Макс Коллинз - Road to Paradise

A Family Man

April 1973

At nine forty-five on a bright and beautiful Saturday morning, Sam DeStefano had less than half an hour before meeting his violent death.

In his tan brick ranch-style house in a suburban upper-middle-class enclave of Oak Park, Illinois, this harmless-looking grandfatherly individual of sixty-four — slim, five feet eleven, wearing large black-rimmed glasses — had no foreshadowing of his imminent demise.

In fact, he was involved in some mundane spring cleaning in his garage, at the behest of his wife, Anita (who was spending the morning with her mother), straightening and sorting and, at the moment, using a new stiff broom to break up and sweep out the caked mud dragged in by their two vehicles over the winter.

His hair a gray unruly mass, Sam certainly appeared innocuous enough, though his features — close-set eyes, lump of a nose, and lipless slash of mouth centered in a cleft-chin oval — were suggestive of a man who might have been formidable in his day. The only thing vaguely eccentric was his dark blue silk pajamas; he also wore beat-up Hush Puppies shoes, and a lighter blue windbreaker with villa venice in white script on its back, advertising a nightclub that had been closed for better than a decade.

Like many American males, he had a small workbench and a wall of tools on pegboard, and a gas lawn mower and empty boxes and shelves here and there holding the various small dead kitchen appliances and other obsolete household articles that are typically consigned to the periphery of a garage.

The cement floor took some considerable sweeping, dirt and fragments of cardboard and paper and other detritus catching and sliding on a pair of small automotive oil spills. DeStefano swept with patience and deliberation, creating a modest but growing pile beyond the open garage door out onto the driveway.

His wife had one of their two Cadillac Coupe de Villes — her pink ’73 with the white vinyl roof — while his black Caddy (last year’s model) he’d loaned to his nephew Little Sam for a hot date Friday night. Little Sam, whose real name was Antonio (his late brother, Angelo’s, boy), was twenty-two and just starting out in life, and his own wheels were pathetic — a little gray Rambler. Even if you could maneuver some broad into the backseat of an embarrassment like that, what would you do for room?

Right now the Rambler was parked out front of the corner house. Soon Little Sam would be able to afford his own better ride — now that his uncle had put him out on the street as a collector.

Sam surveyed the clean cement floor, pleased with himself, then moved to the workbench and leaned way down, to work the broom under there and get at the hidden grime. Quite a bit of filth emerged, which was a little surprising, since Sam had no particular interest in do-it-yourselfing, and this workbench was seldom used.

On the other hand, in the soundproofed room in the basement of the ranch-style could be found Sam’s real workshop. On one wall was a wooden cabinet in which Sam’s tools were stored, various exotic instruments of torture, including such oldies but goodies as thumbscrews, blow torches, and butcher knives, as well as assorted hammers and mallets, and Sam’s specialty, an array of ice picks of various lengths and thicknesses, all honed to razor sharpness. Oh, and razors...

A counter on the opposite wall had a vise, of a perfect size for squeezing the human skull, and in the center of the glorified cubicle, a wooden chair with straps for head, arms, and feet — not unlike an electric chair — was bolted to the floor. Not much larger than a fruit cellar, the room could only accommodate one guest at a time, plus up to three interrogators, in comfort. For the interrogators, anyway.

Men had talked, been punished, even died, in the basement workshop. The recording studio — style soundproofing meant that neither his family and certainly not the neighbors had ever been aware of the operas of agony sung in this small chamber.

Of course, within his own circles, Sam made no secret out of his delight in applying suffering to those who deserved it. Not that he was a sadist, far from it — he just believed in discipline (in others). Nobody who ever sat in that chair hadn’t put his own goddamn ass down there by his own goddamn doing.

Since the early ’60s, Sam DeStefano had been a major player in the Chicago mob. Strangely, he was not officially a member of the Outfit, had never become a “made” man, though certainly not out of an unwillingness to kill for the Mafia (he had); Sam just didn’t like taking orders, preferred being an independent. They’d offered him literally trunks of money to come aboard, but he’d told them he didn’t have any interest in their little Howdy Doody clubhouse games with the blood oath and all that silly ceremonial horseshit.

“You wanna bring your toughest so-called killer around here,” Sam had told Tony Accardo, the man holding the top chair for Paul Ricca (in stir at the time, on that movie-union rap), “I’ll go toe to toe, head to head, belly to belly, gun to gun with the cocksucker. Bring him around!”

Decades later, the challenge remained unmet.

Accardo and Ricca respected Sam, who had single-handedly turned loansharking from a smalltime fringe operation into an organized business from which the Outfit made millions every year. Of all the loan sharks in the city, Sam DeStefano was the only one allowed by the Outfit to work anywhere, with only a modest tax, because, after all, any other loan shark in any jurisdiction was just riding on the skids Sam had long ago greased.

They called him “Mad Sam” — not to his face — but that was a designation he treasured, even cultivated. In his business, being feared was key — and you only built fear, which was after all the sincerest form of respect, by doing “crazy” things.

And from day one, back in the ’30s, he’d had to show these city boys he had the moxie. He wasn’t one of these lowlife slum goombahs like Giancana and Alderiso and the other kids in their gang, the 42s. Those toughies had boosted cars when they were in grade school, while Sam was growing up civilized in southern Illinois in a nice middle-class family. The DeStefanos didn’t even move to the West Side of Chicago till Sam was in his teens.

He’d had catching up to do. Convictions for rape, assault with a deadly weapon, extortion, bank robbery, and (during the war) counterfeiting ration stamps followed in short order, as did various stretches in stir. But all that prison time had its advantages: at Leavenworth he’d hooked up with — and provided muscle for — two incarcerated Chicago big boys, Paul Ricca and Louis Campagna.

The black Caddy pulled in the drive, his nephew behind the wheel. Sam was standing just outside the garage now, adding to the pile of sweepings, and held up a friendly palm for the boy to stop the vehicle at the driveway’s mouth. Little Sam hopped out, grinning.