12 · Assassins

PART ONE

O’Banion was a trickster, a wit, a serious joker, a man fond of irony. The story goes he once broke into a warehouse full of whiskey, the real stuff, uisgebeatha, as the Irish called it, the water of life. O’Banion took two thousand barrels of it, emptied them, brought them back.¹ Jesus turned water into wine; O’Banion did the reverse. He filled the barrels with water, then rolled them back in place.

One joke led to another; success excited him. O’Banion kept trying to top himself. In May 1924, he made a little mistake, then he made a big one: he played tricks on people who didn’t share his sense of humor.

O’Banion’s first mistake was to hijack a $30,000 load of rotgut that belonged to a Sicilian family known as the “Terrible Gennas.” It wasn’t that the Gennas were humorless: they owned a license to warehouse and sell something called “industrial alcohol.” “For external use only.” Perfume and cosmetics manufacturers used small quantities of it in their formulas. The Gennas added coal tar to it, bottled it, and, depending on the label, sold it as whiskey, bourbon, or rye. The humor of what the Gennas did came from the location of their warehouse: four blocks from the Maxwell Street police station. So many cops came and went from the warehouse—to pick up bribes, single bottles, or case lots—that the locals called the place “the police station.”

The Gennas’ bookkeeper later gave a deposition that described the way the warehouse did business: “Each month said warehouse was visited by 400 uniformed police and by squads . . . It was visited, moreover, by representatives with stars [badges] but not in uniform . . . representatives of the State’s Attorney’s office of Cook County . . . ”²

So many officers, detectives, and deputies came and went, all with their hands out, that the Gennas had trouble distinguishing honest cops from moochers. “That police might not impose upon the Gennas by falsely representing themselves as assigned to the Maxwell Street station, each month there came, by letter or by messenger, a list for all stars [badge numbers] worn by officers and men with the Maxwell Street station . . . the entire list of [badge numbers] was run off on [our] adding machine. . . . As each man came in for his pay, his [badge number] was observed. If his [badge number] was on the list, he was paid. . . . ”3 The Gennas grossed $300,000⁴ per month; police payoffs cost them $7,000.⁵

The rotgut that O’Banion hijacked came from the Gennas’ other source of alcohol: homemade copper stills, hidden in hundreds and hundreds of apartments in the Sicilian parts of Chicago’s Little Italy. The Gennas paid each family the princely sum of $15 a day to tend and store the distillate for weekly pickup. The Gennas’ network of alky cookers produced 350 gallons of moonshine per week. Each gallon cost no more than 75 cents to produce. The Gennas added caramel color and fusel oil to the brew and sold it to speakeasies for $6 a gallon. Retailers were responsible for removing organic (rats, mice) and inorganic (metal shavings, wood chips, household refuse) matter from the product before dispensing it. Blindness and paralysis sometimes resulted—but only rarely. The real problem was that the speakeasies that bought the Gennas’ homemade stuff were on the north side of the city. The North Side was O’Banion’s territory—territory that had been assigned to him by Al Capone’s boss, John Torrio, who presided over the activities of Chicago’s gangs like a feudal lord. O’Banion thought he had a perfect right to hijack the Gennas’ load of domestic solvents. The Gennas thought otherwise.

There were six Genna brothers. Two ran bars; one fancied himself an architect and a poet; the other three were killers. Sam was the eldest, raised in Marsala, practiced in the courtly ways of La Mana Nera, the Black Hand, elaborately polite letters of extortion, decorated with little skulls and daggers. To ignore them was to invite kidnapping, disfigurement, and death. The murder of innocents usually brought people to their senses. Sam made all such decisions, but it was Angelo—“Bloody Angelo”—and Mike—“The Devil”—who executed them. They would have nailed O’Banion’s private parts to a wall long before he hijacked their load of home brew—would have considered such revenge an obligation and a pleasure—but they were restrained by a man of probity, Mike Merlo, the head of Chicago’s Unione Siciliane.

The Unione had begun as a fraternal, benevolent society; it became a clearinghouse and overseer, delivering votes and extorting money from the people it “protected.” No one, Sicilian or Italian, crook or cop, civilian or politician, crossed the Unione. Merlo understood O’Banion: “The man’s as crazy as a fox.”What’s more, the fox had friends, volatile friends, cunning and relentless people, people like Hymie Weiss. Killing O’Banion would lead to reprisals; reprisals would lead to more reprisals. Revenge was always the most expensive dish on the menu.

O’Banion might have lived long enough for Mike Merlo to convince him to make amends, but O’Banion wasn’t playing to the crowd. The applause he heard came from inside his own head. He pushed past the limits. He played a trick on John Torrio.

O’Banion owned a one-third interest in a brewery—a big, profitable place called the Sieben. John Torrio and Al Capone owned the other two thirds of the operation. Six weeks after an armed convoy of Chicago detectives (led by the same detective sergeant who’d helped the widow Tesmer positively identify Fred Thompson as the girl who’d shot her husband) had killed Frank Capone in Cicero, on Election Day, O’Banion asked to meet with John Torrio and Frank’s grieving younger brother, Al.

Torrio and Capone were prepared for O’Banion to do one of two things: either offer to compensate the Gennas or ask them to take his side. Instead, O’Banion announced his retirement: Frank’s killing had unnerved him. He’d prepared and delivered the flowers—thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of funeral wreaths and bouquets and tributes; Frank’s death had hit home. He himself had had three close calls with the cops: the Davey Miller shooting; the Corning Distillery truck hijacking; the unsolved murder of John Duffy. Sure, he’d managed to stay a few steps ahead of the law—witnesses left town or suffered amnesia or recanted their testimony. No matter: O’Banion knew things were going downhill. The mayor and the state’s attorney were out to get him. They were the ones who’d sent that posse to kill Frank. What a guy! Cut down in his prime! Since when was it a crime for a citizen to get out the vote? O’Banion knew he was next. He had a beautiful wife; they were planning to move to Colorado. Make a fresh start.

O’Banion wanted out. Torrio and Capone were surprised. Surprised—but glad to help:

What do you want for the Sieben? said Torrio.

I’m a reasonable guy, O’Banion said. We’re friends. How does $500,000 sound? Fair?

Done, said Torrio.

O’Banion didn’t know what to say. Capone nodded. O’Banion flashed a shy little smile. He tried to change the mood.

