MALIBU- ISLAND
I was flipping channels one night in Santa Fe, New Mexico where I live. I stopped when the opening scene of Don’t Make Waves with Tony Curtis and Sharon Tate. Her name in the credits; Introducing Sharon Tate. So I lay back against the warm sweat soaked pillows, turned on the A/C and watched. The first scene was on Pacific Coast Hwy in Malibu. Tony is in a car crash with Sharon Tate. The appearance of Sharon was that of Bo Derek in the film 10. A vine like body swimming in golden flesh with long honey sand hair draped over her shoulders. The flashback to the Mason Murder was soon replaced with this heart shape faced delivering sinewy gestures that matched her feathery voice. The film came out in 1963 and the coastline was as pure and unmarked as Sharon; a winding highway empty of cars, cafes and promenades. This is the Malibu I remembered from my adolescent adventures to the beach to watch the surfers.
The scenery unfolded into breathtaking views of the coves and hillsides surrounding Malibu, like organic sculptures drenched in sea-foam as waves broke. Within a few minutes I bolted up in bed and paused the film.
That’s where I’m going! My journey was given a name. I had a month marked out for a vacation away from Santa Fe while my house was rented to a family of eight. It was a month before the guests would arrive and I still had not penned in my destination.
I went to sleep half way through the movie mumbling to myself; Malibu, Malibu Malibu.
Please God, let me land in Malibu.
The next morning I fished for vacation rentals on the INTERNET and got hooked into
homes, cottages and condos for not less than $1000.00 a night. One estate rented for
thirty thousand a night.
I switched to Craigs list and scrolled down the postings, armored with Russian determination. A posting in bold black came up – MALIBU ISLAND. I clicked through the photographs and prayed. This is how I found my room in Malibu;a private room with an outdoor shower in an estate home perched on the hills above El Matador Beach. In this house the owner, Chantal, also lived. I booked the month without more than a day of what if’s and what nots could be expected.
Still A Mystery…Who Shot Benjamin Siegel.
Several months ago I received an email from a reporter in Las Vegas. George Knapp had read some of my memoir posted on my website, and asked for an exclusive interview. He asked about my father’s relationship with Ben Siegel “Bugsy” and what I knew about their friendship, and why Ben Siegel was shot. I declined the interview, but George persevered. Three weeks later I agreed to the interview, because my father was not there to stop me.
We met in Del Mar at the Inn Auberge. I showed up with a notepad to remind me what not to say, a photograph of my father when he was a producer for Cecil B. De Mille, and a borrowed calmness that comes when I am approaching an extremely anxious situation.
My first interview about Dad was not anything like I imagined. George approached the subject with respect, and I relaxed and began talking, and talking, and talking. The only time I hesitated was when he asked if I knew who killed Ben, and I had to answer swiftly, “I think Bush did it.” He was not too impressed with the answer; but it saved me from theorizing.
At the end of the interview, I walked out of the hotel without regret. I said what I felt should be told; that my father’s best friend was Ben Siegel. If he loved Ben and my mother loved Ben, than there is a lot more to “Bugsy” than what the public has been told.
The interview aired on a Friday night, and my life was no different from before. George got a call from someone who claimed my father once told him, Virginia Hill’s brother was the shooter. It sounds like my father; he enjoyed sending people down the wrong path.
He always said, “You don’t inherit friends,” and so I declined to remain friends with family members of his group, because I respected his orders, even after he died. I don’t know if any of his mob friends are still alive today. Many people claim they knew my father, but in essence, what they mean is they met at Ciro’s, or had a game of cards, or went to the racetrack. My father’s only friends were connected to organized crime. I learned this when he died; three people showed up for the service. He warned me to keep away from reporters, and not to trust anyone. Still, strange incidents followed his death that I was unprepared to handle.
A man I’d never heard of called and informed me, ‘ your Dad and Ben buried a safe deposit box in downtown Los Angeles. ‘You should look for the key, there may be a lot of cash.’ My father was not about to leave this world without telling me he had stashed money in a safe deposit box. I will bet every dollar on that.
