Speaker 1: Pushkin Jake Alpern here before we get started, I wanted
Speaker 1: you to know that deep Cover Season two will be
Speaker 1: dropping weekly on Mondays, but the full season is available
Speaker 1: right now ad free for Pushkin Plus subscribers. That's all
Speaker 1: ten episodes right away. Fine Pushkin Plus on the deep
Speaker 1: Cover show page in Apple Podcasts, or at Pushkin dot Fm.
Speaker 1: Previously on deep Cover. In early nineteen eighty six, Bob
Speaker 1: Cooley reached a breaking point with the mob. He was
Speaker 1: working at case the old fashioned way, without bribing anyone,
Speaker 1: and then the mob came in and took control of things,
Speaker 1: insisted on paying off the judge and fixing the case.
Speaker 1: In this case, it was a powder keg. It involved
Speaker 1: a young man who brutally assaulted a female police officer.
Speaker 1: Bob represented the assailant, and when the verdict came in
Speaker 1: not guilty, there was an uproar. As I'm going to
Speaker 1: walk towards the door, they're grabbing me and screaming at
Speaker 1: me and yelling you trader and stuff like that. And
Speaker 1: I know why they're saying it, because I'm an ex policeman,
Speaker 1: and you know, how could you represent somebody you know
Speaker 1: who did something like that Bob was finished with the mob,
Speaker 1: and shortly after this he walked into the office of
Speaker 1: a federal prosecutor and offered to switch sides. Bob was
Speaker 1: determined to nail the guys in the first ward, especially
Speaker 1: the top guy, Pat Marcy. He was tired of taking
Speaker 1: orders from him, doing his bidding and being part of
Speaker 1: this corrupt system. Bob he wanted to tear it all down,
Speaker 1: and to do this he would have to wear a wire.
Speaker 1: He was like a kid, just ready to run out
Speaker 1: into the into the recess area because I can go
Speaker 1: do this now, I can go do that now, I
Speaker 1: can go do this now. And it's like no, that's
Speaker 1: Marie Dyson. She and Steve Bowen were Bob's handlers at
Speaker 1: the FBI, the carpool buddies. They appreciated how eager Bob was,
Speaker 1: but there were, you know, rules. After all, this was
Speaker 1: a serious covert operation. There had to be a system
Speaker 1: to it. There had to be a process to it,
Speaker 1: because it was our policy not to just wire up somebody,
Speaker 1: let them run out there and have a great time
Speaker 1: and not know what they're doing and not be able
Speaker 1: to take any responsibility for that. We were responsible for
Speaker 1: Bob I think he thought he was just he could
Speaker 1: wire up and just start having conversations. Maurice says they
Speaker 1: made it clear to Bob it was going to be methodical,
Speaker 1: one target at a time, and Bob got it. He
Speaker 1: felt the gravity of the situation. The moment I put
Speaker 1: the wire around the first time, my life was over.
Speaker 1: I couldn't never practice law anymore. I couldn't never stay
Speaker 1: in the city anymore. If it ever got out, they
Speaker 1: would kill me in a heartbeat. Period case closed, Bob
Speaker 1: began to take it as a given that his days
Speaker 1: were numbered. In other words, it wasn't a question of
Speaker 1: if he'd be outed as the mole, it was just
Speaker 1: a question of when, and so he had to prepare
Speaker 1: for this eventuality. I thought they would eventually get suspicious
Speaker 1: or something would happen, but I thought I would be killed.
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure that the case would survive,
Speaker 1: even with me Dad, if this was it was very
Speaker 1: important to me to get everything on tape, you know,
Speaker 1: that would survive me. Sure. Bob was scared to death.
Speaker 1: For Bob, it was all about tape, and he remembers
Speaker 1: telling Steve, I want the biggest tape recorder you've got
Speaker 1: the one with the most tape that can record the
Speaker 1: most hours. Remember this is the eighties, back when tape
Speaker 1: was literally tape. They were still using old fashioned reel
Speaker 1: to real devices. And this is classic Bob right. Size matters,
Speaker 1: but size was also dangerous. The bigger the recorder, the
Speaker 1: harder it was to hide. Steve came up with a solution. Oh,
Speaker 1: I've went out and I'm boughting five hundred dollars cowboy
Speaker 1: boots and had pockets sewn in him. And then he
Speaker 1: got the wire running up his you know, up his
Speaker 1: pant leg and threw his crotch, and he didn't didn't
Speaker 1: wasn't comfortable enough for him to wear. But so he
Speaker 1: wouldn't wear the cowboy boots. Why not? They weren't comfortable.