Listen, he said. Tell you what—I’ll give you guys a hand. For old time’s sake. When is it? May 19? Count on me. I’ll be there. Me and my guys. We’ll help load.

Torrio smiled a tight little smile. He wrote O’Banion an IOU. Business was business. The Gennas smelled like garlic. This was Chicago, not Palermo.

The fact was, O’Banion had people inside the chief of police’s office. He not only knew that Chief Collins was planning to raid the Sieben on May 19—he also knew that Collins and Mayor Dever had no intention of turning anyone they arrested over to Mr. Crowe. Crowe was nothing but words. His office was dirty. From the bottom up. The Sieben bust would be a federal bust, directed by the city’s U.S. attorney. John Torrio had been arrested in 1923 for violating the Volstead Act. A second arrest on federal charges would tie Torrio in knots: fines, mandatory jail time, headlines, his picture in the paper. Everything Torrio hated.

The only thing O’Banion loved about Colorado was easy access to military surplus Thompson submachine guns. He planned to be the first one in Chicago to use them.6 Torrio would end up in jail; O’Banion would be $500,000 richer. He’d go to the Sieben; he didn’t mind getting arrested. He wanted to see Torrio’s face when the feds arrived.

The Sieben bust happened just as O’Banion knew it would. One hundred and twenty-eight thousand gallons of beer, thirteen trucks, full crews of drivers and warehouse men, four limos, a half dozen well-dressed crooks (including one well-known, local Democratic politician). Police found a ledger under a loading dock: names, dates, and payroll schedules; six police sergeants on two-man, eight-hour shifts had protected the place twenty-four hours a day.⁷

All the prisoners—O’Banion among them—went straight to the Federal Building. O’Banion greeted the police who guarded him by name. Torrio figured out what had happened by the time he was taken before a judge. He peeled off $7,500 from a roll in his pocket and bailed himself out.

O’Banion lived as long as Mike Merlo did. Merlo had cancer. “Six months, maybe,” said the doctors. Merlo was tough, though. Torrio, Capone, and the Gennas counted the days and made their plans.

The first thing they did was consult with Frankie Yale, the president of New York’s Unione Siciliane. Yale had been Capone’s first employer: Capone had worked as a bouncer in Yale’s club—the Harvard Inn—on Coney Island. One night, Capone got into a fight with a man armed with a four-inch knife. Capone had said something inappropriate to the man’s sister. The man turned Al into “Scarface.” Yale had also been Torrio’s business associate in Brooklyn before the First World War—Yale was an undertaker; Torrio was a pimp; Yale wholesaled ice; Torrio ran numbers.

In 1909, Yale had recommended Torrio to Chicago’s Big Jim Colosimo, a labor extortionist, pimp, and political influence peddler who ran the biggest network of bars and brothels in the city. By 1920, Colosimo had grown sloppy: he’d divorced his wife—a madam who’d become his business partner—and married a girl named Dale Winter, who sang in his nightclub. Yale had been watching Torrio grow richer and more powerful as Colosimo became more sodden and distracted. In May 1920, Yale invited himself to Chicago to do Torrio a favor: he shot Big Jim in the back of the head in the lobby of his own club one afternoon, as Big Jim was leaving for an appointment.

After that, Yale and Torrio had made plans whenever it was in their interest. Killing O’Banion and replacing Merlo with a man who suited them served them both. They decided that Angelo Genna should succeed Merlo. Angelo wasn’t as old-fashioned or as independent as Sam; he wasn’t as impetuous and bloodthirsty as Mike. Killing O’Banion required preparation, though.

Since O’Banion had made fools of Torrio and the Gennas while everyone watched, they decided that O’Banion should be killed in as public a way as possible—in a way that confirmed their right, and their power, to execute him. They decided to kill him in broad daylight; kill him face-to-face; kill him where he worked, where he felt most at ease; kill him in his own shop on North State Street, across from Holy Name Cathedral, where he’d been a choirboy. No ambushes, no going for a ride, no bullets in the back of the head. Yale said he’d do it, but he’d need help. O’Banion carried a.45 and an extra magazine in his back pocket. He was young, quick-witted, cunning. He knew Yale by reputation, but not by sight; O’Banion wouldn’t recognize him the way he would Mike Genna or Angelo. Yale wanted two more men. Out-of-towners would be good.

Torrio asked the Gennas for names.

Mike said he knew some people.

Guys from Marsala, he said. Very good with shotguns. Very good. Very steady. The kind of guys who always finish what they start. You tell them to do something, it gets done. They take a stand, they’re like rocks or trees. They get hit, they don’t go down. One of them’s been in town for a while. John Scalise. O’Banion’s never met him. Speaks a little English. Nice-looking guy. Young. Wall-eyed, though. When he looks at people, it’s like he’s looking at them and around them. Spooks people. Which is OK; people ought to be spooked. Because when John shows up, he’s there for only one reason. The other guy . . . the other guy . . . I know him from home. Albert Anselmi. Doesn’t know much English, but the work he does, he doesn’t need to talk. He’s older. Not much to look at. Married, though. Wife and four kids. He was in Chicago during the war. Worked in a woolen mill, then a powder mill. Sent all his money home. Went home after the war. Kept goats. Made cheese. He would have stayed where he was, but the Italian police were after him. They wanted him for murder. One murder. What did they know.

Scalise and Anselmi; Anselmi and Scalise. Imagine Tweedledum and Tweedledee, carrying shotguns. Skilled men. Lethal men. Assassins. People said when they used handguns, they rubbed their bullets with garlic to keep them true. Everyone started imitating them.

Shotguns and handguns. Those two never failed. Torrio offered them $10,000 each, plus a diamond ring. They and Yale did the job. From then on, straight through past Valentine’s Day 1929, those two tracked a trail of blood. They survived the Gennas; they survived Yale. Capone eventually put an end to them—tied them to chairs, beat them with a club, then shot them full of holes. A county coroner said that in thirty years of practice, he’d never seen bodies torn up like that. No one remembers them now.

