Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 39, No. 5, November 1976

Salvatore Giancana lived the good life for many years as a Mafia big shot. He was mean, he was ugly, but his attraction for women was fantastic. In Miami and in Las Vegas, he had his pick of the crop. But in time his usefulness ran out and he wound up on a morgue slab.

It is doubtful that Salvatore “Momo” Giancana ever knew the real flow of friendship and companionship. By measurement of the human equation in which man’s virtues are weighed, Gianacana rated zero-minus. He was an abysmal and amoral outlaw, an enemy of society and the social order from his early teens. The surging, soaring kind kind of violent acts he practiced were frightening.

He killed without qualm or compunction. He killed on orders of Capone himself or of those who came into power after Capone was jailed for income tax evasion. On occasion he killed because he didn’t like the way some hood looked at him. Ferret-faced, balding, short of stature, he wore a perpetual frown, hatred against all mankind alive in his eyes.

Life was running out for him in the next few minutes, something he least expected as he regarded the sausages that were cooking in the pan, inhaling the aroma of the seasoning that floated to his senses.

The frayed and violent death that awaited him was something he had experienced many times — but only as the assassin, not as the victim. How would he react to it? With defiant rage exploding in a stream of curses? Pleading for his life? Trying to make a deal with a large sum of money? Or would he face the gun turned on him with a paralyzing fear, quivering, his face ashen-white, an avalanche of regret washing over him for all the things that had brought him to this moment?

There were many who said and believed that Giancana got what he deserved. Yet in our society the rules say that all violators of law and order must be given a fair and just trial before a jury of their peers. Who were, in truth, the peers of Sam Giancana? Not anyone in the vast stream of men and women who were honest and law-abiding, legitimate, socialized human beings.

No, his peers were the hoodlums and gangsters, the hitmen, the vengeful assassins, the paid killers of organized crime. The contract goes out — hit Anastasia, Dutch Schultz, Mad Dog Coll, Willie Moretti, Buggsy Siegel, dozens, hundreds of others. The deed is done, efficiently and in cold blood. Pole-axe a steer, shoot a game animal in its haunts, butcher lambs — it’s all the same.

The crime bosses condemn one of their own for one reason or another, for a violation of the Code of Omerta, the Law of Silence, for a double-cross, for holding out a part of the proceeds of a robbery, a burglary, a deal in stolen securities — or for attempting to muscle in on forbidden territory.

There are other reasons — some valid, as the mobsters regard them, some merely to destroy competition as in the case of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre or the murders of Big Jim Colosimo and Dion O’Bannion, who stood in the way of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone in their rise to the top of the Chicago underworld. Why was Sam Giancana murdered?

There were several angles that needed inspection. He was in a plot to murder Fidel Castro as an agent for the CIA? Bizarre? The CIA record is filled with bizarre incidents. Again, Giancana was getting too hot for the mob to handle. There was reason to believe he might testify before a Senate Investigating Committee and spill his guts. Still another angle, he stood in the way of the young hoods who wanted to take over. One of those could fit the puzzle — or none.

How did Sam Giancana come to this moment in his life and the fury of jarring death? His life story follows closely that of many other notorious gangsters. The pattern is the same in almost every way. He was born 67 years before in the Little Italy section of Chicago’s West Side. His parents were poor but honest folks in the tradition of the old movie melodramas, eking out a living in a small grocery store.

Basically, it had the theme of an Horatio Alger story. In an Alger story, the hero is a poor boy who shines shoes, peddles newspapers, runs errands and does other odd jobs, saves his money and, by dint of hard work and adherence to the principles of honesty and ethics, becomes successful.

In Giancana’s case, the fates rewrote the script. He was a thief in his youth. He stole anything and everything he could get his hands on. He was a burglar, an auto thief and, before he was twenty-one, was a prime suspect in three murders.

During the days when Al Capone was in power, Giancana, astute in his way, was able to get a job as a wheelman, the driver of a getaway car from a heist or a murder contract. He was good at it. He also knew how to keep his mouth shut. Detectives who tried to get any information from him any time he was taken into custody wound up talking to themselves and bursting with frustration.

Detective Austin Young, who had Giancana in custody several times said, “That guy wouldn’t give you the time of day if he owned Big Ben. Further, he was just about the nastiest, surliest bastard I ever put cuffs on. Ask him a question and he would spit on your shoes. I knew even then he was headed for a lot of trouble but not until he gave us more trouble than we ever had from anyone in any of the mobs in Chicago.”

Before the Escobeda and Miranda cases, when the Supreme Court ruled that a suspect had to be read his rights and have an attorney present before he could be interrogated, detectives would beat some suspects insensible in order to wring a confession from them. They succeeded in a great many instances. Detective Austin Young and Lieutenant of Detectives Charles Lavan said that beating Giancana would be useless.

“The only thing you would get beating him,” Detective Lavan said, “would be sore knuckles.”

It would be difficult to describe Giancana physically. He had regular features that somehow gave the impression they were picked at random from a human refuse dump. He was once described by a reporter as having “the face of a gargoyle and the disposition of a viper.”

Despite his unprepossessing appearance, Giancana was always seen in the company of attractive women, among them Phyllis McGuire of the three McGuire Sisters, who won fame as a trio in a singing act. For a time, according to informed sources, she was his mistress. It isn’t far-fetched. Some of the ugliest gorillas in the underworld had good-looking gals as mistresses. Some of the girls were real beauties. The handsome gangsters like Bugsy Siegel had them in droves. There is something about thugs and killers that fascinates women.

On the Rise

Giancana came to the attention of Capone about a year or two before Capone took a bust for income tax evasion. Capone gave him odd jobs at first and gradually promoted him to more interesting activities, such as mayhem and murder — the first to bring stubborn miscreants who annoyed Big Al into line, the latter to dispose of those who wouldn’t get into line. Giancana was good at both. Capone thought well of his new protege’s work. Giancana moved another step up the ladder toward the inner, inner circle, the true hierarchy of The Syndicate.

When Capone was indicted for income tax evasion and it became known that the two bookkeepers who had charge of accounts in his two Cicero gambling joints and the various brothels were being sought as witnesses against him by the IRS, Giancana offered to get rid of them.

“Just give me the word, Al,” Giancana said, “and I’ll find them two jerks and dump ’em.”

Capone demurred, assuring Giancana that he had everything under control. “No sweat on this, Momo (Giancana’s nickname). The worse I’ll get is a fine and maybe thirty days in jail.”

