25 years in prison. At that he was luckier than Eboli. The crime families' $4 million had gone down the drain. Gambino and the others blamed Eboli for the loss and suggested he make good. Eboli refused, under the illusion that the mob operated on some sort of luck-of-the-draw philosophy.
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Intense discussions were held on replacing Eboli, the somewhat errant boss of the Genovese family. Gambino saw that his drug-money losses would be insignificant if he could get a cut of what the Genovese family should net from their rackets. Gambino had by this time gained varying degrees of control over the three other New York families, and, with his own man heading the Genovese family, his position as de facto boss of bosses would be virtually secure. Gambino decided on Funzi Tieri as Eboli's successor.
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Eboli was not bright enough to gauge how perilous his situation was. In the early morning hours of July 1, 1972, the 61-year-old Eboli left the apartment of one of his many mistresses, in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. His bodyguard-chauffeur, Joseph Sternfeld, was opening the rear door of his Cadillac when a gunman in a red and yellow van put five shots in Eboli's face and neck at a range of about five feet. Eboli had not even time to grab the gold crucifix he wore around his neck. Eboli's bodyguard insisted he had hit the pavement at the sound of the first shot and had not seen who had done the shooting, a line that led to a perjury indictment. It eventually was dropped.
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The saying in the underworld was that Eboli was granted the full "respect" of a boss in his hit. After all, it was said, he could have been popped on his way in to see his lady friend, but it was decided to let him have his joy before dying.
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Egan's Rats: St. Louis gang
An independent criminal gang given a "new life" with the onset of Prohibition, Egan's Rats became the most powerful mob in St. Louis in the 1920s, working closely with the Capone gang in Chicago and the Purple Gang of Detroit.
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Egan's Rats was founded around 1900 by Jellyroll Egan, who specialized in offering his army of hoodlums as "legbreakers" to anti-union businessmen. As with other criminal gangs around the country, these activities sharply decreased just before World War I and remained only a minor activity in the immediate postwar period. Had it not been for Prohibition, it is highly unlikely that Dinty Colbeck, who took over on the death of Jellyroll Egan, could have held the organization together. Bootlegging meant enormous profits, more than the Rats had ever made before, and Colbeck emerged as the most important crime figure in the city.
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Like criminals elsewhere who had once operated on the benevolence of politicians, Colbeck now became the dispenser of enormous bribes to crooked politicians and police so that his enterprises could operate without harassment. Dinty operated much like the cock-of-the-walk, approaching a policeman on the street, pulling out a huge wad of bills, and asking, "Want a bribe, officer?"
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Dinty remained all his life a multi-purpose thief. He took his gang into safecracking and jewelry thefts, using Red Rudensky, a gang member who was the best safecracker of the 1920s. Colbeck also loaned out his men to other criminal gangs when they needed "out of town talent." There is considerable speculation that the Rats supplied some of the killers in the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Another Rat, Leo Brothers, may have been the murderer of Chicago newsman Jake Lingle or may simply have been loaned out to Capone who felt he needed a "fall guy" to take the heat off the case.
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Just as Prohibition gave Egan's Rats a second crime life, Repeal took it away. The gang lost its importance when it could not adjust to the post-bootlegging era. It was left to others to organize gambling in St. Louis, and Mafia elements, greatly factionalized in the city previously, came together in narcotics activities. Dinty Colbeck himself was assassinated in the late 1930s by rival mobsters, and the last of the Rats scurried off to join other criminal combinations in other cities.
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Egg, Break an: See Whack.
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Eighth of the Eighth: Crime spawning area
In the early part of the 20th century, there was probably no more fertile breeding ground in America for the overlords of organized crime than a tiny waterfront district in Brooklyn. Called the "eighth of the eighth," a phrase for the Eighth Election District of the Eighth Assembly District, the area was overstocked in saloons, vile brothels, dreary tenements and other unsavory dens, and was labeled by one crime historian "a depraved, crime-ridden Barbary Coast of the East." More important, it was a veritable institution of higher education for a cadre of teenagers who emerged as top leaders of organized crime. The roster from just this single district included:
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Johnny Torrio, the mastermind who first brought a high degree of unity to the warring mobs of Chicago in the 1920s.
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Al Capone, Torrio's successor and certainly the most successful crime boss to rule a major American city.
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Frankie Yale, the national head of Unione Siciliane and, for a time until his assassination in 1927, the most powerful gangster in Brooklyn.
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