O'Hare, Eddie: AKA Fast Eddie.  Edward J. O'Hare, but no one ever called him Edward, was a lawyer from St. Louis. Early in his career, he entered into partnership with a local inventor named Oliver P. Smith, who in 1909 had developed a mechanical rabbit for use in dog racing. Over the next decade, Smith refined his invention and O'Hare took out the patent. Together, they toured the country and demonstrated the running rabbit system, just as the sport of dog racing was catching on. With time, they had great success, taking a percentage of the gate in exchange for the use of their invention. When the inventor died in 1927, O'Hare cheated Smith's wife out of any rights she had to the invention and gained complete control himself. Flush with cash, O'Hare dumped his long-suffering wife, took his three children, Butch, Patricia and Marilyn, and moved to Chicago. Like almost everyone else who met him, Al Capone took an immediate liking to Eddie O'Hare, and brought him into Hawthorne Kennel Club, a Cicero dog race track, as a major partner. Dog racing was illegal in Illinois, but for decades O'Hare and the hoods kept the place open by successfully tying up opponents in court. It was worth the expense of the lawyers too, because O'Hare figured out a way to fix the races. …