He was dead wrong. He got eleven years and was fined sixty thousand dollars. Before he surrendered to federal authorities for his trip to the Atlanta Penitentiary, Capone assigned the top spot to Frank Nitti with instructions that “Tough Tony” Accardo be put second in command and Giancana be given “consideration”. In the parlance of the underworld this meant favor in every respect.

Tough Tony Accardo was not only tough but shrewd and very intelligent, an organizer along the lines of Capone himself and Meyer Lansky. Of all the big-time mobsters, he is the only one who comes to mind as never having spent a single minute in a jail cell.

Nitti was hard but not tough in the sense that Accardo was. Accardo wouldn’t allow himself to be placed in any position or situation that would put his liberty in jeopardy. He was alert at all times to any potentiality that might involve him with the police, not only on an actual charge but suspicion as well.

Giancana saw that Accardo was going to be the top man sooner or later and played up to him. He constantly asked Accardo for advice, instructions, a way to do things. It pleased Accardo, up to a point. He wasn’t fooled by Giancana’s fawning and waited to see just how far Giancana would go before he had to clip his wings.

One of Giancana’s shortcomings was that he often underestimated men or overplayed his hand. Accardo recognized that failing in him.

Nitti, on the other hand, believed himself completely invulnerable against arrest on any charge. He paid off to cops, detectives, high police officials, district attorneys, judges, state senators and congressmen. His influence, like Capone’s, was powerful, and because of that he was careless.

He became involved in the sensational shakedown of top motion picture producers and studio owners. When the smoke cleared, eight of the top Chicago mobsters were indicted on the testimony of Willie Bioff and George Browne, who started it all. Nitti was trapped in the net.

For him it was all over. He was found dead beside a railroad siding in a lonely and deserted section of Chicago, a .38 caliber pistol beside him. A single slug had been fired from the weapon. The shot had smashed into Nitti’s right temple. Suicide? Or mob execution?

Detective DeLallo and Austin Young termed it a suicide, but not so Assistant District Attorney Paul F. Crisler who demanded a thorough investigation.

DeLallo regarded the D.A. quizzically. “Who would you suggest we talk to — the gun?”

Crisler shot back angrily, “Not a bad idea. The least you can do is to trace the gun’s ownership. You can do that, can’t you?”

“Under other circumstances, Mr. Crisler,” DeLallo said, “I would consider what you said slightly cracked. But you’re good at your job and so am I. I checked out the gun. No trace — a hot pistol. No one owned it. That’s how these things get into the hands of hoods.”

“Okay, then who made it? It must have been sold to a local dealer. Start there. You may find something.”

“Okay, Mr. Crisler, we’ll give all our attention to finding out who or what dealer first got it. It may take weeks.”

“Don’t put me on any spot!” Crisler shouted as DeLallo and Young went out.

No one was ever charged with the murder and DeLallo and Young never learned where the gun came from or to whom it was sold first — and there the investigation ended.

The grapevine, however, said Nitti’s death was not a suicide but an execution, done neatly and with dispatch. Had the police checked Nitti’s hand for telltale evidence that he had really put that bullet into his head or reasoned why he traveled to that lonely and deserted spot to kill himself the report would have read a lot differently. There are some things the police would rather not check into too much. Frank Nitti? Who the hell cared?

Accardo now took over and chose Giancana as his lieutenant. Before doing so he had a short, pervasive talk with him.

“Stay in line, Momo. Use your brains not your muscle. I know you’ve got more muscle than brains but my advise is to do a switch. That’s it. We’ve gone over all the other matters so you know what to do.”

Giancana nodded. “No sweat, Tony. I know what you want.” He did but he just couldn’t follow orders. Moreover, he was greedy. He wanted the big money. He didn’t yet have it, not even as Accardo’s lieutenant. The small rackets he was given didn’t come within a country mile of the money raked in by Accardo and others in the inner circle of the Council who had been with Capone and Accardo for years before Giancana came into the Syndicate.

Being Accardo’s lieutenant meant only that he conveyed Accardo’s orders to underlings as his own. Accardo’s name was never to be mentioned under any circumstances. Some of the hoods in the mob held Giancana in contempt. He was too crude, too loud, too bossy.

On the other hand, there were those who felt that sooner or later Giancana would be elevated to the top spot and so courted his favor. They brought him information of the men who were against him, who spoke badly about him. Giancana marked their names in his mind. In Machivellian style, he set up each of them and either killed them himself or had them killed and made to look like executions by rival hoods.

How many were there? Six, eight, ten? Their murders were mixed in with men actually slain by opposition gangsters. All never was honey and spice inside the Syndicate. It was Al Capone who once said in referring to the hoods in the Organization, “Trust ’em? Listen, the only honest face I ever saw was on a dog!”

First Fall

Giancana added his own rackets to those given him by Accardo. It was a foolish thing to do because in case of a bust on any of the rackets he would be on his own. He could expect no help of any kind, financial, legal or political, from the Syndicate.

Accordingly, in 1939, he took a fall on a moonshining rap and drew a four-year sentence in a federal penitentiary. Had he had the influence of the Syndicate there would have been no charges, or at the very worst a Nol Prosse of the case. The Syndicate had some of the best and highest priced lawyers in Chicago on a yearly retainer. With this, they had contacts with agents of all the federal bureaus as well as district attorneys.

Giancana turned his sentence to advantage because he met Eddie Jones in prison. Jones was the policy king of Chicago, a numbers racket that netted him two million dollars a year.

When Giancana learned this through the prison grapevine he made it a point to meet Jones, become friendly with him. He picked Jones’ brains about the policy racket. Jones felt there was nothing to lose in talking about the policy racket, since he controlled the Black neighborhoods. A Whitey had no chance to muscle in. He didn’t know Giancana or the strenth of the mob behind him. Jones made a fatal mistake.

The Syndicate is all-powerful in Chicago. The gangs of thieves, robbers, muscle-men and killers have got away with murder for more than half a century. In the decade between 1920 and 1930, when Johnny Torrio and Al Capone were in power, a thousand men were killed in the city and only one, Dan Brothers, a St. Louis hood, was ever convicted. That was for the murder of a Chicago Tribune reporter, Jake Lingle. It was a bum rap for Brothers and he was released after serving ten years.

