Crime scenes from Miami’s bloody past
If you’re wondering if “The Corporation” is the book for you, consider just this one little tale from its pages. Gambling boss Jose Miguel Battle instructs his new underboss, Ernesto Torres, that a deadbeat client owing $10,000 would be coming by the office, almost certainly to say he didn’t have the money yet. We need to give him a good scare, said Battle, to remind him he needs to pay up.
Torres nods and goes out to the street to await the arrival of the deadbeat. A few moments later, Battle hears two gunshots. He scrambles outside, only to find the indebted gambler dead in a taxicab, two gunshots in his head.
“You’ll have no more problems with this guy,” explains the proud underboss. Torres. “Are you crazy?” roars Battle, enraged not because of the loss of human life or the difficulty of hiding a body in the middle of town or even the possibility of a murder rap, but by the red ink this is going to spill on his balance sheets: “How am I going to get my money now?!!”
There are scores of stories like that one in “The Corporation,” a remarkable new nonfiction chronicle of adventures in the CubanAmerican underworld of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. Published last month, “The Corporation” is already headed for Hollywood, where one Oscar winner, veteran tough guy Benicio del Toro, has agreed to star in a film version and another, Leonardo DiCaprio, to help produce it.
Written by veteran (and best-selling) historian of organized crime T.J. English, “The Corporation” is a wild and bloody ride through a harrowing epoch of South Florida history.
It was a time in which gunmen engaged in running shootouts in the streets of Little Havana and successful hits were celebrated at parties with cocaine gift bags. A time when cops could keep their witnesses alive only by faking their murders. A time when gangsters disposed of ex-