by Sam Giancana
On Sunday, March 31, 1957, everything changed.
Leon Marcus had been a conniving, crooked banker who was involved in more shady deals than a fast-talking Chicago prosecutor could shake a stick at. He’d been indicted, along with his son-in-law and brother, earlier that year on misappropriation of bank funds for his Chicago Southmoor Bank. By the end of March, he was yet to go to trial. Ever since he’d been charged, the foolhardy Marcus had attempted to blackmail Mooney, hoping some pressure on the Outfit boss would result in his acquittal. He had the information that could send Sam Giancana up the river for life, he boasted to fellow gangsters, waving his wallet.
Chuck believed Marcus had seriously underestimated his brother. The decision for Mooney would be a simple one.
Months later, Chuck would learn that Mooney had given the order to Willie Potatoes, who’d then selected his own soldier, a copper-turned-mobster hit man—Sal Moretti—to take care of the job. In turn, Moretti invited three of his aspiring flunkies along for the ride. They weren’t there for added backup; Sal was to handle Marcus on his own. Rather, they came for the sheer entertainment.
Moretti nabbed Marcus in front of Chicago developer Alfred Rado’s home on Sunday, March 31. Willie Potatoes had instructed him to kill Marcus and retrieve from his wallet a particularly damning document, a receipt for a one-hundred-thousand-dollar cash payment made by Mooney on the Thunderbolt Motel.
Within blocks of the Rado’s home, Moretti shot Marcus in the head, threw him in a vacant lot, and drove away. In so doing, Moretti made a fatal mistake; he left the receipt on the body of Leon Marcus.
The gangland-style execution was sensationalized on television, detailed in all the papers. And thanks to the incriminating receipt, Mooney was apprehended for questioning. He was released, but not before receiving more press coverage than the crowning of Queen Elizabeth II. A court date was set for the all-but-forgotten sixty-seven-count indictment against his suburban gambling-joint, the Wagon Wheel, dating back to 1951.
“It’ll all blow over,” Chuck consoled his wife. But he found himself recanting when, on Thursday of that week, Sal Moretti’s tortured and bloated body was discovered crammed into the trunk of a Chevy on Caton Farm Road, southwest of Chicago. From the description the papers gave, it sounded as if Willie Potatoes had taken care of his bumbling soldier. Moretti’s pockets had been emptied and turned inside out, his labels torn from his clothes. All that remained was an aluminum comb—a symbol and warning to every soldier in Chicago. Like the infamous nickel in the hand of an executed stool pigeon—meaning the man’s life wasn’t worth a plug nickel because he’d violated the code of omertà—the comb told one and all to do a job right, to go over every detail with a fine-tooth comb. Or end up like Sal Moretti.
The incident sent an icy chill through the guys in the Outfit, mostly because the man who took care of Sal was a person none of them wanted to cross, ever. And because of that, nobody ever talked about who did the job on Moretti.
But there wasn’t a guy in the Outfit who didn’t think that Willie Potatoes, the quiet, unassuming man with a houseful of children and an eternally pregnant wife, had hit Moretti. Moretti was Willie’s soldier and Willie had to make things right—it was his responsibility to square things. Willie was well known for his torture tactics, and Sal’s murder had his name written all over it. Moretti had been tied on his knees and pistol-whipped; Willie loved to get a guy on his knees, begging for his life. Moretti’s skull had been mashed and dented by a club and then he had been strangled with a rope; Willie liked to use ropes. And after Moretti’s executioner threw him in the trunk, he fired four shots into the soldier’s battered head; Willie always made sure any guy he took out was good and dead.
It also was common knowledge that Willie got turned on doing jobs like the one on Moretti. So did Fifi Buccieri and Mad Dog DeStefano and Teets Battaglia. But Willie would go those henchman one better, giving guys lie-detector tests if he didn’t trust their loyalty. If they failed, they were goners; Willie tortured and murdered them on the spot.
