Word: bigs
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...reaching this comfortable estate, Frank Costello had also achieved a peculiar but significant place in U.S. society. The rackets, like college football, the labor movement, and the care and breeding of Christmas trees, had inevitably become big business. The brain had replaced the muscle, the injunction had become more potent than the Tommy gun, and surviving warriors of prohibition upheld the status quo. Frank Costello, "legitimate businessman," dramatically typified the change...
Nobody shot at Frank Costello, and he fired no shots himself; he had long since quit packing a gun. He was a big shot from the start-a fixer, conniver, ship operator and financier-who did his work in an office at 405 Lexington Avenue, made business trips to Montreal to buy liquor from Canadian and European exporters, took enormous risks and made enormous profits. He also kept himself so shadowy and unobtrusive a figure that when U.S. Attorney Emory Buckner made a desperate but unsuccessful effort to smash the liquor racket, Costello was erroneously charged with being an accomplice...
...recognized and respected among the barons of the underworld. He became an intimate of Arnold Rothstein, the great gambler and criminal banker; he gained the esteem and affection of Tammany Swagman Jimmy Hines. When Al Capone and the other big men of gangland met in the famous Atlantic City peace conference of 1929, Frank Costello took a leading part in calling for cartels in the 'rackets instead of armed competition-a role which gained him the title of "The Prime Minister of the Underworld...
Costello also "laid off" bets with big bookies and kept a finger in real estate. After repeal, with financial backing from William Helis, the "Golden Greek" (who demanded 20,000 cases of choice Scotch for security), Costello and Kastel bought control of Britain's Whiteley Distillery, producers of House of Lords and King's Ransom Scotch. The board of directors agreed to pay Costello ?5,000 ($24,400) a year simply for "frequenting first-class hotels and restaurants and asking to be supplied with the company's brands." But the slot machines were Costello's gold...
...with commuter-like regularity, he walked into the big, opulent, mirrored barbershop of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel for a shave, a manicure, and, if need be, a trim. Afterwards he seated himself on a leather chair near the doors and received those who wished to chat, make quick touches, or offer him investment opportunities...