Page "lore" Paragraph 596

When, as a diplomatic gesture of amity and in payment for the loan of gunmen in the April election, Torrio had given O'Banion a slice of Cicero, the profits from that district had been $20,000 a month.

In six months O'Banion had boosted the profits to $100,000 a month -- mainly by bringing pressure to bear on fifty Chicago speak-easy proprietors to shift out to the suburb.

These booze customers had until then been buying their supplies from the Sheldon, Saltis-McErlane, and Druggan-Lake gangs, and now they were competing for trade with the Torrio-Capone saloons ; ;

once again O'Banion's brash recklessness had caused a proliferation of ill will.

The revenue from O'Banion's Cicero territory went up still higher, until the yield was more than the Torrio-Capone takings from the far bigger trade area of Chicago's South and West Sides.

But he still showed no intention of sharing with the syndicate.

At last, even the controlled Torrio was unable to hold still, and he tentatively suggested that O'Banion should take a percentage in the Stickney brothels in return for one from his Cicero beer concession.

O'Banion's reply was a raucous laugh and a flat refusal.