I Heard You Paint Houses Page 15

  Frank Chavez was in a jurisdictional dispute with big Paul Hall’s Seafarers International Union in Puerto Rico. Paul Hall was in the AFL-CIO, and they wanted to represent the drivers down on the docks who carted away the ship’s cargo because they were on the waterfront. But because they were drivers, Frank Chavez wanted them as Teamsters. Hoffa and Hall hated each other. Paul Hall was one of those in the AFL-CIO that threw the Teamsters out, and now Jimmy Hoffa believed that Hall was trying to do whatever he could to bring Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters down. It was a bloody war. Both sides had their own hit squads.

  One night I got a call in Philadelphia from Jimmy to grab a flight the next morning to Puerto Rico to straighten a couple of matters out, and then to fly to Chicago and straighten a matter out, and then to meet Jimmy at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco at 8:00 P.M.

  Only in the movies or comic books do people say they want you to go and hit somebody. All they ever say is that they want you to go straighten a matter out. They say they want you to do whatever you’ve got to do to straighten a matter out. When you get there the people there have it all set up and you just do whatever you have to do, and then you’d go back to whoever sent you to give your report in case there was anything more they had to order to be done. It was like a report you might make in combat after you got back from a night patrol. Then you’d go home.

  All in one day I flew to Puerto Rico and took care of two matters. Then I flew to Chicago and took care of one matter. Then I flew to San Francisco and stopped at a bar for a couple of glasses of wine, because I knew I wouldn’t get anything to drink when I got to the Fairmont to meet up with Jimmy and give him the report. I walked into Jimmy’s hotel room at exactly 8:00 P.M. and he yelled at me for keeping him waiting.

  “I’m on time, Jimmy,” I said. “It’s 8:00.”

  “You couldn’t have been early,” Jimmy yelled.”

  Later that same year John F. Kennedy was elected president by a thin margin. The first thing he did was appoint his brother attorney general of the United States. This put Bobby in charge of the Justice Department, all of the United States attorneys, and of the FBI and the FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover. And the first thing Bobby Kennedy did was turn against the very men who helped elect his brother. For the first time in American history an attorney general committed his office to the eradication of organized crime.

  Toward that end, Bobby Kennedy formed a squad of lawyers and investigators within the Justice Department, and he put in charge of that squad his old right-hand man during the McClellan Committee hearings, Walter Sheridan. Bobby Kennedy chose the members of the squad himself. He gave the squad a very limited job to do and gave the squad a very subtle name: “The Get Hoffa Squad.”

  “Everything, and I mean everything, came as a result of that.”

  chapter fifteen

  Respect with an Envelope

  “When I was home working out of Local 107 every once in a while I would go around my old Darby crowd and around my parents. That was the only time that I had a chance to smile a little for the Irish Catholics because Jack Kennedy was going to be sworn in. Back in the old Darby neighborhood, hanging with my old pals like Yank Quinn, this new Irish president John F. Kennedy was a little bit of a treat. He was the first Irish Catholic ever to get to be president. Not to mention he had done his time in the war just like us. When I was only a kid there was one other Irish Catholic politician around, named Al Smith, who tried to get to be president. He was out of New York. Al Smith was the one that made the saying, “I’d rather be right than president.” Only at that time segments of the country were concerned that being a Catholic, Al Smith would take his orders from the pope. They say that’s why the man lost the election.

  It goes without saying that when I was around Jimmy Hoffa, I wouldn’t bother to say a word about Jack Kennedy that was good. I would not bother to even mention the man’s name after Jack Kennedy announced that he was going to make Bobby the attorney general. Jimmy knew even before that announcement that Kennedy’s election was going to be bad for him, but Jimmy and Russell and everybody looked at this announcement as a really low blow from old man Joe Kennedy to his old friends. Jimmy knew that it was just a matter of time before the legal action against him would get worse and worse.

  Jimmy would say things like, “That weasel Bobby knows full well the only reason he’s attorney general is his brother. Without the brother he’s nothing. Bobby was right there licking his chops when the votes were being counted their way. They’re the worst kind of hypocrite. Our friends in Chicago were drinking idiot juice when they decided to be suckers for that Hollywood glamor and that Frank Sinatra crap. I tried to tell Giancana. Rat pack is the right name. A pack of no-good rats.”

