I captured every word on tape. My father reminded me that when you agree to kill for the Outfit, you’ll likely be killed if you back out. Outfit code states that if a guy working for you agrees to kill, then freezes, you have the right to kill him, too.
“We worked on that guy [Ortiz] for nine months,” he told me. “We had him one time [before] by his house. Jimmy [DiForti] was lead. He was supposed to shoot him, but he froze. Your uncle was backup and afterward I told him, ‘Why the fuck didn’t you shoot Jimmy and leave him there? You shoulda shot the other guy first, then shoot Jimmy, too.’ ”
He explained his role in the Half and Half Murder. He talked about the Spilotro killings and named most of the “fellas” who took part, remarking that if Uncle Nick flipped to the Feds, these were the guys most apt to be hurt by his cooperation.
My dad then asked me about a new tattoo I had on the upper right side of my back. It was a tattoo of a United States map trapped by prison bars, with a pair of handcuffed hands through the bars. At the time I was taped up with the old-school recorder and was wearing a sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants with no T-shirt underneath. He asked to see my new tattoo and, to my horror, reached for my sweatshirt. I grabbed the front bottom of my shirt and, hiding my fear, motioned to him that a guard was standing nearby. (Prison tattoos are technically against regulations.)
Calabrese Sr.: Let me see that tattoo you got on your back. Why you been covering it up?
Frank Jr.: I haven’t been covering it.
Calabrese Sr.: Yeah, you did. The other day you put your shirt on, blamin’ the, uh, girls in the yard. And I start laughin’ ’cause I spotted the tattoo then.
Frank Jr.: But you’ve seen it.
Calabrese Sr.: No I didn’t.
Frank Jr.: You seen it all.
Calabrese Sr.: When?
Frank Jr.: Yes, you did.
Calabrese Sr.: When did I see it?
Frank Jr.: When did you see it? You seen it when I showed you when we were sittin’ out there, I showed ’em all to ya.
Calabrese Sr.: Did ya?
Frank Jr.: Yeah. And remember I says, that guy Danny said, um, he goes, he goes, I want a copy of that? Remember I showed you the copy sitting on the thing, too?
Calabrese Sr.: A copy of that tattoo?
Frank Jr.: Yeah.
Calabrese Sr.: Why are you putting all those tattoos on you?
Did my father ask to see the tattoo because he suspected I might be wired? At that moment, a couple hundred yards away from the SIS office, I had to make a quick decision. If I was found out, should I make a run for it? Should I fight him? Would the other inmates give chase and attack me? Luckily, he was just curious about the tattoo. I kept myself covered that day as a chill went through my body, and a close call was averted.
After I reported back to the SIS conference room for one briefing, Maseth could see the guilt and fear etched on my face. After a particularly long and stressful recording session, an agent held out a small bag.
“Want a cookie?”
My face showed a combination of disbelief, exhaustion, and sadness. I thought to myself, I just spent five hours out on the yard setting up my father. Do I look like I want a fucking cookie?
Not all of the conversations were confrontational. Dad liked to brag on the wire about winning every intermob sit-down, including those with Butch Petrocelli over turf or disputes and which bookmaker and juice loan collector belonged to whom. In one conversation on February 21, he showed a fondness for his old friend Tony Borsellino and a disdain for Petrocelli, who engineered Tony’s death with Joe Nagall [Ferriola]’s blessing.
Calabrese Sr.: Tony Borce, Tony Borce, when he died he was fifty years old.
Frank Jr.: He was fifty when he died? He was that much older than you?
Calabrese Sr.: He kept himself in good shape, Frank.
Frank Jr.: I was arguing with Charlie one day he says, he was arguing about the date when he died.
Calabrese Sr.: Tony Borsellino.
Frank Jr.: Yeah it didn’t make sense.
Calabrese Sr.: … Uncle Nicky was married, we were by his father-in-law when he lived in Norridge. Remember when he lived in Norridge? We were by his house, we were sitting on the back porch. We had eaten that day, on a Sunday. I’ll never forget it. And we were talking. Him and I were on the back porch talking about knowing what was going to happen to Tony that night. And right around the time that we were figuring it, all of a sudden, it was real sunny and clouds were starting to come. And I’ll never forget that and I made a comment. I says, you think it’s God trying to say something?
