by April Lurie
“Yes, I—”
“Great. Meet me there. We'll have a look at you again.”
“Oh, okay, thank you. And Mr. Stapleton?”
“Yes?”
“My name is April. April Lundquist.”
“Well, April Lundquist. I'm glad you called. See you Tuesday.”
“Yes,” I said, “Tuesday.”
Now that Sammy was an official chess player, poker player, and gambler, he decided he was too big for a stroller and would walk to the park with Brandi and me. It was a beautiful day—warm enough for just a light jacket. Out front, Larry was blasting the Who's “Teenage Wasteland,” and even though it wasn't trash day, he'd dragged one metal can and one plastic can to the front of his house and was doing his thing.
“Larry!” I called. “Great show last night!” After taking Sammy trick-or-treating, Brandi and I had gone to hear their band play.
“Yeah, Larry!” Brandi said. “You were awesome!”
He smiled, waved, and smashed the lids together proudly.
As we were about to leave, Little Joe came strolling up the block, basketball in hand. “Hey, April, is Matt around?”
“Uh-huh.” I pointed to the front door, which was ajar. “He just got the script forJulius Caesar. He's rehearsing in front of the mirror.”
“Is that so?” Little Joe grinned. “Hey, Julius!” he called. “Come on, the guys are waiting for us! We're gonna play some ball!”
The three of us walked along, and on the corner, parked in front of Gorgeous Vinny's house, was a late-model Mercedes I'd never seen before. As we approached, the electric window slowly rolled down. “Oh, no,” Brandi said, “not again.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Frankie the Crunch in the driver's seat, and Gorgeous Vinny beside him, wagging his finger. “Hey, dolls, come here, I've got something for you.”
“Oh, Lord,” Brandi mumbled. “Must we?”
“Hi, Mr. Persico, hi, Mr. Consiglione,” Sammy said, spreading out his arms. “Notice anything different about me?”
They looked puzzled for a moment; then Frankie the Crunch said, “Oh, yeah, yeah, you're walkin'? Got rid of that stroller, huh?”
“Yep!”
Meanwhile Gorgeous Vinny dug in his pocket and pulled something out. “Here you go,” he said. “Just like I promised. Tickets to see John perform at my club. Actually, the whole cast from Saturday Night Fever will be there. I'm telling you, this is gonna bring the disco scene to a whole new level.”
Brandi and I looked at each other.
“There's four total,” he said, “so you each get to bring a guest.”
I walked over and took the tickets from his hand. “Thank you, Mr. Persico. We'll definitely be there.”
Brandi offered him a quick smile. “Yes, thank you.”
As the window rolled up, I heard a basketball bouncing behind us. Matt and Little Joe were already halfway down the block. “Brandi,” I said, “wait here a second. I need to talk to Little Joe.”
Nervously, she eyed the trunk of the Mercedes. “All right, but make it quick. I don't feel like being eyewitness to a murder, okay?”
“Okay.” I clutched the tickets in my hand and ran up the street, calling, “Joe, hey, Joe!”
If you've come this far (or if you've flipped to the back of the book for a sneak peek), you're probably wondering why our narrator, April Lundquist, shares my first name. It really happened by accident.
When I began writing Brothers, Boyfriends & Other Criminal Minds, which is in part autobiographical, I decided to use the name April as an experiment in an attempt to get in touch with my inner fourteen-year-old. All along I had plannd to rename my heroine, but when April's brother Matt began calling her Ape, Chimp, and Monkey, her name became an integral part of the story, so I kept it. Simple as that.
Now, to separate fact from fiction, here's what's true: I was a teenager in the mid-to-late seventies (best decade ever!), and lucky enough to live in the colorful neighborhood of Dyker Heights, Brooklyn. My two brothers, Mark and Adam, were similar in a lot of ways to April's brothers, Matt and Sammy, and although Mark seems to have amnesia on this point, I was teased mercilessly by him and his friends. Like April, I was a bit of an oddball—tall, blond, Scandinavian, and very shy—among a majority of warm, friendly, robust Italians. Like Soft Sal, Frankie the Crunch, and Gorgeous Vinny, several big-name mobsters lived on my street, and Joe Colombo's house was just a few blocks away. Occasionally, one of these men would “disappear,” and a few days later we'd see his mug shot in the Daily News or the New York Times, saying he'd been arrested, or even worse, was missing, which meant La Cosa Nostra had given orders for one of its members to be “whacked.”
And now, to set the record straight: My brother never dated a mobster's daughter, I never took money from a hit man, and unfortunately, I never dated anyone as exciting or mysterious as Dominick. Hope this doesn't disappoint anyone too much!
As for the Mafia, they still exist today, but thanks to the FBI, the members have much less power than they did in earlier years. In 1975, unknown to me at the time, FBI agent Joe Pistone went undercover in Brooklyn, posed as a jewel thief named Donnie Brasco (check out the movie Donnie Brasco starring Al Pacino and Johnny Depp), and was able to infiltrate the Bonanno crime family. In fact, when he left his post six years later, he was about to get “made.” And if you've read this book carefully, you know what that means! Agent Pistone's bravery and hard work led to more than a hundred federal convictions, and in the end every Mafia boss was indicted, imprisoned, or dead. La Cosa Nostra had changed forever.
Still the legacy goes on, and as for me, fuhgeddaboudit! I will always be fascinated by the Mob.
A big hearty thank-you to my agent, Laura Rennert, for her much-needed support, and to my lovely editor, Francoise Bui, who always knows how to make a story better. And, of course, many thanks to my husband, Ed, who not only reads all my crummy first drafts but encourages me to do what I love: write.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2007 by April Lurie
All rights reserved.
Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Delacorte Press, New York, in 2007.
This edition published by arrangement with Delacorte Press.
Laurel-Leaf and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this work as follows:
Lurie, April.
Brothers, boyfriends, & other criminal minds / April Lurie.
p. cm.
Summary: While living on the same block as several members of the Mafia does have the advantage of a lower crime rate, fourteen-year-old April and her brother find there are times when it is also a major disadvantage.
[1. Organized crime—Juvenile fiction. 2. Friendship—Juvenile fiction.
3. Brothers and sisters—Juvenile fiction. 4. Organized crime—Fiction.
5. Friendship—Fiction. 6. Brothers and sisters—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.L97916Br 2007
[Fic]—dc22
2006035633
eISBN: 978-0-375-89173-1
RL: 5.2
March 2009
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celebrates the right to read.
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