Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster and Government Witness (9 page)

The Outfit guy gave Frank, and his friend Mikey, also known as Bushelhead, a picture of the man he wanted hit, along with his name, address, and vehicle information. The target had something to do with the Barber’s Union and was causing a lot of problems.

Frank and Mikey drove out to where the man lived and looked around. For the next week or two they observed him, learning his habits. They checked things out very carefully, because they didn’t want to hurt any innocent bystanders, especially children.

The guy they were after left his house at the same time every morning, so they decided to use a car bomb. On the morning of the hit, they opened the victim’s car and Mikey went to work with the canister and blasting cap, while Frank stood lookout. A little while later, the victim got in the car, turned the key in the ignition, and the bomb detonated. The roof lifted off the car and rolled down a hill. The two hit men cleared out of the area fast.

The next day Frank got a thank you and $10,000 from his client. It had been a good hit and the Outfit was satisfied. For Frank, his first contract murder was strictly a business deal. He hadn’t known the victim and had no feelings about him one way or the other. And the successful conclusion of the assignment was bound to enhance his reputation.

Frank also crossed paths with mob guys hanging around with Tony Spilotro. One night Tony called Frank over to his place. When he got there, Tony was playing gin with a tall slender man. It turned out the guy was Frank Rosenthal, also known as Lefty. Rosenthal was a big-time oddsmaker from Chicago who was living in Florida and was back in town for a visit. When the game ended, Tony had him stuck for about $30,000. Lefty had to wire Tony the money when he got back to Florida. He didn’t dare stiff Tony Spilotro.

The next time he changed M.O.s, Frank returned to doing residential burglaries.
Phil, one of Frank’s associates, had a list of all the coin collectors throughout the city and the suburbs. He knew their addresses, phone numbers, and even the value of their collections. Phil and Frank lined up a buyer for the coins, then began to steal them.

There were always three men on these jobs. Unlike the usual burglaries and robberies, the work car was left parked on the street unmanned. All three burglars went into the house and the driver stayed by a front window and served as a lookout.

The burglary of one second-floor apartment was particularly difficult. It was necessary to be extra quiet, so as not to awaken the old couple who lived downstairs. Frank and his men got into the apartment and found the safe. The three of them picked it up, got it to a side window overlooking the lawn, and threw it out. It didn’t make much noise when it landed, but it sank into the lawn about two feet. It took a Herculean effort to get it out of the ground and into the work car. It was well worth it, though. The safe was loaded with rare coins that fetched a fortune.

Another crew of thieves from the Grand and Ogden area knew about Phil’s coin-collector list and wanted some of the action. They’d helped Phil once when he was down and out. He asked Frank what he thought he should do.

“If you feel obligated to those guys, you should take them on a score. It’s your list and you’ve gotta do what you think is right,” Frank said.

“Would you come along with us?”

Frank didn’t like a couple of guys on the other crew and wasn’t interested in working with them. “No. There’s enough of you. If you decide to take them on a job, I’ll sit that one out.”

Phil elected to do a job with the other gang. They chose a place in Northbrook, an exclusive neighborhood. Phil told Frank he had bad vibes about that location, but went along with the plan anyway. They walked into a trap.

Frank heard later what went down. Phil was the first one in the door with another guy right behind him. The third one wasn’t even inside yet when the cops started yelling. Phil turned around and ran and the cops opened fire. A shot hit Phil in the back, passed through his lung, and hit one of the other burglars in the forehead. Phil got outside the house and made it about fifty feet before he fell over dead.

Frank never found out who tipped the cops, but he believes that if Phil had listened to his instincts, like Frank had listened to his, he might still be alive today.

Frank also got leads from people who sold jewelry insurance to homeowners, and his crew continued to tear up the suburbs. They knew what valuables would be in the house. And in the neighborhoods they were working in, they usually found a lot more than jewelry. People hid their valuables in strange places. Cash was secreted under clothes hampers and in clothing storage bags. Jewelry was often found stashed inside walls, in light switch boxes. Still, Frank and his boys always seemed to find the loot.

