[Train whistle blows]
Bud: How do you lose an entire fucking payroll?
I lost it, Bud. I don't know.
The bosses think Ed Meese and me are holding out.
Are you?
How can you ask me that?
They already killed Ed.
Ed's dead?
They got him, Bud.
I'm next.
They're after me. I know they are.
- I got kids. - All right, slow down there, Richie.
Breathe.
If you could maybe
call the bosses and vouch for me...
You kept quiet all these years.
You got currency with them, yeah?
Why should I use that currency on you?
All these years, you never visit.
After all I done for you?
And now you want favors?
[Man speaks indistinctly over P.A.]
I'll give you Jimmy.
Come again.
I'll give you Jimmy Parerra.
You know how to find him?
[Siren wailing in distance]
I might.
♪ I got one hand on my heart, now ♪
♪ the other's on a gun ♪
♪ the city burns to ashes ♪
♪ in the hands of the rising sun ♪
- Synced and corrected by chamallow - - www.addic7ed.com -
[Knock on door]
[Siren wailing in distance]
[Knocking continues]
[Door creaks]
Jimmy Parerra.
Turn the fucking lights on already.
Come here, you. [Chuckles]
What the fuck Richie? You're reactivating my hernia.
What's it, a year now?
It's closer to two, you mook.
You hug me like that again, I'll drop a testicle into my sock.
I miss you, Jimmy.
Save it for the wife.
Oh, affection?
Rena's immune to it.
I wasn't sure you'd show.
Your note said "a matter of life and death."
- Did it? - It did.
What are you drinking?
It's 7:00 A.M.
Prohibition's over, Jimmy. Roll with it.
Beer. Whatever.
Collie, two pints of Guinness.
[Gate creaks]
How is Rena?
Her figure's failing.
You see Shelly much?
Would never count as much?
- She still loves you, you know. - [Scoffs]
She divorced me 18 years ago, Richie.
Love finds a way.
She took away my kids, remarried.
In what ulterior universe is this love
or even a reasonable facsimile?
Love works in mysterious ways.
I believe that witticism is traditionally attributed to god.
And god is love.
What is this? Fucking Bible school?
[Laughs] Yo, you can't swear here no more.
You can't swear at McAuley's? Since when?
[Laughs] You really don't get out much, do you?
Oh, if "much" means never, no.
Hey, Collie, can we swear here?
[Coins jingle]
You, sir, are a hard man to track down.
Yeah, well, the invisibility pills my doctor prescribed
haven't been 100% effective, so I'm
going the old-fashioned route...
no phone, no Internet,
change apartments every few months.
When I run out of disguises, I stay home with the
doors locked and the drapes drawn.
I even called ComEd.
They said you don't work there no more.
No, they laid me off. I'm too old.
There's a lawsuit waiting to happen. They said that?
No, they implied it. They replaced me with a young guy.
- A young guy? - Yeah, young guys are cheaper.
Plus there's this new corporate outlook that
experience is not so valuable like the old days.
Meaning age?
Meaning age.
My supervisor called me "intransigent."
- What's that? - That's pigheaded.
Will this "Q" and "A" appear on today's blog, studs terkel?
I'm shooting the shit.
Well, maybe I don't like my shit shot.
Okay.
I left a note by your apartment
'cause I got a proposition.
[Rag slaps]
[Laughs] Will you fucking knock it off already?
- What? - Rubbernecking the exits.
You're giving me neck strain.
Maybe I stayed alive all these years
because when I rarely go out,
I remain vigilant.
We were cops together 10 years, Jimmy. You think I'd set you up?
Yeah, well, McAuley's this time of day,
forgive me, has a definite "Godfather" vibe.
I'm your friend.
My friend I see every two years.
Well, get a phone, Greta Garbo. Get a fucking e-mail account.
Hell, you don't even answer your door when I come by.
Yeah, answer my door and what?
Take a bullet in the face like Serpico?
From me?
[Sighs]
What's the proposition, Richie?
- I... - What is the proposition?
[Sighs]
Bud O'Rourke finally agreed to take the price off your head.
Just like that?
After 18 years?
I talked him into it.
You're so persuasive? You with the 30-word vocabulary?
Out of the goodness of his heart he does this?
Between you and me,
Bud's building an army to take back the game.
He's got 12 years left on his sentence.
He's getting early release.
