Well, either way it proves that the good Lord has a sense of humor.
- Good morning, Detective. - Morning.
- You know this guy? - Big-time bookie. Worked for The Rabbi.
- Why do they call him The Rabbi? - Because he's a rabbi.
Between you and me...
20 years ago he used to be my bookie. I used to sign my pay cheques over to him.
What about the other two? Did you get anything on them yet?
These two were poisoned.
Something exotic.
- I'm running it down. - Well, let me know.
Will do.
Prick.
- Have a good day. - You too, Detective.
Jimmy, I'm taking my lunch break.
Don't you see? Nick isn't missing, he's hiding. He set you up.
- Nick set me up? - Like a bowling pin.
Nick found himself in a jam. He got you to take his place.
He paid a street thug to mug you, but all he wants is your wallet and license
so he ignores the watch and suitcase.
Then Nick kills Slim Hopkins and Benny.
the only guys who know what he looks like, and now you're left holding the bag!
- But I called Nick. I initiated contact. - Well, maybe it just seems that way.
- What about Smith? - I still can't figure him out in all this.
Hm.
- You should run. - I can't.
- They'll kill you if you stay. - They'll kill me if I leave.
- Go to the police! - These guys buy cops like cops buy doughnuts.
This isn't the first time this has happened.
This isn't the first time a crime lord asked you to kill the gay son of a rival
to pay off a friend's debt whose place you're staying in because you lost your job
and found your girlfriend with another guy?
It is the first time it happened. But Nick has been painting me into a corner since we were kids.
I guess I've always been a better friend to him...
Yeah, I'd love to hear the rest of this but I've really gotta go back to work.
- Oh, hey. Hey. - Hey.
I was just thinking that if you're still alive when I get back from work tonight, maybe...
I don't know, we could go to dinner or something?
Yeah, that would be great, yeah.
- Really? - Yeah.
Yeah.
OK. Um... No. Bye.
Hm...
Weird.
What?
I was just thinking about what it would be like if we'd met under different circumstances.
See, I think people should only fall in love if there's a great story behind how they met.
You know, seeing as you have to tell it over and over again.
If you and I fell in love, we'd have one hell of a story to tell.
We'd be at a dinner party and someone would ask, "How'd you two meet?"
And I'd say, "You tell the story, dear." And you'd say, "No, you tell it better."
So, come here often?
No. But I heard about someone who does.
- You mean... The Fairy? - Yeah.
- Is he? - Yeah.
Where?
This is absurd. What are you thinking?
- I'm thinking of a new option. - What?
- Talking with him. - Talking with him?
Talking.
You're gonna go over and say, "I'm Slevin, some bad dudes think I am someone I am not.
And I'm gonna have to take you out or they're gonna take me out
and I was wondering, you wanna talk about it?"
- I can't do that. - You think?
Look, I can't just walk over there. He's got bodyguards.
Aside from that, you're pretty much dead-on.
- Bodyguards? - Yeah. Right behind him. Two of them. Israelis.
Beards. Right behind him.
See 'em?
- You're getting good at this. - Thanks.
How are you gonna have a talk with him?
When he goes to the bathroom, I'll follow him in.
What do you think?
Could someone tell me why I'm in the van?
Because I could only get a reservation for two.
All right, The Fairy's at a table in the middle.
Bodyguards nearby.
Our boy's not far away but I can't make out who's with him.
- Did Murph get a beat on him yet? - Murph says, whoever he is, he's a ghost.
Can't find anyone who's ever even bumped into him, much less tripped over him.
The Fairy's going to the bathroom.
And our boy's making a move. Shit.
- Marty, the door's locked. - Relax.
It's not gonna go down in the men's room.
I got it next.
- What went down in the men's room? - We talked.
And?
I told him I thought we should get together.
- You didn't? - I did.
And?
- I got a date. - Do you think this is safe?
It can't be any worse than what's waiting for me behind door number two.
It's gonna be tough. I think I picked up a pigtail.
- A what? - The cops.
Oh, a pig tail. Cute.
I ran into a nosy cop in the men's room.
You and me need to talk.
- Do I know you? - No, but I know you.
Listen, I'm sorry, no offence, but I'm not...
I'm not gay.
- I'm a cop. - Well, I'm not a robber if you catch my drift?
I've been watching you.
I know what you're into. Who are you? I mean, I know who you're not.
You're not Nick Fisher. The guy whose apartment you're in.
I know because Nick spent eight years in Dade Correctional
for forcing himself on a 14-year-old cheerleader.
Dade County sent me a picture of Nick Fisher.
And you... are not him.
So... who the fuck are you?