When Giancana was released from prison he was welcomed back into the Syndicate, after a serious talk with Accardo and the approval of the Council. He told Accardo about Jones and the enormous profits to be made from the policy racket. A meeting was held to discuss the matter and it was agreed that Giancana should set things up. He was to receive a straight thirty per cent of the net.

He was put in full charge and told not to bring any of his problems to the Council.

“You pick your own men,” he was ordered. “Organize it, take over. We’ll take care of the payoffs to any and all parties necessary. Understand?”

Giancana picked for his number one man a smooth, soft-spoken, handsome member of the Syndicate named John Roselli. From the mob he chose the toughest hoods, muscle-men and killers.

The mob moved in. First they killed Eddie Jones. Then they muscled all the writers, pickup men, collectors and payoff men. It was not a simple takeover. There were innumerable beatings of men and women, with broken kneecaps, broken arms, faces smashed beyond recognition. Others were killed and left lying in the streets or tossed out of speeding cars or slain as they walked the sidewalks or machine-gunned in their homes. When it was over, Giancana had control of the policy racket in Chicago.

The money rolled in — the pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters — the pitiful small change of the hopeful looking to win a few dollars with which to buy food, bread, milk, a piece of meat for a stew. They were cheated and robbed unconscionably. If there was a big payoff, the numbers were rearranged so that only winners of a few dollars were paid off. Giancana was smart enough to pay a hundred winners at five, ten or twenty dollars instead of one at five-hundred or a thousand.

With the policy racket under control and running smoothly, Giancana decided to have a look at Las Vegas, the dream that Buggsy Siegel brought to reality when he built the Flamingo Hotel, the first plush hotel and gambling casino on what is known today as The Strip. He sent John Roselli there to look things over. This was Giancana’s first big move as a preamble to the day when he would take over from Accardo.

Tough Tony Accardo had mellowed. He had a beautiful blonde wife, a family, a mansion in a suburb of Chicago and all the money he would ever need in a dozen lifetimes. The truth was that he wanted to retire, to get out of the rackets and live a quiet life, enjoy the fruits of his twenty-five years association with the Syndicate. He wouldn’t have to be pushed out, as Giancana thought.

Moreover, when he stepped down from active control, he would do so as a sort of Chairman of the Board and all those under him would be subject to his control. That was one thing that Giancana did not consider. Another was the fact that Accardo had a close working alliance with Carlo Gambino in New York, and Gambino was the Capo di Capi, the Boss of Bosses. Accardo had more brains in his feet than Giancana had in his head.

Giancana wasn’t the best choice for the top slot but he was the best around at the moment and the Council had voted him in.

Accardo saw the inevitable end coming sooner or later and sat back with a satisfied smile on his face. Giancana! A hood all the way with no style, no class, no common sense. He moved with the force of a tornado, blowing down everything that stood in his way. If Giancana didn’t know it then, Accardo did — that the irresistible force he had created would take him along in its fury because sure as hell he was not the immovable object.

Giancana set things up in Los Angeles, just as Siegel did with the exception that the wire service broadcasting races all over the country to bookie joints was controlled by the Syndicate. All other rackets he took over. Roselli came back with the report that Las Vegas had “spots open” that could be had.

It was bad information. After Siegel was assassinated, the big boys moved in because of the Las Vegas potential. The Fischetti brothers, cousins of Capone, Moe Dalitz of Cleveland, Dave Berman of Los Angeles, Benny Binion of Dallas, Texas, Lefty Clark of Detroit, Frank Costello and Joe Adonis of New York, and Jimmy Hoffa, murdered in 1975, moved in with heavy investments. Hoffa had loaned millions to the mobs and was given “consideration”.

Giancana flew into Las Vegas like an Arab Sheik. He took a palatial suite in the Flamingo Hotel.

Almost immediately telephone calls were made to Accardo, asking questions as to the whys and wherefores of Giancana’s visit.

“No reason,” Accardo replied. “Let him alone. Maybe he wants to do a little gambling and relax with some of the cuties in town. Until he makes a bad move don’t bother him.”

In the next several days, there were other calls to Accardo. The calls annoyed him. He called The Flamingo and asked for Giancana’s suite. Giancana was relaxing amid the splendor of the suite’s appointments. A portable bar had been set up and was stocked with a variety of assorted liquors.

In a chair opposite him sat a tall, luscious blonde showgirl, smiling, ready for his pleasure, whatever form that might take. Giancana had a self-satisfied smile on his face. He told himself he had arrived. He was at the top. Well, almost.

The jangling sound of the phone brought him to his feet. He rose from his chair, gave the blonde a quick smile and picked up the receiver.

The voice at the other end crackled. Accardo quickly brought home to Giancana the realization that he was not yet at the top or anywhere within a mile of it.

“Momo,” Accardo said, “I haven’t received all the information on the setup in L.A. Nor an accounting. Something like a hundred big ones. Am I right, Momo? I want to hear you say it!”

“Something like that, Tony. Yeah.”

“No, Momo, not something. Exactly.” There was a moment of silence, then. “How much over the figure?”

Giancana paused, looked over at the blonde, put his hand over the phone, said, “Honey, go into the bathroom and turn on the shower.”

“Sure thing.” She made it in five quick steps.

Giancana said, “Over.”

“Over what, Momo? How much over?”

“Seven big ones.”

“How about twelve?”

“Seven. I had expenses.”

“Just exactly what are you doing in Vegas, Momo?”

“Relaxing — having a tood time.” Then explosively, his anger rushing to the surface, “What the hell’s eating you, Tony?”

“You know what the hell’s eating me, so asking me is just a lot of crap. I’ll tell you anyway. If you’re thinking of stepping on a few people’s toes so you can move in, don’t! That’s the word. You understand? Don’t!”

“I wasn’t thinking about it,” Giancana lied.

“The hell you weren’t! I’ve got it straight, so don’t lie to me. One bad move, Momo, is all it will take. The Council has had a meeting on you already. Is that clear?”

“It’s clear,” Giancana answered shortly, resentment and anger coloring his words.

“Okay, have your fun. Stay as long as you like. I don’t need you here.” Accardo hung up.

The last five words stung him like acid. He banged the phone down on the cradle with a stream of curses.

The blonde came out of the bathroom, stood in the middle of the room and waited for Giancana. He looked at her, wanted her, but all desire had been washed out of him. He was too upset. The turmoil inside of him was turning with the speed of an electric motor at its highest revolution. He nodded to her and she came to him. He handed her a hundred-dollar bill.

