Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 32, No. 2, January 1973

Tough Tony Accardo: Mr. Big of Chicago by David Mazroff

Frank “The Enforcer” Nitti was dead, lying in the weeds with a bullet in his head. The man who had sent Al Capone to a living death had gone the same way, and Chicago knew who the next Mr. Big was going to be Tough Tony Accardo. The kid who knew how to keep his mouth shut and wait, while other men talked and died. Tough Tony rules The Windy City Brotherhood today. Here is his incredible story.

When the cops found wily Frank “The Enforcer” Nitti on that cold autumn night he was dead.

His bare head was against a heavy wire fence, the eyes closed. His body, stretched straight out, toes turned up, lay on an irregular bed of weeds near a railroad siding. He was dressed in an expensive gray suit and a darker gray topcoat. A gray, wide-brimmed hat with a black band lay at the left of the dead man.

Police spotlights were turned on the scene and the prone figure on the ground was silhouetted grotesquely in black and gray shadows.

An inspector and a lieutenant of the homicide division knelt on either side of Nitti’s body while behind them a swelling hum of noises broke the silence of the night as some half-dozen uniformed cops talked among themselves.

The inspector found the .38 caliber white metal, detective special, picked it up by the barrel and dropped it into a cellophane evidence bag. The inspector said, “One neat hole in the right temple. You think it was suicide?”

“No,” the lieutenant answered. “Too pat. Why the hell should Nitti choose a spot like this, way out to hell and gone, to do the kill himself? Why not in his home? Another thing, how the hell did he get here? No buses. No street cars. And no sign of his ear. Would he walk this far to kill himself? I can’t buy it.”

“Neither can I. If we mark it murder, a gangland killing, it will mean putting some good men on the case for weeks. They won’t be able to learn a thing. Let’s call it suicide and forget about it.”

“Nitti was the number one man, Joe. If we’re right, then Nitti was killed or ordered killed by the number two man for a takeover. You know who the number two man is?”

“Yep. Tony Accardo.” He made a noise in his throat. “Getting that baby to talk would be like trying to swallow Lake Michigan. He doesn’t even talk to God.”

“Okay, here’s the meat wagon and the I.D. men. It’s their job now. Let’s get outta here.”

In a suite in the Lexington Hotel on Michigan Boulevard and 22nd Street on Chicago’s South Side, Anthony Joseph Accardo sat behind a polished mahagony desk and grinned at the four men in the room who sat in deep armchairs in front of him.

“Frank shouldn’t have knocked himself off like that,” he said. His grin broadened. “We could’ve done it for him, as a favor, in the bedroom of his home where he woulda been nice and comfortable.”

The four men grinned back silently. They waited for Accardo to say more, to say what really was on his mind. Despite the grin on his face they knew him as few other men knew him. He personified death, harsh, violent, and bloody.

Accardo said, “I have to order a wreath for Frank. Let’s see, roses and carnations. Yeah, that should be nice.” He picked up the phone and called a florist, ordered, the wreath.

“I want a nice blue ribbon across the wreath with the words ‘From your pal, Joe Batters. You got that? Yeah? Send the bill to Mr. Anthony Accardo, Lexington Hotel. Fine.”

Accardo attended Nitti’s funeral, embraced Mrs. Nitti tenderly, and wept for the departed. He could at a moment’s notice, if the occasion demanded it, surrender all the harshness in his makeup, all the violence and calculation, to emotion. There was the time when he attended a soap opera movie with a henchman. The heroine died at a tender age, a la Jenny in “Love Story,” and Accardo wept. The henchman, who had a sense of humor but little feeling for fictional drama, turned to Accardo.

“Tony, stop crying,” he whispered. “You’re flooding the aisles.”

Accardo snapped back, “The trouble with you is that you got no heart.”

Along with his sentimental responses to occasional incidents of social and human tragedies he possessed virtues the community held in high esteem. He was a devoted husband to Clarice, his beautiful, blond wife. That was understandable for not only is Clarice a lovely creature but she has a wicked sense of humor, is bright, intelligent, and an efficient manager of their home, a palace at 915 Franklin Boulevard in River Forest, an exclusive suburb, with an indoor swimming pool, bowling alleys, billiard room, music room, oriental carpeting, gold-plated doorknobs and bathroom fixtures, and bathtubs of polished onyx. The walls of the living room and dining room are hung with oil paintings by some splendid artists.

Accardo was also a loving father, shielding his children from all exposure to publicity, and a charming host. Like Johnny Torrio and the murderous Genna brothers, Accardo was a devotee of classical music.

A rival who possessed a caustic wit remarked, when told of Accardo’s love of classical music, “Yeah, I know.” He pointed an imaginary machine gun and yelled, “Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!” Then shouted, “The bum wouldn’t know one opera from another. He thinks Verdi plays third base for the Cubs!”

How, where, and when did Tony Accardo rise to the position he has held for two decades? Accardo was born in Chicago of decent, honest, hard-working parents who were devoted to the church. He grew up in the West Side neighborhood, of the First Ward, a ghetto comprised of Old World Italians. On the periphery were whore houses, saloons, pool rooms, haunts frequented by pimps, thieves, robbers, hustlers of every kind, dope pushers, hoods, and floozies out to trade sex for a good time. A boy had to fight in order to keep from being maimed or killed in the neighborhood. Accardo could fight. Even in his teens he was big, hard, and rough and came by the adjective in front of his name honestly — Tough Tony Accardo.

At twenty, Accardo met Frank Nitti and Jack McGurn, Capone’s chief executioners. He asked Nitti for a job.

“What can you do?” Nitti asked.

“Whatever I’m told,” Accardo replied. “And can keep my mouth shut.” He grinned at Nitti and McGurn.

“Okay, come on. We’ll see what the Boss says.”

