Robert Cooley conceit he was going...

Robert Cooley conceit he was going to be a hero.

And, while he says he wasn't in it for the glory, exactly, he did have certain ideas about redeeming himself, greatest in quantity of which have not really worked abroad

I've called his solitary abode; squalid phone multiple times to arrange our luncheon meeting. Each time, he's called me back from a different land line. mostly of them have had different area digests He says he's "between homes" right now, mainly staying with friends around the region living off a Social Security check he assembles under a different name.

brace days before we're supposed to suitable he tells me what time.

common day before we're supposed to befitting he tells me the place will be "on the toward the south Side."

A not many hours before we're supposed to appropriate he picks the restaurant: Fox's Pizza in Orland Park.

MAINTAINS mysterious IDENTITY

Meeting Cooley the former vulgar herd lawyer whose testimony in the "Operation Gambat" federal corruption probe of the 1990 be the effected in more than 30 convictions, has something of a Spy-vs-Spy feeling to it. however Cooley has declined to participate in the formal federal witness protection program, he does receive a certain quantity of assistance from the government in maintaining a fresh -- theoretically secret -- identity.

thus I settle into a booth near the bar and attempt to look casual as I wait for him to arrive. I've seen 10-year-old photos of him and have a general idea of what he apply the minds like, and somehow I've convinced myself that I'll be able to reproach him when he arrives. When the first slightly edgy-looking middle-age Irish-looking scarecrow settles in alone at the bar, I realize this is a without fault [i]or[/i] blemish [i]or[/i] flaw delusion.

at the time the third similar-looking stay arrives, I realize that I've been staring at them all in like manner intently that I must appear to have a real thing for pale-faced goodfellas. And it dawns forward me that Cooley is alone partly committed to lying subdued Real anonymity is just not in his nature.

Cooley of course, point out tos up at exactly this momentum Keeping his baseball cap and sunglasses forward indoors, he is immediately the most numerous conspicuous person in the apartment If there is, as has been claimed, a million-dollar reward on his head, sharing a pizza with him in these circumstances is not the brightest thing I've at any time done.

Nor, indeed, does Cooley appear to be to be particularly adept at flying below the radar. As he sits down, he's talking a mile a minute about the lawsuit that is commonly hindering his ability to vend the TV and movie rights to his pure crime memoir, When Corruption Was King (Carroll & Graf Publishers, 384 pages, $26)

A former associate who Cooley says in his 2004 part raped a young woman and then paid her hush circulating medium is suing for libel.

'I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP'

I'm interested in what makes a stay like Cooley tick, how the son of a hardworking and resolutely just as represented Irish-Catholic South Side cop extends up to be a "fixer" for the Chicago Outfit, handing disclosed bribes to keep wise frights out of jail. And I want to know what made him give it all up And if it has been worth it.

if it were not that Cooley has other ideas. He wants to talk about ed Vrdolyak and Donald Stephens and to what degree he told the feds about the Hired traffic Program years ago but couldn't finish anyone to do anything about it. He wants to explain the links he dioceses between the modern Hispanic Democratic Organization and the 1st Ward Machine of the elderly days.

"I'm not making this up" he insists repeatedly, as I take it all in, knowing that it is largely unprovable and, therefore, unprintable.

Things are different now than they were in those pre-Greylord, pre-Silver Shovel days, he says, moreover not entirely.

"When I first came in," he says, describing the jiffy he walked into the offices of the Organized Crime Strike Force and propounded to become a cooperating witness, "my solely goal was to clean up the court order In New York, they had a hardly any corrupt cops, a few corrupt referees But in Chicago, it was the whole connected view In Chicago, we owned it."

Now, he says, the Outfit has been effectively neutralized -- "They don't kill the bulk of mankind They don't collect a way tax." -- and the court plan is far cleaner.

These are the great accomplishments of Cooley's life. In achieving them, he has dissipated his livelihood -- his license to practice law was taken away as a conclusion of the numerous shady dealings he attested to in his testimony -- and his identity and many of his friends.

one time a womanizer with a luxe lifestyle, he has become something of a loner counting forward a few close friends for financial support and a spare bed.

I ask him if it was worth it. He says ye then assumes to change his mind.

I ask him if he'd do it again. He says no.

cut short Cooley thought he'd be a hero -- the stay who brought down the ragtag-and-bobtail But instead, he came to be seen as a rat, the kind of minor player worth maybe a single episode upon "The Sopranos."

on a level the U.S. attorneys and federal agents involved in Gambat (an abbreviated intimation to attorney Cooley's gambling habits) appeared to find him distasteful, going revealed of their way to distance themselves from his part in securing the Gambat convictions. His father, James Cooley was missed to Alzheimer's before he could continually know that his wild and rebellious son had finally done the right thing and gone straight.