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t:+7- steered Cigarette to glor . But 20 ears ago Don Aronow friend ROCK THE BOAT FROM LEFT: Aronow had a theory about who had killed him and why."My first ruled the coastal waters off New York taking the Beatles thought was that it was probably a jealous husband or during Prohibition, and could reach 80 miles out for a cruise boyfriend," remembered John Crouse, the Texan who an hour on the high seas. The Cigarette before their Ed worked as Aronow's publicist for two decades. Aronow's became the Sullivan appearance favorite offshore speedboat of in Miami, 1964; appetite for women, like his thirst for speed, went way King Hussein and Bush, as well as the powerboating beyond what most men are capable of sustaining. He had generic term for the fast vessels preferred by pioneer Sir a false wall built in a closet in his office on Thunderboat smugglers who raced cargoes of marijuana Max Aitken, Row,Crouse told me, which led to a hidden suite complete and cocaine to shore from freighters parked 1964; Aronow's with a bed and custom-made shower. Friends said that he in the Gulf of Mexico. manse, which with three or four different women a day. later belonged to sometimes slept Those who saw Aronow's murder as a Jennifer Lopez, Husbands weren't the only people whose feelings were parable for the degeneration of the speed- overlooking the bruised by Aronow's outsize competitive appetites. "I found boat industry that he built didn't have far to Biscayne Bay. him to be a difficult person to deal look. Across the street with," Ted Theodoli, the boat dealer from the spot where Aronow was shot who bought Magnum from Aronow, was the home of Apache, the power- said after the boat designer was mur- boat company built by Ben Kramer,a dered. Aronow's genius for designing young racer who idolized Aronow. innovative speedboats was matched But lately, animosity between the two by his proclivity for men had been running high. As starting new compa- FAST Aronow lay dying, a worker from flies, building them FRIENDS Apache named Tony Palmisano up, and then selling Aronow with rushed to the scene and pocketed them. His habit of George H.W. Bush Aronow's treasured gold Rolex Presi- manipulating the non- in a snapshot dential. Later, after failing to find a compete agreements that then Vice buyer for the President sent the watch, which Aronow that invariably came boat builder after had won in a race, Palmisano melted with these deals— a day on the high it down and sold the metal for $600. Gre

which prohibited seas, 1984. Fran

Aronow from creating efore I went down to and similar designs—left his buyers feel- Miami,I met Aronow's ing humiliated. Playing both sides of 7"3,P1PY eldest son, Michael, a Newcomb

the street was part of the boat build- 77; practicing attorney of er's nature. At the height of the drug and former horse- - wars, some of South Florida's most breeder, for lunch at a oudesy notorious drug smugglers bought restaurant in Long Aronow's fast boats, as did the United States Customs Ser- Island. I wanted to know how his father had gone from vice in order to run the smugglers down. Nearly everyone being a successful contractor in New Jersey to designing in Miami,it seemed,knew him,loved him, or had a reason and racing the world's fastest boats, becoming arguably the to want him dead. greatest ocean racer of all time and the father of the Aronow's particular gift as a boat designer lay in his modern speedboat industry.(Most of the companies he determined marriage of form and function: His passionate founded during his prime are still doing business today.) attention to detail ensured that nothing about his boats was As Michael described it, the life that Aronow built for his ever ordinary or extraneous to their purpose, which was to family in South Orange was a picture-perfect example of go faster than anything else on the water. "To me,speed is the suburban dream. It was so perfect that his father's busi- the product of beauty," Aronow said in 1983."They were ness was featured in Suburban Life magazine, in a lavish beautiful because they were fast." His first important boat, spread that showed Aronow in a cowl-neck sweater with the Formula, a 24-foot beauty that could go upward of 50 his arms crossed over his broad chest, looking every inch miles an hour, was acclaimed by Esquire in 1964 as an the proud suburban dad. instant classic of maritime design. Aronow personally took Michael traces his father's evolution to the miserable all four Beatles for a ride in a Formula when they visited winter of 1960-61. "The snow was terrible that year. My Miami. His second boat, the Donzi, a bantamweight 19- father said,'If we get another storm, we're out of here.'" foot version of the Formula, went even faster. The Cigarette, Finally, one day in August 1961, Aronow, who was still the rakish 32-foot speedboat that Aronow introduced in new to boating, sailed his pleasure craft, the Tainted Lady, 1969, was named after a famous liquor-hijacking boat that up the Hudson to retrieve Michael, his little brother, David,