Standing in front of Capone in Al’s suite in the Lexington Hotel, Accardo was polite, courteous, but not deferential. A great deal of his imperiousness, as a matter of fact, showed even then. Capone was the one who was impressed.

“Tony Accardo, eh?” Capone said. “How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

Capone grunted. He was that age when he came to Chicago from New York to become Torrio’s bodyguard and from there rose up the ladder until he held Chicago’s underworld in the palm of his hand. He saw something of himself in the young man before him. He could, Capone thought prophetically, do exactly what I did. He grunted audibly.

Accardo said, “Did you say something?”

Capone shook his head. “No, I didn’t. That was only a kind of mental belch.” He took a cigar from a humidor on his desk and shoved it into his mouth. “You ever drive a truck?”

“No, but I can learn quick. I think I can drive anything that’s got wheels?”

“You think?”

“I know,” Accardo replied evenly and without a trace of ego in his tone. “All I want is a chance.”

“Okay, you got it. A C-note a week. No regular hours. You drive when you’re told, day or night. That okay with you?”

“That’s fine.”

Capone turned to Nitti. “Put him on. Give him a couple of C’s in front. He might need it.” He returned his attention to Accardo. “That’s a bonus for nothing. You may have to earn it a little later.”

“Sure, I understand.”

Capone nodded. “Yeah, I think you do. Okay, Frank will tell you what to do.”

“Mr. Capone,” Accardo said, “if you don’t mind, I’d like to be called Joe Batters. I been using that name.”

“Why?”

Accardo shrugged. “Maybe for the same reason you used Al Brown.”

Capone let out a short laugh. “Your family live here?”

“Yes, sir. Good people.”

“Okay. Joe Batters. Frank, Jack, meet Joe Batters.”

Nitti said, “All right, Joe, let’s go. I’ll introduce you to a nice big truck and we’ll see if you two can get along.”

Tony Accardo got along very well with the truck. He delivered barrels of beer to saloons and did it efficiently. He soon became the best driver in the gang and Al Capone began using him as a chauffeur at odd times.

Capone liked him. He learned that Accardo didn’t drink, did what he was told at all times, spoke only when he was spoken to, and answered all questions intelligently. Capone found that he could trust him and didn’t hesitate to talk about the most intimate workings of the Organization in his presence, information that could have sent Capone to prison for life or to the electric chair.

Accardo never betrayed his trust. It was this reputation for absolute trustworthiness that eventually took Accardo to the top. He has maintained this personal code of ethics to this very day. It is the one code the mobs respect and to which they pay homage. Its violation results in death, bloody and violent.

Accardo was given duties involving organization and again proved himself, his innate intelligence and quick comprehension of a problem or situation resulting in quick solutions. He was rewarded generously. He started to dress in tailor-made clothes, moved his family to a better neighborhood, married Clarice and fathered the first of his three children on whom he doted, spoiled with fatherly affection and gifts but held in line with a strict discipline. He had been taught to respect his parents and he carried that teaching over to his own children.

The Old World Italians as well as the first and second generation Italians in the New World carry on the tradition. Moreover, they are open and demonstrative in their affection. A son will not hesitate to kiss his father in public after returning from a trip. Family ties are strong. It is the basis of the strength of the Mafia. Members inter-marry. This brings brothers-in-law, sons-in-law, and, of course, cousins, first and, second, into the national alliance.

The list is too long to even begin to mention. Notable examples, of course, were Al Capone and his cousins the Fischettis, as well as Capone’s four brothers, John, Matt, Mimi, and Ralph. Also Jake Guzik and his brother Harry. The five Genna brothers. Detroit mobsters married the daughters of Buffalo, New York Mafiosi, and vice versa, as well as those from Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Chicago, St. Louis, and other cities. The Unione Siciliano kept them together.

The amazing rise of Tony Accardo to the position of boss of Chicago and a seat on the Inner Council of the Mafia is all the more astounding in its character because he had no ties family-wise with anyone in the hierarchy of the National Criminal Syndicate. Clarice even less. His appeal to the Grand Council lay in the fact that he could be trusted in every respect and that he would carry out any order given him by the council, come hell or high water.

Frank Nitti, on the other hand, was suspect, and rightly so. It was believed that he aided Frank J. Wilson, Chief of the United States Secret Service, in gathering evidence against Capone. Surely, he sent word to Nels Tessem and Jay Sullivan, two of Wilson’s agents, as to where they could locate Lou Shumway and Freddy Reis, the bookkeepers in Capone’s Cicero operations. Shumway was picked up in Miami and Reis in St. Louis. Their testimony helped convict Al Capone.

The Syndicate’s connections in the police department brought this information to Accardo.

“That’s impossible!” he said. “I won’t believe it.”

“You’d better believe it, Tony,” the detective told him, “It’s straight from the horse’s mouth.”

“Okay then, let me talk to the horse. I want it direct.”

The detective shrugged. “Sorry, Tony. That’s as far as I can go with you on this. Keep your eyes open, and don’t turn your back.”

With Capone in prison, Nitti took over the mob, on Capone’s order! Accardo figured that this move counter-acted the detective’s story of Nitti’s perfidy completely. Surely, if anyone would know whether or not he had been double-crossed Capone would be the first. However, the seed of suspicion that had been planted was like a small irritating ulcer in Accardo’s belly. He decided to watch Nitti closely in all of the mob’s dealings. He thought often of going to Paul “The Waiter” Ricca or Louis “Little New York” Campagna and tell them what he had been told but decided against it as being detrimental to his interests.

Accardo never got past the sixth grade in school and his speech was more malaprop than ungrammatical but it was Murray “The Camel” Humphreys who analyzed Accardo accurately. Humphreys was a college graduate who had been with the mob from the day that Capone joined it. He said, “Tony is an ignoramus — but a very, very shrewd ignoramus.” It was an apt appraisal.

