Mob Sisters
Jeanne Rejaunier
Published by Jeanne Rejaunier at Smashwords
Copyright 2012 Jeanne Rejaunier
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Chapter I - David Cates - 2012
Three years ago, my mother Kristin Cates vanished. How did she disappear without a trace, and why there are no clues to her whereabouts? As I told the FBI, which has been trying unsuccessfully to locate my mother, I can’t answer these questions.
Does the name Kristin Cates ring a bell? If you follow crime, you know that over past decades, my mother, Kristin Cates, led a notorious, albeit largely low profile life as a member of the La Femmina female mafia. For those few who haven’t heard, the La Femminas are the most powerful cartel of lady criminals in the world, in fact, the only criminal cartel composed exclusively of women, and they do it all — gambling, loan sharking, numbers, counterfeiting, narcotics, and you name it. Besides this, LFM women own some of the most profitable legitimate businesses in the world in sports, entertainment, fashion, real estate, casinos, financial services, and much more.
What do I, as Kristin Cates’s only child, know about my mother’s life and career? Actually, not that much, since Kristin kept her criminal movements well concealed from her son. However, what I can offer to shed light on my controversial mother’s life, is, interestingly enough, a novel Kristin left behind when she fled, which touches peripherally on her activities as a member of the La Femminas. Rather than focusing wholly on my mother’s own personal story, her work of fiction is a primarily roman à clef revealing how the La Femmina women's mafia came into being, and how its' celebrated crime queenpins grew, prospered and defied the system. So historically, I think you will realize when you read this, that my mother’s tell-all is an extremely important work.
I don’t know if my mother ever intended to publish this book, whether she wrote it for posterity, to enlighten, or merely as a creative effort, but if I had to guess, I’d say all three could apply. What I do know is that upon completion, the manuscript was tucked away in a drawer and that Kristin never made any effort to have it published, although she certainly could have, given her connections. Now that she is living in the shadows (as we believe), and particularly since e-books are so prevalent today, it was my decision to go ahead and bring this story my mother wrote to the light of day. I believe my decision could prove instructive and informative to many.
And finally, I hope upon reading MOB SISTERS, that you, the readers, will agree with me that my mother’s chef d’oeuvre deserves an honored place in our nation’s cultural history.
David Cates, New York City, 2012
Chapter 2 - Kristin Cates - 1990
It was the final time I'd be returning home from one of the dangerous drug runs that had been my stock in trade for the past six years. At last, I'd be moving up in the ranks of organized crime — not that I had complaints about my probation period; one million eight hundred thousand dollars in cash under the table last year, for example, made my activities on behalf of the La Femmina female mafia syndicate — or the LFM, as it's called — more than worth the risks. Nevertheless, I was pleased the unusual organization to which I owed allegiance would now be promoting me.
I settled back into the luxurious pleasure of Thailand Airlines' Royal Orchid Service, trying to put worries aside. This Bangkok to New York flight was one of my favorites. The stunning hostesses in bright colored saris always pampered us passengers, offering hot perfumed towels and purple fans, serving jasmine tea, cherry wine, exotic cocktails and spicy Thai food. That part I'd miss. What I wouldn't miss was the constant fear.
I recalled the culture shock of my first Thailand run. It was October, the cool season, and the stifling air was blazing hot. The Thai capital is a city of contrasts in which extremes of wealth and poverty coexist, where you can be walking in rat-infested slums, the smell of human excrement pervading, then just around the corner discover a lush tree-lined section of sumptuous villas.
This is a city where one can easily hire a killer for less than a hundred dollars.
Everywhere, one sees ragged beggars hawking pathetic skeleton-like children, and for fifty dollars, you can buy a nursing baby. I don't like telling you the usual fate of such infants is that they are slaughtered, their internal organs removed to stuff their bodies with drugs. I thanked God I was never asked to do anything like this because I know I never could.
The first time I ever hailed a cab on a Bangkok street, a well dressed stranger approached me to advise against getting into a taxi unless I wanted to end up dead in some alley. Later that night in my hotel room, I noticed the door handle to the room adjoining mine was turning. I put a chair against it and lay awake the entire night, my heart pounding till dawn. No matter how much practice I had, no matter how satisfying it might be to take the money and run, the fear never ended.
As an LFM soldier, my main activity was drug courier, and there was always the risk, particularly with large orders, that someone might deliberately leak information to the police. This was part of what I'd had to contend with these past years, and it wasn't over yet.
At the outset, as a struggling single mother in dire straits, I desperately needed what this life could offer. Working with the LFM's was a way to earn quick money and lots of it. The world's first criminal organization of women, the La Femminas — God, did I want to be a part of it. For the La Femminas were the most powerful cartel of female criminals in the world, in fact, the only criminal cartel composed exclusively of women, and their lucrative interests were spread around the globe. Opportunities for advancement were enticing.
How did I have the good fortune to connect with them? If you are a devotée of second and third tier cable tv shows, you know Sandra Martinez, exotic, dark-haired psychic and astrologer. A fated 900 number phone call to "Sandra and the Stars" led to an appointment for a private reading. I'd been praying for some way to pay off mounting debts and at the same time escape the 9 to 5 rut. Well, I got everything I asked for and more. Sandra, a capo in the Jasmine Shields mafia family, introduced me to the LFM, and the rest is history.
Think what this would mean to my son David, I thought — the best schools, his future assured. My boy, just nine at the time I first became involved with the LFM, was the reason for it all. My thought always was that women like me must opt to make it through any channel we can, no matter how unorthodox. I make no apologies. Even so, the LFM didn't accept me all at once; I had to prove myself.
That watershed day half a dozen years ago, I opened the door to the Manhattan hotel room where I'd been told to go. Keys had been left for me at the desk and a note was placed on the bed. I picked it up and read: "Fill out this form. Be at McDonald's, 8th Avenue and 56th Street, at 3 p.m. But be sure you intend to go through with this and are willing to face any consequences. Check and double check your replies to all questions. The information must be accurate, because if anything proves false, consequences could be serious."
