#The Executioner: War Against the Mafia

[bookishpixiereads]

“The Executioner: War Against the Mafia” by Don Pendleton

⭐️ ⭐️ 

The whole experience of this book is wild.The book was originally published in 1969, but my used copy was published in 1972. It’s the first in a 642 book series.

There is a literal cigarette ad in the middle of this book! Flip through the photos on my post if you want to see it! It wasn’t even the brand of cigarettes that our main character smoked!

Mack Bolan is the Executioner. Bolan is an expert marksman during the Vietnam War to the point that his nickname becomes The Executioner. The first chapter, which honestly was the best part of the book, tells the story of how Mack’s father got behind in loan payments to the mafia who then proceeded to shake him down. A lot of very bad things happen that I don’t want to spoil because as I said its the best chapter in the whole darn thing, but its bad, and Mack is granted leave to come home and deal with the fallout. Then he seeks revenge on members of the Mafia - execution-style.  

I’ve never read something that was so obviously written for a male audience.  This is absolutely written for the male gaze. If you can’t tell by the title and the dime novel nature of this cover, this is not high class literature. And that’s fine.  Most of what I read is not high class literature. But this was just violence and sex.  

And the women in this book were only viewed as virgins or whores. There is no in between. And there is a lot of hypocrisy in the way he treats sex workers. And if have to read one more time about women’s “globular” breasts, I swear…

So much of this book is very surface level. You don’t get a lot of what Mack’s thinking, just a lot of him doing. Most of his internal dialogue is him debating the morality of what he is doing.

Sometimes it’s funny reading a book written in the 60s, because the author is trying to show off technology that was new for the time, but was NEVER pertinent to the plot. We are given a description over the span of a couple of pages about how the mafia has computerized their prostitution business and in detail, how it works. Does it come back later for this to be important? No, it doesn’t.

Not the worst book, but wild. 

[bracketsoffear]

Warriors (Erin Hunter) "This one didn't get past round 2 in the Hunt and honestly I think it deserves a Slaughter win more. It takes place in a kitty civilization where the characters are very frequently battling over very important subjects such as who gets to own a pile of rocks or some cat catching a rabbit on the wrong side of the border. There's brief periods of peace and allyship, but most of the time, tensions are present and everybody is probably willing to start beating each other up if they scent another clan on their territory. The violence isn't instinct or the thrill of it beyond the fact that these are still cats who hunt prey, but it's still rather irrational in many cases. The only real path in life you can have in a clan which isn't committing to causing and withstanding senseless violence is the path of healing that senseless violence, seeing cats you can't save die and also not being able to have children or a mate ever, which isn't even something you can choose to do without approval from cat heaven most times, meaning that you'll most likely be locked into a cycle of mindless battles over that one guy from the other clan accidentally marking the wrong side of the border.

This is also how you get brand new artists in the age range the books are for drawing cat violence and death with their limited skills before they somehow become the best artists you've ever seen while still probably drawing lots of cat violence and death. These murder cat books have an unexplained impact on young artists who will be drawing the same scenes of their pick for the saddest cat death years later. It also gets people making their own stories inspired by it, which are often still cat soap operas with plenty of senseless violence (source: 9 year old me had one of these bloody cat soap opera stories inspired by Warriors), and might even lead to Warriors rps with similar amounts of violence."

The Executioner (Don Pendleton) ""I am not their judge. These people have judged themselves by their own actions. I am their judgment. I am their executioner."

Mack Bolan (nicknamed "The Executioner" by his fellow soldiers) is an elite sniper/penetration specialist in The Vietnam War when he receives word that his father Sam, a steelworker in Pittsfield, has gone insane and shot dead his wife Elsa and daughter Cynthia ("Cindy"). On talking to the Sole Survivor, younger brother Johnny, Bolan discovers that his father was being squeezed by Mafia Loan Sharks and, on hearing that his daughter was prostituting herself to cover his debt, snapped under the pressure.

Figuring there's no point in fighting a war 8,000 miles away when there's a bigger enemy right here at home, Mack Bolan sets forth on a one-man crusade to destroy The Mafia, using all the military weapons and tactics at his disposal including heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, sniper rifles, night-vision scopes, radio-detonated explosives, electronic surveillance, silenced handguns and the garrotte. Bolan is also fond of using wiles to turn his enemies against each other.

Inspired the character of The Punisher. Being in the Mafia (no matter how distant the link) is punishable by death. Doesn't matter if you just are an errand boy, you are guilty and must die."

[eternitas]

Unseen Varia - Profiles

(yaaay first of the new character profiles! Let's fill the Seconds in Command roster!)

Zarria Albo

Basic Info:

Full Name: Zarria Albo

Nickname: Zarri, Z, that sicillian woman, The reaper, (Tyrs) executioner

Age: 44

Birthday: [IN PROGRESS]

Gender/Pronouns: cis female, she/her

Sexuality: undisclosed

Ethnicity: italian, siccilian specifically

Height: 185cm

Flametype: sun, secondary cloud and storm flame

Weapon of Choice: Scythe

Affiliation: Varia, Sun Division

Position: Second in Command

Languages: italian (mainly sicilian dialect, +SL), spanish, french, english

Strengths: collected, serious, intelligent, strategic, observant, combat, poker and other card games, alcohol tollerance

Weaknesses: way too serious most of the time, depressed, unhappy, cynical, pessimistic, fatalistic

Character Summary:

Zarria has been a part of the Varia when Tyr had still run the place. She saw the takeover by Xanxus and even then knew that this would only cause trouble. She is a very mellowed woman, someone who alway seems serious and to not know any fun, however this is simply her work persona and she is known to have an outgoing and fun personality off the clock. she is someone who does not tollerate bullshit and she often loses patience with the younger members who in her eyes do not take things serious enough, however she also is one of the few that notices and realizes the game Bel plays with Lorenzo. She loves to use her analytical mind and prowess, oftentimes less into combat and more into mindgames, however she does do her work as a support as required. While she isn't great in healing she does have the necesary flame to open the healing boxes she is provided. Under Tyr she was more of a fighter and front woman, but after Xanxus took over she decided to get less involved in the organisation. While she will always reinstate that it was a rightful death in duel, she still seems to harbor some personal feelings regarding Tyr that she never elaborates on.

Background:

Born in Siccily Zarria was early on involved with the mafia, as her parents were already working mafiosi. Growing up in a rough place full of violence, shootouts and turf wars she became a formidable fighter and an exceptional strategist. Early on she managed to make money by outsmarting others and beating them in games, getting a reputation among the townsfolk and get eventually scouted by none other than Tyr himself. Seeing the potential in her he decided to offer her a life as a trainee of the Varia, especially once her parents died and her sister got adopted into a family in north italy. She accepted and became his personal trainee for a good while, learning to use swords before she settled on using a scythe and becoming his executioner.

When Tyr was defeated she should've been angry and pissed and taken revenge but unlike others she accepted his defeat and subsequent death at the hands of Squalo. However she was a long time against accepting Xanxus as a new leader and quite unusual for him, he did not dare to get in a scuffle with her. It took her some time before she decided to get back into the organisation and she took position as Lussurias second in command, even though technically like Lorenzo she has the possibility to become an officer. However she does not see the point in it. Since then she has watched from the sidelines and given her quiet commentary on Xanxus leadership. In her time she managed to make friends with a few of the members and even found a way to get along with Lussuria.

Fighting Style:

Zarria is not someone who enjoys fighting as much as others. For a long time she has been an executioner so her work is to get the kill and that's it. She despises to fight more than she needs to when it comes to work for the Varia, but when she is personally invested in a fight she might just take the extra time. Her scythe has a few anker points that she can use to angle ant turn the blade, but she mostly uses her muscles and agility to peroperly hunt somebody. Her outrageous intellect and strategic thinking also allows her to often outsmart her opponents and catch them unaware.

Trivia:

Zarria likes to play all kinds of strategic games and finds enjoyment in winning. She has battled everyone of her fellow seconds in command in chess, with Lor and Jaque being closest to beating her, but never actually managing. Ser plays with her the most

Zarria refuses to sparr with other members unless it is someone who she believes can stand her Scythe. These include, Leo (battle was interrupted by her), Raphael (also interrupted by her), Jaque and Squalo. The moment she managed to land a hit on Leos torso she immideatly stopped to treat his wound

Zarrias scythe is in fact so sharp it is known to cut anything, which is one of the reasons she will not fight for fun or sparr. It would be way too dangerous.

She wears special metal capped boots to not slice her feet off when she kicks her scythes blade

She speaks the sicilian dialect almost exclusively and will tell people to deal with it if the can't understand her

She does NOT regard Ava as a swordsman, and she hates that his sword that he so atrociously calles "pride" was made from the blade that defeated Tyr. In her eyes that is deeply disrespectful

She has a pretty high alcohol tolerance and likes to go out into bars. She also enjoys food a lot, tho she dislikes overly sweet food

She has strong opinions but knows that it's a waste of time to always voice them. When asked however she will tell them.

Zarria lost all contact with her sister until she found out that she has become a part of the Luna Famiglia. While the two of them don't really have a relationship she is still thankful to Sergey for at least reassuring her that her sister is safe and taken care of

She has met Sergeys oldest sister Maria and has a soft spot for her, which is why she def would cosign Sergeys deep desire to get rid of Marias husband.

Her pupils are pretty much slits, like those of a snake which only gives her even more of an eerie vibe

[ladyloveandjustice]

My Top Seven Anime I Watched in 2022

Here are the best of the best, alongside a few bonus good, good anime. Please note that I’m only including premieres I actually watched in 2022, and there are a few ones I haven’t gotten to yet. I only started watching Bocchi the Rock! this month (and I’m enjoying it) and I’ve heard good things about Raven of the Inner Palace, so I’m planning on checking that out.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury

Suletta Mercury arrives at her new school with a mech named Aerial and a checklist of friendship milestones she wants to achieve after being homeschooled for years- only to immediately get involved in giant robot duels and engaged to a prickly heiress. Unbeknownst to Suletta, she’s a tool in her mother’s revenge scheme against the terrible corporation that destroyed their family, and things will only get more complicated. Sometimes a fun romp, sometimes an action-filled thriller, and saving its best twist for the very end, this might just be the anime of the year for me. The romance between the two girls at the heart of the series always has you rooting for it, it introduces you to some great kids (and a ton of cool ladies) and as a bonus, it’s wonderfully inclusive. The only think holding me back is the fact it’s not over yet! I’m praying the second season keeps up the good work.

Read my full review here.

Spy x Family

The smash hit about a spy dad, assassin mom, and telepath child who all form a ‘fake’ family- but will they develop real familial feelings? Cute, funny, nicely animated and full of wacky fights and missions, it needs no introduction. It’s just a good time! The second season isn’t quite as strong as the first, but it’s fun to watch throughout and there’s more good material coming!

Read my full reviews here and here.

