Cogan's Trade

“Beautiful,” Frankie said. “I’m living in Somerville. How the hell’m I supposed to get to Holbrook in the middle of the afternoon? Never mind, for Christ sake, how the fuck I’m supposed to get home i

“With what?” Frankie said. “I haven’t got no money. What am I go

“ ‘Move down there,’ they tell me,” Frankie said. “Same thing. I still haven’t got no money. I had money, I could move down there, I’d move some place else, I wouldn’t be bothering them in the first place. Well, they’re sorry. That’s all they got right now, that they’re pretty sure the guy that does the hiring’ll take a guy like me. I should probably go down the welfare and get enough dough, I can move out there. The guy’s just sick of talking to me. He wants his fuckin’ coffee or something. Okay, that’s the end of that. Then I see Russell. He’s going right along. He’ll probably buy a hotel or something in a couple weeks or so.”

“Not on dogs,” Amato said.

“He’s just doing that,” Frankie said. “He’s go

“What is it?” Amato said.

“There’s this guy I know,” Frankie said. “I see him, he naturally wants to know, how’re things going? So we have a couple pops, he’s buying, and we talk, and then he says, well, he’s gotta go over this place and I can come along if I want, maybe I’ll see something.

“So we go down this place,” Frankie said, “and it’s money. All twenties. Beautiful stuff. I had, I could’ve bought some of that stuff. I hadda thousand on me, I could’ve bought twe

“Better call the guy up,” Amato said. “Tell him bye-bye. He’s go

“John,” Frankie said, “wrong. This stuff is really good. The paper’s good, the ink’s good, the colors’re right. I tell you. I really looked at that stuff. The guy that made it oughta go take some of it to the government. It’s better’n the real stuff.”

“The guy’s Chubby Ryan,” Amato said.

“I du

“He’s not around,” Amato said. “He’s in Atlanta. He’s doing ten fuckin’ years for that beautiful stuff. That fu

“You 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 go

“Now 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 fu

“You 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 go

“See,” 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. Everything else’s a waste of time, and it’s dangerous, too, because you’re go

“Okay,” 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.”

“How about,” Amato said, “well, look, let’s talk about it. Before we decide. You think Doglover there can handle a card game?”

“Well 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.”

“There’s one you can do,” Amato said.

“There’s ten I can do, John,” Frankie said. “I know of at least ten of them I can do. But then after, somebody, everybody’s go

“Uh uh,” Amato said. “Do this one and they’ll, they won’t even look for you.”

“Why not?” Frankie said.

“Because the minute it fuckin’ happens,” Amato said, “they’re go

“For some reason,” Frankie said, “that don’t make me feel better, you know, John?”

“Not us,” Amato said. “Keep in mind, I know how these guys think. They’re not go

“I don’t know’s I go for setting somebody up,” Frankie said.