Medical issues, good behavior... he's old.
Bud wants you to sign on.
- I put him away. - Years ago.
He's family. This is sort of a
"bury the hatchet, can't beat 'em, join 'em" scenario.
Meaning Bud can't beat me so I join him?
- When's he getting out? - Saturday.
There's a wedding he'd like to attend.
Fuck me.
He won't come after you, Jim. All you got to do is sign on.
- You partner with me like the old days. - Doing what?
- Little of this, little of that. - Running bag.
A team again, Jimmy.
The guys in Bud's old crew are dropping like flies.
He needs every able-bodied man he can get.
Or what?
What do you mean, "or what"?
You need a job. Take the job and save your fucking life.
With Bud O'Rourke, there's typically a catch.
What happens, Richie,
if I tell him to fuck off?
[Chuckles]
Bud sends the only friend I have in the world
to flush me out of hiding and put a bullet through my skull.
Am I close?
[Sighs]
[Chuckles]
To matters of life and death.
[Glasses clink]
It's a done deal?
So, what do I got?
A little cancer.
Where?
Somewhere inoperable.
I'll pick you up on Saturday
and check you in to the transitional facility.
- You're fucking kidding me. - It's protocol, Bud.
Uh... [Sighs] How long?
- Three months. - No fucking way.
Behave yourself, follow the rules.
You can cut it in half. It was the best I could do.
Do you want out of here or not?
Behaving yourself means you do not go after Jimmy Parerra.
Jimmy Parerra? Who's that?
I know you can't help it,
- but don't be a bastard. - Hey,
going after Jimmy is the farthest thing from my mind.
After 18 years in this shitter,
I made peace with that.
I let it go.
All gone.
[Laughs]
All the time I known you, you got this uncanny knack
for wedging yourself between rocks and hard places.
I warned you about this very thing
when I told you not to go running bag for the bosses.
All you got to do is come work with me.
If I want to be a fucking bagman,
I'll go bag groceries at the Mariano's on Elston.
There's a Mariano's on Elston?
Richie, come on.
I'm friendless, but I'm not dumb.
- What? - You know what.
You've wedged yourself into something woeful.
You lure me out into the open
with this fucked up proposition.
What happens if I say no
and I successfully talk you out
of personally delivering me to my maker today?
Come on, we're friends.
Bud gave me 24 hours to either recruit you or take you out.
If I don't do either, Bud won't back me.
- Back you? - I'm in deep shit
with the big bosses, the payroll bosses.
I need some muscle behind me.
And if Bud don't back you, what then?
I'm a dead man.
Oh, so this matter of life and death
is not mine so much as yours.
How the fuck did all this come about?
How does anything come about?
What, shit sticks to your heels by magic?
- Is that it? - [Groans]
Go easy on me, man. I had a miasma.
[Laughs] You're a fucking nitwit, Richie.
You always were. You had a what?
Miasma.
- The fuck is that? - Brain thing.
- A brain thing. - [Sighs]
A thing in my brain,
like a stroke but not. It's like this patch in my brain
where I had, like, this series of micro strokes.
- Aneurysms? - Yes
but no. More like somebody zipped open the top of my head
and poked this one small patch of my exposed brain
over and over with a very, very tiny needle.
It's not lethal or anything.
Well, in that case, I'm hugely relieved.
My neurologist says it makes me forget shit.
Not long-term shit.
Not the useless shit. Short-term shit.
I lost a payroll.
How the fuck do you lose a payroll?
[Sighs] We carry payroll cash in gym bags.
I might have left it at the "Y."
That's short-term shit. I don't remember.
You need the job, don't you?
Monks live modestly.
Is there shame in that?
Since ComEd dumped you, how you getting by?
When social security runs out,
I still got my service revolver in the gun safe.
You're not suicidal.
I can't take the gig, Richie.
- Take the gig. - If I take the gig,
I'll be worse than dead. Can't you see that?
I can't, Jimmy. I really can't.
What's worse than dead? Dying maybe, but...
I ratted Bud out 18 years ago
because it was the right thing to do.
Joined at the hip with the mob,
Bud should never have been chief of detectives.
He should have never been police period.
- It's Chicago, Jimmy. - When I suited up,
Serpico had just come forward in New York.
- Sure, but this is Chicago. - One man.
It took the courage and audacity
of one honest man to clean up that city.