Aronow survived dozens of crashes, broken bones1 and cripplinc n February 3, 1987, a well- built man a month shy of his sixtieth birthday lay bleeding to death in the front seat of his white Mercedes coupe in a scruffy, weed-choked stretch of Northeast 188th Street in North Miami Beach known to ocean-racing fans around the world as Thunderboat Row. The dying man, Don Aronow, had survived dozens of fearsome crashes, broken bones, and crippling internal injuries incurred while racing faster and harder than any of his competitors in the high- performance boats he designed and built himself under the brand names that, for 25 years, defined the powerboat industry: Formula, Donzi, Magnum, and, most notably, Cigarette. Aronow's Christmas-card list included such friends as King Hussein of Jordan, King Juan Carlos of Spain,the Prince of Kuwait,the King of Sweden,and George H.W. Bush, as well as a louche assortment of organized- crime figures and South Florida drug smugglers. Even in such company, Aronow stood out. A former Coney Island lifeguard who was once invited to take a screen test for the role of Tarzan, Aronow was 6 2", weighed 215 pounds, and had the slightly dented good looks of a handsome prizefighter. His unruly dark hair and bushy eyebrows contrasted with the softness of his brown eyes and a smile that could ignite a room. Aronow's many friends bought his stylish, impeccably designed boats, learned to drive them fast, and found new girlfriends while vying for the favor of his companionship. His rivals hated him for the fierce drive that propelled him to a record two world racing championships and three American champi- onships before he retired in 1970, and for his aggressive, in-your-face business practices. The Speedboat King had been wounded by a drive-by assassin who rolled down the windows of a black Lincoln Town Car and exchanged a few words with him before whipping out a .45-caliber pistol and firing six shots at close range. Miami-Dade Homicide Detective Greg Smith arrived on the scene while Aronow was still alive. "It was total chaos," Smith told me during a recent visit to Miami, which I spent tracking down Aronow's old racing associates, rivals, and romantic companions. The avatar of a vanishing breed of tough Jews, Aronow was also a boat designer with a love for clean lines and a streak of poetry in his heart—an unlikely amalgam that attracted my attention and admiration from the very first time I saw a Cigarette boat. Like many of the people I spoke with, Detective Smith found it hard to believe that we were approaching the twentieth anniversary of Aronow's murdet He remembered the scene on 188th Street like it happened yesterday. "They had just pulled him out of the cac and one guy was admin- istering first aid," Smith told me."There was a lot of blood, especially around his chest." A circle of about 10 to 20 people formed around Aronow, while behind them a crowd of onlookers, many of them in T- VICE shirts and windbreakers bearing the names of SQUAD Aronow's powerboat companies, continued to Aronow revs up grow as the police closed off the street. Blue Thunder, the Nearly everyone in the crowd had a personal 39-foot cata ma ran story to tell about the man who had built Thun- he built for U.S. Customs to derboat Row. And everyone who knew Aronow interdict drug runners in the mid-eighties. (;c )1,1)EN G ■11' "You think you control the horse, but you don't You think that you're tough, but the horse is tougher. That's why like it," Ca r nbiaso says. La Dolt ma polo shirt, pants, and boots; ladolfina.com. Produced on location by Ivan de Pineda and Manuel Bereciartua for IMOD. Fashion Editor: &aro Salazar. Sittings Editor: ,J3ussell Labosky.

