"I Heard You Paint Houses", Updated Edition: Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa

by Charles Brandt

first words Jimmy ever spoke to me were, “I heard you paint houses.” The paint is the blood that supposedly gets on the wall or the floor when you shoot somebody. I told Jimmy, “I do my own carpentry work, too.” That refers to making coffins and means you get rid of the bodies

Now the History Channel makes no bones about it; one of the reasons Kennedy won that election was because Sam Giancana fixed Illinois for him with phony ballots from people who were dead, names taken off gravestones.

“There are people higher up than me that feel that you are demonstrating a failure to show appreciation,” and then he said so softly that I had to read his lips, “for Dallas.”

“You’re dreaming, my friend. If they could take out the president, they could take out the president of the Teamsters.”

A decade or so later, of course, with all the top godfathers of that era dead or in jail, I did want to know what Frank knew about “Dallas” and I found out and reported it in the book: The Mafia was in on the assassination, and Frank played an unwitting role.

Russell Bufalino, who was a serious man speaking in a serious way about the most serious of matters when he warned Jimmy Hoffa in front of Frank: “There are people higher up than me that feel that you are demonstrating a failure to show appreciation” — and then in a hushed tone — “for ‘Dallas.’”

Russell Bufalino was doubly serious later that night when he assured Frank that Jimmy was not immune from having his house painted: “You’re dreaming, my friend. If they could take out the president, they could take out the president of the Teamsters.”