“I’d give half of what I own if I was as clean as you. Stay that way.”
Lefty was probably the youngest employee to have ever worked for Donald Angelini, the Wizard of Odds. Angelini and Bill Kaplan had the best-known and best-connected book in Chicago. They had outfit bosses as their partners and the city police as their protectors. Their clients either owned the city or ran it. To work for Angel-Kaplan meant you were a seasoned veteran of the bookmaking wars. The office was full of old guys chomping on yesterday’s cigars, Guys and Dolls rejects, gamblers who had spent years matching wits against every variety of scamster. Lefty was in heaven.
“I’d been working at Angel-Kaplan a couple of years when Gil Beckley rented a couple of big suites at the Drake Hotel and invited me,” Lefty says. “There was some major fight in town. I don’t remember exactly who was fighting, but I was feeling on top of the world. I had just been invited to a party by the most prominent bookmaker and layoff man in the United States.
“I knew I was picking up a little reputation at the time, and I felt like it was Gil’s way of making me a part of the fraternity.
“There were no clients at this party. No high rollers. Nothing like that. Everyone there was a professional. The top pros in the business. Bookmakers. Handicappers. Layoff men. And a couple of professional players who made their livings by betting sports. There were no suckers. No politicians.
“I had never even seen Gil Beckley before. I’d been talking to him over the phone for a couple of years. Talking to him six, seven times a day, and we’re very friendly.
“Now when I meet him in person, he’s really nice. He was surprised I was only in my early twenties. There were about fifteen guys at the party, and every one of them had me by twenty or thirty or forty years.
“So Beckley takes me around and introduces me to everybody in the room. It’s spectacular. There was food and broads all over the place. He took care of the broads.
“And after the party’s going for a while, he says to me—he called me Lefty; he didn’t call me Frank—he said, ‘Lefty, I want to tell you something. You’re a young fellow. You’ve got a very, very bright future. I’m going to tell you something that you need to keep precious to you for the rest of your life.’
“He said, ‘I’d give half of what I own’—and this is a wealthy man at the time—‘if I was as clean as you. Stay that way.
“‘You’ve got the brains. You’ve got the know-how,’ he’s telling me. ‘Keep clean!’
“I never forgot that, but at the time, I didn’t really know what he meant. I didn’t respond. But he was telling me to play it smooth. Don’t get pinched. Watch your reputation. Don’t get labeled.
“I didn’t listen to him. I didn’t know how important those words were. I was too fucking young. I had too much energy. There was too much ego. There was too much of the challenge. I wanted to become the best there was. Who’s worried about getting arrested? Bookmaking? A fifty-dollar fine. Ten days suspended sentence. Fuck the coppers.
“But Gil Beckley knew that. He knew everything that I knew, plus. He knew the price you had to pay when you got to be well known. He was warning me to play it safe. Keep a low profile. Stay away from the limelight. He didn’t say this, but I could sense he meant for me to stay away from being too closely associated with outfit guys.
“I just listened to Beckley and nodded. But I’m full of young blood. I’m ready to challenge the world. I know what I’m doing. I can handle it.
“About a week after the party I saw Hymie the Ace. I know he had been invited, but he never showed. I told him he had missed a great party. I told him I finally got to meet Gil Beckley and that he was a great guy.
“Ace looked at me like I was diseased. He didn’t want to hear about the party. He didn’t care who was there. Gil Beckley or anybody. But then, Ace never wanted to know about anything. He had no interest in street gossip, or in outfit guys, or in anything except his basketball. Ace never went to parties. Never went to outfit restaurants or hangouts. And as a result, the Ace never took a pinch in his life.”
On May 26, 1966, when Gil Beckley was fifty-three, he was arrested along with seventeen others, including Gerald Kilgore, the publisher of J. K. Sports Journal of Los Angeles, and Sam Green, who headed the Multiple Sports Service of Miami, in a raid of his layoff operations, which were said by the FBI to exist in New York, Maryland, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, California, and New Jersey. He was tried, convicted of interstate gambling violations, and given ten years. In 1970, before the appeal of his sentence could be heard, he disappeared. The FBI believes he was murdered because mob bosses feared he might talk if faced with such long prison time.
By the early 1960s, Tony Spilotro was living the outfit life. He was making money and putting it in the street. He was getting $100 a week for every $1000 borrowed. He had teams of burglars—like Frank Cullotta’s—working all over town, and they kicked in between 10 and 20 percent of their takes to him. Tony was basically in the mob’s main business: franchising crime. And of course, Tony had to kick in a percentage of everything he got to the street capos and lieutenants above him, to guys like Joe “the Clown” Lombardo and Milwaukee Phil.
Tony was also a master thief. He knew the best pick men, alarm guys, and fences. He could put together a team and pick a place clean. Mostly he worked with jewelry. He knew everything there was to know about stones. He could have been a jeweler. In fact, later on he opened up a jewelry store.
