The below is a copy of the content of an original rich text file shared by Bob with movie producers holding the rights for a Tokyo Underworld movie.
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TO: HARRY & MARY JANE & M. SCORSESE
FROM: ROBERT WHITING
TOKYO UNDERWORLD ZAPPETTI INTERVIEW SAMPLE C (13,383 words)
(1956-1964)
RIKIDOZAN AND GANG BOSS GINZA MACHII
GINZA MACHII
ADDITIONAL UNEDITED MATERIAL (Machii, Copa/Night Club Stories, Frank Sinatra/Copa, Rolando Sessi, Getting The Kids Back From 1st wife, Dai-Nippon Ultranationalists)
RIKIDOZAN AND GANG BOSS GINZA MACHII
I knew Rikidozan, the big pro wrestling star… He started coming to my restaurant early on, ‘cuz it was so different. It was the only place in Tokyo that served pizza. Customers would wrap up a slice, put it in their briefcases and take it home to their families. Riki started coming. So his did pal Ginza Machii, the crime Boss of Tokyo, the guy who had started the ethnic Korean gang the Tosei-kai. Movie stars came. Politicians. Liz Taylor. Frank Sinatra. Even the Crown Prince and Princes came (present Emperor and Empress) when they were dating. They’d take over the whole restaurant. But Riki brought a lot of business in. He was a national hero and he had all these friends in the sumo wrestling business and the entertainment world. For a long long time, my Italian restaurant Nicola’s was the place to be.
Riki and I used to go out quite often. As a matter of fact, there used to be 3 of us. The other guy was Mr. Machii. Mr. Crime Incorporated, you know. And we’d go out. And those two guys would make typhoons. They’d go in a club and just just tear it up. But Riki and Machii would fight with each other. The purpose would be to destroy the club. Either just for the hell of it. Or for business reasons. They had a lot of their own interests in night clubs and restaurants and what not. And that was one way of eliminating the competition. They did for me too.
There was this guy Leo Prescott who was running Club 88, down the street from my restaurant in Roppongi. He’s a Britisher. And he was having his cook make pizza and selling it as “Nicola’s pizza” because the name was so popular. And it tasted terrible. Cuz one day a customer came over to me and said, “boy, your pizza tastes bad.” And, of course, I don’t appreciate that kind of conversation. I sez “When did you eat it.” He said, “yesterday….at Club 88.” So I checked and I found out what Leo had been doing. So I called up Machii. I called up Riki and we went to Club 88, and these two guys proceeded to have an argument and a fight.
Now Machii is 6’1” or 6’2” or 6’3” and he weighs a good 220 pounds. And Riki is not as tall as him, but he’s as heavy. So these two guys started fighting, throwing punches at each other and missing and hitting the customers. Throwing chairs at each other. Missing and hitting the customers. And when they got through, the back of the bar, every bottle of whiskey was broke, the piano was broken, the place was a mess.
So I took out my big fat cigar. And my brandy and ginger drink or something like that. And I was in the club smoking my cigar, away from the action, watching. And Leo came over and he said, “You instigated these two guys to come over and break up my place.” And I said, ”First, you started copying my pizza, saying it’s Nicola’s pizza.” One thing led to another and I had to do it again, a second time. So Leo Prescott closed his restaurant. Closed his club. And moved to Toranomon.
Rikidozan was a crazy mother fucker. One time, Riki and I went to some club in Shimbashi, owned by some movie star. I think her name was Aoyama. She’d opened a sort of a coffee-shop/club type affair down there. Riki and I went there. And Riki’s got to show his karate ability. Riki asked her to bring out all the dishes. And they brought out a lot of fucking dishes. And when Riki asked for something, you just listened and do it. Because he was just too big and too mean a guy, not too. To ignore him would be dangerous. They lined up all the dishes, one on top of the other. And he hit that first dish on the top with a shot and every dish on the pile broke. That’s Riki… Stack them up and he went “dong” and he broke every plate in the pile. And, of course, that poor girl was just opening the place. And those plates are very valuable to her. And she has to serve people on plates and she ain’t got no plates. It took him one second to break all the plates in her house. And then of course Riki laughed. He thought it was all a big joke. And then he says how much the dishes are worth. And, of course, he paid a lot of money. But it was the thrill of breaking all the dishes in one place that…that was Riki’s way of thinking. He liked to do stuff like that.
Rikidozan had another habit. He meets you, you stick your hand out to shake hands, and he goes right down there and grabs you by the balls. In front of everybody. He’d do it in the clubs, everywhere. You know. Instead of shaking hands, your hands are up there and this guy has got you by the balls. And you’d be yelling “stop.” And he’d be laughing and you’d be screaming. And he’d say, “Hey, you cokkusakka. Sonnabeech.” That’s another trademark of Rikidozan.
Riki was out of his mind. He came up one day and he says, “Come on, Nick. Let’s go for a drink.” We always did that. And I said, “Let’s go.” He’s got the Mercedes Benz with the gull wings. You ever see those old cars? Doors open this way. Gull wings? And he says “Come on, let’s go to a place I know.” OK. We get in the car. And the son of a bitch is going like 100 miles per hour. And he’s flying down the road and I say, “Where we going to go for this drink?” He says, “Atami.” That hot spring 100 miles south on the ocean. 100 miles!. But I sez OK. Cuz with Riki, you don’t argue with him. If he wants to go to Atami and have a drink. You go to Atami and have a drink. And he flew down the road to Atami, knocking over garbage cans, whatnot. We get to Atami, we go in the first place. You know he likes to drink bourbon. In a Manhattan glass. He orders two straight bourbons in a Manhattan glass. There must be about six-to-eight ounces in each fucking glass. Straight. No water. So he and I drank it. Neat. Down the hatch, like that.
We had two each. The we go to the next place. Same thing. And another. And then says “Let’s go.” He got in the car and he flew back to Tokyo. The car was about a 300 Benz. That was a fucking fast automobile…And Riki liked to drive fast. He always did that. He drove down the road and if you were in the way, god bless you…
Now let me tell you about Riki’s fiancé and what he did to me.
One night we go to the Club Riki. A club Riki owned, in Nogizaka, near Roppongi. He probably owned the whole building. We go in the club and there’s this nice looking girl. And I said, “Jeez, that’s a nice looking girl.” And he say, “yeah.” And being the bad bastard that I am, I ask the girl to come sit at our table. She says “Yes.” Very friendly. Very sociable. Very open. Very pretty. And here I thought, I says, god damn it, I got that Casanova Rikidozan beat. I got everybody beat. Look at this broad coming over to me. And, of course, I say “You’re very pretty.” She says “Thank you.” And so I have a drink with her and we talk and I say, “Are we going to go to bed tonight?” She says “yes.” Riki’s sitting there, politely. Getting a big kick out of everything. And then he says, “Can I watch?”
Paa!
I said, “Riki. Get out of here. You can’t watch. What’s the matter with you?”
He says, “I wanna watch.
And I said, “No, you can’t watch. Can’t watch.”
And I told the girl, “Don’t worry. I’ll get rid of Riki by the end of the night.”
And by the way, we’re driving my car. I had the first Buick Riviera that came here. So, anyway, so, we drink and drink and talk and, of course, no more filthy language. It’s a known thing that we’re going to go to bed together.
I says “Come on, let’s go.” And Riki says, “I wanna go with you.” And I said, “Riki, please, this is not a …I don’t like two boys and a girl. I’m sorry, you know. I like two girls and a boy. Not two boys and a girl.”
He says, “I gotta go with you… I gotta go. I gotta go.”
And I says to this girl, “Come on. We’ll get rid of Riki somewhere along the road. I’ll open the door and kick him out.”