Another man, posing as a friend, came to my aid offering help settling the estate. A few weeks later another man I had never heard of, placed a claim on the estate for an old gambling debt of $5,000. The two of them were conspiring. Had I known gambling debts are erased when the bettor dies, I would not have sold his Patek Philippe pocket watch, which I suspect belonged to Ben Siegel at one time. The end of my father’s life was as mysterious as when he was living. That is how he liked it, and that is how he lived it.
I had to wait until my father was in his seventies to go to the racetrack with him. He took me to Santa Anita, we sat in the clubhouse, and he watched the track from behind dark glasses. He was quiet and observant. He watched me eat, and then handed me a C note to bet on the Exacta. He told me how to bet and which horses to bet. I walked away from the cashier thinking I would be a big winner. Instead, I walked away a big loser. ‘Now you know even your Dad loses at the track.’ There wasn’t anything exciting about going to the track, he made sure of that. I suppose he was concerned, that I had inherited a taste for betting. Lucky for me; I throw the dice on a different game. Photo: Leaving Beverly Hills Police Department day after the murder.
I cannot overlook the rise of a new terrorist organization, one most of us have not heard about. The news broke on the day I hosted a party. The preparation was surreal; as I switched from party chores to watch the television coverage. Breathless journalists, some who only that day learned of ISIS, masked their emotions. The truth was too barbaric even for a seasoned war correspondent. A week has passed; and the ISIS is not mentioned in conversations that I over- hear. When I mention the threat I see my listener flick it off, like a flee. I sense their aversion to terrorism in the Middle East; while I am drawn to it.
This image posted on a Twitter account on June 12 shows militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria removing part of the soil barrier on the Iraq-Syria border and moving through it. (AP Photo/albaraka_news)
Rodger is on my mind. Like yours; if you are able to make time to think about it.
Events that curdle cocktails at a flaming hot party. My sorrow, after the relatives of those who were murdered, bubbles in the notion that we still won’t talk, move, or protest, for the ballooning results of mental illness. It’s just beyond what I can handle without rage or tears.
HOW MANY MORE YOUNG MEN HAVE TO SHOOT BEFORE WE FEEL THE BLOOD?
Someone is out there that could push the button, or keyboard, or text, or Instagram, or whatever the newest drug for attention is, and say, LET’S TALK ABOUT MENTAL ILLNESS.
The most uncomfortable conversation for any family.
I cannot believe it took me this long to figure out that I HAVE A WRITERS ROOM TO RENT and I didn’t post it on lililespen. I am still adapting, reluctantly to understanding IT language, programs, choices, and SOCIAL MARKETING. Since all of you are writers; let me tell you about GALLERY LOULOU ROCK n ROLL VACATION MANOR.
I rent a Historic (1907) culturally significant Commercial Residence that is brick and stone, hard wood floors, chandeliers, and
sixteen windows! Two of the rooms have writing desks, my former desks. There is an extensive library of fiction and non-fiction, vinyl records, and CD’s. In the Garden Movie theater you project films on a wall and have a 6 track CD player so you can mix it up. Silent films I don’t leave out have but I’ve tried them with my music and it’s kool aid~!
My vacation rental is next door to my Casita;sealed off thick and I have my garden and entrance.
The house and porches, driveway, theater etc are exclusively for you the tenant. The house is TWO BLOCKS FROM THE PLAZA DOWNTOWN, AND Palace Avenue is peppered with bistros, galleries, jewelry shops, gift shops, and antiques.
La Posada Resort and Spa, a Luxury Collection of Starwood Hotels, is across the street. My guests are welcome to use the Spa at no cost, pending the managers rules that particular day, so you can indulge in spa, pool, and gym. La Po is my other home; because I can walk across the street and make the staff laugh, have a drink at the Staab House with Raul and Stephanie; the best bartenders in town. There’s an outdoor patio and two indoor restaurants serving New Mexican cuisine and luscious cocktails.