- Why not here? - You've seen why not here.
You stepped up, and it didn't do shit.
It made you miserable. End the misery.
Corruption does not have to be the way of things.
We have free will. We have reason.
We built the fucking system. We can change it.
We're smart, creative, industrious people.
If it's fucked up, it's fucked up because we fucked it up.
- We can fix it. - In Chicago?
[Sighs]
[Exhales sharply]
If we're that far gone,
let's all just throw our hands up and die.
Part of me thinks you're so pigheaded about this
'cause, unlike Serpico,
you didn't get a book and movie deal
out of your so-called heroics.
No pat on the back. No commendation.
You telling me there wasn't even a little ego involved
in taking down your own father-in-law?
Bud looked out for us 'cause he was looking out for you.
I mean, I knew I was only along for the ride,
but he promoted us. He loved you like a son, man.
You think this gig would be yours for the asking
if Bud didn't remember that?
[Sighs] Fine.
You want to go to the grave known worldwide as Jimmy Pariah,
I'll have Shelly etch it on your fucking tombstone.
If I take the gig,
I become a part of the very corruption
that I stood up to 18 years ago.
You think Bud doesn't have that in mind?
If I take it, all the pain and the suffering that I caused,
mine included,
it doesn't mean shit.
It doesn't mean shit now.
How can it?
So you sent Bud to prison. Did it actually make a dent?
What changed, besides the payoffs got less brazen
and the mob got more legit?
The money still flows, man. Same as always.
No, the big bosses that Bud wants to oust
ain't all no-necked Sicilian thugs no more.
They're businessmen with $300 haircuts and $1,800 suits.
But human nature ain't changing.
Maybe you should.
[Siren wails in distance]
[Telephones ringing]
Bud O'Rourke is being released Saturday.
This Saturday?
He's still got another 12 years, doesn't he?
Medical thing.
I'm handling his release and transfer
to the transitional facility,
so you're taking over the sting.
- Seriously? - No, Ken, I'm kidding.
That wasn't very nice.
You really don't get sarcasm, do you?
Wait.
Take over the sting, Kenny. No kidding.
This is your reward for bringing in the Hal Rezko indictment.
Pick a three-person team,
and if you incur any unexpected expenses,
run them by me, and I'll chase approval.
- We good? - Uh, um...
What, Ken? Spit it out.
So, if I'm running the sting, I get to name it,
right, s... since it doesn't have a name yet?
Yes, Ken.
Great.
- I will not disappoint you, Vera. - Don't.
I... I will... I will come up with a name
for this sting worthy of the history books.
- Great. - Nothing corny, nothing overblown.
Something... something memorable.
Good, Ken. Fine.
When people hear it, it will be emblematic
of the historic day the FBI finally blew
every last ounce of corruption clean out of Chicago.
[Sighs]
There's another way out of this, you know?
Don't.
Say the word, I'll walk you over to the FBI myself.
How is that an option?
- It's an option. - Not for me.
Out running bag together, you can drive.
I go in to collect the payoffs. You wait in the car.
And while I'm waiting out in the getaway car...
[Both laugh]
It's... it's not a getaway car.
... A stray bullet hits me in the head.
That's not gonna happen.
I been dodging stray bullets for 18 years, Richie.
- Bagmen are protected guys. - Yeah, until they lose a payroll.
[Scoffs]
[Both chuckle]
You do this, you're a made guy.
- Bud gave his word. - [Chuckles] Bud is a convicted felon.
His word is worth exactly shit.
You don't trust Bud, trust me.
- Why would I trust you? - Because I'm trustworthy.
Yeah, you're about as trustworthy
as a band-aid on a boat leak.
I'm doing you a solid.
Why am I on trial here?
Who says you're on trial?
You're fucking judging me, Jimmy.
- You and your fucking pedestal. - What pedestal?
You know what pedestal, you holy mo.
Your goddamn moral pedestal.
- Just climb off it already. - [Sighs]
You know, you might just have a conscience after all.
You be careful.
In your chosen profession, that's a serious liability.
Just climb off it, huh?
Back in the day, I listened to your sermons
up the fuck mount for hours on end.
They gave migraines, man.
But I bit the bullet, and I suffered. You know why?
I listened to you then 'cause I respected you.
- Now you don't? - I looked up to you.
You went to college, and I didn't.
