Julio Bonilla’s Reviews > The Way of the Wiseguy: True Stories from the FBI's Most Famous Undercover Agent > Status Update

Wiseguys have this easy shuffle to their walk, a slow, confident swing to their gait. They walk around like they own the streets, which, in effect, they do. Thats because wiseguys do not hide the fact that they are wiseguys. They do not hide themselves or slink around or otherwise try to blend in.

Wiseguys even scam each other if they can. Lefty Ruggiero was always asking me for money, always grabbing a quick hundred here and there. Wiseguys, you see, are takers. They take whatever they can to enrich themselves, regardless of the consequences. You will never find another opportunistic breed than wiseguys. They suck up money like vampires....

Then I fucking cold-cocked him.

Obviously, the guy recognizes us as wiseguys and can't resist making references to these Mafia hoods. Cracks about how we look, what we're eating, who we're going to beat up, and all that. The crowd is eating it up.

The somber ritual of induction is intended to convey that this is deadly serious business, tested by time and passed on down through the centuries. Becoming a made man is basically like signing over your soul to the devil. There is absolutely no turning back. 🔫

The bottom line is that every boss had to start out as a soldier fucking soldier. He had to go through the same shit every wiseguy does, making scores, making his moves, earning respect. all of that. And, along the way, he had to have developed a desire to become the boss.

...going to be intimidated when some IRS agent shows up? The guy could be the best agent in the history of the IRS, and he still won't be able to make any sense of a wiseguy's finances. His head will explode if he tries to establish a money trail. Yes, it's true that Al Capone was finally brought down by an IRS agent.

The golden rule of wiseguy finance is this—it's all cash. Wiseguys do not have bank accounts or checkbooks or IRAs or ATM cards. They have big fucking stacks of cold hard cash. They keep their cash in all sorts of places—in a safe in their home or office, in a shoebox hidden in the ceiling, deep inside an underwear drawer.

There are no cops or feds in my family, no role models who pushed me into law enforcement. It was just this thing I had. My first government job was with the Office of Naval intelligence, investigating drug, theft, and espionage cases. But after that, I passed the FBI’s entrance exams and became a special agent in 1969. Very quickly, my specialty became clear: I was very proficient in street work.