PROFESSIONAL KILLERS (True Crime) by Kerr Gordon

Author:Kerr, Gordon [Kerr, Gordon]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Canary Press
Published: 2011-02-01T16:00:00+00:00

Jimmy Hoffa

He tapped his watch impatiently and squinted into the distance, down Telegraph Road towards the affluent Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills. It was 30 July 1975 and he was standing in the car park of the Machus Red Fox Restaurant. Inside, the plush red velvet, English country, hunt-club style restaurant awaited with its dimly lit booths, but his lunch companions were already 15 minutes late and Jimmy Hoffa hated people being late. He was a stickler for punctuality.

There was a payphone nearby. He walked over to it and called Josephine, his wife, telling her it looked like he had been stood up and might be home early. Leaving the booth, he scanned the street again and began pacing up and down outside the restaurant, a smartly dressed stocky man in a dark blue short-sleeved shirt, blue pants, white socks and black Gucci loafers, angry and edgy.

He had been strangely on edge earlier that morning before setting out for the restaurant, according to Josephine, and when he had dropped into the offices of a friend’s limousine service in Pontiac en route to the restaurant, his nervousness was apparent to one of the employees.

The reason for his edginess was simple. He was supposed to be meeting Anthony ‘Tony Jack’ Giacolone, the go-between for Hoffa and Vincent Meli, the Detroit Mob’s union specialist, and Anthony ‘Tony Pro’ Provenzano. Provenzano was a capo in the Genovese Crime Family who had been vice-president of Hoffa’s Teamsters Union and who had gone to prison with Hoffa in 1964 for tax evasion. Hoffa and Provenzano had once been close friends, but were now sworn enemies. Hoffa was annoyed that Provenzano had taken up his old union role and Provenzano, for his part, was refusing to back Hoffa’s attempt to gain re-election to the presidency of the Teamsters. They had recently bumped into each other by chance at an airport and had a stand-up fight during which Hoffa broke a bottle over Tony Pro’s head. Provenzano had declared he would take revenge on Hoffa’s grandchildren screaming: ‘I’ll tear your heart out!’

The Machus Red meeting had been called to discuss his re-election but the Mafia, with whom Hoffa had worked well in the past, were not sure they wanted him back. His handpicked successor as president, Frank Fitzimmons, was much more malleable than Jimmy had ever been and he was also liked by US President Richard Nixon, which was a major plus. And since Nixon had granted Hoffa clemency in 1971 a lot had changed. The Mob were happy with things the way they were.

They must have arrived shortly after Hoffa’s call home, because a few minutes later a maroon 1975 Mercury Marquis Brougham sped out of the restaurant car park, almost hitting a passing delivery truck. The driver, pulling up alongside the car, peered in and recognised Jimmy Hoffa in the back seat behind the driver, another passenger whom he did not recognise, seated alongside him. Between them, on the seat, he noticed a long object wrapped in a grey blanket.

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