Despite his lack of formal education, Accardo accomplished what sharpies like Capone, Luciano, Costello, Lepke Buchalter, Joe Adonis, and many other couldn’t. He never served a day in jail despite a record of thirty-seven arrests. He has made mistakes, of course. He does not possess the organizational ability evidenced by Capone, Torrio, or Luciano, yet he has maintained discipline in the ranks. He once said, “Respect or fear. If I can’t make ’em respect me I can sure as hell make them fear me, and that’s just about the same thing.” The discipline he fosters is more stringent than that at West Point, and his edict of “Stay in line or die” is adhered to by everyone in the Organization with the passionate fervor of a Buddhist priest intoning his prayers.

Fate played a big hand in Accardo’s rise to the top. When Nitti took over the mob, Ricca and Campagna were his number two and three men in authority. Accardo was number four. Accardo’s chances for the top slot appeared slim.

The wily, scheming Nitti, possessor of a Machiavellian mind and the morals of a jungle cat, had killed for Capone. He was, along with Machine-gun Jack McGurn, the chief executioner. No one really knows the number of men Nitti killed. A safe figure would be fifty, give or take five or six. He wasn’t the kind of guy you could knock off easily or plot against. Accardo never let that thought enter his mind. Not for some time, anyway.

Capone was smarting under the harsh life in Alcatraz. At one time there was the chance that he would be paroled after serving a third Of his eleven years’ sentence but someone applied pressure in Washington and the federal parole board turned down Capone’s application for parole. The pressure was applied by Nitti through a powerful politico. Furthermore, after Capone was released, a broken and sick man suffering from an incurable brain disease, Nitti used the power he held in Chicago to send Al to the Cook County Jail for a one-year term on an old charge.

All this chicanery on the part of Nitti had to militate against him, sooner or later. It brought about his downfall, put Campagna and Ricca in prison, and Accardo in the top shot.

Nitti was flooded with an arrogant sense of his power, not only in Chicago but throughout the country. He moved ruthlessly and heedlessly.

Accardo tried to reason with him. “Frank, slow down. You’re stepping on a lot of people’s toes and some of them are making noises.”

Nitti waved a hand in deprecation. “Aw, crap! I stuff the pockets of them bastards with money. I gotta right to push ’em a little now and then. You just let me handle things, Tony. I’ll tell you when I want your advice.”

“It may be too late then, Frank.”

“Like I said, Tony,” Nitti retorted angrily, “I’ll ask for your advice when I need it, if then.”

It was one of Nitti’s big mistakes. Accardo’s advice could have saved his life because it was Accardo who learned, first hand, that Nitti had double-crossed Capone. Had Nitti been more friendly or less abrupt with Accardo it is possible that Accardo would have bent his principles a little in favor of Nitti, although he hated a rat and a double-crosser. He did feel a certain kind of loyalty toward Nitti, however, because it was Nitti who had given him his chance in the mob.

Tony Accardo was born on April 28, 1906, in the city of Chicago, grew to a powerful five feet ten inches packed solidly in a 190 pound frame, all of it muscle. His kindest critics said of him that most of that muscle was in his head. Aside from a prominent nose he could be considered attractive. He had black hair, brown eyes, a dark olive complexion.

When he came into the big money he dressed in the most expensive tailored clothes money could buy. A Sicilian on both sides of his parents, he was acceptable by virtue of his birth, and later, because of his integrity and his adherence to gangland principles, the rule of Omerta, eligible for election to the presidency of the Unione Siciliano, which, of course, he never attained and never really desired.

“I ain’t the kind of guy to sit behind a desk and talk,” he said. “President? Do I look like a President?”

No one argued the point that he didn’t. A member of the mob, in a not too critical appraisal of Accardo, said, “Tony coulda been president of his sixth grade class but he couldn’t memorize the sentence that went with the nomination.”

“Yeah?” Willie Heeney said. “What was the sentence?”

“I accept.”

The reply brought forth gales of laughter which were instantly silenced as Accardo came out of the elevator and walked toward the group in the lobby of the Lexington Hotel.

Accardo took an extremely dim view of any references to him, in any vein, which reflected on his academic background. He could, and did explode violently, on several occasions when he overheard, and his punishment was swift against his offenders.

Accardo quit school after completing the sixth grade and earned small sums of money which he dutifully brought home to his parents. He was big for his age at sixteen and soon learned that he could earn more money protecting street crap games and poker sessions in. private homes from heistmen. When he was twenty he met Frank Nitti and Jack McGurn. It was, for him, a fortuitous meeting which changed his entire life.

A sister, Martha, married Dominick Senese, who harbored ambitions to be a big-time hood. When Accardo became a man of importance in the mob he made Senese head of the mayhem squad at the Fulton Street Market. Senese and John Smith were also business agents and officers of Local 703, Produce Drivers Union, affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

An insight of how the hoodlum element, and this refers to the top men in the Mafia, control the economy of the nation, is contained in the fact that Dominic Senese and a hood named Victor Comforte, an associate of Joey Glimco, a man high in the Chicago mob, owned a controlling share of the Vernon Farm Products Company, a wholesale egg business in the Fulton Street Market. Investigators also brought to light the fact that Frank Senese, a brother of Dominick, and. Frank V. Pantaleo, another hood, were also partners in the business.

The Mafia forces itself into legitimate businesses when it can’t buy into them legitimately. Other times, a company in financial distress will borrow money from loan sharks at exorbitant interest rates and when payments lag the mob steps in and takes over. A common example of just how much money is controlled by Mafia hoods was evident in the case of Fred Evans.

