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 nineteen eighty six, Bob Cooley
Speaker 1: began working with the FBI as an undercover operative, and
Speaker 1: he started going after smaller targets like bookies and some
Speaker 1: big ones too, including a stage senator, but he still
Speaker 1: had more work to do. Bob's ultimate target was Pat Marcy.
Speaker 1: He ran the First Ward, a powerful political district controlled
Speaker 1: by the Mob. He was a nasty, vicious human being.
Speaker 1: You could tell it. If you met the man, you
Speaker 1: would know that he's pure evil, but unbelievably powerful in
Speaker 1: every sense. Bob knew that if he really wanted to
Speaker 1: accomplish his mission, he had to nail Marcy. Marcy was
Speaker 1: the big fish. Bob Cooley wasn't the only one trying
Speaker 1: to expose Pat Marcy in the First Ward. There was
Speaker 1: a TV journalist trying to do the exact same thing.
Speaker 1: Her name was Carol Maureen. She would go on to
Speaker 1: become a big time correspondent for sixty Minutes, but back
Speaker 1: in the eighties she was a local reporter for Channel five.
Speaker 1: And Carol has this one very vivid memory from back
Speaker 1: then of going out to launch by herself. I remember
Speaker 1: one day being in Counselor's Row, which was the restaurant
Speaker 1: across from City Hall where the first Ward had a
Speaker 1: table where the first Ward guys and those who were
Speaker 1: invited would sit and have lunch. Jes. So you can
Speaker 1: picture the place. Imagine black leather booths, wood paneling, blood
Speaker 1: red carpet, lots of old black and white photos up
Speaker 1: on the wall. This is a place where deals are cut,
Speaker 1: not all of them kosher. Even the menu hinted at this,
Speaker 1: advertising a gigantic burgher called the Lawbreaker. That particular day,
Speaker 1: Pat Marcy was there sitting at his usual table. With
Speaker 1: him was John Diarco Senior, one of his most trusted confidants,
Speaker 1: father of John Junior, the poet and state senator. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Carol just goes about her business, takes a seat, looks
Speaker 1: at the menu, ordered a bowl of soup. The waitress
Speaker 1: came back and said, mister Marcy and mister Garco picked
Speaker 1: up your check, and I said, I don't want them
Speaker 1: to pick up my check. And she looked at me like,
Speaker 1: all yeah, kidding me, And so I mean, I wasn't
Speaker 1: going to trick bag her. But I went back to NBC,
Speaker 1: ordered a big fruit basket and sent it to the
Speaker 1: First Ward to cover the cost of my bowl of soup.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a coincidence that Carol just popped into Counselor's
Speaker 1: row that day. I was always drawn to sort of
Speaker 1: secret societies. The idea of penetrating something that people don't
Speaker 1: want you to see that you want to know more
Speaker 1: about has always been of interest to me, And in Chicago,
Speaker 1: there was perhaps no secret society more steeped in mystery
Speaker 1: and power than the First Ward. Technically, the First Ward
Speaker 1: was just one of the city's fifty legislative districts. Even so,
Speaker 1: back in the nineteen eighties, the First Ward was among
Speaker 1: the most important because it included downtown Chicago, Chinatown, and Greektown.
Speaker 1: But in truth, it was much more than this. The
Speaker 1: First Ward was the Mob's Ward. It always was. Everyone
Speaker 1: knew it. We had long discussions in the newsroom, other
Speaker 1: reporters and myself about how do we get into that,
Speaker 1: how do we prove it, how do we show it?
Speaker 1: And it was always a challenge. Part of the challenge
Speaker 1: was the fact that Pat Marcy flew beneath the radar.
Speaker 1: Why because he was elusive. He was not in the
Speaker 1: public view on purpose. The way it organized crime truly
Speaker 1: works is you don't know who they are. The Pat
Speaker 1: Marcy's are the people that operate behind the scenes with
Speaker 1: the real power. But Carol, she was patient. She worked
Speaker 1: her sources, talked to them on pay phones, just listened
Speaker 1: and slowly built trust. And then one day, years after
Speaker 1: cultivating sources, the phone rings and a voice says, go
Speaker 1: to counselor's row. Now, little did Carol Marine know she
Speaker 1: was about to cross paths with Bob Cooley and the FBI.
