The Thinking Man's Gangster

Meyer Lansky: The Thinking Man's Gangster
Revised and expanded reprint of Little Man: The Gangster Life of Meyer Lanksy 
457 pages
© 2019 Robert Lacey

There's no such thing as a lucky gambler. There's only winners and losers, and the winners are the ones who control the game.

Meyer Lanksy is the mob associate of legend,  considered with Charles Luciano as the co-creator of the Commission governing the Sicilian mob in America. If Lansky had gone straight, an anonymous FBI agent is supposed to have said,  he could have been the chair of  General Motors.   Judging from Little Man, however,  that may not be the case: every time Lanksy tried to go straight, investing in television distribution or hotels, he lost money. Admittedly, it wasn't always his fault; he wasn't the only one to lose millions on Cuba when it went red.   Lanksy was, from childhood on, a gambler:  he had his introduction as a kid, watching craps games and realizing how it really worked, and  the whole of his fortune at his peak was built on casinos and gaming rooms -- whether in Florida, Nevada, or Cuba.  But Lanksy wasn't just the brains behind the brawn, the grey eminence in the background. Little Man  demonstrates that Lanksy was more than capable of being the brawn himself: he was a teenage union thug who  also tried to make a living for himself as a pimp -- but then came Prohibition, and the partnership with Luciano that would get Lanksy running.   Robert Lacey's biography is far more thorough than I had expected, though not in the most constructive of ways, and -- presumably, given its sources --   cleans and makes  as presentable as possible its subject.

To  be sure, Lanksy is an interesting fellow, with a character much different from those of other gangsters or mob associates. When the FBI first began a detailed investigation of him, they found a quiet man who preferred good, but not flashy, suits -- the kind that any respectable insurance broker or bank executive might wear.  The same was true for his house, which was comfortable but modest.  Lanksy himself was the epitome of self-control and reserve, so much so that his doctor thought such qualities were the cause of his stomach ulcers.   Lanksy left school early, but he was a devoted reader and used his adult wealth to retain a tutor.  The bulk of his illegal income, after Prohibition, came from gambling -- and in the thirties and forties,  law enforcement largely turned a blind eye or was an active participant.   In the fifties, however, moral and red panics meant more stringent and targeted laws, active enforcement, and constant investigation into  Lansky's deep-gray affairs.   Cuba allowed for a partial recovery, at least until Castro destroyed most businesses following his seizure of power --  and it was downhill from there.   The last stages of the book see a weary Lanksy taking refuge in Israel, only to be ousted after two years when he applies for citizenship; he's eventually  apprehended while trying to make for Paraguay,  although in the resulting trial he's acquitted. The state's evidence consisted largely of testimony from a gross loan shark who few on the jury believed.  Eventually cancer would do what the state could not.

Lacey's treatment of Lanksy is interesting; though not denying Meyer's association with men who did evil things, sitting in the shadow of evil and cooperating with it to his own gain, he largely depicts Meyer's business as being in the deep grey area, rather than darkly criminal.  Beyond his youth,  Lacey doesn't depict Lansky as doing anything more than promoting gambling and dodging taxes,  which would hardly make him a bad guy in many readers eyes. I'm sure there was more to him than that, but one can't deny Little Man's depth of coverage into Lansky's family life and the trials. The problem, I think, is that Lanksy's accomplishments were  so under the table -- no flashy murders or robberies, just subtle manipulation of funds -- that there's no positive evidence of him. Even his family didn't even really know how much he was worth, since he seemed to live near poverty for much of his endgame despite the FBI claiming he was worth $300 million.   What I appreciated most about Lacey's work is that he avoided the cutesey nicknames like Lucky and Bugsy in favor of proper ones, like Charlie and Ben. 

If someone is interested in Lansky and doesn't object to  movies with violence, Mobsters may be of interest. I watched it during my Mafia obsession, bought it later on, and have watched it since.   Lansky is depeicted second on the left -- without a Thompson. (In order, the actors are playing Charlie Luciano, Meyer Lansky,   Ben Siegel, and Frank Costello.) Of interest is the presence of Michael Gambon, playing one of the two bosses that Luciano disposes of on his rise to power.  The weird thing about this movie is that it refers to Marazano as Faranzano. I haven't the foggiest idea as to why.

