Enjoy chapter 8. To Neozeon, while this story does have the same name as the movie Small Time Crooks, it's not meant to have anything whatsoever to do with it. I wasn't even thinking of the movie at all when I put 'Ray' into the story... Just so you know that. If anyone wants to contact me (Even just to tell me I suck, I don't mind), contact me on aol instant messenger at dizzydave560. Once again.. enjoy, and sorry for the long time it took me to update, I'll try to be more prompt after this. And to lordmasterkris, I'm currently in the midst of reading your story "Making it the Hard Way", I'm about 6 chapters through it. I'll leave a review when I'm done with the rest (I'm going kinda slow, something always seems to interrupt me when I start reading)

"Why are we sitting here again? We came here for a car, why don't we go get one? I like the blue Cadillac in the corner over there." Ray said as he sat in the back seat of Richie and Catalina's tan colored, beat up Honda. Richie was planted behind the steering wheel, leaning forward and peering into the dark parking lot in front of them.

"We gotta wait, take our time, look around." Richie said, avoiding eye contact with anyone.

Catalina, resting her right elbow against the passenger side door, began to chuckle at Richie's statement. An impatient Ray looked over at her.

"Somethin funny?"

Catalina turned around to look Ray in the face, "He's making excuses. He wants to wait for the owner of the car to come out because this fuck up doesn't know how to hot wire."

Ray looked over at Richie, squinting as the glare from a streetlight entered his vision, "Man I met you when you were boosting a set of wheels. You tellin me you, a guy who was arrested for grand theft auto, doesn't know how to hot wire a car?"

Richie began to mumble a response, trying to form an excuse, but Catalina cut him off. "He told me the story of when he met you, the fucking keys were already in the car."

Ray sank back against the ruined interior of the Honda, feeling the torn surface of the pleather interior against his brown suit. A low laugh emanated from his throat. "You gotta be kidding me, the badass, ruthless criminal associating with corrupt cops can only steal cars that have the keys in them? Jesus christ, I thought I was dealing with a professional."

Richie slammed his fist down onto the steering wheel and quickly turned around to face the dark back seat. The streetlight up ahead shone brightly around the outline of his face, forming a sort of eclipse. "Shut the fuck up man, what we're gonna do is sit here, wait for the owner of that Caddy to waltz out of that door, throw him in the back, and drive off. I don't wanna sit here telling fucking jokes the whole time. Pay attention."

Ray was amazed at Richie's sudden burst of anger, especially since Richie was the kind of guy who was always telling jokes and trying to get people mad. Ray chalked it up to nervousness, something that happened to most people of the criminal profession during the early stages of a job that would lead to a big payoff. He didn't blame Richie for being nervous, the job didn't sound like such a sure thing.

"Let's go over this thing while we're waiting for this guy, who I might add might not come out all night." Ray said as he drew a Lucky Strike from a pack of cigarettes laying on the seat next to him.

"Alright, I'll give you an overview. It's pretty simple, we hook up with this big shot guy, name's Mo Casino-" Richie began, turning his gaze back to the windshield once more.

"Wait, what? Mo Casino?"

"That's his fuckin name Ray."

Ray leaned forward, past a bored looking Catalina who was staring out the right side window, at the surrounding cheap motels and run down gas stations. "That his real name?"

"That's what everyone calls him and he answers to it, and I really don't care one way or another. His first name's Mo, last name's Casino, that's all that's important."

"If you say so."

"Anyway, we hook up with Mo, act like we're some aspiring criminals looking for work, he'll think we're a group of space cadets who think they can do anything so he'll most likely give us work, just to try us out. Get him to let us do a job or two, whatever we can do to get in close. Now this guy has his fingers in a lotta pies all over the city, hotels, nightclubs, drugs, weapons, you name it he's into it. All we gotta do is get him to trust us enough to negotiate a deal for him. He gives us the cash, we take it and scram. He operates most things from his nightclub on the edge of the city, real swanky place called The Starlight. I think it costs about a hunnerd bucks to get in there but I'm not sure, we can find him there."

"You think someone as big as him is going to trust three street punks who walked up to him one day asking for jobs? If this guy's at big as you say, he ain't stupid." Ray said, unconvinced.

"Think long term Ray, it might take some time, but trust me on this one. With our muscle and your, eh, people skills, it won't be as hard as it sounds. The only problem we might be facing is this guy who hangs around Casino all the time. He's a hired gun, does whatever he's told. Basically..." Richie's voice trailed off for a minute as he tried to formulate his own speech inside his head, "Basically this guy's a lapdog. If he gets wise then we're in big fucking trouble because he ain't gonna let no one fuck with his boss."