In the summer of 1964, Tony and his wife, Nancy—a former hatcheck girl from Milwaukee—joined their friends John and Marianne Cook on a European vacation. John Cook owned a water-skiing business in Miami, but the FBI had him listed as an international jewel thief. The Spilotros and the Cooks flew to Amsterdam, rented a Mercedes-Benz, and drove to Antwerp, Belgium, the diamond capital of Europe. Interpol and local police were watching them every step of the way.
The Belgian police watched them check into the hotel. They watched Spilotro and Cook casing dozens of jewelry stores and wholesale shops. They spotted the two checking alarm systems, window displays, and security. Then they visited the shop of Solomon Goldenstein, a local jeweler, who became suspicious when Cook used a fake name and gave a wrong hotel address when he tried to make a credit card purchase. The jeweler activated a silent alarm, and when Spilotro and Cook left the store they were arrested. Police found that Cook was carrying a high-powered slingshot and ball bearings, a small crowbar, and passkeys for Yale locks.
When he was questioned he told police that he had the passkeys because he was afraid of being locked out of his car and that the slingshot and ball bearings were for his son.
When the police took Spilotro and Cook back to the hotel, they found the two wives waiting with the luggage packed. When the police searched the luggage they found more ball bearings.
Belgian authorities ordered the Spilotros and Cooks out of the country.
The two couples left Belgium and continued their holiday, driving through the Swiss Alps and into Monaco for a couple of days in Monte Carlo, and then back to Paris before returning home.
Spilotro and Cook did not know that they had been tracked since Belgium. When they got to Paris, the gendarmes swooped down again. This time the French police found a couple of dozen lock picks.
When the Spilotros returned to Chicago, they were searched by customs agents, who found packets of diamonds, including two that had been sewn into Spilotro’s wallet. The customs agents confiscated the loot, which also included more lock picks and burglary tools.
“I went to pick Tony up at the airport,” said Frank Cullotta, who was now Spilotro’s right-hand man. “The cops were going through everything they had. Tony was really surprised, but Nancy was fuming. I don’t think he knew they had had a line on him from Paris. I don’t think he knew that he was now hot and getting hotter.
“When we got home I remember they gave Vincent, the kid, something to eat, and then Tony got a white towel and put it on the kitchen table. Then Nancy bent over the table, and one by one she began dropping diamonds out of her hair. They kept coming out one after another. He had made her hide them there. The customs people might have confiscated some of the diamonds, but I think the prize stones got through in Nancy’s beehive.”
Two months later, the French police found out that Spilotro and Cook had burglarized an apartment in the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo on the night of August 7 and made off with $525,220 in jewels and $4,000 in traveler’s checks. The apartment had been occupied by a wealthy married American woman who had been staying there with a young man and was therefore reluctant to get herself involved in an investigation. By the time she did, Spilotro and Cook were back in the United States.
Spilotro and Cook were convicted in absentia by the criminal court in Monaco and sentenced to three years, if and when they ever cared to return.
“I was with Tony’s crew for five years before I ever met Lefty Rosenthal,” said Cullotta. “I was with his burglars and goons. Lefty was part of his gambling stuff. Mad Sam was with his loan-sharking and leg breaking. Tony liked to keep everybody separate.
“For instance, if he wanted you to drive somewhere, he wouldn’t tell you who would be there or anything. You just went there, and then, maybe, he’d tell you the next step. Meantime, when you get there, the guy who’s there doesn’t have any idea that he’s gonna meet up with you.
“So on this afternoon I get a call from Tony asking me to drop by his apartment. I knew he needed me to do something; he doesn’t say what or anything. I don’t expect him to. So I go right over.
“Tony and Nancy had a nice little two-bedroom, fourth-floor apartment in Elmwood Park. When I get there I see that Tony is playing gin rummy with a tall thin white-faced guy. It was Lefty.
“Nancy was running around the apartment making coffee or on the phone. I just stood behind Tony as he played a few hands, but I didn’t say a word. Sometimes I’d whisper something to Nancy, but I can see Tony is beating this guy bad.
“You’ve gotta know that Tony played gin rummy very, very well. He’d play two hundred points across and he never lost. The guy could have been a professional gin rummy player. One night he was in Jerry’s Lounge, and he’s at the bar playing gin with Jerry. Jerry kept getting interrupted by customers, so Tony told me to take over the bar.
“So I took over behind the bar and they played until Tony beat the poor guy for fifteen thousand dollars. Jerry fell off his own bar stool and started crying. ‘I can’t pay,’ he tells Tony. Tony says, ‘Okay, I’ll take the lounge.’
“I never saw Tony pay. He’d make you play until his luck turned around. Usually, if he beat a guy for, say, fifteen thousand dollars, he’d have me take the guy to the bank, and I’d be there while he cashed a check, and then he’d give me the money and I’d take it back to Tony.