“Maybe next time,” he said. “Okay?”

She smiled provocatively. “Sure, honey, anytime.” She tucked the bill into her bra and left.

Giancana poured himself a drink, waited about ten minutes, then went down to the casino. The place was packed with players at all the games. He walked around, looking things over. At one of the roulette tables he saw two young women. One of them was Marjorie Pettibone, a Palm Beach society beauty. The other was a dark-haired, extremely attractive woman who reminded Giancana of a movie star.

“Could be,” he said to himself.

She wasn’t. Her name was Rosanne Ricotta. The two women had met at the swimming pool and became friends. Giancana stood behind them as they played, losing two bets in a row.

He leaned toward them and said, “Put all your chips on the black.”

Marjoire Pettibone gave him a quick look. “Really? I was thinking of red. How about you, Rosanne?”

“Just what I was thinking,” Rosanne agreed.

They placed their chips in four neat piles on red. Red came up and a dealer matched their chips.

“I think we’ll just leave it there,” Rosanne said. “What do you think, Marjorie?”

“I agree.”

Giancana said. “You’ll blow your money, I tell you; Take the black.”

They ignored him. When the wheel stopped spinning it did so on a red number.

“Well, Marjorie,” Rosanne said, “I think that puts us ahead. Shall we go?”

The two women picked up their chips and started from the table. Giancana followed them a few steps.

“So I misjudged the wheel.” He gave them his best smile. “I’d like to buy you two a drink.” He looked toward Miss Pettibone. “So you’re Marjorie, eh? Hello, Marjorie.” He looked toward Miss Ricotta. “What’s your name, Gorgeous?”

“Ann-Margret.”

“Could be. How about that drink?”

“We never drink with strange men,” Marjorie Pettibone said bluntly. “Besides, you’re not our type. Is he, Ann-Margret?”

“No, he isn’t,” Rosanne agreed.

Giancana’s temper rose but he managed to control it. “Very funny. Do you know who I am?” he asked.

The question was a mistake. Rosanne Ricotta cut him down with a sharp reply.

“Sure, we know,” Rosanne snapped. “You’re the guy who gives wrong tips to women. You’re a shill for the house.”

Giancana’s eyes narrowed. “I’m Sam Giancana,” he growled. “I run this place,” he lied, seeking to win some respect in their eyes.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Marjorie Pettibone said, “why don’t you run along. You’re tiresome.”

“They started away from him and Giancana took hold of Marjorie Pettibone’s arm.” He held on, tightening his grip. “Let go, you filthy beast!” she said shrilly.

The pit boss looked over to where the three stood and glared at Giancana. He let go her arm.

“If you ever annoy me again,” Marjorie Pettibone said angrily, “I’ll slap that ugly face or have you arrested. Do you understand?”

The two women walked into the bar and sat at a table. The pit boss came over and apologized for the incident.

“I’m sorry, ladies,” he said. “That was unpardonable. You’re guests of the hotel?”

“Yes, we are,” Rosanne said. “That man frightened us.”

“It won’t happen again, I assure you. Look, why don’t you have some champagne — on the house. I insist.” He nodded to a waitress. “A bottle of champagne for the ladies.” He made a quick gesture with two fingers. No tab. “You’ll forgive us?”

The two women nodded. When they went to their rooms later they found a bottle of champagne cooling in a bucket, a bowl of fruit and a beautiful bouquet of flowers in a vase. There was a card. It read Enjoy everything. The Management.

Friction

Two days later, Tony Accardo came to Las Vegas unannounced, in company with three of his lieutenants. He checked into a suite in the Flamingo and shortly afterward summoned Giancana to him.

“Sit down, Momo,” Accardo said and pointed to a chair. “There!”

Accardo remained standing, as did the other three men. He came right to the point. That was his way — direct. He had come up through the ranks under Capone, Nitti, Cherry-Nose Gioe, Paul “The Waiter” Ricca and the Fischetti brothers, all on the inside, next to Big Al.

He had outlasted them all by playing the game in strict adherence to the code. He carried tremendous weight with the National Council.

He said, “Momo, this is going to be a lesson in ethics as the Syndicate practices it. I’m going to lay it on the line. You take it or leave it. It will be your choice. You’ll go up or down, depending on how you decide.”

“What the hell did I do now?” Giancana asked angrily.

“You’ll talk when I’m finished, Momo. So for now, just keep quiet. The Syndicate, every unit, everyone connected with it, is tied together like this.” He interlaced his fingers tightly for emphasis.

“There are a thousand eyes and a thousand ears in this town, watching and listening to everything that goes on. Information on everyone who might have any ideas about muscling, heisting a joint, pulling off a gimmick that would throw the machinery out of gear, is reported daily. The town is clean and everyone wants it that way. No mayhem — no shootings, no killings, nothing to affect the flow of visitors, scare them or give the town a bad name.

“This isn’t Chicago or L.A. There are hundreds of millions of dollars invested in hotels and casinos. You made a very bad move a couple of days ago when you tried to pick up a couple of women at the roulette table. One of them has political connections in Palm Beach and Washington. You got that?

“We checked her out — Marjorie Pettibone, A society gal. The other one is Rosanne Ricotti, associated with the Corrections Department in Pennsylvania. Either one could throw more heat on this town than we care to think about. Both of them would burn the town up.”

“I was just trying to be sociable,” Giancana interjected.

“Yeah, sure. The word is that you are to stay away from the tables. You’ve two bad moves here against you. There won’t be a third. This is good advice, Momo. It isn’t a threat in no way, just to sharpen your mind in certain areas. That’s it. You can talk now. Go ahead.”

“I’ve got nothing to say, Tony. I got the picture.”

“Okay, I’m glad we understand each other. You intend to stay longer?”

“Nope. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Accardo repeated. “There’s a lot of things in Chicago that need attention. I’ll be back in a week.”

World War II broke out and Giancana was called before his draft board in Chicago. He was asked, “What do you do for a living?”

His reply was typical of his arrogance and total disregard of the law. He stared at the members of the Board and snapped, “I steal!”

The Board promptly rejected him for army duty. He was described, fittingly, by a psychologist on the Board as “a constitutional psychopath with an inadequate personality and strong anti-social trends.”