Tony Accardo, investigators revealed, had invested heavily in Evans’ multiple business enterprises with Joey Glimco as a “beard” or front. Evans was an underling for Murray “The Camel” Humphreys, a member of the original Torrio-Capone mob. Evans controlled, in name only, a large chain of laundries. Union muscle-aided Evans and his associates, among them Accardo, Glimco, Cherry Nose Gioe, and the two Senese brothers, to invade and cut heavily into the lucrative business of supplying towels, coveralls, and other supplies to gas stations, garages, and auto rental agencies.

The corporation was a conglomerate which held control of, among other firms, Linen of the Week, Inc., Western Laundry Service, Infant Diaper Service, Dust and Tex Cleaning Company, and the Crib Diaper Service.

Accardo thought that Evans was getting too big, siphoning off too much of the gross profits. Accardo at the time was a member of the Executive Council of the Chicago Syndicate. Joey Glimco, as head of this phase of the Syndicate’s legitimate enterprises, was given the task of “finding a solution to Fred Evans.”

In 1959, Evans was picked up by several hoods, tossed into a car, driven to a lonely section of town, yanked out of the car, shoved against a brick wall before three gunmen who pointed sub-machine guns at him.

Evans pleaded for his life. “I’ll get out!” he cried. “I’ll leave town. I’ll never come back. Don’t kill me! Don’t! Please don’t kill me!”

The three men grimaced, pointed their weapons, fired in unison, the heavy slugs tearing Evans’ body and face to shreds. The three men got back into the car in a leisurely way, leaving Evans’ bloody remains on the dirty street, parts of his flesh pasted against the brown bricks of the walls, hurled there from the force of the three machine guns.

Investigators who checked into the killing located a drawer in a desk in Evans’ office in which they found various notations of the financial transactions. One notation read: “Total resources — $11,000,000.” Three safety deposit boxes contained tangible assets in the form of negotiable stocks and bonds valued at more than $500,000! Evans also had holdings out of the state which included two luxury hotels in Los Angeles.

The new owners of Evans’ enterprises were Tony Accardo, Murray Humphreys, and Joey Glimco. A similar takeover occurred when Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel was executed in Los Angeles and the Chicago mob took over the plush Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. And this despite the fact that Siegel was a close associate for many years of Meyer Lansky. At the time, Lansky was the honored dean and counselor to every family in the Mafia Syndicate on financial matters. This emphatically denies the fable of a brotherhood in Mafia circles.

Accardo rose to power immediately after Frank Nitti’s death. When Al Capone was released from a federal prison he was ordered to serve an additional year in the Cook County Jail on an old beef. It was Nitti, through his connections in the city, who arranged that because he wanted Capone out of the way. The mystery man of the underworld, Gaetano Ricci, learned of it.

Ricci, whose home base was New York, was a giant of a man. Six feet six inches tall, weighing over 225 pounds, he made a formidable appearance. Nowhere in any of the many articles and books written by outstanding writers of fact crime is he mentioned. Yet, he was known to the police of New York, Miami, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Las Vegas, and other major cities in the country. He was respected and revered by the underworld.

Ricci came to Chicago, his heart full of anger against Nitti. He talked with Accardo, at the time second in command. He spoke with a great deal of passion.

“It is enough!” Ricci thundered. His voice shook. “Did not Al suffer enough? Why should Nitti have done this to him?” He pounded the desk in front of him. “I leave him in your hands. I am confident, my friend, that you will solve this matter satisfactorily.”

Accardo solved it satisfactorily. How he did it remains unknown to this day except to those who were actually connected with the Nitti episode. However, if Nitti was wily, a schemer, artful, then Accardo was his opposite. Accardo was direct. He moved in a straight line, without deviation toward the objective. If he were rough, completely abysmal and amoral, he was nonetheless possessed of great innate intelligence. His record dates back to 1922. The police department of Chicago lists him under File #D-83436, with more than two score arrests on charges of carrying concealed weapons, extortion, kidnaping, murder, and gambling. He was convicted only once, on a charge of income tax evasion and was sentenced to six years in prison and fined $15,000. He appealed the conviction and was acquitted in a second trial.

He has never spent a single night in a jail cell, and that says a great deal for his shrewdness. It is on record he was a prime suspect in more than a dozen murders, among them the killings of Joe Aiello, Mike Heitler, a notorious brothel keeper, Jack Zuta, ousted police captain William Drury, Attorney Marvin Bas, James Ragen, owner of Continental Press which the Chicago mob took over after Ragen’s death, and as one of the gunmen in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

Even when he was second in command to Nitti he was held in higher esteem by Jake Guzik, the bag man for the Syndicate, and Charlie and Rocco Fischetti, cousins of Capone, than Nitti. Murray Humprheys, it will be recalled, said it succinctly, “Tony is an ignoramus — but a very, very shrewd ignoramus.”

Accardo was cited for contempt of Congress in the Kefauver hearings when he took the Fifth Amendment 144 times before the McClellan Committee rather than reveal any information on mob activities. He escaped a jail term from that contempt charge too.

He is known to be involved in more than a score of enterprises outside the workings of the Syndicate. His interests, in which he has invested heavily, include trucking, coal, lumber, bakery, laundries, restaurants, hotels, travel agencies, currency exchanges, pieces of Las Vegas casinos, Miami hotels and motels. He is known to have considerable amounts invested throughout the states of Florida, Nevada, Arizona, California, and in France, Italy, and South America. It is impossible to estimate his wealth.

From the time he rose to absolute power in 1943, at the time of Nitti’s death, until he turned over the reins to Sam Giancana in 1956, he amassed a fortune, according to the most informed sources, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. At this writing he is chairman of the Syndicate’s board of directors and one of the top men in the nation’s hierarchy of the Mafia.

The rise to the top in the Mafia is not achieved easily. It is too often done by the route of mayhem and murder, but more by a firm loyalty to those above, and by the law of Omerta, the law of silence. Accardo followed all three principles devotedly.