Were they trying to scare me? They were succeeding. My initial thought was that if I could do this job even just once, better yet up to a dozen times, I'd be home free, and then I'd quit. I'd made my share of mistakes and poor choices in life; the goal now was for a source of income, a lump sum to stash away and live off the interest from. This gig could provide it. It had to work.
I was shaking. "Form 20" required name, address, phone and passport numbers, age, race, and answers to several questions, such as: Would you go to any part of the world? Can you read maps? Can you read instructions in English? Yes, I wrote, my hand unsteady, U.S. citizen, born in Richmond, Virginia. Have you ever been involved with anything like this before? No, never. What are your qualifications? "Willingness to risk," I wrote. How much money do you want? As much as possible, the max, I wrote, and added “please.”
Still trembling, I re-read the final orders. "Leave this folded with your passport. The latter will be returned to you soon. Good luck." I had the feeling I was dealing with a mysterious league that kept itself well insulated, hidden from view. How right I was.
They contacted me two days later, met and escorted me to three separate locations. At the ultimate destination I found a note reading, "Go to Grand Central Station. Pick up a double-bottomed suitcase. Inside you'll find money." I was to purchase a ticket and leave on a trip. I followed instructions to the letter. As it turned out, this was a trial run. The same procedure happened again; I went where I was told, was directed to be at another and still another place, where I was met and escorted yet elsewhere. I sat and waited. When would it all gel? When would I start making the big money Sandra had said I could?
Finally, a few weeks later, apparently satisfied with my performance thus far, they had me buy a plane ticket to the Far East, where upon arrival I was to purchase another special double bottomed suitcase. I was given an envelope containing twenty thousand dollars in cash, half of my fee in advance. The balance would come on delivery of consignment. Everything was finally falling into place, my problems were being solved, my life was opening up!
This marked the beginning of my career of sitting in hotel rooms around the world and waiting, waiting for phones to ring, afraid to go out for days on end for fear of missing a call.
And now the waiting was coming to an end. Thank God I wouldn't have these worries anymore. What a relief; what satisfaction to know that bigger, safer ventures were coming my way, and that from now on, the money promised to be even better. As I gazed out the plane at the New York skyline, I smiled to myself. These fears of mine would soon be over.
"Kristin Cates, you are in violation of United States Code 16443.052, Section II, Article 27 — "
I stared incredulously at the two federal agents who were waiting on the tarmac. The full impact didn't sink in at first. There was an air of unreality about this; it seemed that ten thousand pairs of eyes were boring into me and that everybody at Kennedy Airport knew what was going down, knew it was all over for me. The feds were taking me into custody, making my worst nightmares come true. At once, I could predict the scenario — scare tactics, threats of grand jury indictments and plea bargaining — cooperate with us, Kris, and you can keep out of prison, strike a deal, plead and we'll give you immunity, we'll put you in the Witness Protection Program (God forbid) — all the ensuing scenes played through my mind in advance. They'd want me to tell everything I knew, the truth and the myths, every piece of information I could dredge up about the La Femmina female mafia. While I was not a part of the LFM power structure at that time, I did have information about the organization the authorities wanted to hear. What I knew, covering more than two decades in scope, contained facts about LFM leadership and expansion, their romances and vendettas, and how these remarkable women, over a period then approaching thirty years, managed to parlay rackets and vice operations along with legitimate enterprises into a multi-billion dollar empire. Looking back, I can categorically state that today, the La Femmina women's mafia power is unparalled, a subject I hope to address in future books.
Of great interest to law enforcement, I knew, would be how the syndicate women brought the global drug trade under their jurisdiction and became the leading voice in the American underworld.
"A mafia of women? A mob not of male hoods called Vito, Sal, Tony and Joe, but of beautiful and charming ladies named Tania, Laura, Jasmine, Victoria, Susan and Sandra?"
The scene was Federal Plaza, FBI New York headquarters. I'd been led through the Bureau's rabbit warren into the offices of FBI Special Agent Tom Madigan, who appeared bemused as he leaned back from the desk in his brown leather swivel chair. On the wall to Madigan's left hung a chart depicting the La Femmina Mafia's alleged leadership coast to coast. The chart was not completely accurate. I thought, is it possible we women have been operating under the FBI's noses all this time and they were only now getting around to finding out? Another proof of our cleverness. But I kept those thoughts to myself.
A second agent, Ronald Haines, a patronizing type who also seemed amused by the idea of the La Femminas, joined in, "Ladies raking in hundreds of millions annually from a cartel founded on gambling, loan sharking, numbers, narcotics, prostitution and labor racketeering! Laundered money recycled into legitimate enterprises — trucking companies, mortuaries, restaurants, dry cleaning establishments, pizza parlors, fashion houses, banks and brokerage houses — "
"An empire worth today an estimated cool two hundred billion dollars," Madigan finished, then looked at me again to ask, "Tell us how it all began, Kristin."
Madigan, Haines and I were at an informal transitional phase, legalities having thank God been settled. When I was brought into the FBI office following my arrest, it had to be determined if I was going to be a cooperating witness, if they were going to bring me down to the court and arraign me, or have me held over in the Metropolitan Correction Center. To make a long story short, I became a cooperating witness.
My actual testimony would come much later, when the U.S. Attorney had the cases ready. At this point, I was at a preliminary stage with the FBI; we were painting the broad strokes. I would tell them what I knew, they would listen and transcribe hours of what I said on tape.
Trying to answer Madigan's question about beginnings, I said, "Sex discrimination and sexual harassment were definite factors impacting women's lives. You could say that some women, conscious of being closed off from the system, were eager to correct the balance by whatever means, no matter how radical. These women joined ranks and formed a `mafia'. They began small — floating craps games out of their apartments, cigarette smuggling up from the Carolinas, fencing hot stones "
"Who were the founding mothers?" Tom Madigan asked. Madigan was I guess what you would call a fairly decent fellow, as FBI agents go. He was about 45, sandy-haired, with a broad forehead and a receding hairline.