Speaker 1: Not just that she would soon find the evidence that
Speaker 1: she needed, she was about to break a major story
Speaker 1: on the first ward and this would put Bob in
Speaker 1: a very precarious situation where he might be outed or worse.
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Halbern and this is deep Cover mob Land
Speaker 1: episode eight, The Big Fish. By this point, Bob had
Speaker 1: been working undercover for over two years. The FBI referred
Speaker 1: to the whole effort as Operation Gambat, short for Operation
Speaker 1: Gambling Attorney, an apt name. Of course, Bob himself was
Speaker 1: a gambler. He also represented bookies who ran the mob's
Speaker 1: gambling operations, and in a way, this whole operation itself
Speaker 1: was one big gamble. Now it was time to go
Speaker 1: after Pat Marcy. The FBI had been trying to incriminate
Speaker 1: him for twenty years and they'd gotten nowhere. Ironically, Bob's
Speaker 1: big break came from his brother, Bill Cooley. Bill was
Speaker 1: a lawyer like Bob, but an honest one. Bill had
Speaker 1: a client with a property in the First Ward that
Speaker 1: needed rezoning. So Bill did what he was supposed to do,
Speaker 1: went to see the First Wards Alderman, a guy named
Speaker 1: Fred Rody. Rody was an elected official, but he was
Speaker 1: also very much a mob guy. People joked openly that
Speaker 1: Roodie's campaign motto really ought to be vote for Rody
Speaker 1: and nobody gets hurt. When Rodi discovers that Bill is
Speaker 1: Bob's brother, he suggests, rather cryptically that Bob should call him. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Bob gets wind of this. I knew exactly what it
Speaker 1: meant I know what he wants. He's gonna want to
Speaker 1: bribe and whatever. And this is a perfect opportunity for Bob.
Speaker 1: Bob didn't have to come up with some scheme and
Speaker 1: approach ROADI No, this was far better. Rody had solicited
Speaker 1: this bribe on his own. Just to be clear here,
Speaker 1: Rody wasn't as big a fish as Pat Marcy, but
Speaker 1: he was still an important player. Bob and the FBI
Speaker 1: cooked up a plan. Bob would bribe Roady to get
Speaker 1: the building rezoned. The FBI would provide the money, Bob
Speaker 1: would get the whole thing on tape. So Bob arranges
Speaker 1: to meet Rody at Counselor's row. They sit down and
Speaker 1: Bob lays it all out. I made up some stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, Well, they got a big building and they're
Speaker 1: gonna make millions doing this and doing that and whatever,
Speaker 1: and I want to know how much it's going to
Speaker 1: cost to take care of it. While we're talking, who
Speaker 1: comes walking up with Pat Marcy? Yeah, v Pat Marcy,
Speaker 1: the big boss. He comes around the corner and he
Speaker 1: sees us sitting there, and he said, what's going on here?
Speaker 1: It was an awkward moment. Marcy seems suspicious Bob says,
Speaker 1: Rody seemed a bit like he was a kid who'd
Speaker 1: been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I
Speaker 1: have no doubt in my mind that Rody was going
Speaker 1: to do this steel himself. I was going to do
Speaker 1: this and was going to cut Pat out of whatever
Speaker 1: it was, because he says, oh, Pat, he said, I
Speaker 1: was going to tell you about this path. Rody jumps
Speaker 1: to his feet and offers his chair to Marcy. Marcy
Speaker 1: sits down. At this point, Rody explains what's going on.
Speaker 1: Bob is here on business with a request to rezone
Speaker 1: a building. According to the transcripts, here's what's said next
Speaker 1: on the wire. Marcy says, quote, tell me who the
Speaker 1: fucking owners are. Bob explains that the owners are square,
Speaker 1: meaning they don't want to be directly involved with paying
Speaker 1: a bribe. Marcy tells him, quote, you're going to need zoning.
