Banana Fish

Banana Fish is set in the United States in the mid-1980s, primarily New York City. Seventeen-year-old street gang leader Ash Lynx cares for his older brother Griffin, a Vietnam War veteran who has been in a vegetative state since a combat incident in which he fired on his own squadron and uttered the words "banana fish". One night, Ash witnesses two of his gang members kill a man who instructs Ash to "seek banana fish" before dying. The two gang members tell Ash they were acting on orders from Dino Golzine, the head of the Corsican mafia in New York; Ash was formerly an enforcer and child sex slave to Golzine, having been groomed from a young age to become the eventual heir to his criminal enterprise. Ash begins to investigate "banana fish" but is impeded in this endeavor by Golzine, leading him to turn on his former patron. Ash encounters multiple allies and enemies in the course of his dual efforts to uncover the meaning of "banana fish" and dismantle Golzine's criminal empire: chief among his confidants is Eiji Okumura, a Japanese photographer's assistant who has travelled to New York to complete a report on street gangs, and with whom Ash forms a close bond. (Source: Wikipedia)