Thanks Steve, for sending me down the rabbit hole of Mafia history for 3˝ hours.
That reminds me of a story about something that happened to me in NYC.
It was around midnight and I was walking down the west side of 7th Ave. I had just passed Macy's so I was around 32nd St. This woman with a pronounced accent walks up to me asking about a hotel. She tells me she'd just gotten off the bus. They took her luggage to the hotel she was going to be staying at and gave her a baggage claim ticket, which she showed me. It had the name and address of the hotel on it. I looked around at the addresses on the buildings and told her, "it should be right here."
What was strange, tho, was that the "claim ticket" was pretty wrinkly and actually looked like one of those tags you put on your suitcase with your name and address on it.
I told her to call information. She said she didn't know how and asked me for help. I told her to go to a phone booth and just dial 4-1-1 and then ask the operator for the address of the hotel. She was begging me to help her. She was alone, kind of hot, and so I agreed, now having an ulterior motive in thinking I could seduce her (yeah, I know, I'm despicable).
I looked around and saw some phone booths (the half kind, not the full booths) up north, near the corner of 7th & 33rd, pointed them out, and started walking back up 7th. As we reached 32nd, she said something so I stopped and turned toward her. Just then, a guy passed us, walking in the same direction. He crossed 32nd and continued walking up 7th. He was wearing a tan overcoat and had a cheap red umbrella. It's funny. For some reason, I had the thought that his umbrella didn't match his overcoat. lol
Anyway, we were just standing there on the corner when I noticed a bank of phone booths across the street and down 32nd, about 50 feet from the corner. I told her about them so we crossed the street. I went down to about the 5th or 6th phone booth, picked up the handset, and dialed 4-1-1. I happened to look over and at the first booth was the guy in the tan overcoat with the red umbrella.
I handed the woman the handset, said, "just tell her what you want," and walked away. She started begging again for me to help her but I just continued walking.
I turned on 7th and about a half a block down looked back up the street but didn't see the woman or guy. I breathed a big sigh of relief and the line from Thela Hun Ginjeet immediately popped to mind: "this is a dangerous place." I knew just then how Ade Belew felt when he starts laughing in the song.
I crossed back over to the west side of 7th just to put a little more distance between us. Another block later, the relief dissipated and I started feeling disappointed that I didn't get the chance to seduce that woman. (yeah, I know, I'm despicable)
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