into the year 1945
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About the Book
Summary: A ‘pulp fiction’ style story of corruption, in terms of money and spirit, in the city of Chicago after World War Two. Also, a story of childhood hatred between two men, Phil Moran and Tony Accardo, that has been kept to a white hot heat all of their lives. The corruption is that all these men (Phil, Tony, Jake, Paul and especially Timmy) have been ‘on the take’ and the play is about stolen money. The police commissioner Paul Quinn is on the payroll of the mob (Tony Accardo is Al Capone’s chauffeur and Jake Guzik is the accountant, a.k.a. “Greasy Thumb”, because he’s always counting the money). Fifteen million dollars of the mob’s money has been stolen from the bank the mob owns, the Continental Illinois Bank in Chicago. Only one man, the best detective in Chicago, Phil Moran, can solve the mystery and get the mob’s money back.
Tony Accardo hates Phil Moran, since childhood, but now he must beg him for his powers, just like Philoctetes was begged to join the battle of the Greeks against the Trojans, for the power of his arrows. But Phil Moran and his son Timmy Moran actually committed the crime, unbeknownst to Tony, Jake and Paul. Timmy Moran got a job as the night janitor in the bank. He had broken into the Mosler safe company and duplicated the master key. This enabled him to open all the mob’s safety deposit boxes. Timmy then put fifteen million of the mob’s money into garbage bags and loaded it onto a garbage truck. His father Phil Moran, dressed in a garbage man uniform, drove the truck away at night and brought it up to Canada to deposit into safety deposit boxes. Timmy then “discovered” the robbery, waited for the bank to open in the morning, took a bundle of cash to the bank manager and announced the crime. Timmy Moran, the soon-to-be-Priest, was never suspected.
Bets is the loose cannon in the play. She’s uncontrollable. She’s a compulsive gambler, hence the nick name “Bets” instead of Betty. All of the stolen money had been marked “TA” for Tony Accardo (fifteen million bucks). Teresa, Bets’ niece, has found some of the stolen money, a bunch that Timmy had hidden for himself in the lining of his overcoat. Teresa, who is staying in the house of Phil and Bets, gives the money to Bets, to acquiesce her. Bets, the compulsive gambler, who doesn’t know the money was from the Mob’s bank, bets it to Joey, her bookie, with whom she is always in phone contact. But Joey is ‘owned’ by Tony, so he immediately reports it to Tony when he sees that Bets is gambling with TA marked bills. (Joey knows that if he doesn’t tell the mob, then he’s a dead man). When Tony asks Joey about the money, Bets is implicated. She makes the scheme blow, tying the Moran family to the robbery.
The immediate action of Tony and Jake is to recover their money. Young Timmy, who knows the banks in Canada and has the keys to the safety deposit boxes with the mob’s money, has gone to the Jesuit seminary in Montreal. But the mob is all powerful. A bible that Timmy had given to Tony Accardo when he first started working in the bank, as a gesture of affection, is returned to Bets in a package with bullet holes and Timmy’s severed off index finger sticking straight up from the hole in the bible. In uncontrollable grief, Bets, realizing what she’s done, that she caused her son’s death, kills herself. Bets lights a cigarette, drinks a whiskey and then hangs herself. (A symbolic last gesture, since Bets, a cheapskate, never used to actually drink or light up; she’d just suck the cigarette and sniff the bottle, because she always was saving money).
Phil then discovers his wife’s dead body. Tony and Jake storm the apartment. Phil hopes Jake will kill him, relievin
About the Author
Robert Lesser is…several Robert Lessers. First, a playwright of twelve plays who believes in the insertion of dramatic poetry back into drama. The great Greek and Elizabethan dramatists used it. Why not now, again in hard, pulpy street language written to make the hair on the back of you neck stand up? Second, a humorist having written three novels of political and social satire who believes that the two feet comedy stands on are invention and exaggeration. Invented, funny and the original characters you’ve never met and never will (Dickens and Waugh) exaggerate to the point of absurdity…then laughter. Third, caught and tangled up tight in the spider web of collecting: the author of two popular books on Popular Culture and numerous articles. His collections have been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. Life? Very fast! Teenager into the Air force into the University of Chicago B.A., M.A. worked in their Institute for Nuclear Studies into the business world, made money, out of the business world, retired, writing full time… Along the way many lovely women were very kind to him. His life motto in Latin: NILS DESPERANDUM…NEVER DESPAIR.