I keep asking people why Herb Gross went bad. Maybe his own answer, vanity, is too broad, such a pervasive motivation that it explains everything and nothing. “He did it for the money,” says Dion Feltri, a plainclothes cop who knows Gross well. Dion’s wrap-around
I was asleep and the phone was ringing. That was wrong to begin with. Unless there’s a special reason, my wife and I turn off our bedroom phone most nights. We go to bed earlier than the world expects us to, I guess, because if
I don’t trust any generalizations about organized crime, not even my own. It’s a subject that inspires extravagant overstatement. People discussing the mob become like blind men describing an elephant, giving the big picture when they’ve only felt part of the beast. Some examples: I
June 12, 1973, New York City When I filed my last report on self-defense instruction I was still in a state of temporary euphoria; the hitherto unknown world of punches, jabs, knees and kicks having been but recently unveiled before me. There is no
February 27, 1973, New York City On the first of February, 1973, my placid, sweet, pacific lifestyle underwent a significant change. I began my rigorous program of self defense instruction. I am now the possessor of one judo gi, size 3, and my sensei
