sor, Joe Profaci, who was known to his underlings as a man of exceedingly "short arms"not the sort to part easily with a buck. Waiters were lucky to get 10 percent from Profaci, but, on the other hand, he gave a fortune to the collection plate of the Catholic Church.
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So too did Chicago's psychopathic Sam Giancana, who was never known to put less than several hundred dollars in the envelope at mass. Giancana was not so stupid as to think he was buying himself absolution. He did it for his very devout wife. When his wife died, he donated a communion rail for St. Bernardine Church in Forest Park, Illinois, in her memory. It cost, the FBI reported, $13,000.
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One reason mobsters spend so much, Teresa reported, was that they figure the money will keep coming. Teresa himself made something like $10 million in a 28-year crime career, but also spent "all I made like there was no tomorrow."
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At the top of the crime ladder a surprising number of bigwigs feel no compulsion to spend big, feeling they have no need to prove themselves to others or even to themselves any more. Lucky Luciano dropped the loud dress, which marked, for example, members of Chicago's Capone Mob, in favor of the refined attire of a gentleman. It was no easy task. His mentor Arnold Rothstein once told him, "I want you to wear something conservative and elegant, made by a genteel tailor."
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Luciano was taken aback. "What the hell are you talkin' about?" he replied. "My tailor's a Catholic."
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Rothstein curbed Luciano's extravagant spending habits as well, explaining to him that the very rich don't overspend and overtip to get respect. A wageearner group ever after disappointed with Luciano's spending style was Polly Adler's hookers. If a prostitute thought her sojourn to the Waldorf Towers for a session with Luciano was going to pay her much more than the then going rate of $20, she was sadly disappointed. At most Lucky would slip a $5 bonus in her brassiere as she dressed. "I didn't want to do nothin' different," he said. "What do you think I was gonna dospoil it for everybody?"
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Meyer Lansky would have been hard to spot as an organized crime big spender. Before his flight to Israel, home for Lansky was a modest three-bedroom ranchstyle house in Hallandale, Florida. He walked the family dog (described by some biographers as the ugliest dog in captivity), rented Chevrolets and spent most nights at home with his wife. He never flaunted his wealth, estimated to be as much as $400 million, because he always thought back to his associates who didLuciano, Frank Costello, Vito Genovese, Louis Lepke, Joey Adonis, Bugsy Siegel, Mickey Cohen and Albert Anastasiaand observed they all wound up imprisoned, deposed, deported, executed or assassinated. Lansky could be a handsome tipper however, at least when dining alone or with friends. Whenever he dined with his wife, he was careful to keep his tipping moderate.
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Probably the greatest joy for a mob spender occurs on a visit back to the old country, generally to an impoverished village. In 1927, Frank Costello, already a racket millionaire, returned to the village of Lauropoli, an obscure hill town in Calabria, Italy. Following obligatory services in the village church, the entire populace, man, woman and child, formed a line on the church steps to greet Don Francesco Castiglia. Costello's biographer Leonard Katz tells the story in
Uncle Frank:
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 | | One by one Frank's sister introduced them, and for each she had a tale of woe.
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| | "His wife needs an operation."
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| | "Five thousand lire. Next."
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| | "He wishes to send his son to school to learn a trade."
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| | "Three thousand lire. Next."
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| | "A landslide destroyed his crops."
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