Family Business (1989) Movie Script
$24 for a cab ride to the Bronx.
I can't believe it.
Come to my parents' for Passover
once a year without complaining, Vito.
Wait a minute, honey, let me help you.
- Will Adam be here?
- I don't know...
...but if he is, be nice.
It's a Seder, okay?
Don't worry, don't worry.
- Hi, Mom.
- Hello, darling.
- Adam. Hi, darling.
- Hi.
Come a little late like always.
Papa, hello, darling.
Traffic. There are so many Jews
headed for Seder, Mama.
- Good day, sir.
- Hiya, Nat.
I thought people were
cutting down on meat.
How come the material
gets more expensive every year?
Please, don't worry yourself.
I know the face, now.
The face... The face looks familiar.
- Hey, Pop.
- Adam, how are you?
Hey, who'd you get this year?
I got Bernard Karlinski.
Let me see here.
"The bar mitzvah of Owen Zuckerbrot."
Nat, Owen Zuckerbrot?
He brings the yarmulkes home
from shul. You know, the extras.
You want it to say
"Vito McMullen," you have to convert.
- Why not?
- Not yet.
Did you see how Adam remembers
his Hebrew? With a mind like that.
- Ma.
- What did I say?
It's a shande to me that
a boy with such a head...
...drops out of school six months
before a master's degree.
- Drops out? Drops out of school?
- Six months before.
- Three months.
- Can we drop it?
We're not allowed to ask? You're back
since January. I haven't seen you.
- I came here for a Seder.
- Adam looks marvelous.
- We're glad you're here.
- He's become a man.
- Look how beautifully he eats.
- Ma, please. He's gonna be 23.
Stop bragging about how he gets
all the food in his mouth.
- You try to kvell over your grandson.
- I won't complain.
- After 24 years, it's still rough.
- 23.
Forgot the year your goy son-in-law
wasn't allowed up here.
- Time to let the angel in.
- Nat, how come the angel...
...gets a bigger glass?
- Your material is getting stale.
Better leave the chain on.
This is the Bronx.
Instead of Elijah, some mugger
is gonna charge through the door.
- Adam's right.
- When you two gonna move out?
- You're too old to survive here.
- How old are you, Grandpa?
- Nobody kept records. No one knows.
- They'll never tell. Crazy superstition.
Not so crazy. You don't tempt God
by bragging about your age. Sit.
Forty-two years here,
the neighborhood is not so bad.
Then why can't I drive my
Cadillac to your Seder? Nat...
...there are places in Flushing.
If it's a matter of money...
...I can chip in a few bucks.
- They wanna be the last.
We'll chisel it on your stone
after the mugging.
"Nat and Rose Gruden, last Jews
on Davidson Avenue."
Gruden residence.
Hi, Jessie.
Well, what time do you think
you'll be out?
Okay, no problem.
Yeah, don't worry about it.
All right. Take care, Jessie.
- Your grandfather?
- What was that about, Adam?
Jessie wanted to wish us
a happy Passover.
- Vito, your father knows our number?
- Yeah, how come?
Well, the unexpected.
Jessie doesn't change, huh?
No, he sure doesn't.
Take care, Nat.
Vito, see if you can get a cab,
I'll be right out.
- So when are you moving, Grandma?
- We don't take from our children.
You're like a couple of turkeys
in these streets.
This neighborhood's a jungle.
I'm not coming to the next Seder
unless you're living somewhere else.
Did you hear what your grandson said?
Well, what did he want?
Jessie wanted to wish us
a happy Passover.
Come on, Adam, stop the crap.
Your old man needs bail money.
I'm gonna go down there.
- And he calls you.
- Yeah.
You been talking to my father while you
been ducking me since you got back?
All right. Is it serious?
It's a bar fight. But it's
an off-duty cop he whacked.
He whacked a cop?
Is the guy hurt?
Well, Grandpa says he
"kicked the bull's ass...
...the length of the bar
and halfway down 10th Ave."
When is he gonna let up?
Oh, Christ.
Well, what the hell, it's nice
to know I have strong genes.
Hope I'm getting pinched
for bar fights in my 60s.
Just remember, Adam,
along with those strong genes...
...my father passes on a lot
of other crap to go with it.
- So stay away from him.
- He's not looking to hurt me.
No, he's not, but it'll happen anyway.
He'll spend the night in the can.
Fine with me.
- Lend me $800.
- Forget it.
I stood bail for him three years ago.
I haven't heard from him since.
- I don't stand bail for Jessie anymore.
- You're not.
I'm borrowing the money.
I've got $200, I'd like 800 more.
- So it's for you?
- Right.
Adam, the last year
my mother was alive...
...I was 7 years old. Okay?
Jessie took me along Christmas Eve
to buy a tree, right?
Near midnight we're passing an
Esso station up near Riverdale...
...and right on top of the garage is
a perfect, all lit-up Christmas tree.
So Jessie hits the brakes and he says,
"Wow, what a score, it's even got lights."
Wait a minute.
I'm standing lookout, I was 7 years old,
while he climbs up the drainpipe...
...and pulls down the tree,
lights and all.
What's so funny?
I got a dozen stories like that.
Like helping him rob Lionel trains
out of Macy's when I was 12 years old.
He's working there, I had to cut school
because he decided...
...to take a box of engines out.
Thought he'd get money for it.
- What happened?
- It doesn't matter what happened.
- Just know who you're dealing with.
- All right, all right.
- That's eight.
- Thanks.
That was nice what you did
in there for them.
Might get out of this cesspool
because of you.
Well, I had them over a barrel.
Somebody loves you, you got a hell of
a weapon in the relationship, you know?
Hey.
Listen, it's supposed
to work both ways, kiddo.
I mean, if you love somebody back,
then they got an equal weapon, no?
You're right.
I guess we got a standoff.
- I guess we do.
- They may move. I think you did it.
- I better get a cab.
- Good.
- How about dinner next week?
- Sure. What time should we be there?
- You did want Christine, no?
- Of course, Adam.
You know Christine's always welcome.
You wanna catch a ride with us?
- No, thanks.
- Okay, good night, Adam.
- Bye, sweetheart.
- Why doesn't he wanna ride with us?
- Bye, sweetheart.
- Why doesn't he wanna ride with us?
Docket number 178649325.
The charge is second-degree
assault, Your Honor.
At 6 p.m. yesterday, in a bar and grill
at 50210th Avenue...
...Mr. McMullen assaulted
an off-duty policeman.
Well, I'd love to hear about this
in your own words, Mr. McMullen.
Your Honor, I'm a victim
of police brutality.
Just tell us what occurred,
Mr. McMullen.
Well, it all happened so fast,
Your Honor.
I'll try to remember.
We had an argument. To be fair about it,
I was as much at fault as he was.
Well, one thing led to another
and somehow it comes out...
...that my mother was
a Native American...
...a full-blooded Cherokee,
Your Honor.
And this policeman yells, "It's too bad
Custer made such a half-ass job of it."
- Well, I lost control.
- What did you do?
I did what little I could
for a man my age.
The little Mr. McMullen was able to do
seems to have been pretty effective.
The officer has taken 18 stitches
in his face, his nose is broken...
...and his jaw is wired up.
I must've hit him harder than I knew.
Fright, fear, whatever it was, Your Honor.
Your Honor, here is the BCI
on Mr. Jessie McMullen.
It begins in 1947 with a three-year term
for assault just after he was naturalized.
It goes on and on and on and...
Your Honor, before the prosecutor
sentences my client...
...perhaps he will agree to a trial?
We're only here to set bail.
I'd like to point out that the defendant's
grandson is present in court.
My client has roots in this community.
Bail is set at $5000.
A $500 cash bail bond is acceptable.
Next.
Docket number 178649326.
Did you bring the 500?
You don't travel light, I see.
Vito gave me 800.
Good thing he had the cash.
Your father's always got a few grand
swag money in his pocket.
He robs the tax collector,
your father.
It's never been easy for me
having a thief in the family.
You've grown, Adam.
It's been a long time.
- Money.
- Oh, money.
Look at this. It's become a shithouse.
Never been in a jail before.
You haven't missed a lot. It's got some
good points too, when you're young.
- Like what?
- It helps build character...
...like a hitch in the Army.
A wallet. A watch.
A handkerchief, pure silk.
Not to mention $270,000.
I'm just kidding. $270.
- Hey, Jessie.
- Hi, John.
- This place keeps going downhill.
- Yeah, just like the rest of the city.
You're looking good, Adam. These fancy
schools must be agreeing with you.
MIT's not fancy.
And they don't, Jessie.
They really don't agree with me at all.
Last night in the bar,
did that cop land the first punch?
Adam, I've never been
in a bar fight yet...
...where the other guy landed the first
punch. It's a sure recipe for losing.
- So when did you get back in town?
- I left school in January.
I was this far away from getting
my master's in molecular biology.
- And your old man's paying for all this?
- No way. I'm on full scholarship.
I was a Westinghouse Scholar.
It's a big deal.
They only have six each year.
I hated it. It felt worse than that cell.
They've got your whole life
mapped out for you.
You don't know the half of it.
I would have had my own lab...
...terrific salary, the works.
They were already talking to me
about a retirement plan.
I've been living with a girl
up on 23rd Street. An older girl.
Nothing wrong with an older woman.
For a young man.
My mother's okay. Vito tries,
but he makes me feel guilty.
- Your father can be pretty good at that.
- Hey, Jess.
Hi, Phil. Say hello to Adam,
my grandson.
- Vito's boy.
- Hi, Phil.
I remember you. What've you
been doing with yourself lately?
Finding myself.
Well, I hope you've been
getting laid in the process.
- What do you got?
- Ferragamos.
fell off a truck this morning.
- Fifty dollars a pair. 13C?
- Right.
- You got it.
- What do you take?
- 91 l2C.
- No problem.
- There you go.
- Thanks.
Say hello to your father for me.
Me and him used to cut a lot of corners
when we were kids. Take it easy.
Not in the bar, bad luck.
You can get trees for them.
You're a class act, Jessie.
I still remember those stretch limos
out to Shea when I was 12.
Yeah, the driver was working off
a gambling debt.
It was a wonderful way to travel, no?
Cheers.
Those piers used to hum.
Half the West Side worked on the docks.
The pickings were great.
That's where I landed, right over there.
- September '46.
- My grandmother?
Yeah.
Those happy years for the two of you?
Happy? Married to a Sicilian?
Happiness is against their nature.
She spent every waking hour cooking
pasta. She had me pissing olive oil.
You be careful,
you got some of that blood.
Try to encourage
the Scottish genes, Adam.
Wonder how Vito would've turned out
if you'd married somebody Scottish.
He'd have had a proper first name,
for a start. Instead of Vito.
And he'd have been at least
five inches taller.
That was a terrific night, Jessie.
Some bacon and eggs,
a couple drinks.
When I called, it wasn't just
to get together after all this time.
- No?
- No. I wanted...
I really wanted to ask you
about something. Your opinion.
What?
There's an ex-professor of mine,
he's a brilliant Chinese-American guy...
...and he's got a scam.
Says it's a good deal,
as easy as could be.
Nobody ever tells you a deal's hard, kid.
Well, he needs an answer.
I've stalled him for a couple of weeks,
but now he says he needs an answer.
Says it means a lot of money.
What's a Chinaman's idea
of a lot of money?
A million dollars.
More coffee, fellas?
- Leave it to me. I'll get Vito here.
- See you later.
I'm going upstairs
for a shower and a shave.
- So I'll meet you here at 3?
- Right.
Leave your old man to me.
I know which buttons to press.
All right.
Hello, stranger. When they become
a success, they forget their roots.
Vito, glad to see you back
on the West Side.
I remember Vito here
before he could talk.
Your grandfather was
running numbers out of this bar.
He'd bring Vito down in his baby
carriage and park him right here...
...then tuck his policy slips
in your old man's blanket.
That's how I learned to count.
How are you, Jessie?
- I pinched your father more than once.
- You're Doheny the cop?
That's me.
You were too little to run in.
He means Vito was too little to shake
down. Danny here would pinch me.
Then when I made bail, he'd come
upstairs and sell me back my own slips.
- You retired?
- I took early retirement.
- The commissioner insisted on it.
- Thank the good Lord...
...I had a little money put by.
- You still hide it in the coffee cans?
- What do you drink?
- Dewar's rocks, Danny.
- Nice guy.
- You gotta learn to judge people better.
You two seem pretty cozy
all of a sudden.
