Standing on a Las Vegas streetcorner on an uncharistically cold February evening, Lefty lights yet another cigarette. He inhales deeply while he's watching the various pedestrians, civilians, going about their way, the kind of look on his face which makes most of them walk around him with a wide berth.

'Look at them,'  Lefty thinks derisively, exhaling a sizeable plume of smoke through his nostrils. 'Just going through the motions, looking more miserable than a pack of starving dogs. Shit, did I look like that not too long ago?'

Only a few days earlier Lefty had decided that enough was enough. Enough of scraping by day after day, hoping he'd have a warm meal at he end of it. So he gathered just enough dough to buy a ticket and took the first bus heading to Las Vegas, Sin City. An apt name, for Sin he did. Conning poor schlubs left and right, extorting a shopowner or two. Not to mention the drugs.

'Fuck priorities, right?' Lefty thinks as he watches yet another dopefiend scuttling over to him. 'Well, I ain't complaining, never look a gift horse in the mouth. Still, I may not be much yet but I'm sure a helluva lot better than these twits.'

Then suddenly Lefty sees him across the street. Dressed in the type of suit that just screams one thing and one thing only. A made man. The made man notices the look Lefty is giving him and stares right back with an unreadable expression.

'Shit,' Lefty curses internally, 'gotta watch my step.' He gives the made man a respectful, almost imperceptible nod and averts his eyes.

'One day,' Lefty vows to himself, 'one day I'll be that guy.'