Speaker 1: What else are you going to need there? And like that,
Speaker 1: Marcy has taken He's now in charge. He tells Bob, quote,
Speaker 1: once we see what it is, then we'll talk about it.
Speaker 1: In other words, that you have to pay if you
Speaker 1: want to get something done, and you know what are
Speaker 1: the facts, and you know what says, and what's that?
Speaker 1: And I'll determine how much it's going to cost and whatever.
Speaker 1: But Path cut himself into the steel. To Marcy, it
Speaker 1: must have seemed like Rody was taking all the spoils
Speaker 1: for himself, and a strong man like Marcy could never
Speaker 1: let that happen. And so Marcy intervenes and walks right
Speaker 1: into Bob's hands. So Bob presses ahead with his bribery scheme.
Speaker 1: At his next meeting with Rody at Counselors Row, Bob
Speaker 1: brings a pad and a pen. He's got a bunch
Speaker 1: of notes written on the pad with made up specs
Speaker 1: on this building that needs to be rezoned, and then
Speaker 1: he looks up at Rhody and says, quote, tell me
Speaker 1: what the procedure is. Now. That's code for how much
Speaker 1: is this thing going to cost me? Rody then grabs
Speaker 1: the pen and notepad and writes down the number seventy
Speaker 1: five and underlines it. Roadie's being careful, playing it smart,
Speaker 1: not saying anything out loud. Here's what's said next on
Speaker 1: the wire, Rody, you know what I'm talking about, Bob. Yeah,
Speaker 1: little ones, not big ones. That's also code. Bob is
Speaker 1: clarifying what exactly seventy five means. He's asking if it's
Speaker 1: seventy five little ones, which would mean seven hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty dollars. Roady, No, seventy five hundred, Bingo. Roody is
Speaker 1: broken code. Apparently he got frustrated or careless, and he
Speaker 1: just says the exact amount, which is fantastic for Bob.
Speaker 1: All that Bob needs to do now is get the
Speaker 1: actual payoff on tape. So as discreetly as he can,
Speaker 1: Bob pulls out some money and says, quote, let me
Speaker 1: give you five hundred now, so you've got some lunch
Speaker 1: money in your pocket. The next step for Bob is
Speaker 1: to put cash in Marcy's hands. So three days later,
Speaker 1: Bob straps on his tape recorder again and returns to
Speaker 1: Counselor's row. Pat Marcy is waiting for him and escorts
Speaker 1: him to the back of the restaurant. Bob asks him
Speaker 1: if the figure that Rody has given him is okay translation,
Speaker 1: is seventy five hundred a big enough bribe for you?
Speaker 1: Marcy tells him, quote, the figure's okay. Bob then counts
Speaker 1: out thirty five hundred dollars the first installment. Marcy takes
Speaker 1: the money on tape and in so doing incriminates himself.
Speaker 1: Now you might be tempted to think, okay, then Bob's
Speaker 1: done here, right, He's god Marcy, why doesn't he get
Speaker 1: the hell out of Dodge? But that's not how Bob
Speaker 1: saw it. He was determined to make certain that the
Speaker 1: case against Marcy and the first ward was airtight, so
Speaker 1: no judge or jury could possibly acquit. There was more
Speaker 1: work for Bob to do. He had to pay off
Speaker 1: a second installment on that zoning bribe. He also had
Speaker 1: another scheme in mind. He was trying to get Marcy
Speaker 1: to tamper with another court case. Bob's handlers at the
Speaker 1: FBI agreed with this strategy. Here's Marie Dyson. He just
Speaker 1: kept going back to Marcy. He could do that, and
Speaker 1: then if it didn't feel right that day, he'd stay
Speaker 1: away from Marcy for a while. How dangerous was Marcy?
