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

He just don’t know anything. Guys like him, the guys you’re always hanging around with, well, they’re the only guys’re stupider’n Chubby. Because all that stuff’s good for now, except for wiping your ass on it, it’s to sell to guys like you, don’t know any better, what’s gonna start happening to them when they go out and start moving the stuff. That’s why the price’s so low.
    â€œYou know what’s the matter with that stuff?” Amato said. “I’ll tell you. Chubby took it out to fuckin’ Wonderland, is what Chubby did. He hasn’t got no brains. He thinks, it’s good, he’s gonna move it all by himself. He’s gonna go out the dog track and move the whole run, he’s so proud of that funny. So he did. He moved about ten thousand of it, all by himself, one single fuckin’ night. Five hundred of them goddamned beautiful things, and every single one of them’s got the same goddamned number on it.
    â€œNow of course,” Amato said, “them guys, run dog tracks, they’re all stupid, aren’t they? Betcher ass. Dumb as shit. Never occurred to them, race track’s a good place to pass funny. No, not on your life. So they never train them tellers, look out for anything like bogus. So of course, them tellers never spot anything, the nightChubby’s there, throwing twenties around like he’s apeshit and everything, absolutely not. So they only had about nine hundred security guys and some cops and the Secret Service all over the place when Chubby comes back, the eighth race. And you know what he says? They give him his rights and everything, he don’t have to say a fuckin’ word, and if he didn’t know that already, which he should’ve, he knows now. And they tell him, he’s in the shit for counterfeit. And he looks at them and he says: ‘Jesus Christ. I put them in coffee. They don’t look new.’
    â€œYou know what he did?” Amato said. “They give him his phone call and he calls Mike. And Mike says, Mike tells him, keep his mouth shut. And Mike goes down there, and, Mike knows everybody. So he goes in, and they’re all laughing at him, and he knows it, and he asks: ‘Why?’ And they show him the reports and stuff. And then Mike’s gonna go see his client. And he walks inna cell and he looks at him and Chubby says: ‘Boy, am I ever glad, see you.’ And you know what Mike says? He looks at him, and he says: ‘Chubby, this one’s for free. Plead it.’ And he goes out.
    â€œSee,” Amato said, “that’s your main problem you got today. You got guys that know how to do things but they don’t know nothing about having no fuckin’ brains, is all. They haven’t got no imagination. The only thing they can think of to do is the first thing they can see that looks good to them. Only, five hundred guys already did it before and
everybody
knows what’s going on, so you automatically go out there and you do it and they’re watching for you and they get you. You got to think of a different angle, something nobody else thought of for a while, or else you got to go down to Holbrook there and you go to fuckin’ work. Everythingelse’s a waste of time, and it’s dangerous, too, because you’re gonna do time.”
    â€œOkay,” Frankie said, “you’re the guy with the angle. Tell me what the angle is. Only, don’t tell me, it’s the barbut, is all. I’m not going down that alley behind Billy’s Fish some night and wind up in Everett with a couple in my head. No fuckin’ way. I want dough. I’m not getting dead, gettin’ it.”
    â€œHow about,” Amato said, “well, look, let’s talk about it. Before we decide. You think Doglover there can handle a card game?”
    â€œWell I mean,” Frankie said, “shit. Sure, anybody can. They can find one where they can go in and they haven’t got to go up against some kind of an arsenal. Those fuckin’ things, they just got less money in them’n the barbut’s got, is all. Those things’re protected. You can’t do them unless you’re so fuckin’ dumb you actually like having everybody going around tryin’ to off you.”
    â€œThere’s one you can do,” Amato said.
    â€œThere’s ten I can do, John,” Frankie said. “I know of at least