The Black Stiletto

by Raymond Benson

  “But women do not fight.”

  I held up a hand. “Ah, Mister Bonacini, there you’re wrong. I was attacked just two months ago, right on the streets of Manhattan, by three thugs who wanted to do bad things to me. One of them had a knife and he cut me badly. Freddie here had to sew a few dozen stitches into my skin. It’s healed, but I’ll have the ugly scar for the rest of my life.”

  Freddie interrupted. “What Judy didn’t say was that she clobbered the three hoods anyway. Knocked ‘em flat.”

  “Really?” Fiorello raised his eyebrows. “I’m impressed.”

  He sat back in his chair but continued to gaze at me. I felt an odd sensation I’d never experienced before. It was like electricity, and it went down my spine and straight to—well, between my legs. This man was the most handsome, sexiest thing I’d ever laid eyes on.

  “All right,” he said. “We will have a trial session, for lack of a better word. If that works out, we will continue. We’ll discuss terms then.”

  So he was actually going to charge me money. Stupid me. I thought perhaps he’d be so taken with me that he’d provide lessons for free, ha ha!

  He wrote down his address and phone number on a card he pulled from his pocket. We agreed on a day the following week, between Christmas and New Year’s. I’d come to his place in Little Italy—he said it was big enough to “work” in—and we shook on it.

  Fiorello picked up the tab.

  In the taxi on the way back to the gym, Freddie said to me, “Be careful, Judy. I saw what happened back there. Watch your feelings. Don’t lose control.”

  Too late for that. I already had.

  It was snowing outside when I arrived at Fiorello’s apartment. I loved New York in the winter. In Texas it rarely snowed, certainly not like it did in Manhattan. I stopped at the Ferrara Bakery and picked up some pastries to bring as a gift. Fiorello expressed delight at the thought, but took the dainty box aside and told me the treats would have to wait until after the lesson. Once again, I almost swooned when I saw him. He was dressed casually in dark trousers and a pullover sweater—and he wore cologne that drove me wild. I had no idea what it was, so I asked him.

  “Colonia,” he replied. “By Acqua di Parma. Fine Italian eau de cologne. You like?”

  I exaggerated a sniff and went, “Mmm, I do.”

  He took my coat and led me into his spacious living room. The place wasn’t huge, but it was certainly bigger than my bedroom. He had already pushed the furniture against the walls to make an open space on the floor.

  We spent a few minutes with small talk. He asked me where I was from and I told him. He also wanted to know how old I was.

  “Nineteen.”

  “Ah, a grown woman, and yet still a young girl.” His eyes glistened.

  He told me he was from Palermo, a city in Sicily. I didn’t know Sicily was part of Italy until I looked on a map later. Fiorello had been in America since he was a little boy. His parents lived in Brooklyn. He didn’t mention his other family.

  Then we got down to business. Fiorello produced an array of blades. They were of varying sizes and weights. He started with what he called a “trench knife,” a weapon used for close-quarters combat.

  “This is a U.S. Marine KA-BAR. The blade is seven inches long. Try it.”

  I picked it up. I liked the feel of it.

  He showed me various ways one could hold a knife, depending on whether it was for offensive or defensive purposes. Fiorello mostly used a forward grip, with the edge facing out. There were also several variations. For example, a “hammer grip” was when you make a fist around the handle. If you placed your thumb on top of the handle, it was a “saber grip.” Fiorello preferred a modification of that by positioning his thumb on the flat of the blade.

  Next, I learned several exercises on how to thrust and slash, keeping the knife firmly in my hand. Fiorello brought out a store mannequin—where he got it I don’t know—and had me practice on it. It was a male and it had no clothes, which was a little weird. Nevertheless, I dutifully punctured it.

  The second knife I tried was a stiletto. It really felt natural in my hand. As if it was a part of me. I loved its thinness and length, like a tiny sword. It was just the right weight for me, too. Even Fiorello commented I seemed to have a knack for that particular knife.

  After an hour, we stopped to rest and eat the pastries. He made coffee and then he pulled the sofa and a table back to their original positions on the floor.

