Scarface
Capone's job at the Harvard Inn was to be the bartender and
bouncer and, when necessary, to wait on tables. In his first
year, Capone became popular with his boss and the customers.
Then his luck turned suddenly when he waited on the table of a young
couple. The girl was beautiful and the young Capone was
entranced. He leaned over her and said, "Honey, you have
a nice ass and I mean that as a compliment."
The man with her was her brother Frank Gallucio. He jumped
to his feet and punched the man who insulted his sister.
Capone flew into a rage and Gallucio pulled out a knife to defend
himself. He cut Capone's face three times before he grabbed
his sister and ran out of the place. While the wounds healed
well, the long ugly scars would haunt him forever.
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Frankie Yale (Chicago
Historical Society) |
Capone's insult caused a bit of an uproar. Gallucio went to
Lucky Luciano with his grievance and Luciano went to Frankie
Yale. When it came to Yale's attention, all four men came
together and dispensed justice. Capone was forced to apologize
to Gallucio. Capone learned something from the
experience --to restrain his temper when it was necessary.
Yale took Capone under his wing and impressed upon the younger
man how business can be built up through brutality. Yale was
resourceful and violent man who prospered by strong-arm
tactics. Schoenberg characterized Yale as specializing
in extortion; loansharking, exacting tribute from pimps and
bookmakers, and offering "protection" to local
businesses. "Yale needed a stable of strongarms who could
not only break arms and heads but would kill."
As powerful as Yale's influence would be on Capone's eventual
development, other influences had a very moderating effect on
Al. At the age of nineteen, he met a pretty blond Irish girl
named Mae Coughlin, who was two years older than he was. Her
family was comfortable and solidly middle class. It's
hard to imagine that Mae's family embraced her relationship with
Capone and it was not until after their baby was born that they
married.
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Al Capone as young
man |
Albert Francis Capone was born December 4, 1918. His godfather
was Johnny Torrio. While Sonny, as he was known all his life,
seemed okay at birth, he was in fact a victim of congenital
syphilis. Years later, Al confessed to doctors that he had
been infected before he was married, but he believed that the
infection had gone away.
With a beautiful respectable wife and a baby to support, Al
focused on a legitimate career. He stopped working for Frankie
Yale and moved to Baltimore where he worked as capable bookkeeper
for Peter Aiello's construction firm. Al did very
well. He was smart, had a good head for figures and was
very reliable.
Quite suddenly, Al did another about face when his father died
November 14, 1920, of heart disease at the age of fifty-five.
Bergreen saw the event as marking the end of Capone's legitimate
career. "It is possible that the sudden absence of
parental authority made the young Capone feel free to abandon his
bookkeeping job and his carefully acquired aura of
respectability....
He resumed his relationship with Johnny Torrio, who had during
the intervening years expanded his racketeering empire with the
quiet cunning of a visionary. Torrio had abandoned the hotly
contested streets of Brookyn for the comparatively open spaces of
Chicago. The opportunities were enormous: gambling, brothels,
and...illegal alcohol."
Torrio beckoned from Chicago and early in 1921 Al accepted.
Armed with his knowledge of business and his experience with the
brutal Frankie Yale, Capone had a good resume for a career in
crime.