So anyway, we get to the Cosmopolitan club which is straight up the road here., past Nogizaka Shrine. So it’s about 5 o’clock in the morning and the sun is almost shining and I stop the car and I hear the noise of a fist hitting a face. You know that, it’s got a certain sound to it. And I said, “Jesus Christ Almighty. I’m not exactly sober. But nobody hit me. There’s only 3 of us in the car. I’m driving. Then girl’s in the middle. And Riki’s on the right. I get out of the car. And I figure Riki hit the girl. And I open Riki’s door and I sez “Riki get out. What are you crazy? Hit a girl?”
Well, now he gets out of the car. We got a lot of respect for each other cuz I was not afraid of Riki. And he got outside and he kicks the girl in the fucking face with his karate kick.
Jesus Christ Almighty. I said “Riki, what the hell is the matter with you? I never seen you this drunk or this wild.”
So, he reaches in and grabs the girl. He picks her up and then he throws her over the fucking car. Now that’s not difficult for him to do because what does a girl weigh? 107 pounds? And there she lands on the other side of. The fucking car, on the sidewalk. Of course, I ran over to the sidewalk. I thought he’d killed her. I pick her up. She’s all right. She’s shook up. And I says “Riki, you own me an apology. You owe me an explanation. If not, you can I are going to have fucking trouble here. This is my girl. She wants to go to bed with me. She’s in my car. And she’s under my protection. And you’re abusing my friendship. And I’m not going to tolerate it.”
He says “Nick. You know who this girl is?”
I said, “No, I don’t know who this girl is. I just met her.”
He said, “This is the girl I’m supposed to marry.”
Well, shit. And she was only teasing him….as well as me. She had no intention of going to bed with me. She was just playing games with me. And he was really fucking pissed. I guess you know he didn’t marry her. So I think he went down to Chigasaki and married the chief of police’s daughter or something like that.
He never did marry the model. She was a fashion model. And you know, it turned out that even though he punched her and hit her, and threw her over the car and kicked her, she wasn’t…she sez I got to work today. You know? But the girl is relaxed. And I learned at that particular time that if you hit a person that is relaxed, you can’t hurt them. It’s only the person that stiffens up and sees the blow coming that you can hurt. This girl, she was just relaxed.
Then there was the time I went to Rikidozan’s house to play cards. Ochikabu. Christ, what an experience. You know what ochikabu is?
It’s a sort of a baccarat. But it is a game played with hanafuda or flower cards. They got a little circle with a number in it. Like 6-5-4-3-2. Like that. They draw a line down the table. It’s a long skinny table. And use it on either side that you want. It doesn’t matter. So the table is full of people on each side and its got a line down the center. And then they get these cards, and they put three cards on one side, and three cards on the other side, face down, after the cards are face down, people bet. So the first time I played that game, I don’t know nothing about the game. But I went there, of course, I don’t bring no money with me. So Riki gave me a million, you know the house game, with a million yen, to play with. I got a million yen. And in those days, a million yen was a lot of mizzoula. Eh. So anyway, everybody is putting money down. And there are quite a few famous people there.
Q: This is an illegal organized game at his house?
A: Yes, this is his private home. It was all illegal under Japanese law. He lived in Omori. It was a big piece of property. The property was guarded by dobermans and shepherd dogs. Vicious dogs. To keep people away. You don’t go outside in the yard. You don’t go outside in the property. So anyway, I don’t know nothing about the game .I take out. I don’t want to mention the names of some of the people, but, everybody sitting at the desk had between 20 and 30 million yen in front of him. And I’m the piker.I got a million yen. And I’m looking down the line. There could have been 20 people at that table. And you never saw so much fucking cash in your life. Everything was cash. There was no bullshit with anybody. And behind each player was a bodyguard, with his jacket off, with his gun in a holster, because it’s such a crime to gamble in Japan. A very bad crime.
Q: Men and women?
A: Now, all men. All big businessmen. All with artillery. Visible artillery. Nobody’s trying to hide it. A couple of politicians. Some others. And there was one guy there. I will tell you his name, but don’t write it. His name was Shinjuku Wada. He was the gang boss of Shinjuku. Cuz it’s dangerous to print that kind of information. But they all had armed bodyguards.
Q: What kind of guns?
A: You name’em. They got them in the holster. 45’s. 38’s. .357’s. God only knows what they got. Me, I’m bare ass. Uh. I ain’t got no gun.
Q: Both gambling and guns are illegal.
A: Right. And that’s why the dogs are outside. The police couldn’t raid the house. There’s no way anybody can get in the house. No way. Maybe by helicopter. But I don’t think they had helicopters then. And I doubt if they can get out of the helicopter. The dogs would tear them up. Anyway, the first bet I made was 50,000 yen. Now, 50,000 yen was like 3 months pay—for some people. And I was politely informed…I sat next to Riki. And he says “Nick…Nobody bets 50,000 yen. So I said, “I don’t know. What do I bet? The minimum bet is 100,000 yen. Shit. God damn it. That’s a lot of fucking money. 100,000 yen. Jesus. And I sez ok, so I put 100,000 yen down. I lost ten consecutive times. I never won once. Because you could play either side of the line.
Q: So you were out a million yen.
A: I lost a million yen. Like that.
And then they count all the money on the side. Cuz it’s so easy to count the money. Most of ‘em playing million yens, you know. OK. They count the money and then Riki’s the boss. He sits at the head of the table. And Riki, you know the table’s this way. And Riki’s, he’s like sitting over here. The head of the table. He could see both sides. And they tell him, this side has got like 20 million yen. And this side has got like 12 million yen. And Riki says “Shobu.”
“Shobu” means “go.”
Riki would bet the balance of either table. Either side. If it was 21 and 13. He’d bet 8 million yen on the side that’s got 13 to balance it out. He was the balancer. Because both sides have to be equal in order to make a bet. And this, in ten times, I lost a million yen. And I’d say that Riki bet a probably hundred million yen in that same period that I lost a million yen. And, of course, Riki won and Riki lost. And Riki won and Riki lost and like that. But I’m not the lucky guy. And all these players, they got a book, and they put x’s. Circles. And red and blue. The guys next to me, they all had these books and and they’re all planning, you know. One on the left side, then maybe the right side is the next time, you know like that kind of figuring out. And I said “shit, I don’t know.”
And Riki says “You want another million yen?” And I said “Fuck no, I can’t win in this game. I don’t know the mathematics of the game. I don’t know what the percentages of the game are.” I said, “These guys are all pros.”
Anyway, so . I sez, “Well, I don’t want to play now more.” Now when you win, you don’t get a hundred thousand. You get 95,000. So these guys with their bodyguards, flick up the 95,000. You lose 5%. The bodyguard would take 5% and add 5 more to it like that. And keep them packs. So when you’re talking about a million yen, they lose 50,000 yen. They win, they get they get 950,000 yen, you see. So the guy up there behind him always had a stack of money. And keeping everything in million yen bundles. So anyway, I said, “Riki, I’m sorry. I can’t play this game. It’s a waste of time. I don’t know nothing about it. So call the dogs off and let me go home.”
He says “Ok.” The game stops. Security takes over. Because, to leave that house, you got to bring all the dogs back in. And these guys with the guns, I think they’re all out there. I think if the police would have raided that house when somebody was leaving, I think they would have shot all the police dead. Regardless of how many policemen would be there. They’d shoot them dead. These people were too important to be playing that kind of game with visible gunmen around. So anyway, so I left the thing. Of course, I got chauffeurs going there. They drive me there. They drove me home.Then to my restaurant. I says, “I need a million yen. And I took a million yen and paid them off.” Cause they wouldn’t even wait until tomorrow to get their money.
