Double Deal: The Inside Story of Murder, Unbridled Corruption, and the Cop Who Was a Mobster

by Michael Corbitt, Sam Giancana, Bettina Giancana, Kevin March (Foreword by)

Overview

An expose of organised crime and its unholy alliance with world leaders, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement, Double Deal is a 40–year saga told with unflinching honesty by mob insider and former Chicago chief of police Michael Corbitt.

Growing up poor and angry, Michael Corbitt fought his way up the ranks of greasers and street gangs until he attracted the attention of Chicago crime boss Sam Giancana, who placed him on the Willow Springs, Illinois, police force. By the time Corbitt was appointed chief of police, he'd also moved up the Outfit's ranks and was living the high life of a respected mobster.

Corbitt's luck turned when he was indicted on charges of racketeering and conspiracy to commit murder. Although there was a mob contract on his life and he was facing a 20–year jail sentence, he refused to testify against organised crime figures under the witness protection programme, maintaining instead the Mafioso's code of silence – until his release from prison.

Now Corbitt breaks that silence, holding back nothing–including the account of his personal involvement in the brutal murder of the wife of Chicago mob attorney Alan Masters.

Corbitt bares his soul, confessing in graphic – sometimes horrific – detail a life lived as both saint and sinner, a life that moved back and forth between the conflicting worlds of the police officer and the gangster with ease.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061030482
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/24/2004
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.86(w) x 4.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Sam Giancana is the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Double Cross and the godson and namesake of Sam "Momo" Giancana, the notorious Chicago mafia boss.

The former chief of police of Willow Springs, Illinois, Michael Corbitt became a highly decorated rated officer while working for the Chicago mob. In 1989, he was indicted on charges of racketeering and conspiracy to commit murder and was subsequently sentenced to twenty years in federal prison. He was released in 1998.

Read an Excerpt

Double Deal
The Inside Story of Murder, Unbridled Corruption, and the Cop Who Was a Mobster

Chapter One

"He's gotta go."

The words on the tape player ricocheted off the prison walls. I knew that voice like it was my own brother. It was Sal Bastone, the big greasy-headed son of a bitch who ran the Chicago mob's North Side crew, the guy the FBI called a high-ranking Outfit "loan shark and racketeer." Sal and I went way back -- to the sixties, when I was on the police force in Willow Springs, Illinois.

It may be hard to imagine a cop being involved with the Outfit, but a guy in that position can be very useful to organized crime, and I was no exception. Like a lot of underpaid police officers, I was more than willing to "look the other way." But during the ten years I worked with the Bastone crew, I became more than just a crooked cop who turned his head for a price. I became Sal Bastone's bagman, his gun man, his driver, and his courier -- as well as his best friend.

The tape player was still on, but it wasn't Sal Bastone I was hearing now. Another voice said, "Gotta go? You mean ... GO?" It was Gerry Scarpelli and he sounded shocked. "You sure we're talkin' about the same fuckin' guy? I mean, Jesus ... this is your fuckin' man out west we're talkin' about, right? Your goddamned driver ...MIKE?"

My stomach turned. I couldn't believe my ears. Sal was telling Gerry to whack me. Me. And I was supposed to be Sal's best friend. At least I'd thought I was. Of course, unlike Gerry, I wasn't about to reveal my feelings on the matter -- not with two FBI agents sitting right across the table from me, watching my every move.

"Yeah," Sal said impatiently. "Yeah ... we're talkin' about the same guy ... MIKE. Like I said, he's gotta go. We got a major problem here. I don't know if you seen he got indicted. But some people are concerned about the situation ... you hear what I'm sayin'? So that's that. He's gotta go."

Gerry's voice went shrill, "Okay, okay ... I hear you. But you know, his goddamned kid is with him wherever he fuckin' goes ... what about the kid?"

At the mention of my son Joey, my stomach did another nose-dive. Sal Bastone could have me whacked, fine. But a defenseless little kid? Joey has Down's syndrome. He's just a baby. He's also Sal Bastone's godson. I couldn't imagine that Sal would ever go along with anything that might hurt Joey.

Sal went on, "Hey, I don't give a rat's ass who the fuck's with him. Like I said ... the cocksucker's gotta go. Okay? You fuckin' got that? So do what you gotta do. Just get the job done. This isn't just me talkin' ... This is comin' from up top, from you-know-who ... you understand what I'm sayin' here?"

I guess having the order to take me out come from Chicago's top man on the street, Joey Lombardo -- who Sal had always referred to as "you know who" -- lessened the shock to some extent. I wasn't surprised to hear that Lombardo wanted me taken out; he'd always hated me. Forget any loyalty I'd shown to the Outfit, I'd always been a badge to him. And I wasn't surprised that Sal would go along with the idea, either. In my line of work you have to be a realist. Business is business. So I could live with Sal's betrayal of our friendship. It was his total lack of compassion for my son Joey that I couldn't handle.

One of the agents hit stop on the tape player. "So there you have it," he said. "What do you think of your old friend Sal Bastone now?"