Speaker 1: He couldn't it, couldn't get it to fit right or something.
Speaker 1: I don't know. You can still hear a bit of
Speaker 1: confusion in Steve's voice, and I get it. Bob was
Speaker 1: full of contradictions. Here's a guy is willing to wear
Speaker 1: a recorder but won't wear the cowboy boots that would
Speaker 1: conceal it. A guy who thought he could be killed
Speaker 1: at any moment, but also insisted that he was ready
Speaker 1: more than ready. I've been good at everything I've ever done. Anything,
Speaker 1: I've ever anything I've ever tried, I've been successful at
Speaker 1: I have been I tried wrestling, I was great at wrestling.
Speaker 1: I tried boxing. I was great at me. I was
Speaker 1: great at boxing. You have you have quite the ego, Bob,
Speaker 1: There's no question about it. I mean, if the facts
Speaker 1: speak for themselves, it seems like, and don't take this
Speaker 1: the wrong way, Bob, but you were kind of a
Speaker 1: cocky bastard. I mean, there's no question nobody else could
Speaker 1: have done it. In my mind, there's no absolutely no
Speaker 1: question nobody else could have or would have. I'm Jake
Speaker 1: Halburn and this is Deep Cover mob Land, episode seven,
Speaker 1: the Philosopher King. In this episode, I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you the story of three people who Bob targeted or betrayed,
Speaker 1: depending on how you look at it. The first was
Speaker 1: a mob boss, the second was a bookie, and the
Speaker 1: third was a poet. Let's start with one of the
Speaker 1: first guys. Bob wears a wire on John no Nos Defranzo.
Speaker 1: Defronzo earned his nickname the Hard Way in his twenties.
Speaker 1: He attempted to rob a store, and police shot part
Speaker 1: of his nose off. By the nineteen eighties, when Bob
Speaker 1: knew him, he ran a Chrysler dealership, but really he
Speaker 1: was a high ranking mobster, a player in the Chicago outfit. Now,
Speaker 1: Defronzo was a good guy for Bob to start with,
Speaker 1: for a couple of reasons. One, it would demonstrate to
Speaker 1: the FEDS that Bob knew actual mobsters. And for Bob
Speaker 1: see he wanted to prove that he hadn't flipped because
Speaker 1: he was in trouble with the mob. Around this time,
Speaker 1: Bob was down on his luck. He owed tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars to some bookies in Chicago, but Bob
Speaker 1: claimed that Defronzo had basically waved his hand and forgiven
Speaker 1: these loans. Bob says, I can prove this, So he
Speaker 1: wires up and just waltzes over to Chrysler dealership and
Speaker 1: gets it on tape. Bob's handler, Steve Bowen, was impressed.
Speaker 1: I remember De Fronzo telling him in a really authoritative tone, no, Bob,
Speaker 1: I told you not to pay them, sort of like that,
Speaker 1: like giving him an order. And with that, Bob was
Speaker 1: off to the races. Bob's next target was a bookie.
Speaker 1: He arranges to meet him at a restaurant. Bob uses
Speaker 1: an ace bandage to strap the recorder to his leg.
Speaker 1: Steve and Marie are stationed somewhere across the street doing surveillance.
Speaker 1: They'd given Bob cash to pay the bookie. I drive
Speaker 1: up to the restaurant. When I pull up, there in
Speaker 1: the front he's sitting on one of the stools looking
Speaker 1: out the window right at me. The bookie is already
Speaker 1: in the restaurant, just staring out the window. The two
Speaker 1: men lock eyes. Bob then opens the car door and
Speaker 1: starts to get out. As they stepped out of the car,
Speaker 1: the wire I feel the wire falling out on my
Speaker 1: leg somehow as he swings his leg out of the car.
Speaker 1: This motion loosens the padding on the ace bandage. The
Speaker 1: tape recorder slips, and now it's just dangling from the wire.
Speaker 1: I can feel it. It was hanging down there under
Speaker 1: my shoe. Meanwhile, the bookie is still watching Bob through
Speaker 1: the restaurant window. It's unclear if he's seen what's happened,
Speaker 1: but Bob needs to distract him and quickly, so Bob
Speaker 1: points across the street, hoping he can divert the Bookie's
Speaker 1: gaze like the oldest trick in the book. Look over there.
Speaker 1: Then Bob hops back in his car. I closed the
Speaker 1: door and I drove home, left him sitting in the
Speaker 1: window staring at me. And obviously the agents haven no
Speaker 1: idea what's going on. Bob speeds back to his apartment.
