Tag: mobster

Patricia Bellomo's lastest mob thriller book.

“Who’s your favorite mobster?”

  The question arose at a recent luncheon, where I was the keynote speaker to a ladies social club. I answered without hesitation. “Louie Morelli,” I said.

  How can he not be? After all, I created him. The ladies appreciated this answer. They liked Louie too. In fact, some of them loved Louie. It’s true on page and off. Women do love Louie. They love him because he’s a dark hero--an enigmatic mobster who employs violent and, occasionally, underhanded methods. The ladies don’t mind that he cheats on his long suffering wife. They love Louie because he’s Louie—darkly handsome, filthy rich (not all of it come by honestly), and very powerful. Power is sexy. Louie is sexy.

  It’s easy to love Louie because he exists on the pages of my novels: the ultimate badboy. Operating from a code of honor and possessing a suave sophistication that’s a bit like Bond, as in James Bond, Louie has his share of male admirers too. He’s a pretty cool cat. And he always gets the girl.

  Frequently, mobsters in fiction come off as corny caricatures of Hollywood psychos. Bad to the bone. As an author, my advantage comes from having known a lot of Louie Morelli types in my life. And no, I don't care to elaborate. Anyway, as Louie’s creator, I get to be prejudiced. Louie is my favorite mobster. How about you?  Do you have a favorite mobster?

A couple of weeks ago I met a stunning blond at Houston's. For those of you who don't know, Houston's is a casual steakhouse on the Intracoastal in Pompano Beach. Houston's does a decent rib-eye, and the place is always packed. If you read Patricia Bellomo's sexy mob thriller, Stella di Mare, you'll recognize it as one of the restaurant's I brought Tara to. In fact, I was thinking about Tara on the day that I met Kelly. I was sitting there reminiscing and sipping my Famous Grouse when the lovely lady caught my eye.

Kelly doesn't look like your typical South Florida blond. She's tanned, but not too much, and her figure, while outstanding, doesn't appear to be surgically enhanced. She's a natural beauty.  Upscale clothing, sophisticated and sexy. The right attitude. She told me she was thirty-five.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I took Kelly to dinner last Friday. She was a little inquisitive, but I was too enamored of her charms to be suspicious. Today, I meet her at the marina in Boca, and we head south on the Stella di Mare, cruising the Intracoastal at sundown. I can tell Kelly is digging the Hatteras. I take her into my stateroom and do what any man does when he finds himself alone with a beautiful woman.

Life is perfect. Sometimes. I come out of the john and catch Kelly rifling through my cupboards. She's not just looking; she's taking pictures. I say, "What are you doing?"

Kelly looks at me with those big baby blues. She doesn't even try to spin it. I go for her purse and dump it out, and sure enough, she's packing a .380. Not exactly law enforcement's weapon of choice, but now I've got a feeling, and I say, "What are you, a Fed?"

"I didn't think I'd like you," Kelly says. "You were supposed to be different."

Patricia Bellomo is the author of the sexy mob thrillers, Louie Morelli's Mistress, Stella di Mare, and Louie Morelli's Daughter. This blog is written in the voice of Patricia's main character, mobster Louie Morelli. Her crime novels are available on Amazon.com and in e-reader formats.

Victor has an i-pad now. To most of you, this might not be a big thing, but he's playing with it like a damn kid. "Look at this, Lou," he says, showing me images from the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

I don't mind looking. We're having breakfast at Poppies over on Linton, in Delray Beach. It's full of old men reading newspapers and old ladies eating bagels. Victor's trying to size the images the way the young people do, but even though he's pretending to be a pro, he keeps losing the pictures. So then he goes on and checks his email, but since the chick he's been trying to dump for the past month is the only person in the world who knows Victor has an email address, all ten emails are from her. So now he checks the Dow Jones, and we have better luck here, as he starts scrolling through the stocks, announcing market activity and fluctuations like Maria Bartiromo. Suddenly, the old lady sitting at the table next to ours starts leaning forward. She asks Victor to check the price of Apple, and he says, "Sure thing, doll." Playing hero. The old lady loves it.

It's banking day. I'm in the Caymans at the bequest of an aging Swiss genius who specializes in international finance.  I don't dare say his name, but he's been moving my money through aliases and shadow corporations for years. What else can you do when it's not all honestly come by?

I hadn't really planned on being in the Caymans today, but the genuis called yesterday and said,  "Louis, we're going to have to make some changes to your portfolio."

I knew right off it was time for me to move money, so I cleared my schedule and flew down. Now I'm sitting in his office and he's explaining the details like the meticulous Swiss banker that he is, and I say, "Just take care of it."

Victor says, "Lou, it's true what they say: Diamond's are a girl's best friend."

Hmm. I've got to think about this. Victor's right, of course. Diamond's are a girl's best friend, and a man's too, sometimes. I mean, they can accomplish things words can't, but then, you have to be certain of the message you want to convey. For my wife, who has more diamonds than most women, the magical stone is emblematic of how much I value her. It's also served to get me out of the doghouse from time to time.  And for my girlfriend ... well I think I'll skip the diamonds this year. I don't want to give her any ideas of permanence.

So why all this talk about diamonds? Well, it's the 22nd of December and Victor and I are Christmas shopping. And where did we go? My good friend Ari Klein Jewelers on Worth Avenue. You might remember Ari from Stella di Mare. Ari's what they call a "stand up guy." Anyway, he knows my taste and my budget (not to mention my lifestyle), and he's got the goods lined up for me. So in about twenty minutes I get gifts for my wife and beatuiful princess of a daughter, Stella, and yes ... for my girlfriend.