After Capone was convicted and sent to prison, and Nitti was named the number one man by Al, there was a depression in the nation. It was as evident in Chicago as it was elsewhere in the country. World War I veterans were selling apples on practically every corner in Chicago’s Loop, the main business section. Money was as tight as a miser’s fist.

But not with the Syndicate. Gambling joints were all over the city, more than two score of them, ranging from bookie joints that would take any kind of action from a buck to ten thousand dollars. In a place like the Gym Club in the Loop as much as a half million dollars changed hands on a Saturday when baseball, football, or basketball was the game of the season.

Brothels were everywhere. The doxies, street hustlers, call girls, from the fifty-dollar and hundred dollar a trick broads right down to the two-buck whores, all paid tribute to the Syndicate. In many of the houses run by the Syndicate there were as many as fifty girls working around the clock. It brought back the days of the red light district in the First Ward that ran from 17th Street to 22nd Street and from Wabash to Clark Streets known then as the South Side levee. There were 130 whorehouses, by actual count, in the district, all of them running wide open. Someone had to police these places.

The three top men, Paul “The Waiter” Ricca, Cherry Nose Gioe, and Frank Diamond, felt it beneath them. Nitti assigned Accardo, who was the number four man. Accardo took to the duties of keeping the whores and bookies in line like a fish takes to water. He browbeat the pimps, madams, and bookies. When necessary, he used his brute force to demonstrate the necessity for complete cooperation and honesty in the matter of an honest count in the proceeds.

Accardo brought the saloons into line, the strip tease dives, clip joints, night clubs, cocktail bars, shady hotels, and the gambling joints, big and little, and schooled them that there were no such things as independents.

“Everybody pays off,” he declared. “That way you run, see. But more important, you also buy yourself a license to live. How about that, huh?”

There were some objections by madams of houses. One of them, a woman named Fat Sally who ran a house on 19th Street off Wabash, gave Accardo an argument.

“How do I know you’re going to give me and the girls all this protection you’re talking about? I ain’t never seen you before in my life. To me you’re just another hood trying to muscle in.”

“Sally,” Accardo said, and smiled crookedly, “you’re a pretty smart girl. But right now you’re talking yourself into a mouth of missing teeth. I said the Syndicate is taking over. Either you run it with us or not at all.”

“Real tough, huh? Well, let me tell you something, Mr. Big Shot, I’ve had guys like you in here before. They didn’t scare me and you don’t either. You’re not going to kill me, that much I know. A few blows? So what? I’ve taken them all my life. Go ahead and hit me.”

Accardo grinned. “Sure, Sally, like you say.”

She was completely unaware of his next move, certain he would only talk, so when his fist flashed into her belly she was as much surprised as she was shocked by the terrific punch he threw at her. She doubled up and fell to the floor, her breath knocked out of her.

“Get up, you stupid broad!” Accardo told her. “Get up or I’ll kick your guts out!”

Sally crawled to a sitting position. She was still gasping for breath. She managed to get up on her hands and knees first, much like a fighter who has been floored and struggling to beat the count, and then she rose slowly to her feet.

“You’ve hurt me,” she mumbled, and held both hands to her stomach.

“That was a teaser, Sally. The next time you give me any of your lip your mouth is going to disappear into your chest.” He tapped her breast with a forefinger. “You understand me now, Sally?”

“Okay, okay. Now take that damn finger out of my chest. What’s your best offer?”

“Now you’re being smart. You’re going to run this joint like you have. The Syndicate will supply you with new girls every two weeks. We move the girls around. The Syndicate will pay for protection. In case of a bust, the Syndicate will bail out the girls, and you, and pay for the mouthpiece and the fines. The girls will eat here, and we’ll supply the food, towel and linen service. We’ll also pay the rent. How does that suit you?”

“How much of the take is the Syndicate going to want for all this jolly service?”

“Seventy-five per cent. The girls get fifty per cent of their take, less the fees for rent, food, linen service, bail and fines. The mouth piece is free. We keep him on a retainer.”

“Seventy-five per cent!” Sally screamed. “Mister, you’re bringing back slavery. The girls won’t stand for it.”

“Sure they will. Bring them in. All of them. I’ll convince them. Nice and easy.” He smiled. “No rough stuff. I don’t like to hit a girl. Go ahead, Sally.”

The girls came in, an even dozen, some of them in their late teens. Accardo looked them over. His eyes fell on a pretty blond. “How old are you, Sister?”

“Who me?” the girl answered.

“Yeah, you. How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“You’re a liar. I’ll ask you again. How old?” There was a hard note in his voice.

“Seventeen,” she blurted out.

“Where you from?”

“Davenport, Iowa.”

“How long you been in Chicago?”

“A month.”

“Who put you in this house?”

“A friend.”

“A friend, huh? You mean a pimp, don’t you? Get your clothes and bring them back here.”

“What for? I live here.”

“I said to get your clothes! Get them!”

While she was gone, Accardo explained the Syndicate’s plan to the other girls. “We’re going to be fair about this,” he said. “The important thing is that you girls will never have to do any time for working here.” He turned to the big hood beside him. “What’s the name of the beef for working in a joint?”

The big hood shrugged. “I think it’s called Soliciting and Selling. Or something.”

Accardo grunted. “You’re stupid. Well, whatever it is, you girls won’t get busted. But if you do, you’ll be out in a hot minute. Okay?”

The young blonde came in then with a small battered suitcase and set it down in front of her. She had changed into a print dress, plain black pumps, and a pert little hat. She looked like a high school junior ready for a date. She stared at Accardo questioningly.

Accardo dug a hand into a pocket of his trousers, took out a roll of bills and counted out several large ones. “Here’s a hundred bucks, Sister. You get on the first bus back to Davenport and stay there. If I ever see you in Chicago, in one of these joints, I’ll break both your arms and legs, see.”