Giancana’s wife died in 1954 and left him with three daughters. They were attractive, genuinely sweet young women who knew of their father’s background and association with the Syndicate and deplored it but were powerless to do anything about it. In his favor, the only instance a thorough search of his life revealed, was that he lavished affection and love on them, protected them, kept them well dressed and gave them every comfort he could in the modest home he owned in Oak Park.

Although he lived modestly during the years his wife was alive, he ran wild when he vacationed in Miami Beach or other resorts. Then his spending rivaled that of the richest men in the world. Suites of rooms, good-looking women — some of them wives of legitimate businessmen on vacation sprees away from home and husband — others widows, divorcées or playgirls living the gay life by giving up what nature gave them for what any man with money and a willingness to spend it could give them in return.

In Miami Beach, Giancana was usually seen with three or four attractive women at the same time. His attraction to women was volatile for the good reason that he was just that, a menacing, explosive creature who generated excitement in some feminine hearts.

His ego told him that, if he had three or four women around him at the same time, they would fight each other for his favor. All he would have to do would be to crook his little finger and point to the bed and the favored one would leap into it. He wasn’t far wrong.

What he refused to consider was that he attracted as much attention from honest police officers and federal agents as he did from women. The IRS became interested in him, too. The question in their minds was how and where did he get his money and did he give Uncle Sam his rightful share under the law?

He made trips to Paradise Island, taking along a blonde, a redhead and a brunette, indicating little preference as to the color of a woman’s hair. All that mattered to him was, would she? She would and did.

When he made trips to Europe he was under the scrutiny of Interpol on the advice of the Narcotics Division of the federal government. Lucky Luciano was still alive and very active in the narcotics and hot bonds traffic. Luciano’s worldwide connections in heroin made him a continuing formidable figure in the Mafia in the United States as well as in Europe.

Giancana met with Luciano in Rome and their meetings were duly reported to the federal government’s narcotics division in the United States by Interpol.

Finally, in the 1960’s, Tough Tony Accardo stepped down as the head of the Chicago Syndicate and named Giancana as his successor. Things began to happen almost immediately as Giancana began to throw his weight around.

The mob had the feeling its members were living on the lip of destruction. No one was safe from Giancana’s imagined feelings that one or another hood was against him or plotting against him. He had become paranoid on the subject. His position as head of the mob had gone to his head.

He was now the king, all-powerful, living portrait of a man possessed by a demon. There were several killings, uncalled for, in the ranks. Ironically, the hoods and assassins who killed in cold blood lived in a state of recurring terror.

They began to fear and hate Giancana but he was too egotistical to see it. His sudden flarings of temper were more frequent now and erupted on the slightest provocation. Loyalty to Giancana had dropped to zero.

In contrast, and because the men in the mob feared him, they were anxious to please him, to execute his orders whatever they were. He expanded prostitution, loansharking, bookie joints, gambling joints, most of them crooked, set up to fleece anyone who got into the games. Opposition hoods were beaten unmercifully, many of them killed.

Following in Johnny Torrio and Meyer Lansky’s footsteps, he invested mob money in legitimate businessess, taking many of them over with little investment. But he wasn’t as smart as Torrio or Lansky, and his way of moving in on legitimate businessmen soon brought him to the attention of the Chicago Crime Commission.

Again, Accardo stepped in to dress Giancana down.

“Who the hell do you think you are, Momo? You want to take over the whole damn city, lock, stock and barrel? I got word that the Crime Commission is very much interested in you and what you have been doing? There have been complaints, a dozen of them — twenty of them. You stop that crap right now or you’re going to find every damned whorehouse, bookie joint, gambling joint, everything, locked up tighter than a drum. You got it?”

Giancana smarted under Accardo’s attack but, fortunately for him, took it without a retort.

“Okay, Tony,” he said placatingly, “maybe I did move too fast. I’ll just let things stay as they are. No more taking over any of the legit businesses.”

“There’s one more thing. You’ve got most of the boys in the Organization walking on glass chips. The word is that every guy in the top spots is dissatisfied with the way you’re running things. You’ve put too much pressure on them.

“My advice to you is to take it off. Level off. Hold a meeting and give them some reassurance that you’re with them — with them. You got the point. I’m giving you one week to put this house in order, Momo. That’s it.”

Giancana held a meeting and took off the pressure. The men running the bookie joints, gambling joints, whorehouses, and shylocking, as well as all the other rackets, began to breath easier.

At this time, in the waning days of Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency, the CIA approached Robert A. Maheu, a former aide to Howard Hughes, and allegedly asked him to contact an important figure in the underworld for the purpose of assassinating Fidel Castro, the Cuban dictator.

Working for Uncle

The CIA proposal to draw the Mafia into the assassination of a foreign head of government had a Godfather-like flavor in the fact that they actually let out a contract on Castro. Since that time a great deal of information has come out by investigative reporters who went into the matter, confirming the plot. According to documents held by the FBI, Maheu, on the suggestion of the CIA, contacted Sam Giancana. Giancana was intrigued by the idea of working for the CIA.

Giancana, according to official sources, first contacted one of the “most nimble and conniving figures in the Mafia,” Richard Cain, who had been a Mafia agent while he was a member of the Chicago police force as a detective.

Among his many other accomplishments, Cain spoke Spanish fluently. According to Intelligence sources, Cain, with the consent of the CIA, began recruiting Spanish-speaking hoods on Chicago’s West Side.

Giancana then enlisted the aid of John Roselli in the plot. He made extravagant demands on the CIA which were met.

Giancana set up headquarters in a plush suite in one of Miami Beach’s most expensive hotels. His arrogance increased because he now had the tremendous power of the United States Government behind him. The truth is that the Government thought little of Giancana’s role in the Castrol plot and in 1964 he was haled before a federal grand jury which wanted information on the Syndicate’s operations in Chicago.

Giancana refused to testify and was jailed for contempt. He served twelve months and when he was released went to Mexico until the heat on him diminished or died entirely.

Richard Cain liked to brag a great deal and boasted that he had led raids, commando style, on Cuban power stations. Intelligence officials declared that they doubted a single guerilla from Chicago ever set foot on the island. Cain, at this time still a member of the Chicago police Department, was forced to quit the force after he was caught spying on Mayor Daley’s Commissioner of Investigations.

Incredibly, he was hired in 1962 by Cook County Sheriff Richard Ogilvie in 1962 as a special deputy sheriff. Ogilvie later became governor of Illinois. Cain resumed his spying for the Mafia after he was discharged by Ogilvie. In 1968 he was imprisoned for his part in a Mafia swindle. He was becoming a problem to everyone, including the Mafia and police authorities.

