“Practically a papal request.”
Lefty had nothing to do with the violent end of the outfit’s business. He grew up knowing most of the same bosses as Spilotro; he just provided them with a different service. He provided them with the very likely possibility of winning bets.
According to the Feds, Fiore “Fifi” Buccieri, the outfit’s boss of the West Side, was one of the men who profited the most from Lefty’s early handicapping talents. He was a scholarly-looking man with a stocky build, eyeglasses, and a partial upper dental plate. He started his criminal career as a juvenile delinquent, and at the age of nineteen he was already a top enforcer for Al Capone. His arrests dated back to 1925, and he had been charged with extortion, bribery, larceny, and murder. His only conviction came on a burglary charge that was reduced to petty larceny.
Lefty had known the solemn-looking street boss most of his life. Lawmen suspect that Lefty’s family knew Buccieri since the mob boss and Lefty’s father were in the same close-knit fruit and vegetable supply business. By 1950, when Lefty was twenty, he was already spotted traveling around the city with Buccieri. At the end of a day at the track, Buccieri would often invite Lefty to drive around with him for a few hours, according to the Feds. “Lefty knew who Buccieri was,” retired FBI agent Bill Roemer said, “and that kind of an invitation was practically a papal request.”
Usually, young bookmakers and handicappers were kept far away from the men who controlled the outfit, but according to the FBI, the Chicago police, and the Chicago Crime Commission, Rosenthal occupied a unique place with the outfit’s bosses.
“Lefty would be seen moving all around town with some of the top guys,” Roemer recalled. “He’d go for coffee with them. He’d go places outfit guys didn’t usually take outsiders. We had information that he went to many of their homes and their farms in Wisconsin and on Lake Geneva. He knew everybody, but he was especially close to two guys who later became bosses—Turk Torello and Joey Aiuppa. And Fifi Buccieri probably would have become a top boss, too, except he died of cancer first.”
As a result of his friendship with up and coming outfit bosses, Rosenthal always had unusual access to the outfit’s top echelon. Since he was Jewish and could never be a member of the organization, he did not have to abide by many of the traditional rules of protocol that restricted aspiring members like his pal Tony Spilotro or even made men. Lefty did not have to get permission to talk to Buccieri, or Turk, or anyone else in the outfit’s top echelon. According to the Feds, Lefty acquired this unique position because he made them money. First, he was a great handicapper, and second, he was able to provide the kind of inside betting information denied even mob bosses.
“Lefty was in a position to hear about doped horses, fixed fights, crooked referees, and just about every gambling scam you could dream up, and he always knew just the people to share that information with,” Roemer said. “Later, the bosses began using him whenever they found that their own bookmaking or numbers operations were not making as much as they had been making in the past. We had very good information that the outfit’s top guys would often call Lefty in whenever there was a question about their gambling operations. He was like the bosses’ troubleshooter. He could question people, even made men.
“Running an illegal gambling franchise is not as easy as you might think. The people who work for the bosses are constantly trying to rip them off. We are dealing with very greedy and very crooked people. The mob guys are always trying to steal from each other. Even when they know somebody’s going to wind up in the trunk of a car if they get caught, they still try and steal a few bucks here and there.
“Hanging around outfit guys was the way Lefty grew up. He didn’t really know anything else. To him it was all very normal.” Lefty may not have been a part of the outfit’s violence machine, but it was never very far away.
“While Rosenthal likes to pretend all he did was make bets and maybe take a little book, you can’t be as close to these outfit guys without getting bloody,” Roemer said.
One night, according to Roemer, Lefty was in the Blackamoor Lounge. The place was owned at the time by a legitimate businessman, even though it was a place where outfit bookmakers and gamblers, like Lefty, hung out.
“This night it was really crowded,” Roemer said, “when in walks one of the outfit’s made guys. He was by himself. The man knew Lefty fairly well, and they said hello. Our undercovers were taking it all down.
“About a half an hour goes by. This must have been about midnight, and all of a sudden four other outfit guys walk in the front door. They were rough guys. They nod to Lefty, and one of them walks over to the owner and says, ‘You’re closed for the night. Everybody out!’
“The owner usually closed down around three or four in the morning, but when these guys said, ‘Turn out the lights!’ everybody, including Lefty and the owner, went outside.
“When the outfit guy who had come in alone tried to walk out, the goon squad stopped him.
“‘You fucking stay,’ they said. ‘Sit on your stool.’
