This is a collection of great-lines from the book Ballad of the Whiskey Robber by Julian Rubenstein. I highly recommend the audiobook:
There was his mother, naked with another man. Attila ran back to the cart, crying, while his father shouted, “Happy now?”
Egri came to his rescue again, spiriting Attila down to the Hungarian consulate and using his celebrity Scrabble influence to spell out “Give this guy a travel visa and skip the crap about the fourteen-day waiting period.”
…it was decided that the grudge match would be a gentleman’s game: the wager was cash, which heightened the pressure on Bubu, since his life savings fit snugly into his left shoe.
Tibor Vági, who had an unparalleled gift for rendering police cars utterly unusable, often through the misapplication of the gas pedal or emergency brake, and thus went by Egy Rakás Seggfej, or Mound of Asshead.
“What should a well-situated gentleman do in the early afternoon on a Friday,” the article began. “Naturally, he will supplement his monthly payments with a little private work.”
“You asked to see us,” Mound of Asshead said, entering Lajos Varjú’s office with Zoli, Dance Instructor, and the department’s two newest members, Gábor “the Fat” Tamási and twenty-one-year-old rookie József Keszthelyi, the ice-blue-eyed lady killer.
The authorities had become aware of the Budapest Tours robbery only when a Ms. Csépai sent a fax to police headquarters several hours later, informing Budapest’s finest that she still remained hopeful she could leave the office one day, though for the time being she remained locked inside.
So sloshed that he could barely walk, he proposed to Judit, who, terrified by her questioner’s stare, instantly accepted. The next morning, however, Judit’s new fiancé awoke with a clearer head and told her he hoped never to see her face again.
It had always been just him against the world. No matter how far he traveled or which government was manipulating the truth, that much had never changed. So he wasn’t a socialite, maybe he’d never finished high school, perhaps he’d spent a year living in a horse paddock. But he was going to be a success.
…as Bóta could now confirm, those institutions did not subscribe to the philosophy of investing for the future.
And for reasons he was in therapy to explore, he preferred sleeping in his metallic green Honda at gas stations than in his studio apartment in northeast Budapest. Attila could have the place.
“Stop whining and behave like a gangster’s mother.”