A loss of balance can be ceadly. At full speed, the players bump one another like Pontiacs at a cemoltion derby. •

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stars and racers, you that's 63,450 kilos. It's kind of tou FROM LEFT: Testing name it. Guys would bet to say that's for personal use." out the Blue hero Thunder; a on tennis games and then Kramer's was Don Aronow. Cigarette Top Gun race their Cigarette boats As his father, Jack Kramer (not the model from the in Biscayne Bay. Every tennis player), remembers,"Aronow late nineties; a one of them wanted to be was a man's man—and Ben wanted Miami billboard Don Aronow. He had style, he was hand- to emulate him completely." Kramer grew up in Hollywood, announcing the some, women adored him, he had money, Florida, and was first busted for dealing marijuana when he $100,000 reward for Malnik was 17; his first boat a yellow tips leading to the and he went 100 miles an hour." smuggling was secondhand arrest of Aronow's told me that when King Hussein came to Cigarette he named Mellow Yellow. Kramer went to jail in murderer. visit Miami, Aronow set him up with 1977 and emerged in 1980 with connections to the Colom- available women and sold him 14 boats. bian drug cartels and a thing for speedboat racing. He went Later, Aronow married Lillian Crawford, one of Hussein's directly to Aronow, who had just sold Cigarette, and asked ex-girlfriends and a former Wilhelmina model. him for help. Aronow gave Kramer the design the younger As Aronow's list of high-profile international clients con- racer then used to make the powerful Apache Warpath, tinued to grow,the CIA apparently grew curious about his which Kramer rode to victory in 1984 at the Offshore Power meetings with King Hussein and other Boat World Championships at Key West. Middle Eastern leaders who liked fast Approaching 60, Aronow had yet again boats. The FBI, the Coast Guard, and the found a way to beat the competition and IRS were more interested in Aronow's to remind the world that he was still the customers at home. The Cigarette had king of Thunderboat Row. quickly become the Ferrari of drug smug- DEAD Krieger and others who glers who regularly outran the poky Coast AHEAD represented or associated Guard patrol boats along the Florida Ben Kramer— with Kramer recall rumors coast. In public, Aronow didn't exactly speedboat that Aronow, meanwhile, fast boats champion, was providing information discourage the idea that selling drug smuggler, to smugglers was part of the business. and the man about the smugglers who Speaking to Sports Illustrated in 1979, who contracted bought his boats to law- Aronow offered what sounded suspi- Aronow's enforcement authorities. In ciously like a sales pitch. "I would estimate murder for part, the rumors may have that for $65,000—or maybe less," he told $60,000. started because of Aronow's the magazine,"you could put together a decision to testify in a drug- top drug-running racing boat, a 35- to 40- related trial in Virginia. His friendship footer fully equipped with twin 454-cubic-inch MerCruiser with Vice President Bush,who ran the War on Drugs, didn't engines, outsized 350- to 400-gallon fuel tanks, sophisticated help either; if you wanted a favor from Bush, it was said in navigation and radio gear, the works." Miami, the person to ask was Aronow. In 1985, Aronow's company,USA Racing Team,won a contract to build a cata- hroughout the 1970s,the smugglers bought maran that would help Customs chase down smugglers who fast boats, and hired some of the best racers were driving the fast Cigarettes that he had created. Nick- in the world to drive them. On December named Blue Thunder, the high-performance cats were test- 19, 1982, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel driven by Bush,who told me about that day."The seas were ran an expose naming 13 drivers who were huge," the former president remembered, "but Don kept involved in distributing drugs. In the next saying,'Put those throttles forward. Let's get up on top of few years, the champion speedboater George the waves.' It seemed like a bad idea." 11Morales would become one of the biggest cocaine smugglers With its twin prows, the Blue Thunder could handle the in the United States while winning race after race. A young roughest seas, but reviews were mixed. "It had twin 540 powerboater named Ben Kramer smuggled pot,a less profit- racing engines and went 54 miles an hour. You could paddle able drug, but on an even larger scale. "The drug business faster," Allan Brown told me. "It was the worst dog in his- that he was in just boggles the imagination," says Albert tory." Aronow knew little about catamarans, and appears Krieger, a veteran Miami attorney who defended Kramer on to have taken on the assignment with something less than federal smuggling and conspiracy charges. "Now,100 kilos, his usual intensity. But the mix of high-level government that's a lot of contraband. But suddenly in this case you're officials and high-octane drug smugglers that had come to talking about seagoing barges, double-hulled, as big as dominate his life was enough, perhaps,to scramble anyone's football fields. One shipment, in one barge, was 70 tons- brain. George Morales,the (continued on page 144) say-nc, Put those throttles forward. It seemed like a Dad idea. ) SEEING GREEN With water-repellent ' leather, a glovelike fit, nd anatomical insoles, the Stadio FG is the striker to's line. The shoe's escent detailing ally designed to make it more visible during practices in Italy's early-morning fog. Lotto Stadio shoes, $120; lottosportamerica.com. ISM