Merlo died in early November. People began ordering flowers from O’Banion right away. Capone’s people called in an $8,000 order; Torrio’s office called in a $10,000 one. There were orders for floral banners that spelled out Merlo’s name; there were orders for floral topiaries shaped like hearts, horseshoes, archways, and pillars. Trade associations, unions, and benevolent societies ordered wreaths and baskets trailing golden ribbons. “Our Pal.” “Padrone.” “Gone but not forgotten.” A total of $100,000 worth of flowers.8

O’Banion, three of his assistants, as well as his business partner, a florist named Schofield (who’d once owned the business outright), worked Saturday, all day Sunday, and into Sunday night. Early Sunday evening, while O’Banion was out on an errand, Jim Genna, one of the more harmless of the Terrible Gennas, came in to place an order. O’Banion was puzzled when he came back: Genna wanted $750 worth of red and white carnations delivered to Merlo’s home. Nothing special. In fact: a little cheap. Why had a guy like Jim Genna even bothered to come in?

Just before closing, Schofield answered a call from Frankie Yale. Yale introduced himself. Schofield said, of course, he knew who Mr. Yale was. Yale was polite. Said he’d just come in from New York for the funeral. He hoped it wasn’t too late to place an order. Not at all, not at all, said Schofield. OK, said Yale. I want a wreath of red roses. A nice big one. Say, $2,000? Fine, said Schofield. We can do that. I’ll come in to pick it up tomorrow, Yale said. Around noon, Yale said. Noon is fine, said Schofield. I’ll have a couple of guys with me to help carry the thing. We can deliver it, if you want, said Schofield. No, said Yale, this is something I got to do myself. Of course, said Schofield. Glad to oblige. He thanked Yale for his business. He called O’Banion about Yale’s order, then went home to bed. Next day was Armistice Day. Schofield had to be at Mount Carmel to help decorate graves.

O’Banion went out drinking that night. He didn’t understand: Jim Genna had come to the shop to scout it. Frankie Yale didn’t need help to carry his wreath. O’Banion got four hours’ sleep, then came in at nine o’clock Monday morning, to work on the rest of the Merlo orders. He was bent over his worktable, cutting and pruning, when a big blue touring car rolled up in front of the shop. Three men climbed out; the driver stayed where he was, motor running. A short visit. A kid who was playing on the sidewalk watched: two of the guys looked like foreigners—short and dark. The man in the middle was taller and lighter-skinned. Inside the shop, O’Banion’s janitor, an African American named Crutchfield, looked up from his sweeping. The men were all well dressed; two of them looked like Italians. They moved like they weren’t used to wearing suits; the man in the middle was some kind of rich guy, a Greek or a Jew. Crutchfield had nothing against such people, but he didn’t like the combination—three guys and a big car with its engine running. He headed for the backroom. O’Banion looked up, smiled, and limped forward, clipping shears in one hand, the other out for a handshake. “Hello, boys,” O’Banion said. “Here for the flowers?” Yale took O’Banion’s hand and drew him in. O’Banion tipped a bit and laughed. Crutchfield made it to the backroom and shut the door behind him.

Fifteen minutes went by. Chitchat. A couple of laughs.

Then: six shots. Then, a seventh.

The first shot went wild. The next five were fired so close, O’Banion’s clothes had powder burns. The last shot was a head shot. A coup de grace. Crutchfield ran in as the three men ran out. O’Banion lay on his back in a puddle of blood and flower petals. His hands twitched; his eyes stayed open. The Gennas had a sense of humor. This time, the joke was on O’Banion: he was fixing flowers for his own goddamn funeral.

That funeral was one of the most extravagant and heavily attended in Chicago’s history.

Thirty thousand people mobbed the funeral home where O’Banion’s body lay in state. The man who owned and operated the place—a man named Sbarbaro—specialized in dead gangsters; he not only knew how to fill in cuts and sew up holes, he also worked for Mr. Crowe as an assistant state’s attorney. He’d been expecting O’Banion for weeks.

O’Banion’s casket of silver and gold cost $10,000; its makers had sent it from Philadelphia by express train in a private baggage car. Musicians from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra played “Ave Maria” as five Municipal Court judges and an alderman offered condolences to O’Banion’s widow. She wore black satin and a full-length mink. She spoke from behind a black veil. “He was not a man to run around nights,” Viola said. “He never left without telling me where he was going.”9

Hymie Weiss wept loudly. Dapper Dan McCarthy (the union agent who’d been at the wheel during the Corning Distillery hijacking) and George Moran (known as “Bugs” because of his crazy temper) tried to console him. Maxie Eisen, a labor racketeer and friend of the late Nails Morton, sat grim-faced and silent. Eisen and Weiss had both told O’Banion to make peace with the Gennas. Eisen (like Merlo and Torrio) understood crime was a business—“conducted by other means.” He knew—and disapproved of—what Weiss would do next.

The musicians played the “Dead March” from Handel’s Saul; O’Banion’s friends lifted his casket from its bier and slowly, slowly, carried it to its hearse. Two hundred Chicago police officers cleared a path through the crowd. O’Banion’s cortege was a mile long—24 cars and trucks full of flowers; 124 cars of mourners. Ten thousand people walked behind them; three brass bands played solemn music. Ten thousand more people stood waiting at Mount Carmel, as O’Banion’s casket was lifted onto a catafalque and borne to its grave. A priest who’d known O’Banion as a boy delivered a eulogy; another priest read from the liturgy, then recited a Hail Mary and the Lord’s Prayer.

The cardinal of Chicago refused to let O’Banion be buried in consecrated ground. Five months passed. As soon as the ground thawed, O’Banion’s friends had him dug up and moved: his new grave was eighty feet from the tomb of a bishop.10

PART TWO

The war of revenge that Merlo and Eisen feared began less than two months after O’Banion was shot. It lasted from January 1925 until February 1929. During the first ten months of 1926 alone, there were forty-two criminal combat deaths in Chicago; there were another fifty-four in Cook County. Police killed an additional sixty gangsters in skirmishes, ambushes, and counterattacks.¹¹ Albert Anselmi and John Scalise had plenty of work. “Are we living by the code of the Dark Ages, or is Chicago part of the American Commonwealth?” asked Mayor Dever just before he was voted out of office.¹²

Weiss made his first attack on Capone in the middle of January 1925. Weiss, Moran, and a small-time thief with big ideas named “Schemer” Drucci found Capone’s Cadillac parked outside a restaurant at State and Fifty-fifth. Weiss and his two friends attacked the limo with shotguns—and one of O’Banion’s new Thompsons. “They let it have everything but the kitchen sink,” said a police sergeant who inspected what was left of the car.13 Capone’s cousin nearly died; Capone’s chauffeur was shot in the back. Capone himself had just gone inside to have lunch. When he came out and saw what the Thompson had done, he took the lesson to heart: the new Cadillac he ordered had steel body armor, bulletproof glass, and doors with combination locks to stop anyone from slipping a bomb under a seat. Capone changed the way he traveled: a scout car preceded him; a chase car with armed men followed him. At the office, Capone installed a new desk chair with an armored back; outside his office, he began to deploy guards in wider and wider defensive perimeters. Some of his guards watched for outsiders; some of his guards watched other guards. A local hardware store began to sell Thompsons to people who asked for them.