"There were probably two major queenpins to begin with, which later escalated to four," I said. "You've heard of Joseph Lo Bianco?"
Of course they had. Although Lo Bianco was murdered back in the early 70's, law enforcement wouldn't forget this mafia don for a long time to come.
"Lo Bianco, as you probably know, had a beautiful daughter named Laura. The family lived first in Brooklyn, Lo Bianco's main turf, later in Brookville, Long Island. When Joe Lo Bianco's wife, Laura's mother, was dying over a ten year period, all during that time, Joe had a girlfriend, a mistress by the name of Victoria Winters — tall, blonde, goodlooking — "
The two agents nodded, remembering the legendary Lo Bianco, shot with a cigar in his mouth in the garden of a Brooklyn restaurant.
I continued, "Initially, Laura Lo Bianco had no great love for Victoria Winters; in fact, very few people did, since Victoria is actually not a particularly endearing person — however, Laura and Victoria reached a working relationship that was mutually beneficial. As I understand, even though Joe Lo Bianco provided to some extent for his daughter and his mistress, nevertheless, after his death there was internal strife in his organization, a lot of assets were missing, and at this point, Laura and Victoria found themselves in circumstances that compelled them to join forces, although they probably never would have otherwise.
"It seemed natural to continue some of the things the two had absorbed from Joe and strike out on their own. Victoria was full of ideas to make money. As for Laura, when Joe died, she was in deep trouble — being family, she was the one who inherited her father's headaches.
"So here were these two arm's length friendly enemies, rivals when Joe was alive, now in a state of truce. They had a mutual goal, to make up for the money that wouldn't be filtering their way anymore through Joe. And if the truth be told, Joe had held them both down. Lo Bianco was hardly what you'd call a feminist — like they say, the Mafia is not an equal opportunity employer, and both Laura and Victoria were victims in that sense. They reached an agreement to split percentages. Both had a network of friends; they expanded.
"The other two leaders of New York's Four Families, Tania Cutler and Jasmine Shields, were, I think, either school or social friends of Laura's. Anyway, these four soon banded together and formed a loose alliance; in the beginning they joked about being a female mafia; then it became a reality. One thing led to another.
"My association with the La Femminas, my knowledge of their operations began around two decades after they were up and running, but I know the legends and the lore about how it all began."
Chapter 3 - Victoria
Eyes glinting at the barrel, Harry Sutro cocked a .357 magnum and held it pointed it at Victoria Winters' temple.
"Very fucking funny, Harry." Vic moved out of the line of fire with a disdainful look. "I hope for your sake that piece isn't loaded — or automatic."
"Hell, no. Think I wanna blow my pecker off? Shit, an automatic could jam."
"Listen, put down the firearm and let's talk."
"Sure, hon."
As Victoria's bodyguard, houseman/henchman, jack-of-all-trades and steady bed partner, Harry Sutro also doubled as her unofficial male consigliere. Vic relied heavily on his advice, even though being a man, he was ineligible to officially join her female mafia borgata. Dr. Caroline "the Cow" Stoll, Vic's consigliere of record, didn't have much time to counsel, so Harry's role had expanded to encompass areas that the Cow would have handled had she not been so absorbed with her cardiac patients. If the other three LFM capos of New York's "Four Families" knew how intimately involved with Vic's operation Harry was, they would disapprove. But then, there was a lot about Victoria that caused the others to lift an eyebrow — to which Vic said, fuck them.
Victoria's short brittle laugh was a snigger. She wore a soupçon too much lavender eyeshadow rubbed onto the lids of her narrow and darting, deepset cinnamon colored eyes. When she smiled, which was seldom, the effect was cold and fiendish. One corner of her mouth raised to curve slowly under while the other side remained immobile, formulating a twisted and uneven, diabolical grin.
One of the most colorful mafiose, Victoria took to the La Femmina mob the way a basking shark takes to a school of fish. As one of the outfit's most astute businesswomen, she displayed brilliance in her inaugural rackets of fencing, hijacking, pornography and piracy.
She was slender and tall, 5'11 in stocking feet. Though it often seemed she carried a non-removable chip on her shoulder, men found the ice cold sex she projected interesting, and in fairness, her sometimes offputting exterior was a defense. Behind her back, she was called Vic or Tip O'Neill, sobriquets she disliked, preferring the regal Victoria.
Victoria plopped down at the kitchen table and contemplated space. Lighting a cigarette, she began smoking in compulsive gulps, blowing rings out in spurts. She was rough and edgy today.
"This Jasmine Shields is un-friggin’ believable," she complained to Harry about her biggest rival, the skipper of one of New York's mafia families. "Trouble is, she's got influence in her corner and it makes a difference. She sure can get a guy by the balls."
"Well, you got me by the balls, baby — you know that."
"You're different, Harry. A guy like you I can fart with. What I'm talking about is getting the kid of guy you can't fart with by the balls."
Harry started cleaning his gun. He was always cleaning things. In fact, he was the cleanest man she knew — he was a born homemaker, constantly vacuuming, dusting, washing dishes, putting garbage out, doing the laundry.
"Harry, you know my goal is to become the biggest powerhouse in heroin in the tri-state area. But it takes cooperation, and thus far I'm not getting any from the other Four Families."
"I keep telling you, what do you need those bitches for? Your crew can out-perform them any day of the week."
"That may be, but we La Femminas are an organization, we rely on each other's support — that's why we mobilized into a mafia in the first place. As you know, Tania Cutler's boyfriend's uncle, Tom Kelly, is head of the longshoremen's union. This SOB could work something out for me to use the docks for bringing the stuff in, but Tania hasn't come through."
