The Mafia Problem

I was woken just before 6.00 one morning by a total stranger jamming a knife against my throat.

I woke up with a start, though luckily with a sufficiently controlled start that I didn’t accidentally impale myself.

“Jed Wood?” the stranger snarled.

I managed to squeeze a word out, even though the knife was now pressing tightly against my vocal chords “Yes,” I said.

“Also known as Steve Cassidy, author of the New York murder and mayhem stories.”

“Er, yes, that’s me too. My editor thought that nobody would by books by Jed Wood - it sounds too …”

“Do you think I give a holy crap which name you publish under? You could be Micky fucking mouse for all I care. No, what concerns me is the stories you write. I found your books in my local bookstore and they made for interesting reading.”

“I’m glad they were so easy to locate,” I said.

“Yeah, but here’s the mystery. When I read ‘em they didn’t seem like fiction at all. In fact I took part in some of those stories. You probably recognise my name: Vito Sordid, or Vino Ignoble as I appear in the books.”

Though I had never met Vito before I knew his name. I had been writing about the mafia’s deeds for the past few years – my novels were entirely based on stories about them I had been given by my friend The Seamonster.

“Hello Vito,” I whispered, “so very nice to meet you. I didn’t mean no harm by it, I can’t have betrayed any secrets, I’ve never been to New York.”

“You think I’m stupid mister. You think I don’t check my facts. Only three families have ever lived on this island. The O’Dales, the Woods and the Semansters. Guess what, I used to know a Joey Semanster. He was a member of the Staten Island crew. Coincidence?”

“No,” I admitted, “I do know Joey. He did leave me a notebook with a few tales in. I didn’t mean no harm by it.”

“No harm,” he growled, leaning over and breathing hot air into my face, “telling stories about our internal workings and secrets and you don’t mean no harm. Let me tell this to you straight boy, if my boss weren’t no fan of your work I’d have put a bullet in you while you slept.”

“A fan? Tommy Rascalous is a fan of my books?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, but don’t think that gives you freedom to continue with this grassing up our doings. This is your first, final and last warning. If you breathe another word of our secrets you’re sleeping with the fishes.”

As a writer I can be quite harsh with people who use clichés like ‘sleeping with the fishes’ but in the circumstances I decided to let it go. Frankly though any fan of my work should ideally share my love for originality in word play.

“I won’t. I promise,” I said. “I couldn’t anyway. I used up the final few of his stories for my last novel. The next thing I write will have to be totally original.”

“Nice, it’s amazing how many times a knife against a writer’s throat coincides with their notebook being empty. Just in case though, I’m going to stick around.”

“Stick around?”

“I’ve been speaking to your agent. Apparently you are, between now and the end of January, writing your next Manhattan murder story. I’m going to stay and help you ‘edit’ the book.”

“Well you could stay in the empty house I suppose.”

“I’ve already moved in.”

With the threat of his constant presence during the creation of my next work of fiction clearly stated, Vito removed his knife from my throat and I was finally able to get out of bed, get dressed and make coffee and eggs for breakfast.

With the Mafia taking permanent residence to oversee the writing of my novel I phoned Alun to warn him not to visit. Alun has a tendency of saying the wrong thing and I couldn’t take the risk of using one of my key characters in such a hazardous story. As a result he won’t be appearing in this tale, though an exciting new adventure featuring Alun will be available on this site – coming soon!

With coffee and eggs duly consumed it was time to start writing.

“Show me what you’ve written so far,” Vito demanded.

“Erm, I haven’t actually started it yet. I’ve been having problems getting inspiration.”

“Not started? With a January deadline? You must be some cool customer.”

“Not really, no. I’m just not a very good writer. Most of my previous stories were based on ideas I borrowed from the Seamonster.”

“You could use the Tony Manchetti story, that’ll be a good start. Your readers will love that.”

“Tony Manchetti? I’ve never heard of him.”

“It concerns a guy called Molloy, used to work for a certain syndicate in Brooklyn. This Molloy was of Irish descent, a tough street-fighter type and because of his Irish accent and mannerisms he was often used for covert operations.

“One day he was asked to give a warning to a Tony Manchetti, a new guy in town who was rumoured to be selling drugs on the syndicate’s patch. So Molloy went round his house, hammered on his door, dragged him out of his bed and gave him a warning in no uncertain terms. Just to make sure though, he spent the rest of the week following Tony, making sure he wasn’t engaged in no trade.