As you are all writers; I’ve decided to make an exception and rent out one of the writing rooms. Some of my readers are from India,
Australia, Venezuela, Russia, Mexico and the USA. It would be a thrill to meet anyone of you! As you see, I go by a saying from the film???
” If you want to know if you can trust someone, trust them.” I will remember it; I’m sure it was a gangster flick.
My websites rates are based on the four bedroom house. The rate for the writers room would be $100.00 night. You would have use of the downstairs kitchen if the house was not occupied.
Our society has led us to the path of non-involvement. FB did that,
Email did that, cell phones did that. Yea, I love em’ for the
thing they knew we’d love them for; a delete button.
We, I mean most of us that don’t control millions of political decisions, cannot handle much more. But we could save ourselves from a real famine, a civil war , or war on our country. Who would come to our aid? I really wonder. I bet on us; the ones who’ve always struggled.
We are not involved with each other anymore; it’s like having a manicure to break out of a relationship, and if you lose your job you won’t have enough money for a manicure. So you don’t lose your job; you work eighteen hours a day and get paid less than your staff. But nobody cares; not unless you go viral or if you have a million Blog stats. Social media. Then you will go somewhere; you will have a job. Artists, are digital: writers, photographers; musicians. Who knows whose who anymore. I think Theater is the only venue left of our physical involvement. Theater is life; and no one walks out without having something to say. I also include: dance, concerts, opera, poetry readings, performance artist, and comedians. I prefer to see it live!
The throw of the dice this week lands on adventures in livingness; one day at a time. People with terminal illness, suffering from a shattered romance, a death of a friend, a natural disaster, always say the same thing; One day at a time.
Walking up Palace Avenue on a day spread with sunlight, and a continuum of power walkers, bikers and runners, passing by in whiffs of urgency, I took my time. I didn’t feel like flexing, just evaporating into the shadows, and the moving clouds. I walked by a little adobe, that once was a dump site for empty bottles, cartons, worn out furniture, and piles of wood. A year later, the yard is almost condominium clean. Just as I was passing the driveway, the little woman whom I’d seen walking up Palace with her bag of groceries, appeared like a gust of history in the driveway of her adobe casita. She wore her heavy blanket like coat and a bandanna on her head. Regardless of weather, she’s bundled up in the same woven Indian coat and long wool skirt. I stood next to her, a foot or so taller, and she unraveled history, without my prompting. She told me about the Martinez family, the Montoyas, and the Abeytas, all families she knew, all with streets named after them. Estelle asked me my name, and then took my hand in her weathered unyielding grip, ‘Oh I had an Aunt named Lucero, and we called her LouLou.’ She didn’t let go of my hand, and then she told me that the families, some names I’ve forgotten, bought homes on Palace in 1988 for $50,000, She shook her finger to demonstrate her point. ‘You know how many houses the Garcias bought? Five! Then they fixed them up and sold them.’
I could have stood there in the gravel driveway listening to Estelle all afternoon. She owns the oral history I love to record; but it is difficult to understand her, she talks with the speed of a southwest wind. We parted and I thought about the times in my life when the smallest of interactions elevates my spirit. In older people, who are not addicted to gadgets and distant intimacy, I’m reminded of how speed socializing has diminished the opportunity for a sidewalk chat.
Comfort….
From writing by hand at my tiny Eurasian desk facing the window to the west; framed by time and familiarity into the branches of JD’s pine tree, the black silky toned crows basking like prowesses on the branches, and waiting for La Posada to empty the day’s leftovers in the garbage cans. The silky drape of the winter sky sometimes adorned with lacy clouds, like today, softening the southwest blue to a faded jeans shade. From my desk, I write, without thoughts predefined, just a drain of emotional threads from my heart…
This year isn’t like last year, the absentee man, fussing with the fireplace, making me afternoon espresso, or drying dishes. It is not at all like last year, with Rudy and John intercepting my division of attention, laughing at the kitchen table, eating my blueberry pancakes.