Hey, I'm his granddad,
for chrissakes.
Whatever craziness you're
cooking up these days, Jessie...
...Adam can do without.
I'm a man trying his best
to enjoy his golden years.
Just keep my son away
from your criminal schemes.
Criminal schemes.
It's eating you up
that you're getting old.
Let no man say that Jessie Mac
went out lying down.
Criminal schemes. That's a little rich
coming from an ex-con.
You told him about that?
Pop, Pop, 20 years in the same house.
Some things can't stay secret.
- Just don't fuck up his life too.
- Too?
Any deal you ever made with me,
you never saw a speck of trouble.
It's when you took off on your own, like
an asshole with that retarded Polack...
...that you wound up doing
your 27 months in the shitter.
And he's still blaming me.
If you'd stuck with me, you'd have been
a part of that Westport Bank caper.
So sweet.
Ask him where the money is now.
Just where it ought to be.
It didn't have handles on it.
Always remember, Adam. It only
costs 100% more to go first class.
Ask him about the downside,
the couple of years you sit in the cage...
...then spend the rest
of your life hiding it.
Anybody who's embarrassed about
doing time is a goddamned snob.
You do your time nice, don't rat
anybody out, never take it in the ass...
...what is there to be
embarrassed about?
Vito, somewhere your values
got screwy.
When did you get it in your head
that it was so terrible to be a thief?
How do you get through to someone
who thinks like a Gypsy?
- Right. Standup thieves, Gypsies.
- Right.
Not a hypocritical bone in their bodies.
Hey, Margie.
- You made bail.
- Thanks to my grandson Adam here.
- And my wonderful son Vito.
- How do you do?
It's nice to know you, Adam. Hi.
Vito? Margie.
So how are the accommodations
at the tombs these days?
- Three-star? Four-star?
- I'll survive.
There was never any question
about that.
But did the other prisoners survive?
What about the poor guards?
I don't go on for 15 minutes.
Can I buy you guys a drink?
- No, we'll take a rain check.
- Oh, man talk.
- Okay, see you later.
- Okay.
- Listen, we still on for tonight?
- Yeah, sure.
It was very nice meeting you.
Jessie, are you involving
Adam in something?
- Just the safest, sweetest deal of my life.
- All right, stop right there...
And he's not involving me,
it's my idea.
- Your idea?
- My idea. That's right.
Adam, what are you talking about?
I'm talking about a lot of money, Pop.
And it's not even dangerous.
- Lf it's against the law, it's dangerous.
- No, no, this is a walk.
- And it just needs a third guy.
- Needs a third guy, huh?
Are you crazy? I spent my life
thieving with my father...
...and now I'm gonna thieve
with my son? Crazy.
Must be a full moon
I don't know about.
Tell me, what is it
with these criminal genes?
Jesus, Vito. Don't get started
with that criminal-gene crap.
Carnegie, Rockefeller. Those are
the guys with criminal genes...
...the size of fucking grapefruits.
You never really bought
that honesty shit.
You've just been running scared
for 25 years.
I'm scared for him.
I'm not a baby.
Let me be scared for me.
If they catch you,
they lock you up. Listen.
I learned long ago
it's not safe to be a thief.
- You wanna get safe?
- Yeah, I wanna get safe.
Go sit in one of your walk-in
refrigerators for the rest of your life.
Who put it in your head that
being safe is what life is all about?
- I'm too young to play it safe.
- And me too.
This is fucking cuckoo.
- Can I get another one?
- Give him two.
Adam, let me get this straight. You'll
jeopardize your whole life for money?
- For money?
- Yeah.
If it was money I wanted, I'd think
about the wholesale meat business.
Well, that was unfair.
You know I hate the meat business.
I broke my ass to give you
what he never gave me.
- I never asked you for anything.
- You never had to.
You had everything a kid ever wanted.
You didn't even need a scholarship.
I could have paid for your college twice.
- Without blinking.
- Pop.
This whole thing
has nothing to do with money.
You've never understood me,
you still don't.
- You're not doing this.
- I'm doing it.
Whether you come or not.
Whether he comes or not.
You wanna know something?
There's nothing you can do about it.
- Nothing I can do?
- Right.
There's nothing I can do?
Vito.
That won't get you anywhere.
Here.
Leave a 20. I don't want Doheny
telling people I raised a cheapskate.
Come on. Hey! We got a deadline!
Let's go, man.
Vito! Jesus, it's still dark out.
You know, it's the early worm
gets caught.
If it's about bail money, Jessie,
I'm about tapped out.
I got work to do.
I got bigger fish to fry
than a few bucks bail money.
- Oh, yeah?
- But first of all...
...who the hell smacks
a 23-year-old in public?
Punish him if you really
lose your temper, Vito.
But not a slap.
Look, Adam and I are meeting
at the weekend with a third guy...
...for this score.
You've got till then to decide.
No, there's nothing to decide.
If anything happens to Adam...
This is why you should come along.
Blood, Vito, blood.
And it's the kind of work you do to a turn.
He's going anyway, you heard him.
- He'll find two other guys.
- But you could talk him out of it.
- I doubt it.
- Try.
I'm not gonna try something
I don't believe in.
- Why not?
- It's as sweet for me as it is for Adam.
It's your choice.
I have another guy lined up, he's not
as good as you, but he's good enough.
Who?
- You've got till the weekend.
- Wait a minute, who?
Who?
- Who?
- Johnny Hunt.
Johnny Hunt.
Well, you remember. His kid brother
got shot robbing a bank.
- Johnny Hunt!
- He was never as bad as people said.
He was a weasel 30 years ago,
he's still a weasel.
People get a bum rap sometimes.
Johnny Hunt is a hell of a crib man.
- He stinks, Jessie.
- I think you're wrong.
But I wanted to give you
the shot at it.
Jessie! Jessie! The guy stinks.
- So, what's the story with Torres?
- I checked the carton...
...he packed for Jimmy's Tavern.
- I knew it.
It was marked for 20 pounds of
short ribs and 30 pounds of chop.
There were three fillets in it.
About an $80 difference.
You give the kid every break you can.
- What do you wanna do?
- Send him in.
Tommy, he sticks a boning knife
in his belt, you buzz me.
All right.
All right.
That fucking kid. Listen...
Figure out what we owe Torres
as of yesterday afternoon.
- Stealing?
- Yeah.
- Two-forty, gross.
- What good is gross gonna do me?
You were a lot nicer boss when
we used to get laid once in a while.
- The usual 12 fictitious dependents.
- Come on, how much?
enough sex these days.
It wasn't meant to last.
There's a saying...
"You don't crap where you eat."
Listen to 20 years in the world of
commerce from the female point of view:
Every guy who told you that
banged his bookkeeper.
- How much was it?
- One seventy-eight and 30 cents.
Yeah, come on.
- Tommy says you wanted to see me?
- Here's your pay through yesterday.
Today's money goes toward
the meat you robbed.
Be out in five minutes
or I'll break your fucking legs.
Robbing? Me, man?
Wanna open up the boxes
for Jimmy's Tavern?
Go ahead. Go ahead, open them up.
Man, how am I gonna live
on the shit wages you paying?
Where'd you come to borrow money
when your baby had pneumonia, Julio?
Where? We treated you
like family here, right?
Well, you just better hope
your family all stay healthy.
- What did you say?
- I said you take...
You busted my nose, man.
- You working for a maniac, lady.
- Come on, go.
He busted my beak over a piece of meat.
Is this what's called a midlife crisis?
Goodbye and God bless you,
Danny Doheny.
Come on. It'll make you
feel better, Mrs. Doheny.
If you're here to start
smacking me around again...
No. I'm sorry about that.
I apologize.
Accepted. Let's forget it.
I didn't expect to see you here.
Guy was serving us drinks
four days ago.
Yeah.
You can't wheel my casket
dolly around the place.
This is a wake.
There ought to be a little decorum.
There's a barrel of beer on its way,
we need to set it on something.
Not in my place. The Board of Health
can close me.
Neary, since you've gone AA,
you're like a wet rag.
It's illegal to even bring beer in here.
Neary, the mortician.
His sister Margaret, an ex-nun,
used to own a very classy, expensive...
...nursery school down on Gramercy
Park. You interviewed for that.
- An interview for a nursery school?
- It was very fancy.
- What did they ask me?
- What you watched on TV...
...did you know your ABCs...
- Of course I knew my ABCs.
Adam, you read an entire
New York Times editorial on the U.N.
- Adam, you missed exactly five words.
- Spare me the rest.
- They offer me a scholarship?
- A scholarship?
They would have paid $ 1000 a semester
just to get their hands on you.
They wanted me for what
all the other schools did.
Solve geometry problems in
the fourth grade for important visitors.
I used to feel like a performing seal
at the blackboard.
- Adam, you were so gifted.
- Let's just drop it, Pop.
A gift shouldn't be thrown
in the garbage.
- This is not the time or the place...
- This is the perfect time and place.
See, I was raised to be a thief.
You weren't.
- You don't have to go along.
- No, you, you don't have to go along.
- That's the real point.
- I wanna go along.
Your mom and I had such
enormous hopes for you, kiddo.
- Nobody's hopes work out, Pop.
- Right.
I'm half your age, I already know that.
Well, a toast seems appropriate.
- To Danny Doheny.
- To hell with him.
To McMullens.
Now then, lucky lads, let's catch up
on a little family business.
Now then, lucky lads, let's catch up
on a little family business.
Yeah. Nothing like a good robbery
to bring a family close.
He's such a fucking
wisenheimer, your father.
- Does he do the same to you?
- Probably a little less than I do to him.
Let's make a decision.
- Let's.
- Talk.
Are you familiar at all
with DNA research?
Yeah, I read a couple
of magazine articles.
Gene-splicing.
You know, they're breeding chickens...
...that weigh more than you or me.
Try to keep current, huh?
Well, nobody knows
what's gonna happen yet...
...but the possibilities look limitless.
The small companies
who are in it first...
...are hoping to be the IBMs and
the Bell Telephones 20 years from now.
There's a new red-hot,
very secret development.
It's an agricultural plasmid.
Yeasts that are fixing nitrogen.
That means that you could
raise wheat, corn...
...damn near anything to grow
with no fertilizer.
The stakes are enormous.
Farmers spend billions...
Fuck the farmers.
Tell him what our end is.
Jimmy Chiu,
an ex-professor of mine...
...he works at a biology lab
out in Nassau County.
He helped found the company.
They screwed him out
of his piece of the action.
- They fired this poor Chink.
- Yeah, I hear him.
He's got some venture capital ready
to set up a new company.
They need the new plasmids.
He gets us in easy.
High stakes. Low risk. Nonviolent.
No worries about our partners
robbing us or ratting us out.
Look, if we get the plasmids
and the logbook...
...Jimmy Chiu pays us
an even million.
You gotta sell a lot of veal cutlets
to match that, Vito.
So this whole score
is like one big fancy burglary.
Yeah.
- Does anyone else know about this?
- No one, just the three of us.
What do you think, Pop?
What do I think?
When you were talking
about yeast-fixing nitrogen...
...the look on your face...
- You're in or you're out, but no lectures.
I'm in. I'm in. I'm in.
You're happy now, huh?
- I'm in.
- Yeah.
- To the Gypsies of the world.
- Not a hypocritical bone in their bodies.
Come on. Let's pay our respects
to the grieving widow...
...before she falls flat
on her face, drunk.
- How you doing, Jess?
- Hi, Phil.
Vito, it's been a long time.
Well, Phil, busy, busy, busy.
It's my crowd.
Listen, these are Yves Saint Laurent.
They're 800 a pop
in the better stores.
Fell off a truck.
I'll let them go for 200 apiece.
Let's see here.
You know, 38's on the left.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're supposed
to be closing in a little bit...
...but I think it would be a crime
to have a 10:00 last call...
...for Danny Doheny's wake,
so closing time is extended.
Give me that back.
Kevin, Michael...
...the song for Danny.
This your basic
old-fashioned Irish wake?
When it's run right.
Between the keycard
and these cockamamie rent-a-cops...
...getting in will be a cinch.
- Vito, let's get out of here.
- But first we'll go back to the motel.
I wanna take a dry run
as soon as it gets dark.
Being back in action, it agrees with you.
Puts a little bounce in your step.
You're giving me some sound advice
on how to conduct my life?
- That's what fathers are for.
- Right.
The bounce will stay in my step
as long as I get my share.
Did I ever cheat you
out of a nickel?
For starters, start with the $ 10
I never got out of that Lionel train...