Speaker 1: Very deadly? And the scary part was there were so
Speaker 1: many ways he could blow his cover. Stupid little things
Speaker 1: could go wrong. In fact, this is exactly what happened
Speaker 1: a while later, when Bob returned to Counselor's Row for
Speaker 1: another visit with Marcy. That day, they're actually outside the restaurant,
Speaker 1: chatting on the sidewalk. They're getting ready to go inside.
Speaker 1: Marcy gestures for Bob to go first, and then he
Speaker 1: places his hand on Bob's lower back, on the exact
Speaker 1: spot where Bob's tape recorder is tucked away. So when
Speaker 1: he did that, I mean it was like somebody hitting
Speaker 1: me with a hammer. And I was terrified that he had,
Speaker 1: you know, that he would know what it was. Bob's
Speaker 1: mind is racing, trying to come up with his next move.
Speaker 1: I'm just acting, trying to act as non chalant as
Speaker 1: I can, but believe me, I'm a nervous rock. At
Speaker 1: this particular instant, Bob and Marcy entered the restaurant together.
Speaker 1: They head over to the first word table. I went
Speaker 1: like I was going to sit down, and then I
Speaker 1: pulled myself up as you would if you know you
Speaker 1: had a problem, as Oh my back was killing me.
Speaker 1: I said, you know, and I've got this brace and
Speaker 1: it's not helping. It's not helping a whole lot. The
Speaker 1: back injury is bullshit. Bob was just making it up
Speaker 1: on the spot, and the back brace, well, that was
Speaker 1: Bob's cover. So if by chance Marcy had felt something. Well,
Speaker 1: then there was an explanation, But would Marcy? The problem was,
Speaker 1: there was no getting into Marcy's head. Did he know?
Speaker 1: Was he suspicious? And what was his threshold for quite
Speaker 1: literally pulling the trigger. Bob and his FBI handlers were
Speaker 1: all guessing. When we come back after the break, Bob
Speaker 1: pushes his luck. It had been a close call with Marcy,
Speaker 1: and Bob still didn't know if he was safe. He
Speaker 1: talked the whole thing over with his handlers, the carpool buddies,
Speaker 1: Steve and Marie. You know you're scared, and he's scared,
Speaker 1: and everybody's scared. Anything could happen. We were going to
Speaker 1: do everything in our power not to make a mistake,
Speaker 1: because this guy could get killed just like that. Given
Speaker 1: all of this, it was inevitable that Bob started to
Speaker 1: go down some dark rabbit holes thinking about the worst
Speaker 1: case scenarios of how it might end for him. I
Speaker 1: don't think I really feared. I didn't fear dying. I
Speaker 1: feared being tortured. I did not think I would like that.
Speaker 1: Bob had once been friends with a gangster named William
Speaker 1: Butch Petrocelli, who'd fallen out of favor with the mob.
Speaker 1: Bob believes he was one of the last people to
Speaker 1: see Butch alive. Bob says they had lunched together one day.
Speaker 1: Butch disappeared a few days later. Months passed without any
Speaker 1: sign of him. Then Butch's charred body was discovered. He'd
Speaker 1: been stabbed in the chest and his body had been
Speaker 1: burned with a blowtorch. I'd wake up sweating and whatever
Speaker 1: because I saw myself being tortured. I kept seeing pictures
Speaker 1: of Butching kind of playing a blow torch to my
Speaker 1: testicles and things like that that you know that I
Speaker 1: was terrified that Bob knew he needed a contingency plan,
Speaker 1: something he could do to save himself from this fate.
Speaker 1: I had condom plated carrying, you know, carrying some kind
Speaker 1: of tablets, so I could commit suicide if you know,
Speaker 1: if they caught me. But you know, but I just
Speaker 1: never did do that. And the reason I didn't do
Speaker 1: that is because I would have gone to hell them.