On December 20, 1973, two men wearing ski masks and carrying a walkie-talkie walked into Rose’s Sandwich Shop, a sleazy lunch room that was plastered with color stills from The Godfather. One of the men held a 12-gauge shotgun under Cain’s chin, in full view of a dozen diners, and blew off his head.

Prior to that, in 1960, when John F. Kennedy was junior Senator from Massachusetts, Kennedy became involved with a cast of characters that would rival the imaginative creation of any writer for Playboy, Penthouse or any of the other magazines featuring clinical sex.

The group included, besides the future president, his brother Ted, Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford, then a Kennedy brother-in-law, and other members of the famous Sinatra Rat Pack. Also present were Sam Giancana, John Roselli and a few assorted party girls. The group was assembled in a plush suite in the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas.

One of the party girls present was Judith Campbell, who later married a man named Exner and recently drew a great deal of space in newspapers with her story of an affair with Kennedy before and after he became President of the United States.

Judith Campbell was a typical Hollywood-type party girl found around cinema city or in the many hotels in Las Vegas. Kennedy was in the early stages of his campaign for the presidency. Judith’s story is that she was introduced to Senator Kennedy by Sinatra. That can be taken with a certain skepticism, because Ol’ Blue Eyes steers shy of any involvement with the gals on the make.

When her story appeared in the newspapers regarding her affair with Kennedy, and the statement that Sinatra had introduced her, Sinatra, through his press agent declared that “Hell hath no fury like a hustler with a literary agent.”

Miss Campbell, or Mrs. Exner, at this time did have a literary agent who was trying to peddle her sensational allegations of a torrid romance with Kennedy. She told an interviewer that she had a four-day tryst with Kennedy at the Plaza Hotel in New York that was followed by passionate interludes with him in Palm Beach, Chicago, Los Angeles and in Kennedy’s Georgetown home when Jackie was out of town.

What is again bizarre about the Exner affair is that she also was meeting Giancana and John Roselli, with whom she carried on boudoir affairs. Her choice of lovers ran the gamut from gangsters and killers to a United States Senator, later a President of the United States, if she can be believed.

Her affair with Kennedy, according to informed sources, was suddenly and dramatically broken up when J. Edgar Hoover informed President Kennedy of Judith Exner’s ties with the Mafia.

If her affair with Kennedy had any romantic tie, it was never as strong as her affairs with Giancana and Roselli. Gangsters and killers intrigued her to the point where she underwent the same kind of excitement simply by being in their company as if she were experiencing a wild and abandoned bedroom climax.

There was a story making the rounds that President Kennedy broke with Sinatra on the advice of FBI Director Hoover because of his friendship with Giancana which cost him his license in a Reno casino. That was entirely untrue. The Los Angeles Times reported in a January 1976 edition that Kennedy continued his friendship with Sinatra long after he was warned about Sinatra’s alledged gangland connections. That, too, was unfair.

Every night club and café entertainer inevitably meets many men who are either directly or indirectly associated with underworld figures. In agreement with the story in the Times, documents in the John F. Kennedy library in Waltham, Massachusetts, and statements by long-time Kennedy aides, confirmed that the friendship continued. Kennedy aides Kenneth O’Donnell and Dave Powers denied reports that Kennedy was more careful about seeing Sinatra because of warnings from his brother, then Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

Kennedy was to have stayed with Sinatra during a March 1962, visit to California, but the accomodations were changed at the last minute because of security problems, not because of “political reasons,” O’Donnell said.

Powers was quoted as saying that Sinatra had been instrumental in the 1960 presidential victory in Nevada. How much Giancana or Roselli, or Accardo had to do with garnering votes for Kennedy in Chicago and outlying suberbs is not known.

When the story broke on Giancana’s involvement with the CIA in the plot to kill Castro, it was revealed that the CIA had considered killing Castro on several occasions. Informed Washington sources estimate there were from six to thirteen actual attempts.

There is no denying the truth of the CIA’s connection with Giancana. The FBI holds documents to the effect that the CIA, acting in a role akin to that of a Don, did let out a contract on Castro and did approach Giancana through Maheu to carry it out.

Early in 1975, former CIA Director Richard M. Helms declared flatly at a press conference, “I do not know of any foreign leader that was ever assassinated by the CIA.”

This statement was hurled at a Washington newsman who questioned him. Helms further blew his cool to yell at CBS’s Daniel Schorr, since discharged by that network for selling or handing over without pay (doubtful) information to the Voice, a newspaper printed in Greenwich Village, New York, calling Schorr a sonofabitch and a killer, and to apply one of the filthiest sexual epithets to Schorr.

Helms’ statement has to be considered as no more than an artful technical denial.

Although it is probably true that no American CIA official ever actually murdered a foreign leader there is plentiful material to suggest that foreign nationals employed by the CIA have attempted to assassinate, and sometimes succeeded in assassinating, key figures overseas, acting on orders from Washington. The name of the game seems to be Murder by Proxy.

Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller’s investigation of the Castro plot also revealed plots linking the CIA to assassination schemes against the Dominican Republic’s Rafael Trujillo, killed May 30, 1961, and Vietnam’s Ngo Din Diem, shot to death November 2, 1968.

By and large, there is little doubt then that Giancana was involved in a plot to kill Castro and that the CIA was behind it. However, all evidence points to the fact that Giancana had neither desire, nor intention of involving himself in the plot. He took the money the CIA agreed to pay, lived in opulence splendor on the taxpayers’ funds and laughed up his sleeve.

If Detective Cain bragged about his imaginary exploits, and he did, Giancana took delight in saying he had slept many times with the same woman as did President Kennedy. He was careful to add that it wasn’t Jackie.

The Castro plot over and done with, Giancana returned to Chicago. “Was summoned” would be a better phrase. Ac-cardo was getting a little tired of Giancana’s absurd involvements with one thing and another and bringing continued heat on the Syndicate. In all the years that Accardo was boss of the Syndicate there was little heat. He ran things smoothly and saw to it that the hundreds of hoods under him followed his dictums of staying clear of anything not concerning Syndicate business.

The Fall

The government at this time began efforts to deport Roselli to Italy, where he was born in 1905. Mob money and lawyers went to his aid and appeal after appeal was filed on his behalf to stall the deportation proceedings. In order to enchance his position against deportation, Roselli sued to have his service discharge changed from undesirable to honorable. Both cases are still pending at this writing.

