[SIZE="3"]Superkiller Americano[/SIZE]
Vincent and Mary Kavanagh's nephew got married in Florence a couple of weeks ago, so they figured, what the hey, why not stop in Rome on the way?
They had never been there, they weren't getting any younger - Vincent's 69 and Mary's 63 - and they had always wanted to see la Citta` Eterna.
So there they were, at the foot of the Spanish Steps, taking in the splendor of the Piazza di Spagna, when a couple of Italian cops strolled over and started asking questions in halting English.
The Kavanaghs don't speak Italian, and the cops weren't exactly linguists. Finally, a woman working at a newspaper kiosk came over and offered to translate.
"They think this is you," the woman said, holding up a copy of Il Messaggero, an Italian newspaper that featured photographs of a couple who look like the fugitive gangster Whitey Bulger and his moll Cathy Greig. The photos were taken by a DEA agent who stumbled across the lookalikes on Sicily, and were distributed by the FBI. The headline included the words "Superkiller Americano."
"So, basically, they thought I resembled a guy who resembled Whitey Bulger," Vincent Kavanagh said.
This meant little to the Kavanaghs. Although they have local connections - a daughter went to Boston College, a niece lives in Dorchester - they live in New Jersey and had never heard of Whitey Bulger.
Neither had the Italian police until they read Il Messaggero that day.
"All of a sudden, we hear all these sirens," Vincent Kavanagh said.
Three police cars came screeching to a halt, surrounding the Kavanaghs. They were bundled into one of them...
... Around the same time that Kavanagh was getting the third-degree, police in another part of Italy lugged in a guy from Rhode Island who looked even less like the guy in the photo who looked like Whitey. Superkiller Americano sightings are apparently all the rage in Italy....more...
(yeah, I know it's not Japan-related, but it just goes to show, gaijin are fucked everywhere)