I had the song of Judy Garland’s rainbow in my heart. It was a time I will never forget, or regret, because I was a very lucky lady for several years. Unabridged ecstasy poured out of body, and spread over my attitude, abundant spirit, mood, facial expressions, and my dreams were filled with amusement instead of nightmares.
That’s why now, is so different. The camp has closed, and I wander into these new woods unsteady, and steadier, juxtaposed between, acceptance and anger.
In the last few months, I’ve written my heart out, read Shepard, Colette, Durrell and my Creative nonfiction magazines. I’ve studied, and prepared for radio programs, and collected a bundle of columns to adapt into short stories. I started buying chocolates and jelly beans, so I treat myself, on breaks, when it’s too cold for my frail body to walk around town or up Palace Avenue to see the new for sale listings.
My steps inward resulted in accomplishments, break-troughs’ and a comedic sideshow trying to open boxes, make repairs, until Rudy shows up again, and rake the leaves, stuff that is mundane. More distant relations, and mafia threaded strangers knocked on my door, bolstering my faith in breaking the silence that ruled me, I let rule me. Stepping inside the truth I must face isn’t nearly as harmful as pretending.
Mob on television, in the news, (gross sales global figure of $850 billion) websites, and bloggers, movies and books. They’re all coming out of the closet to inform, turn themselves in, give advice, consult on their own films, sign on for pubic speaking at Library’s, documentaries, and advertisements-the world is all mobbed up and it’s time for some horrific homogenization of the gangsters who wouldn’t break the silence.
My dad was Johnny’s pal, close, like brothers, all through their life. Uncle Johnny
was my hero, he calmed my dad down, and he loved my mother because he knew she was a saint, and he was immensely religious. This is how I imagined his murder.
A blue Ford sedan with tinted windows pulled up in front of a bar in Biscayne Bay. The driver Tony, stared out the windshield looking beyond the boundaries made by man. Two of his men, sat in silence in the back seat. They were staring ahead, in the same mental latitude as the driver, with unblinking surgeon eyes. Tony turned off the ignition, and leaned back. The only sound came from the flapping of the bar screen door.
“Move,” Tony ordered closing his eyes. Abe and Chuck exited the sedan in one long continuous motion as if they were tied together. Tony waited, without changing the position of his right hand on the leather coated steering wheel. He heard the bar door squeak as it opened. He could see Abe and Chuck entering the bar. He did not need to see them physically. This was stored in his memory. The single file procession into the bar, the attachment to the target, and the guarded exit. Tony checked the time on his pocket watch. The minutes went slowly. He lost his concentration, and was tumbling in memories; he filed them in two categories, the ones that belonged to the outfit, and the ones that belonged to him. He slipped back to the sixties, in Las Vegas, when the boys sat poolside at the Desert Inn and bit into olives handed to them by freshly polished show girls in bikinis. Then he saw Johnny, lounging at the pool, his crown of white hair perfectly combed. He was surrounded by showgirls. The dames loved Johnny. He was better than any Hollywood movie star.
Then the door to the passenger side opened. Tony glanced at the blue gabardine slacks, and Gucci loafers. He could smell Johnny, even before he got in the car. His scent was recognizable, as if he’d been born wearing Boucheron.
“For crying out loud boys–I was just getting
an erection. ”
Johnny turned to Tony, the man he met twenty years ago when he was a driver for Santos Trafficante, the Mafia Don in Florida. Johnny slapped his knee and wheezed through his laughter. Tony couldn’t return the glance, or the laughter
“Tony! What’s the long face for, are we going to a funeral?” Tony shook his head from left to right. He gripped the steering wheel, afraid he might put his fist right through the windshield. Johnny nudged his rib.
“Loosen up, you’ll miss the target.” Tony reached into his breast pocket.
“Have a cigar Johnny, fresh from Castro. The same brand you tried to poison him with remember?” Tony’s forced laughter sounded hollow.
“Hell, that wasn’t my idear; you guys are still screwing up the story. That’s your problem, it you’re gonna squeal at least tell it the way it happened.”