  Russell himself had no great use for Frank Sinatra. I know Russell was no sucker for the Hollywood glamor. Russell wouldn’t put up with Sinatra’s loudmouth wise-guy routine. Frank Sinatra behaved himself around Russell Bufalino. One night at the 500 Club in Atlantic City I heard Russell tell Sinatra: “Sit down or I’ll rip your tongue out and stick it up your ass.” If he had a drink in him Sinatra was an asshole. He’d put on a gorilla suit when he got drunk. He’d go to fight some guy knowing somebody would stop it. He was a bad drinker. Me, if I drink, I want to sing and dance. I guess he figured he was already a singer and a dancer.

  Bill Isabel told me that Jimmy was never the same after Bobby Kennedy crossed his path. It’s like that old story about the guy who keeps chasing the white whale. Only with Bobby and Jimmy they both were the guy chasing the white whale. At the same time they both were the white whale being chased. Actually, one thing Jimmy did love to do, Jimmy used to love to go deep-sea fishing. The International kept a forty-foot fishing boat in Miami Beach for Jimmy. It had a full-time captain and bedrooms so that six people could sleep on it. Jimmy asked me to go deep-sea fishing with him once and I told him, “I don’t go anywhere I can’t walk back from.”

  One night in 1961 when I was in Philly I had dinner with Russell. I know it was way before Easter because every Easter and every Christmas you would meet with the particular boss at a party and you showed your respect with an envelope. Russell had done a lot for me that year, and I had given him the Christmas envelope at the party, and I hadn’t given him the Easter envelope yet. In fact, it was probably no more than a few weeks after the Christmas party. The next year Russ stopped taking any envelopes from me. Instead, he started giving me gifts—like jewelry.

  On this particular night Russell and I were having dinner alone at Cous’ Little Italy restaurant, and Russell told me that President Kennedy was supposed to be doing something about Cuba. I already suspected from carrying notes—verbal messages—between Jimmy and Sam Giancana that something was going down in Cuba.

  Russell told me during Prohibition old man Kennedy made a dollar on every bottle of scotch that came into the country. He told me the old man controlled the president, and he was supposed to get the president to help them in Cuba and help get the McClellan hearings stopped and get the government off everybody’s back.

  Looking back now, I’ve got to think the old man told President Kennedy to go ahead on this Cuba matter to pay off Sam Giancana for helping him in the election. Cuba would be a way to show respect for what was done for them; to give the envelope. Kennedy would look like he was helping the people get back their casinos and racetracks and other businesses they had down there. They had everything—shrimp boats and legitimate businesses.

  Russell had a cataract problem and he didn’t like to drive. If he had to drive a long distance and I was in the East, I still drove him places because I had a fair amount of free time. Local 107 in Philly didn’t always have something for me to do. And if they did have something, Raymond Cohen didn’t trust me to do it. At 107 at that time I was more like a fireman waiting for the fire to happen. In Chicago and Detroit when I was there it seemed like there was always a fire. Local 107 got hectic a couple of months later.

  Russell would get in my Linc
oln and he’d doze right off. Russ was good with sleep. He was disciplined about it. It was like medicine for him. He’d take a nap in the afternoon. He’d try to get me to do it, but I could never do that. After the war I never got more than three or four hours’ sleep a night. The war conditioned me to get by on less sleep. You had to learn how to do that over there, because you were always having to wake up and jump off. Whenever Russell spent the night at my apartment near the Philadelphia racetrack, we’d watch the fights, and at 11:00 he’d go to his room and he’d go straight to bed. I’d be up just listening to the radio, drinking wine, and reading until after two in the morning.

  One night Russell asked me to drive him to Detroit. He got in the car and went right to sleep before I pulled out of the driveway. I had a CB radio and I kept an ear out for roadblocks or troopers. It was a quiet night, so I did 90 to 100 the whole way. When Russell woke up he opened his eyes and he was in Detroit. He looked at his watch and said, “Next time, I’ll take a plane.”

