It’s the morning of February 14, 1929. Big Al already has visited the Dade County District Attorney’s office as a
good will gesture, and when he gets back to his house on Miami Beach there’s a phone call waiting.
“Ah, Mr. Capone? I’m afraid dare’s big a little…er…mix-up at dat place, da you-know-where.”
“What place? Where?”
“You know, da garage on Nort’ Clark Street, what we talked about at Goetz’s place in Wisconsin back in
October. When Serritella and Pacelli and Winkeler and dem guys was dare. We did some huntin’ an’ fishin’, ya
remember? Da food was catered by dat kid Winkeler knew, What’s-’is-name, Bolton or somethin’.”
“Okay, okay. What about it?”
“Well, I understan’ dey missed Moran.”
“What? Moran’s the guy I wanted!”
“I’m afraid it’s a little, ah, worse’n dat…”
“Whaddaya mean worse!”
“I guess when we took a crack Moran and dat udder guy comin’ outa da nightclub last month, he went an’
called a meeting of his big wigs, sorta like we figured he might. So we sticks Bolton and some guy across da
street…”
“And? And?”
“Well, Sir, you remember dat you left da job to Mr. Nitti, and after youse left he gave it to Willie Heeney, and
Mr. Heeney gave it to Goetz and da American boys—da ones what whacked Yale last summer, when everbody
thought Jack done it, ’cuz he growed up in Brooklyn, ya know, and dey figured…”
“Get to the point, fer godsake!”
“Okay, well, ah, it seems dat Goetz an' none a dem Americans knowed what Moran looked like, which was da
way you wanted it, but da Bolton kid did know, and he was da main lookout, and he thought he saw Moran go
inside, but da weather an’ da coats turned up an’ all, but it waddn’t Moran…”
“So that the hell happened, you idiot?”
“So’s what happened was when da boys got dare in da phony squads, nobody would admit he was Moran, who
hadn’t come yet, so dey hosed down alla dem. You know dat Goetz, a real crazy guy. Leavin’ it up ta him…”
“Killed them all? Jesus Christ! How many was there?”
“Da newspapers are sayin’ five, not countin’ some doc and a mechanic.”
“I said, how many—like the grand total, you moron!”
“Er, seven. But dat’s only if ya count…”
“SEVEN! That’s a goddam bloodbath! A regular massacre!”
“Ahm afraid dat’s what da papers are callin’ it, Sir.”
“And on St. Valentine’s Day? Why the hell they have to pick St. Valentine’s Day, for godsake? Why not the
day before or the day after, or on the weekend!”
“I guess day jus’ thought it was like any ol’ Thursday. I mean, it wasn’t like a real officious holiday or nothin’.
Everbody has ta work an’ all. An’ I unnerstand his guys got udder things goin’ on weekends an’ all. An’ I guess
Burke was maybe a little drunk, or somethin’, like he mostly is, cuz he sideswiped a delivery truck.”
“Don’t tell me he killed the driver, too! That would make it…”
“Oh, no, Sir! He jus’ looked at da dent an’ told him ta keep goin’. I mean, it wuddn’t like a big deal or nothin’.
And besides, a shot outside woulda…”
“Yeah, yeah. Okay, get off the goddam phone or they’ll pin this whole mess on me!” [Click!]
And with that, Mr. Capone, remembering the great flap over the inadvertent killing of that state prosecutor, must
have sunk into a deep depression and thought, “If you want anything done right, you got to do it yourself!”
On the other hand, it’s just as likely that Big Al blew his top, screamed obscenities into the telephone, started breaking
things and kicking furniture, scared off all the housekeepers, and may have soiled himself before some bodyguards
calmed him; and finally poor Mae decided it was safe to venture downstairs and fix him a drink.
Which brings up a point that nobody so far has had the courage to investigate: If Al had syphilis, how come Mae didn't
get it? Surely Al…
But I’m getting off the track.
