Original subtitles

♪

A.J.: I'm not a bad guy.

However, things happen for a reason.

There's a lot of things in my life

that I had enjoyed.

♪

I'm a custom tailor, I'm a custom designer,

and I dressed very important people.

I never considered myself a drug dealer.

♪

My business was very good.

Supported me in a lifestyle that I never dreamed of.

A.J. told me that he had designed for Elvis...

Carroll: Wayne Newton, Joey Bishop.

Manna: Tom Jones....Sally Struthers.

Manna: And at the same time,

he was measuring the inseams

of some of the most dangerous people on the planet.

David: Pablo Escobar, the Mafia.

He's untouchable, man. There's nobody can get to him.

He's got the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Carroll: He was very debonair.

6' of...just gorgeous.

But he had this dark side that just took over.

Sciutto: A.J. was a risk taker.

Manna: All of these people

did not know what he was doing.

David: A lot of these mobsters had been

dug up out in the desert.

They all had one thing in common --

they had A.J.'s logo in the inside of their jacket.

A.J. was a hustler and a smooth-talking playboy.

He was also a con man.

I don't think A.J. told me everything.

He was a master manipulator.

♪

♪

♪

♪

Manna: A.J. had all these stories.

I mean, basically, since I interviewed him

near the end of his life,

it almost became the proverbial deathbed confession.

And not everything made sense, but some of it did.

And there were certain stories that were just wild and crazy.

Hi, A.J.

How are you?

There's some stories that I find extremely hard to believe,

that may be exaggerations, may be self aggrandizement,

may be out and out lies.

And whenever I thought it was skidding off the tracks

in talking to A.J.,

there'd be a glimmer of a fact in the research

that made absolute sense.

Right.

Man: Actually, it could be even right here.

Right there is nice.Right there?

That looks better.Man #2: Yeah.

Manna: In his final years, he sat for

a number of on-camera interviews,

but he was careful what he said, and he was careful

of not releasing them to anybody in the public.

Alright. Let's keep a shot like that.

Alright. We're ready.

So, where do you want me to start?

He took as many precautions as he could.

A.J. was very aware...

he could end up, you know, in prison or dead.

I want you to look at this camera when we're talking.Okay. Gotcha.

But this was his opportunity to tell his story.

Say your name, okay? Are you ready?

Go ahead.Hi. My name is Argus J. Pratt.

I'm here today to share with you a story about

a kid from the sticks of northwestern Arkansas.

I was born November 3, 1940 in Yardelle, Arkansas.

The way we made our living, we either grew it,

milked it, raised it, slaughtered it,

or we didn't eat.

David: I'm the only brother of A.J. Pratt, the only sibling.

I loved him dearly. I really looked up to him.

A.J.: My mother never worked.

My father was a farmer at the time.

During those days, there was very few things to do.

There was no modern conveniences.

We did not have electricity, running water.

Since we had no toys or anything of that nature,

I would take the parts to my mother's old

Singer treadle sewing machine,

and the attachments would become my toys.

And the next thing I knew, I was trying to thread a bobbin.

It's a little different for a young guy out of the sticks.

♪

I started to be able to see pictures in my mind.

The fantasy of my mind was to be able to make myself a suit.

Here's an eight-year-old kid.

I was stretching my foot out leaning way back,

attempting to get the treadle to turn

and using the wheel so that I could do the stitches.

When you look at the picture of it,

you can tell perhaps it was made by an eight-year-old boy.

To me, it was the greatest suit that I've ever worn in my life.

♪

But, of course, I was expected at a very young age

to be working in the fields,

milking the cow, gathering the eggs,

doing things of that nature.

So when caught behind the old Singer sewing machine,

my mother and father would both tell me,

"Argus...

boys don't belong behind the sewing machine.

That's something that the girls do."

♪

David: Boys didn't sew back then.

People would've thought you were a sissy.