Are you still whining
about those fucking trains?
- I'll buy you a set for Christmas.
- I'll hold my breath.
You can carry a grudge
for 30 years.
That's the Sicilian genes.
Now, I'm pretty sure
that the bar is over there.
It's in the restaurant, of course.
Let's have a drink.
After I shower.
- Honest work makes honest sweat.
- You're a bad influence.
Now, I know this
is gonna sound gross...
Now, I know this
is gonna sound gross...
...but you've gotta accept
the cab fare.
I hear they're very expensive
in the suburbs.
So I figured 150 ought to cover it.
That sounds right for the meter,
but we have to tip the driver too.
Jesus. We can't have
some hard-working refugee...
...from Bangladesh going tipless.
Well...
...will 200 cover it?
We don't live near each other.
Separate cabs, of course.
That was understood from the get go.
- Vito, Margo and Denise.
- How you doing?
It was, "I was champion
baton twirler of 19..."
I always thought that baton twirling
ought to be an Olympic event.
What do you think, Vito?
No, I think the Chinese
would dominate in no time.
Not against your all-American girl
they wouldn't.
- Well, I could be wrong.
- So the game is on?
Yeah, I just have to get rid
of a previous appointment.
Why don't you order us
another round?
Yeah, sure.
- Why don't you do that, Pop?
- Jessie.
What are you doing sitting here
talking to a couple of hookers?
It's a vulgar way to refer to a woman.
I never brought you up to talk like that.
Are you gonna tell me
those are not hookers?
- Well, who are we to judge?
- All right.
I don't wanna put
a crimp in your style...
...but it's been 10 years
since I had to go home and lie...
...so I'm gonna pass. All right?
- Vito.
Can't you ever
just have a good time?
Yeah.
I mean, doesn't this beat
cutting up cows on 14th Street?
Well, you know, we'll see.
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, fucking 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 fucking 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 fucking 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 asshole sometimes.
You really are a fucking asshole.
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.
Relax. He's got one,
we'll have three.
- Two. He doesn't carry a gun.
- I don't wanna anybody carrying a gun.
What you think, they'll mail us the
what do you call them? The plasmids?
- Lf you don't wanna do this, say so.
- Vito, you're doing what you always do...
...you're treating him like a kid.
Adam should go in there packing.
He's never done it, Jessie.
He does not carry.
- We vote!
- We don't vote. He doesn't carry!
If Adam carries, I walk.
Close the lid.
- Wait. Didn't you bring any gloves?
- No.
Put that on.
Come on, come on, come on!
Say when.
- All right?
- Okay.
Go ahead.
Sit tight. I'll check out the guard.
Pull this. I can't see.
This is why I hated
putting on your snowsuit.
I was on much tougher scores
than this at your age.
All I saw out of them was a ham
sandwich. You're starting at the top.
Yeah, that's America.
Every generation does a little bit better.
- What if he's out making rounds?
- He's snoozing somewhere.
The work ethic in America
is dead and buried.
- Let's do it.
- Here.
Freeze!
Where the hell is he?
He could be off taking a leak
or making rounds.
Then we sit tight and wait for him.
- Did you close the hall doors?
- I think so.
No. You can't think so.
You're sure you did or you're sure
you didn't or you don't know.
I don't know.
If the guard sees an open door,
it's all over.
I'll take this corridor.
You take that one.
Adam, stay here in case
he's on his way back with a six-pack.
Wait. What does he do
if the guard walks in?
So let him take a piece.
No.
- You got a say in this too, you know.
- No, he doesn't.
- Move and I'll kill you.
- Come here.
Put your hands together.
I'm marking your outline on the floor
with a piece of chalk.
Now, when we get back,
any part of you outside that line...
...gets shot away. You follow?
- I hope he knows where he's going.
- It's his show.
Did we bust into the wrong place,
for chrissakes?
- He knows what he's doing.
- Yeah.
This is it.
We're taking too long.
This is odd.
What?
I'd like to get the hell out of here.
Pop?
That's the whole show?
Unless you wanna tell us
the Peewee Grogan story again.
Go! Go!
What about the guard?
The longer he thinks we're here,
the better.
No, Jessie, wait. Wait.
Go.
What?
Do either of you have the logbook?
- No.
- Shit!
We got the tubes.
- They're also paying for the logbook.
- I'll go back.
There's a stack of logbooks
in that desk.
Easy, you just tell me which one.
I'm the gifted Westinghouse Scholar.
I'll get it.
- No, no, Adam, wait a minute. Adam!
- Hey!
- Let's get these in the car.
- I'll wait here.
We gotta be ready to roll
when he gets out. Now come on.
You okay?
Okay, we'll be out in
about a half an hour.
Oh, God!
God!
You can't do anything out there. Just
be ready to gun this fucking thing...
...if the kid makes it.
- Lf?
Freeze!
Who's with you?
There's two of them.
They're still in the building.
Move out, Vito.
No lights.
Glide.
Stop.
Let's go, Vito. Drive.
Vito?
Yeah.
What time is it?
About... About 3:00.
- How'd you do?
- I lost about 60 bucks.
I tried getting Adam earlier.
Oh, yeah? What for?
I was thinking...
...the other day at dinner I came
down on him a little too hard.
I want to tell him that.
I'll try getting him again tomorrow.
He... He didn't tell you?
He went up to Cambridge
for a few days.
He wanted to see
some college friends.
It's a glimmer of hope.
Yeah, yeah.
I know you don't wanna hear this,
but Adam leaving school isn't that bad.
He's still growing up.
And you know what?
He'll outgrow Jessie too.
He'll see through him.
He's your son, Vito.
You'll see.
Am I wrong?
No...
...I'm sure you're right.
You're depressed.
You lost more than 60 bucks.
Yeah.
Look, I got a boy just about your age.
What are you 20, 21?
My name is Adam McQuade.
I'm homeless.
I'm waiting for my lawyer to get here.
Your buddies left you there.
My name is Adam McQuade.
When you been up in Attica 10 years,
surrounded by psychotics...
...you're gonna wish you'd taken
a little fatherly advice.
Hey, you're nervous. I'll drive.
Well, it's going to be expensive.
We're not rich people.
Your attorney should've recommended
a cheaper lawyer.
- No one's crying poverty here.
- All I'm saying is, this is family money.
Money I managed to squirrel away
after 50 years hard work.
You saw Adam. Can we drop the
subject of money and hear how he is?
No, we can't. I bill for time.
Mine, the lawyers on my staff,
a couple of paralegals.
My office time is 150 an hour.
My court time, and no one but me
will ever be in a courtroom...
...is $ 1500 per day.
- Fifteen hundred?!
That's where my talent runs rampant,
and I charge accordingly.
Would you sit down, please?
Depending on if we strike a deal or go
to trial, it may be as low as $20,000...
...and it could run nicely to 75,
exclusive of appeals.
If the trial looks hopeless,
we'll be waiting for a guilty verdict...
...and orchestrating everything
toward an appeal, a real possibility.
- A guilty verdict is a real possibility?
- That's why there's no bail.
Running at the scene. He also refuses
to divulge the name of his partners.
The judge won't be lenient.
I must say, for a middle-class boy, your
son's values seem a bit misdirected.
My grandson's not middle class
and never has been.
The D.A.'s anxious to strike a deal.
That's a positive.
The company isn't screaming
for blood, which is unusual.
Why aren't they?
They don't want to put Adam
on the cross.
The bottom line is if Adam will deliver
his partners and the plasmids...
...they're talking minimum jail time,
maybe six months.
Mind you, that's for openers. They'll go
for zero jail time at the drop of a hat.
- I see.
- They wanna make a rat out of him.
Hey, mister, he's your grandson.
- I was talking to him.
- I can hear it.
Please. What if Adam holds out,
gives no one up...
...won't say where the plasmids are?
- They'll crucify him.
You can't stand in front of a judge in
the United States and say, "Fuck you."
They won't tolerate it.
What does crucify mean?
When they finish adding burglary-one
charges, assaulting the guards...
...you're looking at two
...which the judge can do.
I would appeal it since both charges
stem from the same crime...
...but I wouldn't hold my breath
until it's overturned.
If your son, and your grandson,
Mr. McMullen...
...behaves perfectly, tutors his fellow
cons with remedial-reading problems...
...he could be out in 15 years,
a bit shy of his 40th birthday.
We need a few minutes.
Come on.
Fifteen years! Did you hear
what she said?
We take the logbook and the
plasmids, and we turn ourselves in.
- We take this step by step.
- Fuck that! I've been through that.
That means Jessie McMullen first!
That's my kid in there, man.
Adam can manage 48 hours
in a suburban jail.
Adam will not spend one more
fucking hour in any fucking jail!
- Didn't you hear her? Did you hear?
- Keep your voice down.
You are not listening to me.
Listen to me!
You don't fucking listen to what I say!
- That's you... Hey.
- What?
- Adam's my grandson.
- Yeah.
- Would I hurt him?
- I don't know. Would you, Jessie?
- I'll tell you what.
- What?
- Hold still.
- I cut myself shaving.
You go visit him, and I'll settle up
with this fucking shyster.
No, no. I'll settle
with the fucking shyster.
I'll settle with that fucking...
Don't you worry.
Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me.
Did you see a white Caddy here?
A white Fleetwood?
Yeah, some old guy just drove it out.
Where do you get a taxi around here?
- Not around here.
- I need a fucking taxi.
Get me a fucking taxi. Taxi!
- How you doing?
- I'm okay.
- Are you sure?
- Yeah.
If things don't improve, Adam...
...your father will want us
to turn ourselves in with the stuff.
That's bullshit.
It means you walk.
Yeah, the lawyer gave me
that 15 years in prison spiel too.
She's just pumping her fee up.
I won't do more than a year, tops.
I can do that. You did it. Dad did it.
He doesn't have the confidence
in me to do it.
Don't kid yourself it's gonna be easy.
Somebody once told me it builds
character, like a hitch in the Army.
You still have the plasmids?
Yeah, on ice.
- And the logbook?
- Yeah.
Well, then Jimmy Chiu will still pay
us the million bucks.
We spend $ 100,000 on my defense...
...and we still get to keep
$300,000 a piece.
You're a McMullen.
Adam McMullen.
- You his lawyer?
- I'm his father.
One visitor a day.
He's already had one.
Who?
Jessie McMullen.
Jessie, if you're in there,
open the fucking door!
Is he here?
- Is he here? Don't lie to me.
- You're gonna foot the bill for that chain.
Is he here?
You're an emotional bunch,
you McMullens.
I didn't mean to do that.
You could have asked to come in.
What the hell is wrong
with your family?
What's wrong with my family
is my lunatic father.
Here.
You don't seem surprised to see me.
- Well, I try to take life as it comes.
- Yeah?
What are you supposed to tell me?
He tell you I might show up?
Yeah.
He tell you what for?
- He tell you?
- He said you had a falling out.
A falling out? That fuck calls
this a "falling out"?
I take it he understated the case.
What are you supposed to tell me?
- That he's out of town, which he is.
- Yeah? Yeah.
And that what you're looking for
isn't here, which it isn't.
And it's not at his place.
He said you'd be smart enough
to know that without asking.
- What the hell are you looking for?
- Don't worry about it.
What do you mean?
Do you think it would be
like your father to tell me?
Jessie and me and Adam
did a fancy burglary.
We got goods worth a ton of money,
and Adam got dropped coming out.
My son, Jessie's grandson, is
now sitting up in Nassau County...
...Iooking at 15 years behind...
Behind bars. 15 years in a cage.
If the goods are returned...
...and me and Jessie...
...turn ourselves in, Adam walks.
But while my back was turned...
...Jessie made off with the goods.
I don't believe you.
You know, I've been around thieves.
That's how I came upon your father.
I married one of the better
counterfeiters on the East Coast.
I know the score, okay?
I'm a knockaround girl.
You and Jessie wanna rob, go ahead,
but how could you take Adam along?
I went along to...
To look out for him.
Bullshit.
You enjoyed every minute of it.
All you guys do.
Why not turn yourself in?
Without the goods, it's useless.
Jesus, thank you.
Why don't you just tell Jessie that I,
you know, smacked you around, okay?
I'll tell him to go cut his fucking wrists.
Get that kid out of jail.
I'll take care of myself.
I'm trying.
- I'll get it.
- Hello.
Just a moment.
It's for you. It's a woman.
- Hello.
- You start playing straight with me...
...or your son's gonna rot in jail.
- What?
- Water.