A lot of people hated Rikidozan because he was so mean. And also, so people didn’t like the fact that he was a Korean. Koreans are looked down on in Japan and he kept that information secret. He’d say, “Neeku, I can tell you I’m Korean. But not anyone else. If people knew I was Korean, I’d lose half my fans. Well, Riki got caught in the middle of this war that the Sumiyoshi-kai gang, which was all-Japanese and the Tosei-kai, which was Machii’s gang, were having for control of the city. There were always skirmishes going on. Fights at night in Roppongi and elsewhere. I drove to work on morning and there was a hand laying on the sidewalk out in front. It had been cut off by a sword the previous night in a fight between two groups of Sumiyoshi=kai and Tosei-kai guys. Wristwatch was still on it, ticking away.
Well, Riki and Machii became good friends. They were both Korean, and so Riki decided to give promotion rights to his wrestling matches in Tokyo to the Tosei-kai. He shut out the Sumiyoshi-kai, which had initially been part of the business. In return, Machii made Riki a “saiko komon” which means “supreme advisor” of the gang. Riki was really proud of that. Riki’s wrestling association, the Japanese Professional Wrestling Association, was an amazing organization when you think about it. Machii was the auditor. The president was Yoshio Kodama, the ultranationalist thug, ex-War Crimes Suspect, who had help found the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (and ran the LQ with Mafioso Ted Lewin) Machii was Kodama’s official bodyguard. The honorary chairman was the vice-premier of the LDP. Can you imagine that? They donated 10% of their profits to the LDP. It was a gangster run operation, but they were in bed with the politicians.
But of course, this new arrangement pissed off the Sumiyoshi gang. It was a big insult to be shoved out of the way by a Korean and they set out to get Riki.
Well, what happened was Riki was sitting in the club, at the Latin Quarter, the New Latin Quarter—it was 1963 by this time–and he was going to go to the toilet, and some punk was in his way, and Riki is not the kind of guy you stand in front of. You stand in front of Riki, you got to be prepared to be hit. Because Riki always hits. He is a mean…He is a Korean you know… And this bum gangster was in the way and of course Riki just wiped him completely out. Flipped him.You know. Kadong! But Riki, you know, he weighed 240. He was non fucking sissy. So he went in the toilet and took he leak or whatever he wanted, and the fight continues and the kid’s got a knife. Riki never sees it. And the kid flips the knife in Riki’s belly. Right…like here. What would you call over here. The appendix place. Like that. Bang. So, Riki, of course, clobbered him again, but this time Riki must have really hit him. The kid ran out. And Riki went in the club.He gets up on the stage. And he says to the bandleader “Play Mack the Knife.” And when Riki says “Play Mack the Knife.” I don’t care what you are playing, you play Mack the Knife.
Q: Were you there?
A: No. Thank god. Because I was always with Riki. Anyway, so, they are playing Mack the Knife and Riki is up on the stage. Or on the dance floor. And he opens his jacket. And there’s a bloody shirt, with blood coming out. And he says, “Some punk just stabbed me.” Nonchalant, like it was nothing at all. And the fucking people in that club, they went flying over tables and chairs, they’re running like a thief. You know, how often do you go in a club and see a guy bleeding over there. Like you know, a knife stuck in him. And that was the end of that. Temporarily.
A: Proudly. Like, he says, “hey look at this.” Mack the Knife. Somebody just stabbed me.” You know, of course, he’s more eloquent than I am. Than I’ll ever be.
So the ambulance comes and they take Riki to the hospital. They brought him right over here to the Sanno. You know the Sanno hospital at the end of this road here. They brought him there. But Riki died of peritonitis a while later. And then Machii’s men went after the Sumiyoshi-kid.
And that was the end of the most fabulous career in Japan…riki had come from North Korea. He was a Korean. He went into sumo. And he went up to Ozeki (junior champion) . And seems they wouldn’t let him become Yokozuna (Grand Champion) because he wasn’t a pure- Japanese.So Riki became pro-wrestler, started his karate chop style and , became multi-multi-millionaire by beating up Americans wrestlers on TV. Japanese went crazy seeing that. Helped burn off resentment about losing the war.… And he would always beat up the gaijin. People standing in front of the department stores watching Rikidozan wrestling on TV. .Of course, this was entertainment, Because if Riki really hit anybody as hard as he could with a karate chop in the ring, he’d kill you. But he just hit you hard enough to knock you on your butt.
(Talk about Richard Bayer, Destroyer. An American wrestler who was popular in Japan in the 60’s 70;s Put Figure 4 leglock on Riki. Riki held it for 20 minutes. Gave up. Went to the hospital.) Stan Kowalski, these were all pro-wrestlers. You know everybody came to my restaurant.,I get to know them all. Pepper Martin. But those days, I know, he used to get $800 bucks a night to wrestle. The 50’s. Boy that was good money. And regardless whether he worked or …he was on a $5,000 a week salary.
Those guys say they really try hard when they’re on tv…nationwide TV. Well, you know… It’s a business and you got to keep the customers employed., happy. They got packed houses but you can’t go out and destroy somebody, really.. You put your opponents in the hospital, who you going to fight?
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What else do I know about Riki….I would always say that Riki was a hell of a nice person. Mean. Nasty. Especially when he got drunk. But boy, if you’re his friend, you’re his friend. Friends forever.
ON GINZA MACHII
Anyway, here is another story about Machii. There used to be a big Frenchman here named Maurice. He’s a Frenchman in charge of the French Judo Association or something like that. Maurice. Well-known in Tokyo in those days. That was back in the days when a guy by the name of Anton Geesink won the Olympic Gold Medal. A big Dutchman. Anyway. I was out in the a nightclub everynight in those days.. I was in a club called the Oskar. It was a big band club, like the Copacabana and the Latin Quarter, with high priced hostesses. It was over here Azabu ju-ban. Anyway, I was in the club with Machii, sitting there. And we went and sat down at a table. Near the bandstand, far off to the right. And apparently Maurice had come in and Machii said to me, “Maurice is in the….sitting back there. Ask him to come here. Bring him over here, you see.” And I went over there, and I walked around and I saw Maurice. And I said, “Hey, Maurice, you know, Machii wants to talk to you.” So I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t see any danger in the conversation. I didn’t see anything at all that was….So Maurice starts following me and walking between the tables and I get to where Machii is sitting. And there is no Maurice behind me. And I can’t figure out what happened. And I says to Machii, “I’m sorry. He came with me. But he’s gone.” He says “That’s all right. Don’t worry about it. Forget about it.” So I forgot about it for a few minutes.
So what really happened was that these gangsters followed me. And when I asked Maurice to come with me. They were staying somewhere in the background there. And when Maurice got up to come with me, they put a gun to Maurice’s head and took him outside in a back hallway and they beat him up. These 110 pounders were taking on a guy that was 220. He was a judo champ. He could have picked each one up with one fucking finger and tossed him across the room. But he couldn’t do anything against gangsters holding guns on him.
Maurice came back in again. You know. And, I looked at him and I said, “What happened.” He says, “You came over to the table and asked me to go with. You. And these gangsters took me outside and they threatened me with their guns and beat me up.”
And I says to “Machii. Why did you do this? What the hell is the fucking reason. I mean what’s going on here? Why do you pick this guy up and do that? That’s my friend. That’s your friend. ”
He said, “Nick, when you and I came into the club, he didn’t say hello.” Can you imagine that?
And I said, “Maurice, why didn’t you wave your hand or blink your eye or show a sign of recognition.” He says, “I can’t. I’m sitting with the French Ambassador. How can you say hello to the known gangster of the town.”
And Machii didn’t like that and had the guy beaten up. And, of course, the situation ended there, there was no problem.
