Author

It was not that we thought they were gangsters when they walked through the door. In their long coats and stingy-brim hats, in the way they stood and the expressions on their faces, we could see they were from the rackets squad, and they were scary. By the time I was fourteen years old, I had attracted the attention of the police a few times, and I thought I knew what they were like. But the calm, almost bored look of these guys, who had simply strolled into the Capri Athletic Club on Carroll Street, was new to me.