John Torrio detested machine guns. He never carried a weapon. Gentlemen never carried guns—and never called attention to themselves. Violence was measured: one shot, one kill. Torrio knew his work was dirty, but it was other people’s dirt, not his. It was other people’s sins that made him rich. He lived a sober life. His home was a clean, calm, and quiet place. No whores, no booze, no guards, no guns. Which is why there was nothing but a front yard between him and safety when Weiss, Moran, and Drucci ambushed him outside his house, twelve days after they shot up Capone’s Cadillac.

It was late afternoon when Torrio and his wife Anna came home from shopping. There was just enough light left in the sky to see the ground. Anna walked to the front door, arms loaded with packages. Torrio and his driver began to unload the rest. Anna turned to look just as a blue Cadillac pulled up behind their town car. Drucci was at the wheel. Weiss and Moran jumped out. Moran had a .45; Weiss had a shotgun.

Moran shot out the passenger-side windows and the front windshield; Weiss fired into the car’s backseat. Torrio’s driver was hit in the legs and went down. Torrio dropped everything and ran for the front door. He was still in his forties, small and agile. Moran might have been able to kill him if Torrio had been standing still, but Torrio was running for his life, and Moran wasn’t a very good shot. The bullet aimed at Torrio’s back took a chunk out of his arm. The impact spun him around. Weiss fired—buckshot shattered Torrio’s jaw, made holes in his neck and chest. The load of shot knocked him down. Moran stood over him. First, he shot Torrio in the shoulder; say good-bye to your arm. Then he shot him in the groin; say good-bye to your balls. Torrio never lost consciousness. Anna screamed and kept screaming. Moran put the muzzle of his .45 to Torrio’s head: one coup de grâce deserved another. Click. An empty chamber. Click. An empty magazine. Moran hadn’t been counting his rounds. He dug out another magazine. He was shaking; the air was freezing; Moran had never reloaded in low light. A laundry truck came around the corner. Drucci hit the horn. Moran and Weiss ran back to the car.14 Anna dragged Torrio inside; their driver called Capone; an ambulance took Torrio to the hospital. Torrio’s jaw and his arm were shattered; he still had his balls. Surgeons dug out as many pellets as they could find. They cauterized his wounds. Infection could still kill him.

Capone feared what might happen next: Weiss would call in some favors, then come after Torrio in the hospital. Weiss did exactly that. The police ordered Capone downtown to answer some questions. Where Capone went, so did his guards. Weiss sent three cars of men to the hospital. One man went with a bouquet. The ward nurse asked the man who he was. He gave her a name.

You’re not on the list, the nurse said. What list? the man said. Let me see that list. There are police guards everywhere, she said. You keep talking to me like that and I’ll call them. Anna had warned her. The nurse and the man looked at each other. Go on now, she said. And take those flowers with you.

When Capone carne back and heard the news, he ordered a cot for himself. He slept next to Torrio’s bed after that. His guards stood watch outside Torrio’s door. Two weeks later, Torrio was well enough to stand. He hobbled down a back fire escape into Capone’s car. A few days later, he stood before a federal judge, bandaged up to his ears, his right arm and shoulder in a cast. The judge sentenced him to nine months in a Lake County jail. Torrio made friends with the county sheriff. The sheriff let Torrio move a brass bed, a bookcase, a radio, and a record player into his cell. Torrio liked to listen to opera. The sheriff assigned two deputies to guard him; he hung shutters over Torrio’s windows to keep snipers away. By the end of Torrio’s sentence, he was eating dinner at the sheriff’s house.

Once he was released, Torrio announced his retirement. He moved most of his money to Italy. Then he and Anna left the country. Capone took over.

Weiss and Moran went after the Gennas next. Angelo had been appointed the new president of the Unione Siciliane. He was Torrio and Capone’s puppet. He’d just gotten married—married up, married into a family of gentrified Italians. The papers covered his wedding—three thousand guests; a two-thousand-pound wedding cake. The papers described Angelo as a “young importer.”15 He and his wife moved out of Little Italy, rented rooms in a fancy hotel on Sheridan Road, and began looking for a house in the suburbs. By May 1925, they’d found one.¹⁶

Angelo couldn’t have been happier. He folded $9,000 cash into an envelope, climbed into his new roadster, and drove off to make a deposit on a bungalow in Oak Park.¹⁷ He’d been lucky at craps that week—$35,000 lucky. Money in his pocket; hair blowing in the wind; he was on his way. A sedan pulled out of a side street and began to follow him. Drucci, Moran, and two other guys.¹⁸ Angelo speeded up; they speeded up. Sixty miles an hour. Moran’s car pulled up next to Angelo. Angelo began shooting; they fired back. Angelo had never driven and fired a weapon at the same time. He swerved left, lost control, hit a lamppost. He died in the hospital: twelve slugs and a concussion. The police found a little black book in his car. Liquor deliveries from Philadelphia. His wife said she didn’t know anything about that.

Mike did. He understood blood for blood. He still had a sense of humor, though: he sent one of his own guys, a big-mouthed, fancy dresser named “Samoots” Amatuna, to make a deal with Moran. Amatuna told Moran he had a grudge: he deserved to be the next head of the Unione. He’d talked to Mike. Mike had laughed at him.

So, said Samoots, here’s the deal: Mike wants to kill you and Drucci. You want to kill Mike. If you kill Mike, there’s nothing between me and the presidency. I know where Mike goes. You be there; you wait. He’ll drive by; you nail him. Deal?

Moran had guts, but Weiss had brains. Unfortunately, Weiss was in jail when Amatuna showed up. Two years after the police interrupted the Corning Distillery hijacking, a jury had finally sentenced Weiss—and Dapper Dan McCarthy—to six months in a county jail.

