In the middle of the night in a junky abandoned lot in Harlem, New York, there were four men. Three of them had arrived together as a team. The fourth man, Sammy, was their victim, and they had tied up his arms and legs. Sammy was not associated with the others. He had stolen money from the leader of the group. Sammy would not divulge details of the theft. His silence did not help his situation as each of the three men took turns beating him until they got him to talk. One of the three men turned to the others. “He looks young. He looks really young.”
One of the men responded, “He looks old enough to go to war. Nobody cares how young you look when you are in war.”
Sammy continued to verbally taunt them back. “You guys are fucking trash,” Sammy said to the men, and he spat on one of them.
The man Sammy spat on told him, “Watch your goddamn mouth!” Sammy ensured them that they would never get information from him and said they could kiss his whole ass. The three men looked at each other. They began torturing and pistol-whipping Sammy in return. Irritated, the man who Sammy spat on got the idea to stuff money in Sammy’s ass and mouth for being greedy and talking too much shit. He had warned the tied-up man to watch his mouth, and this was the consequence of ignoring that warning. Once they were finished with him, they put a plastic bag over his head, tossed him in the trunk of an abandoned car in the lot, and closed the trunk.
A fifth man rode up in a car. He got out to see the damage that the three men had produced. They opened the trunk to show him. The fifth man’s face showed his objection. “Was this necessary? Are we wasting money now?” the gentleman said to his three associates.
One of them said, “It’s theater.”
Another associate added, “He asked for it. He asked us to do this. He said to kiss his ass. He likes money, so…” He shrugged.
The last associate added, “It’s only two hundred dollars in singles. It looks like a lot, but it really isn’t.” The fifth man looked down at the body and slammed the trunk shut.
“Fine, we will discuss this back at the office,” he said. He and his three associates got in the car and headed back to Midtown Manhattan.
***
In the middle of a block in busy Midtown Manhattan full of shops and stores stood a silver building just twelve feet wide. Distinctive architecture decked in superior artistic treatments surrounded this place. Professional pedestrians as well as regular shoppers walked up and down the block every day. The noise of cars, police sirens, fire trucks, ambulances, and human voices filled the street twenty-four hours a day. There was no other place like Nineteen West Forty-Sixth Street. This location was noted not only for its unique size but also for its occupants.
The Chimera Group consisted of a popular group of men who many residents, as well as law enforcement in the city, speculated were into organized crime, but this was never outright proven. Their involvement in organized crime may have been true on the inside, and to those who knew the inner workings, but the sign on the outside of the building—which bore the Chimera Group’s name and a symbol that consisted of a hybrid animal made with a lion’s head, goat’s middle, and snake’s tail—indicated a high-class and highly successful investment company. The company’s logo confused many people. It represented the people who ran it. It comprised the parts of more than one faction, and the philosophy of such a mixture was wildly imaginative, implausible, and dazzling. Bernie chose the name not only because he found the symbol appealing but also because he wanted to pay tribute to his half-Greek heritage and his obsession with Greek mythology.
The multiracial Chimera Group consisted of four main impeccably groomed men who wore the sharpest of mohair Tonik suits. Each one’s background gave him the ability for wide outreach into the city. They were sales representatives, but they were not the typical door-to-door peddlers; they sold futures to the residents of New York City and the surrounding areas. “Give us your money; we will invest it, and you will reap the rewards in due time.” It was hard to believe that many people fell for this line, but they did. The economic environment and future market forecast of the late 1960s did not seem promising. Hardworking, blue-collar residents needed a plan for their future, and these men provided hope, on paper. Wealthier clients had it easier; they were more willing to take risks, as they had more funds to spare.
Bernie Banks (born Bernard Rhodos), the founder and CEO of Chimera, prided himself on the company’s layout, which consisted of four main men: him and three associates who did the footwork while he stayed at the office. He saw the company’s logo as a representation of the associates who worked under him. Bernie was a tall man in his sixties with short, thinning hair. He had a salt-and-pepper beard that was medium in length. His face was endearing and pleasant with a slight tan. From looking at him, one could not tell his profession. He wore suits and glasses on occasion, and he was of average weight. Still handsome in his advanced age, he had no problems attracting women.