You gave me eight vials of tap water.
What are you saying?
I said, you gave me
eight vials of tap water!
What's wrong? Who was that?
It's...
It's about Adam.
- Oh, God.
- No, no, he's not hurt.
He's...
He's been arrested.
A burglary...
Upstate. It's...
- A burglary?
- Well, it's pretty serious.
How did Adam get...?
What is Adam doing involved
in a burglary, Vito?
How did he...?
Jessie was involved in it.
Jessie.
I'm gonna kill him.
I wanna kill that son of a bitch.
I was part of it too.
I went along to look out for Adam.
But he would have gone anyway...
...so I went along to look out
for him. See?
- What are you telling me?
- It was the three of us.
The three of us, me and Jessie
and Adam. And Adam got caught.
- Well, where's Jessie now?
- I don't know.
You turn him in.
Yeah. What?
And yourself too.
And you explain to the judge
how a boy like Adam couldn't resist...
...following his father
and his grandfather into this madness.
You get my son out of jail, Vito...
...or I'll turn you and your stinking
father over to the police.
Where you going? Where you going?
- I want the plasmids.
- What?
You switched the plasmids.
What you got in there?
- You gave me fucking water!
- None of your fucking business.
What do you got in there?
Give me it! Open the fucking box!
Open the box! Give it to me!
Don't make me do something.
Don't you understand?
I don't have the fucking plasmids!
Welcome home, Vito. Here!
I know you fucking switched them.
You didn't get as far from
Hell's Kitchen as you thought.
All right, where are they?
- I'm telling you the truth.
- You never told me the truth.
Well, I am now.
You spout about family and Ioyalty,
and it's all crap.
Stop whining about your childhood.
You sound like every asshole
on the television talk show.
You're 43 years old,
for chrissakes! Here!
He was fine till you got ahold of him.
- Fine?
- And I would have been fine too.
Fine. That poor kid doesn't know
his ass from a hole in the ground.
It's no wonder, the kind
of fucking father you've been.
- The kind of father I've been?
- Yes.
The kind of father I've been?!
What is this, some kind of fucking joke?
You're all ass-backwards
with that kid...
...tiptoeing around, hoping he's gonna
pat you on the head.
That's right. The kid that I steered
into being a Westinghouse Scholar.
You spend your life talking
"Westinghouse Scholar."
- Well, what's the matter with that?
- It's all bullshit.
And Adam knows it better
than any of us.
Now why do you think he set
this whole thing up?
Because he can smell the real Vito!
That's why.
- Smell what?
- This Vito.
This Vito. That's the real Vito.
That's the one he wants respect from.
Do you understand?
No one at home.
You're a fucking lost cause.
And look at the mess you've made.
I'm gonna give you up.
Did you hear what I said?
- I'm gonna give you up.
- Up yours, you fucking guinea midget.
Water!
What the hell?!
I'm Adam McMullen's granddad.
So the company's put you
back on the payroll.
At first, I couldn't figure
why they weren't screaming louder.
I'm gonna call security.
I've got the logbook and the tubes
of water. You want we go public?
Then it was water we took
out of your lab.
Tell me, what was it?
An insurance scam?
No? Well, you got one big piece
of luck in all this.
What's that?
That I can be bought.
Why don't you tell me the story,
Wong?
- The name's Jimmy.
- Jimmy.
It's not about insurance.
No?
We've been promising
this new discovery for a year.
We dug a hole for ourselves.
Goddamned thing always looked
a week away.
Never worked.
It's a tough game, science, isn't it?
We've just gone public,
an $80 million offering.
The financial community has valued
this company based on this discovery...
...and your burglary buys us
six more months development time.
So long as the logbook and
the plasmids are never ever recovered.
That's what you had in mind
in the first place, wasn't it?
Police. Freeze.
Keep your hands
over your head.
Cut that crap out.
Hi, Charlie. It's been a long time.
Where's the beef here?
- Hey, where are you going?
- It's all legal.
What's he got there?
Vito. He ratted you out, Jessie.
I didn't think he'd do it.
Does the State have anything to add
to the report?
- No, Your Honor.
- Counselor?
No, sir.
Would the young Mr. McMullen like
to say something on his own behalf?
No, Your Honor, I would like to say
something on my grandfather's behalf.
Go ahead.
My grandfather has always tried
to take care of me.
I know that he didn't cooperate
with the police here...
...but that's because I didn't
want him to.
He's always respected my wishes.
He's always respected who I am.
And whatever's written
in those reports can't show it.
My grandpa loves me.
He always has.
And I love him.
This whole thing, Your Honor,
it wasn't his idea.
It was mine.
Duly noted. Counselor.
I've known Jessie McMullen
for 35 years and...
In how many of the arrests in McMullen's
career have you represented him?
More than a few, Your Honor.
Jessie McMullen
is a man in his 60s.
Any sentence, other than a token...
...would really be a life sentence,
Your Honor.
To give him five or 10 years in prison
is not a five- Or a 10-year sentence...
...it's a sentence of life imprisonment.
Vito McMullen.
Had you not finally showed
some decency...
...by turning in your father,
I would have put you away for five years.
You're a sorry excuse for a parent.
Three years of supervised probation.
Adam McMullen.
The company's intervention
would count for little with me...
...it does seem, however,
to count with the prosecution...
...and I am going to go along reluctantly
with the plea bargain arrangement.
Being guilty of a Class A misdemeanor,
you are sentenced to 5 years probation.
These background reports convinced me
there were mitigating circumstances.
Jessie McMullen.
I have devoted most of my thinking...
...to how the court should treat
Jessie McMullen.
If there is a culprit in this case,
you certainly fit the bill.
You've never seen fit to produce
the stolen plasmids or the logbook.
You've also held up
the development...
...of an important new scientific
discovery from six months to a year.
But as your lawyer points out,
you're not young.
It's not an easy matter to decide on
a sentence for someone of your years.
I've had to think this out carefully.
For armed robbery, 15 years.
For burglary in the first degree,
Sentences to run concurrently.
Grandpa.
Hey...
...if you can't do the time,
don't do the crime.
Jessie.
Ray.
Hey, you baldheaded prick.
Don't you ever get caught
on the take...
...because if you end up in any joint
I'm in, you'll leave feet first.
You come by every month or so,
you hear?
When do they ship you out?
Today or tomorrow.
- I'll come every two weeks.
- Every month is fine.
- Gonna be tough?
- For me? No.
You pick out a tough guy, kick his ass
right away, give him a real good beating.
Word gets around,
and it makes your time easier.
- They don't put you in solitary?
- No, nobody wants trouble.
So you do it out of sight, no one
asks questions, the story is, "He fell."
I'll see you in a month.
I hear your kid fucked you over.
Tough way to start your time, Pop.
Now, why would he give a shit
whether I start my time tough or easy?
Hey, no big deal, Pop.
I mean, we all got some long bits to do.
And, you know, a little chitchat,
and time's half over before you know it.
That's the second time
you've called me "Pop."
I got around a lot when I was young,
but I doubt if I'm your father.
But who knows though?
You carry a picture of your mother?
Maybe I'll remember her.
I fucked half the whores
on the East Coast.
You fucking...
What happened?
He fell.
You know, Mom and Dad ask about you
all the time. You ought to call them.
I guess you visit
your grandfather a lot.
Yeah, every three or four weeks.
He's not doing so well.
I wouldn't worry about Jessie, Adam.
He's a real survivor.
You know, Adam, it's been six months.
Your father loves you, Adam.
Mom, I told you I don't want to
hear about him.
I mean this. The next time
you bring up his name...
...will be the last time
that you ever hear from me.
- I'll call you next week.
- Okay, sweetheart.
Adam.
Listen, God forbid one of us should get
hit by a truck tomorrow, you know?
Let's not let it happen
while we're still mad at each other.
You turned out to be...
...a piece of garbage.
Adam, Adam. So, what is your gripe?
What the fuck is your gripe?
- Gripe?
- Yeah.
- You turned in your father.
- I turned in my...
- He's your father!
- I turned myself in too.
- I turned us both in for you.
- Stop it!
- For you.
- Stop doing things for me!
What did I do that was so terrible?
I tried to give you a better
childhood than I had.
No, don't give me
the terrible childhood crap.
You had a lot more fun
as a kid than I ever did.
Jessie was fun, for chrissake.
He showed a lot more confidence in you
as a kid than you ever did in me.
He showed more respect for you
as a person...
...than you ever did for me.
- Come on.
- Get off.
You still got a grip of steel, huh?
You tell me I'm looking good,
I'll pop you on the nose.
- I screwed him okay.
- Who, Jessie?
I'm not even gonna do a year,
that baldheaded prick.
How are you doing?
I'm keeping out of trouble.
Sounds as bad as doing time.
You're a prince.
I'm sorry about the way
things turned out, Jessie.
You play the cards you're dealt.
I was damn lucky.
They could have put me away
for 10 years.
- Who got my charges reduced?
- The charges? Me.
I managed to squeeze a few lousy bucks
out of your Chinaman friend too.
I spent it, Adam, every nickel.
I thought about splitting it
with you, Adam. I really did.
Then I thought...
...if I'm gonna do the time,
I have a little vigorish coming to me.
So I figured the best thing...
...was just not to mention it.
- Even Vito couldn't argue with that.
- Vito.
Vito, a lost cause.
From the beginning, a lost cause.
You're your own man now, huh?
Well, I'm out from under Vito.
Good.
You think you can get out
from under me?
No, Mom, I don't wanna talk to him.
No, just tell him that...
That Jessie is dying.
They're moving him from the infirmary
into the prison hospital.
Yeah, just tell him.
Okay, bye.
I'm looking... Hi, I'm looking
for Jessie McMullen.
They just wheeled him out of here.
- Which way?
- Won't do you no good.
Which way?!
Go back the way you came,
take the elevator to the basement.
Basement? To the basement.
Hey! Wait!
Is that Jessie McMullen?
Hey!
Please! Wait a minute,
don't shut the door.
- Hi, Ma.
- Hello.
- So?
- So it's so big I can't find anything.
- Hi, Papa. Hi.
- Hi, Rose.
Thank you.
- My first time in your new house.
- I'm sorry about your father, Vito.
I know. Hey, who have we got here?
Hiya, Nat.
It's all right, don't get up.
After 25 years, the shaygets
knows two Jewish words.
Well, you know.
Here, let me help you.
Time to let the angel in.
The angel won't have to squeeze
in under the chain.
I knew that was coming.
Your material is getting stale.
- Look who's here.
- Grandma.
I've been outside a half an hour waiting
for you to open the door for Elijah.
Anyway, they were thrilled that you
stopped by to see them.
Yeah, well, no reason to take
our problems out on them, huh?
Wait a minute, you gonna wait
for your mother to come down?
She'll be saying goodbye
for 20 minutes.
Plus, we'll just get in the same
old argument again.
What's the same old argument?
That everything you did,
you did for me.
If you hated the meat business
so much for 20 years...
...then I'm sorry, but stop blaming me.
You did it to yourself.
What's the most fun you've had
since you were a kid?
- What's the most fun I've had?
- Yeah, since you were a kid.
What?
The caper.
- The caper? The caper.
- Yeah.
Me too.
Oh, boy.
We are some family.
You know, the only time the three of us
ever had a drink together...
...was when we were
planning that robbery.
We are some family.
I brought back his ashes, Pop.
I thought that maybe the two of us...
...ought to bury him together.
- Thank you.
Thank you.
You have any idea
what we ought to do with him?
Yes, I do.
So, what are you gonna do now, Adam?
What do you want to do with your life?
- That's the first time you ever asked that.
- First time?
All right, I'll ask you a second time.
What do you wanna do with your life?
Well, now that you ask me...
...I don't know.
We lived in this building
when my mother died.
Right on that corner there,
Jessie pushed me into my first fight.
It's his neighborhood, okay.
Okay, now lift.
You've got to be kidding.
- Where do you want this keg?
- All the way up.
This is an open-air service.
Here we go.
I thought I told you guys
to get light beer.
If I'd have known this was a roof job,
I would have went for wristwatches.
I know! I know the Church
approves of cremation.
But it also approves of playing
the guitar at the Mass these days.
Vito, over the side with him.
Folks, hold it down, Jessie's going.
Quiet.
- Goodbye, Jessie.
- See you on the other side, Jessie.
So long, Jessie!
Goodbye!
I'm sorry, Adam.
For what?
I'm just sorry.
Well, me too.
I'm sorry too.