  For as long as I knew him, Russell liked me to drive him out west to the Pittsburgh area and visit his very close friend Kelly Mannarino in New Kensington. They would both cook the tomato sauce, but they called it gravy, and it would cook all day and sometimes through the night. At dinner you had to eat what Russell cooked and you had to eat what Kelly cooked. You couldn’t eat one meal without eating the other one’s meal. Then at the end you would never be too full to dip your bread in the gravy on your plate. Russell made a good prosciutto gravy. Kelly was no slouch either. It was like a contest. But the winner was always the homemade wine and the relaxation. They both had a terrific sense of humor and they would joke about what the other one was cooking. Russell treated me like a son. He and Carrie never had any children. I don’t know if I was a son to him or not. I know he liked having me around or I wouldn’t be sitting here now. I’d be long gone.

  The only time I saw Russ show any emotion was when Kelly got cancer in 1980, just before my first trial in Philadelphia. In six months Kelly went to 100 pounds, and Russell cried just looking at him.

  Kelly had a candy company. The giant chocolate-covered Easter eggs were out of this world, filled with coconut nougat or peanut butter nougat. I always sent those eggs to my lawyers’ wives when I was away in school.

  Kelly and his brother were partners with Meyer Lansky in the San Souci casino in Havana. When people think of the alleged mob they think of the Mafia or the Italians, but the Italian thing is only one part of the bigger thing. There’s a Jew mob and different other types. But they’re all part of the same thing. Kelly and Russell were very tight with Meyer Lansky, and Lansky got a lot of respect.

  Vincent “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo, the one that bet Russell he couldn’t give up cigarettes on that boat on their way out of Cuba, was with Meyer Lansky. Jimmy Blue Eyes was Italian, and he was Meyer Lansky’s best friend. They were like Kelly and Russell.

  I was introduced to Meyer Lansky once at Joe Sonken’s Gold Coast Lounge in Hollywood, Florida. I was walking in to meet Russell, and Meyer Lansky was leaving the table. I didn’t even talk to him except to meet him, but when I was in school and my brother was dying of cancer and the VA doctor wouldn’t give him morphine, Russell called Meyer Lansky from prison, and he got a doctor in there to help ease the pain for my brother. Meyer Lansky and Kelly and his brother had a lot taken away from them in Cuba just like Russell did.

  Russell had a lot of business with Kelly. And both of them, just like Angelo, were dead set against drugs. There were no drugs where they were. Kelly had a good heart like Russell and Angelo. Russell took good care of the poor people in his area; they got food at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and really whenever they needed it, and they all got coal in the winter. Kelly was the same way.

  I used to drive to Hollywood, Florida, with Russell for meetings at Joe Sonken’s Gold Coast Lounge quite a bit. Once in a while we’d fly if there was some emergency, but most of the time I drove us down. Joe Sonken was with Russell’s family. Everybody went to the Gold Coast for meetings. All the different people from all over the country met at the Gold Coast. They had the best stone crabs in Florida. Russell would meet there with Santo Trafficante from Florida and Carlos Marcello from New Orleans many times over the course of a year. I met Trafficante’s lawyer there, Frank Ragano. They loaned Frank Ragano to Jimmy to help him out with the trials he ended up having on account of Bobby and the Get Hoffa Squad.

  I met Carlos Marcello’s pilot there, too, a guy named Dave Ferrie. They later said he was gay, but if he was he didn’t make a pass at me. He still had his hair when I met him. They say he went a little nutty later on and carried a makeup kit around with him. You could tell he hated Castro with a passion, and he was very close to the anti-Castro Cubans in Florida.

  One morning a couple of weeks after the meeting at the Gold Coast where I met Dave Ferrie, I was back in Philly at the local and I got a call from Jimmy Hoffa, who told me to go check on that thing we talked about. That meant I should go to the pay phone I used to use and to wait for a phone call. I got over to the pay phone and when it rang I heard Jimmy’s voice, say “Is that you?” I told him, “Yeah.”

