EYEHEARTZOMBIES

I realize I’ve dropped some names that might not make a lot of sense to anyone reading this. I guess I should give a run-down of how it all actually works.

Back in the 1920s and 30s, Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano ran all the bootlegging, prostitution, and drug trafficking business in New York City. They were rivals, though, always fighting against each other. Lucky Luciano worked for Masseria as a hitman and general thug. The war between the two camps got so bad, that everyone involved wanted them ended, but there wasn’t any easy solution. Until Luciano came along, though. He and a couple of his buddies, Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, went and offed both Masseria and Maranzano. That’s how Lucky took over New York. Really he took over the whole fucking country.

In 1934, the three guys formed up a band of assassins called Murder, Inc. You’ve probably heard about ‘em. Anyway, they were gunmen for hire, as well as running all the illegal business you could do in New York. That went on for a few years until Lucky decided to expand out West. He sent Bugsy out to California to over see all of their interests in the land of milk and honey, and Bugsy ended up getting involved in gambling and blackmailing, as well as the drugs and guns they were already involved in. He moved his operations a bit east and ended up setting himself up real well in Vegas.

In 1946 he opened the first multi-million dollar hotel and casino. The place I was being sent to work. The Flamingo. He did it without Lucky’s help. Or so Lucky was led to believe. Really, Bugsy was skimming off of Lucky’s profits from the businesses in California and Vegas. Bugsy got caught and ended up dead in Beverly Hill with five holes in his head. The “Father of Las Vegas” definitely didn’t know best.

Lucky, though, was out of the country at this time. He had been deported for his crimes against the country. Well, actually, the deportation was a blessing. He had been arrested and jailed in 1936, but he promised to keep the ports working and to fight against the Nazis and other assholes in Italy, so they sent him back to Sicily. He’s still over there, and I’m sure he has a finger in all the pies back here in both New York and in Vegas, but he’s not the threat he used to be.

So what about the other guy from Murder, Inc.? Mr. Lansky? He’s been in the Bahamas for years, building casinos and laundering money. He’s definitely one Jew you don’t want to cross.

Anyway, these three set up most of what we’re all involved in. Luciano had all sorts of lieutenants and people working for him, spread out all over the country. They each run their own city or part of a city. Some of ‘em run whole fucking states. Anyway, they control their regions and they each have bosses under them that deal with all the dirty work. Ray’s one of the dirty bosses. And I guess I’m a fourth-level boss ’cause I’ve had a gang of my own for years. It’s all divided out into these little groups, though, to keep anyone from getting any big and bright ideas, and to keep the stings low, if any of us get caught. The most we know is the boss over us, and he probably didn’t do anything they could string him up on, so it doesn’t go any farther than that.

Now that Siegel was dead, the Flamingo was a purely Mob business. It was currently being run by an Italian with a mile-thick accent. His name was Sonny. No one ever told me his last name. He had run it with an iron fist for all the years since Bugsy had bit it, and there were rumors he was the one that had tipped Lucky onto the fact that he was being stolen from. Anyway, he was the one I had to report to and that didn’t make me want to get there any quicker.