Sally said, “A hood with a heart. That’s a new one.”

“Yeah, isn’t it?” Accardo shot back. He turned to the blond. “Okay, Sister. Take off.”

Tony Accardo’s success in organizing and policing the brothels and gambling joints added to his stature in the Syndicate. The big break came when the three top men over him — Paul “The Waiter” Ricca, Louis “Little New York” Campagna, and Frank Diamond along with Frank Nitti — became involved in the infamous shakedown of the movie industry.

George Browne, International President of I.A.T.S.E., and fat Willie Bioff, a notorious pander, decided to follow in the footsteps of Tommy Maloy, who headed Local 110 of the Motion Picture Operators Union. Maloy shook down every theater owner in the city for sums ranging from $500 to $5,000 on threats of calling a strike and thus shutting the theater down.

Maloy was a tough boy. He chauffeured for a time for Mossy Enright, head of the building-trades unions. Enright taught Maloy a great deal, but not enough to keep him from getting murdered when the Syndicate decided to take over. In contrast, Bioff was a weakling and a coward; Browne little better. How Bioff persuaded Browne to give him a piece of the action in the deal is unknown and must be regarded with a great deal of askance. Bioff, a pimp who handled street walkers and wornout whores, went in over his head and took Browne with him.

What was amazing in the operation was the success the two achieved from the very outset. They first tackled the Balaban and Katz chain of theaters. The chain included the largest movie houses in the Loop, the State Lake, Chicago, Oriental, and several others, as well as many houses in the outlying districts. They then went after the others.

Nothing that happens in Chicago unions escapes the Syndicate, and Frank Nitti heard of Browne and Bioff’s racket. He ordered the two picked up and brought to the Lexington Hotel. In the suite at the time were Nitti, Accardo, Ricca, Gioe, Little New York Louis Campagna, and Nick Circella, alias Nick Dean, boyfriend of Estelle Carey who was fated to be brutally slain because of him.

Nitti said, “You guys got yourself a sweet racket. How come you didn’t let me know you were shaking down everybody in the business?”

Browne fumbled around for words in explanation.

Nitti slapped a palm on the desk. “Crap! You hear me? Crap!” He pointed a forefinger at Browne. “You appoint Circella in place of Tommy Maloy as boss of Local 110. Next, we want fifty per cent of the take. You got any objections?”

“No, no,” Browne answered hastily. “But how about Maloy? He won’t take this lying down.”

Nitti let out a raucous laugh. “That’s where he’s going to be, lying down! You do like I say and leave Maloy to me. Now, one more thing. You guys are playing for peanuts. I’m going to send you two out to the Coast, to Hollywood. You do the same thing to those big shot producers out there that you’re doing to the movie theater owners here. Only not for the same money. Jack up the ante. Let’s say a hundred grand, or two hundred grand. They’ll pay off. They won’t want their studios shut down. I’ll send Circella out there after you have it set up. Okay, that’s it.”

After Browne and Bioff left, Accardo said, “I think we’re asking for trouble with those two. They’re not our kind of people, Frank. What do we need them for?”

“Front men! Beards!” Nitti snapped. “Besides, Browne already has the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Motion Picture Operators in his pocket. Browne and Bioff will do the shaking down and we’ll take the money.”

“Bioff is a pimp. You can’t trust a pimp.”

“I don’t have to trust him, Tony. He has to trust me. Get it?”

Accardo shrugged. “Okay, you’re the boss.”

“That’s right. I’ll call the shots.”

Browne and Bioff did their work well in Hollywood. The amazing aspect in the shakedown operation was the type of men who submitted to it. Nicholas Schenck and his brother Joseph of MGM, at the time the major film producing company of the world; Louis B. Mayer, also of MGM; Sidney B. Kent, president of 20th Century-Fox; and Major Albert Warner of Warner Brothers. These men virtually controlled the movie industry.

In Chicago, meanwhile, Frank Nitti took care of Tommy Maloy. A car filled with Syndicate gunmen chased Maloy. up and down a darkened Chicago street in the early hours of the morning, caught up with him, and ended his life with bursts from two machine guns. Nick Circella now controlled Local 110.

There were several other killings of union officials who objected to Circella. Circella then took over control of the union left by Browne and the I.A.T.S.E. was in the pockets of the Syndicate.

The next time you go to a movie look for the IATSE imprimatur. It appears on every motion picture production made in every studio in the world. That’s the sphere it covers. The IATSE can close down any studio it pleases, for real or fancied reasons, simply by calling a strike of its membership. It happened. The studios were backed against a wall, and the Syndicate ruled the picture industry.

Nitti was elated at the success of the operation. Accardo was not. Accardo’s intuition, his innate intelligence, told him the whole thing would bust wide open and blow up in the face of the Syndicate. He wanted no part of it and said so.

He was proved right.

Nitti called Browne in Hollywood and told him to take Bioff with him and go to New York. “I want you to line up the studio executives there and put them in line. Yeah, that’s it. Line ’em up and put ’em in line. That’s good, huh?”

“Sure, Frank. We’ll take a train at the end of the week.”

When Nitti hung up the phone, Accardo said, “Frank, there’s going to be big trouble. These guys are too big. They got too much power. They’ll use it against us. Why don’t you drop it now. We’ve taken millions out of Hollywood. Isn’t that enough?”

Nitti banged a fist down on the desk. “Listen, Tony, and listen good. I brought you into the mob. I taught you a lot. I helped move you up. I’m boss. I do the thinking around hero and I give the orders. All you gotta do is follow them. You don’t want a split of this money? Fine. But don’t tell me how to run the thing, see?”

Accardo shrugged. “Okay. Like you say.”