When Giancana returned to Chicago, Roselli told him he would have to “lay low” and avoid any complicity in Syndicate affairs that would jeopardize his stay in the United States.

Giancana argued that the Syndicate had too much money and too much power in official circles to worry about deportation.

“Like hell!” Roselli exploded. “They deported Luciano, Adonis and a dozen others — twenty, fifty. I’m staying clean so you can forget about me.”

“I need you,” Giancana argued.

“That’s just too damn bad. I’ve had it!”

Roselli did stay out of any involvement with Giancana and the Syndicate but was convicted in 1969 of a card cheating scandal at the Friar’s Club in Los Angeles and sentenced to five years in prison. He is out of prison but not out of trouble. His police record includes sixteen arrests on charges of carrying a concealed weapon while he was a member of the Capone gang.

He is very sharp in many areas of crime but certainly lacking in the kind of intelligence that tells him he’s a mark for arrest any time an honest detective can get something on him. Contrary to popular belief, there are some honest and dedicated police officers in Chicago. They are often handicapped and stymied by district attorneys and judges on mob payrolls but manage somehow to keep local hoods in line.

Accardo finally got fed up with Giancana and, at a meeting of the Council, Sam was removed as head of the mob. He went to Mexico, where he stayed for a protracted period, but finally the Mexican authorities expelled him as undesirable and he returned to his home in Oak Park.

He was summoned before a Federal grand jury in February 1975 and questioned about Syndicate activities in Latin America. He denied, according to informed sources, any knowledge of mob infiltration in any Latin American country.

Sometime later he went to Houston, Texas, and checked into the Methodist Hospital there, where he underwent surgery for a gall bladder condition. He returned to his home and lived quietly but the storm clouds were gathering about him. Somewhere in the vast labyrinth of the mobs and the CIA, by someone with authority to speak, he was marked for death.

There was no appeal.

It was June 19, 1975. The bright orange sun that had filled the sky had long ago disappeared. Now there was night, dark, starless, somehow sinister. Inside his Oak Park house, Salvatore “Sam” Giancana, nicknamed Momo, was saying good-night to the last of the guests who had gathered there for a welcome home party.

He was hungry. He had eaten none of the food spread out on tables for his guests, nor had he had a glass of wine in the many traditional toasts to his health. He went downstairs to the basement, where there was a large kitchen, and began to prepare a pan of Italian sausages and peppers.

He stood over the stove, stirring the contents and inhaling the flavor of the herbs and spices he had mixed together with the sausages and peppers, savoring the aroma as he anticipated the meal with a relish.

He was at peace with the world. His operation had been successful. He was feeling good. He was glad for the first time in his life to be out of the rackets. Age had mellowed him despite the fact his entire life had been devoid of balance, evaluation or judgment, barren in the atmosphere of luxury blood money had bought.

Outside the house, two police officers in a patrol car had sat and watched everyone who went into the house and came out of it that evening. They waited another ten minutes and drove away.

Minutes later, two men entered the basement where Giancana stood over the stove. They were strangers to him. A wave of panic swept over him as he saw the guns in their hands, then came a fierce reaction born of his days as a hoodlum, gangster, an animal who had killed without compassion.

He reached for a large knife on a nearby table. The guns were leveled with deliberate aim. The first shot tore into his head. His eyes still reflected the anger and fury of his rebelliousness at this effrontery to him.

He was a Don. Who the hell were these two nobodies who dared to take his life? Another shot ripped into his skull. The knife fell from his hand. There were more shots, four, five. They tore what had been Giancana’s brain to shreds.

A sudden stillness prevailed then as Giancana lay on the floor, a puddle of blood flowing freely from his head, mouth and ears. The sausages and peppers burned and what had once been aromatic scent had been reduced to ashes.

Joseph DiPersio, the caretaker, and his wife were in their apartment on the upper floor of the one-and-a-half story bungalow. Their window air-conditioner was running and they were watching television.

According to detectives, Mr. DiPersio went downstairs and called to Giancana, asking if he was all right. This was at 10:30 P.M. Giancana replied that he was. DiPersio said he went down again at 11:00 o’clock. This time Giancana did not answer. When DiPersio went to the basement, he found Giancana lying face up in a pool of blood on the floor of the kitchen. Six .22 caliber shell cases were found near the body. Giancana had been shot seven times in the head and neck.

Oak Park detectives said later that DiPersio’s call for help didn’t come until 11:53 P.M. They assumed that DiPersio, who was once questioned about an earlier gang slaying, had first phoned Giancana’s two married daughters, who live in Oak Park. DiPersio told police neither he nor his wife heard the shots, nor had they heard anyone entering the bungalow.

Oak Park Chief of Detectives, Harold Fitzsimmons, said that it would have been simple for someone to enter the basement from an outside stairway without the caretaker hearing the noise above that of the air-conditioner and the television.

A Justice Department source in Washington said that while Giancana had slipped to a low level in the crime syndicate’s hierarchy since his return from Mexico, there were enough old scores to settle that “one of his own” could have shot him.

He noted that one bullet had struck Giancana in the mouth. This was often the gangsters’ way of showing that their people who talked to grand juries did not live long afterward.

Who killed Salvatore “Sam” Giancana?

Chicago and Oak Park police speculate that Giancana was ordered killed by syndicate leaders who were concerned lest he trade underworld information sought by federal prosecutors in exchange for the dropping of a possible perjury indictment.

Peter F. Vaira, head of the Justice Department’s Strike Force on Crime in Chicago, revealed that the Federal Government had been developing a perjury case against Giancana in connection with his replies about his activities in Mexico.

Oak Park police discount robbery as a motive since $1458 was found on Giancana’s body although his wallet was empty. Detectives express doubt that the killing was syndicate-ordered because of the small-caliber pistol. Most gangland slayings have involved larger-caliber handguns, shotguns, or machineguns.

However, police theorize that the assassin or assassins might have used a small-caliber gun because it was easier to conceal and because police would theorize, as they did, that it was not a gangland killing.

Senator Frank Church of Idaho, told reporters at a news conference in Idaho that there was “absolutely no credence” to any notion that the CIA might have profited from Giancana’s death.

Accardo could not be reached for a statement by either police or reporters. Even if he could have been his reply, always laconic, would have been a shrug of his massive shoulders and a terse “Who knows?”

