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Gravano, Karen.
Mob daughter : the Mafi a, Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, and me! / Karen
Gravano with Lisa Pulitzer.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-250-00305-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-01520-4 (e-book)
1. Gravano, Karen. 2. Gravano, Salvatore, 1945—Family. 3. Mafi a—New
York (State)—New York. 4. Children of criminals—Family relationships—
United States. I. Pulitzer, Lisa. II. Title.
HV6248.G647G73 2012
364.1092—dc23
[B] 2011043170
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CHAPTER ONE
“If we have to go to war, that’s what we have to do.”
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MOB DAUGHTER
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KAREN GRAVANO
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KAREN GRAVANO
sisters. She and her husband, Eddie, lived across the street
from us in a two-family house. Dad’s mother also lived there,
in an apartment downstairs.
Aunt Fran was closer to my father than his sister Jean. Dad
and Fran were closer in age and seemed to have more in com-
mon. Fran was always warm and loving. She played the piano,
and she taught Gerard and me how to play. She’d sit us down
and tell us stories about my grandparents, and how they had
come over from Italy. My father’s mother, Kay, wrote chil-
dren’s stories that were published here in the United States.
Aunt Fran would read us those stories, and she’d add to them
with her own fanciful fabrications. One of Grandma Kay’s sto-
ries was about a little girl named Karen and a rabbit. Another
one was about my cousins and how they flew through the city
on the wings of an eagle. My Aunt Jean, or Jeannie, who was
Dad’s eldest sister, kept the books at her house, but they were
all lost in a fire after Grandma Gravano died. Jeannie was mar-
ried to my uncle Angelo. He wasn’t involved in “the life.” He
was an engineer.
Jeannie was much older than Dad. We would go over to their
house a lot. Uncle Angelo was into golf and tennis, and he had
a fish tank in his basement. We weren’t allowed to touch any
of his things. Dad loved Angelo. He was more like a father fig-
ure to Sammy. Uncle Angelo was a hard man, but he was very
generous. He had a lot of morals, and he stood behind his mor-
als. When two of his kids got in trouble for smoking marijuana,
he threw them out of the house. Dad couldn’t relate to that type
of discipline; no matter what I did, he would never disown me.
On the nights that Dad worked late in Brooklyn, we’d usu-
ally go over to Aunt Fran’s for dinner. Dad would meet us there
when he got home. He had this thing about eating together as
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MOB DAUGHTER
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KAREN GRAVANO
“Let’s wait until your father gets home and see what he says.”
“But you just said he’s not coming home for dinner. When
will he be back?”
“I don’t know. And honestly, I don’t know if this is a good
night for Toniann to be here anyhow. Maybe she should go home
now.” She packed up the sauce in plastic containers. “We’re go-
ing across the street to eat with your grandmother, Aunt Fran,
and the kids. Get your brother, put on some clean clothes, and
let’s get going.”
There was a strange vibe in Aunt Fran’s house that evening.
Uncle Eddie wasn’t around, which was also odd. None of the
adults said anything while they set out the food, a sure sign some-
thing was wrong because my family members were big talkers.
Even though I wanted to, I didn’t ask Mom any more questions.
After dinner, I asked her if I could go across the street to
Toniann’s to play until my father came home. “You can play,
but only for half an hour.”
“What about the sleepover?” I pressed.
She sighed. “Ask your father when he gets home. If he doesn’t
come home, it’ll have to be another night.”
We were out playing in Toniann’s front yard when Uncle
Eddie’s car roared around the corner and screeched into our
driveway. Dad jumped out and ran into our house, and I ran
in after him. He wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen, so I
wandered upstairs. The door to the bedroom was shut. The
moment I cracked it opened, Dad turned and looked at me with
a serious face.
“Don’t you knock?” He quickly turned his back to me, but
not before I saw him jam a revolver into the waistband of his
jeans. I tried to figure out if something was wrong, but his
body language revealed nothing. He was calm and together. I
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