Akiba Maid War

A fun genre mashup that depicts early 2000’s maid cafes engaged in violent battles over territory (similar to yakuza movies). Features a lot of outrageous comedy and the world’s most loveable terrifying murder maid in Ranko. One of my favorites of the year.

Read my full review here.

Kaguya-sama: Love is War Season 3

The romantic comedy offers some slick animation and bombastic humor as always, while featuring some truly satisfying relationship development.

Read my full review here.

Mob Psycho 100 Season 3

The final season of one of the best anime of the last decade, it offers a perfect resolution to the offbeat relationship of young psychic Mob and his con-man mentor Reigen, while making a strong final statement on the series’ themes of power, identity, self-acceptance and deception.

Read my full review here.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life

In Menou’s world, kids dropping in from Japan and gaining incredible superpowers is a common occurrence. This rarely ends well, so it’s Menou’s job to murder these teens before they can become threats. But her latest target, Akari, has powers that make her unkillable- and she has feelings for Menou! What’s an assassin to do? A darker take on the isekai formula, the show is uneven in parts, but it’s a fun ride and most importantly, full of flawed, murderous women getting in cool fights and having romantic attention for each other. I gotta love it. The world has a ton of potential, so I hope this yuri action romp will get a follow up someday.

Read my full review here.

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story

A tough teenager is embroiled in an illegal golf ring run by the mafia- you heard me- and while navigating ridiculous obstacles and dirty tactics, she becomes smitten with a rival Japanese golfer named Aoi and wants nothing more than to see her again…

I debated on whether to include this because the second season is really going to dictate how I feel about it, but it made a hell of an impression, so I had to. After all, in the first episode alone, Eve hits a golf ball through a moving train while up against someone in a clown mask. A gloriously stupid and ludicrous take on golf that only anime could do, Birdie Wing makes the most of its low budget to give a unforgettable experience. Just please don’t do a “Eve and Aoi are secretly sisters” twist in Season 2.

Read my full review here.

Bonus anime I really enjoyed:

Aharen-san wa Hakaranai (Aharen is Impossible to Understand) is a very adorable, funny anime about two ridiculous kids finding each other and has a nice trans-positive treatment of one character,

 Shikimori’s not Just a Cutie (review here) is a cute anime about a soft-hearted boy and a very cool girl who date,

Ya Boy Kongming! is an anime about famous military strategist from the Three Kingdoms era suddenly finding himself in modern Japan. He comes across a talented but unknown singer and decided to put his gift for strategy to use in managing her singing career and helping her to the top. This is just plain fun, and has a really sweet (and shippable) female friendship at it’s core by the end.

And finally, Sasaki and Miyano (review here) is a slow paced but sweet romance between two boys.

[jacobnewt]

REVIEW Boston Blitz (The Executioner Book 12) (Kindle) By Don Pendleton

When the Pittsfield Mafia destroyed Mack Bolan’s family, the only survivor was his brother Johnny—a wide-eyed teen not prepared for life on the front lines of a war against the mob.

Before he began his assault on organized crime, Mack sent Johnny into hiding along with Mack’s fiancée, Val. Now they’ve been kidnapped by an enterprising thug who thinks he can use the Executioner’s family against him. The Boston mob will pay for his mistake.

Read and download this book from teachab.com

[esonetwork]

'Men's Adventure Quarterly - Vol 1 No 3' Book Review By Ron Fortier

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/mens-adventure-quarterly-vol-1-no-3-book-review-by-ron-fortier/

'Men's Adventure Quarterly - Vol 1 No 3' Book Review By Ron Fortier

MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY Vol 1 No 3 Edited by Robert Deis & Bill Cunningham Pulp 2.0 153 pgs

We came home from Vietnam in July of 1968. We were only too happy to return to civilian life and put that last year behind us. By March of 1969, we were working in a shoe factory and attending college at night. Sometime that month, we picked up a paperback novel called “The Executioner – War against The Mafia” by Don Pendleton. It was to be the first in a series from a new publisher named Pinnacle. A few weeks later they released, “The Destroyer” by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy. After reading both of these initial adventures, we had one thought – the pulps were back! After having been a comic book readers since childhood, we eventually picked up some knowledge of those 30s and 40s yellow paged magazines that had entertained folks during the Great Depression. Reading Mack Bolan and Remo Williams, it was only too evident that they were new, modern “pulp” heroes for a new generation.

Sure enough, within months, the drugstore racks were overflowing with new “hero” series ala the Death Merchant by Joseph Rosenberger, Piers Anthony’s Judomaster, Marc Olden’s Black Samurai, Paul Kenyon’s The Baroness. It seemed every possible classic pulp genre was covered to even including the occult ala Frank Lauria’s Doctor Orient books. Oh yeah, for the next decade, we readers would be the benefactors of the newest incarnation of pulps, which had morphed from the classic 40s volumes into the MAMs of the 50s and 60s and now the paperback boom of the 70s. We loved the stuff.

Whereas The Executioner books were by far our favorites and we followed them loyally from Pinnacle to Gold Eagle. Even enjoying the spin-off series as they emerged. At one point we actually corresponded with one of the ghostwriters on Able Team. In the end, we’d amassed well over two hundred paperbacks with the name Pendleton painted across the covers before selling the lot in a yard sale to an employee of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in New Hampshire, whose purpose was to divvy them up amongst his co-workers there. So we were delighted they’d found a new and worthy home.

Now Bill Cunningham and Bob Deis have turned their magnificent creative spotlight on The Executioner phenomenon with the third issue of their “Men’s Adventure Quarterly” and it is by far their best issue so far. The volume is jammed packed with not only the history of this fantastic ground-breaking series and its creator but includes several excellent articles and pictorials. The piece on action-adventure writer Chuck Dixon is great and details his own work on such iconic characters as the Punisher and Batman in the comics to his own Levon Cade paperback adventures. There are also several short stories in the same vein such as the over-the-top “The Amputee Vengeance Squad’s Mafia Wipeout” by Jack Tyler. They also feature not one, but two “book bonus” reprints of the first two Executioner novels in their entirety as they appeared in two different MAMs.

As always Cunningham has an artist touch with his beautiful layouts; our favorites being the spread of Gil Cohen cover paintings and further into the issue the reproduction of the first dozen Executioner covers from Pinnacle. Seeing those unleashed a flood of great memories for this reviewer. Linda Pendleton’s memoir of her life with Don relives the early days when Mack Bolan was just an idea that had to be born. Wrap this all up with a little Bettie Page spread and you end up with one of the slickest, expertly produced magazine packages ever assembled. Kudos to the Deis – Cunningham team. You boys are 3 for 3 at bat. Now that’s a damn impressive record.

[criminolly]

War Against the Mafia by Don Pendleton #BookReview

“Bolan is an enjoyably determined hero and his mission of violence is gripping even though the outcome is never in doubt.“ War Against the Mafia by Don Pendleton #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: Predictable but highly entertaining start to the long running series, with more of a hardboiled vibe than I expected. 4/5 Title: War Against the Mafia | Author: Don Pendleton | Series: The Executioner #1 | Publisher: Pinnacle | Pages: 170 | Publication date: 1969 | Source: Self-purchased | Content warnings: Yes | Tolerance warning: Yes Review Published in 1969, War Against…

[punemy-spotted]

hi lovlie! How about a POV from TPYP? hope you’re doing ok ♥️

Hello darling! I'm doing alright, and I'd be happy to do a little POV shift!

Read The Price You Pay Here

Pairing: Mob!Steve Rogers x Reader, Senator!Andy Barber x Reader

Story Warnings: Rape/Non-Con elements, Dub-Con, Dark!Fic, Abuse of Legal System, Murder, Character Death (minor, possibly major), Love Triangle, Political AU, Mafia AU, Workplace Sexual Harassment, Abuse Mentions, Possessive/Obsessive Characters, Other Chapter-Specific Warnings May Apply, Possible Dead Dove: Would Not Eat

Chapter Warnings: Angst; Throwing Courtroom Procedure out the Window; Reader isn’t a Good Person; POV Shift; Dove Probably Dead: Would Not Consume

Chapter Summary: Courting danger is never easy. A view of the Courtroom scene from Steve's own eyes.

Notes: I really am trying to get the muse back here, so please bear with me. Thank you for your love and patience!

You’re a viper. He can see it in your eyes, the sharpness of the fangs you bare as you take your turn around the courtroom, venom dripping from every word. On another day, in another setting, with another kind of stake on the table, he might have enjoyed this.

It’s too bad then, that you’ve chosen his throat as your target.

You make it look so easy, composed and careful, all fluid grace and flowing prose, drawing details from the exhibits you never should have gotten your hands on. The deck is stacked against you in every way he could have managed — a rookie prosecutor unwilling to bend the rules you swore to uphold and a system he insisted on having in his pocket — but here you are.

And here’s the verdict.

The room is a war zone of whispers and speculation as the Jury delivers the verdict Guilty, guilty, guilty like an executioner’s own axe. He can’t look at Bucky’s expression when the blade finally falls, veins running cold as he catches the smug surety of your gaze, How fucking dare you.

The courtroom empties slowly, lingering bailiffs filtering away, leaving you in your coliseum, the lion padding forth to the sound of silent cheers, Real woman of the law, aren’t you?

You rejected his offer, three months ago, to turn your back on this and become one of his. He knows an asset when he sees one, but assets don’t usually tell him to go fuck himself.

I did my job, and what he would give in this moment to wipe that smug smirk off your fucking face—

Did you? Is that what you think your job is? You’re going to tell me the motherfucker on the slab’s worth more than the life Bucky could have had?

My job is justice, unflinching and blind, Mr. Rogers. I don’t care how much power you have or how afraid you leave this city, I’m going to do my job.

You could always let justice turn a blind eye.

Yeah. I could, but that wouldn’t make this any fun, would it? Thank you for the win, Mr. Rogers — I’m sure I won’t get many more.

It was fun. Fun for you — he doesn’t know how to tell you who the victim-that-wasn’t-really-a-victim really was without incriminating more than his right-hand men, but he knows he can make this much less fun.

[route22ny]

This is a harrowing read, and in the end you may ask yourself, as I asked myself: how was the nation not protected from such criminality?  Decades of organized crime involvement culminated in the most corrupt and dangerous president in American history, one who now presides over a reeling nation in the throes of a deadly pandemic. 

We watch in horror and disbelief, daily, as he ineptly--or maliciously--mismanages the nation’s response to covid-19, contributing to a death toll expected to surpass that of the Vietnam War...twice.  How did we get here?

This is must reading.

***

IN THE EARLY 1980s it was decided—by whom, and for what ultimate purpose, we can’t say for sure—that Donald John Trump would build a casino complex in Atlantic City, New Jersey—probably the most mobbed-up municipality in the state. Dealing with the mafia might have dissuaded some developers from pursuing a Boardwalk Empire, but not Trump. He was uniquely suited to forge ahead.