Aftermath

The underworld grapevine however, indicates that Giancana had become a nuisance, a threat to the safety of Syndicate members, and his death was on a contract let out after a long meeting of the Council. Talk. There may be a great deal of truth in it. But who is going to come forward with valid substantiating testimony?

Giancana’s funeral was simple. A dozen cars were in the cortege, most of them driven by men wearing dark glasses and inscrutable expressions. It was a far different funeral from that given to Tony D’Andrea and Dion O’Bannion, North Side chieftains.

Then thousands upon thousands lined sidewalks, stood on fire escapes, on roofs, as more than a score of cars filled with flowers and 122 funeral cars, twenty or more private cars and the hearse carrying the silver and bronze caskets of both rolled slowly through the streets where all traffic was halted. Conspicuous by their absence were the usual old friends of the deceased, for the very good reason that they had put him there.

A short distance from the grave site were several detectives from the Chicago and Oak Park police departments, all of them assigned to the homicide division. They were Captain Donald Steward, Lt. Stanley Gabriel, Sergeant Charles Lavan and Sergeant Thomas Martin. They were thoroughly familiar with most of the Syndicate hoods. They kept looking around for familiar faces.

“I guess Giancana just lost all his old friends,” Sergeant Lavan said.

“He never had any,” Lieutenant Gabriel snapped.

“With his disposition,” Captain Steward observed, “it’s a wonder he wasn’t killed years ago.”

“He was supposed to be,” Sergeant Martin recalled. “I had it pretty straight he was saved on two or three occasions by the Council. Those guys felt there would be too much heat on the Syndicate if he were killed. After all, he was a Don.”

“He was a piece of garbage,” Sergeant Lavan retorted. “What’s the word, anyway? Who were the hit men?”

“It’s all under investigation. There are some witnesses who saw two men in dark suits near the house shortly before Giancana got it. Could have been the two officers assigned to watch the house.”

“You think the CIA may have been involved, Captain?” Sergeant Martin asked.

Captain Steward shook his head. “I doubt it. They had nothing to gain by it. He was scheduled for an appearance before a Senate Investigating Committee on the Castro deal. What the hell, he couldn’t tell them a thing because he didn’t know anything. My guess is that.it was any one of the many guys who hated him. Or, maybe the Syndicate itself. Like the Hoffa case, it’s very apt to go unsolved or, at the least, for a long time.”

Sergeant Lavan looked to his right and saw two attractive young women standing together. He said, “Look over there, those two young women. I think I’ll have a talk with them.”

“If they’re free,” Lt. Gabriel said, “we’ll make it a foursome.”

“You don’t play golf,” Sergeant Lavan shot back.

The two women were Marjorie Pettibone and Rosanne Ricotta, who just happened to be on a visit to Chicago, read of Giancana’s murder and decided, on a dare, to go to the cemetery. Sergeant Lavan introduced himself.

“You knew Giancana?” he asked.

“We met him in Las Vegas,” Marjorie Pettibone said.

“You were friends?”

“Hardly,” Rosanne Ricotta replied. “Miss Pettibone threatened to slap his face or have him arrested. Oh, this is Marjorie Pettibone and I’m Rosanne Ricotta. That man annoyed us when we were playing roulette. He tried to pick us up, but first he gave us a wrong number.”

“A wrong number?” Sergeant Lavan asked.

“Yes. He suggested we play the black but we put our chips on the red and the red won. He got a little nasty after we turned down his offer of a drink.”

“And you came here to pay your last respects?” Sergeant Lavan asked.

“Well, not exactly,” Marjorie Pettibone said. “We’ve never seen a real honest-to-goodness gangster buried and since we did have a slight acquaintence, we thought it would make a good topic of conversation.”

Sergeant Lavan looked toward the gravesite. “They’ve lowered the casket into the ground. So, you’ve seen a gangster buried. By the way, how did you two get all the way out here?”

“In a taxi,” Rosanne Ricotta said.

“Well, to complete your day and add to your topic of conversation, how would you two like to be driven back to town in a police car?”

“With sirens, of course,” Marjorie Pettibone said.

“Sure. Why not? Come along.”

“By the way,” Rosanne Ricotta asked, “are those people the only friends Mr. Giancana had?”

“No. Those aren’t his friends. They’re family.” He grinned. “You two are the only friends of his here. The others are buried all over this place.”

The two women followed Sergeant Lavan to where the other three officers stood waiting.

Lavan said, “These two gun-molls had an argument with Giancana in Las Vegas. I’m taking them in for investigation.”

“I think this is a case of search and seizure,” Lieutenant Gabriel said. “I’m the officer in charge of that, ladies.” He gave them his best winning smile.

Roseanne Ricotta said, “Lieutenant, I have a very dear friend in Wilkes Barre, Judge Janet Wydo. She would be happy, if I so recommended it, to throw the case and you out of court.” She smiled at him. “Maybe next time, Lieutenant. Next year?”

“I’ll wait,” he said. “Just tell me the time and place.”

“In Judge Janet Wydo’s court, of course.”

Marjorie Pettibone asked Captain Steward if he knew who the assassins were. “Do you know who killed Mr. Giancana, Captain?”

“Two hoods with guns,” Sergeant Lavan interposed.

“Was he really a bad man, Captain?” she asked, ignoring La van’s humorous remark.

“Not really,” Captain Steward said. “Our information is that in many repsects he was a good guy.”

“Really?” Marjorie said.

“Sure,” Captain Steward said, a trace of sarcasm in his tone, “not once, so far as we know, did he ever beat his wife.” He turned to Lavan. “Take the ladies home, Sergeant — straight home. I want to see you at the station.” He nodded to the two women. “It was a pleasure. Good day.”

The investigation into the killing goes on, not because the police care too much about Giancana or the fact that he was killed, but the death of a Don in gangland circles could trigger a power struggle that would result in multiple killings before someone rose to the top spot with blood on his hands.

It has been six months now, and there are no clues, numerous arrests, almost everyone and anyone who might have information, stoolies, hoods, call-girls, interrogations of cops who were close to the areas of gangland operations.

Who is on top at this writing? No one. But whoever he may be, when he takes over, he will have to reflect on the fact that uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. It has been proven over the years — Albert Anastasia, Legs Diamond, Frank Nitti, Willie Moretti, Buggsy Siegel. They believed themselves too big, too strong, impregnable. Their obituaries were the same—

The death of a don.