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The Well-Charactered Man. In 1951's gangland, many of the faces are survivors of the death-ride days of Prohibition. But IQSI'S gang lord no longer swaggers about escorted by squads of dark-coated goons with bulges under their armpits, nor is he openly followed by a string of expensive tarts. His clothes are no longer flashy; everything's gotta be in good taste. He is a homebody. He lives comfortably but not fabulously in a respectable neighborhood, contributes to charity, hobnobs with cafe society, is a friend to politicians, sends his children to summer camp and the big kids to college. He allows himself a Cadillac (usually registered in his wife's name) and a home in Miami. He never, never carries a rod. He keeps all his transactions in cash and explains his low-class friends blandly. "Well-charactered people; you just meet them automatically," says New Jersey's Willie Moretti.
Chicago's Tony Accardo, for example, lives in swank River Forest, conducts his operations at the head of a long director's table in a big basement room lined with an antique gun collection. One Christmas Accardo decorated a 40-ft. tree on his lawn, installed electrically driven skaters, which glided around the lawn on tracks to the strains of Christmas carols. Tony wanted to be a good neighbor. He deplores the tattooed dove on his right hand, which twitches when he moves his trigger finger and reminds him of the days when he was an Al Capone bodyguard.
Hard-eyed men with brains like a cash register, the gangsters of 1951 are no kin to Damon Runyon's Harry the Horse. They have taken the business risk out of gambling by making it big. They look on their eager customers with the contempt of a sure-thing businessman for the fellow who throws around sucker money.
The Pattern. Many of Big Crime's big men have paid Kefauver the compliment of disappearing. Jake Guzik vanished from the steam room next door to Chicago's Crime Commission, where he conducts his business over an ivory-handled telephone with a towel around his sagging middle. Charlie Fischetti could be found neither at his Miami estate, nor in Manhattan's Stork Club, nor in the duplex penthouse atop 3100 North Sheridan
Road, where he and his brothers collect art and lavishly entertain visiting mob chieftains. Those that didn't fade were mortally embarrassed by the subpoena servers. "They went around to the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker," complained Joe Adonis. "They made slurring remarks."
But whether they showed up or not, the mob chieftains left telltale signs everywhere. In city after city, the same pattern of far-flung enterprise and secret partnerships showed up. The committee found that Meyer Lansky and Joe Adonis are busily engaged with dice games in New Jersey and roulette in Miami. Philadelphia's Dave Glass and Cleveland's Al Polizzi are partners in Miami Beach's Sands Hotel. New York's Frank Erickson shared the Colonial Inn in Hallandale, Fla. with Detroit's Mert Wertheimer; Cleveland's Tommy McGinty has "maybe $1,500,000" in Las Vegas' Desert Inn.