After retirement, a local physician breaks his silence about caring for the Cleveland ‘family’.

By: James Renner

Throughout the 60’s and 70’s, members of the Cleveland branch of La Cosa Nostra were fighting each other for control of organized crime on the banks of the North Shore. The front page of the Cleveland Press (may she rest in peace) was often covered by the black and white images of the blown up cars and burnt up bodies of made men. The few who survived had the need for medical attention, and sought out physicians whom they could keep in confidence. Some of those doctors are retiring, finally ready and able to speak of their adventures. Last week, the Independent met with one such doctor at an undisclosed restaurant to hear tale of those criminals who once controlled the city before the politicians and corporations beat them at their own games.

He was young man in 1961, fresh out of med school, when he began attending to the needs of infamous crooks inside the halls of St. Luke’s hospital on the East Side. It was always easy to recognize a patient who was “connected”—they were the ones who came in surrounded by bodyguards and mistresses.

This particular doctor was there the day Louis “Babe” Triscaro came in with a nosebleed. Triscaro was a local Teamster of some ill repute, a lieutenant of Jimmy Hoffa’s, later busted for skimming union welfare funds. A vessel had ruptured high inside the man’s nasal cavity and no one could stop it. By the time he arrived Triscaro had already lost a lot of blood. “He showed up with this big guy named Moose and an attractive redhead who was not his wife,” he says. “Everyone on staff had to go through Moose before doing anything to Triscaro.”

The only way to staunch the bleeder was to pack the man’s nose with gauze, really shove the stuff up there—an excruciatingly painful procedure. Eventually, though, they got it stopped.

“He was so happy, he lined us all up and gave each of us doctors $50 on his way out. I didn’t want to accept it. I didn’t want to be hooked in. But he wouldn’t accept ‘no’ for an answer. The doctor who had packed his nose was invited down to his home in Ft. Lauderdale.”

“Some of the staff even went out to his house. From what I was told there was a turret set into the front of his home, which was manned 24-7.”

He got to know lesser-connected men, too, consiglieres still unknown to the feds who hunted them. “I know the fella who was with Shondor Birns the night he was blown up downtown,” says the doctor. “He had a young Italian fella with him that night, but the kid chose to drive separately. He was 18. This boy was following him all the way to the parking lot. When they got there, there was only one spot in which to park. As soon as Birns pulled in, they blew the car. This boy saw the whole thing. Afterward, the kid ski-doo’ed. He could have died.”

In December, 1968, the good doctor came to know a guy named John Calandra. Calandra was the right-hand-man of boss Jack ‘White’ Licavoli. He was part of the team who operated on him to fix a problem Calandra was having with his voice.

“Calandra was always appreciative,” he says. “He invited me to his birthday party up on Murray Hill. ‘I’d like to invite you because you cared for me,’ he told me. I asked a colleague of mine if I should go and he said, ‘Don’t miss it. You’ll be all right. Just read the Godfather before you go.’”

The birthday was held in a courtyard behind a popular restaurant. In the middle a giant pig roasted on a spit. To the side was a pile of treasures; golf bags, leather jackets, all sorts of stuff. But Calandra was nowhere to be found.

The doctor took a seat next to a man who appeared to only speak Italian and watched the crowd part to admit an Irishman dressed head-to-toe in green. “I was introduced to Mr. Greene,” he says. “Nice guy.” Danny Greene was later killed by another car bomb, outside the office of another doctor (Hollywood has just adapted his life story; shot in Detroit—an insult we’ll never really get over).

A well-known Cleveland police lieutenant also dropped by for some food. A couple large men dressed in black ducked out when they caught sight of the lawman, but no one else flinched.

Eventually, Calandra joined him at the table—the Italian-speaking man silently gave up his seat. “All these people love me,” said Calandra, looking around the courtyard. “Someone told me I should read the Godfather before I came here,” the doctor replied. Calandra laughed. “They’re all here,” he said. “The bookies, all the way up. Everyone.”

Later, when Calandra met the doctors wife, he asked if they were swingers. A compliment to some, but the doctor declined.

In 1982, as the mafia’s hold on Cleveland was subverted by politicians but mostly their own hubris, Calandra was convicted on RICO charges along with Licavoli. He died in prison.

The doctor has no regrets. If anything, he seems to treasure the stories his well-known patients bestowed on him. And finally, he can talk about it. Some of it, at least.

“It was a silent world,” he says, with a certain whimsy. “If they were shot, they wouldn’t even tell who shot them.”