The Mafia Encyclopedia (60 page)

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Authors: Carl Sifakis

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BOOK: The Mafia Encyclopedia
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Page 169
"'You got a paint company?' I told him.
"He said, 'Well, six weeks ago we started a paint company. Don't you remember I told you?'
"'I don't fuckin' remember you told me. What am I, fuckin' nuts? Now you got me thinking that I'm fuckin' nuts! When did you tell me you got a paint company? When I was looking over there?'"
Then Gotti complained angrily, "Four fuckin' years, I got no companies!"
Gotti remembered some of the hits Gravano had pulled off after convincing Gotti that certain mafiosi had been disrespectful of him and "talking behind his back." After they were killed their businesses, a construction company and a steel outfit, fell under the Bull's control.
Gotti now knew the Bull was playing him for a sucker.
In another world, with no FBI or other cops, just Gotti and Sammy, it would have been interesting to see how it played out. The green eyes syndrome certainly would have been the death of one of them.
Guarantee: Hafia's "protection" plan
There is no honor among thieves, that is, among thieves
outside
the Mafia. A Mafia boss can make a "guarantee'' to disparate criminal elements that a deal will be lived up to by all the conspirators. If there is any backsliding, the boss will invoke godfather-like and fatal vengeance.
In fact, this theory of guarantees is as credible as the Tooth Fairy. A case in point concerned a Mafia guarantee involving three fast-money operators in New Jersey. In contact with gangsters attached to mob circles in New England who had millions in hot stock on their hands, the three New Jersey operativesGil Beckley, Joseph Green and Gerald Zelmanowitzwere prepared to pay a small fraction of the stocks' market value and sell them at a huge profit. The key man in this was Zelmanowitz, who was known both nationally and internationally as a master at "moving paper." The deal presented all sorts of problems concerning personal trust, and it required a number of meetings with much incriminating talk. There would have to be transfers of cash in neutral surroundings and assurances had to be given that none of the financial paper had already been put on the market, where it would be likely to attract very strong law enforcement heat. There had to be guarantees that neither side would be cheated, conned or ripped off, sold bad goods or for that matter be held up at gunpoint or even set up for the police to "square" some previous charge.
Under the circumstances, the parties sought a traditional guarantee that all was well and requested the intervention of a Mafia figure respectedor fearedby both parties. This Mafia figure was to guarantee the deal for all and for this service would be paid 6 percent of all transactions. This was important money and a plenty high rate since the mafioso boss would probably do nothing more than oversee the agreements. However, it was understood that if anything went wrong, he would step in and promptly see that the offending party or parties were "hit in the head."
In this Beckley-Green-Zelmanowitz caper the man brought in was Fat Tony Salerno, then high up in the Genovese family and in later years the top boss. Within this arrangement Salerno became the "rabbi" of the deal, giving the transactions his "blessing" but ready to deal out damnation if it was required. At a number of meetings Salerno just sat there nodding sternly and collecting 6 percent. He would never do any more than that. Meanwhile the Zelmanowitz group handed over $60,000 for $305,000 in Indiana Toll Road bonds, and in another transaction some $20,000 as an advance for $2 million in stock that Zelmanowitz was to sell on consignment.
Then the roof fell in. Zelmanowitz dumped some of the Indiana bonds to a Newark brokerage house, but was later arrested when they turned out to be distressingly counterfeit.
This was of course a gross violation of the guarantees in the conspiracy and Zelmanowitz, out on bail, rushed to Salerno to complain. The Mafia bigwig was suitably outraged and ordered two offenders brought in for a meeting forthwith or their legs would be broken.
The confident Zelmanowitz was astonished by the offenders' lack of fear. Then they informed Salerno that the bonds had come to them from an associate of Salerno's in Connecticut. If the bonds were phony, they said, Fat Tony should deal with his man. Zelmanowitz was stunned by Salerno's rather quiet reaction. He had visualized an awesome mafioso arising in righteous wrath and having the offenders killed. Instead all Salerno said was that he would see that Zelmanowitz got his money back. He never got in contact with Zelmanowitz about the matter again.
Zelmanowitz was simply left twisting in the wind. Needless to say, when the paper expert tried to sell some of the stolen stock he was again arrested. Some of the stock had unfortunately been sold earlier and the law was on the lookout for the rest of it. This was of course, a further violation of the guarantee offered by Salerno.