Speaker 1: He's trying not to panic, but he's spooked. What's going
Speaker 1: through my head? Holy Christ? You know, I mean, this
Speaker 1: is it. My life is over and it's all within
Speaker 1: a couple of seconds. Bob gets home a little while later,
Speaker 1: Steve and Marie show up, and Bob says, Steve looks
Speaker 1: at him like, what the hell just happened? I said,
Speaker 1: you know the wire fell down in month. Did he
Speaker 1: see it? I said, I don't know. He's looking right
Speaker 1: at me. I said. I tried pulling it up, I said,
Speaker 1: but I don't know how he couldn't have seen me.
Speaker 1: It appeared to be a full blown disaster, like they
Speaker 1: were just getting started and Bob's cover was already blown.
Speaker 1: Bob's handler, Marie remembers how distraught he was. He was
Speaker 1: a wreck. I mean he was just shaking because it
Speaker 1: was like I can't do this. I can't have this
Speaker 1: stuff happening. I'm gonna get killed. Oh yeah, and rightfully so.
Speaker 1: I mean he was that close to a guy noticing
Speaker 1: a wire on him. That's death, instant death. Bob's phone rang.
Speaker 1: It was the bookie. He also wanted to know what
Speaker 1: the hell just happened. Why had Bob sped off? I
Speaker 1: said to him, did you see him over there? Did
Speaker 1: I see who? I said? I think there were undercover
Speaker 1: agents at the gas station across the street. I saw
Speaker 1: a couple of wouldn't look like unmarked cars. In effect,
Speaker 1: Bob is telling the bookie, I just did you a favor.
Speaker 1: You were being watched. That's why I sped away, and
Speaker 1: the bookie he buys it, and the proof is Bob
Speaker 1: Arrange is another meeting with the bookie and makes his payment.
Speaker 1: Marie was impressed. He's good. There's no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: He's good. She wasn't entirely surprised either. He had seen
Speaker 1: too many people get killed and had heard about too
Speaker 1: many people getting killed because they made a mistake. Bob
Speaker 1: was not going to make that mistake. He had to
Speaker 1: be a resource, and one of the things he did well,
Speaker 1: No matter what came up, he always had some kind
Speaker 1: of answer for it. Bob may have been good, but
Speaker 1: the whole incident also reminded him of just how precarious
Speaker 1: his situation was. At any moment. There were a million
Speaker 1: tiny variables that could come into play. The tightness of
Speaker 1: his ace bandage, the vantage point of the bookie and
Speaker 1: the restaurant window, a tremor in Bob's voice when he
Speaker 1: tried to explain himself. Any of these could have blown
Speaker 1: Bob's cover. Any of these could have gotten him killed.
Speaker 1: And given all of this, it seemed like just a
Speaker 1: matter of time before a disaster struck. As a lifelong gambler,
Speaker 1: Bob understood this only too well. You roll the dice
Speaker 1: long enough, eventually you get snake eyes. When we come
Speaker 1: back after the break, Bob sets his sights on the
Speaker 1: first Ward, on a big target who happens to be
Speaker 1: a friend of his, or at least used to be.
Speaker 1: Bob's goal from the start was to take down the
Speaker 1: first Ward, the political machine run by gangsters. These were
Speaker 1: the guys who fixed cases and corrupted public officials. They'd
Speaker 1: been doing this for decades. I've been getting away with
Speaker 1: it too. They were savvy, and discreet. But they did
Speaker 1: have a weakness, and it was a simple one. They
Speaker 1: trusted Bob with their secrets, and this place Bob in
Speaker 1: an interesting situation. It forced him to decide whom he
Speaker 1: would or wouldn't betray. Bob knew that once he told
Speaker 1: the FBI the name of a potential target, someone he
Speaker 1: could incriminate, well, then the FBI might ask him to
Speaker 1: do it. He thought about it and eventually decided, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he'd be transparent and give up the names, well almost
Speaker 1: all of them, because there were certain people. To this day,
Speaker 1: I've never discussed with anybody and never would. What was
Speaker 1: your litmus test? What was your decider for whether or
Speaker 1: not you would name a certain person, how corrupt they were,
Speaker 1: and what they would or wouldn't do. I made my
Speaker 1: own decision on that. You decided based on your opinion
Speaker 1: of how egregious they behaved. That would be the decidre
Speaker 1: of whether absolutely it's odd you're almost playing the role
Speaker 1: of judge there. Yes, others I'd look him from the outside,
Speaker 1: might think that's wrong. I could care less what they think.
