“I could’ve,” the first one said, “but you asked me, you know, get somebody that was all right. Russell, here, he’s maybe kind of a wise ass, but he’s all right if you can stand him.”

“Sure,” Russell said, “and a guy like you, he wants something done, hasn’t got the stones, do it himself, I think he oughta try pretty hard, too.”

“I really don’t like this prick,” Amato said to the first one. “He’s too fuckin’ fresh for my blood. How about going out and getting me a nice tough nigger? I don’t think I can stand this cocksucker long enough to tell him what I want.”

“Russell, for Christ sake,” the first one said, “willya shut the fuck up and stop jerking the guy’s chain? He’s tryin’ to do us a favor.”

“I didn’t know that,” Russell said. “I thought he wanted us to do him a favor. That the straight shit, Squirrel? You tryin’, do me a favor?”

“Get the fuck out of here,” Amato said.

“Hey,” Russell said, “that’s no fuckin’ way, talk to a guy. The fuck you sell driving lessons to people, you go around talking to a guy like that?”

“This thing I got in mind,” Amato said, “the two guys I get to do it’re gonna cut up about thirty, I figure. Thirty K. Shitbirds like him, Frankie, shitbirds like him I can buy for eighty cents a dozen, they throw in another free. Get me somebody else, Frankie. I’m not gonna put up with this kinda shit.”

“Remember them habes we had?” Frankie said.

“Habes,” Amato said, “what habes? We had about nine hundred habes. Every time I turn around that monkey’s pulling out something else I got to sign. What habes?”

“They, the ones they bring us down for,” Frankie said. “The federal ones.”

“On the line-up thing,” Amato said, “yeah. The time that big coon come after me.”

“Long Tall Sally,” Frankie said.

“I dunno what his name was,” Amato said. “We didn’t have no nice conversation or anything. He was just trying to get my pants off and I was just trying to stop him from getting my pants off, is all. ‘Jes hold still there a minute, white boy, I’m gonna shove all my good time right up your sugah ass.’ Fuckin’ guy. He had white lipstick on.”