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

I’m giving them hell all the time. I’m always fighting with my wife. I never used to fight with my wife. I used to, she was being a big pain in the ass, I used to kind of roll with the punches, you know? Now I don’t. I’m getting old. And I swore, boy, I was in? I swore when I got out I was gonna make every minute count, the rest of my life. You ever get me some place again, I can go to sleep without some asshole shoving his dick through the bars, all right, that’s all I ask. And am I doing it? No. Of course I’m not. I’m just as big an asshole now as I was before.”
    â€œRussell’d get to anybody,” Frankie said. “It’s the way he is.”
    â€œYeah,” Amato said, “but the way I used to be, I wouldn’t’ve cared if he could piss off everybody inna world, you know? He couldn’t piss me off. If he was right for the job, he’d be right for the job. Screw, I’m not gonna marry the guy. All I want, all I would’ve been thinking about is, is he right for this job, and if I thought he was right, that’d be it.”
    â€œWell,” Frankie said, “you change your mind or something?”
    â€œI dunno,” Amato said. “I been asking around about him. You know, not too many guys and all, I don’t want it to seem like maybe I had something in mind. That I don’t need. But, well, I’m afraid, I’m afraid he’s not the kind of guy we oughta have in on this. You go around this thing inna wrong way, you could get somebody hurt, and I don’t want that. There’s no reason for that, you know? You hit somebody, you’re not gonna get any more money or anything. It’s just, it don’t make no sense. You got to have guys that can, that’re not going to go haywire or something, is all.
    â€œThese people,” Amato said, “these’re not the kind of people, that’re around a bank or something, they
expect
maybe some day a guy or somebody’s gonna come in there and try to rob them and, it’s not their money, people tell them, how they oughta act. They’re not that kinda people at all.”
    â€œHeroes,” Frankie said.
    â€œHeroes,” Amato said. “They’re a different kind of guys, and they’re liable, some of them, you never know when one of them’s gonna do it, go right off his ass and start making trouble and then you got to fuckin’ shoot somebody, for Christ sake. Some of them, they think they’re pretty hot shits. Somebody comes in there that’s not absolutely cool, well, that they can see right off doesn’t know what he’s doing and he’s not taking no shit off anybody that wants to fuck around with him, well, then it’s gonna be different.
Bad
, different.”
    â€œYou’re not gonna promote that North End thing to me again, are you, John?” Frankie said.
    â€œThe barbut?” Amato said. “Nah, this’s different. Although I got to say, I still think you could do that thingif you thought about it long enough and you went in there with the right type of guys, knowing what you’re doing. A few guys, some day somebody’s gonna knock that thing off, and then he’s gonna have a whole lot of money. A whole bunch of money.”
    â€œI wanna meet that guy, afterward,” Frankie said. “I think probably, I’m ever gonna meet him, I better meet him quick, is what I think. Fuckin’ thing. You ever look that thing over? There’s a guy on the corner in the phone booth. Funny how come the phone company put that thing right there, huh? And then there’s always a guy that’s sitting up in the window and looking out at the guy in the phone booth. Coldest night in the year, go down there, that guy’s in the phone booth. He’s not doing nothing. I think maybe that’s how he makes his living. I wouldn’t want it, maybe, but it’s fuckin’ steady’s what I think. You wouldn’t even think anybody’d go out, and there he is, and then there’s that alley and I bet there’s not more’n fifteen heavies in that room with the pieces all set to go.”
    â€œThere’s still a lot of money in there,” Amato said.
    â€œÂ â€˜So much money they lose it, they lose the dice in it some times,’ ” Frankie said. “ ‘You go in and you get it, they’re never gonna be able, report it,