Speaker 1: I believe that committing suicide, you know, is one of
Speaker 1: those sins that you can't do. It was ironic in
Speaker 1: a way. Bob was a man who enjoyed his pleasures, money, sex, power,
Speaker 1: and he was willing to bend the rules to get
Speaker 1: all of these things. But in the end, he would
Speaker 1: not compromise his own moral code to save himself from
Speaker 1: the most gruesome of endings. Instead, Bob decided to carry
Speaker 1: a gun, two guns in fact, which was a problem.
Speaker 1: Here's Bob's handler, Steve Bowen. Bob was never authorized to
Speaker 1: carry a gun under any conditions. Did I know on
Speaker 1: occasion that he had a gun on him? Yeah? And
Speaker 1: did I do anything about it? No. If I was
Speaker 1: going in to do what we're asking him to go
Speaker 1: in to do, I'd want a gun on me too.
Speaker 1: I asked Bob what his plan was. What would be
Speaker 1: his move if he walked into some back room and
Speaker 1: a group of mob henchmen were waiting for him. I figured,
Speaker 1: if I walked into the room and there's a group there,
Speaker 1: just start shooting. When it came to decompressing, Bob didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot of options. The FBI wouldn't let him gamble.
Speaker 1: Bob wasn't married, and he didn't have anyone he could
Speaker 1: totally confide in. He never went to a therapist, but
Speaker 1: he did have at least one form of Catharsis feeding
Speaker 1: wildlife yep. For a while, Bob lived in an apartment
Speaker 1: on the outskirts of Chicago. It was on the first floor,
Speaker 1: and Bob liked to open up the glass doors, sit
Speaker 1: outside and feed the animals. Birds would come, but what
Speaker 1: he really liked were the raccoons. They'd watch him eat
Speaker 1: and feed, and I'd have a little water gun because
Speaker 1: I'd have to spray the mother raccoon because she'd beat
Speaker 1: up and the kids see no fighting for the food.
Speaker 1: But I just enjoyed doing stuff like that. This image
Speaker 1: has stayed with me. I imagine Bob, after a stressful
Speaker 1: day of work undercover, coming home, taking off his coat,
Speaker 1: sending his gun down on the table, then walking through
Speaker 1: those glass doors, picking up a water gun and using
Speaker 1: it to protect the baby raccoons, making sure they got
Speaker 1: enough to eat. Bob told me he loved all animals
Speaker 1: except rats and snakes. Why because they're dirty little creatures.
Speaker 1: They remind me a lot of some people. And snakes
Speaker 1: For some reason, I just don't like snakes, although he
Speaker 1: quickly added, these are guy its creatures. Ay, all they
Speaker 1: want in life is to you know, eat and fall
Speaker 1: around and you know and survive. Sadly for Bob. Eventually
Speaker 1: he decided that the first floor apartment it wasn't safe.
Speaker 1: He just felt too exposed there, so he moved to
Speaker 1: another apartment on the fourth floor of a nearby building.
Speaker 1: He still tossed food off the balcony, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: quite the same. In so many ways, life just kept
Speaker 1: narrowing for Bob, and now even the baby raccoons were gone.
Speaker 1: Bob kept going with his undercover work. There was no
Speaker 1: way of knowing whether Pat Marcy had felt that tape
Speaker 1: recorder on his back, so cautiously he returned to Counselor's
Speaker 1: row wearing a wire and armed with his two guns.
Speaker 1: His goal was to bribe Marcy once again to get
Speaker 1: him on tape, agreeing to tamper with a court case.
Speaker 1: This time. As he answers Counselor's row, Bob is on
Speaker 1: a high alert, so is his handler, Steve Bowen, who
Speaker 1: is stationed across the street. Inside the restaurant, Bob has
Speaker 1: a look around. Almost right away, he sees a mobster
Speaker 1: named Ernest Rocky in Falie. Rocky was a burly guy,
Speaker 1: a former paratrooper with a well earned reputation for brutality.
Speaker 1: Bob plays it cool. He makes the rounds, mingling with
Speaker 1: the regular patrons, and then he sees pat Marcy cat
Speaker 1: Marcy was standing there and when he saw me, didn't
Speaker 1: say a word, just motion for me to follow him.
