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Al Capone — Part 7
Page 64
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courtroom in a squad car in custo af
three detectives.
Tragically enough fer the Sck r
one of these detectives was a hard-bv..ed
sergeant named Daniel Healy. It was
Healy who had picked up the Schemer
and one of his henchmen, Henry Finkel-
stein, as they stood sunning themselves
on Diversey Boulevard. Picking up
hoodlums was a passion with Sergeant
Healy who thought that it brought him
good luck. Once he had walked into a
South Side saloon and helped himself
to an automatic belonging to Joe Saltis.
The automatic was in Joe’s coat and
Joe had the coat on at the time. “Oh,
youre a tough guy, with a gun, eh?”
inguired Mr. Saltis. Sergeant Healy
offered to return the weapon but Joe,
wisely enough, flatly refused. At any
rate no sooner had Sergeant Healy de-
posited Drucci and Finkelstein in a jail
cell, than an attorney appeared with a
writ of habeas corpus. Gut came Drucci
and his henchman, and into the squad
car, enroute to the courtroom. Drucci
occupied a rear seat, with Sergeant
Healy and one other officer. Finkelstein
sat with the driver. Enough different
stories have been told about what hap-
pened during the next five or ten min-
utes to stretch from the Rienzi hote! on
Diversey Boulevard to Melrose Park.
However, it is not important after all
these years what Mr. Drucci said to Mr.
Healy and what Mr. Healy said back
te Mr. Drucci, for the altercation came toa tragic end when
a bullet from Mr. Healy’s revolver buried itself in Mr.
Drucci’s heart. Instead of going to a courtroom the squad
car turned right around on the spot and proceeded to the
county morgue where Mr. Drucci’s body was propped up on
a marble slab.
Of course there was a great hue and cry from the
family and from the surviving members of the Schemer’s
gang, all of whom had become experienced in surviving
by now. Crying murder, murder, murder they rushed
to hire attorneys to see that justice was done, justice in
this case being the prosecution of Mr, Healy. At the
coroner’s inquest a few days
later four prominent criminal
lawyers spat many mouthfuls
of choice interrogations against
a simple story related from the
stand by Mr. Healy. In effect
it was that Mr. Drucci had
called him a punk copper and
had reached for Mr. Healy’s
gun, but Mr. Healy having a
longer reach, got there first.
And Sergeant Healy went back
to his job of picking up hood-
lums just fer good luck, The
smart big city boys bespoke
themselves out of the corners
of their mouths that Sergeant
Healy would get his in a very
short while, but at this writing
he is still up and about arrest-
ing hoodlums over in the tough
Valley district “just for good
Tuck.”
The funeral of the Schemer
was no shabby affair judged
by upper-world standards, but,
judged by the standards of
Gangland it was a terrible flop.
Whereas the last tributes to
Messrs. Weiss, O’Banion,
“Nails” Morton, Angelo Genna
and Samoots Amatuna had
been complete sell-outs with
not even standing room, the
final rites for Schemer Drucci
Here is Big Tim Morphy,
Chicago's
premier racketeser, and author of the
luscious campaiga slogan: “Vote for Big
Tim Murphy—He's a cousin of mine.”
Big Tim was slain in a gambling war,
recently climaxed with the assassination
of Alfred “Jake” Lingle, racketeer news-
paper reporter.
\
A A
Uttle beer sometimes.”
{36}
(1) Balpbh Sheldon, forcea by tnberculosia to retire as
leader of the Bouth Side gang.
shot to death by Joe Saltis. Foley, a Sheldon gangster,
was “a good boy” said his mother, “what if be did sell a
(a) John “Mitters” Foley,
: re played to empty seats. No politi-
> s wept copious tears over him; or
; over his casket to kiss him as had
ween done for Samuzzo. In the com-
paratively short parade to the cemetery
you couldn’t find a single automobile
draped, as at the Weiss circus, with
cloth signs urgin you how to cast your
ballot. Already decent folk had become
weary of these displays, and the police
had announced that squads would be
in attendance to seize gangsters. But
Al Capone was there. And so was
George “Bugs” Moran, and Maxie Eisen,
Frank and Pete Gusenberg, Potatoes
Kauffman, Dapper Dan McCarthy, Jack
McGurn, “Dingbat” Oberta, nkie
MacEarlane and Mr. and Mrs. Joe Saltis.
Mrs. PDrucci was consoled by Mra. Dion
O’Banion. The Big Fellow derived a
great wallop of the fact that here was
one of his enemies for whose death he
would not be blamed, and he came fear-
lessly, even blithely. There is no record
however that Alphonse wept any tears
on “Bugs” Moran’s shoulder because of
their mutual loss. The Big Fellow was
getting all the breaks just now, and he
was sitting pretty on top of the under-
world. One fine morning the Big Fellow
discovered that he had become famous.
His position had made him quite visible
to the great naked eye of the public.
For a time this attention may have
tickled his vanity, but there is “heat”
in the great naked eye of the public,
no matter whether you’re a king prizefighter, king
aviator, king movie actor, king author or just plain
governmental king this “heat” grows unbearable at times
and you will find yourself running everytime you see a king.
You run for the sole reason that you want privacy, you
want to live your own life.
ankling it away from the following crowds he had two
reasons. (1) To live his own life and (2) to live.
When King A! found himself in the Loop District after
walloping King George at the mayoralty election he looked
around carefully and was amazed to see that a lot of
Now when King Al began
little gamblers were doing a
great big business without hav-
ing a king who had a standing
army. This condition was ob-
served simultaneously by
George “Bugs” Moran and
Barney Bertsche. In their de-
sire to levy tribute from these
little gamblers, Messrs. Capone,
Bertsche, Moran and, g& little
later, the nine or ten Aiello
brothers of the North Side,
ushered another period of war-
fare into Chicago.
At the same time Bertsche,
Moran and the Aiello boya
further developed the scope of
this growing crime syndicate
by hooking up with Jack Zuta,
over lord of a chain of vice
resorts on the West Side. Jack
and his chief lieutenant, Solly
Vision, had been having a
rather tough time of it all by
themselves owing to the close
proximity of several of their
= pleasure institutions to similar
: dives owned and operated by
“Monkey-Faced” Charlie Gen-
ker, and another choice char-
acter, known as Mike de Pike
Heitler.
Mike de Pike had definite
Capone connections while Mr.
“Monkey-Faced”’ Charlie,
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