“On a fifteen-thousand-dollar score, Tony would give me three thousand dollars just for making sure the guy doesn’t skip and for bringing him back the money. Tony was a very generous guy. When he was moving around town he always picked up checks. It didn’t matter. Twenty, thirty people, Tony always got the check. And he’d get really pissed off if you tried to take care of the tip. That was his, too. Nobody paid for his food.
“Finally, Lefty stands up. He says he’s had enough. ‘That’s it,’ he says. I know that these guys go back a long time. Lefty just dropped about eight grand and he says he doesn’t have the cash on him, and that he’ll get it and give it to Tony later.
“I knew they were close, because Tony didn’t ask me to go with Lefty to get the money. He just asked me to drive Lefty to a cabstand at Grand and Harlem Avenues, on the borderline between Elmwood Park and Chicago.
“That’s the only reason why Tony had me come to his house in the first place. He didn’t want Lefty calling a cab from his house. He didn’t want any record of cab pickups from his address. This way, when I dropped Lefty at the cabstand, nobody knew where he came from. That’s why Lefty didn’t take his own car to Tony’s. He didn’t want anybody picking up his plates outside Tony’s. Back then, Tony was very careful about things like that. He was very, very cautious.
“During the ride Lefty hardly said a thing. He just sat there real glum. I guess Lefty wasn’t used to losing.
“Lefty was weird. You couldn’t read him. Tony loved to hang around him, because even then Lefty was one of the best handicappers in the country, bar none. We’d be hanging around on a Friday night before putting down our bets. Tony would ask Lefty, ‘What about Kansas?’ And Lefty would just say, ‘I have no opinion.’ Then Tony would ask him, ‘What about Rutgers–Holy Cross?’ And Lefty would say, ‘No opinion.’
“Now Tony’s got this list of college games printed with the odds as long as a supermarket tape, and he’s going down it game by game, and he’s throwing every one of them at Lefty, and Lefty’s standing there, leaning against the bar, drinking his Mountain Valley water, watching some fight rerun on the TV, and he’s just no-opinioning Tony to death.
“Finally, Tony blows up. He grabs the list and shoves it in Lefty’s hands. ‘Here, you pick ’em. Pick ’em yourself.’
“Without hardly taking his eyes off the fight, Lefty takes Tony’s list, makes two quick little pencil marks on it, and hands it right back to Tony.
“Tony looks at the list. Lefty keeps looking at the TV. ‘Hey!’ Tony says. ‘What is this? I’ve got a hundred plays here. Every college basketball team in the country is playing this weekend, and you give me two picks?’
“Now everybody in the joint is very quiet. You don’t want to get in between these two. Lefty turns to Tony like Tony is some kid and says, ‘There are only two good picks.’
“‘Yeah, yeah,’ Tony answers him. ‘I know all that, but what about Oklahoma–Oklahoma State? What about Indiana–Washington State? Jeezus, look at that spread.’
“‘Tony, I gave you the two good picks on the sheet. Forget the rest.’
“Now Tony gets hot and he starts waving the sheet in Lefty’s face. ‘Two picks out of a hundred? This is the way you bet?’
“Lefty looks down at Tony like he’s a bug. ‘I assumed you wanted to win,’ he says.
“‘Of course I want to win, but I want to have some fun, too. Why don’t you loosen up for once, for Chrissake?’
“‘How much are you betting?’ Lefty asked.
“‘Couple of grand, whatever … What are you betting?’
“‘I’m wagering more than that,’ Lefty says. Lefty almost never said he ‘bet’; he was always ‘wagering,’ ‘having an opinion,’ or ‘taking a position.’
“‘More than what?’ Tony jumps on him. ‘You’re only playing two fucking games. What the hell did you bet?’
“‘You don’t want to know,’ says Lefty.
“‘I do wanna know.’
“‘You going to make it good if I lose?’
“‘C’mon, tell me. I just wanna know. I told you, didn’t I?’
“Lefty gets close to Tony and he says very quietly under his breath, and I’m right there between them watching his lips as he says the words, ‘We were down for fifty each.’
“There would be the day when Tony bet fifty and sixty thousand dollars on a football or basketball game, but not back then. We were still in our early twenties. Lefty was about thirty. He was betting for himself and some pretty big people, outfit people, and we all knew who they were.
“‘Oh, excuse me,’ Tony says, grabbing the list and going down it game by game again. ‘I forgot who I’m talking to. I shouldn’t even be alive. I’m betting nickels and dimes over here.’
“And just as Lefty turns back to the TV, Tony asks him, ‘What about West Virginia? They got that seven-foot kid from Africa. How the hell can they lose?’
“‘I have no opinion on that,’ Lefty says, without even turning around.
“Now Tony blows it. He rolls up the betting sheet and starts bopping Lefty over the head with it. ‘If I lose, you prick,’ Tony yells, ‘you’re gonna buy us all dinner.’
“We’re all on the floor laughing, including Lefty, and Tony turns to us and says, ‘The prick’s got me thinking negative.’”