“Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut.” – Jimmy Conway
Criminal networks benefit from honest men because their nefarious deeds are given a veneer of legitimacy. A cheerful, trustworthy face attracts the crowds and makes the product pitch easier, whether it is stolen goods or a long con. The smiling face of the slick salesman runs the restaurant out front, while the killing, thieving, and larceny take place out the back and out of sight. Come on in and see the wares, we’ve got precisely what you’re looking for.
The incentives don’t hurt either. Nice car, nice family, status, connections, and prestige. There may be a pang of doubt here and there, but how bad can it actually be? And anyway, it isn’t as if the naysayers are morally beyond reproach. They don’t get it; they have little understanding of how the real movers and shakers operate, the adults.
Yet, there was that business of the guy who disappeared last year. And how come that building was burned down at such a convenient moment? Probably an explanation for it.
The wider network seems unperturbed by the external critics, perhaps irritated, but not fearful. This is reassuring to the Face because it exudes confidence and self-assurance. The time has come to inject a little balance, to be the mediator, the rational guy conscious of both sides, but not betraying his principles and fundamental belief in the network. Let us crack open the shutters and invite a little sunshine in, which will put everyone at ease.
He can thus remain loyal and entertain the critics who are screaming at him night and day, claiming he’s a front for a criminal empire. He’ll ask some questions in public. It’s all above board.
A good man in a terrible situation, unaware that he isn’t supposed to ask questions or let the sunlight in, but act as a bulwark. His honesty means he can’t be blackmailed; there are no compromising photos or real estate swindles. Unlike so many, he has no blood on his hands.
They arrive to offer a quiet word. They tell him it’s complicated, that he doesn’t have to concern himself with what’s been happening behind the wider scenes, because he’s doing such a good job selling the product. Yet, the honest actor no longer really knows what the product is that he’s selling or how the wider public benefits from it.
His popularity and likability, once so lucrative for the network, now make him more of a threat than an external enemy because he’s within the walls. He won’t shut up, he doesn’t see sense, and flirting with actual enemies in this way threatens to unleash a cascade effect of internal affairs being picked over and the leadership being implicated.
He has to be dealt with. But who will take the fall? Why, all of those screeching, holier-than-thou lunatics who everyone knows are our true foes. The fact that the Feds can have casus belli to tear apart the networks they have lined up against us is the meatball on the pasta sauce.
The call is made…
When you start to JFK you get JFK’d
Cryptic, if not for the insight given us by the past 24hrs of happenings.
Plausible event sequence, but is it realistic? Who knows, and we might never know for sure. But absolutely worth considering as a possible flow of events.