"Your own captain, Georgia Jensen, is Mike Giordano's girlfriend, and Mike rules the Jersey seaports. I still say Georgia should be able to swing things for you."
Vic shook her head. "You know how hard Georgia tried." Mike Giordano was a captain in the Genovese family, which already had heroin coming through the ports Mike dominated, and he was not about to get into a conflict of interests with the male mob. "Anyway," Victoria said, "Giordano's such a big male chauvinist he doesn't even want Georgia involved with narcotics."
"If only you could reach out to Anthony Zino."
"Don't I wish."
Zino, a captain in the Lucchese family, controlled the airports. His iron grip on Local 295, the union that supplied manpower for the flight terminals and warehouses, enabled him to put the squeeze on any national firm operating out of any airport in the whole USA. With just one phone call, Anthony Zino could paralyze the entire American transportation system. He was the heaviest guy in unions on the east coast. While a prison sentence had precluded his rise in the official labor movement, he was the man who called the shots from a ringside table. People cooperated with this guy or else. Zino had made mayors and judges, put congressmen in office.
Unfortunately, Jasmine Shields had gotten there first. As her mentor, Zino had been opening doors for Jasmine in finance, the schmatte trade and in food distribution, working out union contracts with truckers, arranging introductions to suburban bankers who'd make compensating balance loans in exchange for rented CD's and money under the table. He sent a lucrative fat rendering deal her way, enabling her group to purchase byproducts from his kosher meat business, which were then used to manufacture detergents that with his assistance would be pushed in the supermarkets under the no-brand label. It was hard to accept Vic was closed out of this action, just getting a small override.
But that was Jasmine for you. You couldn't trust her. For instance, there was the cocaine situation, on which Vic suspected, even though she had no proof, that Jazz and her consigliere Sandra Martinez were jointly screwing her. Their pipeline was flowing unabated, a gold mine. Ok, so Vic was getting a nominal override, but why should she have to settle for that when Jasmine and Sandra had the lion's share? Well, Jasmine Shields might have cornered the cocaine market, but goddamnit, she wasn't going to get the better of Victoria on the heroin. This time, she would control the deal.
Vic said to Harry, "Jasmine's jacked me around for a long time, but it'll all come to a head in Beirut soon — "
End of next month, they were holding a policy summit in the Lebanese capital. Here, Vic was counting on meeting another connection of Jasmine's she wanted to exploit, Maurice Hirsch, one of the most influential men in France, a low profile, quasi-shady billionaire who secretly financed heroin on the side. Jasmine had long promised action from Maurice's corner, but thus far, zip. "I don't know why Shields has been pussy-footing, but just let me get to Hirsch — I'll make it happen. And don't forget, there's Hirsch's partner, Charles Cestrari." A Corsican drug dealer, Cestari owned the largest casino in the middle east right in Beirut. She wanted to corner one or both of these guys, get things rolling.
"Listen, Harry, I was thinking about a project for you. Charles Cestari visits New York several times a year. Ask around, get a line on him."
"Sure, hon. I'll get right on it."
"And while you're at it, I'd like a wiretap on Anthony Zino's lines. Not his home in Queens, but the joints he hangs out at, particularly the San Carlos Hotel."
"Piece of cake. Honey, we're not giving up on Zino — who says Jasmine has exclusive rights? We just gotta figure out a way to give the guy something he wants."
Harry always had her best interests at heart. He was one of the wisest decisions she ever made. He was a complete switch from any of the previous men in her life, especially from her late, longtime lover Joe Lo Bianco. Joe was a dapper dresser, whereas Harry had lousy taste in clothes; Joe was exciting, a guy you said yes to, Harry a man who took orders. It took a while to appreciate Harry's true worth, but he exemplified everything a good man should be — affable to have around the house, domesticated, a good homemaker, and always ready when she called for action in the sack. He was also an amateur lockpicker and wireman of no mean ability. Added Sutro credentials were an ability at karate, massage and marksmanship. Perhaps his major talent, however, was his tongue.
And a propos of what she'd said about farting, it was true. There was the old adage that a woman should find somebody she could fart with, and Harry certainly filled the bill. Not only did he give no objection her farts, he even found them attractive.
The first time she brought him up to the penthouse, right after picking him up at one of her massage parlors, she found out in short order what a fanatic he was on cleanliness. It was after midnight, the lighting was dim, but his eyes didn't miss a trick. "This joint's a mess," he said, indicating clutter, dust and disorder. "Honey, under these circumstances, I could never get it up."
"Sorry," Vic shrugged. "Maid service isn't my thing."
"I really wanted to ball you, but like this — no way Jose," Harry said. "You got any supplies around here?"
"I'll see."
"You're kidding," he scoffed when she handed him a bar of Ivory and an old sponge that fell apart to the touch. Consulting his watch, he said, "Look, I'll be back in a while."
She thought it was a brush off -- he was probably impotent anyway -- but lo and behold, forty minutes later, he returned from an all-night supermarket carrying a bag of cleaning equipment. He went to work moving furniture, vacuuming walls and ceilings, scrubbing under rugs, even behind picture frames. In five hours, he waxed the floors, washed the dishes, did all the laundry and changed the sheets. While he was working he told her all about himself, how he'd been toiling as a pallbearer in a mob-owned mortuary, specializing in carrying duplex coffins in which the rub-out victim was placed under the displayed body of record. You needed strong guys to carry these heavy duty doubledeckers. Corpses disappeared without a trace this way. It was foolproof. Victims would be six feet under in a matter of hours, long before they were stiffs even, much less before anybody realized they were even missing.
The sun was rising when he finally put everything in the cabinets and sat down for a well earned cigarette and can of beer.
"You must be exhausted after all that."
"Nah. Just give me a few minutes and you'll see." His porcine eyes turned erotic, or as erotic as Harry's eyes ever got. "As it happens," he said, "I got the fastest tongue in the east," he winked, "and my tongue never gets tired."