Donald’s father, the Queens real estate developer Fred Trump, had worked closely with Genovese-associated and -owned construction entities since building the Shore Haven development in 1947, when Donald was still in diapers (the first time around). Fred was an early mob adopter, the underworld equivalent of an investor who bought shares of Coca-Cola stock in 1919. The timelines is important to remember here. Organized crime did not exist in any meaningful way in the United States until Prohibition. Born in 1905, Fred Trump was just two years younger than Meyer Lansky, the gangster who more or less invented money laundering. Thus, Donald Trump is second generation mobbed-up.

When Donald first ventured from Queens to the pizzazzier borough of Manhattan in the seventies, he entered into a joint business deal with “Big” Paul Castellano, head of the Gambino syndicate, and Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, of the Genovese family he knew well through his father and their mutual lawyer Roy Cohn. As part of this arrangement, Trump agreed to buy concrete from a company operated jointly by the two families—and pay a hefty premium for the privilege. Only then, with double mob approval, could he move forward with the Trump Tower and Trump Plaza projects. (Among Cohn’s other clients at the time was Rupert Murdoch, whom he introduced to Trump in the seventies; you would be hard pressed to find three more atrocious human beings).

Atlantic City is in South Jersey, closer to Philadelphia than New York, so to build “his” casino, Trump needed to play ball with the Philly mob. That meant dealing with Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo, head of the most powerful mob family in Philadelphia. Land that Trump needed for his casino was owned by Salvie Testa and Frank Narducci, Jr.—hit men for Scarfo, collectively known around town as the Young Executioners (the nickname was not ironic). To help negotiate the deal, Trump hired Patrick McGahn, a Philly-based attorney known to have truck with the Scarfo family.

(The last name should sound familiar; Don McGahn, the former White House Counsel, is Patrick McGahn’s nephew. And Don McGahn is not the only Trump Administration hire with ties to the Philly mob. Among Little Nicky’s associates was one Jimmy “The Brute” DiNatale, whose daughter, Denise Fitzpatrick, is the mother of none other than Kellyanne Conway. A number of wiseguys paid their respects at DiNatale’s 1983 funeral. I don’t want to make the mistake of condemning Conway or Don McGahn for the sins of their relations. But given Trump’s OC background, it’s fair to question why he chose two children of mobbed-up families for his inner White House circle.)

Trump acquired the needed Atlantic City property at twice the market value: $1.1 million for a lot that sold for $195k five years before. But there were legal pratfalls, shady dealings, chicanery with the documents. The New Jersey Gaming Commission was investigating the matter, because casino owners could not, by law, associate with criminals. And most of Trump’s friends were crooks. It looked like Trump was in trouble—not only of losing his gaming license, but of criminal indictment.

And then, something miraculous happened. On 4 November 1986, Scarfo and eleven of his associates were indicted on charges that included loan sharking, extortion and conducting an illegal gambling business in a racketeering conspiracy. Prosecutors had tried for years to take down Little Nicky. And now, after all that time, they finally had their evidence. Not only that, but the investigation into Trump? It went away. Poof—as if it never existed.

A confidential informant, or “CI,” is a mole run by law enforcement within a criminal enterprise. Not a “rat,” whose treachery is well known to his comrades, but a craftier, more duplicitous breed of rodent. Crimes committed by the CI are overlooked, or allowed to continue unabated, in exchange for good intelligence—“treasure,” as Control calls it in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

A fictional example of a CI is the Greek, a character on the show The Wire (spoiler ahead). Baltimore law enforcement piece together that the Greek is the head of a crime syndicate that deals in narcotics and human trafficking. But when they finally move to arrest him, the operation is kibboshed by the feds, for whom the Greek is a Confidential Informant. This is extremely frustrating for viewers of the show, who rightly regard the Greek as the cause of so much woe in West Baltimore.

In real life, there are two famous examples. The first is Whitey Bulger, the head of the so-called Winter Hill Gang, which operated for decades in Somerville, Massachusetts. In 1975, Bulger became a Confidential Informant for the FBI, handled by a corrupt agent named John Connolly. His intelligence helped take down a rival mob family in Providence, Rhode Island—a city notorious for the influence of organized crime. In exchange, Connolly allowed Bulger and his associates to operate with impunity. At least 19 people were killed by the Winter Hill Gang while the feds looked the other way. When the FBI finally realized its mistake, Connolly tipped off Bulger, who went on the lam for 16 years. He was finally arrested in 2011; by then he was in his eighties. He was killed in prison seven years later.

The second famous CI is Donald Trump’s former associate Felix Sater. Racketeering charges against him back in 1998 ended with a fine of just $25,000—a slap on the wrist. From then on, Sater become a top echelon confidential informant, feeding law enforcement intelligence of “a depth and breadth rarely seen,” as court filings show. “His cooperation has covered a stunning array of subject matter, ranging from sophisticated local and international criminal activity to matters involving the world’s most dangerous terrorists and rogue states.”

The winsome ex-con, still one of the more puzzling figures of Trump/Russia, “continuously worked with prosecutors and law enforcement agents to provide information crucial to the conviction of over 20 different individuals, including those responsible for committing massive financial fraud, members of La Cosa Nostra organized crime families and international cyber-criminals,” prosecutors claim. “Additionally, Sater provided the United States intelligence community with highly sensitive information in an effort to help the government combat terrorists and rogue states.”

His intelligence helped prosecutors break up the “Pump and Dump” and “Boiler Room” mob operations in the 1990s. He turned over useful information about the Genovese crime family (note: the same family Fred Trump fronted for), and provided ample dirt on international arms dealing (note: Jeffrey Epstein’s specialty). And his crowning achievement: he helped the United States track down Osama bin Laden (funny how the Russian mob knew where he was). Sater is proud of his CI work, and has talked it up the last few years, probably to counter his association with the mafiya, and with Trump.

We know about Bulger being a CI because his handler turned out to be crooked. We know about Sater being a CI because he outed himself prior to his sentencing in 2009—and because he keeps boasting about it. If Sater had not come forward, Loretta Lynch, the former Attorney General, would not have been legally permitted to reveal his status.

That’s the thing about Confidential Informants: they are confidential. The informant doesn’t want to be made as a mole, any more than law enforcement wants to burn a source. Both sides are bound to secrecy. It is the good guy version of omertà.

The only way to know for sure if Donald John Trump is a Confidential Informant is if he admits it himself (unlikely), or if law enforcement comes forward (illegal). But the circumstantial evidence is compelling. The pattern is: 1) Trump deals with mobsters as usual; 2) Law enforcement begins investigating Trump; 3) Mobsters suddenly get busted, while 4) investigation into Trump is scuttled. This happened three times that we know about. I’m not counting the first known instance of Trump providing information to prosecutors, concerning Cody and concrete, in the late 70s:

I can conceive of no scenario in which Trump was not a CI, and a top echelon one at that. He’s avoided indictment too many times. No one is that lucky.

Or, put another way: How can someone that lucky manage to run a fucking casino into the ground?

Salvatore Gravano, known as “Sammy the Bull,” was an underboss of the Gambino crime family. After the assassination of “Big” Paul Castellano in 1985—an audacious hit, done in broad daylight—John Gotti was installed as the figurehead capo. But in practice, the Bull was the one calling the shots. His territory? Manhattan. For as long as he was in power, any construction that took place in New York, New York had to be approved by Gravano. “I literally controlled Manhattan,” he told ABC News. He did a lot of business deals with Donald John Trump, and speaks of him fondly.

After his arrest on 11 December 1990, Gravano turned state’s evidence to help put away Gotti, his nominal boss. The lead prosecutor of the case? Robert Swan Mueller III. (This is why, when Trump found out Mueller was named Special Counsel, he collapsed into a chair and muttered, “I’m fucked.”)

We know that Gravano flipped on Gotti. But who flipped on Sammy the Bull?

On 19 July 1990, the Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) of the State of New Jersey opened an investigation into Donald John Trump, regarding the Trump Organization’s business dealings with Joseph Weichselbaum, a mob associate and embezzler who had been convicted not once, not twice, but three times. Trump hired Weichselbaum’s company to provide helicopter transportation to Atlantic City, conveying high rollers to and from New York. As a casino owner, Trump was prohibited by law to do any business with the serial felon. He not only continued to do so, but he went to bat for the guy, going so far as to write him a letter of recommendation. (There’s more bizarre stuff with Wiechselbaum, whose case wound up being initially tried by Trump’s sister, a federal judge, but I won’t get into it here).

Six months after the DGE opened its investigation, Gravano got pinched. And once again, as if by the wave of a magic wand, Trump’s legal troubles seemed to vanish.

It’s worth noting here that Sammy the Bull likes Trump personally, then and now, and seems not to blame him for ratting him out. There were likely others who informed on Gravano, too. But given the timing, the investigation against Trump, his disastrous finances at the time, and his long familiarity with federal prosecutors, it stands to reason that Trump, too, turned on his longtime business associate.

The Kurt & Courtney decade was unkind to Donald John Trump. The Bush I recession hit his businesses hard. Trump filed for bankruptcy protection for Trump Taj Mahal (1991) and Trump Plaza (1992). Again: our “lucky” guy had managed to go bust in the casino business. In between those bankruptcy filings, he lobbied Congress for tax relief for real estate developers, began phoning reporters claiming to be a publicist named John Barron, had an affair with a D-list actress named Marla Maples, and divorced his wife of 14 years, the mother of his kids Donald, Ivanka, and Eric: the former Ivana Zelníčková. (Sidenote: Ivana Trump’s father was a big wheel in Czechoslovakia’s Státní bezpečnost intelligence service; Miloš Zelníček helped raise his grandchildren, especially Don Jr., who speaks fluent Czech…but this is a subject for another dispatch).

Things were going south fast. Trump desperately needed a lifeline. He found one in Moscow.

The Soviet Union collapsed on Christmas Day 1991. What the West viewed as the triumph of capitalism over communism was really the subversion of a conventional superpower by the shadowy forces of transnational crime. The Cold War was not over; it just shifted modes of attack. In the early 90s, Russia invaded the United States—not with soldiers, but with mobsters.

The commander of this underworld incursion was a violent ex-con named Vyacheslav Ivankov, known as “Yaopnchik,” or “Little Japanese.” Hardened in the brutal Soviet prison system, Ivankov was a member of the vor y zakone, or thieves-in-law—the arm of the Russian mafiya that originated in the post-Second World War gulags. He was such a nasty, violent motherfucker that when it was necessary to rough someone up to extort them, he didn’t send in a subordinate—he did the job himself.

Ivankov arrived to the United States in 1992, ostensibly to work in the film industry. Even the new Russian government warned the FBI that he was up to no good. The feds lost sight of him almost immediately, even as he traveled from New York to Florida and everywhere in between, consolidating power, and displacing the Italian mob. (That brazen 1985 hit on “Big” Paul Castellano was instrumental in achieving this Vor hegemony, as the Gambino boss neither liked nor trusted the Russians). Per the testimony of Bob Levinson, the FBI’s foremost Russian mob expert:

Ivankov’s organization’s income was derived from a number of sources: his group was implicated by sources to have been involved in the “gasoline tax scam” whereby so-called “daisy-chains” of petroleum handling companies were established with the specific intention of defrauding governmental tax authorities using non-existent or ghost companies to pay the gasoline taxes due.

