Table Of ContentOther Books by JOHN KOBLER
The Trial of Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray Some Like It Gory
Afternoon in the Attic
(illustrations by Chas. Addams)
The Reluctant Surgeon: A Biography of John Hunter
Luce: His Time, Life and Fortune
Ardent Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition
Damned in Paradise: The Life of John Barrymore
Otto the Magnificent: The Life of Otto Kahn
by JOHN KOBLER
For Evelyn
1. Snorky 13
2. A Brooklyn Boyhood 18
3. Big Jim 38
4. ". . . . . the best and dearest of husbands" 52
5. No Christian Burial 68
6. From Death Corner to Dead Man's Tree 76
7. "A. Capone, Antique Dealer" 101
8. Cicero 109
9. "Tell them Sicilians to go to hell" 124
10. Garlic and Gangrene 134
11. The Fall of the House of Genna 156
12. "I paid him plenty and I got what I was paying for" 171
13. War 184
14. Big Bill Rides Again 196
15. ". . . . . the sunny Italy of the new world" 213
16. "I've got a heart in me" 227
17. Against the Wall 240
18. "Nobody's on the legit" 255
19. Case Jacket SI-7085-F 270
20. Mr. and Mrs. Alphonse Capone Request the Pleasure. . . . 283
21. A Murder a Day 287
22. ". . . regardez le gorille" 306
23. Paper Chase 316
24. Aggiornamento 323
25. The Reckoning 328
26. "Received . . . . . the body of the within named prisoner. named prisoner. ."
347
27. Island of Pelicans 357
28. Tertiary Stage 374
APPENDIX: The Heritage 379
SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 387
INDEX 395
Illustrations follow pages 64, 256, 384.
Play it across the table What if we steal this city blind? If they want anything, let
'em nail it down.
Harness bulls, dicks, front-office men, And the high goats upon the bench, Ain't
they all in cahoots? Ain't it fifty-fifty all down the line?
-CARL SANDBURG
FOR a man of Frank Loesch's years and stature it was a galling mission. With
profound distaste, the venerable corporation counsel, a founding member of the
Chicago Crime Commission and, at the age of seventy-five, its president,
crossed the black-and-white tessellated lobby of the Hotel Lexington and
stepped into the irongrille elevator. To compound his sense of humiliation, he
was committed to the destruction of the man whose aid he sought. Among the
city's "Public Enemies," a term Loesch himself had coined to dispel the romantic
aura with which the yellow press had clothed gangsters, Al Capone ranked No.
1. Yet who but Capone could or would, this autumn of 1928, guarantee a free,
honest election to the voters of Cook County? Not the governor of the state, an
embezzler and protector of felons. Not Chicago's grotesque mayor. Not the
state's attorney, who had never successfully prosecuted a single gangster. Not the
police. Least of all the police of whom Capone once boasted: "I own the police."
Loesch recalled later: "It did not take me long after I had been made president
of the Crime Commission to discover that Al Capone ran the city. His hand
reached into every department of the city and county government. . . . I made
arrangements to secretly meet Mr. Capone in his headquarters."
Capone's bountiful disbursements enabled him to act as if the Lexington
belonged to him. The lobby was constantly patrolled by his janissaries, who at
sight of any suspicious-looking or inquisitive stranger would leap to a house
phone and alert their master. Other sentries kept vigil by the elevator landings,
and to approach Capone's fourth-floor eyrie, the visitor had to pass between rows
of bodyguards, who carried under their jackets a .45-caliber revolver in a holster,
hanging, according to the prescribed style, from a shoulder halter to four inches
below the left armpit.
The nerve center of Capone's multifarious activities was Room 430, the salon
of his six-room suite. From there he directed-with the guidance of his porcine,
Moscow-born financial manager, Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik-a syndicate that
owned or controlled breweries, distilleries, speakeasies, warehouses, fleets of
boats and trucks, nightclubs, gambling houses, horse and dog racetracks,
brothels, labor unions, business and industrial associations, together producing a
yearly revenue in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Cash was stacked around
Room 430 in padlocked canvas bags, awaiting its transfer to a bank under
fictitious names.
To enforce his will, Capone had an army of sluggers, bombers and machine
gunners, 700 to 1,000 strong, some under his direct command, others available
to him through allied gang chieftains. For his immunity from prosecution he
relied on an intricate linkage with City Hall, involving a range of officials from
ward heelers to the mayor.
Having passed inspection by the sentries, Loesch was admitted to an oval
vestibule. A crest enclosing the initials A.C. had been inlaid in the oak parquet.
At the left a bathroom contained an immense sunken tub with gold-plated
faucets and ceramic tiles of Nile green and royal purple. An ancient Oriental rug
covered the floor of the salon, and the high ceiling was embossed with an
elaborate foliage design. A chandelier of amber and smoked glass shed a soft
light. In an artificial fireplace a heap of artificial coal, covering light bulbs,
glowed ruby red. A radio set had been built into the paneling above the mantel.
Capone was a late riser, having customarily stayed up past dawn, eating,
drinking and nightclubbing, and visitors who called before noon would find him
in dressing gown and silk pajamas, which, like the silk sheets he slept on, were
monogrammed. He ordered the pajamas, so-called French models, from Sulka in
lots of a dozen at $25 each. He preferred royal blue with gold piping. He also
fancied col ored shorts of Italian glove silk, costing $12. His suits, custom-made
by Marshall Field at $135 each, with the right-hand pockets reinforced to
support the weight of a revolver, ran to light hues-pea green, powder blue, lemon
yellow-and he affected matching ties and socks, a fedora, and pearl-gray spats. A
marquise diamond sparkled in his tiepin, across his bulging abdomen stretched a
platinum watch chain encrusted with diamonds, and on his middle finger he
wore a flawless, 11 carat, blue-white diamond that had cost him $50,000.
At the time of Loesch's visit Capone was twenty-nine but appeared
considerably older. Mountains of pasta and Niagaras of Chianti had deposited
layers of fat, but the muscle beneath the fat was rock-hard, and in anger he could
inflict fearful punishment. He stood 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed 255
pounds. He moved with an assertive, forward thrust of his upper body, the
shoulders meaty and sloping like a bull's. His big round head sat on a neck so