As a matter of fact, he did and it didn't.
Later, as they lay in bed, Vic explained how she earned her living. "In a way, you could say what we're doing is revolutionary, inasmuch as we're organized along business lines, like General Motors. It's probably the first time you've heard about a group of women like us before," she said. "Those wise guys wouldn't let us in their mafia, and we wouldn't let them in ours, but let me tell you that in a lot of ways, we're on our way to being even more powerful than the male mob. Any dude who gets involved with me has to understand my lifestyle and fit in with it."
"I hear you," Harry said.
"Women in so-called crime is a long established reality. Females have been dealing dope for a long time — the biggest drug dealers in California are women, most of them ours. Women have traditionally functioned as madams, run brothels and casinos, been couriers and mob fronts," Victoria said.
Harry licked his lips. "Sure, I know women can do all this, as much as the males who've been hogging the action."
"The difference with us LFM's," Victoria said, "is that for the first time in the history of the world we have an organized cartel of women."
"Mazeltov," Harry said. "Who could blame you? Look at how the establishment operates — can these people throw stones? States are into gambling and shylocking; what are most banks and credit card companies but legal loan sharks? You gonna tell me they don't have a racket? Who gave them permission?" Harry loved the idea of her organization, and wanted to know everything about it.
"We take vows of omertà," Vic said, emphasizing the last syllable of the traditional mafia word for silence, "so there's lots you can never know."
Harry said, "Listen, I'm a feminist. Everything a man can do a woman can do, if not better. A female mafia, is that a helluvan idea. Sure wish I could join."
"Being the wrong sex, you can't, but off the record, you can be an unofficial part of my team, my male associate."
"You got a beautiful set up," Harry said. "I mean, what law enforcement officer is gonna go after you? Even if they considered it, all you'd have to do is fuck their brains out to get yourself off the hook."
Harry was a treasure, worth his weight in gold, supportive of her aims in life; it was he who even encouraged her to make useful outside sexual liaisons.
"You mean you wouldn't be jealous?"
"Nah. What's nookie among friends? Can anybody begrudge a little head here and there?"
At first Vic wasn't sure she wanted to play that angle. She'd fought hard for her independence and wanted to keep it that way. She was a strong woman who, goddamnit, didn't have to take crap from any direction. She and Harry had had a number of discussions in this vein, Harry's contention being that she should use her cunt to advantage, while Vic argued it was a point of honor to make it on her own wits.
"You got wits in your pussy too," Harry pointed out. "If you don't use it, you lose an edge that every other female out there, despite what she may profess, is cashing in on. You're cutting off your nose to spite your face."
Given her enviable status in life, she thought she was long past that bag. "Harry, I've been down that road and learned the hard way."
"Listen, if you're smart you can call the shots and still fuck these guys in every sense of the word, and that's how you should look at it. This may be a female mafia, but who's to say getting the right man in your corner isn’t still one of the best ideas a lady mobster can come up with? You see how your pal Jasmine operates.”
“Still,” Vic argued, “look at my accomplishments, look at all I’ve achieved.”
Victoria’s troops were the best. She had a fabulous crew of tough, aggressive don’t-take-no-crap-from-nobody, ballsy winners. Her girls were producers, whether they were working contraband cigarettes smuggled up from the Carolinas, precious gems, loans, gambling, hooking or you name it. She had a group of footsoldiers adept at hijacking and a team who ran the car theft end of the business, and owned chop shops in two boroughs and two outlying suburban counties. She had been in the avant guard of the gay revolution with her out-front, no holds barred homosexual bars, and she had some pretty decent porno action going too. In fact, the living room table was loaded with X-rated scripts, and just last month they'd shot a hot Perfumed Persian Garden erotica video in this very apartment, a steamy followup to her smashingly successful Cunt's Guide to the Kama Sutra offering.
Her penthouse suite at the Woodward was incredible -- rent controlled, dirt cheap, with a wrap around terrace that offered a view to kill for on all sides. On a clear day you could see the five boroughs, Jersey, Connecticut, Westchester and Long Island. There were eight rooms. Harry tended the rooftop garden where a hardy crop of marijuana grew alongside the pretty flowers and plants that were his pride and joy.
Vic had done all the decorating herself and was proud of the results. The color scheme was antique gold, baby blue, apricot and white. Velvet, the main fabric, was draped everywhere, carpeted, upholstered and hung. The floor was covered in blue carpet and apricot and robin's egg blue harlequin tiles, and there were gauzy apricot curtains. Chandeliers hung from a filigreed ceiling, and in the long harlequin tile entryway were two surrealistic murals of naked people in languid poses painted by one of her crew members, an artist who'd taken up crime to support her creative habit. In the center of the living room stood an oversized, polished Carrara marble statue of an idealized blond goddess — herself — posed with bow and arrow, knee-high sandals and a clinging Greek-style garment, leaning against a Corinthian column. That statue was so perfect it could have been sculpted by Praxitiles; instead it was the work of another one of her artistically inclined borgata members — Hoboken loan shark Mary Beth "Shybaby" Fudderman. If the art scene weren't such a scam, Shybaby wouldn't have had to have a second career as a shark.
The three other New York area LFM crime chiefs, Jasmine, Tania Lynn Cutler, and Joe's daughter Laura Lo Bianco, though skippers like herself, lacked her brilliant managerial skills, and their soldiers weren't the workers her team was. Vic's was an operation like no other. She was putting in 18 and 20 hour days and it was paying off handsomely. Take the phone room, for instance.
At one end of the penthouse, just off the kitchen, they'd torn out a wall of the former utilities/laundry room which Harry had then painted a delicate shell pink. After that he'd installed fluorescent lighting and put in banks of bootlegged pastel-tinted phones, ten lines in all, all of them illegal. Her phone people sat in plasterboard cubicles manning calls all day long, tending to a burgeoning commodities business. Gang members on the horn bought and sold stripper oil and discarded, dirty left-over petroleum mixed with heating oil for use in schools and hospitals; made-in-Portugal "scotch whiskey;" and gold with forged hallmarks under LME.