Speaker 1: Where too, That's the question. Bob glances about and realizes
Speaker 1: he can no longer see Rocky, but there's no time
Speaker 1: to look for him because he's got a stick with Marcy.
Speaker 1: Marcy heads outside, but instead just stopping there on the sidewalk,
Speaker 1: he continues heading towards a parking garage. Bob's trying to
Speaker 1: get his bearings and quickly. I right away was nervous, wondering,
Speaker 1: you know, this is something totally unusual. I didn't know
Speaker 1: whether the hell they we're going. That's Bob's handler, Steve Bowen,
Speaker 1: watching it all play out from across the street, whether
Speaker 1: they were going off in a car, they want to
Speaker 1: take him in a restaurant whacking, or whether they just
Speaker 1: wanted to top twing in there. Steve is in a bind.
Speaker 1: If he intervenes and rushes in too soon, he could
Speaker 1: blow Bob's cover or start a gunfight. But if he
Speaker 1: waits too long, Bob Mike get killed. Meanwhile, Bob's now
Speaker 1: walked into the parking garage with Pat Marcy. He still
Speaker 1: hasn't seen Rocky at this point. He's just going with it,
Speaker 1: and we walk through the big door where the cars
Speaker 1: come out, and we walk into a little shitty bathroom.
Speaker 1: Pat walks in there. I'm following him, and I'm envisioned.
Speaker 1: I've got two guns on it this time. What I'm
Speaker 1: thinking is I'm walking behind him. This may be a trap.
Speaker 1: When he opened that door, I'm ready to pull one
Speaker 1: of my Volbos out and start shooting in case there's
Speaker 1: people in there. I'm not going to talk. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say a word. I'm going to start shooting,
Speaker 1: two guns at the ready. Bob stands there as Pat
Speaker 1: Marcy pulls open the door to the bathroom. I can
Speaker 1: see it's a very small room and there's nobody in there.
Speaker 1: I can see there isn't He walks over to the
Speaker 1: urinal and he takes a leak. Now he's never said
Speaker 1: a word to me. Bob just stands there in the
Speaker 1: bathroom for what seems like forever. He's still on the
Speaker 1: lookout for Rocky or some other would be a sail
Speaker 1: at who might rush through the door at any moment. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: outside on the street, Steve can't wait any longer. It
Speaker 1: was just me and I had to go, so started
Speaker 1: to go in there after room, and then I'm going
Speaker 1: hand I I'm gonna try to find him and protect
Speaker 1: him if I acted, And just then he sees Bob
Speaker 1: and Marcy walking back out, huge sigh of relief. It
Speaker 1: had all been a false alarm. But to Bob it
Speaker 1: didn't seem like a chance occurrence, not at all. There's
Speaker 1: almost no doubt in my mind that they're testing I see.
Speaker 1: So the test is if this guy's wearing a wire,
Speaker 1: there's no way he's going to follow me into a
Speaker 1: bathroom in a parking lot, exactly. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd been dealing with these people for years. He's never
Speaker 1: done something like that before. In all this time, Bob says,
Speaker 1: he was determined to keep going. His handler, Marie, admired
Speaker 1: his courage, but she knew how risky this was for him.
Speaker 1: Every day that you continue to do this, it's a
Speaker 1: scarier day because you when should you stop. You need
Speaker 1: what you you need for evidence, you need what you
Speaker 1: need to make cases. But at the same time, it's
Speaker 1: becoming very It's the danger is increasing for Bob. This
Speaker 1: is a human being. This is a person you know,
Speaker 1: that has offered to do this and has asked very
Speaker 1: little of us, and we are putting him in harm's way.
Speaker 1: It seemed like for the moment, Bob was safe and
Speaker 1: that Pat Marcy didn't know that the FBI was onto him.
Speaker 1: But all of that was about to change. Little did
Speaker 1: anyone know, a gigantic story was about to break, thanks
Speaker 1: to the journalist Carol Marine. More on that after the break,
Speaker 1: Carol Marine had been looking into the First Ward for years.