Whether you're trailblazing the Adirondacks,fly-fishing the Snake River,on a morning run that extends to midday,or ata grudge match in the park—this high-performancefootwear puts the world at your feet. ( t • SMOKE ON and his sister, Claudia,from summer camp and announced South Florida. "We were all married, and rim WA-1-.Cat that they would not be returning home. With the money had kids the same age. We would go to the FROM LEFT: Aronow from his construction business, Aronow bought a house in Mona Lisa Room at the Eden Roc. We all manning his Bay Florida, trademark deep-V Harbor, across the causeway from the gentiles- had this wonderful 'let's pretend' life—gees hull Cigarette only community of Bal Harbour. At the age of 34, the pretend we're happy,'" Malnik remembers to victory in prospering contractor who grew up in Sheepshead Bay, with a smile. "The guys would sit together the 1969 Long Brooklyn, and built houses and supermarkets across the and talk about women,and how we were all Beach-Ensenada burgeoning suburbs of New Jersey was officially retired. In going to get rich like Bobby Rautbord, our Race; Aronow with Miami, he began hanging out at the local marinas and talk- friend who son Gavin and wife inherited 20 million dollars from Lillian in a 1983 ing to men who raced boats. his dad. The first one to leave his wife was Christmas-card "He knew nothing about nautical stuff. He wasn't a Bobby, then Don,and then me." photo; Aronow's seaman at all," remembers Allan Brown, a racer who The ocean-racing fraternity that Aronow Magnum in flames helped launch the Tainted would lead throughout the sixties was made after a fuel tank Lady into Biscayne Bay If you were up of a cinematic assortment of ex–fighter ruptured while he and later became one of pilots, and Knocky House racing here professional roughnecks, race car vied for the lead in Aronow's leading drivers tomorrow drivers, horse jockeys, dissolute European the 1968 Miami- and competitors. In 1962, royals who Nassau Race. Aronow entered the Clau- Does this main had !gm 11 ride in your cheated dia, a speedboat powered °gunk', death during World War II, by two custom Chevy and rich hotshots from YOU chi deserve 409s,in the Miami–Nassau i.omething across the Atlantic. United ocean race and finished a you'd wear by their love of speed, this surprising fourth. a Rolex seafaring rat pack torqued "He was very ballsy and their engines and took off athletic, and he could drive over Biscayne Bay with little a boat in a race as good or regard for the weather or better than any of us," the white-glove niceties that Brown adds. Aronow,who governed sailboat racing. had been named the most The leading organizer of the outstanding high school athlete in SPEED sport in Europe was Sir Brooklyn, had the strength of a wres- SELLS Max Aitken, the British What dn you have tler and an indomitable will. His way ABOVE LEFT: A Rolex mind' fighter ace whose father was with women was equally impressive,if ad featuring Aronow the Canadian press baron a bit scary. Traveling to the New York racing a 27-foot Sornething in Platinum Lord Beaverbrook, one of Boat Show with Aronow and his wife, Magnum in the Winston Churchill's late sixties. RIGHT: closest Brown was cornered by the boat The Cigarette boat advisers. Having shot down 16 German planes during the designer, who asked for the key to plays on its iconic Battle of Britain, Aitken was awarded the Distinguished Brown's room. "I asked him,'What status in this ad Flying Cross, and he later inherited his father's newspapers, are you going to do in my room?' He from the seventies. including the Daily Express. In 1961 the Daily Express says,'Guess.' I give him the key,and he sponsored the first Cowes–Torquay race, which would walks up to this pretty girl on the floor. Two hours later, he become the most prestigious speedboat race in the world. gives me the key back. He also hands me 50 dollars and Among the competitors were Tommy Sopwith, a race car says,'Give this to the maid.' He didn't have to waste time driver whose father made the Sopwith Camel, one of the with small talk." deadliest Allied fighter planes in World War I; Billy Shand One of Aronow's best friends in Miami was a young Kydd, a steeplechase rider and the future step-uncle of attorney named Al Malnik. Now a multimillionaire who Princess Diana; and Lord Lucan, a tall, charming man owns the largest title loan business in the United States, whose great-great-grandfather, the third Lord Lucan, had Malnik built a multi-layered corporate empire that reput- ordered the Charge of the Light Brigade. edly enabled organized crime figures affiliated with the Aronow would soon become notorious on both sides of legendary Jewish rackets boss Meyer Lansky to put their the Atlantic for racing with a wide-open throttle from the money into licit investments. beginning to the end of a race, refusing to wear a protective Malnik first met Aronow in the early sixties. "Don helmet, and daring his high-powered Mercury engines to became part of our group," the preternaturally youthful burn out or his experimental fiberglass hulls to splinter into investor told me when I visited his seaside mansion in pieces, each of which happened at least once. His first vic- internal injuries while racing faster and harder than any of his competitors , tory came in 1964 in a Formula that he raced around the Aronow's success as a racer also helped BLUE - island of New Providence, traveling 52 miles at an average him sell boats."He charged exactly twice as FROM LEFT: -•.-zsa speed of 413 miles per hour. Formula boats—which much as any other boat that size, and Thunderboat there Row circa 1969, Aronow had begun producing in 1962—also finished was a year backlog almost immediately," second, third, fifth, and sixth. where Aronow Brown recalls. Early Formulas sold for manufactured his Aronow then promptly sold Formula for a few hundred $8,000 each. Donzis sold for $20,000. Mag- powerboats and thousand dollars—selling companies was virtually the only nums sold for $30,000. Aronow's favorite was later gunned way to make money in the speedboat business, and it was sales technique was to suggest that his client down; Ben not unusual for some of the money to change hands under might be better suited to a smaller boat. Kramer racing his the table. He then started Donzi, whose boats went even After selling Aronow-designed Magnum, Aronow had his Apache Warpath in Cro faster and attracted more attention from the sun-kissed sec- friend Elton Cary build the prototype for a the eighties.

