Chapter 7 Car Thief

Influenced by various mafia movies such as the Godfather of later generations, as well as various mafia legends such as Al Capone and the Five Families, it is easy to give people the illusion that Italians are easy to mix in the United States. .

   But the truth is quite the opposite.

  In the United States for quite a long time, the most unpopular white ethnicity is the Italian, not the Irish as many people think.

  In almost all gangster movies, gangsters are basically set as Italian, which in itself is a kind of discrimination.

In addition, in the movie "Green Book", the police called the protagonist of Italian descent half-black, which also explained the embarrassing situation of Italian-Americans in the United States at that time-half black, this white American of Anglo-Saxon descent The contempt for Italians has accompanied Italians for nearly a century from the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century.

  So why did immigrants from Italy, once the cultural center of Europe, encounter such a dilemma?

  The reason is simple. Most of the Italians who immigrated to the United States are from southern Italy.

  Just as the United States has a north-south divide, Italy also has a north-south difference.

  Northern Italy has developed industry and commerce, so it is relatively rich. In contrast, the south is mountainous and has few resources, so it is basically poor.

  The rich Italians in the north, if they want to immigrate, they basically don't know how to choose the United States, but they will choose South America.

Because the Italian immigrant wave was later than other European countries, the distribution of resources among the various ethnic groups in the United States was basically finalized at that time, so the rich Italians would rather choose the broader South America to develop, hire natives and blacks to pioneer, and be themselves boss.

  In contrast, poor Italians have no capital, so they will choose to go to the rich North America to work for the already developed Americans.

   That is to say, the Italians who came to the United States are all poor people with a very low level of education.

  In addition, as southern Europeans, Italians are also of relatively Latin origin, and the difference in appearance is more obvious.

  In addition, Italians like to live in groups, industrial workers, like to live in groups, low-level attributes, and low education level. When these attributes are combined, it is naturally easy to make people have bad associations.

   At the same time, it also caused Italians to only do some low-level jobs in the United States for a long time, and could not get in touch with the upper class.

   What happened to the Italians was the Chinatown next door.

  Especially during the period of President Coolidge, a 1924 Immigration Act was set up specifically for Italians.

  This bill is not well-known, but its impact on Italian immigrants is actually no less than the "Chinese Exclusion Act" against Chinese.

   This naturally caused dissatisfaction among a large part of the Italians.

what to do?

  Obviously, it’s gangsters.

  The Mafia, which had a comparatively good system in Italy, was copied to the United States in this way, and the effect was surprisingly good. In addition to the original discrimination, Italians have since added a gangster attribute. While being feared, they are even more excluded.

   It is also under the influence of this reputation that Josie naturally has a sense of fear for the Little Italy neighborhood.

  But after much hesitation, Josie decided to go in.

   After all, the car he bought at noon was stolen in the afternoon. He had never been so aggrieved in his previous life.

  But before entering Little Italy, Josie raised his collar to cover his face, and then walked into a gun shop across the street.

   Well, there are many gun shops, which is quite convenient sometimes.

   To enter the famous Italian area, Josie felt that only one M1911 would not be enough. He also needed two Thomsons and spray guns, that is, shotguns.

  Although she is a time traveler and has never been a soldier in her previous life, Josie knows how to use a gun.

  Whether it’s a submachine gun, an automatic rifle, a bolt-action rifle, or a shotgun, when Josie traveled to Maoxiong in his previous life, he had contact with the shooting club, and he also went hunting in the Far East, and spent a lot of money for it.

   Not even in the previous life, Josie's predecessor, before his father died, was also taken out hunting, but the gun was only a rifle.

  So I can’t say I’m proficient in guns, but at least I know how to use them.

Soon, Josie picked out a Chicago typewriter, which is the favorite of the Mafia, in the gun shop, that is, Thomson, in addition to an M1918 Browning automatic rifle, a shotgun and the corresponding bullets .

  Comes with gun case.

   It cost Josie nearly two hundred dollars.

  After buying the gun, he took the gun case and turned into an uninhabited alley, assembled and loaded the firearm, and then put it into the system warehouse together with the gun case.

   After doing all this, Josie walked into the Italian area without haste.

  Perhaps because of the broad daylight, although the streets in the Italian District look a little messy and smell like sewage, there are actually no idle gangsters on the roads, which are quite different from those black streets in later generations.

  Although there are many gangsters of Italian descent, just like the Chinatown next door, there are more low-level people who are diligent and hardworking, and most of them are actually busy with their livelihoods during the day.

   Only at night will it appear more chaotic.

  So Josie's preparations along the way were useless at all.

  However, after inspecting the two streets, Josie couldn't find the car, so he couldn't help but feel a little discouraged. It seemed that the other party was just passing through the Italian district.

  However, just when Josie was about to give up, he suddenly saw the door of an old warehouse in the distance, revealing half of the buttocks of the car.

  Josie looked around to make sure no one was paying attention, and then walked towards the warehouse.

  As the distance approached, he also saw the whole picture of the rear of the car clearly, and the conspicuous scratch was on it.

   At this time, he also heard conversations in the old warehouse.

"Listen, Joe, this is just an old Ford more than ten years ago. Even if it is put on the second-hand market, it will sell for two hundred at most, and I have to deal with the joints, so I can only follow the old parts at most. The price is fifty, if you are not satisfied, go find someone else!" said a slightly hoarse voice with a strong Italian accent.

   "Don't be like this, Mike, you should know how difficult this job is recently, so give me more, ten yuan, just add ten yuan, how about it?" Another slightly oily voice said.

   Carefully approaching the warehouse, Josie could easily see the situation inside.

   There are two people inside, one is a middle-aged man with Mediterranean hair, covered in engine oil, and the other is a slightly fat, not tall young man.

   From their conversation, it is easy to tell that the young one is the car thief, while the middle-aged man specializes in selling stolen goods and collecting illegal cars.

  The various auto parts placed around this warehouse also indicate that this is a black car trading factory.

   And besides his old Ford, there was another car parked.

   Soon, Josie's eyes were attracted by this car.

   It was a famous Cadillac V16.

  (end of this chapter)