Killing Them Softly (Cogan's Trade Movie Tie-in Edition)

ten of them I can do. But then after, somebody, everybody’s gonna have at least eight hot ginzos out looking for me.”
    â€œUh uh,” Amato said. “Do this one and they’ll, they won’t even look for you.”
    â€œWhy not?” Frankie said.
    â€œBecause the minute it fuckin’ happens,” Amato said, “they’re gonna know right off, who it is.”
    â€œFor some reason,” Frankie said, “that don’t make me feel better, you know, John?”
    â€œNot us,” Amato said. “Keep in mind, I know how these guys think. They’re not gonna think, they’re never even gonna think it might be us or even somebody else.They’re pick one guy, right off, and go find him and whack him out and that’ll be it. And you and me and that little prick, if that’s the guy we get, we cut up about forty, fifty thousand dollars. No fuckin’ sweat.”
    â€œI don’t know’s I go for setting somebody up,” Frankie said.
    â€œYou’re not setting him up,” Amato said. “He set himself up. Mark Trattman runs this game. This’s the second game Markie’s had. The other game got knocked off. Markie did it.”
    â€œAh,” Frankie said.
    â€œHe did it,” Amato said, “and there was all kinds of shit. One of the guys that got robbed was a doctor, and he had a brother was a state cop, and he was mad as hell, he was gonna do this and he was gonna do that and everybody’s running around, they hadda give the guy back about, I dunno, three or four thousand, to shut him up, and they go around and see Trattman. And he puts on this great act. And they believe him.
    â€œSo everybody pisses blood for a while,” Amato said, “the way they always do when the shit hits the fan, and there’s about a month or so goes by and everybody, nobody’s running any games or anything, and then, I think it was Tommy Balls, somebody says: ‘Fuck this,’ and he hires about ten guys to stand around and opens up and nothing happens. So they all look at Testa’s game, and nothing still happens, and after a while everybody’s open again and everybody’s happy.
    â€œSo one night,” Amato said, “the guys’re hanging around and they’re talking and all, having a few drinks, and finally one of them says how it’s funny, they had that thing and everybody got all jumpy and now they’re all running again and nobody’s tried it again. Probably having more guys around, huh? Well, Markie startslaughing. See, he can’t resist it. So he tells them, he did it himself. He got two guys to come in and he did it himself. The guys got five apiece, they’re a couple guys carrying hod that he happens to know or something, and he come out of it with close to thirty.”
    â€œHe’s lucky they didn’t put him to sleep,” Frankie said.
    â€œWell,” Amato said, “he is. But you got to understand Mark. All the guys like Markie. He’s a genuine hot shit. And look when they find out: when everybody’s open again. They’d’ve found out it was him when the games’re all closed and everybody’s hearing footsteps and nobody’s making any money, then, I think, they would’ve done it to him. But they didn’t. And then, when they did, well, what the fuck, huh? It wasn’t none of their money and just as long as it doesn’t happen again, because all the customers, you’re not gonna get them coming in unless they think it’s protected, but the protection’s really there, well, shit on it.”
    â€œI bet it probably wouldn’t happen again that way,” Frankie said.
    â€œAnd that’s the angle,” Amato said.
    â€œWhat’s it good for?” Frankie said.
    â€œI figure,” Amato said, “I was there twice. I been there twice since I got out. I run into Markie one night, I was in town seeing what’s going on and looking around and I run into him and we had a couple drinks and he says, he tells me he’s got this thing and I should come up. So, twice, both times onna Wednesday. He runs it two nights a week, Wednesdays and Fridays. Now the guys that’re there, that come on Wednesday, there’s a few that come both nights but it’s really a different group the two nights. There was probably, I would say about forty thousand flying around the nightsI was there.