Joe Bruno's Mobsters - Six Volume Set (29 page)

In 1951, Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee and his five-man special committee to investigate organized crime took dead aim at Costello. On March 13, 1951, Costello was summoned to testify before the Kefauver Committee. However, Costello did not want his face seen on national television, so through his lawyer, George Wolf, it was agreed upon that only Costello's hands would be shown on television.

With a nationally televised audience anxiously watching, Costello, in his gravelly voice, reluctantly answered
all the committee's questions. He tried sparring verbally with Kefauver and his men, but it was obvious to all that Kefauver had exposed Costello for exactly what he was: a big-time Mafia boss.

Unfortunately for Costello, who was now called in the press the “Prime Minister of the Underworld,” the hearings did not do well for his image with his cohorts. By the time Costello got off the witness stand, Costello's standing in the Cosa Nostra had taken a big hit. Costello was now ripe for an even bigger hit. A hit on himself.

After World War II, with Luciano now in exile in Italy, Vito Genovese returned to the United States with the ambition of taking over Luciano's crime family. To parry this, Costello became very close to Mafia killer Albert Anastasia. Anastasia's hatred for Genovese went back a long time, and an internal fight started for control of all the mob rackets in New York City.

On May 2, 1957, Frank Costello entered the lobby of his apartment building near Central Park. Waiting for him in the shadow
s by the elevator was a hulking ex-professional boxer named Vincent “The Chin” Gigante, who was a close associate of Genovese. Gigante was sent there by Genovese to eliminate Frank Costello from the local crime scene, thus giving Genovese a clear path to the throne. 

Suddenly, Gigante stepped out into the light
, and he yelled at Costello, “Hey Frank, this is for you!”

Gigante fired one shot, which creased the side of Costello's head. However, because Gigante wasn't the best shot in the world, and also because Gigante broke the first rule of Mafia rub-outs: “Don't tell your victim you're abo
ut to shoot him; just shoot him, ” the wound was little more than a scratch. Costello was rushed to the hospital, where his wound cleaned and bandaged.

Costello was safely back home that same night.

When Gigante fled the scene of the shooting, he thought he had killed Costello. Finding out his mission had been a failure, the 6-foot-2-inch, 300-pound Gigante went into hiding. Eventually, Gigante was caught and brought to trial. However, since Costello, true to the mafia code of “omerta,” refused to testify against him (Costello said he didn't even recognize Gigante), Gigante walked out of court a free man.

(
Editor's note:
Usually when a Mafia killer botches a hit, he is then usually killed himself. For some reason, Gigante was never harmed, and he became the boss of the Genovese Crime Family in the mid-1980's. Go figure.)

For all practical purposes, this ended Costello's influence in La Cosa Nostra. However,
Costello was still able to pull off a huge Machiavellian move in order to get even with Genovese. In concert with Luciano, who was still in exile in Italy, and Carlo Gambino, who was looking to ascend the ladder to mob boss himself, they were able to entice Genovese into a huge drug deal. With Genovese knee deep in dope, his so-called pals tipped off the law, and Genovese was arrested on a narcotics charge; a very bad rap.

Genovese was tried and convicted, and sentenced to 15 years in prison. With Genovese safely behind bars, Carlo Gambino was made the boss of his own family: The Gambino Crime Family.

After serving 10 years of his 15-year sentence, Genovese died in prison, thus making Costello and Gambino quite happy men indeed.

H
is revenge-mission accomplished and tired of the day-to-day operations of mob business, Costello substantially toned down his involvement in the organized crime scene. Costello moved to Long Island, and he only rarely came into New York City for sit-downs with his former cronies, who sometimes came to him for advice, at an apartment Costello still kept at the Waldorf-Astoria. These pals included Carlo Gambino, Tommy Lucchese, and Meyer Lansky.

In 1973, Frank Costello died of a heart attack in a Manhattan hospital. He was buried at St. Michael's Cemetery in Queens. His wife, Bobbi, insisted that none of Costello's Mafia friends attend his funeral, or send floral displays to the funeral parlor.
             

