I moved to this neighborhood in Brooklyn from the Lower East Side three years ago, when I first started at Janus. I wanted to be responsible; I wanted to get a cheaper place, save money, build for the future. And at first it was great. The place was bigger, cleaner, brighter, but, I realized quickly, it is also much quieter. I started missing the cacophony of my old street. When you’re a pulse with so few friends, and so much of your time is spent in absolute silence, you long for the noises of other people. Consequently I find myself hanging out in my old neighborhood all the time—I’m always at the Snug Bar—and whatever money I save in mortgage payments I lose in taking late-night cabs back to Brooklyn when I finally, reluctantly, hang-doggedly go home.

28

A plausible theory is jealousy: all those other guys had the guts. They have made their clean getaway with the woman they love.

29

Frankie Nickels is still paralyzed from the neck down, and still serving time. Kong, once the finest tech support in the business, is now employed by the Geek Squad. In the interview he says if he still had his hands he’d strangle everyone who comes to the counter. “If one more person makes me say the word ‘reboot’ I’m going to go absolutely batshit,” he says. “I swear to God.”

30

Recently, in Seattle, a pulse was found dead and scalped, “clearly the work of Jimmy the Hat, hitherto known to work only on the East Coast.” The killing is notable not only because of its longitude but because this time the typically missing scalp isn’t missing. The medical examiner discovered it in the pulse’s stomach, masticated and partially digested: before executing him, Jimmy had made his victim eat his own hat. The value of the MacGuffin? A measly three hundred thousand dollars.

31

Tithers: talent who steal works with no intention of selling or fencing them. They merely cash in on the 10 percent reward offered by insurance companies for returns. This has become a popular strategy lately because it’s so tough to prosecute.

32

Nifty.

33

Think Cary Grant times ten.

34

I hate to say it, but Quackenbush is right. Recently a Klimt, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, sold for $126 million—a tempting target for any talent looking for a one-stop haul.

35