Kuku steps out of a car and onto a podium.  He starts to speak...

Friends, I had arranged to give an exclusive interest to G_J, but he is currently in jail.  Perhaps I had a lucky escape.

Anyway, if you go here and give this password (18125) to the doorman, he will allow you to write down any question you like. 

I'll then answer the question here, on these Streets.

Try and keep thing fair and pleasant.  I can talk with authority about my father's life, as well as my bloodline.

If you leave your name, and it's an original question, heck, I might even toss some money your way.

The first questions is this:

"You mentioned you are going to set up an iron bank again, will you repay all the people that borrowed money before and paid you back and then had to pay the debt again to the gods" (sic)

This is an interesting question, but it requires me to delves into the past a bit.  The Iron Bank preceded the fraudulent "skimming" that led to my father, and others, being banned.  The Iron Bank's operations receded with the advent of the fraud because, basically, we didn't need the money any more.

However, the Iron Bank made my bloodline, and the Soviet State, personally very wealthy indeed.  Records show that the Iron Bank made at least $50M a week in profit, much of which was invested with the various investors, who doubled the money with a week.

I believe my father, along with Jeddy, and Mikhail, were the first mobsters who had their estates seized by City Hall.  My father's estate was something approaching $1bn, of which, I would estimate around 40% to 50% of which was obtained through legitimate means.

But, of course, City Hall was perfectly entitled, and indeed morally obliged, to seize any and all assets from my father.

So, unfortunately, I am not in a position to pay back anyone who lost anything dealing with my father.  However, as far as I am aware, only those who were in receipt of surplus funds from my father were jailed: all Iron Bank customers were certainly not in receipt of surplus funds.  

In a nutshell, those jailed, profited from my father's access to "skimmed" money.  Now, contrary to popular belief, as far as I am aware, only one person knew that money sent from my that, Mikhail, or Jeddy was fraudulently obtained, and that person did a long prison stretch.

So the Iron Bank was, and would be again, a legitimate enterprise, operating within the rules set by City Hall.

The second question has come in:

"Any chance that you will just fuck away off back into exile and stop being a complete imbecile?"

I was not in exile: I was serving a term of imprisonment, for my part in a major crime.  I have served my time, and I come back committed to adhering to City Hall's laws and rules.

I do not accept that I am being "a complete imbecile" nor do I accept that anyone, save for a few angry, frustrated loners, want me to "fuck off."

And the third question:

"Hello Sir. I think I mailed you about this, but I got no reply. You were sentenced to a year in Alcatraz. Why are you out in just a couple months? Also, have Mikhail and other Communist figures been released?" (From SamAdams)

I am out early because I appealed the length of my prison term, and it was reduced.  I am grateful to City Hall for hearing me out and me reducing the term.

As far as I know, not other remissions have been awarded.  Jeddy and Mikhail are still doing their time.

And the fourth question:

"How do you respond to accusations that your father lured fair and honourable men like Blackboard into duels they could not possibly win, due to the money you stole? Isn't their blood on your thieving hands?"

Now this is a difficult question to answer,  because I know that the answer will hurt.  I remember well my father coming back from the duel.  He was giddy with excitement.  Jubilant, even.  He summoned one of his employees, handed him a gun, and I remember him saying "Viktor, get rid of this for me, you thieving, backstabbing little rat."  I believe that that was the weapon that had just dispatched Blackboard.

Now, here is the thing.  My father was a rich, powerful, outspoken criminal.  He owned casinos, a bank, and had the ear of the most powerful mobster in this entire society.  But lots of people hated him - and he never really understood why.  See, he just wanted to run his writing contests.  And people would insult him on the Streets.  He couldn't back down.

And here's what I think happened with Blackboard.  Blackboard objected to something that my father said.  Nobody can remember what, just another argument on the Streets.  Blackboard challenged my father to a duel.  My father didn't think he could win.  He went to a callbox, and called up Mikhail, who said he might be able to, that the bodyguards he'd been training since way before the casino days were strong, well trained.  And my father also knew that he had a much stronger gun than anyone of his bloodline.

But more importantly, he was tired.  He was prepared to die.  The arguing had gotten too much for him.  An honourable death wouldn't be such a bad outcome.  Maybe, he thought, he could just accept the duel and let fate decide.

So, in response to your question, I don't think it is accurate, or indeed fair, to say that my father "lured" Blackboard.  Blackboard issued the challenge.  My father merely accepted.  My father knew that Blackboard was a friend of CLO, and that CLO had a problem with alcohol, his temper and his political beliefs.  He felt, perhaps unjustly, that Blackboard would likewise be an irrational drunkard with a poor gun.

He certainly hoped that Blackboard would be like CLO in that incompetent way.

