So it’s just as hard for people on my side of the law to sniff them out as it is for the law to sniff out a guy who does freakish stuff.

There’s even people stupid enough to rat on themselves. A pro can be smart about work and dumb about other things. Say you talk about your work to your girlfriend: all it takes is for her to get mad at you one time to put a whole crew under the jail.

A few years ago, that happened to a guy I’d worked some jobs with. He was real good-looking. Smooth talker, too. Always found some girl to pick up his tabs-I don’t think he ever paid rent in his life. This guy, he’d never talk about our kind of work, but any woman he ever stayed with, she’d have to know he wasn’t any W-2 man. Probably helped them get over the nights he didn’t come home. And explained the flashy way he always dressed, too. Whatever, they were always happy to help out with some cash while he was waiting on this big score he had coming.

Only this last one, she couldn’t leave it that way. She just had to satisfy herself he wasn’t spending her money on some other girl.

A lot of them do it now. They call it “playing detective.” You know what I mean: they buy their boyfriend a cell phone and pay the bill themselves. The mark thinks he’s playing her, but the person who pays the bill gets the bill. Which means she gets a lot of phone numbers.

So, anyway, the girlfriend, she finds a number she doesn’t recognize, dials it while the guy’s sleeping. Wakes him up and goes off on him. She’s taking care of him, and he fucking cheats on her!?

He should’ve just promised her he was done with that other girl. Better yet, just walked away and not come back.

But, no, he has to be a big man. Throws a fistful of hundreds on the floor, tells her, “Here, bitch. Go pay your little cell-phone bill.”

All their time together, she thought he was her kept boy, so seeing all that money sends her over the edge. A few minutes earlier, she was screaming at him to get out. Now she’s standing in front of the door. She’s got more to say, and he’s going to listen to it or…