R. Ellory - A Quiet Vendetta

‘Capone put someone up for Mayor of Cicero, and Cicero became the power-base for the liquor operations. Things had never been as smooth as silk between Torrio and Capone and O’Banion, and then in late 1924 O’Banion gave the word on a brewery operation. The police raided the place, arrested Torrio, and he was fined five grand and sentenced to nine months. O’Banion got himself whacked in his flower shop a little while later. Northside gang took a new boss, a Polack called Hymie Weiss, and they went back for Capone and tried to off him and Torrio. They escaped, but Weiss wasn’t a man to quit, and they went after Torrio again the same day and shot him five times. Torrio didn’t die, but he was all fucked up, and he went to jail to do his nine months looking like the fucking invisible man. Couple of weeks after Torrio got out they hit Weiss and killed him. Guy called Bugs Moran came in to run the northside after Weiss was killed. He ran the operation from a garage on Clark Street. Capone sent a couple of his people, guys by the name of Albert Anselmi and John Scalisi, down there. He dressed them up as police officers. They had seven of Moran’s crew lined up against the wall and they killed ’em. St Valentine’s Day Massacre they called it, and later on Capone got Anselmi and Scalisi whacked. Bunch of businessmen went to see President Hoover at the end of the ’20s. They asked him to repeal prohibition and take out Capone. Hoover assigned a guy called Elliot Ness to the Chicago PD. Ness was a Treasury Department guy, but he was a tough bastard by all accounts. He went after Capone, but he never actually got him. That was when they came up with the idea of hitting him for tax evasion, and finally they arrested him in 1931. Capone did a couple of years in Atlanta and then they shipped him to Alcatraz.’

Don Calligaris sipped his coffee and lit another cigarette. The room seemed full of smoke, and each time I looked towards the window I thought of Angelina and the children. I wanted to be away from here, outside with the people I cared for, not trapped inside this house listening to old war stories.

‘Capone’s gang… hell of a gang, you know? That’s where people like the Fischetti brothers, Frank Nitti and Sam Giancana came from. Nitti was the one who took over control when Capone went down, and he and a bunch of others were indicted for extorting money out of some studios in Hollywood. Frank didn’t wanna go down, he didn’t wanna testify against his family, so he shoots himself in the fucking head with a.38. Then Tony Accardo took over and moved Chicago’s interests into Vegas and Reno, and he stayed until ’57 when he stepped down in favour of Giancana. Giancana was boss ’til ’66, did a year in jail, and then he came out and was living the high-life until ’75, by which time everyone had gotten sick of his bullshit. He got himself whacked, and then there was a whole bunch of assholes fighting over who should be boss so Tony Accardo comes back. He’s boss here now, and he’s who we’re gonna be working with. He’s an old-timer, a very smart guy, and he wants us to keep some areas of his operations in line so he can spend his time making new friends and gaining some territories. That’s where you and I come in. I had to come down here, and I wanted some people with me who I could trust to do the necessary things, right?’

‘Right,’ I said.

Don Calligaris smiled. ‘So how’s it goin’ with you and Angelina? How’s it to be a father now, Ernesto?’

I smiled back. Every time I thought of Angelina and the children there was a feeling of warmth and certainty. ‘It’s good, very good. It’s a helluva thing.’

‘Tell me about it. Nothing more important than family, you know? Nothing in this world is more important than family, but you gotta keep your priorities right, you gotta keep your head straight and your eyes going both the same way. You gotta remember how you came by what you got and that you owe your dues.’

He was speaking of Don Alessandro, Don Giacalone and Tony Provenzano, the people who had given their blessing for me to marry inside the family, albeit an unspoken connection; the fact that Angelina Tiacoli was born out of a relationship that brought the death of her parents and a sense of shame to the Alessandros, but family all the same.

Don Calligaris was warning me that whatever might have been given me could just as easily be taken away. I heard what he said and I understood it. I had no intention of displeasing these people; they were an awful lot more powerful than me, and wherever I might have run to, wherever I might have taken Angelina and the kids, the influence and communication lines of this family spanned the entirety of the United States, even as far as the Florida Keys and Cuba, and they would have found us. A man alone, perhaps just myself, I could have become lost. But with a wife and two small children there wasn’t a prayer. The simple truth was that there was nothing I would knowingly do to jeopardize what I had created with Angelina and the children. They were everything; they were my life.

‘I know the score, Don Calligaris… I understand the way things work. That thing in LA turned out a mess, but it got done.’

Calligaris nodded. ‘It got done, Ernesto, that’s the main thing, and I appreciate it. All of that is behind us now. We all have things we would change if we were given the time again, but it’s all water under the bridge, you know? We deal with whatever we have to, and then we move on. This is why coming here to Chicago is a good thing. It gives both of us a chance to make things better. There are important things happening here. It is a new start. We make it work for ourselves and for the family, and we do what we have to do.’

Once again I recognized the unspoken in his words. Something had happened in New York to prompt his departure. He would not tell me; Don Calligaris was a man who gave out information only when it was needed. I did not ask, it was not my place to ask, and had I done so he would have been both offended and annoyed.

Ten Cent came into the room. It was good to see him. We had years behind us, and though he was much more part of this family than I was, he was nevertheless a man I felt I could trust. He treated me as an equal, as much a part of this as himself, and I believed that whatever might happen he could always be depended upon.

‘So we relax for a few days,’ Don Calligaris said. ‘We take it easy. I go see a couple of folks, we get some things worked out, and then we wait and see what kind of work they’re gonna require of us.’

I stayed a little while longer. I talked with them of nothing consequential. Ten Cent asked about the children, said he would come down later that day and have some dinner with us. I was happy for him to come. Angelina liked him, the children just seemed to laugh when he was around, and with him in my house I always felt a sense of reassurance that nothing would come to harm us. That was the way it was then – knowing who would stand beside you, who would stand behind. Always present, even as you slept, was the certainty that no-one was defensible, there was no-one who could not be reached. These people took out their own if it served the purpose of the family, and though I had my connections, though I had given them loyalty and support for the better part of twenty-five years, my life would be gone in a second if I crossed the lines. I did not intend to do such a thing. It was the furthest thing from my mind. But I was not naïve, I was learned and wise in the customs and mores of this business. Business was business, and clipping someone was as significant as giving him a haircut if requirements dictated.

The first call came on Monday 22 November, three days before Thanksgiving.

‘It’s time,’ Ten Cent said. ‘Come to the house.’