But let me tell you boy, if you’re going to be the gang boss of Tokyo, you gotta be somebody. You know, this is not just selling dope on the corner. This isn’t the black market days and the Occupation when Machii was running girls, beating up drunk GI’s, shaking down clubs and fighting Commie goons. He had moved into the big time. He got into real estate, used his political connections. Made a fortune. And that building, he’s got now in Roppongi.. That great TSK building. It must be worth many millions and millions of dollars. Today, you couldn’t buy it. Picasso in the lobby. Ancient Egyptian jewelry. You couldn’t buy the place…
Machii was a big fucking deal. And he was under Kodama’s wing, you know. And Kodama had a foot in the Prime Minister’s office. It was all great. Until Lockheed. Kodama was taking bribes from Lockheed to get contracts for new plane sales. Then the scandal broke. And it all started going downhill. The police raided Machii’s offices. Kodama was indicted. Then that crazy rightwing nut—the gay porno actor—flew his plane into Kodama’s house. Since then the guy’s been a recluse.
Here’s another story about Machii. A fighter came to Japan one day by the name of Pascual Perez. Do you know the name? Anyway, he fought Yoshio Shirai. Or he fought somebody here. And I was involved in the fight business at that time. I was in business for a while. I had a dojo. I was sponsor of the Noguchi dojo. I was paying all their fucking bills. And I was helping to train fighters, young boxers. I could tell you…But first let’s talk about Perez. So Pascual Perez came over to me one day and he said, “I want to meet the gang boss of Tokyo. He heard that I had Mafia or Yakuza connections or whatever. And I says OK. And I took him down to this dirty little place that Mr. Machii had on the Ginza. A little Korean restaurant. I shouldn’t say too dirty, but, according to the times. It was one of the first restaurants he had opened in Tokyo. Nothing like the glamorous places he opened up later. And he had 4,000 gangsters running around bringing in customers for him. And when a gangster asks you to please go eat at Mr. Machii’s restaurant, you don’t say no. So Pascual Perez sits down with me and Machii and he says to Machii, “You’re the gang boss of Tokyo,” like that. Which, of course, you’re not supposed to say. But Machii thought he was a cute little boy because he weighed 110 pounds, soaking wet, you know. And then, like a bolt out of the blue, he says to Mr. Machii, “I want you to kill somebody for me.” How do you like that?
And I’m sitting at the table, listening to this conversation and Machii speaks a little English, you know. And Machii says, “OK.” And he says to Machii like “How much.” Machii looked at him and said, “A million yen.” Those days a million yen was a lot of money. Anyway, I don‘t exactly appreciate the position that I’m in. Like you know, what the hell am I doing, you know.
But Machii says, “Ok. Who? Who do you want me to kill?” Perez says, “My wife’s got a boy friend. He’s a lightweight fighter on the trip with me. They’re screwing behind my back.” Perez was only a flyweight, so I guess he didn’t think he could beat a lightweight.” And his wife was this big redhead.
But, anyway, he said a million yen. And this little Argentine bastard pulled out a million yen from his pocket and put it on the table. He’s Argentine. I think he was an Argentine. And he put a million yen on the table, and Machii picked it up and put it in his pocket, naturally. And I think that same day, that same night, they got this lightweight fighter and put him on an airplane and sent him back ton Brazil or Argentina or whereever the hell he came from. That night or the next night or something like that. Anyway, they didn‘t kill him.
Then, little Perez finds out about that and comes over to me and says, “I want my money back.” (ha, ha, ha, ha ha) Can you imagine that? I want my money back. The guy’s still alive. I said, “Well, you know where I went. You met the guy. Go ask him yourself.” Isn’t that cute? I want my money back?
ON THE TOSEI-KAI
But Machii’s gangsters were always at my restaurant. One of the Tosei-kai captains was in every night. He liked pizza. Matsubara. You look at him and he’s a physical wreck. He’s got a face that was pushed in by who knows how many hundreds of punches he got in the nose. One of those faces, you know? A fighter that was really…he made mince meat out of him. He wasn’t a professional fighter or anything, but he was a yakuza you know. And when you’re a yakuza you got to fight all the time.
But he was always bringing guns into my place. One day I asked him, I said, “Matsubara, how many guns you got on you?” Without exaggeration, that guy must have pulled four guns out of his overcoat pocket. Can you imagine that?…This was in the old restaurant. Then first restaurant I had. He pulled guns out and he put them on the fucking counter. 38’s. He didn’t have no big artillery pieces, but he had ..they were all stub nosed guns. Infighters. Today they call them Saturday specials? But he had .32’s. .38. Like that. And he was just one of them….they were all like that. They all carried guns.
I say, “what do you always come in my restaurant with guns for? I said, “You should ‘t do that, it’s against the law. What do you always come in my restaurant with guns for? He shrugs, like what kind of stupid question is that? He was one of the Tosei-kai 4000.
Then there was a named Ikeda, Killer Ikedaa. I had trouble with. He came in with a professional wrestler named Killer Austin, big blond dude, and a couple of other thugs from the Tosei-kai gang. Ikeda wanted me to come sit with him, but I didn’t want to. I was drinking in the bar with this singer Jackie Wilson and a comedian named Kenny Pearce. So I said no. But Ikeda didn’t like that. Took it as an insult. He was the most notorious gangster in the Machii group. He was the one who even Machii says to me, “I have no control over him”
He just had a reputation a reputation in Tokyo, to keep away from him. He was a mean mother. A very mean mother. But I didn’t give a shit, you know. To me, a Japanese gangster is a piece of shit. Especially if you’re brought up in New York City in East Harlem, and lived on the same street with all those other Mafia people. Hey, these guys ain’t nothing. …Anybody can pull a trigger. A Japanese is a Japanese. They’re what 5’5”. 5’7”? They’re all 130 pounds. 140 pounds. These guys were not musclemen. They were just nasty, because they carried guns you know. Their strength lay in their index finger.
I was still in that old restaurant. So it would have to be before 1964. So Jackie Wilson, decided that the better part of everything is for him to leave. So he left. And I was there with Kenny Pearce. And so I decided I’m gonna go out. And while I was trying to go out, Killer Austin got in front of me. And that restaurant was cute because it had 6 tables and then it had a passageway that went in and out. So I went down the passageway and Killer Austin came in front of me. 5 gangsters behind me. So here I’m in a 3-foot area, with a big mother fucker in front of me and five guys behind me. So I decided that was only one way to get out of this mess and that was just swing. Start fighting. So I hit Killer Austin. That was the end of him. Then I turned around and attacked the five gangsters. And the nearest one, you know, they can’t get more than one in the fucking alleyway, because there’s a small 3-foot alleyway between tables and the wall. And I knocked down Ikeda. But I don’t recommend you write his name. Cause he’s still alive. He’s in prison but he’s a dangerous man, by the way. But anyway, so I knocked him down and stepped on his fucking throat and sez you know, “Give me any shit and I’ll tear your throat out.” So they begged for mercy and this that and the other thing. So I says OK, I got in the car. Kenny Pearce drives the car. I say, “Comon Kenny let’s go someplace and drink.” Kenny doesn ‘t drink. He’s an American Indian from Hood River in Oregon….Anyway, what happened was we drove around and we wound up in Tom’s restaurant—a seedy place, with a bar upstairs and booths downstairs. That was the gangland hangout for the Roppongi area. You know, in Nogizaka. So I went in there and fucking Ikeda is by the bar playing darts. Or rather he’s throwing these icepicks into the wall. Double-edged ice picks. He carried them in a leather case. And they would stick in the wall. He was playing darts with the wall. And the waiters pulled them out and gave them back. They were very afraid of those people. But anyway, so he said to me, “You think you can do that? Now, I prided myself on being able to throw an knife. Because you learn that in the Marine Corps. But I took these 5 or 6 double end ice picks. And just slammed them against the wall. And they went flying all over the place. And all his gangster buddies were picking them up…
And then he pulled a gun and put it at my fucking head. Jeez. I got a gun at my head and Kenny Pearce, who was behind me, slips me a fucking switchblade in my right hand. So I take the switchblade and I can feel it and I get it in the right position. And I stuck it in Ikeda’s throat. And I said, “OK, we both die. I pull the trigger and I cut your fucking throat. On three. Let’s go. One-two.” And on two the blood came down on my finger and he saw the blood. He shit. And he put the gun down on the counter. He put the gun on the counter and I took the knife away.