You know the words to this song?
I think I heard it once before.
I can't believe it.
Come to my parents' for Passover
once a year without complaining, Vito.
Wait a minute, honey, let me help you.
- Will Adam be here?
- I don't know...
...but if he is, be nice.
It's a Seder, okay?
Don't worry, don't worry.
- Hi, Mom.
- Hello, darling.
- Adam. Hi, darling.
- Hi.
Come a little late like always.
Papa, hello, darling.
Traffic. There are so many Jews
headed for Seder, Mama.
- Good day, sir.
- Hiya, Nat.
I thought people were
cutting down on meat.
How come the material
gets more expensive every year?
Please, don't worry yourself.
I know the face, now.
The face... The face looks familiar.
- Hey, Pop.
- Adam, how are you?
Hey, who'd you get this year?
I got Bernard Karlinski.
Let me see here.
"The bar mitzvah of Owen Zuckerbrot."
Nat, Owen Zuckerbrot?
He brings the yarmulkes home
from shul. You know, the extras.
You want it to say
"Vito McMullen," you have to convert.
- Why not?
- Not yet.
Did you see how Adam remembers
his Hebrew? With a mind like that.
- Ma.
- What did I say?
It's a shande to me that
a boy with such a head...
...drops out of school six months
before a master's degree.
- Drops out? Drops out of school?
- Six months before.
- Three months.
- Can we drop it?
We're not allowed to ask? You're back
since January. I haven't seen you.
- I came here for a Seder.
- Adam looks marvelous.
- We're glad you're here.
- He's become a man.
- Look how beautifully he eats.
- Ma, please. He's gonna be 23.
Stop bragging about how he gets
all the food in his mouth.
- You try to kvell over your grandson.
- I won't complain.
- After 24 years, it's still rough.
- 23.
Forgot the year your goy son-in-law
wasn't allowed up here.
- Time to let the angel in.
- Nat, how come the angel...
...gets a bigger glass?
- Your material is getting stale.
Better leave the chain on.
This is the Bronx.
Instead of Elijah, some mugger
is gonna charge through the door.
- Adam's right.
- When you two gonna move out?
- You're too old to survive here.
- How old are you, Grandpa?
- Nobody kept records. No one knows.
- They'll never tell. Crazy superstition.
Not so crazy. You don't tempt God
by bragging about your age. Sit.
Forty-two years here,
the neighborhood is not so bad.
Then why can't I drive my
Cadillac to your Seder? Nat...
...there are places in Flushing.
If it's a matter of money...
...I can chip in a few bucks.
- They wanna be the last.
We'll chisel it on your stone
after the mugging.
"Nat and Rose Gruden, last Jews
on Davidson Avenue."
Gruden residence.
Hi, Jessie.
Well, what time do you think
you'll be out?
Okay, no problem.
Yeah, don't worry about it.
All right. Take care, Jessie.
- Your grandfather?
- What was that about, Adam?
Jessie wanted to wish us
a happy Passover.
- Vito, your father knows our number?
- Yeah, how come?
Well, the unexpected.
Jessie doesn't change, huh?
No, he sure doesn't.
Take care, Nat.
Vito, see if you can get a cab,
I'll be right out.
- So when are you moving, Grandma?
- We don't take from our children.
You're like a couple of turkeys
in these streets.
This neighborhood's a jungle.
I'm not coming to the next Seder
unless you're living somewhere else.
Did you hear what your grandson said?
Well, what did he want?
Jessie wanted to wish us
a happy Passover.
Come on, Adam, stop the crap.
Your old man needs bail money.
I'm gonna go down there.
- And he calls you.
- Yeah.
You been talking to my father while you
been ducking me since you got back?
All right. Is it serious?
It's a bar fight. But it's
an off-duty cop he whacked.
He whacked a cop?
Is the guy hurt?
Well, Grandpa says he
"kicked the bull's ass...
...the length of the bar
and halfway down 10th Ave."
When is he gonna let up?
Oh, Christ.
Well, what the hell, it's nice
to know I have strong genes.
Hope I'm getting pinched
for bar fights in my 60s.
Just remember, Adam,
along with those strong genes...
...my father passes on a lot
of other crap to go with it.
- So stay away from him.
- He's not looking to hurt me.
No, he's not, but it'll happen anyway.
He'll spend the night in the can.
Fine with me.
- Lend me $800.
- Forget it.
I stood bail for him three years ago.
I haven't heard from him since.
- I don't stand bail for Jessie anymore.
- You're not.
I'm borrowing the money.
I've got $200, I'd like 800 more.
- So it's for you?
- Right.
Adam, the last year
my mother was alive...
...I was 7 years old. Okay?
Jessie took me along Christmas Eve
to buy a tree, right?
Near midnight we're passing an
Esso station up near Riverdale...
...and right on top of the garage is
a perfect, all lit-up Christmas tree.
So Jessie hits the brakes and he says,
"Wow, what a score, it's even got lights."
Wait a minute.
I'm standing lookout, I was 7 years old,
while he climbs up the drainpipe...
...and pulls down the tree,
lights and all.
What's so funny?
I got a dozen stories like that.
Like helping him rob Lionel trains
out of Macy's when I was 12 years old.
He's working there, I had to cut school
because he decided...
...to take a box of engines out.
Thought he'd get money for it.
- What happened?
- It doesn't matter what happened.
- Just know who you're dealing with.
- All right, all right.
- That's eight.
- Thanks.
That was nice what you did
in there for them.
Might get out of this cesspool
because of you.
Well, I had them over a barrel.
Somebody loves you, you got a hell of
a weapon in the relationship, you know?
Hey.
Listen, it's supposed
to work both ways, kiddo.
I mean, if you love somebody back,
then they got an equal weapon, no?
You're right.
I guess we got a standoff.
- I guess we do.
- They may move. I think you did it.
- I better get a cab.
- Good.
- How about dinner next week?
- Sure. What time should we be there?
- You did want Christine, no?
- Of course, Adam.
You know Christine's always welcome.
You wanna catch a ride with us?
- No, thanks.
- Okay, good night, Adam.
- Bye, sweetheart.
- Why doesn't he wanna ride with us?
- Bye, sweetheart.
- Why doesn't he wanna ride with us?
Docket number 178649325.
The charge is second-degree
assault, Your Honor.
At 6 p.m. yesterday, in a bar and grill
at 50210th Avenue...
...Mr. McMullen assaulted
an off-duty policeman.
Well, I'd love to hear about this
in your own words, Mr. McMullen.
Your Honor, I'm a victim
of police brutality.
Just tell us what occurred,
Mr. McMullen.
Well, it all happened so fast,
Your Honor.
I'll try to remember.
We had an argument. To be fair about it,
I was as much at fault as he was.
Well, one thing led to another
and somehow it comes out...
...that my mother was
a Native American...
...a full-blooded Cherokee,
Your Honor.
And this policeman yells, "It's too bad
Custer made such a half-ass job of it."
- Well, I lost control.
- What did you do?
I did what little I could
for a man my age.
The little Mr. McMullen was able to do
seems to have been pretty effective.
The officer has taken 18 stitches
in his face, his nose is broken...
...and his jaw is wired up.
I must've hit him harder than I knew.
Fright, fear, whatever it was, Your Honor.
Your Honor, here is the BCI
on Mr. Jessie McMullen.
It begins in 1947 with a three-year term
for assault just after he was naturalized.
It goes on and on and on and...
Your Honor, before the prosecutor
sentences my client...
...perhaps he will agree to a trial?
We're only here to set bail.
I'd like to point out that the defendant's
grandson is present in court.
My client has roots in this community.
Bail is set at $5000.
A $500 cash bail bond is acceptable.
Next.
Docket number 178649326.
Did you bring the 500?
You don't travel light, I see.
Vito gave me 800.
Good thing he had the cash.
Your father's always got a few grand
swag money in his pocket.
He robs the tax collector,
your father.
It's never been easy for me
having a thief in the family.
You've grown, Adam.
It's been a long time.
- Money.
- Oh, money.
Look at this. It's become a shithouse.
Never been in a jail before.
You haven't missed a lot. It's got some
good points too, when you're young.
- Like what?
- It helps build character...
...like a hitch in the Army.
A wallet. A watch.
A handkerchief, pure silk.
Not to mention $270,000.
I'm just kidding. $270.
- Hey, Jessie.
- Hi, John.
- This place keeps going downhill.
- Yeah, just like the rest of the city.
You're looking good, Adam. These fancy
schools must be agreeing with you.
MIT's not fancy.
And they don't, Jessie.
They really don't agree with me at all.
Last night in the bar,
did that cop land the first punch?
Adam, I've never been
in a bar fight yet...
...where the other guy landed the first
punch. It's a sure recipe for losing.
- So when did you get back in town?
- I left school in January.
I was this far away from getting
my master's in molecular biology.
- And your old man's paying for all this?
- No way. I'm on full scholarship.
I was a Westinghouse Scholar.
It's a big deal.
They only have six each year.
I hated it. It felt worse than that cell.
They've got your whole life
mapped out for you.
You don't know the half of it.
I would have had my own lab...
...terrific salary, the works.
They were already talking to me
about a retirement plan.
I've been living with a girl
up on 23rd Street. An older girl.
Nothing wrong with an older woman.
For a young man.
My mother's okay. Vito tries,
but he makes me feel guilty.
- Your father can be pretty good at that.
- Hey, Jess.
Hi, Phil. Say hello to Adam,
my grandson.
- Vito's boy.
- Hi, Phil.
I remember you. What've you
been doing with yourself lately?
Finding myself.
Well, I hope you've been
getting laid in the process.
- What do you got?
- Ferragamos.
fell off a truck this morning.
- Fifty dollars a pair. 13C?
- Right.
- You got it.
- What do you take?
- 91 l2C.
- No problem.
- There you go.
- Thanks.
Say hello to your father for me.
Me and him used to cut a lot of corners
when we were kids. Take it easy.
Not in the bar, bad luck.
You can get trees for them.
You're a class act, Jessie.
I still remember those stretch limos
out to Shea when I was 12.
Yeah, the driver was working off
a gambling debt.
It was a wonderful way to travel, no?
Cheers.
Those piers used to hum.
Half the West Side worked on the docks.
The pickings were great.
That's where I landed, right over there.
- September '46.
- My grandmother?
Yeah.
Those happy years for the two of you?
Happy? Married to a Sicilian?
Happiness is against their nature.
She spent every waking hour cooking
pasta. She had me pissing olive oil.
You be careful,
you got some of that blood.
Try to encourage
the Scottish genes, Adam.
Wonder how Vito would've turned out
if you'd married somebody Scottish.
He'd have had a proper first name,
for a start. Instead of Vito.
And he'd have been at least
five inches taller.
That was a terrific night, Jessie.
Some bacon and eggs,
a couple drinks.
When I called, it wasn't just
to get together after all this time.
- No?
- No. I wanted...
I really wanted to ask you
about something. Your opinion.
What?
There's an ex-professor of mine,
he's a brilliant Chinese-American guy...
...and he's got a scam.
Says it's a good deal,
as easy as could be.
Nobody ever tells you a deal's hard, kid.
Well, he needs an answer.
I've stalled him for a couple of weeks,
but now he says he needs an answer.
Says it means a lot of money.
What's a Chinaman's idea
of a lot of money?
A million dollars.
More coffee, fellas?
- Leave it to me. I'll get Vito here.
- See you later.
I'm going upstairs
for a shower and a shave.
- So I'll meet you here at 3?
- Right.
Leave your old man to me.
I know which buttons to press.
All right.
Hello, stranger. When they become
a success, they forget their roots.
Vito, glad to see you back
on the West Side.
I remember Vito here
before he could talk.
Your grandfather was
running numbers out of this bar.
He'd bring Vito down in his baby
carriage and park him right here...
...then tuck his policy slips
in your old man's blanket.
That's how I learned to count.
How are you, Jessie?
- I pinched your father more than once.
- You're Doheny the cop?
That's me.
You were too little to run in.
He means Vito was too little to shake
down. Danny here would pinch me.
Then when I made bail, he'd come
upstairs and sell me back my own slips.
- You retired?
- I took early retirement.
- The commissioner insisted on it.
- Thank the good Lord...
...I had a little money put by.
- You still hide it in the coffee cans?
- What do you drink?
- Dewar's rocks, Danny.
- Nice guy.
- You gotta learn to judge people better.
You two seem pretty cozy
all of a sudden.
Hey, I'm his granddad,
for chrissakes.
