Family Business Page #5

Touch football, look at them.

Like a pack of kids playing soldiers.

- Did you ever play any sports, Jessie?

- Yeah.

I ran the 100-yard dash

with two cops behind me.

Vito thought he was an athlete though.

I remember having to stop your father

from signing up for high school football.

Before that it was the Cub Scouts.

Football, f***ing Cub Scouts.

He had a lot of tendencies

in that direction.

Sounds like your son wanted

to be middle class.

He still does.

- You'll see that when you meet his wife.

- Stop it.

It's where all the action is.

I just hope the co-op market holds up

for another three years.

You know, Christine, there must be

hundreds of people out there...

...buying up insiders' rights

and selling them on the open market.

I mean, you must be pretty good at it.

How do you compete, dear?

Well...

- You gotta have a gimmick.

- Yeah?

You do?

I have this friend named Gertrude...

...and she works at Sloan-Kettering

Hospital in admissions.

And every time there's a new patient

with one of the cancers...

...that nothing can be done for...

...if they live in Manhattan,

I check it out.

While these people live in buildings

that have gone co-op...

...and they haven't bought...

...you can buy occupied apartments

at insider prices in those buildings.

But the problem is, the tenant's likely

to stay there for 20 years. Right?

- Yeah. Right.

- Well...

...Gertrude and I snap up an apartment

that will be vacant in six months.

At which point,

we double our investment.

We are sitting on seven prime

Manhattan apartments...

...and every tenant terminal.

If I were you and Gertrude,

I would hope...

...that God does not have

a sense of humor.

Well, the apartment

would just revert back...

...to the original building owner. What's

the difference who turns the profit?

The difference is, you're mucking around

in other people's misery.

When you rob someone legally...

...without risk, without sticking

your neck out, that's immoral.

Where did you find

this f***ing parasite?

Parasite?

Yeah, it's...

- It's like a leech.

- Did you hear that, Adam?

Your grandfather feels breaking the law

would make Christine more moral?

It would. Like most people, Elaine...

...you confuse what's moral

with what's legal.

No. Like most people, I recognize

that in a reasonably just society...

"A reasonably just society."

Well, tell me when you find one.

You agree with your paternal grandfather

that legality means nothing?

Which means that you can go blithely

through life doing just as you please.

- My "paternal" grandfather?

- Yeah, he's a defendant in this case.

You still haven't answered, Adam.

He's your guest.

- Well, I came here to eat.

- Come on. Hey, more meat.

- You wanna make a fight over this?

- You should have given me support.

No, you don't come on like a parent

with Adam's idol sitting at the table.

Why are you such a dishrag

with Adam?

We try and try to show him

who Christine really is...

...and Jessie does it in two minutes.

- Fine.

You see how he looks up to Jessie.

You, better than anyone, should know

how destructive that can be.

Take a stand, Vito.

What will Adam do with himself?

It will break my heart if he doesn't

go back and get his master's.

- So tell him.

- He's 23 years old, Elaine.

It used to be,

"He's 15 years old, Elaine."

Attention, shoppers. Socket wrench sets

are on sale in aisle 26.

These are 55- piece sets

complete with ratcheting carrier.

You sure all this stuff isn't overkill?

I have a keycard.

Do you know what you'll find

when you go in there?

Whatever we find inside, just leave it

to your old man to get us through. Okay?

Hey, Vito. Tell him

the Peewee Grogan story.

Please, we can do

without the Peewee Grogan story.

Your father was 17 or 18.

Peewee was a couple of years older.

He was a tough little thief

from 9th Avenue.

Couple of inches shorter

and he'd have wound up in the circus.

Used to say, in a street fight, he could

hit you with overhand left to the balls.

The three of us went after

a load of French perfume.

- It was sitting in a warehouse out in...

- Bush terminal.

Right.

God. We stripped Peewee naked.

We smeared him from head to foot

with Vaseline.

Now, this kid squeezed through

And when he opened the door for us...

...he was dripping blood.

Hundreds of little gashes

where he'd ripped himself to shreds...

...on the heads of the nails

going through.

- Vito, that dwarf had heart.

- Yeah, that he did.

- We worked for six hours.

- No, five and a half.

- Six.

- Five and a half.

On an inside steel door...

...with 25 grand of French perfume

on the other side.

We took turns with a sledgehammer.

We battered it. We hammered it.

We tried everything.

We even tried to cry our way through.

- Vito, am I exaggerating?

- Just finish the story, Pop.

Finally, Peewee knelt down

and prayed.

He swore this was gonna be

his last burglary...

...if only God would let us open

that f***ing door.

You see, what the job called for

was a three-foot pry bar.

Your old man hadn't brought one.

So we left empty-handed.

Peewee left a pint of blood behind...

...and Vito swore he'd never go

on another job under-equipped.

Your grandpa's moral

is to be prepared like a Boy Scout.

But what he's forgetting

is that it was him...

...that should have brought

the pry bar.

- Bullshit. The tools were your end.

- The tools were my end? I beg to differ.

Whatever happened

to Peewee Grogan?

Peewee? Well, he wound up

doing 15 to 30 as an habitual.

And that's tough time for a guy

You're really an a**hole sometimes.

You really are a f***ing a**hole.

What would you do for sex

if I were gone for a couple of years?

- You planning on joining the Navy?

- No, it's a hypothetical question.

Suppose, God forbid,

I got put in prison for two or three years.

What would you do for sex?

- I hadn't really thought about it.

- Yeah, well...

But now that you mention it,

there is this one big good-Iooking kid...

...works the vegetable counter

in Grand Union. He's crazy about me.

Oh, yeah?

You been overreaching

on your tax-evasion schemes?

I'll bet the vegetable kid in Grand Union

doesn't really love you.

Not gonna start moralizing, are you,

robbing Uncle Sam for undeclared cash?

- No, I was just talking.

- Don't go so far they really lock you up.

We're not as tough as we used to be.

I waited 27 months to marry you, Vito.

I rode on a bus six hours every Saturday

and never missed a visit.

We were a couple of kids then.

But I couldn't take it

if you went away now.

Besides, how would you be able

to face Adam?

All right. All right. All right.

Everything's the same.

One security guard.

- I told you this was gonna be a snap.

- Yeah?

- He's armed?

- His holster was on the back of the chair.

He's sitting there watching TV

with his shoes off.

Guard had a gun?

Yeah, what did you expect?

- I didn't really think about it.

- Well, welcome to the real world.

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