“Shut your trap,” Tony snapped. Johnny did not appear to hear the comments, or if he did chose not to recognize the remarks of the backseat thug.
Johnny took the cigar and fingered it. He twirled it around with two fingers, and then placed it under his nostrils and inhaled deeply.
“Doc says no more–not if I’m gonna live without an oxygen tank tucked into my pocket. How ‘bout that? I even gave up the cigars when I moved down here. I can’t afford them anymore.” His laughter came easy, the way it always did.
“Johnny……I,” Tony stuttered.
“Did you hear the joke about the Italian and the Jew?” Tony nodded yes, but Johnny began telling the joke anyway. Tony turned the ignition on and drove away from town, slowly like they do in a funeral procession. They left the parts of the city ruled by law and order. The white villas shaded by palms, and guarded security gates. They descended into the pit of the buried past, the old rail yards, the site of hollow industrial buildings and warehouses. From there Tony entered an abandoned parking lot inside a junkyard, piled high with tin and steel parts. At one time they were valuable, like Johnny. Those days were gone, the junk piled up, just like dead Mafia Dons.
The sky dimmed in these parts of town, the shadows from the freeway overpass blocked the late crimson sunlight. Johnny was quiet now, sitting calmly with his hands folded together in his lap. His facial muscles relaxed, the jokes were over now. His mind was elsewhere.
“The son of a bitch gave me no choice John! I’m sure dead too if I ….” Tony stammered.
“Stop your babbling, I’m not your priest. I got a few orders for you. I want you to get word to Smiley, before anyone, you hear me. Don’t call his home; he’s got a private service. I’ll give you the number when I’m finished. He’ll know what to tell my sister. He’s a born messenger of bad news. Had to do it too many times.”
“How long you known we was coming?” Tony asked solemnly.
“Just as long as I’ve been taking orders. Tony my boy, I didn’t think I’d go out like Brando in the movie. How long has it been now? …forty-five years. That’s a long life in these shoes. The whole mess is running through my head Tony, as we sit here, it’s like a movie rewinding. You want to know the best of it; I mean the one moment worth remembering. The first night I walked into the Mayflower Hotel as a guest of Capone. My first big shindig was a coming out party for Joey Lewis’s big fight. I was so impressed with Ricca back then, I tried to mimic him. Must have looked like a soiled fool. I thought I had a smart suit on until I got to the party, and took a look around. Suddenly I felt like a paisano clown. I said to myself, I’ll never know this again; never will I feel less than the people around me. Capone treated me good in the beginning, all that money he threw around….. It impressed Rockefeller.”
“Johnny it’s getting late,” Tony interrupted.
“Capone was puffed up that night, shaking hands with Walker and the boys at Tammany Hall. We were all one then, the politicians and the boys. I don’t know how the thing got so screwed up.” The car came to an abrupt stop, and the back door opened. Chuck got out and stretched his legs. Johnny glanced at him, “See, no respect anymore. I would have diced his fingers off in the old days. Get out of the car Abe; go polish your piece or something,” Johnny ordered, and then continued his story.
“That was the night Tony, the best of everything all night and I didn’t sleep for a day afterward because I was so swollen with myself. It sounds silly now.” Just as Tony tipped his head in memory’s path, Johnny clapped his hands loudly. Tony shuddered as Johnny knew he would.
“Lemme see the equipment,” He ordered tossing the sentiment out of his voice. He turned his steely blue eyes on Tony and waited.
“They loaded me up, like I was going to a massacre. They’re still afraid of you John. Even now I have to say.” Tony rattled; he’d lost the last bit of dry eyed machismo.
“That’s a relief.” Johnny answered.
Tony got out of the car and hopped around the front to open the door for Johnny. He felt queasy in his stomach like the first time he had a hit. He watched Johnny now, knowing it would be some story to tell. First Johnny scanned his surroundings, like the eye of the camera. He could take in distant angles without moving a muscle. He could estimate the distance of things, the entrances, and exits of buildings without appearing to even look at that direction. He closed his eyes for a minute. They all watched, and waited.
