The Outfit Read Online Free PDF Page A

cousin from New York. In placing the call, Big Jim would paradoxically save his life in the short term and guarantee his own extermination eleven years later. More important for history, the man Colosimo brought in for damage control placed Chicago gangsterism one giant step closer to the creation of the Outfit.
    In Brooklyn, New York, Johnny “the Fox” Torrio answered the call of his cousin Victoria’s husband, Big Jim Colosimo. Born in Italy in 1882, Torrio was the leader of the Lower East Side’s notorious James Street Gang. By the age of twenty-two, he owned a pool hall, a saloon, and a brothel, in addition to his gang of burglars, hijackers, and extortionists.
    One of Torrio’s most important traits was his willingness to forge alliances with rivals. In New York, Torrio brokered an important coalition between his James Street Gang and the powerful Five Points Gang, strong-armed by a professional killer and Black Hander named Frankie Yale (Uale). Like Torrio, Yale would also play a pivotal role in the twists and turns of the Chicago crime world.
    Torrio possessed still another skill that would prove indispensable in his future Windy City home: an appreciation of the importance of controlling the political system. While still in his early twenties, Torrio led his gang in a total war on the electoral process. In 1905, with Torrio’s help, the Five Points Gang ensured the election of their mayoral candidate by systematically stealing ballot boxes and mugging (or “slugging” as it was known in Chicago) their opponent’s supporters.
    Although Torrio was the undisputed brains of the gang, he never personally dirtied his hands in the commission of a crime. As the brilliant capo, he was too important to be placed in jeopardy. Years later, near the end of his life, he bragged - probably honestly - that he had never fired a gun in his life.
    This would not be the first time that Torrio had traveled to Chicago to extricate Colosimo from the clutches of the Black Handers, but this time his ticket to the Second City would be one-way. On this occasion, Torrio, as per his style, attempted to negotiate with the Black Handers who now threatened Big Jim. Failing in this, Torrio agreed to meet the extortionists and deliver the money. On meeting the trio of Black Handers, Torrio brought guns instead of gold. Two of his gunmen emptied their clips into the extortionists, and Johnny instantly ascended to the role of Big Jim’s right-hand man.
    In short time, Torrio found himself running Colosimo’s empire. But Torrio clearly viewed his stewardship of Colosimo’s businesses as merely a stepping-stone. He had big dreams that orbited around the central concept of a limitless crime empire. Colosimo gave Torrio the go-ahead to build his own organization, and the new crime baron set up headquarters in the Four Deuces, a four-story office building named for its address, 2222 South Wabash. Above the first-floor saloon, Torrio installed gambling dens and, on the top floor, a brothel. Chicago historian Herbert Asbury described Torrio’s typical day at the office in his keystone book,
Gem of the Prairie:
“There he bought and sold women, conferred with the managers of his brothels and gambling dens . . . arranged for the corruption of police and city officials and sent his gun squads out to slaughter rival gangsters who might be interfering with his schemes."
    Flush with success, Torrio rapidly expanded his vice trade into the compliant Chicago suburbs. His personal empire now numbered over a thousand gambling joints, brothels, and saloons. One suburban club, the Arrowhead, employed two hundred girls and netted $9,000 per month. Torrio was grossing over $4 million per year. And prohibition’s windfall had yet to arrive.
    During the graft-ridden mayoral term of William “Big Bill” Thompson, Kenna-Coughlin-Colosimo-Torrio were given free reign to plunder the city. 3 In Chicago, the term
underworld
was now but a humorous oxymoron, since