THE IMPORTANT THING IS:
Most of what we now know about the St. Valentine's Day Massacre did not come from the
countless books, articles and documentaries that simply repeat the standard newspaper accounts,
or from the documentary-style Jason Robards movie:
•The Massacre was not a deliberately ironic “Valentine” gift from Capone, but in fact had been called by
Moran himself, probably because of a recent attempt on his life outside Chez Paree nightclub (why else have
lookouts watching the S-M-C Cartage Company garage for a month?);
•The hijacked whiskey story was based entirely on a wild guess by a federal Prohibition official, later fired,
who had heard of an unrelated hijacking two weeks earlier, who initially blamed police, and who failed to note that
Moran's meeting included his top lieutenants rather than his workmen (which also would have obviated the need
for the month-long surveillance);
•Jack McGurn knew of plans to kill Moran, but by 1929 he was too notorious to “mastermind” the Massacre
and had holed up at the Stevens Hotel with his girlfriend, Louise Rolfe, who insisted to the end that he was with
her that morning;
•The lookouts were not Detroit's Keywell Brothers, as “partially identified” by a witness (who later changed
her mind);
•The police failed to follow up a dozen leads suggesting that the killers were from St. Louis, and the new
findings of the then-independent detective bureau were ignored;
•Even after the finding of Burke’s submachine guns the following December and his later extradition to
Michigan because of a murder, Chicago police did not pursue the matter; the case went cold, with only two or
three detectives and some reporters continuing the investigation on their own. And on and on…
According to Georgette Winkeler's unpublished memoirs (as well as Byron Bolton's statements in 1935, and several
articles written in later years by retired detectives or reporters, plus a footnote from Alvin Karpis' squeezed into John
Kobler's Capone), the killers were remnants of the Egan's Rats gang of St. Louis who had migrated to Chicago and had
been hired personally by Capone as his special-assignment squad because they were unknown in local mob circles.
They included her husband, Gus, who arrived in Chicago in 1927, Bob Carey, Ray “Crane-neck” Nugent (some of
whom presumably knew Claude Maddox from St. Louis), and Fred Goetz, as well as Fred Burke, a free-lance gunman
also from St. Louis.
Georgette called them the “American boys” and they (not McGurn and company) had killed New York's Frankie Yale
in July of 1928, which earned them their Chicago stripes and got them assigned to knock off Bugs Moran. They were
joined by Capone-man Fred Goetz, a Chicagoan who evidently had also had worked in St. Louis.
The shooters used two cars tricked out to look like detective cruisers, complete with gongs, sirens, and gun racks.
Two men, dressed as cops, slipped in through the back door and disarmed the Moran crew, who assumed it was a
routine police shake-down. Then one opened the front door to let in the plainclothes machine-gunners, who had to
wend their way between parked cars and trucks to reach the back, where seven men were lined up against the north
wall. They didn't know Moran by sight, and when nobody admitted to being the gang's leader, the gunmen, taking no
chances, rattled away with two Thompsons and a shotgun.
Georgette had been distressed over the Yale killing (when she read the papers), for it had taken her husband Gus
out of town for several days “on business.” Gus was accompanied by Fred Burke, Bob Carey, Ray Nugent, and “Little
New York Louie” Campagna, who got himself in trouble with Capone for telephoning his wife in Chicago. We might
suppose that Georgette figured that the “business” involved a killing, although we’ll give her a break and presume Gus
was only a driver.
A few months later Georgette was surprised when Fred Goetz pranced around their house wearing a police uniform;
and then she became livid (she assures us) when her husband, Gus, returned home after the Massacre to discuss with
Bob Carey, Fred Goetz and others the “mistakes” that were made.
The lookouts were Byron Bolton (a one-time driver for Burke), Jimmy "The Swede" Morand and James McCrussen,
who took turns at the windows across the street. Others who probably parked on the street to block any pursuit by real
police were Tony Capezio, Tony Accardo, Rocco de Grazia and two or three more. (Bill Drury, a retired detective who
stayed on the case and eventually coauthored a series about Chicago's crime and gambling, had most of the shooters
named correctly and he guessed that a dozen or more were involved in one way or another.)
One of the principles would have been Claude Maddox, owner of the Circus Cafe on North Avenue, next to an empty
building that his own gang used for meetings and maybe target practice, though you'd think that machine-gun,
handgun and shotgun fire might have perturbed some pedestrians (this was cop-talk, based on finding some weaponry
in the back). In any case, Claude had a pretty good alibi--he was in court all morning; and two weeks later when one of
the Massacre cars was being dismantled in a garage about a block away—and accidentally blew up--the Circus was
closed and vacated.