But in Chicago, burglarizing upper-class houses in the suburbs could have unintended consequences. One time they burglarized a house in Elmwood Park. They found jewelry and about $500 in cash taped to the bottoms of dresser drawers in the bedroom. Unbeknownst to them, however, it belonged to an Outfit-connected bookie.

The next day word was out on the street. Frank knew he’d not only better not fence the stuff, but he should probably give it back. He went to an Outfit guy he knew and explained the situation.

The mobster said, “Don’t you know better than to do burglaries out here in Elmwood Park? A lot of our people live here.”

“I wasn’t aware of that or I wouldn’t have done it.”

“Okay, I’ll take your word on that. I’m going to give you a pass this time, but consider yourself warned. Don’t let it happen again.”

Frank gave him all the bookie’s property and cash back and thought that was the end of it. But as Frank found out when the Outfit guy called him later, the burglary victim’s hands weren’t clean either.

“Where’s that five grand?” the Outfit man asked.

Frank was confused. “What five grand?”

“Our guy said you got him for five grand in cash. You only gave back five hundred.”

“That’s all the cash we got,” Frank insisted. “Why would I admit to the burglary, offer to give everything back, then hold out on you?”

Frank’s argument made sense to the mob bigshot. It turned out that the bookie wasn’t aware that the burglars had already admitted to the job when he made his claim to his superior. He figured the theft provided a good opportunity for him to keep some of the bet money and report it as a loss.

The bookmaker wasn’t killed, but he had hell to pay for quite a while for lying to the Outfit.

Sears and Roebuck bore the brunt of Frank’s decision to resume commercial thieving. Sears had a number of outlets in Chicago and its suburbs. One of the gang entered the target store near closing time and hid, usually under a bed, until all the employees had left. Having a man already inside the building made these relatively easy scores.

Frank was out, in a bar on Rush Street, when he ran into Barton, an accomplished burglar with a good reputation among other thieves. “I’ve got a pretty good racket going, doing high-rise apartments,” he told Frank. “I usually work alone, but you’re welcome if you want to come along.”

“Where are you working at?”

“On Lake Shore Drive, mostly. I’m getting a lot of tips and making some good scores.”

Lake Shore Drive was the “Gold Coast” of Chicago. Anyone with a condo on Lake Shore had to have megabucks. But Frank knew all about the drawbacks of attacking high-rises. The buildings had tight security, and if you were able to get up to the apartments without being spotted, you still had to get back out with the loot. There was only one way out, too—usually in an elevator. If the cops showed up while you were on an upper floor, you were trapped. In spite of the risks, Frank told Barton he’d go along.

Frank always figured that a man’s home was his castle while he was in it, and he didn’t particularly like to do home invasions or have to confront tenants. But at times, there was no alternative. On one occasion, the tenant came home while Frank and Barton were in his apartment. They heard him put the key in the lock and were waiting when he opened the door. Frank stuck a gun in the man’s face, took him down to the floor, and tied him up. The burglars took what they wanted and left. Afterward, Frank went to a pay phone and called the cops. He told them that a man was tied up in his condo and gave them the address.

Frank and Barton made some nice paydays hitting the highrises, but they knew it was only a matter of time before they got caught. Pretty soon the risks outweighed the rewards and they let it go.

Frank’s favorite car salesman knew what Frank did for a living. As it turned out, he was interested in supplementing his commissions.

One day the salesman asked Frank, “If I provide you with information for a robbery, how much would it be worth to you?”
“I pay my tipsters ten percent of the take. What have you got in mind?”

“Most of the down-payment money we receive is cash, usually several thousand dollars for each car sold. Whatever we take in on Friday or Saturday stays in the safe until Monday, so Sunday would be a good day to do something. Are you interested?”

