“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!”