Since 1989 the Justice Department had tried everything they could think of to get me to turn and go into the federal witness protection program. Up to this point, nothing had worked. But I guess they figured that hearing my best friend planning to whack me and my kid would do the trick, that Michael Jerome Corbitt, Tallahassee inmate 96751-024 and former Willow Springs chief of police, would finally cooperate, go WITSEC, and disappear into Numb Nuts, Iowa.

The other agent shook his head and sighed. "Sounds like Sal Bastone doesn't care who's in the way when they come after you, Mike ... even if it's your kid."

I glared back at him.

He threw up his hands and shrugged. "Hey, man, don't blame us ... It wasn't our idea to play the tape. You wanted to hear it."

His partner nodded. "And now that you've heard it, what are you gonna do about it?" He leaned forward and folded his hands on the table. "You tell me, Mike ... what's it gonna be?"

Our eyes met and then -- whoa -- it was déjà vu. All of a sudden, no more agents. Instead it was Sam Giancana, the infamous Chicago mob boss, staring back at me. "So what's it gonna be, kid?" Giancana asked. His dark eyes were shining out from under a black fedora. "You wanna be a cop?"

A chill ran up my spine. It had been years since Sam Giancana asked me that. Back then, in the sixties, I was just an overgrown juvenile delinquent with a leather jacket and a lot of attitude. I'd looked up to Outfit guys like they were gods. So of course I'd said yes to Sam Giancana -- even though I didn't have the slightest desire to be a goddamned cop.

"Good," Giancana said. "But just remember, kid ... don't forget who your friends are." And then Sam Giancana winked, like me and the world's greatest mob boss shared some big fucking secret.

Double Deal
The Inside Story of Murder, Unbridled Corruption, and the Cop Who Was a Mobster. Copyright © by Sam Giancana. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

What People are Saying About This

Gus Russo

“Important …Provocative in its implications… Much to grapple with here…[A] world...never before written about.”

Editorial Reviews

Important …Provocative in its implications… Much to grapple with here…[A] world...never before written about.

Gus Russo

In 1992, Michael Corbitt's Double Cross catapulted onto bestseller lists with its insider revelations about organized crime, mobster feuds, and tainted cops. Corbitt's gut-wrenching memoir of his double life as a police chief and a gangster brought him headlines, sales, and an attempted hit ordered by an outraged wise guy. But it did leave some questions unanswered: Who killed Sam Giancana? Who was his successor? And, not least, what has happened to Corbitt and the Mob since he blew the whistle on his former buddies? Double Deal provides the answers and offers a public indictment of shadowy forces operating at home and abroad.

bn.com

This is a fast-paced inside look at the workings of the Chicago-based organized crime syndicate and its national and international dealings, by a highly decorated former Illinois police officer who spent his entire law enforcement career working for the Mob. Co-author Giancana covered much of the same territory in Double Cross, his bestselling look at the U.S. Mafia, but here his obvious model is Nicholas Pileggi's Wiseguy, the classic insider look at the New York crime world through the words of ex-mobster Henry Hill. Surprisingly, Corbitt's story compares favorably to that earlier classic true crime tale as he narrates his rise from the ranks of an average Chicago gang to being a player with the likes of Sam "Momo" Giancana (his co-author's uncle) and Tony Accardo-perhaps the two most important figures in the history of post-WWII Chicago crime. Giancana captures Corbitt's eye for the sleazy details of Mob life, such as the time he sees "half a million in loose diamonds" wrapped in a brown paper bag on the front seat of Momo's car, "looking like a ham sandwich." But the heart of the book is Corbitt's description of the mysterious figure of Hy Larner, who, along with Meyer Lansky, controlled organized crime in the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s. Corbitt's first-hand accounts of Larner's dealings with shady figures like Lansky, the Shah of Iran and Manuel Noriega, as well as with agents of the Israeli government, the Mossad and the CIA, provide some new evidence of the extent of organized crime's involvement with the government. (Feb.) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

These compelling memoirs give readers a window into the Chicago-area mob from the late 1950s to the 1980s. Well written in Corbitt's own voice, the book details his beginnings with the mob as a teenager in an appliance repair shop that was a front for various mob-related operations. Working his way up, he eventually became a police officer at the request of mob boss Sam Giancana (godfather of coauthor Sam Giancana). On the mob's payroll, Corbitt worked his way through the ranks to police chief. In 1989, he was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and of refusing to testify against the mob. While he was in prison, the FBI eventually convinced Corbitt that he had been betrayed by the mob, so he agreed to tell them what he knew. However, the FBI would not continue the investigation. Angry and bitter, Corbitt then resolved to take his revenge on those who betrayed him by telling his story in this frank and enjoyable book. Recommended for medium to large public libraries, especially those in the Chicago area. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/02.]-Sarah Jent, Univ. of Louisville, KY Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Important …Provocative in its implications… Much to grapple with here…[A] world...never before written about.” — Gus Russo, Washington Post

From the Publisher