A primary source of the group’s funds was the collection of “krisha” or protection money from wealthy Russian and Eurasian businessmen operating between North America and the former Soviet republics. In addition, the Ivankov organization organized the collection of, in effect, a “street tax” from Russian-born and Eastern European criminals who were operating their illegal enterprises in North America. Ivankov organization members fanned out across the United States and Canada identifying and then approaching these criminals saying that each now had to contribute to an “obshak” (mutual benefit fund) being collected and organized by the Ivankov group.

In addition, Ivankov and other members of his organization settled business disputes for Russian and Eastern European businessmen operating between North America and the former Soviet Union, receiving in return a percentage of the amount in dispute, usually hundreds of thousands of dollars. Through his authority as a “thief-inlaw” and the head of a criminal organization, Ivankov was able to exercise a kind of informal power in the émigré business community tantamount to decisions made by formal, official courts of law. Those who went against the decisions made by Ivankov and his associates were usually met with violence, including beatings and/or murder.  

As Little Japanese worked the States, Semion Mogilevich, the current head of the Russian mob, set up his base of operations in Budapest, Hungary, where he moved in 1992 with his Hungarian girlfriend. “The Brainy Don,” as he is called, soon acquired a bank in Russia, which allowed him access to the global financial system. Meyer Lanksy may have invented money laundering, but it was Mogilevich who took it to Hollywood, so to speak: Lansky wrote the book, and the Brainy Don made it into an international blockbuster. (Note: Levinson, the FBI agent, moved to Budapest around this time, to investigate Mogilevich more closely.)

For three fruitful years, Ivankov did his thing, laying the foundation for what would become the world’s pre-eminent organized crime operation—more S.P.E.C.T.R.E. than GoodFellas. He ran amok. Law enforcement had no idea where he was….until, one day in 1995, they found him living in a deluxe apartment at—you’re not gonna believe it—Trump Tower. And that was not the only Trump property he frequented: Ivankov was also a regular at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. He was arrested in June of 1995, convicted, imprisoned, and deported to Russia in 2004 to face murder changes. Once home, he was promptly acquitted. He was gunned down in Moscow in 2009.

This monster was living in Trump’s building, gambling in Trump’s casino.

What was Donald John Trump doing in 1995? Failing tremendously. That was the year when he declared a loss of an unfathomable $916 million on his tax returns. It was also at this time that Trump Tower became a sort of Moscow on Fifth Avenue, with any number of Russian mobsters scooping up apartments—an arrangement that began in 1984, when the Russian mobster David Bogatin purchased five condos for $6 million. Trump Tower was one of just two buildings in all of New York City that allowed units to be purchased by shell companies. Why did Trump, virtually alone among New Yorkers, allow these fishy deals?

As the indefatigable Craig Unger writes in the Washington Post,

the shady Bogatin deal began a 35-year relationship between Trump and Russian organized crime. Mind you, this was a period during which the disintegration of the Soviet Union had opened a fire-hose-like torrent of hundreds of billions of dollars in flight capital from oligarchs, wealthy apparatchiks and mobsters in Russia and its satellites. And who better to launder so much money for the Russians than Trump — selling them multimillion-dollar condos at top dollar, with little or no apparent scrutiny of who was buying them.

Over the next three decades, dozens of lawyers, accountants, real estate agents, mortgage brokers and other white-collar professionals came together to facilitate such transactions on a massive scale. According to a BuzzFeed investigation, more than 1,300 condos, one-fifth of all Trump-branded condos sold in the United States since the 1980s, were shifted “in secretive, all-cash transactions that enable buyers to avoid legal scrutiny by shielding their finances and identities.”

Unger continues:

The Trump Organization has dismissed money laundering charges as unsubstantiated, and because it is so difficult to penetrate the shell companies that purchased these condos, it is almost impossible for reporters — or, for that matter, anyone without subpoena power — to determine how much money laundering by Russians went through Trump-branded properties. But Anders Aslund, a Swedish economist, put it this way to me: “Early on, Trump came to the conclusion that it is better to do business with crooks than with honest people. Crooks have two big advantages. First, they’re prepared to pay more money than honest people. And second, they will always lose if you sue them because they are known to be crooks.”

It is simply inconceivable that a creature of the underworld, a man who had extensive dealings with mob figures for his entire career, would, in a moment of dire need, be unaware that mobsters were buying his properties, using shell companies to conceal the origin of the dirty rubles.

It is also inconceivable that a mobbed-up real estate developer—a crook whom the government of Australia would not grant a gaming license because of his obvious mob connections; the subject of a 41-page initial investigation by the Department of Gaming Enforcement in the State of New Jersey that, taken together, is positively damning—could have avoided indictment for all these years unless he was covertly helping out law enforcement. Trump is a criminal, yes, but his crimes are not as heinous as Ivankov’s, or Gravano’s, or Scarfo’s. Prosecutors would happily toss a minnow like Trump back into the sea if it helped them catch the big fish.

Nothing about Trump’s term as president suggests he’s turned his back on organized crime. He hasn’t “gone legit.” His Twitter antagonists comprise a “Who’s Who” of the FBI’s Russian mob experts: Robert Mueller, Andrew McCabe, Bruce Ohr, Lisa Page. He has attacked the credibility of those who know what he really is. That is what made Trump’s attacks on Mueller so ironic. He impugned the former FBI director as corrupt, while depending on his incorruptibility to not reveal his (alleged) CI status.

To reiterate: we cannot know for sure if Trump was a CI unless he admits to being one (maybe Yamiche Alcindor can goad him into admitting it?), or if the federal prosecutors in the know break protocol to expose him.

As it stands, prominent G-men have given us clues. When McCabe was fired, he began his statement thus: “I have been an FBI Special Agent for over 21 years. I spent half of that time investigating Russian Organized Crime as a street agent and Supervisor in New York City.” The subtext there is that McCabe knows who Trump is.

In the excerpt of his book Higher Loyalty sent to the press, James Comey compared Trump to Gravano. “The [loyalty] demand was like Sammy the Bull’s Cosa Nostra induction ceremony—with Trump in the role of the family boss asking me if I have what it takes to be a ‘made man.’ ” Of all the famous mafiosos, why did Comey choose Gravano, a relatively obscure figure, as the comp? He wants us to dig into Gravano.

(Gravano himself was asked about the Comey pull-quote by Jerry Capeci of Gangland News; he said, “The country doesn’t need a bookworm as president, it needs a mob boss. You don’t need a Harvard graduate to deal with these people…[Putin, Kim, Xi] are real gangsters. You need a fucking gangster to deal with these people.” This seems to indicate that Sammy the Bull thinks Trump is a “mob boss” and a “fucking gangster.” Takes one to know one?)

Unless he thought it would help him avoid prison, Trump will never cop to being a Confidential Informant. We can only infer that he served that function by presenting the circumstantial evidence to support the hypothesis. But plenty of people can confirm or deny (rather than refuse to confirm or deny) Trump’s involvement. Bob Mueller, certainly, but every prosecutor too that dealt with Scarfo, Gravano, and Ivankov, and plenty of smaller cases besides.

When a Confidential Informant is deliberately fucking up the federal government’s response to a pandemic—when his willful negligence will cost hundreds of thousands if not millions of American lives—protocol must be sacrificed for the greater good. Is not the purpose of that law, of all laws, to protect the people from enemies foreign and domestic? And has not the COVID-19 response, or lack thereof, proven Trump to be an active enemy of the United States?

We don’t need more careful legalese. We don’t need more cryptic phrasings along the lines of “If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.” We need to hear, loud and clear, what the FBI knows. We need to be told, unequivocally, that Trump is an inveterate crook—a real crook; an actual criminal; not just a cute Twitter assertion—and, even more surprising, and contrary to all recent evidence, that he is capable of telling the truth when it serves him.

Notes:

This piece was written under the expert guidance of Lincoln’s Bible. If you don’t already do so, please follow her on Twitter, and check out her own mafiya reporting at Citjourno.

I encourage everyone to read the State of New Jersey Department of Gaming Enforcement investigation report on the allegations against Donald John Trump in the Wayne Barrett book Trump: The Deals and the Downfall.

The late Bob Levinson was the FBI’s best Russian mob fighter. His Ivankov testimony is also essential reading.

The photo at the top is the Greek, from The Wire—the best show in the history of television.

https://gregolear.substack.com/p/tinker-tailor-mobster-trump

[afinepricklypear]

Compare and Contrast: K Project vs. Bungou Stray Dogs - Part 3

**Disclaimer: I love both K Project and Bungou Stray Dogs. I highly recommend watching both of them. This series of Compare and Contrast posts I’m doing is merely for my own sake, to get these thoughts out of my head. If you are a fan of one show and not the other, please don’t read, or if you do, save your bashing comments for like-minded antis elsewhere. If you have not seen both, there are a lot of Spoilers ahead, please don’t read. I am heavily critical of both shows, so if you are someone who cannot handle negative things being said (I try not to outright bash and just provide reasonable evidence from the material to back my stances) about your favorite fandom or characters please don’t read. Thank you! ***

Read Part 1, Part 2

Characters

Both Bungo Stray Dogs and K feature ensemble casts, with large numbers of characters. That being said, the shows have vastly different approaches for how they handle those characters and those approaches impact the way they come across for the viewer.

One of the things that K does a hell of a lot better than BSD, is fleshing out and managing of its characters. This may in part be due to the fact, K doesn’t attempt to give all of its characters a starring space in the story. It’s comfortable letting some characters fall into the background, allocating them to the role of side characters. There are only a few members of each of our main clans (Silver, Red, Blue, and later, Green) that are given attention and the rest of the clansmen (Red and Blue are the only clans shown to have notable clans members who regularly show up and are given names and little else outside of our mains) fall to the background. For some people, this may be frustrating, as we don’t learn a whole lot about the rest of Scepter 4 or HOMRA in the anime, but narratively, I’m comfortable with it because I’m not asked by the show to care about those characters, and the characters that I’m meant to care about are given adequate screen time to develop them into someone who’s story I am invested in. That being said, K does have moments that utterly flop. Scepter 4, for me, beyond Fushimi, is an absolute failure in presenting itself as a likeable or, even, relatable organization of individuals (Full disclosure, I hate Munakata, and while Awashima has potential, she’s treated by the series as little more than a miniskirt and bad boob job obsessed with Munakata). They seem to be there only to be obnoxious. I get the sense they were originally intended to be viewed as villains, but they became so popular following the first season, that the creators tried to treat them more as heroes in the movie and second season. However, it was painfully obvious in the final episode of K: Seven Stories – Nameless Circle, as the surviving members of the Green, Red, Silver, and good Colorless clan members (Yukari and Kuroh) enjoyed their final farewells with their fallen clansmen (I dare you not to cry when Mikoto and Totsuka pour Kusanagi a glass and Yata takes Anna’s hand in the background), that Scepter 4 staring up at Munakata’s lost Sword of Damocles was the least humanized of the Clans. They lost nothing, they felt nothing, their presence in Nameless Circle was nearly pointless beyond fan service. Likewise, K heavily drops the ball in Season 1 with its primary antagonist, the Evil Colorless King, who’s back history, motivations, and even his (her?) name remain a mystery to date.