The way the Outfit ran, Mooney was always insulated from a murder charge. He never killed anyone himself anymore; he didn’t actually even have to say the words. All he had to do was give one of his trusted henchman a look. They knew and they took care of it. The guys would go to any lengths and do whatever was asked of them. It could be an enemy or a best friend. It made no difference. Usually, a guy let his guard down if he was a friend. And that was ideal.
To further insulate himself, Mooney might have one of his lieutenants bring in one of his own soldiers for a job; Moretti had been working for Willie Potatoes. Often, Mooney might not even know who performed a hit—it was an insignificant occurrence in his busy world of deals and international intrigue. And besides, it didn’t matter to Mooney as long as it was done right. Obviously, the Marcus fiasco had gotten his attention after the fact, if it hadn’t before.
Knowing how Mooney excelled at manipulating the authorities, no one was surprised when the Marcus-Moretti affair blew over in a matter of weeks. Chuck and Anne Marie couldn’t as easily wish problems away. On the Friday following Moretti’s death, along with the morning paper that blazed with the name Giancana, Chuck received an ominous phone call from McIntosh Developers at Inverness. They wanted to see him right away.
“Quite simply, Mr. Giancana, we don’t want you . . . or your family here at Inverness,” the gray-suited executive told Chuck when he arrived at the developer’s office.
His cohort, a bespectacled man in his forties, nodded in tense agreement.
“And why is that?” Chuck demanded.
The executive pointed to a large map of the development on the wall. Property owners’ names were prominently highlighted and Chuck noticed that theirs had been recently removed.
“You see that? Well, you’re not wanted here. I suggest you sell us the lot and go find another place to call home.”
Chuck stepped closer to the map. He’d never dreamed there’d be a problem here; he and Anne Marie just wanted fresh air and a place for the kids to roam, some new friends, new faces. He thought about the architectural drawings and blueprints they’d spent hours poring over.
“So what do you say?”
“I don’t think so,” Chuck replied brusquely. “We like it out here. We’ve already made improvements on the lot and we’ve already got blueprints drawn up. We’re ready to break ground.”
The other man cleared his throat and spoke up. “Let me make it perfectly clear. Your name is Giancana and we don’t want a Giancana here. Nor do any of the other fine upstanding citizens who reside in Inverness. Do you understand? Mr. Giancana, there will be no gangster in our subdivision. You, sir, are unwelcome here.”
“Unwelcome? You sure as hell knew my name when you took my money for the lot. You knew who my brother was.”
The two stared back with uniformly cold smiles.
“I repeat, you and your family are unwelcome here.”
“Why you—” Chuck checked himself and began again, but there was an undeniable anger in his voice; he tried not to yell. “Listen, I’m no gangster. I make an honest living running a motel—”
The gray-suited executive cut him off. “We’re well aware of your motel, the Thunderbolt.” He picked up a newspaper and added, “As are our other homeowners.”
“It’s a clean establishment. So clean, it squeaks. I’m not connected to my brother’s business dealings,” Chuck protested. “I’m a different person entirely. And you can’t shove me around because of my last name.”
“Mr. Giancana, we are being polite and civilized in this matter. We suggest you discuss this with your wife. Our offer to repurchase the lot at the same price paid originally will stand. Good day.”
“Same price . . . what kind of scam operation are you runnin’ here? I’ve already put a lot of money in the lot. What the hell do you take me for?”
“Good day, Mr. Giancana.”
Driving home, Chuck went over the conversa
tion again and again. It wasn’t fair; he wasn’t his brother. He’d had nothing to do with the Marcus and Moretti deal—hadn’t even known about it until after it happened. Mooney never had said a word about it to him. And although he’d always wanted to be on the inside, he wasn’t really. He wasn’t a gangster. And he wasn’t Mooney; he was his own man. It was the first time he’d ever said that.
Anne Marie was heartbroken at the news. “We aren’t murderers or gangsters,” she ranted. “How dare those people accuse us of some thing like that. I just want our babies to grow up right, to have a nice place to live, with nice little friends and a good school.” She burst into tears. “I think we should move there, anyway.”
