tually had pieces of six or seven of them. One of them was the Green Mill which had done terrific business for an entire year with a young comic named Joe E. Lewis. At contract renewal time, Lewis was offered a hefty raise to $650 a week, but a rival joint, the New Rendezvous Cafe, topped that with a $1,000 offer, plus a piece of the cover charge. Lewis gave notice.
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McGurn was irate. "You'll never live to open," he warned Lewis. Lewis did open on November 2, 1927, but eight days later McGurn's promise bore bitter fruit. Lewis answered a knock at his bedroom door and let three men in. Two carried pistols with which they proceeded to beat him, fracturing his skull. The third man had a knife and with it carved up Lewis's face, throat and tongue. Somehow Lewis survived. He had to learn to talk all over again, and it was 10 years before he made it all the way back to the top of his profession.
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After Capone went to prison for income tax evasion, McGurn's star started to set. He may have been a Capone favorite, but he was not necessarily the pal of other gang members. He was iced out of a number of rackets and left with little besides his nightclubs. They folded because of the Depression, and Louise Rolfe dumped him as well. He apparently was reduced to getting by in some small narcotics deals.
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On February 13, 1936, the eve of the anniversary of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, McGurn was in a bowling alley with two men when three gunmen walked in. The trio drew guns, so did the pair with McGurn. All five guns turned on McGurn. In McGurn's right hand they left a nickel, and beside the body they left a comic valentine, which read:
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 | | You've lost your job,
You've lost your dough,
Your jewels and handsome houses.
But things could be worse, you know.
You haven't lost your trousers
.
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All that gave the newspaper plenty to speculate about. The nickel could indicate the slaying was the work of some remaining Genna men or relatives of those he'd killed. On the other hand, since the shooting happened on the night before the anniversary of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, that meant Bugs Moran or some remaining North Siders were involved. More likely it was the work of Capone gangsters who wanted him out of the way and knew how to leave some false leads. It was all worth thinking about, but hardly worth doing anything about. Nobody seemed too concerned about finding the killersand nobody ever did.
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Macintosh, Hugh "Apples" (1927): Colombo crime family enforcer
Hugh "Apples" Macintosh couldn't help but make a big impression. A size-52 suit, but not the least bit fat (he did not like being called fat), this dreaded enforcer was considered, with Carmine "the Snake" Persico, the toughest and roughest at his calling.
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Apples started out as an associate of the Gallo brothers, but switched allegiance with Persico back to Profaci, where the pair ultimately sided with Joe Colombo against the Gallos. In the Gallo wars he was charged in the murder of a Gallo gunner, Alfred Mondello, but the indictment was later dismissed.
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MacIntosh was with Persico during the 1960s mob war for control of the Colombo crime family. A government-taped conversation of Apples with an IRS agent, Richard Annicharico, posing as a bribetaker, and Victor Puglisi, the Colombos' alleged go-between with Annicharico, illustrates his casualness toward violence:
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| | Macintosh: "I was there when he [Persico] got shot
."
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| | Puglisi: "I bear they didn't use pistols; they used carbines.... How far were they? Close?
"
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| | MacItosh: "They were close, Vic. They pulled up alongside
."
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| | Annicharico: "They were good shots
."
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| | MacIntosh: "They didn't have no balls
."
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