Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster and Government Witness (13 page)

In 1974, after serving a total of six years, Frank was paroled from the halfway house. He was again a free man.

When Frank was released on parole, he was 36 years old. He fully intended to give up his life of crime and become a productive member of society. In spite of his good intentions, however, he soon found out that going straight wasn’t as easy as he’d thought.

In order to qualify for parole, an inmate had to have a job lined up. Frank’s mother was able to help her son meet that requirement. The owner of the restaurant where she worked also owned a dental lab. Frank had absolutely no qualifications to make dentures, but Josephine arranged for him to be hired at the lab. The deal called for Frank to show up at the lab each Friday to collect his paycheck, creating a paper trail showing him as an employee. He cashed the check, then returned the money to the owner. The parole people were satisfied, it didn’t cost Josephine’s boss any money, and Frank had lots of free time to pursue other endeavors. The arrangement lasted until Frank opened a business of his own about a year later.

Without a real job to tie him down, Frank looked around for a good business opportunity. He found a deal that seemed perfect for him. An acquaintance owned some property near Wrigley Field and wanted him to go partners in a restaurant. They built an upscale establishment right across from the ballpark. It was totally legit and Frank worked in the place day and night. But when the cops found out he was one of the owners, they started hanging around the place and harassing him. Making themselves visible around the restaurant at all hours discouraged customers from stopping in. Almost every night some windows were broken out. It got to be very depressing for Frank. He thought his hatred of the system and the desire to be like his father were under control, but they were beginning to resurface.

Business dropped off and the vandalism continued. Fed up, Frank sold his share in the restaurant to his partner. He took out enough money to buy into a lounge out in Schiller Park. He kept on one of the former owners, whose name was on the liquor license. Frank did some remodeling and changed the name of the place to Spanky’s. Even though his disgust with the system was bubbling over, he planned to run the place legit. Then the cops found him again and the harassment resumed.

Frank’s brother Joey was working for him part-time as a doorman. One night when Frank came in, he learned there’d been an altercation. “I had a little trouble with some kids earlier,” Joey said. “I ran them out, but one of their fathers is connected.”

“Was anybody hurt?”
“No, nothing like that. I just made them leave.”

It didn’t sound serious and Frank forgot about it. But half an

hour later an Outfit guy named Louie the Mooch came into the bar; Mooch worked for Outfit boss Joe Aiuppa. He said, “Frankie, what the fuck did you hit my son for?”

I didn’t even know you had a son.”

“I’m talking about my stepson. He said you roughed him up and threw him out.”

“He’s mistaken, Louie. I just got here a little while ago and I haven’t had a beef with anybody.”

Louie called his stepson in. He looked at Frank and said, “Yeah, he’s the guy.”

“You’re full of shit. I’ve never seen you before,” Frank insisted. The Mooch had come into the bar with an attitude and now he was even madder. “Nobody smacks my kid around. You’re gonna pay for that.”

“I told you I never saw the kid before. Now get the fuck out of my place, both of you.”

“We’ll leave,” Mooch said, “but this isn’t the end of it. I’m gonna get you whacked, you cocksucker!”
Frank figured Louie would take his complaint straight to Aiuppa, so the next day he called Tony Spilotro for advice. Tony, while Frank was in prison, had moved to Las Vegas to keep an eye on the Outfit’s casino interests. Tony told him, “Contact Joey Lombardo and tell him what happened. I’ll call him myself, too.”

Frank went over to Lombardo’s brother’s restaurant, Rocky’s Steakhouse, on North Avenue. He asked Rocky to contact Joe and tell him he needed to speak with him. As the two men were talking, the door opened and Louie the Mooch walked in. Frank figured he was also there to reach out to Joey Lombardo.

When Louie spotted Frank, he threw a punch. Frank blocked it, grabbed Louie’s arm and neck, and rammed him into the wall. “You’re a dead man!” Louie hollered.

At that point Rocky Lombardo had seen and heard enough.

“Listen, the both of you!” he yelled. “I don’t allow fighting in my goddamn place! You know Jackie Cerone [Outfit underboss] is my partner here. Jackie don’t want any bullshit in here either. Settle your beef somewhere else.”

Frank knew he’d better leave before he ended up with even more trouble. He told Rocky he’d go to his brother Joey’s barbershop and wait for Joe Lombardo’s call.

Lombardo called two hours later and invited Frank to meet him at a tavern. Frank took his brother along with him. When they got to the bar, a bunch of guys, Louie the Mooch included, were outside having a cookout. Lombardo called Frank aside and questioned him about the incident with Louie’s stepson. He asked Frank if he’d hit the kid and Frank said no.

Just then Louie walked over. “You’re a goddamn liar!” he hollered and took a swing. Frank ducked the punch and smacked Louie in the head. Before he could do any more, Lombardo grabbed his arm. “Don’t fucking hit him,” Lombardo ordered.

