Andrew Vachss - Two Trains Running

“So, anyway, my point, when one of their bosses got killed, his soldiers-’samurai,’ they called them-they were just cut loose. After that, they were ‘ronin,’ which means, like, a man without a family. A bad thing to be. Like a mercenary. Take the money and do the job, but they got no… connection. You can never trust a man like that, because he’s not tied to you: not by blood, not by honor.

“Our people, we do things different. Our way is better. With us, your boss gets taken down, you can catch on with another family. Not the one you was at war with, maybe-although even that happens-but you’re still… connected. Still a part of something.”

“Sure, Sal. But what does that have to do with-?”

“The president, he’s just like a boss, G. And the feds, they’re his soldiers. When the president’s gone, the next guy who takes over, he gets all the soldiers, too. Now they’re his soldiers.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? What’re you talking about, G.? How else could it be?”

“If the feds are soldiers, their boss, it’s not the president, it’s that fucking Hoover. We changed presidents how many times? But it’s still Hoover. It’s like he’s the boss-for-life.”

“Batista,” Dioguardi blurted out.

“What?”

“He was boss-for-life, too, right, G.? Down in Cuba. We had all kinds of things working there. It was perfect. Our own country. Then this guy comes out of the mountains and-bam!-before you can look up, everything’s turned upside down.”

“Sally, I’m not following you.”

“The smart boys-the ones think they’re smart-they’ve been looking over their shoulders so long, make sure one of the others isn’t sneaking up on them, they forget how to look forward. The things we make our money from, they could disappear in a second, just like Cuba.”

“I still don’t see-”

“Like liquor, G. Remember when that was our gold mine? Every family in America today, that’s where it got its stake. Everything started with booze. That’s what took us to the big time.

“But what kind of money is there in liquor now? You got hill-billies running moonshine into dry counties, but that’s a mug’s game. The government saw how strong we were getting off the booze money. So what did it do? They cut us off at the knees. You make something legal, how do we make a profit off it? That’s why the smart boys think drugs are the way to go.”

“They’re right,” the scar-faced man said, flatly. “No way they’re ever going to make dope legit. It’ll be good for-”

“Don’t say ‘forever,’ G. Because dope’s not like booze. There was always outlaws in the booze racket, but they were small-timers. It wasn’t even worth shutting them down. Drugs, that’s different. Ten years from now, maybe less, you’ll have niggers and spics and-who knows?-maybe the fucking Chinese in on the action. It’s their neighborhoods where it gets sold, what’s to stop them from dealing themselves in?”

“They don’t have the organization for anything like that.”

“Yeah? How many niggers do you talk to?”

“Me? I don’t talk to moolingan.”

“I do.”

“Huh?”

“I got a boy on the payroll. My personal payroll, out of my own pocket. Smart boy, too. He’s like me, in a way. You see him working-he’s a bellhop, down to the Claremont-you think, There’s another mush-mouthed jungle bunny. But this one, he’s slick. And he likes money. That’s how I know about this man Beaumont’s brought in. I got a watch on him like he’s a fish in that aquarium over there.”

“And this guy, the nigger, I mean, he’s going to be dealing dope someday?”

“I don’t know what he’s going to be doing. Maybe saving the money I give him to buy a red convertible with leopard-skin seat covers, all I know. But we’re not going to be in the dope game, G. Not us. I got something better.”

“Yeah?” the scar-faced man said, tilting his head slightly, to show he was fully focused.

“You know the stag films, the ones we get made up in Calumet City?”

“Sure. But they don’t bring in the kind of-”

“Not yet they don’t. But they will. Someday, those are going to be a better racket than booze ever was.”

“Come on, Sally. How much can we make on a stag film?”

“How much can we make on a load of dope?”

“Huh? That depends, right? On how much you got to sell in the first place.”

“Right!” Dioguardi said, rapping the tabletop twice with his knuckles. “That’s it, exactly, Gino! See, what they sell on the streets-I’m talking real dope now, heroin-it has to go through a lot of hands before it ever gets here. The poppy don’t grow in America. Where they grow it, it starts out as opium. People, people who know what they’re doing, they have to change it into heroin. And once the heroin’s made, pure, it has to be cut, right?”

“Sure. So?”

“So how many times can you step on it before you got nothing? You cut it too much, it’s worthless. And once you sell it, it’s gone forever. You with me?”

“Yeah. But…”

“Gino,” Dioguardi said, unconsciously flexing his biceps under his suit jacket, “listen. We put up the money for a stag film-not just some stripper playing with herself-the whole nine yards, fucking, sucking, anything goes. Let’s say we ante, I don’t know, five large into the whole production, okay? Do a real professional job, lights and cameras, everything. Maybe even in color. Now we sell copies for-what?-ten bucks? And even with everybody dipping their beak along the way, we net, say, five bucks a pop. So we need to sell-what?-a lousy thousand copies, and we’re in gravy from then on. Because, and this is the beauty part, we never really sell it, see? We’re selling copies. And we can make a million copies, we want to. Sell the same thing, over and over again.”

“It would take a whole-”

“Network? Sure. But look how easy it would be to put one together, G. What are they going to hit you with for selling fuck-films? A fine? It’s not like the way it is with dope-nobody’s really taking a risk. And, for product, there’s girls everywhere. I know a guy, out in L.A., he says he could get us a different girl, a gorgeous fucking girl, every day, we wanted. Get them to do anything, even the weirdo stuff.

“Let the feds go chase the dope, Gino. We’ll be sitting on a gold mine, because all we’re going to be selling will be copies of the gold.”

“You really think it could work like that, Sal?”

“How could it not? There’ll always be guys want that stuff. Just like there’ll always be whores. But films, films like I’m talking about, that’s the future.

“Look, the government, they’re just another mob. A greedy fuck-ing mob, at that. So, you have to figure, they see us making money, they want to get in on it themselves. How long you think it’s going to be before they got legal casinos in places besides fucking Vegas? They legalized booze, they could do the same thing with the numbers too, they wanted. But fuck-films? No way the government ever makes that legal, right?”

“Right, Sally. Any senator voted for something like that, it’d be Kaddish for him.”

“See?” Dioguardi said, triumphantly. “Things are happening now, G. All around us. This whole truce thing, the election, everything. I don’t know how it shakes out when it’s done. I don’t know if they’re going to be able to get to Beaumont, even. But I know this. If we get into this film thing on the ground floor, we can build ourselves a mountain of cash, G. And cash, that’s the locomotive that pulls the whole train.”

“It’s worth a try, Sal. The way you got it all doped out, it’s no big risk.”

“And no big-money investment, either. That’s why I want you to go out to L.A., meet with this guy I just told you about, get things set up.”