'TIME TO SAY A PRAYER'

The last words of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, a Chicago mobster who thought he was about to be promoted to capo in his city's mob. Instead the meeting was a lure. Spilotro was about to die.

A mobster-turned-squealer testified this week about Spilotro's death. The Associated Press reports:

Nicholas Calabrese, an admitted mob killer, said he and two other men were driven to the scene of the crime by James Marcello, one of those on trial.

Spilotro had been lured with the promise he would become a "capo," or captain, in the Outfit — as Chicago's organized crime family is known — and his brother, Michael, would be initiated as a "made guy," Calabrese testified.

Michael came downstairs first, Calabrese testified.

"I said, 'How are you doing, Mike?' because I knew him," Calabrese testified. But he said a few seconds later, "I grabbed his legs and I noticed right away that Louie the Mooch had a rope around his neck."

While they were strangling Michael Spilotro, Calabrese said, he heard what may have been Tony Spilotro's last words. Several of the mobsters involved, including Louie "The Mooch" Eboli, are now dead.

Four mobsters are on trial in Chicago, including Nicholas Calabrese's brother, Frank. Ratting out your own brother seems low, even by mob standards. Then again, this was a gang that doled out nicknames like "The Ant" and "The Mooch."