comments, Chuck might have anticipated some traditional Italian matchmaking, but he suspected nothing that April of 1948 when Ange and Mooney suggested he invite Anne Marie Torsiello to join Bonnie and Annette for an afternoon of horseback riding. Instead, he smiled at the recollection of a little thirteen-year-old girl whose common sense, resolute manner, and studious ways had once earned his respect. It didn’t occur to him that Anne Marie was now seventeen—or that she’d take his breath away.

  When he drove by to pick her up, he found the Torsiellos living in much the same condition as they had four years before; Carl still worked at the rail yards and Tillie still cooked big bubbling pots of sauces and smiled and laughed as though life couldn’t be better. Sicilians probably would have been embittered by the turn their life had taken, he thought to himself. But the Torsiellos were Neapolitans—Italians originating from Naples—and Neapolitans were a happy people, no matter what. That was something Mooney had always liked about the Torsiellos.

  But as unchanged as Carl and Tillie were, Chuck hardly recognized Anne Marie. Gone was the shy little girl he remembered and in her place was the most beautiful young woman he thought he’d ever seen. Show girls, dancers, celebrities, thousand-dollar whores—thanks to Mooney he’d had his share of women—none of them could hold a candle to this fresh-faced brunette with sparkling eyes who greeted him now. He took one look at her and fell head over heels, crazy in love.

  From that moment on, nothing was the same. He could think of nothing else but the diminutive dark-eyed girl, her ruby lips, her soft dark hair that smelled of the perfume he began to lavish on her. That spring, he gave her a strand of real pearls and took her to the type of dazzling places she’d only dreamed about.

  The Chez Paree became their favorite night spot with its celebrity crooners and clientele. Dave Halper, the club’s smooth-talking manager—who’d later be sent by Mooney to work at the Riviera in Las Vegas—always made sure they had the best seats in the house.

  “Hey, liven up . . . Mooney’s brother’s here,” Halper whispered to the waiters after Chuck slipped him a C note. “Take care of him . . . give him whatever he wants . . . and for Christ’s sake, make sure he’s happy,” Halper commanded.

  And for the first time in his life, Chuck was. He found himself intoxicated more by the woman at his side than by the champagne that the white-coated waiters brought to their front-row table with such flourish. In the candlelight, everything paled next to his beautiful Anne Marie.

  In July, Ange, flush with enthusiasm, told Chuck, “I hear Anne Marie’s having the time of her life . . . and the Torsiellos are ecstatic to have their daughter courted by Mooney Giancana’s brother. Everybody in the family . . . including me and Mooney . . . thinks it’s a match made in heaven.” Chuck was glad there was such an incredible network of gossip and support within the families, but he was disappointed nevertheless. Knowing he had Mooney’s stamp of approval in this relationship was important, even critical to his future, but more than that he wanted to know that Anne Marie had fallen in love with him. And he made up his mind to ask her to marry him when he did.

  On a breezy Saturday night in July as they walked from the car to the Chez Paree, he pulled her close and looked into her eyes. He wanted to make love to her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. “I love you, Anne Marie,” he said, and kissed her with a tenderness that surprised even him.

  “I love you, too,” she said breathlessly, and stifled a girlish giggle. “I always have.”

  Perplexed, he held her at arm’s length. “You always have? Since when?”

  “Since I was just a little girl, when I brought the note from my father to Mooney’s house. I took one look at you and, well, I fell in love . . . but you just thought I was a little kid.” Her lower lip formed a tiny mocking pout.

  “Well . . . you were just a thirteen-year-old kid. And I was twenty-one.” He smiled impishly. “So you’ve been madly in love with me all along? I knew it, I just knew it.” He laughed.

  Feeling foolish, she retorted. “And you’re crazy about me, too. Everybody says so . . . Ange, my Aunt Rose, my Aunt Betty . . . everybody. They say even Mooney says so.”

  “Is that right?” he challenged. He adored her childlike fieriness, enjoyed watching it bubble to the surface.

  “Yes, that’s right. That’s what they say. They say Chuck Giancana is crazy in love with Anne Marie Torsiello.” Her eyes brimmed with tears.