This time Zelmanowitz realized the futility of contacting Fat Tony. Instead, he accepted a better guarantee offered by federal authorities and entered the witness protection program. Zelmanowitz testified against a prominent mafioso, Angelo "Gyp" DeCarlo,
Page 170
and in the course of that trial mentioned the activities of Fat Tony Salerno.
After that strange things happened. Gil Beckley and Joe Green, Zelmanowitz's partners who could have tied Salerno to any alleged conspiracy, passed into the world of the permanently missing. Salerno was brought to trial but eventually the charges had to be dropped. The guarantee seemed to have worked better for him than for the others.
Another gullible buyer of a guarantee was a West Coast racketeer named Frank Borgia who enjoyed "protection'' from Los Angeles boss Jack Dragna. Then Borgia found himself being crossed by racketeer Gaspar Matranga who was shaking him down. Borgia came back to Dragna, demanding exercise of his guarantee. What he didn't realized was that Matranga and Dragna were in it together. Dragna was not satisfied with a paltry 6 percent and he and his partner planned to split whatever they got in the shakedown. When Dragna saw that Borgia was so steamed up that he couldn't be cooled, he had no choice but to have him killed, a mission carried out by Frank Bompensiero and Jimmy "the Weasel" Fratianno.
A Mafia guarantee never comes in writing, and thus, the saying goes, "is not even worth the paper it isn't written on."
Guglielmo, Joseph: See Dracula.
Guzik, Jake "Greasy Thumb" (18871956): Capone financial brain
The loyalty between Al Capone and Moscow-born Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik was one they still talk about in mob circles.
Starting under Capone, Guzik was the trusted treasurer and financial wizard of the mob, and in the years after Capone's fall, he was considered the real brains of the organization, along with Paul "the Waiter" Ricca and to a slightly lesser degree Tony Accardo. Because Guzik was incapable of using a gun or killing anyone, Capone protected Guzik, and once killed a man for him out of pure friendship. Such friendship was not forgotten, and Jake Guzik to his dying day a quarter century after Capone's removal from the scene, continued to be one of the most honored chiefs of the Chicago Outfit, and some say virtually its boss.
During the 1940s and 1950s, when the national syndicate was dominated by what was called the Big Six, it was Guzik and Tony Accardo who flew east weekly to meet with the other heads of the organization: Joe Adonis, Frank Costello, Meyer Lansky and Longy Zwillman. It was an interesting ethnic division of three Italians and three Jews and told precisely what the Mafia's role in organized crime was at the time.
Guzik, a childhood pimp, had come into the Capone organization early on when, without even knowing the Big Fellow, he had saved Capone from an ambush, having overheard two gunmen from a rival gang planning the hit. Once a man did him a good turn, Capone embraced him and would never turn on himunless that man later first betrayed that trust.
In May 1924, Guzik got into an argument with a freelance hijacker named Joe Howard, who slapped and kicked him around. Incapable of physical resistance, the rotund little Guzik waddled back to Capone to tell him what had happened. Capone charged out in search of Howard and ran him down in Heinie Jacobs's saloon on South Wabash Avenue, bragging about the way he had "made the little Jew whine." When Howard saw Capone, he held out his hand and chimed, "Hello, Al." Capone instead grabbed his shoulders and shook him violently, demanding to know why Howard had mistreated his friend. "Go back to your girls, you dago pimp," Howard replied. Capone wordlessly drew a revolver and jammed it against Howard's head. The bully hoodlum started to snivel. Capone waited several seconds and then emptied the revolver into Howard's head.
After the Howard killingwhich required a certain amount of fixingGuzik was Capone's faithful dog, ready to do anything for him. Years later when Capone was in fading health, it was Guzik who saw to it that Capone and his family never wanted for anything.
Capone quickly came to depend on Guzik's advice in the various gang wars that developed as he tried to organize Chicago. Jake also served as the mob's principal bagman in payoffs to police and politicos, hence the origin of the nickname Greasy Thumb. Actually, the name was applied years earlier to Jake's older brother Harry, a procurer of whom it was said "his fingers are always greasy from the money he counts out for protection." Later, the title was transferred to Jake, whose thumb was much more greasy since he handled much more money. One of his chores was to sit several nights a week at a table in St. Huberts Old English Grill and Chop House, where district police captains and sergeants who collected graft for themselves and their superiors could pick up their payoffs. Also calling at Guzik's table were bagmen sent over from City Hall.