BSD starts out with an already large cast, and while Atsushi and Dazai might arguably be the “main” characters of the show, starring roles in various arcs and episodes are given to the other characters, as well. Most of those episodes, however, can easily be relegated to the “filler” pile. On top of this, BSD continually introduces increasing numbers of characters, it also likes to bump characters up from side character to more main character type roles, which only serves to take limited screen time from the initial cast of characters and ultimately fails to give itself enough space to flesh out the cast. Time constraints, of course, doesn’t always mean a character can’t be adequately developed (see the first ten minutes of Pixar’s Up for how it’s done right), but possibly, because of this limitation, BSD has a tendency to fall back on telling instead of showing. It also feels like many of its characters were not fully developed in the creator’s minds (this appears to have been confirmed in several interviews with the creators) when they started their story, so that when those backgrounds are revealed, especially in those far too often instances where characters that have interacted in past episodes and given no indication of a history between them are newly revealed to have a connections to one another. It feels tacked on and last minute, and consistency of characterizations is lost. As previously discussed in a past post for this Review Series, this may also be due to the fact that K was envisioned as a self-contained story, and BSD seems to have been developed as an ongoing serial without a predetermined ending.

For these next several posts, I want to do more individualized character analyses, but to keep things simple, I will only focus on the characters of K that are given focus in the story and I’ll try to reference only its anime (just to be fair, because I’ve read all of K’s extra materials, and have not for BSD because I lack access in my country). Likewise, I’m only going to talk about BSD’s characters from the Armed Detective Agency and the Port Mafia, as well as, a few key villains like Shibusawa, Fitzgerald, and Fyodor. Once again, I will attempt to keep to only what’s been revealed in the anime.

A reasonable starting point on character analysis for these two shows would be our sort-of main protagonists. Although, BSD and K are both ensemble anime, they do each feature a character that may ostensibly be considered the “main” character, in the sense that they kick off our main events and are positioned as integral to all subsequent storylines. For BSD, that character is Nakajima Atsushi, and for K, that character is Yashiro “Shiro” Isana. Interestingly (maybe), these characters share a similar aesthetic. Both are young males, with white hair and light-colored eyes, they are also both small, waif-like, bishounen that might be better suited to a shojo or even yaoi anime, rather than leads on a seinen series.

At the start of both series, Atsushi and Shiro, respectively, find themselves thrust into a world of supernatural powered people in which they are targeted for reasons to be revealed throughout the story. The greatest similarity between these two, however, is that they are both weak characters. Neither one proves interesting enough to shoulder the responsibilities as main character of the show. You would be hard pressed in either fandom to find someone who would name Atsushi or Shiro as their favorite character. I’m not saying these fans don’t exist, because they do, they are just few and far between.

Shiro spends the first half of the first season trying to avoid being killed by the Red Clan, who believes he killed their Clansman, Tatara Totsuka, at the same time, he is trying to convince his reluctant ally and potential executioner, Kuroh, that he isn’t the Evil Colorless King responsible for Totsuka’s death. Atsushi’s story, on the other hand, begins with him finding out he’s an ability user that shapeshifts into a white tiger, and, subsequently, being rescued and recruited into the Armed Detective Agency by Dazai. Then the Port Mafia begins hunting him because a bounty has been placed on his head, conveniently only after he’s learned that he is the white tiger that he believed had been hunting him his entire life, he’s joined the ADA, and Dazai has the chance to warn him with a picture of Akutagawa “beware of this bad boy” mere hours before Akutagawa attacks him.

The initial drawback with both of these characters is that they are merely victims of the plot and not helping to drive the plot forward in anyway. Shiro only becomes invested in determining why there’s video footage of him murdering Totsuka because Kuroh demands he provide evidence that he’s not the Evil Colorless King or he’ll face justice at the end of Kuroh’s blade. When Atsushi learns about the bounty on his head that Port Mafia is pursuing, rather than show interest in why anyone would want to capture him (alive, to boot), he “nobly” decides to run away, in his naivete believing that it would spare the ADA war with Port Mafia.

Throughout the K story, we do see real change in Shiro’s investment in his own mystery when it’s revealed that his memories, and the memories his classmates have of him, are not real, but fabricated and imposed upon him and those in close proximity by the cat girl that’s obsessed with him, Neko, AKA Official Provider of Fanservice #1.  This provides a further explanation for why he’s so lackluster about pursuing the truth, she’s been bending his reality and his perception of it from the start. It isn’t until her ability and how she’s been using it is revealed, and she runs off in humiliation and panic, that Shiro begins to actively pursue the truth. Even before this, however, Shiro is shown to be a wily and clever character who is quite self-sufficient. In his first meeting with Kuroh, he’s able to escape Kuroh’s justice by lying and manipulating the swordsman. He later throws off the Red Clansmen pursuing him by appearing just as Kuroh is facing off against a very annoyed Yata and calling out to Kuroh as though they are allies. This falls in line nicely with the big reveal of Shiro’s true identity as the Silver King, Adolf K. Weissman. In flashbacks to an unnamed great war (FYI, people speculate this was WWII, which, fun fact, would make Adolf a Nazi, but because this story takes place in an alternate history of the world, it’s equally possible Nazis never existed), we see that Adolf was originally researching the Dresden Slate, a mysterious artifact capable of granting people mysterious powers.

As Adolf, Shiro is shown to be a light-hearted, goofy man with no place in war or battle (consistent with what we’ve already seen in the show). Nothing of his character feels last minute retconned, and no previously unheard of connections are revealed to other existing characters in the show that haven’t been heavily hinted at or already explained. He believes that his research will be helpful in granting people their wishes throughout the world, yet when his sister is killed during an air raid, he runs away, leaving his research and the Slate with his friend, a Japanese military officer who becomes the Gold King and curator of the artifact. This turn of events does grant Shiro greater weight as a main character, and an importance in the plot that doesn’t feel contrived or heavy handed. Hints exist early on that Shiro is not who he thinks he is, starting with his high school classmate, Kukuri noting in introductory scene that she feels like he’ll disappear if she takes her eyes off of him. After all, one of the things that K is often praised for is its mastery of foreshadowing, this comes from having a very clear idea of the entire story its creators hoped to tell and a firm grasp of the connections between all of its characters.

That said, Shiro still remains throughout the story as relatively uninteresting, serving more as a plot device rather than a character. After the Blue Clan, the Silver Clan is the second least relatable and their scenes in Nameless Circle also remain a bit ‘meh’ as the “losses” the Silver Clan experienced throughout the anime were far removed from the actual plot. They didn’t resonate. We see, in Nameless Circle, Adolf’s sister and the younger version of his lost friend, the Gold King, enjoying breakfast with the Silver Clan every morning on repeat. Yet, Adolf’s sister was never developed beyond “here’s a tragic thing that happened in Adolf’s past”, so it’s hard to really feel her loss. She isn’t a person but a plot device, used to reveal more of Adolf/Shiro’s character rather than having anything of her own. As for the Gold King, he suffers the same fate as Adolf’s sister, but also, he lived a long life, and died of old age, so his death isn’t any kind of tragedy in the same sense as Mikoto, Totsuka, or Nagare’s deaths. There’s certainly a melancholy to these scenes, Adolf misses his friends, but it doesn’t pull at the heart strings, quite the way the Red and Green Clans losses do.

The real reason that Atsushi is being pursued at the start of the manga is yet to be resolved. We’re given a loose explanation, a foreign organization known as the Guild put the bounty on his head because allegedly his ability is the key to finding some powerful book that can manipulate reality. When the main antagonist of the Guild, Fitzerald, is defeated, this explanation and Atsushi’s importance becomes all but forgotten in subsequent arcs featuring new villain, Fyodor Dostoevsky. Atsushi himself can best be described as whiny and severely underdeveloped. He continues to be a victim of the plot just dragging him along, but worse, he quickly becomes one note with the constant flashback to his Orphanage’s director telling him he’s useless and doesn’t belong anywhere. There are entire scenes dedicated to this refrain causing him to full-scale breakdown into bouts of self-doubt. All I can say is he was eighteen when he was “kicked out” of the orphanage, he had zero work experience, and when we find him at the start of the story, he’s only been on his own a couple weeks and is already considering turning to assault and thievery to survive. Considering that Dazai and Chuuya were sixteen when they became Executives in the Port Mafia, Kunikida is only twenty-two and has already had a successful career as a teacher before becoming a detective with the ADA, Kenji is fourteen when we find him at the ADA and a former hard-working farmhand, Kyouka is a capable fourteen year old assassin before joining the ADA, Lucy is eighteen and comes from a similar abusive background and is already busting her ass to work for the Guild and then the ADA’s favorite Coffee Shop (jobs she got herself, thank you very much, for spending anytime looking for her like you promised, Atsushi, you jerk), and so on…I’m inclined to side with the orphanage director: Atsushi is useless. It’s a good thing they kicked him out, or he’d probably still be a bum surviving off social welfare the rest of his life.

I also can’t help but agree with Akutagawa, Atsushi has practically had everything handed to him and yet still manages to pull a pity party routine on the regular. It isn’t long after getting kicked out of the orphanage that he’s taken under Dazai’s wing and handed a job with the ADA. This wouldn’t be so terrible if he didn’t constantly squander it, and consistently prove that he doesn’t earn it. It’s hard to like him, especially when the author seems to be bending the story over backwards to give him some semblance of importance in the plot to the point it hurts the narrative. This is best exemplified in Dead Apple. Throughout the entire movie, we see every other character acting to bring the plot forward, meanwhile, Atsushi spends the entire time whining that they need to find Dazai, because Dazai will know what to do. Bitch, Dazai is busy trying to outsmart two super smart bad guys; he doesn’t have time to also prop you up on your own damn feet. It gets so bad that even Kyouka becomes fed up and leaves him. It really says something that the majority of comments for the movie on CrunchyRoll are complaining about how whiny Atsushi is throughout the movie.

While some people are quick to defend Atsushi by pointing to his abusive childhood to excuse his behavior, it is worth noting, he is not the only character that has an abusive past and he is far from being the character who has suffered the most abuse, and that’s including the odd growth on the side of Dead Apple’s plot that is the inexplicable, unnecessary, and might I add, ridiculous connection that was made between him and Shibusawa at the last minute that only raised more questions than answers and created huge plot holes. Atsushi’s travel companions in Dead Apple, Kyouka and Akutagawa, both have their own history of being abused. Just to underline Akutagawa’s complaint that Atsushi has everything and manages to forsake it all, Akutagawa was abused by Dazai, whereas, Atsushi is saved, fawned over, and praised by Dazai seemingly only for the sake of further tormenting Akutagawa. This continues to contribute to making Atsushi a weak character that I find difficult to really like all that much or see as having anything more than a forced relevance to the plot.