About every other day, I was coming home with black eyes

and bleeding all over my body

in my freshly made flour sack shirt.

There was very little future for any young person

in northwestern Arkansas back in those years.

So I discussed with my parents

I perhaps could get a job in a larger city.

♪

So, 15 years of age...

I was able to hitchhike Wichita, Kansas.

♪♪

I arrived there in 1956.

David: I was very young when he left home.

I was eight.

He wanted to make it really good in life,

and he wanted my parents to be proud of him.

He looked up to them. Really, really respected them.

Manna: He hustled tailoring jobs for the next 10 years,

and he accumulated enough money

to finally open shop in Wichita in 1968.

It was called A.J. Pratt's Hong Kong Fashions.

♪ Yeah, do I look good in this? ♪

♪ Oh, oh, do I look good in this? ♪

♪ Oh, oh

♪

A.J. had a way of walking into a room

with no matter what kind of characters there are,

and people just all of a sudden, they loved him.

He was very charismatic.

He'd make you think that you were the neatest looking person,

had the nicest looking clothes on.

People loved A.J.

He was the best salesman I ever met.

Literally, from the moment I met A.J., I was taken.

He walked in, dressed in one of his own fashions

that was ridiculously over the top.

And what really killed me was

he noticed everything I was wearing.

So he charmed me by being like, "Oh, I love your jewelry."

♪ Yeah, do I look good in this? ♪

A.J. could get you to talk about anything,

and he had such an overwhelming charm.

And part of me from the first time I met him

couldn't figure out if he was a great con man

or if he was for real.

♪

For the first year, the word was starting to

get around the small city of Wichita, Kansas,

and a man by the name Jerry Muth

discovered that I was the guy

that everybody had been talking about.

Jerry was getting ready to run for the State Attorney General

of the State of Kansas,

so he asked me to design a new wardrobe for him.

We became very close, very good friends.

One day, I was contacted by Jerry Muth

to do a special favor.

Well, apparently, he says, "Hey, I've got a friend.

Let's say he's 'in the meat business.'

He wants to see you, and he'll fly you."

The first time A.J. was ever on an airplane

was on a private jet to Kansas City.

[Jet engines roaring]

A.J.: Keep in mind, I had absolutely no idea

who I'm getting ready to see.

I stepped off the plane,

and the automobile pulled right up to the Learjet.

♪

I could tell that this was an unusual group of people.

I'm smart enough to know that these guys are tough.

We arrived at the destination...

...so I took my fabrics swatches, my attaché case,

and we go into the office.

♪

And it turns out it's Nick Civella,

the head of the Kansas City mob.

♪

Carroll: When I first met A.J., he had shared with me

he was a retired fashion designer.

I didn't know his past until he moved in with me.

I met A.J. online.

I had been a widow for 22 years,

and then I met this guy, and we got married December 13 of 2008.

He shared with me he had been married four times.

And then I found out later it was seven times --

Linda, Roseann, Candace, Cami, Susan...

um...

Oh, Marla.

I'm wife number seven.

However, shortly after he moved in with me,

something happened.

♪

I was working at a skincare studio,

and two men came into the store --

I was by myself -- and they robbed the store.

One of them grabbed me by my neck and threw me to the floor.

He told me that if I got up, he was gonna kill me.

And then I don't remember a lot after that

other than an ambulance and the police.

♪

I did not see A.J. until the hospital.

He asked if I got a good description of them,

and I said, yes, and I gave it to the police.

I said, "But I doubt that they do anything

because there's so many robberies."

And he said, "I don't need them to do anything.

I'm going to handle this."

And I was telling him, you know, "Well,

you can't just go out and fight the whole city."

And he said, "No, I have connections."

I said, "What, the mob?" jokingly.

And he said, "CC, I have connections."

And then I sit back and realized,

"Oh, my God, he has connections to the mob."

I mean, to the realmob.

Manna: I think...where we left off the last time...

Right. Well, tell me that story then.