John tors of mid-sixties America, not to mention from powerful fast new 32-foot racing boat, one that would men in Washington and abroad. He sold Donzis to President dominate the powerboat circuit for the next 10 years and Kramer: Johnson and to the Secret Service, as well as to the Israeli become an icon of American industrial design. The combina- Navy which outfitted them with explosives and used them tion of sex appeal and deep-throated thrills that the Cigarette Arono against Egypt in the Six-Day War. boat offered made it the perfect toy for a certain kind of guy All the while Aronow kept winning over 40. When the Cigarette was Michael races—and narrowly avoiding disaster. unveiled in 1969, orders started pour- of He found his perfect racing teammate ing in from all over the world—several in Norris House, known as Knocky, a hundred within the first three years of courtesy former all-American wrestler who had the boat's life. Richard Nixon wanted served on a submarine during the war one, as did his friend the fugitive finan- Aronow and then joined the professional cier Robert Vesco, who had his deliv- Don motorcycle-racing tour in Britain."He ered to the Bahamas. "Baby Doc" Herald. was as strong as an ox, a little guy Duvalier had his Cigarette delivered to with Popeye arms," remembers Haiti. U.S. Ambassador to the United Miami Michael Aronow, who idolized House. Nations George H.W. Bush bought a The "Nobody else would get into a boat Cigarette that he named the Fidelity,