Frank Jr.: And it bothered you?
Calabrese Sr.: Oh, it bothered me. I loved that guy.… You want me to tell you. I tried everything to save him. I tried everything. I, I sat and I talked to Ange [LaPietra], I says, Ange that guy’s a man. That fucking, fucking, that fucking what’s his name, ah Butchie.
Frank Jr.: Petrocelli.
Calabrese Sr.: Yeah Butchie. He [Borsellino] was too much of a man for Butchie. And he had Joe Nagall’s ear. Butchie had Joe Nagall’s ear, well then half of these fuckin’ guys, they’re stealing. Butchie was a no-good motherfucker.
Frank Jr.: Didn’t you say he tried to set you up, too?
Calabrese Sr.: Well, he tried to always have sit-downs. And we’d win ’em, every sit-down we had we won with them. They used to be called the Wild Bunch. It was Harry [Aleman], Jimmy I. [Inendino], Tony, and Butchie. They were four partners, but they were fuckin’ with almost everybody. They weren’t winning anything with us, they weren’t winning with Johnnie Bananas. The only guys they were winning with were nobody guys. We had a card game on Laramie on the South Side that Butchie started stickin’ his nose in, in another direction, almost fuckin’ up our game.… Butchie’s a big mouth. I’ll never forget one day I walked up to him on Twenty on Thirty-first. Remember where that fish joint was where you buy all the stuff to go fishin’ and stuff like the Canal there? It was like a little shack that sold fishing bait and stuff.
Frank Jr.: I think I know what you’re talkin’ about.
Calabrese Sr.: Yeah, you know where the hot-dog stand is on that, that Toots’ stand is now?
Frank Jr.: Yeah.
Calabrese Sr.: Right across the street from there, on the north side of the street, before the railroad tracks there, I was walkin’ down Thirty-first Street because I had to meet the little guy [Ronnie Jarrett]. And I seen him with his hood up on his truck. He had a black pickup with a camper back on it. As I’m walkin’ up, he made a comment. He say, man what’d ya, why did you walk up so sneaky? I says, sneaky? I’m just walkin’ up. I says what do you got? A guilty conscience about something? I never liked him. Fuckin’ hated him. We sat there and talked for a while and he’s telling me that he was looking for some pot for Turk [Torello]. No, because Turk was sick, he had cancer.
The Milan prison yard recordings took place between February 14 and June 1, 1999. There were eight extraordinary sessions, one every ten days or so. My father had implicated himself in the murders of Billy and Charlotte Dauber, Michael Albergo, Richard Ortiz and Arthur Morawski, John Fecarotta, and Michael Cagnoni.
Each meeting was planned by the two of us. At times I would pick the location; at other times it was his choice. While I knew how to push his buttons, I also knew when to back off. If I pushed too hard, he would catch on. One night when my dad wasn’t feeling well, we rescheduled our conversation for the next morning, which meant I had to sneak back to the SIS conference room early to tell the Two Mikes that there would be nothing that night. They would have to come back.
During one session, my father reminded me what the Outfit stood for, and described in a whisper his and Uncle Nick’s madeguy ceremony. The tape revealed that he harbored doubts about swearing allegiance to his Outfit bosses.
Calabrese Sr.: Did you read the real book, the first Godfather? Whoever wrote that book …
Frank Jr.: It’s pretty close.
Calabrese Sr.: They wrote
it very closely. So whoever wrote that book, either their father or their grandfather or somebody was in the organization.
Frank Jr.: So you mean like when … you and Uncle Nicky went? They actually pricked the hand and the candles and all that stuff, too?
Calabrese Sr.: No, no.
Frank Jr.: I don’t mean to laugh, Dad. It’s—
Calabrese Sr.: Their fingers got cut and everybody puts the fingers together and all the blood running down. Then they take pictures. Put them in your hand. Burn them.
Frank Jr.: Pictures of …
Calabrese Sr.: Holy pictures. You stand there like this. There are the holy pictures. And they look at you and to see if you’d budge and while the pictures are burning. And they wait ’till they’re getting down to the skin. Then they take them out of there.
Frank Jr.: What happens if you budge?
