Free GoodFellas by Nicholas Pileggi Page A

scream and throw a glass or plate and really work yourself up intoa fit. I mean, even though deep down you knew you were full of shit, you were still ready to tear the bastard apart. By then somebody would usually pull you away, but you go out threatening to break his legs.
    â€˜Now the guy’s got a problem. He knows who we are. He knows we could break his legs and he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. He can’t go to the cops, because he’s got little problems of his own and they’ll shake him down for even more money than he’s already giving them. Also, he knows we own the cops. If he makes too much noise, he gets his business burned down. There’s nothing left for him to do but to go and see Paulie. He won’t go direct. He might go to see someone who talks to Paulie. Frankie the Wop. Steve DePasquale. Bruno Facciolo.
    â€˜If the guy is well enough connected, there’s a meet with Paulie. Let me tell you, Paulie’s all heart. He sympathizes. He groans that he doesn’t know what he’s gonna do with us. He calls us psycho kids. He tells the guy that he talks to us over and over, but we never listen. He’s got lots of problems with us. We’re making trouble for him all over town. By then the guy knows it’s time to say it would be worth his while to get us off his back. And one word leads to another, and pretty soon Paulie is on the guy’s payroll for a couple of hundred a week, depending. Also, our bar bill is forgotten. It’s so smooth.
    â€˜Now the guy’s got Paulie for a partner. Any other problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with the cops? He can go to Paulie. Trouble with deliveries? Call Paulie. And, of course it goes both ways. Paulie can put people on the payroll for early parole, he can throw the liquor and food buying to friends of his. Plus the insurance. Who handles the insurance? That’s always big with the politicians, and the politicians who are close to Paulie get the broker’s fees. Plus the maintenance. Who cleans the joint? I mean a wiseguy can make a buck off every part of the business.
    â€˜And if he wants to bust it out, he can make even more money. Bank loans, for instance. A place has been in business say twenty, thirty years. It has a bank account. There’s usually a loan officerwho can come over and give you a loan for some improvements. Of course, if you can, you take the money and forget about the improvements, because you’re expecting to bust the place out anyway.
    â€˜Also, if the place has a line of credit, as the new partner you can call up suppliers and have them send stuff over. You can call up other new distributors and get them to send over truckloads of stuff, since the place has a good credit rating. Wholesalers are looking for business. They don’t want to turn you down. The salesmen want to make the sale. So you begin to order. You order cases of whiskey and wine. You order furniture. You order soap, towels, glasses, lamps, and food, and more food. Steaks. Two hundred filets. Crates of fresh lobster, crab, and shrimp. There is so much stuff coming in the door, it’s like Christmas.
    â€˜And no sooner are the deliveries made in one door, you move the stuff out another. You sell the stuff to other places at a discount, but since you have no intention of paying for it in the first place, anything you sell it for is profit. Some guys use the stuff to start new places. You just milk the place dry. You bust it out. And, in the end, you can even burn the joint down for a piece of the insurance if it doesn’t make enough. And nowhere does Paulie show up as a partner. No names. No signed pieces of paper. Paulie didn’t need paper. Back then, in the sixties, aside from busting out joints, I know Paulie must have been getting a piece out of two, three dozen joints. A hundred here, two or three hundred there. He was doing beautifully. I remember once he told me he had a