It must rank among the greatest compliments the late Mario Puzo, author of The Godfather, ever received. A court in Chicago recently heard Frank Calabrese Sr commend the description in the novel of a mafia initiation ceremony as ”very close” to the truth.
Coming from Calabrese, that was high praise indeed. He is alleged to be a head of one of Chicago’s most notorious crime syndicates, the Outfit. The plaudit came in a secretly taped conversation in which the 70-year-old alleged mobster describes the elaborate ritual used to welcome a member into the inner circle.
A member is ”made” only after he has committed at least one murder, he says. He is then taken by the head of his street crew into a room where he finds a knife, a gun, a candle and a card bearing a religious image all laid out before him. His fingers are cut and the card is set alight and thrown burning into his hand. As the flames rise up, the new member chants three times: ”If I give up my brothers may I burn in hell like this holy picture.”
In what is one of the largest mafia trials in United States history, 14 co-defendants from the Outfit were originally indicted. Two have died since the FBI swoop began, and seven pleaded guilty. The five others now on trial include Frank Calabrese Snr, Joey ”the Clown” Lombardo and a former Chicago police officer, Anthony ”Twan” Doyle. Between them they are accused of running a crime syndicate responsible for 18 unsolved murders.
At heart this is a case about betrayal. Two weeks ago Calabrese sat in court listening to the testimony of Frank Calabrese Jnr, his son. Last week he heard Nicholas Calabrese, his brother. Both are star witnesses for the prosecution.
In one poignant moment, the court was played a tape of Calabrese Snr talking to his son in jail, where they were serving time. He grows sentimental and says: ”I think what happened in here is you and I got to understand each other a little bit.” Unbeknown to the father, Frank Jnr was wearing hidden recording equipment.
The jury has had a course in mob etiquette, codes and morality. The court has been filled with the rich vocabulary of the mob. There are the nicknames: Calabrese is Frankie ”Breeze”; there is a witness called ”Richie the Rat” Mara and the late capo di tutti capi is Joey ”Doves” Aiuppa. Other codes include ”Scarpe Grande” — big shoes — meaning the FBI. A ”sit-down” is when disputes are settled in darkened rooms. Order is strictly imposed, with murders having to be cleared by a capo in almost military style.
There have been moments of levityÂÂ, such as when Nicholas Calabrese told the jury of pouring cologne over $250 000 of buried bank notes that had started to rot. But there have also been descriptions of cruelty, intimidation and cold-blooded killing. Businesses slow to pay ”street taxes” are given a warning: a puppy head is put through the door or a dead rat strung up in the window. Should that fail to work, bombs are planted.
And then there are the murders. Nicholas Calabrese, giving testimony in exchange for a lighter sentence, has taken the jury through many of the 14 killings he claims the Calabrese brothers and others in the Outfit arranged.
The first ”flattening” came in 1970.
”We gotta put somebody in a hole,” Frank Snr allegedly told his brother. The brothers strangled the victim, slit his throat and then buried him.
The most notorious killing was of the Spilotro brothers, an incident used in the film Casino. Anthony Spilotro, who ran the Outfit’s Las Vegas operation, was bringing too much heat from the FBI. He was lured to Chicago on the pretext that his brother would be ”made” as a member of the inner circle, but instead of the initiation the pair were strangled and beaten to death.
Behind it all is a twisted sense of morality. In the tapes Frank Snr never expresses remorse for killings. But he does say he regrets burning the holy pictures on his hand during the initiation. ”That bothers me,” he tells his son.
Anthony Spilotro was killed in part because of his affair with the wife of a casino executive. Frank Snr shares his reaction when he learned of the tryst: ”Nail went in the coffin, right then.”
Loyalty to the family is supreme. Frank Jnr told the court that his father once told him: ”Your family, the Outfit family, came before your blood family. It also came before God.”
That is the commandment that the two main witnesses have broken. Over three weeks the elder Calabrese has smiled broadly as he has listened to his brother and son rat on him. From time to time he has chuckled. Asked how his client was feeling, Calabrese’s lawyer said: ”He’s happy to see his son.” — Â