“You fellas been here earlier?” Johnny shouted. The three men exchanged a mutual questioning glance. Johnny shook his head in disgust.
“How can you show up at a location without knowing every rock and puddle? Christ! Am I gonna have to shoot myself? Show me the equipment before I scare you off.”
Tony reluctantly unlocked the trunk of the car. Johnny stepped forward, pushing Abe and Chuck out of the way.
“Looks like a lot of machinery for a seventy year old veteran. Whatta they think, someone’s gonna drop down here with back up and take you boys on. What the hell are the knives for?” Abe and Chuck rocked nervously on their heels. Tony hunched over, as if drawing breath from the ground.
“Tony!” Johnny yelled.
“I‘m sick Johnny …. lemme catch my breath.”
“Yea, you do that, while Abe and Chuck sharpen the knives. Go on fellas get your pieces.”
“Johnny, we have orders,” Tony whispered
“From who? I don’t care if you skin me! I want to know who gave the order!”
“It’s not who you think Johnny, I could hardly believe it myself.” Johnny moved closer to Tony, he stroked his back, and whispered, “I promise I won’t tell pal,” he said squeezing Tony’s balls.
“The order came from the White House; they called Santos, and told him to take care of it. Johnny I can’t go through it, I can’t do it.” Then he fell to his knees and clutched Johnny’s leg, sobbing.
“It’s all right Tony, get up and give it to me the way they asked.”
“We’ll clean you out first shot,” Abe interjected. Again Johnny did not acknowledge the comment. He reached out and put his hands on Tony’s shoulders, and looked him in the eye.
“It’s bad, they got cement don’t they?”
“Oh Christ! let me take this all back. I can’t do what they ask. They want us to chop the legs, get you inside a steel drum, and in the water.” Tony suddenly heaved up, and vomited, sobbing at the same time.
“Jesus Christ Tony, you’re disgusting,” Abe shouted. He took a cigarette from his pocket. Johnny turned slowly around and glared at the bridge of his nose. He locked in on the spot, and gradually walked toward him. He reached for Abe’s pistol, a 357 magnum and holding it in Abe’s hand guided the pistol until it was pointing directly into his eyes.
“If you’re in a hurry, go ahead and shoot me now.” Abe turned sideways. Then he dropped his aim, and walked away. Johnny leaned against the car, and wiped his brow. “Let me alone for awhile; take a walk, all of you.” He ordered.
Tony pulled himself up and wiped his mouth. That was the least he could do, give the boss one last moment. He signaled for Abe and Chuck to follow and they headed towards one of the abandoned warehouses. Johnny waited until they were exactly thirty-five feet off. Then he slid into the car, and turned on the ignition. In a whirl of smoky dirt, he spun the car around three times, and flew past the boys, laughing his head off. He didn’t stop laughing until he reached the airport. He left the car, and ran all the way to the reservation desk of Air Italia. Perspiring and short of breath, he said to the pretty young clerk. “One way ticket please, to Palermo…. Sicily.” Johnny was going home.
John Rosselli (right) checks over a writ of habeas corpus with his lawyer, Frank Desimone after Rosselli surrendered to the U.S. Marshall here yesterday… (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Reference: All American Mafioso, The Johnny Roselli Story. By: Ed Becker.
WHERE TO BEGIN THIS STORY OF A FATHER THAT I ONLY CAME TO UNDERSTAND BY READING HIS FBI FILES, BOOKS ABOUT MOB HISTORY WRITTEN BY LAW ENFORCEMENT AND COLLEGE PROFESSORS, AND DOCUMENTARIES PRODUCED BY FOES OF MY FATHER.
My last year with Dad was 1981. Naive, and unconcerned with where I was headed, or how I’d get there if I figured it out, I was spinning around in an executive chair; waiting for the big hand on the black and white office clock to set me free. Time didn’t pass; I hauled it over my head, in my bland windowless office, under florescent glare. I was trouble shooting for an ambitious group of USC guys as they gobbled up all of Los Angeles real estate. Without any real sense of survival or independence, my life was in the hands of my father.
