Francisco Scaramanga, of Spanish (Catalonia) origin, became a trick shot and performed in acts in a circus owned by his father Enrico while a youngster. He also cared for one of the circus elephants, which he stated was his only real friend. When the elephant went on a rampage during the circus visit to Trieste, Scaramanga witnessed a policeman kill him. The enraged boy, who was 16 at the time, retaliated by shooting the policeman through the heart. He then made his way to the United States from Naples, where he found employment as an enforcer for the Spangled Mob, an outfit that plays a role in two other Bond novels: "Diamonds Are Forever" (where they were the main foe of Agent 007) and "Goldfinger" as an accomplice to Auric Goldfinger's Operation Grandslam. He posed as a pitboy at the casino of Tiara Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, while in fact he was executioner of cheats and other transgressors within and outside the gang. In 1958 he was forced to emigrate from the U.S because of his gun duel with Ramon "The Rod" Rodriguez, his opposite from the Purple Gang of Detroit, also featured in the novel "Goldfinger", in which he killed Ramon, earning $100,000 for it. He spent some time travelling the Caribbean as a representative of Las Vegas interests in real-estate and plantation dealing, later switching to Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic and Fulgencio Batista of Cuba where he settled in 1959, in Havana. While remaining a Batista supporter, he started an undercover work for Fidel Castro's party, becoming an "enforcer" for DSS after the revolution.