“Our agents no sooner got outside with everyone else when the goons started beating that poor guy to death. One of our men got to a phone and called the police. Lefty hung around outside listening to the bloody murder just like everyone else. When the goons walked out, they had left the guy for dead. In fact, one of them said to Lefty and a few of the other guys standing around, ‘Okay, get him some help, if he’s still alive.’
“The guy was in the hospital for two or three months. He barely lived. His kidneys were gone. He’s been in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. I think he’s still alive, because we once asked about him.
“We later found out that the guy received that beating because he got into a dumb argument with another made man’s wife and made the mistake of saying, ‘Fuck you. Fuck your husband, and anybody around him.’ With that, the wife told her husband and the husband went and told the boss that he and the wife wanted satisfaction. That’s the world Lefty grew up in. That’s how easy it was for even a made guy, one of the outfit’s own people, to wind up in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. That’s why guys like Lefty grow up being very, very careful. They know that no matter how much money they make for these guys, they cannot make any mistakes.”
Still, according to Frank Cullotta, Lefty did once speak up to Buccieri and probably helped save Spilotro’s life.
“There was this one time when Buccieri had everybody in Chicago terrified. I heard about the story at the time, but later Tony told me what happened. As crazy as it might seem, some psycho had actually gone to Fiore Buccieri’s house with a gun and robbed Fiore’s wife. When Buccieri got home he was insane. He wanted to know everything. The wife told him that the guy was a dapper-looking fella with a New York accent. She said he came to the door, showed her a gun, and made her open the safe. The guy took about $400,000 in cash and almost all of the wife’s jewelry. Since the guy hadn’t even bothered to wear a mask, he was probably not local, but Fiore had the cops bring him a dozen mug shot books, and he made his wife go through thousands of pages looking for the guy’s face.
“Two weeks later, Buccieri still doesn’t know who robbed him, and he’s going wild. And everybody’s terrified. If he even suspects you know what happened, you’re dead, but the truth was nobody knew anything. Then, one guy looking to make a few points with Buccieri says the only guy he knew who might be crazy enough to maybe know somebody who could do such a thing was Tony Spilotro.
“Years later, when Tony found out who that rat bastard was, he wanted to kill the bum, but the guy was already dead.
“But at the time, Buccieri sends the word he wants Tony to show up at his house. Tony knows that Lefty is close with Buccieri, and he said he asked Lefty if he knew what the old man wanted. Lefty said he didn’t know, and they go over to see Buccieri together. Lefty used to be at Buccieri’s house all the time.
“When they got there, Tony said, Buccieri had two guys the size of refrigerators in the doorway. When he walked inside, Fiore’s wife glares at him like he was the devil. He said she didn’t even acknowledge him. He said now he was not very happy. He and Lefty were led down into the basement where Buccieri tells Tony to sit down in a chair. Tony said Buccieri didn’t pay any attention to Lefty, who was just standing there in the dark. Then Buccieri looks at Tony and asks him, ‘Do you know what happened to me?’
“‘Yeah,’ Tony says, ‘and I’m sorry.’
“‘I didn’t ask you that,’ Buccieri says, ‘just answer my question.’
“‘Yes,’ Tony says, I heard about it.’
“‘Do you have any idea who fits that MO?” Buccieri says.
“‘No,’ Tony says, like he’s getting a little annoyed at all this bullshit. It’s like he’s answering a cop.
“‘Are you sure?’ Fiore asks.
“Now Tony gets pissed and he says, maybe a little sarcastically, ‘I already answered that question.’
“Before his mouth was closed, Tony said, Buccieri had him by the throat, and he started strangling Tony right there. Tony thought he was going to die. Tony said he began to lose his breath. He started to gag and feel weak.
“And then he realized that Lefty was standing right next to him and that Lefty was begging Buccieri to stop. He could hear Lefty say that if Tony knew who did it he would already have given the guy up. Lefty said that Tony had a stupid mouth, but he didn’t mean to be disrespectful. Tony said he could see that Lefty was talking right in Buccieri’s ear until finally, Buccieri let go. He stepped back. Tony was gagging and coughing. He was dizzy.
“Buccieri looked at him and said, ‘I don’t want to see you in Cicero ever again, and, if I find out you know what took place in my home and didn’t tell me, I’ll wipe out your whole family.’
“Tony said even though Lefty saved his life, he and Lefty got out of there before the old man changed his mind.”