♪

Green: Nick Civella was the boss of Kansas City,

and he and his brother are trying to just look like nice,

hard-working immigrant businessmen...

while at the same time, Civella has proved to be

a sharp operator who gets things done.

He was a guy who did the violent deeds

and then gets to the point where he's ordering the violent deeds.

So if you meet him, you better play your cards right.

♪

This meeting was to later become one

of the more significant meetings in my career

He goes, "I have many people I'd like to introduce you to

that enjoy nice custom handmade clothing such as you do."

Sciutto: Apparently, when Nick saw A.J.'s fashions,

he really wanted to, you know, get A.J. to dress him

and all of his mobster buddies.

♪

David: It makes you wonder what it would have been like

for this country boy with all these gangsters and mobsters,

and then all of a sudden turn them into putty,

and the next thing you know they love him.

That became some of the better clients

that I've ever had in my life.

I never asked any questions.

These people respected my work. I respected them.

They treated me with all of the respect in the world.

All of a sudden, things as far as my career

continue to improve.

Nick Civella accepted A.J., liked A.J.

And so A.J. is trusted within the Kansas City mob,

and, therefore, those in sort of the Venn diagram

where it fits in with the rest of the mob.

The Midwest is sort of its own area --

Kansas City, Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland.

They are interconnected,

and it means A.J. is pretty well guaranteed some business.

A.J.: He asked if I was ever in the Chicago area.

I said, "I can be in just about any area

where my services are needed."

David: Civella set A.J. up making all of them suits

because they all wanted to look nice.

They wanted to look like they were...

something special other than mobsters.

These people see people like them on the screen,

and they look great,

but, yet, when they look in a mirror at themselves,

they're slouched over and they don't look that --

they don't look like a movie star they'd like to.

♪

I think A.J. had a natural gift for making clothes.

He completely understood

that he could make a squat, short, overweight mob guy

look like Sinatra.

And the fact that he could do that fascinated him.

The mob guys thought they looked like Sinatra,

even though they didn't.

♪

The telephone calls are coming in now

from Chicago, Milwaukee, and all around.

I get a telephone call from Cleveland.

A.J. was doing a number of suits,

and so there was a schedule as to whose was due when

and when he'd have it finished and send it out to whoever.

Cleveland, like a lot of other cities,

has its different families

who are sometimes working together and sometimes at odds.

And they are very conscious of pecking order.

Now, Scalish works his way up on one side, and he's now the boss.

But A.J. delivers to Danny Greene,

who's a lower level guy in the Cleveland mob,

before he gets to John Scalish.

That's an insult to Scalish.

♪

A.J.: I caught the flight, arrived in Cleveland

on a Friday late afternoon

and was rather excited and very pleased with what I had done.

I was expecting a compliment, if anything.

And I walked into this man's house, I displayed his wardrobe,

and then he takes two shirts

and he just looks at me right in my eyes,

and he just threw them right at me, hit me right in my face.

And A.J. said, "I thought you would never see me again."

And the guy threw him out.

After being threatened by Scalish,

A.J. continued to work with them

because he absolutely knew

what his mob connections could do for him

in business and in life, success...

and he was going to play that as far as he could.

And it worked out well for all of them.

At least, for a while.

♪

♪

My business was booming with these people being the mob,

or whatever they -- person make reference to.

To me, some of the nicest polite people,

and I just was having a difficult time seeing

how anybody could see these people in a bad light.

So A.J.'s being flown all over the country by these mobsters,

designing for all of them, and, you know,

he's becoming very, very popular,

and they want to set him up in a shop in Vegas.

Nick Civella suggested A.J. go to Las Vegas

because they had more family out there.

♪

Vegas was controlled by the mob,

and that's why it ran like a Swiss clock.

Different hotels were owned by different mob families

from different parts.

Green: St. Louis was in Dunes, the Aladdin had the Detroit mob.

