On the afternoon of November 19, Christopher Andolini spent about 20 minutes taking care of his beard and hair in front of the mirror.
He used an old-fashioned blade to shave off the hard stubble, and the white shaving foam mixed with the beard was thrown into the sink. Because his hands were shaking slightly, Christopher couldn't help but make a small cut on his chin.
"Shet, your hand used to be so steady with a gun, but now you can't even hold a razor? Huh, huh."
Old Christopher grunted twice and continued shaving, focusing on the area under his nose.
After shaving cleanly, Christopher put some hairspray on his hair. The last bit of hairspray in the jar was applied to his little hair.
Thirty years ago, he had thick, dark hair on his forehead, and it took him a lot of time to take care of it.
I changed into an elegant old-school plaid suit and looked in the mirror. It was a little tight and my figure was out of shape with my age.
I took out the only pair of leather shoes from the shoe cabinet and polished them again and again. They were full of wrinkles, but after wiping them with some oil, they were still very shiny.
Christopher still remembers that these shoes were the trophies left after robbing a container truck in Long Beach in 1991. They were Italian Iron Lion Tony brand and were durable.
The robbery charge later added two years to his sentence, but fortunately he kept the shoes.
The size is just right, the figure is out of shape, the feet are not, the old shoes are very comfortable, but the toe has wear and tear from kicking.
"Humph, I hope this outfit can make me look... well, look like a serious businessman. But I originally wanted to do business seriously, and opening a restaurant is your dream, Christopher."
After getting dressed, Christopher said to himself in the mirror that time had left many traces on his body.
Looking at himself in the mirror, he remembered when he was young. That was such a long time ago, before Ronald Reagan came to power.
At that time, he was a chef at an Italian restaurant in Rowland Heights, and his future dream was to own his own restaurant.
But things took a major turn on Christmas night in 1979 when he was involved in a gang vendetta and volunteered to be the gunman.
When he was young, he was a fan of the movie "The Godfather". At that time, he thought that he was Mike, the Avenger who shot the police in the restaurant. Of course, one reason was that he was short of money at the time.
The moment he pulled the trigger, he was destined to embark on a road that was difficult to turn back. He became a member of the West Coast criminal group, served two prison sentences, spent 15 years in prison, and was just paroled the year before last.
He was lucky that there was no evidence left behind for many of the things he did, and the witnesses were all dead, otherwise he would have gone to jail.
Now he lives in a shabby apartment in downtown Los Angeles, surrounded by blacks and Mexicans. The Los Angeles neighborhood has long been no longer dominated by the Italian Mafia, but has become the territory of black gangs.
Those old brothers died and went to jail. The remaining people laundered their business and headed towards the Internet.
Yes, the mafia is also going online, including online gambling and online pornography, which all have the shadow of mafia behind them, which makes it easier and more covert for them to make money.
But this has nothing to do with Christopher. Everyone is making money online through fraud, gambling and pornography, and there is no need to fight and kill people anymore. So what is the need for people like him who paint houses to exist?
What's more, he is already 50 years old. In his old age, he can't hold a razor firmly, let alone a gun.
After he was released from prison, he wanted to find a job. His brother Marcella Andolini found him and wanted to arrange it for him, but Christopher refused.
His brother entered this industry with him 30 years ago. Later, Christopher took all the blame for his brother and spent 5 more years in prison.
Now, Marcella has successfully cleared his name and has gone from being the head of the Delana family to becoming the owner of a sports equipment store.
They have two sons and one daughter. The eldest son works in an equipment store and inherits the family business. The younger son becomes a truck driver. The youngest daughter Ada works for an NBA team after graduating from college.
They all had serious jobs and lived ordinary lives.
Christopher didn’t want to take stock in a sports equipment store, work as a security guard in a shopping mall, or go back to his old job of painting houses.
He remembered his dream 30 years ago before he went astray, to own his own Italian restaurant, even if it was smaller.
His brother gave him a sum of money, and he also had some people he could contact. But Los Angeles is no longer the Los Angeles it was back then, and it's not easy to open a store and open a restaurant.
At first, he was a person who collected protection money from door to door. He knew the difficulties of opening a store and thought that this idea would be difficult to realize.
But when I went to my brother's house for dinner a few days ago, my niece Ada actually told him that the Clippers were looking for a partner to open a high-end restaurant in Staples. Maybe his uncle could do it.
After asking about the situation and knowing that the team was willing to pay, he only needed to provide a small portion of the money and add manpower. Christopher immediately felt that there was a possibility.
It's just that his original idea was to open a regular Italian restaurant on the block, and now he's asked to open a high-end restaurant? He has no experience in opening a high-end restaurant.
But how could he not give it a try when the opportunity was in front of him? Ada called him at noon and said that Mr. Smart, the general manager of the Clippers, wanted to meet and talk with him in the evening at a restaurant in Chinatown.
In order to leave a good impression on the other party, Christopher took out the good clothes and shoes from the bottom of the box and made himself clean and tidy.
After staring in front of the mirror for a while, he felt there was no problem. Christopher went downstairs. After getting in the car, he touched his pocket and found that there was no cigarette left.
"Shet, we can't live without cigarettes. I want to buy a pack of cigarettes."
So I drove to a nearby convenience store, got out of the car and went in to buy cigarettes.
Taking a pack of Marlboros and preparing to pay, Christopher was thinking about how to show his experience and ideas for opening a restaurant to the Clippers general manager for dinner.
He racked his brains and put together all the joints, connections, and ideas he could think of. They had been hidden in his heart for a long, long time.
Although he has been on the road for more than 20 years, people always have to eat. He has eaten in restaurants all over the United States, including Las Vegas, New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia, Orlando, Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Seattle.
Sometimes to perform tasks, sometimes to avoid trouble, he has been to many places.
In 1985, in order to kill a gang leader in New York, a local family invited him from Los Angeles to do the job.
He worked as a waiter at a restaurant in New York for three months. One day, he shot the target who came for dinner, then took off his coat and slipped out of the back kitchen.
This case remains unsolved to this day and has never been solved. Christopher will not tell anyone about it.
To be honest, he felt quite happy during those three months. If the leader didn't come, he really wanted to continue working there.
Thinking of this, Christopher took out his wallet and took out the money, ready to pay and leave.
Suddenly a sharp shout came from behind, "Robbery! Squat down, everyone squat down! Hand over the money!"
Christopher clenched his fists and cursed, "Shet!"
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