I wanted to ask him if that pathetic crap ever worked. What kind of chumps show you their hand first and then try to bluff you off a better one?

But I didn’t say anything. I’m a professional, not a punk with a pistol. You’ll never see my picture on a security camera sticking up a bodega. Or jacking some guy in a suit while he’s standing at an ATM.

I’m a thief, and I do clean work. I don’t hurt people for money, I don’t set fires, I don’t do any of those sicko sex things. Stuff like that, it gets spread all over: the papers, radio, TV. Gets everybody paying attention. Specially when there’s big reward money out there.

A man who does my kind of work, the only way he ever gets caught is if he goes in without a plan. Or if someone rolls over on him.

You never talk about your work, period. Too many guys walking around with heavy charges hanging over them. Anyone gets caught holding K-weight powder in this state, it’s the same as a murder beef. A street cop catches a guy holding that heavy, he can make the bust, but all that’d get him is another one of those “commendations” every cop has a couple dozen of. What he really wants is that gold shield, so he’d rather have that guy on the street, working for him. Any outlaw is going to be able to go places no undercover ever could. So all he has to do is listen long enough.

Guys like that, they’re all nothing but rats on leashes. If it wasn’t for informants, the cops would have to get damn lucky to ever make a case against a pro.

They’ll pretty much always get the amateurs-the clowns who leave a trail you could follow even with one of those white canes tapping the way.

The amateurs who stay out the longest are the ones who kill for fun. A random kill doesn’t even look like what it really is until the bodies pile up.

There’s also people who get off on being a rat. Nothing in it for them; they like doing that kind of stuff.