Moran didn’t keep track of people the way Weiss did. Weiss knew that Amatuna was partners with John Scalise in a café called Citro’s. Weiss knew that Amatuna was too loyal, and too scared of Mike Genna, to offer him up. Weiss also understood Mike’s sense of humor: Mike loved surprises.

Moran didn’t understand any of this. Deal? said Amatuna. Deal, said Moran. Amatuna went back to Mike. Mike told Scalise and Anselmi to get ready. Shotguns, this time. Tell Moran, said Mike to Amatuna: Be at the corner of Sangamon and Congress. Nice, said Amatuna. He told Moran.

Moran and Drucci and two other men were in Moran’s Hupmobile, traveling west on Congress, headed for Sangamon, when Genna ambushed them. Anselmi, Scalise, Genna, and two other shooters stepped out of an alley and opened fire with shotguns. Things didn’t work out the way Genna thought they would. Anselmi and Scalise did well: they’d fired at moving targets before. Moran’s Hupmobile was shredded down to its doorframes, but only Drucci was wounded.19 Moran doubled back and caught Genna’s crew in the open. The Hupmobile was losing oil, but it was like a gunboat. By the time Genna pulled everyone back to his Cadillac, two of his guys were staggering. Drucci and Moran didn’t come back for more. They drove the Hupmobile until it stopped, then Moran and Drucci ran. Genna’s two guys were in bad shape. He dumped them in an alley, then turned onto Western and headed south. Fast. Genna was furious; Anselmi and Scalise were rattled.

What happened next, no one could have predicted.

Genna’s Cadillac was going fifty when it passed another Cadillac, a big black one, headed north. There were four men in that Cadillac: two detectives, two patrolmen. The detectives—Conway and Sweeney—had just been assigned to the zone. The patrolmen—Olson and Walsh—knew the territory: vacant lots, building lots, a few houses, some stores, empty prairie. None of the police were in uniform. Their car had a gong (a kind of fire bell, used like a siren) attached to it, but it had no police markings. Olson drove; Conway sat next to him. Walsh sat beside Sweeney in the back.

Conway recognized Genna. South on Western meant south to the rail yards; the rail yards meant deliveries; fifty miles per hour meant something big. “Follow ’em,” said Conway. Olson made a U-turn. Genna saw it. A U-turn like that meant trouble. Genna speeded up. “Catch ’em,” said Conway. Olson sounded his gong.

By Fifty-ninth, a mile south of where Olson made his turn, both cars were going seventy. The sound of Olson’s gong traveled sideways and backwards. Genna had just come out of a firefight. Anselmi and Scalise checked their weapons.

The police carried .38s. None of them had had much practice. They didn’t know that Genna’s car was an arsenal: four double-barreled shotguns;²⁰ two pump shotguns;²¹ four revolvers. Conway and Sweeney thought they were about to catch a big fish. Their fish was a shark.

Genna hit his brakes to jackknife his car. He planned to be half a block away, heading north, picking up speed, by the time the black Cadillac realized what had happened. Genna managed to make his 180, but his tires didn’t hold. The back of his Cadillac kept moving south; the car jumped the curb and crashed, tail-end, into a lamppost. Olson locked his brakes, aimed his car, and skidded in, nose to curb, next to Genna’s car.

Olson didn’t even have both feet on the ground when Scalise killed him with a head shot. Walsh had his weapon out but not up when Scalise shot him in the chest. Conway and Sweeney dove, ducked, and backed away, weapons out and up. Conway fired. Anselmi shot him in the chest before he could take cover. Sweeney dragged him back behind the Cadillac. Olson and Walsh were dead. Conway was still breathing. “Get in the fight,” Conway said.

Sweeney ran forward. He grabbed Olson’s .38 and moved in, firing, a gun in either hand. A streetcar stopped, half a block away. Everyone in the car had seen what was happening. An off-duty patrolman named Rickert jumped off and sprinted up the street. Anselmi and Scalise and Genna saw Sweeney, saw Rickert; they turned and ran. A crowd of men stood in front of a garage a block away and watched. Rickert reached Sweeney, passed him a handful of shells. Sweeney reloaded and began the chase. Rickert followed him.

Scalise, Anselmi, and Genna ran across a vacant lot, headed for a cluster of houses and stores. Genna was limping; his pants leg was bloody. Anselmi and Scalise ran ahead of him. Sweeney came closer. Genna stopped, turned, leveled his shotgun, and fired. Nothing but air. Out of ammo. Sweeney took a shot. Genna pulled out a .38. Sweeney dropped back. Anselmi and Scalise ran down an alley, then disappeared around a corner.

An old cop named Oakley was just getting out of bed when his wife called up to him: “George, there’s a shooting.” Oakley was sixty, white-haired, good for nothing except sitting at a desk, at night, in the hall outside the State’s Attorney’s office. Oakley pulled on his pants and came out just as Rickert stopped in front of his house. Anselmi and Scalise had thrown their shotguns into some bushes. Oakley picked one up, snapped it open: one shell left. He cocked it and followed Rickert.

Genna was shouting, cursing, limping worse than before. He knocked out a basement window of a house and rolled himself in. Sweeney told Rickert and Oakley to cover him, then he went in, shooting. Genna had a blue steel Spanish revolver in his hand, but he was too weak to use it. Conway’s shot had hit an artery. Genna was bleeding out, but he was still alive. An ambulance arrived; the crew lifted Mike onto a stretcher. “Take it easy, you son-of-a-bitch,” one of the men said. Genna kicked him in the face. He died on the way to the hospital.

Sergeants ordered patrolmen into whatever cars they had and sent them into the neighborhood. Anselmi and Scalise had run into a dry goods store at Fifty-ninth and Rockwell. They were dirty, out of breath, and bare-headed. No one—no respectable person—walked around bareheaded. “A couple of guineas,” is what the owner of the place, a man named Issigson, thought. Scalise pointed at his head, then to a pile of caps, then at his head. “We want to buy,” he said. Issigson threw them out. Police caught them, still bareheaded, trying to board a trolley headed west.

The shoot-out had lasted ten minutes. A high-speed car chase, followed by a gun battle. No one had ever seen or heard of such things. Public officials stood in line to make speeches.

