The saving grace had been that damned Medal of Honor, and the fact that Michael Satariano had not a single arrest on his record. Oh, he’d been brought in for questioning a few times, and was known to have associated with certain notorious types; but for a Sicilian “made man” to look so respectable was a not-so-small miracle in the world of the Outfit.
His new godfather had been Paul Ricca, and the white-haired, slender ganglord — the only man in the mob who knew that Satariano was in reality O’Sullivan — had over the years treated him almost like a son, or perhaps grandson. Ricca had protected Michael, and used him wisely and well, in key management positions at Outfit-owned entertainment venues.
Michael had started by booking acts at the Chez Paree, the closest thing to a Vegas showroom in the Windy City, and the Chez also boasted a huge casino, running wide-open with police protection. In the early ’60s, when Mr. Kelly’s, the Happy Medium, and the Playboy Club heralded a hipper Second City scene, the Chez finally folded, and Michael was dispatched to Vegas, where more traditional show biz still held sway.
As “entertainment director” of the Sands, he met all the big stars, and became friendly with that charming manic depressive Frank Sinatra, and the other Clan members like Sammy Davis and Dino (the term “Rat Pack” was one Sinatra despised). Michael did more than just run the showroom and the lounges, however — he learned the casino business, and rose to second-in-command. Soon the Outfit honchos had big things in mind for Michael.
Then, just as the ’60s got into gear, Michael’s guardian godfathers, Ricca and Accardo, retired, allowing that crazy whack job Sam “Mooney” Giancana to take the top chair. Even on the periphery, however, the two respected elders held a fair share of power, keeping various fingers in assorted pies, and reining Mooney in.
Still, Michael knew his long period of protection had ended.
Giancana, the unpredictable hoodlum who’d been chauffeur and snarling bodyguard to both the former bosses, had come to power via reckless violence and sheer moneymaking ability — Mooney had, for example, taken over (bloodily) the Negro numbers racket, a great earner for the mob to this day. The level-headed, dignified Frank Nitti must have been spinning in his grave, what with that psycho punk from the Patch’s old 42 gang holding the Capone throne.
On the other hand, Giancana had always been friendly if patronizing to Michael, for example when he gave Michael the entertainment director position at the Villa Venice, an elaborate nightclub in the northwestern Chicago boonies. For two months, top talent came in, in particular the Clan of Sinatra, Dino, and Sammy Davis... none of whom were paid a cent, doing the gig as a favor to Giancana (presumably as a repayment for helping Sinatra’s pal Jack Kennedy get to the White House). After the show, guests were taken two blocks by shuttle for fleecing at a Quonset hut with a plush casino interior. Then Giancana — aware that FBI eyes were on him — shuttered the facility, pocketing three mil.
Soon, mysteriously, the handsomely insured Villa Venice facility burned down.
Again, Michael had had nothing to do with the casino end, his role that of a glorified handshaker, not unlike the indignity former heavyweight champ Joe Louis suffered in Vegas, where a casino employed him as a greeter. The Medal of Honor winner with the boyish countenance rated big with the Chicago columnists, guys like Irv Kupcinet and Herb Lyon, and if the Outfit could have been said to have a golden boy in the ’60s and early ’70s, Michael Satariano was it.
And Giancana himself was pleased enough with Michael to offer him a real job, specifically that big promotion he’d been groomed for by Ricca and Accardo: in 1964, Michael Satariano became entertainment director (and in reality top boss) here at the Cal-Neva Lodge and Casino at Lake Tahoe.
Pronounced Kal-Neeva, the resort dated back to the ’20s, a rustic fishing/gaming retreat built on the California/Nevada state line, which bisected Lake Tahoe south to north, running up the hilly, rocky shoreline and through the hotel’s central building (and fireplace and outdoor kidney-shaped swimming pool). Six of its acres were on the California side, eight on the Nevada. Before gambling in Nevada was legalized in 1931, the casino’s gaming tables were on wheels, to be rolled across the dark line on the wooden floor to California, should Nevada coppers show, and vice versa. In the years since, food, drink, and guests had stayed in California, with the casino all the way over in Nevada... across that painted line.
Eight thousand feet above sea level, ringed by the peaks of the High Sierras, accessed by one long winding narrow mountain road, the Cal-Neva — a.k.a. the Castle in the Sky — perched high over the northern tip of the lake, ideally positioned to take in Tahoe’s deep, clear azure sunshine-dappled waters, against the surrounding forest’s plush dark green. The sprawling lodge itself was a sort of barnwood wigwam castle, with a commanding A-frame stone porch. In addition to a motel-like row of cabins, small wooden bungalows, and a few larger chalets on stilts clustered on the slope below the lodge, between granite outcroppings, the pine bluff dropping sharply to Crystal Bay.
The Cal-Neva, like so many Nevada casinos, was owned by a syndicate of investors, which often involved silent partners, including over the years various bootleggers and gangsters (Joe Kennedy, for instance), and thus it was that this magnificently situated rustic resort came to be “owned” largely by a certain Italian American singer. That the singer’s half-share of Cal-Neva represented Chicago investments in general — and Sam Giancana in particular — was a fairly open secret.
But Sinatra and Giancana had been arrogant, even for them, and a series of misadventures culminated in disaster.
A cocktail waitress Sinatra had dallied with was the wife of a local sheriff, who got tough with Frank, and when said sheriff was run off the road and killed a few weeks later, the Nevada Gaming Commission arched an eyebrow. They would soon run out of eyebrows, as a statewide prostitution ring began operating from the front desk, a guest was murdered on the resort’s doorstep, and Sam Giancana himself cavorted openly, even beating up one of the customers.
The latter infraction drew more heat than murders and hookers. Whenever the singing McGuire Sisters played Sinatra’s acoustically perfect, seven-hundred-seat Celebrity Showroom, Giancana would shack up with his favorite sister (Phyllis); he would also play golf and dine with Sinatra, even though both knew Mooney was under FBI surveillance.
Giancana was, after all, prominent in the Gaming Commission’s “List of Excluded Persons” — colloquially, its Black Book — at the top of the list of criminals forbidden even to set foot on a Nevada casino floor. (That half the joint was in California became Giancana’s excuse.) When the commission had the temerity to point this out, Sinatra got so indignant and abusive, he had to surrender his license, and sell out.
Everybody, including the FBI, assumed that when Sinatra left Cal-Neva, so did Giancana; after all, the place closed down upon the Voice’s departure, and stayed that way for some months. But the truth was, Giancana still held a considerable interest, and although former Outfit rep Skinny D’Amato had exited when Sinatra did, the Congressional Medal of Honor winner from Chicago had stepped in, to continue looking after Giancana’s silent partnership.
Though it had been almost ten years since Sinatra’s fall from grace, the singer’s presence was still felt at Cal-Neva — the Vegas-like showroom he’d built, the secret system of tunnels and passageways that connected the lodge with select chalets, even the orange, beige, and brown color scheme within the lodge. This was not a bad thing for business, and pictures of the famous crooner remained on display in both the Indian Lounge and (as it was now known) the Sinatra Celebrity Showroom.