Vic had at least two dozen phone room legwomen on her rolls working staggered shifts. They were doing all kinds of deals — contracts on iron oxide pigments, sludge piles in West Virginia, gob piles in Kentucky, coal mines in Tennessee; she had them pushing precious stones; shrimp and other frozen foodstuff from South America; her phone crew had just closed a supermarket deal for Ecuadoran coffee, and using counterfeit collateral, had recently financed the purchase of some tractor assembling plants in the midwest. In addition, they were selling American made cars to Arab countries at inflated black market prices the Arabs were more than willing to pay.
Cement, rice, sugar, paraffin, fruit juice and railroad ties were but a few of the staples her troops were pushing now, and they were making great money from them.
Every day Victoria's time was occupied with a myriad of tasks, hopping between her penthouse home and her other headquarters at two social clubs, one downtown in Little Italy, the other on Vernon Avenue in Long Island City, where her Queens crew hung out. A typical day might find her discussing a hijacking with Millie "Bug Eyes" Newins, for instance, a car theft problem with chop shop owner Darilyn "Four Fingers" Houston, or going over a few shylocking moves with Alexis "The Cat" Knight. Uptown, downtown, east side, west side and all around outlying territories, Harry chauffeured her in a Ford Galaxie, and waited patiently for her to transact business.
Somewhere along the line, he found time to go out shopping for fresh produce, tend to the planning of healthy menus, do the vacuuming and dusting, walk the dog, wash the clothes and dishes, water the plants, and see that fresh flowers were on the tables.
A fabulous gourmet cook, Harry loved nothing more than puttering about the kitchen. Tonight, he had whipped up a tasty pasta al pesto dish, followed by steamed filet of sole véronique, baby carrots julienne, and a lightly tossed salad vinaigrette. Vic's guests were her underbosses and official consigliere.
Following an enthusiastically received dinner, Vic said, "We have business to discuss, ladies. I've asked Harry to sit in, because I value his opinion, and five heads are better than four." No one objected, so Harry joined them in the trophy room for an evening of plotting, planning, and scheming. Her girls had it in them to do big things, and Vic wanted to move some of them presently involved in rackets into something higher class, like narcotics.
Vic's actual consigliere, the physically large, rawboned Caroline "Cow" Stoll, M.D., a graduate of a Spanish-speaking Caribbean medical school, had interned at Metropolitan Hospital, done her residency at Queens County General and now was in private practice as a cardiac surgeon. A high school dropout who never went to college, the Cow seldom even attended med school classes since she spoke no Spanish and thus couldn't understand what was going on in the lectures anyway. It was a miracle she'd learned to perform complicated surgical procedures — heart bypasses, angioplasty, implanting pacemakers and the like — since the school had no cadavers, but somehow the Cow did manage to get a medical degree, now prominently displayed on her office wall, and in fact enjoyed a flourishing East Harlem practice. With a bi-lingual clientele of mostly Puerto Ricans, even her Spanish had been improving these past few years.
A gifted surgeon, Cow had the most phenomenal hands — long, thin, artistic — that looked like they were always performing feats of prestidigitation, even when engaged in mundane activities like writing out a prescription for Quaaludes.
Like many in her profession, Dr. Stoll's greatest asset was her intuitive knowledge. If anyone had the calling, Cow did. It was a reflection on the system that she had to go the route she did. But the Cow was a healer and she cared, in fact was so dedicated she treated inner city patients gratis. Not only that, she was always running off to third world earthquake-prone countries like Guatemala and El Salvador to help poor devastated natives. Stoll was a humanitarian soul, unselfish and altruistic. Well, she had to make a living somehow, didn't she? La Femmina mafia deals were her answer.
In addition to her medical practice and La Femmina responsibilities, the Cow, a gifted musician, sang second soprano in the New York City Physicians and Surgeons Choral Society, where her thrilling mezzo could give both Marilyn Horne and Jessye Norman a run for the money. Now Cow's Amazonian-proportioned body occupied a large armchair, and she had donned her most serious looking horn-rimmed glasses for the meeting.
To Victoria's right was her captain, Georgia "Legs" Jensen. Bosomy, sloe-eyed and blowzy, clad in a micro-mini skirt, Georgia, in blue-tinted shades, sat inhaling contemplatively, blowing fat smoke rings across the room. She seemed far removed from the Union City rackets she ran, including a shylocking concession out of a south Jersey bar whose flashing neon signs advertised topless dancers. Georgia always looked as if she'd spent the better part of the week rolling in the hay. A slack mouth and benign expression added to her fucked-out appearance. Occasionally she would reach down to stroke the fur of Marlene Dietrich, the German shepherd bitch who accompanied her everywhere and passed easily for a seeing eye dog, although she was not. On the fourth finger of her right hand Georgia wore an enormous ruby ring, the gift of her boyfriend, New Jersey labor racketeer and Cosa Nostra mobster Mike Giordano.
Grey-haired Rose F. Dyson, mob moniker "Rosie the Pelvis," was a good woman, a heavyhitter who owned and operated a thriving funeral parlor, the Shady Grove Mortuary in Valley Stream, Long Island. One of Ro's greatest satisfactions in life lay in dressing a corpse to give it the right appearance for its final scene on earth and sendoff to the Great Beyond. Cosmetics were Ro's specialty. A while back she was doing makeup for a TV studio in Manhattan. When they moved to Hollywood, Rose was invited to come along, but she preferred running her own scene on her own turf. The mortuary was it. With help from female mob money, she now owned the business, and was so good at it she'd been elected to serve as Vice Chairman of the Tri-State Morticians and Casket Association. The versatile Pelvis was not only a premiere funeral director, but also active in the Nassau County Cancer Society as a fundraiser, and an 8 handicap golfer at the North Hempstead Golf Club.
