Fear is the primary tool of the mafiya. It's how they contain their vast criminal enterprise. For the mafiya, fear is the grease in the wheel. Fear is much stronger than love | Fear lasts much longer. Love fades and is replaced by hatred and contempt. Fear lingers and brings forth other emotions such as doubt. Fear encourages procrastination and cowardice. Besides, you always hurt the ones you love. Most are too afraid to hurt the ones they fear.

Wanting to leave communist Russia is all fine and well | Actually leaving the country is where you might run into a few setbacks. Obtaining a visa for a simple vacation outside the soviet block was a long and arduous process. To immigrate to a free society was about as easy as finding whiskey in a church.

Crime was my career. I considered myself a craftsman | a true professional. Everybody has a craft they practice. Clean or dirty, safe or dangerous, we all have a viable skill and a part to play in the enigma that comprises our world. A professional is a person who earns moneys for practicing their craft. Having labored many years and becoming experienced in a particular skill, you learn the gradations and eventually reach the title of master.

While the layman sees an opportunity and decides to take it, the professional criminal through the use of deceit and treachery, is able to create opportunities. This individual not only actively searches for a crime to commit, the professional criminal assembles teams of similar people and generates situations in which crime can be safely perpetrated in a controlled environment for maximum profit.

Another deputy threw down a clear plastic trash bag with my orange jumpsuit. I reached for the bag and was knocked down to the floor with an overhead right, another shove, and I was inside the 4X6 room. The heavy white door was already closing behind me. The walls here were made of hard white rubber. There was a small shower head towards the back of the tiny cell and a grated hole in the middle of the floor | I assumed that the hold would be my toilet. The cell reeked of anguish.