Bernie was a World War II veteran who served honorably until he was court-martialed for assault on an English citizen. The Englishman had physically assaulted a fellow black soldier who served with Bernie in the European Theater of Operations. The two beat the guy to a pulp as a response. The black soldier continued to beat him until the man passed out. The man ended up dying a week later from a brain hemorrhage. The black service member was later convicted of murder and executed at Shepton Mallet. Bernie served two years for assault. He felt that the black soldier had just been defending himself; racism had led to the unjust execution by hanging. He felt that he would have reacted the same if he had been the one attacked.
In the early years, he began his business in his apartment with one helper, and it eventually grew into a multimillion-dollar empire for a time. He had spent his entire life working and saving just so he could attain his current situation. He built his reputation on good communication. He was the one in the company who only dealt with the big dogs. The other three men dealt with the general public unless there was a problem. The other men operated as supervisors, with helpers to assist them. Each man was in charge of a borough. One man worked the Bronx and Harlem. Another man worked in Brooklyn, and one other in Queens and sometimes Westchester. Bernie dealt with downtown and Staten Island. All four also made their presence known in Midtown Manhattan if need be.
Bernie associated with the other Mafia groups, whom he considered lesser to Chimera in their innovation and style. He also dealt with law enforcement, making sure that he kept in good standing with them by paying off generous sums of money to keep himself and sometimes his associates out of jail. He also made deals with judges and those involved in the courts. Obtaining funds from the public was not an easy feat, so Bernie had to go through other channels to get money.
While the other three men kept their trail clean by working with the mostly legal aspects of Chimera, Bernie headed the illegal part, which included forced protection services, labor racketeering, loansharking, extortion, money laundering, illegal gambling, and, in extreme cases, an occasional robbery. Bernie made sure to inform whoever worked for him that robbery was not a tactic to use unless necessary, because it would result in more payoffs to law enforcement for cleanup. That would mean less money for the company. The employees of Bernie’s three junior associates split the robberies and other petty crime. Those guys had nothing to lose if they did not successfully complete the assignments; they were the uninformed scapegoats.
Those people consisted of young men in their twenties who had no other direction to go but the military. For many of them, it was a choice of organized crime, jail, or Vietnam. There were no women in Chimera. Bernie and the others felt that this setup was no place for a woman, as the environment was incredibly misogynistic and the guys could be assholes with their daily conversations about the opposite sex. Chimera was a male culture based on power.
Due to their unique racial makeup and financial success, Chimera became so successful and popular that after a short time people in the underground began to refer to the group as the Rude Boys. Their style was a tribute to the more sophisticated subculture of the young street gangsters popular in the United Kingdom and Jamaica. The States had seen nothing like them before now. They were clean-shaven and debonair, with their Ray-Ban sunglasses, immaculate loafers, and sometimes porkpie or trilby hats.
When trends turned more to longhaired, Afrocentric, and club flashy, they kept their suited style. Visually, Chimera comprised the coolest people in town. In name recognition, they were second only to the Ambrosino family in New York, the highest ranked crime family. The Ambrosinos had thirty crews and over a thousand members. They ran a tight operation. To them, murder was just part of the business and life. To date, it was rumored that the family as a whole had committed over one hundred and fifty murders, all ordered by their boss, Enzo Ambrosino.
Rude Boy USA Description:
Say good-bye to the era of godfathers. The Chimera Group has put a new face on organized crime.
Mob boss Bernie Banks and his associates—John, Ben, and Jerome—differ from your ordinary Sicilian and Irish mob families. Two white, two black, they style themselves after the Rude Boy culture made popular in Jamaica.
Operating as a shell investment company supported by illegal activities, the Chimera Group hopes to become as powerful as other crime families and gain respect from the Cosa Nostra. Bernie, a war veteran of Jewish and Greek descent, begins his business in his apartment and grows it into a multimillion-dollar empire. He and his crew resemble a more sophisticated subculture of urban street gangsters with their Ray-Ban sunglasses, loafers, and debonair style. But they want fear and admiration.
Their efforts draw the attention of the rival Ambrosino family, and they face internal strife when one of the associates begins dating a former Playboy Club waitress who wants in on the group.
Will they make it to the top, or will they fall?