“Of course, what Molloy didn’t know was that he’d got the wrong Tony Manchetti.”

“The wrong Tony Manchetti?”

“The piece of paper with Tony’s address on it said 152 191st Street, but it was supposed to read 197th Street. The seven wasn’t crossed properly you see. And by some freak chance there was another Tony Manchetti living in that house too. A car mechanic, never done a bad deed in all his days. So while Molloy is watching his Tony fixing cars and generally being a good guy, the man he’s supposed to be watching is carrying on blissfully unaware.”

That’s a really good story,” I said, “but I thought you wanted me to stop using real life tales.”

“You can use that one. All the guys in it are dead.”

“Dead?”

“The real Tony Manchetti never received his warning you see, as a consequence he transgressed one time too many.”

“But what about Molloy?”

“Well he died too.” Vito proceeded to tell me the tale of how Molloy met his end. The entire tale is recorded in all its gory detail in The Death of Peaches Molloy, so I won’t bore my fans by repeating it here.

Later that day I wrote up the Tony Machetti story and Vito phoned Tommy Rascalous, the man in charge of the New York Mafia, to check that he was happy with the stories being published.

“Yeh, yeh, he’s behaving,” I heard him say, “he hadn’t written a word when we got here, says he was out of ideas, so I let him have the Tony Manchetti and Peaches Molloy stories. Is that okay with you?”

I didn’t hear what was said. Vito was silent for some time listening to what appeared to be detailed instructions from the other end. Maybe my punishment for using the story would be somewhat complex in its execution I speculated. But I was wrong. The phone call ended with a burst of laughter.

“Tommy says that if you’re stuck for ideas you should tell the story of the three preachers.”

“The story of the three preachers?”

Vito Proceeded to tell the tale of how Tommy had, early on in his rise through the criminal ranks, come across an area of the city controlled by three preachers, who maintained such rigorous discipline amongst their congregations that there was no crime at all in the neighbourhood. Tommy proceeded to play a series of tricks: stealing all the hymn books from one church and leaving them in one of the other churches, bribing individuals to disrupt services, getting SwiftPaw Luke to steal from the collecting plates every Sunday.

He also employed the race card. One of the preachers was rumoured to be something of a racist and he paid a sum of money to a renowned black preacher to give a sermon outside of the church. As Tommy had hoped, the preacher made a fool of himself, using offensive racist language in front of his entire congregation, which included a significant African-American population.

One by one Tommy dissected the weaknesses of the three preachers and their flocks. Within a year the crime rate in the area had double. Tommy Rascalous had moved in.

“That’s fantastic,” I said, “I can see Tommy being a key character in the novel. Tell you what, I’ll call him Timmy to disguise his identity.”

I wrote up the story, emailed the results to Tommy and Vito discussed the results with him. This process continued daily. Usually Tommy would ring back with a new story that he wanted included.

“Tony Patrino isn’t happy,” Vito said one day, about halfway through the novel.

“He’s not?” I said, worried that I had offended one of the gang with my latest draft.

“No. He says you never include any tales about him. Here” he passed me the phone. “Tony’s going to tell you a few things and he says if they’re not included in the novel he’ll come over and deal with you personally.”

No sooner had I written in Tony Patrino’s stories than Slo Mo Morris would phone demanding I include a tale about him.

And so it went on. With the New York mafia members bombarding me with stories and characters I finished my novel in no time at all. Much to my publisher’s amazement I actually finished the book on schedule. The even better news was that my notebook was full to bursting with ‘ideas’ I hadn’t had a chance to use, which would form the basis of my next four novels.

“Thanks for all your help,” I said to Vito, as he packed.

“That’s okay he said. Just as long as you’ve learnt a lesson.”

“I have. I’ll never write about you again, unless you tell me too. I’ll make sure you all have signed copies of the book when it comes out.”

“Yeh, thanks. In return for that kindness I will personally see to it that every single bookseller in New York not only stocks your book but puts it on prominent display.”

We said goodbye. I’m pleased to relay that Vito kept to his word. Only one bookseller refused to stock my book and that particular store burnt down shortly afterwards.

No sooner had Vito left than I was interrupted by a hammering on my back door. It was Alun, in an agitated state.