ask someone to lay off. Bank. P.S. Anything you make over $50 belongs to me.
When Big Jim wrote the note, how it came to be left in the phone booth, what it meant, who Swan was-the police never discovered.
They questioned more than thirty suspects, including Torrio and Capone, both of whom could prove that they were occupied elsewhere at the time of the shooting. Torrio's eyes filled with tears, an unheardof display of emotion. "Big Jim and me were like brothers," he said. Had Joe Moresco pulled the trigger to avenge his scorned sister? He, too, furnished an unbreakable alibi. Victoria herself and her Sicilian husband were in Los Angeles when Big Jim died.
The state of the dead man's finances deepened the mystery. Rocco De Stefano had expected to find at least $500,000 in cash and diamonds. An exhaustive search turned up $67,500 in cash and bonds, $8,894 worthy of jewelry and 15 barrels of whiskey. According to a rumor nobody could confirm, Colosimo left his home on May 11 with $150,000 cash in his pockets, but they contained no such sum when the police reached the scene of his death. De Stefano ascribed the dwindling of his client's fortune to the tribute paid to extortionists. Several Black Handers fell under suspicion, particularly Sunny Jim Cosmano, but Sunny Jim happened to have spent May 11 in jail.
Yet there were developments that suggested the solution. Chance, underworld rumor and the testimony of the cafe porter produced them. Into a police dragnet the day of the murder blundered the veteran Five Pointer and executioner Frankie Yale. He had been in town a week and was about to board an eastbound train when the police stopped him. They could not connect him with the murder at that time, however, and they let him go on to New York. Then the porter came forward with a description of the stranger he saw entering the cafe on Colosimo's heels. It fitted Yale. Finally, a stool pigeon passed along the underworld rumor that Torrio had paid Yale $10,000 to rid him of Colosimo. At the request of the Chicago authorities the New York police picked up Yale, and the porter was brought to New York. Face-to-face with the killer, the witness froze. He swore he could not identify him. The investigation foundered there, but the police of both cities doubted neither Yale's guilt nor Torrio's.
Big Jim, first of Chicago's great gangster overlords to be slain, was buried on May 14. The lavishness of the floral tributes (with wreaths "from Johnny" and "from Al" among the showiest), the costly bronze casket, the size and the composition of the cortege set the style for gangster funerals. No rites were performed in a Catholic church or a Catholic cemetery, because Archbishop George Mundelein forbade them.
His Eminence makes it plain to his pastors [so a diocesan spokesman later interpreted injunctions of this kind] that any gangster who, because of his conduct, is looked upon as a "public" sinner or who by his refusal to comply with the laws of his church regarding attendance at church services and Easter duty . . . such a man is to be refused Christian burial.
Therefore, it cannot be assumed that the fact of one's being a gangster or bootlegger is alone the cause of his being refused Christian burial, for each individual case must be considered. . . .
The only offense specified in Big Jim's case was neither whoremongering nor murder, but divorcing his wife to marry Dale Winter.
In the end a Presbyterian minister, the Reverend Pasquale De Carol, was found to perform the funeral rites in the Vernon Avenue mansion. The Apollo Quartet sang the hymns. As they began "Nearer My God to Thee," Dale Winter Colosimo appeared, barely able to stand, supported by De Stefano and the Dink. Before the casket was closed, the Bath knelt beside it, recited Hail Marys and the Catholic prayer for the dead. Ike Bloom, who managed one of the Levee's most disreputable dance halls, delivered a eulogy. "There wasn't a piker's hair in Big Jim's head," he said,
When Big Jim wrote the note, how it came to be left in the phone booth, what it meant, who Swan was-the police never discovered.
They questioned more than thirty suspects, including Torrio and Capone, both of whom could prove that they were occupied elsewhere at the time of the shooting. Torrio's eyes filled with tears, an unheardof display of emotion. "Big Jim and me were like brothers," he said. Had Joe Moresco pulled the trigger to avenge his scorned sister? He, too, furnished an unbreakable alibi. Victoria herself and her Sicilian husband were in Los Angeles when Big Jim died.
The state of the dead man's finances deepened the mystery. Rocco De Stefano had expected to find at least $500,000 in cash and diamonds. An exhaustive search turned up $67,500 in cash and bonds, $8,894 worthy of jewelry and 15 barrels of whiskey. According to a rumor nobody could confirm, Colosimo left his home on May 11 with $150,000 cash in his pockets, but they contained no such sum when the police reached the scene of his death. De Stefano ascribed the dwindling of his client's fortune to the tribute paid to extortionists. Several Black Handers fell under suspicion, particularly Sunny Jim Cosmano, but Sunny Jim happened to have spent May 11 in jail.
Yet there were developments that suggested the solution. Chance, underworld rumor and the testimony of the cafe porter produced them. Into a police dragnet the day of the murder blundered the veteran Five Pointer and executioner Frankie Yale. He had been in town a week and was about to board an eastbound train when the police stopped him. They could not connect him with the murder at that time, however, and they let him go on to New York. Then the porter came forward with a description of the stranger he saw entering the cafe on Colosimo's heels. It fitted Yale. Finally, a stool pigeon passed along the underworld rumor that Torrio had paid Yale $10,000 to rid him of Colosimo. At the request of the Chicago authorities the New York police picked up Yale, and the porter was brought to New York. Face-to-face with the killer, the witness froze. He swore he could not identify him. The investigation foundered there, but the police of both cities doubted neither Yale's guilt nor Torrio's.
Big Jim, first of Chicago's great gangster overlords to be slain, was buried on May 14. The lavishness of the floral tributes (with wreaths "from Johnny" and "from Al" among the showiest), the costly bronze casket, the size and the composition of the cortege set the style for gangster funerals. No rites were performed in a Catholic church or a Catholic cemetery, because Archbishop George Mundelein forbade them.
His Eminence makes it plain to his pastors [so a diocesan spokesman later interpreted injunctions of this kind] that any gangster who, because of his conduct, is looked upon as a "public" sinner or who by his refusal to comply with the laws of his church regarding attendance at church services and Easter duty . . . such a man is to be refused Christian burial.
Therefore, it cannot be assumed that the fact of one's being a gangster or bootlegger is alone the cause of his being refused Christian burial, for each individual case must be considered. . . .
The only offense specified in Big Jim's case was neither whoremongering nor murder, but divorcing his wife to marry Dale Winter.
In the end a Presbyterian minister, the Reverend Pasquale De Carol, was found to perform the funeral rites in the Vernon Avenue mansion. The Apollo Quartet sang the hymns. As they began "Nearer My God to Thee," Dale Winter Colosimo appeared, barely able to stand, supported by De Stefano and the Dink. Before the casket was closed, the Bath knelt beside it, recited Hail Marys and the Catholic prayer for the dead. Ike Bloom, who managed one of the Levee's most disreputable dance halls, delivered a eulogy. "There wasn't a piker's hair in Big Jim's head," he said,
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