I'm just a guy whose dinner's getting cold.
May I leave now?
- Come here. - What?
Dead bodies in refrigerators. Cops in men's rooms. You remind me of... James Bond.
That is the nicest thing anybody's ever said to me.
And The Boss, he could be Kananga.
Kananga?
- No, The Boss is no Kananga. - Well, who's The Boss?
Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
Which one? Donald Pleasance? Telly Savalas? Max von Sydow?
You know your Bond. But alas, I was referring to Anthony Dawson.
Who?
Well, he played Blofeld in From Russia With Love.
Well, you never see Blofeld's face in From Russia With Love.
And that's when the villain is most effective, when you don't know what he looks like.
So...
See you later.
Ah, that was incredible! - You...
- I just realized something. - What's that?
- I just made love to you. - You're just realizing that now?
And I have no idea who specifically you were referring to when you said James Bond.
Because earlier when you were telling me that I reminded you of James Bond,
and I was saying that it was the nicest thing anybody's ever said to me,
I naturally assumed...
You naturally assumed you knew who I was talking about.
Because if you don't - if you weren't talking about the guy I think that you're talking about,
well, you have me mistaken for somebody else, because in my mind there is only one Bond.
Well, on that we agree.
Same time on three.
- One... - Two...
- Three. George Lazenby. - Roger Moore.
- George Lazenby? - Roger Moore? I was kidding.
- Yeah, I was kidding. - You were?
The only James Bond is...
- Timothy Dalton. - Pierce Brosnan.
- Scotland forever. - I feel so much better.
Why are you going?
I'm just going to get us some coffee.
OK.
Hurry back to me.
After Laughter
Hey! Police.
Aw, come on, man.
I already talked to your buddy.
Good morning. I'm Detective Dumbrowski.
Good morning, Detective. Am I being kidnapped?
Nope. We just want to have a quick, friendly word with you.
Is this standard operating procedure you'd find in the policeman's manual
if you look up "quick, friendly word"?
There is no SOP for the box you got yourself into.
Oh.
- So what do you want to talk to me about? - You.
- What about me? - Who are you?
- Philosophically speaking? - Name.
- Rank, serial number... - You should really play ball.
You think I'm tall enough?
- What is your name? - Oh, yeah, I remember. Slevin Kelevra.
K-E-L-E-V-R-A.
- Kelevra. - Look, kid.
I don't know what's going on, or how you're into this,
but when I figure out what there is to figure out,
I'm not gonna be so nice to you.
Oh, this is nice. Don't do me any favors.
Last chance to come clean.
Take a walk.
I think this is the part where you tell me not to walk too far.
I have to go to work.
Hey.
- Hey, guys, what are you doing here? - Now's the time.
I've got at least... Jesus.
The Boss says he wants you to look nice for The Fairy.
You're early.
Why don't you come in and fix yourself a drink? I was just getting ready.
You'll have to excuse the...
I wasn't expecting you for...
You look good.
- You want some wine? - No.
Is something the matter?
Somebody's trying to kill you.
Who?
Me.
- That was close. - Yeah.
Close.
I hired you to do a job.
It wasn't supposed to look like a job.
So you take out the Israelis, bomb the damn building...
and now the job that was not supposed to look like a job's
beginning to look very much
like a job.
All right. Fuck it.
If the Rabbi wants a war...
...I'll give him a war.
Saul.
- Saul.
Saul, the phone's been...
Oh.
I thought you were Saul.
People have been thinking I'm somebody else.
Your predicament reminds me of a story.
Hitchcock. North By Northwest.
The movie where everybody thinks Cary Grant is a man named George Kaplan,
but the thing is there is no George Kaplan. It's just a made-up name.
But names, even made-up ones...
...can bring about quite a bit of trouble.
Now...
the woman in the picture with Grant,
- her name was er... - Eva Marie Saint.
- Oh... you know this movie. - I know this movie.
I took my father to see it in 1959. His English wasn't very good,
but boy, did he like Miss Saint.
After the movie he turned to me and he said, "She's a real Buick."
You see, he couldn't pronounce the word beauty, so he'd say Buick.
- Caused quite a bit of confusion. - Using the wrong name'll do that.
Is that my money?
This is everything I owe you.
It's the Sabbath. You see, we don't answer the phone on the Sabbath.
I know.
Normally Saul turns off the ringer.
Saul!
I tell you, you can't find good help these days.
Saul's dead.
They're all dead.
Oh, I've been in this room before.
Looks the same as it did 20 years ago.
Somehow...
Somehow it seems different.
The way your car seems different when someone else is driving it.
Then again, it's been 20 years since I've been in a car.