“I’m interested. But what if we pick a slow week and there’s not much money? I don’t want to do a job unless I’m sure it’s worthwhile.”

“How much money does it take to be worthwhile?”

“At least forty grand.”

“Tell you what. I’ll make sure there’s at least forty thousand or more in the safe so you don’t waste your time. But in return for that I’d like to get fifteen percent.”

“You’ve got a deal. I’ll have my crew ready to move on short notice. You call me when you’re sure the money’s right.”

The salesman called one weekend when he knew there was about $45,000 in the safe. The gang made their move that Sunday.

The dealership didn’t have any alarms, making it an easy target. Frank’s crew pried open the overhead door in the service department with a tire jack, just enough to slide under it, then used winches from the service department to get the safe out of the office and into the dealership station wagon parked inside. After that, they raided the parts department and took all the spark plugs. They used the station wagon to transport the safe, then ditched it.

The salesman had been right about the amount of money in the safe and got his 15% of the cash. The spark plugs were separate and he wasn’t involved in that, so he didn’t get a cut of those profits. Frank continued to buy two or three cars a year from that same dealership and salesman. For a while he felt like he was playing with house money.

Along with jewelry stores, post offices, coin collectors, and car dealerships, Frank saw an opportunity with large supermarkets, which take in a lot of cash. He decided to go after one of the local Jewel Supermarket outlets and see what kind of score could be made.

Frank found a store he liked and watched it for several days. He learned that the last stop of the week for the money truck was on Friday. That meant by Sunday night the store’s safe would be pretty full. He cased the store and found out where the safe was located, then found an alarm box mounted on an outside wall.

The next question was whether the alarm was wired into the police station. To get the answer he pulled a night break-in, making sure the alarm went off. He took a couple of cartons of cigarettes to make it look like a kid’s job. Then he watched the store and listened to the police radio. There were no police calls, and no cops came. Finally, a neighbor must have reported the alarm and a patrol car showed up to check things out. Knowing the alarm wasn’t directly wired into the police station, Frank silenced the system by ripping the alarm bell off the outside wall.

Frank’s gang removed the safe from the store using a truck with a winch. Then they took it to Frank’s house where the doors were opened with a torch. The safe was bulging with money. It inspired the gang to hit almost every Jewel store in the city. Their take on those jobs was always between $30,000 and $80,000.

These were easy scores, with the exception of one night when the police stopped the thieves after the burglary. They pulled over the truck with the safe in it; Frank was behind driving the follow car. It happened he knew that one of the officers could be dealt with.

“I was just telling my partner that Cullotta would be coming around the corner any minute,” the cop said.

“Look, let us get the safe to where we can open it and see what we’ve got. I’ll give you guys ten percent of whatever’s in there,” Frank suggested.

The cops were agreeable. Two days later they received their cut.

It wasn’t only the cops who could be bought. For the right price, the system could be corrupted from bottom to top.

A local thief asked Frank to help him out with a burglary in nearby Bensonville. They got into the place and cleaned it out, but when Frank went to get the work car to load up, the police rolled by. They spotted the break-in and quickly more cops, with dogs, showed up. Frank ran away, leaving the car behind, and made it safely back to his house. He figured Phil got busted and contacted a bondsman to get him out. The bondsman told him it was too soon and to wait until the next day.

Later that same night, Frank drove his legitimately licensed car to a friend’s house in Elmwood Park, parking on the street out in front. The next thing he knew, the Elmwood Park police were there. They said they had a warrant for his arrest for the burglary. He told them they were nuts; it was all bullshit. But they showed him the warrant, arrested him, and took him to their station.

Eventually, the Bensonville police picked up Frank and transported him to their place. One of the cops tried to get a confession out of him. He said, “If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’m going to send the dog in here. We sent the dog in after your friend and look what happened. He gave you up. That’s why you’re here now.”

“You can stick your dog up your ass. If you think you’ve got something on me, book me. If not, let me go.”