Word: rackets
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...Vincent Moriarty, who grew up in a rundown section of Jersey City, N.J., never had romance in his soul-or never saw the right movies. Known as "Newsboy" because in his youth he sold tabloids in the bars and restaurants of his neighborhood, Moriarty got into the policy numbers racket* when he was only 13, went on and upward to become Jersey City's No. 1 numbers boss. He was arrested no fewer than 25 times on gambling charges, but he never learned to play the part that this record entitled...
...shuffled around Jersey City's streets unshaven and dressed in shabby clothes. Says a cop who knew him: "If you saw him on the street, you'd give him a quarter out of charity." Despite this, police estimated that Newsboy operated a $10 million-a-year policy racket...
...policy racket (or numbers game) a player picks any three-digit number and bets pennies, nickels or more on it, or any combination of it, at a neighborhood confectionery store or newsstand. The winning number, determined daily, could be the last three of the dollar figures of U.S. Treasury receipts (as reported in the next day's newspapers), or the last three dollar numbers of the pari-mutuel receipts at a race track, or any other easily verified number. In any case, a player's chance of winning on one number is only one in 999; his winnings...
...turned white after 10½ years, his 220-lb. frame scaled down to 190-and his lips still sealed. A protege of ex-New York City Mayor William O'Dwyer. Moran was nailed in 1951 as the ''guiding genius" in a $500,000-a-year shakedown racket of oil burner contractors. Bigger fish in the city administration were feeding on the take, but Moran, offered a break if he named names, scornfully replied: "I came into this world a man-and I'm going...
...three hours, cars race nose to tail, their drivers compelled to shift gears on an average of once every 10 sec. The racket of screaming engines echoes deafeningly off cliffs and building walls. The accidents are spectacular. One year a driver ended up with his radiator embedded in the ticket office of Monte Carlo's railroad station, and in 1955 Italy's great Alberto Ascari drove his Lancia over the sea wall into the Mediterranean...