The World of American Drama: From the Los Angeles Patrol

Chapter 1386: Love and Hate at Braden Beach (Part )
Many writers who are good at writing often appear as taciturn or inarticulate people in real life. Some of them may really be poor at speaking, while others may simply be socially phobic.

Cassell seemed to be an outlier among these people. Whenever he appeared in a situation, whether it was a cocktail party or a card game, no one would worry about embarrassing situations such as a dull silence.

Because this best-selling author has excellent communication skills, he always has all kinds of dinner table jokes and can tell stories in a vivid way.

After a delicious dinner, everyone set up two mahjong tables in the living room and chatted while building the city wall. Of course, the main thing was to listen to the great writer tell stories.

What Cassel tells is, of course, the story of Lea, the illegitimate son of the Italian mafia boss, who returns to seek revenge on the Russian gangs and the Mafia.

Braden Beach, located in Brooklyn, New York, was originally planned to be a leisure resort for the wealthy in the 20s. In fact, the scenery here is really nice.

But for various reasons, this place did not develop as planned until the 1970s and 1980s.

After the Fourth Arab-Israeli War ended with Israel's victory, a large number of Russians and Ukrainians who originally lived in Crimea immigrated to North America as Jews, and a large number of them gathered here.

The protagonist in "Lord of War" was born in Ukraine and came to Brooklyn with his family when he was young. At that time, Braden Beach was even nicknamed "Little Odessa" because of the large number of Russians gathered there.

The area was once full of Slavic restaurants, shops and clubs, and even today the food is unique, with authentic black bread - a sawdust-free version, borscht, pelmeni, Red Label vodka and Georgian cheese bread.

Just like other ethnic minority communities in the United States, Russian gangs emerged in this context.

However, unlike what is portrayed in many Hollywood films and TV shows, the influence of Russian gangs in the U.S. is actually not that noticeable compared to their widespread presence in European countries. They are even less active than Albanian gangs.

Generally speaking, there is a fundamental difference between street gangs and organized crime (gangs with an organizational structure in the usual sense).

Although the famous mafia families in the United States today can be traced back to street gangs, there are very few that can transform from street gangs into formal gangs with a complete organizational structure like mafia families.

For example, the famous "Bloods" and "Crips" among African Americans, and the "Latin Kings", "MS-13" and "Spanish Lords" among Latin Americans are all known for their extreme violence and danger.

But these gangs are actually just an aggregation of a series of small-scale street gangs. Strictly speaking, they are not even an aggregation, but just a name.

Take the "Bloods" as an example. There are street gangs named "Bloods" in almost every city from the East Coast to the West Coast, but these street gangs have almost no connection with each other. Even within the same city, there are infinite factions that are fighting each other.

For example, the Grove Gang in San Andreas and the Chamberlain Gang in Series 5 reflect the "Blood Gang", and it is obvious that Franklin does not need to listen to any gang leader.

Therefore, there are not too many organized gangs that can be called the Mafia. Even if some street gangs occupy the so-called territory, there is no organizational structure. Often, once the boss falls, they will scatter and start a new one in another place. In essence, it is a villain club. With the progress of the times, the days when Al Capone's men carried Chicago typewriters and shot indiscriminately in the city center are gone, but this does not mean that the Mafia has become history in this land.

To be honest, thanks to the efforts of the FBI and the NYPD Organized Crime Division, the five major mafia families in New York are indeed no longer in their heyday.

But to this day, these five family-based gangs, which originated from the wave of Italian immigration in the early 20th century, still control the city's underworld to a certain extent.

For example, the famous "Gambino Family" firmly controls New York City's construction, freight and garbage collection unions, and the "Bonanno Family" has always controlled the drug trade channels between northern New York and Canada.

In addition, the American Mafia can be seen behind industries such as illegal gambling, loan sharking, erotic services, clothing design, and seafood sales.

The Russian mafia that still occupies Braden Beach was originally sheltered by the Lucchese Family, one of the five major mafia families in New York.

In the 80s, most of the blocks in Brooklyn were occupied by the three major families of "Gambino", "Lucchese" and "Colombo", and only the area near Braddon Beach was considered the territory of Russian gangs.

Even in this small area, Russian gangs are constantly fighting among themselves and have not yet evolved from street gangs into mafia-style organized crime groups.

It was not until later that a Russian gang leader named Balagula found Anthony Castle, a member of the "Lucchese Family", and with his help killed his arch-enemy. Only then did he unify Brighton Beach and become the de facto boss here.

After Balagula's death, the territory was taken over by the famous "Japanese" Ivankov. However, Ivankov's main power was in Europe, and the Russian gangs entrenched in the Braden Beach area still had to pay a share to the "Lucchese Family".

In the early 90s, things began to change. (The subsequent content is fictional to connect with the plot of "Person of Interest") The godfather of the "Lucchese Family" at the time, Moretti, had an illegitimate child with a woman named Marlene Lea.

It is still unknown what happened during this period, but the mafia boss Moretti hired a Russian gangster killer from Braden Beach to kill his lover.

Now, more than 30 years have passed. Lai Ya, who has grown up and even become a middle-aged bald man, has returned in a strong manner and vowed to kill his father to avenge his mother.

His first target was the Russian mafia in Brighton Beach. A month ago, the leader of the current Russian mafia, the Yogerlov brothers, was beaten to death along with six of his subordinates.

Before that, Laiah had used the alias Charlie Burton and lurked in a middle school in Bradenton Beach for three years as a middle school history teacher.

Many students in this middle school are children of Russian gang members. Lai Ya gets close to these students to obtain information and understand their weaknesses, thus completing the kill with one blow.

(End of this chapter)