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new.’
    â€œYou 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 gonna go see his client. And he walks inna cell and he looks at him and Chubby says: ‘Boy, am I ever glad, see you.’ And you know what Mike says? He looks at him, and he says: ‘Chubby, this one’s for free. Plead it.’ And he goes out.
    â€œSee,” 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. Everythingelse’s a waste of time, and it’s dangerous, too, because you’re gonna do time.”
    â€œOkay,” 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.”
    â€œHow about,” Amato said, “well, look, let’s talk about it. Before we decide. You think Doglover there can handle a card game?”
    â€œWell 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.”
    â€œThere’s one you can do,” Amato said.
    â€œThere’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 gonna have at least eight hot ginzos out looking for me.”
    â€œUh uh,” Amato said. “Do this one and they’ll, they won’t even look for you.”
    â€œWhy not?” Frankie said.
    â€œBecause the minute it fuckin’ happens,” Amato said, “they’re gonna know right off, who it is.”
    â€œFor some reason,” Frankie said, “that don’t make me feel better, you know, John?”
    â€œNot us,” Amato said. “Keep in mind, I know how these guys think. They’re not gonna think, they’re never even gonna think it might be us or even somebody else.They’re pick one guy, right off, and go find him and whack him out and that’ll be it. And you and me and that little prick, if that’s the guy we get, we cut up about forty, fifty thousand dollars. No fuckin’ sweat.”
    â€œI don’t know’s I go for setting somebody up,” Frankie said.
    â€œYou’re not setting him up,” Amato said. “He set himself up. Mark Trattman runs this game. This’s the second game Markie’s had. The other game got knocked off. Markie did it.”
    â€œAh,” Frankie said.
    â€œHe did it,” Amato said, “and there was all kinds of shit. One of the guys that got robbed was a doctor, and he had a brother was a state cop, and he was mad as hell, he was gonna do this