I figured you maybe knew things. And you did.
Which 20 years later, turns out to be complete bullshit.
It's complete bullshit because thousands like you sold out
for the easy money and turned it to bullshit.
This is a win-win proposition I'm bringing you.
- Win-win how? - We both get paid. We both get to live.
It's a lose-lose proposition, dipshit.
- Fuck you. - Oh, fuck me?
I stand up for what's right, and fuck me?
Lose-lose propositions are all anybody gets
when corruption becomes this institutionalized, Richie.
Wake the fuck up.
[Gun cocks]
[Laughs]
You are the most, you know that?
The most what?
Just the most.
You gonna make me do this?
You do what you got to do.
You follow whatever's left of your pinprick of a conscience.
I'm doing you a kindness.
Pointing a gun at me?
I'm sticking my neck out for you.
- Why am I the shit heel? - Well, who said you're the shit heel?
- You did. - No, no, I did not.
Then why do I feel like the shit heel?
That, my friend, is the million-dollar question.
I didn't invent this system.
I'm just playing by the rules.
I got three kids. What choice I got?
My kids got student loans they want paid.
Mortgages and day care and shit.
They count on me to help them.
That's called hiding behind a human shield, Richie.
At least my fucking kids fucking talk to me.
[Dialing]
[Ringing]
Who you talking to?
Nobody.
Who you talking to?
Shelly?
- You called Shelly? - [Cellphone beeps]
She can help me talk you into this.
Is she coming here?
You taking this gig could fix everything.
You're broken, Jimmy. Look at you.
I'm broke. I'm not broken.
Your family's broken.
This could fix it. Don't you want to fix it?
You could have left town 18 years ago, but you didn't.
You know why? Your family. Don't deny it.
You still see Shelly?
Now and then.
I got my P.I. license after I quit policing.
I do some poking around. She throws me a bone.
What about Paulie and Katie? You see them ever?
Katie if she's at Shelly's. Paulie hardly ever.
I saw him out at 26th and California, though.
What were you doing out there?
Visiting Bud to arrange this.
They just transferred him back to Chicago
from the federal pen in Terre Haute.
What was Paulie doing there?
Same as me... visiting Bud.
He goes most weekends now, I guess.
Does Shelly know that Paulie's visiting Bud?
I don't know, Jimmy. I'm not Dr. Phil here.
Ask her yourself.
Paulie's suiting up. Did you know?
How would I know that?
In and out of rehab for drugs and shit.
Screwed up his marriage.
But suiting up, I think's, helped him turn a corner.
He finished the academy last summer.
If Bud talked him into it, he's grooming him.
That's a bad thing?
Grooming Paulie like he was grooming me?
Paulie comes from three generations of Chicago police.
Can't be the first time the career path occurred to him.
Don't go.
Stay. Talk to Shelly.
I will walk you over to the feds.
That's the best I can do.
[Sighs]
Katie's engaged.
My Katie?
Getting married this weekend.
Guess to who.
My youngest, Donny.
A cop now, too, like his old man.
I didn't know I should mention it
'cause I wasn't sure Katie invited you.
She probably couldn't find you.
Is Donny one of the tall ones, or is he the short one?
[Chuckles] They're all tall, Jimmy.
We're gonna be in-laws. Ain't that great?
Who's giving Katie away?
Me, actually.
Provided I live that long.
Best friends, I was the closest thing to you she could find.
We're not best friends, Richie. Not anymore.
Yeah, well...
The past still means something to some people.
I'll tell you what.
Run bag with me, I'll bow out.
You can do the honors.
It'd mean the world to Katie if you were there, Jimmy.
Shelly, too.
Me, Donny, everybody.
Jimmy.
Please.
You shoot me through your pocket,
you're gonna ruin a perfectly good jacket.
Richie.
[Breathes shakily]
I love you.
We were great friends.
But you made your choices.
Choices ain't always choices, Jim,
not when they're made for you.
You got no fucking right
making your problems mine like this, you understand?!
My wife, my kids, Jimmy, they need me.
I'm sorry for your trouble,
but I got to go.
- It's money for nothing, Jim. - For nothing? Richie, for nothing?
Look at you.
You don't follow your heart...
They own you.
The fuck is this?
Change of heart,
you come find me.
- Synced and corrected by chamallow - - www.addic7ed.com -