Displayed against purple velvet in the trophy room was Vic's gold plaque award for being elected, some seasons back, "Miss Kosher Hot Dog" at a Miami delicatessen, along with Harry's collection of ancient weapons — jewel-encrusted samurai swords, daggers and such; one of Sutro's hobbies was weapons, including esoteric Asiatic torture instruments, the latter exhibited in another room.
The group plotted for the next couple of hours, covering various aspects of gambling, loan sharking, prostitution, commodities, financial deals, and other weighty matters.
Enterprises were going well; nevertheless, as skilled an organizer as she was, as great a team of heavy duty earners as she was overseeing, Victoria urgently wanted to shake loose from the bottom of the rung rackets to concentrate on clipping coupons and enjoy the ease of money floating in without a lot of effort. Establishing a powerful narcotics set up was the major purpose behind all high level meetings recently. Dope, that would give the bankroll and independence she craved for herself and her team. Now, while she had the drive, energy and motivation, she had to get it all moving. Her vision was limitless. But a number of basics had to be worked out first.
"Why can't Zino be used for the airports?" the Pelvis wanted to know.
"He's paranoid because of government surveillance, so he's trying to stay as clean as possible in that area for the time being. At least this is Jasmine's story."
"What do you want to bet he's letting her cocaine in?" Cow remarked.
"Mike is still resisting our using the Jersey seaports, and I doubt I can change his mind. He's adamant," Georgia said. "But inasmuch as it's going to be difficult to get direct local cooperation, why lock ourselves into the ports of New York and New Jersey? So we take delivery elsewhere and ship east via Amtrak, Federal Express, UPS, the post office, Greyhound — or use mules, or whatever."
"Sure, we devise alternative routes from the south or use small airfields and so forth," Rose agreed.
Vic said, "It's just that keeping close tabs helps, and local cooperation would cut our overhead. Using circuitous routes, transhipping to entrepôts won't be as cost-effective."
"Besides," Cow agreed, "who wants to work these elaborate routes half way around the world and back again, from Europe to Hawaii to San Francisco, then Amtraking to the East coast — think in terms of efficiency. This is a business, you have to run it like a business and watch the bottom line."
"We could bring it in in containers to the ports without clearances," Georgia suggested. "They only do spot checking."
"An idea worth considering," Harry said. "However, one slip up is all it takes. Better safe than sorry?"
"In any case, the upcoming Beirut meeting may well advance us on one front," Vic said, "and I think I may have an idea for a hook into Zino. I believe I may be able to change this guy's mind. Stay tuned."
Chapter 4 - Tania
Texans, it was said, had a brand that set them apart, and luscious Fort Worth rose Tania Lynn Cutler was a prime example. You immediately recognized the Texas in Tania from her determination and zest for adventure, her grand sense of life. Hers was a sensuous face, compressed, vicious, with a small nose, large mouth, and a look of innocent depravity. A gold Phi Beta Kappa key hanging on a delicate chain glinted at her cleavage.
When Tania Cutler's live-in lover and business partner Jack Riley asked, "Can I hit you for a loan for fifty dollars?" Tania immediately reached for her purse, not realizing that in gamblers' lingo fifty dollars meant fifty thousand. When Jack explained, Tania was aghast.
"Fifty thousand?" she repeated.
"Yeah," he said, as if it were chicken shit. He was only short temporarily; it wasn't a problem, because it was all coming in on a week to week basis from their joint gambling concessions.
Fifty thousand dollars was a lot of money to lend, even to a trusted lover, though. So Tania replied, "I'll have to think about it."
Jack had played a key role in the initial stages of the female mafia. Tania and Jack met one fated night at a charity event where Jack's uncle, Thomas Kelly, head of the International Longshoreman's Union, was receiving an award. Tania noticed Jack immediately, making his way to her table, walking slightly crouched over in a relaxed, loose-jointed manner. He was darkly handsome, and seemed not unpleasantly harassed as he took the empty seat next to her and lit a cigarillo. In the course of the evening, Tania confided she was depressed over having lost investment money she'd borrowed from her parents, how she'd expected a big return, but instead lost nearly every cent.
"I hope it wasn't that much," Jack said, sympathetically.
"Five thousand dollars."
"That's all?"
"Five thousand may not be much to you, but to me it's a fortune. The worst part is it wasn't mine, it was my parents', and they really need the money."
Jack's business card identified him as VP Creative Affairs of one of Madison Avenue's biggest ad agencies, but his actual function behind the title, he said, was that of official shop bookmaker. Gambling was actually his full-time occupation, and if you knew what you were doing you could make at least 25% on your money annually, usually a whole lot more.
"Look," he said, "I got a gut feeling. If I'm the winner I think I am tonight, you can pay your parents back, no sweat, and no strings attached." He consulted his watch. "Suppose we split and give the craps tables a whirl."
Their next stop was a tavern in the East 80's. Weekends Jack ran a couple of independent concessions, attracting a Madison Avenue, Wall Street, and show business clientele. In the back they booked horses, he said, and there was a room upstairs where patrons could play craps and Georgia skin. As houseman Jack got a cut from every pot. Without even trying he was clearing a grand a night at each location.
"Here you go," he said, handing Tania a wad of well-worn bills. "No questions asked. All yours."
It was a little over five thousand dollars and it hadn't even taken him a half hour to win it. Tania was flabbergasted.
After they were seated at a table in the front having drinks, she asked, "Tell me more about the gambling business."
They were "outlaw" games, Jack said, protected by the NYPD. "Outlaw means the mob lets you run. If you get too big you could end up paying the LCN a tribute."
"LCN?"
"La Cosa Nostra. Their allies — officially their apprehenders, but more often co-conspirators — are LEO's — law enforcement officers."