Calabrese Sr.: Then it shows your fear. You have fear. Stand there like that with your hands cupped like that. Then they say okay.
Frank Jr.: Um-hmm.
Calabrese Sr.: One guy at a time. You don’t see two up there. When one guy’s on it, the other guy’s sitting somewhere else. In the same place but in a different room. There’s a panel like that about nine guys.… And the guy that’s the second guy in charge is the guy that talks to you. Everybody else are the capos.
Frank Jr.: They just sit there.
Calabrese Sr: They’re watching you.… The guy that brought you in there is a capo. He is sitting at the table, too.
Frank Jr.: Him, the one that’s gonna make all the promises and stand by your side and everything.
Calabrese Sr.: I got to tell you a story.… I told him [my capo] I didn’t want it.… He says how come? I says because I feel that I would be strapped down and that if I wanted to do anything else I couldn’t.
Frank Jr.: Yeah.
Calabrese Sr.: He says to me, No you wouldn’t. I says, That’s not what I hear. I says once you belong. He said you always belong. I says I would rather do what I’m doing without having to have that. I says I don’t need that. I carry enough respect for myself.
Frank Jr.: Do you regret it now?
Calabrese Sr.: Yeah … [but] you know what I regret more so than anything? Burning the holy pictures in my hand. It bothers me … and the other thing that I would think would bother me is somebody give me an order to do what you says you had to do before you can get one of those, you know?
According to my dad, “the real [Outfit] model was not to hurt innocent people. In the beginning we went after guys who tried to hurt our people [Italians] or were stool pigeons. People got hurt when they didn’t listen to us. They got one warning, a second, but never a third. By then it was too late.”
Out on the yard, he postulated at length about the bloody gloves and how the delay of any conclusive DNA tests was encouraging news. He explained how Mike Ricci and Twan Doyle were providing confidential information about the bloody gloves and the status of the case.
On the March 27, 1999, tape, he was hopeful that there wouldn’t be any repercussions from the gloves:
Calabrese Sr.: So, evidently there hasn’t been anything.
Frank Jr.: Well, that’s good.
Calabrese Sr.: Now the thing that I’m happy about is it does not take that long to get a sample and go through the DNA?
Frank Jr.: No.
Calabrese, Sr.: Okay. So that means that they might be coming up with a blank.
Frank Jr.: Which would be good.
Calabrese Sr.: Which would be, I’m, I’m, it’s convincing me more and more. Again …
Frank Jr.: You saying?
Calabrese Sr.: I put it in God’s hands, Frankie.
Frank Jr.: You say the way the gloves are his, ya know, that sounds …
Calabrese Sr.: Yeah. Those are his gloves. He had ’em on still.
Frank Jr.: Then that’s good. And if he had, ah, and if Gus [Nick] had his gloves on the whole time, that’s good. ’Cause maybe …
Calabrese Sr.: They both wore gloves.
Frank Jr.: Maybe the blood dripped in the glove and didn’t get anywhere on the car.
Calabrese Sr.: I think it got mostly in his sleeve, Frankie. There was not a bloody spot, because when I, when I got there, there wasn’t a lotta blood there.
Frank Jr.: Oh, so see, okay …
Calabrese Sr.: The watch, [Nick] had the watch on, that had a little blood on it.
Frank Jr.: Okay. So …
Calabrese Sr.: Yeah, it had to be this way. ’Cause I kept the watch. I took it in my pocket.
My father was hostile toward my uncle because Nick bad-mouthed him prior to their reporting to prison, and arranged to use a different criminal law firm. When my dad befriended an inmate and made man named J.R., who had transferred from FCI Pekin to Milan, J.R. told my dad that Uncle Nick openly blamed him for the jailing of his sons. That Nick aired dirty laundry to someone outside the family angered my father. He was concerned that if my uncle bad-mouthed my father to Jimmy Marcello, the Calabrese brothers would be seen as a “problem.” At that point they would be expendable, resulting in Marcello having them both whacked, much like the Spilotro brothers.
Uncle Nick and I had spoken prior to my being locked up. He admitted he was tired of “the life,” and had been for a long time. Being a gangster had lost its luster, and he wasn’t getting rich working on his brother’s crew.