  Suddenly he was afraid he’d hurt her feelings and he didn’t think he could bear that. He pulled her close again. “Well . . .” He ran his fingers along her cheek until they reached her lips and then dropped his voice to a whisper, “They’re all right. I do love you.” He took her upturned chin in his hand and kissed her. “Will you marry me?” he whispered.

  “Oh, yes, Chuck,” she cried, throwing her arms around his neck. “A thousand times, yes!”

  They laughed and hugged. Every time he touched her, he wanted her so badly, it made his heart ache. So this is what love feels like, he thought to himself when at last they stepped into the smoky darkness of the Chez Paree.

  Slipping Dave Halper his customary tip, Chuck heard Halper’s familiar whispered refrain, “Hey, liven up . . . Mooney’s brother’s here.”

  Mooney. All the talks they’d had over the years about what a good wife should be. And he’d never even realized that the one thing they’d never talked about was love. He thought he understood why now, too. Because he was certain Mooney had never really loved anyone in his entire life.

  If Mooney and his ever-expanding circle of associates loved anything, it was power. And it seemed, like the dope addicts loathed by the common folks of the Patch, Mooney was addicted in his own way. Certainly a desire for power didn’t, in Chuck’s way of thinking, qualify as a form of love—instead, it was a need. Mooney would get a piece of gambling in one state and before Chuck knew it, he’d be plotting to take over another one. His brother’s hunger was an insatiable ambition that was eating him from the inside out.

  Oddly, people didn’t seem to find much wrong with addictions to power and wealth. Those qualities were lauded as admirable. The neighborhood saw Mooney as some kind of new hero. And politicians such as Mayor Kennelly and President Truman were esteemed as public servants—when in truth they were, if what Mooney had said was accurate, in servitude to a much higher order: their own need for power.

  As autumn of 1948 approached, the lines between the so-called “good guys” and “bad guys” slowly began to blur. Chuck watched Chicago’s well-oiled political machine spring into action in readiness for the presidential election. Mooney was unusually vocal in decrying the politicians who held out their hands for favors, and he also railed against the coppers who made more from the Syndicate than they did from the taxpayers.

  This, Chuck rationalized, was just fine with him; he never knew when Mooney’s clout might come in handy. The only copper Chuck always tried to avoid was Frank Pape. In fifteen years, the guy had built up quite a reputation. Chuckie Nicoletti, one of Mooney’s enforcers, was always getting a shakedown from Pape and it cost him hundreds in payoffs to Pape’s higher-ups. Needles had even remarked that “the motherfucker has taken out more men than all of the guys in the Syndicate put together since he joined the force in thirty-three.” Of course, the difference was that Pape was applauded for his aggressiveness against the underworld—for being impossible to bribe. But Mooney found that laughable. “Did you ever notice how Pape goes after the same guys that are givin’ us trouble . . . and gets them for good? Yeah, I know what I’m talkin’ about . . . just think about it. You’ll get the
idea.”

  Despite Mooney’s insinuations, Chuck still made a concerted effort to stay out of the copper’s way. As luck would have it, though, his path did cross Pape’s one September evening. Driving along Cicero and Roosevelt on his way to pick up Anne Marie, Chuck caught sight of the copper’s headlights in his rearview mirror. “Goddamn it,” he said aloud. Within moments, the squad car’s red light began flashing ominously. “I’m gonna get fuckin’ pinched,” he said in exasperation. “Shit . . . this is gonna really cost me.”

  He wasn’t so worried about paying them off; he had over two thousand dollars in his pocket. But the pinball-machine parts and punchboards in his trunk were another matter. He rolled down the window and came face-to-face with the one copper he’d hoped he’d never meet: Frank Pape.

  “Get out, Giancana,” the copper snarled. “Let’s check you out.”

  Chuck readily obliged. “So what’s the problem? I wasn’t speedin’.”

  Pape turned to the other copper and said simply, “Frisk him.”

  “All I found was this, Frank.” The officer held up a tight wad of bills.

  “Give me that,” Pape snapped. The other officer shrugged his shoulders and readily complied. Pape began counting. “Twenty-two hundred bucks here,” he said, smirking. “Mind tellin’ me where it came from, greaseball?”

