Uncle Al Capone by Deirdre Marie Capone Page A

time to throw a party for our friends.’
    That’s all I’m going to say about this,” Ralph said, looking at me sternly. “There had always been a code of honor that Al and most of the other guys in the business lived by. And that was that no matter how pissed off you were at your enemies, the innocent members of their families were off limits. And nobody loved his family more than my brother Al. And you never double-cross your friends. Too bad some guys didn’t live by that code. If you ask me, those guys got what they deserved.”
    I cannot pretend that my grandfather Ralph and my uncle Al had stainless hands. I cannot make them out to be heroes. But I am a Capone. Their blood runs through my veins. And I knew them. I heard the deep rumble of their voices; I felt their big arms around me; I smelled their skin.
     
    That stay in Mercer and those conversations with my grandfather got me through a very tough time in my life. But what helped me even more than feeling close to my grandfather was feeling close to my father again—as I knew I would at the lodge. I had so many childhood memories of happy times with my father in Mercer, and being there again made me feel closer to him than I had ever felt since the day he took his life. To this day, I am encouraged by the feeling that his spirit lives with me, and he is giving me strength to go through life with dignity and honor—the strength that he couldn’t find for himself during his own life. This strength has helped me recognize both the bad and the good in my family’s legacy—the fact that while they may have been capable of terrible retribution against men like Scalise, Anselmi, and Gunita, they would never have been capable of killing innocent people, like on Saint Valentine’s Day. I believe that, in a way, my father’s spirit has helped me write this book.

 
Chapter 7
Railroaded
     
    I was willing to go to jail. I could have taken my stretch, come back to my wife and child, and lived my own life. But I’m being hounded by a public that won’t give me a fair chance. They want a full show, all the courtroom trappings, the hue and cry, and all the rest. It’s utterly impossible for a man my age to have done all the things I’m charged with. I’m a spook, born of a million minds.
    - Al Capone
     
    The tides changed for Al Capone after the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre. Before that day, Chicago had been willing to tolerate him—even smile upon him—because, whether it was illegal or not, the people wanted what he was selling.
    As Al himself said, “Nobody wanted Prohibition. This town voted six to one against it. Somebody had to throw some liquor on that thirst. Why not me? I give the public what it wants. I never had to send out high-pressure salesmen. I could never meet the demand.”
    But after February 14, 1929, all that seemed to change. The newspapers were full of accusations, and the public was quick to react. No one wants to live in a lawless town, and Al Capone had come to symbolize recklessness and an utter disregard for order that went unchecked by the authorities. Of course, the police, lawmakers, and judges would probably have been happy to continue turning a blind eye to the Outfit’s operations indefinitely because they benefited from the speakeasies in payouts, booze, and good times. But once the public, spurred on by the media, was in a furor, the leaders of Chicago sensed they had to put a stop to Capone—or risk losing their power.
    Uncle Al was not slow to notice the cooling of temperature. And as much as this worried him for himself and his business, he was doubly worried for his family. Family was everything to him, and when he saw that his mother, wife, and son would suffer for his activities, he was deeply troubled.
    Al said. “I’ve got a mother who never misses mass unless she’s too sick to get out of bed,” and “I’ve got a wife who loves me as dearly as any woman could love a man. They have feelings. They are