Phantom

Glossary

Belly-up: Bankrupt

Big earner: Someone who makes a lot of money for the family

Bird: A pretty woman

Blabbermouth: Someone who talks too much

Broad: A woman

Bum rap: A false accusation; being blamed for something you didn’t do

Bust your chops: To scold or chastise someone

Cafone : An embarrassment to himself and others; a phony

Capo: Short for capodecina , the family member who leads a crew

Capo di tutti i capi : Boss of bosses

Clock: To keep track of someone’s movements and activities

Come heavy: To arrive carrying a loaded gun

Consigliere : A member of the family who serves as an adviser to the don and resolves disputes within the family

Contract: A murder assignment

Crew: A group of soldiers that takes orders from a capo

Cugine : A young criminal looking to be inducted into the Mafia

Dip: An idiot

Don: Head of the family

Enforcer: A person who threatens, maims, or kills someone

Empty suit: Someone with nothing to offer who tries to hang around with mobsters

Floozy: A common name for a sexually active and oftentimes promiscuous woman

Fuzz, the: A cop

Gobbledygook: Talking nonsense

Godfather: A powerful crime boss in the Mafia

Hoosegow: Jail

Jalopy: An old car

Large: A thousand, a grand, a G

Made man: An indoctrinated member of the family

Mafioso: A member of the family; a mobster

Magazine: An ammunition storage and feeding device for a firearm

Make one’s bones: To gain credibility by killing someone

Numbskull: A dull, stupid or dimwitted person

Omertà : The code of silence and the vow taken when being sworn into the family

Pinched: To get caught by law enforcement

Problem: A liability, likely to be murdered

Rat: A member who violates omertà and snitches on the family

Sauced: The state of being drunk or intoxicated

Section hand: A railroad worker

Singing like a canary: To give someone, usually the authorities, a lot of secret and often illegal information

Sound, the: Puget Sound, the body of water surrounding Seattle

Take a powder: To leave

Tribute: Giving the boss a cut of the deal—violation is often punishable by death

Underboss: The second-in-command to the boss

War-tax stamps: A postage stamp used to raise war revenue

Whack/ice/burn/pop/clip: To murder