Frank couldn’t believe it. Everything inside him said to give Louie a good beating and Lombardo was telling him not to retaliate. Louie came at him again. Frank threw Louie on the ground and sat on him. Lombardo kicked a brick over to Louie. He grabbed it and hit Frank in the head three or four times. While Frank was getting his head bashed in, a bunch of other guys held his brother to keep him out of the fight.

Frank had taken all he was going to, Lombardo or no Lombardo. The mob big shot must have sensed that Frank was ready to blow and called for a halt in the action. “Are you satisfied, Louie?” Lombardo asked.

“Yeah, I’m done with him,” the brick-wielder said. After Louie took off, Frank was given a towel to wipe the blood from his face. He asked Lombardo, “Why the fuck did I have to take a beating from a prick like Louie?”

“I had to do it this way,” Lombardo explained. “Louie came to me and said he wanted to use a baseball bat on you; I wouldn’t let him. He said he’d wait until Joe [Aiuppa] got back from vacation and get the okay from him. I didn’t want that to happen, so I made this compromise to get it over with now. Louie has no more beef; it’s over. Put it on the shelf today. You might be able to take it back off later.”

Although he wasn’t happy about what had happened, Frank accepted the fact that Lombardo’s decision had probably been the right one under the circumstances. In the world of organized crime, that was the kind of logic used to settle grievances. Had Aiuppa been in town, Louie might have been given more leeway in how he got his revenge.

Being harassed by the law, then being victimized in an unwarranted Outfit assault, didn’t help Frank’s attitude. Even so, he tried to stay on the straight and narrow. But then a situation developed that drove him over the edge and back to his criminal ways: He found out that a contractor was building another disco just two blocks from his place.

Had he been thinking clearly, Frank might have realized that the competition could be a good thing. Instead, he looked at it as something that would bring his whole world crashing down. He couldn’t let the new joint open.

When the building was nearly completed, Frank went into action. First, he put a combination of gas and diesel fuel into a fivegallon plastic container. Then he got a canister of dynamite, a cap, wick, and timer and headed for the new lounge. Placing everything in the center of the building, he set the timer and left. Half an hour later the potential competition was flattened.

It didn’t help, though. Frank’s business continued to fall off. After being in business for about a year, he sold the place for what he’d paid for it. He’d tried the legit route for almost two years and it hadn’t worked out. It was time to get back to doing something he was good at.

Frank was ready to return to stealing for a living. But before resuming burglaries and robberies, he needed to update his procedures. His first priority was to figure a way to neutralize alarm systems.

He got hold of alarm-system schematics from a guy who was in the industry. He learned how the alarms were wired into the businesses and police stations. A friend helped him develop a way to bypass the alarm wiring without interrupting the flow of electricity. Through trial and error, they came up with something that worked. Since there wouldn’t be a power outage, the alarm company or police station wouldn’t be warned of the burglary. That would give the burglars all the time they needed to work on the vault or safe.

It took nearly six months of preparation, but Frank finally had a crew together and was stealing again. Using the new technology, they pulled off a bunch of burglaries, hitting all different kinds of stores. One jewelry store job netted $150,000.

They also scored a bank vault once. The job took a month to plan. The crooks penetrated a vacant building next door to the bank, then dug under the foundation and right up under the vault. They drilled through the bank’s concrete floor and once inside, they went after the safety-deposit boxes, drilling out the locks and emptying the contents into bags. The take was over $300,000.

The only trouble was that a score that large required a kickback to the Outfit. It happened that one of the crew was an Outfit guy, so there was no way around paying the tribute. By the time everybody got their cut, Frank only ended up with around $30,000. Still, that was a good haul for a single job.

Frank split with that crew after the jewelry-store burglary. Without him, they went on to pull another major jewelry score. But soon after that job, Outfit hit men tracked them down. When they caught up with the crooks, the hit men cut themselves in on the score, telling them, “You’ve got a partner.”

The thieves weren’t happy, but they had little choice other than to comply. Not long after that, some of the crew started coming up missing and were later found murdered.

Frank doesn’t know for sure, but the story on the street was that these same crooks had burglarized Tony Accardo’s house. That was a big mistake, for which they paid the ultimate price.

When Frank was paroled from prison in 1974, his friends threw a coming-out party for him in Chicago. Tony Spilotro came in from Las Vegas to help celebrate his long-time pal’s return to freedom. During the festivities, Tony invited Frank to join him in Sin City. Planning on going straight at that time, Frank declined the offer.

However, nearly five years later, things were much different in Frank’s life. There was so much heat on him in Chicago that the cops were always either arresting or just plain harassing him. Often they put their hands right in his pocket, helping themselves to whatever they found there. The Outfit, meanwhile, had its hand in his other pocket. Everyone wanted a piece of his action. For Frank it was a choice of paying off, getting arrested, or taking a bullet in the head.

The next time Tony called, Frank was more than receptive. “Frankie, I’ve got a lot going and I need you out here real bad,” Tony said.

Frank didn’t hesitate. “I’m on my way.”