The Kings Of Cool

215

Thing is, Dennis isn’t so interested in justice.

More in promotion.

It’s like a TV game show.

You work your way up the pyramid to the big prize.

He explains this concept to Crowe, but starts off in biblical terms:

“I am the way, the truth, and the life,” he says to Crowe, who sits on the other side of the metal table. “No one comes to the Father-in this case Uncle Sam-except through me.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“In my Father’s house are many rooms,” Dennis says, “and you can occupy one of them for many, many years, or-”

“What?”

“Let me put this in profane terms,” Dennis says. “You are totally, completely, utterly fucked. You are more fucked than two teenage virgins on their wedding night. You are more fucked than the volunteer subject at a Viagra test. You are more fucked than-”

“Okay, okay.”

“Duane,” Dennis says. “This is a win-win for me. I can get out of the game now and win, or I can stay in the game and win. If I get out of the game now, you lose big, but if you can persuade me to stay in the game a little longer, you might lose less. Are you following along here?”

“No.”

Now Dennis gets into the pyramid bit.

“It’s a pyramid,” Dennis says. “In my game, we try to go to the top of the pyramid. Right now, I have you somewhere about middle-high pyramid. Now, we can stop there, collect our money, and you go to federal prison for the next thirty or forty years, or you can give me the people at the top of the pyramid and then we have a new game, i.e., Let’s Make a Deal.”

“They’ll kill me,” Duane says.

“We can work on that,” Dennis says, “depending on what you can give me. We can talk sending you to a very safe facility, we can talk about the Witness Protection Program-note the key word ‘witness,’ Duane-we might even be able to talk about you walking away from all of this, but first I need names, and I need to hear you say you’re willing to wear a wire.”

“I want a lawyer,” Duane says.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Dennis says, “for your sake. Think about it. You call that lawyer you’re thinking about, the first thing he does when he leaves here is he goes to the guys at the top of the pyramid and tells them that you’ve been busted. Then your options are severely limited because those guys aren’t going to talk to you anymore, and I can’t reward you for conversations you can’t have. But you have the right to an attorney, and by all means you can-”

“I’ll hold off a little bit,” Duane says.

“To think, ” Dennis says. “Exactly. So while you’re thinking, think about this-”