Psychics and Psychopaths

Paulo Levoli tells a story of psychics and psychopaths.

"Jimmy Balroni, I used to ride with that hardass. He loved nothing in this world, except for maybe his best friend Calvin Leonardis. Always had a calm demeanor had that hawk-eye glare. Nothing impressed the man. Nothing scared him either. He could be real good at getting under your skin, pushing buttons, there was no winning with him. He could manipulate just about anyone for working for him. This story goes way back, before he took over the pot dealing on the west side, before he even took over the gambling rings, he had a little gang, he used to organize runs on small shops, he'd even go out to the suburbs to do his crimes, we used to call them runs or rides. We'd go for a ride and rob a string of shops, everything from furniture depots to antique shops to liquor stores. Liquor stores, there was one that we were going to rob, only Balroni's little gang wasn't so little anymore, so he gave the job to Benny Roberts. The guy fucked the job up, robbed the wrong goddamn liquor store. He fucked up big time, Jimmy's best friend got shot dead, Benny left without taking a dime and dropped his weapon with his finger prints all over them. So what did Jimmy do? As soon as he found out about it he went to Benny's house and he cuffed the man to a radiator, and he told him. "Benny I'm going to let you live on one condition. I'm playing the lottery, Jackpot is 54 million dollars, you are going to tell me the winning numbers for tomorrows draw or I'm going to shoot you in the gut five times and let you bleed out until you die." Benny gets all terrified, saying he doesn't know the lottery numbers that no one could no it, and to beg for his forgiveness, but knowing Jimmy he's not going to forgive anyone, except for maybe Calvin, but Calvin's dead, because of Benny. So finally Benny spits out numbers, he's just saying numbers and he knows he's gonna die but he says them anyway.

The next day Jimmy comes back to Benny's house, still cuffed to a radiator. Benny is scared out of his mind pisses himself, thinks he's going to die, and Jimmy pulls out his lottery ticket and clippings from the newspaper and tells Benny he won the lottery."

"No f*****g way!"

"I s**t you not. He won the 54 million dollar jackpot. Jimmy told me about this in private, he told me that most people when their lives are on the line tell him s**t they couldn't possibly know."

"Like they're psychic?"

"Yeah, something like that."