On the March 27 tape, I discussed my uncle again. We mentioned Nick’s stupidity for signing Fecarotta’s gambling winnings form. To gain my father’s trust, I pretended to side with him against my uncle.
Frank Jr.: And I mean that’s the other thing. I just think of all the stupid things he done. Look what he did with Johnny [Fecarotta]. He signed the fucking gambling thing.
Calabrese Sr.: Yeah.
Frank Jr.: How stupid could you be?
Calabrese Sr.: Out of town. I’m the one that told him, what’d you do? He said, I signed it. I says, did you know what you did? You committed yourself to being there. Oh, I never thought of that. I said, he made you sign it, why didn’t …
Frank Jr.: [Laughs]
Calabrese Sr.: … You tell him to sign it?
Frank Jr.: He knew him, right? He had his number.
Calabrese Sr.: Oh, everybody has his number. Frank … don’t you think they got his number now? If he’s doin’ like stuff …
Frank Jr.: Yeah.
Calabrese Sr.: They’re lookin’ at him [in Pekin]. What are you? Fuckin’ crazy? Watch this guy when he gets on the street. Watch him.… Keep an eye on him.
Frank Jr.: I know, I know.
Calabrese Sr.: Tell you something? I hope the best thing he fuckin’ does …
Frank Jr.: Is move.
Calabrese Sr.: … is move. Go back to Las Vegas where he wants to go.
Frank Jr.: Least then if he signs somethin’ now, he’s, uh [laughs], he could say he lives there.
Calabrese Sr.: Yeah.
Frank Jr.: I know. I been thinkin’ a lot of stupid things he did.
That’s what concerned me about the gloves. Because …
Calabrese Sr.: Frankie, do you know what the most, the, the stupid thing he did …
Frank Jr.: Yeah.
Calabrese Sr.: … that I can’t get out of my system? I forgive him for it, but I can’t—is take my family and try to turn ’em on me. I would never do that to anybody. There’s no way that I would go to a guy’s kids and put hate in his kids to ’em.
Once in a while, my dad would eyeball me if I was a little too specific about certain events. Whenever a question raised a red flag during our conversation, I would stare back at him, look him in the eye, and act dismissive.
“Then fuck it! Let’s not talk if you’re gonna act that way.” That would reel him back into the conversation. I couldn’t push anything; nor could I ask about anything out of line. I was on my guard because my father was good at reading people. Sometimes he’d challenge me or look at me funny.
“Why bring that up?” he
would ask.
The thought of him catching on constantly ran through my mind.
Before each encounter, Agents Maseth and Hartnett presented a wish list of subjects, some stemming from previous conversations. If my dad happened to drift into certain hot topics, Maseth might ask me for more detail on a specific murder or a particular act next time. At times their wish list was extensive.
I had no control over the recorder. They turned it on when I left the SIS office and turned it off when I returned. That was because in prior federal cases, guys turned the recorder on and off whenever they chose. The original tapes were valuable in court only if they were unedited.
After six months of nerve-racking intensity, my prison yard chats were starting to suck the life out of me. By June 1999 it was apparent to the Two Mikes that the mission was becoming too dangerous for me to continue. It was time to get me out of Milan. Six months of wearing the wire had drained me. I was beaten down. I needed rest. After my release from prison, if I was agreeable, I could return to visit my dad under more controlled and less dangerous circumstances.
The FBI’s next plan was to transfer me to a federal facility in Florida under the guise of enrolling me in a drug-rehab program. By November 1999, I would be eligible to be released to a halfway house in Chicago to begin to rebuild my life.
I wasn’t looking forward to the final taping session on the evening of June 1, 1999. The process had become so overwhelming that I was second-guessing my ability to hide my emotions.
My father and I spoke about letting go of the hard feelings between us. We talked about my working alongside Ronnie Jarrett once I got out. We talked about keeping in touch and which codes to use to communicate secretly. I went along with the conversation, feeling disappointed and guilty. Sadly, this conversation proved that Dad had no intention of keeping his promise to step away from the Outfit. He had big plans, and if I was going to be a part of them, I was expected to “earn” my place on the crew again.
Operation Family Secrets: How a Mobster's Son and the FBI Brought Down Chicago's Murderous Crime Family Page 19