The phone rang and Chuck talked for a moment and then went back into the living room. “That was the guy from Inverness. . . . He said there was something else we should think about.”
“And what’s that?” She patted her eyes with a monogrammed handkerchief.
“He said we shouldn’t be selfish, that we should think of our little boys. He said they’ll be mistreated . . . abused. . . . Those were his very words, abused by the other kids. That they’ll be outcasts and nobody will play with them.”
“Nobody will play with them?” she repeated in disbelief.
“Yeah, because their last name is Giancana.”
The following day, they sold the lot back to the grim-faced executives. Their American dream had ended.
Anyone else would have called Mooney, would have asked for his help. It seemed reasonable to think that if Chuck and his family had to suffer because of the things his brother did, they should at least benefit from the terrible power he could wield. But Chuck’s pride wouldn’t let him ask for help. He refused to bring his problems to his brother. “After all, it’s Mooney who’s the Outfit boss, who’s under suspicion for murder, not us,” Chuck told Anne Marie.
But because of their name, it seemed as if they’d been tried and convicted themselves. Chuck found himself calling for flowers for Anne Marie and using an alias. Mooney used an alias all the time—Sam Gold, Sam Flood—so, Chuck consoled himself, why shouldn’t he? But he felt like a Judas, a traitor. Was he denying his heritage or was he protecting himself and his family?
The events of the previous weeks threw Chuck into a state of confusion. He’d never denied who or what he was. He wasn’t ashamed. Indeed, it might not have been so bad to be called a gangster by the developers—if he’d actually been one. But recently, he had realized that although he might know all the Outfit guys, was privy to what was going on and probably talked to Mooney more than anybody else, he wasn’t an actual member of the Outfit.
Mooney said New York’s gun-and-saber shit was “the silliest thing I’ve ever heard of . . . grade-school stuff.” But because Chicago didn’t have a formal “initiation” and “secret society” like New York or adhere to some hocus-pocus Old Country rules for being “made,” it was hard to tell who was a member of the Outfit and who wasn’t. You just knew. You knew how high up the ladder a guy was by the men he hung around with, by how many soldiers he required to conduct business, or by the job he had.
Guys such as Needles, Nicoletti, and Alderisio—Mooney’s chief executioners—were without question full-fledged members of the Outfit. But a guy didn’t necessarily have to kill his way up—not if he had powerful friends to protect him from such dirty work. Jake Guzik had been a good example; Guzik hadn’t had the stomach for murder, so Capone had killed his adversaries for him. Chuckie English was in a similar situation. But they were a rarity.
Being a member of the Outfit and being connected were two different things in Chicago. Being connected meant you did business with the Outfit. Leon Marcus was connected. Joe Kennedy was connected—as were Abe Pritzker and Moe Annenberg. According to Mooney, all the Presidents of the United States since Teddy Roosevelt had been connected. Celebrities ranging from Sammy Davis, Jr., to Rocky Marciano were connected. King Farouk was connected. There were hundreds, probably thousands, of people across the United States and throughout the world with non-Italian names and seemingly “clean” businesses who were connected.
Having connections meant having friends and associates who were in the Outfit. These relationships enabled a person to get things done in city hall, win government contracts, even get a loan. In at least one way, being connected was better than being a member, because a man could rationalize that he wasn’t really involved in organized crime. But the bottom line was, if a man got a favor from an Outfit member, he was more involved than he imagined. He might get lucky and never have his marker called in or he might be called on to hit his best friend or take a fall on a murder rap for a total stranger. The possibilities were limitless.
Chuck’s conclusion that he wasn’t a full member of the Outfit was based on the job he currently had and the type of activity it involved. Running the motel, a job given to him by Mooney, meant he was connected, but the fact that the activity was all on the up-and-up meant he wasn’t in the Outfit. Years ago, when he’d run punch boards, he was a member. But later, when he’d worked solely as a movie projectionist, he wasn’t. Acting as a courier to Cuba was certainly an Outfit job.