American Detective

American Detective: Behind the Scenes of Famous Criminal Investigations
© 2018  Thomas Reppetto
312 pages

I've been playing through L.A. Noire lately, and its use of real-life crime (the Black Dahlia case)  prompted me to look for anything written about it. American Detective only mentions the Dahlia case,  using it in  Reppetto's history of American detective units,  their decline in the late 20th century, and the need for them to make a comeback.  Reppetto writes from both research and experience, having previous been a commander of detectives in Chicago.  American Detective is a mix of straightforward histories of various crimes and enterprises across the United States (mostly in larger cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and  Cleveland), and including serial killers, bank robbers, and organized crime.    The writing can be dry, especially when it's just one case after another, but Reppetto does warm up, especially when he shifts from fact-delivery to reflection.

  In covering the rise of municipal detective bureaus, Reppetto attributes their takeover of American policing to the complications of mobility and immigration, both of which required more focused, deliberate, and sustained investigations than ordinary patrolmen could offer.  At their prime, American detectives were an elite force  -- patrolling their city, constantly gathering information and building a network of informants who would come in handy in the event of an investigation. Corruption, political and otherwise, coupled with increasing bureaucratization which forced detectives to become specialists who worked cases instead of generalists who worked the city,  diminished their performance , while at the same time  politicians began touting approaches to law enforcement that  emphasized the role of the ordinary patrol officers.  Reppetto believes that "community policing" was never clearly defined, and argues that detective bureaus should reclaim their midcentury prominence. 


As a book, American Detective delivers a lot of interesting back stories behind famous personalities and crimes, along with less interesting ones. That may be a matter of taste, or delivery; I'd liken the book to sitting at a railway intersection and watching a train go by. There's much of interest, but there are also long stretches of literary boxcars,  fairly featureless.    There's a lot of little tidbits in here, though, so  if you're an avid reader of true crime, it's probably worth checking into.  Personally, having spotted that Reppetto has also done some works on the Sicilian Mafia, I may read a little more of him.

Wiseguy

Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family

© 1986 Nicholas Pileggi, Henry Hill

256 pages

How does a boy from a nice family grow up to be a gangster? Well, it helps to live across the street from a mob-owned cab stand that needs fleet-footed boys to run errands.  Growing up in poverty,  young Henry Hill couldn’t help but envy the lifestyles of the men who frequented the cab stand across the way, rolling by in luxury cars, dressed in tailored suits, and handing out wads of cash like peppermint candy.  Determined to wield the power they did, at the age of twelve he became a gofer – and once he learned the art of the hustle, he rose through the ranks of gangsterdom to become the Sam Walton of crime. 

If the name sounds familiar, you may have seen the film Goodfellas, which is wholly based on Wiseguy. The film is astonishingly true to the source, because Hill’s life was full of the cheap thrills and casual violence that pervade the movie. Even the scene where Hill wakes up with his wife leveling a pistol at his face is recorded here first. The differences between the film and its text are minor, but both expose the underworld.  Although Hill misses the lifestyle he abandons when he flees into witness protection at the end, he doesn’t romanticize his life during that time.  Hill doesn’t attempt to dress his life up in a pinstriped suit and pretend to be a man of honor; from the start, he says, he was a hustler.  Even as an errand boy, he developed the practice of eking out money whenever he could. Paid to run sandwiches from a shop to card games, young Henry began making the sandwiches at home and pocketing the money.  

Such was the pattern of his life;  the art of the hustle. Even in the Army, Hill found ways to make a buck;  sentenced to the kitchens, he  tucked away extra food and sold it on the side, profiting from Uncle Sam’s excess.  Wiseguy is entertaining in a voyeuristic fashion, but it’s also informative for those who know little about organized crime.  Associates of the Mafia weren’t necessarily on the payroll of the boss;  Hill stopped being a paid employee in adolescence.  Through most of his life, through all of his schemes, Hill was self-employed – a chronic hustler.  He fixed sports matches,  applied for credit cards under assumed names,  bought untaxed cigarettes and sold them on the cheap.   His connection with the Mafia was somewhere between social and ‘political’;  other associates were his partners in various operations, and they all relied on the ‘real’ Mafiosi, made men like Paul Vario to settle disputes between one another, or to keep unconnected hoods from working their turf.   Some of their extralegal activities are in grey enough territory that a reader might be impressed with their creativity energy;  what is the business market if not a larger version of the hustle? But for the most part, Hill and his men take the easy ways out, and they’re not creating wealth so much as repurposing it for themselves. Though their story has legitimate fascination (their tribal relationships are the kind that might have ruled before the creation of law) , ultimately they’re hoods, and when Henry goes down he takes satisfaction in sending some of his lifelong pals to the can.   Hill’s life seems flashy and fun, but ultimately it leads to his and all of his friends and family’s ruin, for their moral bankruptcy is total. 