  He said: “I talked to your friend and he told me to tell you. Get your hands on a safe rig tomorrow and go down to the Harry C. Campbell concrete plant on Eastern Avenue outside of Baltimore. You can’t miss it. Bring somebody to help you drive. You’re going over the road. And don’t forget to call your friend.”

  I hung up and called Russell from the pay phone and I said to Russell that I had heard from that guy, and Russell said that was good and we hung up.

  I drove up to Philly to see Phil Milestone at Milestone Hauling. He owed some big money that he couldn’t pay, so he was doing favors instead, like he had me on the payroll but I didn’t have to work. He was an old time bootlegger. Good people. He was safe to get a truck from; he was no rat. Phil ended up doing time for trying to bribe an IRS agent.

  Phil gave me a truck and I got ahold of a young guy named Jack Flynn to drive with me. (Jack died young sitting in his car of a heart attack when I was back in school on a parole violation in 1995. I made a call and got his girlfriend a union death benefit.) We drove the Milestone Hauling truck to Baltimore and pulled into the Campbell plant. I’ve been down there lately to find it and it’s got a new name, Bonsal. It’s more built up, with a few more buildings, but the old stone buildings are still there. In 1961 when we drove in it had a little landing strip. The landing strip had a small plane on it, and Carlos Marcello’s pilot who I had just met at the Gold Coast, Dave Ferrie, got out of the plane and came over to my rig and directed us to back up next to some army trucks. We backed up and all of a sudden this gang of soldiers came out of a building and began unloading military uniforms and weapons and ammunition from their army trucks and loading it all onto our truck.

  Dave Ferrie told me that the war materiel being loaded was from the Maryland National Guard. He gave me paperwork on the load in case we got stopped. He told me to take it to the dog track in Orange Grove, Florida, outside of Jacksonville. He said I’d be met there by a guy with big ears named Hunt.

  We drove straight down old Route 13. I used to drive coffee down to Florida for Food Fair and haul back oranges. I used to like to stop for those Lums chili dogs. You didn’t get them in the North. It took us about twenty-one hours to get there, and we turned the load over to Hunt and some anti-Castro Cubans. Jack Flynn stayed down in Florida to drive the rig back and I flew back to Philly. Hunt later turned up on TV as the one in charge of the Watergate burglars, E. Howard Hunt, but at that time he was connected to the CIA somehow. Hunt also got some kind of operation on his ears, because the next time I saw him his ears were closer to his head.

  I drove up to Kingston to give Russell a report on the matter, and he told me that something was going to be happening in Cuba and that’s why Jimmy called me to drive the truck down to Florida. He told me that Jimmy Hoffa was keeping an open mind about the Kennedys. Jimmy was cooperating in th
is out of respect for Sam Giancana and out of respect for Russell, and because it would be good for everybody’s sake to take back Cuba from the Communists. Even if it would turn out to be good for the Kennedys.

  Then the next thing I heard on television that April was that President Kennedy had loused up the Bay of Pigs invasion against Castro. At the last minute Kennedy decided not to send American air cover for the infantry in the amphibious landing. I would have thought John F. Kennedy would have known better than that from having been in the war. You cannot have a landing invasion force without air support. The anti-Castro Cubans who invaded didn’t even have ships offshore to shell the land above the beachhead. The invasion forces were sitting ducks on that beach. The ones that weren’t killed outright were captured by the Communists, and who knows what happened to a lot of those guys.

  These Kennedys could louse up a one-car funeral, I thought.

  I flew down to the Gold Coast with Russell to meet with Santo Trafficante and some of the people. I never heard anything said by any of the people, including Russell, about any plot they had with the Kennedy government to assassinate Castro with poison or a bullet, but some of that came out about ten years later in the newspapers. They used to say the alleged mob only whacked their own. Maybe they figured Castro was a lot like them. In his way, he was a boss. Castro had a crew and he had a territory, and he violated his territory and he came into their territory and took over their valuable property and kicked them out. No boss is supposed to get away with that.

  I can tell you that some of the different people at Joe Sonken’s viewed old man Kennedy as one of their own. And in a way they no doubt viewed his sons Jack and Bobby as part of his crew.”