Speaker 1: A more cynical take on kind of who you would
Speaker 1: talk about or not would be, Oh, people that Bob liked,
Speaker 1: he didn't hand over people who didn't like he handed over. Well,
Speaker 1: that's absolutely true. But the reason I liked or didn't
Speaker 1: like him was because of what the kind of people
Speaker 1: they were. With the two mob guys that he'd worn
Speaker 1: a wire on, Defranzo and the Bookie. This decision appears
Speaker 1: to have been relatively easy for Bob. As he saw it,
Speaker 1: they were textbook criminals, and it might add guys that
Speaker 1: Bob wasn't especially close with, But it wasn't always quite
Speaker 1: so easy. There were other targets that Bob was much
Speaker 1: closer with, Guys he'd known for years, knew their families,
Speaker 1: Guys like Johnny Diarco Junior, a State Senator. As far
Speaker 1: as targets went, he was a pretty good sized fish.
Speaker 1: Johnny was majority whip in the States Senate. He wielded
Speaker 1: real power and influence, and in the end Bob did
Speaker 1: hand him over to the Feds. But to understand why,
Speaker 1: let me tell you a little story. Because Bob's relationship
Speaker 1: with John Junior, or Johnny as he was also known, well,
Speaker 1: it was special. Bob and Johnny first cross pats in college.
Speaker 1: Bob says they started off his rivals even got into
Speaker 1: a fistfight. Eventually they became friends, even though they were
Speaker 1: really different guys. Johnny's whole world was Johnny Johnnies. The
Speaker 1: whole world was playing racquet ball, eating nuts and whatever.
Speaker 1: Do you mean eating nuts and whatever? He ate nothing
Speaker 1: but nuts for a long period of time, nothing but
Speaker 1: I mean peanuts and whatever, because he believed he had
Speaker 1: some wackle. He was in the yoga and all this
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Bob was an irishman from a family
Speaker 1: of cops. Johnny was an Italian guy from a family
Speaker 1: with mob ties. Johnny grew up in the little Italy
Speaker 1: neighborhood of Chicago. His father, John Diarco Senior, had been
Speaker 1: a city alderman and was part of the First Ward.
Speaker 1: Senior was a mob guy, and he looked the part.
Speaker 1: He wore fancy suits, smoked fat cigars, wore diamond pinky
Speaker 1: ring and like all good mob guys, knew how to
Speaker 1: keep his mouth shut. His son, Johnny Junior, couldn't have
Speaker 1: been more different. He was a fitness buff who read
Speaker 1: philosophy and wrote poetry. He lived in his own world.
Speaker 1: He was doing all kinds of poetry all the time.
Speaker 1: But I never asked him what it was. I didn't care.
Speaker 1: You know, I'd see him sitting there, you know, writing
Speaker 1: all this stuff out. Johnny's interest in poetry wasn't just
Speaker 1: a hobby or a passing phase as a young man.
Speaker 1: That's what he really wanted to be. Not a politician
Speaker 1: or a gangster or a lawyer, but a scribbler of verse.
Speaker 1: Johnny Junior wouldn't talk to me for this podcast, but
Speaker 1: I did find a lengthy and excellent profile of him
Speaker 1: in the Chicago Tribune from the nineteen eighties up to then.
Speaker 1: I was an iron Rand type, all cool and rational.
Speaker 1: That's the actor Michael Imperioli. We asked him to read
Speaker 1: Johnny's lines from that interview exactly as they appeared in print.
Speaker 1: In this article, Johnny talked about how in college he
Speaker 1: underwent a spiritual transformation. Then one day I asked myself
Speaker 1: the most fundamental question of all, Who am I and
Speaker 1: where am I going? He says that question led him
Speaker 1: on a journey of sorts. He became a long haired bohemian,
Speaker 1: and when he returned home from college with this new persona,
Speaker 1: his parents weren't exactly happy. My father's attitude was it's
Speaker 1: a phase. He'll outgrow it. But mother must have called
Speaker 1: every relative on the phone asking them where she'd gone wrong.
Speaker 1: Johnny tried to explain his love of poetry to his father.
