Mafia Romance
Although pleasant at first, these formalities began to wear on Miss Blum's patience. Constrained by convention, she could not initiate contact without a suitable pretext. Fortunately, one did present itself. One of the funeral homes was going to hold a raffle and all the East Side undertakers were given a handful of ballots to sell. Ida Blum, who usually handled these matters, called her daughter and asked if she was interested in trying her luck with the Weiss brothers. At her mother's timely suggestion, Billie went to Houston Street on the pretext of selling them ten raffle tickets. Irving was willing to buy all ten, but Henry stopped him, telling him that five would be enough. That confir