"I Heard You Paint Houses": Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa (4 page)

“Look at that matter last month, Jimmy. That gentleman in Chicago. I’m quite certain everybody thought he was untouchable, including himself. Irresponsible talk that could have hurt certain important friends of ours was his problem.”

Jimmy knew “the gentleman” I was talking about was his good friend Sam “Momo” Giancana, the Chicago boss who just got killed. Many times I brought “notes”—verbal messages, nothing ever in writing—back and forth between Momo and Jimmy.

Before he got taken care of, Giancana had been very big in certain circles and very big in the media. Momo had spread out from Chicago and moved into Dallas. Jack Ruby was a part of Momo’s outfit. Momo had casinos in Havana. Momo opened a casino with Frank Sinatra in Lake Tahoe. He dated one of the singing McGuire sisters, the ones who sang on Arthur Godfrey. He shared a mistress with John F. Kennedy, Judith Campbell. This was while JFK was president and he and his brother Bobby were using the White House for their own motel room. Momo helped get JFK elected. Only Kennedy then stabbed Momo in the back. He paid him back by letting Bobby go after everybody.

The way it went with Giancana is that the week before he got hit,
Time
magazine brought out that Russell Bufalino and Sam “Momo” Giancana had worked on behalf of the CIA in 1961 in the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and in 1962 in a plot to kill Castro. If there was one thing that drove Russell Bufalino nuts it was to see his name in print.

The U.S. Senate had subpoenaed Giancana to testify about the CIA hiring the mob to assassinate Castro. Four days before his appearance Giancana was taken care of in his kitchen in the back of the head and then under the chin six times, Sicilian style, to signify he was careless with his mouth. It looked like it was done by some old friend that was close enough to him to be frying sausages in olive oil with him. Russell often said to me: “When in doubt have no doubt.”

“Our Chicago friend could have hurt a lot of people, even you and me,” Jimmy yelled. I put the phone away from my ear and still could hear him. “He should have kept records. Castro. Dallas. The gentleman from Chicago never put anything in writing. They know Hoffa keeps records. Anything unnatural happens to me, the records come out.”

“I’m no ‘yes man,’ Jimmy. So please don’t tell me ‘They wouldn’t dare.’ After what happened to our friend in Chicago, you gotta know by now what it is.”

“You just be concerned for yourself, my Irish friend. You’re too close to me in some people’s eyes. You remember what I told you. Watch your own ass. Get some people around yourself.”

“Jimmy, you know it’s time to sit down. The old man is making the offer to help.”

“I agree with that part of it.” Jimmy was being the union negotiator, conceding just a little bit.

“Good,” I jumped on that little bit. “We’ll drive out to the lake on Saturday around 12:30. Tell Jo not to fuss, we’ll leave the women at a diner.”

“I’ll be ready at 12:30,” Jimmy said. I knew he’d be ready at 12:30. Russ and Jimmy both went by time. You didn’t show time, you didn’t show respect. Jimmy would give you fifteen minutes. After that you lost your appointment. No matter how big you were or thought you were.

“I’ll have an Irish banquet waiting for you—a bottle of Guinness and a bologna sandwich. One more thing,” Jimmy said. “Just the two of you.” Jimmy wasn’t asking. He was telling. “Not the little guy.”

“I can relate to that part. You don’t want the little guy.”

Want the little guy? Last I knew Jimmy wanted the little guy dead. The little guy was Tony “Pro” Provenzano, a made man and a captain in the Genovese family in Brooklyn. Pro used to be a Hoffa man, but he became the leader of the Teamsters faction that was against Jimmy taking back the union.

The bad blood that Pro had with Jimmy began with a beef they had in prison where they almost came to blows in the dining hall. Jimmy refused to help Pro go around the federal law and get his $1.2 million pension when he went to jail, while Jimmy got his $1.7 million pension even though he went to jail, too.

A couple of years after they both got out they had a sit-down at a Teamsters Convention in Miami to try to square the beef. Only Tony Pro threatened to rip Jimmy’s guts out with his bare hands and kill his grandchildren. At the time, Jimmy told me he was going to ask Russell for permission for me to take care of the little guy. Since Pro was a made man, a captain even, you didn’t take care of Pro without getting approval from Russell. But then I never heard a peep. So I figured it was a fleeting thought during one of Jimmy’s tempers. If anybody was serious, I’d hear about it the day they wanted me to do it. That’s the way it’s done. You get about a day’s notice when they want you to take care of a matter.

Tony Pro ran a Teamsters Local in north Jersey where the Sopranos are on TV. I liked his brothers. Nunz and Sammy were good people. I never cared for Pro himself. He’d kill you for nothing. One time he had a guy kissed for getting more votes than him. They were on the same side of the ticket. Pro was at the head of the ticket, running for president of his local, and this poor guy was below him, running for some lesser office, I forget what. When Tony Pro saw how popular the guy was compared to him, Pro had Sally Bugs and an ex-boxer with the Jewish mob, K.O. Konigsberg, strangle him with a nylon rope. That was a bad hit. When they made deals with the devil trying to nail the handful of us Hoffa suspects on any charge they could get, they got a rat to testify against Pro. They wound up giving Pro life for that bad hit. Pro died in jail.

“I won’t meet with the little guy,” Jimmy said, “Fuck the little guy.”

“You’re making me work hard here, Jimmy. I’m not trying to go for the Nobel Peace Prize here.”