  “You are a natural with the blade,” he said. “I can see why you wanted to learn.”

  “Thank you.”

  We talked about New York and its wonders. He said he never grew tired of the city. The only thing he liked more were visits to Sicily, which weren’t often enough.

  It was probably a tactless thing to do, but I came right out and asked him. “Are you in the Mafia?”

  The question surprised him, but he laughed.

  “Dear Judy, if I were, I wouldn’t tell you. And people in the Mafia don’t call it that. It’s just—a family.”

  “You are, aren’t you?”

  He just smiled. The blue eyes glowed with warmth.

  “Do you have plans for New Year’s Eve?” he asked.

  “No. Not yet. Freddie and I usually throw a party at the gym. Why?”

  “Come with me to a different party. I would like you to be my guest.”

  “Really? What kind of party? Where?”

  “Black tie, formal, but not too formal,” were the only clues he gave me. Even though I didn’t own an evening gown, I accepted. I’d have to call Lucy and go shopping. New Year’s Eve was only three days away.

  The lesson was over, so I made an excuse to leave, even though I really didn’t want to. He went along with it, though, got my coat, and helped me put it on. At the door I asked him, “You mentioned something about payment. How much are these lessons going to cost me?”

  He waved his hand, dismissing the thought. “I find you very attractive,” he said. “Perhaps you would honor me by accompanying me to dinners, to Broadway plays, to nightclubs for dancing, and to more parties.”

  My God, he was asking me to be his girlfriend! And I barely knew him.

  “I think I could manage that,” I answered.

  He kissed me on the cheek. “I will call the gym and let you know about New Year’s.”

  “All right. Bye!”

  “Ciao.”

  I think I floatedall the way home.

  Lucy took me shopping for the big date. She advised me not to get an evening gown and instead buy a really nice party dress. I ended up buying a cute one made of black velvet. It had gold metallic embroidery; the full and swishy skirt was made of sheer chiffon. I picked out a crinoline slip to wear underneath. Lucy insisted I buy some black stiletto heels. She said they’d accentuate my calf muscles and make my legs look great. The dress came down to mid-calf, so there wasn’t that much leg to see, unless I twirled around and caused the dress to spread like a parachute. Lucy told me to do that as often as I could, ha ha! The heels were very awkward for me at first. But after I strutted back and forth across the shop floor a few times, I got the hang of it. The shoes were Di Orsini Black Satin Originals, very classy and elegant. And sexy.

  I never thought of myself as sexy before.

  When Fiorello picked me up, there was a limousine parked on the street. I’d never ridden in one. I felt like a princess. Fiorello wore a tuxedo and looked astonishingly gorgeous. Freddie didn’t see me off—he didn’t want to come off as a “dad” or anything like that. He just wished me Happy New Year earlier at dinnertime and retired early. The annual gym party was cancelled. I think he wasn’t feeling very well.

  The party was at the Algonquin Hotel on 44th Street, which had a lot of history in the arts and such. Supposedly stars such as the Marx Brothers liked to congregate there a couple of decades before. When you first walk into the lobby, there’s the front desk to your right, as well as a phone booth and an egress that leads t
o a short hallway perpendicular to the front desk. I knew the ladies’ room and a staircase to the second floor were in that hallway, for Lucy and I had been to the hotel for lunch a couple of times. Normally there was a cocktail seating area to your left, but since that space was being used for the party, a partition had been set up to separate it from the rest of the lobby and front desk. An old grandfather clock stood at the head of the partition. Just ahead, past reception and the elevators, was the entrance to the Rose Room, where the bar was located. This was also the spot of the famous “round table.” The hotel also had two restaurants, the Oak Room and the Chinese Room, but they were closed. The party took up all of the Rose Room and the partitioned cocktail section of the lobby. A makeshift dance floor was between the two, and the band was set up at the street side of the cocktail lounge.

  As soon as we walked in, I felt everyone’s eyes as they gawked. They all knew Fiorello and greeted him like one of the family, ha ha, which I guess he was. He introduced me as “the lovely Miss Cooper,” to anyone we spoke to. I was so flustered and overwhelmed that it was difficult to engage in intelligent conversations. Besides, I mostly just wanted to hang on Fiorello’s arm and allow him to lead me around. It was nice not having to think for myself for a change. I had always been independent and solitary, so having a man like Fiorello in charge was a welcome novelty.

