My grandfather on my father's side was a truckdriver in the Mafia-dominated Fulton Fish Market. He knew a lot of gangsters. He also bred Pomeranian dogs, which became a fad of some gangsters during Prohibition. My father told me that one day, a patented movie-type gangster (black coat, pearl-gray fedora, bulges under coat) came to their home to buy a dog. He and my grandfather had a couple of drinks, and my grandfather introduced him to my father, who was a kid, but impressionable. The following week, my father was reading the Daily News--and there was that same gangster's photo, only this time he was dead of gunshot wounds.