Atsushi does have redeemable moments in his interactions with Kyouka and Lucy. With the aforementioned Dead Apple aside, Atsushi is often at his best when he is with Kyouka. She sees him as her savior, and it reflects in the way that he treats her, being seen that way helps to boost him from pitiful status to someone that may actually have potential as a hero. As for Lucy, because she has a similar life history as Atsushi (abused orphan with matching burn marks), he can’t get away with the same woe is me lines that he throws at every one else. She’s got the same kind of past and manages to stand on her own two feet, forcing him to also rise up to meet her. Both of these girls have tragic histories, but seek to lift themselves up from those histories and stand their own ground, which serves to lift Atsushi as well, unlike with other characters that only patronize, validate, or outright feed into his insecurities leaving me playing on my phone hoping his scenes end quickly. More interactions between Atsushi and Kyouka, Atsushi and Lucy, or all three together would be a welcome addition in Season 4. These babies build each other up, and it’s beautiful to see.

At the end of the day, Shiro and Atsushi are prime examples of the “perfectly innocent protagonist whose only flaw is their own self-doubt” and exemplify why this type of a character is always, ultimately a failure.  They’re bright eyed, they’re kind, without internal debate they always make the right choice, everyone is drawn to them because they are light and goodness, I guess, and even when they are clearly the weakest in a fight, they always come out on top without working towards bettering themselves in anyway beyond putting in some old-fashioned good guy gumption. This is so painstakingly evident in Atsushi, who receives zero training upon joining the ADA, and is expected to battle (and is successful) against exceedingly powerful bad guys on the regular. Contrast this against Akutagawa, who we see underwent harsh training from the Port Mafia, yet still manages to always lose in his battles against the untrained Atsushi. Proving yet again, that you don’t need hard work to become the best, when you got the power of good on your side. Self-doubt exhibited by these types of characters never rings true, because we see them always get their way, everything turns out fine for them in the end, they never encounter lasting consequences for their choices (at one point in BSD, Akutagawa mocks Atsushi that everyone around him dies, but we have yet to see anyone he cares about die – the only person’s death that we see him have to deal with is his Orphanage Director that was coming to visit him with flowers and probably apologize for being a jerk, and his struggle there is with whether he’s allowed to still hate the guy or not, I mean, come on), and everyone around them that matters respects and dotes on them even before them being shown to truly do anything that should earn that respect and affection. I still don’t fully understand what compelled Kuroh to swear loyalty to Shiro, if I’m being perfectly honest, when Shiro is a lay-about, coward and liar, that ditches his clan in the end to soul search in his airship. Though, I will note, Shiro does demonstrate this character type a mite less than Atsushi. He’s not often shown to come out on top in battles, he doesn’t actually engage in any physical battle himself (his fight with Nagare at the end of Missing Kings, not withstanding, because he’s really just blocking that whole time waiting for Kuroh to show up and do the heavy lifting), he typically needs to rely on the strength and intelligence of others, and is more often than not shown running away. Also, Shiro is never really put into a position where he needs to make any hard, moral choices which has its own drawbacks for a main character in a show where a lot of hard, gray moral choices are being made around him.

I have seen it commented in defense of these characters’ weaknesses that the main character of a shonen/seinen story are always weak. This is not true, and I will point to one of my all-time favorite characters from any anime, as example: Edward Elric of Fullmetal Alchemist (both versions of the anime). Ed is badass, he earns his name as Fullmetal, and he earns his title as the youngest State Alchemist. We see him earn it as we watch him and his brother, Alphonse’s journey to become stronger, yet he also makes mistakes. It is his own arrogance that kicks off the entire anime when, in the Elric brother’s attempt to bring their mother back to life using forbidden Alchemy, Ed loses his arm and then his leg to save his brother who has lost his entire body. Their journey to find the philosopher stone for Ed is entirely about restoring his brother, he doesn’t care about his own body and, in fact, views his missing limbs as his own deserved punishment for challenging God, and throughout we see how their moral failing in the past effects all of their choices going forward. We know why Ed makes the choices he does; it isn’t merely because he is the “perfectly innocent protagonist that exudes light and good”; it is because he has learned from his mistakes. His naivete is not shown as a benefit, but as something to overcome. Ed is always acting on his own motives, while the plot is being driven forward by other characters around him, he is not merely a victim of the plot or being dragged along by it, his own actions and goals also help to forward the story and eventually brings him in direct conflict with the big bad. He struggles under the weight of the choices he’s made, he bears the burden of those he couldn’t save, he doesn’t leave the heavy lifting of gray moral decisions to the other characters, he’s seen to struggle and even lose in the anime, and in those instances, we watch him work to better himself so that he can come back stronger. We know where his power comes from – he trained and studied for it; it was never handed to him. Throughout the anime he is shown to literally and figuratively grow and develop into a powerful hero that we can believe is capable of overcoming our main antagonist, Father, in the end, but not without losses and struggle. This is a protagonist done right. Compared against Ed, the failings of both Shiro and Atsushi is glaring.

That is all I have to say about those two. Next up will be the Black Dog of the Silver Clan versus the Black Dog of Port Mafia.

[dark-and-twisty-01]

Anastasia, Albert mobster and murder victim (1957)

A native Italian, born Umberto Anastasio in 1903, Albert Anastasia entered the United States illegally sometime between 1917 and 1920 (reports vary). With brother Anthony ("Tough Tony") Anastasio, he soon muscled his way into labor activities on the Brooklyn docks and rose to a leadership position in the longshoreman's union. Anastasia committed his first known murder of a fellow longshoreman in the early 1920s and was sentenced to die in the electric chair at Sing Sing, but a new trial was granted on appeal and Anastasia was acquitted after four key witnesses vanished without a trace.

That pattern of eradicating witnesses became Anastasia's trademark, expressed to underworld cohorts as a simple motto: "If you ain't got no witness, you ain't got no case." In the late 1920s Anastasia aligned himself with up and coming mobsters Charles ("Lucky") Luciano and Frank Costello, soon emerging as their primary hit man in the war between Mafia bosses Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano. Luciano's group first betrayed Masseria (show while dining with Luciano on April 15, 1931), and then eliminated Maranzano (killed in his office on September 10, 1931) to consolidate their rule over the New York City underworld.

Luciano's victory placed Anastasia in charge (with Mafia allet Louis Buchalter) of a Brooklyn-based hit team later nicknamed "Murder Incorporated" by sensational journalists. The same reporters dubbed Anastasia the "Lord High Executioner," while some who knew him better spoke of him (behind his back) as "The Mad Hatter." Psychotic rages notwithstanding, Anastasia served the syndicate loyally for decades, and he was duly rewarded. In 1951, with Luciano deported to Italy and Costello trapped in the spotlight of televised hearings on organized crime, Anastasia was elevated to lead his own "family," formally led by Vincent Mangano (another permanently missing person).

Anastasia survived only six years as one of the Big Apple's five Mafia bosses. With virtual absolute power in hand , he became too aggressive and erratic for the other mob leaders to trust or tolerate. On the morning of October 25, 1957, two masked gunmen entered the Park Sheraton Hotel's barbershop, where Anastasia was getting a shave, and killed him in a blaze of pistol fire. Underworld rumors named the shooters as Joseph Gallo and his brother Larry, but no suspects were ever formally identified.

Suggested motives for the Anastasia rubout are diverse. Some authors believe he was killed by a rival mob boss Vito Genovese, while others blame Anastasia's first lieutenant (and successor) Carlo Gambino. Yet another theory has both mobsters collaborating against Anastasia for mutual benefit. A fourth theory contends that Florida mobster Santos Trafficante teamed wirth Jewish gangsters Meyer Lansky and Moe Dalitz to eliminate Anastasia, after Anastasia demanded a share of their gambling interests in Cuba. Whatever the truth, it is known that a national conclave of Mafia bosses was scheduled for November 14, 1957, with an explanation for Anastasia's murder topping the agenda. (He was accused, among other things, of selling Mafia memberships to "undesirable" subjects.) New York state police raided the meeting at Apalachin amd jailed 58 mobsters on various chargers (mostly dismissed), while dozens more escaped the dragnet. The raid and attendant publicity finally forced J. Edgar Hoover's FBI to acknowledge the existence of organized crime in America.

[trashmenace]

The Executioner 35: Wednesday’s Wrath by Don Pendleton

For twenty-four hours, the Executioner will turn New Mexico into hell on earth After dozens of battles and an untold body count, Mack Bolan thought his one-man war against the Mafia was coming to an end. He planned a final week of mop-up work, clearing out mob infestations wherever they were the thickest before joining up with the US government and leaving his old life behind. But as any exterminator knows, some pests are harder to get rid of than others—and the Mafia is tougher than any cockroach. Bolan is on his way to Texas when he is forced to make a detour in New Mexico to take out a sadistic doctor who has been performing gruesome experiments on disloyal Mafia soldiers. In the high desert country near Santa Fe, he discovers a mob plot that rivals anything he’s ever seen. The war for the American underworld is about to reach an atomic level of destruction.

Kindle ebook from Amazon

[bracketsoffear]

For Whom the Bell Tolls (Ernest Hemingway) "In 1937 Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight," For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving and wise. "If the function of a writer is to reveal reality," Maxwell Perkins wrote to Hemingway after reading the manuscript, "no one ever so completely performed it." Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author's previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time."

The Executioner (Don Pendleton) ""I am not their judge. These people have judged themselves by their own actions. I am their judgment. I am their executioner."

Mack Bolan (nicknamed "The Executioner" by his fellow soldiers) is an elite sniper/penetration specialist in The Vietnam War when he receives word that his father Sam, a steelworker in Pittsfield, has gone insane and shot dead his wife Elsa and daughter Cynthia ("Cindy"). On talking to the Sole Survivor, younger brother Johnny, Bolan discovers that his father was being squeezed by Mafia Loan Sharks and, on hearing that his daughter was prostituting herself to cover his debt, snapped under the pressure.

Figuring there's no point in fighting a war 8,000 miles away when there's a bigger enemy right here at home, Mack Bolan sets forth on a one-man crusade to destroy The Mafia, using all the military weapons and tactics at his disposal including heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, sniper rifles, night-vision scopes, radio-detonated explosives, electronic surveillance, silenced handguns and the garrotte. Bolan is also fond of using wiles to turn his enemies against each other.

Inspired the character of The Punisher. Being in the Mafia (no matter how distant the link) is punishable by death. Doesn't matter if you just are an errand boy, you are guilty and must die."

[ellewriting]

OKAY SO. I need your help. I have two roleplay ideas and plots written out, but both are fairly similar. I can’t decide which one to go with. So, I’m creating a poll. Read the plots below, and vote which one is your favourite. 