Whatever craziness you're
cooking up these days, Jessie...
...Adam can do without.
I'm a man trying his best
to enjoy his golden years.
Just keep my son away
from your criminal schemes.
Criminal schemes.
It's eating you up
that you're getting old.
Let no man say that Jessie Mac
went out lying down.
Criminal schemes. That's a little rich
coming from an ex-con.
You told him about that?
Pop, Pop, 20 years in the same house.
Some things can't stay secret.
- Just don't fuck up his life too.
- Too?
Any deal you ever made with me,
you never saw a speck of trouble.
It's when you took off on your own, like
an asshole with that retarded Polack...
...that you wound up doing
your 27 months in the shitter.
And he's still blaming me.
If you'd stuck with me, you'd have been
a part of that Westport Bank caper.
So sweet.
Ask him where the money is now.
Just where it ought to be.
It didn't have handles on it.
Always remember, Adam. It only
costs 100% more to go first class.
Ask him about the downside,
the couple of years you sit in the cage...
...then spend the rest
of your life hiding it.
Anybody who's embarrassed about
doing time is a goddamned snob.
You do your time nice, don't rat
anybody out, never take it in the ass...
...what is there to be
embarrassed about?
Vito, somewhere your values
got screwy.
When did you get it in your head
that it was so terrible to be a thief?
How do you get through to someone
who thinks like a Gypsy?
- Right. Standup thieves, Gypsies.
- Right.
Not a hypocritical bone in their bodies.
Hey, Margie.
- You made bail.
- Thanks to my grandson Adam here.
- And my wonderful son Vito.
- How do you do?
It's nice to know you, Adam. Hi.
Vito? Margie.
So how are the accommodations
at the tombs these days?
- Three-star? Four-star?
- I'll survive.
There was never any question
about that.
But did the other prisoners survive?
What about the poor guards?
I don't go on for 15 minutes.
Can I buy you guys a drink?
- No, we'll take a rain check.
- Oh, man talk.
- Okay, see you later.
- Okay.
- Listen, we still on for tonight?
- Yeah, sure.
It was very nice meeting you.
Jessie, are you involving
Adam in something?
- Just the safest, sweetest deal of my life.
- All right, stop right there...
And he's not involving me,
it's my idea.
- Your idea?
- My idea. That's right.
Adam, what are you talking about?
I'm talking about a lot of money, Pop.
And it's not even dangerous.
- Lf it's against the law, it's dangerous.
- No, no, this is a walk.
- And it just needs a third guy.
- Needs a third guy, huh?
Are you crazy? I spent my life
thieving with my father...
...and now I'm gonna thieve
with my son? Crazy.
Must be a full moon
I don't know about.
Tell me, what is it
with these criminal genes?
Jesus, Vito. Don't get started
with that criminal-gene crap.
Carnegie, Rockefeller. Those are
the guys with criminal genes...
...the size of fucking grapefruits.
You never really bought
that honesty shit.
You've just been running scared
for 25 years.
I'm scared for him.
I'm not a baby.
Let me be scared for me.
If they catch you,
they lock you up. Listen.
I learned long ago
it's not safe to be a thief.
- You wanna get safe?
- Yeah, I wanna get safe.
Go sit in one of your walk-in
refrigerators for the rest of your life.
Who put it in your head that
being safe is what life is all about?
- I'm too young to play it safe.
- And me too.
This is fucking cuckoo.
- Can I get another one?
- Give him two.
Adam, let me get this straight. You'll
jeopardize your whole life for money?
- For money?
- Yeah.
If it was money I wanted, I'd think
about the wholesale meat business.
Well, that was unfair.
You know I hate the meat business.
I broke my ass to give you
what he never gave me.
- I never asked you for anything.
- You never had to.
You had everything a kid ever wanted.
You didn't even need a scholarship.
I could have paid for your college twice.
- Without blinking.
- Pop.
This whole thing
has nothing to do with money.
You've never understood me,
you still don't.
- You're not doing this.
- I'm doing it.
Whether you come or not.
Whether he comes or not.
You wanna know something?
There's nothing you can do about it.
- Nothing I can do?
- Right.
There's nothing I can do?
Vito.
That won't get you anywhere.
Here.
Leave a 20. I don't want Doheny
telling people I raised a cheapskate.
Come on. Hey! We got a deadline!
Let's go, man.
Vito! Jesus, it's still dark out.
You know, it's the early worm
gets caught.
If it's about bail money, Jessie,
I'm about tapped out.
I got work to do.
I got bigger fish to fry
than a few bucks bail money.
- Oh, yeah?
- But first of all...
...who the hell smacks
a 23-year-old in public?
Punish him if you really
lose your temper, Vito.
But not a slap.
Look, Adam and I are meeting
at the weekend with a third guy...
...for this score.
You've got till then to decide.
No, there's nothing to decide.
If anything happens to Adam...
This is why you should come along.
Blood, Vito, blood.
And it's the kind of work you do to a turn.
He's going anyway, you heard him.
- He'll find two other guys.
- But you could talk him out of it.
- I doubt it.
- Try.
I'm not gonna try something
I don't believe in.
- Why not?
- It's as sweet for me as it is for Adam.
It's your choice.
I have another guy lined up, he's not
as good as you, but he's good enough.
Who?
- You've got till the weekend.
- Wait a minute, who?
Who?
- Who?
- Johnny Hunt.
Johnny Hunt.
Well, you remember. His kid brother
got shot robbing a bank.
- Johnny Hunt!
- He was never as bad as people said.
He was a weasel 30 years ago,
he's still a weasel.
People get a bum rap sometimes.
Johnny Hunt is a hell of a crib man.
- He stinks, Jessie.
- I think you're wrong.
But I wanted to give you
the shot at it.
Jessie! Jessie! The guy stinks.
- So, what's the story with Torres?
- I checked the carton...
...he packed for Jimmy's Tavern.
- I knew it.
It was marked for 20 pounds of
short ribs and 30 pounds of chop.
There were three fillets in it.
About an $80 difference.
You give the kid every break you can.
- What do you wanna do?
- Send him in.
Tommy, he sticks a boning knife
in his belt, you buzz me.
All right.
All right.
That fucking kid. Listen...
Figure out what we owe Torres
as of yesterday afternoon.
- Stealing?
- Yeah.
- Two-forty, gross.
- What good is gross gonna do me?
You were a lot nicer boss when
we used to get laid once in a while.
- The usual 12 fictitious dependents.
- Come on, how much?
enough sex these days.
It wasn't meant to last.
There's a saying...
"You don't crap where you eat."
Listen to 20 years in the world of
commerce from the female point of view:
Every guy who told you that
banged his bookkeeper.
- How much was it?
- One seventy-eight and 30 cents.
Yeah, come on.
- Tommy says you wanted to see me?
- Here's your pay through yesterday.
Today's money goes toward
the meat you robbed.
Be out in five minutes
or I'll break your fucking legs.
Robbing? Me, man?
Wanna open up the boxes
for Jimmy's Tavern?
Go ahead. Go ahead, open them up.
Man, how am I gonna live
on the shit wages you paying?
Where'd you come to borrow money
when your baby had pneumonia, Julio?
Where? We treated you
like family here, right?
Well, you just better hope
your family all stay healthy.
- What did you say?
- I said you take...
You busted my nose, man.
- You working for a maniac, lady.
- Come on, go.
He busted my beak over a piece of meat.
Is this what's called a midlife crisis?
Goodbye and God bless you,
Danny Doheny.
Come on. It'll make you
feel better, Mrs. Doheny.
If you're here to start
smacking me around again...
No. I'm sorry about that.
I apologize.
Accepted. Let's forget it.
I didn't expect to see you here.
Guy was serving us drinks
four days ago.
Yeah.
You can't wheel my casket
dolly around the place.
This is a wake.
There ought to be a little decorum.
There's a barrel of beer on its way,
we need to set it on something.
Not in my place. The Board of Health
can close me.
Neary, since you've gone AA,
you're like a wet rag.
It's illegal to even bring beer in here.
Neary, the mortician.
His sister Margaret, an ex-nun,
used to own a very classy, expensive...
...nursery school down on Gramercy
Park. You interviewed for that.
- An interview for a nursery school?
- It was very fancy.
- What did they ask me?
- What you watched on TV...
...did you know your ABCs...
- Of course I knew my ABCs.
Adam, you read an entire
New York Times editorial on the U.N.
- Adam, you missed exactly five words.
- Spare me the rest.
- They offer me a scholarship?
- A scholarship?
They would have paid $ 1000 a semester
just to get their hands on you.
They wanted me for what
all the other schools did.
Solve geometry problems in
the fourth grade for important visitors.
I used to feel like a performing seal
at the blackboard.
- Adam, you were so gifted.
- Let's just drop it, Pop.
A gift shouldn't be thrown
in the garbage.
- This is not the time or the place...
- This is the perfect time and place.
See, I was raised to be a thief.
You weren't.
- You don't have to go along.
- No, you, you don't have to go along.
- That's the real point.
- I wanna go along.
Your mom and I had such
enormous hopes for you, kiddo.
- Nobody's hopes work out, Pop.
- Right.
I'm half your age, I already know that.
Well, a toast seems appropriate.
- To Danny Doheny.
- To hell with him.
To McMullens.
Now then, lucky lads, let's catch up
on a little family business.
Now then, lucky lads, let's catch up
on a little family business.
Yeah. Nothing like a good robbery
to bring a family close.
He's such a fucking
wisenheimer, your father.
- Does he do the same to you?
- Probably a little less than I do to him.
Let's make a decision.
- Let's.
- Talk.
Are you familiar at all
with DNA research?
Yeah, I read a couple
of magazine articles.
Gene-splicing.
You know, they're breeding chickens...
...that weigh more than you or me.
Try to keep current, huh?
Well, nobody knows
what's gonna happen yet...
...but the possibilities look limitless.
The small companies
who are in it first...
...are hoping to be the IBMs and
the Bell Telephones 20 years from now.
There's a new red-hot,
very secret development.
It's an agricultural plasmid.
Yeasts that are fixing nitrogen.
That means that you could
raise wheat, corn...
...damn near anything to grow
with no fertilizer.
The stakes are enormous.
Farmers spend billions...
Fuck the farmers.
Tell him what our end is.
Jimmy Chiu,
an ex-professor of mine...
...he works at a biology lab
out in Nassau County.
He helped found the company.
They screwed him out
of his piece of the action.
- They fired this poor Chink.
- Yeah, I hear him.
He's got some venture capital ready
to set up a new company.
They need the new plasmids.
He gets us in easy.
High stakes. Low risk. Nonviolent.
No worries about our partners
robbing us or ratting us out.
Look, if we get the plasmids
and the logbook...
...Jimmy Chiu pays us
an even million.
You gotta sell a lot of veal cutlets
to match that, Vito.
So this whole score
is like one big fancy burglary.
Yeah.
- Does anyone else know about this?
- No one, just the three of us.
What do you think, Pop?
What do I think?
When you were talking
about yeast-fixing nitrogen...
...the look on your face...
- You're in or you're out, but no lectures.
I'm in. I'm in. I'm in.
You're happy now, huh?
- I'm in.
- Yeah.
- To the Gypsies of the world.
- Not a hypocritical bone in their bodies.
Come on. Let's pay our respects
to the grieving widow...
...before she falls flat
on her face, drunk.
- How you doing, Jess?
- Hi, Phil.
Vito, it's been a long time.
Well, Phil, busy, busy, busy.
It's my crowd.
Listen, these are Yves Saint Laurent.
They're 800 a pop
in the better stores.
Fell off a truck.
I'll let them go for 200 apiece.
Let's see here.
You know, 38's on the left.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're supposed
to be closing in a little bit...
...but I think it would be a crime
to have a 10:00 last call...
...for Danny Doheny's wake,
so closing time is extended.
Give me that back.
Kevin, Michael...
...the song for Danny.
This your basic
old-fashioned Irish wake?
When it's run right.
Between the keycard
and these cockamamie rent-a-cops...
...getting in will be a cinch.
- Vito, let's get out of here.
- But first we'll go back to the motel.
I wanna take a dry run
as soon as it gets dark.
Being back in action, it agrees with you.
Puts a little bounce in your step.
You're giving me some sound advice
on how to conduct my life?
- That's what fathers are for.
- Right.
The bounce will stay in my step
as long as I get my share.
Did I ever cheat you
out of a nickel?
For starters, start with the $ 10
I never got out of that Lionel train...
