Novels by JMO

When she picked up the phone, however, she heard the stern rebuke in her father's voice, who shouted, "Arlyne!" She withdrew her hand. With one brief command, Irving had just firmly excluded her from his most intimate affairs. That was the way things worked in the Weiss family. Doors that slammed shut. Mirrors that stared back. And telephone rings that hid secrets. Maria De La Cruz would have been slow to reflect on her mother's writings, at least she discovered that her real name was "Arlyne", and that she had made a kind of auto-bibliography written in the third person, but how could I find out? Well, those sheets hid an admirable truth and bandit, they coincided perfectly with her father's chest. She was confused for a few days, she wasn't sure what her real surname was, her real name, and she certainly had become quite messed up in her mind. However, in the shadows of her questions, she was filled with relief and emotion for the blood that ran in her veins; even though they carrie

Irving and Billie, who were used to frequenting classier joints, had to pop in from time to time, basically because one of the other co-owners was one of Lucky Luciano's friends: Giuseppe Antonio Doto, also known as Joe Adonis. Adonis was an aloof guy and, to Arlyne, a complete mystery. She managed to catch a glimpse of him one night while he sat waiting for her father in front of the apartment. Although Arlyne was not yet a teenager, the sight of Adonis' hazy profile through the tinted glass of the Cadillac aroused some sexual interest in her. His marked, sensual features seemed both exotic and forbidding. Although the question had not been explicitly discussed, it was clear that any daughter of Irving Weiss would stay far away from the Italians, who were widely known for preying on mirror maze 51 Jewish girls and recounting the details of their conquests on street corners and in taverns all over the Lower East Side. On the one hand, Adonis was attractive because he was so strange,

Although pleasant at first, these formalities began to wear on Miss Blum's patience. Constrained by convention, she could not initiate contact without a suitable pretext. Fortunately, one did present itself. One of the funeral homes was going to hold a raffle and all the East Side undertakers were given a handful of ballots to sell. Ida Blum, who usually handled these matters, called her daughter and asked if she was interested in trying her luck with the Weiss brothers. At her mother's timely suggestion, Billie went to Houston Street on the pretext of selling them ten raffle tickets. Irving was willing to buy all ten, but Henry stopped him, telling him that five would be enough. That confirmed what Billie thought: that Irving was the most generous, and the best catch. In fact, Billie had left nothing to chance. Before approaching them and without anyone seeing her, she had lifted the red Mafia Girl 46 stamps from the ballots in order to guarantee that she was selling a winning one t

Those who declined the offer received threats of sabotage and often death. Lansky and Los Chicos ran their criminal enterprises almost unchallenged until 1933, when they found themselves in troubled waters in the political arena. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had emerged victorious at the 1932 Democratic National Convention with the support of the Lansky-controlled political bosses, soon turned against his old allies and launched an all-out war against organized crime. That move made him so popular that local politicians across the country took his lead. New York Governor Herbert Lehman appointed a politically ambitious young man named Thomas Dewey as special prosecutor to bring the mobsters to justice. Dewey set about his task with fervor, lashing out at the bouncers across the spectrum of suspect sectors. However, the onslaught of his prosecutorial fury fell especially hard on Lepke and Gurrah, whom he considered "the two biggest extortionists in the country." Realizing t

They were all avid gamblers, and they all came to Frankie. Sometimes, preferably on Saturday afternoons, because no funerals were officiated and she was allowed to gamble on the front steps, Arlyne would visit her grandmother. On those occasions, she would go down a back staircase leading to the neighboring basement and visit Uncle Frankie and his friends. She used to find them stretched out on a couple of old couches, going over the race sheet and listening to the standings on a big old wooden radio. They didn't seem to mind that little girl hanging around. Sometimes Frankie or one of the others would sneak her a quarter and a pat on the cheek. In fact, as Arlyne recalls, those men were "the Uncles." For example, there was Uncle Milty Tillinger, the loan shark. Once, when one of Milty's relatives was on the run from justice, Ida hid him in the coffin room until the danger passed, earning the loyalty of the Tillinger family forever. There was also Izzy Smith, owner of Zion Cemetery do

As Arlyne observed, Grandma was always surrounded by men, most of them much younger than she was. Among those blowflies flying over Ida's kitchen on Friday night were Jimmy and Jake, the chauffeurs in charge of driving the hearse during the funeral. It was obvious that both young men held their benefactress in high esteem. Jake, a ladies' man, flirted with Ida nicely and then went on his way. The other, however, had been hit harder. Jimmy the Pagan, as he was known, was a shy soul who seemed unable to find a girlfriend. Ida had taken pity on him and offered to teach him to dance. Later, when she had finished her duties as cook, she would take his hand and lead him into the living room, where she would put a record on the phonograph. Then, to the delight of those present, she would show Jimmy the first steps in the erotic pleasures of tango. Their bodies were not a perfect match; Ida was much more muscular than her skinny dancing partner. But Jimmy was eager to learn and Arlyne found i