So there isn’t many things you can do when a guy’s got a gun to your temple. And he’s a gangster. And he’s well known. And he’s a mean mother fucker. So I got the knife in my hand and pulled the fucking switchblade on it. You know the button they got. And I stuck it in his throat. And I said to him, “When I say three, you shoot the gun and I slit your fucking throat. One..” The place was already half-evacuated. People jumping over tables. By two, the ones that couldn’t fly out the window, went through the ceiling. There’s 5 gangsters in that place. One of them has got a gun out. You don’t know what the other guys are going to do. If you’re an innocent bystander you run. .
Q: Did Tom’s have tables and chairs in it?
A: We were sitting at the bar.
Q: Long and narrow shaped.
A: It was like L-shaped operation. Tables and chairs (or stools and counters) or something at the other side. Cuz we went in here. So when I said 2, I had blood running down my shirt. My sleeve. My right hand thumb. And, of course, no matter how tough you are or how nasty you are, when you see your own blood, you think very differently. Somehow blood has a frightening…what do you call it? Especially when it’s your blood. Some people ain’t afraid of blood. But when it’s their blood, it’s a different story. So he pulled the gun down. But, I kept the knife there. But I told him put the gun on the counter. So he put the gun on the counter and I put the knife away. And by that time, there was nobody in Tom’s restaurant. Or Tom’s bar, whichever you want to call it. So the Chinese owner says to me I owe him money. So I gave him a 5,000 yen note. Kenny and I got in the car and took Killer Austin, who fortunately, was not the type to hold a grudge, a nice guy actually, to the Dai-Ichi Hotel where he lived.
Then when we got to the hotel, the four gangsters, or five gangsters, how many of them we had there, four maybe , five. They were standing outside the door of the hotel. They got there before me. But before I got out of the car, I saw them and I says “Kenny give me that knife again.” Jesus. What a fucking weapon you got with four guys and they probably had ten guns between them. And I got a fucking four-inch, switchblade. You know.
So this Ikeda says to me, “Here’s the change from the 5,000 yen you paid to the Chinese.” Jesus Christ. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t even have a drink. That was their bill, I think. I says “Keep the Change.” They said, “no,no,no.” They wouldn’t touch that money. So I took the change.
Q: And that was the end of it.
A: I got back in the car. Killer Austin went back in the hotel. They went in the hotel with him. Kenny and I just drove away. I stopped and washed the blood off. When I got to my house, which is next to Machii’s place, right across the street from the Azabu Police Station. Half my living room was full with a welcoming committee of all policeman. That was like 7 or 8 o;clock in the morning. I can’t even remember if my kids went to school yet.
They wanted me to make a confession. Of course, they says to me, we know all about what happened in Tom’s. How you were there and then guy put a gun on you. And this that and the other things, but we’re not after you. But we’re not after you or anything, we just want to get the man who pulled then gun and all that shit. And I says “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Nobody pulled a gun on me. And this went on and on and on and I kept denying it….I says I was in a whorehouse in Yokohama with a certain girl. And I had…I knew all the telephone numbers in those days. So In did, I called up the woman and said in case anybody says anything, just say I was here, shacking up. So I guess the police checked the hotel in Yokohama. And the mama-san said “Yes, he was there.” So they let me go. They wanted me to sign a confession that this guy pulled a gun on me. So I said it couldn’t be me, because I was in a whoorhouse in Yokohama and I just drove back from Yokohama, so it’s not me. And they stayed at my house until about 12 in o’clock in the fucking morning…until they got a phone call saying that somebody put Ikeda into the hospital. Somebody beat the shit out of him. So I said, “See, it couldn’t be me, because I was sitting there with you all the time.”
I had just cut him with a knife…he was physically beaten up, by Machii’s boys, because Machii was my buddy. So they beat him up and he wound up in the hospital.
Then shithead Steve Parker. You know that name? Shirley MacLaine’s ex? He started shacking up with Ikeda’s wife. How do you like that for balls. Ikeda came out of then hospital. And I told Steve. I said, “I heard what you’re doing. If I were you, I’d run like a fucking thief because if that guy ever finds out that you’re fooling around with his wife. Fuck, you’ll be dead. But Steve is a shithead. Steve was fooling around with his wife. I mean he might have shacked up with her, once or twice or three times, or something. But you know the word gets out.
END
SOME ADDITIONAL UNEDITED MATERIAL
MACHII
You know he became criminal, classified as a criminal, because he was a big guy…this is the story I heard. He lived in Sugamo, by Sugamo Prison and there was a lot of US military there. Nasty bastards. They’d go into bars and cause trouble. And they used to call Machi to help the fight these guys because because he was 6’’2”. He was a big mother. And that’s how he got into the land of muscles. Not like Charles Atlas. But real muscles. And from there he went into it. He started his gang. And he helped Kodama and his ultra nationalists, and the CIA fight communists, and one thing led to another and he became bigger and bigger. And he became the Boss of Tokyo.
Well, Ginza Machii when he started out, he was shabby. He had a long fucking coat that almost touched the floor. In those days, there was no heat. Everything was cold. But then he was just a little…or a big hoodlum. And one day he and three of his henchmen—one named Matsubara, one named Imai, and one named Nakayama, had a shootout with the rival gang in an Asakusa Cemetary, and that put him on top. Machii was s Number Two. The Number One guy calls up and says gang boss and says “Where do you want to die?” And Machii says I want to die in the Asakusa Cemetary. So he asked him, how many are you going to bring with you. He said they’ll be three with me. . And even though the guy was the boss of Tokyo and he probably could have 50 or a 100 guys with him, he brought three. So it’s three against three. Or four against four. And, of course, the other boss and the other guys died. died. Machii became the gang boss.Those three guys with Machii went to jail for that but they came back heroes. They shot it out in a gun battle. And those three guys went into jail as ordinary punks and they came out as captains. They had tremendous respect because they actually pulled a gun and killed somebody. But they only got a few years in jail. I was living over here, so I guess that was 1956 or 1957. 1958. In that area.
(Author’s note. I found a police record of a midnight gun/knife battle at a temple in Asakusa where there is a cemetary, a battle involving the Tosei-kai (with Matsubara and Nakayama mentioned) and a rival Asakusa-based gang. The Tosei-kai emerged victorious. It was a key battle for underworld control of the city. But there were others in the period 1958-1963…and there were also battles for control of the Ginza in the late 40’s and early 50’s)
I met Machii one day and like he was going from pillar to post. He was the gang boss of Tokyo but there weren’t big money in those days. And I says to him, or he says to me, “How do I make a buck? I need more money.” And I says “Well, I’m an Italian. I made an Italian restaurant. So you’re a Korean . Make a Korean restaurant.”
He says he don’t even know how to boil water.. I says, “Don’t worry about it. How many boys you got workin’ on the Ginza?” He said “4,000.”