The Tropicana is tied to Kansas City

under the Civellas.

Russo: They didn't go up and down the Strip.

Their skimming account was feeding their states.

♪

Remember, if the mob's a business,

Las Vegas is one of their big moneymakers.

♪

They were skimming a lot of money out of Las Vegas,

and that's helping to finance a lot of the other things they do.

♪♪

That's where I came in with everybody, taking the skim

and bringing it to the Vatican and clearing it through them,

and then they disperse it wherever they wanted.

People don't realize I got to Vegas in 1959.

Everybody knew me as "the kid."

In the mob world, it was "the kid," "Costello's kid."

It was just a treat to be around these people,

and that's all Costello wanted me to do, watch them.

♪

Green: He knows, yeah, the mob is helping.

The question in that case is going to be,

just how much is A.J. going to be controlled by them?

A.J.: I was a little bit nervous and apprehensive, actually,

about entering into Las Vegas

because it was going to be a complete different lifestyle.

But it was a very exciting, rare opportunity.

So I made the arrangements.

I made the deal, and I'm leaving Wichita, Kansas,

on the 4th of July, 1969.

Was very excited. I had not been to Las Vegas before.

I'm standing and staring, imagination is drifting off,

and I'm thinking it's just an incredible place.

It was the beginning of a new life.

♪

So, it didn't take long to get it started.

♪

Some friends of mine, the Civellas said,

"This guy is coming to town." Da-da-da-da-da-da.

And I said, "Well, let me to meet him."

And I met him.

I didn't realize how big he was. [Chuckles]

When he walked into a room,

he got the attention immediately.

First of all, his size, the way he dressed.

I thought he was a colorful guy.

I mean, a fun guy, too.

♪

I knew a lot of people he wanted to know,

and so I made the introductions.

A.J.: He was kind enough to take me around to introduce me

to all of the bosses, the pit bosses, the table bosses.

I don't think I've ever met so many bosses in my life.

In a lot of cases,

the mobsters he's dealing with were known for their temper

when they are supposed to be very cool,

collected customers who are just doing business.

Russo: Lefty Rosenthal was a figurehead out of Chicago.

He was a numbers guy,

and he started the sports books in all the casinos then.

I couldn't believe that De Niro played him.

And nobody wanted to be around Lefty Rosenthal.

Anybody smart stayed away from Lefty.

Lefty was a fire keg.

Yeah. But not the flashy stuff.

He used to wear them stupid fedoras, you know?

A.J., he had a great look.

And he knew how to dress you,

make you look the best you could look,

which I was a clothes horse already.

So we were friends. We used to go out all the time.

For guys like us,

you know, we'd get up 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon,

we'd be having lunch somewhere at 5:00 or 6:00,

then take a massage, and then go out.

♪♪

We were always having fun, was hanging out women.

And just an amazing time of life.

I think A.J. had an idea

he was getting involved with some pretty rough characters,

but he was up for the challenge,

and he was making good money, and he was really moving up.

♪

A.J.: One day, I was walking into Circus Circus,

and as I was walking by the gift shop,

I saw one of the pit bosses from Caesars Palace.

He says, "Hey, A J.,

I want to introduce you to somebody."

He says, "Tony, this is A.J.,

and, A.J., I'd like for you to meet Tony.

Tony's knew. He just purchased the gift shop."

Green: Tony Spilotro came from the streets of Chicago,

and the belief is that, when he was in Chicago,

he was killing people.

And he allegedly put a guy's head in a vise.

That gets you a reputation.

♪

Russo: I never liked him.

Tony Spilotro was a street mobster.

They sent him to Vegas to take control of things.

His nickname was "the ant,"

and anybody that's watching this --

that saw the movie "Casino,"

Joe Pesci played him in the movie...

-$10,000. -$50,000. $50,000.

$50,000. Go get it.

...and portrayed him to a "T."

He was a pain in the ass

and he thought he had no rules to abide by

and not a nice person.