And so it came to pass.  Blackboard died, killed in a duel that he requested.

My father's bodyguards, it is clear, had been partially trained using fraudulently obtained money.  But at that stage in his career, the casino skimming had really only started, and the defence and attack skills of CommissarZverez, history will show, were already in the top 5% - 10% of all mobsters.

In truth?  Blackboard was killed 90% fair and square, I would say.  I'd need to look at the dates to be absolutely sure, and I accept that without the fraud, Blackboard might have won the duel he issued, but I don't think.

No blood is on my hands, son.  I didn't kill Blackboard.  He didn't challenge me to a duel.  He challenged my father.

And it's a pity that Blackboard died, because he clearly worked very, very hard.  But so pit ponies, and they're ultimately just killed and forgotten about as well.

CommissarKuku, are we allowed to ask questions here or must I follow that doorman into the write-in area? As I'm already here, I'll just throw it out there: will you be entertaining as many duel requests now as your father famously did, considering your more moderate resources in comparison to the Iron Bank's heyday? 

The furious little robe thrust past the men in her way and scowled at CommissarKuku 

"I also have question. Fuck your man. I speak here.

You here one day and tark non-fucking-stop. Five fucking speeches in one day! Reary, you have terribre serf agrandize issue. Maybe need to see doctor about inabirity to crose mouth. Maybe you are smarr downstair and need compensate, who can say? Try shut fuck up for few day. Maybe week. Herp you much more van making whole word want to shoot you just to get peace and quiet."

With no interest in a response, the Commissar got a dismissive gold Kimonoed arm waved in his face and the fascinating squat figure elbowed its smokey way back into the crowd. 

CommissarKuku, how goes your quest on securing funding for street competitions?

Im sure a man with your reputation has already acquired large sums of money and prizes to bring even the most mute of mafiosos to join your competition.

Am I correct to make this assumption?

I would love to contribute but im just a goomba with no reputation or amazing bloodline to my name.

Griffith - so far, a measly $1,000,000 has been pledged.  This, let it not be forgotten, is the same sum that the late, great Shannon_Whelan donated a previous writing contest.  Let it also not be forgotten that, by her own admission, she received many times that sum from her sole crew member, Destro, who won the contest.

I am envisaging a sum of around $5,000,000 for the top prize.

And a very interesting fifth question:

"How influential were you back in the hayday of the Soviet Union, we saw Mikhail and Homer have large sways of power, but how much did you really have?"

Well, my father was in daily contact with Mikhail, and he listened to his  analysis, and sometimes acted on his advice.  My father  could, and did, have individuals killed, and he personally killed many individuals himself, some of whom were important to the crews they belonged to.

But Mikhail would overrule my father.  Hoth, as an example, was someone my father identified as a potential troublemaker, and so it came to pass.  BillyMastione, at one, was someone my father wanted dead: but Mikhail overruled him.  Callisto was another - my father longed for the opportunity to wipe her crew out.  I can, however, exclusively reveal that he once placed a hit on her LHM, not even a particularly big hit, and the LHM was shot in the street, like a dog, for a measly $35M.

In terms of influence, I think my father had more influence than basically anyone, except for Mikhail, for periods of time.  Like everything, this ebbed and flowed.  My father, and some other very rich, very powerful, mobsters, wanted bloody, immediate and terrible revenge for the heinous murder of Destro.  He was overruled, and this infuriated him.  But he didn't have the power to have this carried out.

If there's one thing my father learned, it was that having inexhaustible sums of money does not, indeed cannot and should not, be enough to ensure extreme power.  It can, of course, help.  But so long as there is anyone alive that can kill you, you need to think constantly about making sure that doesn't happen.

But, having said all of that, at certain points, Mikhail would have been the only person in a bold suit that wanted my father to be left alive.  And there was talk, at various points, of my father taking the honourable way out and dying, paving the way for me to try a different approach to live.

But all that being said, my father had the power and influence to achieve what he set out to achieve: the complete destruction of Philly, the transformation of the Streets, and the establishment of the Competitive Writing Community.  

"CommissarKuku,"  Isadora raised her pencil high, getting the attention of the Commissar.  "What do you say in response to allegations that the real money behind the Iron Bank and it's Board of Directors was actually the notorious gangster and gambler from New York City, Billy Mastrosimone?"

"Follow-up Mr. Kuku," She said with a smile.  "I have it, personally, from people at City Hall that Mr. Mastrosimone ... who, by the way died BEFORE the Iron Bank fell, had over 1/3 of the entire wealth on our streets.  That he personally had exceeded a 'richer than god' status and was told that if he gained much more money that city hall might actually have to invent a new title for his vast wealth.  Were you aware of this?"