"How much we gonna score?" Cloud of smoke swam around in front of Ray's face, filling the car with the repugnant stench of tobacco and prompting Catalina to roll down her window.

"I don't know yet. I'm hopin a couple mil, but I don't know. We'll play it by ear, cross that bridge when we come to it. What you gotta learn my friend, is to live in the moment. Concentrate on the here and the now, you can't spend all your time thinkin about what's gonna happen down the line, thinkin like that will make it hard to enjoy the money we score. Now let's sit back and watch that drunk that just got thrown out of the bar stumble around in a daze. I got twenty bucks sayin' he don't get up for awhile, and if he does he don't stay up for long." Richie settled back in his seat and looked on as an average height, brown haired man was forcefully shoved out of the front door of the establishment, landing flat on his back and staying there for awhile.

After laying there on the wet pavement for a few minutes, the drunk slowly and unsteadily rose to his feet, bracing himself with his arms on the ground. The guy began slowly trudging through the parking lot with a drunken swagger, his right leg almost crumpling under him several times. Catalina leaned forward and peered through the windshield as the stumbling figure wandered aimlessly through the crowd of cars. The back of the guy's tan sport coat was speckled with pieces of chipped off parking lot clinging to the wet material, most likely ruining it. Every once in awhile the guy would began looking at a car, and then decide it wasn't his and continued wandering around. He was actually walking in circles through the lot, passing the blue Cadillac three times. Ray wondered if it belonged to him, but didn't think so since most people who spend their time getting drunk in the dives that are the nightclubs of Liberty City usually don't do anything that can get them the kind of money needed to own a car like that.

"This has got to be a joke," Richie suddenly said, breaking the silence created by the spectators of the pitiful scene. He was laughing as he opened the door on his side and began to step out, "That's the guy!"

Ray didn't comprehend at first, looking at Richie who had started to walk over to the drunken man. He then looked over at Catalina who was also stepping out of the car. Ray followed suit and began to exit the vehicle, looking at the drunk who now had his hand in his coat pocket. Ray realized the guy was staring at the blue Cadillac, shit, he was the fucking owner. Ray brightened up immediately, trotting ahead of Richie and Catalina and already pulling his old Browning out of his inside pocket. As he approached the unaware drunk, he circled around so he was standing directly behind him. Ray took two steps forward, held his pistol above his head, and brought it down with a massive force just as the drunk was about to take a step.

It was like hitting a rotten pumpkin as the useless man crumpled to the ground in a heap, hitting his head on the pavement with a dull but sickening thud. Immediately Richie and Catalina were standing beside Ray, looking down at the dazed drunk, who was absently staring back up at them.

"What do we do with him?" Richie inquired, not taking his eyes away from the staring eyes of the drunk.

"Take him somewhere, put two in the back of his head and dump him, it's pretty simple." Catalina said, already beginning to pick the drunk up by the arms.

Richie grabbed him by his feet and the two lifted him up into the air while Ray picked up the fallen car keys and unlocked the back seat door. Within seconds everyone was inside the car, Catalina took her place behind the wheel, Richie sat down in the passenger side seat, and Ray sat in the back with the drunk, who was now starting to bleed from the pistol whipping he received from Ray. The powerful car roared to life as Catalina turned the key, the headlights lit up and illuminated the nearby area. She threw the car in reverse, backing out of the parking space they were in and then putting it back in drive. She eased her foot down on the gas and headed for the street.

Ray was looking down at the drunk, who was still staring up at him. An eery grin formed on his sweating face, revealing two rows of teeth that were splattered with blood. Ray decided he must have been beaten by someone else besides him, because after a closer look, it was obvious that his nose was a little crooked and both of his eyes were very swollen. There was dried blood on his desk and on the front of his tan coat, and a greenish blue bruise adorned his right cheek. Ray shook his head and turned to look out the front of the car. That was when he heard a loud groan come from within the drunk's throat. Ray looked over to him and was met with the sight of a silver Colt .45 aimed at the side of the car. The drunk looked like he was trying to steady the weapon but couldn't concentrate enough through his intoxication to do it. Ray swiftly balled up his large, fat fist and brought it down as hard as he could on the drunk's face, crushing his nose even more and causing the drunk to lose hold of his weapon. The drunk stared up at the ceiling for a few seconds before his eyelids slowly closed and unconsciousness took over.