As Accardo predicted, the shakedown blew up in the Syndicate’s face and sent the top men to prison when Bioff and Browne turned State’s evidence.

With Nitti out of the way and Accardo in the top slot, things moved faster and smoother. Accardo was given important lessons in the value of controlling unions by Lepke Buchalter and Lucky Luciano when Accardo visited New York and he remembered them. He set out to take over as many as he could.

Accardo’s first move was against the Chicago Restaurant Association. He sent some of the toughest hoods in the mob to influence the Association that he was the man to head it, if not as its president than as the dictator behind the office. The violence that followed resembled a small-scale war. Owners were beaten and their restaurants fouled by stink-bombs. Windows were smashed. Many of the patrons were slugged, some with baseball bats. The cars of both owners and patrons were damaged. Tires were slashed. Sugar was poured into gasoline tanks. Many of the cars were wired with black-powder and dynamites bombs. There were several murders as a clincher.

The Chicago Restaurant Association had enough. They wanted no more trouble. It was suggested to the heads of the Association that they hire Abraham Teitelbaum, an attorney who defended Al Capone, as their labor relations counsel. It was further suggested that Abe. Teitelbaum’s salary be a round $125,000 a year. The Association attempted to negotiate a lesser figure but finally agreed to the suggested salary. Teitelbaum then engaged Louis Romano as his labor relations expert. Romano was president of Local 278, Waiters, Waitresses, Bartenders, and Miscellaneous Workers Union. The Syndicate now had full control of the Chicago Restaurant Association.

The owners of restaurants were forced to pay an initiation fee and membership fee for each of their employees. The employees were not even told they were members of a Union and did not have recourse to a Union in case of a complaint. The Syndicate collected dues on members who changed jobs, left the city, or died. The restaurant owners paid.

“Hell,” one of the owners said, “I’d rather pay than have them put me out of business.”

As a union, The Chicago Restaurant Association was strictly a paper organization. Members were members in name only. There were no stewards, no benefits, welfare plan, or retirement plan. What it was in fact was an ideal shakedown racket.

Accardo now insisted that the restaurant owners buy Syndicate beer. Then, to use the Syndicate linen service, garbage disposal, laundry, dry cleaning vending machines, and to purchase all their appliances and fixtures.

Abraham Teitelbaum suggested to Accardo that it would be in the interest of the restaurant owners if they contributed to a “voluntary fund” for use in case labor troubles arose.

“Good idea,” Accardo said. “Set it up.”

The take was in the millions through this fund alone. As it was, the owners were coming out ahead in the deal. They paid wages far below scale. Workers had no protection. It was either take what was offered or be out of work.

Teitelbaum was growing rich, but not as rich as Accardo. The end came for Teitelbaum in 1953 when Accardo decided the lawyer had outlived his usefulness.

Paul “Needlenose” Labriola and James “Jimmy the Arm” Weinberg paid Teitelbaum a visit in his office and threatened to do two things. First, beat him half to death and then to toss him out a window. The two hoods had organized the Cook County Licensed Beverage Dealers Association, another paper organization set up to shake down the owners of liquor establishments. Teitelbaum backed down before the two hoods and agreed to their demands to surrender that portion of the Chicago Restaurant Association involving bartenders.

When Accardo heard of the move he blew his top. He fired Teitelbaum on the spot. A short time later, Labriola and Weinberg were found in the trunks of their cars. They had been garroted after being severely beaten.

Sam Giancana, Accardo’s righthand man, suggested that Anthony V. Champagne, Giancana’s mouth piece, be appointed in Teitelbaum’s place. Accardo agreed. Champagne then fired Romano and hired Sam English as Assistant Labor Relations Director. Sam English was a brother of Charles English who was the Syndicate’s man in the Twenty-ninth Ward and a partner of Giancana in many enterprises. Accardo was fond of Romano and gave him pieces of several rackets which more than satisfied him.

Champagne didn’t last a year. He stepped out of line by holding back payoffs and Accardo blew his top again. He ordered Champagne removed in the usual gangland fashion. Sam Giancana asked Accardo to give Champagne a break.

“The guy just made a stupid mistake, Tony,” Giancana said. “Toss him out. That should be enough punishment.”

Accardo relented and Champagne was allowed to live. Accardo then appointed Thomas E. Keane, alderman and committeeman of the Thirty-first Ward. He represented the Chicago Restaurant Association at Springfield when he was a member of the state legislature. He later became city council floor leader for Mayor Richard J. Daley. Daley, like John “Bathhouse” Coughlin, is a master of the malaprop. In defending Keane against charges that the legislator was incompetent, Daley said, “I resent the insinuendo in each respect.”

The fear that Accardo placed in the hearts of men, especially those whom he threw out of the Syndicate, was evidenced in 1958 when Teitelbaum and Champagne appeared before the McClellan Committee. Both men invoked the Fifth Amendment more than a score of times.

Louis Romano, loyal to Accardo, who also appeared before the Committee, threw the hearing into an uproar by his brazen and overbearing conduct.

Chief Counsel Robert F. Kennedy asked Romano about the many murders attributed to him. Romano half-rose in his chair and pointed a finger at Kennedy, his face purple with anger.

“Why don’t you go dig up all the dead people in the cemeteries and ask me if I killed them too, you Chinaman!”

The Committe members learned later that “Ghinaman” was another name for bagman or payoff man in Syndicate parlance. Kennedy raked Romano over the coals.

The Committe got no place in their investigation of Chicago’s restaurant industry despite the fact that testimony brought out the fact that more than two score restaurants had been burned down. In each case, police authorities labeled the fires as ARSON!

Owners of restaurants refused to state that they were paying off to the Syndicate, to admit there was any form of shakedown, or that they were forced to buy any Syndicate service or product.