In a display of utter disrespect, mobster Carmine Galante, after he was released from prison in 1974, ordered the bombing of Costello's burial site. When the dust cleared, both doors of Costello's cemetery mausoleum were blown completely off their hinges.

This was Galante's way of saying he was coming back and taking control of the Cosa Nostra in New York City; which he certainly attempted to do, with much cunning and killing of his own.             

C
razy Butch Gang

In the Gay Nineties
, Crazy Butch was one of the youngest criminals on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Legend has it that Butch was abandoned by his parents when he was only eight years old, and as a result, Butch lived on the streets and became what was known at the time as a “street urchin.”

One day, Butch was scrounging on the
streets looking for food to eat when he met a dog, who was abandoned, too. Butch took the dog under his wing, and he named the dog “Rabbi,” because the dog was so smart.

Butch began teaching Rabbi “tricks,” but not the usual tricks kids teach their dogs. When Butch spotted an old lady carrying a handbag, he would tell Rabbi to “Go fetch.” And Rabbi would do just that, by lunging at the handbag and tearing it off the arm of the startled woman. Then Rabbi, handbag
held tightly in his mouth, would run to the corner of Willett and Stanton Streets, where Butch would be waiting. Butch would get the contents of the handbag, and Rabbi would get himself a nice big bone, which Butch always kept in his pocket in case a mark suddenly appeared.

Butch and Rabbi were so successful in their stealing, other street
urchins started following them so that they could learn the tricks of the trade too. Soon Butch had his own gang of pre-teen and teenage crooks, which he called the “Crazy Butch Gang.”

When Butch accumulated enough cash, he
bought himself a huge bicycle; not only for transportation, but to be used as an instrument for his next scheme. Butch would peddle the bike on the crowded streets of lower Manhattan, followed by his gang and Rabbi. When Butch thought the time was right, he'd plow his bike into an unsuspecting female pedestrian. Instead of apologizing to the fallen lady, Butch would jump off his bike and begin to berate his victim, with remarks like, “What are you blind, or somethin'? You old bag!”

Almost immediately, a curious crowd would form a circle around Butch and his victim. While unsuspecting onlookers were scoping out the Crazy Butch situation, Butch's gang, ranging from 10-15 incorrigible kid
s, would slip through the crowd picking every pocket in sight. Meanwhile, Rabbi would grab his customary handbag, usually from the very lady Butch had knocked to the pavement. Then the gang members, and Rabbi, would scatter in all directions. They would meet later at their headquarters, a small third-floor apartment on Forsyth Street, to divvy up the profits.

As Butch and his gang started getting older and
bolder, they attracted the attention of Paul Kelly's Five Points Gangs, which ruled the same neighborhood where Crazy Butch did his pilfering. Apparently, Butch's gang had victimized a few relatives of Five Points Gang members, and it was rumored that one of the Five Pointers himself had been pickpocketed by the Crazy Butch Gang.

Soon, Butch heard that the Five Pointers w
ere out to get him and his gang. So, one summer night Butch decided to test how good his gang's defenses were in their Forsyth Street apartment. Not being the brightest of mugs, Butch crept up the stairs and then screaming like a banshee, he busted into his gang's apartment, firing away with a revolver in each hand.

His startled
gang members, most of whom were sleeping, were taken totally by surprise. One of the gang members, Little Kishky, was sitting on the window sill with the window open. Little Kishky fell backwards out the window to the pavement three floors below. It is not clear if Crazy Butch paid for Little Kishky's hospital expenses.

As the Crazy Butch Gang got older, to neutralize the Five Pointers who were constantly after them, Butch's gang joined forces with the 2,000-strong Monk Eastman Gang, which was constantly at war with Paul Kelly's Five Pointers.

This worked well for a while until Butch made the mistake of falling for a female shoplifter named the Darby Kid. Butch loved the Darby Kid, and apparently, the Darby Kid loved Butch too. However, the Darby Kid had a jealous boyfriend named Harry the Soldier, who was always packing heat. One day, Harry the Soldier caught up with Butch and shot him dead, which sent the Darby Kid right back into the arms of Harry the Soldier.