Speaker 1: She's the journalist who visited Counselor's row, got a free
Speaker 1: cup of soup and then sent the first Ward guys
Speaker 1: a fruit basket. She kept plugging away with her reporting,
Speaker 1: and then one day her phone rang and a voice said,
Speaker 1: go to Counselor's row. Now we speed to Counselor's Row,
Speaker 1: and what do you know? There is a camera discovered
Speaker 1: by a bus boy inside the bench of a booth
Speaker 1: that sat across from the first Ward table, connected to
Speaker 1: coaxial cable up through the rafters, up through the floors
Speaker 1: up to the other first Ward office. The FEDS had
Speaker 1: bugged the first ward table, so Carol races to break
Speaker 1: her story about the bug. Meanwhile, Bob is actually en
Speaker 1: route to meet Fred Rody, the corrupt Alderman, to pay
Speaker 1: him off for his help tampering with a case. Bob's
Speaker 1: plan is to meet Rody at you guessed, at Counselor's Row.
Speaker 1: At this point, Bob has no idea that a camera
Speaker 1: has been discovered at the restaurant. In fact, Bob doesn't
Speaker 1: even know that the FBI has installed such a camera there.
Speaker 1: No one had bothered to tell him, and now he
Speaker 1: was walking right into it completely blind. I get out
Speaker 1: of the car, I start walking on the sidewalk, you know,
Speaker 1: to go into Counselor's Row. And I get about halfway
Speaker 1: from the alley to there when he sees Fred Rody,
Speaker 1: the corrupt Alderman, because he was waiting for me. It
Speaker 1: turns out, when he saw me, he came out and
Speaker 1: he motioned me to walk across the street with him,
Speaker 1: and he started walking across the street. Now I have
Speaker 1: no idea what's going on at this time? What the
Speaker 1: fuck is this? Roadie turns to Bob and breaks the news,
Speaker 1: tells him about the hidden camera that's been discovered. Bob
Speaker 1: is floored and right away, what hell a bug? Where
Speaker 1: what bug? Bob is legitimately shocked here he's not putting
Speaker 1: on a show. He had no idea about that bug.
Speaker 1: Rody leads him across the street to city Hall and
Speaker 1: takes him up to his office. Now his office is
Speaker 1: a huge, a huge room, and it's but see things
Speaker 1: about thirty forty feet up. And he's not saying a word.
Speaker 1: Now we're not talking at all. As we're walking towards her.
Speaker 1: We go in and now I'm thinking in my mind,
Speaker 1: this is some kind of a trap for me. Bob
Speaker 1: tries to calm himself down. I mean, they're not going
Speaker 1: to kill him in city Hall, right, he had to
Speaker 1: keep his composure. When we walk in there, he closes
Speaker 1: the drapes and has us said a word, and then
Speaker 1: comes over to me and says, have you got the money?
Speaker 1: Have you got the money? In other words, game on
Speaker 1: Roadie still wants to get paid, which means he still
Speaker 1: trusts Bob, which means for the time being, Bob is safe.
Speaker 1: And I was never so happy in my life to
Speaker 1: hear some words. I started counting it out, knowing if
Speaker 1: I'm counting it. You can hear it on tape. When
Speaker 1: you're counting money, you can hear that. And I'm saying one,
Speaker 1: two or three, and I give him the money. So amazingly,
Speaker 1: Bob executes his plan. He gets the bribe on tape.
Speaker 1: But all hell breaks loose when Carol Marine breaks her
Speaker 1: story for Channel five. For years, it has been rumored
Speaker 1: that some of Chicago's most interesting political deals have been
Speaker 1: made at one particular table at a restaurant near City Hall.
Speaker 1: The night is shocking surprise for the movers and shakers
Speaker 1: who sit at that table. Federal agents have been watching
Speaker 1: them through a hidden camera, and Carol has the exclusive details.
