Sam Staccetto was nearly a perfect sphere. He had a red face and thinning light brown hair. He had never been an attractive man and, even in his youth, he had always been obese. One might think that underneath his angry exterior, that there was a sad, crying, fat child, but those who knew him knew that this was very untrue.

The blood vessels in his nose had popped from excess drinking, making the already large nose look even bolder. He parted what was left of his hair down the middle and slicked it down with a vile smelling grease that he made himself. His eyes were black and beady and frequently darted from side to side, partly because he was paranoid and partly because he was a Gemini and they tend to be twitchy.

He sat in his office, waiting impatiently for the girl he was supposed to audition to come back from the bathroom. His large frame was shoved into a wooden office chair and squished behind his desk, stogie in his mouth, bulging fingers spread out on top of various pieces of paper.

His wingman, Vincent "Knuckles" Jones, stood to his left, awkward and skinny, dressed in a gray suit that was too small. His hands were shaking and he balled them into fists and relaxed them constantly. Knuckles was a jumpy man, afraid of his own shadow and a thousand times more so of his boss and best friend, Fat Sam. He and Sam had grown up together, neither of them bright children, fighting other children on the playground and dropping out of school early to go into business. Sam was better with putting things into action, whereas Knuckles had always been the brains, which never worked out terribly well.

"Where the fuck did this broad go?" Sam said, slamming his fist down on the desk. Knuckles jumped and let a squeak more suited for a teenage boy than a grown man.

"I-I dunno, Boss." Said Knuckles. He always called Sam "Boss" and always had. It was just how they worked.

"Go make sure she didn't fall in." Sam flicked the ashes of his cigar into a small marble ashtray.

"Sure, Boss." Knuckles cracked his namesake as he walked over to the door. He opened it, revealing Bugsy Malone.

"Bugsy!" Sam said somewhat merrily, muffled slightly by his cigar, but that was common with him.

"Hey, Sam. Howdy, Knuckles." Bugsy nodded to each of them and walked in, keeping a safe distance from Sam.

"What can I do you for, Bugs? You look like hell. Problems with the new girl?"

"Yeah, you could say that." He looked around. "Where's Tallulah?"

"Tallulah?" Sam rubbed his short, pudgy fingers over his brow in thought. "Hell if I know. She came in here and grabbed her coat. Laughing like hell, crazy bitch." He shook his head and leaned back in his chair. "So, what's wrong with the new girl? I'm supposed to audition her, but she went to the can and never came back. Ain't you left yet, Knuckles?"

"S-Sorry, Boss!" He started out the door.

"She's in the dressing room!" Bugsy called after him. "Nothing is wrong with her. I just got conned into taking her to Hollywood."

Sam threw his fat head back and laughed. "Got you by the balls, eh? HA! I like it. If she can sing, she's in. She doesn't give lip, does she? I got enough of that from Tallulah."

Bugsy had just fucked Sam's girlfriend and here he was giving his stamp of approval for someone else. His heart contracted and he felt slightly faint. He just hoped Sam didn't kill him too slowly. "N-No, Sam. Hell, she's only called me a jerk and a rat."

"That's it?" Sam laughed again. "I bet you deserve ten times worse!"

"Yeah, well. Makin' me take her to California is definitely worse."

"So, you approve of her?" Sam asked, getting down to business.

"Yeah, she's a nice girl. And I heard her sing, too. She's good."

"Where was she auditioning?"

"The Bijoux."

Sam shook his head. "That fucking Lena Marelli. Nutty as a fucking fruitcake. If she weren't sleeping with Oscar, he'd make her a cigarette girl again before she could screech another word."

Bugsy breathed a laugh. "I just wanted to let you know you should hire her."

Sam grunted. "Yeah, okay. Thanks. I got a personal phone call to make. I'll talk to you later."

Bugsy caught the hint and tipped his hat. "Bye." He exited quickly, sweating furiously.

~*~

Daniel Morris hated his nickname. Dandy Dan made him seem weak and the story behind it was rarely told to counter this thought.

When he was seventeen, he picked up his first gun and joined his first gang, under the thumb of Robert McGowen. Dan was a plucky kid and had a real problem with authority. He was too smart to be stuck taking orders from someone else and he knew this. And so one night, McGowen was eating at a nice little restaurant with his young new wife, Louella, and Dan went in with a very early model of the splurge gun (named for its effect on the victim) and shot him eight times in the chest, laughing as he did so.

And so the nickname was born.

Dan wasn't very tall nor was he short, but he was terribly commanding. His dark hair was slicked back and his skin was sallow. He had round mud brown eyes and was highly irritable. He was called Dandy Dan, although he only smiled while someone was dying. Most of the time, his mouth was contorted into an annoyed frown and his left eyebrow was twitching.

He sat in his parlor with his wife, Louella. Louella had eloped with Dan the day after Robert McGowen was put in the ground. She was a dainty woman, with pale tresses she kept shoulder length and wavy. She had bright blue eyes and a small pink mouth. Her features were mildly mouse-like, but she was unconventionally cute. She was always dressed in the finest of everything, Dan insisted. And at the moment, she was wearing a crème colored satin dress and her pearls, even though they were simply lounging around their home.

William, their butler, walked into the room stiffly, holding the phone on a platter. "Mr. Staccetto, sir."

Dan's eyebrow twitched and he snatched the receiver. "Hello?"

"Dan? It's Sam."

"What do you want, Sam?"

"I want to meet with you, Dan."

"Sorry, Sam. I already got a wife."

Sam grunted angrily into the phone and his voice was taught when he spoke again. "We need to settle this. Just the two of us."

"Fine, Sam. Tomorrow. The park. At noon. No hoods." The park was where all gangsters met to settle their differences. Neutral territory.

"No one but our drivers."

"See you then, Sam."

Sam's lip curled as he hung up the receiver. He hated when people had to say his name in every sentence.

Dan looked at Louella with a smirk. "Louella, my rose. I'm finally going to get rid of that bastard."

(A/N: Yeah, I know that there was barely any Bugsy and there was no Tallulah. Not to fear! They will be back in full swing, I swear. Short chapter. But oh well! More to come! Oh yeah. In the last chapter I noticed that I'm an idiot and said that Bugsy's getting 2000 bucks from Sam. I had a total brain fart-yes, brain fart. Wanna fight about it?-and realized that it's $200.)