  “No, I don’t,” Chuck said, glaring. He had to think fast, and he added, “I’m a roofer and I got paid for a big job today. Nothin’ to it . . . so now, can we all go on about our business?”

  “A roofer?” Pape laughed and craned his wiry neck from his starched collar like a turtle about to snap. “Well, I don’t believe a word of it.” Bristling, he handed Chuck the money. “Leave your car here. . . . You’re goin’ downtown with me.”

  In the squad car, Chuck remembered everything Mooney had told him about shakedowns. If the cops couldn’t be bought on the spot, the price went up. And once at the station house, when the coppers emptied his pockets and saw all that cash, he found out what Mooney had meant. Word got out and the coppers started coming round like vultures to a kill. They smiled and politely offered him coffee. “With cream and sugar?” they asked. He could have had a dozen cups of coffee if he’d wanted; it was amazing.

  He was allowed to use the phone before they took him to the lockup. He called Tony Champagne, Mooney’s attorney and old friend from the Patch—and magically, the cell door had scarcely closed before the turnkey announced Chuck was being taken back upstairs to the police commissioner’s office.

  A friendly face awaited him. Clearly irritated, Andy Akins sat behind his desk while Frank Pape leaned against the wall, sulking.

  Akins stood up to greet him. “Chuck Giancana, good to see you, son,” he said, shaking Chuck’s hand.

  “Good to see you, Andy,” Chuck said, smiling, and couldn’t resist a triumphant glance in Pape’s direction.

  Akins sat down. “Have a seat and let’s talk a minute. Pape here thinks there was some problem tonight. So what I’m askin’ you is . . . what’s the problem? What was goin’ on tonight?”

  “I have no idea, Andy. I wasn’t speedin’ . . . or doin’ anything else illegal. Pape here, he just pulled me over and brought me down here for no good reason . . . none at all.”

  “Well, where were you goin’ then?” Akins asked.

  “I was on my way to pick up my girlfriend for a night on the town.” Chuck brushed his hand across his elegantly tailored suit. “I was all dressed up and ready to have a nice dinner, that’s all. And then Officer Pape decided to go and ruin my evening.”

  Akins shot a hard look at Pape. “See, Frank. This man is clean. I strongly suggest you leave him alone,” he reprimanded.

  Pape nodded, clenching his jaw in silent anger. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  Akins smiled. “Well then, we’ll just forget about this little mix-up and Mr. Giancana here can go home . . . with our sincerest apologies.”

  “Thank you,” Chuck replied, finding it difficult to conceal a grin. Akins rose from his desk and walked around to the door, calling out to the men gathered in the hallway, “Hey, one of you guys give Mr. Giancana here a ride back to his car.”

  That’s the way it was being Mooney’s brother. And according to Mooney, that’s the way it was with cops in Chicago.

  The graft and corruption had been going on for years. It had started way before Mooney was ever born. But he’d certainly seized on the existing machinery and used it to his best advantage. From the lowliest beat cop to the highest captain or commissioner—Mooney said they were all part of the Syndicate stable. Even Mayor Kennelly, like his predecessor Kelly, was, as Mooney put it, “our man.” For Chuck, it was like walking under a constant umbrella of protection.

  As the election drew closer that autumn, politics were hard to ignore; the presidential race was all Mooney talked about. Throughout October, he made his obligatory rounds of meetings and hopped from city to city, but the election was what got his blood running. Chuck didn’t understand what the attraction was for his brother until he and Mooney went out to the Chez Paree one night. Mooney didn’t want to sit up front at a table, so Halper placed them in a cozy nook and left them with a bottle of the house’s best wine. “I’d rather have scotch,” Mooney told the waiter, who wasted no time scurrying to retrieve his regular Dewar’s.

  “So you’re gonna get married,” Mooney said while lighting his cigar. “Finally gonna settle down . . . about time, too.” He laughed a low, kidding kind of laugh and winked.

  Chuck didn’t want to talk about women or running around or any of Mooney’s other philosophies of matrimony. Sure, he was in love, but he didn’t want Mooney to think he was a square John. In self-defense, he changed the subject. “Yeah, married. But I’d rather talk about politics than women,” he said.