with my father." Together, Aronow which allowed him to relive his own Arc and House failed to finish only two bomber-pilot days while braving the Team races during their seven-year career: derision of his sailboat-loving neigh-

once at the 1967 Gateway Marathon bors when he Racing SEA KING ran it full-throttle off the from Florida to the Bahamas, when a coast of Kennebunkport, Maine. leaking fuel tank caused their boat explode Aronow,following to and a second Where his other Cigarette his 1969 World boat companies had time in the 1968 Miami–Nassau race, when their boat netted him a few hundred thousand caught on fire. Racing Offshore off the coast of Long Beach, Califor- Powerboat dollars each and served largely as tax Arono nia, in 1967, Aronow jumped a wave, sending his light- Championship, shelters, Cigarette would become an

weight Donzi 15 feet into the air, where the deck clipped posing with a international brand name and make Michael the landing rail of a low-flying press helicopter. Though the Cigarette for a Aronow a millionaire many times over. of Hennessy ad. boat failed to explode, the accident was scary enough to Asked to describe potential buyers for shock Aronow into speechlessness for nearly a full minute. his boats, Aronow showed a keen grasp courtesy As House would later recall, "Finally, Don broke the of his client base: "Older men who have it made, the kind silence. He looked at me and said,'What are you gonna do who would drive a Ferrari. And they're interested in wom- Crouse: when we get to Morro Bay?' I said,'The first thing I'm en...womanizers. No clod is going to own one of these." John gonna do is get in the shower. I just shit in my pants.' Don To his admirers on 188th Street, at the Jockey Club,in the answered,'I get the shower first. I own the boat.'" White House, and at places in-between, Aronow—who Nineteen sixty-seven was also the year that Aronow, at abruptly retired from speedboat racing in 1970, the same 40, would win his first world racing championship,impos- year his son Michael was crippled in an automobile acci- ing his will on the growing sport with a ferocity that dent—was the ultimate in Miami cool. Malnik's stepson, Rac intimidated his opponents. As Doug Silvera, a leading movie director Brett Ratner (Rush Hour, X-Men: The Last

driver who raced against Aronow,remembered, "We'd be Stand), recalls admiring Aronow's distinctive style as a kid Cigarette

racing in rough seas, taking a terrible pounding. Don growing up in South Florida. "I remember seeing him at the left:

would come alongside and grin from ear to ea; then take Cricket Club, which Al owned. People lived there. It from off. God, he was so demoralizing." attracted a cross-section of Miami—drug dealers and movie Top,