“Never before in this city—perhaps never before in this country—has the law been so wantonly flouted,” said State’s Attorney Crowe.22 He ordered raids and mass arrests. “This is the worst outbreak of lawlessness since the throwing of the Haymarket bomb,” said Chief Collins.²³ “We have reached a time,” said William Shoemaker, the city’s chief of detectives, “when a policeman had better throw a couple of bullets into a man first, and ask questions afterward. It’s war—and in war, you shoot first and talk second.”²⁴

Mayor Dever told the papers he was thinking of having Chief Collins organize a special police “strong arm squad.” Chief Collins said the era of the foot patrolman was over. He told the mayor what he really needed: He needed cars. One hundred and ten new cars. “Flivvers” he called them.²⁵ Mayor Dever replied to his chief in print: “I have every confidence in Chief Collins,” the mayor said. “This is only a sporadic outburst of lawlessness. The administration has no special drive on against the criminals.”²⁶

Detectives began to interrogate Anselmi and Scalise. Anselmi didn’t know English, so Scalise answered for them both.

Genna? said Scalise. Sure, I heard of Genna. Mike Genna. Bad, very bad. Detectives pointed at Anselmi. What about your friend? they said. My friend? said Scalise. We don’t know each other. The first time we met, we were waiting for the trolley. We both just got to town. He was looking for work; I was looking for work. We were both looking for a job and a place to sleep. A boardinghouse, or something.

Anselmi looked at the ceiling, then at the floor, then at the wall. Tell us about Genna, the detectives said. Anselmi shook his head and yawned. The detectives turned back to Scalise. Tell us about Mike Genna, they said. What do you want? said Scalise. I don’t know anything. He pointed at Anselmi. I don’t even know him. Why don’t you ask him?

Mr. Crowe decided to take reporters into his confidence. We have reason to believe, Mr. Crowe said, that the two men we have in custody were directly responsible for the murder of Dean O’Banion, last November, in his flower shop. Papers printed Mr. Crowe’s remarks as if he’d made them at a press conference.

Torrio (who was still in jail) and Capone began to raise money for Anselmi and Scalise. Within a month, they’d raised $100,000 and hired the best criminal defense lawyers in the city: Michael Ahern, Thomas Nash, and Patrick O’Donnell.

Ahern and Nash were the men who’d defended Belva Gaertner. Ahern believed in keeping things simple: If his client didn’t remember anything, then there was nothing to remember. Nash had made a name for himself back in 1920, part of the legal team that had successfully defended the Chicago Black Sox. Ahern was a handsome, well-tailored, open-faced Irishman. Nash favored cutaways and cravats and carried himself like an English barrister. O’Donnell was his own man: trim, silver-haired, slightly stooped, with fine features, dark eyes, and a temper. He used to give bottles of whiskey to court clerks and bailiffs before a trial began. To show his appreciation. “For Christmas,” he’d say.

Mr. Crowe let it be known that he looked forward to the fight. He named as his “Special Assistant” for the “War on Crime” a gentleman named Colonel Henry Chamberlain; Chamberlain was head of the Chicago Crime Commission, a civic organization of businessmen, bankers, and lawyers who were very alarmed by what was happening to their city. Mr. Crowe made stirring proclamations: he called on every Superior and Circuit Court judge and on the Bar Association of the City of Chicago to select forty of their number to devote themselves, full time—forswearing vacations—to clearing the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of criminal gang cases that filled the courts’ dockets.

“We are at a crossroads,” Mr. Crowe said. “There have been other reigns of terror, but the gangs and guns have never ruled with such an iron and abandoned hand.”27 “I promise here and now that I will personally go into court in this case. Not only is this case complete, it is one of the most open and shut cases I have ever seen.”²⁸ “We are not going to let these gangsters and killers continue to flourish. Scalise and Anselmi will be hanged as an example.”²⁹

Mr. Ahern had his doubts. A court case in Montana had caught his eye: A Montana sheriff had entered a grocery store, where he believed moonshine was being sold. An argument ensued. The proprietor of the store told the sheriff to leave. The sheriff began to search the place. The proprietor shot him dead. During the trial, the prosecution presented evidence that the sheriff had been right about the moonshine. He had been killed, said the prosecution, doing his duty. The defense argued that—moonshine or not—the sheriff had no right to enter the store and search it without a warrant. The jury decided that the sheriff had violated the law—he had no warrant—and that the proprietor had not done anything illegal. A citizen had the right to defend his person, his personal property, and his home.³⁰

Mr. O’Donnell took a somewhat different approach.

The police claimed they’d chased Mike Genna. Chased him because he fled. Fled because Genna knew he’d broken the law and feared arrest. Mr. O’Donnell said he was prepared to present evidence to the contrary—not only were the police as guilty of violating the Volstead Act (the law, passed in 1919, to enforce Prohibition) as Mike Genna—they were guilty of taking bribes. Mr. O’Donnell was prepared to prove—in court, in public—why Mike Genna had no reason to fear the police: he’d paid hundreds of them thousands of dollars in bribes every month. Patrolmen, ranking officers, detectives, investigators, even assistant state’s attorneys—they were all on Mike Genna’s payroll.

Mr. O’Donnell deposed Mike Genna’s bookkeeper, Francis Golfano; he leaked Golfano’s deposition—and the contents of his ledger—to the press. “BRIBED 300 POLICE Monthly Graft Called $8000.”31 Mr. Crowe was able to keep Golfano’s deposition and his book of bribes and badge numbers from being admitted as evidence, but O’Donnell was not deterred. “I intend to give this little book and its list of names to Uncle Sam, and I’m not bluffing,” he said. “When you do,” answered Mr. Crowe, “be sure to take whatever booze tickets and bottles you have left in your office.” When reporters questioned Mr. Crowe about O’Donnell’s allegations, Mr. Crowe said, “We concede that Mike Genna feared policemen less than policemen feared him. But how ridiculous to take the word of a bootlegger, supported by rewards, that anyone could forge and try to blacken the name of 300 policemen.”³²

Mr. Crowe decided to try Anselmi and Scalise first for the killing of patrolman Olson, and then for the killing of patrolman Walsh. The “Olson trial” began in October 1925. The “Walsh trial” began in February 1926. Mr. Crowe was wrong—very wrong—about his case being either complete or “open and shut.” Mr. Crowe was right, though, about the city being at a crossroads. By 1928 Capone’s people felt at liberty to plant bombs in a public market (seventeen sticks of dynamite in the Water Street Market), blow up the houses of a U.S. senator (Senator Charles Deneen) and a judge (Judge John Swanson), threaten the life of a U.S. Attorney (George Johnson), and murder an opposing candidate on Election Day (Twentieth Ward candidate Octavius Granady).³³

More than two hundred prospective jurors were summoned for the Olson trial. It took three weeks—an unusually long time—to find twelve men who could and would serve. “It’s surprising,” said an assistant state’s attorney, “how many highclass men who come into the jury box talk themselves out again.”³⁴ People had good reason to make excuses: Detective Sweeney’s house was bombed before the trial began; once the trial started, two members of the jury received threatening letters. Police were sent to guard their homes.

