Henry Brook - Gangsters

The two policemen climbed out of their patrol car and checked their machine guns. It was a bitterly cold morning in Chicago, well below freezing, with a biting wind whistling off Lake Michigan. They blew on their fingers, trying to warm them, then walked over to the garage door. Once inside, they tiptoed along a narrow corridor, moving silently in the direction of the voices coming from the back.

A few hundred yards away on North Clark Street, a black sedan purred to a halt. Sitting up from his snug leather seat, the gang leader George Bugs Moran peered over his bodyguards shoulder at the police car waiting outside his garage.

Cops, he hissed. Must be a raid. Lets get some breakfast. Well come back in an hour and see if everythings OK.

The sedan turned noiselessly and vanished around the corner of a building. As it slid from view, three more men stepped out from the back seat of the police car. They hadnt seen Moran come and go. One of them cradled a shotgun in his arms, the other two carried machine guns. All three wore expensive suits, hand-crafted Italian leather shoes and stylish hats. Their faces were broken and scarred. They were not policemen.

In the back room of the garage, the cream of Morans gang were playing cards and chatting, sipping coffee to ward off the cold. Frank and Peter Gusenberg were experienced gunmen, famous around the city for having tried to assassinate a rival gang-boss, Al Capone, a few months earlier. John May was a mechanic who helped with the gangs less honest business when he needed extra money: he had seven children to support. Albert Weinshank ran a speakeasy (an illegal bar/nightclub). James Clark was Morans brother-in-law, and Adam Heyer handled the gangs accounts.

There was a seventh man in the room who had nothing to do with the gangster war that was raging in Chicago that year. He was Dr. Rheinhardt Schwimmer, a 29-year-old eye surgeon who liked to boast about his criminal friends. Their company made Schwimmer feel superior to his law-abiding peers. He knew that Capone had promised to destroy Moran and his gang, but he didnt consider himself to be in any danger. After all, he wasnt a gangster. Hed only stopped by at the garage to play a few hands of poker before returning to his practice.

The two policemen stepped into the room. Frank Gusenberg snaked a hand to the gun holster under his jacket, but when he noticed the uniforms he relaxed. Dont worry boys, its just the cops.

The policemen trained their guns on the gangsters. Line up against that wall, came the order. Face first.

Yeah, yeah, we know the drill, Frank answered in a mocking tone. Wed better do as they say, he barked at the others.

For a second, Schwimmer wondered if he should try explaining that he was a doctor and really had to be going. But when he saw the muzzles of the guns motioning him to turn around, he decided to say nothing. The seven men lined up, hands in the air, their noses almost touching the icy bricks of the garage wall.

For a few seconds there was silence, then Frank heard the click of a leather heel on the cobbles outside. Whos that? he demanded. Is there another cop out there?

The sound of running feet echoed along the corridor from the street.

Frank was getting annoyed. He wasnt used to being pushed around by the police. There was an important shipment of Canadian whiskey arriving this morning. The boss himself would be here any minute, and hed be furious if a few cops had interrupted the delivery.

Officers, please, he started, slowly turning his head, cant we come to an arrangement? If its a question of money

Frank stared. The two cops had been joined by three men in expensive suits. One of the policemen dropped his cap to the ground. His knuckles were white where they gripped the trigger handle of his gun. In a flash, Frank realized these werent real cops, but executioners. Dont do it, he pleaded too late, as their guns began to blaze.

The assassins had been well organized and patient. They had rented an apartment opposite the garage and watched the comings and goings through its doors for weeks. They had even arranged the ruse of the whiskey shipment, posing as a Canadian gang who wanted to sell alcohol to Moran. The truck was due to arrive at 11:00am on February 14, 1929. At 10:30am, a lookout thought he saw Moran and six of his gang enter the building. He was mistaken. Weinshank, who had a similar build and height to Moran, was wrongly identified as the gang leader. The lookout rushed to the phone on the landing and made a call.

Theyre here, he whispered into the receiver.

Minutes later, the stolen police car arrived with its deadly cargo of killers.

Somehow, Frank Gusenberg survived the storm of machine-gun bullets. When the real police arrived, they sped the dying gangster to the hospital and questioned him about his attackers. Gusenberg must have recognized some of the men who shot him, but he refused to talk. He died of his wounds three hours after the massacre. The only other survivor of the shooting was John Mays German Shepherd dog, Highball. When a press photographer found the animal hiding in the garage, it was shaking uncontrollably. It had listened to the roar of over 100 gunshots.

This was the worst gangland killing in criminal history. It wasnt just that seven men had been shot dead a record number for any gang murder. But the victims were cut down in a neat, orderly line, mimicking an official execution, and the killers had shown open contempt for the authorities by daring to impersonate policemen. Newspapers around the world reported the chilling facts of the shooting, quickly dubbing it The St. Valentines Day Massacre. Editorials announced the reign of the violent, criminal gang, the new plague of the nation. Who were these killers who stood in defiance of the law, who took what they wanted by force and corrupted society and its values wherever they went? The violent shadow-world of the gangsters had been suddenly exposed.

Bugs Moran went into hiding. Hed had a lucky escape, but his gang was shattered. It never recovered its former strength, and the boss who once ruled north Chicago was finally reduced to robbing grocery stores in order to feed himself. He died in prison, in 1957.

No one was prosecuted for the massacre. Gangsters whispered that Capone had ordered it, but Moran had plenty of other enemies. To this day, the murders remain unsolved.