The only serious legal problems that Guzik ever had were with tax men, and he eventually did a few years behind bars. He handled incarceration with aplomb and afterward returned to mob money duties. At the Kefauver Committee hearings, he made an interesting if uncommunicative witness, pleading the Fifth Amend-
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Greasy Thumb Guzik (whispering to his attorney) was called in the 1920s Al Capone's brains.
He remained the honored Financial brains of the Chicago Outfit until his death in 1956.
ment on the ground that any response to the questions might "discriminate against me."
Never once was Guzik's position in the mob questioned, even though the Outfit was in many ways a dog-eat-dog crime family. All the big bossesNitti, Ricca, Accardo, Giancana, Battagliagave Jake complete authority on legal matters. They were not Capone, but they knew Guzik's loyalty was firm to the gang that Capone built. When Al Capone was released from prison in 1939, reporters asked Guzik if the Big Fellow was likely to return and take up command of the organization. "Al," Jake said, "is nutty as a fruitcake." From anyone else the remark might have been taken as a disparagement, but it was Guzik merely being honest; all the other gang members knew his devotion to Capone was unwavering.
Guzik died on February 21, 1956, fittingly, at his post at St. Hubert's, partaking of a meal of lamb chops and a glass of Moselle, and making his usual payoffs. He keeled over of a heart attack. At his services more Italians were in the temple than ever before in its history.
Page 172
H
Hams: Smuggling technique
The use of "hams," a gimmick very popular during Prohibition with rumrunners seeking to evade federal agents and the Coast Guard, is popular even today with narcotics smugglers.
Under pursuit, the smugglers simply jettisoned gunny sacks, or "hams," containing several bottles of liquoror several pounds of dopewrapped in straw. Attached to each ham was a bag of salt and a red marker. The ham, weighted down by the salt, would sink to the bottom. In time, the salt melted and the marker would float to the surface. When the marker emerged, the danger usually had passed. The smugglers then returned to the scene and reclaimed the treasured hams.
Some overly enthusiastic writers on the Mafia have claimed this method of smuggling is of Sicilian origin. In fact, there is probably not a waterfront area in Europe or Asia where the ploy is and has not been familiar for centuries.
Havana Convention: 1946 underworld meeting
The most important underworld meeting since the 1929 Atlantic City conference, the Havana convention in December 1946 was the last at which Lucky Luciano was able to exercise his full authority. Luciano had been exiled to Italy in 1946, but in no time at all got himself two dummy passports. He slipped back to Latin America and by October had gotten into Cubaconsidered a safe haven because of the mob's activities there.
Meyer Lansky had been put in charge of bringing in crime leaders from all over the country for the meeting. Among those present were such men as Frank Costello, Tommy Lucchese, Joe Profaci, Vito Genovese, Joe Bonanno, Willie Moretti, Joe Adonis, Augie Pisano, Joe Magliocco, Mike Miranda, all from New York and New Jersey; Steve Magaddino from Buffalo; Santo Trafficante from Tampa; Carlos Marcello from New Orleans; and Tony Accardo, and the Fischetti brothers, Charlie, Joseph and Rocco, from Chicago. Among Jewish mobsters present were, besides Lansky, Dandy Phil Kastel, Doc Stacher, Longy Zwillman and Moe Dalitz.
Much of the meeting concerned strictly Italian Mafia business. The rest, specifically the problem of Bugsy Siegelwho pointedly was not invited to attendhad to do with syndicate problems.
Much has been made of the appearance of Frank Sinatra, a popular young Italian-American singer from New Jersey, as an attendee. There was even talk that Sinatra, who flew in with Joe and Rocco Fischetti, the cousins of Al Capone, had been carrying a bag with $2 million for Luciano. Actually, if anyone was bearing cash it would have been Rocco Fischetti, even leaving aside the problem of fitting $2 million in a single bag. Not that Sinatra apparently arrived empty-handed. He was also said to have brought Luciano a gold cigarette case. Later, during one of Luciano's absences from his Naples home, Italian police searched the place and found a gold cigarette case with the inscription: "To my dear pal Lucky, from his friend, Frank Sinatra."
However, Sinatra was not there to take part in the deliberations. Luciano later described him as just "a good kid and we was all proud of him." Sinatra had come with the Fischetti brothers to be the guest of honor at a gala party. As such, he provided a cover story for the many Italian mobsters in attendance, pro-

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