Robert Childan, Frank Frink and others in “Unfinished Business”

Robert Childan

I'm not an arms supplier, pal. I sell antiques, authentic items only, and fake guns aren't my thing. [has an idea] Tell me something, Frink-san, how good a craftsman are you? I mean, seriously, how good?

Frank Frink

I'm good. Real good.

Childan

Could you make this? [shows an issue of Collect Americana magazine with an image of Sitting Bull's necklace] Because I've got a chump lined up to buy it. [Frink looks at the image] Japanese. Their brains are different. I'm sure they eat from English bone china, and they listen to Negro music, but it's all just on the surface, ersatz as the day is long. Condescending bastards look down on me. Here. Look at this. [shows Zippos] Two Zippo lighters. Yeah. Look the same, don't they? Go ahead, hold them. [Frink holds lighters] One of them has "historicity" in it.

Frink

What the fuck is that?

Childan

It's worth 100,000 yen on a collector's market. Don't you feel it?

Frink

100,000?

Childan

One of those two Zippo lighters was in Franklin D. Roosevelt's pocket the day he was assassinated, so it's got historicity as much as any object ever had. And the other one has nothing.

Frink

That's your point? It's all a giant racket?

Childan

And they're playing it on themselves. I mean, a gun goes through a famous battle, and it's just the same as if it hadn't unless you know. It's all in here, [points to nape] in the mind. So who's to say our jeweled choker isn't Sitting Bull's original?

Frink

All right, so which one is it?

Childan

This one.

Frink

Won't he spot that it's a fake?

Childan

The man's already got a forgery in his esteemed collection: pistol aged by an acid chemical. He can't distinguish what's fake from what's real.

Frink

Let's screw him over. 80,000 yen split two ways.

Childan

Just make sure it looks good enough.

Frink

60-40. I got materials to cover.