In 1960, Accardo was convicted of income tax evasion on pressure by Sheriff Richard B. Ogilvie, a former federal attorney. The conviction was reversed by the United States Gircuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

In his campaign for reelection, Sheriff Ogilvie learned that Sam (Sam Mooney) Giancana had issued orders that he had to be stopped. Precinct captains, under orders from the Syndicate, went from house to house and told the voters that voting for Ogilvie would be an act that would give “the people who have helped you the greatest displeasure.” About two weeks later, Ogilvie was informed that Giancana had declared that Ogilvie was a dead duck and there was no chance of his being reelected.

Giancana was wrong. Despite the precinct captains’ work, the voters of Cook County reelected Ogilvie in the hopes he would be able to stop the Syndicate. Backing up his campaign promises, Ogilvie led a series of raids on Syndicate bookie and gambling joints in Cicero. Working with sledge hammers and axes, Ogilvie’s men battered down steel doors and smashed every piece of equipment in each place. No one of any importance was arrested and the entire series of raids took on the aspect of a witch hunt.

Seymour Simon, president of the Cook County board of commissioners, and the man who controlled and set the budget for the sheriff’s department, declared that the raids were too costly.

“They have turned up nothing of value in halting gambling. No sooner is a place closed then it is opened again and running bigger than ever. I’m calling the raids off.”

Accardo had won again.

There were ugly rumors that Simon may have been in the employ of the Syndicate and so ordered the raids be stopped. Simon was cleared of all guilt on his demand for an investigation of the rumors. He was, in truth, an honorable and honest public official.

In the meantime, several murders occurred. One of them was the killing of Danny Stanton. Stanton, a close friend of Frank Nitti’s, had once been connected with the Syndicate as a union organizer. With the death of Nitti, Stanton left the Syndicate and went on his own. A fatal error. He gained control of the Checkroom Attendants Union which was part and parcel of the Chicago Restaurant Association. Stanton was ordered to step out and relinquish the Union. He spat in the face of the man Accardo had sent to deliver the ultimatum, “Give it up or else.”

Many a self-styled tough guy learned to his regret that to defy that final, uncompromising demand is to sign a death warrant for himself. Stanton was shot down on a Chicago street. He had beaten a murder rap in Wisconsin, pushed around a lot of minor labor leaders at a time when he had the Syndicate behind him. Without the terrifying power of the Syndicate behind him he was no more than a clay pigeon. The two gunmen met him face to face, pointed their guns at his heart, and blew it to shreds.

Accardo proved he was following Capone’s modus operandi time and time again. He was the cunning architect of a new type criminal syndicate that polished up the rough edges of the operations once run by Dion O’Bannion, Johnny Torrio, Al Capone, and Frank Nitti. He had learned the way from two masters, Louis Lepke Buchalter and Charlie Luciano.

Accardo took over the Chicago Street Cleaning Union. In this he took a page from the methods introduced by Big Tim Murphy, one of the greatest paradoxes in Chicago’s criminal history. Murphy had been a state legislator. He could have made the governor’s chair. Instead, he chose the field of crime and touched all the bases — mayhem, rape, extortion, mail robbery, and murder. Like Buchalter, who followed him almost a decade later, Murphy played both ends to the middle. He collected from the unions and from both business and industry.

First he started labor troubles by sending his goons to shops with orders to “wreck them a little.” He then called on the owners and told them he could stop the trouble in consideration of a certain amount each week. When they paid, he then sent other men around to tell the owners or bosses that the workers were demanding more pay. The increases he asked were exorbitant. The owners argued for lesser amounts. He said he would try to settle the demands at some place between the two — the owners’ offer and the union’s demands. Having established that, he went to the union and told the officers he could get the rank and file an increase in hourly rates if the union would agree to increase the dues of each member of the union and pay him twenty-five per cent of the total.

That was Accardo’s method. He not only took a leaf from Murphy’s book but took the whole book and then revised it to suit the prevailing economy. Accardo muscled in on almost every union in the city, including the machinery of the Municipal Courts. He was able to place his own men in court offices and alongside some judicial benches so he could have advance warning on the issuance of warrants and other legal actions.

Accardo’s invasion of the unions was nothing new. He just did it better than his predecessors. Before him, Joe D’Andrea was credited with introducing the peon system whereby he extorted money from Italian laborers working in the city’s sewer system. D’Andrea was president of the Sewer and Tunnel Miners’ Union. He was killed in a labor war.

Tony D’Andrea, no relation to Joe, then took over. Tony D’Andrea, a Mafia bigshot, was international president of the Hod Carriers Union and an ex-convict. He, too, was murdered.

Michael J. “Umbrella Mike” Boyle, who served prison sentences for restraint of trade and contempt of court, bossed the electrical workers union. A federal judge once castigated him as “blackmailer, highwayman, a betrayer of labor and a leech on commerce.”

Tony Accardo has escaped such embarrassing confrontations with a member of the judiciary. This graduate of the sixth grade of an elementary school is, as Murray Humphreys said, “An ignoramus but a very very shrewd ignoramus.” He is more than that. He is perhaps the shrewdest of all the gang leaders, past and present, and that includes his mentors, Capone, Buchalter, and Luciano, for he has never seen the inside of a jail or prison cell, and never will. He takes care of his family and his friends. His son, Anthony, has been on a movie union payroll for years.

Murray Humphreys’ brother Jack is the boss of two large gambling establishments under Syndicate ownership and also on the payroll of the movie operators union.

Tough Tony Accardo, sleek, smooth, one of the best dressed men in the world, a millionaire residing in a mansion, married to a beautiful woman, the only woman he has ever known in his life, devoted to her in the true Old World Italian style. He came up the hard way, with his fists, a gun in his hand, and an observer of the code of the underworld to the point of religious fanaticism. All the others before him were killed or died in exile with few exceptions. Tough Tony Accardo. Tough and just as smart.