The trial itself took four days. Testimony of bystanders and ballistics experts, accusations and denials of police corruption, challenges and rebuttals about legal jurisdiction—all were less important than who fired first, who fired what, who fired when. Anselmi and Scalise never took the stand—but attorney Nash spoke on their behalf: all the weapons in Mike Genna’s car belonged to Mike Genna. He’d loaded the weapons into his car to take them to his brother’s house. On the way, he’d offered Anselmi and Scalise a ride. It was their bad luck to be in the car when the police began shooting.35

Montana had annexed Chicago.

Mr. Crowe was appalled.

“If the law is to be supreme instead of the gang and the sawed-off shotgun, your verdict must doom Anselmi and Scalise. . . . The theory of Ahern, who tells you that the police may be shot down if they question a suspected criminal, is propaganda as dangerous as that which led to the Haymarket riots. . . .

“How can the police capture the men who murder, who rob, who burglarize, who rape, if they may not arrest without first running to a judge to obtain a warrant. Must the police take a judge with them . . . call upon the judge to join them in pursuit while he pens a warrant?

“These men, when they jumped into that gun-laden automobile, had murder in their hearts. They were out to kill!

“When they saw the pursuing polic car, these wanton killers feared punishment for past murders. . . . They resented interference with some plan they were bent on in the killing of others.

“This talk of self-defense is rot! The defense asks you to throw away the sworn testimony of the state’s witnesses . . . and to take, instead, the unsupported word of these two men, bathed in the blood of innocent policemen. Will you do that? Not if you cherish life. Not if you respect the law of God and man.”³⁶

The judge instructed the jury: the defendants were charged with murder, not manslaughter. Murder was the “sole charge” against them. Fourteen years was the minimum sentence that could be imposed for such a crime.

The jury took a straw vote after four hours: ten “guilty” votes, two “not guilty.” “Guilty of what?” someone asked. “What are we voting about anyway?”³⁷ The jury took another vote: eight voted “guilty of murder,” two voted “guilty of manslaughter”; two voted “not guilty.” The jury asked the judge for instructions. The judge repeated himself: The defendants were charged with murder. A manslaughter verdict would be “worthless.”

“Worthless” offended some jurors. “Fourteen years is too much,” said one of the “not guilty” jurors. “These men didn’t do anything so terrible that they ought to serve fourteen years for it. We ought to give them a manslaughter verdict for it—it carries a sentence of one year to life.”38

“These men are killers,” said a “guilty” juror. “They weren’t going to sell cheese with those shotguns.”³⁹ “Chicago is infected with gunmen. It’s worse than the old frontier days,” said another.⁴⁰

It took another six hours for the jury to reach a compromise: Anselmi and Scalise were guilty of killing Officer Olson, but they weren’t guilty of murdering him. “Manslaughter, with a sentence of fourteen years.” Anselmi and Scalise smiled at each other.

“I hope to God we have a jury of decent, God-fearing men for the next trial,” said Mr. Crowe. “I hope they will do their duty and hang these killers.” Attorney Nash heard him. “What do you know of decent people,” Nash shouted. “I associate with them,” said Crowe. “Not with gangland, as you do.”⁴¹

Michael Ahern appealed the verdict.

In February 1926, while Ahern’s appeal was getting under way, Anselmi and Scalise were brought back from Joliet to stand trial for killing Patrolman Walsh. Ahern, Nash, and O’Donnell decided to blame everything on Mike Genna. They found two witnesses who agreed with them. Mike did it all: he shot Olson; he shot Walsh; Conway and Sweeney shot back. Mike got what he deserved. Anselmi and Scalise were guilty of nothing but being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The jury acquitted them. The defendants jumped up when they heard the verdict. They cheered; they shouted; they embraced; they did a little dance.

“I would have to carry a gun for the rest of my life if I found those two guilty,” said a prospective juror before the trial even began.⁴² Police took them back to Joliet.

Ahern’s appeal reached the Illinois Supreme Court in October 1926, just before Christmas. The court surprised everyone: it threw out the manslaughter verdict and ordered a new trial. In the court’s opinion: “The judgment in this case of fourteen years in the penitentiary was a travesty of justice from whatever angle viewed. If plaintiffs . . . were not guilty, or were guilty of manslaughter only, sentencing them for murder was an injustice. If guilty of murder, a sentence of fourteen years, the least penalty under the circumstances in this case, is but a mockery of justice.”43

The judge who presided over Anselmi and Scalise’s new trial was William Lindsey—the same judge who’d presided over Belva Gaertner’s and Beulah Annan’s murder trials. Ahern, Nash, and O’Donnell once again represented the defendants. Mr. Crowe sent two assistant state’s attorneys—Harold Levy and Emmet Byrne—to try to do what he couldn’t. Byrne and Levy had fifteen death penalty convictions to their credit. Ahern took the opposing counsel very seriously.

Ahern screened prospective jurors more carefully, more pointedly, than he had before. He asked each of them three questions.

First: “Do you believe in the principle of law that no person should be deprived of his liberty without due process of law?” If the answer was yes, Ahern asked a second question: “Do you also agree with the principle of law that any person has the right to resist unlawful arrest? The law says that under those circumstances, force may be resisted with force. Do you accept that as law?” If the answer again was yes, then Ahern asked his last question: “The law also says that in this resistance, a person would have the right to kill if he believed his own life was endangered. Will you apply that principle of law to the facts if you are accepted as a juror?”⁴⁴

It took the defense and the prosecution seven days to screen one hundred prospective jurors. The papers listed the professions of some of the men selected: a cattle broker, a roofing contractor, an insurance agent, a real estate salesman, a butcher, a streetcar motorman, and a telephone repairman.