  Mooney eyes narrowed. “Oh, you would?”

  Chuck poured a glass of wine and nodded. “Yeah. I would.”

  “Politics? Politics . . . what about politics? Do I know somethin’ you don’t?” Mooney’s face was expressionless.

  Chuck wasn’t sure whether Mooney was kidding or not. This wasn’t a card game, yet his brother was certainly wearing his best poker face. Maybe he was venturing into territory that was off-limits. He thought about that for a moment and then decided to call Mooney’s bluff. He grinned. “You might know somethin’ I don’t . . . like who the hell is gonna win?”

  Mooney chuckled. “Yeah, you’re right. I just might.” He dragged on his cigar and looked at Chuck out of the corner of his eye.

  Mooney would tell him; Chuck could tell he was just playing with him, wanting him to coax it out of him. He decided to play along. “So what is it?”

  “Man oh man, you don’t give up, do you?”

  Chuck laughed. “Shit, I’m your brother, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess you are. Tell you the truth, Chuck, I’m proud of you, too. You’re doin’ a good job over in the Marquette district. Keepin’ everybody on their goddamned toes. The other districts . . . well, I wish I had a hundred men like you. We’d win the election for sure.”

  “Isn’t it for sure that Truman will get in?”

  “Well, let’s put it this way . . . Dewey won’t win, even if he does. Get my point?”

  “Yeah.” Chuck hesitated. “But really what difference does it make? . . . Like you said before, they’re all alike.”

  “Well, not this time. Luciano still hates Dewey for puttin’ him in jail in the first place. . . . Costello’s worried that the self-righteous son of a bitch has a short memory, probably doesn’t even know how to conduct business. We’d have to give Dewey a few lessons and I got a feelin’ he’s a slow learner,” Mooney said, smiling. “But Truman, well, he can bullshit all he wants about bein’ a common man—people eat that up—but the truth is, he grew up with our boys in Kansas City.”

  “Really . . . I didn’t know that. How come nobody talks about it?”

  “Christ, because it’s just like Chicago out there. They ha
d a mick mayor, Pendergast, on the take big time . . . loved to bet on the ponies. And they got the Italians for muscle and to make money with the rackets. So, fact is, Truman owes everything he’s got to us. Pendergast made him a judge and then, with the Italian muscle behind him, got him to the Senate. When the forty-four election came up . . . Kelly here in Chicago got him on the ticket with Roosevelt. Shit, Chicago got Roosevelt and Truman nominated and elected. We were good to Roosevelt; he was good to us. He died and Truman’s been our man in the White House ever since. It’s smooth sailing with him there.”

  “I thought he was a schoolteacher or somethin’. He always seemed clean. . . . I know what you said before, but I guess I didn’t know he was really connected.”

  Mooney sighed. “Jesus, I guess you think General MacArthur was a choirboy out there fightin’ for America, too? Like I always told you, ‘Give me a guy who steals a little and I’ll make money.’ ” He shook his head. “Well, there’s connected, Chuck, and then there’s connected. We pull the strings . . . so, shit, yeah . . . if they can be bought, they’re connected.”

  Chuck took a drink and thought for a moment. “So Dewey would just fuck things up . . . or at least make things more”—he searched for the right word—“more uncertain?”

  “Exactly. So now, think you’d like to place a bet? Truman or Dewey? Take my advice and put your money on Truman.”

  Soon after, the November 3, 1948, Chicago Daily Tribune lying on Mooney’s desk read: DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN. Mooney sat beaming from behind his desk, smoking a cigar triumphantly.

  “What did I tell you?” he said. “We even made the Tribune look like a bunch of fuckin’ idiots. Next time, they’ll wait before they publish the wrong headline. I bet they learned their lesson. It ain’t over ’til the bell rings. Right?”

  “Hey, what can I say?” Chuck said, grinning. “You were right on the money.”

  “Boy, does Truman owe Chicago,” Mooney said, smiling. “Thirty thousand votes . . . that’s all he won by. Jesus we had to beg, borrow, and steal to swing the son of a bitch. . . . No way the man doesn’t know who got him elected.”