[Ray didn't know this guy's story and he was pretty sure he didn't want to. It was always the same with mob guys anyway, some Goodfella bullshit story about a climb to the top and constant threats to their authority. Armando had already confirmed some of that with his little lecture about respect and fear. They were all the same and most of them ended up the same way too; dead, and Ray could at least take some comfort in that, even if this guy might be one of the better ones. Might. He knows there's plenty who play the good guy just long enough to stab you in the back. No honour among thieves.

So maybe he had learned a lot of that stuff from mafia films, but he'd also witnessed and heard enough about it on the streets of Chicago to get the general idea of how these interactions went down. And interactions that involved one guy ushered into a limo with a higher up? They didn't usually end well.

And there was Ray, sat with a hand willingly cuffed to the car with little hope of swift movement, sipping at buttermilk while chatting to some guy named Armando who was supposedly some big name in Vegas. Chatting about cocaine and lost Mounties, no less.]

He's my partner.

[No lies there, but at the moment Kowalski doesn't see much point in lying. What good is it going to do him when they already know he's a cop? And a cop looking for another sort-of cop can only bring up so many results.]

He's not from around here- America, I mean. He don't know how our world works, so I guess you could say I'm kinda like his babysitter. Maybe a mob guy like you knows what its like to have a guy by your side through it all, I dunno, but it's hard to give up on a pal that'd take a bullet for ya. Y'know, a real pal, not some goon who's paid big bucks to keep you safe.

[And still the truth, heartfelt, even. Ray's not afraid to show how much he needs to find this Mountie of his.]

You show me where he is and we got no problems. I take him back to Chicago and everyone forgets this ever happened. It's a fair deal all around.