John Davidson, writing for the Bygone Bureau:
Billy was connected to neighborhood but he wasn’t really part of it. He lived in a small apartment in the back of the building and spent a lot of time hanging out on the stoop and playing pool in the tavern across the street. He knew everybody. The way Billy saw it, someone breaking into the building was an attack on all of us and it could not go unpunished. Something had to be done. The neighborhood had to understand that the building — his building, where he once told me he had $20,000 cash hidden away somewhere in case he ever needed to leave town for good — was off limits. Billy explained all this to me out in the hallway. He said he had a pretty good idea who robbed us but he had to go talk to some people.
This is why you don’t fuck with Philadelphians. They take it personally.