So I said, “You got 4,000 boys. They’ll go all over the town. And they’ll have everybody go to your restaurant whether they like it or not. And all the bar madams and the other bums that are on the Ginza, will have to go to your restaurant and eat. And sure enough they did. And he built a restaurant that was …maybe two rows of tables, that’s all. Maybe half of this room. That’s all. But it was filled every night. It had to be filled everynight. And he became very very rich. Of course, that’s just one of his assets. Then he tore down the building and built the Silk Road Club up there…(in the Ginza) And I was invited to go there. And my first drink that 30,000 yen. ($85 dollars). Jesus, can you imagine that?
It’s still there. Or rather the building is still there. On Namiki-dori. You know where Mikasa restaurant is? Near Lohmeyers, Ketels. In that area. I think it’s Namiki-dori. I can’t remember those names anymore….And he built another building there, and then the TSK.CCC building in roppongi. …. I think on the 7th on 8th floor, he built the Silk Road Club….It as one of those funny buildings. All black. Beams are sticking out. But there’s no building there. Hanging louvers I guess you’d call them. I don ‘t know what the hell they call them. But he did very good in that club. And it encouraged him to come over here (in Roppongi), where he’s got Caravansary (the million dollar club)….that’s the building, TSKCCC.
You know at one time when it was very fashionable to have beautiful restaurants, he had more than a million dollars Egyptian crafts hanging on the walls of Caravansary—which was that time, wow, that was something. It was French food. He had an Egyptian belly dancer. But he had too many gangsters around the place and that discouraged the Japanese. It was a club…..I never fooled around in there, because I lived next door….I say maybe, maybe they had girls. But it was a club, a very, very exclusive type operations. Not like what you see on the Ginza. It was very DEMOOR. Is that the word you use? Quiet. And then guy lived on the roof there. And talk about a beautiful Japanese home. He’s got a big godamn tennis court up there. Really fabulous.
(Discussion of location of Silk Road Club. Built on Namiki-dori. Same location as Korea restaurant. Original Korean restaurantn torn down. New building goes up with many clubs and restuarants. Another new building, similar in scope, built next door.)
COPA/NIGHT CLUB STORIES
Q: Tell me some night club stories.
A: Yeah, let me tell you a cute story. I was in the Copacabana one day. It was the greatest place. Frank Sinara went there. Dean Martin. Nixon, Lockheed guys. You could drop a thousand dollars a nght. Girls were absolutely gorgeous. And the bartender would always introduce me to the new girls. Because I’m tired of screwing then old ones. So he calls one girl. She comes over to me. I said hello, how are you, what’s your name and so and so. And the next thing I says was we going to go to bed to tonight and fuck? And she says “yes.” No love. No bottle. No glass. Nothing. And Mike Dinaioff, he’s sitting there and he says, “you don’t want to sleep with him. I’m better than he is.” And she says, “He asked me first” (laugh) Then of course, we proceeded to drink and she’s gone; she’s working as a hostess. And the end of the night she comes over and she says, let’s go home. So I said, OK. We get in my car and drive someplace. I don’t know where the fuck I am, you know. And it’s February, it’s a cold mother fucker and I went to this girl’s apartment. And the first thing she insists on is that you take all your clothes on, Nude in February. In a Japanese house. With no fucking heat. (and no insulation) How do you like that for balls? Of course, I played the game. I took my clothes off. She took her clothes off. Then she says, “You like martinis?” You know what that girl did? She got a big fucking mixing bowl. She put ice in it. She poured about a shot of gin in it. Or vermouth. Then she shook it up, poured it out and put gin in it. Let me tell you that makes a martini. And we had that martini. Meantime, she’s making the ofuro. Then she says its ready to take a bath. Now, I am nude. Cold. With a cold martini in me. You know nothing warm. Nothing warm. They don’t know what warm is. I go into this fucking bathtub and as damned as I live, I’ll never forget it. A skinny fucking room with a light hanging down. You know the swinging lights, a regular (uncovered) light bulb. A wooden bath way off in the corner. Must have been about 6 feet wide. And maybe 12-15 feet long. A skinny long thing like that. I didn’t even think it was six feet wide. At the ofuro’s at the end of it, and I get in there and jesus christ I’m cold and the first thing, you know, I’m looking at the door. I got my back to her and the ofuro. And she takes a bucket of water and hits me in the back of the back with a bucket of hot water. And here I’m freezing. Can you imagine the fucking sensation of being frozen and the hot water hits you in the back and I turn around and I’m fucking mad and I get hit right in then face with another bucket of hot water. And that believe it or not cooled me off.
I got in the bath with her. And that fucking girl. We’re not in the bath more than 5 minutes. My blood is just beginning to circulate and I’m feeling the heat. And with her educated toes—and the Japanese have got educated toes—they walk with that split toe I’m getting a hard on . And she pulled the plug out. And the fucking water started draining out of the ofuro. And the ofuro is built for one. And here I am, about 200 and some odd pounds in there with her who weighs about 100 pounds. 120 pounds. And she gets out of the ofuro very easy, because she’s a skinny girl. And here I’m stuck in the ofuro and I couldn’t get out. I had to use so much energy to get out of the ofuro—there’s no more water—in this tight, tight ofuro. And I finally got out of it. Dried up. Get in bed. And she says, “you must be tired, so why don’t you lay on the bottom.” And she proceed to climb on top of me and fuck like a mink. Then, when I through and she got through, she says “I know you are a very busy man, so why don’t you go home.” Did you ever have a girl tell you after you’re through, Go Home?
Q: How did you give her?
A: I don’t remember. In those days I used to leave a lot of tips and things like that. I drink with the girls..and tell them I’ll pay the bill. And they come to my restaurant and eat free, anyway, you know. And then, there was always the racket, they come over and say, “Nick-san, I’m still a hostess.” So they got a gaijin customer, they bring him over to my restaurant. And I charge 2,000 yen and hour for them sitting there. And give the girls the money. So that was a source of income for them. So they stay there 3-4-5-6- hours and it costs them 2000 yen an hour. 10,000 yen. And I used to put it on the bill. And give it to them. And sometimes I’d give them the whole fucking bill. Who gives a shit?
I’d over and say “Hello, how are you? Because I’m a bullshit artist. And the longer I stay there, the more their hostage charge goes up.
So if they were getting a 1,000 yen or 2,000 yen per hour, it used to go on the bill….and then when the guy paid the bill.Which is always cash you know. Sometimes I give then girl the whole bill. Don’t give a shit what it is. Just give them the money. So, I was always welcomed in any club.Because I was a source of money for them. I never paid for sex. There’s other ways of paying, you know.
Q: Wait a minute. Then girls would take their gaijin customers out of the club. And the guy would have to pay for their time. The hostess submit a bill at the end of the evening?
A: Well, it’s a word of mouth, you see. :If I go out with you than I have to charge you 2,000 yen a hour and I have to give it to the Mama-san.
Q: And so the guy pays at the end of the evening.
A: If the restaurant bill is 5,000 yen and her bill is 10,000 yen, he’d have to pay 15,000. And the girls were always very cooperative that way. They enjoyed it. And the guy paid money and they shacked up, you know. Why not, she made 10,000-15,000 yen/. And he shacks up with her.
FRANK SINATRA/COPA
You know the story about Frank Sinatra and Cathy?
You know Cathy?
Q: No.
A: What’s her name. She’s in LA. She was a Tachikawa whore but you got to be very careful how you write that.
Q: Japanese?
A: Japanese girl. Very, very good looking. She became a pro-bowler. She’s living in LA some place….(garbled)…for Tats Nagashima, who used to be the Latin Quarter manager or something. Anyway, Sinatra paid $5,000 for her to go to bed with him. Imagine that?
So the next time he came in town
Q: She worked at the Copa.