  Everything was all decked out in New Year’s decorations and the place was full of Italians. There was a Guido and a Rafael and a Tito and a Carmine and a Federico and a Vito amongst the men; the women were called Theresa and Francesca and Giulietta and Aurora and Mariangela. I thought I stuck out like a sore thumb with my southern ways and Texas accent, but everyone was really nice. Fiorello obviously commanded respect. He was a big shot in this crowd. It was very exciting.

  The food was out of this world. All kinds of pasta dishes, salads, veal chops, incredible desserts that rivaled Ferrara’s, and wine, wine, wine. And the best champagne I’ve ever had. Fiorello called it Dom Perignon, “a French concoction,” he said with displeasure; but he admitted it was very good.

  There was a dance band situated in what was normally the lobby’s cocktail lounge. They mostly played songs from the forties, but there were a few from recent years. Fiorello and I danced—something else that was fairly new to me. Lucy and I had danced a little at the Copacabana, but nothing as intense as this was. Fiorello was a terrific dancer—his lead was all I needed to follow along and not make a fool of myself. I was hoping the band would maybe play some rock and roll music, but they didn’t. They did, however, play Elvis’s song, “Love Me Tender,” and Fiorello held me really close when we danced to that. I was in heaven.

  At one point, a man around Fiorello’s age came up to us and the two men greeted each other like long lost brothers. The guy was heavy, with the largest nose I’d ever seen on a person. He had the sweetest eyes, though. My intuition liked him immediately.

  Fiorello introduced us. “Judy, this is my fellow paesano, my compare, Tony the Tank. Tony, this is the lovely Miss Cooper.”

  Tony the Tank bowed, took my hand, and kissed it. “A pleasure, madam, a pleasure. Any friend of Fiorello’s is a friend of mine.”

  “Grazie,” I said. Fiorello had taught me the Italian word for “thank you.” “Please call me Judy.”

  Tony immediately attempted a Cary Grant imitation that failed miserably. “Judee, Judee, Judee, how lovely you are this evening! Happy New Year to you.”

  After he moved away, Fiorello said, “Tony is my best friend in the whole world. We grew up together.”

  “Why do you call him Tony the Tank?”

  Fiorello patted his tummy. “Isn’t it obvious? Tony doesn’t mind. We all have our little nicknames.”

  “Oh? And what’s yours?”

  “Sometimes they call me Flash.”

  “Flash?”

  “Si.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because I’m flashy?” He winked at me and I laughed. It was truly a novel experience having a man around who made me laugh.

  At that moment, I felt something change in the room. Everyone seemed to direct their attention to one end, where a large man had just entered with a small entourage. He was in his sixties, I guessed, also heavily built, with grey hair and a dour expression. He had his arm looped through the arm of an elderly woman who, in contrast to her escort, was beaming with delight. Obviously the man’s wife. Behind them were two men who were the same person—well, they were identical twins. Their faces were oh-so-serious, as if they were angry at being there.

  “That is the don,” Fiorello whispered.

  “The don?”

  “Don Giorgio DeLuca. The boss. He is the head of the family. A very important man. The reason why we are here tonight. He is our host.”

  “Is that his wife?”

  “Si. We call her Mrs. DeLuca.”

  “And who are the other two guys? Are they twins?”

  “Can’t tell them apart, can you? I understand even Don DeLuca has trouble identifying them. They are his bodyguards, a couple of the family’s enforcers.”

  “They look scary.”

  “They are scary. Very tough men.”

  “Have they killed people?”

  Fiorello just raised his eyebrows, put a finger to his lips, and shook his head.

  “What are their names?”

  “Vittorio and Roberto Ranelli.”

