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- NATION, Page 22Grapevine
-
-
- READ HIS LIPS -- OR ELSE. Chicago's Mob boss, Joe Ferriola,
- has passed the word that the "street tax" bookies pay to stay in
- business and in one piece will double from an average $1,000 to
- $2,000 a month. Ferriola, reportedly about to be indicted on
- racketeering and other charges, apparently needs the money to pay
- his lawyers.
-
- BENNETT'S BIG BATTLE. Since it wouldn't look right for the
- commander of the war against drugs to be in thrall to a
- habit-forming substance, drug czar William Bennett spent a $700
- week in a West Virginia resort to learn to just say no to his
- two-pack-a-day cigarette habit. A lot of fruit, gum and lollipops
- later, Bennett pronounced the experience "character building." At
- press time, it had been 13 days since the czar's last smoke.
-
- ALL FOR OLLIE. Back in 1983, New Mexico businessman Terry Reed
- filed an insurance claim for the theft of his $33,000 Piper
- turboprop. After the plane turned up in a Little Rock hangar rented
- in Reed's name, federal prosecutors charged him with insurance
- fraud, and he is facing trial. Reed, a former military-intelligence
- man, blames the caper on Oliver North, who wanted the plane for
- supplying aid to the contras. Reed says the plot was blown when
- Ollie's partners in a Mexican arms-export company (set up by Reed
- on North's behalf) panicked.