"Really! Can anybody do what you do?"
To her questions, he said although organizing and planning were challenging at first, after the word was out and you had customers hooked, the concessions could run themselves, providing you had the right personnel to mind the store.
Thoughtfully, Tania twirled the chain around her neck that held the gold Phi Beta Kappa key decorating her enticing décolletage. She asked, "Suppose my friends and I wanted to operate something like this — could we learn?"
Jack laughed. "Working a crap game's tough. You gotta call it all automatically, worry all the time about the bust-out men — craps is the fastest game in the world. But in time you'd pick it up."
Territories could be tightly divided, Jack said, but there was room for give and take, depending. "Cops will deal, the mob will deal. Why shouldn't they? Half a pie or a slice of it's better than none. You can't even count the number of joint ventures that go on with the Italian organization and the police. What the mob mainly offers is muscle, often through the unions."
"It's that simple?"
"Sure. You learn to trim the edges off of whatever system you're working."
Tania's mind was clicking. She told Jack she had friends who needed money. This sounded perfect for them: they could pitch in with food and manpower. "Do you think you could teach us what we need to know?"
Jack grinned, his Irish eyes twinkling in reply. "Say when."
It wasn't long before Tania and Jack were both bed and business partners. Jack, lured by the idea of expanding his own concessions, was happy to serve in an advisory capacity in a 50/50 joint venture with Tania and her friends.
So together the heads of New York's Four Families embarked on gin, poker and floating craps out of their own and other apartments. The games took off immediately, became fabulously successful and kept escalating in size and number. Soon there were horse books, baseball pools, punchboards, and slots. A mini-casino Jack helped inaugurate had two craps tables, three for blackjack, two roulette wheels, one baccarat table, a bar and the best food in town, without exception. The gambling operations were works of art, their decor, food and flowers all creative touches Tania loved providing.
The foray into gambling brought revenues that began working in a number of directions. Their take was 10% of the winning pot. As Jack trained more and more personnel, Tania and the others became increasingly independent, able to leave the concessions in underlings' hands, and devote their time to other enterprises.
Since then, Tania's interests had branched out, so that she now had three thriving escort services and two massage parlors operating in Manhattan; there were several paper deals involving "dead" collateral with an Australian partner, and similar off-shore situations with dummy corporations in a number of Caribbean tax havens; she was involved in a large captive reinsurance loan out of Bermuda, and had some intriguing Wall Street operations going as a partner with other LFM interests. But the project that most held her attention now was an enterprise in the planning stages, a stud service for women to be named "Balls." She had been looking to rent space and had three locations seriously under consideration. Once she signed the lease, she'd be ready to plunge into other aspects of the promising venture.
She and Jack had been living together for the past year. They were as unmatched, he said, as an ace and a joker, but it seemed to work — at first. What Tania was looking for in a man was an intellectual, sophisticated connoisseur of the arts, a man who was well-read, world-traveled and into art, classical music, foreign languages and philosophy, preferably a Harvard, Yale or Princeton graduate, although Brown or Williams would also do. Jack Riley, University of Miami bookmaker, while none of the above, had managed to conquer with his charm, and the fact that he held the key to a life that would eventually be all she'd ever longed for. Had she even wished, Tania could not have resisted his sparkling Irish eyes and conspiratorial grin. Jack's warmth and loquaciousness made him one of the most likable individuals she'd ever met, added to which, he was so great in bed — in the beginning, at least — that it blinded her to potential problems other women would have recognized. Perhaps all this could be attributed to the weirdness of her brain.
Twenty-six years ago, purple faced and choking, Tania Lynn Cutler made a traumatic entrance into the world with an umbilical cord wrapped twice around her head, and was nearly asphyxiated in the process. She had traveled through a birth canal so narrow it was impossible to pass beyond her mother's cervical area without the use of forceps that were inserted high and clamped tightly around her tiny infant head. Doctors said certain brain cells were affected in the process, only no one predicted the strange manner in which these cells reacted.
At two, she taught herself to read and write, at seven had mastered French, German and Spanish, self-taught; her Regents exams were the highest in Texas history, she could do complex calculus problems in her head and learn a foreign language in no time; but on the downside, she had trouble handling some of the most basic human situations. For instance, she needed a string around her finger to remind herself to get off at the right subway stop, and on the dance floor she had to count to consciously tell her feet where to move, rendering conversation with a partner all but impossible. Perhaps the most unfortunate lack in brain function, however, was in the area of human relations, particularly with the opposite sex. She was a lousy judge of character, too often misreading motives, trusting others only to discover they were not what she thought.
Quite apart from her unusual mind, Tania had been forced to grapple with another problem of an entirely different nature: money. When people heard Hockaday and Wellesley, they smelled bucks, not realizing Tania had attended these elite schools on full scholarships. Accustomed to being praised for her intellectual achievements, she'd expected doors to open after college, but found an ugly awakening in how tough the New York market was, especially when a woman lacked adequate financial backing. Though it was hard to understand, she had found no decent jobs available in New York City for a Phi Beta Kappa summa cum laude valedictorian Ivy League graduate who spoke nine languages fluently. Money was the root of the problem. Money was power, freedom, security. Once you licked that, all else fell into place.
Tania saw herself against a vast panorama of history, a synthesizer of past ages, reaching out across time to flower in the unique era in which life had placed her. She was destined to express a grand design, be the guidepost of an age, enliven the cultural scene, sponsor theatre and dance companies, collate and promote art and culture, create a philosophy to shape her generation and leave her mark on humanity. She had always dreamed of being a genuine Promethean Athena/Minerva of her time, all things to all men.
In Fort Worth, the place to live was Westover Hills on the first hill, with all the winding streets, tall trees and big houses behind brick walls, where the old money was. Only her family didn't live on the first hill, and they had no money. Her father was a downtown auto mechanic — so unfitting for the person she both innately was and had shaped herself into.