♪

Chicago wants an enforcer in Las Vegas,

someone to make sure the skim is going well.

So, originally, he ends up at the Circus Circus

with the gift shop concession.

That is a good place from which to watch the casino.

You also don't have to be licensed by the state.

A.J.: This guy was a very, very short guy,

probably, I think, around 5'3".

I could tell he was kind of a rough guy,

but he's so little.

I could tell he was definitely from the Chicago area

from the way he talked,

but seemed pleasant enough to me.

♪♪

And he said, "A.J.,

I want to talk to you about doing some business."

♪

He says, "I know who you are.

I think you do some work for a friend of mine,

Lefty Rosenthal.

I'd like to take a look at some of your stuff."

And because of his size, I could easily see

how I could really exercise the type of cutting that I do.

Green: Spilotro was built a certain way.

There are some who said he had a Napoleon complex,

and perhaps he did.

He was small.

Actually, Ned Day, a great reporter

who covered the mob in Las Vegas,

referred to Spilotro

as a fireplug masquerading as a man.

So if A.J. could make Spilotro look better

when he was going to be dressed up,

he was going to be a friend for life.

♪

A.J.: I decided to give him the long, lean silhouette look.

I'm a custom tailor. I'm a custom designer.

I can take a guy that's maybe like 5'3",

and I can cut a garment with a shape cutting

and a high arm hole cut,

narrow the sleeves, work around this person,

and make him appear to be of a more long, lean silhouette.

And he does a really good job.

Sciutto: And apparently, A.J. and Tony Spilotro,

who is one of the most dangerous hit men

at the time, become buddies.

I think A.J. liked to put himself in dangerous situations.

He enjoyed the dichotomy of being a designer

and hanging out with bad guys.

It was not something he shied away from.

♪

Green: If you look at the mob in the late 1960s, early 1970s,

they're involved in gambling,

they're involved in loan sharking,

you name it, and there's the entertainment side of it

because the mob is very involved in entertainment.

You go back to, say, the Rat Pack at the Sands.

You know, it's interesting

because I had this conversation with Sinatra,

with Sammy Davis Jr., with Dean Martin.

They were all connected to somebody.

Dean Martin fought under "Kid Crochet" as a boxer,

and then at night, he was a car dealer.

And the mob liked him.

Even Sammy Davis, they took them under his wing,

but they had to work so many weeks a year

for them for nothing.

It doesn't mean that an entertainer's a mobster,

but it does mean that there is this connection.

A.J.'s in Las Vegas,

where all these entertainers are,

all these mobsters are,

and A.J. can be friendly with everybody and help everybody.

Now I'm being contacted

about the headliners from Tom Jones, Juliet Prowse,

Wayne Newton, Bobby Goldsboro, you name it.

A.J. liked the fact that I was so close to Sinatra

and the Rat Pack,

and then, you know, he got to know them, too.

Sammy fell in love with him.

A.J.: I would measure them, and I would go to see their show,

examine their acts on stage,

and then I would design what I felt would complement their act.

To go to A.J.'s shop, you never knew who was there.

So if you had nothing to do, you'd stop by and hang out.

It was a party,

you know, people coming and going all the time.

He had every celebrity in the world.

After two or three years, he was made.

♪

On top of it, I really had a desire

to become involved in the stage extravaganzas.

And so, Joe Agosto informed me he would introduce me

to the producer of the show the Folies Bergère.

♪

Alan Clancy: The Mafia bought the shows.

They had the money to put into the shows.

Nobody else had that kind of money.

I have to say they were quite smart.

They would scan the whole world for the best choreographers,

the best costume designers,

the best beautiful women in the world.

They scanned the whole world to find me.

I was the only person who could do 10 summersaults

across the stage from a standing position.

And there was always a booth

that was always put there for the Mafia.

So just before the curtain would go up, they would come in

in their tuxedos and their big cigar.