Chicago’s Outfit was a fluid, ever-changing animal with no spoken rules and no formalities. There were no conferences as there were in the movies. It was a look, a walk, the cut of a guy’s clothes; whom he had dinner with and whom he didn’t. By most of the guys’ standards, Chuck was a member by virtue of being Mooney’s brother. But in his heart, he knew that managing the motel put him on the fringe, not on the inside. And it was killing him.
He hadn’t really given it much thought before, but now he’d started looking at the motel job as a pigeonhole. The place was clean and it was obvious that, without saying it, Mooney was determined to keep him that way, as well. “There’s nothin’ I hate more than bein’ accused of somethin’ I didn’t do,” he told his wife. “It’s not fair.”
The Giancana name had always opened doors, not closed them. But more doors closed as Mooney’s name continued to find its way into the newspapers. With the publicity came a new set of obstacles for Chuck and his family. They finally found a new home in Lexington Fields, where there was fresh air and blue sky and a picturesque farm with a white fence and frisky ponies and horses grazing nearby. But almost as quickly as the moving vans pulled away, they began to feel the curiosity and rejection of their WASP neighbors.
That very day, two-year-old Mooney was playing outside when a boy came across the street, taunting him. “I’m not supposed to play with you. . . . You’re a gangster. And so’s your father . . . my dad says so.” A hurt, confused expression crossed little Mooney’s face; his parents quickly brought him inside.
Not long after that, their other son, Chuckie, began having trouble in school. The teachers seemed to single him out more frequently, and if there was a fight on the school grounds, everyone pointed to him. “He’s a Giancana and they’re all gangsters,” the children would cry.
Since no one came right out and told Anne Marie and Chuck to their faces that they weren’t welcome in the neighborhood, Anne Marie set out to make new friends, inviting the ladies over for bridge or tea, having couples over for barbecues and cocktail parties, baking cakes and cookies for all the families.
The intense effort wasn’t for her own benefit; deep down, she was still the same shy, self-conscious girl Chuck had met a decade before, and playing the social circuit came hard. Instead, this was for her children. More than anything, she wanted them to be accepted. And that meant making a real effort to establish friendships with these Anglo strangers.
It was a discouraging campaign; sometimes she’d confess to Chuck that perhaps they’d made a mistake leaving their own people and moving to a place so foreign to Chicago’s Little Italy.
She watched little Mooney develop into a quiet, thoughtful, and sensitive child—vulnerable to the older children’s cruelty and name-calling. And she wondered aloud about his coming school years. “What will ha
ppen when the teacher calls out for Sam Giancana?” she asked Chuck again and again.
She saw an anger welling up in their other son, and though seven-year-old Chuckie never mentioned it, she was certain he was continually teased and mistreated by the other children at school; more than once he’d come home with a bloody nose.
Chuck tried to reassure her, but he was away from home more often now, throwing himself into work at the motel, trying to immerse himself in so much activity that he wouldn’t have time to dwell on what was happening to them. He wanted to get on with his life even if he suddenly wasn’t sure where it was going.
Perhaps Mooney also was uncertain about the direction his own life was taking. At least that possibility flitted through Chuck’s mind late one night when his brother pulled up in their driveway.
Chuck had just gotten home from work at the lounge; it was after three in the morning. Instead of going to bed, he was sitting up in the living room, sipping a glass of wine. He’d just lit a cigar when he heard the car pull up to the house. When he saw it was Mooney, he opened the door.
His brother stood on the porch, holding a large package in both arms. Dressed in a suit and tie, just as if it was high noon on a workday, he seemed impatient, almost nervous.
“Hey, this is what I call service . . . right here waitin’ for me, huh? Pretty good,” Mooney said, smiling wearily. “Glad you’re awake, Chuck. Let’s talk.” Chuck noticed the dark translucent circles furrowed beneath his brother’s eyes as he walked into the lamplight.
Soon they were comfortably stationed on the sofa, package between them.