Keep in mind, one has a more general plot and can go in a lot of different directions, and is total freedom for the players, while the other kind of has more of a structure/plotline to it that isn’t was freeing. 

Here’s the poll for when you’re ready! Thank you very much!

VICIOUS - Option 1:

EXPOSITION

The year is 1921; fascism is on the rise in Italy. People flee their homes in hopes of finding a better life. It brings the Giammarco family to Miami. A young Nicola begins sweeping the halls of The Grand Hotel to help his family put food on the table. It’s at the hotel that Nicola gets involved with rum-running. The Grand caters to the wealthy; money can buy anything in Miami and the one thing everyone wants is a taste of what’s forbidden.

Nicola and a small group of villainous and ambitious characters take full advantage of the hotel’s clientele all while keeping their operation a secret from their superiors. Nicola’s criminal activity earns him a pretty penny. He buys his mother and father a house. A few years later, after the market crash, Nicola buys The Grand.

Flash forward to 1985; Nicola’s grandson Victor Giammarco buys cocaine from Colombian smugglers. He has been for years. Still based at The Grand Hotel, the Giammarco mafia steps up their narcotics game with the white powder that took the city by storm. Victor has a taste for the drug, more so than many of the people he sells it to. His empire crumbles beneath his powder-stained nose. The loss of authority causes a schism.

Samuel, the young son of the don wants to take control of his father’s empire, to lead where his father failed. The don’s consigliere, Roberto Rossi, wants the power for himself. Thus ignites an internal struggle to last two years between the old empire and those who wanted to steal it for themselves. Though, the Giammarco name is far too well known, too well respected, too feared, to let outsiders take over the legacy. Samuel Giammarco executed Rossi in the lobby of The Grand, ending any threat against the family name.

Present day; the power the Giammarco mafia has spans the state and most of the country. They cater to the elite who live in or pass through their great city. The slight stain on the marble floor still serves as a reminder of what happens to those who question the family.

THE SPARK

December 31st, 2018;

10, 9, 8… As the crowd counts to the New Year, a gun is loaded to execute Samuel Giammarco in the lobby of his own hotel. 7, 6, 5… A body moves though the drunken crowd; the target is the center of attention. Leading his guests in celebration. 4, 3, 2… The executioner raises his arm. The world is in a daze. 1… “Happy New Year" is cheered as the shot rings out. Fireworks mask the sound, but nothing could hide the sight of Samuel Giammarco collapsing to the ground with a bullet hole through his head, a mirror of Roberto Rossi decades before.

Act I -

“A civil war is brewing in Miami and it’s bound to get vicious.”

i. The Don is dead, long live the Don.

A warring family is left to fill the spot of their fallen patriarch. An uncle who craves decades of respect owed to him; a son who will defend his father’s legacy with his life; loyalists pulled at the wrists in a game of tug-of-war. What side will they choose?

This leaves the real question unanswered: who killed Samuel Giammarco?

To be continued.

GRAND DESIRES - Option 2

The world has always been a dark place. There are people who choose to ignore it. To live blindly to the truth that surrounds them. Others, they see. They see the black in people’s souls. That there are those out there who will do anything and everything to attain what they’re after. No matter the cost, no matter the consequence.

The Grigori family had a history of using an abusing the world around them to build their empire of greed and corruption. A seemingly ancient legacy, the family’s reach was notorious. By 1987, brothers Nicholas and Gabriel Grigori had crafted not only a crime syndicate that operated internationally, but established themselves in the public eye as masters of business and philanthropy. Gone were the whispers of evil behind closed doors. No more did people gossip about the conspiracies of the family’s criminal past. They were too good, for all the bad to be true.

Though, the relationship between the brothers was strained. With all the success they garnered, they kept wanting more. Neither could agree, but Gabriel was willing to compromise. That wasn’t enough, however, for his brother. The constant threat of being replaced, or overpowered, was too great a risk. So, on a cold December night, Nicholas stabbed his brother in the back, literally and figuratively.

The legacy was his, and his alone.

Nicholas continued his act of smoke and mirrors throughout the years. He knew if the truth got out, his family, his loyalists, the world, all would turn against him. He would take his brother’s murder to his grave.

It’s 2019 and the Grigori children are grown. They have taken their parents’ places as the heads of the empire. The legacy is their responsibility now. Will they be able to handle the pressure better than their predecessors?

Remember, history tends to repeat itself. People will do anything to reach their grand desires.

Grand Desires is a crime based skeleton roleplay in which the players and their characters drive the story. It is focused on a single crime organization in the city of Miami, Florida. Please keep in mind that this roleplay and the characters will deal with mature themes and potentially triggering content.

[shitkkwrites]

Risky Business; Ch.1: Don’t Get in Trouble

Hello @pancakes1173, apologies if this is late! I wasn’t your SS originally for the @rusame-secret-santa-2017​, however I’m here to save the day! I had a difficult time trying to keep this under control, but here it is. I hope it was well-worth the wait!

I went with the mafia au where Al needs protecting and Ivan’s his big, buff, deadly handsome bodyguard.

cw for injuries and cursing (courtesy of Al, of course). Also available on: ao3

“You’re giving me another bodyguard? Again?”

The blonde let out an exasperated sigh, before glancing at the tall, burly man that was standing across the table, just behind his boss. “Yes, Alfred, because you have to remember: we’re in the middle of a war. And you, as one of our best assets, need the protection,” groused Arthur, before sliding another folder across the table. “Make sure that only you and your brother read that. Speaking of which, he’s getting a new bodyguard as well.”

“Wait, what?! But I thought you already—” the younger man began, reaching for the folder and opening it. After a few minutes of scanning the contents, his eyebrows shot up so high, they threatened to vanish into his hairline. “Okay, this is just as crazy as the last assignment you gave me, if not even worse. You’re absolutely certain I need him to protect me?” he continued, gesturing to the other man in the room. As he looked at the other person in the room, he couldn’t help but wonder—where had he seen that gaze before, the one staring at him from behind the simple black mask he wore?

The other individual seemed to think the same, his own eyes widening slightly as he caught sight of the person he was assigned to protect—but before Alfred could voice out what was on his mind, Arthur’s voice called him back to the present, breaking his train of thought.

“Yes, Alfred, now don’t be such a stubborn asshole. Hell knows how far your fighting skills—or lack thereof—can take you. If you take on this, with your brother, without protection, I’m more than certain we’ll not only lose what we’ve gained so far, but we’ll get set back by several months—if not up to a year—with what Yao’s planning. You know full well we’re just the executioners, Yao calls all the shots. In fact, it was his idea that you two brothers get the new bodyguards in the first place.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright, alright, I get the point, d—Arthur,” he replied as he caught himself, holding up both his hands before picking up the folder and holding it in his free hand. “I’ll see to it that Mattie reads this. Hell knows how much trouble we’ll all get into if this fails.”

An hour had passed after that eventful meeting, and Alfred was now making his way back home through the dark alleyways and back streets accompanied by his new bodyguard, his suspicions still bothering him. No sooner had he texted his older brother Matthew about the details of their new assignment, he knew that they were getting in way over their heads, as they always did. It was just in their nature as hackers to do so. 

They’d skirted past several shortcuts when Alfred decided to turn around and scratch the proverbial itch that was bothering him. He couldn’t help but wonder—he knew that the man’s gaze looked horribly familiar. Hoping that his suspicions were wrong, he then cleared his throat before speaking up, breaking the silence that had fallen between them.

“Look, this has been bothering me since earlier, but…” he trailed off, reaching for his phone once again and looking at the message he’d received from his brother—no doubt having been briefed about their situation. After firing off a quick reply to him, he then decided to text a particular number, saying that he would be coming home late. Once the message had sent, he then returned his phone to his pocket, before turning around to continue on the journey back to their safehouse. 

He’d missed the very subtle motions his bodyguard had gone through when he felt his own phone vibrate; nor did Alfred see that he’d hung back a few paces to send a reply, no doubt to the one that had texted him a few moments ago saying that he’d be coming home late—and that even he’d be arriving rather late as well and to not wait up for his arrival. Once the message had been sent, he then kept his phone, and kept an eye on the man in front of him.

The other man’s suspicions were confirmed as Alfred came to a stop before digging something out of his pocket, and he silently observed as the blonde bit his lip in a very familiar fashion, a trait he tended to do when he was thinking of what to say. His own fingers then flew across the keyboard, telling the other to be careful on the way home; and that he’d have a sandwich waiting for him on the kitchen counter upon his arrival from wherever he needed to be.

After he sent this reply, he then slid his phone back into his pocket; before continuing to walk forward, looking around ever so often just in case they were being followed; his new ‘bodyguard’ following him in a silent march. He didn’t hear the click of the safety releasing as his companion loaded a fresh magazine into his concealed weapon, before his field of vision suddenly lurched forward and several shots rang out above his head.

“Whoa, what the fuck?!” he yelled as he instinctively cradled his hands over his head as more shots rang out—and he eventually ended up kissing the ground due to falling hard. Much as he wanted to ask what was going on, he decided to keep his mouth shut as the gunfire continued, before he heard the familiar sound of a reloading magazine catching his attention before more shots rang out from above him.

See, this is the problem when you work for the mafia, you don’t know when you’ll get shot in a fucking dark alleyway! I swear, this regally sucks! He thought to himself as the shots then came to a stop, before he felt his center of gravity shift as his bodyguard roughly pulled him up and then pointed ahead of him. “What? You want me to run? And leave you behind?! No way, man! Come on!” he hissed, plucking the other’s sleeve as he began to run, before another round of gunfire echoed above and around them.

“I swear, don’t make this difficult for me! Come on, let’s go! I don’t want you to die here!” he yelled at his masked bodyguard, before insistently pulling him forward. The whizz of bullets by his feet caused him to yelp, before be put all his weight into pulling his bodyguard forward as he began to run away from where they were being set upon by gunmen from multiple sides. “I’m not moving until you come with me! I know you’re taking your job as a bodyguard seriously, but don’t get yourself killed!” he added, still struggling to drag the taller person along as the gunfire intensified.

And still his companion refused to talk, instead shoving him forward and forcing him to move as the gun in his hands ran out of bullets. “No!” Alfred shouted as he was literally forced to move forward as the other hastily reloaded another magazine into the gun and continued firing at the unknown attackers. “Dude, I swear, don’t be such a hard ass! You may be my bodyguard, but don’t throw your life away over me! I’m sure you have… a family waiting for you, right?!” he continued, barely budging an inch and shouting over the gunfire that continued to rain down around them.

Bullets continued to ricochet around them, some barely missing Alfred and his companion as more gunfire echoed from all around them. While Alfred was stubborn as an ox, his companion was even worse—refusing to budge an inch until he’d began his escape. Seeing that his companion refused to move unless he moved, the blonde groaned, before eventually making a break as he ran forward. “You better catch up to me, I swear! Art will have my head if I lose another bodyguard!” he yelled as he broke out into a sprint in order to get away from the battleground.

