My Uncle Roy was a mob guy. Roy Bello. My mother’s brother. You probably never heard of him. He wasn’t big-time, like "Lucky" Luciano or John Gotti. The only "time" my uncle did was three months for tax evasion. He never rubbed out anyone. I don’t think he even owned a gun. In fact my uncle was a beautician–a beautician who washed mob money.

Before Uncle Roy got into the beauty racket his ambition was to be a singer. He had looks, pizazz, and a voice that could melt the rocks in a glass of bonded whiskey. I remember my mother always saying: "Roy’s voice sounds like romance feels." I was too young at the time to appreciate the "romance" part. Uncle Roy had the typical crooner’s voice, with a nice range between the high and the low tones; a so-so imitation of Perry Como and Dean Martin. But who was I to judge? Uncle Roy was a bachelor. I was impressed not by his singing but by the number of beautiful girlfriends he had on the string. I guess they liked his voice. He sang the popular songs of the early 1950s at wedding receptions, socials, and clubs around Brooklyn, New York. Unfortunately, the big break he was hoping and waiting for as a singer never came. So he learned cosmetology the Elizabeth Arden way. Eventually, with the help of a generous loan from my father, he opened his own beauty salon. La Bella Figura, he named it. Within two years La Bella Figura was a going concern. Women needed references just to get an appointment there. Uncle Roy was making money hand over fist.

Now you are probably wondering, as I did later, how and why my uncle got involved with the mob. Well, first let me give you a little more background. My father was first generation Irish-American; a police sergeant; but he and Uncle Roy were cut from the same cloth. Although my father was ten years his senior, they got along famously. My uncle confided in him, sought his advice, and so on. They seemed more like brothers than brothers-in-law (no pun intended). Uncle Roy ate supper at our house at least once a week. (He couldn’t live without my mother’s pasta a fagioli.) Sometimes he came to Sunday dinner to show off his current heartthrob. Not to be outclassed on those occasions, my mother would have her hair stylishly coiffed. She was always badgering Uncle Roy to marry some nice Italian girl. "I don’t have time to get married," was his ready reply.

La Bella Figura’s clientele was exclusive in the sense that only rich men’s wives, pampered molls, and women with beauty parlour hair and too much time on their hands could afford its esthetic services. The fact my uncle was handsome, charming and single, and knew how to listen to a woman as well as talk to her was a godsend to his lady customers. Word got around. My uncle revelled in his good fortune. He knew how to make a woman look and feel beautiful. Yet beauty, as the adage goes, is skin deep; and it often comes with a price. Uncle Roy’s vanity blurred his judgement, made him vulnerable to temptation. Offers of an intimate kind, subtle hints, invitations, phone numbers scrawled on slips of paper came his way almost daily. What he knew was this: never deny a woman sexual favours. Somehow it seemed acceptable for a woman to do so, but not for a man. He tried to ignore the enticements of certain of his customers, or to decline them gracefully without giving offence. But it was difficult, if not impossible, to keep face – especially when the very nature or, rather, artfulness of his profession involved physical contact of the most caressing sort: facials, haircutting and styling, waxing. It was like foreplay without consummation. My uncle was a virile guy. The day came when he accepted an invitation to cocktails, or dialled a phone number, or did a favour – all of which in-evitably led to a few one-night stands, which was what those expensively dressed, mostly middle-aged women wanted. Some reassurance of their power and desirability.

One of Uncle Roy’s customers was a big, gorgeous, thirtyish blonde with a beehive hairdo. Always late for an appointment, her arrival was something of a spectacle. She would step out of a chauffeured black Cadillac sedan, and mince into La Bella Figura in spike heels and dark glasses, cradling a white toy poodle in her arm. At first my uncle was put off by her moneyed veneer; and then it amused him. He soon realized her silly affectations concealed a naivety which he found endearing. She was from a small town in Tennessee, and had come to New York to find work as a hostess. My uncle reckoned she had a sugar daddy stashed away somewhere. Whether true or not, one thing was certain: her looks looked after her. Despite her ostentatiousness she was quiet, almost inscrutable. My uncle took quite a liking to her. The ambiguity of her character plus her knockout looks spurred his desire to know her better. After two months and six visits to his salon, she finally agreed to have a drink with him. A week later, my uncle succeeded in taking her to a hotel room. (She refused to go to his apartment.) They spent a few stolen hours screwing their brains out. She told him she couldn’t stay the night.