Two decades spent behind three inches of bulletproof glass
due to a natural fear of high-powered rifles and quiet... rooftops in New Jersey.
20 years...
...locked away in my own paranoia, a prisoner in my own home.
Only to be delivered to fate by a boy.
Well. Anthony, it looks as though you've won, if such a term may be applied.
If I were wearing a hat, I would take it off.
Should we get on with it, then?
You can keep your hat on, Schlomo.
Looks like we were sold a bill of goods by the same salesman.
Nice speech, though.
I wish I was standing for it.
You... you brought this upon our heads.
- Me? - You... you hired Goodkat to kill my son.
After you murdered my son?
- I had no hand in that. - Oh, sure.
Just like in '84?
I suppose you had no hand in that either. Just a finger, maybe?
Time's up, Rabbi.
Lying to a dead man's the same as lying to yourself.
You were getting too big.
See...
...problem when two men are standing in a room
is you can only look at one of them and they were looking at you
with their backs turned, their shirt collars smiling at me.
Then they called you The Boss.
It was clear what had to be done.
Try and appreciate how it feels, Schlomo...
...to wake up in the middle of the night with six bullets burning in your stomach.
Lying in a pool of your own blood and shit.
The dead eyes of...
...of your wife... staring back at you.
The only thing keeping you from passing out
is the sound of the footsteps of the man going down the hall...
...looking for your son.
I managed to save my son, Schlomo.
And now...
...after all these years...
...in spite of our agreement!
You... you...
fucking backstabbing Philistine.
You managed to take my son away from me.
Well...
...now I've taken your son away from you.
I told you I had nothing to do with...
You haven't heard.
Will I?
Look at my face, Schlomo. Look at my smile.
Your son is dead.
I'm gonna kill you. Hm.
Rabbi.
Are you familiar with the Shmoo?
Fisher.
Fisher, listen to me.
I already told you,
I'm not Nick Fisher.
Then who is Nick Fisher?
I think you mean, who was Nick Fisher?
Fisher was the answer to a question.
How do you get to two men that can't be gotten to?
You get them to come to you.
But to do that... I needed a name.
And where do you find names?
In books.
And who has books?
Well, your bookies have books.
He's clean.
Crooked bookies...
- ... who work with big-time crooks. - So... why are you here?
I was looking for a gambler.
One who was in both books...
... with a lot of red in the minus column.
Got him.
And that's when I found Nick Fisher.
A lowlife that no-one was gonna miss.
1729.
Nick Fisher.
OK.
There was a time.
All that was left to do was make the phone ring.
All I had to do was pull the trigger and wait for you to call the man
who does the jobs that no-one else wants.
I want an outsider brought in.
There's a specialist.
Calls himself Mr. Goodkat.
Fine.
Tell him he can expect me in the morning.
Are you ready?
Yeah.
It's just that one last thing.
Mr. Goodkat.
It's been a long time.
I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Goodkat. So I'll get right down to business.
Slim Hopkins, the man who ran my book, was hit yesterday.
And I guess you've already heard about...
- ... my son. - Yes, I heard.
I need you to sort it out for me.
Who's the mark?
Yitzchok.
Yitzchok, The Rabbi's son?
You remember The Rabbi?
I remember The Rabbi well.
Thing is...
it can't look like a job.
If Yitzchok gets hit, The Rabbi will go to war.
So... I need you to make it look like it ain't what it is.
Can that be done?
Anything can be done.
Good. How?
Kansas City Shuffle.
I'm not familiar with the term.
I'll need to see Slim's books.
Slim's books were taken when he was hit, but... I do keep copies.
What are you looking for?
This is our guy. Nick - 1729.
1729.
Nick Fisher.
Why him?
A loser.
Pick him up. Bring him here.
Still not talking to each other, huh?
Can't say that I blame you.
- Why are you here? - Big job.
I was under the impression you no longer worked New York.
Like I said... very big job.
And you thought, as long as you're in town, you'd drop by and see your old pal Schlomo,
and say, "Hello. How about them Yanks?"
No. But something like that.
Only problem is you and I aren't old friends.
And I hate baseball.
And since we're not friends and you hate baseball, why the fuck are you here?
It's because we're not friends that I'm here.
Because if we had been friends, I wouldn't have been hired to kill your son.
Because that is right at the top of my list of things that friends do not do to their friends.
The good news for you is, my friendship is for sale.
You see, it seems to me that your son means more to you alive
than he does to The Boss dead.
And more money means more to me than less money.
And you are the guy that sleeps with all that green under your mattress.
I'm listening.
You will pay me double to kill The Boss what The Boss was paying me to kill Yitzchok.