"The seas were huc Georce 3ush remem3erec "wt Don kept CIGARETTE BOAT Young, whose cooperation in the case getting caught up in reckless games of (continued from page 123) earned him a reduction in his sentence. competition: The combined effect of champion powerboater, would later By then, Miami Vice was no longer in sun, sea, and speed goes straight to the testify before Congress that—at the prime time, and the industry that lizard part of the brain. By tweaking same time as he had been winning races Aronow built was a shambles. the throttle, I found I could slam the and smuggling drugs into Miami—he Cigarette changed hands five times, boat down hard on the waves and send had been smuggling arms to the Con- as customers fled from a sport that had it back up into the air, like a champion tras in Nicaragua at the behest of the once seemed like the epitome of glam- powerboater in heavy seas. Racing a CIA, which was flying his planes back our and now seemed sleazy. In 1998 the Cigarette is a hell of a lot easier than to Fort Lauderdale loaded with cocaine. company produced a mere six boats. sailing, I decided. It's also more fun. El According to The Miami Herald, But today, in the hands of new owner- Aronow,on the day of his murder, was ship, Cigarette is making 70 to 80 boats See Cigarettes and more powerboats in working on shipping two boats to a year, which sell for upward of action at mensvogue.com/sports Manuel Noriega. $300,000 each, and the powerboat But aside from capturing the imagi- industry has motored back to some- CON NELLY nation of the Vice President, Aronow's thing resembling respectability. Twenty (continued from page 134) Blue Thunder also appealed to Kramet years after Aronow's death, which every scene with her tense, expectant He made a deal with Aronow to buy former president Bush described to me air. Was it hard to display more affec- USA Racing Team for tion for her son than $2 million. "Kramer her husband (Patrick wanted to be King Wilson)? "The thing Shit," Detective Smith about her is that's just remembers. "He what you get to see," would be running the she says, bristling. dope and making the "They don't do her jus- boats that were trying tice. She loves her hus- to catch him." But band, and does right by when the government him, but he's the grown- got wind of the sale, it up, and he knows how cancelled the contract. much she loves him." Aronow gave Kramer Wilson pinpoints Con- his money back, yet nelly's appeal on her insisted on keeping an emerald irises. "Even in additional sum that the briefest of scenes or Kramer had paid him, moments,she is able to which Michael command a vulnerabil- Aronow later described ity with her eyes," he to police as a million dollars in cash that as a "terrible ending" to such a rich life, says. "Which is probably why she's a smelled like pot and was covered in offshore races are once again becoming big ol' movie stat" sand. When the government reinstated a familiar sight on American waters. As an actress who growth-spurted the Blue Thunder contract with Aronow, Before I left Miami, I decided to under the klieg lights, Connelly copes Kramer resorted to violent threats. take one last ride on a Cigarette boat, by a) not watching her movies after "This prick I sold the company to is to experience the thrill that drew they come out, and b) having a sense of really harassing me," Aronow told Aronow to race loud,fast boats on the humor about her turkeys—which are Malnik. "That cocsucker stole my open water. It was a sunny weekend all the more accessible in the Netflix/ money and made me look like an afternoon, and the waves off Fort Lau- YouTube era. "There are a couple real ass," Kramer told his attorney and derdale were about three feet high. doozies out there," she confesses. "I co-conspirator Melvyn Kessler. "I'll After 10 minutes of bouncing back and did an Italian horror movie where I kill the son of a bitch," Kramer told forth in the cockpit with the throttle communicate with insects—it's a hor- Aronow's longtime secretary, Patty wide open, going 80 miles an hour rendous performance." Now that she's Lezaca. "I'm not afraid of him." with two women in bikinis screaming patented the role of the despairing Finally, in 1994, after persistent at the top of their lungs behind me,I wife/girlfriend/mother, Connelly is rumors of gangland rubouts, high-level was smiling from ear to eat The roar looking for a comedy and might break drug connections, and a rogue CIA of the engines made it impossible to the taboo of working with one's assassin's involvement in Aronow's hear anything that my companions spouse."When we find the right thing, death (and pulpy books that perpetu- were saying. we hope to be able to do it together," ated these myths), Kramer,confined to There's nothing harmonious or Zen- she says. It might draw scrutiny to their a maximum-security federal prison in like about a Cigarette ride. It's an anar- low-pro Park Slope routine, but Con-

Indiana after a spectacular failed prison chic kind of rush—the nautical nelly will coyly beat it back. Asked Op escape by helicopter, pled no contest to equivalent of Viagra. No wonder what her friends tease her about, she ordering his idol's murder for the price Aronow and his friends and rivals volleys with the skill of an accom- Images. of $60,000. The hit man was an ex- loved it so much, leaving their lives as plished tease: "What do your friends pimp from St. Louis named Bobby office -bound businessmen behind and tease you about?" CI AFP/Getty

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