Emmet Byrne presented the state’s case: “The evidence will show that the policemen were ringing their gong [during the chase]. When they got out of their car, they announced that they were policemen. The evidence will further show that Anselmi and Scalise each leveled a [sawed-off] shotgun at Olson and Walsh and that both officers, without firing a shot, crumpled to the gutter.”⁴⁵

Ahern’s reply was:

The police never rang their gong. They never said they were policemen. They pursued Genna’s car because they were suspicious—not because they knew, for a fact, that anyone in the car had committed a crime. Such an intervention was “a willful, wanton act of oppression”; in fact, said Mr. Ahern, it was “an assault with intent to kill.” Whatever the defendants did, they did to defend themselves. Their response to the “police assault” was “justified.”46

The state called witnesses who said they’d heard the police ring their gong. The defense called witnesses who said they’d heard nothing.

Ahern decided to put both his clients on the stand. Scalise spoke broken English: “The other guys shot first,” he said. He didn’t know who they were. He thought they were gangsters. Other gangsters. Mike Genna pushed a shotgun into his hands. He took it; he fired once, then he ran. Mike Genna did all the rest of the shooting.

Anselmi spoke through an interpreter. He told the same story as Scalise. No one in Genna’s car knew who was chasing them. After they crashed, the shooting started. Mike Genna grabbed a shotgun and a revolver and shot back. Anselmi said he was so frightened, he threw himself on the ground; when the shooting stopped for a minute, he ran for his life.⁴⁷

The jury took two hours to acquit them.

A year passed.

Capone found something for Anselmi and Scalise to do: in July 1928, he sent them to Brooklyn to kill Frankie Yale. Twice, Yale had come to Chicago to kill important people: Colosimo in 1920, Dean O’Banion in 1925. Capone didn’t intend to give Yale a chance to come to Chicago a third time.

There was one other reason to kill Yale: for years, Torrio and Yale had done business together whenever it suited them. After Torrio retired, Capone continued the relationship: He bought alcohol in New York. Bought it from Yale or with Yale. Yale transported it to Chicago. By 1927, Yale had begun to hijack his own trucks on their way west. Capone understood the insult; since Yale knew he could double-cross him, Yale probably believed he could kill him. Long term, short term, Capone’s strategy was to kill Yale first.

There were two men riding with Anselmi and Scalise when they went hunting for Yale. Both men were machine-gun experts. One was a very cunning, very handsome man named Vincenzo Gribaldi. Gribaldi called himself McGurn, “Machine Gun Jack” McGurn. The other shooter was one of Capone’s golfing buddies. He wasn’t as imaginative or as good-looking as McGurn, but he was big and lethal. Big, lethal, and ugly: Fred “Killer” Burke. The four of them were in a Buick (with Illinois plates), cruising the streets of Brooklyn, when they spotted Yale.

Yale—like Angelo Genna—was taking the morning air, at the wheel of a new car. Angelo had been on his way to buy a new house when he died; Yale was coming home from Mass. Unlike Angelo, who drove his roadster with the top down, Yale drove a Lincoln that was fitted with body armor. Unlike Capone’s Cadillac, though, Yale’s town car didn’t have bulletproof glass.

Yale saw the Buick pull up behind him. Yale was forty-two; he’d survived three assassination attempts, including, early on, a bullet in the back. He recognized the signs. He rolled up his windows, swerved onto Forty-fourth Street, and floored the Lincoln. Forty-fourth was a nice street in a nice neighborhood: brownstones, sidewalks, trees. The Buick pulled up next to him. Scalise aimed at Yale’s head, and blew out the Lincoln’s windows. Yale collapsed against the steering wheel; the Lincoln kept rolling; the Buick kept pace. McGurn emptied his Thompson into Yale. A whole drum of steel-jacketed .45s blew through the Lincoln as if it were made of balsa wood. Yale’s car jumped the curb and slammed into the steps of a brownstone. The Kaufman family was inside, celebrating their son’s bar mitzvah. Yale’s body spilled out, dressed in church clothes. The Buick drove away. The police found it later, abandoned along with its weapons.48

Seven months went by. Capone found something else for Anselmi and Scalise to do. Jack McGurn did the planning for the job. McGurn was someone Mike Genna would have liked, someone Dean O’Banion would have appreciated. McGurn was a serious practical joker. A trickster who always had the last laugh.

The war of revenge that had begun when O’Banion was killed continued. Weiss was dead; Bugs Moran and his crew were still alive. Their dumb luck. Moran had sent two brothers, Peter and Frank Gusenberg, to kill McGurn. They’d ambushed him one night while he was standing in a phone booth, making a call. They’d blasted him with a Thompson and a .38. McGurn went down; dead, they thought. He’d just collapsed. Too bad for them. McGurn had personal as well as professional reasons to kill Moran.49

The lure was a load of Canadian whiskey. The man who offered it to Moran worked for McGurn. The first load was so good and so cheap (Capone underwrote it) that when McGurn’s man offered Moran a second load, Moran agreed.

Ten-thirty in the morning on the fourteenth, the man told Moran. You know the SMC garage up on Clark? Moran knew the place. Be there, said the man. Moran made a little joke. The fourteenth? he said. You want me to bring roses and a box of chocolates? Cash, said the man.

Moran had something else to do that morning. He sent his business manager and his brother-in-law instead. They brought five other people with them. One of them was a man named Weinshank; he ran a bar. Weinshank looked—and dressed—enough like Moran that when he walked into the garage, McGurn’s lookouts sent the signal to close the trap.

A delivery truck was driving slow, looking for an address on Clark, when a Detective Bureau car—a big black Cadillac with a gong, a siren, and a gun rack—came fast around the corner at Webster; it clipped the truck’s front fender.⁵⁰ The truck driver pulled over and climbed out. The Cadillac stopped; a plainclothes detective stepped out. The driver braced himself; he could see four other cops in the car; two of them were in uniform. Trouble. The detective looked at the truck’s fender, then he looked at his own. “Be careful next time,” he said. The driver looked down, touched his cap. Lucky this time. He drove off; the detective climbed back into his car. The Cadillac drove away. Headed for the SMC garage.

The two cops who were wearing uniforms were Anselmi and Scalise. They never did like suits.