Are you still whining
about those fucking trains?
- I'll buy you a set for Christmas.
- I'll hold my breath.
You can carry a grudge
for 30 years.
That's the Sicilian genes.
Now, I'm pretty sure
that the bar is over there.
It's in the restaurant, of course.
Let's have a drink.
After I shower.
- Honest work makes honest sweat.
- You're a bad influence.
Now, I know this
is gonna sound gross...
Now, I know this
is gonna sound gross...
...but you've gotta accept
the cab fare.
I hear they're very expensive
in the suburbs.
So I figured 150 ought to cover it.
That sounds right for the meter,
but we have to tip the driver too.
Jesus. We can't have
some hard-working refugee...
...from Bangladesh going tipless.
Well...
...will 200 cover it?
We don't live near each other.
Separate cabs, of course.
That was understood from the get go.
- Vito, Margo and Denise.
- How you doing?
It was, "I was champion
baton twirler of 19..."
I always thought that baton twirling
ought to be an Olympic event.
What do you think, Vito?
No, I think the Chinese
would dominate in no time.
Not against your all-American girl
they wouldn't.
- Well, I could be wrong.
- So the game is on?
Yeah, I just have to get rid
of a previous appointment.
Why don't you order us
another round?
Yeah, sure.
- Why don't you do that, Pop?
- Jessie.
What are you doing sitting here
talking to a couple of hookers?
It's a vulgar way to refer to a woman.
I never brought you up to talk like that.
Are you gonna tell me
those are not hookers?
- Well, who are we to judge?
- All right.
I don't wanna put
a crimp in your style...
...but it's been 10 years
since I had to go home and lie...
...so I'm gonna pass. All right?
- Vito.
Can't you ever
just have a good time?
Yeah.
I mean, doesn't this beat
cutting up cows on 14th Street?
Well, you know, we'll see.
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, fucking 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 fucking 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 fucking 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 asshole sometimes.
You really are a fucking asshole.
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.
Relax. He's got one,
we'll have three.
- Two. He doesn't carry a gun.
- I don't wanna anybody carrying a gun.
What you think, they'll mail us the
what do you call them? The plasmids?
- Lf you don't wanna do this, say so.
- Vito, you're doing what you always do...
...you're treating him like a kid.
Adam should go in there packing.
He's never done it, Jessie.
He does not carry.
- We vote!
- We don't vote. He doesn't carry!
If Adam carries, I walk.
Close the lid.
- Wait. Didn't you bring any gloves?
- No.
Put that on.
Come on, come on, come on!
Say when.
- All right?
- Okay.
Go ahead.
Sit tight. I'll check out the guard.
Pull this. I can't see.
This is why I hated
putting on your snowsuit.
I was on much tougher scores
than this at your age.
All I saw out of them was a ham
sandwich. You're starting at the top.
Yeah, that's America.
Every generation does a little bit better.
- What if he's out making rounds?
- He's snoozing somewhere.
The work ethic in America
is dead and buried.
- Let's do it.
- Here.
Freeze!
Where the hell is he?
He could be off taking a leak
or making rounds.
Then we sit tight and wait for him.
- Did you close the hall doors?
- I think so.
No. You can't think so.
You're sure you did or you're sure
you didn't or you don't know.
I don't know.
If the guard sees an open door,
it's all over.
I'll take this corridor.
You take that one.
Adam, stay here in case
he's on his way back with a six-pack.
Wait. What does he do
if the guard walks in?
So let him take a piece.
No.
- You got a say in this too, you know.
- No, he doesn't.
- Move and I'll kill you.
- Come here.
Put your hands together.
I'm marking your outline on the floor
with a piece of chalk.
Now, when we get back,
any part of you outside that line...
...gets shot away. You follow?
- I hope he knows where he's going.
- It's his show.
Did we bust into the wrong place,
for chrissakes?
- He knows what he's doing.
- Yeah.
This is it.
We're taking too long.
This is odd.
What?
I'd like to get the hell out of here.
Pop?
That's the whole show?
Unless you wanna tell us
the Peewee Grogan story again.
Go! Go!
What about the guard?
The longer he thinks we're here,
the better.
No, Jessie, wait. Wait.
Go.
What?
Do either of you have the logbook?
- No.
- Shit!
We got the tubes.
- They're also paying for the logbook.
- I'll go back.
There's a stack of logbooks
in that desk.
Easy, you just tell me which one.
I'm the gifted Westinghouse Scholar.
I'll get it.
- No, no, Adam, wait a minute. Adam!
- Hey!
- Let's get these in the car.
- I'll wait here.
We gotta be ready to roll
when he gets out. Now come on.
You okay?
Okay, we'll be out in
about a half an hour.
Oh, God!
God!
You can't do anything out there. Just
be ready to gun this fucking thing...
...if the kid makes it.
- Lf?
Freeze!
Who's with you?
There's two of them.
They're still in the building.
Move out, Vito.
No lights.
Glide.
Stop.
Let's go, Vito. Drive.
Vito?
Yeah.
What time is it?
About... About 3:00.
- How'd you do?
- I lost about 60 bucks.
I tried getting Adam earlier.
Oh, yeah? What for?
I was thinking...
...the other day at dinner I came
down on him a little too hard.
I want to tell him that.
I'll try getting him again tomorrow.
He... He didn't tell you?
He went up to Cambridge
for a few days.
He wanted to see
some college friends.
It's a glimmer of hope.
Yeah, yeah.
I know you don't wanna hear this,
but Adam leaving school isn't that bad.
He's still growing up.
And you know what?
He'll outgrow Jessie too.
He'll see through him.
He's your son, Vito.
You'll see.
Am I wrong?
No...
...I'm sure you're right.
You're depressed.
You lost more than 60 bucks.
Yeah.
Look, I got a boy just about your age.
What are you 20, 21?
My name is Adam McQuade.
I'm homeless.
I'm waiting for my lawyer to get here.
Your buddies left you there.
My name is Adam McQuade.
When you been up in Attica 10 years,
surrounded by psychotics...
...you're gonna wish you'd taken
a little fatherly advice.
Hey, you're nervous. I'll drive.
Well, it's going to be expensive.
We're not rich people.
Your attorney should've recommended
a cheaper lawyer.
- No one's crying poverty here.
- All I'm saying is, this is family money.
Money I managed to squirrel away
after 50 years hard work.
You saw Adam. Can we drop the
subject of money and hear how he is?
No, we can't. I bill for time.
Mine, the lawyers on my staff,
a couple of paralegals.
My office time is 150 an hour.
My court time, and no one but me
will ever be in a courtroom...
...is $ 1500 per day.
- Fifteen hundred?!
That's where my talent runs rampant,
and I charge accordingly.
Would you sit down, please?
Depending on if we strike a deal or go
to trial, it may be as low as $20,000...
...and it could run nicely to 75,
exclusive of appeals.
If the trial looks hopeless,
we'll be waiting for a guilty verdict...
...and orchestrating everything
toward an appeal, a real possibility.
- A guilty verdict is a real possibility?
- That's why there's no bail.
Running at the scene. He also refuses
to divulge the name of his partners.
The judge won't be lenient.
I must say, for a middle-class boy, your
son's values seem a bit misdirected.
My grandson's not middle class
and never has been.
The D.A.'s anxious to strike a deal.
That's a positive.
The company isn't screaming
for blood, which is unusual.
Why aren't they?
They don't want to put Adam
on the cross.
The bottom line is if Adam will deliver
his partners and the plasmids...
...they're talking minimum jail time,
maybe six months.
Mind you, that's for openers. They'll go
for zero jail time at the drop of a hat.
- I see.
- They wanna make a rat out of him.
Hey, mister, he's your grandson.
- I was talking to him.
- I can hear it.
Please. What if Adam holds out,
gives no one up...
...won't say where the plasmids are?
- They'll crucify him.
You can't stand in front of a judge in
the United States and say, "Fuck you."
They won't tolerate it.
What does crucify mean?
When they finish adding burglary-one
charges, assaulting the guards...
...you're looking at two
...which the judge can do.
I would appeal it since both charges
stem from the same crime...
...but I wouldn't hold my breath
until it's overturned.
If your son, and your grandson,
Mr. McMullen...
...behaves perfectly, tutors his fellow
cons with remedial-reading problems...
...he could be out in 15 years,
a bit shy of his 40th birthday.
We need a few minutes.
Come on.
Fifteen years! Did you hear
what she said?
We take the logbook and the
plasmids, and we turn ourselves in.
- We take this step by step.
- Fuck that! I've been through that.
That means Jessie McMullen first!
That's my kid in there, man.
Adam can manage 48 hours
in a suburban jail.
Adam will not spend one more
fucking hour in any fucking jail!
- Didn't you hear her? Did you hear?
- Keep your voice down.
You are not listening to me.
Listen to me!
You don't fucking listen to what I say!
- That's you... Hey.
- What?
- Adam's my grandson.
- Yeah.
- Would I hurt him?
- I don't know. Would you, Jessie?
- I'll tell you what.
- What?
- Hold still.
- I cut myself shaving.
You go visit him, and I'll settle up
with this fucking shyster.
No, no. I'll settle
with the fucking shyster.
I'll settle with that fucking...
Don't you worry.
Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me.
Did you see a white Caddy here?
A white Fleetwood?
Yeah, some old guy just drove it out.
Where do you get a taxi around here?
- Not around here.
- I need a fucking taxi.
Get me a fucking taxi. Taxi!
- How you doing?
- I'm okay.
- Are you sure?
- Yeah.
If things don't improve, Adam...
...your father will want us
to turn ourselves in with the stuff.
That's bullshit.
It means you walk.
Yeah, the lawyer gave me
that 15 years in prison spiel too.
She's just pumping her fee up.
I won't do more than a year, tops.
I can do that. You did it. Dad did it.
He doesn't have the confidence
in me to do it.
Don't kid yourself it's gonna be easy.
Somebody once told me it builds
character, like a hitch in the Army.
You still have the plasmids?
Yeah, on ice.
- And the logbook?
- Yeah.
Well, then Jimmy Chiu will still pay
us the million bucks.
We spend $ 100,000 on my defense...
...and we still get to keep
$300,000 a piece.
You're a McMullen.
Adam McMullen.
- You his lawyer?
- I'm his father.
One visitor a day.
He's already had one.
Who?
Jessie McMullen.
Jessie, if you're in there,
open the fucking door!
Is he here?
- Is he here? Don't lie to me.
- You're gonna foot the bill for that chain.
Is he here?
You're an emotional bunch,
you McMullens.
I didn't mean to do that.
You could have asked to come in.
What the hell is wrong
with your family?
What's wrong with my family
is my lunatic father.
Here.
You don't seem surprised to see me.
- Well, I try to take life as it comes.
- Yeah?
What are you supposed to tell me?
He tell you I might show up?
Yeah.
He tell you what for?
- He tell you?
- He said you had a falling out.
A falling out? That fuck calls
this a "falling out"?
I take it he understated the case.
What are you supposed to tell me?
- That he's out of town, which he is.
- Yeah? Yeah.
And that what you're looking for
isn't here, which it isn't.
And it's not at his place.
He said you'd be smart enough
to know that without asking.
- What the hell are you looking for?
- Don't worry about it.
What do you mean?
Do you think it would be
like your father to tell me?
Jessie and me and Adam
did a fancy burglary.
We got goods worth a ton of money,
and Adam got dropped coming out.
My son, Jessie's grandson, is
now sitting up in Nassau County...
...Iooking at 15 years behind...
Behind bars. 15 years in a cage.
If the goods are returned...
...and me and Jessie...
...turn ourselves in, Adam walks.
But while my back was turned...
...Jessie made off with the goods.
I don't believe you.
You know, I've been around thieves.
That's how I came upon your father.
I married one of the better
counterfeiters on the East Coast.
I know the score, okay?
I'm a knockaround girl.
You and Jessie wanna rob, go ahead,
but how could you take Adam along?
I went along to...
To look out for him.
Bullshit.
You enjoyed every minute of it.
All you guys do.
Why not turn yourself in?
Without the goods, it's useless.
Jesus, thank you.
Why don't you just tell Jessie that I,
you know, smacked you around, okay?
I'll tell him to go cut his fucking wrists.
Get that kid out of jail.
I'll take care of myself.
I'm trying.
- I'll get it.
- Hello.
Just a moment.
It's for you. It's a woman.
- Hello.
- You start playing straight with me...
...or your son's gonna rot in jail.
- What?
- Water.
You gave me eight vials of tap water.
