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

Read Killing Them Softly (Cogan's Trade Movie Tie-in Edition) for Free Online

Book: Read Killing Them Softly (Cogan's Trade Movie Tie-in Edition) for Free Online
Authors: George V. Higgins
so.”
    â€œNot on dogs,” Amato said.
    â€œHe’s just doing that,” Frankie said. “He’s gonna use that to buy something, soon’s he gets enough. That’s what I’d like to do, I got something in mind like that myself. But first I got to get the money to buy the stuff.”
    â€œWhat is it?” Amato said.
    â€œThere’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.
    â€œSo 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 twenny thousand dollars of that stuff. And I tell you, it’s beautiful. You could move it under a floodlight.”
    â€œBetter call the guy up,” Amato said. “Tell him bye-bye. He’s gonna get grabbed. He better pass the first one inna drugstore and get himself a new toothbrush. He’s gonna need one.”
    â€œJohn,” 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 madeit oughta go take some of it to the government. It’s better’n the real stuff.”
    â€œThe guy’s Chubby Ryan,” Amato said.
    â€œI dunno him,” Frankie said.
    â€œHe’s not around,” Amato said. “He’s in Atlanta. He’s doing ten fuckin’ years for that beautiful stuff. That funny? You know something? I agree with you. It’s beautiful stuff. It’s fuckin’ near perfect. But Chubby, Chubby knows a lot about printing and all of that, but, see, Chubby hasn’t got no fuckin’ brains. Just like your friend, there, Doglover. He’s all right. 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

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