They always smoked cigars, for some reason.

And then they'd come backstage and tell us how great we were,

give us money, whatever we wanted.

Then they'd say, "Well, put my girlfriend in the show,"

and we'd have to get rid of somebody

and put her in the show.

And usually the girl didn't have any talent,

but usually they were beautiful.

But that's how they kind of operated the place.

♪♪

I knew A.J. as a tailor.

I remember him being backstage and helping measuring

the costumes for us and for the women.

A.J.: The show girls were dressed in the plumes

and the G-strings

and wonderful rhinestones and studs and diamond.

It was like I had just died and gone to heaven.

Here I am, a kid from northwestern Arkansas.

It was amazing.

[Applause]

♪

These mafia guys that A.J. was making clothing for,

they, a lot of times, wanted favors.

Oh, he told me stories, yes.

[Clears throat]

A.J. told me that one time Nick Civella called A.J.

and told him that there was a couple of friends

that were come to Las Vegas,

and he wanted him to take them out

and to show them a good time.

He told me Ann-Margret was playing a show.

♪♪

And A.J. and a girlfriend, and then, you know,

these two guys went out to the show.

♪

The girl at one point, went to the bathroom

and A.J. went to the bathroom, as well.

And when they came back, they just continued,

you know, to enjoy the show and have drinks,

but something was wrong.

♪

David: All of a sudden, A.J. started feeling woozy.

♪

Manna: And the girl was starting to freak out a little bit.

♪

David: So A.J. excused himself and went to the restroom.

♪

While he was back there,

he called his good friend Bob Laurion,

the general manager of the Tropicana

and told him he thought he'd been drugged.

♪♪

Bob made arrangements and took them

to where they could sleep it off.

♪

Manna: When A.J. woke up the next morning,

he seemed to be physically okay.

His date seemed to be fine.

And he was just gonna let it slide.

Was gonna let it slide because he didn't know

how close these guys were to Civella himself.

And if he stepped over the line and accused them of something

and it's someone very close to Civella,

that could have been real trouble.

♪♪

But when he returned home, the police were at his door.

♪♪

They were wanting to know where he'd been

and what he'd been doing.

A.J.: He says to me, "We got activity reported here.

There's some things that's going on in this place

we're in right now and that there's some complaint."

I said, "Well, may I ask you what form of complaint?"

He said, "Well, attempted rape."

A.J.: I mean, I don't know anybody

who's had five cops in their house like that.

♪

Manna: The police show up at A.J.'s,

saying, "Hey, you were a part of an attempted rape."

This is serious stuff.

A.J.: I told him to his face,

"Stuff like that does not happen in my house.

They just don't happen. You have a mistake."

He said, "No, no." He says, "There's no mistake."

He said, "You have company.

You have a couple of guys from Kansas."

♪

Once he said that, I thought to myself,

"Oh, my God."

I said, "You mind if I look in that dish over there?"

He said, "Sure." I went and checked for my keys.

My house key is missing.

Then it all clicked in his brain what had happened.

Those two guys had invited some show girls there,

drugged them,

and attempted to rape them.

♪

So A.J. calls up "Tuffy" DeLuna.

Green: Tuffy DeLuna had come up through the ranks in Kansas City

and is one of the top people under the Civellas

And in that role,

he is in charge also of keeping an eye on Las Vegas.

End of phone call.

♪

A.J.: Several months later,

my brother sent me an article out of The Wichita Eagle.

There was a accident, supposedly a car accident.

Could have just been bad luck, but maybe not.

♪

Green: I think in any family, there are rules.

This is true with the mob and organized crime,

and there are blood oaths that some people take.

In some cases, you have to be a made man.

There are others where you are accepted

because you have earned your spurs,

you've proved your loyalty or your usefulness.

♪♪

A.J.: So, I had a lot of respect in that area

because of my fashion business,

especially with the Civellas and all of the mob bosses.