Speaker 1: I went to my father and said, man cannot choose
Speaker 1: to be. He simply is, and if he is, when
Speaker 1: is he not? Even after death, he remains matter. John
Speaker 1: Senior was understandably a bit puzzled by this. He asked
Speaker 1: his son, what the heck was he talking about. Johnny replied,
Speaker 1: that is my poetry, Dad. He then offered his father
Speaker 1: a manuscript of his poems. A week later, my dad
Speaker 1: called me into his office and threw the manuscripts back
Speaker 1: across the desk at me. You're wasting your time with
Speaker 1: this stuff. I'd give it to a guy to read,
Speaker 1: and he says, it's no damn good ouch. No one
Speaker 1: likes getting a one star review from their own dad. Inevitably,
Speaker 1: it was tense between Junior and Senior for a while,
Speaker 1: but eventually the poet came around. A friend of Johnny's
Speaker 1: told me that he realized poetry it doesn't pay the bills.
Speaker 1: So Johnny he cut his hair, put on a suit,
Speaker 1: and became a lawyer. It was around this time that
Speaker 1: John reconnected with Bob Cooley. In fact, Bob says it
Speaker 1: was John Senior who orchestrated this reunion. According to Bob,
Speaker 1: Senior basically pulled him aside and asked him to mentor
Speaker 1: his son. Here's how Bob remembers that encounter with Senior.
Speaker 1: He said, I hear you're a terrific lawyer, and you
Speaker 1: know Okay, well yeah, I said, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: disagree with you. And he said, you know, my son John,
Speaker 1: I wonder if you'd take him under your wing and
Speaker 1: try to teach him how to practice law. Bob initially said,
Speaker 1: let me think about it, but eventually agreed to take
Speaker 1: him on. And just for context, this all happened in
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen seventies, very early in Bob's career. At
Speaker 1: that point, he had no real connections with the first Ward.
Speaker 1: Bob was just a young lawyer, but he knew that
Speaker 1: this was a real opportunity to cozy up with some
Speaker 1: important players. What I thought about was what I could do,
Speaker 1: the powers I would have if I got connected with
Speaker 1: these people. Wait, just to be clear here, Bob, you're
Speaker 1: saying that this chance to be a mentor to Johnny
Speaker 1: Junior was an opportunity for you because it would get
Speaker 1: you in with these first ward guys. Oh sure, to
Speaker 1: get me into politics and to get me into you know,
Speaker 1: into doing you know, magical things. Magical things almost like
Speaker 1: a gritty version of a kid's fairy tale. Helped my
Speaker 1: wayward son, and I will bestow great fortune upon you.
Speaker 1: That's kind of how Bob tells it. Anyway, So Bob
Speaker 1: agreed to mentor Johnny, and after a short period of time,
Speaker 1: I gave up trying to teach him how to practice law.
Speaker 1: He had no interest in learning how to do the
Speaker 1: right things or how to cross examine. Even so, they
Speaker 1: kept working together. Senior gave the venture his blessing and
Speaker 1: welcome Bob into their home. John's mother used to cook
Speaker 1: for John and Bob Cooley. You know, they fed him,
Speaker 1: They treated him like a family member. That's Rico Paioni.
Speaker 1: He was a close friend of John Juniors and for
Speaker 1: a while he also worked for him. Rico told me
Speaker 1: he actually doubts that John Senior ever asked Bob to
Speaker 1: mentor his son. He thinks instead Bob wormed his way
Speaker 1: into the family's good graces, and that he wasn't acting
Speaker 1: in good faith. And he knew what John's capabilities were,
Speaker 1: and as he knew the connections that he had, and
Speaker 1: so he went to him so he could take advantage
Speaker 1: of those connects. So he'd befriended John, and John, you know,
Speaker 1: took him at face value. You know, he didn't know
Speaker 1: he was going to specstab Um later on. Bob Cooley
Speaker 1: was an opportunist. He's still an opportunist. Bob flipped in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six. This was about a decade after he
Speaker 1: first started working with Johnny, and at that point the
Speaker 1: two of them were no longer partners. Johnny didn't need
Speaker 1: any more mentoring. By then, he was a big man
Speaker 1: in Chicago. He was now a prominent state senator, and
Speaker 1: he'd even realize his dreams of becoming a published poet.
Speaker 1: Johnny put out a compilation of his poem called The
Speaker 1: Product of My Thought. Johnny embraced his role as a
Speaker 1: literary figure. When he was interviewed for that profile in
Speaker 1: the Chicago Tribune, he told the reporter, if people want
Speaker 1: to be more than passive acceptors of life, they have
Speaker 1: to know something about philosophy. Sure, let him read some Hume.
