daughters out on the street to make money to cover their juice payments.
|
Buccieri's awesome reputation did not come from threats alone. He was near to being the most monstrous killer in the Chicago Outfit, and that covered a lot of bloodletters. Evidence of his dedication to the art of murder is offered in tapes collected in a wiretapping by federal agents of conversations between Buccieri and a group of his boys. While planning an underworld hit in a rented house in Miami in 1962, Buccieri nostalgically recounted some of his more gruesome kills, especially the 1962 torture-murder of William "Action" Jackson, a 300-pound collector for the mob's loan-sharking operations. Believed guilty of two major offensesappropriating some of the mob's funds for his personal use and, as Buccieri put it, being a "stoolpigeon for the 'G'"Jackson was hustled to the "Plant," a mob locale with a large meat hook on the wall. With Buccieri were James "Turk'' Torello, Jackie ''the Lackey" Cerone, Mad Sam De Stefano and Dave Yaras, credited in recent years as the most prominent Jewish mobster in the Chicago organization. They started off by shooting Jackson "just once in the knee." Then they stripped him naked, bound his hands and feet and proceeded, in Buccieri's words, "to have a little bit of fun." They worked Jackson over with ice picks, baseball bats, and a blow torch. Next Buccieri employed an electric cattle prod. "You should have heard the prick scream," Buccieri recalled. His audience convulsed in laughter as he regaled them with details of what happened next.
|
A sober moment was then provided by Torello who said, "I still don't understand why he didn't admit he was a pigeon." Buccieri's response was, "I'm only sorry the big slob died so soon." Considering the fact that Jackson's torture on the meat hook lasted two days, Buccieri's regrets were worth another round of laughter. Buccieri had taken photographs of Jackson's mutilated body and passed them around to other mob workers as a reminder of the perils of breaking "Family" trust.
|
Buccieri had graduated into the Chicago syndicate from the 42 Gang, a notorious Chicago juvenile gang. He was a follower of another 42er, Sam Giancana, who rose to the top post in the outfit. Giancana, who always appreciated first-rate murderers, made Fifi his personal executioner as well as a powerful ally during the power struggle for mob leadership.
|
If the authorities thought they might get at Giancana through Buccieri, they were always disappointed. Buccieri would never talk. Even the press found Buccieri's stubbornness a source of amusement. Once federal probers tried to elicit intelligence about the mob from Fifi and quizzed him about his brother Frank, also a syndicate stalwart. They even pursued the fact that Fifi's brother had a girlfriend who had done duty as a Playboy bunny. She was a nude centerfold in
Playboy
magazine, and Frank had given her a horse as a present. Fifi's response, still cited with approbation in the underworld, was, "I take the Fifth on the horse and the broad."
|
Cancer claimed Fifi in 1973, two years before Giancana's assassination. Many claim no mobster would have dared take out Giancana were Fifi still alive. Retribution in the form of a Buccieri-led bloodbath would have been too gruesome, even by Chicago standards.
|
Buchalter, Louis: See Lepke, Louis.
|
Buckwheats: Painful murder methods
Steve Franse died buckwheats. That meant that Vito Genovese ordered that his one-time trusted aide had to die, but not simply die painlessly. Genovese wanted him to suffer. Mob murders are seldom buckwheats, being instead simple business matters. An exception is made, however, for murders of example, such as in the case of informers, or mobsters who hold out on gang revenues, or, in some cases, loan shark victims whose painful demise could inspire other debtors to pay up promptly.
|
Franse's sin involved an affair of the heart. Genovese had left America to avoid a murder rap and ordered Franse to watch over some of his funds and his wife. Franse did a good job on the money, but Genovese's wife strayed, and all the worse in a manner involving both sexes. Genovese was outraged. Franse had betrayed him by not stopping it, and for this he died hard.
|
Joe Valachi told what happened. Two hit men grabbed Franse in a restaurant kitchen. While one got him in an armlock the other started beating him in the mouth and belly. "He gives it to him good. It's what we call 'buckwheats,' meaning spite-work."
|
After Franse collapsed to the floor, the killers wrapped a chain around his neck; when he started to struggle as the chain was tightened, one of his assailants stomped on his neck to hold him down until the job was finished.
|
Old Joe Profaci of the Brooklyn crime family was known as a vindictive sort who often had victims die hard. One Profaci gunman was quoted as telling a potential victim: "Sometimes guys really suffer, you know? I once saw a guy get shot right up the ass. Man, did
he
suffer."
|
When the killers of Murder, Inc., particularly hated a victim they would ice pick him and shoot him several times before burying him in the sand along a beach or a swampwhile he was still breathing.
|
Undoubtedly the most buckwheats-oriented family in the country was the Chicago Outfit. Once a showgirl
|
|