What are you saying?
I said, you gave me
eight vials of tap water!
What's wrong? Who was that?
It's...
It's about Adam.
- Oh, God.
- No, no, he's not hurt.
He's...
He's been arrested.
A burglary...
Upstate. It's...
- A burglary?
- Well, it's pretty serious.
How did Adam get...?
What is Adam doing involved
in a burglary, Vito?
How did he...?
Jessie was involved in it.
Jessie.
I'm gonna kill him.
I wanna kill that son of a bitch.
I was part of it too.
I went along to look out for Adam.
But he would have gone anyway...
...so I went along to look out
for him. See?
- What are you telling me?
- It was the three of us.
The three of us, me and Jessie
and Adam. And Adam got caught.
- Well, where's Jessie now?
- I don't know.
You turn him in.
Yeah. What?
And yourself too.
And you explain to the judge
how a boy like Adam couldn't resist...
...following his father
and his grandfather into this madness.
You get my son out of jail, Vito...
...or I'll turn you and your stinking
father over to the police.
Where you going? Where you going?
- I want the plasmids.
- What?
You switched the plasmids.
What you got in there?
- You gave me fucking water!
- None of your fucking business.
What do you got in there?
Give me it! Open the fucking box!
Open the box! Give it to me!
Don't make me do something.
Don't you understand?
I don't have the fucking plasmids!
Welcome home, Vito. Here!
I know you fucking switched them.
You didn't get as far from
Hell's Kitchen as you thought.
All right, where are they?
- I'm telling you the truth.
- You never told me the truth.
Well, I am now.
You spout about family and Ioyalty,
and it's all crap.
Stop whining about your childhood.
You sound like every asshole
on the television talk show.
You're 43 years old,
for chrissakes! Here!
He was fine till you got ahold of him.
- Fine?
- And I would have been fine too.
Fine. That poor kid doesn't know
his ass from a hole in the ground.
It's no wonder, the kind
of fucking father you've been.
- The kind of father I've been?
- Yes.
The kind of father I've been?!
What is this, some kind of fucking joke?
You're all ass-backwards
with that kid...
...tiptoeing around, hoping he's gonna
pat you on the head.
That's right. The kid that I steered
into being a Westinghouse Scholar.
You spend your life talking
"Westinghouse Scholar."
- Well, what's the matter with that?
- It's all bullshit.
And Adam knows it better
than any of us.
Now why do you think he set
this whole thing up?
Because he can smell the real Vito!
That's why.
- Smell what?
- This Vito.
This Vito. That's the real Vito.
That's the one he wants respect from.
Do you understand?
No one at home.
You're a fucking lost cause.
And look at the mess you've made.
I'm gonna give you up.
Did you hear what I said?
- I'm gonna give you up.
- Up yours, you fucking guinea midget.
Water!
What the hell?!
I'm Adam McMullen's granddad.
So the company's put you
back on the payroll.
At first, I couldn't figure
why they weren't screaming louder.
I'm gonna call security.
I've got the logbook and the tubes
of water. You want we go public?
Then it was water we took
out of your lab.
Tell me, what was it?
An insurance scam?
No? Well, you got one big piece
of luck in all this.
What's that?
That I can be bought.
Why don't you tell me the story,
Wong?
- The name's Jimmy.
- Jimmy.
It's not about insurance.
No?
We've been promising
this new discovery for a year.
We dug a hole for ourselves.
Goddamned thing always looked
a week away.
Never worked.
It's a tough game, science, isn't it?
We've just gone public,
an $80 million offering.
The financial community has valued
this company based on this discovery...
...and your burglary buys us
six more months development time.
So long as the logbook and
the plasmids are never ever recovered.
That's what you had in mind
in the first place, wasn't it?
Police. Freeze.
Keep your hands
over your head.
Cut that crap out.
Hi, Charlie. It's been a long time.
Where's the beef here?
- Hey, where are you going?
- It's all legal.
What's he got there?
Vito. He ratted you out, Jessie.
I didn't think he'd do it.
Does the State have anything to add
to the report?
- No, Your Honor.
- Counselor?
No, sir.
Would the young Mr. McMullen like
to say something on his own behalf?
No, Your Honor, I would like to say
something on my grandfather's behalf.
Go ahead.
My grandfather has always tried
to take care of me.
I know that he didn't cooperate
with the police here...
...but that's because I didn't
want him to.
He's always respected my wishes.
He's always respected who I am.
And whatever's written
in those reports can't show it.
My grandpa loves me.
He always has.
And I love him.
This whole thing, Your Honor,
it wasn't his idea.
It was mine.
Duly noted. Counselor.
I've known Jessie McMullen
for 35 years and...
In how many of the arrests in McMullen's
career have you represented him?
More than a few, Your Honor.
Jessie McMullen
is a man in his 60s.
Any sentence, other than a token...
...would really be a life sentence,
Your Honor.
To give him five or 10 years in prison
is not a five- Or a 10-year sentence...
...it's a sentence of life imprisonment.
Vito McMullen.
Had you not finally showed
some decency...
...by turning in your father,
I would have put you away for five years.
You're a sorry excuse for a parent.
Three years of supervised probation.
Adam McMullen.
The company's intervention
would count for little with me...
...it does seem, however,
to count with the prosecution...
...and I am going to go along reluctantly
with the plea bargain arrangement.
Being guilty of a Class A misdemeanor,
you are sentenced to 5 years probation.
These background reports convinced me
there were mitigating circumstances.
Jessie McMullen.
I have devoted most of my thinking...
...to how the court should treat
Jessie McMullen.
If there is a culprit in this case,
you certainly fit the bill.
You've never seen fit to produce
the stolen plasmids or the logbook.
You've also held up
the development...
...of an important new scientific
discovery from six months to a year.
But as your lawyer points out,
you're not young.
It's not an easy matter to decide on
a sentence for someone of your years.
I've had to think this out carefully.
For armed robbery, 15 years.
For burglary in the first degree,
Sentences to run concurrently.
Grandpa.
Hey...
...if you can't do the time,
don't do the crime.
Jessie.
Ray.
Hey, you baldheaded prick.
Don't you ever get caught
on the take...
...because if you end up in any joint
I'm in, you'll leave feet first.
You come by every month or so,
you hear?
When do they ship you out?
Today or tomorrow.
- I'll come every two weeks.
- Every month is fine.
- Gonna be tough?
- For me? No.
You pick out a tough guy, kick his ass
right away, give him a real good beating.
Word gets around,
and it makes your time easier.
- They don't put you in solitary?
- No, nobody wants trouble.
So you do it out of sight, no one
asks questions, the story is, "He fell."
I'll see you in a month.
I hear your kid fucked you over.
Tough way to start your time, Pop.
Now, why would he give a shit
whether I start my time tough or easy?
Hey, no big deal, Pop.
I mean, we all got some long bits to do.
And, you know, a little chitchat,
and time's half over before you know it.
That's the second time
you've called me "Pop."
I got around a lot when I was young,
but I doubt if I'm your father.
But who knows though?
You carry a picture of your mother?
Maybe I'll remember her.
I fucked half the whores
on the East Coast.
You fucking...
What happened?
He fell.
You know, Mom and Dad ask about you
all the time. You ought to call them.
I guess you visit
your grandfather a lot.
Yeah, every three or four weeks.
He's not doing so well.
I wouldn't worry about Jessie, Adam.
He's a real survivor.
You know, Adam, it's been six months.
Your father loves you, Adam.
Mom, I told you I don't want to
hear about him.
I mean this. The next time
you bring up his name...
...will be the last time
that you ever hear from me.
- I'll call you next week.
- Okay, sweetheart.
Adam.
Listen, God forbid one of us should get
hit by a truck tomorrow, you know?
Let's not let it happen
while we're still mad at each other.
You turned out to be...
...a piece of garbage.
Adam, Adam. So, what is your gripe?
What the fuck is your gripe?
- Gripe?
- Yeah.
- You turned in your father.
- I turned in my...
- He's your father!
- I turned myself in too.
- I turned us both in for you.
- Stop it!
- For you.
- Stop doing things for me!
What did I do that was so terrible?
I tried to give you a better
childhood than I had.
No, don't give me
the terrible childhood crap.
You had a lot more fun
as a kid than I ever did.
Jessie was fun, for chrissake.
He showed a lot more confidence in you
as a kid than you ever did in me.
He showed more respect for you
as a person...
...than you ever did for me.
- Come on.
- Get off.
You still got a grip of steel, huh?
You tell me I'm looking good,
I'll pop you on the nose.
- I screwed him okay.
- Who, Jessie?
I'm not even gonna do a year,
that baldheaded prick.
How are you doing?
I'm keeping out of trouble.
Sounds as bad as doing time.
You're a prince.
I'm sorry about the way
things turned out, Jessie.
You play the cards you're dealt.
I was damn lucky.
They could have put me away
for 10 years.
- Who got my charges reduced?
- The charges? Me.
I managed to squeeze a few lousy bucks
out of your Chinaman friend too.
I spent it, Adam, every nickel.
I thought about splitting it
with you, Adam. I really did.
Then I thought...
...if I'm gonna do the time,
I have a little vigorish coming to me.
So I figured the best thing...
...was just not to mention it.
- Even Vito couldn't argue with that.
- Vito.
Vito, a lost cause.
From the beginning, a lost cause.
You're your own man now, huh?
Well, I'm out from under Vito.
Good.
You think you can get out
from under me?
No, Mom, I don't wanna talk to him.
No, just tell him that...
That Jessie is dying.
They're moving him from the infirmary
into the prison hospital.
Yeah, just tell him.
Okay, bye.
I'm looking... Hi, I'm looking
for Jessie McMullen.
They just wheeled him out of here.
- Which way?
- Won't do you no good.
Which way?!
Go back the way you came,
take the elevator to the basement.
Basement? To the basement.
Hey! Wait!
Is that Jessie McMullen?
Hey!
Please! Wait a minute,
don't shut the door.
- Hi, Ma.
- Hello.
- So?
- So it's so big I can't find anything.
- Hi, Papa. Hi.
- Hi, Rose.
Thank you.
- My first time in your new house.
- I'm sorry about your father, Vito.
I know. Hey, who have we got here?
Hiya, Nat.
It's all right, don't get up.
After 25 years, the shaygets
knows two Jewish words.
Well, you know.
Here, let me help you.
Time to let the angel in.
The angel won't have to squeeze
in under the chain.
I knew that was coming.
Your material is getting stale.
- Look who's here.
- Grandma.
I've been outside a half an hour waiting
for you to open the door for Elijah.
Anyway, they were thrilled that you
stopped by to see them.
Yeah, well, no reason to take
our problems out on them, huh?
Wait a minute, you gonna wait
for your mother to come down?
She'll be saying goodbye
for 20 minutes.
Plus, we'll just get in the same
old argument again.
What's the same old argument?
That everything you did,
you did for me.
If you hated the meat business
so much for 20 years...
...then I'm sorry, but stop blaming me.
You did it to yourself.
What's the most fun you've had
since you were a kid?
- What's the most fun I've had?
- Yeah, since you were a kid.
What?
The caper.
- The caper? The caper.
- Yeah.
Me too.
Oh, boy.
We are some family.
You know, the only time the three of us
ever had a drink together...
...was when we were
planning that robbery.
We are some family.
I brought back his ashes, Pop.
I thought that maybe the two of us...
...ought to bury him together.
- Thank you.
Thank you.
You have any idea
what we ought to do with him?
Yes, I do.
So, what are you gonna do now, Adam?
What do you want to do with your life?
- That's the first time you ever asked that.
- First time?
All right, I'll ask you a second time.
What do you wanna do with your life?
Well, now that you ask me...
...I don't know.
We lived in this building
when my mother died.
Right on that corner there,
Jessie pushed me into my first fight.
It's his neighborhood, okay.
Okay, now lift.
You've got to be kidding.
- Where do you want this keg?
- All the way up.
This is an open-air service.
Here we go.
I thought I told you guys
to get light beer.
If I'd have known this was a roof job,
I would have went for wristwatches.
I know! I know the Church
approves of cremation.
But it also approves of playing
the guitar at the Mass these days.
Vito, over the side with him.
Folks, hold it down, Jessie's going.
Quiet.
- Goodbye, Jessie.
- See you on the other side, Jessie.
So long, Jessie!
Goodbye!
I'm sorry, Adam.
For what?
I'm just sorry.
Well, me too.
I'm sorry too.
You know the words to this song?
I think I heard it once before.