…until it wasn’t fun anymore
The Doclopedia #2,481
Pulp Villain Snapshots: The Crime Queen
Real Name: Antonia Luchese
Location: New York, Chicago, Detroit
Modus Operandi: Criminal mastermind
Career Synopsis: Antonia was born into a Mafia family, but like most daughters of wise guys, she was expected to be a wife and mother, nothing more. This was not to be.
Early in her life, her mother and aunts explained to her that she could, and should, lead two lives. What the second life entailed was up to her, but she must always present the expected “good girl/daughter/wife/mother” to the public. She was also taught that because the men in her life would treat her as a second class citizen and incapable of doing “man stuff”, they would never expect her to do anything differently.
Fast forward to years later, Antonia is now 18 and has been listening and remembering things she has heard her father, uncles, brothers, and other men discussing. Her knowledge of organized crime is great. So is her hatred of most of those men, who are all cheating on their wives, demeaning women, and preventing angry teenage girl from fulfilling her destiny. Antonia has formulated a plan and is about to put it in motion.
First, she seduces, then marries Jimmy “The Actor” Sanducci, an up & comer in the Family and a guy her dad approves of. Over the course of the next 3 years, she organizes a “shadow mob” made up of the women she knows. They hire young gang members to pull off easy, yet damaging to the Mob, crimes. Nothing too big, but enough to start pissing off the bosses and making them wonder how these punks are getting information. Before long, every one of the New York crime families is getting paranoid about both rivals and their own members.
Just before a shooting war can break out, Antonia makes sure that the gang members find out they are working for an independent boss, not a member of La Cosa Nostra. That really stirs things up, especially when she arms her gang with better weapons and sets them out to pull big brazen jobs against the Mob. She also sends taunting letters out to the various Families telling them that a new boss is taking over and that boss has been getting help and info from within. That pretty much turns the paranoia/vengeance dial up to 11. Pretty soon, everyone is looking for traitors and the so called “Crime Master”.
Shortly after her 25th birthday, Antonia disguises herself with a red wig, some different makeup, a costume, and a fake Chicago accent. That night, during a big gun battle between her troops and the Mobs, she reveals herself as the Crime Queen. Since she did this using loudspeakers and while illuminated by a searchlight, all whilt standing atop a 20 story building, she was able to then escape easily. So were her troops, who had been told the plan earlier. The year was 1933.
For the next 5 years, the Crime Queen and her growing mob not only made life hell for the New York Mob, they expanded into Chicago and Detroit. Antonia, whose husband had died in early 1934, had left New York City for a safer place to live upstate with her 3 children, her sister, and her sister-in law. It was a perfect place to run things from.
By 1939, the New York Mob was in shambles and the Crime Queen took over. By 1941, she had turned over day to day operations of the different turfs to mobs run by several different ethnicities. She had them all swear loyalty to her, then installed various Queens to oversee each one. In Chicago and Detroit, she just agreed to a piece of the action. Then, Antonia turned it all over to a committee of other women and retired to live in California with kids and her new husband. She had gotten away with it.
Or had she? In 1943, while her husband was out playing poker and her remaining daughter was at a sleepover, she went to call her dogs in and saw a shadowy figure standing in her dark dining room. She knew instantly who it was. She was sure it was the end of her.
But the person in the slouch hat and cape, with a red scarf concealing everything but his eyes and hawk-like nose, merely pointed toward an envelope on the table. Then he was gone. Opening the envelope, she found a note saying…
Crime Queen,
I was onto you from almost the start, but let you go ahead because it made my life easier. You did much of my work for me. I’m sure there are others who feel the same.
I shall not harm you under two conditions. First, you must remain retired. Second, you must supply me with information whenever I ask for it. Do these things and you will live a long life. Oppose me, and that will change quickly. Do not try it.
I will know if you do.
S
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