- Ohh. - And that...
And that will make us friends.
Right, Rabbi?
Hm?
And... since friends do favors for their friends, you will do a favor for me.
Pray tell? What is this favor?
Concerns a matter of debt collection. One debt in particular.
Whose?
A flop. From Benny's book. Goes by the name of Nick Fisher.
Who is he?
Just a loser.
You just made a lot of money.
And then I was free to come and go as I pleased.
Hm?
Whatever they're paying you...
Oh.
There is nobody.
I did this to you.
- Me. - You.
Me.
Who are you?
Who is he?
Considering he no longer has fingerprints, I'd say it's unlikely we'll ever know.
What about dental records?
Sure, find the bottom half of the jaw, then all we need to do is find out who the dentist was.
What a fucking mess.
Hey, Brikowski, it's Marty, you there?
We found two more bodies to go along with the two you've already got.
All right, I'll be right over.
Did you ever get a hold of The Rabbi so he can get down here and identify what's left of his kid?
Negative. We've been calling for the last hour, no answer.
Send somebody over.
Copy.
You all right? You look a little shook-up.
No, I'm fine.
All right.
- Yeah. - Hey, Brikowski, it's Murphy.
Hey, Murph, what's up?
Harry Kello came by today. You remember Harry?
He retired a few years ago. His wife just died, so he comes in a couple of times a week,
talks shop, tells stories to the rooks.
Starts every sentence with, "The way things used to be". Guy living in the past.
- Yeah. Yeah, what about him? - We're making small talk.
Guy says he can't complain, then all he does is fuckin' complain.
His dead wife, the leg he got shot in, his crappy pension,
but then he stops when he sees the picture Marty snapped of your kid.
Just stares at it. I say, "What is it? You know the kid?"
Thing is, he ain't looking at the picture, but at the name.
I've got it written at the bottom. He knows that name: Slevin.
I have that same phone.
About an hour later the phone rings, it's Harry, talking like a goddamned machine gun.
going on and on about a horse race back in '79.
Aqueduct.
Seven horse, tenth race - ring a bell?
It was a drug store handicap.
Big wind-up, around the time The Boss, The Rabbi set up shop in New York.
before people started waking up with knives in their backs.
Anyway, he goes on about this local legend, about this kid.
His name was Max.
Max placed a bet with a bookie named Roth.
Roth laid the bet off.
On you.
And you.
But when The Rabbi and The Boss find out the fix is in,
they are the opposite of happy.
Word comes down an example is to be made.
Aargh!
These guys kill everyone!
And I mean everyone.
Max, his wife, his kid, Roth...
even the goddamned horse died.
These guys went to town with a tomahawk. It was a fucking massacre.
They had to bring in a specialist to do the kid cos nobody would take the job.
What have you done with my son?
You?
No.
You're dead.
You're dead!
So Harry's going on about how they had to bring in a specialist to kill the kid,
but I ain't seeing the connection, so I says, "What has this to do with the case?"
He says. "The horse's name."
I say, "What about the horse's name?"
He says the horse's name was Lucky Number Slevin.
- What is your name? - Slevin Kelevra.
Do you remember this part?
Please! I have a family.
Not any more, you don't.
Henry!
You fucking bastards!
The two of you killed everything I ever loved.
Fuck you both.
Now, there is no such person as Slevin Kelevra, as far as I can tell.
Which means the kid was using a pseudonym.
Which is interesting, him picking the name of a dead racehorse
and keeping company with The Boss and The Rabbi,
seeing as they had some involvement with that very horse.
I thought to myself, maybe it means something.
Then again, maybe it's just a coincidence, name's gotta come from someplace - right?
I guess none of this really matters now that the kid's gone cold.
Ah, one more thing, we've got a new guy in the precinct.
Jewish fella, funny little guy, talks a lot.
Anyway, in case you're interested, he says the name Kelevra is Hebrew.
He says it means...
Bad dog.
20 years ago, he used to be my bookie.
I used to sign my pay cheques over to him.
Brikowski? You there?
Your girl made me.
She took my picture.
She's got to go in the ground.
OK.
I have something I have to tell you.
He told me that we needed to kill you.
You're gonna have to trust me.
Shit!
He's going to shoot you here.
I didn't think you'd understand.
I understood.
How did you find out about us?
I'm a world-class assassin, fuckhead.
How do you think I found out?
I thought you might want this.
I want to go home.
Neither of us is going home for a long time, kid.
My name is Goodkat.
You can call me Mr. Goodkat.
It's 20 minutes past four o'clock at WLNS and here's my new favorite song
by JR - The Kansas City Shuffle.