The rest of the Massacre story is pretty well known--except that the papers all but ignored the later dynamiting of a
second phony cop car in the suburb of Maywood--as recounted in excruciating detail in The St. Valentine's Day
Massacre and The Complete Public Enemy Almanac, published by Cumberland House in 2004 and 2006 respectively,
available in both hardcover and paperback, and...well, I think you get the drift.
| The St. Valentine's Day MASSACRE |
This empty lot
is where the
SMC Cartage
Co. once stood
is where the
SMC Cartage
Co. once stood
| "I don't know what to say. If Reinhart had $160 on him, it must have been a loan from Mr. Pete." |
And here's Doc Schwimmer--
obviously not the man
identified as him in the papers.
obviously not the man
identified as him in the papers.
The guy we have to feel sorry for (besides the mechanic, who
was there working on a truck) is Dr. Reinhart Schwimmer, the
optician groupie. He bears no resemblance to the picture
printed in the papers covering Dean O’Banion’s funeral, but
Master Photoshopper Debbie Moss has managed to bring
him back to life, of sorts, from the floor of the Massacre
garage.
We do have a picture of his slightly kinky mom who did hair
styling and psychic readings and things; who paid Reinhart's
rent at the fancy Parkway, where Bugs himself lived; kept him
in pocket money; no doubt sided with him through two
divorces
was there working on a truck) is Dr. Reinhart Schwimmer, the
optician groupie. He bears no resemblance to the picture
printed in the papers covering Dean O’Banion’s funeral, but
Master Photoshopper Debbie Moss has managed to bring
him back to life, of sorts, from the floor of the Massacre
garage.
We do have a picture of his slightly kinky mom who did hair
styling and psychic readings and things; who paid Reinhart's
rent at the fancy Parkway, where Bugs himself lived; kept him
in pocket money; no doubt sided with him through two
divorces
and his pursuit by an alimony-hungry wife; probably forgave him for
screwing up his daddy’s optometry business (although he did sell some glasses to
the Moran gang); but he (like any good son, especially one needing his allowance)
was on his way to visit her when he just happened to drop by the garage for some
coffee and the Massacre. Ol’ Reinhart’s problem was he just liked hanging out with
tough-guy bootleggers and racketeers, and hinting to awe-struck strangers that he
could have people whacked.
screwing up his daddy’s optometry business (although he did sell some glasses to
the Moran gang); but he (like any good son, especially one needing his allowance)
was on his way to visit her when he just happened to drop by the garage for some
coffee and the Massacre. Ol’ Reinhart’s problem was he just liked hanging out with
tough-guy bootleggers and racketeers, and hinting to awe-struck strangers that he
could have people whacked.
Perhaps the best we can say about ol' Reinhart is that There, but for the grace of God, went we.
Actually, I have to admit that ol’ Reinhart was pretty worthless, but Moran’s boys liked him because he had an education,
spoke good English, and could teach them table manners at fancy restaurants. Your average nouveau riche bootlegger
might have come up a little short in the "gentleman" department. But would Reinhart listen to his mom when she told him he
was running around with a bad crowd? Hell, no. And he was too chicken-hearted to get involved in the rough stuff where
he could have made some real bucks instead of leaching off Mom Schwimmer and the Gusenbergs.
So what did happen to Bug Moran? For that you gotta read Rose Keefe’s Moran biography, The Man Who Got Away.
Actually, I have to admit that ol’ Reinhart was pretty worthless, but Moran’s boys liked him because he had an education,
spoke good English, and could teach them table manners at fancy restaurants. Your average nouveau riche bootlegger
might have come up a little short in the "gentleman" department. But would Reinhart listen to his mom when she told him he
was running around with a bad crowd? Hell, no. And he was too chicken-hearted to get involved in the rough stuff where
he could have made some real bucks instead of leaching off Mom Schwimmer and the Gusenbergs.
So what did happen to Bug Moran? For that you gotta read Rose Keefe’s Moran biography, The Man Who Got Away.
Bugs
Okay, so maybe I did get a little carried away while working on the St. Valentine's Day Massacre
book, discovered that there was only one plot next to Reinhart's at Rosehill, and bought it.
book, discovered that there was only one plot next to Reinhart's at Rosehill, and bought it.