A: Copa yeah. So the next time he came in town he thought he had the …he was rodneyed by the rail…how would you say it, he was in first place? She sort of told him, you know, that yesterday is yesterday and today is today. Nothing is free. He says “I paid you $5,000 before.” So she says, “Just a moment.” She went up to Mama Cherry…she’s the Copacabana owner…She borrowed $5,000. She came back and she threw it in his fucking face, in the middle of the club, in front of every Tom, Dick and Harry. That’s a broad baby.
Q: Is the Copa still there?
A: No. Not any more.
Q: How many women were there at the Copacabana?
A: Ohhh, probably a hundred.
Q: What were the other big clubs? The Mikado?
A: Benibasha.
Q: Latin Quarter? How many women.
A: Again you’re talking a hundred. Benibasha probably had more than a hundred women.
Q: How about Mikado?
A: That was something else. Must have had a thousand there. All numbered. With beepers. Very efficient. Stage shows. Overhead gondolas. The Mikado was so much girls.They had huge floor shows. Another one was Gessekai. Cuz I used to go there and I really enjoyed that place. That’s when Bruno and Mario had a band there. The two Italians? And their niece was the girl, the Italian girl that’s in Tokyo now that sings.
Q: How would you go? I thought your restaurant was open until four. How would you have time?
A: I didn’t stay in the restaurant. I used to enjoy life. You find me in my restaurant, you’re lucky.
Q: After it got going you were out on the town?
A: Everyday out. But not many people had a colorful life. I was one of the very few because money was coming my way like it was going out of style.
Q: Are you surprised it was so successful?
A: I didn’t know what to do with the money. I used to fill my drawers at home with money. Can you imagine that? I didn’t know what to do with all the fucking money I was making. Of course, I used to steal it from myself. And do black market stuff. I was the only guy that had lost money and bought a new home and a Cadillac and a yacht. And my balance sheet showed I was losing money. But I tell you I paid the price. They got it all back. I’d be worth a billion dollars today if they didn‘t take my properties. Fucked me all up like they did. But then, they they can take your property. They can take your money. But they can’t take your memories. And I’m proud enough to say I must have fucked 3,000 different women in this country….
I remember when I stayed at the Yaesu hotel, this guy Pancho Parsons.Pancho’s now retired, living in King City California, which is near Fort Ord. We were driving down the street in Yaesu area near Tokyo Station and he’s driving along or I’m driving and we’re fucking girls in the back seat in a convertible with the convertible down. Can you imagine that fucking shit? Those were the wild days, yo.
Q: What was this guy’s name?
A: Pancho Parsons. Captain Parsons. He was an investigator with me. (note; at CPC)
ROLAND SESSI
You know I told you about what I did with Rolando Sessi. He was the Italian opera singer. I brought him into the Copacabana bar.1961, 1962. And I taught him how to say hello in English…You know he only “parle Italian.”…So he reached over to then first guy, shook hands and says, “Fuck you.” And he went to the second guy at the bar, shook hands and says “Fuck you.” And he did the whole fucking bar like that….Can you image that? The Copacabana bar must have sat 20-30 people. He went right down the bar and says “Fuck you” to everybody. And they just didn’t know what to say.
Q: He’s talking to gaijin?
A: All Americans.. You know. They…not Americans../a lot of Jews and all that shit…Foreigners. There were no Japanese in the Copacabana in those days. The only Japanese if they can afford it are the extremely rich…and the foreigners. That’s the Copa.
Anyway, he came to Japan with the Greek opera company, and the promoter sold all the tickets. He got all the money and ran away. He left all the foreigners stranded. So the church took them in….But they did that quite often in those days. What do you think? They going to go to the police? And the police says “You? Foreigner? Fuck you. We don’t care you got cheated.” But, of course, they cheated all the Japanese who paid for all the tickets. But those guys never got paid. They didn’t even have a trip to go home. Nothing. They came to Japan and they were stranded. So I helped one. Rolando Sessi. I brought him into my home. Then I got him a job at the Copacabana. And Doris Lee, Al Shattuck’s wife, was singing there. And he heard her sing and he said “Is that girl going to sing in here? And he says, “If she sings a here, I no sing a here. A she’s a terrible.” (laugh) And the guy would sing without a microphone. If you’re standing in the street you can hear him. That doesn’t say much for Japanese buildings, but…so that failed. And I got him a job at ..
Q: So he quit?
A: He wouldn’t sing. Wouldn’t sing in that place. So I get him a job at Aoi-Shiroi (Blue-White club). I don’t know if you remember that place. It used to be Aoyama some place. It’s not in existence anymore. He wanted an airplane ticket. $700 bucks to go back to Italy. So I got him a job for $700 bucks. Singing there a couple of days….so when he was practicing, the musicians couldn’t hold the notes. The guy’s voice was so fantastic that when he held a note, they would run out of air with the instruments.
So, in those days I used to run around a lot with Machii. So I told Machii why don’t you come along and listen to this great Italian singer. And then Machii heard him singing, he was very impressed and he sent over a 10,000 yen note. Gift. In those days, 10,000 yen was like 2 or 3 months salary to normal people. When Sessi got the 10,000 yen at the end of the show, he walked back and he threw it back on the table. And he told Machii to fuck himself. In Italian, thank god. So, of course, I had to say that the man was not accustomed to receiving money from customers. He was a professional singer.. Oh, you know, anything. Anything to keep the lion off his back….Machii’s is not somebody to fuck around with….Hey, that’s a heavyweight. A real heavyweight.
GETTING THE KIDS BACK
Q: So anyway, when did you get married to Yae, your cash register girl?
A: Oh, I married her twice. Probably. The first time I married her.,..Jesus I got remember.
Q: You said your kids were there when the cops came? Your kids were with Yae?
A: No, Yae wasn’t living with me. That was in between marriages.
Q: Those were your kids from your first marriage.
A: First marriage, yeah.
Q: They were staying with you.
A: Yeah, right over here.
Q: Just visiting.
A: They were staying with me and Yae lived down the street here.
Q: How come they weren’t staying with your first wife?
A: Oh, I separated from my first wife.
Q: I know. I thought they were living with her.
A: I got the kids back when they/we had trouble with them. And I was not married then. I was shacking up with Yae-chan, but also every little girl that came along. And I lived at Yarai-cho. That’s the fucking house that fucked Scolinas (garbled?) (that fuck Scolinas?) But anyway, that was over here. And over here, I moved in 1957. 1958. From Yarai-ho. So that had to be 1960. My son was born in 1948. He was 12 years old then. So they were going to Nishimachi school here. My daughter was 9. My son was 12. Probably by that time I was married to Yae-chan? (no. That was in 1964). But I can never remember. They’re too fucking hard to remember. You try to forget those fucking things. You don’t want to remember them. It’s bad enough you have to live through that period.
Q: How come you got your kids back? What do you mean, what trouble?
A: Oh, I didn’t tell you that? Well, I tell you. When I involved with the Imperial Hotel Robbery, my first wife finally decided she wanted to be divorce, because she didn’t want to associate with a guy like that. And she agreed to give me a divorce. And in the divorce settlement, I gave her custody of the kids and 45,000 yen per month. Now that must have been a great coupe for the Japanese, because the salaries in those days could have been 3,000 to 5,000 a month. Can you imagine what 45,000 yen was? This is 1950…Vincie was about 9 years old….So 1957. 1958. So I got divorced and I gave her the kids and gave her this big money every month. A tremendous amount of money. And, of course, I don’t care. I go down and visit the kids. Even though they didn’t like gaijins. You know. My son still don’t like gaijins. So one day I went down there, it was against my principles to drive on a Sunday, especially on a rainy day. Cuz I like to drive fast. And a rainy day is not the safest day in the world to go fast. So I went to Fujisawa house to deliver a vacuum cleaner that I received. So when I brought the vacuum cleaner into then house. It was an rainy miserable day. Then kids were in then living room, with an open gas burner. You know, that you cook food on….Cold. Winter. February. It was a cold fucking day. I remember that. And so while I was in there I saw a shadow pass between the rooms. And it just didn’t make sense that there should be a shadow in the room there. Because my wife was thre, my ex-wife was there, and my two kids were there. There should be nobody else in the house. So I asked my wife, who’s in the house? And Japanese don’t like to lie, but they don’t want to tell you the story either. She said, “:it’s my house. None of your business.” My house. None of your business. Doesn’t hunt in my pasture. So I went back in the house. I had already put my shoes on to leave. I was in the genkan. (foyer) And I ran back into the house. And this son of a bitch…she started yelling in Japanese..and then guy jumped out the window.
