"I Heard You Paint Houses": Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa (44 page)

July 30, 1975

“
I reported back to Russell that Jimmy was still running in 1976. I reported what Jimmy said about having records and lists that were going to make their public appearance in case something unnatural happened to him. I didn’t go into all the details, all the wild things Jimmy had said. These were things I didn’t need to know. Russell made a comment about Jimmy’s thinking being “distorted.”

“I don’t understand this,” Russell said. “I don’t understand why he just doesn’t go away.”

I made the drop for Jimmy at the Market Inn and called him to tell him. I really can’t tell you that what was in the package was money. I didn’t look. After that I was afraid to have too many conversations with Jimmy, because I would only have to repeat them to Russell. I got the feeling from all this that Jimmy was being ruled by his ego and by his feeling of revenge. I guess he figured that if he waited until 1980 to run, Fitz would retire and Jimmy would never get a chance to humiliate Fitz at a convention, to rub his nose in it. I guess that Jimmy was not too happy with the way things looked with our friends. After the meeting at Broadway Eddie’s and the approach that Russell took about wanting Jimmy not to run, Jimmy had to figure that Tony Pro was making progress in that part of the campaign.

After the thing I could never understand them wanting to hurt Jo and the kids by making Jimmy disappear. While they would do whatever they had to do, people like Russell and Angelo would not want to hurt the immediate family. Make them suffer not knowing, not having a decent funeral and having to wait so many years under the law to be able to declare Jimmy dead before they could get his money. Unless Tony Pro had the final say and got the okay from Fat Tony. That we’ll never know for sure. Pro already threatened to kill Jimmy’s granddaughter. Who talks like that about a man’s grandchildren?
”

In April 1975 rumors were circulating at a Teamsters convention that Jimmy Hoffa was cooperating with the FBI. The
Detroit Free Press,
in a December 20, 1992, article, attributed these rumors to Chuckie O’Brien, the alleged driver of the car that Jimmy Hoffa was in at the time of his disappearance. An FBI 302 from the FBI file on Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance, the HOFFEX file, confirms the existence of this rumor and a plausible reason as to why it may have had a basis in truth: “It has been rumored among sources that Hoffa, while attempting to gain control of the Teamsters, may have provided information to the Government in exchange for a favorable decision concerning the lifting of his Union restrictions.”

  On May 15, 1975, Jimmy Hoffa testified at a grand jury investigation into “no show” jobs at his former Detroit Local 299. Hoffa took the Fifth. Afterward, when questioned by a reporter, Hoffa said he was “damn proud of it.” That same day Jimmy Hoffa attended a meeting at his son’s law office with his son and Detroit mobster Anthony “Tony Jack” Giacalone. Giacalone tried to broker a meeting between Hoffa and Tony Pro, and Hoffa refused to attend. Giacalone then asked for Hoffa’s help in obtaining records that were going to be used by the government against Giacalone for an alleged insurance scam indictment. Hoffa turned down Giacalone’s request.

  At the end of May, Frank Fitzsimmons threatened to put Local 326, Hoffa’s former local and power base, into trusteeship and have it run by a monitor, who would report to the Teamsters headquarters in Washington.

  On June 19, 1975, Jimmy Hoffa’s ally and good friend Sam Giancana was assassinated in his Chicago home five days before his scheduled testimony before the Church Committee on the mob’s role in a CIA plot to assassinate Fidel Castro.

  On June 25, 1975, a Local 299 supporter of Frank Fitzsimmons named Ralph Proctor was attacked from behind as he walked out of a restaurant after lunch. Proctor never saw what hit him. Proctor was beaten and knocked unconscious in broad daylight. Proctor’s higher-up in the Fitzsimmons camp, Rolland McMaster, said, “We had that kind of crap happen. I put investigators on it, but they didn’t find out anything.”

  On the afternoon of July 10, 1975, Frank Fitzsimmons’s son Richard Fitzsimmons relaxed in Nemo’s bar in Detroit. Richard was vice president of Local 299, and in that capacity he had been given a 1975 white Lincoln Continental for his union duties. After finishing his last drink at Nemo’s, Richard left the bar and was walking toward this parked Lincoln when the car exploded. Richard narrowly escaped being injured, but his white Lincoln was blown to bits.

  On the afternoon of July 30, 1975, Jimmy Hoffa disappeared.

“
The whole thing was built around the wedding. Bill Bufalino’s daughter was getting married on Friday, August 1, 1975. That was two days after Jimmy disappeared. People would be coming in from all the families around the country. There would be over 500 people there. Russell and I and our wives and Russell’s sister-in-law would be driving in a straight line that went through Pennsylvania, most of the way through Ohio, and then a right turn north to Detroit, Michigan.

Because of the wedding Jimmy would be inclined to believe that Tony Pro and Russell Bufalino would be in the Detroit area so they could meet with him in the afternoon he disappeared. The thing with Tony Pro wanting his million-dollar pension was a decoy. Pro didn’t care about his pension so much. They just used the pension beef to get Jimmy to come out.

Jimmy had a meeting that was arranged by Tony Giaccalone for 2:30 at the Machus Red Fox Restaurant on Telegraph Avenue outside of Detroit on July 30, 1975. Tony Pro was supposed to get there at 2:30 with Tony Jack. The whole idea was for Tony Jack to make peace between Tony Pro and Jimmy. Jimmy left for that meeting, and Jimmy was seen in the parking lot of the restaurant, but Jimmy never came home from that meeting.

By the time of the wedding everybody was talking about Jimmy’s disappearance. I got to talking with Jimmy’s old-time buddies from Local 299, Dave Johnson, the president who got his boat blown up, and Bobby Holmes, the old Strawberry Boy who used to be a miner in England. They both asked me, practically at the same time, if I thought Tony Pro had it done.
”

 
chapter twenty-eight