Speaker 1: Ron The discovery of the camera seems to have blown
Speaker 1: the lid off part of a major investigation. For more
Speaker 1: than two years, the Federal Strike Force on Organized Crime
Speaker 1: has been looking at Chicago's infamous First Ward. Tonight, the
Speaker 1: story of how part of that investigation has unraveled on camera.
Speaker 1: A lawyer representing the restaurant shows Carol around, takes her
Speaker 1: over to the spot where the camera was concealed. It
Speaker 1: occupied this area right here, Carrol, which is not more
Speaker 1: than a heap of them. The machine itself appeared to
Speaker 1: be a James Bond type device. It was a bus
Speaker 1: boy a few days ago who, in cleaning, lifted the
Speaker 1: seat of this booth, and, to his amazement and the
Speaker 1: amazement of his bosses, discovered a very sophisticated camera setup,
Speaker 1: a camera that was pointed at this corner table commonly
Speaker 1: referred to as the first Ward Table, the table where
Speaker 1: Bob had sat with Pat Marcy many times. Channel five
Speaker 1: News is learned the FBI is not just interested in
Speaker 1: the conversations of those who sit at the First Ward Table,
Speaker 1: that this probe is an examination of far more than that.
Speaker 1: The FBI is looking at gambling in Chinatown, which is
Speaker 1: part of the First Award. It is probing any violations
Speaker 1: of the Hobbs Act, which addresses official corruption, and it
Speaker 1: is investigating attorneys, judges, state employees, and politicians. For Pat
Speaker 1: Marcy and the First Ward guys, this must have been
Speaker 1: like an air raid siren going off. First comes the
Speaker 1: news that their unofficial headquarters Counselor's row has been bugged,
Speaker 1: and now Carol Marine is telling them straight up that
Speaker 1: the FBI is investigating their entire corrupt network. So what
Speaker 1: do you do when you get news like this? I think.
Speaker 1: If you're Pat Marcy, you take a good hard look
Speaker 1: at your own people. You consider the facts, facts like this,
Speaker 1: Bob Cooley just paid Rody a bribe. And if you're
Speaker 1: Pat Marcy, wouldn't you wonder can we really trust Bob?
Speaker 1: And if the answer is no, what are you going
Speaker 1: to do about it? Bob knew his time was almost up,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't ready to walk away just yet. Bob
Speaker 1: wanted to track down his old friend, a judge he
Speaker 1: had ribbed long ago in that murder case that he'd
Speaker 1: fixed involving the hitman. In many ways, fixing that case
Speaker 1: had been Bob's original sin, and he felt, even all
Speaker 1: these years later, that he still had some unfinished business here. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Carol Maureene was getting ready to break an even bigger
Speaker 1: story next time on deep Cover. For approximately five years,
Speaker 1: a Chicago lawyer has been a government informant, secretly recording
Speaker 1: conversations with some of this city's movers and shakers. The
Speaker 1: identity of this informant will come as a shock to
Speaker 1: some powerful people. Deep Cover is produced by Jacob Smith
Speaker 1: and Amy Gaines and edited by Karen Shakerjee. Our senior
Speaker 1: editor is Jan Guera original music and our theme was
Speaker 1: composed by Louise Gera and Fawn Williams as our engineer.
Speaker 1: Our art this season was drawn by Cheryl Cook and
Speaker 1: designed by Sean Karney. Mia Lobell is our executive producer.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Heather Fame, John Schnars, Carlie mcgliori, Maya Kaning,
Speaker 1: Christina Sullivan, Eric Sandler, Mary Beth Smith, Brant Haynes, Maggie Taylor,
Speaker 1: a Coolemarano, Magan Larson, Royston Beserve, Lucy Sullivan, Edith Russlo,
Speaker 1: Riley Sullivan, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez, and Jacob Weisberg. I'm
Speaker 1: Jake Albert. Subscribe to Pushkin Plus and you can binge
Speaker 1: the rest of the season right now adds free. Find
Speaker 1: Pushkin Plus on the deep cover show page in Apple
Speaker 1: Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts,
Speaker 1: listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts.