body or two might be hanging there to let the blood drip out. Drac also cleaned the floors, no easy task since despite all precautions blood inevitably stained them.
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Dracula had to scrub and scrub and scrub and eventually, when the stains got too deep, repaint the floor. Just after one paint job, Dracula told a confederate with a certain pride in his voice, "There's a lot of history in that floor."
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Dracula himself probably could not determine exactly how many killings and dismemberments took place in the clubhouse, but the most conservative estimates place the figure in the dozens.
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No one ever quite knew how old Dracula was, though apparently he was somewhere in his 50s, and he was more or less regarded as a sort of mascot. However, when the feds started nearing the truth about the slaughter setup, Castellano felt the heat and decided it would be best if his prize killer, DeMeo, ceased his activities permanently. DeMeo was whacked.
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This left Dracula in a peculiar position. He was indicted but never located. Authorities assumed that the murder mascot had lost his value to the mob, and that he too had been murdered and cut up in little pieces.
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Dragna, Jack (18911957): Los Angeles crime boss
He was called by officials and the press "the Al Capone of Los Angeles"something of an overstatement.
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Boss of the "Mickey Mouse Mafia," Dragna was never strong enough to control crime in California or in nearby Las Vegas. L.A. became known within the national syndicate as an outfit incapable or organizing the diverse criminal elements of California in any effective manner. Independent bookmakers saw little reason to seek Dragna's "protection," and refused to pay him tribute.
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When the eastern mobs decided to move the racing wire business into California, no serious thought was given to having Dragna handle iteven though California was his territory and syndicate rules required it. Instead, Bugsy Siegel was sent in. Similarly, the Chicago Outfit paid Dragna no mind when they moved in with their Hollywood rackets. If the L.A. Mafia and Dragna had been powerful, it would have been interesting to see Chicago stake its claim to everything west of the Windy City. As it was, Dragna could do little but acquiesce to the outsiders.
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Dragna was particularly galled when Siegel moved in, but a firm warning from Lucky Luciano (from behind bars in New York) was enough to warn Dragna off. Siegel's presence involved more than the gambling wire. He was also the advance man for the eastern mobs seeking to establish a gambling empire in Las Vegas, a big-time operation for which Dragna was also deemed unsuited. Essentially, Dragna became little more than Siegel's hired gun, and inwardly he seethed and wished for the demise of the handsome, blue-eyed intruder.
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Dragna was a man who thought small. The limit of his successful capers involved such matters as providing protection to certain illegal operatives and then sending in a confederate to shake them down. They would come crying to Dragna for protection and he would agree to do so, demanding, however, an extra payment. In at least one case the would-be victim kept insisting his tormentor, Dragna's secret ally, had to be killed, and when Dragna saw the victim could not be "cooled," he ordered the victim murdered. Dragna was a cheat, often victimizing not only outsiders but his own men as well.
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When Siegel was assassinated, the story made the rounds that Dragna himself had eagerly handled the assignment, but this was very unlikely. Despite his denials, Meyer Lansky pushed for Siegel's execution and would hardly have trusted Dragna to carry it off successfully. As near as can be determined, the Siegel assassination was carried out by a longtime Lansky hit man, Frankie Carbo, who had previously committed a number of murders in league with Siegel. Naturally Lansky's people spread the gospel that Dragna had done the job.
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Dragna rose to the top among the "home-grown" California mobsters only because he was the best of a poor lotalthough practiced murderers, they simply lacked the abilities of their eastern compatriots. He was born in Corleone, Sicily, in 1891, and first immigrated to this country in 1898 with his parents. They returned to the old country 10 years later, but Dragna came back to the United States for good in 1914. Within a year he was convicted of extortion and did three years in San Quentin. After that Dragna was arrested many times but was never convictedat least, in escaping punishment, he exhibited a true godfatherly trait.
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After Siegel's demise it might have been expected that Dragna would at last establish his power in California, but he proved incapable of curbing Chicago and New York's intrusion into California, and, more significantly, into Las Vegas. Dragna never was able to get in on any major action in Vegas, and his incompetent dealing with Mickey Cohen, Siegel's top aide, who refused to cut Dragna and other mafiosi in on any of Bugsy's old L.A. gambling revenues, probably sealed his reputation as a blunderer. The Dragna family tried to kill Cohen any number of times and failed every time to the point, it was said, that it became a Hollywood comedy epic. As a result, Dragna simply never rated highly in the national councils of the underworld and was allowed in only on low-level action.
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