However, things would progress from bad to worse in the span of the few moments he’d wasted shouting at his companion. Alfred had barely taken twenty paces from where he’d left his bodyguard when he felt a sudden pain burning from his right thigh. Yelping in surprise, he looked down and saw that the leg of his jeans were getting stained with what looked like…

“Ah, fuck, no!” he growled, struggling to get up so that he could keep running. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit…” he muttered to himself, managing to stand and limp forward a few more paces before he felt another burning pain sear through his body, catching him by surprise. The blonde then looked at his left shoulder and saw blood staining his shirt…

“Damn it!” he snarled just as his companion caught up to him, having reloaded another magazine into his gun and firing above him. “Shit, I’m sorry,” he continued, pressing his right hand to the wound in his shoulder in an attempt to stop the bleeding. “M-my mistake,” he added, wincing as he continued to press down harder, forcing himself to move forward to no avail, before slumping against the wall. “Ugh, ow…” he groaned as he attempted to press his left hand to the wound on his right thigh to stop the bleeding as well. “Fuckin’ hurts…” he muttered as he leaned against the wall in an attempt to keep moving forward. He had to get home, otherwise the other one waiting for him would worry…

Before he could force himself to move forward despite the fact his legs were now shaking, he felt a pair of arms suddenly pick him up from where he stood and dash forward through the gunfire. “D-d’you even know wh-where my apartment is…” he muttered softly as he forced himself to stay awake despite the burning pain in his thigh and shoulder.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you…” his companion rumbled softly before the blackness swimming at the edge of his consciousness swallowed him.

A hiss of pain brought Alfred back to the world of the waking as he looked around frantically—and met a very familiar gaze. “Shh, don’t move,” he heard a familiar voice say, before he felt the sting of antiseptic being rubbed into his shoulder. “Ow! What the—Vanya?!” he began, startled as he blinked the cobwebs in his eyes away. 

The nagging suspicion from earlier then hit him like a train as he realized just where he was. How’d he end up in Ivan’s apartment? The very last he remembered was running through an alleyway with a newly-assigned bodyguard… 

“…it was you?!” he began, his voice rising, before hissing as Ivan continued to clean up the bullet wound in his shoulder. “You—you’re my bodyguard?!” he spat out, before he felt a hand shove him back down on the couch. 

“And you… you didn’t tell me you worked for Wang Yao,” Ivan hissed back as he continued to dab disinfectant into the wound on the blonde’s shoulder. “I know you work in IT, but a hacker? A hacker for the mafia? Fedya, really,” he continued, disapproval evident in his voice. 

“Well, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner! I didn’t know how to… well, I didn’t want you to get involved in the shit I’m neck-deep in!” he yowled back as a thick wad of drenched gauze was applied to his shoulder. He could smell vodka on the gauze, before he felt even more bandages being wrapped around the injury as Ivan worked quickly.

“Don’t worry about the wound on your thigh, I already got that treated as best as I could while you were passed out,” he continued gruffly, wrapping the bandages tightly around Alfred’s shoulder. “I’m going to have to call Arthur and tell him what happened—”

“No! Don’t!” Alfred yelped from his current position on the couch. “He’ll lose his shit again!” he added, before realizing—“The information! Van—Ivan, have you seen the information Arthur gave me?!”

“I have it right here,” he continued, gesturing to the coffee table where the folder that Alfred had perused some hours ago currently lay. “Don’t worry, it’s safe.”

“But… wait, where are we? This isn’t my place—”

“I know, Fedya, it is my apartment. I am very certain that your apartment has now been compromised, so I took the liberty of moving some of your more… ah, important items here to my place. Until we can find another safe place for you, you can stay here in my apartment until then.” 

“Th-thank you,” he replied gruffly, blinking as he made to sit up on the couch. “W-well, I guess my secret’s out… while I do work for an Information Technology department during the day, I have a second job—I work for the mafia. As you’ve obviously guessed,” he began with a flat voice, before a humorless chuckle erupted from his lips.

“…well, Fedya, you are lucky I’m your new bodyguard. I did not know that your evening job was this dangerous, though,” Ivan said as he swept off to the kitchen, to get some food for the both of them ready. “We should get your injuries checked out, though—”

“Vanya, do you think we can just waltz into an emergency room and tell them, ‘oh, I got shot by the mafia’ as a reason for my injuries? I’d rather think not…” Alfred retorted, before hearing a growl coming from his stomach, which he ignored for the time being. “But seriously, though, you shouldn’t go through all that bother for me, I’m such a—”

“No, Fedya, you aren’t. Although I do remember that we agreed not to keep secrets from each other, correct?” he said from the kitchenette as he quickly prepared food for the both of them.

“Y-yeah, that’s my mistake,” the younger one admitted sheepishly as he made himself more comfortable on the couch before wincing in pain. “W-well… at least we don’t have any secrets hidden from each other now. R-right?”

“…I suppose so,” the taller one continued as he finished throwing together several sandwiches for them to eat. “You better call your brother and have him come over here instead so that you two can get started on the assignment that Yao gave you both,” he added as an afterthought, bringing out a plate of sandwiches to the other so that he could eat.

Nodding, Alfred then reached for his phone and sent a message to his older brother, informing him of the change in plans and to go to the address indicated in the message instead. Once that was done, he then reached for a sandwich and tore into it without a second thought. After he’d downed one sandwich, he then found his voice again just as Ivan had brought him something to drink.

“Iv—Vanya,” he began after he’d eaten several more sandwiches, “…honestly, what do you think of me now? Now that you know I work for the mafia during the evening…” he asked, avoiding the other’s gaze as Ivan joined him on the couch. “Are… are you mad?”

Total silence followed afterward, which was only interrupted as the other man made to take a sandwich that Alfred hadn’t eaten yet. After musing to himself, he had an answer. “Well, Fedya… at least I can keep an eye on you now. Although, isn’t it a bit dangerous for you to be out in the open now?” 

“Well, me an’ Mattie are always in over our heads, you know this, but… well, we’re in it for another reason entirely. We just… well, we want to keep our family out of trouble, that’s all…” he answered, averting his gaze as he finished off the sandwich he was holding before reaching for the laptop that was on the coffee table beside the folder that contained their assignment.

“Vanya, babe, can you keep an eye out for Mattie when he arrives? I’m going to get started on what Da—I mean, what Arthur wants me to get done,” he caught himself saying again, reaching for the folder and preparing to get to ‘work’.

“Certainly, Fedya. I’ll let you know once he gets here,” Ivan replied, busying himself as he cleaned his gun while keeping an eye out on the door as he did so. “Although, I will insist that you go to the hospital after you two finish what you need to do, to get your injuries properly checked at.”

“Alright, alright, Vanya… after we get this done. Shouldn’t take too long, y’know,” he muttered, resisting the urge to roll his eyes as he turned his attention to the laptop screen in front of him, preparing to infiltrate and sabotage a highly-important server. While Alfred was the better one at infiltrating, it was his older brother Matthew that was much more adept at destroying the internal structures of whatever they needed to invade. There was a reason why the brothers worked better as a team, after all.

Being a part of the mafia definitely had its risks; but for the Williams brothers, there really wasn’t anything else to it.

[esonetwork]

A Book Review of 'One Man Army' By Ron Fortier

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/a-book-review-of-one-man-army-by-ron-fortier/

A Book Review of 'One Man Army' By Ron Fortier

ONE MAN ARMY The Action Paperback Art of Gil Cohen Edited by Robert Deis & Wyatt Doyle # new texture book 134 pgs.

We came home to civilian life in the summer of 1968, leaving Vietnam far behind. We were all of 21 at the time and the future seemed one giant mystery. Several months later, while browsing a paperback spinner rack, we discovered two titles published by a new outfit calling itself Pinnacle Books. One was called The Destroyer and written by the team of Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy; the other The Executioner written by Don Pendleton. Upon reading both, we came to the conclusion that they were in fact a new, modern version of the pulps. One told the tale of a super-spy with crazy martial arts skill. It was as over the top as any of the original pulp heroes from the 30s and 40s.

Now the Executioner was a bit more grounded in the real world. It told the story of an American soldier named Mack Bolan sent home from Vietnam to bury his family; presumably killed by his own father. The story, as Bolan would learn, dealth with the old man’s outrage upon learning his daughter, in order to pay off a debt to the local mob, was turned into a prostitute. Bolan senior couldn’t deal with the disgrace and so shot her, his wife and then turned the gun on himself. That was the tragedy the weary soldier was confronted with. So why was he fighting a war in a foreign land when America had its own savages to battle? In the end, Bolan goes AWOL and swears a vendetta against the Mafia and all such criminal organizations. Using the skills Uncle Sam taught him, Bolan launches a one man war and operating outside the law, he become the mob’s worst nightmare.

With each new book in the series, Bolan, nicknamed the Executioner, continued to rack up his body count laying waste to every single mob family in the country. And as he did so, his popularity among the readership grew in leaps and bounds. The appeal of this lone wolf hero unencumbered by the law was strong and Pinnacle realized it had a huge winner on its hands. In fact Bolan’s exploits were so popular they soon spawned spin-off series, ala Able Team, U.S. based agents getting together under Bolan’s direction, and Phoenix Force, another squad created and assembled to take on foreign threats to the USA. And like the Executioner, they too were immensely successful. Eventually Harlequin Books would buy out the Mack Bolan series and they are still published to this day.

One of the elements that contributed in great part to all this success were the beautiful, action orientated painted covers. Like the old classic pulps, they featured the hero battling for his life against tremendous odds, protecting a beautiful sexy gal, or going it alone deep in enemy territory. Although other talented MAM artists, ala George Gross, contributed artwork, in 1972 Pinnacle hired Gil Cohen to take the reins. He would be involved with both Mack Bolan and then the Phoenix Force for the next fifteen years turning in his last Bolan assignment in 1987.

Now MAM historians Bob Deis and Wyatt Dolye have produced a truly gorgeous book collecting so many of these astounding paintings. Each is a visually dramatic scene representing the action within the paperback’s pages. Cohen has an uncanny ability to freeze a kinetic moment but without losing the power it contains. That is the hallmark of a great illustrator. Another aspect of all Deis and Doyle volumes is their sharing the subject’s memoirs through recorded interviews. Reading Cohen’s own thoughts about Mack Bolan and his look was fascinating. In retrospect, we found his own depiction of the Execustioner, especially around the eyes, reminded us a great deal of one-time James Bond, actor George Lazenby. We imagine each reader had his own mnetal casting for the role.

Another element to pay close attention to is Cohen’s authentic aircraft throughout the book. Since leaving MAMs and paperbacks behind, he has become one of the leading aviation artists in the world today. All in all, this is as yet another true artistic treasure that will highlight any pulp reference library, including yours. A sincere thanks to Deis and Doyle. Please, keep’em coming, fellahs. We’re the richer for them.