♪

I couldn't walk anywhere in Las Vegas

and I couldn't pay for a meal.

I couldn't pay for a drink.

♪

As we said earlier, they controlled Vegas.

And that's why it ran smooth,

and there was no problems with anybody,

and nobody got out of line, especially mob guys down there.

You got out of line, you'd be called in right away.

You don't do that there. It was, like, off limits.

♪

It's amazing how the older guys, like the Civellas,

they liked the idea to have a guy

who they thought, I was gonna say, kept his nose clean.

And A.J., you know capitalized on them, they loved it,

they got what they wanted, he got what he wanted.

But I said, "There's something going on with this guy."

Well, he, uh -- Well, he carried himself differently.

I didn't know what he was doing.

♪

I'm glad I didn't know it.

♪

Mike: The first time that I met A.J.,

I told my wife, I said,

"I met the most unusual person I've ever met in my life."

And he came in my office -- I had a used-car lot --

and I was taken aback

because he had so much perfume on

that I almost started sneezing.

♪

You really couldn't tell

who this guy was or what he was.

He talked about being a clothes designer,

and that was pretty much as far as he went

until we got to know each other a lot better.

♪

Willa: And we went out to dinner one night,

and A.J. said he had this great place for dinner.

And we got there, and of course,

they all knew A.J. and he introduced us.

They treated us like royalty.

And of course, we were in the bar first having a drink,

and I'll let you tell the rest of that story.

Well, we weren't -- we weren't there probably 15 minutes,

and these three guys came to the booth

where we were at and just really motioned to him.

[Indistinct conversations]

They didn't hardly say anything,

but he got up and went back further in the bar

to another booth, and some guy at the bar...

♪♪

...a snub-nosed revolver fell out of his pocket.

He was sitting at the bar.

♪♪

So he just casually picked it up,

put it back in his pocket.

We're all looking at each other like, "What was that?"

And then just a few minutes after that,

A.J. came back to the table,

he was very subdued, and said, "Let's go eat."

♪

The look on his face was not good,

and those guys were serious.

Now, outside of that restaurant

was a jewelry store

that was attached to the restaurant.

The story I got was that it was the site

of the largest cocaine bust in the state

a couple of years before that,

and he was involved in it.

♪♪

I...

I-I-I was, later on, just shocked

to find out what his background really was.

♪

David: The mob thought A.J. was just a tailor.

They had no idea that he had other connections

in other things.

A.J.: My personal life by now,

as far as how I was doing was about working around the clock.

And I had new clientele all the time.

And I'm starting to get calls from all over the world,

literally, to do the personal wardrobe design work.

♪

One day, someone walked into A.J.'s store in Vegas.

♪

A.J.: There was a very distinguished

Colombian gentleman that I made an appointment,

designed him a wardrobe, and he was very pleased.

In fact, he was ecstatic, and he invited me,

he says, "Well, you need to take a break,"

and he says, "Sure love to have you be my guest in Colombia."

♪

He was going to give me a little tour

of a couple of the beach cities,

and then he said he wanted to take me

to meet a very special person to employ my services.

♪

So I checked my schedule.

It sounded very intriguing, very interesting.

And so I made arrangements to take a week to go to Colombia.

♪

Now I was excited

to be taking my needle and thread international.

♪♪

He told me he was taking me to a ranch.

♪

There were some really tricky roads.

I remember looking down, and there's no bottom.

♪

And the driver was drinking a bottle of tequila.

And he was doing cocaine.

♪

Well, when we did arrive at where we were going,

it was an unusual way that it was set up.

It was a very large place.

I did see a lot of people wandering around busy,

and we get out.

There was two guys there at the door.

And I thought, "Wow."

♪♪

I'd asked Roberto,

I said, "How important is he, the president of Colombia?"

He said, "Oh, much more."

♪

I was standing in front of, to be my new client,

Pablo Escobar.

♪

♪

♪

♪♪