Capone's job at the Harvard Inn was to be the bartender and bouncer and, when necessary, to wait on tables. In his first year, Capone became popular with his boss and the customers. Then his luck turned suddenly when he waited on the table of a young couple. The girl was beautiful and the young Capone was entranced. He leaned over her and said, "Honey, you have a nice ass and I mean that as a compliment."
The man with her was her brother Frank Gallucio. He jumped to
his feet and punched the man who insulted his sister. Capone flew
into a rage and Gallucio pulled out a knife to defend himself. He
cut Capone's face three times before he grabbed his sister and ran out
of the place. While the wounds healed well, the long ugly scars would
haunt him forever.
Capone's insult caused a bit of an uproar. Gallucio went to Lucky
Luciano with his grievance and Luciano went to Frankie Yale. When
it came to Yale's attention, all four men came together and dispensed justice.
Capone was forced to apologize to Gallucio. Capone learned
something from the experience --to restrain his temper when it was necessary.
Yale took Capone under his wing and impressed upon the younger man
how business can be built up through brutality. Yale was resourceful
and violent man who prospered by strong-arm tactics. Schoenberg characterized
Yale as specializing in extortion; loansharking, exacting tribute from
pimps and bookmakers, and offering "protection" to local businesses.
"Yale needed a stable of strongarms who could not only break arms and heads
but would kill."
As powerful as Yale's influence would be on Capone's eventual development,
other influences had a very moderating effect on Al. At the age of
nineteen, he met a pretty blond Irish girl named Mae Coughlin, who was
two years older than he was. Her family was comfortable and solidly
middle class. It's hard to imagine that Mae's family embraced
her relationship with Capone and it was not until after their baby was
born that they married.
Albert Francis Capone was born December 4, 1918. His godfather
was Johnny Torrio. While Sonny, as he was known all his life, seemed
okay at birth, he was in fact a victim of congenital syphilis. Years
later, Al confessed to doctors that he had been infected before he was
married, but he believed that the infection had gone away.
With a beautiful respectable wife and a baby to support, Al focused
on a legitimate career. He stopped working for Frankie Yale and moved
to Baltimore where he worked as capable bookkeeper for Peter Aiello's construction
firm. Al did very well. He was smart, had a good head
for figures and was very reliable.
Quite suddenly, Al did another about face when his father died November 14, 1920, of heart disease at the age of fifty-five. Bergreen saw the event as marking the end of Capone's legitimate career. "It is possible that the sudden absence of parental authority made the young Capone feel free to abandon his bookkeeping job and his carefully acquired aura of respectability....
He resumed his relationship with Johnny Torrio, who had during the intervening years expanded his racketeering empire with the quiet cunning of a visionary. Torrio had abandoned the hotly contested streets of Brookyn for the comparatively open spaces of Chicago. The opportunities were enormous: gambling, brothels, and...illegal alcohol."
Torrio beckoned from Chicago and early in 1921 Al accepted. Armed
with his knowledge of business and his experience with the brutal Frankie
Yale, Capone had a good resume for a career in crime.