Speaker 1: Maybe a little Kant, But if they really want to
Speaker 1: know where it's at, they're also going to have to
Speaker 1: read di Arco. Yes, you heard him right. Maybe he
Speaker 1: was joking, but he really did just place himself in
Speaker 1: the pantheon alongside Emmanuel Kant and David Hume, the two
Speaker 1: great philosophers of the Enlightenment. A bit bold, but in
Speaker 1: a tacit nod of approval. The reporter for the Chicago
Speaker 1: Tribune dubbed Junior a quote philosopher King. When the book
Speaker 1: came out, there was a big party for Johnny. It
Speaker 1: was hosted by the owner of Chicago bookstore. The mayor
Speaker 1: of Chicago, Harold Washington, showed up, as did Nobel laureate
Speaker 1: Saul Bellow. The owner of the bookstore told the Chicago
Speaker 1: Tribune that Johnny's intellectual sincerity overshadowed his literary limitations. He
Speaker 1: said Johnny was quote patently one of those noble failures,
Speaker 1: like a Socrates or Jesus. The bookseller apparently asked Saul
Speaker 1: Bellow what he thought of Johnny's poetry. Bellow replied, good, bad,
Speaker 1: what's the difference. The most difficult thing for a human
Speaker 1: being is to knock on silence. Here's an excerpt from
Speaker 1: one of the poems in Johnny's book. Let us suppose
Speaker 1: that everyone is sleeping at the same moment, Then if
Speaker 1: reality is consciousness, the world would not exist. But even
Speaker 1: if everyone is sleeping at the same moment, the world
Speaker 1: would still exist. But who is to say the world
Speaker 1: is existing when everyone is sleeping. In the Chicago Tribune profile,
Speaker 1: the reporter asked Johnny what really motivated him as a poet.
Speaker 1: Johnny replied, I don't know, but something inside of me
Speaker 1: is always making me want to grab people and say, hey,
Speaker 1: I got a hold of the truth, you want a
Speaker 1: piece of it. The truth, however, was that Johnny was
Speaker 1: an operator. That's what Bob Cooley claimed. Anyway. He believed
Speaker 1: that Johnny was, in essence an extension of the First
Speaker 1: Ward's dirty political machinery. Bob told his handlers at the
Speaker 1: FBI that in the past, on at least one occasion,
Speaker 1: Johnny had said, for the right price, he could push
Speaker 1: a bill through the state legislature. In short, laws for sale.
Speaker 1: I asked Bob what ultimately prompted him to hand Johnny
Speaker 1: over to the Feds. Of course, Bob had his litmus
Speaker 1: test how corrupt a person was and whether or not
Speaker 1: Bob liked that person. So I asked him, wasn't Junior
Speaker 1: your friend? Well? I thought it was a friendship initially
Speaker 1: because of the way he acted towards me, and whatever.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a friendship, things happened that made
Speaker 1: me think otherwise. Bob says that he came to feel
Speaker 1: that Johnny was, in the end only interested in himself,
Speaker 1: that he didn't take being a lawyer seriously, and that
Speaker 1: he lacked his father's discretion. Honestly, I just got the
Speaker 1: sense that on some level, litmus tests be damned, Johnny
Speaker 1: just rubbed Bob the wrong way, and that Johnny's value
Speaker 1: as a target was just too high to be overlooked.
Speaker 1: After all, he was a state senator who hailed from
Speaker 1: the first ward. So in the end, Bob wired up Hello,
Speaker 1: Hi Johnny, Hi brow are you what's up? This is
Speaker 1: an actual wire tap from a phone call between Bob
Speaker 1: and Johnny Diarco Junior. It was not easy to get
Speaker 1: a hold of this, let me tell you. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's been over thirty years since this conversation took place.
Speaker 1: I figured these tapes had been lost or discarded, but
Speaker 1: with some help from the District Court for the Northern
Speaker 1: District of Illinois. We track them down at a federal
Speaker 1: storage facility. There they were like a time capsule that
Speaker 1: had been forgotten and rediscovered. What the Bears did? They
Speaker 1: hunt got rid of McMahon, They started playing Well, Bob
Speaker 1: starts off shooting the shit about football and then quickly
Speaker 1: segues to this, Anyhow, I think I'm going to be
Speaker 1: in business with that situation we talked about. Okay, I
Speaker 1: talked to somebody yesterday and again the day before, and
Speaker 1: they want to go and check with the main people
Speaker 1: I guess or out in the ark. Yeah, and if
Speaker 1: they want to do something, I'll let you know. Okay,
Speaker 1: I think it looks pretty good right now. All right,
Speaker 1: that sounds stuff. What I want you to notice here
Speaker 1: is just how vague and bland this whole conversation is
Speaker 1: Bob's is I think I'm gonna be in business with
Speaker 1: that situation we talked about. He's speaking in code back
Speaker 1: when he was a fixer, before he started working for
Speaker 1: the FEDS. This is how he talked to protect himself
Speaker 1: in case someone was eavesdropping. Now that Bob was working
Speaker 1: for the FBI, he had to keep up appearances, so
Speaker 1: as he can see, Bob isn't trying to nail Johnny
Speaker 1: on the phone right off the bat. No, he didn't
Speaker 1: want to risk spooking him. Instead, Bob made a series
Speaker 1: of secret recordings over the course of a year. In
Speaker 1: phone calls, driving around town and at a ton of
Speaker 1: breakfast meetings. Bob would often wire up and go with
Speaker 1: Johnny to a diner. Okay, so there's a whole rhythm
Speaker 1: to their outing. There's a booth where they like to sit.
Speaker 1: Today it's occupied. Bob tells the waitress somebody's glad table, sweetheart.
Speaker 1: They sit down, and when they do, Bob starts bantering
Speaker 1: with the waitress. He wants coffee. I think, did you
Speaker 1: see the advertisement for Pepsi though? Did you got Pepsi here?
Speaker 1: They got a new deal going nowhe They're gonna have
Speaker 1: a new Pepsi for breakfast. We have Okay, I drink
Speaker 1: cooke anyhow, But I can be an advertisement for him
Speaker 1: Pepsi breakfast. That's Johnny by the way, saying Pepsi for breakfast. Really. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they got a new deal now. Pepsi's going to come
Speaker 1: out with something to do and encourage people start of
Speaker 1: having coffee to have their PEPSI. Bob's kind of being
Speaker 1: a goofball, just joking around, and then nonchalantly gets down
Speaker 1: to business. Starts enticing Johnny, hinting about some guys he
Speaker 1: knows with deep pockets. See, these people are good source
Speaker 1: of business. You know, these guys are a big, big
Speaker 1: money in peopone and I made good money on the
Speaker 1: guy before. Then the waitress returns and Bob's back to
Speaker 1: being the jokester. The waitress asks them what they want
Speaker 1: to order. Bob points at Junior and says, this guy's
Speaker 1: got money. He doesn't care about what it costs. He
Speaker 1: doesn't look He's not looking for a Bargain's all that is.
Speaker 1: The waitress says she doesn't know Johnny is. Johnny says,
Speaker 1: don't tell her. All of this, by the way, is
Speaker 1: part of Bob's strategy. That was all part of my
Speaker 1: schmoo with people, part of your what my scho schmick
Speaker 1: would have smuck whatever you want to call it, smooze.
Speaker 1: You know where you're where, you're just bs and people
Speaker 1: and they they what's the term they use where you're
Speaker 1: smoozing smoozing somebody? Yeah, not you're schmuck. That's something different,
Speaker 1: that's something else. We don't want to talk about that.
Speaker 1: I actually sat down with Bob and played this tape
Speaker 1: from the diner for him. I asked him, what was
Speaker 1: the deal with the whole Pepsi stick anyway? You know,
Speaker 1: I always would try to approach him like I had
Speaker 1: in the past, and you know, and my attitude on
Speaker 1: most everything was really never too serious all my life.
Speaker 1: I told you, I never took anything serious in my life.
Speaker 1: I never did even when I'm even when I'm doing this,
Speaker 1: you'll make the most of it. Is this like, are
Speaker 1: you genuinely having fun here? I'm trying to because you've
Speaker 1: got to understand, as far as I'm concerned, I'm a
Speaker 1: dead man right now. That's my attitude, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to live. I'm going to live every minute for the
Speaker 1: you know, for the moment. So Bob just kept going
Speaker 1: with his schmoo and gathering evidence against Johnny. A few
Speaker 1: months later, Bob has another conversation with Johnny. In this chat,
Speaker 1: Bob's trying to explain that he has a client who's
Speaker 1: willing to pay to get a law passed. Bob says
Speaker 1: it's a company that sells travel insurance. To sell insurance
Speaker 1: in the state of all, you've got to be licensed
Speaker 1: as an agent. That some of these, uh you know,
Speaker 1: some of these the travel agencies are what already can
Speaker 1: sell some forms of nonsensical insurance. This is another type
Speaker 1: that the other companies just don't have. The other agencies
Speaker 1: just don't have this type of travel insurance. He says,
Speaker 1: some companies are already selling forms of quote nonsensical insurance.
Speaker 1: Then he says, basically his client has something similar, which
Speaker 1: he calls travel interruption insurance, and they need special permission
Speaker 1: to sell it. Honestly, I found this all a little
Speaker 1: bit absurd and hard to follow, so I played it
Speaker 1: back for Bob, hoping that he could explain what the
Speaker 1: hell he was talking about. No, because I'm making all
Speaker 1: this up as I go along. I'm just making it
Speaker 1: up as I go along with him. There was no
Speaker 1: travel insurance company, there is no travel interruption policy. All
Speaker 1: of it was just a scheme. Does it even make
Speaker 1: sense to you now hearing it back? No, all that
Speaker 1: mattered is that he took the bribe and he's willing
Speaker 1: to do it. The strategy was kind of brilliant. It
Speaker 1: was like one of those endless car rental agreements where
Speaker 1: the fine print just goes on for pages and pages
Speaker 1: so long that your eyes glaze over, and finally you say,
Speaker 1: fuck it, tell me where to sign. I Steve Bowen
Speaker 1: about this Bob's handler at the FBI, and he said
Speaker 1: all that mattered to a guy like Johnny was the
Speaker 1: bottom line, how much he stood to make. That's all
Speaker 1: he wants to hear. He wants to hear, what is
Speaker 1: it you want, and this is what it's going to
Speaker 1: cost you. The detail is insignificant. They don't he could
Speaker 1: care less. You probably wouldn't have understood it anyhow well,
Speaker 1: it's I have to I listened to those tapes a
Speaker 1: few times. I can't really understand what Bobs we're not
Speaker 1: supposed to. That's the whole key to it. All he
Speaker 1: saw it was an opportunity to make good money. In
Speaker 1: the end, it didn't matter what the bogus law said.
Speaker 1: It didn't even matter if the law passed. The point
Speaker 1: was Johnny, an elected official, was being paid money to
Speaker 1: use his power as a state senator to enrich a
Speaker 1: private company. A bribe was a bribe. All that Bob
Speaker 1: needed Johnny to do was accept the payoff, and he did.
Speaker 1: Johnny met with Bob in his car. Bob counted out
Speaker 1: fifty one hundred dollar bills, five thousand bucks total. Johnny
Speaker 1: took it, and so sealed the fate of the Philosopher King.
Speaker 1: Bob was racking up some winds Defranzo the Bookie, the
Speaker 1: Philosopher King, but he knew that to accomplish his mission
Speaker 1: and really destroy the First Ward completely, he'd have to
Speaker 1: take down Pat Marcy, the top man, the guy with
Speaker 1: the tinted glasses, who had told Bob you just do
Speaker 1: what you're told. Bob understood the stakes. He knew that
Speaker 1: Marcy and his crew didn't mess around. These are killers.
Speaker 1: Marcy and these people are fucking killers. And as it
Speaker 1: turns out, Bob was right to worry. Next time and
Speaker 1: deep Cover, Bob was never authorized to carry a gun
Speaker 1: under any conditions. Did I know on occasion that he
Speaker 1: had a gun on him? Yeah? And did I do
Speaker 1: anything about it? No. If I was going in to
Speaker 1: do what we're asking him to go in to do,
Speaker 1: I'd want a gun on me too. Deep Cover is
Speaker 1: produced by Jacob Smith and Amy Gaines and edited by
Speaker 1: Karen Shakerjee. Our Senior editor is Jan Guera. Original music
Speaker 1: and our theme was composed by Luis Gara and Fawn
Speaker 1: Williams is our engineer, voice acting by Michael Imperioli. Our
Speaker 1: artason was drawn by Cheryl Cook and designed by Sean Carney.
Speaker 1: Mia lobell as our executive producer. Special thanks to Heather Faine,
Speaker 1: John Schnars, Carli mcgliori, Mayakining, Christina Sullivan, Eric Sandler, Mary
Speaker 1: beck Smith, Brant Haynes, Maggie Taylor, Nicolemarano, Megan Larson, Royston Baserve,
Speaker 1: Lucy Sullivan, Edith Russolo, Riley Sullivan, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez,
Speaker 1: and Jacob Weisberg. I'm Jake Halpert. Subscribe to Pushkin Plus
Speaker 1: and you can binge the rest of the season right now.
Speaker 1: Adds free. Find Pushkin Plus on the deep Cover show
Speaker 1: page in Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm. To
Speaker 1: find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to podcasts.