A boy friend.
Q: Japanese guy?
A: Yeah. A heavyweight;. Maybe 120 pounds. And I weighed about 220 then. 210;l. 200. And he ran. And I jumped out the window and chased him. And he ran around the house and around the house. But being a city slicker, I always kept concrete around the house. And the son of a bitch. If he had kept running around the house I would haven died from exhaustion,. But he made a mistake, he went back in the house. And in the house, I got him beat, because a big man is always better in a confined area than a small guy. So I caught him in the living room and hit him once and broke his jaw. His fucking jaw went right down to here. You ever see a guy with a broken jaw? (laugh) It goes right in your neck. That’s how hard I hit that mother fucker. So then I said to her. Give me the kids, I’ll give you this guy. If not, I’m gonna take him. The next punch, I’ll tear his throat out.
So she says, you can have the kids.
And the two kids were saying “No, Mommy. No, Mommy. We don’t want to go with him. We don’t want to go with him.” Can you imagine that, my kids?
So I said the next day there’ll be a katei saiban (family court). Katei Saiban is the Tokyo Divorce Court. And I knew the presiding judge. Or the boss of the fucking place. Judge Kondo. A good friend of mine.
You know in those day I used to know so many fucking people. But I had a memory. I could remember all of them. No, I can’t remember nobody. Give me 2 days and In forgot who I was with.
Q: So you took the kids?
A: They came over to the divorce court. They awarded me the kids. And she could have them every weekend. (note: Wife was forced to choose between kids or boy friend) So In got the 2 kids back.
And so I took my daughter down to Sacred Heart school. And then nun there says to me, your kids can not enter this school, because they’re illegitimate. How about that? I asked her why. And she says cuz your not married in church.Well, of course, I proceeded to call her a fucking whoor.
And I left with my kids. I put my son & daughter in Nishimachi school. Went there to become English speakers That school was run by Tani…Reischauer’s sister-in-law. Her father started the Bank of Hokkaido. Very fucking rich type broad that was educated in New York City. Matsukata. Reischuaer’s wife is her sister.
Q: And the kids have been with you ever since? Or until they grew up?
A: They came…and then first house they lived in was Yarai cho, then we moved to Roppongi….Then with the Daiei’s…the cultural revolution. The anti-establishment movement. Or should I say just before that period. So my daughter used to say, we want to have pajama parties.I want my friends to all sleep here. We can get up in the morning. We can all eat breakfast together. She says to me. “This house is too small.” You know how big that house was. It was 80 tsubo. She said it was too small. Yeah, who the fuck lives in an 80 tsubo house. You know, this is the house over her where Dr. Kanzaki’s got. Behind the “Clover.” 3-storynhouse with 3-4-5 bedrooms. 6-7. I think it had 8 bedrooms in there. Can you imagine that. She says it’s too small.
So I bought a piece of property over here, behind my old restaurant. The guy told me 47 million yen. I bought it from Tommy Han. Tommy Han used to own Sanya restaurants. Now living in SFO I believe. One day, he made then list of the richest foreigners in Tokyo. You know the richest income tax payer. That doesn’t make you the richest foreigner, it makes you the stupidest foreigner.
So he bought the house for 25 million yen and I went to Tommy and asked to buy property, He wanted 45 million for it. So I gave him 45 million. Then 3 million yen to the broker….went to Tokyo Sogo Bank. Lent me money. I bought house,
DAI-NIPPON ULTRA NATIONALISTS
Q: You fought w/ the pachinko parlor workers?
A: Yeah. All of them. I beat the shit out of them. 7-8-9 of them. And of course I got arrested again. Sort of. This time I’m in the Osaki police station. And this time I called Mr. Noguchi. And his father was in the 2-2-6 deal. You know that? (Attempted military coup in 1936.)…So I called him up and they came down and got me out of jail.. No trouble. Nick’s crazy and he’s he got this whiskey in him and he’s got some pills in him. And he’s gone and all that shit. So they released me. And that was the end of that girl.
Q: Mr…
A: Noguchi. His father was the lightweight champion of the world. Or the lightweight champion of Japan or something like that. But he looks like a fighter. You know. His nose is punched in. And his trademark is the face of a lion, because boy, he looked like was a lion. Everybody beat up on him. But he was in that group…Kodama (Yoshio Kodama).You know, the ultra-nationalists. They still associate the …I used to sit there many times in Meguro, watching this guy pay money out to all the yakuza. The DAI-NIPPON YAKUZA. They’d line and there’d be hundreds of them. They gave one a thousand yen or two thousand yen. He was the paymaster.And he didn ‘t have a dime in his own pocket. Can you imagine giving out millions of fucking yen….and he had no money.
Q: Why was he giving them money?
A: Because he was then paymaster for the DAINIPPON group.
Q: DAI-NIPPON was the name of the gang?
A: Ultranationalists. Whatddya you call them,
Q: There’s a fine line there.
A: They’re not gangsters. They’re ultranationalists. They’re the guys that are running around in trucks here with the loudspeakers. They’re not yakuza…..Every month he’d pay them off. Even a thousand yen in those days was big money….They’re were not gangsters….They stand there and bow and kiss the money. And Domo Arigato. And the next guy and the next guy and the next guy. They used to do it every month. I’ve seen them do it many times. He was a real Japanese samurai, you might call it. He would drink and he wouldn’t let his wife in the same room with him. Women were not allowed to be in the same room where he was. We used to drink fucking whiskey and I had to run home—I lived in Meguro the with that girl—I had to run home before the whiskey caught up to me. Because if not, I’d never get home. You know, drink a couple of bottles of booze straight down the hatch.
Q: How old was he then ?
A: That would be very close to 1951 or 1952. No that would be in 1953 or 1954.
And I’d say that…he went to China in 1936…so he must have been about 45-50 years old. The guy who was in the 2-2-6. They all got exiled to China. And, of course, they became, what do you call it, …then word is dog, what’s the dog…You know the guy who goes out and procure things. All the military had a dog something. You know like you’re a general. You got a captain. He’s a dog. They got a word for it.
He was out getting girls for you and this or that. What do you call it? He’s like a servant to the general.
Q: Noguchi was a boxer?
A: Noguchi was a boxer. So he had to be a boxer in 1933, 1932, I guess you can check that very easily.
Q: So you were friends with him and the son. Both.
A: : Well, his son was just about…he’s about 50 years old now. This would be 30 years ago. The son was going to Meiji University. I remember the kid. He was named Osamu, ne. Osamu Noguchi. He got in kick boxing. I made a lot of money in kick boxing. He used to carry a switchblade in his sock. The son of a bitch had a six-inch blade, seven inch blade in his sock. It was a fucking big knife. And he’s a little shit. He weighed 110 pounds when he got caught in the rain with heavy clothes on. The son. He was born in Japan, but his other brother was born in China. Kyobo.
Tokyo Junkie 
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