With the loss of their leader, the Crazy Butch Gang sp
lit up for good. Some went solo and others were absorbed into other Lower East Side gangs. One member of the Crazy Butch Gang who made it to the top was Big Jack Zelig, who was known by the police as “The Toughest Man in New York City.” Big Jack took over the Eastman gang after Monk Eastman was sent to prison for robbery, and Monk's successor Max “Kid Twist” Zwerbach was shot to death in Coney Island.

But alas, on October 15, 1912, Zelig was shot to death himself at the age of 24, while riding the Second Avenue Streetcar.

There is no record of what happened to Rabbi, the handbag-snatching dog.

D
wyer, William (Big Bill) - The King of the Rum Runners

He started off as
a simple dockworker, segued into bootlegging on a large scale and eventually became known as the “King of the Rum Runners.”  William “Big Bill” Dwyer made so much money, he was partners with known gangsters in several swanky New York City nightclubs. Dwyer also owned two professional hockey teams, including the New York Americans, and was the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers football team. However, in the end, when Big Bill Dwyer passed away, he died out of the limelight and flat broke.

William Vincent Dwyer was born in 1883 in the Hell’s Kitchen area on the West Side of New York City. Two gangs, the Hudson Dusters and the Gophers, ruled Hell’s Kitchen at the time. But Dwyer avoided joining both gangs, and instead
he took a job on the docks as a stevedore for the International Longshoremen's Union (ILU).

While working on the docks, Dwyer started his own bookmaking operation. After the Volstead Act was enacted in 1919 banning the distribution of alcohol, with the money he made from bookmaking Dwyer branched out into the rum running business. Dwyer purchased a fleet of steel-plated speedboats, each
mounted with machine guns, in case crooks tried to hijack a shipment. Dwyer also purchased several large rum running ships, which were needed to offload the illegal hooch from whichever foreign ship was supplying it.

Dwyer traveled to Canada, England, and the Caribbean to establish ties with those who sold him the liquor he needed to smuggle into the United States. Then Dwyer set up a system whereby his ships would meet the ships that were supplying him the liquor many miles out at sea. There the booze was transferred to Dwyer's ships, then quickly transported to Dwyer's speedboats, which were closer to the shore of New York City.

The speedboats were unloaded at the docks, which were protected by Local 791 of the ILU, of which Dwyer was a charter member. From the docks, the liquor was moved to several warehouses in the New York area. When the time was right, trucks filled with illegal alcohol, and protected by convoys of teamster members, transported the booze all over the country; with heavy shipments going to Florida, St. Louis, Kansas City, Cincinnati, and as far away as New Orleans.

Dwyer was able to smuggle large amounts of booze into New York City because he knew one simple fact: you had to bribe the police and the Coast Guard if you wanted to be successful in the rum running business. And that Dwyer did, handing over
hundreds of thousands of dollars to whomever needed to be greased.

Paying off New York City cops was easy. The cops who didn't have their hands out for graft were far and few between. However, Dwyer was especially skillful in recruiting Coast Guar
d members to look the other way when his liquor-loaded speedboats were entering New York City waters.

Dwyer's first contact was Coast Guard Petty Officer Olsen. Through Olsen, Dwyer met scores of Coast Guardsmen, “
Guardies” he called them, who might be willing to take bribes. Dwyer would bring these Guardies into the bright lights of New York City, where he would feed them sumptuous meals, take them to Broadway shows, and even get them a swanky hotel room occupied by the lady of their choice, whom Dwyer would pay for too. Once a Guardie took a bribe from Dwyer, he was informed that he could earn hundreds, and sometimes thousands of dollars more, if he would enlist other Guardies to help protect Dwyer's shipments.

Soon, Dwyer was making so much money through rum running, he was considered the largest distributor of illegal alcohol in the entire United States of America. Howe
ver, Dwyer had one huge problem which he needed help in solving.