“Meyer’s coming to see me; haven’t seen the little guy in twenty-five years.” Dad said during a commercial break.
“Meyer Lansky?” I asked as casually as he’d spoken.
“Who else?”
“Why did you two wait so long?”
“It’s no concern of yours; he’s my friend, not yours.” I was twenty-nine years old and still verbally handcuffed.
The three of us went out to dinner, and while the two of them spoke in clipped short wave syndicate code, I
noticed that neither one of them looked at all happy. It was rare to catch my father in public with a friend, without raucous laughter, and storytelling. My attempt to revive the dinner conversation with my own humor,returned two sets of silent eyeball commands to resist speaking.
Several months later I received a call from Dad asking me to come over to his apartment, he had collapsed on the bathroom floor. When I arrived, he pleaded for me to stay close by. “I’ll be all right in a few minutes; I just need to catch my breath. ” I sat outside the bathroom door biting my nails, and waited, like our dog Spice, for my orders. For the first time in my life, he was weaker than I, and my turmoil centered on that unfamiliar reversal of roles.
I was a child of the fifties; when raising kids was easily defined. Mommy stayed home and made sure the kids didn’t burn the house down. Daddy went to an office to make money to pay for the house, and children waited until they were grown up to find out anything really useful. It was before the generation-gap was coined, or children knew how to be witty and sharp. In our air-tight neighborhood of Bel Air, Los Angeles, we were naïve, privileged, kids; bogged down with falling off bicycles, not being chosen for the school play, and bringing home the most candy at Halloween.
I believed in Santa Clause, the Easter bunny, and if I was good, Mommy would let me stay up and watch the Sunday night Variety Show.
America was threatened by the Russian Communists and Organized crime. Public enemy Number One was New York Mafia Boss, Frank Costello. Frank became super famous when he refused to testify on national television for Senator Estes Kefauver. The Kefauver Committee delivered explosive headlines between 1950 and 1951, as the government unveiled the hidden hand of the Mafia in the United States.
This is an excerpt from the memoir I’ve been working on many years. The first manuscript was 800 pages; about three of them were worth reading. The book mutated about 2000 times.
“What’s it like knowing your father is a gangster? Did you know when you were a teenager? Did your father kill anyone? Did you ever meet Bugsy? Aren’t you afraid of his friends? You know they kill people.”
I was thirteen years old when my best friend told me my father was a gangster. She didn’t mean any harm. We told each other everything. We were standing in the Brentwood Pharmacy one day in 1966, and we turned the book rack around until we found ”The Green Felt Jungle.”
“That’s the book, let me look first and see what it says.” She whispered. I waited while she flipped trough the pages.
“Oh my God, there he is,” she said grasping my shoulders. We hunched over the book and read the description of my father beneath his photograph.
“Allen Smiley was the only witness to the murder of Bugsy Siegel.”
“What does that mean, who is Bugsy Siegel?” I asked.
“Shush, not so loud, I’m afraid to tell you this Luellen, it’s awful. I don’t believe it. “
“What is it? Tell me.”
“Bugsy Siegel was a gangster, he killed people. Your father was his friend.”
I don’t think I should read this, “I said replacing the book on the rack.
“Don’t tell your father I told you,” she warned.
“Why not?”
“My mother told me not to tell you, swear to me you won’t tell your father.”
“I swear, come on let’s go.”
My father called himself Allen Smiley. The FBI tagged him “armed and dangerous.” The Department of Justice referred to him as the “Russian Jew.” I called him Daddy. e had salty sea blue eyes blurred by all the storms he’d seen. When I said something funny, his eyes crystallized and flattened like glass, smoothing out the bad memories. He was always a different color, dressed in perfectly matched shades of pink, silver and blue. My small child eyes rested cheerfully on his silk ties, a collage of jewel tones. The feel of his fabric was soft like blankets. He was very interesting to look at when I was a child and open to all this detail.
ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 