The First Tin

The Don left a new restaurant one tin of oil. Free, for a week. No papers and no talk of price. To the cook he said only this: “Let it live with you a while. Then we’ll talk, if there’s anything to talk about.”

A week later a driver came by for the tin. The Don didn’t ask him what the cook had said. He asked where the tin had been standing. If it was in the storeroom and full, the driver took it away and we never went there again. If it was by the stove and half empty, a day later the Don went over himself.

“A cook will say anything to make you leave,” he explained. “A tin by the stove doesn’t lie. It’s hands that put it there, not good manners.”

Back then I thought this was a waste. A tin costs money, a driver costs money, a week costs time. Then I saw the same thing done by people who never lose money.

Zero and a Trifle

Science first; it’s simple here. In 1966 the psychologists Jonathan Freedman and Scott Fraser went door to door in California. They asked homeowners to put up a big, ugly “Drive Carefully” sign in the front yard. Fewer than one in five agreed. In another neighbourhood they first asked for a trifle: to stick a little road-safety sticker in the window. Nearly everyone agreed. Two weeks later they came back with the sign. Now more than three in four agreed.

A man said “yes” to a trifle and signed himself up as someone who supports that sort of thing. From then on he’s arguing not with you but with himself.

The second thing is zero. In 2007 Kristina Shampanier, Nina Mazar and Dan Ariely offered people two sweets: an expensive truffle and an ordinary chocolate for a cent. Most took the truffle. Then both prices were cut by a cent. The cheap chocolate became free, and most people switched to it. The difference in price was the same as before. Only one thing had changed: at zero, you can’t get it wrong.

The Don leaned on both. The free tin took away the fear of a bad buy. And the tin by the stove was that trifling “yes,” only said with the hands.

The Same Tin in Other Hands

Now look how it works among real mafiosi.

Gambetta retells Calderone’s testimony. The owners of a furniture shop in Catania asked to be rid of a lone extortionist who had no “permission.” Nitto Santapaola personally took the man the two hundred thousand lire he’d been demanding. The extortionist understood his mistake. It cost him his life. Afterwards Santapaola became a partner in the furniture shop. Gambetta calls this a convenient and typical way of being paid indirectly for protection.

Here too the first step is free. Generous, even. And the second nobody discussed: how do you say no to a man who paid for you?

Gambetta explains that this is the whole idea. A mafioso may turn down money just to keep someone in his debt. One of them admitted that if somebody asked for protection, then even if he had paid for it, from then on he was to be treated as a friend. This bond, Gambetta writes, doesn’t necessarily rest on outright intimidation. But you couldn’t call it honest trade either.

That’s the whole difference. Both tins are free. You could turn down the Don’s tin, and nobody came round to ask why. The driver took the full tin and drove off. Santapaola’s gift couldn’t be turned down. A gift you can’t turn down isn’t a gift. It’s the first instalment.

The Playbook

Pistone saw this ladder from both sides. For months Lefty pestered the agent Tony Conte to lease him a car on their joint company’s account. Pistone writes about him with irony: Lefty was going by the standard mafioso playbook—muscle into a business, squeeze a weekly salary out of it, then keep angling for extras.

Conte dodged for a long time. Then the agents gave in, because Lefty was useful to them: he’d set up a sit-down with the Milwaukee boss. Conte leased a dark maroon Thunderbird for two months, drove it to New York himself and handed Lefty the keys.

Here the second step was given on purpose. And Pistone names the price honestly. Summing up, he writes that by slipping Lefty small sums, they saved not hours but years of investigative work. The small sums weren’t buying Lefty’s services. They were buying a door.

Whoever pays you a little and often is rarely paying for the work. He’s paying so you’ll open when he knocks. Sometimes that’s a fair deal. Just know what you’re selling. Lefty, by the way, sold his door dear and realised it far too late. He thought he was milking the company. All along, the company was milking him.

The Bottom Line

If you give the first step away, make it easy to say no. No calls, no hurt feelings, no “but how could you.” Then the second “yes” will be real, and you can stand on it for twenty years. And don’t believe the words after the trial; believe where the man put your tin.

When it’s you being given the first step, check one thing: can I say no to the second without explaining anything? If you feel the urge to justify yourself, you’re already in debt. The rescued man isn’t obliged to take his rescuer as a partner. And if a relative asks to stay for a week, name the day he leaves while he’s still on the doorstep.