Related:

• Under and Alone, William Queen
• Casino, Nicholas Pileggi
• Boss of Bosses: the Fall of the Godfather, Joseph O'Brien
• Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob, Bob Delaney

Covert

Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob
© 2008 Bob Delaney, Dave Scheiber
288 pages

In the early 1970s, a young and promising New Jersey State Trooper named Bob Delaney was asked to join Project Alpha, a joint police-FBI undercover project intending to take down the New Jersey mob. Assuming the identity of a dead man known (appropriately) as Bobby Covert,  Delaney posed as the head of an ambitious new trucking company  on the New Jersey coast -- making money by shipping stolen goods for the mob.  After the State convinced an informant to join Delaney's team, the operation expanded rapidly. Suddenly he was spending his nights in restaurants chewing the fat with leading wiseguys, even if he avoided making a mistake and getting himself killed, the stress of living multiple lives threatned to send him to an early grave regardless.

Though Covert is billed as criminal nonfiction, it's almost more biographical. Delaney devotes time to his early years and writes on his transition from detective to NBA referee, imparting lessons learned from those careers to the reader: namely, even in this post-9/11 world,  that we cannot allow fear to rule us. DeLaney's emotional struggles while working the investigation made Covert work for me, much more than his tales of basketball and supper with the goodfellas.  DeLaney's work as a businessman isn't dramatic, but it gave the FBI insight into how the Mafia infiltrates and then dominates small businesses. Even though he started off doing small jobs for various New Jersey families, in a matter of a year they began treating it like their own private company.  Like William Queen,  DeLaney's greatest struggle is to maintain his sanity.  Although DeLaney doesn't live a Henry Hill/Goodfellas life, those interested in the Mafia will find this of interest, as it portrays the modern 'la cosa nostra' as nothing more than a bunch of classless thugs who are so utterly removed from what they prented to be that hey rely on The Godfather to gain ideas of what it means to be a mafioso.

Covert should easily be of interest to multiple audiences, including sports fans, given the range of the photos section. I tend to imagine Michael Jordan as a laidback guy, but Covert contains photos of him roaring in anger at the unflappable DeLaney. The state trooper-turned-referee also poses with Ray Liotta, who played Henry Hill in Goodfellas.

Boss of Bosses

Boss of Bosses -- the Fall of the Godfather: the FBI and Paul Castellano

© 1991 Joseph F. O'Brien and Andris Kurins

364 pages

A number of years ago I had a considerable interest in the Mafia, from an adolescent fascination with men of power and prestige and a less adolescent fascination with the darker side of human nature -- the corrupting effect of power, and what it can drive people to do. This is not an expired interest, but it is one that is typically latent. Still, it arises every so often, and it did so while I was going through my public library's discard bin in hopes of rescuing whatever science and history texts I could find. (I found none outside of Carl Sagan's now probably irrevelant book on nuclear winter.) The bin was full of parenting books with some exceptions -- like this, Boss of Bosses. The book is a memoir of sorts written by two FBI Agents who spent five years building a case against a real-world godfather, only to see their work rendered moot when the ambitious John Gotti decided to rid the "Five Families" of who they saw as a limiting liability.

The memoir is written in the third person, with emotional and intellectual context being given for both of the agents by themselves. The opening chapters go back and forth from the agents' attempts to build a case against Castellano (interviewing people whose lives Castellano's operations touch) to brief chapters that document Castellano's rise to power. The authors obviously feel something for their prey: they develop respect and even sympathy for him, and moreso once they are able to plant a bug in his home. They aren't cynical of their mission as government agents -- they do believe Castellano is a criminal whose time has come, but at the same time they recognize he's no hood. The character of Castellano that emerges from their book is of a gentlemanly rouge. He's a cut above men like John Gotti; he believes in the old "code of honor" that Mafiosos like Joseph Bonanno claim to have kept. Interestingly, the FBI agents seem to believe in this old code, as well -- or at least they believed it once existed in some form and that some men did keep it. Castellano, despite his attempts to legitimize the Mafia by shifting its interests to noncriminal enterprises, is depicted as a relic from days gone by.

The book has a lot to offer to anyone with any degree of interest in the Mafia: it's a history of one don's rise to power, a psychology of its members -- people so removed from their past that they have to rely on the script of The Godfather to give them answers to police questions -- and a story of how the FBI attempted to bring Castellano to justice, only to be thwarted by the "Pope's" political enemies. The book read well and I'd recommend it.