“Help Hoffa square this beef and I’ll give you a peace prize. Remember, just the three of us. Take care.”

I had to be content that at least the three of us were going to sit down by the lake on Saturday. Jimmy sitting down with “Russ & Frank” with our names on that yellow pad he kept near his phone for anybody to find.

The next morning was Monday the 28th. My second wife, Irene, the mother of the youngest of my four daughters, Connie, was on her own line with her girlfriend. They were trying to decide what Irene should pack for the wedding when my line rang.

“It’s Jimmy,” Irene said.

The FBI has a record of all these long-distance calls back and forth. But I don’t think Jimmy had these kinds of records on his mind when he made his threats about exposing this and that. People couldn’t tolerate threats like that very long. Even if you don’t mean them yourself you send the wrong message to the people at the bottom of the chain of command. How strong are the leaders if they tolerate people talking about ratting?

“When are you and your friend getting in?” Jimmy said.

“Tuesday.”

“That’s tomorrow.”

“Yeah, tomorrow night around dinnertime.”

“Good. Call me when you get in.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Whenever I got into Detroit I would call the man out of respect.

“I’ve got a meeting set up on Wednesday afternoon,” Jimmy said. He paused. “With the little guy.”

“Which little guy?”

“That little guy.”

“You don’t mind me asking what changed your mind about meeting with that individual?” My head was spinning.

“What have I got to lose?” Jimmy said. “McGee would expect Hoffa to try to square his own beef first. I don’t mind making one last try before you come out to the lake on Saturday.”

“I gotta urge you to take along your little brother.” He knew what I meant, a gun, a piece, not the peace prize, a peacemaker. “Precautionary.”

“Don’t you worry about Hoffa. Hoffa doesn’t need a little brother. Tony Jack set the meet up. We’ll be at a restaurant out in the public. The Red Fox on Telegraph, you know the place. Take care.”

Anthony “Tony Jack” Giacalone was with the Detroit outfit. Tony Jack was very close to Jimmy and his wife and kids. But Jimmy wasn’t the only one in the picture that Tony Jack was close to. Tony Jack’s wife was a first cousin to the little guy, Tony Pro. That’s serious with the Italians.

I could understand why Jimmy would trust Tony Jack. Tony Jack was very good people. He died in jail in February 2001. The headline read: “Reputed U.S. Mobster Takes Hoffa Secret to Grave.” He could’ve told some things.

Word was out for a long time that Tony Jack had been trying to arrange another sit-down between Jimmy and Tony Pro after the fiasco in Miami, but Jimmy went thumbs down on that idea like Siskel and Ebert. Now all of a sudden Jimmy was agreeing to meet with Pro, the same Pro that threatened to rip his guts out with his bare hands.

Looking back, you know hindsight and all, maybe Jimmy was the one setting Pro up to go to Australia. Maybe Jimmy was counting on Pro to act like Pro. Tony Jack would sit there at the restaurant and watch Jimmy being reasonable and Pro being an asshole. Maybe Jimmy wanted Russell to know on Saturday by the lake that he had tried everything humanly possible with the man, but now Pro had to go.

“Out in a public restaurant, that’s good. Maybe this wedding really is bringing everybody together,” I said. “Smoking the peace pipe and burying old hatchets. Only I’d have more comfort if I was there for backup.”

“All right, Irishman,” he said, as if he was trying to make me feel better, even though he’s the one that asked me when I was getting in to Detroit in the first place. As soon as he asked me when I was getting in, I knew what he wanted. “How about you take a little ride and meet me there on Wednesday at 2:00? They’re coming at 2:30.”

“Precautionary. But however, you can rest assured, I’ll bring my little brother. He’s a real good negotiator.”

I called Russ right away and told him the encouraging news about Jimmy’s meeting with Jack and Pro, and that I was going to be with Jimmy for backup.

I’ve thought a lot about it since, but I can’t recall Russell saying anything.
”

 
chapter two
 

What It Is

“
When my wife, Irene, and I got to Kingston in upstate Pennsylvania near Wilkes-Barre that Monday night, our plan was to have dinner with Russ and his wife, Carrie, and her older widowed sister, Mary. Irene and I would spend the night at the Howard Johnson that Russ owned a piece of. Then early Tuesday the five of us would start off for Detroit in my new black Lincoln Continental. (It was a car they said I got under the table. When they were trying to get the eight of us Hoffa suspects on anything they could, they used the car to send me to jail in 1981 on labor racketeering.)

The drive would take us about twelve hours because Russell didn’t allow smoking in the car. Russ quit smoking on a bet with Jimmy Blue Eyes, who was with Meyer Lansky, on a boat they took out of Cuba in 1960 when Castro kicked them all out and took away their casinos. They lost a million dollars a day on account of Castro. They were all mad as hell at Castro, especially Russell and his two very close friends, Carlos Marcello, the New Orleans boss, and Santo Trafficante, the Florida boss. Castro had the nerve to actually put Trafficante in jail. I heard that Sam “Momo” Giancana had to send Jack Ruby to Cuba to spread some green stamps around to get Trafficante out of jail and out of Cuba.

Being so fuming mad, Russell smoked cigarette after cigarette and softly cursed Castro on that boat. So Jimmy Blue Eyes saw an opportunity to bet Russ twenty-five Gs Russ couldn’t go a year without smoking. Russ threw his cigarette overboard and never picked up a cigarette again, even a year later after the bet was over and Jimmy Blue Eyes had paid up.