  Needless to say, the New Year’s Eve party was one of the best evenings of my life. I had so much fun. Got pretty drunk, too. Nevertheless, I met Don DeLuca and his wife at some point. He was very gracious. He, too, kissed my hand. I could feel the power oozing off of him, but my animal instincts didn’t like him one bit. I started getting those weird tingles as soon as his eyes fell on me. He was definitely a very dangerous and cruel man. From the wife I detected a palpable amount of fear and resignation. She was probably extremely unhappy with the marriage, despite their wealth and status in the Italian community. When I met the don, the two creepy twins looked me up and down. I really got the bad feelings about them. I didn’t even want to say hello to them. Fiorello didn’t introduce me, thank goodness. At any rate, I knew for a fact those two were killers.

  In the limousine on the way back from the party—at two o’clock on the morning—Fiorello asked me if I’d like to come to his apartment.

  I accepted.

  And, dear diary, I won’t go into any details about that, ha ha!

  To make a long story short, we became an item. For the next two months, we were together all the time. Well, not really. I still did my lessons with Soichiro three times a week and trained with Freddie the other two days. My job as assistant manager of the Second Avenue Gym was still in full force. So, there was all that. But when I wasn’t exercising, training, working, or sleeping, I was with Fiorello. I had a real boyfriend for the first time. And I loved it. And I loved him. He loved me, too, I could tell, although he never said it in so many words. He was kind to me, though. He showered me with gifts, clothes, and jewelry, took me to dinner, went dancing with me, and we had sex—lots of sex. I had qualms about it, believe me. It wasn’t something I jumped into without thinking about it. We took precautions. I didn’t want to get pregnant. Even so, there was a part of me that thought I was being a very bad girl. But then I watched all the other girlfriends at the parties and places where Fiorello took me—and they were having sex with their men, too. I could sense it. This sounds crude, but my heightened sense of smell affirmed it. People were very sexually repressed on the outside, but in private a lot more went on than you’d think. They just didn’t talk about it. There was the Kinsey Report thing that came out recently, and all the women read it and still talked about that. Lucy said it was her Bible. Fiorello had copies of a fairly new magazine called Playboy that actually had photos of naked women in it. I was shocked at first, but as I looked at some of the issues, I understood it took a very healthy approach to the idea of sex between unmarried people. It was
really society—and religion—that made people feel guilty about doing that stuff outside of marriage. The truth was they were doing it anyway. I didn’t know that then, but I do now.

  In March of 1957, I moved out of the gym and started living with Fiorello. Now that was sinful, I suppose. And yet, it felt like the right thing to do. We sometimes talked about getting married but ultimately laughed about it. Neither of us really wanted that, although Fiorello did mention he’d like to have several children “someday.” Freddie wasn’t happy that I moved out. Like I said, he thought of me as a foster daughter, and he wasn’t comfortable with me associating with Fiorello’s “crowd.” It’s a wonder they accepted me—I wasn’t Italian, I was a hillbilly Texan with a funny accent, and I was very naïve about what those people did.

  Over the next several months, though, I learned. Fiorello never talked about what he did for the family. Eventually I found out he was considered a “soldier” and an “earner.” As a soldier he was a member of a team and he did whatever he was told. If he had to rough someone up, he did. His expertise with a knife was legendary. Opposite numbers were afraid of him. Fiorello wasn’t an enforcer in the same way the Ranelli twins were, but I have no doubt he’d been called to commit murder at some point. Probably several times. As an earner, he was the boss of two or three bookies on the Lower East Side. He collected money from them once a week, delivered a good chunk of it to Don DeLuca, and got to keep the rest for himself. Fiorello told me he was on his way to being made a capo, which was a ranking member of the family. He was going to be “made,” probably when he turned thirty. Fiorello said it was unusual for someone so young to become a “made man.”

  Okay, I knew these people were doing illegal things. But you know something? Somehow they made it all seem to be a necessary evil. As an ethnic minority, these Italians felt they never got a fair shake from established authority in the United States. Their methods and customs came over from Sicily. It was in their blood, it was just the way they did things. And usually their “victims” were other criminals—members of a rival family or drug dealers or what have you. They never targeted what I thought of as “innocent” everyday people. I’m not saying what they were doing was right, but it didn’t bother me as much as it might others. Well, that was then.